BY SUE BULL
& TIM GOODEN
UTTAR PRADESH, India — As Australian activists debate the tactics of blockades following the September 11-13 protests in Melbourne, we could learn a great deal from the Indian practice of gherao (meaning blockade or encirclement).
The term first became popular in the 1960s when activists in West Bengal began to surround the politicians for hours with huge numbers of people. Police stations, parliaments and other government buildings were gheraoed. It is a tactic feared by those in power and is often very successful.
Two recent gheraos that the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) helped organise are good examples. On October 20, 4000 workers, peasants and students gheraoed the Uttar Pradesh Assembly in Lucknow. They were protesting the policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government that have led to unemployment, petrol price rises and university fee hikes. Increasing police brutality and of the harassment of Muslims were also protested against.
A train full of Muslim students was to participate in the rally but were stopped by BJP thugs. However, 150 students from the Aligar Muslim University near Agra, still got through.
The rally was lathi charged by police (lathis are bamboo batons) and several people were hurt. Eventually more than 1000 people were arrested and later released. Interestingly, this was a negotiated settlement with the police as the lathi charges were threatening to make the whole situation more explosive on both sides.
State secretary of the CPI (ML), Akhilendra Prataph Singh, told Green Left Weekly: "The gherao was a great success. It has helped to forge through action a front of democratic and secular forces to counter the repressive agenda of communal violence created by the BJP", he said.
On November 1 in Rajasthan, 40,000 farmers gheraoed the assembly building in Jaipur. The demonstration was organised by a united front of five political parties and was the biggest ever outside the assembly.
The rally was protesting electric power shortages. Recent privatisations have led to farmers getting power for just two hours a day. When some argued that the size of the rally was having a sufficient impact without the need to blockade the assembly, the farmers got angry — they had come too far to walk home empty handed. They gheraoed the building for six hours.
Eventually, the energy and irrigation ministers addressed the crowd and promised to start supplying eight hours power daily. If improvements have not been made by November 6, the farmers have vowed to begin a state-wide chakka jam (meaning "stop the wheels" — or highway blockades).
Dipankar Bhattacharya, general secretary of the CPI (ML) told Green Left Weekly: "The farmers are very angry. While the government may provide more electricity, this is only one of many issues inciting them. There are also the problems of decreasing crop prices, severe drought and the impact of the World Trade Organisation. Export dreams sold to farmers 10 years ago are now import nightmares. The entire agricultural population of India is in major crisis."