Dipankar Chakrabarti: The Naxalite Movement: In search of the root of its debacle

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Democracy and Class Struggle publish this article in memory of Comrade Dipankar Chakrabarti, we at Democracy and Class Struggle may not be in complete agreement with  Dipankar Chakrabarti's political line, but we consider his views worthy of study by comrades.We offer our condolences on his recent death.
 q ONE

Eight decades have elapsed since the founding of the Communist Party of India. During this period great upheavals like haughty fascist onslaught, the devastating 2nd world-war, ferocious and aggressive evil designs of the U.S.imperialism to dominate this unipolar world through globalisation and sheer military might have drastically transformed the world. In the first half of the last century, revolutionary upsurges shook the world one after another, first in Russia, then in east Europe and Asia, thereby illuminating a bright road before the labouring people for achieving socialism, which is supposed to lead them to freedom from hunger and exploitation. But by the end of the nineties all those experiments have failed. And in our country India utter darkness still basically prevails, though the direct imperialist rule has been replaced by indirect dependence and virtual sub-ordination. And the communist movement here remains basically divided, social revolution a distant - almost remote - possibility, and the Indian people still hopelessly panting for liberation.

In India too, like many other countries, the thunder-clap of Russia’s October Revolution had brought the communist consciousness in the first quarter of the twentieth century. But still now, in spite of the incomparable dedication and heroic martyrdom of thousands of communist cadres and supporters, their sacrifices could not usher in a new society. Again and again the leadership has failed to recognize the soil below their feet, consequently swinging in a vicious whirlpool, in the labyrinth of rightist and ‘leftist’ deviations, and consequently, the Indian communists have not yet in its activities been able to build up a consistent and clear alternative line of action before the toiling people. That much-longed-for correct line for revolution –both strategical and tactical - has not yet emerged, and as a result revolution has become more and more distant.

q TWO

Reactions to Rape in India : We have to think ! Immediately, Right now ! : Pakshdhar Vichar Manch

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Following the brutal gang rape of a 23 year paramedical student in Delhi on 16th December and the subsequent death of that brave comrade of ours after a gritty fight with death for 13 days, the sensitive and justice seeking youth, women and citizens of the country are still on streets. But the representatives of conservativism, narrow mindedness, superstition, religious fundamentalism and dogmatism have started to put their disgusting thoughts before the world in a totally bare and unscrupulous manner, and in their retrogressive millenarian chorus they are joined by people ranging from leaders-ministers of various political parties to bureaucrats and police officers.

Mohan Bhagwat, who is the supreme of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the flag-bearer of “cultural nationalism” and religious fanaticism in our country, has declared that the reason of increasing incidents of rape is that the Indian tradition where women should only be housewives is not being followed! According to him, only the males should have the responsibility (read freedom) of getting out of the home and earning. He has also proclaimed that the anti-women crimes happen due to the influence of western values and hence these crimes are happening not in ‘Bharat’ but only in‘India’! All this is factually incorrect and is an example of the cheap retrogressive anti women mentality. But this line of thinking of Mohan Bhagwat’s does not surprise us. What else can be expected from those who believe in the ideology of Hitler and Mussolini? Their fascist thought also considered women to be instruments for managing the household and giving birth to children. Evidently, one can not expect any other outlook towards women from these illegitimate Indian progenies of German and Italian fascism. It could also be asked why all the women leaders of BJP, which considers RSS to be its guiding organisation, do not resign and sit at homes? Sushma Swaraj, Meenakshi Lekhi, Nirmala Sitaraman, Uma Bharti, Smriti Irani and likes should be the first to sit in their homes and start serving their respective husbands and become housewives! Why are they working outside the household? It is clear that RSS wants the courageous and gritty women from the masses to sit at homes, and not the women who are serving the ruling classes!

Now that the Hindu communal fascists had already started to vomit their age old, rotten and nauseating thoughts, why would the Islamic fundamentalist Mullahs lag behind?Thus, the dogmatists of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind propounded that boys and girls should have separate educational institutions from childhood, meaning co-education should be abolished! This kind of Talibanist thought would also drag India to 18th century. As a matter of fact, the segregation and alienation created amongst the boys and the girls from childhood which causes them to become alien and mystical to each other, is also one of the reasons behind various anti-women values, customs and psyche. Hereinafter, this very complex results in anti-women crimes in many cases. However, the mullahs of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind are hell bent on pushing the world to the dark ages and are putting their best efforts to beat their Hindu fundamentalist rivals in this prospect!

