jwalahang Says: June 6, 2008 at 1:12 pm (From Beacononline comment)
Let’s take A PEEP AT SILIGARHI’S HISTORY.
a) 1640 : All Terai areas including Siligarhi and Jalpaiguri belonged to Sikkim in the 17th century.The original inhabitants of Sikkim were the Lepchas(Rongs)and the Limbus(Chongs).The word ‘Sikkim’ owes its origin to Limbu word ‘Su-Khim’ meaning ‘new home’.
b) 1780 : Gorkha King Prithvi Narayan shah’s eldest son Pratap Singh shah attacks Sikkim.
c) 1788-89 : Gorkha army enters Sikkim and annexes Darjeeling hills and the adjoining low plains.Reaches till Teesta river.
d) Dec 1815 : For 30 years, these areas of Sikkim remain with the Gorkhas.Some Gorkhalis settle here permanently. Then Gorkhas eye China but are heavily defeated.
e) 1804-1814 :Gorkhas start annexing northern areas of East India Co.The British condemns this in strongest terms.
f) Lord Hastings declares war with Nepal.As resultant, Nepal start losing the annexed areas.
g) 4th Feb,1816 : Battle of Makwanpur.The last war between Gorkhas and the British. East India Co loses 2 officers and 222 soldiers.About 800 Gorkhas are martyred.
h) 4 March,1816 : Peace Treaty at Sugauli, twenty miles from Raxaul(Bihar).Nepal loses the captured areas including that belonged to Sikkim(Darjeeling hills ,Siligarhi,Jalpaiguri and the low lying areas til Teesta river).Gorkhas join the British India with their LAND.The British starts recruting Gorkhas in the Fauj.
i) 1836 : British starts planting tea in Darjeeling hills. Though, some ethnic tribes like Lepchas and Limbus (now they are assimilated in Gorkha community) resided in the area in few numbers,other communities of the Gorkhas are brought in to work as Tea workers.
j) The British builds the Siligarhi Railway Station to facilitate the transportation of tea.
k) To connect the Hills with Siligarhi,THE DARJEELING HIMALAYAN RAILWAY is born.Hundreds are Gorkhas come here to work as labourers.Almost all of them become victims of Malaria and other tropical diseases. Many are killed by wild animals and snake-bites.
l) 1907 : Siligarhi declared Sub-Division.Population 2000 only.Some Hindi speaking and Bengali families were there.But, the majority of the population were the Gorkhalis.
m) 1928 : Siligarhi Town Committee is formed.GEORGE MAHBERT SUBBA (Limbu)a Gorkhali, is appointed as its first president.He held the post for 20 years till 1949.
n) 1942 : Thousands of displaced Gorkhalis flee Burma.Some settles in the North East. GEORGE MAHBERT SUBBA arranges land for them in Siligarhi. And the place was called BURMA BUSTY.THIS PLACE WAS later came to be known as Ashrampara .The fate of the displaced Gorkhalis is not known.
o) 1946-47 : PARTITION of the country. Thousands of Hindu Bengalees flee Bangladesh. Siligarhi and the adjoining areas become their NEW HOME !!!
p) 1949 : Siligarhi is declared a Municipality.
q) 1951 : First municipal Elections in Siligarhi. Mr. BAGHBIR GURUNG ,a Gorkhali, is elected as Commissioner of Ward No 1.He was the first Gorkhali Commissioner.
r) 1950 : INDO-NEPAL Friendship Treaty signed. Provisions were made for FREE TRADE and OPEN BORDER. Provision made for continuation of Gorkhalis to get recruited in the Indian Army. INDIA enjoys MAXIMUM BENEFIT from this TREATY specially in TRADE and COMMERCE.
s) 1952 : General Elections in India. GEORGE MAHBERT SUBBA elected to the Legislative Assembly from Siligarhi-Kurseong Constituency.
t) 1956 : States Re-Organisation Commission formed.THE UNRESOLVED GORKHA AREAS left mid-way by the BRITISH officially becomes the part of WEST BENGAL !!!!!!!!!!
In memory to the valiant dead GORKHAS !!!!!!!!!
