Naxalite Maoist India

Naxal Revolution Archives

2010-01-01T05:25:00.000+05:30

Given below are some randomly chosen articles from this blog
more information can be accessed by clicking on the categories above
or you can use the search function to dig really deep into this archive for
there are more than 1300 posts in this blog.

Partial Index of Important Documents ( Randomly chosen )

Interviews with Com Ganapathy, Currently
General Secretary of the CPI(Maoist)

Unification is the only way to advance the cause of the Indian revolution'
as General Secretary of CPI(M-L)Peoples War
(1998 - Rediff.com)

The People's War always repay's its blood debt
(2000 Rediff.com )

Reply to letter by Independent Citizen's Initiative
on Dantewada
(2006 cgnet.in)

Interview with Ganapathy, General Secretary, CPI(Maoist)-
(2007 Peoplesmarch )

Other Interviews

Interview with Com. Janaki (Anuradha Gandhy) -

March 2001 issue of Poru Mahila, the organ of Krantikari

Adivasi Mahila Sanghatan, DK.

"India: A Catastrophe or a Break with Imperialism" -Interview with
GN Saibaba of the RDF (Interview by Lars Akerhaug ,Norway, December 2007)

Inside Look at Maoist Strategy in India Part 1 , Part 2 (2008 March)

Interview with G.N Saibaba by Norwegian revolutionary

socialist party Rødt [Red!]

Interview with Naxal Leader Ganesh Ueike
(2006 NDTV )

Exclusive interview with CPI(Maoist) Spokesperson Comrade Azad on
Nepal Developments
(2006 Peoplesmarch)

Naxal Revolution Exclusive - Interview with Mr P Govindan Kutty ,Editor of Peoplesmarch(Voice of the Indian Revolution) - An magazine considered sympathetic to the CPI(Maoist)(2006 Naxalrevolution.blogspot.com)

Chat Transcripts with Vara Vara Rao - A revolutionary writer
based in Andhra Pradesh
(1997 Rediff.com)

"All revolutionary ranks must unite" - Interview with Prasad , CCM of PW
(1998 Rediff.com )

Polemics

CPI(Maoist) Reply to break away faction in Karnataka - The Karnataka
Maoist Swatantra Kendra
(2007 Peoplesmarch )

‘ Maoism or Mao Thought ? ’ - A booklet on ideological debate

published by Janamuktikami Prakashani .

Press Releases of the CPI(Maoist)
Recieved via email from unknown individuals

Press releases of CPI(Maoist)

CPI (Maoist) review of the book "Red Sun" and

author Sudeep Chakravarthi's response

Kranthi Patha - Kannada magazine

Porali - Tamil Magazine - June 2008

Porali - Tamil Magazine - May 2009

Press releases of CPI(Maoist)Karnataka State Committee

History of the Naxalite Movement in India.

Economic and Political Weekly Articles
July 22, 2006

Beyond Naxalbari

Learning from Experience and Analysis

Maoism in India

On Armed Resistance

The Spring and it's Thunder

Maoist Movement in Andhra Pradesh

Response of Comrade AZAD the official
spokesperson of the CPI(Maoist) to EPW articles.
Maoists in India : A Rejoinder

The Naxalite Movement in Central Bihar- By Bela Bhatia

Peasants Speak
Becoming a Naxalite in rural Bihar: Class struggle and its contradictions
George J. Kunnath

Through the Eyes of the Police Naxalites in Calcutta in the 1970s

Naxalite Movement and Cultural Resistance
Experience of Janakiya Samskarika Vedi in Kerala (1980-82)

Andhra Pradesh: Women's Rights and Naxalite Groups

Fatalities : State and Maoist Violence for the years 2005 and 2006

Class Analysis of Indian Agriculture

Naxalites Today

Communist Parties of India List on Wikipedia

The economist-India's Naxalites : A spectre haunting India

Guardian Article Inside India's hidden war - Mineral rights are behind clashes between leftwing guerrillas and state-backed militias

Vice Magazine-In the name of Mao, India pick's up the slaughter

A State at War With its People Anything goes against the Maoist insurgency in Central India

Student Politics

The Life and Struggle in Regional Engineering College, Durgapur
1966 to 1970

Summer of '69 in St Stephen's

Shining Path

Urban Guerillas

Criticisms of Maoists by other Groups/People

SUCI's criticism of the Naxalites

What threatens the State - Arms or Ideology
(springthunder.wordpress.com)

RCP Karnataka Documents

Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was formed by a section of

the members of CPI (Maoist) Karnataka state unit.

RCP Karnataka - Lessons from the experiences of the past 25 years

RCP Karnata -Lessons from the Urban Work Document

A Critique on the Theory and Practice of CPI (Maoist)(Cpiml Red Flag)

Other Articles

A compilation of articles on the History of the Naxalite Movement in India
from various journals by Harsh Thakor

Legacy of Indian Maoism-A Tribute to Tarimala Nagi Reddy’s 30th death anniversary and the 60 th anniversary of the launching of the Telengana Armed Struggle. - By Harsh Thankor

Commemorating 10th death Anniversary of Comrade Ashok Janaradhan
24th JUly1998)-A tribute to Andhra Pradesh Radical Students Union.

In commemoration of 30 years since founding of C.P.I.(M.L) Unity Organisation
- -formed in November 1978. In memory of Comrade Ajoy. (Parimal Sen)

Significance of formation of the Communist Party Reorganization
Centre of India (Marxist Leninist) or the C.P.R.C.I. (M.L)

Burning punjab : A history of communist revolutionaries in punjab
- Compiled from revolutionary Journal the 'Comrade" and from
publications of the 'Surkh Rekha' a democratic journal of Punjab
as well as reports of Lok Morcha , Punjab.

Declaration to reaffirm the significance and relevance of the
anti revisionist struggleand the GPCR - May 2007

25th anniversary year of the founding conference of the
All India Federation of Organizations for Democratic Rights.

Reflections on Revolutionary Violence - Aditya Nigam

Important Web Links

A brief History of the Pro-Maoist Presence on the Internet

Incomplete but comprehensive list of Socialist/Maoist

groups from all over the World

Peoplesmarch

Peoplesmarch Archives on Banned Thought

Peoples-Truth

Maoist Information Bulletin on Banned Thought

Archives of Documents, Statements, and Interviews of Leaders

of CPI(Maoist) on Banned Thought

http://rcpkarnataka.blogspot.com/

http://tamilporali.blogspot.com/

http://rdf-2005.blogspot.com/

http://rpfkerala.blogspot.com/

http://parisar.wordpress.com/
http://redbarricade.blogspot.com/
http://pmsgindia.blogspot.com/
http://dsujnu.blogspot.com/
http://mikeely.wordpress.com/

http://maoistresistance.blogspot.com/

http://laltara.free.fr/

Books

Making History I - By Saki(Saketh Rajan)

Making History II - By Saki

Some Questions regarding Modern Revisionist

literature in the Soviet Union by peking press.

Memories Of a Father - Prof T V Eachara Varier.

A book on slain naxalite sympathizer P Rajan

Liberation archives
http://sanhati.com/liberation/

About Liberation

Liberation, the monthly central organ of the undivided Communist Party of India (Marxist - Leninist) (CPIML), was first published in November 1967. Through intense state repression and terror perpetrated by various political parties, the monthly continued to be published except for a brief hiatus in the early 1970s.

Issues of the monthly will be archived here till 1972.

While studies of the Naxalbari movement have continued over the decades, there has been a conspicuous lack of widespread availability of the literature of its main protagonist, the CPIML. Through this archive, we hope to fill this lacuna, thus enriching the debate for scholars and activists alike.

The archival material has been sourced from the personal collection of Suniti Ghosh, Central Committee member of pre-split CPI(ML).

**************************************************************

Right click on the below link and "Save as" or "Save link as"

Click here to read Liberation, 1967, 1st Issue [PDF, English, 13 MB] »

**************************************************************

For more issues -- http://sanhati.com/liberation/

ChakraVIEW

2009-05-27T09:58:00.000+05:30

Sudeep Chakravarthi author of Red Sun has a new blog called ChakraVIEW
The below post is from his blog

Why does Sharad Pawar still have his job?

I'll get to more of the new government later. Meanwhile, I have one question to ask of the newly elected Congress-led alliance of the United Progressive Alliance: why is Sharad Pawar being given the job of Minister for Agriculture?

Let me tell you a story which might help with the measure of the man.
Not all people, not even in Vidarbha -- India's rural suicide alley -- take their own lives as a reflection of becoming what banks call non-performing assets. Sometimes, they brutally fight back.

On 19 June 2006, still several days away from Manmohan Singh Mark One's visit to Vidarbha, a farmer, Vijay Thakre and his family with sticks and stones beat a moneylender and his associate to death in Pimpalgaon village of Akola district. For good measure, they hacked the moneylender with axes.

Thakre was quite angry, you see. The moneylender, Danode, had loaned Rs 50,000 to him after accepting in mortgage thirteen acres of land Thakre owned-a "medium" farmer. Thakre paid back Rs 300,000-six times the principal. But that wasn't enough for Danode, who took over Thakre's thirteen acres under mortgage. A local politician of the Shiv Sena, Gulabrao Gawande, led a public campaign to get Thakre back his land. But Danode, with the help of his associate Pramod Chanbhare, wouldn't have it.

Thakre wouldn't have it either. Neither would his family. So they did what they did.
Fortunately for the cause of visible peace, many other farmers of Vidarbha were simply content to wait for the prime minister, or die. They would wait, as their then chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, his deputy R.R. Patil, and even the then agriculture minister of India, Sharad Pawar -- also from Maharashtra -- had not bothered to once make even a show-visit to a hut of a farmer-family traumatized by debt and death. Indeed, the buzz in Delhi was that Minister Pawar, who then as now devoted a considerable part of his energies as president of the Board of Control for Cricket of India, was upset with suggestions offered by some officials at the Prime Minister's Office that he hadn't done enough as agriculture minister to sort out the problems of India's farmers in general, and Vidarbha's in particular. So, went the political-media scuttlebutt, Pawar wouldn't show up with the PM.

Better political sense would prevail. When the prime minister arrived on June 30, Pawar, who heads Congress' alliance partner Nationalist Congress Party as part of national government, would be seated to the left of the PM; Chief Minister Deshmukh to his right. Thus ensconced on a well-appointed dais in Amravati, golden curtains to the side, comfortably seated on designed chairs and with bottles of mineral water placed in front on shiny chrome and glass tables-with a banner at the back on plush purple backdrop that proudly proclaimed the PM's meeting with families of "Debt Stressed Farmers"-India's leaders would listen to three dozen pre-selected suicide-struck families.

The interaction would last an hour. "I am aware of your pain and sorrow," the Prime Minister would say, as several people, all in front of him, wiped their eyes. "I know the burden of your debt is like a millstone around your necks." Pawar did not bother with the blather.

He would leave with a promise of debt relief and partial solution even before he left Maharashtra from Nagpur later that day. The photo-op would be smooth-for the record, no one could say the prime minister of India didn't care about the people of India, and that, by extension, the chairperson of the UPA, Sonia Gandhi, didn't care, and so on. This connect was crucial PR.

Before he left for Delhi, Manmohan Singh announced a "crisis mitigation package" of Rs 37.5 billion for six districts of the Vidarbha region, mainly for providing credit to farmers. Both Pawar and Deshmukh took the credit for it. (Pawar would also take credit for the Rs 600 billion of loan waivers announced by then finance minister P. Chidambaram, primarily for farmers in suicide-prone and drought-prone areas; though not for the glitches of the scheme.)

It would hardly prove a salve for seven farmers, who would kill themselves within five days of the PM's departure. The announced package would come too late for them, being more than a month behind any credit they could have used for summer sowing, or kharif season.

By July, the rate of suicides would be quite dramatic: one farmer every five hours. (If it matters to you, more people die of farming-related suicides in a year in India than those that make the cut in Indian Institutes of Technology. And they are dying as you read this.)

By January 2007, Chief Minister Deshmukh would tell a major Indian newspaper, "Farmer suicides will be zero. This is my vision." Pawar made no such statements.

Perhaps both Pawar and Deshmukh should have listened closely to the Divisional Commissioner of Amravati, Sudhir Kumar Goyal, who speaks of farmers struggling for survival in a flawed system amidst adversity, without adequate help and proper guidance. He would urge policymakers to focus on low-cost farming with micro-watershed development. 'We allocate Rs 450 billion for irrigation on 15 per cent of cultivable area and only Rs 40 billion for watershed development on 85 per cent of the rain fed area. Hybrid food varieties do not yield seeds and fodder.' He would talk of the root causes of indebtedness, in a manner India's minister for agriculture and food, and the chief minister of Maharashtra, ought to have spoken: 'Wrong agricultural practices, unbridled market forces, and inadequate protection against the vagaries of nature.'

But Chief Minister Deshmukh would not talk about these issues in his interview. He would also play things down in his unabashed public relations outing, while inadvertently letting slip other disturbing data. That Maharashtra accounted for only 15 per cent of the one hundred thousand farmer suicides in India in recent years. He would play Vidarbha down further, as tender mercy. "Did you know," he would ask, "that in Mumbai 4,000 people commit suicide annually?"

The kinder, gentler, chief minister. Well, at least Deshmukh lost the position of chief minister after the terror attack on Mumbai in November 2009. Even his friend Pawar could not help him.

Meanwhile, Pawar remains directly responsible for the misery of a great many of India's farmers, and their ongoing deaths. In addition, he is directly responsible for the chaos and churn of India's food pricing and agriculture importation machinery that will affect the livelihood of millions of farmers at the cost of enriching food exporters of developed countries, and that great blight, middlemen and deal-sweetener specialists in India. Even with the pressures of coalition politics, why does this man still have his job?

A Critique on the Theory and Practice of CPI (Maoist)

2009-05-23T22:39:00.002+05:30

By Karthik

Concrete analysis of the concrete situation and applying Marxist-Leninist theory according to concrete conditions are basic criteria for developing the strategic line and evolving necessary tactics or path of revolution in each country. Deviation from this basic principle degenerates the movement to either right opportunist or ‘left’ sectarian, anarchist trends. It is also the experience of the communist movement in India.

In the pre-1947 period, in spite of the growth of the movement at all India level due to vacillation to both right and ‘left’ influence, the CPI leadership failed to establish the working class leadership in the national liberation movement and often reduced itself to tailing behind the Congress. Again during the post-1947 years, once again failing to correctly analyse the international and national situation, developing the path of revolution according to concrete conditions here, it withdrew the Telangana struggle and went under the influence of Soviet revisionism when it emerged.

