Thursday, March 25, 2010

ML UPDATE 13 / 2010

ML Update

A CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine
Vol. 13, No. 13, 23 – 29 MARCH 2010

In Lieu of Ediorial
Bihar Economic Survey 2010: Balance-Sheet of Growth Hype


The mystery shrouding the 11% growth miracle claimed by the Nitish Kumar government of Bihar is getting deeper and deeper. When the government of Bihar first claimed to have averaged more than 11% annual economic growth over the period 2004-2009, observers of the Bihar economic scene had valid reasons to take the government’s claim with a pinch of salt. For one, based on figures cited in the 2008-09 Economic Survey presented by the Government of Bihar in February 2009, the average annual growth rate for the same period (at 1999-00 constant prices) stood at 7.34%. The 11% claim surpassed the 2008-09 survey figures by as much as 3.7%! The claim also exceeded Bihar government’s own 2006 vision of achieving a growth rate of 8.5% for the 11th Plan period, and that too when actual private investment inflow in Bihar remains abysmally low.

It was hoped that the 2009-10 economic survey would throw some light on the growth riddle. But far from resolving the growth riddle, the survey has only added a few more layers to it. Ironically enough, in an unprecedented departure from the convention of pre-budget presentation of economic survey, the 2009-10 economic survey was tabled after the 2010-11 budget had already been presented, and the word “March” was clearly pasted on the cover in place of “February”. In another significant departure, the 2009-10 survey restricts itself to figures for only 2008-09, without providing any statistical assessment of the performance of the economy and the government for the period 2009-10! And the most revealing thing is of course large-scale retrospective revision of figures so much so that the average growth rate for the period 2004-2009 which stood at 7.34% on the basis of figures cited in last year’s economic survey now stands upgraded to suit the government claim of 11%!

The discrepancy between the two survey figures is quite high as can be seen from the following table:

Annual growth rate of GSDP at constant prices (1999-00)
Source 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09

2008-09 Economic Survey 11.31 2.79 20.27 -0.07 2.41
2009-10 Economic Survey 12.17 1.49 22.00 8.04 11.44

Clearly, it is the retrospective increase in the figures for last two years that has been instrumental in pushing the annual growth rate from 7.34% to 11.03%. The contrast is particularly striking in the matter of agricultural growth rate. Going by last year’s economic survey, the agricultural growth rate figures for the years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 were 27.94%, -12.18% and -6.70% respectively. In the latest survey, the figures for the same years show a huge upward mobility: 34.23%, -10.17% and 13.33% respectively!

The figures cited in the last survey for these years of course carried tags like “provisional”, “quick estimates” and “advance estimates” – but 27.94% jumping after three years to 34.23%, or -6.70% turning into 13.33% are nothing short of a stunning statistical surgery for which the government of Bihar owes an explanation to the people of Bihar as well as the academic world studying the Bihar economy.

The survey of course admits that the main growth sectors have been construction, communication and trade/hotels/restaurants. The annual growth rate for these high-growth sectors was 35.80%, 17.68% and 17.71% respectively, way above the overall average rate of 11%. By contrast, the growth rates in agriculture (5.58%) and manufacturing (7.98%) were significantly below the overall rate. No wonder, the share of construction and trade/hotels/restaurants in Bihar’s GSDP has gone up remarkably, from 3.31% and 14.94% respectively in 2000-01 to 12.15% and 25.24% respectively in 2008-09. By contrast, the share of agriculture went down during the same period from 35.83% to 23.58%. The contribution of manufacturing too recorded a further drop, declining from 5.67% in 2001-02 to 4.69% in 2008-09.

The main reason behind the steady decline of agriculture lies in chronic lack of investment and the preponderance of archaic and unregulated agrarian relations with real producers having little security or access to input subsidies or necessary farm credit. To take one key example, the figure of total irrigated area remains virtually stagnant – increasing from 44.6 lakh hectares in 2000-01 to 49.1 lakh hectares in 2008-09. Actually, the figure had reached 48.9 lakh hectares in 2003-04 itself, recording an additional increase of only 0.2 lakh hectares over the next six years! Even this modest increase is supported increasingly by the peasants’ own initiative – private tubewells run primarily on diesel (functional state tubewells are a rarity in Bihar) account for 55.40% of total irrigated area while the share of canal irrigation has gone down to 33.77%.

The issue of irrigation also gives us a glimpse of how agriculture continues to suffer from Bihar’s undemocratic agrarian relations. In the name of easing the escalating agricultural cost burden, the government of Bihar had announced a ‘diesel subsidy’ for farmers. The latest economic survey even showed a figure of more than Rs.400 crore on this account. When CPI(ML)-led panchayats started extending this benefit to tenant-farmers who lease in land for cultivation, there was a furore in the Assembly and the opposition RJD and the Congress joined the ruling BJP and JD(U) to insist that subsidy be restricted only to landowners, and the government succumbed to this chorus. A special note was issued by the state agriculture department restricting subsidy to only landowners.

This not only runs counter to any sense of logic and natural justice, it also specifically violates the government’s own “Road Map for Agriculture” released two years ago amidst a lot of fanfare. The Road Map had bravely declared: “The focus of this road map is on farmers rather than farms. A farmer is defined on the same lines as National Commission on Farmers, that is “Farmers will refer to both men and women and include landless agricultural labourers, sharecroppers, tenants, small, marginal and sub-marginal cultivators, farmers with larger holdings…”” Yet tenant farmers are being denied diesel subsidy to appease the feudal lobby.

Manufacturing, we have already noted, accounts for less than 5% of Bihar’s GSDP. The growth rate has fallen to 4.69%, with registered units growing by only 0.71% and unregistered units accounting for 3.98%. Large and medium enterprises are of course known to be very few in post-Jharkhand Bihar, but the survey this year reveals a serious decline in the SSI sector as well as tiny/micro enterprises and artisan sector. The combined growth rate of these sectors has fallen from 4.41% in 2007-08 to 3.61% in 2008-09 and only 1.14% up to October 2009. Sugar is the largest agro-based industry in the state and only 9 out of the state’s 28 mills are functional. All the 15 closed mills of Bihar Sugar Corporation are yet to be revived and reopened. The State Investment Promotion Board claims to have approved 245 proposals till November 2009 involving investment worth Rs. 133841 crore, but actual investment till Nov 2009 remained a trifle Rs. 1044.37 crore, which is less than 1% of the approved investment quantum! This is the real picture of the World Bank ‘certified’ business-friendly environment in Bihar.

Power is one of the most key requirements for industrial investment and per capita power consumption remains the lowest in Bihar (76 units compared to 612 units for all-India (2005 figure)). Only 10.3% houses are electrified in Bihar as against the national proportion of 55.8%.

