“For example, apart from the name, I did not even know who were the organisers and how to reach them”

and within a few lines, he writes -

“These are not the people open to any debates; they would have simply suppressed my objections and leave matters at that.”

That’s knowing quite a bit about an organisation, even without knowing who they are!!

What steals the show is this though -

“Instead–I am aware–they have been campaigning behind my back to influence your opinion about my political standing. This is consistent with the secret, sectarian politics they advocate.”

Again, who’d have thought that one might know so much about an organisation, about whom one knows nothing about! And no sir, it just does not end here. This is dated Dec. 22nd. Chomsky’s letter which apparently is a result of such behind the scene secret underground workings is dated 17th December. But lo and behold! One such example of working is post dated – a letter from G.N. Saibaba – dated 23rd December! Chomsky’s liguistic expertise is now reaching new heights in telepathic communications, apparently.

—– Original Message —–
From: Saibaba G N
To: paresh.wid.a.c@gmail.com ; bhumika.chauhan@gmail.com ; ravi_goel2001@yahoo.com ; pushpam. delhi ; prakash pathik ; abhijeetphartiyal ; editor_revdem@rediffmail.com ; khals_umar@hotmail.com ; hany babu ; karengabriel
Cc: Rona Wilson ; ajayrdf@gmail.com ; Ritupan Goswami ; Shoma ; Prof.Manoranjan Mohanty
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2009 11:30 AM
Subject: Fwd: Open letter to Noam Chomsky

Dear friends,
Please see the forwarded mail.
I don’t think Noam Chomsky had singed the sanhati petition without knowing
the ground situation at present in India.He is aware of the developments in India. In any case, Sanhati also circulated
a background note along with the note. My friend, Nirmalanghu Mukherjee at our University
strangely wrote to spread misinformation.

You can mail your concern about Nirmalagnshu’s open letter to Noam Chomsky

the mailing address and email and other contact info for Noam Chomsky is listed here:
Noam Chomsky
Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus)

Mailing Address:
MIT Linguistics and Philosophy
77 Massachusetts Avenue, 32-D808
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA
Office Number: 32-D840
email: chomsky@mit.edu
tel: 617-253-7819

Saibaba
A teacher at the University of Delhi

“…these people never came out with anything like a systematic response”
all the posts and Nirmalangshu’s duckings are not enough of a response, that he still needs a systemic response from the people he “could not reach”?

“These are not the people open to any debates; they would have simply suppressed my objections and leave matters at that.”
Does he mean that the organisers are all Maoists??

“It is quite amazing how a single letter sent to a few dozen friends by e-mail had reached the mainstream media as well such that BIG newspapers and ELITE websites have been asking me for write-ups (one attached). Needless to say, it is your name that led to this scale of exposure.”
I’m drooling, can I have the “one attached”!!

Who are the organisers ? Can you tell us ? How can we know whether they advocate secret, sectarian politics ?

It seems that Nirmalangshu is attempting to “oil” Chomsky. Contrary to his claims, most readers have been severely critical of his attempt at slandering the “organisers”. Three months have passed since the letter. We are yet to see any nice things being written about Nirmalangshu’s noble role in this matter. Only thing we can infer from this mail is his attempt at self-aggrandizement which we can say is surely delusional.

Dear Noam,

I have been informed of the following response from you to one Vijayan:

From: Noam Chomsky
Reply to: “R. Vijayan” rvijayan.vijayan@gmail.com
Date: Dec 17, 2009 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO NOAM CHOMSKY
Mailed by: Mit. Edu

I received the letter directly from Mr. Mukherjee, we corresponded about it, and I believe he agrees that there is no point sending it to one of the signers of the petition but that it should be directed to the organizers. As in the case of all petitions on human and civil rights, there was debate among those close to the situation about what to include and what to omit, and a compromise was reached. Then others, like me, remote from the situation, signed when the basic drift seemed acceptable and those who initiated it trustworthy.

There is no necessary action on my part.

NC

As a matter of fact, I do not quite agree that my response should have been directed to the organisers rather than to the signers of a petition. Although I understand the practical difficulties of those signing “remotely”, formally, having signed a petition, the signers own the responsibility for its content. No doubt it is for the organisers to present an honest and truthful view of things, but they are often not the public face of a petition. For example, apart from the name, I did not even know who were the organisers and how to reach them.

In this specific case, it is not clear what would have been achieved if I wrote to the organisers. These are not the people open to any debates; they would have simply suppressed my objections and leave matters at that. In fact, after a huge uproar following the Open Letter, these people never came out with anything like a systematic response. Instead–I am aware–they have been campaigning behind my back to influence your opinion about my political standing. This is consistent with the secret, sectarian politics they advocate.