Though rebelling against the Dangeist leadership, the CPI(M) was born, the failure to concretely analyse the conditions in India and the class character of the big bourgeoisie, to take lessons from the struggle of the CPC under Mao’s leadership against the revisionist leadership of CPSU soon led it to abandoning the agrarian revolution and the line of the People’s Democratic Revolution in practice.

When CPI(ML) was born fighting against the revisionism of CPI and neo-revisionism of the CPI(M) though it upheld the path of agrarian revolution as part of the ‘New’ or People’s Democratic Revolution, coming under the sway of the ‘left’ sectarian line then dominating the CPC and failing to apply Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in the concrete conditions of India, it deviated soon to a sectarian line upholding the individual annihilation as a short cut to launch guerilla struggle, got isolated from the revolutionary masses and suffered severe setbacks, splintering to many groups. The practice indulged in by the CPI (Maoist) shows that it has not bothered to study the experience of the movement at all and the consequences of its own practice.

What it did before and during this Lok Sabha elections in the name of ‘boycott’ of election alone is sufficient to prove how much damaging it is becoming to the revolutionary movement in this country. In the columns of this journal itself numerous instances of anarchist actions indulged by it creating loss of life and severe damages to ordinary people were pointed out. How its own counter productive squad actions and annihilations in AP where it was boasting about base areas and then guerilla zones once ultimately have led to surrender of large number of its squad members and followers, elimination of its top leaders and decimation of its influence is accepted by its own leadership. In spite of all these it is continuing individual annihilations and sporadic squad actions which are ultimately helping the enemy to use them as a pretext to intensify fascistic suppression preventing mass mobilisations and mass struggles.

Contradiction in its Programmatic Approach
The Comintern (Communist International), the 1957 Moscow declaration, 1960 Moscow Statement and Proposal Concerning the General Line of ICM of 1963 point out that there are four major contradictions at international level. It was after the Theory of Three Worlds was put forward by the capitalist roaders in China the contradiction between socialism and imperialism started disappearing from the documents of the parties under Dengist influence. It took long seven years for the erstwhile CPI(ML) People’s War group to denounce the capitalist roaders who usurped power in China. But still the CPI(Maoist) has not restored this major contradiction showing the continuation of the influence of the Theory of Three World in its thinking.

Its analysis of India as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country under neo-colonial form of imperialist indirect rule, exploitation and control is self-contradictory and exposes its ignorance about both the terms, semi-colonial and neo-colonial. Lenin has explained that under colonial system there are three type of countries — colonial, semi-colonial and dependent. As Lenin and following him Mao had pointed out semi-colonial is a country in a transition where the colonisation is not yet completed. As far as India is concerned, colonisation started here from the time of Plassy war and it continued under semi-colonial transition stage till the First War of Independence of 1857-58, after the defeat of which India became a colony under British crown. In China the colonisation continued, but it remained in the transition stage, and so it was called semi-colonial.

The neo-colonial forms of imperialist domination was initiated after the World War II, with US imperialism replacing British imperialism as the leading power and introduced IMF-World Bank-MNCs and other neo-colonial tools of exploitation along with ‘de-colonisation’ to remove all restrictions for the entry of finance capital of all imperialist countries. Following many articles published in Cominform journals and in the 1950s, the CPC has explained neo-colonialism well in the Fourth Comment of the Great Debate in 1963: Apologists of Neo colonialism.

As the inner-party struggle intensified within the CPC with the overthrow of Liu-Deng forces followed by Lin Biaosit ‘left’ deviation coming into ascendance, the theoretical discussion on neo-colonialism did not advance, and for a time both semi-colonial and neo-colonial were used synonymously in an erratic form. Later many of the ML groups abandoned neo-colonial concept and reverted to calling India semi-colonial in spite of the 1970 Party Programme of CPI(ML) analysing India as a “neo-colony of US imperialism and Soviet social imperialism”. That
CPI(Maoist) is using these words ecclectically without understanding them is clear from their analysis of Indian situation.

In para 10 of CPI(Maoist) Programme it is stated: “after the end of direct colonial rule imperialism adopted new forms of indirect rule, exploitation and control of the nations and countries subordinated to them. That is called neo-colonialism”. If so why stick to semi-colonial religiously, to a category Lenin used to explain countries where colonisation was started, but not completed? Then its programme further explains that “the domination and control of the imperialist finance capital in every sphere of our life — economic, political, military and cultural — continue to increase further and further”. But the consequences of it and imposition of neo-liberal policies, it refuses to admit.

Instead it religiously talks about feudalism still remaining as social prop of imperialism, as a fundamental contradiction, repeatedly call India semi-feudal and talks about continuation of share cropping. In short it refuses to see the vast changes that have taken place in all walks of life including the agrarian sector where old feudal landlords are overwhelmingly replaced by agricultural bourgeoisie and rich peasants under neo-colonisation. Marxism is understood as a dogma, not as a science.

Instead of “seeking truth from facts”, refusing to make a concrete analysis of present situation, it has cooked up Indian condition to suit the mechanical adoption of the strategy of “protracted people’s war” which was developed and applied in the then concrete conditions of China. Then Mao’s quotations are utilised mechanically refusing to see the basic differences of pre-revolutionary China with present day India. As Mao has explained, in China after the split with the Kuomintang, the CPC was also leading an army, and thereafter the conflict was a military one in the course of which guerilla tactics were utilised.

That is why Mao’s writings of this period are called military writings dealing with the theory and practice of the military conflict between red army and the Kuomintang army. It is yet another grievous mistake like misinterpreting the war of annihilation explained in Mao’s writings as the line of individual annihilation which caused severe setback to the movement, and which is still religiously pursued by the CPI(Maoist).

In the programme and in the Strategy and Tactics of revolution is has accepted communist party as the vanguard of the proletariat, that the NDR and agrarian revolution should be led by the proletariat, and that working class is more than seven crores in strength. But its entire practice shows that this cardinal question is not at all given any importance when in reality the strength of the working class is about 15-20 crores and without politicalising them and establishing their practical leadership in the field neither the NDR can be led to victory nor the setbacks like the ones suffered in former socialist countries can be prevented.

The question of working class is mentioned just as a theoretical cliche de-linked from practice. A study of its documents reveal that the Indian situation is understood without any concrete analysis, cutting the leg according to the size of the shoes. It is this mechanical approach and ecclectical thinking which has led it to outright anarchist practice harming the revolutionary movement. It was Lenin who taught that both Mensheviks and Narodniks ultimately serve the ruling system.

Consequences of Anarchist Practice
In the last decade, as the neo-liberal policies have started intensifying the miseries of the vast masses, numerous mass upsurges, even spontaneous movements have broken out challenging the ruling system. There are reports of such big and small struggles from different states involving millions of people. Singur, Nandigram, Chilka, Kalinganagar, Posco, Kashipur are some among them. In Chattisgarh itself against the privatisation of Sivnath river there was a long drawn struggle as a result of which the then Congress government had to withdraw some of its disastrous clauses.

Then when the BJP government decided to sanction three SEZs in the state and issued notification to procure about 7000 acres of agricultural land belonging to 25-30 villages the farmers were mobilised and after a militant movement the government was forced to suspend all SEZs. Both these movements were led by CPI(ML). But what is the case in Bastar districts where CPI(Maoist) claims to have base areas sometimes and guerilla zone at other times. Tata-Essar has launched a project there to carry the rich iron ore from Bailadila through pipe line to Visakhapattnam. ‘Maoists’ have declared that such projects for looting the natural resources damaging environment and uprooting tens of thousands of adivasi families will not be allowed.

But according to available reports Tata-Essar has built 375 kms of pipe line already. On the one hand, neither the ‘Maoists’ nor the government though black laws enforced and forces deployed in the name of Salwa Judum to fight ‘Maoists’ allow any mass movements in the area. On the other hand, both of them in effect serve the corporates to build the project while in nearby Rajanandgaon district a mass movement could prevent the SEZ. These facts are revealing.

And what is the result of the election boycott of ‘Maoists’ in this area? Both in 2003 and 2008 assembly elections, the voting was almost 60% and BJP considered the number one enemy by the ‘Maoists’ won 11 out of the 12 seats. There are not reports of any organised democratic mass movement of the adivasis and of agrarian struggle with land to the tiller slogan led by them from this area. In the current Lok Sabha elections also the media gave lots of publicity to their boycott call. When the CPI(Maoist) programme calls for “raising the slogan ‘Boycott election is a democratic right’ on a mass scale”, even when there is a provision now in the ballot to express dissent, so far there are no instances of such a campaign by them even from their ‘base areas’ or ‘guerilla zones’.

What they do is mining election booths or killing polling staff, terrorising the people to prevent voting. If polling is disturbed in some booths as a result, re-polling is done in the same area after a couple of days. Are they going nearer to their capture of political power by indulging in these terror tactics in a negligible number of booths? If the government decides to close down the parliamentary system and go for a vote-less dictatorship, will they consider it more democratic? Their approach to election boycott is proved absurd similar to their claims about stopping Tata-Essar and allowing them to go ahead with the project comfortably after paying ransom.

Are They Ready to Rectify the Anarchist Path?
The communist parties are trying to learn from the past mistakes which led to the severe setbacks to the ICM and rebuild the movement in all countries. No organisation worth the name of a communist party can address the people today by repeating that everything was fine except for some individuals like Krushchov, Deng, and the CPI-CPI(M) leadership. How could revisionism emerge and destroy all the former socialist countries ?

How could Vietnam after such a heroic struggle and historic victory degenerate so fast? What happened to the much acclaimed Philippines and Peru movements? Why did the Maoists in Nepal had to change their path? How can CPI(Maoist) explain their setback in AP and their influence almost disappearing in a number of states? How the theory and practice of proletarian revolution can be developed when “the domination and control of the imperialist finance capital in every sphere of our life — economic, political, military and cultural — continue to increase further and further”? How can the party be built up with “centralism based on democracy” after most or even almost all of the parties built up under Communist International have degenerated as bureaucratic organisations ?

How the bureaucratisation evident even in ‘Maoist’ parties can be overcome? Similarly, can we close our eyes to the sea-change that has happened in India compared to the conditions of pre-revolutionary China? All these and many more question are raised by not the enemies but the friends of revolution and even common masses nowadays.

The provocation for writing this observation is the drama of the election boycott organised by the CPI(Maoist) in the first two phase of the Lok Sabha elections, even by hijacking a passenger train terrorising almost seven hundred common people travelling in that. Marxist teachers down to Mao teaches that it is the people who create history, revolution is the festival of the masses. The role of the communist party is to politicise the masses, organise them and lead them towards revolution. History teaches that the experience of the revolutionary struggle in any country cannot be copied and repeated in any other country mechanically. If it is tried, first time it will be a tragedy, then a farce. So let the CPI(Maoist) stop acting like contractors of revolution. Let us try to study how to build the Party in this vast country with almost 120 crores of people, out of them almost 20 crores of workers in organised and unorganised sectors, as the real vanguard of the proletariat in the true Marxist-Leninist sense, rectifying past mistakes, making concrete analysis of the international and national situation, and ready to develop our theoretical understanding and practice based on it.

From the CPI(M-L) Red Flag journal

Blady Indian Dogs

2009-05-14T20:48:00.001+05:30

Anti India sentiments are running very high in Nepal currently

More pictures from nepal rally

Clueless cops turn sitting ducks in Naxal land

2009-05-14T20:44:00.000+05:30

Agencies.Raipur, May 13:
This month Maoist rebels in Chhattisgarh have killed over 30 people, most of them security personnel. Security experts are saying the police are not following "basic points" of insurgency warfare and were thus often reduced to "sitting ducks".

The latest bout of criticism has come after 12 policemen and the driver of one of their buses were killed Sunday in the state's Dhamtari district, a new area of operation for the rebels, who had earlier been concentrated further south in the state's Bastar region.

In Dhamtari, about 150 armed rebels ambushed a 41-strong police team travelling in three vehicles. As the rebels' landmine blast tossed the vehicles up in the air, the Maoists started spraying bullets at the hapless policemen.

For about 16 hours, the police headquarters here did not have a clear idea of what had happened. Only around noon Monday did the officials say 12 men of their district force and a driver had been killed. Several of the bodies were found disfigured and charred and police are still to match each name to each mutilated body.

"The tenets of jungle warfare must be followed. I keep advising trainees they must follow 48 points and on top of the list is never use vehicles in jungle roads for operation purposes," Brigadier (retd.) B.K. Ponwar, director of the Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC), said.

"Vehicles should be used only for carriage of ration, stores and ammunition. But the forces are not following the basic points."

The CTJWC was set up by the Chhattisgarh government in 2005 in Kanker town of Bastar region, hardly 50 km from the site where guerrillas attacked the police convoy in Dhamtari. The college is meant to train policemen to "take on guerrillas like a guerrilla".

"As long as warfare points are not followed the policemen will continue to get killed as happened in Dhamtari. I don't know who ordered forces to go inside a hilly area riding vehicles without the road being cleared of landmines," Ponwar said.

"I keep insisting in warfare training for the policemen to go into the jungles with multi-directional assault plan but no one is ready to follow these basic things despite knowing 95 percent casualties in Chhattisgarh are linked to landmine blasts."

Before Sunday's killings, on May 5, a senior leader of state's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was shot dead in Rajnandgaon district and a day after rebels ambushed 11 people included seven policemen in Dantewada district.

On May 7, the insurgents brutally killed Pharasgaon police station in-charge Abdul Wahid Khan in full public view in Narayanpur district. The killing took place within 150 metres of Pharasgaon police station and a camp of the Central Reserve Police Force's 39th battalion but no one intervened.

The string of attacks forced Chief Minister Raman Singh to chair an emergency meet with top police officers here May 8. After the meeting, Home Minister Nankiram Kanwar announced: "Police will answer bullets with bullets and there will be no peace talk with rebels by the state government".

The rebels responded within two days with the ambush at Dhamtari, which was carefully planned, with the policemen led into a trap by a tipoff which proved to be fake.

A senior officer at police headquarters here said Tuesday: "We are still not sure which officer took the decision to send a 41-member convoy, most of them constables of the District Force, without a senior officer to lead them. It looks like they were just led into a trap. There was not even any back-up. Other forces reached the spot 16 hours after the ambush, just to collect the disfigured bodies."

Another senior police officer who has spent years in Bastar told: "We do not seem to have a strategy now. We haven't had one since April, when (Director General of Police) Vishwaranjan, was forced to go on long leave by the Election Commission.

"As far as I can see, the police force deployed for anti-Maoist operations is now just acting as sitting ducks. There is no coordination at the higher levels. We're just hoping against hope that we can prevail against Maoists."