For an assessment of the situation on the social sector front, let us just take two examples: NREGS and the PDS. The government claims to have issued job cards to 118.5 lakh households till October 2009, but only 20.9% got employment and only 1.22% of those who got work got 100 days employment. These figures of course cover only seven months of 2009-10, but even if we look at the corresponding figures for the whole of the previous year (2008-09), the figures stand at only 37.3% and 2.62% respectively. The government of course claims that only as many families demanded employment. This is perhaps partly explained by the continuing phenomenon of large-scale outmigration from Bihar and exposes the utter inefficacy of NREGS in stopping migration. But more than that, there is clearly the basic issue of an unresponsive and corruption-ridden panchayat system resisting and killing the very demand for work by diverse means. And whatever is happening to the provision for paying unemployment allowance?

On the PDS front, the survey tells us that in 2008-09, the Bihar government too made significant allocations for all the three PDS schemes – BPL, Antyodaya and Annapurna. But then the survey admits that the percentage of grains lifted by PDS dealers fell far short of the allocations. The survey gives us percentage figures for PDS lifting only in relation to allocation by the Centre. If the allocation made by the state government is also factored in, the percentage figures will be as under – Annapurna (the scheme that provides for 6 kgs of wheat and 4 kgs of rice free of cost for homeless senior citizens): rice 42.44%, wheat 43.54%; Antyodaya (the scheme that provides 21 kgs of rice at Rs. 2.00 per kg and 14 kgs of wheat at Rs. 3.00 per kg to extremely poor households): rice 37.44%, wheat 39.23%; BPL (25 kgs of rice and 10 kgs of wheat per month for BPL families): rice 16.77%, wheat 20.47%!

When the issue came up for a heated debate in the Assembly during this year’s budget session, the state agriculture minister had this explanation for the pathetically poor percentage of lifting by PDS dealers: she attributed it to heightened road construction activity in the state! Apparently, because of the ongoing road building spree, “no entry” signs have been put up near foodgrains godowns which in turn has adversely affected the movement of trucks for PDS supply!

As the Nitish Government continues to bank on statistical cosmetic surgery to sustain tall claims of growth, people's struggles in Bihar will resolutely expose these myths and demand substantial growth, based on land reforms, increased public investment in agriculture, real industrial revival and generation of jobs that alone can check outmigration and provide a better deal for the poor.

Statement on Park Street Fire

The blaze at a building in Park Street Kolkata has tragically taken several lives and injured many. CPI(ML) extends condolences to the families of those affected in this tragic incident. It is also a matter of deep concern that the incident displayed the complete absence of any disaster management machinery. Delays and mistakes in the rescue operations cost unnecessary lives. The ordinary citizens who came forward to play a heroic role in the rescue of trapped people, risking their own lives in the process, deserve the highest tribute. The party stands by the victims' families in their hour of grief.

CPI(ML) Condoles the Tragic Death of Kanu Sanyal

On 23 March, Kanu Sanyal, one of a senior founding leaders of the CPI(ML) movement, met a tragic and painful end.

Kanu Sanyal was a key organiser of the Naxalbari movement, and it was he who made the first public announcement of the formation of CPI(ML) at the historic mass meeting in Kolkata on May 1, 1969. He was jailed for several years for his involvement in the movement.

His political opinions underwent a change after the massive crackdown by the State and the subsequent setback suffered by the movement. He went on to denounce the very formation of the CPI(ML) as well as leaders like Charu Majumdar. Onwards from the late 70s, he launched several groups on the lines of organising committees of communist revolutionaries in an attempt to unite various groups. Eventually he also launched a new CPI(ML) – the party that he had denounced.

He remained active till the end of his years in the Darjeeling district, especially in struggles of tea garden workers against closure and hunger deaths. He lived a very simple life and never gave up political activism.

CPI(ML) Liberation condoles the tragic death of Kanu Sanyal.

Red Salute to Comrade Ajaib Singh Siddhu!

Comrade Ajaib Singh Siddhu, Vice President of the Delhi Unit of AICCTU, passed away on 19 March, following a long bout with kidney failure. A bus conductor in the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), he had been a party member since 1980.

He played a leading role in building a revolutionary movement among DTC workers in those years when the party was underground, in spite of being a government employee and in the face of family resistance. He was dismissed from his job twice, suspended four times and jailed once for his political activism. Initially he helped found the DTC Mazdoor Chetna Manch which was banned by the Government. Later he helped form the DTC Workers' Unity Centre, which in his leadership became established as a revolutionary workers' stream among DTC workers, enjoying widespread recognition and respect among workers.

He was a Delhi State Committee member of the Indian People's Front (IPF) and was President of the DTC Workers' Unity Centre for 15 years. Till two years ago he was also a member of the DTC Sector Committee.

Comrade Ajaib Singh's loss is deeply felt by his family (his wife, two daughters and son) and by the entire Party. His commitment to the Party, unaffected by repeated threats to his job, and his contribution to the working class movement and building the party among workers will be remembered as an inspiration by younger generations of party comrades.

AISA Team Visits Azamgarh

A three member team from AISA Jamia and Allahabad University including Aslam Khan (National Vice President, AISA) and Ramayan Ram (State Secretary, UP AISA) visited Azamgarh on 16th and 17th March 2010 in order to ascertain the facts behind the recent spate of arrests of alleged members of Indian Mujahideen.

The team met with a wide cross-section of people in Azamgarh (including Khalispur and Sanjarpur), including university teachers, lawyers, friends and relatives of the arrested youth. They also visited the homes of the arrested youth.

Strongly condemned Congress propaganda that a judicial probe was not desirable, AISA reiterated the demand for a judicial enquiry into the Batla House 'encounter' in the light of recently released post mortem reports.

The team made the following demands:
(1) Judicial enquiry into the Batla House ‘encounter’, (2) Clubbing of all blasts cases and fast tracking of the trials, (3) All police officers guilty of framing innocent Muslim youth in terror charges must be punished, (4) Protection must be provided to lawyers defending terror accused. An enquiry must be ordered into Shahid Azmi’s murder

Bareilly Riots: CPI(ML) Fact-finding Team Investigates

(On 2 March, communal riots broke out in Bareilly, centre of Rohilkhand and known for communal harmony. A five-member CPI(ML) team comprising CC Member Krishna Adhikari, State Standing Committee member Afroz Alam, State Committee member Rohitas Rajput, People's Union for Human Rights (PUHR) member and advocate Kishan Lal, and the party in-charge for Bareilly Atri Kumar Rishi visited Bareilly on 16 March where they spent two days visiting the riot-affected areas, speaking to local people and seeking out the facts in the midst of the political and media propaganda. Below is their report.

Dodging efforts by local administration to arrest members of the team and prevent entry, the team conducted its investigation and released the findings at a press conference in a tourism department hotel in Bareilly on 17 March. The team visited the riot-affected areas of Chahvai, Guddadbag, Koharapeer, Dariyavalan, Subhash Nagar, Badayun Road and Sanjay Nagar. The findings challenged the dominant media version that the riots had been sparked off by the change in route of the Juloos-e-Mohammadi (the procession to mark the birth of Prophet Mohammad) on 2 March as a result, instead finding that the BJP and Sangh Parivar are implicated in a conspiracy to foment the riots, and its leaders had led the incidents of arson and loot. The CPI(ML) team demanded a judicial probe into the riots, compensation for the riot-affected families and punishment for the politicians, PAC and police personnel responsible for the riots.

