… (A) Marxism stripped of its revolutionary essence is a contradiction in terms with no reason for being and no power to survive.

— Paul M Sweezy (1983: 7)

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”. May be it is time for me to consider how I will answer his question: What is Maoism?

…read the full article here.

British mining company on trial for torture of Peruvians

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

A British mining company, Monterrico Metals, is on trial in London, UK for torture of Peruvians that happened at the Rio Blanco mine in 2005. Protesters were detained and tortured at the outcast copper site by the imperialist corporation in Peru, near the border with Ecuador. The victims are seeking millions in damages. The company denies the abuses.

According to witnesses, protesters were detained at the mine by armed police who were acting under orders from the company’s managers. After tear gassing the gathering, police detained 28 protesters with wrist ties. Three protesters were shot. One was left to bleed to death at the mine for 36 hours. The detained had noxious substances sprayed in their faces. They were also beaten with sticks and clubs and whipped. Two women protesters were sexually assaulted and threatened with rape.

A Peruvian journalist who was detained has photos of the incident. The photos reportedly show the protesters bound with hoods on their heads. Some are beaten and bloody. One photo shows a Peruvian farmer lying on the ground, badly injured. Other photos show smiling police waving around women’s underwear taken from the protesters as trophies.

The confrontation in 2005 is part of an ongoing struggle between imperialist mining companies backed by the Peruvian state and local farmers and indigenous peoples that continues to this day. Recently, protests against mining interests have forced economic disruption across Peru. Because of conflict, the Peruvian state oil company Petroperú has had to temporarily stop pumping oil through its northern pipeline from the jungle. Also, the Argentine Pluspetrol has had to halt oil production in the northeastern region of Peru. A state of emergency was recently declared. Commentators have said that the conflict between corporations and the people is the worse since the height of the People’s War led by the Communist Party of Peru.

The comprador regime of Alan García seeks to sell off Peru’s resources to the imperialists without giving the masses a say in how their country is developed.  The García administration seeks to do away with protections for indigenous land in the Peruvian constitution. He seeks to open up communal jungle lands and water resources to oil drilling, mining and large scale farming in accordance with the Peru-U$ free-trade pact.

To put the mining companies on trial in an imperialist court in London is letting the fox watch the henhouse. Imperialists usually protect their own. Although, every once in awhile, they make a show of punishing one imperialist in order to maintain a façade of justice. In reality, the imperialists and their comprador agents in Peru kill and torture people every day. The Peruvian state, backed by the imperialists, led a genocidal war against the Peruvian countryside two decades ago. Trials such as the one in London are usually for show. After all, it is not just the mining company that is guilty, but all of the First World. Whatever the outcome of the London trial, the vast majority of the crimes committed by imperialists and their lackeys will go unpunished. The only way to truly find justice is through people’s war and the capture of state power by the proletariat. Maoism-Third Worldism is the shining path to justice in Peru and everywhere else.

Sources

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/18/peru-monterrico-metals-mining-protest

Cuba, ALBA Nations Condone Sri Lanka, Revisionism Further Exposed

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

Revisionism was on display in recent events. Recently Cuba gave an official statement reassuring its international relations with Sri Lanka. Both countries claim to be socialist in some sense. Deputy Foreign Minister Marcos Rodriguez Costa stated that friendship between the two nations would continue to flourish. These remarks were made at an estate in Horona, Sri Lanka marking the 50th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations with the two countries. It was the site where Che Guevara symbolically planted a tree 50 years ago, and Costa planted another tree there this year. (1)

This diplomatic show glosses over the current violent crackdown of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam by the Sri Lankan government, and the ongoing war against the Tamil nation. To issue such praise at this moment is to offer de facto support of the genocidal policies of Sri Lanka.

Back in May 2009 the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a resolution commending Sri Lanka for dealing with the humanitarian crisis caused by the civil war. The resolution also condemned the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for attacks on civilian populations and alleged use of human shields. Cuba and 28 other state members voted to pass the resolution. (2) To draw a moral equivalence between the Liberation Tigers and the Sri Lankan state fails to account for material reality. Typically, the UN failed to recognize the difference between violence in the service of liberation and violence in the service of oppression. Along with Cuba, both Brazil and Nicaragua voted for the resolution. Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez also gave encouraging words to Sri Lanka at that time. (3)

The Sri Lankan state has imposed a harsh “peace” on the Tamil people. Hundreds of thousands of Tamils languish in prison-like refugee camps like Manik Farm. In the overcrowded Manik Farm, 15 people live in tents meant for only five people. Water and food are difficult to obtain. Chicken pox has ravaged the camp. In addition, typhoid, tuberculosis, skin and respiratory infections, hepatitis A scabies and diarrhea have all appeared, according to UN reports. According to a Government presentation, more than 35 percent of children under 5 are afflicted with wasting, or acute malnutrition. Plus, the upcoming rainy season could make a bad situation much worse. There are also reports that Tamil women are being abducted and raped by Sri Lankan soldiers. According to a UN document, Sri Lankan soldiers and paramilitaries are stationed inside the camps.

It is no accident that the Indian reactionaries openly discuss inflicting the “Sri Lankan” option on the Naxalite movements and their supporters. (5) India’s genocide against its own poor has drawn inspiration from the brutality of Sri Lanka’s treatment of the Tamil people.

The silence on this issue today exposes the ideological weakness of supposedly revolutionary states. It is clear that the demands of the Tamil liberation movement are legitimate.

The honoring of Che by Cuba and Sri Lanka is ironic, as Che recognized that true internationalism is national liberation. If Che were alive today, he would, most likely, be on the side of the Liberation Tigers. Whatever the errors of his Bolivian adventure, it cannot be said that Che did not die for national liberation.

Revisionism is fake communism. It is communism only in name. Revisionism rejects the path that will lead humanity to liberation, in these instances for the sake of bourgeois geopolitics and narrow national interests. Sri Lanka is officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and is a member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Sri Lanka’s foreign policy has usually aligned with the United States. Thus, despite its name, the Sri Lankan state is comprador and revisionist, not socialist.

It is not nit-picking to call out revisionists. Revisionism has led to the downfall of every socialist state in recent history. Revisionism is the enemy within. The oppressed and exploited need to be able to recognize real friends and real enemies. Contrary to these revisionists, no matter if they hold state power or not, Maoist-Third Worldists support the national aspirations of the Tamil people.

Sources:

1. “Cuba assures support for Sri Lanka.” Sri Lanka Daily News.
Tuesday November 10 2009. http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/11/10/news27.asp

2. 11th special session of the Human Rights Council: “The human rights situation in Sri Lanka” – Tuesday 26 and 27 May 2009 http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/specialsession/11/index.htm
and
“U.N. Human Rights Council decides against condemning Sri Lanka.”
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/27/un_human_rights_council_decides_against_investigating_sri_lanka

3. Cited in series of articles by Rod Ridenhour on the relations with Sri Lanka and the ALBA nations of Latin America.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/cuba-alba-let-down-sri-lanka-tamils/

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/tamil-eelam-historical-right-to-nationhood/

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/equal-rights-or-self-determination/

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/11/the-terrorists-international-support-for-sri-lankas-racist-discrimination/

4.  http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/210000-tamils-jailed-slowly-dying-in-camp/

5.  http://mikeely.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/awtw-a-sri-lankan-solution-for-indias-maoism/

Smash the Amerikkkan Dream and all First Worldist lies!

From Politics Are Over

Дети Третьего мира голодают и страдают от задержки роста, дети Первого мира страдают от тучности

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com, translated by the Russian Maoist Party (RMP))

Согласно недавнему отчёту Детского фонда , 200 млн детей в возрасте до пяти лет в бедных странах имеют задержку роста из-за недостаточного питания. Почти 90 % из них живут в Азии и Африке. Почти треть смертных случаев в этой возрастной группе связана с недоеданием.

В целом по Азии задержка роста затрагивает 30 % детей. Положение в Южной Азии особенно безрадостно: в Афганистане, Непале, Индии, Бангладеш и Пакистане насчитывается 83 млн голодных детей в возрасте до пяти лет. В Африке доля составляет 43 %.

Огромное большинство тех, кто страдает от недостаточного питания, живёт в Третьем мире. По контрасту, дети в Первом Мире страдают от проблемы потребления слишком большого количества продовольствия. Например, согласно руководителю государственной службы здравоохранения, в США 12,5 млн детей, 17 %, страдает от тучности. Эти дети имеют также проблемы со здоровьем, но это проблемы, связанные со сверхпотреблением. Кроме того, дети Первого мира стали менее физически активны. Физическая активность в США сократилась. Согласно одному исследованию, 20 % детей в возрасте от 9-ти до 13-ти лет не участвовали ни в какой физической активности вне школы. О подобных результатах сообщалось в других странах Первого мира.