Personal squabbles apart, the letter did have the desired result of initiating a debate on the crucial role of ‘maoist’ politics in people’s movements after over three decades of slumber. Both the state and the ‘maoist’ propaganda are at a visibly lower ebb; many left of CPM groupings are now openly writing against ‘maoist’ politics and its disasterous effects on broad people’s movements. It is quite amazing how a single letter sent to a few dozen friends by e-mail had reached the mainstream media as well such that big newspapers and elite websites have been asking me for write-ups (one attached). Needless to say, it is your name that led to this scale of exposure.

From: Noam Chomsky
Reply to: “R. Vijayan” rvijayan.vijayan@gmail.com
Date: Dec 17, 2009 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: AN OPEN LETTER TO NOAM CHOMSKY
Mailed by: Mit. Edu

I received the letter directly from Mr. Mukherjee, we corresponded about it, and I believe he agrees that there is no point sending it to one of the signers of the petition but that it should be directed to the organizers. As in the case of all petitions on human and civil rights, there was debate among those close to the situation about what to include and what to omit, and a compromise was reached. Then others, like me, remote from the situation, signed when the basic drift seemed acceptable and those who initiated it trustworthy.

There is no necessary action on my part.

NC

“the Maoists seem to be following the age-
old unprincipled doctrine of “My enemy’s enemy is my friend”, and
justifying it in the name of supporting self-determination of
nationalities.

A similar expediency led the Maoists in West Bengal to get into
underhand opportunist deals with the Trinamool Congress leader Mamata
Banerjee (who is now the Railways Minister of the UPA government), to
make use of popular discontent against CPI(M) gangsterism in
Nandigram. This fact was revealed, in an unguarded moment, by the
same Koteswar Rao in an interview with the Bengali TV Star Ananda
channel sometime ago, where he expressed the hope that Mamata would
protect his party from police persecution since it had supported her
in the past! need for introspection The basic debate therefore is
not over poll boycott per se, but revolves around the Maoist
leadership’s ideological under- standing of the present overall
Indian situation, and their moral integrity. Instead of recognising
the various forms of struggles by which different sections of the op-
pressed people try to exhaust the available democratic opportunities,
and accommodating these forms in an inclusive programme of action,
the CPI(Maoist) leaders in an immature overestimation of the Indian
public mood are jumping the queue of options, and prioritising armed
struggle as the sole means. In a further step of immaturity – which
sad to say, also makes them morally culpable – they prefer to strike
deals with ethno-chauvinist armed outfits, or opportunist politicians
like Mamata Banerjee. It is these militarist priorities and political
expediencies that are eroding the ideological commitment of their
cadres. The latter (in West Bengal today in particular) seem to be
degenerating into roving gangs of paranoid revengeful killers –
recalling the dark days of the fratricidal warfare between the
Naxalites and CPI(M) youth cadres in the 1970s. The party leadership
does not seem to have any control over its cadres even in its own
strongholds – as evident from the spokesperson’s admission that “the
unfortunate attacks on poll officials (in Chhattisgarh) were an
aberration…”. (Economic and Political Weekly, 14 November 2009, CRITIQUING THE PROGRAMME OF ACTION OF THE MAOISTS, by Sumanta Banerjee)

The entire article is an eye-opener.

Maoist Naxalites grow in India for the double standard leadership

“Even though the growing Maoist Naxalite movement has been declared illegal by the governments at the centre and the states, the political leadership of India seem to be maintaining double standard in dealing with the grassroot issues that could eliminate the Maoist threat to the country and its poor people. From some instances it becomes almost evident that the anti-naxalite measures pursued by the government are primarily motivated by corporate interests. One sees corporate link behind the Naxal cry of the leaders because there are many cases filed against the Adivasis who are raising their voices against unjust displacement but at the same time not a single case has been registered against the corporate houses, who have terrorized the Adivasis, violated the laws of the land and taken away the constitutional rights of the Adivasis.”

Gladson Dungdung : October 30, 2009

“Naxalism” has acquired the center stage of the whole debates in the government, the media and other public domains after the Maoists beheaded Francis Induwar, the Police Officer of the CID Special Branch followed by the killing of 17 Police men in Maharashtra, blowing up of school buildings in Jharkhand, attacking a Jeep carrying CISF personals in Chhatishgarh and hijacking drama of Rajdhani Express in West Bengal. The government and the media are crying foul almost every day and also attempting to fix the responsibility on the Human Rights Groups on the one hand and the so-called intellectuals are arguing the military operation as panacea to the Naxal problem on the other.