MY GORKHALAND Headline Animator
Friday, June 6, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
GORKHALAND MOVEMENT: BIMAL GURUNG'S SPEECH
On May 7th Gorkha 2008 Gorkha Janmukti Morcha organized a public meeting at Indira gandhi Maidan, siliguri. This is a glimpse of the speech of Bimal Gurung
Gorkhaland issue: GJM seeks talks
Kolkata: As West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has reportedly requested the Centre to put on hold the bills pertaining to granting of Sixth Schedule status to the Darjeeling Hills he should “now come round to the demand for the creation of a new State comprising the hills and certain areas contiguous to it in West Bengal,” the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha leadership said on Friday.
“We ask the Chief Minister to now request the Prime Minister to arrange for tripartite talks on the statehood issue,” GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told The Hindu over phone from Darjeeling.
Mr. Bhattacharjee met the Union Home Minister in Delhi earlier in the day and reportedly asked him not to go ahead now with the bills related to Sixth Schedule status for the hills in view of the developments in Darjeeling. They discussed the situation in the region.
“The people of the hills have already rejected the Sixth Schedule proposal as well as its architect Subhas Ghising. It is now time for the Chief Minister to come to terms with the Gorkhaland [statehood] demand and impress on the Centre the need for tripartite talks on the issue ,” Mr. Giri said. The GJM, that had earlier dismissed holding of talks with the government on increasing the powers of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council has called for dissolution of the body.
“We will be sending a resolution adopted by the GJM’s central committee to both the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister demanding that the DGHC be dissolved within June 27,” Mr. Giri said. In another development, the pradhans and up-pradhans in Darjeeling Hills have submitted their resignations to the district authorities, GJM spokesperson Benoy Tamang said. This move throws into uncertainty all rural development work routed through these bodies. (Hindu)
“We ask the Chief Minister to now request the Prime Minister to arrange for tripartite talks on the statehood issue,” GJM general secretary Roshan Giri told The Hindu over phone from Darjeeling.
Mr. Bhattacharjee met the Union Home Minister in Delhi earlier in the day and reportedly asked him not to go ahead now with the bills related to Sixth Schedule status for the hills in view of the developments in Darjeeling. They discussed the situation in the region.
“The people of the hills have already rejected the Sixth Schedule proposal as well as its architect Subhas Ghising. It is now time for the Chief Minister to come to terms with the Gorkhaland [statehood] demand and impress on the Centre the need for tripartite talks on the issue ,” Mr. Giri said. The GJM, that had earlier dismissed holding of talks with the government on increasing the powers of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council has called for dissolution of the body.
“We will be sending a resolution adopted by the GJM’s central committee to both the Chief Minister and the Prime Minister demanding that the DGHC be dissolved within June 27,” Mr. Giri said. In another development, the pradhans and up-pradhans in Darjeeling Hills have submitted their resignations to the district authorities, GJM spokesperson Benoy Tamang said. This move throws into uncertainty all rural development work routed through these bodies. (Hindu)
‘We will not quit till we win’: Perspective Gorkhaland movement
The legend on the plaque resting on the small table says it all, “I will not quit until the battle is won”. And that is how the man who has promised to give his people Gorkhaland by 2010 describes his resolve. Meet Mr Bimal Gurung, chairman of the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha (GJMM) as he speaks to SUDIPTA CHANDA, sitting in his tiny party office at Patlebas near the Takvar Tea Estate, Darjeeling.You have promised to bring Gorkhaland about by 2010. How do you plan to do that?We have a strategy in place, but strategies are not divulged. So, I shall not tell you how but rest assured, fetch it we will.The Chief Minister’s refusal to concede Gorkhaland to a GJMM delegation recently must have caused a setback to your plans.Not at all, the fun begins now. It (the state government) will try not to give in to our demand and we are determined to get it. It is inevitable that the statehood movement will intensify now and the state government will have to know how to handle it.What can the state government do to make you drop the statehood demand?Gorkhaland is our one-point demand. It is what we exist for. For us, it is the last battle. We shall not trade the demand against sops or otherwise.What will your prime objective be, if Gorkhaland is achieved? Can you deliver?There are certain priority sectors, for instance tourism, which is the mainstay of the hill economy. Besides, infrastructure, education, road and the traffic system are some of the other issues that have remained neglected for long and need immediate attention. But water is my top priority. No Darjeeling hill resident, irrespective of political affiliation, or any visitor should suffer water scarcity as is happening now. The issue has to be addressed in real earnest.As far as delivering is concerned, there is no reason why we cannot. The Darjeeling hills, along with Siliguri and the portion of the Dooars that figure in our demanded Gorkhaland territory, generate enough revenue. All that