Central Chronicle

Sri Lankan Army makes shocking discoveries in captured LTTE territories

2009-05-07T22:11:00.002+05:30

From puligal.blogspot.com

Since most of you do not have time to read through all of their fascinating articles, I will highlight the accomplishments of the Sri Lankan army's last 8 days in PTK here:

( picture source: http://www.defence.lk/img/20090226_17.jpg )

"Terrorist toilet recovered in PTK after heavy damages dealt to LTTE. Security forces are still searching for the toilet brush, suspected of having been burried as the LTTE withdrew. Intercepted terrorist radio communications indicate senior LTTE leaders were present on the front lines to defend this toilet at all costs. Soldiers are presently searching the toilet to disable any mines or booby traps the LTTE may have left before they allow security forces to use it. The presence of a stainless steel flush knob indicates a foreign hand, probably NGOs, working hand in hand with the terrorists. It is reported one Tamil civilian, obviously being used as a human shield, came running out in a shocked manner as the security forces broke down the locked door. The presence of an obnoxious odor seems to suggest the LTTE was using this toilet to store some form of chemical or biological weapons. Photos of other notable discoveries included below."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01l.jpg )

"Used terrorist cell phone recharge card. Security forces were dissappointed that it had already been used and had no more validity."

( picture source: http://www.defence.lk/img/20090226_04.jpg )

"Terrorist carrom board. Security forces are looking for where the terrorists have burried the striker and dots. If they are unable to find them, suggestions are to reopen A-9 early and have the dots supplied from Colombo."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01t.jpg )

"Security forces capture LTTE leader Anton Balasingham. So far he refuses to tell interrogators anything. He has also reportedly refused all attempts to feed him. If he continues to refuse food, security forces may have to resort to force feeding."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01N.jpg )

"Terrorist baby mosquito protector recovered by security forces. This was obviously used by terrorist babies so they wouldn't be bitten by mosquitos as they planned their terroristic attacks. The security forces have developed unique screening methods to identify terrorist babies from ordinary civilian babies, which they are employing at all screening centers to seperate out the terrorist babies."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01u.jpg )

"Terrorist plastic waste basket cover. This clearly reveals dark secrets about the LTTE's garbage recycling plans."

( picture source: http://defence.lk/img/20090228_01y.jpg )

"A terrorist black and white laser printer, obviously used for making fake passports and printing counterfeit currency notes."

Pictures of LTTE and Prabhakaran

2009-05-07T20:08:00.011+05:30

25 years later the LTTE is back
right where it started.

Waiting to see what the Maoist response will be
to the defeat of the LTTE ? and
What do the Maoists attribute the LTTE's defeat to ?
What influence will it have on the armed struggle
in India ?

I hope we can find answers to these questions soon.

You can ignore the SLA commentary printed on
the photos below.

Pictures recovered from Prabhakaran's Personal Photo Albums

Pictures From
http://www.army.lk/detailed.php?NewsId=369

Regarding the comments on the pictures

The Sri Lankan government has recently released some old family pictures of LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and claimed they show Prabhakaran living a very luxurious life. I am sure everyone in the world has pictures of themselves celebrating some special occasion. There is nothing wrong with celebrating a special occasion with a feast. Defence.lk is trying to twist the photos to suggest every single day Prabhakaran is living a luxurious life, but the fact that he has refused to be bought out for years proves this is not the case - he is not interested in money or a luxurious lifestyle.

They say Prabhakaran gave special treatment to his own son, but sent other people's sons to fight. But Prabhakaran's son was leading from the front lines last month when he was injured in combat. Prabhakaran is willing to let his son fight and die on the front lines for the cause of the Tamil people.

The Sri Lankan government continuously tries to benefit from contradictory statements. They will simultaneously say Charles Anthony was injured on the front lines, but then they will say he is protected and living a luxurious life in a foreign country. They are unable to make up their mind which story to publicize, so they foolishly publish both versions which are mutually contradictory.

They show a picture taken during peace times of Prabhakaran's son celebrating his birthday. During peace time there was no shortage of food, or difficulties for the people. Do they expect Prabhakran's 6 year old son should be dressed in military dress during peace time on his birthday? Again they show a picture of Prabhakaran's son riding a bicycle during the peace times, claiming it is somehow wrong for a child to ride a bicycle.

They show a picture of an NGO worker eating on the beach during the peace time, and claim there is something wrong with that. Do NGO workers not eat food? Should NGO workers live off of air? Again, this picture was taken during peace time when there was plenty of food for everyone. It was not like it is now in the no fire zone, where the Sri Lankan government denies food to more than 150,000 civilians, while the government leaders enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo.

There have already been a number of starvation deaths reported inside the government detention camps. While the Sri Lankan government lets imprisoned Tamil civilians die of starvation in their custody, the leaders like Rajapaksa enjoy sumptuous meals in Colombo and on international trips. Take for example the fact that during a short period of less than 2 years (2006 to 2007), Mahinda Rajapaksa spent around 473 million rupees on trips abroad. This same person wants to criticize Prabhakaran for giving a birthday cake to his son in 2002 during peace times.

Let anyone who wants to criticize old family photos first look at the house, car and food that Mahinda Rajapaksa uses today. Maybe Defence.lk can show us photos, side by side, of Prabhakaran's place of residence, fighting with his people in the no fire zone, compared to Mahinda Rajapaksa's luxurious house in Colombo.

From

http://puligal.blogspot.com/2009/05/tamils-in-concentration-camps-die-of.html

Crores on propaganda shows rulers desperate: Azad, CPI(Maoist))

2009-05-02T08:39:00.003+05:30

Comrade Azad, spokesperson, central committee, CPI (Maoist), talks about why his party has called for an election boycott, how it plans to implement it, why Left-led Third Front government is out of the question as they are trying to brand themselves secular only to grab power. Azad spares no one, whether it is L K Advani, Congress, Mayawati or Prakash Karat, calling them opportunists.

This is one of the biggest elections with about a billion voters participating. Don't you see it as people's growing faith in parliamentary democracy?
Certainly not. Every day, media, central and state governments and all contesting parties are dinning into the ears of people to exercise their vote. This shows the desperation of the ruling classes. Crores are being spent on propaganda alone. They are so scared that they cannot imagine allowing voters the minimum democratic right to reject parties and candidates contesting the elections.

Your party has called for poll boycott. But involvement of people in elections seems to be growing.
There is neither any interest nor involvement of people in the elections. Even the narrow base of some parties has taken a beating this time. Contrary to images you see on TV, the involvement of people has declined compared to earlier elections. Hence, the desperate attempt by rulers to rope in film stars, cricketers and popular personalities into publicity campaigns to educate people regarding the virtues of parliamentary democracy, and about the great responsibility of citizens in casting their votes.

Left parties are trying to build a non-BJP, non-Congress alternative at the Centre. What is your view on the Third Front?
The Third Front forged by CPI and CPM as a secular democratic front comprising non-Congress, non-BJP forces is actually a congregation of self-seeking discredited opportunists, all of whom have proved to be hypocrites and double-dealers in their respective states. Who needs to be taught about the infamous history of a Chandrababu Naidu, a Jayalalitha, a Mayawati, a Deve Gowda, a Naveen Patnaik? These leaders and their parties, who had, at one time or the other, shared power with the Hindu chauvinist BJP, are being given secular-democratic image by the Left.

The Karats, Yechuris and other power brokers of the so-called Left had churned out the slogan of anti-communalism to justify their alignment with the most loyal agent of imperialists, Congress, during the 2004 elections. Now, these opportunists see anti-communalism in parties like TDP, BSP, AAIDMK, JD(U) and BJD, all of whom had never really demarcated themselves from communal BJP, and have no compunction in striking an alliance with it if it gave them a share in power. For our Marxist ideologues, all these forces have suddenly become secular. One should not be surprised if they once again become the tail of Congress after the election.

Why do you say that?
Just see. They found secularism, anti-imperialism and democratic moorings among parties such as TDP, a party which was first to transform a state into a laboratory of the World Bank and is responsible for the murder of over 2,000 Maoist revolutionaries besides the high-level of corruption of the regime led by Chandrababu Naidu. There are other opportunists such as Jayalalitha's AIADMK that had become infamous for the scale of corruption, abuse of power and fascist suppression of people's struggles in TN; Naveen Patnaik's BJD has sold the state to imperialists and proved itself to be executioner for the imperialists by massacring adivasis in Kaliga Nagar, POSCO, etc, besides protecting saffron hoodlums as they went about killing, raping and persecuting Christians. Deve Gowda's JD(S) shared power with BJP and broke with it only when the latter wanted a greater share of power; you have Mayawati who would do anything to grab power whether it be power-sharing with the BJP on rotational basis, or striking an alliance with Brahmins and subordinating Dalits to upper-caste Hindus, besides crushing all opponents ruthlessly.

The Third Front has certainly weakened the two major alliances, NDA and UPA, and has led to further fragmentation of Indian polity.

How will you take your boycott campaign to the people?
We began after EC declared the poll schedule. Our stand has been made clear to people through circulars, press statements, interviews, leaflets, posters, wall writings. Cultural teams stage performances among the people. We will carry this out till the last phase of elections. It also includes questioning candidates and party members, gheraoing them, making them confess their misdeeds before the people.

Then there is active boycott where we prevent candidates from carrying out their campaigns in villages and smaller urban centres in our areas. We warn the parties not to venture out into our areas. When they do not heed our warnings, we stop their campaign, beat them up if they are notorious elements, burn their vehicles, conduct people's courts where possible and make the party representatives confess the misdeeds of their respective parties and seek apology from the people. They are let off after they agree not to come to the villages again. We carry out counter-offensive actions against police and central forces who are used by the reactionary rulers to enforce elections at gun-point. Basically our active boycott too is a political campaign though we undertake some actions aimed at destroying enemy forces.

What about the growing impact of regional parties?
The elections this time are the most complex, most crisis-ridden and most fragmented. Extreme instability and contradictions plague every party and candidate. No party or candidate seems to be certain of the poll outcome. Hence they are resorting to all sorts of gimmicks to attract the apathetic voter. The desertion by the Left, Lalu's RJD, Mulayam's SP, Paswan's LJP, Ramdoss's PMK have left Congress and the UPA in a pathetic condition. Likewise, BJP and its NDA allies have lost support of strong allies like BJD, AIADMK and several smaller parties. Neither BJP nor Congress is in a position to hold their respective alliances together and centrifugal tendencies will continue to weaken these further.

What is the alternative Maoists are offering to parliamentary democracy?
The alternative is people's democracy where it is the people, and not a few moneybags, who decide the destiny of the country and their own lives. It is genuine democracy as seen from the grassroots level to the top and not vice versa. You can see e grassroots democracy at work in the vast tracts of Dandakaranya where Maoists are running a parallel government. There, people are supreme and decisions are made through gram sabhas, assemblies of the people and not by invisible hands. The people's courts, of course, will be refined further but the content remains the same, deliverance of real and speedy justice by taking the side of the oppressed, persecuted people.

Times of India

Password Trivia

2009-05-01T00:15:00.002+05:30

MySpace Passwords Aren't So Dumb

How good are the passwords people are choosing to protect their computers and online accounts?

It's a hard question to answer because data is scarce. But recently, a colleague sent me some spoils from a MySpace phishing attack: 34,000 actual user names and passwords.

The attack was pretty basic. The attackers created a fake MySpace login page, and collected login information when users thought they were accessing their own account on the site. The data was forwarded to various compromised web servers, where the attackers would harvest it later.

MySpace estimates that more than 100,000 people fell for the attack before it was shut down. The data I have is from two different collection points, and was cleaned of the small percentage of people who realized they were responding to a phishing attack. I analyzed the data, and this is what I learned.

Password Length: While 65 percent of passwords contain eight characters or less, 17 percent are made up of six characters or less. The average password is eight characters long.

Specifically, the length distribution looks like this:

1-4	0.82 percent
5	1.1 percent
6	15 percent
7	23 percent
8	25 percent
9	17 percent
10	13 percent
11	2.7 percent
12	0.93 percent
13-32	0.93 percent

Yes, there's a 32-character password: "1ancheste23nite41ancheste23nite4." Other long passwords are "fool2thinkfool2thinkol2think" and "dokitty17darling7g7darling7."

Character Mix: While 81 percent of passwords are alphanumeric, 28 percent are just lowercase letters plus a single final digit -- and two-thirds of those have the single digit 1. Only 3.8 percent of passwords are a single dictionary word, and another 12 percent are a single dictionary word plus a final digit -- once again, two-thirds of the time that digit is 1.

numbers only	1.3 percent
letters only	9.6 percent
alphanumeric	81 percent
non-alphanumeric	8.3 percent

Only 0.34 percent of users have the user name portion of their e-mail address as their password.

Common Passwords: The top 20 passwords are (in order):

password1, abc123, myspace1, password, blink182, qwerty1, fuckyou, 123abc, baseball1, football1, 123456, soccer, monkey1, liverpool1, princess1, jordan23, slipknot1, superman1, iloveyou1 andmonkey. (Different analysis here.)

The most common password, "password1," was used in 0.22 percent of all accounts. The frequency drops off pretty fast after that: "abc123" and "myspace1" were only used in 0.11 percent of all accounts, "soccer" in 0.04 percent and "monkey" in 0.02 percent.

For those who don't know, Blink 182 is a band. Presumably lots of people use the band's name because it has numbers in its name, and therefore it seems like a good password. The band Slipknot doesn't have any numbers in its name, which explains the 1. The password "jordan23" refers to basketball player Michael Jordan and his number. And, of course, "myspace" and "myspace1" are easy-to-remember passwords for a MySpace account. I don't know what the deal is with monkeys.

We used to quip that "password" is the most common password. Now it's "password1." Who said users haven't learned anything about security?

But seriously, passwords are getting better. I'm impressed that less than 4 percent were dictionary words and that the great majority were at least alphanumeric. Writing in 1989, Daniel Klein was able to crack (.gz) 24 percent of his sample passwords with a small dictionary of just 63,000 words, and found that the average password was 6.4 characters long.

And in 1992 Gene Spafford cracked (.pdf) 20 percent of passwords with his dictionary, and found an average password length of 6.8 characters. (Both studied Unix passwords, with a maximum length at the time of 8 characters.) And they both reported a much greater percentage of all lowercase, and only upper- and lowercase, passwords than emerged in the MySpace data. The concept of choosing good passwords is getting through, at least a little.

On the other hand, the MySpace demographic is pretty young. Another password study (.pdf) in November looked at 200 corporate employee passwords: 20 percent letters only, 78 percent alphanumeric, 2.1 percent with non-alphanumeric characters, and a 7.8-character average length. Better than 15 years ago, but not as good as MySpace users. Kids really are the future.