The Corporate Home Minister P. Chidambaram keeps saying that the Human Rights Groups must condemn violence perpetrated by the Maoists on one hand and some intellectuals like Swapan Das Gupta and News Anchors like Arnab Goswami have even gone beyond their limit by discovering some uncivilized words like “Maoist-Terrorist” and are attempting to manufacture the consent that all the Adivasis are Maoist-Terrorists therefore they must be blown up by the military operation without looking other side of the story. The Naxal politics between the Trinmool Congress and the Left Parties have also intensified in the West Bengal.

The most important question here needs to be answered is why there are so many hues and cries on “Naxalism” though it is not a new issue. The Naxalism has been flourishing in India for last 4 decades. There were several cases of beheading people, many police pickets were blown up in the past and train was also hijacked for 16 hours in 2006 in Jharkhand. The matter of the fact is the Central and State governments were never serious in addressing the issue of Naxalism and now when the problem is utterly intensified, they are crying foul with the clear intention of burying the failure of the entire system of governance. The government officials were busy in bagging money of the development and welfare schemes meant for the poor. The law enforcement agencies were quite active in collecting money in the police stations, check-posts and other places. And the politicians engaged themselves in capturing power through every ways and means. Consequently, the Naxalism is growing day by day.

However, the main reason is that the so-called ‘Red Corridor’ is full of minerals, where the Adivasis have been residing for centuries. The Multi-National Companies are eyeing on the minerals of the regions and the government is all set to sell it in the market rate therefore it has signed hundreds of MoUs with these MNCs. Since, the Adivasis of these areas strongly feel that they have been betrayed, neglected and dispossessed in the name of development, industrialization and the national interest in India for last 6 decades after the Independence therefore they are resisting against unjust displacement. Consequently, the industrialization process has come to a halt. The Corporate Home Minister P. Chidambaram knows the best way to get the land clear is brand the Adivasis as Naxalites, capture the land and hand it over to the Multi-National Companies.

It is obvious, because P. Chidambaram has very good corporate connections worldwide. Earlier, he represented the bankrupt American energy giant “Enron Corporation”, as a senior lawyer in India. He also represented the controversial British mining conglomerate ‘Vedanta Resources’ in the Mumbai High Court until 2003 when he became the finance Minister of India. He was also a member of the board of directors of the Vedanta and withdrew $70,000 that equals to Rs.35 lakhs in 2003 and also enjoyed hotel and travel facilities on the account of the Vedanta while he visited different parts of the world during that period.

One sees the Naxal cry as corporate link also because there are many cases filed against the Adivasis who are raising their voices against unjust displacement but at the same time not a single case was registered against the corporate house, who have terrorized the Adivasis, violated the laws of the land and taken away the constitutional rights of the Adivasis. For instance, the Sponge Iron factories are operating in Kolhan and Chhotanagpur regions of Jharkhand without pollution clearance, fulfilling of the job promises and compensation to the people but no action was taken against these corporate houses but at the same time, the state government has filed 11 criminal cases against 3505 Adivasis in Jharkhand who are fighting against corporate houses like Tata Steel, Jindal Steel, Mittal Steel, Bhushan Steel and RPG Group. Why?

Ironically, we live in a democratic country, where the government, the media and the other Institutions are run by the corporate houses, as a result, the rich people are always privileged and the poor are marginalized in every way. The paradox is the government promises land and forest rights through the forest right act 2006 to the Adivasis, who have been neglected, dispossessed and marginalized for the years on one hand and also signs the MoUs and promotes the forcefully land acquisition in the various part of the country in the name of so-called development on the other. Consequently, the people have lost their faith on the government. Therefore it must withdraw all the MoUs signed for the steel plant, mining projects and power plants, create a democratic space for the common people, where decent voice can be heard because the theories of the sunglasses will only complicate the problem.
The failure of the state, growing social inequality and non justice delivery are the main reasons of spreading the Naxalism therefore the state has no moral rights for crying foul at this moment. The conflict between the state and the Maoist will never come to an end till the marginalized people were ensured social, economic and cultural justice and also they are made stakeholders to the development and welfare schemes. In a democratic country any kind of violence perpetrated either by the state or non-state actors can not be justified and violence can never be the means to address the issues in either ways. Therefore, both the parties should come together and find out the middle ground, where the media can also play a constructive role because the society can not survive without harmony and peace.