Дети, испытывающие задержку роста, затем всю жизнь страдают от связанных с этим болезней. При империалистическом капитализме у 200 млн детей в Третьем мире украдено их будущее. Миллиард голодает каждый день, главным образом в Третьем мире. По контрасту, дети в Первом мире становятся грузными и бездеятельными.

Капитализм производит ради рынка, а не человеческих потребностей. Капитализм делит страны на Первый и Третий миры, с небольшой промежуточной зоной. Кучка стран богатеет за счёт большинства. Социализм совершит переворот. Исследования показывают, что производится достаточно продовольствия, чтобы при надлежащем распределении можно было легко избавиться от голода и недоедания. При социализме доступ к адекватной пище будет элементарным правом человека.

Yesterday’s attacks in Mumbai on the IBN television channel’s offices are just another incident in a long string of events that have marked dissonance breeding within our society. Two of India’s greatest threats from within are the regional and factious tendencies bursting forth from the society. The regionalism is a result of more than sixty years of regional and linguistic politics, and the factious tendencies of groups like the Maharashtra Navanirman Sena is a result of many decades of unequal opportunity, which is at odds with the promises of the language- and region-oriented politics. For the most part, regional parties have asserted their support to a certain group of people – and although the entire society has not been monolithic in most cases, they have garnered popular support over the decades. Their promises of equity, prosperity and other the hollow ideals that  most political parties follow have rarely been fulfilled, as they have had little chance to make these things happen – often stretching beyond their means to make these promises during the election campaigns and regularly failing to deliver on the promises, and instead actively encouraging lumpen elements and rowdies to run the show by acting against the opposition. This trend is visible across the spectrum – Telengana, Northern Karnataka and what are now Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Uttaranchal are all examples of regional politics, as is the elevation of Delhi to statehood or the lobbying behind Mumbai to attain statehood.

The regionalism is one aspect of what’s wrong with India’s politics that leads to violence. Apart from the Maoist problem, factionism is another contributor to violent tendencies in society today. Factionism is encouraged in cosmopolitan society that have a response to a perceived injustice meted out to them by the progress of history or by a primary political party that they have to contend with. Because of Mumbai’s exponential growth over the decades, immigrants to it from all over India have made successful inroads into its society. A lot of Maharashtrians, public figures included, criticize the ascendancy in Mumbai as well as the previous governments in their inability to improve opportunities for local Maharashtrians – and the premise of secular, non-factious politics, as is perpetrated by the leading political party in India, is used as an excuse to actively promote favoritism in the government. This tends to anger the bulk of the population – as it did in all previous cases including the eminent case of 1933 Germany – and tends to push them towards radicalism to get what they perceive they have been denied.

The Maoist problem is something Indians in eastern India are fast getting used to. What surprises me is that there is actually a public debate on whether they are terrorists – as if an apple by another name is not an apple – and that trial by media seems to be an overriding theme here. The bulk of the visibility the international community has about the Maoist problem is limited to the English media in India, which tends to not cover the east of India as much as the metros, Delhi and Mumbai and the developed states down south. A case in point is how Headlines Today covered a small flash flood in Delhi with much sensationalism (presumably because they’re based out of Delhi) but how their coverage of the floods in Bihar and the recent floods in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh isn’t comprehensive at all. As far as the English media are concerned, most of these areas don’t even come under the scanner – the three hundred and fifty million people in Uttar Pradesh are reduced to one political interaction or two between Mayawati and some of her rivals or how much she spent on statues of herself (showing her holding a petite ladies handbag). The millions of people down south are reduced some some Chief Minister’s remark about someone or something.

The media is, in general, complicit in the sensationalism we associate with little events that sweep the nation, rather than issues of national importance. The austerity drive that the Congress so shamelessly professed even as their profligate ministers had five star residences and traveled on state tours on choppers, spending crores of rupees in the process is a case in point. The issue was raised to national importance, even as humble, ordinary folks that form the majority of our citizens have no option other than to be austere in their lifestyle. And in the middle of it all, Congress politicians actually came out to say things like “jingoism has its uses and benefits”. This is not only audacious, but it is bordering on unacceptable. When yesterday’s media was attacked by goons, one has to wonder whether the Shiva Sena – the group that’s considered behind these attacks – was pandering to the ordinary people who vote for them in the elections. They have ample reason to think that the deprived people who vote for them will see what they do positively.

It is worth examining who we characterize as goons and who we don’t. Although this could be the subject of a length debate, atrocious politicians who have criminalised the fray have been utterly ignored while people who genuinely stand up for something have often been given little credence. Then there are those who pretend to be the latter although they are the former. I think a healthy debate into the growing violence in our society should consider these aspects and also make a thorough assessment of the reasons rather for this violence rather than merely distilling the anger one feels for having witnessed or experienced the violence.

 Source: Express on Yahoo

Fri, Nov 20 05:31 AM

Maoists bombed a major railway line in Jharkhand’s West Singhbhum district late Thursday evening, derailing the engine and several coaches of a passenger train going from Jamshedpur in Jharkhand to Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh.

Helpline numbers: The railway authorities tonight announced helpline numbers following the derailment of Tata-Bilaspur passenger train in Jharkhand’’s West Singhbhum district. The telephone helpline numbers are: 06587-238072, 06572290324 and 0661-2570680.

Unconfirmed reports said between six and eight coaches of the 321 Tatanagar-Bilaspur Passenger had gone off the tracks.

According to a PTI report, the derailed coaches were believed to be carrying CRPF personnel.

At least seven people were feared dead and an estimated 4 5 injured.

The explosion occurred near Pasaita village, 5 km before Manoharpur in the Manoharpur-Pasaita section of South Eastern Railway’s Chakradharpur division at around 9.10 pm.

“Maoists blew up a portion of the track, which caused the derailment. Three bogies have been badly damaged,” PTI quoted Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee as saying.

“I am monitoring the situation and have asked senior railway officials to rush to the spot,” she said.

Divisional Manager (Operations), Chakradharpur Division, Haranadh, said the number of casualties was not known.

A large number of JMM political activists were believed to have been travelling by the train.

The Maoists have given a call for a bandh in the area from Friday.

Express News Service

On September 9th, 2004, three Maoists were arrested in Zhangzhou for distributing pamphlets titled ‘Mao Zedong Our Leader Forever’. Unlike previous arrests of U.$. sympathetic Chinese liberals, this event of course did not gather much notice at all in China, and much less in the West. Because of this, more than five years later, I feel it is important to repost this for the sake of anyone who may have missed it, or who may have only just recently been informed to the truth of world they live in.

The following is a translation of the pamphlet. It is an incredible read.

Mao Zedong Forever Our Leader!

—A statement in commemoration of the 28th anniversary of the Passing of Mao Zedong

28 years have elapsed, since Chairman Mao left us.

In the past 28 years, the reactionary forces headed by capitalist roaders within our Party have usurped the state and Party powers and divided up state assets among themselves. Meanwhile, they have been spewing deep-seated hatred and venom against Mao Zedong and his socialist legacy. They have done their utmost to attack and slander Mao Zedong, by the use of such tactics as concocting Party resolutions, issuing official documents or reports, and publishing articles and editorials in official news media; moreover, in there attempt to smear Mao Zedong, they have resorted to such low blows as “Democracy Wall” posters, rumors and innuendos, personal memoirs and interviews with foreign journalists.

But the great majority of Chinese people, accounting for more than 95% of the population, and in particular workers and the peasants will always stand by the side of Mao Zedong. Under Mao Zedong’s leadership, to serve the people wholeheartedly was set out as the fundamental precept guiding the work of the Party, the government and the army. He had repeatedly urged all Party members and all the cadres always to take the mass line and stand on the side of 95% of the people; he emphatically stated that: “To take the mass line is a fundamental principle of Marxism.” Through out his life, he had fought for the liberation of the people, until his last breath.

From their direct experience, the Chinese people realized that Mao Zedong and they themselves were intimately bound together, in good times and bad, in victory and defeat: with Mao Zedong as their leader, Chinese people were the masters of the country, and enjoyed inviolable democratic rights. They lived a happy life, confident, optimistic and reassured of ever better days ahead. But after Mao Zedong passed away, the working class in China was knocked down overnight by the bourgeoisie; they are no longer the masters of their own country. In this society of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” money means power and social status The wealth polarization has driven working people into abject poverty; as a result, they have lost their social status and all the rights they had enjoyed previously. They are no longer dignified socialist laborers; instead, they are forced to sell their labor power as commodities for survival: they have become tools that can be bought freely by the capitalists.