is required is to plough back the revenue, not just take it away, as is happening now.Armed struggle or a non-violent movement, what do you prefer?Our movement has been and shall remain non-violent on the lines of Gandhian philosophy. (A friend sitting near Mr Gurung says: “The chairman has sworn by the Gita, Bible and Koran to keep the movement non-violent”, as Mr Gurung nods in assent.)It is often said that you used the people’s sentiments during the ‘Indian Idol’ television show and exploited Mr Prashant Tamang’s support base for political gains. Isn’t that opportunism?Those who say that I used the opportunity for political gains are wrong. I fell apart with Mr Subash Ghisingh for his policies in 1988. People voted me to the hill council as an Independent candidate in 1999. My relationship with Mr Ghisingh struck rock bottom in 2005 when he took 19 of us to Kolkata for a meeting with the chief minister on the Sixth Schedule. At the Writers’ Buildings we were kept waiting in an anteroom as Mr Ghisingh and the chief minister remained closeted in another in a one-to-one dialogue. They emerged after 45 minutes with the chief minister declaring that all our problems would now be solved as the Darjeeling hills were being included in the Sixth Schedule. I saw through the farce immediately and decided to revive the statehood movement on returning to Darjeeling, which I did.Mr Tamang did us proud but he is incidental to the timing of my political journey.The chief minister has been critical of the GJMM’s alliance with the Kamtapur Progressive Party and the Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party saying the Centre and state government viewed those as secessionist organisations. What is your opinion?The first condition of our alliance is that neither of the two organisation will resort to violence or maintain links with any militant or anti-India outfit.If that clause is not honoured we shall pull out of the alliance. I am not interested in what the two organisations were in the past. In fact, the state government and the Centre should give us credit for helping to keep the lid on the two organisations.The Maoists have come to power in neighbouring Nepal through armed struggle. Can you ensure that their philosophy will not penetrate your organisation? After all, the border is porous.We believe in and practice a democratic movement. A clear message has been passed down to the grass roots supporters and that is “no violence”. If any one is found breaching the line or trying to import the type of movement we have witnessed on the other side of the border in recent times, we shall inquire and take necessary action against such elements.You have called on all Gorkha/Nepali people from within and abroad to support your movement. What is the response?Overwhelming. We called for support (holding up a message sent to the Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling on the subject) and people have responded well.We are receiving support from Gorkhas residing in Hong Kong, Thailand, the Middle East and other countries in addition to intellectuals, academia, ex-soldiers and (others). They will not come here to stay but all want a land to be called their own. It is a matter of identity.Lastly there are those from non-Gorkha communities who have been residing in the Darjeeling hills for generations. They are our most valued treasures, for backing us at this crunch hour.It has been noticed that you undertake programmes either on the seventh day of a month or on dates that are multiples of seven. Are you superstitious? What is the secret?(Allowing a faint grin for the first time during the interview) I was born on 17 July 1964. I consider the numbers seven and eight lucky.I am a God-fearing person and honour every man’s religion, unlike Mr Ghisingh, who had ruled out the worship of idols, which is integral to the Hindu religion. It created a lot of bad blood. I intend to repair that as well.
Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha sets deadline for Gorkhaland
In West Bengal, the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha has set 27 June as deadline for dissolving the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, DGHS and to create a separate state of Gorkhaland. Disclosing this to newsmen after the Morcha's Central Committee meeting in Darjeeling last evening, its General Secretary Mr. Roshan Giri said the DGHS set up in 1988 has failed to fulfill the aspirations of the hill people. He said the meeting also decided to launch an agitation for the creation of Gorkhaland if the June 27 deadline was not met. In another development, 104 of the 112 gram panchayat pradhans and up-pradhans in Darjeeling hills have resigned in support of their demand for Gorkhaland. (newsonair)
Left’s Misfired Missive
Tendentious Anti-imperialism
Monday 2 June 2008, by Sankar Ray
The West Bengal supremo and Polit-Bureau member of the CPI-M, Biman Bose, slapped a suspicion at the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha leadership that the movement is inspired by US imperialism. In a more gossipy than substantive tone, he said: “We do not have evidence to prove the allegation but we have strong doubts that US Intelligence agencies are linked with the political turmoil in the Darjeeling hills.” Carrying on his political formulation in a cavalier fashion, he added that there might be a possible involvement of the US secret agencies in Darjeeling as the USA, adept in ‘the art of Balkanisation’ or vivisecting non-conformist countries into smaller ones, may have some role in the “ongoing disturbances in the Darjeeling hills”. Bose was speaking to the media at the Siliguri party office.