None of this changes the reality that passwords have outlived their usefulness as a serious security device. Over the years, password crackers have been getting faster and faster. Current commercial products can test tens -- even hundreds -- of millions of passwords per second. At the same time, there's a maximum complexity to the passwords average people are willing to memorize (.pdf). Those lines crossed years ago, and typical real-world passwords are now software-guessable. AccessData'sPassword Recovery Toolkit would have been able to crack 23 percent of the MySpace passwords in 30 minutes, 55 percent in 8 hours.

Of course, this analysis assumes that the attacker can get his hands on the encrypted password file and work on it offline, at his leisure; i.e., that the same password was used to encrypt an e-mail, file or hard drive. Passwords can still work if you can prevent offline password-guessing attacks, and watch for online guessing. They're also fine in low-value security situations, or if you choose really complicated passwords and use something like Password Safe to store them. But otherwise, security by password alone is pretty risky.

Via Wired

Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan

2009-04-17T16:33:00.002+05:30

Taliban Exploit Class Rifts to Gain Ground in Pakistan

Rashid Iqbal/European Pressphoto Agency

Supporters of Islamic law on Thursday in the Swat Valley, a Pakistani region where the Taliban exploited class rifts to gain control.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban have advanced deeper into Pakistan by engineering a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants, according to government officials and analysts here.

The strategy cleared a path to power for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, where the government allowed Islamic law to be imposed this week, and it carries broad dangers for the rest of Pakistan, particularly the militants’ main goal, the populous heartland of Punjab Province.

In Swat, accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about four dozen landlords who held the most power.

To do so, the militants organized peasants into armed gangs that became their shock troops, the residents, government officials and analysts said.

The approach allowed the Taliban to offer economic spoils to people frustrated with lax and corrupt government even as the militants imposed a strict form of Islam through terror and intimidation.

“This was a bloody revolution in Swat,” said a senior Pakistani official who oversees Swat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Taliban. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it sweeps the established order of Pakistan.”

The Taliban’s ability to exploit class divisions adds a new dimension to the insurgency and is raising alarm about the risks to Pakistan, which remains largely feudal.

Unlike India after independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained a narrow landed upper class that kept its vast holdings while its workers remained subservient, the officials and analysts said. Successive Pakistani governments have since failed to provide land reform and even the most basic forms of education and health care. Avenues to advancement for the vast majority of rural poor do not exist.

Analysts and other government officials warn that the strategy executed in Swat is easily transferable to Punjab, saying that the province, where militant groups are already showing strength, is ripe for the same social upheavals that have convulsed Swat and the tribal areas.

Mahboob Mahmood, a Pakistani-American lawyer and former classmate of President Obama’s, said, “The people of Pakistan are psychologically ready for a revolution.”

Sunni militancy is taking advantage of deep class divisions that have long festered in Pakistan, he said. “The militants, for their part, are promising more than just proscriptions on music and schooling,” he said. “They are also promising Islamic justice, effective government and economic redistribution.”

The Taliban strategy in Swat, an area of 1.3 million people with fertile orchards, vast plots of timber and valuable emerald mines, unfolded in stages over five years, analysts said.

The momentum of the insurgency built in the past two years, when the Taliban, reinforced by seasoned fighters from the tribal areas with links to Al Qaeda, fought the Pakistani Army to a standstill, said a Pakistani intelligence agent who works in the Swat region.

The insurgents struck at any competing point of power: landlords and elected leaders — who were usually the same people — and an underpaid and unmotivated police force, said Khadim Hussain, a linguistics and communications professor at Bahria University in Islamabad, the capital.

At the same time, the Taliban exploited the resentments of the landless tenants, particularly the fact that they had many unresolved cases against their bosses in a slow-moving and corrupt justice system, Mr. Hussain and residents who fled the area said.

Their grievances were stoked by a young militant, Maulana Fazlullah, who set up an FM radio station in 2004 to appeal to the disenfranchised. The broadcasts featured easy-to-understand examples using goats, cows, milk and grass. By 2006, Mr. Fazlullah had formed a ragtag force of landless peasants armed by the Taliban, said Mr. Hussain and former residents of Swat.

At first, the pressure on the landlords was subtle. One landowner was pressed to take his son out of an English-speaking school offensive to the Taliban. Others were forced to make donations to the Taliban.

Then, in late 2007, Shujaat Ali Khan, the richest of the landowners, his brothers and his son, Jamal Nasir, the mayor of Swat, became targets.

After Shujaat Ali Khan, a senior politician in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, narrowly missed being killed by a roadside bomb, he fled to London. A brother, Fateh Ali Mohammed, a former senator, left, too, and now lives in Islamabad. Mr. Nasir also fled.

Later, the Taliban published a “most wanted” list of 43 prominent names, said Muhammad Sher Khan, a landlord who is a politician with the Pakistan Peoples Party, and whose name was on the list. All those named were ordered to present themselves to the Taliban courts or risk being killed, he said. “When you know that they will hang and kill you, how will you dare go back there?” Mr. Khan, hiding in Punjab, said in a telephone interview. “Being on the list meant ‘Don’t come back to Swat.’ ”

One of the main enforcers of the new order was Ibn-e-Amin, a Taliban commander from the same area as the landowners, called Matta. The fact that Mr. Amin came from Matta, and knew who was who there, put even more pressure on the landowners, Mr. Hussain said.

According to Pakistani news reports, Mr. Amin was arrested in August 2004 on suspicion of having links to Al Qaeda and was released in November 2006. Another Pakistani intelligence agent said Mr. Amin often visited a madrasa in North Waziristan, the stronghold of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, where he apparently received guidance.

Each time the landlords fled, their tenants were rewarded. They were encouraged to cut down the orchard trees and sell the wood for their own profit, the former residents said. Or they were told to pay the rent to the Taliban instead of their now absentee bosses.

Two dormant emerald mines have reopened under Taliban control. The militants have announced that they will receive one-third of the revenues.

Since the Taliban fought the military to a truce in Swat in February, the militants have deepened their approach and made clear who is in charge.

When provincial bureaucrats visit Mingora, Swat’s capital, they must now follow the Taliban’s orders and sit on the floor, surrounded by Taliban bearing weapons, and in some cases wearing suicide bomber vests, the senior provincial official said.

In many areas of Swat the Taliban have demanded that each family give up one son for training as a Taliban fighter, said Mohammad Amad, executive director of a nongovernmental group, the Initiative for Development and Empowerment Axis.

A landlord who fled with his family last year said he received a chilling message last week. His tenants called him in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, which includes Swat, to tell him his huge house was being demolished, he said in an interview here.

The most crushing news was about his finances. He had sold his fruit crop in advance, though at a quarter of last year’s price. But even that smaller yield would not be his, his tenants said, relaying the Taliban message. The buyer had been ordered to give the money to the Taliban instead.

NYT

Red Corridor in first phase of the LS polls

2009-04-16T20:19:00.002+05:30

Tommorow most of the Maoist affected districts go to polls.

Link to Video

Naxalite Attack on BSF Camp

Link to video

India's government battles Maoist fighters - 4 Apr 09 - Al- Jazeera

2009-04-07T18:38:00.002+05:30

India's election commission has reduced polling hours in some states due to the influence of Maoist Naxalite fighters.

Al Jazeera's Divya Gopalan reports.

Link to video

Jai Ho ! Bhay Ho ! BJP, Congress dono ka Satyanash ho !

2009-04-01T09:43:00.001+05:30

BJP supporters have come out with a bastardized version of the
oscar award winning song Jai Ho... called Bhay Ho

Link to video

The Congress's bastardized version can be heard playing
in the background on their website...
http://www.congressmedia.net/home
(Note : Plugin's required -- works for me in Chrome but does not auto
play in mozilla)

Jaagore.com - The Great Indian Circus

2009-03-30T11:08:00.003+05:30

M K Dhar has another excellent write up on the Great Indian Tragic Circus which
starts in April this year

http://maloykrishnadhar.com/jagorecom-the-great-indian-circus

Jaagore.com - The Great Indian Circus

The funniest ad in the idiot screen: ‘Aap election ke time par vote nehi dete hai to aap sho rahe hain.’ The young man with sprouting beard is not exactly pleading for awakening the people for exercising franchise. He is selling TATA Tea. TATA is a respected name in business world and he has the right and money to flood the screen with ads. But selling tea and hawking for vote do not really go well together. It’s like mixing the finest French wine with Russian Vodka. However, the young advertiser was able to sell to me the slogan: Jagore.com. I was already awake about the real colours of the skin and soul of Indian elections but the ad induced me to share other aspects of Jagore.com with you all; especially the Youngistan voters. Having seen Indian elections since 1952 as a school kid, managing a couple of these exercises during service career in the IB, manipulating a few on orders of the ruling cabal and witnessing the bones, marrows, and soul of the Indian electoral process I had lapsed into a chasm of contradictions. I am really horrified about witnessing the 15th Great Election Tamasha. Some commentators say: It is a vibrant and buoyant democracy. As a staunch believer in democracy I often regretted that I had to tinker with the people’s mandates on behalf of certain ruling cabals and on the other hand I was astonished at the innovative genius of our political breed and gullibility of Indian voters. Indian democracy is sustained by its electoral process. That is the lowest strata from where the process starts and ends up in the consummation of the Parliament, the podium of Indian democracy, which determines the fate of the nation.

Thanks to Doordarshan. Indians are able to witness real time performance our parliamentarians; some politicians, some goons, mafia dons, criminals and some moneybags. To witness the sordid affairs in the parliament remind me of my primary school, where the old teacher, hard of hearing and partly blind tolerated everything that happened in the room; provided his slumber was not disturbed. Our pranks included every possible nuisance, though innocent. Our Speaker is like my primary teacher, blinded and silenced by the rule books. He can, like Somnath Chatterjee cry and comment sadly that the House had become a market place. IN any case, to avoid military dictatorship and total matsayanaya (anarchy) we have to vote and elect some politicians and some anti-socials. The System and the Establishment have to run on rails with frequent derailment.

However, election time, since 1967-68 has become a festival time. Under the kaleidoscopic process my discerning eyes and mind could identify and silently record the aberrations, circumventions and blatant interferences that have become integral parts of the election process.

Come April and India would turn to a continent of Sorceress, jokers, marauding animals, murderers, violent eruptions and of course, money spinning business enterprises. The election magic would unfold with all the accompanying tamashas and. It would scintillate millions of minds and strengthen the saying that Cricket is the religion of India and election is the greatest employment generator. Election is a ritual that has to be performed like any other rituals are performed for allowing the system to continue on or off the rails. For a humble street-side Indian like me too much of excitement produces more pancreatic juices in half empty or totally empty stomach and my inability to reach the goodies distributed by the political parties on the eve of election with deliverance of tons of promises generates more frustration. My inability to pick up the election goodies in not for physical inability; it is partly metaphysical and partly my unfortunate location in a so-called gentlemen inhabited area and my scorching exposé to the hell-fire of electoral process in certain capacity during my service life.

Had I lived in a slum or jhuggi cluster I would have been richer by few hundred bucks, couple of Indian manufactured foreign liquors (IMFL), some saris and at least a pair of blankets besides handsome cash. The idiot that I am, I live in a no man’s area; neither a posh colony nor a slum. Often my name is stuck off from the electoral rolls along with thousands of suspected creatures, who in the perception of the ruling Palm Party, are suspected fifth columns and are likely to vote for the Lotus Party.

No joke. It happened to me and other 4000 voters who went to cast vote in the Delhi Municipal Corporation elections. Our names were struck off with pen ink by the election officer of the area. On RTI query it was learnt that the officer concerned was a school superintendent and was directed by a leader of the Palm Party to strike our names out of voter list as we were suspected Lotus Party supporters. I swear I have nothing to do with either the Palm or the Lotus. Yet I was targeted simply because I have been a strident critic of systemic aberrations and misuse of the election process by our politicians. I have been, in my private life, highly critical of the corrupt electoral process and role played by four Ms: Money, Muscle, Madira and Maidens. I need not bore you with my 12 year old experiences. Let me share with you some very advanced techniques of Indian election that I happened to witness only 5 years ago.

It so happened that I was required to visit a number of parliamentary constituencies in 2004 in Purvanchal (near about Balia), Bihar, West Bengal and Maharashtra mandated by a consortium of cephologists. I happened to befriend a Palm Party master mind in charge of Bihar constituencies (prabhari). Personally he was opposed to poll adjustment with RJD, but was compelled by the highest in the party to cooperate. I decided to adopt my friend as the model organiser of the election circus. Materials I reproduce below were borrowed from the command process of my friend who briefed the party candidates on what all they were required to do from step one (securing party ticket) to step two (preparations), execution process and management issues.

Nearly 200 aspirants were seated in a hall waiting to have a darshan of the leader seated in an isolated room with a single aide, couple of large suitcases stacked in a corner and surprisingly me, an outsider, who happened to earn confidence of the mighty prabhari (in charge) for the state of Bihar. One by one the 200 odd aspirant lambs appeared for darshan simply to plead for a party ticket. The prabhari had a fixed drill. The aide ritually collected a briefcase and emptied the currency notes in the suitcases and the lamb seated himself with folded hands and apologetic smile and sunken hungry looks.

It is difficult to narrate all the 200 odd lamb’s encounter with the prabhari. However, I structured a model from what I heard and seen to sensitise my cranium and to realize that the ritual of election had added on many adjuncts, which were not intended to parts of the holy democratic process prescribed in the Constitution and the Representation of Peoples’ Act etc and other laws of the land. I presumed that some of my visitors were well conversant with the rituals. They followed the drill like disciplined soldiers of the Palm Party. (Do not misread me: Lotus and other parties also follow the same ritual with some modifications crafted by their expert technicians.

However, those who are victims of the TATA tea ad and feel allured to turn up to the polling centre, may like to glance through the following paragraphs as ramblings of an old foggy who turned a holy cynic tiger after eating hundreds of humans and animals. I promise I am not a clawless and toothless foggy tiger. I learnt while doing certain jobs and I share what I learnt from the Bihar prabhari. So, be prepared to be shocked.

Prabhari Ubacha (the in charge said):

1.What you have given here is the darshan money. It qualifies you to be short listed and your name to be forwarded by the Pradesh party to the High Command (HC). The High Command (whosoever it might be) would be the final arbitrator. The HC is helped by A, B. C. & D (no name please).

2.Once your name is forwarded, go over to Delhi with a few supporters meet A, B, C, & D with adequate lubricants. Carry trunk full of money. Do not forget to meet X Patel. He is the conscience keeper of the HC. Satisfy him with the demanded amount. The final satisfaction lay with the HC. If you have any conduit to reach the HC, spend lavishly and reach there. The entire process may cost you rupees 10 million.