Part of the working people work for so-called state-owned enterprises, but the term ’state-owned’ actually means capitalist-owned because the entire state is owned by the capitalist class. The laborers are no longer working for themselves; they are working to create surplus value for the capitalist class. Another part of working people have in effect become slaves for large and small capitalists. They suffer from even more crueler exploitation and oppression. In addition, hundreds of millions of workers and peasants have been constantly subjected to layoffs, and forced migration, living from hand to mouth, always on the march, looking for jobs, and struggling for mere survival. Labor has become the only means for the survival of themselves and their families. Work is no longer a guaranteed right. As a result of the commercialization of education, health care, cultural activities, sports and legal recourse, they have been in effect deprived of the right to send their children to school, access to health care, the right to pension and other rights associated with old age, the right to participate in cultural, recreational and sports activities; and even the right to legal protection. Moreover, as a result of the waste of resources and environmental pollution caused directly by the rapacious development pursued by the capitalist class, the working people have even lost their right to healthy food, clean water and fresh air. Poverty has brought them untold suffering!

A line has thus been clearly drawn. Mao Zedong is the leader of the Chinese working class; he is the leader of over 95% of the Chinese people. The imperialist revisionists and bourgeoisie and all the reactionary forces within and outside of China oppose Mao Zedong and hate him, while the people love him. The longer he has left this world, the more vehemently his enemies oppose him, the more profoundly, unshakably, sincerely and passionately do people love him. It is indeed laughable for those who oppose Mao Zedong and stand against the people to pronounce a verdict on Mao Zedong, which of course is categorically rejected by the people. The “Mao Zedong fever” that has occurred repeatedly in China over these years have eloquently refuted the two official “resolutions” purporting to pronounce a verdict on Mao Zedong. They are unacceptable to the Chinese people and to the people of the world.

Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and the like call themselves the core, or chief architect of China’s reforms, or the proud author of the “Theory of the Three Represents” a close look at their performances and deeds will lead to the conclusion that they only represent the interests of imperialism, and the interests of the bourgeoisie. The historical practice and stark social realities of the past 28 years have opened our eyes and raised our class consciousness; the bourgeois elements within our Party is the head and the backbone of the Chinese bourgeois class. These are extremely selfish persons, stubbornly pursuing the capitalist road. They are much more sinister, ruthless, greedy, and devious than an average capitalist outside the Party.

Just take a look at what has transpired in a relatively short period of twenty plus years: the large and small capitalist-roaders in the Party and their family members have all become millionaires and even billionaires; who can deny that all their talks about socialism, and the “Three Represents”, are outright lies. What they really want is capitalism, because only capitalism will bring them the greatest benefit. They are the enemies of socialism and the people.

We, however, must not forget that the CCP after all is a Party that had been founded and led by Mao Zedong, and one with a long revolutionary tradition. It is a Party that had carried resolute struggle against Kruschev’s revisionism, and had been tempered by the Cultural Revolution. And consequently, just as there are capitalist-roaders in the Party, there are certainly socialist-roaders in the Party as well, particularly at the grassroots level. Among the rank and file Party members and low-level cadres, the overwhelming majority are resentful of revisionist leaders within the party. They wish to see the Party change its current line and to revert to the socialist road. Some of them cannot tolerate it any more. They have stepped out to openly challenge the current leadership, but more people still find it safe for themselves or for their families not to speak their minds. We are convinced, along with the deepening of the revisionist clique’s push for privatization, the class contradictions in China are bound to become more acute; and the masses will certainly intensify their struggle on ever wider scales. When development of contradictions and mass struggles nationwide reach a climax, the people within the Party, the government and the army who have understood the true nature of revisionism will wage a resolute struggle against it, and will rejoin the proletarian class ranks to hold high the banner of Mao Zedong and to resume the fight for socialism in China.

As long as classes and the class struggle still exist in our world, Mao Zedong will remain alive, forever the leader of the oppressed and exploited classes. As the entire history of China’s revolution has repeatedly shown, as long as the revolutionary people follow steadfastly the guidance of Mao Zedong, their struggle will surely advance from victories to victories.

The struggle of the people is the unexhaustible source of our confidence and power.

RAIM-Seattle forms

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

A new RAIM cell has formed in Seattle. MSH sends a red salute to RAIM-S.

From the RAIM-S website:

“- What does RAIM-Seattle want?

A utopian society. We want a world free from oppression of groups by groups and people by people. A world without imperialism, capitalism, patriarchy, national oppression, or youth oppression. We want a world based on egalitarianism and mutuality.

-Why is RAIM-Seattle so focused on anti-imperialism?

Because we are revolutionary humanitarians. People live off of three dollars a day, not because they are workers, women or children, but because they were born into the Third World. Everything is connected. The affluence of the First World is directly causative of the poverty in the Third World. The destruction of imperialism is the first step towards a mutualistic society.”

P. Chidambaram in an interview with Tehelka:

Many government functionaries have spoken of Operation Green Hunt to the media, but both you and Home Secretary Gopal Pillai have recently made public statements that it is a media creation. Are we to take it that this Operation does not exist? And if so, what are we to expect in the months to come?

There is no Operation Green Hunt. Name me an officer who has said this and I will take action. I have not seen a single paper or a single document in the Ministry of Home Affairs that uses the phrase Operation Green Hunt. It’s a pure invention of the media. What you can expect in the months ahead is merely a more coordinated effort by the state police to reassert control over territory or tracts of land where regrettably the civil administration has lost control. And for that purpose we will assist them in whatever manner is possible, particularly by providing paramilitary forces and sharing of intelligence.

There have been some other disturbing statements recently. At your interaction in the Indian Express office, you said, if need be, you would call in the army or the Rashtriya Rifles. You have also been saying that civil society is abetting a “climate of terror” and must “choose”. Raising one’s voice against State violence, excess or failure is the legitimate duty of a citizen; by doing that it does not mean one is supporting Maoist violence. Why trap people in this fatal binary? Why must we choose between two evils? Why would you want to outlaw democratic voices and lump them with Maoists?

I don’t blame you for inaccurate quotations. That’s something I’ve learnt to live with. You have quoted three parts of my alleged statements. All three are wrong. Let’s take the first one. At Indian Express I was asked, will the army be called? I said, no, the army will not be called for these internal security operations. I said, if necessary, the special forces in the army, which is the commando unit, may have to be called in for a special situation. That commando unit is meant for anti-terrorist operations and will be used with utmost caution.

Second, you quoted me as saying that civil society has to choose. Show me where I have ever said that. In my statement I outlined the Maoists’ history of violence and spelled out their policy of seizing state control through armed struggle. Having done this I said we are wedded to a democratic republican form of government, so civil society has to choose whether we want this form of government or an armed liberation struggle and a dictatorship of the proletariat. That’s a stark choice that you cannot duck. You are an Indian citizen living in India and you, I, and everyone has to make that choice.

So we are not asked to choose, merely to make a choice.

With climate change, jellyfish are now regulars in fisheries.

Even the creative class doesn’t know what to do with social media.

The Netherlands is going to tax drivers by the kilometer.

In India, Maoist rebels have a unique culture.

In the UK, academic researchers are going have to become salesfolk.

Roy’s foray into social science, after her previous career in acting and writing film scripts, is an extremely important phenomenon. It’s akin to Ritu Beri singing the Internationale. It’s like Naomi Campbell reciting the Communist Manifesto. The market is supposed to shatter caste-based privileges. And here is a fitting example of how powerful market forces, with Roy at their helm, have smashed the brahminical exclusivism of the Left’s intellectual citadels. It’s show biz time at the National Archives!

No wonder academics and other serious folks are wringing their hands in confusion. Their exclusive space has been usurped by sheer glamour. Academic discourses have been dumbed down for mass consumption by a globalised Joan of Arc.

-Sagarika Ghose in the Outlook Magazine

There are gifted writers. There are opinionated, but gifted writers. There are ridiculously smug, opinionated, but gifted writers.

Then there is Arundhati Roy.

The woman who is lauded by that anarchist, Noam Chomsky, first shot to fame by winning the 1997 Man Booker Prize for the brilliant novel, The God of Small Things. However, by making shocking statements on almost every current issue, she went on to become, as one New York Times article labelled her, ‘the Indian author of one good novel and many peevish essays’.

She wrote a lengthy newspaper article calling for Kashmir’s freedom in which she argued: “India needs azadi [freedom] from Kashmir just as much as – if not more than – Kashmir needs azadi from India.” drawing a parallel between Russia-Chechnya and India-Kashmir. No wonder Congress Party Spokesperson Manish Tiwari was prompted to say, “It is a testimony to the Indian peoples’ tolerance that a woman who calls for the Balkanisation of the country is not locked up with the key then thrown away…”

Proclaiming herself to be an ‘Independent Mobile Republic’, she says that she is not bound by the way the Indian State thinks. While living in a country, one has to live with both rights and responsibilties. By claiming to be an Independent Mobile Republic, Roy proclaims her rights, but shirks the necessary responsibilities and obligations towards the country.