Draconian Laws against CPI(ML) Activists in Ghazipur

Activists who organise the rural poor are being branded 'gangsters' and goondas' and booked under the draconian 'Gangster Act' and 'Goonda Act' in Mayawati's UP.

On 15 February 2010, some criminals attacked the Bhadaura Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Gahmar PS of Ghazipur district, killing one person. Sanjay Singh, son of a doctor Surendra Singh who had retired from the PHC, and who has several criminal cases against him, was the main accused in this incident. But the police came under pressure of powerful forces and released Sanjay Singh, and instead falsely implicated and jailed poor tribals for this incident.

On 25 February, the CPI(ML) held a dharna outside the Bhadaura PHC to demand the arrest of the real criminals and protest against the framing of the innocent tribals, and also to raise the issues of widespread corruption in the PHC.

In the presence of the Deputy CMO (Chief Medical Officer) who had come to accept the memorandum, Sanjay Singh came and threatened to shoot dead the Ghazipur District President of AIALA Shrikrishna Maurya who was among those leading the dharna. Subsequently Sanjay Singh was again taken into custody by the police – but under pressure from above he was promptly released.

When CPI(ML) activist Ramchandra Maurya (of Pachauri village, Gahmar PS) was returning from the dharna that night, he was attacked and beaten till bloody with hockey sticks. The next day (26 February), when CPI(ML) and AIALA leaders went to the Gahmar Police Station to file an FIR against the assault, the SO arrested them, and booked them on a range of false charges filed by the criminals themselves. Later, other more serious charges were added, including the Goonda Act and Gangster Act.

On 10 March, CPI(ML) began an indefinite dharna at the district HQs demanding that the false cases against innocent tribals and CPI(ML) activists be withdrawn, the role of the police and local administration in this intimidation campaign be investigated and action taken against them, and also action against the criminal elements responsible for attacks on local people and activists.

On Panchayat Day in Assam, AIALA-AIPWA Gheraos Panchayat Offices

Various campaigns and agitations were organised by our mass organisations in Assam in the month of February and March. Besides State-level programme in the form of Raj Bhawan march participated by five thousand rural and urban poor that was jointly organised by Sadou Asom Gramin Sabha (All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association- AIALA’s Assam unit) and Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Kishan Shramik Sabha, various district and panchayat level programmes demanding job card, 100 days’ work, unemployment allowance, ration card, BPL and APL card and opposing widespread corruption in implementing various schemes of the blocks and panchayats, were held.

Of the various recent initiatives, two programmes need special mention- one was the gherao of Laiputi panchayat office on 4th February, solely on the initiative of the Tinsukia District Committee of Sadou Asom Pragatisheel Nari Santha (State unit of All India Progressive Women’s Association- AIPWA) in which more than 400 women- most of them tea garden workers- participated. The 4th February is usually observed as panchayat day in Tinsukia Dist. The gherao and the mass meeting that followed was addressed among others by Comrades Shikha Das, Tinsukia Dist. Secretary of AIPWA, Ganga Ram Koal, State Committee member of CPI(ML) and President of the Central Committee of Asom Sangrami Chah Shramik Sangha and Subhash Sen, the State Secretary of AICCTU and Party’s State Committee member.

A March to the Tinsukia DC Court was the other programme held on 19th February as a culmination of the various programmes taken at grass-root level and to unite the rallying forces of rural poor and workers at the Dist. level. The Tinsukia DC court campaign also saw the participation of more than one thousand rural poor and tea garden workers under CPI(ML) banner. A memorandum was submitted to the Deputy Commissioner demanding immediate inquiry into the cases of corruption. The DC accepted the demands and passed an order to investigate the matters of corruption as mentioned in the memorandum and has deputed one officer – the Sadar SDO to investigate and report to the DC. Through the same programme another memorandum on behalf of the Dist. Committee of Sadou Asom Gramin Shramik Santha (SAGGS) was submitted to the Asst. Director of Supply (ADS) citing various new cases of irregularities and corruption. The ADS has given an assurance to hold a tripartite meeting of the SAGSS representatives, (corrupt)agents and the ADS himself and the date for the meeting was fixed for 5/03/10. The programme was addressed by Com. Subhash Sen and Com. Ganga Ram Koal.

Dharna Held for Autonomous Statehood

On 12 march, CPI(ML), ASDC (P), KSA and KNCA held a dharna at Dispur Last Gate demanding Autonomous Statehood for Karbi Anglong and NC Hills, and also demanding that the Assam Government drop all seven Cabinet Ministers who are implicated in the Rs 1000 crore North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) scam. The seven Ministers, a Congress MP and MLA and a former Governor have been named in a National Investigation Agency report on the scam. The protestors also demanded a CBI probe into the suspected role of Minister Khorsing Engti who is implicated in a nexus of politicians with terrorists and who, as CEM of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council in April 2004, entered into a controversial deal with a militant outfit that was in a ceasefire agreement. The shady deal triggered bloody clashes though it allowed Biren Engti to score an electoral victory. The protestors demanded a CBI probe into this deal, and also that allegations of large scale corruption in the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council be handed over to the CBI as has been done in the case of NC Hills.

Struggle for Drinking Water in Panchayat in Madurai

Kachakatti is a village in Madurai district where drinking water scarcity is a major issue. One of the reasons for the scarcity is the illegal connections enjoyed by the 'big people' of the village. In response to CPI(ML) protests demanding 'food and jobs', the Kachakatti panchayat declared Rs.100/day wage if the NREGA workers stayed at the work site till 5 in the evening. When they rushed home after 5 in the evening, running water would be over in the taps.

The party organized a series of village level meetings and met the people in their homes and NREGA sites to mobilise against water scarcity. On 19 March around 150 women gathered in the village common place with empty pots and demanded that the Panchayat President should appear in person to address the people. The president is a woman but as usual, her husband is running the show. He addressed the women and assured undisturbed water supply and disconnection of illegal connections within 15 days. He also showed an order of the Collector empowering the president to disconnect illegal connections. Than the crowd swelled to a few hundreds and people started to raise many questions on the various aspects of the actions of the Panchayat. Following the demonstration the disconnection of illegal connections is in full swing and new connections are being created.

A similar protest by 200 women had taken place earlier in other villages in Madurai Dist.

Demonstration at Sriperumbudur

A demonstration was held on March 23 as a part of March 23 - 31 campaign in Sriperumbudur, the undeclared automobile SEZ of TN. The Workers' Solidarity Forum has taken up the cause of trainees and other non-permanent workers in this industrial area where MNCs like Nokia and Hyundai are employing non-permanent workers in direct production in large numbers.