3.Once you figure in the honour list you have to take several steps to jump into the real election war. Do not treat it as election. It is a war against your opponents and this war has to be fought with all the weapons you have. I am here to suggest some of weapons and ingredients that go in winning an election war. Remember one cardinal point. You have to generate hundreds of temporary employment to run the machine. Keep apart 10 million for the heads you have to hire.

4.Suppose you have 4 state assembly constituencies in your constituency. Divide each assembly segment into 6 operational zones and appoint a core team of managers with a reliable person as the chief manager. They should in turn appoint similar controlling and operational bodies in a cluster of 5 panchayats. Each lower formation should be composed keeping in view the caste composition. Say in panchayat cluster R you have mostly Chamar voters with assorted Bhangis, Nais, Sutars, Mallhas etc, include adequate representative from each caste. These are your front fortifications.

5.Take care that your opponents from Lotus, Cycle and Laltin (lantern) parties have considerable access amongst low caste voters take necessary steps to neutralize them. If necessary use some of the Senas (private armies) and Naxals to reduce their influences. Do not shy away from violence. Remember, violence is the mother of this universe. We all are here because our beginning started with a violent Big Bang. Spend lavishly to win over the caste votes. Keep apart 10.5 millions.

6.Form a core managing body at the centre of your activity. Staff that with loyal relatives and friends and only loyal party followers. Do not neglect the existing stalwarts. Maintain low profile before them and keep them happy with whatever resources they require feeling happy-wine, entertainment (perhaps maidens), money and of course lots of promises. Do not annoy the Thakur, Brahmin, Bhumihar and important of all the kayasth stalwarts. In final count they and the urban middle caste influence the opinion making process. The kayasths are low profile snakes. If you neglect they would sure bite. However, to neutralize some of the recalcitrant upper caste stalwarts do not hesitate to use force. You can use Senas and the lower castes to initiate caste war and exploit the situation the way you prefer.

7.If the lower caste voters go against you use the upper castes to burn their villages and kill a couple of the untouchables.

8.If the Muslims show recalcitrance engineer communal riots. Get villages burnt and kill a few scores. They would run to the Palm automatically. After all, the Palm has been promising them the secular shield all these years. They would prefer the Palm over sure death.

9.Yes. If certain segmental areas are dominated by the Muslims woo them adequately. Promise them reservation in education, services, recruitment in Army and Police and Haj subsidy at higher rates, establishment of Urdu University, and any other local demand they may have. Shed tons of tear in the name of secularism. These Muslim lambs have been our vote bank for 50 odd years. Be sure that minimum 13 to 15% of your voters are Muslims and all these votes are denied to Cycle and Laltin. The Lotus people have no hold on them. Remind them that the Palm has always protected them and the Palm is the symbol of secularism that has ensured minority safety by inserting Article 25 to 30 in the Constitution of India, despite opposition from several quarters. The promises made by the Palm party in 1916 and scrupulously followed in 1935 were included in the Constitution mainly to ensure that they would unhesitatingly support the Palm.

10.It is possible that some minority leaders may lean to Cycle, Laltin and hammer & sickle. Try to neutralize them by using violence; if necessary by hiring goons from outside your constituency. There are plenty of such hands in Delhi, UP and other states. You may even engage some mafia and smuggling dons to take care of them. There should be no shortage of guns and bullets.

11.I would tell you first about the structural formations that you would require fighting the election. Listen to me on the logistics that you would require to win this Mahabharata war.

12.Contact the professional shadow voter suppliers from neighbouring constituencies. Hire about 10000 shadow voters in advance and get their voter ID card prepared and ensure that their names find place in voter list. The shadow voter contractors would require about Rs. 10 lakhs inclusive of honorarium for the proxy voters. Add another 5 lakhs for their secret accommodation at different places with full supply of whisky and other drinks, TV sets, cooks and all other facilities. Obviously provide for their transport arrangements. Be ready to spent 10.8 million rupees.

13.Hire about 50 pehlwans from different akharas. They would be your basic muscle power to be used in thwarting booth capture by your opposition candidates, to silence your adversaries and to storm certain polling booths that you are required to capture. Bear the cost.

14.Immediately order 10,000 bottles of IMFL (Indian manufactured foreign liquor and Theka Sharab Desi. Store these at secret locations. Tap breweries in Nepal, Bengal and Sikkim. Do not tap local suppliers. These have to be distributed in sensitive areas about 3 to 1 day before election to induce cluster voters.

15.Order 500 cell phones and 700 SIM cards to be procured from reliable vendors and if necessary from neighbouring states. These would be required by your area in charges, booth managers, block managers etc. Keep a secret record.

16.Order 300 handheld VHF sets to be used by booth in charges, your control room and group leaders of the shadow voters. All efforts should be made that communication between your field workers and your control room is smooth.

17.Procure 10000 saris, 10000 dhotis, plenty of bindis, churiyas, cosmetics, and blankets for presenting to target voters among the low caste segments. Keep enough cash @ 500 for individual voters and @ 2000 for sardars, mukhis, and pradhans. These have to be distributed only on the eve of the polling day.

18.Hire singers to compose catchy tunes mimicking popular bollywood and Bhojpurui hit songs to be recorded in cassettes, disc and circulated free amongst voters. These would also be used your propaganda vehicles at weekly hats, market places and other places where people turn up in great numbers.

19.Hire video film makers and get quality video films made linking you with the common toiling people. There should some shots showing you harvesting, planting and even cleaning garbage. You should look like one of the villagers clad in ordinary or scanty clothes. Also such video should connect you directly with the glorious leaders of the HC and the long traditions of the Palm Party. Circulate these video/DVD discs free of cost.

20.Contact PR men in Mumbai and hire at least two top male and two female cine artists to perform in your constituency, deliver lecture in your favour and appeal for the victory of the Palm. Tie up with the HC, as they have panels of such film artists who generally campaign for the party.

21.Hire in advance at least two helicopters to be used by you and the HC people for electioneering. Suggest contact the HC. They have panels of helicopter and small aircraft suppliers. Go by the wisdom of the HC. They have permanent give and take arrangements with the suppliers.

22.Now for local use hire at least 200 Latahaits (musclemen equipped with long bamboo batons) to frighten and maim recalcitrant voters and also to silence your opponents in your own party and in the opposition parties.

23.Purchase in advance at least 50 jeeps and hire as many required to ensure mobility of your campaigners. Tap the Kolkata markets.

24.Hire street corner drama groups from local and Delhi/Kolkata art and dance institutes for performing in busy places. Some efficient script writers should be hired to write catchy skits in favour of you and the Palm Party.

25.Book nearly a dozen hotel rooms for your guests like film artists, and important media persons.

26.Engage someone reliable as your media manager. He would mobilize print and electronic media persons for projecting you as the sure winner candidate and to vilify your opponents. Keep some scandalous stories ready about your opponents to be publicized at crucial moments of campaigning. Remember that the more you besmirch your opponents the better glow you add to your persona.

27.Engage at least 5 sleek operators who would be tagged with the observers from the Election Commission. No effort should be made to affront them. Rather they should be pampered as much as possible. Your managers should try to find out the background of each observer and modify their approach to suit the personality of the concerned observer.

28.Remain on the right side of the DG Police, Range DIG and district SPs. Befriend as many thana darogas as possible. If possible get officers of your choice posted in police stations where your position is shaky. Remember police can influence more than two third of the voters. We still live in feudal society and police is Mai baap. Feed them as they demand. Do not try to save money. The more you spend better returns you would get once you are elected to the parliament. If you spent 10 crores you can earn 500 crores in 5 years. How? I would tell you the ways and means later.

29.Yes. Look out for important Muslim maulanas, musclemen and gunners who would campaign for you amongst the Muslim voters, maim them if necessary and use the guns where necessary. Use of the gun should be secular in nature—applicable to all religious groups as and when the situation demands to maim, kill, frighten and capture booths. Hire some from Nepal. Their face would be unknown.

30.Most important point is procurement of ink removers. To caste shadow votes repeatedly your voters would require removing the election ink mark. These ampules are sold cheap at Burra Bazaar in Kolkata. Procure at least 3000 ampules and distribute to every booth in charge.

31.Liaise with the DG Police so that only state police and Home Guards are posted near the booth and Central polices are deployed in peripheral areas. Raise the bogey of Naxal interference and get the Central police shifted to remote areas to chase the Naxals. Try to influence some Naxals to create some trouble in your constituency so that the EC understand your argument better.

32.Obviously you will have block committees, booth committees, and booth volunteers on payment and transport arrangements. They should be paid handsomely as daily retaining charges and food and entertainment (liquid).

33. Just to remind you please rehearse the voting-delay tactics by raising frequent objections, booth capturing technology, Shadow voting science and plundering a few booth and destroying the EVMs where the going is not good for you. Deny this pleasure to your opponents where they want to outwit you.

34.Obtain some propaganda material from HC but get your own materials prepared from other states so that the EC cannot guess your expenditure limits.

35.Yes. Appoint a good and crafty CA who would fudge your election expense account and most of the expenditures would not be reflected the in the balance shit. Maintain two books. One for the EC and one for yourself. Remember you have to realize more than ten times the money you spend from the people of this country after you get elected. That is democracy: it is right of the people to be ruled by a privileged few who win at the cost of the people and bleed the people after winning. Democracy has a price to be paid. Everything has a price. Is not it?

36.So much for the pre-poll instructions. I would, as Bihar Prabhari, come again to teach you the exact polling procedure, rigging procedures and precautions to be taken on counting days.

37.Separate lessons would be given on the technology of frightening, maiming, killing and subduing your opponents. Application of the tools of killing is a different science. These are only a few tips on the technology of election. Wait for my next visit. I have more for you and other candidates. After the two day-long long educational sessions I emerged as a wiser person. Just made a meek query: Brother how much a candidate has to spend? He lighted a cigarette, offered me one and smiled mysteriously. Finally he broke silence: Democracy is a costly affair friend. In this particular constituency the Palm Party candidate has to spend 10 crores. Some constituencies may be costlier depending on the situation.

I pondered on way back to Delhi as to the total money that would be spent in this particular constituency. Palm Party 10 crores, Lotus Party 8 crores, Cycle Party 5 crores, Laltin party 7 crores, and the Elephant Party minimum 4 crores and independents minimum 1 crore. That means 33-35 crores would be spend in one constituency. Therefore in average for the 525 constituencies a total amount of nearly 18, 000 crores would be spent by the candidates only. What about the government expenses? I shuddered to imagine. What a great circus! Democracy indeed is a very costly cracy.

However, I do not discourage you from voting. I specially appeal to the Youngistan voters and affluent segments of the society who normally do not turn out for voting. Go to Jagore.com and enlist yourself and come forward to change the rotten system. You have no idea about how the system functions. You need not avoid voting simply because the system is wrong. Please vote with vengeance to elect the correct person from your constituency who you believe would the best out of the entire rut. Please do not vote for the mafia, gangster, criminals, collaborators of the foreign Jihadis, known corrupt and looters and dacoits. Your democracy should be your choice: the correct choice. If you can elect at least 100 good MPs that would contribute a lot to maintain sanity inside the holy precinct we call Parliament. They would be able to work as watchdogs; the dogs have a reputation to run after loaves of meat even if they are domesticated and have been taught the ways of civilized way of eating. Even if a few out of the 100 indulge in money for question practices do not get discouraged. Your discretion and constant pressure only can rectify the rotten System. Please vote to defeat the rut and try to bring our democracy back on the rails.

I have only recorded certain ground realities about which you may not be aware. Truth is often ugly. This should embolden your resolve to vote with vengeance-TATA tea or no TATA tea to turn the ugly to beautiful.

(Note: Readers who are keen to know details of the Technology of Election in Indian Democracy may like to read my books: We the People of India: A Story of Gangland Democracy –English and Gangland Democracy-Chunavi Goondaraj-Hindi. This is no solicitation. Just an added value to the essay)

Ben Peterson in Nepal

2009-03-29T06:41:00.003+05:30

Ben Petersen, from Australia, has traveled to Nepal to report directly about the revolutionary events there. He has made a special point of interviewing a wide range of people — to give a real sense of the impact of the Maoist revolution, and also the intense contradictions at this particular moment.

All his articles and views can be found on his blog at
http://maobadiwatch.blogspot.com/

Cardinal Calls BJP ‘lesser evil’ than Marxists

2009-03-24T09:44:00.005+05:30

The cardinal now seems to have hurt the feelings of the
maoists and marxists in this country who have of late
been taking up religious causes with
a venegence..... :(

BJP - A lesser Evil

MUMBAI, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Mar 23: A move by the Bombay Catholic Sabha (BCS) to castigate the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) for apparently praising the virtues of the BJP over those of the Communists, has sparked a vigorous debate over the intellectual flexibility allowed by the Church and the attempts to politicise academic remarks.

We love fascists... We are like this only...

Earlier this week, Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil, the Kerala-based 82-year-old head of the CBCI, was reported as saying that the BJP is a “lesser evil” compared to the Marxists. The cardinal, while speaking after the release of his biography Straight From the Heart in Kochi, was asked which of the two he considered a greater threat.

His reply: “The greater threat will certainly be the Marxist one, because it is much better to live under those who believe in a God of love and mercy than to live under those who don’t believe in God and will do anything to bring about social justice, social equality and destroy all differences of class and caste.”

For those who have known the outspoken, liberal, progressive priest, this was just another scholarly observation. For them, Vithayathil could never hold a brief for any party, let alone the BJP, as he has consistently opposed the Church meddling in politics and even taken on the Vatican for trying to impose its decisions on bishops.

But that did not stop the BCS from slamming the cardinal and asking the CBCI to draw a line. “While BCS neither holds a brief for the BJP nor for the Marxists, but to compare them and what they stand for is odious to say the least,” said BCS President Dolphy D’Souza. “Religion is a personal matter and religion should not be mixed with politics. People are being polarised because of such mixing.”

“We are also shocked that one of the leaders of the Church has chosen to speak in this fashion at the run up to the elections...the Church all along has maintained that we need to vote on secular lines and this statement is misleading,” he added.

Christian religious and community leaders expressed surprise over the BCS stance and said Vithayathil’s comments seem to have been misunderstood, with some accusing D’Souza of jumping the gun. “He may have made the statement out of frustration with Left parties in Kerala as they have been targeting Christian institutions and also making changes in school texts which are trying to promote atheism,” said Dr Abraham Mathai of the All-India Christian Council. “These acts have been opposed by churches in Kerala. The statement in that sense is limited to Kerala and is being blown out of proportion.”