Being the most virulent anti-US of A voice in the intelligentsia, Roy often goes on the offensive, taking Iraq’s side. At other times, it’s Israel v/s Palestine. No prizes for guessing whom the Great Loose Canon supports. She goes so far as to call Bush ‘a nightmare incarnate’. As an Indian, Ms. Roy, we can not afford to forget that George W. Bush Jr. has probably been the best American Prez. for India, so far. The man put his job on the line to get India to sign a Nuke deal, on OUR TERMS, benefiting only us. Countless homes will get power from this energy, but even when progress is staring us in the face, Ms. Roy chooses to live by her ‘anti-globalisation’ stand.

But, one of the most troubling aspects of  Arundhati Roy is her stands on various religion-based happenings in the country and around the world. Suffering from a desperate need for contest, Roy went on to blame the 26/11 attacks’ responsibility on not just the terrorists, but the Kashmir issue, the Gujarat riots and the poor economic condition of Muslims in India. She later on went on to clarify that terrorism can not be justified, and that it is heartless. At a time when the entire nation was reeling under the shock of the said attacks, Roy’s comments came across as exceedingly insensitive, bordering on gaga babbling. However, the article carrying the above observations reeked of a dire need for sensationalism…these were certainly not the comments of a deep-thinking intellectual.

Roy also exhibits double standards in such issues. While often coming across as anti-Hindu, Roy is a staunch supporter of MF Husain, and strongly lambasts Taslima Nasreen.

”I don’t believe that a writer like Taslima Nasreen can undermine the dignity of 10 million people. Who is she? She is not a scholar of Islam. She does not even claim that Islam is her subject. She might have said extremely stupid things about Islam. I have no problem with the quotations that I have heard from her book. Dwikhandito has not been translated into English, but let’s just assume that what she said was stupid and insulting to Islam. But you have to be prepared to be insulted by something that insignificant.”

Here again, we see that while Roy jumps at the opportunity to blacken Hindu nationalists’ names, she is not prepared to back a woman like Taslima Nasreen, whose life was spent in sheer hell due to various religious reasons. Supporting a nudist painter who plays with fire, over a woman who has suffered in every way possible in daily life is quite clearly the sign of a Bohemian intellectual, isn’t it?

The worst of all of Roy’s commentary is the one on the current Naxalite problem. She supports their viewpoint that they should they will carry their guns to the negotiation table. The less said about Roy’s views on these mass-murderers, the better. Instead, we bring you excerpts of an interview:

“Does anyone believe that if the people of Nandigram had held a dharna and sung songs, the West Bengal government would have backed down? We are living in times when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.”

“What we’re witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secession of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It’s a vertical secession, not a lateral one.They’re fighting for the right to merge with the world’s elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere.”

On being asked about the Maoist attack in Bijapur, in which 55 policemen were killed, Roy said:

“How can the rebels be the flip side of the State? Would anybody say that those who fought against apartheid — however brutal their methods — were the flip side of the State? What about those who fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought the Nazis? Or those who fought colonial regimes? Or those who are fighting the US occupation of Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This facile new report-driven ‘human rights’ discourse, this meaningless condemnation game that we are all forced to play, makes politicians of us all and leaches the real politics out of everything.”

Of course it’s horrible that 55 policemen were killed. But they’re as much the victims of government policy as anybody else.

Basically, Ms. Roy wants us to believe that every single martyr in the war against Red Terror has died because of the Government. Roy equates Maoists with the anti-Nazi fighters, the anti-French in Algeria, and the anti-USA in Iraq. This gives us fascinating insight into how Arundhati Roy’s mind works. You see, The Indian State is evil. The Naxalites are noble. The State is very rich. The Naxalites are extremely poor. The State has all the resources. The Naxalites have none. Therefore, it is a very unequal battle. The brilliant telly critic, Poonam Saxena could not have been more succint:

“But what about Naxalite violence?” Rajdeep Sardesai asked, and Arundhati Roy almost had a violent fit: how could he compare that with the power of the (Bad) Indian State, which is a Nuclear Power to boot and has an Army and Air Force. (She forgot the Navy and the paramilitary forces and several other Symbols of Oppression).

Further, Ms Roy declared that there was no point in the Poor, Good Naxals joining the mainstream because the Indian State is so Bad and so Corrupt, what would the Poor, Good Naxals do, being part of it?

Once upon a time, I seem to remember, Arundhati Roy had grandly proclaimed herself to be a mobile independent republic. If only she would demonstrate this mobility and — for starters at least — exit TV news channels, never to return.”

The problem with Arundhati Roy, like every other Neo-Marxist, is that she would rather sit down and pick faults in the Government rather than suggest ANY concrete measures to combat those problems. She, like every other pseudo-intellectual, has only the questions. Here’s a question from me: WHO DO YOU EXPECT WOULD HAVE THE ANSWERS??

Check. Not the Indian Government, you’ve made that only too obvious.

Check. Not you. Obviously.

Check. Not the Maoists. Since you yourself say that whenever, and if ever they come to power, they too will be autocratic, unjust and brutal.

Check. Not the Human Rights Activists. They are, as you say, ‘meaningless condemners’.

Check. Not the Indian Public. Too unconcerned, right?

Check. Not the politicians. Too corrupt.

Did I miss anyone out?

So you see, Ms. Roy is just one of those people, who revel in sensationalism, and making wild, grand statements, without an inch of depth. God save us from such…errr…’intellectuals(?)’

Nah.

This is an interesting article about a turn to the Left among some factions of the CCP in China, particularly a revival of Maoism. Though the article, as usual for Asia Times, has an anti-Mao bent, it’s nevertheless good news. Interestingly enough, much of the movement is coming from younger cadre. Another faction is the sons and daughters of the veterans of the Long March.

The turn towards Maoism takes many forms, and many are not necessarily economic. It’s interesting that in China now, privatization is working backwards. That is, state firms are swallowing up many private firms. And most of last year’s stimulus went to state firms.

What most people don’t realize is that much of China’s economic revival is being led by public firms of one type or another. These firms are often owned at least nominally by local municipalities, often smaller ones, and labor collectives.

The #3 manufacturer of televisions in the world, maker of TV’s for many multinational TV makers, is a publicly owned firm. At root is a Maoist practice whereby many or most public firms are actually formally owned by the workers, including this TV firm. Management is still relatively autonomous, but the profits from the firm go straight into the worker’s pockets as paychecks. However, my understanding is that they are required to reinvest 90-95% of the profits back into company. What’s left over is often a hefty sum though.

Firms run by small cities have been extremely successful. Cities compete with each other and build homes and other amenities for workers. The best firms make lots of money and the workers as formal owners get to take home a chunk of it. The most successful firms have long lists of workers wanting to move to these prosperous cities. Much of this manufactured material is also exported.

What’s funny is that that Made In China product you bought at the store may well have been made by a public firm. Oh, the horrors of socialism!

Although hardline Maoists decry China’s present economic project, saying that they have abandoned socialism for capitalism, that’s not really true.

If you go outside the cities into the rural areas, such as the wild areas, all of that land is owned by the state. Although the state has had problems in the environmental arena, in many cases the state stewards wildlands well. If that land were all privately owned, I assure you most of it would be developed with an eye towards profit or habitation. China’s wildlands and wild species would be in much worse shape than they are now, and on a worldwide scale, China is not a center of mass extinctions or endangered species.

It is capitalist countries, mostly rainforest ones, such as Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Philippines, Madagascar and Mexico that are leading the extinction and endangerment epidemic, not China.

The Nepalese Maoists have gone to China’s rural collectives and come back with smiles on their faces. Compared to Nepal, China seems like a socialist paradise. The same could be said for India. China’s people are much better off than India’s in a socialist manner of speaking.

Nevertheless, it is simply outrageous that in China, people are dying because they cannot afford healthcare. That’s really disgusting. The state has been trying to extend insurance to the masses, and state insurance is for sale that covers 85% of expenses, but it’s too expensive for most Chinese.

Much of the progress in education that was made during the Cultural Revolution, especially in the rural areas (and incredible progress was made) has, incredibly, been in a process of reversal. Schools are being shut down in rural areas all over China. This is the damned economic miracle you capitalist-lovers are raving about. Tastes more like crow to me.

Furthermore, China continues to support North Korea, and North Korea is the source of most of Iran’s missiles. This blog supports the efforts of both North Korea and Iran to obtain nuclear weapons as deterrents, but hopefully not to use them.

North Korea’s nukes are the subject of a lot of misinformation. Yes they have a working nuclear device, but I think it is only a small one, maybe 15% as large as the Hiroshima bomb. They’ve had a hard time detonating bigger bombs. They seem to have several of these, maybe 5-10. North Korea also has working missiles, but they’ve had a hard time making long range missiles that go much further than Japan. A lot of these are just failing. Furthermore, I do not believe that they have figured out how to put a nuclear device onto a missile and detonate it.