Bose, albeit as crucial a political personality as the Left Front Chairman, is at home in trying to sell rumours. Immediately after the people of Nandigram were astir in the first week of January 2007, he told the media that the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar had a secret meeting at Sonachura, Nandigram, to chalk out the agitation. When Medha shot back saying that she had never been to Nandigram and threatened to sue the LF big boss, the latter climbed down stating that he got such an information and expressed regret. When Tapasi Malik, daughter of a landless labourer, was found assassinated and charred at Singur, Bose said she might have died out of a failed romance. A silly attempt to vilify the first martyr of Singur peasants’ struggle against the Tata Motors project. There are many such instances, all in video cassettes of several private TV channels, of baseless accusations or concoctions by the man, known as the best recruit of the CPI-M’s organisational genius, Promode Dasgupta.
The LF Chairman wants to differentiate between the GJMM and Gorkha National Liberation Front, led by Subhas Ghising, as the GNLF can’t be accused of links with US imperialism. B T Ranadive, a founding PB member of the CPI-M and infamous for pushing the undivided CPI into a sectarian quagmire in the late 1940s, wrote a piece in the CPI-M’s mouthpiece People’s Democracy two decades back and branded the Gorkhaland stir as “yet another attack of the secessionist forces on the unity and integrity of India”. (B.T. Ranadive: “Gorkhaland Agitation—a Part of Imperialist plot in the East”, PD, September 10, 1988) But the CPI-M stopped calling the GNLF and Ghising ‘secessionist’ when there was a discreet deal between Ghising and the CPI-M for smooth victory of the CPI-M nominee from the Darjeeling parliamentary seat. Every time (except in 2004) the GNLF used to boycott polls in the hill segments and ensured victory of the CPI-M. When in 2004 the GNLF decided to side with the Congress nominee, Dawa Narbula, the CPI-M campaigners raked up the secessionist allegation against the GNLF.
The CPI-M has in the last two decades been very often spearheading its criticism against US imperialism and the neo-liberal ideology. This is commendable. Now the party talks of peace and peace movement unlike in the 1960s and 1970s when its fire-eating leaders like M. Basava-punnaiah, BTR and Dasgupta used to ridicule the World Peace Council and its Indian arm, the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation which now is gradually in for grab by the AKG Bhavan, thanks to the submissive attitude of the CPI. In the late 1960s, the CPI-M, parroting the Communist Party of China in its resolution at the Burdwan plenum, slandered the CP of the Soviet Union stating that the CPSU leaders “go to the extent of exaggerating the concept of peaceful coexistence… as a form of class struggle”. However, this was a downright lie as the document adopted by the 81-party meeting (Moscow, 1960) categorically said: “Peaceful coexistence of states does not imply renunciation of class struggle as the revisionists claim.” Among the signatories of the document was the CPC, which unfortunately distorted this in the letter of the Central Committee of the CPC to the CC of the CPSU on June 14, 1963; and that constituted the whole essence of the CPI-M’s ideology after splitting the CPI.
The tirade against US imperialism is excellent but not the misuse of it. The CPI-M General Secretary, Prakash Karat, propped up by the mainstream media as an outstanding ideologue, told newspersons at the recently-concluded 19th Congress of the CPI-M at Coimbatore that the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee (Committee of Resistance against Eviction from Land) of Nandigram is inspired by US imperialism. West Bengal’s Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, a delegate, and Karat referred to the US State Administration’s human rights violation report in India, especially Nandigram. “ It is now evident that there was something more than the issue of land,” Karat remarked, as if the Nandigram stir was inspired by the Bush Administration.
The role of US imperialism in the Nandigram movement was discovered by the AITUC General Secretary and CPI group leader in the Lok Sabha, Gurudas Dasgupta, who raised the matter during Zero hour in Parliament on March 14 drawing attention to the US State Department report, 2007 ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—India’. “The issue is: it is India’s concern, not the US’s,” the firebrand MP said. But there is a catch here. A statement was issued by the CPI-M PB on the same day chiding the US Government for ‘unnecessary and unwarranted’ interference and denouncing the reference to Nandigram. The AKG Bhavan biggies advised ‘all right thinking people to reject this contention and interference of the US Government’. The choice of March 14 was to divert attention of TV-viewers from the coverage of events on the first anniversary of the Nandigram incidents that provoked the State Governor to express his sense of ‘cold horror’.