Daijiworld.com

Maoist Apparatus And Bridging The Old Fault Line

2009-03-20T22:18:00.002+05:30

M k Dhar has an interesting take on the Maoist Movement in india on his blog published in July 2008.

http://maloykrishnadhar.com/maoist-apparatus-and-bridging-the-old-fault-line

Maoist Apparatus And Bridging The Old Fault Line

About a week back I received a surprise invite from the India Chapter of the Amnesty International to address an youthful gathering on “Maoist Menace: Government Force Application Counter Productive.” I attended the gathering with great trepidation, as I am a witness to gross Human Rights violation in insurgency, terrorism and communal violence affected areas.

However, I expressed my disagreement with the AI organisers on two counts: Maoist Movement was not a Menace and Government force application was not counterproductive. The galaxy of scholars and intellectuals were surprised by these contradictory statements. There is no contradiction.
Maoist Movement is not a menace. It has a long historical evolution and as it metastased due to chronic neglect by the State, it emerged as series of wars against the State, believed to be established by a Constitution and conducting the affairs of the nation on the basis and sanctions of certain Acts, Laws and Systemic logistics.

The Maoist Movement has not grown out of Charu Mazumdar’s Naxalbari in 1967. It has a long history, which is basically the history of India’s Agrarian unrest, uprising of the deprived, exploited and overlooked etcetera of the majority segments of the Peoples. Often their agitations assumed violent manifestations of the deprived and exploited rural populace grinded under the millstone of feudalist bosses, money lenders, political exploiters and plunderers of the national exchequer. These movements were identified with stamps of different isms, as the history rolled on.

In brief: The Ho, Munda, Kol, Santhal uprisings did not receive any stamp of any Ism, as there were none and the ruling classes described this as audacious rebellion by the tribals against the British Authority. The nametag was incorrect. These were classic uprisings of exploited tribal people of Bihar, Bengal and Chhotanagpur region who revolted against exploitation by the British, Indian zamindars, money lenders and general economic depravation. The British, in collaboration with the Hindu-Muslim zamindars had suppressed the revolts after application of great military effort. The names of Sido-Kanu, Birsa Bhagwan etc have become immortal in the folklores of the tribal people now inhabiting parts of Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

The Sannyasi Revolution in Bengal and parts of Bihar against the degraded Muslim rulers and the corrupt officials of the East India Company was initiated after the devastating famine of 1770. The event was immortalised by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhaya in his Devi Chowdhurani and Ananda Math, both nationalistic novels. These were strings of combined agrarian uprising of the rural proletariat, in which Hindu Sannyasis and Muslim Faqirs and agrarian folks had taken part. The religious tag assigned to the movement had finally motivated Bankim Chandra to sing the immortal song of patriotism: Bande Mataram.

The agrarian uprising in 19th century Bengal under Titumir and the Faraizi group were stamped as Wahhabi uprising against the British and the mostly Hindu landholders. The movement had affected parts of Bihar as well.

The Indigo revolt in Bihar and Bengal was also essentially an agrarian movement against forced cultivation of Indigo by the British planters. The event was immortalised in Neel Darpan, a fact based novel by Dinabandhu Mitra that had stirred up the national conscience and had contributed to the rise of Indian Nationalism.

The Telengana agrarian revolt and armed struggle first against the oppressive regime of the Nizam and later against the independent government of India and the Tebhaga Andolan of Bengal on the eve of the independence movement were spearheaded by the Communist Party of India. Your author’s father had also fought alongside legendary figures like Ila Mitra against the unjustified agrarian policy of the British. These historic movements were fought at the point of history when India was going through the convulsions of independence movement and sure certainty of partition of the country. The Communists of the day were inspired by the Russian Revolution that was cored around urban workers and not the peasantry. Nonetheless, it was given a stamp of Communist Revolutionary movement of the agrarian folks.

Besides these movements there were several agrarian uprisings in former Madras territory and in certain parts of the territory of the king of Travancore. The Moplah uprising in Kerala, though started as an agrarian movement and movement opposing British policy against the Khalifa of Turkey, had degenerated into a communal holocaust proving inexorably, that any socio-economic movement conducted in the name of religion was bound to degenerate into communal carnage, especially in a pluralistic society where tolerance is the first victim.

When Charu Mazumdar conceived of armed uprising of the agrarian proletariat he had very little sense of organisational planning, military expertise and sustaining capability. He had no command structure except some fringe mobilisation done by Jangal Santhal, Kanu sanyal and Khokan Majumdar. Charu was a theorist and not an expert field commander. He was fired by Maoist ideology and believed that application of Maoist ideology in a rural pocket would give rise to spontaneous uprising all over the country.

Charu was an angry person, very impatient and was limited by tunnel vision of a visionary who believed that his vision was the beginning and end of the journey to the goal of emancipation of the proletariat of India (Your author had the fortune of interacting with some fathers of the movement in 1965-67 at Naxalbari).

Charu’s movement, branded as Naxal Movement came to be stamped as a Maoist Movement. China supported it through electronic and print propaganda and termed it as ‘spring thunder’ of Maoist revolution in India. Charu’s successors, now presumably fighting agrarian guerrilla warfare with much more sophisticated weapons and organised command structure, are also described in generic terms of Naxals and Maoists. This dissertation is not the proper forum to examine how much of Maoism is involved in the present phase of the movement and how much it is conditioned by other issues. In short: We have a vast, sophisticated, agrarian, rural and ideological guerrilla warfare problem that has not been properly evaluated, diagnosed and treated. The historical legacy has now assumed threatening proportions giving rise to the existence of a vast conflict zone in the country that has arisen from the volcanic ashes of National Fault Lines of the past.

Most people admit that Charu’s experiment with Maoist methodology of upgrading the agrarian unrest with “mass elimination” of class enemies had added a new dimension to the movement. His experiments had evolved through several experimentations. The “mass elimination” tactic applied in greater Calcutta, Debra-Gopibllabhpur, Shrikakulam, Koraput tribal area, Mushahari uprising in Muzaffarpur, Bihar, several places in Punjab, Lakhimpur-Kheri in UP, Bihar, Wyanad in Kerala, and Birbhum uprising ultimately fizzled out in the face of resolute State action and in places action by organised upper caste armed forces. Charu’s “mass elimination” had temporarily inspired young students of elite colleges of Calcutta, Delhi and other places and they had carried out the mindless bloodbath believing that it was the right prescription to fight the class enemies. China had egged on the Charu-brand revolutionaries with a view to create soft internal bellies in India during and after India’s involvement in the liberation war of Bangladesh. As the urban and rural ‘mass elimination’ programme had no definite war-direction even a seasoned killer Maoist like Asim Chatterjee (my college acquaintance) was disillusioned. He felt tired of the mass killing pogrom prescribed by Charu.

Since the halcyon days of Charu’s original Communist Party (ML) the movement has undergone several changes, splits, unity efforts and de-regionalisation process. It has started assuming a composite character, a kind of united movement, despite existence of splinter groups, (nearly 30), organisational incompatibility and minor ideological differences. The unity of the Maoist forces in India means uniting forces that originated from the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) as well as MCC(I) and others. The CPI (ML) was founded under the leadership of Charu Mazumdar in 1971. Following his death in 1972, the CPI (ML) splintered into many pieces. After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 and the coup d’état carried out against his successors by Deng Xiaoping, the world communist movement fell into a great crisis. The Indian movement was divided into many factions. The Maoist parties and organizations had to defend Mao and Maoism and oppose Deng and also the dogmatic attacks on Mao launched by Enver Hoxha of Albania.

One of the parties descended from the original CPI (ML) which continues to uphold the banners of Mazumdar and Maoism is the CPI (ML-Naxalbari), like the Maoist Coordination Committee, a participating party of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), which is continuing to work for the unity of the Maoist revolutionaries in a single centre in India. The RIM is intricately connected to the KPD (Communist Party of Germany (ML), CPP (ML) Philippines, Sandero Luminiso (Peru), Communist Party of USA (USA) and Purva Banglar Communist Party (Jana Juddha).

The CPI (ML-Naxalbari) has been advancing especially in the states of Kerala, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Of particular importance among the other parties in this same category is the CPI (ML-People’s War), which has a long history of leading the masses in waging armed struggle. The CPI (ML-PW) has strongholds in broad rural areas in the states of Andhra, Maharashtra, and Orissa, as well as Bengal, Bihar and elsewhere. The CPI (ML-PW), along with the above-mentioned RIM participating parties and organizations, are members of CCOMPOSA (the Co-ordinating Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia).

A united revolutionary Maoist party has been a strong desire of the Maoist ideologues, since the setbacks suffered by the Naxalbari uprising and the splintering of the Maoist forces. The MCC (I) and CPI (ML-PW), CPI (ML-Naxalbari) etc groups have now considerably consolidated their position and battle-capability in several parts of West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Kerala, which offer almost a contiguous territory to the armed Maoists. Never before these groups had such territorial consolidation and power to exercise Mass Control Mechanism (MCM) along with armed struggle. The Maoist movement has emerged as the single largest threat to India’s internal security situation. The developments have thrown up several challenges to the Indian State and its Systemic Tools, especially after success of the Maoist movement in Nepal. If Nepal is taken as a part of the unbroken map the reader would realise that there exist a dagger like thrust into the heart of India-from Nepal to deep southern India, rolling down steadily to the Western Ghats.

Conditions in vast areas of the Indian countryside are considered to be mature for waging a People’s War by the Maoists. Criminal neglect of the rural economy, scorched earth policy in the rural agrarian sector with helps from the feudal lords, unemployment and pangs of hunger have not been mitigated during last 60 odd years. Government policy of offering doles, unemployment allowances, rural employment grant etc have made about 35% of the rural population to look up to the ruling deities as gods raining occasional manna. A class of permanent beggars are being created by this policy and very little has been to generate economic sinews for strengthening the bridge between the urban affluents, rural feudals and the chronically starving masses. Suicide by the farmers has added a shameful chapter in India’s economic failure.

The Maoists consider that weakening of the Indian State, splintering of political parties, rise of caste and region based parties and scorched-earth policy pursued by the governments in the rural areas offer them better opportunities to strengthen the movement and advance towards a successful armed revolution. The major ideologues also realise that the lack of a united Maoist party, a people’s army and revolutionary united front, the full revolutionary potential of the situation in India has not been fully realised.

Recent meetings of the major Maoist groups have stressed on this aspect of unity and combined movement against the Indian government machineries. Keeping these aspects in view a few structural peculiarities of the Maoist movement and their operation policies are required to be understood both by the State Machineries and the common people, who are the main fodders of the struggle that is now being waged by the State and the Maoists.

In a given Conflict Zone (as in Maoist affected areas) basically four groups of players are regular constants:

Diagram of initial Parties Involved in Conflict Zone

G= Conflict Territory; T= Armed Terrorists; P=Peoples; S=State

As the Conflict develops into a cancerous continuity, several other factors enter the arena with different objectives:

Tertiary Foray of Other Parties in the Conflict Zone

V= Vested Interests; M= Media; H=Human Rights Groups

Besides these elements there are additional inputs which are essential to keep the movement alive and kicking:

OTHER INPUTS

F= Foreign Input; OTG= Other Terrorist Group Support; C= Caste Amalgamation; CR= Criminal Elements’ Support; W= Weapons Suppliers.

As the situation develops into regular armed conflict between the Maoists and the State the rebels start implementing “Mass Control Mechanism.” This well-researched technology of revolution has been widely chronicled by the scholars on terrorism studies and Conflict Management sciences.

In short: the Maoists start with destroying the State Control through propaganda, destruction of symbols of governance like schools, hospitals, tehsil offices, railway lines; assassination of government officials, members of elected local bodies, caste enemies, and raids on isolated police pickets. The Maoists try to isolate the targeted area and the peoples by destroying roads, bridges, blowing up busses and setting up their own defence systems. Peoples living in remote village clusters where there in no tangible presence of governance, any kind of developmental activities and are subjected to rampant corruption by the government officers and exploitation by the landlords and loan sharks gradually start looking up to the Maoists for protection and start living on hope that the changed system as promised by the Maoists would one day deliver the dream world that shine afar in the glittering cities and homes of the affluent. They rapidly lose confidence in the State and any coercive action implement by the State further alienates the People’s confidence in the governing tools and the State as an established entity.

Once the Mass Control Mechanism of the Maoists is in position the Mass Control capability of the government starts evaporating. It very fast loses control on public trust that the State can protect, feed, and assure their advancement. When the level of erosion achieves criticality, the Maoists start striking against big State Targets. From small skirmishes the conflict situation is upgraded to periodical “Big Engagement,” resulting in establishment of Liberated Zones. We have witnessed this in Nepal and we are passing through Stage II of the conflict; establishment of Mass Control and hitting the State hard in guerrilla engagement. Various phases of the conflict have been laid down by Mao and Che Guevara and General Giap. These are text-book realities being implemented by the present day Maoists.

The State has a statutory obligation to get involved. Its response is represented by application of force- police and para-military actions, developmental activities and incentives to assure people that the State is capable to defeat the forces of the guerrillas. As the government forces try to regain turf and minds of the people they exercise more force, not necessarily against the visible Maoists alone; force is applied against suspected and innocent villagers as well. In the absence of supplementing administrative, economic, and security reforms that mere application of force by isolated police actions alienate the people more, resulting more erosion of State’s Mass Control. This is the classic concept that was even exercised by Mahatma Gandhi-but through Satyagraha and non-cooperation. Even Gandhi could not restrain the Ahmedabad textile workers and Chauri Chera peasants from resorting to violence. Increased communal violence after he tried to control the Muslim masses through Khilafat movement testifies to the eternal revolutionary claim of Voltaire: Liberation can only be achieved through violence.

Between the Maoists and the State there remains another element in the Conflict Zone: The Peoples, who are not part of the Mass Controlled Area or who do not believe in the kind of revolution that the Maoists propagate. These Peoples have three options: Die as war zone fodder, Resist the Maoist on their own (very lean chance) and Resist the Maoists with the help of the State. The last option is not a new idea. It has been implemented by the British in Malyasia, General Giap in Vietnam and India in certain parts of the trouble-torn North East, and in the Punjab. People’s Defence against the Peoples who want change through violence is an internationally recognised War Zone policy.

I found it difficult to convince the Human Rights Activists that at certain point during a conflict situation, Indian law provides for the vital implement of Self-Defence. Once this aspect of defensive mechanism is upgraded to organised defence it takes the shape of VVF, Special Police Officer and the Salwa Judum. I have serious reservations about ways and means through which the Salwa Judum concept is being implemented by the Peoples and the State. In the present form, status of training, motivation and fighting capability the Salwa Judum is likely to be treated as clay pigeons by the Maoists shooters. That is a half-hearted and ill conceived and miserably executed operation-more for political mileage than for regaining Mass Control in the conflict zone.