Religious guru Asaram Bapu forced even these shameless and disgustful reactionaries to feel ashamed. He said that the girl who was the victim of the gang-rape was herself to be blamed for it; because she chose to fight and protest these brutal criminals instead of pleading for mercy on her knees with folded hands.There are no words to condemn such abominable views! However, we are not surprised too! It is these same religious gurus and contractors in the business of religion who are accused of rapes, murder, sexual assault on their female devotees and running brothels in their ‘ashrams’! Can we expect them to respect a brave, dignified and strong image of a woman?

When the entire country was seething on roads in protest of the rape and murder of a daughter of its own, what were the so called representatives of people sitting in parliament and assemblies doing at that time? Mamata Banerjee said that if freedom meant people roaming about hand in hand at midnight then such incidents were bound to happen; yet another leader of the Trinamool Congress declared that whenever women cross boundaries, they will be raped; a BJPleader from Madhya Pradesh suggested that the women should not cross the ‘Laxman Rekha’; a Congress leader from Rajasthan said that skirts should be banned; a BSP leader demanded ban on use of mobile phones by girls and their wearing jeans! So, after the barbaric crimes and sexual assaults on women happening daily on the streets of this country, the women themselves are being held responsible for them and thereby it is being conspired to put all kind of bans and curtailments on their rights! The mentality of the political leaders of the country is no different from that of religious fundamentalists and conservatives. And these are the same very people who are accused of making porn films, rapes, burning women to death for dowry, molestation, and sexual assaults! There are 286 MPs in the parliament facing trial for anti-women crimes! And these criminals and rapists are preaching to the hard working and dignified women of the country on how they should lead their lives!

The police is no different. What can one expect in a country where a girl trying to lodge an FIR of rape is again gang raped by the police? Where the government venerates the policeman involved in sexually torturing arrested women political activists with gallantry award, what else can one expect? In a sting operation conducted by a magazine, the top police officers of the national capital Delhi area have told that the anti-women crimes occur because women have made sex into a business; because women provoke men; because girls befriend boys; etc. This itself is indicative of the view of women in the eyes of the police of the country.

It is evident that we can not hope that these anti-women, conservative, reactionary, dictatorial and barbaric powers will respect the women’s rights, will grant women the right to equality, will ensure their security or will consider them equal to men in the society! These very same forces are responsible for the slavery imposed on women, these same people are responsible for the anti women crimes and frequently commit these themselves, these are the very same people who consider women to be slaves to men and wish to continue to treat them as doormats! What can be expected of them? Nothing at all! There is only one thing we can do: all the revolutionary, sensitive and just young men and women, working masses and common middle class citizens should uproot, destroy and annihilate the clenches of these criminal contractors of the centuries old dead traditions, narrow mindedness, hypocrisies, humbugs and deceits! These people are not nationalists or patriots but the reactionaries trying to push the country backwards! If even now we give any heed to any discourse of these religious fundamentalists, babas, gurus and die-hard anti women, then there will be no difference between us and flocks of sheep! If we do not stand up against these forces of darkness then we will have to ask ourselves whether we are still alive or not!

Long Live Revolution! Long Live struggle!

Down with Patriarchy! Down with Capitalism! Down with conservatism!

Pakshdhar Vichar Manch

Prashant: 9619039793,

Indian Workers Association Great Britain call for Boycott india's 63rd Republic Day and stand against sexual assualts on women

http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.in/

DEMONSTRATE OUTSIDE INDIA HOUSE IN LONDON

Aldwych WC2B 4NA

11am to 1pm 26^th January 2013

As India prepares to celebrate its 63^rd Republic Day on 26 January 2013, Delhi is trying to come to terms with the recent gang rape of a young woman on a moving bus and her subsequent death. Such rapes have become rampant in the Indian cities and towns. Few months ago London Guardian commented India to be the worst country for women among the G20 nations. Indian rape laws are stringent enough; however, the executive and the judiciary are so much feudal and patriarchal that the conviction rate for rape cases in India between 2001 and 2010 was 26%. In the case of Muslim and Dalitwomen the rate of conviction is almost nil as evident from the gang rape case of Bhanwari Devi in Rajasthan.

