ON 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF POLICE FIRING ON APRIL 19TH 1986 DIP BLOOD IN MEMORY OF VICTIMS OF ARWAL MASSACRE IN JEHANABAD DISTRICT OF BIHAR .PAY TRIBUTE TO COURAGE OF MAZDOOR KISAN SANGRAM SAMITI .HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF TODAY WITH FASCISTIC REPRESSION MORE INTENSE LIKE OPERATION GREENHUNT.
Today we commemorate 30 years since the police firing in Arwal in Jehanabad district killing 23 people.
They were members of the peasant organization,the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti.
Echoes of the Jalianwallah Bagh massacre were reverberated as only a mass gathering was taking place.
This incident reflected the partisan nature of the state colluding with landlord senas.iIt continued colonial form of functioning.The Mazdoor Kisan Sangrami Samiti was sowing the seeds of a strong agrarian revolutionary movement and organizing resistance against the landlord gangs.
Even it's legal meetings or conferences like in 1983 attacked as well as their state secretary killed .
The M.,K.S.S.was banned after the incident which reflects the nature of the state.30 years later in the name of curbing 'maoism' history repeats itself whether the arrest of Saibaba as well as thousands of tribal activists.
The M.K.S.S had not even initiated armed struggle like the Maoist Communist Centre and the Peoples war group.
Earlier the killing of Shankar Guha Nyugi reflected the same trend of the state going on to ban the Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha as well as the assassination of civil liberties activists in cold blood like Dr.Ramanadham,Jappa Laxma Reddy,Prabahakar Reddy etc.
The Arwal firing was a precusor to a huge revolutionary democratic movement led in Bihar mainly by the Lok Sangram Morcha and the Jan Pratirodh Sangharsh Manch.
A historic protest rally was later held in Patna 3 moths later consisting of a united front of 12 organizations comprising around 40,000 people with armed weapons.This protest represented mass line at its highest depth.
Today in the time of Operation Greenhunt this type of protest is lacking. Later the M.K.S.S.ressurected itself through the Mazdur Kisan Mukti Manch and the Mazdur Kisan Sangrami Parishad.
The Lok Sangram Morcha held a historic convention in Delhi in February 1989.
Till 1986 the M.KS.S.only launched peoples armed resistance and was still banned.
In later years the red volunteer corps played a major role in defending the land seizures of agrarian revolutionary struggles of the M.K.S.S.
This point asserted the need for democratic movements to be armed.
The Krantikari Kisan Committees of the Maoist were arguable better prepared for self defence with their red army corps.
The line of Jehanabad peasant movement from 1978-86 was an excellent practice of massline with only people's armed weapons deployed .
The firing depicts that anytime the state can unleash it's repressive tentacles and people have to be prepared to face it.
Later massacres in Laxmanpur Bathe in 1997 reflected the same trend of the Ranvir Sena blessed by the ruling party.
A series of caste masacres were backed by the ruling parties in Bihar,including the Janata Dal govt.Today an organization like Revolutionary Democratic Front is unofficially banned.
Bindeshwari Dubey, compelling him to take measures which turned Patna into a police fortress, antagonised several organisations with mass support among the landless and the poor and drew criticism from a powerful section of his party men.
do read this report published by Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana in 1990 in a n anti-repression campaign in Mumbai.
http://www.unipune.ac.in/snc/cssh/humanrights
Below are reproduced articles by Farzand Ahmed from India Today in 1986.
They depict how even ruling class elements try to camouflage themselves as democrats pretending to stand by the victims in Arwal.The police tried to give their own version.
The Arwal massacre in April this year returned to haunt Bihar's Chief Minister Bindeshwari Dubey last fortnight, compelling him to take measures which turned Patna into a police fortress, antagonised several organisations with mass support among the landless and the poor and drew criticism from a powerful section of his party men.