I have illustrated infiltration of other parties in the conflict zone: Such as Vested interests (forest contractors, timber merchants, Tendu-leaf contractors, investors who invest Maoist money in legal market to generate revenue; arms suppliers, foreign supporters, caste forces, criminals etc. The government often overlook these aspects firstly because of the Vested Interest having control on the political bosses; the caste barons acting as vote-bank assets and other elements passing under the noses of the intelligence and police because these agencies are not efficient enough to keep track of them. Some one may call them inefficient.

This situation allows the Maoists to set up an elaborate political network. Over years the major Maoist groups have built up a tangible political structure, which has variables in different operational areas in the country. For a model the following diagram should represent the basic structure (no allusion to any particular Maoist group):

MAOIST POLITIOCAL STRUCTURE

Since elaboration on each segment would take pages it would suffice to say that in Maoist movement the Central Committee is supreme. All other sub-formations are under strict control of the party centre. Deviations in operational matters are permitted but not in ideological programming.
On the other hand, the military formation is also formidable. It is not organised in the initial stage as Brigades and Battalions, but contain well coordinated, trained, ideologically brainwashed cadres and ancillary units. Induction of women soldiers and propaganda personnel add value to the movement and allows it easy access to the homes and hearts of the vulnerable people.

GENERAL PATTERN OF MAOIST MILITARY COMMAND

THE PATTERN IS GENERAL FOR CP (ML), PW GUERRILLAS, WITH VARIATIONS IN DIFFERENT GROUPS.

The graphics may offer impression that the Maoists are well entrenched and they have the capability of waging prolonged war against the State with well oriented, trained cadres, arms supplied from sources like Nepal Maoists, LTTE, Bangladesh and Nepal Based suppliers and Kashmir militants peddling weapons through different cut outs. It may be taken into account that the Maoists have developed connectivity with arms suppliers in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. While the LTTE is the prime suspected carrier it should not be forgotten that the Maoists command control of certain coastal areas in West Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh through which weapons are smuggled in. Remoteness of the areas controlled by them and inadequacy of State response make the Maoists look bigger than life.

In the Amnesty International discussion I said that the State use of force was not counter-productive, it was inadequate and ineffective.

In the vast operational areas from Bihar to Andhra Pradesh with most active hubs in Orissa, Jharkahnd, Chattisgarh remote tribal areas the Central and State intelligence apparatus is appallingly inadequate. While they may have access to some surface political information they do not have access to hardcore operation information to storm the Maoist hideouts effectively. On the other hand, the Maoists have strings of informers to give them advance information about troop’s movement and State plans of operations.

The State (taken as a whole) has not deployed adequate force to isolate the Maoists from the peoples and to take them on as highly equipped guerrillas. A guerrilla force cannot be fought by conventional forces-police or military. Superior commando forces trained in guerrilla warfare are required in sufficient numbers, buttressed by normal police-operational forces to overwhelm the forest dwelling Maoist guerrillas. Several state governments have not yet trained special police guerrilla forces and depend on normal law & order police personnel. They try to dominate areas by setting up isolated pickets without adequate speedy-response-support troops, well equipped communication and fast moving conveyance. These police pickets are pregnant ducks.

Different state governments do not have coordination and moving guerrilla forces cannot be fought within the imaginary boundary lines of the intricately laid state boundaries. There is hardly any aerial surveillance, electronic monitoring mechanism to monitor communication network of the Maoists. Despite plethora of conferences, discussions and decisions on ground position of the State continue to be fragile. State response is inadequate. Inadequate application of force cannot break the magic-spell of Maoist Mass Control Their propaganda machinery is based on folklores woven around Sido-Kanu, Birsa Bhagwan etc. The name of Mao is often inserted in places of tribal heroes. Mao has started replacing Sido-Kanu and Birsa in various tribal strongholds of the Maoists. Their cultural groups work in unison with over ground cultural groups and spread the ideological spell. The State has very little weapon to counteract this propaganda barrage.

I had informed the Human Rights group that in my opinion India does not require any armed struggle to repair the lapses of the government during last 60 odd years.

The repair work to improve the conditions of the cultivators, rural artisans, landless peoples, rural unemployed and anarchic rule by the big land owners, caste barons, money lenders and Forest Plunderers can be achieved through improved administrative corrections, Societal changes, containment of corruption and better economic packages for the neglected rural and tribal areas.
Revolutions in the name of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism cannot be allowed to destroy the democratic core of the country. I have personal sympathies and connectivity with many Maoist leaders of the past and present, but I differ in these vital areas of national concern.

We have enough worries from other sectors which threaten the integrity of the country. Threats from the Islamists, ethnic rebels and proxy-war from neighbours are yet to be contained. Maoism is the last thing that would suit the civilisational genius of the people of India. The very ideology has failed in Russia, failing in China and last vestiges of Marxism and Maoism cannot survive in the form of Castroism and India Marxism-Maoism. Marx and Mao are great, but their Isms are dead. The history has turned leaves towards another confrontation-between the energy hungry west and the masses of Islamic countries. India is precariously located between the two fighting giants with a huge Muslim population having sympathy for their coreligionists and hatred for the west.

Recent developments around Amarnath land grant and Nuclear deal with the USA have proved beyond doubt that vast sections of Indian Muslims continue to be haunted by the spectre of Pan-Islamic Ummah and the intestinal feeling for separation from the majority Hindu community that was voiced over hundred year ago by Shah Waliullah, Sir Sayyid Ahmad, Mohammad Iqbal, Chaudhry Rahmat Ali and Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Repeated historic blunders by the Congress and Caste-based parties and the so-called Indian Left to segregate the Muslims from the mainstream India in the name of Sachar Commission findings and other vote-bank gimmicks have pushed the Muslim psyche back to 1935. Now India has to actuate it’s nuclear and foreign policy keeping in view the Muslim opinion, which is wedded to the idea of separatism. The mistake committed by Gandhi in dragging the Congress to the Khilafat Movement in 1920 was the first encomium for perpetuation of communal politics in India,
What should, therefore, be the State response?

The first responsibility is to regain Mass Control from the Maoists through application of superior targeted force. This should be accompanied by the National Repair Works (not doles to national beggars), to fill in the fault lines of last 60 odd years caused by the independent government of India and its provincial governments. Without repairing the fault lines immediately followed by determined and superior force application, the situation cannot be retrieved. We would be fighting hopelessly half-witted game against the determined Maoists, who are inching towards unity and are trying to assume massive striking power following the success of the Maoist movement in Nepal.

That the government resolve for force application is half-hearted or inadequate or ill conceived and executed is illustrate by the latest gruesome incident at Balimela Reservoir in Orissa. Balimela ravine area in Malkangiri district is a parrot beak like area of Orissa jutting into Andhra Pradesh and Chattisgarh.

The combined Orissa police and Andhra Pradesh Grey Hound specialist force had gone to search the forested hills overlooking the reservoir which feeds pipeline to nearby Dumduma powerhouse nearly 4 kilometres away. The forces received information that the Central Military Council of the Maoist group was having a meeting in the area. The information could have been correct or a decoy. The grave mistake was committed when only a water bourn patrol was sent and no territorial force was deployed on the flanking hills dominating the water body. There was no static watch-post also. The planning was faulty and execution was half hearted; half the policemen did not know how to swim.
In contrast planning of the Maoists appeared to be exceptionally well:

BALIMELA AMBUSH SPOT

Note:
1. Police Party had no support Vessel. It had no On-shore static or mobile positions and Mounted Heavy Guns. It was a lone venture and a near-ready kill. Planning had no deep tactical understanding of the terrain and support mechanism.
2. Locations indicated are approximate and do not represent the exact ground position.

My intention is not to dig hole. The State must apply force, when it is required to apply, in adequate quantity and superior quality. The haunting problems of lack of concrete steps by the central government, inadequate preparations of the state governments and insufficiency of cutting-edge intelligence is likely to add woos to the country’s agonies.

Along with determined force application the vast areas of state responsibilities towards the people have to be attended without seasonal and cynic political gimmicks. The vast countryside is getting isolated from the urban centres, urban prosperity is not reaching the vast rural areas and the neglected hill tribals are getting more disillusioned. Only superior military application by the State cannot stop the Maoist upsurge. The political and bureaucratic class are required to be in war-preparedness to tackle the situation by taking both determined military actions and honest development and socio-economic reforms. The Urban India should look towards Rural India and Aranyak Bharat (forested India) and exclusively the glitter of Globalised economy.

The Maoist guerrilla warfare should not be treated at par with ethnic or regional conflicts. The ideological guerrilla warfare has earned the historic recognition of success through fault lines of the State. Let us be aware of these fault lines and employ all possible State resources to repair the gaps.

Iranian Blogger Reported Dead in Prison

2009-03-19T21:55:00.000+05:30

Iranian Blogger Reported Dead in Prison

Omid Reza Misayafi, one of a number of Iranian bloggers arrested for "insulting" the government and religious authorities in that country, is dead. Misayafi's death was reported on Global Voices Onlinevia an Iranian human rights site in Farsi and we learned of it from The Committee to Protect Bloggers.

No cause of death is yet known, but the Committee says torture of bloggers is common in Iran and they are usually placed in close proximity with the most dangerous criminals in any facility. Misayafi was sentenced in December to 30 months in prison "for insulting Islamic Republic Leaders." The man said he was a cultural blogger, not a political one, and only wrote a few satirical articles that got him into trouble.

An update tonight indicates that the prison conditions may have lead the man to take his own life. Directly or indirectly, it appears that Misayafi's life has been brought to an end for exercising free speech, for criticizing an authoritarian state and for doing it using online social media. Social media users and advocates around the world should take note of this event.

We've reported here on a number of bloggers imprisoned in Iran and in Egpyt for documenting government abuses or just writing critical words about governments that demand total compliance. In the middle of last year we wrote about Iran's parliament debating legislation that would add the death penalty to the list of possible punishments for using blogs to challenge government authority

Read it all.

China fuels Sri Lankan war

2009-03-09T21:32:00.001+05:30

China fuels Sri Lankan war

By BRAHMA CHELLANEY

Sri Lanka, the once self-trumpeted "island of paradise," turned into the island of bloodshed more than a quarter-century ago. But even by its long, gory record, the bloodletting since last year is unprecedented. The United Nations estimates that some 1,200 noncombatants are getting killed each month in a civil war that continues to evoke a muted international response even as hundreds of thousands of minority Tamils have fled their homes or remain trapped behind the front line.

With the world preoccupied by pressing challenges, President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his brother, Defense Minister Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, a naturalized U.S. citizen, press on with their brutal military campaign with impunity. The offensive bears a distinct family imprint, with another brother the president's top adviser.

Chinese military and financial support — as in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uzbekistan, North Korea, Burma and elsewhere — has directly aided government excesses and human rights abuses in Sri Lanka. But with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly emphasizing that the global financial, climate and security crises are more pressing priorities for U.S. policy than China's human rights record, which by her own department's recent admission has "remained poor and worsened in some areas," Beijing has little reason to stop facilitating overseas what it practices at home — repression.

Still, the more China insists that it doesn't mix business with politics in its foreign relations, the more evidence it provides of cynically contributing to violence and repression in internally torn states. Sri Lanka is just the latest case demonstrating Beijing's blindness to the consequences of its aggressive pursuit of strategic interests.

No sooner had the United States ended direct military aid to Sri Lanka last year over its deteriorating human rights record than China blithely stepped in to fill the breach — a breach widened by India's hands-off approach toward Sri Lanka since a disastrous 1987-90 peacekeeping operation in that island-nation.

Beijing began selling larger quantities of arms, and dramatically boosted its aid fivefold in the past year to almost $1 billion to emerge as Sri Lanka's largest donor. Chinese Jian-7 fighter jets, antiaircraft guns, JY-11 3D air surveillance radars and other supplied weapons have played a central role in the Sri Lankan military successes against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or "Tamil Tigers"), seeking to carve out an independent homeland for the ethnic Tamils in the island's north and east.

Beijing even got its ally Pakistan actively involved in Sri Lanka. With Chinese encouragement, Pakistan — despite its own faltering economy and rising Islamist challenge — has boosted its annual military assistance loans to Sri Lanka to nearly $100 million while supplying Chinese-origin small arms and training Sri Lankan air force personnel in precision guided attacks.

China has become an enabler of repression in a number of developing nations as it seeks to gain access to oil and mineral resources, to market its goods and to step up investment. Still officially a communist state, its support for brutal regimes is driven by capitalist considerations. But while exploiting commercial opportunities, it also tries to make strategic inroads. Little surprise thus that China's best friends are pariah or other states that abuse human rights.

Indeed, with its ability to provide political protection through its U.N. Security Council veto power, Beijing has signed tens of billions of dollars worth of energy and arms contracts in recent years with such problem states — from Burma and Iran to Sudan and Venezuela.

In the case of Sri Lanka, China has been particularly attracted by that country's vantage location in the center of the Indian Ocean — a crucial international passageway for trade and oil. Hambantota — the billion-dollar port Chinese engineers are now building on Sri Lanka's southeast — is the latest "pearl" in China's strategy to control vital sea-lanes of communication between the Indian and Pacific Oceans by assembling a "string of pearls" in the form of listening posts, special naval arrangements and access to ports.

China indeed has aggressively moved in recent years to build ports in the Indian Ocean rim, including in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Burma. Besides eyeing Pakistan's Chinese-built port-cum-naval base of Gwadar as a possible anchor for its navy, Beijing has sought naval and commercial links with the Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar. However, none of the port-building projects it has bagged in recent years can match the strategic value of Hambantota, which sits astride the great trade arteries.

China's generous military aid to Sri Lanka has tilted the military balance in favor of government forces, enabling them in recent months to unravel the de facto state the Tamil Tigers had run for years. After losing more than 5,594 square km of territory, the Tigers now are boxed into a 85-square-km sliver of wooded land in the northeast.

But despite the government's battlefield triumphs, Asia's longest civil war triggered by the bloody 1983 anti-Tamil riots is unlikely to end anytime soon. Not only is the government unable to define peace or outline a political solution to the Tamils' long-standing cultural and political grievances, the rebels are gearing up to return to their roots and become guerrilla fighters again after being routed in the conventional war.

While unable to buy peace, Chinese aid has helped weaken and scar civil society. Emboldened by the unstinted Chinese support, the government has set in motion the militarization of society and employed control of information as an instrument of war, illustrated by the muzzling of the media and murders of several independent-minded journalists. It has been frenetically swelling the ranks of the military by one-fifth a year through large-scale recruitment, even as it establishes village-level civilian militias, especially in conflict-hit areas.