However a bigger dimension to this is that the Indian state itself has proved time and again to be the biggest perpetuator of rapes and all forms of assaults on women. State violence is institutionalised through a culture of institutional impunity to the police, the paramilitary and the army. In June 1984, hundreds of Sikh women were gang raped in the sanctity of golden temple by the Indian Army during ‘Operation Blue Star’. In the village of Kuman-Poshpura in Kashmir valley, about 100 women were mass raped by the Indian Army in a single night of 23^rd Feb 1991. Hundreds of Muslim women were gang raped by security forces during the anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, as the Chief Minister Narendra Modi just watched.The brutal gang rape and execution of 32 year old Thangjam Manorama in Manipur in July 2004 is another example of Indian Army’s ongoing repression on women in the North-East.

Nepal: Tasks of the Seventh National Congress by Basanta

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The Seventh National Congress of our glorious party, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, is being convened in the second week of January 2013. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Centre), which was formed by the unification the erstwhile CPN (Mashal), CPN (splinter Masal), CPN (Fourth Congress) and the Proletarian Workers Organisation, had organised a Congress, 21 years before, in 1992. It was called the Unity Congress because the constituent parties in the Unity Centre lacked a common position on the chronological number of that very congress. Taking that Congress to be the sixth one, our party is going to realize its Seventh National Congress after a long 21 years now. It is a matter of pleasure not only for the oppressed Nepalese people but for the world proletariat.

In the context of world events, 21 years is a very short period. However, many events that have far-reaching significance in the world situation and Nepalese political scenario have occurred in between this period. Events like, the termination of cold war followed by the dissolution of Soviet social imperialism in the 90s, the unrivalled domination of the US imperialism for a brief period and again the emergence of multi-polar world along with the ongoing economic crisis are the events noteworthy in the international political scenario. In the same manner, many accomplishments including the initiation of great people's war under the leadership of the CPN (Maoist), formation of the People's Liberation Army Nepal, setting up of the people's power in the entire countryside and the end of 240 years' old absolute monarchy from the political scene of Nepal are the notable ones in favour of the oppressed Nepalese people.

Nepal: ‘If bourgeois state does not deliver democracy …. we will take up arms’

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“Maoists will take up arms” if…. : Baidya

KATHMANDU, Jan 17: The CPN-Maoist on Wednesday warned that the party will take up arms if the state power cannot assure the rights of the people. Speaking at a press meet organized here by the party following the conclusion Tuesday of its seventh general convention, the CPN-Maoist also informed that the time for the revolt will be determined by the political situation.

“Give rights to the people. It the people get their rights, who will take up arms? Nobody. Why is the state conspiring instead of assuring people their rights in accordance with previous agreements and assurances. If rights are not given to people, it is sure that arms will be taken up,” answered Mohan Baidya, newly elected chairman of the CPN-Maoist, when asked about the reason for people´s revolt.

“As far as the date for launching a revolt is concerned, it is not a matter to be announced at present. It will rather be determined by the circumstances. Asked when they would launch their revolt, Baidya said, “We will launch the people´s revolt or people´s war as and when circumstances compel us because no one takes up arms just on the basis of the whim or interests of certain leaders”. “Arms will be taken up by any other force also when the situation so demands, even if we ourselves drop the idea.”

Nepal: Success of people´s revolt on the foundation of people´s war? Interview with Baidya aka Kiran

Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this interview by Republica's Kiran Pun note the dates used are Nepali and are Bikram Era - do  not be confused by this dating system.

Republica´s Kiran Pun spoke with Baidya. Excerpts:

You have been elected party head again after 28 years. How do you feel –is there something new or difference, as you have been elected both times during critical periods?

I was elected a central committee member at four general conventions and I was elected party general secretary at the fifth national congress in 2041.

So, I no longer feel any desire for assuming the main leadership post.

I now see very high hills of challenge, challenge for the people and the country. The question is how to move forward facing these negative and positive challenges.

I am now in such a place where both renown as a revolutionary as well ill fame are possible. And I remember a quote from Comrade Mao, that people can fall very far down after reaching very high.

I can go on facing the challenges if I get the help of party cadres and the people. The question is how can I accommodate the line of the masses and the interests of the people.

Although you were elected both times in very critical circumstances do you feel any difference between the two occasions?