Over 100 permanent workers and terminated trainees of Hyundai, workers of TIDC, Delphi-TVS and SL Lumax participated in the demonstration. Com. Kumarasami addressed the gathering. Comrade Tamil Arimaa, NCM, AICCTU led the demonstration. Comrade Pandiarajan, terminated trainee of Hyundai, Comrade Palanivel, GS, TIDC General Employees Union and Comrade Kumaresh, Chennai AICCTU President also addressed the gathering.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Unfinished Task of Land Reforms

Unfinished Task of Land Reforms:
Will the UPA Govt. Heed the MRD Report?

(The Committee On State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms has submitted its report to the Ministry of Rural Development at a time when land is once again emerging as a key issue of struggle all over the country. We are witnessing an upsurge in movements against corporate land grab, and struggles for sharecroppers’ rights and homestead land – in the face of severe state repression and a virtual ruling class consensus to betray the agenda of land reform. In this backdrop, the observations and recommendations of the above Committee, set up by the Ministry of Rural Development, are timely and significant. The Committee has also termed the Salwa Judum operation in Chhattisgarh to be the “biggest land grab since Columbus” [see entire quotation in the previous article, ‘Maoism’, State and the Communist Movement in India]. Will the UPA Government heed the recommendations of a Committee set up by its own Ministry? We reproduce excerpts from some of the report’s recommendations. – Ed/-)

1.6 It may also be emphasized that the changes in overall macroeconomic policy regime since the early 1990s may have significantly contributed to acceleration in loss of land and other critical natural resources from the vulnerable segments of the country’s population. This may be at the root of the significant spurt in increasing rural unrest and ‘extremist’ violence in 220 districts of the country, as has been recognized by the Expert Group of the Planning Commission. In other words, not only the progress in land reforms may have been halted in the recent years, but there is real danger of the reversal of the land reform agenda.
1.7 After independence, as is well-known, the State recognized the vital link between land and livelihood of the masses in rural areas and launched land reform measures, but such measures in most parts of the country have fallen dramatically short of their objectives, including that of required minimum in terms of homestead land for every family. Grossly inadequate achievements are clearly evident from the distorted land holding pattern. According to the NSSO Report on landholding (2003), 95.65 per cent of the farmers are within the small and the marginal categories owning approximately 62 per cent of the operated land areas while the medium and the large farmers who constitute 3.5 per cent own 37.72 per cent of the total area....
1.10 Nowhere is the distress more evident than in the tribal areas, particularly those falling within the Schedule V. The tribals have been the biggest victims of displacement due to development projects. Though constituting only 9% of the country’s population the tribal communities have contributed more than 40% to the total land acquired till so far. The Parliament has legislated the most radical of its Acts in the form of Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, applicable to 9 of the States. All these States under Schedule V have stringent laws protecting the corpus of tribal lands which, however, continue to be subject to steady erosion due to connivance of the Government machinery, weak implementation, a political economy growing around the tribal lands and marginalisation of tribals in the national polity.
1.11 There have been disturbing trends noticed in recent times. PESA area constitute the main target of mining/industrial zone/protected forest reserve after denial of rights/access of local community recently. Thousands of acres of protected & scheduled areas are forcefully transferred in the name of mining and industrialization. Masses in several North Eastern States have also suffered drastically on this count. In Assam alone, about 3, 91,772 acres of land has been transferred for development projects without considering either the ecological consequences or other adverse effects on life and livelihood of the marginalized communities.
1.12 Massive transfers of agricultural and forest land for industrial, mining and development project or infrastructural projects has created rural unrest and distress migration in those areas. Findings indicate that about 7,50,000 acres of land has been transferred for mining and another 250,000 acres for industrial purposes during last 2 decades [Centre for Science and Environment]. SEZs have mostly focused on prime agriculture land resulting in untold misery for poor peasants. Large chunks of land have been rendered degraded because of industrial waste and effluents. These industrial units have also affected the quality of river waters which have traditionally been the lifeline for the rural masses in a number of ways. Unplanned urbanization has frequently resulted in illegal grabbing of significant chunks of agricultural and commons land.
1.16 It hardly needs emphasis that all these key concerns need to be acted upon on an urgent basis for reasons of efficiency as well as equity. Ignoring just aspirations of the masses in rural India for inclusive development will only entail huge economic and political costs...As mentioned in the foregoing the process of rapid industrialization has resulted in acquisition of land on a large scale and displacement of population. Industrialization is important for the development of the country but it cannot be supported at the expense of agriculture and the basic rights for land and livelihood of the population. Thus it is very important that every state clearly demarcates land to be used for different purposes. So revitalization of Land Reforms Council at the Centre and Land Reform Boards for every State is an urgent need to clearly specify the land use policy. In fact it would be really worthwhile to have a Standing Land Commission for every State in the country.

POLICY IMPERATIVES
LAND CEILING
4.1 The land ceiling programme continues to retain its relevance; there is an urgent need to revisit and revive the same. The States may have the option to revise the ceiling even on regional considerations without exceeding the upper limit.
4.2 There should be discontinuation of the existing pattern of exemptions to religious, educational, charitable and industrial organisations, plantations, fisheries and other special categories. The religious institutions should not be allowed more than one unit of 15 acres while Research Organisations, Agricultural Universities Educational & Other Institutions and others may be allowed more than one unit on customised case-to-case bases.
4.3 Where more than one unit is allowed in addition to general exemption it shall be incumbent upon such beneficiary organisations to purchase from the open market and distribute an equivalent area amongst the landless poor.
4.4 Not more than one appeal and one revision should be allowed to be decided by Composite Tribunals including representatives of the landless poor and reputed community based organisations. Boards/ Fast Track Courts and Land Tribunals under Article 323-B, should be setup in all States.
4.5 There needs to be an urgent physical survey of all ceiling land including those not distributed and those in unauthorised possession and must be restored in the same transaction.
4.6 Not more than one acre of wet land and two acres of dry land should be allotted as ceiling surplus land.
BHOODAN LANDS
5.1 The status of the Bhoodan lands remains indeterminate. There should be an authoritative survey of all Bhoodan lands in a campaign mode involving the civil society and organisations of the rural poor and the Gram Sabha within a specified time frame.
5.2 Recognising the fact that multiple transfers might have taken place in the intervening period it is necessary that appropriate changes be brought to annul the effect of these transfers.
5.3 Restoration of possession and distribution of the Bhoodan lands to the rural poor including their village collectives should be completed along with the survey in the same or continued transactions.
1.1.4 The major recommendations of the Sub Group on Land Ceiling include:
(i) Ceiling limits must be re-fixed and implemented with retrospective effect. The new limit should be 5-10 acres in the case of irrigated land and 10-15 acres for non-irrigated land, to be decided by the concerned State Governments.
(ii) Absentee landlords or non-resident landowners should have lower level of ceiling.
(iii) Introduction of Card Indexing System for preventing fictitious transfers in benami names. This card should be related to allottee’s Voted I/D Card or PAN.
(iv) Discontinuation of exemptions to religious, educational, charitable and industrial organisations. The religious institutions should be allowed one unit of 15 acres.
(v) Research organisations and Agricultural Universities should be allowed more than one unit on customized case to case basis.
(vi) Withdrawal of the general exemptions to plantations, fisheries and other special categories.
(vii) Imposition of criminal sanction on failure to furnish declaration on ceiling surplus land.
... (xi) The Benami Transactions (Prohibition of the Right to Recover Property Act) of 1989 should be amended so that evasion of ceiling laws through fraudulent land transactions can be monitored.
.. (xii) Revision in definition of landless poor person to include one who owns no land...
(xv) A group should be set up composed of Gram Sabha members and revenue functionaries to identify benami and farzi transactions.
(xvi) Redistribution of the land acquired but not being used for the purpose.
xvii) Adoption of single window approach for redistribution of ceiling surplus. ...

