BY EVA CHENG
The Indian coalition government led by the Hindu chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has stepped up its neo-liberal privatisation and economic liberalisation push. The 24-party government and its bourgeois counterparts are using communalism, corruption, sexism and semi-feudal extremism to push their reactionary agenda.
In a number of states however the government's program is being challenged by mass organisations which, in many cases, are influenced by Marxist and other left forces.
Bihar, India's second largest state, has long been plagued by the virtual dictatorship of contending ruling interests which deploy criminal gangs and private armies to extract social submission, including mass killings.
According to the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), which has a strong base in Bihar, the ruling coalition government and Rashtriya Janata Dal-Congress are virtually competing to promote "criminalisation". They "are squarely responsible for the state's alarming descent into absolute anarchy and chaos", said the CPI(ML) in late October. It described recent deteriorations in Bihar as a further "fragmentation into mafia-dominated fiefdoms".
Violence against women in Bihar is widespread. The October 24 issue of ML Update, the CPI(ML)'s weekly bulletin, quoted a New Delhi report that between January and April there were 221 rapes, 159 kidnappings of women, 51 cases of rape and murder or parading naked and torture and 144 cases of dowry killing.
The October 25 ML Update gives graphic details of the degrading horror inflicted on these women as well as the extent to which the perpetrators were backed up by the state.
For instance a gang of male relatives of some powerful politicians broke into the Mother Teresa Girls' Hostel, terrorised and raped several of the girls and escaped scot free. In another incident, four women raped in Gaya were prevented by the police from registering the offence and the next day were hunted down by the rapists who dragged them naked out of their houses through the village. In Chatra, a criminal gang forced its way into homes and raped four women. The women initially felt too threatened to make a report to the police but when they did so two days later were refused help. On that night, the women were dragged out of their homes and gang raped.
In Madhubani, a woman was dragged out of her village naked, raped and sent back. In Purnea, a woman was labelled a witch, stripped, tortured and raped for 12 days in the presence of her husband and son. Her daughter was also stripped on the 13th day and raped.
"The list is unending", ML Update said, emphasising that "the criminalisation of politics and economy" has pushed anarchy and misery in Bihar to "dangerous levels".
"Only a powerful democratic movement can save Bihar from this growing crisis", the CPI-ML said. The party has initiated the Bihar development movement which aims to make real development a priority.
It was kicked off with an impressive list of mobilisations: a student/youth convention of 300 on October 17 in Patna; a seminar of 500 in Motihari on October 18; a protest march in Patna on October 18 to condemn the massacre of 17 people in Siwan; a protest meeting of 500 in Katihar against police repression; an October 20 seminar of 350 in Purnea with many socialist participants; a seminar of 1500 in Dehri on October 20; a rail blockade in which thousands took part on October 23 demanding the construction of a dam among other measures to address chronic flood problems (participants were brutally baton charged by police); and a picket of more than 100 in Chapra against the rise in petroleum prices.
In the week from October 18, an anti-massacre campaign featuring the crimes of Hindu chauvinism, was taken to hundreds of villages and culminated in a rally and march in Siwan on October 24 of more than 2000 people. Thousands were prevented from reaching the rally site. The march was blocked and 4000 were arrested.
The CPI(ML) called a state-wide protest the next day and solidarity actions were held in Calcutta, Jaipur, Guwahati and Lucknow.
Anti-privatisation campaigns
Recent mobilisations in the southern state of Rajasthan have strengthened the anti-privatisation struggle. Following a call by the CPI (ML), Communist Party of India (Marxist) and Communist Party of India, tens of thousands of small farmers, agricultural labourers, workers and unemployed blockaded the State Assembly in Jaipur on November 1 demanding electricity at affordable rates. The action was preceded by three months of vigorous campaigning.
The price of energy rocketed in Rajasthan after the state power sector was split into smaller units, in preparation for privatisation. Many of the costs, including the installation of new connections, were passed on to the consumers, while the power supply in many parts of the state were reduced to two hours a day at exorbitant costs. Terror tactics were also routinely used to exact arrears.
All this has provoked widespread anger among Rajasthanis who are also facing drought-induced crop failure and famine. The blockade was lifted at the end of the day, but the protesters vowed to organise indefinite statewide rail and road blockades if there were no improvements.
More mobilisations by power workers are expected when the forthcoming power reform bill — Amended Electricity Bill 2000 — is brought to parliament. In January, power workers of Uttar Pradesh staged a historic week-long strike against privatisation. This was followed by a campaign in Andra Pradesh against the rise in energy prices which culminated in a siege of the State Assembly in August in Hyderabad.
In West Bengal on October 23, 10 left groups from the Marxist-Leninist tradition, of which the CPI(ML) is the largest, jointly organised protests throughout the state against the price rise of diesel, petrol and kerosene. The 4000 participants of a four-kilometre CPI-ML organised march were baton charged but they refused to disperse, vowing to organise more actions.
Farmers in Punjab staged a mass rail blockade on October 9 to protest the government's refusal to buy their rice on the pretext it was damaged. A further blockade on October 12 threw rail traffic into disarray. The government tried to split the farmers offering a lower price for the inferior "coarse" rice but it was rejected and the government eventually backed down.
According to the CPI (ML), this is the first statewide action in Punjab for some time in which students and left organisations from the Marxist-Leninist (ML) tradition also joined in.
In Uttar Pradesh (UP) thousands of CPI (ML) members and student and youth activists encircled the State Assembly in Lucknow on October 20 to protest against state-sponsored terrorism (particularly the police-mafia link to the BJP), unemployment, price hikes and for democratic rights. The police baton charged, but despite a number of serious injuries the protesters maintained their blockade. Thousands were later arrested.
More recently, UP chief minister Rajnath Singh ordered "a free hand to the police" to crush the "Naxalites" — a common reference to left activists from the ML tradition. A well-funded Karmanasha anti-Naxalite package is aimed at checking the ML activists' growth on the border between UP and Bihar.
On November 8 the CPI (ML) strongly condemned the move, especially the government's effort to link the Naxalite movement with criminals. "The CPI (ML) movement is purely a political movement for the rights and dignity of the people", it declared.