People don’t understand nuclear missiles at all. First, it’s hard as Hell to make one. Next, it’s very hard to make good rockets that go 1000’s of miles with good accuracy. Third and most important, once you get the bomb, it is a whole matter altogether to figure out how to stick the thing onto a missile in such a way that it detonates on landing when firing the rocket. This is called weaponizing the warhead. It’s a whole new ballgame. Many states have had nuclear programs that have aborted or run aground at one or the other of these phases.

All in all, the movement towards Maoism in China is great news!

New poll: Capitalism not too hot

(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com)

A recent poll has people talking. The results of the poll are a sharp contrast to the free-market triumphalism of the 1990s. Intellectuals were declaring the victory of capitalism. In the 1989 book, the End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama declared that history was over and that free-market, liberal society was the final form of human society, the end point of civilization. Others got a piece of the action too. Post-modern liberal Richard Rorty liked to say that Western liberalism, with all its flaws, is the best that has been offered up by history: The age of ideology is over, or at least it should be. Globalist capitalism, or its companion “capitalism with a human face,” was the new mantra. That was then.

The recent poll implies that most people correctly know that the system as it currently exists is bad for them. The poll, conducted across 27 countries, reports that only 11 percent of people think that free-market capitalism is working well. Of the 29,000 people polled, only one in five think that capitalism is working well.

Almost a quarter of all those polled, 23 percent, think that capitalism is fatally flawed. The majorities in 22 of the 27 countries support a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. The poll shows that the majority of humanity has some sense of their own oppression even if they do not understand their oppression scientifically.

One poll result has been the focus of much commentary: Double digits in the imperialist countries see capitalism as “fatally flawed.” Over 40 percent in France and 15 percent in the US think that capitalism is fatally flawed. This figure is making its way through the First Worldist “left” that stupidly sees the double digits as confirmation of their worldview. These kinds of polls are not new. For example, Max Elbaum, in Revolution in the Air, peddled the same claim about the 1960s. Elbaum reports that 3 million people in the US thought revolution was necessary at that time. However, seeing capitalism as “fatally flawed” or that “revolution is necessary” is not an endorsement of socialism. In fact, nihilism runs deep in First World. It is a good bet that many see all systems as fatally flawed. Although there may be support for social democracy or social imperialism or fascism in the First World, there is almost no support for actual socialism there.

Actual socialism is perceived as frightening by First World peoples for the same reasons that many express their disappointment with the current capitalist system. Most in the First World believe that they are entitled to more privilege, not less. The current economic crisis has resulted in a drop in the standard of living. No doubt that this is reflected in the numbers. In addition, under actual socialism, First World populations will have even less privilege than they do under the current capitalist system. Actual socialism on a world scale entails something close to an equal distribution of the global social product. Under such a distribution, virtually everyone in the First World will see their incomes cut drastically, their purchasing power reduced, their leisure time shortened, etc.  After all, Karl Marx wrote that the ruling classes would tremble in the face of communist revolution. The entire First World, almost without exception, trembles at the prospect of genuine proletarian revolution.

There is almost no social base at all for revolution in the First World. It is a mystery to the First Worldist why the First World workers are not lining up for revolution. The First Worldist, like Goldilocks, looks to find that combination of mass line and party building, spontanaity and commandism, agitation and propaganda, hot and cold, that  will be “just right.” What the First Worldist utopians don’t realize is that there is no key that will unlock First Worldist proletarian revolution because there is no significant proletariat in the First World. There are hardly any masses at all in the First World. There are plenty of asses, however. Maoist-Third Worldists, by contrast, recognize that since the vast majority in the First World oppose real socialism, revolutionaries in the First World must design minoritarian strategies.  Revolutionaries find themselves behind enemy lines in the First World. Real revolutionaries adopt Jacobin strategies appropriate to their unique conditions in the First World.

The same poll asked people how they perceived the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Poll results varied greatly across countries. The fall of the Soviet Union is mostly seen as a “good thing” in Europe, and, presumably, most of the First World: 79 percent in Germany, 76 percent in Britain and 74 percent in France feel that the dissolution was a good thing. However, 70 percent of Egyptians think that the fall of the Soviet Union was a “bad thing.” And, in Russia, Ukraine, and Pakistan, sizable majorities report that the fall was mainly a bad thing. In India, Kenya, and Indonesia, opinions are sharply divided.

Even though the Soviet Union in 1989 was not socialist, it is incorrectly perceived as both socialist and anti-imperialist by many. The poll results in many cases are, thus, less about the actual Soviet Union and more about the hostility that many in the Third World feel toward imperialism and capitalism. Such poll results can be more of an expression of pre-scientific, intuitive class hatred directed toward the Western imperialists. Ironically, the revisionist Soviet Union was imperialist also. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union became social imperialist. Even though the revisionists used socialist rhetoric, their actions were still imperialist.

Capitalism-imperialism has failed to guarantee a decent life for the vast majority of the world’s population. Most people in the Third World barely survive while most people in the First World live in relative luxury. Thus it is no surprise that opinions about the current system and about the Soviet Union would vary greatly. Similarly, opinions about revolutionary leaders also vary greatly between Western and non-Western countries. Stalin is seen as no different than Hitler in the West. However, in the ex-Soviet bloc, Stalin often polls as one of the greatest leaders of all time. It is a good sign that so many in the Third World understand that the system has failed them. It is the job of the communist to transform that basic intuition into a scientific understanding and revolution.

Sources

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8347409.stm

2. Max Elbaum. Revolution in the Air, p. 2

Great stuff here. Who Are The Maoists and What Do They Want? A good overview of the Maoist revolution in India.

Now from a generic Left POV, I would have to say that this post makes it clear that all of the previous solutions have completely failed to address the needs of the vast majority of Indians.

That includes the Congress Party, of course the BJP and the Right, the “Indian socialism” of the first 20 years of India’s statehood, and even the parties of the Left, including, to their shame, the Communist Parties in power. Not to mention the neoliberalism of the last 15 years or so. Failed, all failed.

Now that leaves your generic Leftwinger a couple of choices. To continue to support the various failed projects of the past, Left, Right or Center, or to try something new for a change. It’s clear that the Maoists, for better or worse, are the only people in India who even have a chance at addressing the various problems outlined below. Therefore, I support the Maoists! Not because I’m a Maoist myself (I’m more of a grocery list Leftwinger, and I even support social democracy in many places as the greatest good for the greatest number) but because their model is way better than all of the atrocious alternatives.

There aren’t enough Communists in India to put this project forward, nor enough in the world to support them. So the Maoists need the support of all Communists, socialists and even progressives in general for their cause, and they ought to welcome support from the non-Marxist Left and even non-Leftist liberals and progressives.

After reading this, all I can say is, “Go Maoists Go!”

War Against the Maoists: But Who Are They and What Do They Want

Rita Khanna

Radical Notes Journal

November 19, 2009

Author’s Note: This is meant to be a simple and brief exposition of the goals and strategies of the Maoist movement in India for people who may not have much awareness about it and are confused by the propaganda in the mainstream media. This does not go into the arcane debates about mode of production in India, the debates among communist revolutionaries over strategy and tactics etc. This aims at people who, for example, are perplexed why the Maoists, instead of trying to ensure safe drinking water like an NGO, rather, often resort to violent activities against the Government.

The Indian government is launching a full-scale war against the Maoist rebels and the people led by them in different parts of the country. The initial battles, without any formal announcement, have already started. For this purpose, they intend to deploy about 75,000 security personnel in parts of Central and Eastern India, including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. The government will organize its regular air force in addition to paramilitary and specially trained COBRA forces. The air force has begun to extend its logistic support.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have declared the Maoist rebels to be “the biggest internal security threat” to India and a hindrance to “development.” The mainstream media seem to have taken them at their face value.

Their publications and television programs seem to be building a war hysteria against the Maoist rebels regardless of the fact that this attack by the government will be directed against some of the most deprived of the Indian people. Indeed this is turning into a war of the state against its own people!

While paying lip service at times to the notion that the current people’s insurgency led by the Maoist rebels has its root in decades of vicious exploitation of the poor, especially the Dalits and tribals, the blare of government propaganda tries to convince us that the Maoist rebels are dangerous, bloodthirsty terrorists determined to establish their areas of influence.

The Government is preaching that the Maoists can go to any extent to maintain their influence in these areas – by either preventing the government from undertaking development activities or by using the power of their guns and killing disobedient individuals. Their ideology is to terrorize the common people, wrest power from the democratically elected governments and destroy the entire fabric of the society.

The government and the media want us to believe that the only people, apart from a few romantic misguided intellectuals, who willingly support Maoists are the poor, ignorant, uneducated, uninformed tribal people. They seem to claim that no sensible, intelligent person living in a society like ours would support them voluntarily. But is this a true picture?