TENANCY REFORMS
6.1 Tenancy should be legalised in order to provide the rural poor with access to land, discourage the land being left fallow and for enhanced occupational mobility of the rural poor. Subsequently, depending upon the experience leasing could be legalised for all areas up to the ceiling limits.
6.2 In order to facilitate land leasing standard contracts in simple language protecting the rights of both the parties should be devised enforceable at the Panchayat level rather than getting mired in judicial proceedings thereby reducing the transactions cost to a bare minimum.
6.3 Women farmers’ co-operative and other women land based groups should be encouraged on a preferential basis to lease in land as experiences show that such organisations of women farmers have emerged as the most viable farming units.
6.4 All States should impose ceiling on operational holdings and not just ownership holdings. Under no circumstances should the landowners having land above the ceiling limit be allowed to lease in land for agricultural purposes.
6.5 The fixation of fair rent may be reconsidered in areas with high institutional strength and the market determined rent should be allowed to prevail.
6.6 All tenants and sub-tenants including share-croppers/under-raiyats may be recognised by law regulating incidents and conditions of tenancy. There should be adequate safeguards including adequate institutional support and rural development schemes to overcome poverty and indebtedness. The financial institutions will be required to come up with suitable schemes of credit support directed either through the collateral institutions or Self-Help Groups.

HOMESTEAD RIGHTS
7.1 Homestead land and a house need to be recognised within the minimum rights structure of every homeless/landless. A priority list of landless/homeless should be prepared with the approval of the Gram Sabha.
7.2 A minimum of 10-15 cents of land should be provided for such landless-homeless in a time bound manner and land entitlement should be in the name of the women.
7.3 The SC/ST and OBC beneficiaries, as decided at the State level, may be given land in contiguous blocks with infrastructural facilities like road, electricity, school, drinking water, health centre and technological and extension support for supplementing the livelihood, etc.
7.4 A National Policy on Homelessness should be prepared and put in place in consultation with the States.

FOREST LANDS
8.1 Considering the half-hearted implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 being undertaken by the States it becomes necessary to create awareness and mobilise the Gram Sabha to recognise and protect the rights of the forest dwellers and the tribal communities in a definite time frame.
8.2 Forests have traditionally served as commons both ecologically and economically for the tribals dependent upon them. Biodiversity of the ecologically fragile regions like the North-East and Western Ghats also need to be safeguarded to ensure their role as ecological buffers for the burgeoning human population. In most of the hilly regions – south Rajasthan, Western Ghats, Central India, Himalayas and Eastern India large tracts of forests lands are part of many local watersheds. Proper development and management of these common lands is critical to the success of a watershed as they act as reservoirs of water and are also often located along the watershed ridges.
8.3 Common property rights of the community over forest lands including the village forests need to be recognised, recorded in the record-of -rights and protected.
8.4 The role of Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) should be strengthened. Under article 238/2, the Governor can make regulations for the Scheduled Areas by prohibiting and restricting transfer of land by or among the members of Scheduled Tribes and regulate money lending. There is provision for TAC in Schedule V areas and the Governor is bound to consult them.
8.5 Withdrawal of minor cases filed against tribal communities under encroachment/ violations of Wildlife Act/ other forest offences etc.
8.6 Tribal communities who were earlier displaced because of national parks and wild life sanctuaries must be rehabilitated under the purview of FRA.
8.7 All land acquisition process in tribal areas must be stopped before settlement of tribal community under FRA.
8.8 All primitive tribal groups must be exempted under FRA without their date of occupancy on a particular piece of land. Any land that has been claimed under FRA must not be identified/ utilized for Jatropha plantation.
8.9 All primitive tribal groups must be exempted under FRA without their date of occupancy on a particular piece of land.Any land that has been claimed under FRA must not be identified/ utilized for Jatropha plantation.
8.10 All claims of non-tribal communities on the same piece of land must be taken to a fast-track court for timely settlement.All claims for common property resources should be brought under time bound action and resettlement should be provided on the basis of ‘Record of Rights.’ Forests should be recognised as Common Property Resources (especially protected forests and unclassified forests and rights and concessions must incorporate the needs of the community for non-timber forest produce)
8.11 All land regularized under FRA must not be alienated/ acquired in the next 100 years and in case of any emergency acquisition, the same category of land must be provided.
8.12 The tribal communities who lived in Salwa Judum camps must be resettled in their occupied land irrespective of the cutoff date under FRA (2006).
8.13 No Special Economic Zone and/or Special Tourism Zone will be allowed on forest land and V Scheduled Areas.

TRIBAL LAND ALIENATION
9.1 Consent of all the stakeholders should be considered before land is acquired. This is imperative for smooth implementation and also for getting the right kind of benefits to the people. Thus, Gram Panchayat should be consulted at the time of acquiring land.
9.2 In many instances unutilized land acquired for a public purpose is difficult to reclaim. There should be a speedy process to reclaim and take possession of the unutilized land. Moreover, used land, especially in case of coal and other mines should be reclaimed and acquired instead of acquiring agriculture land for public purpose.
9.3 These assessments should be thoroughly carried out involving the stakeholders before projects are executed. And based on these assessments future course of action should be decided. Social impact assessment is highly advisable to deal with compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement issues....

4. Sub Group -IV : Tribal Land Alienation & PESA
4.1.4 The Sub Group notes with dismay that the process of restoration of alienated land is worse than alienation. The NIRD studies conclude on the basis of examination of records that the tribals would have been better off by purchasing the land by open market rather than obtaining to the State led process of market. All Courts, bureaucrats and mostly public men, the Sub Group finds are interlocked against the tribals presenting a formidable front. Even in Jharkhand, a State which has been carved out to protect the interests of the tribals the process of alienation has hastened under tribal Chief Ministers leading to impoverishment of the tribals. In Jharkhand the per capita income of tribals is less than half of the per capita income of the State and more than 45 per cent of the tribals live in poverty, 27 per cent under extreme poverty (IHD 2008). The State has developed into a rent extractor tribal impoverishing mechanism. Even the judgments of the Supreme Court like in the case of Samata Judgment are not implemented by the States claiming blatantly that it does not apply to them.

