Tribals of Kalinganagar have played a pioneering role in the Indian peasants’ struggle against forcible displacement. Their struggle changed the direction of seeking relief and rehabilitation to opposing the displacement. On January 2, 2006 14 of the struggling tribals were gunned down by the Odisha police for forcible occupation of land for Tatas.

On the 7th anniversary of Kalinganagar firing, the Bistapan Birodhi Jana Manch vowed to continue their struggle against forcible land acquisition. Like past years this year also the BBJM organized a rally of more than 3000 people carrying red flags and traditional weapons like bows and arrows and chanting slogans against forcible land acquisition in the name of industries and mines like “Balapurbak silpayana bandh kara”, “Bikas nare Binash Chaliba Nahin”, Kalinganagar Amar Saheed tumaku janau Lal Salam” etc. The rally started in the morning from Champakoila, the place where the police fired upon tribals killing 14 of them on 2nd Jan 2006 and it ended at Birbhumi covering a distance of nearly five kms. After the rally reached at Birbhumi, the site where the stone pillars in memory of tribal matyars are standing, the red flag was hoisted and floral tribute was given to those martyrs’ pillars by the leaders of BBJM and other supporting organizations present there. Revolutionary songs in the memory of the martyrs and urging people to carry forward the struggle were sung by BBJM activists.

In the afternoon the public meeting was started under the chairmanship of Com. Amarnath Banra, the president of BBJM. The family members of the martyrs were called to the stage one after another and were honoured with clothes by the guests. Com.Rabindra Jarika, secretary of BBJM in his introductory speech described the plight of the people displaced by different industries in Kalinganagar area. He said those who are at one time left their homes by the allurement of Tatas are in a distress condition now. Many displaced people who were betrayed by Tata have joined in our today’s programme. He urged the tribal people of Kalinganagar to unite and resist the land acquisition by different companies. Leaders of BBJM Com Dabar Kalundia, Com.Nati Angrai, two elected sarpanches Com Swarnalata Banra and Rajendra Kalundia also spoke at the meeting.

Com. Bhalachandra, state spokesperson of CPI(ML)-New Democracy also hailed the heroic struggle of Kalinganagar and the role played by it in the ongoing anti-displacement struggles in the country. He saluted the brave people of Kalingnagar for continuing this movement inspite of facing so many killings, arrests and other brutal repression by the state Govt led by Naveen Pattanaik and Tatas. He urged the leaders and cadres of BBJM to be the rallying point of all the tribal, dalits, workers and other poor people of Kalingnagar in their struggle against injustice and repression. CPI(ML)-Liberation state leader Mahendra Parida and social activist Praffula Samantara also spoke at the occasion.  

(Translated from Pratirodh Ka Swar, June 2011)

UP’s Mayawati Govt. lags behind no other state govt. in unleashing atrocities on peasants, workers and poor sections of society. In the reign of a woman dalit Chief Minister, women and dalits are special targets of oppression and attacks with dalit women being prime targets. The news of atrocities on women and dalits make headlines every day. Mayawati counters this saying that her Govt. is being politically targeted as similar incidents are there in other states too. Thereby she also accepts that her being Chief Minister has made no difference to the lot of the most oppressed sections whom she claims to represent. BSP leaders and cadres are in the forefront of unleashing these atrocities. Ms. Mayawati takes credit for taking action against her own partymen but she chooses to pass over why she has packed her party with such criminals and anti-people elements? In her desire to be called an able administrator, Ms. Mayawati has given police and administration unbridled powers. In her rule, officers of police, administration and other govt. departments are doing as they please, and rule of law has become rule of law enforcers.

In the whole state, lands of peasants are being forcibly snatched away under emergency provision of Land Acquisition Act and Ms. Mayawati is showering these benefits on select big capitalists. In this most populous province of the country, peasants’ struggles to save their land are erupting at numerous places. Mayawati Govt. is trying to drown these struggles in blood making police and PAC fire on protesting villagers. Middle and poor peasants who are the main force of these struggles and even agricultural labourers who participate in them and who are the worst losers as they lose everything while gaining little, are special target of attack by Ms. Mayawati’s forces.

After every incident of killings of peasants in firing by state’s armed forces, Ms. Mayawati makes public announcement of her instructions to the police that in future they should not fire on peasants. But soon after more peasants are killed in police firing and she enacts this public show all over again. Gori Bacheda, Tappal, Karchhana and recently Bhatta-Parasaul are acts of the kind by Mayawati Govt.

After every killing of peasants, the other thing Ms. Mayawati indulges is to lay the blame of her Govt.’s doing at the doors of the Central Govt. and ruling Congress blaming them for not having amended the Land Acquisition Act. The list of crimes of Congress against the peasants, workers and other poor people of the country is indeed long and well known. After every incident of killings of peasants by security forces in the course of forcibly acquiring their land, Manmohan Singh talks of amending Land Acquisition Act, 1894. This Act made by British colonial rulers has been an instrument for seizing the land of peasants in the name of “public purpose”.

London burnt again in the first week of August, 2011.

Why did London burn? In answer to this question British establishment media, Parliament, ‘mainstream’ intellectuals who are actually the status quoists have neatly queued by behind the ‘haves’. The ‘rabble’ of London was on the streets and it was ‘depraved’ burning the city which spares no thought for them. The Parliamentarians asserted that protestors were ‘shorn of ideology’, others lamented their ‘lack of manifesto’ which the Govt. could address, London metropolitan police called the sequence of fires ‘copy cat criminality’. Tory and Labour closed ranks in ‘defence’ of London though Labour blamed Tory for austerity measures and Prime Minister Cameron breathed fire and repression and military as he thundered against ‘pockets of our society that are not only broken but, frankly, sick.”