Could it be that the Maoist rebels are supporting and organizing the poor, exploited people to fight oppression, to establish a more egalitarian society where the wealth of our growing economy will be spread among all, not merely among a very small minority? Could it be that in the name of suppressing the Maoists, the state is going all out to break the backbone of these poor peoples’ fight? Could it be that the government is planning to wage a war, in our name, against our own sisters and brothers to help line the pockets of the rich?

In this hour of crisis, we must ask those questions that the government seeks to suppress.

What do we really know about the Maoist rebels, their ideology, their plans and programs? Why does the government need to go to war against its own people and inside its own territory? Are the Maoists really blocking development? Who are these Maoists anyway and what do they want?

Let us take one question at a time.

Who are these Maoists?

The Maoists are revolutionaries mainly extremely poor people, including a large number of Dalits and tribals. They come mainly from the toiling masses of India, and they are trying to organize the vast population of such masses of this country. They seek to arm and train them so that these masses can resist the onslaught of the rich. In this effort, they go beyond the idea that mass movements should focus on some specific issues like wage increases, better health care, more honesty of public servants and so forth.

The view of the Maoist rebels is that the poor and exploited people must first and foremost establish their own democratic political power and their own state power in various places. This is because without controlling state power, the poor and the exploited can at most hope for only limited improvements in their living conditions, i.e., so long as it does not inconvenience the rich who usually control the state power.

So, the Maoists mobilize the poor to fight against the existing state, even with arms if possible, as they consider the existing state to be a set of agents acting for the big multinational corporations, rich landlords and the wealthy in general.

The fight is an extremely challenging and unequal one, as the rich are aided by the government bureaucrats, the police and even the military. Also, contrary to what the Government and the mainstream media are propagating, the Maoist rebels are actually completely opposed to individual killings; they openly denigrate such stray terrorism-like acts. What they have been attempting to build up is a mass movement, even armed, to take on the violence of the ruling classes and its representative state machinery.

The Maoist movement was born in India in the late 1960s, after a radical section of political workers broke away mainly from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) because they felt the CPIM and other such parties like CPI, RSP, etc. had discredited themselves with their opportunist politics of placating and compromising with the rich. The movement has a long history of development. The present party, CPI (Maoist), came into being in 2004 by the merger of a number of fraternal organizations.

Is development in India arrested because the Maoist rebels are blocking it?

What is the state of the people of India at present? With its current high rate of growth, this is also a country of abject poverty and extreme inequality. Home to 24 billionaires (second largest in Asia according to Forbes), India can also boast of 230 million people who go to bed on a half-empty stomach (World Hunger Report).

A country whose economy grows at 9% cannot feed its own population – at least 50% of the people live below the official poverty line and 47% of children below the age of three are underweight (World Bank Report, Undernourished Children: A Call For Reform and Action).

In this so called “hub of knowledge economy,” only 11% of the total population can afford higher education, and 50% of the students drop out before 8th grade to start living as casual laborers (Education Statistics, Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development). This is true of most of India, not just the areas where Maoist influence and control is high. Then how can we say that development in India is being blocked by Maoists?

Maoists do not oppose “development” at all, they only oppose the “pro-rich development” at the expense of destitution or often total destruction of the poor. For example, in the Dandakaranya region of Chhattisgarh, they oppose the setting up of helipads, but there, the poor themselves, led by the Maoist rebels, have built irrigation tanks and wells for help in agriculture, something the Indian government did not bother to do.

The Indian government routinely blames the Maoist rebels for blowing up schools! But what the government tries to suppress is that these blown up school buildings were actually being used or requisitioned as  camps for security personnel!

And what changes do they want? Why do they want these changes?

(1) Overhauling the entire structure of oppression instead of piecemeal reforms

In addition to all the woes described above, India is also a country where thousands of Muslims can be butchered in broad daylight by fascist Hindu forces (the most widespread and gruesome such pogrom in recent times happened in Gujarat in 2002), while the ministers and police look the other way.

And these features are not the stray results of the misdeeds of a few villains. The existing sociopolitical system in India has a built-in mechanism which ensures that the common masses will be oppressed by a rich and powerful few. Widespread systemic violence is required and is routinely applied by the Indian state so that common people remain disciplined and do not revolt in the face of oppression.

(2) Land to the tillers and destruction of the landlord class

About 60% of the Indian population is still dependent on agriculture. However the primary input, land, is predominantly concentrated in the hands of a few landlords and big farmers. Close to 60% of rural households are effectively landless (NSS Report). The elite in the villages, by their collusion with the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, have blocked any meaningful land reforms.

In the last four decades the proportion of households with little or no land (landless and marginal farmer households) has increased steadily from 66% to 80%. On the other hand the top 10% of the rural households own more land now than in 1951 (NSS report).

The Maoist revolutionaries want to change this to ensure equitable distribution of land. They do not deter the landless and poor peasants and the poor rural labourers from collective armed fight against the existing state power for achieving this goal.

(3) Freedom from money lenders and traders

Indebtedness in rural India has been increasing by leaps and bounds, especially in the recent decades. Public rural banks are closing down due to relaxation of government regulation. Therefore, instead of securing credits from public institutional sources, rural folk are now being forced to approach the village money lenders (who are often big landlords or rich farmers as well) on a larger and larger scale.

Unscrupulous traders are adding to the misery of poor peasants. They sell spurious inputs to small and marginal peasants at exorbitant prices. They also make huge profits by buying their harvest at throwaway prices and selling them in urban areas at a premium.

Not-so-well-off peasants, in this no-win situation, of course end up needing substantial credit. Private moneylenders and various for-profit financial companies take advantage of this situation by extracting enormous sums from peasants. Interest rates can be as high as 5% per month. The BBC News reported that more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 under the pressure of such indebtedness.

The Maoist rebels want to change this.

(4) End of caste system and eradication of untouchability

It is well known that the caste system is still thriving in India. Economically it keeps the overwhelming majority of the people in dire poverty and politically it suppresses their fundamental democratic rights. Often the lower castes are robbed of their human dignity. They are even denied access to public facilities like some sources of drinking water, schools etc.

An Expert Group of the Planning Commission reports that in 70% of villages lower caste people cannot enter places of worship and in more than 50% of villages, they don’t have access to common water sources (Expert Committee Report to the Indian Planning Commission).

According to an NCDHR report, on average, 27 atrocities (including murder, abduction and rape) against Dalits take place every day. The well-off landed sections in the villages still come mainly from the upper castes. They use Brahminical ideology to try to keep all other sections of the population under domination.

The same is true for usurers, merchants, hoarders, quarry owners, contractors – all mainly come from the upper castes. In short, the upper castes are still very much in command in all aspects of rural life. Often they run a parallel raj with their own private army of goondas.

The Maoists want to break this stranglehold of the upper castes and ensure equal rights for Dalits and Adivasis.

(5) Freedom from exploitation by foreign multinationals and its local partners

Since 1991, foreign capital, in alliance with big capitalists like Reliance, Tata and state bureaucrats, has penetrated vast sectors of the Indian economy. Every sphere of our life, starting from road construction, electricity generation and communication networks to food retail, health and education are under direct control of this coterie. In the name of “development” thousands of acres of land are being transferred to big business and multinationals.

For example, in Bastar, Chattisgarh, in the name of the Bodh Ghat Dam project, tens of thousands of Adivasis are being forcibly evicted from their “jal-jangal- zameen” (water-forest- land). In Niyamgiri, Orissa the land which is the abode of several Dongria tribes has been handed over to the multinational Vedanta group, which will completely destroy the livelihood of these tribes, affecting more than 20,000 people. The state government and the mainstream opposition parties of the state are actively supporting such activities.

The Maoists, over the years, have been resisting such plunder.

(6) Ensuring people’s democratic rights

It is well known that elections are often a sham in India. The parliament, as we have seen several times, is a bazaar where the rich and super-rich can buy the MPs. According to the ADR (Association of Democratic Reform), the average asset of an MP has gone up to 5.12 crore in 2009 from Rs 1.8 crore in 2004. In our democracy the erstwhile rajas and maharajas, like the Scindias, are still proliferating and control the local economy and polity in many places.

And we also know the state of the judicial system in our country. The Salman Khans and Sanjeev Nandas can kill by running over commoners with their cars, yet they can still escape the law for a very long time, perhaps forever.

B.N. Kirpal, the judge, who arbitrarily ordered that Indian rivers be interlinked, ignoring the resulting ecological and human calamity, joined the environmental board of Coca-Cola after he retired.

The Maoists want to establish people’s court where poor people can get true justice. In fact, such courts run in many places where the Maoist movement is strong.

(7) Self-determination for the nationalities

The Indian government ruthlessly suppresses the national aspirations of many people. These people and their land became part of India by accident – because the British raj annexed their homeland or a despotic king wanted their land to be a part of India. Lakhs of Indian troops have been deployed in Kashmir and the northeastern states to curb the  struggles of the people in these states for their national self-determination.