LAND ACQUISITION
...
10.4 Survey and settlement operations should be taken up in those areas where it has not been done so far to remove any confusion or uncertainty. Following the recommendation made by the Expert Group on Tribal Land Alienation, survey of the hill slopes up to 30 degrees should be mandatory in the states with Schedule areas and such lands should be settled in favour of tribals who do shifting cultivation and subsistence agriculture. This will not only confer land rights on the tribals occupying such lands, but also help improve the forest cover. The areas under shifting cultivation should be brought under tribal community management.The Government land encroached by poor tribal families should be settled in their favour. (This has already been covered under the Forest Rights Act, 2005)
10.5 Tribals who have been living within a reserve forest, sanctuaries, wild life sanctuaries, national parks, biosphere reserves for generation and cultivating agricultural land should be given permanent patta rights and should not be displaced....
9.6 The legal provisions prohibiting the alienation of tribal land in Schedule V areas and its restoration should be extended to the non¬scheduled areas also. A cut off date should be prescribed while extending these provisions to the non¬scheduled areas.
10.7 A senior competent authority should exercise judgement in sale of tribal lands and protect the interests of tribals. The State should promote the concept of a Land Bank wherein tribal land is purchased by the State and allotted to other deserving tribal families in the same area. (Ceiling Surpluses should be distributed on a priority basis. CPRs should not be distributed).
10.8 At present PESA is applicable only to the scheduled areas but a large part of the tribal population lives outside scheduled areas. Therefore, the provisions of PESA should be applicable mutatis mutandis to village/areas where there is a sizable tribal population or where majority of the population consists of scheduled tribes. ...

WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS
14.1 All new homestead land distributed to landless families should be only in women’s name. Where more than one adult woman (widows, elderly women, etc.) is a part of the household, the names of all female adults should be registered.
14.2 When regularising the homesteads of families occupying irregular and insecure homesteads, the homesteads so regularised should be in the names of both spouses and single women.
14.3 Government should make provision for equal availability of agriculture inputs to women farmers.
14.4 Government should promulgate laws that protect women’s rights to adequate housing and land, for instance, introduce government orders mandating joint registration and joint title for marital property in the names of men and women, and registration of women’s property in the names of single women.
14.5 There should be representation for women, especially for SC/ST women, in agencies set up to monitor land reforms.
...

GOVERNANCE AND LAND REFORMS
15.1 Schedule-I of the EIA notification, 2006 issued by the MoEF under item 7-C covers industrial estate/parks/complexes/areas/Export Promotion Zones/ Special Tourism Zones/ Biotech Parks/ Leather Complexes. The above categories continue to be exempted from the requirement of a public consultation even in the new notification. That needs to be brought under urgent amendment in concerned laws and policies.
15.2 Scrap Special Economic Zone Act (2005) under purviews of environmental and ecological concern where SEZ is completely silent. Single window clearance feature makes the Approval Committee at the State level under the District Collector responsible for approval of all SEZ units and even compliance to conditions of approval if any are to be mentioned by the Assistant Collector. There is no mention of the role of the Pollution Control Board. There is no mention of Coastal Regulation related provisions in the SEZ Act and rules. However, the amendment to the CRZ Notification 1991, have allowed for SEZs to be located in ecologically sensitive coastal areas and ‘no development zones’ that need to be brought under strict regulatory authority adequately represented by project affected community and local representatives.

The status of “Deemed Foreign Territory” to SEZs will snatch the sovereignty of locals from their lands and natural resources which sustains the local economy. The concentration of powers in the hands of Development Commissioner at the state level and board of approvals in the Centre is greatly going to challenge the local governance. The SEZ Act provides that grievances related to the SEZ can only be filed with courts designated by the State governments which will only be for trials related to civil and other matters of SEZ. No other courts can try a case unless it goes through the designated court first. Building of a physical boundary around the SEZ and restricting entry to authorized person’s only means that it would be difficult for any individual or civil society groups and independent agencies to enter the area without prior approval of the Development Commissioner.
SEZ Act (2005) has no mention of the sources of water for the proposed zones; leave aside the question of restrictions or impact assessment. The SEZ Act of various states gives a blank cheque to the water requirement for the zones. For example, the Gujarat Act says, “The SEZ developers will be granted approval for development of water supply and distribution system to ensure the provision o adequate water supply for SEZ units”.
As per the official website of the Mundra SEZ (Gujarat), it expects to get at least 6 million liters per day from the Sardar Sarovar Project, as promised by Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd. Critical water requirement would be 400 million liters per day. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India for Gujarat for the year ending on March 31, 2006 has already criticized Gujarat government for extra allocation of 41.1 million liters per day water from the Sardar Sarovar Project for industries. The CAG report said that this will affect share of water for drought prone areas.
The water requirement, as given on the POSCO website, is 286 million liters per day, will be procured from Jobra barrage on the Mahanadi River in Cuttack, district in Orissa. The water for this is forced to come from the upstream Hirakud dam. There is already an agitation against reservation of water from the Hirakud dam for industrial purposes.
The pattern of land distribution in India, therefore, reflects the existing socio-economic hierarchy. While large landowners invariably belong to the upper castes, the cultivators belong to the middle castes, and the agricultural workers are largely dalits and tribals. According to the 1991 census, 64 percent of dalits and 36 percent of tribal people were agricultural labourers who own no land and work as unregistered sharecroppers, un-recognized temporary or informal tenants or agricultural labourers for subsistence without any security. The National Sample Survey of 1992 reported that 13.34 percent of the dalits and 11.50 percent of the tribals were absolutely landless. While, in 1997, the Ninth Draft Plan Paper, placed 77 percent of the dalits and 90 percent of the tribals as either de jure landless or de facto landless in India. No uniform data on these categories is available in the country and the discrepancies in the data on landlessness from different government sources raise obvious questions of reliability. But at the same time, the data of absolute landless families proves that the feudal society is firmly anchored in large parts of India, notwithstanding claims to the contrary.