With an ever-larger, Chinese-aided war machine, the conflict is set to grind on, making civil society the main loser. That is why international diplomatic intervention has become imperative. India, with its geostrategic advantage and trade and investment clout over a war-hemorrhagic Sri Lankan economy that is in search of an international bailout package, must use its leverage deftly to promote political and ethnic reconciliation rooted in federalism and genuine interethnic equality. More broadly, the U.S., European Union, Japan and other important players need to exert leverage to stop the Rajapaksa brothers from rebuffing ceasefire calls and press Beijing to moderate its unsettling role.

Brahma Chellaney is professor of strategic studies at the privately funded Center for Policy Research in New Delhi.

Japan Times

Supreme Court verdict on Blogging

2009-03-08T09:06:00.003+05:30

Ahh... the days of the wild wild west are over ... it seems...

Bloggers can be nailed for views

NEW DELHI: A 19-year-old blogger's case could forever change the ground rules of blogging. Bloggers may no longer express their uninhibited views on everything under the sun, for the Supreme Court said they may face libel and even prosecution for the blog content.

It will no longer be safe to start a blog and invite others to register their raunchy, caustic and even abusive comments on an issue while seeking protection behind the disclaimer — views expressed on the blog are that of the writers.

This chilling warning emerged as a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justice P Sathasivam refused to protect a 19-year-old Kerala boy, who had started a community on Orkut against Shiv Sena, from protection against summons received from a Maharashtra court on a criminal case filed against him.

Petitioner Ajith D had started a community on Orkut against Shiv Sena. In this community, there were several posts and discussions by anonymous persons who alleged that Shiv Sena was trying to divide the country on region and caste basis.

Reacting to these posts, the Shiv Sena youth wing's state secretary registered a criminal complaint at Thane police station in August 2008 based on which FIR was registered against Ajith under Sections 506 and 295A pertaining to hurting public sentiment.

After getting anticipatory bail from Kerala HC, Ajith moved the Supreme Court through counsel Jogy Scaria seeking quashing of the criminal complaint on the ground that the blog contents were restricted to communication within the community and did not have defamation value. He also pleaded that there was threat to his life if he appeared in a Maharashtra court.

A computer science student, Ajith pleaded that the comments made on the blog were mere exercise of their fundamental right to freedom of expression and speech and could not be treated as an offence by police.

Unimpressed, the Bench said, "We cannot quash criminal proceedings. You are a computer student and you know how many people access internet portals. Hence, if someone files a criminal action on the basis of the content, then you will have to face the case. You have to go before the court and explain your conduct."

Times of India.

CPI(Marxist) News

2009-03-06T08:36:00.004+05:30

There is a striking difference between communists(those who divide society on the basis of class) and communalists(those who divide society on the basis of religion) in this country.

The difference lies in the fact that communalists in

India almost never acknowledge class as a real issue

nor take up any class based issues , but the communists

on the other hand(marxist or maoist) are all involved in

some religious cause or the other.

In my opinion, religion and it's subset caste will

continue to remain the center around which Indian

politics will be played.

Don’t be surprised if you spot Osama posters at CPM rally

NEW DELHI: CPM, which has been travelling along with radical Islam, is piling pressure on allies to back its plans to field a nominee of Islamist leader Abdul Nasser Madani for the Ponnani seat in Kerala.

The decision to award ticket to a Madani follower has not gone down well with CPI as the party had traditionally contested the seat. Outfits like Jamiat-e-Islami and leaders of the Sunni sect have been lobbying with the CPM leadership for awarding the Lok Sabha nomination to a leader who shares their world view.

Although the alliance between CPM and Islamists may look bizarre to outsiders, the Left in Kerala has been a beneficiary of their affection. With the waning influence of IUML, radical elements in the community have been moving away from the Congress-led front. Just like Left movements elsewhere have worked their way up by exploiting extra-territorial grievances of the Muslim community, the Kerala CPM have been engaged in sustained anti-US and pro-Palestine campaigns in the state.

The biggest audience for the manufactured outrage over Danish cartoons on the Prophet, protests against India’s engagement with the US and solidarity for Saddam Hussein were provided by the northern districts of Kerala.

With the two sides of the political aisle vying with each other for a larger share of the minority vote — the Muslim vote alone accounts for 20% — the competition to appease leaders like Madani is certain to intensify in the coming months.

CPM seems unconcerned by the fact that Madani, exonerated for lack of evidence in the Coimbatore blasts case, still faces around 20 cases in Kerala, which includes spreading communal hatred. The Left elite and liberals had organised a massive ‘civic reception’ for Madani in Thiruvananthapuram when he was released from the Coimbatore jail.

Kerala was in the news recently for its spotty record on fighting terror-financing when the high court directed the state government to take immediate measures to track the source of Rs 4 million hawala funds that landed in Kondotty village of Kerala. State home minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was forced to admit in the assembly that illegal transfer of money to the state by agents abroad is a Rs 100-million-a-year business.

The minister also told the assembly that investigations into some of the cases showed that people involved in this illegal trade had links with anti-national forces. The state intelligence set up is also suspecting a portion of these funds sustaining the radical Islamic outfit NDF.

Economic Times

3000 Ex-Naxals join Praja Rajyam

2009-02-22T10:36:00.009+05:30

For those who don't know Praja Rajyam(Peoples Rule) is a political party which was launched by Telgu Filmstar Chiranjeevi at a mega rally in Tirupati which was attended by nearly 10 lakh (one million) fans in August 2008.

So will PRP be able to perform ? or are these ex maoists all

set to be disappointed again ?

We will know soon.. 2 months left for elections...

Lets hope chiranjeevi doesn't end up like another

blood sucking vampire.

Link to Video

3,000 ex-Maoists line up to join Chiranjeevi's party

HYDERABAD: Hundreds of former naxalites, who jettisoned the Maoist movement in the last ten years will join the Prajarajyam Party on February 28.

According to party sources, around 3,000 former militants of various factions of the CPI (ML) and CPI (Maoist) will join the newly-floated party in Hyderabad in the presence of PRP chief Chiranjeevi and Yuvarajyam president Pavan Kalyan.

A part of the crowd during the launch of the party

This was the culmination of around six months of hardwork to mobilise the former rebels and bring them into PRP. The association of Marxist-Leninist singer Gadar and other pro-naxal intellectuals with the actor are said to have coordinated the move.

First meeting of the former naxalites was organised in Guntur in December last attended by over 800 people. The meeting was addressed by Dr P Mitra, party’s senior leader.

“In fact we wanted to organise a meeting in each district. But, due to logistic reasons and lack of time, a state-level meeting is planned in Hyderabad on February 24,” former People’s War activist I Satyanarayana told STOI.

Satyanarayana, a native of Guntur, was a member of the erstwhile Radical Youth League. He quit the extremist organisation due to personal reasons. “Even though thousands of people left the movement long ago they are not able to lead a peaceful life because of the hostile attitude of the police and lack of support from the government. So, they feel only PRP can restore a sense of security among them,” Satyanarayana said.

TOI

Performance is the only reality

2009-02-15T22:49:00.007+05:30

Words are words
Promises are promises
Explanations are explanations
But only performance is reality.

More than forty years after the
Maoists began their people's war in India
they have only delivered on words,
promises and explanations.

But when one does a rational
unbiased evaluation of their
performance they fail miserably
on all parameters.

Moreover they will not be in a position
to perform anytime soon.. because
even if they do capture power,
holding on to it is going to be another bloody story..

If any of guys have read about Lenin's Red
Terror in Russia which was unleashed
after the failed assassination bid on Lenin's life
then you must understand that the Maoists will
also have to unleash
something similar here.

Which means another bloody civil war
after grabbing power at the end of which
there is no guarantee we will even have a
country left..... LOL

Well just some thoughts I felt I need to
scribble down....

Don't be my Valentine

2009-02-13T19:35:00.005+05:30

Of late ... I have lost sympathy for the media.. They have really
gone over the top ...

I think they deserve to be reined in... I support strict control of the media...

And as for Valentine's Day.. This article below pretty much sums up what I
think of it

Don't be my Valentine

(CNN) -- With retailers hurting and the U.S. president trying to encourage Americans to spend money to restore consumer confidence, what I'm about to say may seem like treason. But here goes: Please boycott Valentine's Day and all that is associated with this horrendous "holiday."

For several years I have ripped into Valentine's Day. Not because I'm against love and relationships, but mainly because the holiday is such a farce.

First of all, Valentine's Day is not built around a religious event like Christmas or Easter; nor does it have any special meaning to the nation such as Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

It is nothing more than a commercial holiday created by rabid retailers who needed a major shopping day between Christmas and Easter in order to give people a reason to spend money.

Now folks, I love my wife. She is truly an awesome woman who is smart, talented, fine, and, did I say fine? But do I really need a special day to show my affection for her?

I've long maintained that if I sent my flowers at other times during the year, why do I have to fall victim to peer pressure and send her some roses that have quadrupled in price leading up to February 14?

Why should I be inundated with mailings, e-mails and commercials to show her that I love her by buying jewelry or clothing? If we went shopping in June or September or last month, can I get some kind of waiver or "Get out of Valentine's Day" card?

As for this silly flower thing, it's even got to the point that any flowers can't do. Some years ago I planned on sending a woman some flowers that weren't roses, and the (female) co-workers were aghast. They felt that nothing mattered except roses.

First of all, I didn't have a lot of dough and felt a nice bouquet was sufficient, but they were appalled. So I told them to go to hell and I'll do what I want. I guess for them, the thought really doesn't matter.

Then there are the women on the job who measure the love of their men based on those flowers. You know how some folks are. If there are flowers on the desk of 10 other women, and one woman doesn't have anything, folks get to talking and whispering as if something is wrong in her relationship.

I've learned that even if you get the biggest-ever rose bouquet -- the relationship might be crumbling and you just refuse to admit it.

And Valentine's Day really isn't even a two-way street. Men are utterly irrelevant except to serve as pawns in this commercial game, emptying their wallets in order to satisfy their lovers or those around them. Oh yea, retailers know the con game.

Most of these guys are hapless saps who have ignored their wives or girlfriends all year, so they buy the flowers and candy, and set a reservation at one of the city's most expensive restaurants, all to say, "Honey, I love you."

Ladies, and men, stop it! It's time to say enough is enough with Valentine's Day.

What do I want? How about men and women loving, caring and sharing the other 364 days a year? February 14 isn't the only time to send flowers to your woman (ladies, we wouldn't mind getting a surprise delivery as well!). How about dropping her a flower arrangement on May 14? And on that card you need to write, "Just because..."

Instead of men and women spicing up their sex life on February 14, make the effort to satisfy your mate the rest of the year.

If last Valentine's Day was the last time you took your significant other out to a really nice restaurant, you deserve to be in trouble.

Are you planning to treat your man or woman to a wonderful day at the spa this Saturday? Well, I'm sure he or she would thoroughly enjoy the same in June or July.

It's time that we all take stock of our relationships and learn that we are to be loving and fulfilled 365 days a year, and not reduce our affection to flowers, candy, jewelry, clothes and a meal on one day a year.

The people who plan their lives around Valentine's are like those who spend more time planning their wedding day rather than planning their marriage. The day is nice and wonderful, but what makes it last is what you do on the "non-special" days.

CNN

Chhattisgarh Maoists propose peace talks with government

2009-02-09T11:50:00.009+05:30

The timing of the peace talks which was proposed just a week before the CoBRA was
deployed in Chhattisgarh raises a lot of questions.....

We are also grateful to Bridagier B K Punwar
for sharing his deepest and wildest fantasies of crushing the Maoists.

I would say ...
The Most Important Question that faces the Maoist's today is what are the
lessons to be learnt from LTTE's debacle in Sri Lanka ?

Chhattisgarh Maoists propose peace talks with government

In a press statement in Hindi, Pandu alias Pandanna, a spokesperson of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist), said the group "wants to hold talks with the government in public interest, provided the government takes positive initiatives."

"Before starting peace parleys, the government should create a conducive atmosphere and stop suppressing tribals," the message, sent to media outlets in its stronghold of Bastar in the state's southern forested region late Friday, said.

The Maoists' peace talk offer comes in the backdrop of chief minister Raman Singh's recent statement that "bullet has never produced a solution to any problem in the world".

In an initial response to the Maoists' offer, Raman Singh welcomed it, describing it as "cheering news".

Political analysts and experts say the Maoists have offered peace talks as they are now on the backfoot due to relentless attacks by police and para-military troopers on their decade-old landmine protested forested safe hideouts.

TOI

Maoists’ peace offer a ‘gimmick’, time to finish them: security expert

Raipur, Feb 1 (IANS) The peace talk offer by the Maoists to the Chhattisgarh government is a “well thought out ploy of the guerrillas to buy time to regroup”, a counter terrorism expert said, adding that the security forces should utilise the opportunity to finally crush the rebels. “This is the perfect time for the police to fan out in the rebels’ den and deliver the knockout punch,” Brigadier (retd) B.K. Ponwar, director of Counter Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College (CTJWC) at Kanker in Chhattisgarh, told IANS Sunday.

“Their (Maoists’) philosophy is that all power flows from the barrel of a gun but now they are willing to come to the negotiating table. This has happened because the rebels suffered heavy casualties in the past two years and also because of the pressure of the Salwa Judum (civil militia),” he said.

Ponwar, a former commandant of the Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairengte in Mizoram who has served in Punjab, Nagaland, Tripura and several other insurgency and militancy-hit areas of the country, was commenting on the Maoists’ peace talk offer to the state government.

The outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist)’s Dandakaranya Special Zonal Committee Saturday offered to hold talks with the state government. It is the first peace offer by the Maoists since they began their activities in the mineral-rich state in the early 1980s.

The state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government has welcomed the offer though the police view it largely as “a diversionary tactic” of the insurgents who have been facing relentless attacks on their landmine protected forested hideouts in Bastar.

“The police must not put down their guns in the wake of the Maoists’ peace offer gimmick. Their (Maoists or Naxalites) whole philosophy is based on violence. By offering peace talks they just want to buy time to reconsolidate and regroup,” Ponwar said.

“This is a rare opportunity for the central and Chhattisgarh government to pump more guerrilla warfare skilled forces in Bastar to neutralise them forever,” he added.

Noting that the offer looks like a “well-designed tactic”, Ponwar said if the CPI-Maoist is really serious about peace, then the offer must come either from its politburo or central committee and the talks should be held with the Indian government as it is an inter-state problem.

Ponwar has trained about 7,000 policemen from seven states at the CTJWC since it was established in 2005.

TOI