THE idea of giving the US (read the CIA) tag on the genuine agrarian struggle was novel, but ludicrous too. What Karat, Dasgupta and Roy Chowdhury suppressed was that it was not a report prepared by the US Government, but a verbatim reproduction of a UNHRC report. It is accessible to netizens the world over. The credit line to the UNHRC was there too. Karat’s feigned innocence is mischievous. Interestingly, the selective ballyhoo was not made on March 11 when it was uploaded in the US State Department’s website but on March 14. The concocted link between the US imperialists and Nandigram protesters was to give the protesters a bad name and hang them. This is not only cowardice but tendentious.
The 293-word portion on Nandigram in the UNHRC document reads: On March 14, thousands of local villagers in the Nandigram district of West Bengal attacked police and Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPM) supporters who tried to enter an agricultural area earmarked for conversion to an industrial zone. Acting on orders from the CPM-led State Government, the police fired on the crowd, killing 14 individuals and injuring 45. The Kolkata High Court ordered an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but the court later revoked the CBI’s investigative authority and asked the CBI to preserve evidence. On July 10, members of the Anti-Naxal Special Police Force killed five persons including an alleged leader of the CPI-Maoist cadre at Ammadlu village in Chikmagalur district. According to the Karnataka police, all five were members of the local Naxalite unit, while human rights groups alleged that four of those killed were residents of a house caught in the crossfire. At year’s end a magisterial inquiry into the encounter was underway.
From November 6 to 11, CPM members, whom human rights groups claim had State Government support and direction, conducted a violent campaign of intimidation to regain control over the Nandigram area from the BUPC. The BUPC included those opposed to the CPM’s plan to acquire local land for industry, some former CPM supporters, and Opposition party workers and was backed by the Trinamul Congress, part of the West Bengal Opposition. News reports and eyewitness accounts noted that CPM cadres fired on BUPC supporters and local villagers, killing at least three and injuring others, burned many houses, and engaged in numerous rapes. On November 27, journalists reported the discovery of mass graves in the area. Following a government order on December 7, the CID initiated an inquiry into the identity of the bodies”.
There is no exaggeration, but understatement. The judgment by the High Court of Calcutta, inexplicably delivered in an inordinate delay after a bigger and more cruel genocide nearly for the whole of November last year, recorded 27 disappearances, 162 injured and half a dozen of rapes.
Karat, Dasgupta, Roy Chowdhury et.al should know that the UNHRC got Nobel Peace Prize twice for defending peace and human rights with their people working with great risks everywhere; why don’t they, then, pull up the UN affiliate instead of aiming at a deliberately wrong target? Dasgupta, arguably a vociferous pro-labour parliamentarian, danced to the tune of the AKG Bhavan honchos. True, without the CPI-M’s support he could not and will not be an MP.
About the CPI’s canine subservience, no elaboration is necessary. Its cadres lined up at the entrance of Coimbatore’s V. O. Chidambaram Ground, the venue of the mass meeting, to greet the first procession led by Sitaram Yechury. That’s the singularly great contribution of the CPI General Secretary, A. B. Bardhan, to his AKG Bhavan bosses.
The UNHRC referred to the Home Ministry’s 2006-2007 Report , revealing “1159 deaths in police custody between April and December 2006”. It makes a crisp reference to violence perpetrated by Naxalites—meaning the Maoists—in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and counter-terrorist excesses by the state too. Left MPs are deceptively silent about this. “Of the 336 individuals killed in Chhatisgarh, 93 were civilians, 170 police personnel (regular forces, as well as Special Police Officers) and 73 were alleged Naxalites. According to Andhra Pradesh Police, Maoists killed 44 civilians throughout the year.” The police too “were responsible for 47 encounter killings of Maoists during the year, compared with 110 in 2006”. Militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom “killed more than 110 persons in bomb attacks in the Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sivsagar districts of Assam”, the UNHRC stated. The official Left parties are unperturbed over the matter.