(About the Author: Gladson Dungdung is a Human Rights Activist and Writer from Jharkhand)

The govt. wants to talk if ‘violence is abjured’. Highly distinguished voices demand that the talks be unconditional. Talks with whom? the CPI (Maoist) of course–not with the tribals, the broad democratic forums, not even with the broadly leftist, anti-state violence forces. So, the CPI (Maoist) is CENTRAL to the issue. Thus, the CPI (Maoist), by virtue of acquiring thousands of guns, turns out to be the sole representative of the struggling people against state violence, SEZs, imperial encroachments, murderous agricultural and industrial policies, everything. Thousands of unarmed activists working painstakingly with the people across the country also become marginalised in the state vs. ‘maoist’ construction of the current scenario.

The state certainly wants this scenario knowing fully well that the CPI (Maoist) won’t ‘abjure’ violence on the state’s calling. The CPI (Maoist), who had been waiting for this ‘revolutionary’ turn of events for long (without participating in broad democratic movements outside their small areas of control), would also want this scenario to be (officially) ‘recognised as the only genuine alternative before the people’, as their Supreme Commander declares from his (safe) hideout.

The war is imminent.

Where are the UNARMED tribals and the vast impoverished masses in this picture?

The left-democratic movement in India has been virtually sitting on this problem for many decades allowing both the state and the CPI (Maoist) to escalate their operations in stages with the tribal people in those areas caught in crossfire. Every effort to address this problem ‘internally’ by appealing to and criticising the extremists have fallen on deaf ears. Now that the crisis has gone beyond discussion forums and is beginning to involve the lives and livelihood of vast massses of unempowered people who are not party to the discussion, left-democratic forces will continue to fail in their historical responsibility if they do not assign the responsibilities in public in defence of the people. Hence, every democratic campaign must demand that

(a) The state withdraw its repressive apparatus–not just the planned army and air force operations, but ALL paramilitary forces, COBRAS, GREYHOUNDS, special police forces, and the like–from the tribal-inhabited areas concerned; in effect, dismantle Operation Greenhunt.

(b) CPI (Maoist) DISARM and join the democratic struggle for the sake of the people they profess to be fighting for.

Rest of the details can be worked out in aggressive democratic campaigns once peace descends on the tribal people to enable them to organise their lives.

To me physical violence and the threat of physical violence viewed politically is essentially an undemocratic act. I however feel that the level of violence that exists in a society is a good barometer to gauge the democratic nature of that society. India is a violent country and also a very undemocratic one. In India violence and the real threat of violence permeates all aspects of society, culture, economy and polity. Violence has been the unwritten part of the programme of almost all political parties; either covertly in propping up violent groups to undermine the position of more moderate opponents or overtly by actually leading pogroms against sections of people. Even factional fights within major political parties in India have witnessed violent conflicts. To put it crudely, on the question of violence hammam mein sab nangaien hai. The nature and extent to which violence or the threat of violence is important to a particular party or organization is a debate I don’t want to go into right now. In a context where the entire Indian state machinery has a discriminatory approach towards tackling violence, I prefer to talk of violence at a more generic level, and to me the two categories of “state violence” and “private violence” seem to cover the ground quite comprehensively.

My submission on the need to focus on the dangers of state violence, coming from Max Weber recognition of it having the ‘monopoly over legitimacy’ and hence needing more intense scrutiny, automatically should tell an intelligent reader that I do recognize that all forms of private violence as lacking in legitimacy. The degree of a lack of legitimacy depends on the context of the act of private violence and the scale runs across the range of acceptable violence to atrocity. When I see ‘private violence’ being perpetuated on marginalized sections of society by elite interests acting through non-state actors I see an atrocity. When I see ‘private violence’ being used by marginalized sections of society to protect themselves against attacks by elite sections of society I see justifiable violence used for self defense. A violent attack by marginalized sections of society on elite sections for me falls within the rubric of vigilantism which to me while not justifiable would not be termed an atrocity. A violent undirected and unfocused attack by marginalized sections is clearly an atrocity.

Like all of us I want to live in a society free from violence and the threat of it. To me that is the necessary pre-condition for a democratic society. To reach this aim, however, I will not go to a David and ask him to turn in his sling. Instead I will ask and demand of Goliath to come to his senses. The war that the Indian state has declared against the Maoists has not been in the past and will not be in the foreseeable future a lawful, focused intervention aimed at disarming and neutralizing an armed force. It will be an opaque, brutal and bloody one that will crush under its military machine many unarmed, defenseless poor peasant, landless agricultural labour and tribal families. Let not the antipathy that some of us may have against the Maoists come in the way of speaking out in their defense.

Sir- you appear to be a philosophy professor in Delhi – you really are operating way out of your specialisation here, especially if your sources of analysis are CPIM’s Delhi hacks…

Please correct me if I’m wrong. It seems from this statement that the threat to liberal space comes from the state and its agencies only. So if the state can be effectively monitored, liberal space will not be endangered. AN has raised this issue already in another article and following same thread of thought I’m curious to know Mr. Mathai’s opinion about “Political Program of CPI(Maoist) vis-a’-vis Liberal Space”.

