[Reader-list] The Naxalites overreached

[anupam chakravartty]

Look who is talking against violence here. how do you explain the ugly
politics prevalant in University of Delhi under ABVP leadership
especially in University of Delhi along with NSUI? how do you explain
death of professor Sabharwal in Bhopal? how do you explain gun battles
between NSUI and ABVP during University of Delhi elections as well as
other parts of the country?

how many student leaders have been arrested? what do you have to say
about allegations of covert and overt support to maoist violence by
student associations during JP years? some of our great leaders have
willingly taken support of their maoist brethren to find a spot in the
legislative assemblies and parliament. how do you explain that?

I am not from JNU or support JNUSU but i am sure these students were
not celebrating the deaths as these report suggests. therefore, leave
the students out of this is my only request.

why cant we have some realistic opposition to such violence? if we are
condemning the violent act of naxals, then one has to also see how
salva judum along with members of armed forces have perpetuated
violence in these areas. with your lopsided reports Pawan, i dont
think you are doing any justice to the souls of the asking for a
retribution from the state. it is short term and illogical. lives are
lost, people killed, more tensions in these areas.

anupam

P.S.: how about writing an open letter to Maoist leader Kishenji and
Ramanna? why do they hide behind that cloth? their hiding more
important than several young men and women who lay their lives for him
and the party or for their cause? this means there exists hierarchy in
rank and information among Maoists just like any other armed guerilla
unit. so are they proposing change or they are also like you, Pawan,
harbingers of retributive justice. do they expect that there can be
negotiation now that they have attained a certain level of expertise
in killing people?