The Legacy of Jyoti Basu - by Dipankar Bhattacharya

The Legacy of Jyoti Basu

- Dipankar Bhattacharya

Jyoti Basu, arguably the most familiar face of the CPI(M) in the country and the last surviving member of the party’s founding polit bureau, passed away in Kolkata on 17 January. In the course of his marathon political journey spanning nearly seven decades, he served for an unprecedented 23 consecutive years as the Chief Minister of West Bengal. Basu is also famously remembered as the only Left leader who had been offered the Prime Ministership of the country in 1996, an offer that was declined by his party even as Basu openly differed with the party calling its decision a ‘historic blunder’. Four years later, Basu stepped down from power in November 2000 when his health started failing, a graceful act which never really received the popular recognition it deserved. Yet, even as he relinquished his official responsibility as Chief Minister, he never ‘retired’ from his role as a leader of his party. “Communists never retire”, was his famous statement and he really lived it.
Beginning as a trade union organizer in the early 1940s, he was elected to the Central Committee of the undivided CPI in 1951. From 1953 to 1961, he was secretary of the West Bengal provincial unit of the CPI and remained a PBM of the CPI(M) since its inception to 2008. In 2008, he stepped down from the PB, but the CPI(M) CC chose to retain him as a permanent invitee to the PB. Even though Basu never became the General Secretary of the CPI(M), along with EMS Namboodiripad and HKS Surjeet, he left a defining imprint on the political evolution of the CPI(M) till perhaps the decisive hour of 1996 when the party differed from and prevailed over his political judgement (it was another matter that four years later, the CPI(M) ‘updated’ its party programme to include the possibility of participating in a bourgeois government at the centre). In their own ways EMS, Surjeet and Jyoti Basu personified three key strands in the centrist paradigm of the CPI(M) – EMS as the party’s principal ideologue, Basu as the party’s chief parliamentary administrator and Surjeet as the party’s ultimate negotiator in bourgeois politics.
Jyoti Basu belonged to the generation of early Indian communists who got their first lessons in communist politics under the tutelage of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Returning to the country after finishing his study of law in London, he soon became a close confidant of the underground core of the CPI leadership in Bengal. In 1944, he became the founding secretary of the Bengal Assam Railroad Workers’ Union and it was from the railway workers’ constituency that he won his first election to enter the pre-Independence Bengal Provincial Assembly in 1946.
All through the 1950s and till 1967, Basu remained the leader of opposition in West Bengal Assembly. In 1967 and 1969, he became Deputy Chief Minister in two short-lived UF governments. In 1972, the Congress regained power in West Bengal through a widely rigged election. That was the only occasion when Basu lost, and the CPI(M) boycotted the Assembly till 1977 when the party surprisingly won a clear and emphatic majority and went on to form government together with its Left Front allies (the CPI was still in alliance with the Congress and not part of the Left Front) under Basu’s stewardship.
Most of the early leaders who had entered the communist movement in India through the CPGB route had inherited the notions that prevailed among communists in Britain or Western Europe. They had little knowledge of or interest in the onward revolutionary march of the Chinese communists, and in any case they did not see the relevance of the Chinese experience in the Indian context. Even when peasant uprisings like Tebhaga and Telanagana clearly indicated the revolutionary potential of a profound rural awakening, and the situation was pregnant with possibilities of a radical popular advance, this leadership failed to recognize or grab this opportunity and subjected the entire movement to the constitutionalist orientation and parliamentary perspective they had absorbed from their CPGB schooling. All through his marathon political innings, Basu remained a typical representative of this breed, the only aberration being his decision to side with the CPI(M) at the time of the split in 1964 even as almost all his comrades from his London days remained with the CPI.
As subsequent years proved time and again, for him, this decision to part ways with the CPI was more a practical political move and in no way did it mean any rethinking of, let alone rupture with, the reformist parliamentary perspective of the CPI. The growing popular support for communists in opposition to the ruling Congress in West Bengal must have convinced Basu, the pragmatic political leader of the masses, of the possibility of the Left successfully challenging the Congress hegemony in state politics. His assessment proved right as the CPI suffered its maximum marginalization in West Bengal, overtaken not only by the CPI(M) but also by parties like the Forward Bloc and the RSP. It was only by returning to the CPI(M)-led fold after 1977 that the CPI could subsequently save itself from becoming totally extinct. But the same Basu remained a most vocal proponent of strategic partnership with the Congress in national politics, hoping that this will reinforce the CPI(M)’s electoral edge over the Congress in West Bengal.
Asked about the possibility of a Congress-led coalition coming to power at the Centre, in the midst of the May 2004 election campaign, Basu’s candid and precise answer to a TV interviewer was: “that’s what we are hoping for, that’s what we are working for.”(“Walk the Talk”, Shekhar Gupta in conversation with Jyoti Basu, NDTV 24X7). In their condolence messages, Congress leaders have rightly recalled him as a key architect of the UPA. When the CPI(M) eventually withdrew support to the UPA in the wake of the Indo-US nuclear deal, Jyoti Basu had made it abundantly clear that he did not approve of this course. Somnath Chatterjee has now gone on record saying Basu had advised him not to tender his resignation from the post of the Speaker. Another Basu protégé, Subhas Chakravarty, had ridiculed the very idea of countering the Congress on an anti-imperialist plank arguing that anti-imperialist unity in India was unthinkable without the Congress. Incidentally, like the Basu interview in May 2004, this interview, which turned out to be Chakravarty’s last TV interview before his rather premature death a few weeks later, was also televised in the middle of the May 2009 Lok Sabha elections.
Most Basu admirers tend to attribute the current downslide of the CPI(M) in West Bengal as well as national politics to the party’s ‘growing deviation’ from the Basu legacy. Many of them believe that the rot started with the party preventing Basu from accepting the offer of Prime Ministership. Basu himself also believed that had he become the Prime Minister of a Congress-supported United Front government in 1996, history would have taken a different course. Basu admirers believe that with his record of leading a coalition government for decades, he would have given a stable coalition at the Centre too thus preventing the BJP from usurping power in 1998. And some even argue that under Basu’s leadership the UF government could also have moderated the neo-liberal economic agenda with an ‘aam aadmi’ flavour, thereby denying the Congress the chance to invent the UPA and recover its lost ground with the help of its renewed pro-poor rhetoric.
These wishful thinkers forget that however quirky history may prove at times, the balance of class forces does not take long to reassert. Jyoti Basu leading a relatively cohesive Left Front government in West Bengal under the absolute domination of the CPI(M) and Jyoti Basu heading a disparate coalition at the Centre with the backing of the Congress would have been two utterly different propositions. Instead of announcing the arrival of the CPI(M) as a leading player on the national political stage, such a government was more likely to have put the party in an awkward predicament even in its established strongholds and perhaps hastened its downslide that was triggered a decade later.
Instead of speculating about what might have happened in national politics, it is perhaps more in order to focus on what has actually been happening in Basu’s own West Bengal. Is the CPI(M) in West Bengal today paying the price for moving away from Basu’s legacy? In West Bengal, the CPI(M) never really deviated from the course charted by Basu and whatever is happening today in the state must be seen in the logical context of Basu’s legacy, which always privileged the stability of power over popular struggles for social change.
In the late 1970s, Basu may well have begun with Operation Barga and Panchayati Raj, but when the choice came to move on to the next step of giving ownership to sharecroppers and introducing collective/cooperative farming, Basu simply allowed the momentum to peter out and by the end of the 1980s the reversal of land reforms had begun in West Bengal.
Likewise, the issue of federal restructuring of the Indian polity through a bigger devolution of power and resources to the states, a pet theme of the CPI(M) articulated consistently by Basu in the early 1980s, was also abandoned midway. The backlash of ‘national unity’ that gave Congress its highest ever majority following the assassination of Indira Gandhi might have politically pushed Basu temporarily on the back foot, but perhaps what really drove him away from his one-time favourite mission of federal restructuring was the 1991 paradigm shift in economic policies engineered by Narsimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.
With the licensing era coming to an end, Basu argued that it no longer made sense to fight with the centre over more economic powers, what now had to be done was to woo private capital to come and invest in West Bengal. For Basu too, it was time for the state to retreat in matters economic and industrial, leaving the initiative primarily with big private capital, Indian as well as foreign. Within three years of the Centre announcing the new economic policies, the Left Front under Basu adopted its own version of new industrial policy. Basu’s new discourse stressed ‘industrial peace’ and discouraged ‘militant trade unionism’ – yet Bengal did not see any rise in investment, all it saw was deepening of the problem of industrial sickness, massive loot of employees’ Provident Fund and rampant violation of wage legislations. Buddhadeb has only sought to render this discourse more profound – while Basu took three years to adapt to the new policy paradigm of the Centre, Buddhadeb did better by anticipating the SEZ Act two years before Parliament passed it!
It was this new-found obsession with state-sponsored corporate-led ‘industrialization’ that led to Singur and Nandigram. When Singur happened, Basu never questioned the state government’s decision to acquire the land, he only asked why the CPI(M)-led Kisan Sabha had not been pressed into service to prepare the ground for the government and the Tatas to move in. There was also no intervention on the part of Basu in response to the huge public outcry against the serial massacres in Nandigram – if he at all intervened it was primarily to silence the debates within the Left Front.
Perhaps one could not expect any different response from Basu, whose own tenure had been marked by a series of police firings and even major massacres even though they never created the kind of impact that Singur, Nandigram or Lalgarh did in a changed situation, thanks, in no small measure, to the new media environment in the era of 24 hour TV coverage. It is important to remember that in May 1967, when the historic Naxalbari peasant uprising broke out in Darjeeling district of north Bengal, Basu was the Home Minister in the state cabinet and he promptly responded with a one-track repressive policy, rushing paramilitary forces to crush the revolt. Along with Pramod Dasgupta, then secretary of the CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit, Basu was instrumental in unleashing unmitigated state repression on communist revolutionaries. The UF government was however soon to be replaced by the infamous Congress regime of Siddharth Shankar Ray which went on to subject large sections of the Left, sections of the CPI(M) included, to a brutal reign of semi-fascist terror.
If in 1977, the CPI(M)-led Left won a clear majority in spite of its still relatively limited organizational strength and political reach, a major reason was West Bengal’s ardent desire to put an emphatic end to Ray’s repressive reign and a quest for justice and democracy. But apart from promising non-intervention of the police in democratic struggles, a promise which was soon to be violated, Basu never bothered to bring the perpetrators of massacres and countless cases of custodial killing, torture and rape to justice, instead granting them impunity and even rewards! Two years into power, Basu’s government bared its fangs against the hapless refugees who were trying to settle down at Morichjhanpi, one of the northern-most forested islands of the Sundarbans. Some four thousand families reportedly perished in the forcible evacuation drive unleashed by the government, succumbing to starvation and exhaustion as well as indiscriminate killing and rape. History will always remember Morichjhanpi as one of the cruelest instances of state-sponsored crime against humanity, even though it never had the kind of impact that Nandigram generated three decades later.
Towards the end of the 1990s, Jyoti Basu’s popular rating had started declining quite rapidly. His victory margin in the 1996 Assembly elections had already dropped considerably. If at one stage the CPI(M) had benefited from Basus’s charismatic leadership, ironically in November 2000 it was his act of stepping down which really saved the CPI(M) in the 2001 elections. This masterstroke left the TMC rather clueless for quite some time, robbing it of its very target that it had grown against. But behind the CPI(M)’s impressive electoral showing – in May 2004 it led a 60-plus contingent of Left MPs in Lok Sabha and in May 2006 it returned to power for the seventh successive term with 80% majority – the policy crisis of the CPI(M) and the LF government had been growing all along and it eventually exploded at Singur and Nandigram.
From his secluded residence at Indira Bhawan – it is ironical that Jyoti Basu lived in this Urban Development Department bungalow in Salt Lake that Indira Gandhi had inaugurated and used for her stay during the 1972 AICC session in Kolkata, and the department now proposes to turn it into Basu Museum – Basu could do little but to silently witness the growing collapse of the government he had built and led for years and decades. In a desperate last-ditch attempt to arrest the alarming electoral downslide, Basu finally appealed to Congress voters in the state to vote for the CPI(M) for the sake of ‘peace and stability’ in the state just as the CPI(M) had supported the Congress at every hour of national crisis. But the electoral tide in the state had already turned inexorably against the CPI(M) and predictably enough, Basu’s appeal fell on deaf ears. The CPI(M) failed to win any of the ten seats for which by-elections were held in August 2009.
Time had already overtaken the political trajectory of Jyoti Basu. Yet, for a long time to come Basu will surely be remembered by history as the chief architect of the most enduring social-democratic rule in a third world parliamentary set-up. 