Since 1958, AFSPA has been imposed in northeastern states, which allows armed forces to conduct search and seizure without warrant, to arrest without warrant, to destroy any house without any verification and to shoot to kill with full impunity. In Kashmir, there is 1 military personnel for every 15 civilian.

Cold blooded murders, like those of Thangjam Manorama Devi, Chungkham Sanjit, Neelofar and Asiya Jan, are carried out frequently in the name of “countering terrorism.” The Maoist rebels seek to establish freedom of self-determination for all nationalities.

So, to sum up, the new society the Maoists want to establish will have the following components:

• Land to the poor and landless. Later on cooperative farming is to be established on voluntary basis.
• Forest to the tribal people.
• End of the rule of the rich and the upper caste in villages and the uprooting of the caste system. Uproot all discrimination based on gender and religion.
• Seizure of the ill gotten wealth and assets of multinational corporations and their local Indian partners.
• Self-determination for the nationalities, political autonomy for the tribes.
• Establish a state by the poor and for the poor, where the present day exploiters would be expropriated.
• Participation of people in day to day administrative work and decision making. Democracy at the true grassroots level with people having the power to recall their democratic representatives.

In summary: ensuring freedom, rights and democracy for all sections of the toiling masses.

What have the Maoists-led people’s struggles achieved so far?

Information in this section is taken, purposely, from the Expert Group Report to the Planning Commission, which is available on the web.

Contrary to what the media try to portray, the government’s own report says that the movement led by the Maoist rebels cannot be seen as simply blowing up of police stations and killing individual people. It encompasses a mass organization. Mass participation in militant protest has always been a characteristic of such mobilization.

Although the Maoists by their own admission are engaged in a long term people’s struggle against the oppression by the present India state, their movement has already achieved some short term successes in improving the condition of the poor people.

The Maoist movement in India was built around the demand of “land to the tillers.” Numerous struggles, led by the Maoists, have been fought all over the country, especially in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, to free land from the big landholding families. In many such cases landlords have been driven away from the villages and their land has been put in the possession of the landless poor. But the police and paramilitary do not allow the poor to cultivate such lands.

In Bihar, landless Musahars, the lowest among the Dalits, have struggled and taken possession of fallow government land. This has had the support of Maoists.

Under the leadership of the Maoists, the Adivasis have reclaimed forest land on an extensive scale in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. The Adivasis displaced by irrigation projects in Orissa had to migrate to the forests of the Visakhapatnam District of Andhra Pradesh in large numbers. The Forest Department officials harassed and evicted them on a regular basis. The movement led by the Maoists put an end to this.

In rural India, the Minimum Wages Act remains an act on paper only. In the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, non-payment of legal wages was a major source of the exploitation of Adivasi laborer. Maoists-led struggles have put an effective end to it. These struggles have secured increases in the rate of payment for picking tendu leaves (used for rolling beedies), washing clothes, making pots, tending cattle, repairing implements etc.

The exploitation previously had been so severe that as a result of the sustained movement led by the Maoists, the pay rates of tendu leaves collection have over the years increased by fifty times.

The movement has given confidence to the oppressed to assert their rights and demand respect and dignity from the dominant castes and classes. The everyday humiliation and sexual exploitation of laboring women of Dalit and tribal communities by upper caste men has been successfully fought. Forced labour, begari, by which the toiling castes had to provide obligatory service for free to the upper castes, was also put an end to in many parts of the country.

In rural India, disputes are commonly taken to the rich and powerful of the village (who are generally the landlords) and caste panchayats, where the dispensation of justice is in favour of the rich and powerful. The Maoist movement has provided a mechanism, usually described as the “People’s Court” whereby these disputes are resolved in the interests of the wronged party.

Why then does the government need to go to war against its own people led by these rebels instead of hailing them as true patriots?

There is a simple answer. Chattisgarh, Orissa are rich in mineral wealth that can be sold to the highest multinational bidder. The only obstacle standing between the corrupt politicians and ALL THIS MONEY are the poor, disenfranchised tribal people (and the Maoists leading them). So, this war. This is not something new in India or for that matter in other parts of the world.

Mobutu’s corrupt regime selling off the Belgian Congo piece by piece to the US, Belgium and other countries comes to mind. In the sixty years of independence from direct colonial rule, the Indian state has been doing the same. It has systematically impoverished the overwhelming majority to serve the interest of a powerful few and their foreign friends.

The impending war to evict the tribal people from their villages, on the pretext of eliminating the Maoists, will be fought at the behest of big corporations, who want to control and plunder our resources such as minerals, water and forests. It is high time that we recognize this pattern of waging war which will be fought by the poor on both sides, but will benefit only the big capitalists and their cheerleaders in the government.

Note: For an interested reader, the Banned Thought site contains an enormous wealth of information about the Maoist rebels, including their own documents.

[I gave this paper at the Film-Philosophy Conference in July 2009, this is the unedited final transcript (I did read out most of it, even though I tried to improvise - or at least tried to pretend to improvise!) - Plus, it includes almost entirely earlier section on hope from the blog - here, I've confessed it all!]

Godard’s La chinoise and the apprenticeship of hopefulness (without hope)

Godard’s La chinoise, made in 1967, concerns a small group of student-militants, Maoists, who, having a bourgeois flat at their disposal over the summer, read, discuss and perform Marxist theory in order to be able to put it into practice: an attempt that, at least in the confines of the plot of the film, fails. This is a most banal outline of the plot, the simplest that one can abstract from the plethora of images, colours, dialogues, texts, sounds, ideas and more that dominate and complicate the plot of the film. In a way the plot is both primary and secondary: the film has a clear narrative, it leads to a dénouement, and so the plot structures the film. But the plot is secondary to the atmosphere of the film, the spirit of the film, which is constituted by what Rancière calls the “represented matter” of the film: Marxism, or Maoism, as “a catalogue of images, a panoply of objects, a repertoire of phrases, a programme of action: courses, recitations, slogans, gymnastic exercises”. As Rancière says, “Godard is not filming “Marxists” […] he is making cinema with marxism [Il fait du cinéma avec le marxisme]”.

Like most of Godard’s films, La chinoise is a didactic film, its main aim is to teach both the characters, who are being “educated” in Marxism-leninism, and the audience, who is supposed to engage critically with the “represented matter” of the film (and not just enjoy its aesthetics). It is a film “in the course of being made” as the inter-titles keep reminding us. How do we understand this? First, it draws our attention to when the film was made: it was made in 1967, and placed itself very much in the situation at the time. It was a critical engagement with what was happening at the moment in France, which as everyone knows, culminated in the movement of May 68. It is thus a film in the course of writing itself, in its time.

The inter-title also points to the fact that despite having a “completed version”, the film is incomplete: it is in the course of completion. It needs an audience, an audience that is called to listen, see, read, feel with the characters, all the while distancing itself as a critic, so as to not get too taken by their enunciations, in order to keep in view the contradictions that lead to the dénouement. However, as the audience, we must also place ourselves within the discourse, if we are to grasp at all the essence of the argument. For the plot is an argument, a critique of the student movement, an exposition of the inherent problem of the dialectic of theory and practice, a questioning of the naïve call for authenticity in Mao’s On Practice (or in a different reading, it could be a critique of the dogmatic deviation (from Mao), i.e., taking words and phrases from Marxist theorists, torn out of context, and repeating them blindly, dogmatically); it is moreover, a criticism, constructive, of the rush in which the characters find themselves, their unchecked, onanistic, indeed, dogmatic optimism (for it is not merely an “optimism of the will” here, but a naïve and dangerous optimism of ‘knowing’ that one is on the right path, a ‘knowledge’ that brooks no questioning).

All the same, the attempt at an Althusserian “autocritique” is not absent; it is simply not accomplished well. Within the closed confines of the bourgeois flat where they find themselves, the outside enters only in flashing images, in memories that cut through occasionally to show that there is indeed a world outside. However, this flash of the outside world is evanescent, even uncritiqued until the end of the film (where we suddenly and uncomfortably enter it). The slogan on the wall enjoins us to confront vague ideas with clear images, but this confrontation is something the audience must try to accomplish, it is not something that the characters can do very well: the onanism of their ideas confined within phrases thrown at each other, all the while never leaving the stark primary colours of their flat, necessitates their remaining vague. Outside the flat, the “reality”, the “unclear images” that they must confront is more impure, more complex, than the pure colours, the apparent clear simplicity (but really, vagueness) of ideas that the confines of the flat allow.