On Mon, Apr 12, 2010 at 9:18 AM, Pawan Durani <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
> And now we have this shocking news of JNU students celebrating the
> butchering of 76 Jawans by Maobadis.
>
> Talk of rights !!!
>
>
> http://jaibihar.com/jnu-students-celebrate-butchering-of-76-crpf-jawans/201018916.html
>
> JNU students celebrate butchering of 76 CRPF jawans
>
> NEW DELHI — The NSUI and ABVP, otherwise bitter rivals, along with
> Youth for Equality (YFE) together disrupted a meeting organised by the
> newly formed ‘JNU Forum Against War on People’ (JNU-FAWP), which, they
> claimed, held a pro-Maoist meeting in the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
>
> The NSUI national general secretary, Shaikh Shahnawaz, said: “Members
> of Democratic Students Union (DSU) and All India Students Association
> (AISA) organized a meeting to celebrate the killing of 76 CRPF
> personnel in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh. They were even shouting slogans
> like ‘India murdabad, Maovad zindabad’. How can this be allowed inside
> a Central university?”
>
> To oppose the function, NSUI and ABVP activists took out a march to
> the venue where a clash broke out among the students. Four persons got
> injured in the clash.
>
> Assistant Dean of Students, Prof Sachidanand, said that no permission
> was granted by the authorities for the meeting.
>
> Senior BJP leader VK Malhotra has urged home minister P Chidambaram to
> remove the “elements supporting the Maoists” from the university.
>
> On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 1:52 AM, Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:
>> Dear Anupam,
>>
>> Many thanks for posting this, I have been geturing towards the aerial
>> bombardment of Aizawl several times, just to show that the trigger
>> happy attitude of the Indian state is not a a recent fact.
>> Incidentally, this aerial bombardment one of the several is what led
>> to the total alienation of the people in the north east who the
>> Indian state wanted to rein in and force into the Indian union. As of
>> now, senior officers of the air force have correctly stated that
>> aerial attacks in 'Naxal' affected regions will be unwise. Lets hope
>> that their counsel prevails, although the pressure from those who
>> want to 'crush' naxalism will also grow. I hope that we can hold dark
>> days at bay for as long as possible.
>> On 08-Apr-10, at 7:04 PM, anupam chakravartty wrote:
>>
>>> Memories of inferno still remain fresh
>>> NEWSLINK Monday, March 05, 2007
>>> Bureau report
>>>
>>> Aizawl, March 5th, 1966: Today marks the 41st anniversary of the
>>> historic Aizawl bombardment, which had turned the once-beautiful hill
>>> town Aizawl into ashes, a few days after the declaration of the
>>> "Mizoram independence" by the Laldenga-led Mizo National Front.
>>>
>>> While Mizoram now has emerged as one of the most peaceful states and
>>> marching ahead as one of the most developing states of India, memories
>>> of the inferno still remain with those who survived the trial by fire.
>>>
>>> "In the afternoon of March 4 1966, a flock of jet fighters hovered
>>> over Aizawl and dropped bombs leaving a number of houses in flames.
>>> The next day, a more excessive bombing took place for several hours
>>> which left most houses in Dawrpui and Chhingaveng area in ashes,"
>>> recollected 62-year-old Rothangpuia in Aizawl.
>>>
>>> According to some records, Hunter and Toofani fighters were deployed
>>> for the Aizawl bombardment, which became the first and only aerial
>>> attack India has carried out against its own people. The fighters came
>>> from Tezpur, an IAF air base in Assam. Apart from Aizawl, Tualbung and
>>> Hnahlan villages in northeast Mizoram were bombarded. Surprisingly,
>>> there were no human casualties officially reported in any of the air
>>> raids.
>>>
>>> "In the first wave of attack the planes used machine guns and later on
>>> used bombs. The attack came in three waves, on the second day the
>>> attack lasted for about five hours," MLA Andrew Lalherliana recounted.
>>>
>>> According to Joe Lalhmingliana, a retired wing commander of Indian Air
>>> Force, Tezpur Air Force base - which presently hangars MIG 21
>>> Operational Flying Training Unit (MOFTU) - was the base for the
>>> Mizoram aerial attack of March 1966.
>>>
>>> "The Indian Air Force deployed Hunter and Toofani jet fighters to
>>> carry out the mission; it was the first time India used its air force
>>> to quell a movement of any kind among its citizens. Goa was a
>>> different story, it was a move to drive away the Portuguese," the
>>> former airman said.
>>>
>>> Till today there has been no satisfactory answer as to why India used
>>> such excessive air force against its own citizens in order to suppress
>>> an insurgency. Surprisingly, the Mizo National Front was outlawed only
>>> later in 1968.
>>>
>>> In the aftermath of the Aizawl air raids, two MLAs of Assam, Stanley
>>> DD Nichols Roy and Hoover H Hynniewta, came to Mizoram (then Mizo
>>> district under Assam) to see with their own eyes what happened to the
>>> people of the Mizo District and were totally shocked by what they saw.
>>> Later in April, Nichols Roy moved a motion in the Assam House on the
>>> Aizawl air attack.
>>>
>>> "The use of excessive air force for taking Aijal (the former name of
>>> Aizawl) was excessive because you can not pinpoint from the air who is