Dubey's action in banning the Mazdoor Kisan Sangram Samiti (MKSS) - whose activities in the Arwal area had resulted in the gunning down of 12 villagers there - on the eve of a gherao of the legislature by the Arwal Jansanhar Virodhi Sangarsh Morcha (anti-Arwal massacre front) was followed by a ban on landlords' armies who have long been ranged against the MKSS.
The decisions, both panic responses, antagonised political opinion and raised doubts about Dubey's grip on-Bihar.
As people moved into Patna to participate in the August 21 gherao, 12 companies of the Bihar police along with three companies of the CRPF sent by the Centre, were deployed to forcibly prevent people from entering Patna. A 70,000 strong morcha was stopped, but Home Commissioner B.K. Singh put the figure at 17,000.
The ailing former Naxalite leader Nagabhushan Patnaik, now chairman of Morcha-constituent Indian Peoples' Front (IPF), managed to slip through and lead a group of 300 supporters towards the secretariat but was lathi-charged and arrested. Said Dubey : "I congratulate the people for ignoring such an anti-democratic call."
But leader of the Opposition Karpoori Thakur charged: "The Dubey Government has proved that it can go to any length to suppress the voice of the poor."
The Bihar Government has been taking a tough stand on the Arwal massacre but the emergence of the morcha which contains many militant groups, panicked the state Government. Apart from the MKSS and the IPF, there are 12 other organisations which comprise the morcha.
The Government took a sudden decision to ban the MKSS four days ahead of the gherao, hoping to demoralise them. The ban drew immediate criticism.
Said former chief minister Jagannath Mishra: "It does not seem a well-considered political decision."
Dubey's decision to ban the MKSS and the landlords' armies raised fresh doubts about his grip on the state.
The MKSS, which has been fighting to get rights for the landless promised by the Government in various poverty-alleviation programmes, has long been the target of the police and the senas. After the Arwal massacre the Bihar Government had described the MKSS as "an extremist faction" and attributed nearly 200 murders, a series of dacoities in the south-central region of the state to it and its Lai Sena.
But Dr Vinayan, who launched the MKSS in 1981 with the slogan of jote boye kate dhan, khet ka malik wahi kisan' (the peasant who sows, tills and harvests the land is its real owner), dismissed all the charges as "totally fabricated". "
The MKSS has no squads. It is an open, peaceful organisation creating a sense of self-confidence and awareness among the poor," he asserted.
As its influence spread from Jehanabad to the districts of Gaya, Patna, Rohtas, Beguserai, Palamau and Aurangabad, the landlords responded with a host of senas, the most aggressive being the Lorik Sena, Bramharshi Sena and Bhoomi Sena.
At least one sena had the support of a powerful minister in Dubey's cabinet, as a CID report stated and Dubey later confirmed to the Centre. The area has since become a veritable battle ground.
With both sides to blame, Dubey was pressurised to ban the senas as well. Initially he disagreed, claiming that the senas were not organised associations, but fearing trouble in the legislature, he finally Ordered the ban on four - the Bhoomi Sena, Lorik Sena, Bramharshi Sena and Hari Sena, and Lal Sena of the Naxalites.
But it was soon clear that Dubey's action had pleased nobody. Opposition leaders, Congress(I) dissidents and Dr Vinayan agreed that the ban order on the landlords' senas was an eyewash. Said the CPI(ML) MLA Umadhar Singh: "Had the Government been sincere and honest it would have immediately arrested the known leaders of these senas.''
The move also upset the 'Jehanabad lobby' of nine MLA'S who have supported Dubey in the CLP(I) because he has been soft on the senas.
Nor has the ban broken the spirit of the MKSS, which intends to challenge the ban in court. Says Vinayan: "The whole purpose of the Government move is to force us to go underground but we are not prepared to oblige the Government.''
With the Opposition and mass organisations regrouping against the Dubey Government, public sentiment ranged against him and party dissidents pressing for a change in leadership, Dubey's position was more precarious than at any time in his 17-month-long stewardship of the state.
Documents on Human Rights Violations
unipune.ac.in
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