Let me drift a little to tell you a bit about Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, now a Minister of Higher Education, West Bengal. He was a temporary Maoist during the early period of the Naxalbari revolt, but went back to the CPI-M to regain a safe life and career. He was twice elected an MP too. The other day I was seeing a documentary of the Naxalbari movement, Basanter Dinguli ( Memories of Spring Thunder), written and directed Amar Bhattacharya, one of the many victims of state terror for involvement in the Naxalbari struggle that relived those high-voltage days which catapulted the agrarian imperative to the national arena. Amar did a good job, leave apart our ideological differences. Roy Chowdhury’s active role during the days of ‘spring thunder’ has a mention there.
However, Karat’s role in ‘transferred epithet’—US link to the Nandigram stir—had a hidden purpose. He confirmed that he is an obedient boy of the cash-rich CPI-M’s West Bengal unit which calls the shots from Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan. Asset values of buildings, constructed and owned by the CPI-M’s district and zonal committees and mass organisations like the CITU, All India Krishak Sabha, morninger Ganashakti and State and Central Government employees’ bodies, may be anything between Rs 300 crores and Rs 400 crores. Karat and other biggies at the A.K. Gopalan Bhavan, the party’s national headquarters, have to keep the M A Bhavan honchos in good humour, shelving ideological issues aside.
Poor Marx, five-star Communists like Karat and Yechury, posing as his disciples, conveniently forgot Marx’s words—“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me”—borrowed from Publius Terentius Afer, the playwright of the Roman Empire, known more as Terence (195-159 BC). Which was why Yechury wasted no time in justifying the mini-genocide at Nandigram on March 14 as if all this was provoked by the peaceful mass, under the banner of the BUPC. Maybe, tomorrow Karat and Yechury will defend the bumptious CPI-M MP—the overlord of Haldia—Lakshman Seth who tried to prevent the CRPF DIG Alok Raj to do his assigned task at Nandigram to help peaceful Panchayat polling there. The mafia face of false Marxism is out in the broad daylight of grim reality, at least in West Bengal. (Mainstream weekly)
Monday 2 June 2008, by Sankar Ray
The West Bengal supremo and Polit-Bureau member of the CPI-M, Biman Bose, slapped a suspicion at the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha leadership that the movement is inspired by US imperialism. In a more gossipy than substantive tone, he said: “We do not have evidence to prove the allegation but we have strong doubts that US Intelligence agencies are linked with the political turmoil in the Darjeeling hills.” Carrying on his political formulation in a cavalier fashion, he added that there might be a possible involvement of the US secret agencies in Darjeeling as the USA, adept in ‘the art of Balkanisation’ or vivisecting non-conformist countries into smaller ones, may have some role in the “ongoing disturbances in the Darjeeling hills”. Bose was speaking to the media at the Siliguri party office.
Bose, albeit as crucial a political personality as the Left Front Chairman, is at home in trying to sell rumours. Immediately after the people of Nandigram were astir in the first week of January 2007, he told the media that the Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar had a secret meeting at Sonachura, Nandigram, to chalk out the agitation. When Medha shot back saying that she had never been to Nandigram and threatened to sue the LF big boss, the latter climbed down stating that he got such an information and expressed regret. When Tapasi Malik, daughter of a landless labourer, was found assassinated and charred at Singur, Bose said she might have died out of a failed romance. A silly attempt to vilify the first martyr of Singur peasants’ struggle against the Tata Motors project. There are many such instances, all in video cassettes of several private TV channels, of baseless accusations or concoctions by the man, known as the best recruit of the CPI-M’s organisational genius, Promode Dasgupta.
The LF Chairman wants to differentiate between the GJMM and Gorkha National Liberation Front, led by Subhas Ghising, as the GNLF can’t be accused of links with US imperialism. B T Ranadive, a founding PB member of the CPI-M and infamous for pushing the undivided CPI into a sectarian quagmire in the late 1940s, wrote a piece in the CPI-M’s mouthpiece People’s Democracy two decades back and branded the Gorkhaland stir as “yet another attack of the secessionist forces on the unity and integrity of India”. (B.T. Ranadive: “Gorkhaland Agitation—a Part of Imperialist plot in the East”, PD, September 10, 1988) But the CPI-M stopped calling the GNLF and Ghising ‘secessionist’ when there was a discreet deal between Ghising and the CPI-M for smooth victory of the CPI-M nominee from the Darjeeling parliamentary seat. Every time (except in 2004) the GNLF used to boycott polls in the hill segments and ensured victory of the CPI-M. When in 2004 the GNLF decided to side with the Congress nominee, Dawa Narbula, the CPI-M campaigners raked up the secessionist allegation against the GNLF.