>>> loyal and who is not loyal, who is an MNF and who is somebody pledging
>>> allegiance to the Mizo Union, the ruling party in the Mizo district,"
>>> Roy was quoted as speaking to the Assam chief minister by Mizo
>>> historian JV Hluna in his book 'Debates on Mizo Problems on
>>> Insurgencies, with special reference to the contributions of Stanley
>>> DD Nichols Roy, MLA and Hoover H Hynniewta, MLA.'
>>>
>>> JV Hluna noted that a hot debate over the Mizo issue continued in the
>>> House. Nichol Roy even referred to a statement made by Prime Minister
>>> Indira Gandhi published in the Hindusthan Standard on March 9, 1966
>>> where the PM, answering a foreign correspondent, insisted that the air
>>> force was "deployed to drop men and supplies."
>>>
>>> "Nichols Roy stated that whether the shells of bombs, which had been
>>> dropped in Aijal, be sent to Delhi to ask the Prime Minister, 'How do
>>> you cook this ration? If these are supplies, please tell us how you
>>> cook these things'?", JV Hluna said in his book.
>>>
>>> Strongly condemning the use of air force, the other MLA Hynniewta
>>> produced photographs of one unexploded bomb and some fragments of
>>> exploded bombs as proof of the Aizawl air attack, which was strongly
>>> denied by the Government of India.
>>>
>>> "We touched it, we measured it and we took photograph of it. We have
>>> fragments of the bombs. We have the testimony of hundreds of people
>>> who have heard the explosions the moment the planes flew over in Mizo
>>> Hills," Hynniewta addressed the chief minister. "If you want to
>>> suppress the MNF rebellion, ordinary bullets are sufficient. From any
>>> point of view, military, physical or economic, these weapons should
>>> never have been used," the MLA told the House.
>>>
>>> "Given that the only sources of information regarding the insurgency
>>> in Mizoram for the outside world were the words of the Assam chief
>>> minister, the Assam chief secretary and the Prime Minister (who on the
>>> other hand denied the air attack), the contributions of the two MLAs
>>> were very notable," JV Hluna said.
>>>
>>> Since the MNF rebels had already taken Army installations in Champhai,
>>> Lunglei and Saitual in the initial stage of the rebellion and Aizawl
>>> in danger of being overpowered, the Indian Government might have been
>>> too nervous to have second thoughts about an aerial attack on its own
>>> territory.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:19 PM, anupam chakravartty
>>> <c.anupam at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> the blog says killing of indians by naxal...who is an indian and who
>>>> is a naxal?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Apr 8, 2010 at 4:17 PM, Pawan Durani
>>>> <pawan.durani at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/indus-calling/entry/
>>>>> naxalites-in-delhi
>>>>>
>>>>> Seventy-six jawans who were on duty to fight the antinational and
>>>>> barbaric Communist terrorists were killed in an ambush and the home
>>>>> ministry says "there was an element of failure".
>>>>>
>>>>> This is not the time for a blame game. I wrote before too, "Support
>>>>> Chidambaram's war", though the home minister dithered in between and
>>>>> gave wrong signals to the Naxalites, hoping that they would
>>>>> listen to
>>>>> him and his badly produced ads. In a way, the Indian polity helps
>>>>> fissiparous tendencies. It's mired in taking revenge on Amitabh
>>>>> Bachchan and making a tamasha of a nikah, which is strictly a matter
>>>>> between two interested persons. Such a polity can issue carbon
>>>>> copies
>>>>> of the previous statements of sham condemnation but can't instil
>>>>> confidence in the citizens and the security forces. Ask Raman Singh,
>>>>> the brave face CM of Chhattisgarh, who has been struggling hard to
>>>>> tackle the Naxalite menace amid a volley of  attacks by Dilliwala
>>>>> Naxalites, who accused him of being harsh on the barbarians, and
>>>>> almost killed his Salwa Judum through false allegations.
>>>>>
>>>>> So far the government hasn't spoken about taking the war on the
>>>>> Communist terrorists to its logical end. Neither has it announced a
>>>>> free hand to the security persons to find, flush out and annihilate
>>>>> the cowardly terrorists who have become a bigger threat to the
>>>>> nation
>>>>> than the Pakistan-supported jihadis. It should be doing that
>>>>> immediately. Home secretary Gopal Pillay has rightly questioned "not
>>>>> only the CPI (Maoist) but also those who speak on their behalf and
>>>>> chastise the government' as to what was the motive behind the attack
>>>>> and what is the message the CPI (Maoist) intends to convey". The
>>>>> "jholawala" supporters of the Naxalites should also be booked for
>>>>> instigating murders and sedition.
>>>>>
>>>>> They are all Communists. They swear by Mao, Lenin and Stalin. Their
>>>>> loyalties are extraterritorial. Their sources of inspiration -
>>>>> all of
>>>>> them have smeared their hands in the blood of innocent people - from
>>>>> Lenin, Stalin and Mao to Pol Pot. And they have thrived so far in
>>>>> spite of having killed more than 6,000 Indian citizens and security
>>>>> personnel because there is a powerful lobby in Delhi which portrays
>>>>> them as revolutionaries and puts pressure on the government not to
>>>>> take any stern action. When a publishing house like Penguin
>>>>> chooses to