Clarity is afforded near the end of the film in the dialogue in the train between Francis Jeanson and Véronique (Anne Wiazemsky), the first proper scene that takes place outside the flat. But this clarity is only for us, the audience. It illuminates to us what has gone before, and is thus a retrospective clarity. It puts into perspective all that we experienced and thought in the flat. It gives us a chance to dissolve the boundaries of the pure colours of the flat, confronting it with the impure reality of the situation. If up to this point we were overwhelmed by the plethora of ideas thrown at us in the flat, we get a chance to suddenly confront the impurity of the situation – a situation which would not allow for a simple unmediated application of ideas, which for all their analysis remain painfully insufficient when it comes to the actual situation. This is what Véronique refuses to see, and what drives the plot to its tragic dénouement. The plot is tragic in a very basic sense: the dénouement is a necessary outcome of the very explicit tragic development of the plot. We even have a prediction: the words of Francis Jeanson in the train: “The way you’re going you won’t last a week, as I see it. I think you’re heading to a dead end”. Which gets us to the other clarity afforded to us, this time an anticipatory one. But this anticipation is not limited to the plot of the film, to what actually passes in the film. The anticipation is the fictional logical unfolding of the characters future, of which we are afforded but a glimpse in the last part of the film. The anticipatory clarity illuminates the necessity of “apprenticeship” and of patience. For us, the audience, it is a question of “knowing that suffering produces patience, and patience produces enduring fidelity, and enduring fidelity produces hope, and hope does not disappoint” (Badiou quoting St. Paul).

The characters are thrown into the outside world, where they must confront the quotidian in all its impurity, and enter their apprenticeship of life, the adventure of learning through practice. Guillaume Mesiter, the actor (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud), starts on his “theatrical vocation and his years of apprenticeship and his voyages on the route of a true socialist theatre”. This, I would argue is an apprenticeship of hope.

The tragedy, if we follow Badiou’s categorization in Theory of the Subject, is not Sophoclean but Aeschylean. It is not what Badiou calls “a reversal of restoration”, a return to a “framework of regulations” that is in question here (though such a reading is equally valid, and there are enough signs in the film that point to a Sophoclean end). But in a stronger reading (one that I prefer!) it can be seen as gesturing towards a “reversal of exile”, a reversal that is an “advent”, a “division beyond the law”, “the direction of which is the contradictory advent of justice by the courage of the new”. It is not simply a return to order, though there is a partial return – which is the immediate failure that the characters suffer; there is also the opening up of a possibility of a recomposition of a new order, the advent of hope.

We said that the plot concluded in a failure. But what is it to fail? This is the question which prefaces Badiou’s little book on the communist hypothesis. The answer we get is that of a doubling, a division of the concept of defeat, where the immediate “negative” part of a defeat (death, imprisonment, loss of force; in the film, an apparent “return to order”) is opposed to the “positive” aspect of the defeat: the re-thinking of tactics/strategy, change of models of action, invention of new forms of organisation. As Badiou phrases it, “the misfortune of failure changes into the combative excellence of a knowledge”. This explanation is not far from what Mao gives us in his On Practice, where defeats equal experience, and it is only through repeated failures that one can gain a correct knowledge of the situation. The film’s last act enacts this double aspect of defeat.

Véronique’s problem, in sum, was the problem of gaining knowledge, which is also the pivotal question of the film, the maoist one of the “relation between knowing and doing”. The film begins with positing “the principal problem of socialist strategy”, which is that of “creating the objective and subjective conditions which would make mass revolutionary action possible”. In the course of discussions in the flat, a question is posed (and reiterated): “where do correct ideas come from?” – the maoist/marxist answer is given: “they come from practice, which is class struggle”. In the conversation with Francis Jeanson, this is the problem Véronique struggles with: “if I ever want to acquire knowledge, it is necessary that I pass first through practice […] If I want to know the theory and methods of revolution, then I am obliged to participate, practically, in a revolution”. With the “knowledge” that all knowledge must come from practice, she was impatient, too impatient in fact, to get this knowledge. In the lack of a revolution she could participate in, she was ready to “invent a revolution” – an effort that necessarily led to a tragic dénouement.

But – and here the motif of the meta-plot of the film comes into play – this tragic dénouement is not the end, it is but a beginning. It is indeed the end of a beginning, end of a failed temporal sequence, but more profoundly it is, as Véronique says in the last phrase of the film: “only the first timid step of a long march”: a step that ends a disastrous beginning, but more importantly looks forward with hopefulness.

This hopefulness is of necessity abstract. There is no concrete telos that this hope points to; it is not hope of a “reward”. It is, as Badiou says, “a simple imperative of continuation, a principle of tenacity, of obstinacy”, or in Paolo Freire’s words, it is a hope “rooted in men’s incompletion, from where they move out in constant search”.

Hope is not bound to a telos. Hope is often understood as something that aims at a concrete telos: A hopes for x; if A gets x, the hope is fulfilled; if not, it is thwarted. As if hope could be reduced to an economy of goods. How useful could such an understanding be? Would it not be better to understand hope only in an abstract sense? Hope, understood not as hope for a telos, but as hopefulness.

Abstract hope points not to a reward, but to a future, a future that is not-yet. In the present, this hope is only hopeful perseverance. This hope cannot be reduced to desire – though the two are intertwined. The definition must be circular. Hope is hopefulness. It is hopeful patience, but not a passive patience: hope is a struggle for continuation in hopefulness. Simple passivity can only allow for an absence of hope, a giving up. As Freire says, “as long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait”. Hope is the imperative: do not give up!

However, hope is not dogmatic optimism, where we are secure in our possibly misguided, and necessarily naïve, “knowledge” that we are on the right path, a “knowledge” that brooks no questioning. Such dogmatic optimism cannot allow for an opening up of a universe of hope – it will necessarily limit it within the contours of its limited (but exalted) knowledge. Hope, which is not naïve optimism, will allow subjectively for a creative unfolding of a world of possibilities.

Hope is the essence of the subject, it “pertains to endurance, perseverance, to patience; it is the subjectivity proper to the continuation of the subjective process” – the subject continues in hope, and the perseverance of the subject is guided by a hope which gestures towards a world of possibility. Hope is an apprenticeship.

It is helpful to compare this concept of hopefulness to the closely related Badiouian concept of courage. Courage, in Logics of Worlds is one of the four subjective modalities, or affects (others being terror, anxiety and justice) that indicate the incorporation of a human-being into a subjective truth process.

[I was playing with the idea of fitting a character of the film with each of these four affects. Véronique-Terror (“desire for a great point, a decisive discontinuity which will institute the new world in a single blow”); Henri- anxiety (“the retreat before the obscurities of discontinuities, the desire for a continuity”); Guillaume-courage (“the acceptance of plurality of points, of the fact that discontinuities are at once inexorable and multiform” – i.e, his search for a “true socialist theatre”); and justice-Francis Jeanson, playing himself (“to affirm the equivalence of what is continuous and negotiated, and of what is discontinuous and violent”)]

But we can go back even further and look at the concept of courage in Theory of the Subject, where courage is “the divisible process of [the subject’s] intrinsic existence” and can be compared to “fortitudo (fortitude of strength of mind)” distinguishing it from mere “audacia (audacity or boldness)”. The subject, moves from mere audacity to a patient insistence that accompanies its incorporation into a truth process, the holding on to the point that as been seized: “the subject as courage, turns the radical absence of any security into its force”. This courage is also hope, which is the principle of the apprenticeship that the characters enter into. This apprenticeship comes in the form of a subtraction from the tragic dénouement of a return to order, the reign of the law, and gestures towards the opening up of a process whose guiding norm is hopefulness.

Two dialogues, made in the course of the fictional interviews with the characters in the flat may give us some sense of what this gesture may be. Véronique declares: “It is because everything is not clear that I continue to study, study to understand, then to transform, but to understand first”. And Guillaume, the actor, the one who, at the end of the film, is explicitly placed under the sign of an apprenticeship, declares: “Are not the words I pronounce, so awkwardly and blindly, part of a great unknown play, continuing through me […] its direction/sense incomplete, searching in me and with me all the actors and all the decors in its great naked discourse.”

These “vague ideas” articulated in the confines of the flat, are now confronted with “clear images” that confusedly whelm the new apprentices of life, apprentices in hopefulness. We are not yet presented with any resolution to the dialectic – only with an anticipation, the anticipation of an opening.

We said in the very beginning that this was a didactic film. Framed as an attempt to answer a question (“how is mass revolutionary activity possible in the present”); its form (the plot) and its matter (marxism) all tried in various ways to answer this question. No satisfactory conclusion was reached (except that “this is just a first step”). Nothing happened. No revolution was on the horizon. Everything went back to order – arguably, there was no opening here of any possibility or of hope. But, in the last act, we are presented with the “apprenticeship” of the actor, searching for a true socialist theatre, in ruins that have “theatre year zero” painted on them. The didactic nature of the film itself became ambiguous, retrospectively: the film “in the course of being made”, became also a film “in search” of its conclusion.

The film ends with a reflection on theatre, and the commencement of an apprenticeship, in search, not only of a new politics, but also of a new aesthetics.