The CPI-M has in the last two decades been very often spearheading its criticism against US imperialism and the neo-liberal ideology. This is commendable. Now the party talks of peace and peace movement unlike in the 1960s and 1970s when its fire-eating leaders like M. Basava-punnaiah, BTR and Dasgupta used to ridicule the World Peace Council and its Indian arm, the All India Peace and Solidarity Organisation which now is gradually in for grab by the AKG Bhavan, thanks to the submissive attitude of the CPI. In the late 1960s, the CPI-M, parroting the Communist Party of China in its resolution at the Burdwan plenum, slandered the CP of the Soviet Union stating that the CPSU leaders “go to the extent of exaggerating the concept of peaceful coexistence… as a form of class struggle”. However, this was a downright lie as the document adopted by the 81-party meeting (Moscow, 1960) categorically said: “Peaceful coexistence of states does not imply renunciation of class struggle as the revisionists claim.” Among the signatories of the document was the CPC, which unfortunately distorted this in the letter of the Central Committee of the CPC to the CC of the CPSU on June 14, 1963; and that constituted the whole essence of the CPI-M’s ideology after splitting the CPI.
The tirade against US imperialism is excellent but not the misuse of it. The CPI-M General Secretary, Prakash Karat, propped up by the mainstream media as an outstanding ideologue, told newspersons at the recently-concluded 19th Congress of the CPI-M at Coimbatore that the Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee (Committee of Resistance against Eviction from Land) of Nandigram is inspired by US imperialism. West Bengal’s Higher Education Minister Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, a delegate, and Karat referred to the US State Administration’s human rights violation report in India, especially Nandigram. “ It is now evident that there was something more than the issue of land,” Karat remarked, as if the Nandigram stir was inspired by the Bush Administration.
The role of US imperialism in the Nandigram movement was discovered by the AITUC General Secretary and CPI group leader in the Lok Sabha, Gurudas Dasgupta, who raised the matter during Zero hour in Parliament on March 14 drawing attention to the US State Department report, 2007 ‘Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—India’. “The issue is: it is India’s concern, not the US’s,” the firebrand MP said. But there is a catch here. A statement was issued by the CPI-M PB on the same day chiding the US Government for ‘unnecessary and unwarranted’ interference and denouncing the reference to Nandigram. The AKG Bhavan biggies advised ‘all right thinking people to reject this contention and interference of the US Government’. The choice of March 14 was to divert attention of TV-viewers from the coverage of events on the first anniversary of the Nandigram incidents that provoked the State Governor to express his sense of ‘cold horror’.
THE idea of giving the US (read the CIA) tag on the genuine agrarian struggle was novel, but ludicrous too. What Karat, Dasgupta and Roy Chowdhury suppressed was that it was not a report prepared by the US Government, but a verbatim reproduction of a UNHRC report. It is accessible to netizens the world over. The credit line to the UNHRC was there too. Karat’s feigned innocence is mischievous. Interestingly, the selective ballyhoo was not made on March 11 when it was uploaded in the US State Department’s website but on March 14. The concocted link between the US imperialists and Nandigram protesters was to give the protesters a bad name and hang them. This is not only cowardice but tendentious.
The 293-word portion on Nandigram in the UNHRC document reads: On March 14, thousands of local villagers in the Nandigram district of West Bengal attacked police and Communist Party of India–Marxist (CPM) supporters who tried to enter an agricultural area earmarked for conversion to an industrial zone. Acting on orders from the CPM-led State Government, the police fired on the crowd, killing 14 individuals and injuring 45. The Kolkata High Court ordered an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), but the court later revoked the CBI’s investigative authority and asked the CBI to preserve evidence. On July 10, members of the Anti-Naxal Special Police Force killed five persons including an alleged leader of the CPI-Maoist cadre at Ammadlu village in Chikmagalur district. According to the Karnataka police, all five were members of the local Naxalite unit, while human rights groups alleged that four of those killed were residents of a house caught in the crossfire. At year’s end a magisterial inquiry into the encounter was underway.
From November 6 to 11, CPM members, whom human rights groups claim had State Government support and direction, conducted a violent campaign of intimidation to regain control over the Nandigram area from the BUPC. The BUPC included those opposed to the CPM’s plan to acquire local land for industry, some former CPM supporters, and Opposition party workers and was backed by the Trinamul Congress, part of the West Bengal Opposition. News reports and eyewitness accounts noted that CPM cadres fired on BUPC supporters and local villagers, killing at least three and injuring others, burned many houses, and engaged in numerous rapes. On November 27, journalists reported the discovery of mass graves in the area. Following a government order on December 7, the CID initiated an inquiry into the identity of the bodies”.