>>>>> publish a book of so-called poems of a jail inmate, a known
>>>>> supporter
>>>>> and the voice of the mass-killer Naxalites, Varavara Rao, what
>>>>> can be
>>>>> expected of the morale of those who are supposed to take on the
>>>>> barbarians to protect the Constitution? There is a socially
>>>>> desensitized section of the neo-rich enveloped in Anglo-Saxon
>>>>> traditions that has taken upon the "responsibility" to
>>>>> romanticize the
>>>>> butchers and win dollar awards.
>>>>>
>>>>> They are the writers, filmmakers and poster boys of the glitterati
>>>>> that find it fashionable to safeguard Maoists and have them as an
>>>>> acceptable phenomenon in a society that's described as (a
>>>>> positioning
>>>>> to justify the murders) 'ridden with corruption, administrative
>>>>> lethargy, rich class insensitive towards the poor and the
>>>>> downtrodden', etc. So the logic is, if there would be so much of
>>>>> political and administrative injustice to a large number of poor,
>>>>> they
>>>>> would, rise in revolt. Yeah, sounds good. Doesn't it? Poor revolting
>>>>> against the rich, burning their bungalows and establishing a just,
>>>>> fair and Communist reign of the proletariat!
>>>>>
>>>>> Like they did in Moscow and saw the disintegration of the Soviet
>>>>> Union? Like they did in Cambodia and saw the mass murder of 25%
>>>>> of the
>>>>> population? Like they did in China and saw millions killed and
>>>>> ultimately a Communist regime giving way to the market forces? There
>>>>> is not a single place on this earth, including the haven of the Red
>>>>> revolutionaries West Bengal where they have been able to establish a
>>>>> small corner that portrays the model success of their revolution.
>>>>> Bad
>>>>> roads, dillapidated schools, no industrialization, poverty-struck
>>>>> labour class and the fattened Commissars. That's the end result of
>>>>> their struggle. Naxals too become rogue armies, blackmailing
>>>>> gullible
>>>>> villagers and their kids to join their ranks, destroy schools,
>>>>> public
>>>>> health dispensaries and roads. They are, in the words of
>>>>> Chidambaram,
>>>>> just criminals.
>>>>>
>>>>> This must make Indian citizens to sit up and ask the media and the
>>>>> government some inconvenient questions. Did the Sania-Shoaib
>>>>> controversy really merit front page when the nation's foreign
>>>>> minister
>>>>> was in Beijing negotiating the country's most sensitive issues? Did
>>>>> Penguin do the right thing by publishing the so-called poems of a
>>>>> barbaric supporter of the mass murderers, giving him and the book a
>>>>> halo of revolutionary spirit, thus according the criminals a social
>>>>> sanction. Those who mock at the patriotic people and heroes like
>>>>> Savarkar, decorate gun runners who kill citizens with a sadistic
>>>>> pleasure? That lady, Arundhati they say is her name, with a penchant
>>>>> for laughing at the beheading of security personnel like Francis and
>>>>> eulogising in her inimitable de-Indianised style the savagery of the
>>>>> Naxals must be charged with sedition and supporting mass
>>>>> annihilators.
>>>>>
>>>>> Who were those seventy-six killed by the Naxal? And who felt
>>>>> happiness
>>>>> seeing their dead bodies? Who were the bereaved families and who
>>>>> were
>>>>> negotiating electoral alliances and secret pacts with the
>>>>> killers? The
>>>>> rebels or the antinational insurgent groups called Naxal, Maoist and
>>>>> Red revolutionaries have been working in 220 districts in 20 states
>>>>> and the government has established a special cell to monitor and
>>>>> resist them. They created a Red Corridor from Tirupati to
>>>>> Pashupatinath. Help from China to Nepalese Maoists to them has been
>>>>> suspected by Indian intelligence agencies. They are working against
>>>>> India and it's a war, in real sense. Still the rebels prove
>>>>> weightier
>>>>> than the patriotic jawans, who had nothing in their mind except to
>>>>> protect the citizens and the Indian constitution? Why? So far
>>>>> this is
>>>>> a skeleton of some official statistics describing killings of
>>>>> Indians
>>>>> by Naxals:
>>>>>
>>>>> 1996: 156 deaths
>>>>> 1997: 428 deaths
>>>>> 1998: 270 deaths
>>>>> 1999: 363 deaths
>>>>> 2000: 50 deaths
>>>>> 2001: 100+ deaths
>>>>> 2002: 140 deaths
>>>>> 2003: 451 deaths
>>>>> 2004: 500+ deaths
>>>>> 2005: 700+ deaths
>>>>> 2006: 750 deaths
>>>>> 2007: 650 deaths
>>>>> 2008: 794 deaths
>>>>> 2009: 1,134 deaths
>>>>>
>>>>> Why the sacred forces of the state die like cattle unsung and often
>>>>> insulted like it happened in the case of Inspector Mohan Lal Sharma
>>>>> and pilgrimages are organized to the homes of the terrorists in
>>>>> Azamgarh but none to the homes of the patriotic soldiers? Why it
>>>>> helps
>>>>> to be a terrorist in Delhi to remain safe and have civil rights
>>>>> committees to organise interviews in magazines and channels and its
>>>>> often embarrassingly deadly to be soldier, with none coming to hear
>>>>> their woes and interview the mother of the martyred?
>>>>>
>>>>> It is this Naxalism that needs to be crushed. They don't remove
>>>>> poverty through guns. They use poor to help their luxuries.
>>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
>> The Sarai Programme at CSDS
>> Raqs Media Collective
>> shuddha at sarai.net
>> www.sarai.net
>> www.raqsmediacollective.net
>>
>>
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