Letter of Solidarity and Greetings to Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist from Marxist Leninist Maoist National Liaison Commission (USA)

Comrades

We are most excited and delighted to know that the comrades of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), after years of struggle against the Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionist clique, are forging again a party of steel to complete revolution in Nepal. The Prachanda-Bhattarai revisionist clique had indeed not only derailed the revolutionary people’s war in Nepal but had confused the entirety of the revolutionary movement with their liquidationist treachery. In Nepal this clique had attempted to surrender the People’s Liberation Army to the enemy, it had locked up the fighting comrades, seized their weapons, and negotiated their liquidation with the reactionary state. For despite the crisis of governance that exists in your country, despite the removal of the feudal fratricidal King Gyanendra, the state itself remained intact and reinforced increasingly by Indian intrigues.

The Prachanda-Bhattarai clique jumping upon the crisis of governance has entangled itself in the muck of parliamentary disorder, their strategy has turned into nothing more than revisionist maneuvers of position within the body of the Constituent Assembly and the ministries. They, in failing to smash the state, subordinated the revolutionary party to the ruling reactionary classes of your country. As we have also pointed out, such revisionist treachery also confused the entirety of the revolutionary movement. Not only were comrades of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties around the world confused by such transformations, but it opened up the space for new emerging revisionist theses to spread in our movement. It further emboldened already existing revisionist parties and cliques everywhere to claim to the entirety of the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement “Look! Now even your comrades have been reasonable and now they negotiate. Be as reasonable as they.”

Comrades, it would not be a lie to say that the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist movement internationally looked to Nepal where its banner was raised high on the top of the world for inspiration and leadership, and when the revisionist Prachanda-Bhattarai clique attempted to transform revolution into surrender, the whole of the movement was shook to its core. Today in our movement, internationally we struggle against Prachanda-Bhattarai clique’s revisionism with the comrades of your party at the lead. We must ideologically wrap our minds around how such revisionism emerged in the party, how it took command, and what is the correct course of revolution in Nepal today. Furthermore we must investigate the international dimensions of such revisionism as it pertains to the entirety of our movement.

We must also struggle internationally against Avakian’s revisionist political line. The “new synthesis” of the RCP,USA has been for years now posed in contrast to the Prachanda-Bhattarai clique. It has been for years claimed by the RCP,USA that Avakian’s “new synthesis” was by the only means to lead forward Communist revolution in this new sequence. We claim that Avakian’s “new synthesis” is nothing more than smoke and mirrors to mask essentially a radical humanist petty-bourgeois politics which rebukes the necessity for proletarian revolution and scientific socialism. We in the United States not only have the duty to struggle with this revisionism as it appears in its garb in the international plane of our movement, but also domestically, where the RCP,USA has in effect through their left-opportunist practice has weakened the entirety of the Communist movement. Comrades, we like you are forging ahead to build a party of the new type.

A party for revolution, a party that will join the international communist movement led by the guiding scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, a party which will attempt to mobilize millions of militant proletarians to smash US Imperialism and lend support to comrades around the world. The conditions for the development of such a party are both objectively and subjectively possible despite the Avakian revisionism of the RCP,USA, and the Post-Maoist revisionism of other trends. Hopefully comrades within some time we can report to you progress in the activity to forge a new party, to join you comrades in making world revolution and supporting primarily the efforts of your party, steeped in the legacy of ten years of people’s war and the blood of its martyr’s.

Down With Prachanda-Bhattarai Clique!

Down With All Post-Maoist Revisionism!

Long Live the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)!

Admin Aids French Bombing of Mali After US Trained-Forces Join Rebels in U

Zero Dark Thirty, or How a People Lose Their Humanity

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by Annie Day | January 13, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

I was shaking as I walked out of Zero Dark Thirty, the new film about the CIA's 10-year search for Osama bin Laden. Shaking and queasy. Wanting to hear from others in the audience, I asked people questions as they streamed out... What did they think of the film? Overwhelmingly, people answered positively... with smiles. Did they think the film upheld or condemned torture? Some answered that it didn't take a stand, just showed the facts. But many said they felt it upheld torture, that it portrayed it as essential to Osama Bin Laden's capture. And what did they think of torture? While a couple people answered that they supported it outright, many said they didn't think it was right, that America shouldn't use torture. So how did they feel about liking a film that upholds something they would otherwise find deplorable? Several people said it's just a movie and shouldn't be taken so seriously. One woman said she appreciated coming to understand, from the CIA's perspective, why they used torture. And far too often, the answer was, "It's complicated."