Criticism is absolutely necessary. But a better job should be done without trying to be a Twenty20 slogger attempting to please the maidens in the crowd. CPI(Marxist) is definitely pleased. Otherwise Pragoti would not have hosted it.

About Trinamool-’maoist’ alliance/connections, I agree with you that this is a story that remains to be told (fully). See the comment from the Supreme Commander above for the beginning of such a story. It will also be disturbingly partisan to dismiss all reports by people like Mailini Bhattacharya, Sudhvna, and others just because they belong to or are associated with CPM. In unclear conditions of conflict, one needs to make some guesses about the ‘truth’ by working through a variety of conflicting partisan reports, interpreting them in terms of one’s past knowledge. If there is some indication of a ‘maoist’-CPM alliance at the beginning of the Lalgarh movement, partly conceded by the Supreme Commander, why couldn’t there be a ‘maoist’-Trinamool alliance in Nandigarh? Do we all forget the Cong-shal (Congress-Naxal) phenomenon in Bengal in the ’70s?

From the liberal humanist standpoint I see no reason to criticize a statement for only being critical about the state’s exceedingly brutal and undemocratic repression of an organization, its leaders and members and its supporters. In the light of Max Weber’s characterization of the state having “the monopoly on the legitimate use of violence” it behoves on liberals to focus on the wanton misuse of state violence irrespective of who it is used on.

mr. mukherjee can write whatever he wants. the problem is with kafila’s original idea of hositing such a personal position without hosting the letter which mr. mukherjee criticizes.

“Instead of building up on that victory, the Trinamool-’Maoist’ alliance began to intimidate, kill, and expel local CPM cadres in large numbers to capture the area. This led to invasion of harmads, which was responded to by arming selective groups, digging trenches, etc.”

- what is interesting is the sequence in which you present the events. You have been out of Bengal for a long time I presume?

In more recent times, Nandigram and Lalgarh are shining examples of how indigenous people’s movements against the loot and repression of agents of neo-liberalisation can arise and develop with broad support. In both cases, however, a disasterous ‘revolutionary’ politics attempted to exploit the opportunity by intervening with the promise of immediate armed struggle. This was done by creating conditions of violence far beyond the level of development of a struggle; this invited immediate escalation of repression by the state; the original movement is left with no option but to take up arms; state repression increases even further; the leaders go underground–the movement is destroyed.

Specifically:

1. In Nandigram, the impressive movement of the people forced the Govt. to withdraw the plan for the chemical hub from that area. Instead of building up on that victory, the Trinamool-’Maoist’ alliance began to intimidate, kill, and expel local CPM cadres in large numbers to capture the area. This led to invasion of harmads, which was responded to by arming selective groups, digging trenches, etc. Militaristic preparations took over the democratic organisations of the people. The state found the justification to enhance repression, the leaders fled the scene, the movement collapsed.

2. In Lalgarh, the historical deprivation of people created conditions for a democratic struggle which was building up when the ‘maoists’ intervened by attempting to blow up the Chief Minister. The state got every excuse to let its security forces loose on the unprepared people, and the familiar scenario followed.

The history of people’s struggles in the Dandakaranya area is much longer and, hence, more complicated. But a detailed analysis of steps over the years is likely to show the same pattern.

Such people’s movements are typically hijacked when the

If I was a person who is being dispossessed, whose wife has been raped, who is being pushed of their land and who is being faced with this ‘police force’, I would say that I am justified in taking up arms. If that is the only way I have to defend myself,”

Arundhati Roy (forthcoming interview with Karan Thapar in IBNLive).

It is tempting to dismiss the charge of being liberal humanist against Balagopal as garbage and move on to more important things. Indeed that would be an appropriate response if it were only a matter of a handful of ideologues flinging words they do not understand.

Unfortunately, Balagopal wrote only one article in Telugu and another in English where he made explicit his questions for Marxism and gave an all too brief interview in 2001 to clarify on his explorations in humanist approaches to Marxism e.g. Frankfurt School and British cultural materialism. A lot of the discussions and attempt to retheorize democratic rights in APCLC and HRF remain undocumented as, he and his colleagues focused entirely on ‘local’ practice. This has to be rectified at some point.

As of now, it is undeniable that Indian Marxists, at least the orthodox variety, find little of value in his thought and it is in liberal humanist ideological complexes that Balagopal gets invoked every now and then.