There is no exaggeration, but understatement. The judgment by the High Court of Calcutta, inexplicably delivered in an inordinate delay after a bigger and more cruel genocide nearly for the whole of November last year, recorded 27 disappearances, 162 injured and half a dozen of rapes.
Karat, Dasgupta, Roy Chowdhury et.al should know that the UNHRC got Nobel Peace Prize twice for defending peace and human rights with their people working with great risks everywhere; why don’t they, then, pull up the UN affiliate instead of aiming at a deliberately wrong target? Dasgupta, arguably a vociferous pro-labour parliamentarian, danced to the tune of the AKG Bhavan honchos. True, without the CPI-M’s support he could not and will not be an MP.
About the CPI’s canine subservience, no elaboration is necessary. Its cadres lined up at the entrance of Coimbatore’s V. O. Chidambaram Ground, the venue of the mass meeting, to greet the first procession led by Sitaram Yechury. That’s the singularly great contribution of the CPI General Secretary, A. B. Bardhan, to his AKG Bhavan bosses.
The UNHRC referred to the Home Ministry’s 2006-2007 Report , revealing “1159 deaths in police custody between April and December 2006”. It makes a crisp reference to violence perpetrated by Naxalites—meaning the Maoists—in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and counter-terrorist excesses by the state too. Left MPs are deceptively silent about this. “Of the 336 individuals killed in Chhatisgarh, 93 were civilians, 170 police personnel (regular forces, as well as Special Police Officers) and 73 were alleged Naxalites. According to Andhra Pradesh Police, Maoists killed 44 civilians throughout the year.” The police too “were responsible for 47 encounter killings of Maoists during the year, compared with 110 in 2006”. Militants of the United Liberation Front of Asom “killed more than 110 persons in bomb attacks in the Dibrugarh, Tinsukia and Sivsagar districts of Assam”, the UNHRC stated. The official Left parties are unperturbed over the matter.
Let me drift a little to tell you a bit about Sudarshan Roy Chowdhury, now a Minister of Higher Education, West Bengal. He was a temporary Maoist during the early period of the Naxalbari revolt, but went back to the CPI-M to regain a safe life and career. He was twice elected an MP too. The other day I was seeing a documentary of the Naxalbari movement, Basanter Dinguli ( Memories of Spring Thunder), written and directed Amar Bhattacharya, one of the many victims of state terror for involvement in the Naxalbari struggle that relived those high-voltage days which catapulted the agrarian imperative to the national arena. Amar did a good job, leave apart our ideological differences. Roy Chowdhury’s active role during the days of ‘spring thunder’ has a mention there.
However, Karat’s role in ‘transferred epithet’—US link to the Nandigram stir—had a hidden purpose. He confirmed that he is an obedient boy of the cash-rich CPI-M’s West Bengal unit which calls the shots from Muzaffar Ahmed Bhavan. Asset values of buildings, constructed and owned by the CPI-M’s district and zonal committees and mass organisations like the CITU, All India Krishak Sabha, morninger Ganashakti and State and Central Government employees’ bodies, may be anything between Rs 300 crores and Rs 400 crores. Karat and other biggies at the A.K. Gopalan Bhavan, the party’s national headquarters, have to keep the M A Bhavan honchos in good humour, shelving ideological issues aside.
Poor Marx, five-star Communists like Karat and Yechury, posing as his disciples, conveniently forgot Marx’s words—“I am human, and nothing human is alien to me”—borrowed from Publius Terentius Afer, the playwright of the Roman Empire, known more as Terence (195-159 BC). Which was why Yechury wasted no time in justifying the mini-genocide at Nandigram on March 14 as if all this was provoked by the peaceful mass, under the banner of the BUPC. Maybe, tomorrow Karat and Yechury will defend the bumptious CPI-M MP—the overlord of Haldia—Lakshman Seth who tried to prevent the CRPF DIG Alok Raj to do his assigned task at Nandigram to help peaceful Panchayat polling there. The mafia face of false Marxism is out in the broad daylight of grim reality, at least in West Bengal. (Mainstream weekly)
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