Natalio Pérez: Images from Nepal’s Maoist Congress

http://kasamaproject.org/

Posted by eric ribellarsi on January 15, 2013

These photos come to Kasama from Natalio Pérez, reporting for Winter Has Its End in Nepal. The Winter Has Its End team’s reporting will be coming shortly.

CPN-M finally opts for people’s revolt

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Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this report from Nepali Media for information purposes,it is not an offical statement of CPN-M.We hope to publish offical statements shortly.

KATHMANDU: The ongoing seventh national convention of CPN-Maoist today endorsed Chairman Mohan Baidhya’s political document, which called for people’s revolt that would stand on the base of people’s war.

Clarifying how people’s revolt was possible when all the bases created by the People’s War had been destroyed, Baidhya said the human resources, their decade-long experiences and skills were sufficient to develop such bases.

Most of the leaders, involved in people’s war right from its inception, have defected from Unified CPN-Maoist, accusing UCPN-M Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai of being traitors to the Nepali revolution.

The convention also decided to expose Dahal and Bhattarai, terming them the greatest agents of expansionism and neo-colonialism.

The leaders said the party would focus on the movement for the country’s national independence by forming a broad alliance with leftists, republicans and patriotic forces.

The leaders also told participants that the possibility of people’s revolt would exist only when there are crises in the country. “If the country gets a new constitution or holds elections the crises will get some sort of solution and the possibility of revolt will end,” said Lekhnath Neupane, a senior party leader. Neupane added that the party will have to take the route of protracted people’s war if the possibility of revolt ceases to exist.

Baidhya’s document was passed with a minor correction in the proposed organisational structure. The convention refused to establish councils under major bodies of the party, including the central executive committee.

Sources said the party would initiate preparations for people’s revolt in a covert manner and later that would automatically be revealed.

The new central committee of the party to be elected tomorrow will draft plans and programmes of the party according to the line passed by the convention. The leaders told participants they would gradually establish people’s army,  courts, base areas and people’s governments.

Yesterday, Ekraj Bhandari representing the Newa State Committee had demanded that the convention commit to fulfil the dreams of all the martyrs and disappeared people.

Bhandari’s son Bipin Bhandari, a popular student leader, had disappeared during the conflict.

The closed session, scheduled to conclude today, has been extended till tomorrow since discussions were delayed and the convention has not yet selected the central working committee.

Source: http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=CPN-M+finally+opts+for+people%27s+revolt&NewsID=361793

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Freedom to Connect: Aaron Swartz (1986-2013) on Victory To Save Open Inte

From Delhi to Ohio and Around the World: If You Are Not Fighting Rape, You Are Condoning It! We Need Revolution and a Whole New World!

http://revcom.us/

by Sunsara Taylor | January 13, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Dec. 16, 2012, a 23-year-old medical student was kidnapped, repeatedly gang-raped and tortured on a bus in Delhi, India, which had been taken over by six men. She was raped repeatedly, beaten viciously, and penetrated by a rusty iron rod which ruptured her internal organs. By the time her rapists dumped her naked body under an overpass, along with her male companion who had sustained broken bones and a severe beating, 95 percent of her intestines had been pulled out of her body. Her rapists attempted to run her over with the bus, but her companion managed to pull her out of the way. Still, her ordeal was not over. For nearly two hours, as blood poured from her body, medical treatment was delayed—first as passersby refused to stop and then as police delayed and debated over whose jurisdiction and responsibility she was. On December 29, after 13 days of emergency surgeries and medical attention, she died.

On August 11, 2012, a 16-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, passed out at a party. While she was unconscious, the stars of the local football team stripped her naked, raped her, and goaded party-goers into urinating on her while crowds looked on. They dragged the unconscious girl to three different parties, violating her throughout the night. In cellphone footage taken that night, one of those at the scene can be seen laughing and joking about the rape of the girl. Referring to the fact that she was unresponsive as this assault went on, he jokes, "Is it really rape, cuz you don't know if she wanted it or not. She might have wanted it. That might have been her final wish." While this girl did not, in fact, die, a group of guys can be heard laughing as one of them goes on for a full 12 minutes saying things like, "She is deader than OJ Simpson's wife," and, "She is deader than Trayvon Martin."

How different are these two stories, really?