I paste here a link to the one English article where he responded to Sumanta Banerjee on the question of Communalism and went on to raise questions about Marxism.
http://balagopal.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/balagopal-democracy.pdf

The questions he raises here resonate with the sort of issues that Stuart Hall was raising in the 80s and 90s in British politics – the dangers of a Marxism that failed to yield or yield to a theory of subjectivity.

A silent hunt for dissent

Krishnamurthy Ramasubbu

10 am, October 12 — Jagdalpur, Bastar district headquarters town in Chhattisgarh, looks like a ghost town. Large areas around the collector’s office have been cordoned off. Around 50 tribals sit in a hall waiting for a public hearing of the environmental impact assessment report of Tata Steel’s proposed Rs 10,000-crore greenfield steel project in the district’s Lohandiguda block.

It’s noon by the time officials of the district administration and Tata Steel arrive. Sashi Bhu­shan Prasad, head of Tata’s environmental division, is presenting the report. His start is dramatic: “One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata had a dream for a village in Jharkhand, and that is Jamshedpur. It was many times worse than our Bastar.”

This is followed by, “Carbon steel…electrostatic precipitators…sodium and nitrogen oxides…automatic combustion control systems. Our technology will be better than the best in the world or at least equivalent. I will skip the technical things because you won’t appreciate them.”

The audience pays no attention. For a project that will take up around 5,000 acres of tribal land comprising 11 villages, use a large quantity of water from the river Sabari and will pollute the Indravati, the audience is surprisingly disinterested. After the presentation, the collector asks if there is any objection. Total silence. No one has any objection, but Tata’s project has not progressed beyond paper work and presentations since it signed an MoU with the state government in 2005.

Guarded tour

3 pm-4 pm — The hearing is over. The audience walks out towards a waiting posse of security personnel. Asked about the hearing, some pretend not to hear. One of them says, “We are from around Bastar…we have come on a tour.” They are loaded into a convoy of jeeps arranged by the government. That was the public hearing.

Reportedly, the collector told the press later, “The public hearing was successful. The people of Bastar should be congratulated.”

Two days earlier, on October 10, people from about a dozen villages near Raigarh expressed their opinion on another proposed plant, of Visa Steel and Power, by burning public property worth Rs 20 lakh at a public hearing.

At Lohandiguda village, where Tata Steel is setting up shop, village panchayat chairman Budram Kashyap is asked why he did not attend the public hearing. “We were not allowed,’’ he says. ‘‘There was a blockade outside Lohandi­guda.” People at Kumli village nearby say Tata men blocked the roads.

In these villages, Tata Steel is not a happy name, although they claim to have paid compensation for 70-75 per cent of the land in Lohandi­guda and the 10 surrounding villages.

“Some people here were willing but others were not. In the other 10 villages, they don’t want to give land at all,” says Kashyap. “Even people who took compensation money were pressured. There is pressure from the government that is difficult to resist.”

Fear of imprisonment

The people of the other 10 villages, Badanji, Bade Paroda, Belar, Beliapal, Chindgaon, Dabpal, Dhuragaon, Kumli, Sirisaguda and Takra­guda, feel likewise.

It is harvest season and a group of farmers are loading a trailer with the new paddy at Kumli. Farmer Pandey Nath says his land is not being acquired but he still opposes Tata. ‘‘Tomorrow they will have a factory near my land, pollute it and edge me out. No one wants to sell but they have all taken money now. No one was taking initially, so they sent three or four people to jail to set an example. They did impersonation, faked papers and everything they could to show that compensation had been paid,” he says to the collective nods of 10 other farmers whose lands are being acquired.

Tata and the state government have promised jobs, better infrastructure, education and hea­lthcare, but people seem unmoved. “I have been to Jamshedpur,” says Kashyap. ‘‘The children of Tata employees are educated. When Tata opens here, will they give us jobs or them? If Tata were serious, they could have trained the unemployed youth of Lohandiguda.’’

Tribal lands are shared and each parcel has 10 to 50 people dependent on it, according to the tribals. A single job for each piece of land will not help. Sources say Tata Steel has spent more than Rs 150 crore over the last four years to ‘‘create goodwill’’. But in villages like Kumli, the charm offensive has plainly not worked.

Pankaj Nath is clear about the general mood. “We will take up weapons,’’ he says bleakly. ‘‘The men will fight with their hoes and the women with their sickles.”

Kamal Gajviye, a CPI member and farmer at Kumli, is losing his land to the project. “The collector has often accused me of being a Naxalite. I am not. But I will become one, if this continues. They will all become Naxalites.”

The government says there is no resistance to land acquisition, or blames it on Maoists. A high-ranking police official says people “right now’’ are unsafe because of the Maoists and subject to their pressure. ‘‘Once people are sec­ure, they can decide freely. Then if they do not want the project, it should be fine.”