They don’t say that the deprived of London – the poor youth and students especially the blacks, the working class and the deprived stood up to refuse to stand one more racist false ‘encounter’ story.

What occurred on 4^th August 2011

At the heart of the current unrest is the incident which set alight the already existing social tinder box. On 4^th August 2011, a 29 year old Afro-Caribbean father of three, Mark Duggan was returning home in a minicab to Tottenham area, where he lived in a housing society in a black dominated area. Within the area the cab was stopped by the Met Police (CO 19 unit) in a ‘SUS’ (stop and search) operation. This police unit deals with gangsters and drug dealers. The police version was of an encounter in which Mark fired first from a handgun, and the bullet lodged in a police radio, forcing the police to return fire and kill Mark in ‘self defense’. They accused him of being a gangster and drug dealer – charges his fiancée has vehemently denied.

No police informed the family of his death. Local people evidently knew Mark and also knew what not to believe about London police. Thus on 6^th evening, 100 north Londoners, mostly women and with women leading, walked in a rally to Tottenham police station. They planned a one hour vigil to secure ‘justice’ for Mark’s family. Mark’s fiancee was in the rally. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was not speaking to the family. One chief inspector briefly made enquiries from the rally’s leaders but no officer came out to meet them – a response which will seem quite familiar to us. The vigil continued for four hours amidst fraying tempers and eventually in the late evening the bursting point came. A 16 year old lady protestor confronted the police and was forcefully pushed back by them. The people reacted, and local youth joined them. Two police cars were torched. As anger against the police gushed forth, they set buildings and cars on fire and broke into nearby shops. Police arrived on horseback and the protestors fled into the side streets spreading from there to nearby areas. London began to burn.

Police was the Target

The entire pattern is clearly of anger pouring forth against the police fuelled by the sense of alienation, deprivation and poverty that London’s underbelly faces. The second night, in Enfield, youth broke into a jewellery store to confront police. At the Brixton music festival that night (a Black event) 200 youth threw stones at the police. Others broke into shops selling what they could never aspire to buy as also to collect missiles to aim at the police. They also attacked banks.

On Monday, a man was stopped in Hackney by police and subject to ‘SUS’. Violence erupted at this revival of a hated process. Starting from Hackney, London burnt as did other poor districts of other cities like Liverpool, Manchester, Brimingham, Nottingham. That day for the first time the Assistant Commissioner of Met. Police met Duggan’s family. But not before the youth in Hackaney and other places scourged the areas for bottles to throw at the police. They threw all sorts of missiles – planks of wood, wheelie bins, petrol bombs. They looted water bottles, trash cans, and boxes of peas in front of the police to defy them, threw cans in the streets. Six bottles of nail varnish, handful of coconuts and a nutritional supplement bottle were other trophies.

Over 16,000 police flooded London. On Tuesday PM Cameron returned from his holiday, spewing threats, abusive epithets at the protestors, more police, rubber bullets and water cannons (hitherto used only in Northern Ireland) photo detection, military, repression and more repression and vengeance against the ‘depraved’, the ‘immoral’ and ‘criminal’ which is how he viewed the protestors. In Parliament, which he convened after the first riot death, he condemned ‘the mindless violence and thuggery’ and termed the police as ‘too timid’. 5 years ago, Sarkozy spoke of French protestors as the ‘scum’.

Comment on the LARR 2011 bill proposed by the MoRD

The LARR bill 2011 carries all essential features of the anti people 1894 LAA colonial law – that the govt. has a right to acquire land of people (govt. and not the people is the real owner); public interest is to be decided by the govt.; govt. has a right to deny people even the right to object under ‘emergency conditions’.

In the name of addressing public concern on an outdated law and the avowed aim of striking a ‘balance’, a sinister plan that blatantly advances commercial and business interests of big capital has been proposed in the LARR, 2011. It ignores the basic development needs of the nation and its working people and is contemptuous towards the valiant struggles and sacrifices of farmers, fishermen and adivasis to safeguard their livelihood. It shamelessly protects the cause of private companies to capture agricultural land, coasts and forest wealth and water and mineral resources of the country. It entirely undermines the security interests of agriculture in our largely agricultural society, food self sufficiency and food security of 120 crore plus people, livelihood interests and security of more than 80 crore farming population, security of peoples’ culture, environment and ecology. All these have been sacrificed at the altar of commercial interests of big capital, contractors, builders, middlemen – now under the twin banners of ‘public purpose’ and ‘Rehabilitation and Resettlement’.

Read the Introduction to the draft issued for comments signed by Jairam Ramesh – “Infrastructure .. must expand rapidly. Industrialization based on manufacturing has also to accelerate. Urbanization is inevitable. Land is .. essential… Govt. needs to acquire land”.

Not a word here on developing agriculture which will bring food security, gainful employment to the people, increase their income, increase their purchasing power and strengthen local markets, increase local demand of necessities, stimulate manufacturing and thus improve the national economy. All emphasis is on catering to interests of MNC controlled big capital.

Read further – “In every case land acquisition must take place in a manner that fully protects the interest of land owners, and also those whose livelihoods depend on land being acquired”. What interests? That of ‘land owners’, not as farmers. Because that precisely is the way big MNC capital and comprador Indian govt. views Indian peasantry. So only the ‘owner’ interests of peasants and those whose livelihood depends on that land is to be ‘fully’ protected. Meaning land has to be taken away (‘acquisition must take place’) with monetary value of their owner interest and value of the work potential of those who work on the land, as assessed ‘fully’ has to be put in their hands.