Ask Kashyap about this pressure from Maoists, who allegedly eliminated Vimal Meshram for acting as Tata Steel’s broker in Lohandiguda, and his reply is, “This man was killed for doing brokerage work for Tata. But there is no Maoist pressure. We never see them. How can they inti­midate or pressure us?”

Lohandiguda does not have CRPF deployment, but later this year, along with other pla­ces in north Bastar, it could see paramilitary units, as part of Operation Green Hunt, a central government offensive against Maoists. Once they arrive, it might be difficult to expr­ess such dissent freely.

Three hours away by bus, in the south Bastar villages of Dhurli and Bhansi in Dantewada district where Essar is planning a Rs 7,000-crore greenfield steel plant, the CRPF’s constant presence makes a difference. At Bhansi, a group of men from the paramilitary security force are having breakfast when the village panchayat chairman comes. He refuses to talk about Essar, “I won’t talk about Essar. Two of my friends were murdered over it.”

‘Kill us first’

At Dhurli, the panchayat chairman has run away, “Oh…,’’ says one of the men at a tea stall. ‘‘He stays in Dantewada fearing the Naxals. He probably took money from Essar.” Samruram Mar­kam, the village kotwari, says it is ‘‘a little pea­ceful now’’, but last year it was bad. ‘‘The collector is with them (Essar), so they come in with the force and threaten us. Essar came in 2005 and along with them came the CRPF camp.”

The restive mood of Lohandiguda is missing in these villages. “In case our land is taken by force,” says Markam, ‘‘we have decided to asse­mble all the men, women, cattle, goat, chicken and dogs, and ask them to kill us before taking the land. We will die anyway without our land.’’ There’s a note of despair in his voice.

In Raipur, N Baijendra Kumar, principal secretary to the chief minister, says mining projects have not taken off in Bastar because, “44 per cent of Bastar is forest and most of our mine­ral resources are beneath that. Environmental iss­ues come with the application of the Forest Act. Also, with tribals we have seen emotional problems when it comes to land.”

He denies any direct relation between Green Hunt and mining or related activities, “There is no direct link. Some activists are trying to show a correlation. The operation will improve everything, health, education, infrastructure. Obviously it will also improve mining.”

At Dhurli, an old woman drops her washing to chat, “Is it true that many soldiers are going to come next month? They say they will cut us up and throw away our bodies, after Diwali…. Is it true? ” It’s hard to answer that.

— krishnamurthy.ramasubbu@gmail.com

The threat of a desi East India Company

The Chhattisgarh government has been insisting on setting up steel plants in the state to ensure value addition. Chief minister Raman Singh had said that companies should not behave like the East India Company and cart away only mineral raw

materials from the state. As part of this plan Tata’s plant is planned in North Bastar, while Essar’s plant is planned in South Bastar.

Company: Tata Steel

Location: Lohandiguda block, Bastar district

Displacement: 11 villages

Land: 5,050 acres approximately

Product: Steel from iron ore

Capacity: 5.5 million tonnes per annum

Estimated cost: Rs 10,000 crore

Company: Essar Steel

Location: Dhurli and Bhansi villages, Dantewada district

Displacement: 2 villages

Land: 1500 acres approximately

Product: Steel from iron ore

Capacity: 3.2 million tonnes per annum

Estimated cost: Rs 7,000 crore

the moral of story is “Unity is streangth”.

“Once upon a time, there was a flock of doves that flew in search of food led by their king. One day, they had flown a long distance and were very tired. The dove king encouraged them to fly a little further. The smallest dove picked up speed and found some rice scattered beneath a banyan tree. So all the doves landed and began to eat.

Suddenly a net fell over them and they were all trapped. They saw a hunter approaching carrying a huge club. The doves desperately fluttered their wings trying to get out, but to no avail.

The king had an idea. He advised all the doves to fly up together carrying the net with them. He said that there was strength in unity.

Each dove picked up a portion of the net and together they flew off carrying the net with them. The hunter looked up in astonishment. He tried to follow them, but they were flying high over hills and valleys. They flew to a hill near a city of temples where there lived a mouse who could help them. He was a faithful friend of the dove king.

When the mouse heard the loud noise of their approach, he went into hiding. The dove king gently called out to him and then the mouse was happy to see him. The dove king explained that they had been caught in a trap and needed the mouse’s help to gnaw at the net with his teeth and set them free.

The mouse agreed saying that he would set the king free first. The king insisted that he first free his subjects and the king last. The mouse understood the king’s feelings and compled with his wishes. He began to cut the net and one by one all the doves were freed including the dove king.

They all thanked the mouse and flew away together, united in their strength.

1) I disagree with the author of the letter that during the 60′s the naxalites unilaterally ambushed their leftist collegues in CPM,CPI etc. it would definitely be a travesty of truth if someone fails to recall the field roles of so called brethren joining hands with congress goons in mass scale massacres in Kashipur, Baranagar , Konnagarh etc. And also the “ideological support’ supplied to it by Jyoti,Pramod et al.21st century Cong-CPM brotherhood within & without parliament is a convincing enuf proof of such a long camaraderie between the ‘feuding’ partners of plunder.

2) Neither Kanu sanyal nor Ashim chaterjee represents the true spirit of revolutionary left in india. they had long before capitulated to CPM designs and betrayed the mass in their own ways.

3) while legitimising state terror the maoists must not be singled out. Indian state under manmohan-chidambaram-montek variety has ushered in a unique brand of loot and repression in several states of our country. Indian democracy speaks of ‘development’ that has a clear ring of genocide, so briliantly put forward by Arundhati Roy in her latest book’ Listening to Grashoppers’. Before becoming the finance minister under rajiv gandhi in early 1990s , chidambaram served the tainted plunderer ENRON as being the ‘Devil’s Advocate”. he has been a member of the board of directors of Vedanta, a multinational mining company devastating Niyamgiri hills in orissa. maoists or no maoists such bland variety of ‘Nayebs of capitalist plunder’ would have adopted the severest state terror against any voice of resistance anywhere. His turbaned dada has also warned the citizens , one and all, that he won’t tolerate even a little bit of people’s resistance against the corporate miners, deshi or foreign.

simultaneously , i would very humbly add that maoists represent the blackblockist anarcho-militarist shade of revolutionary left in india. and their indiscriminate killing spree definitely harms the bourgeoning power of mass resistance , spreading across the country.

I agree with Nirmalangshu Mukherjee in saying that these maoists menace will halt the entire left moment in India for sometime.

By his LTTE-Maoists analogy he ‘deliberately’ means to tell the Maoists that look LTTE is dead, now you will be so too. Again here, he assumes that LTTE is already delegitimised, because they stand defeated (this is what Indian intelligence says.)

Prof sahib, why don’t you go beyond reading reports from the Hindu, and use your philosopher mind?

“In Sri Lanka, a vast freedom movement of Tamil nationalism arose about three decades ago. As the movement became progressively militant, it gave rise to a formidable militarist organisation: Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE). LTTE declared armed struggle, systematically eliminated all other groups advocating Tamil liberation, took to the jungles, and launched a civil war.”

Let’s not take media and intelligence narratives as they are. Let’s ponder over if something “became” so, why did it become so. THIS IS NOT FOR JUSTIFYING WHAT LTTE OR MAOISTS ARE, BUT TO UNDERSTAND THEM AND THEIR CONTEXT, WHY THEY ARE WHAT THEY ARE. Like biased-anchors in the electronic media, perhaps, you may say why go into history? Or you will say this is not the place to explain everything, but then why do you expect Sanhati to write everything in the statement?

Sorry for my own assumptions about you. We are all together in this habit of assuming too much.

Aniket: don’t you think we are all better as ‘idiots’ at this juncture, rather than being worldly wise – serving buddha and manmohan.?

It is also interesting that he never addresses the question of why he addresses his open letter just to Chomsky. He says that he did not have emails of other folks, but in these days of internet, that is somewhat hard to believe. Besides, since the letter he wrote was an open letter, why could he not address it to all the folks who signed the letter. Another reason he gives is that Chomsky matters. I guess, in his opinion, that should settle the matter, but I still don’t see how that answers the question of why the letter was only addressed to Chomsky, since he is only ONE among the many signatories.

He says that the analogy with Vietnam is unthoughtful, but does not explain why. He says that the Maoist factor is central to Operation Greenhunt. That should be music to state’s ears, since that is exactly what they want people to believe. Does it not occur to him that the state may be using Maoism is a subterfuge to discipline dissent, and to aggressively pursue its neo-liberal policies? I won’t say that that is what the state exactly wants to do, but has not the Maoist ‘menace’ come at a convenient time for the state.

And I find this excessive importance given to intellectuals somewhat distasteful. I don’t think, as Chomsky does too, that anything deep or interesting has been discovered in human affairs, that ordinary people cannot figure out for themselves.

Sanjeev

I disagree that Mukherjee does not assign any positive content or character to the CPI (Maoist) since he explicitly cites and quotes their opposition to any and all parliamentary politics and their open commitment to “protracted war” as an end in itself.

Left and the Nuclear Deal
A Requiem for the Left?

Both published in Revolutionary Democracy. revolutionarydemocracy.org