Unfinished Task of Land Reforms

Unfinished Task of Land Reforms:
Will the UPA Govt. Heed the MRD Report?

(The Committee On State Agrarian Relations and Unfinished Task of Land Reforms has submitted its report to the Ministry of Rural Development at a time when land is once again emerging as a key issue of struggle all over the country. We are witnessing an upsurge in movements against corporate land grab, and struggles for sharecroppers’ rights and homestead land – in the face of severe state repression and a virtual ruling class consensus to betray the agenda of land reform. In this backdrop, the observations and recommendations of the above Committee, set up by the Ministry of Rural Development, are timely and significant. The Committee has also termed the Salwa Judum operation in Chhattisgarh to be the “biggest land grab since Columbus” [see entire quotation in the previous article, ‘Maoism’, State and the Communist Movement in India]. Will the UPA Government heed the recommendations of a Committee set up by its own Ministry? We reproduce excerpts from some of the report’s recommendations. – Ed/-)

1.6 It may also be emphasized that the changes in overall macroeconomic policy regime since the early 1990s may have significantly contributed to acceleration in loss of land and other critical natural resources from the vulnerable segments of the country’s population. This may be at the root of the significant spurt in increasing rural unrest and ‘extremist’ violence in 220 districts of the country, as has been recognized by the Expert Group of the Planning Commission. In other words, not only the progress in land reforms may have been halted in the recent years, but there is real danger of the reversal of the land reform agenda.
1.7 After independence, as is well-known, the State recognized the vital link between land and livelihood of the masses in rural areas and launched land reform measures, but such measures in most parts of the country have fallen dramatically short of their objectives, including that of required minimum in terms of homestead land for every family. Grossly inadequate achievements are clearly evident from the distorted land holding pattern. According to the NSSO Report on landholding (2003), 95.65 per cent of the farmers are within the small and the marginal categories owning approximately 62 per cent of the operated land areas while the medium and the large farmers who constitute 3.5 per cent own 37.72 per cent of the total area....
1.10 Nowhere is the distress more evident than in the tribal areas, particularly those falling within the Schedule V. The tribals have been the biggest victims of displacement due to development projects. Though constituting only 9% of the country’s population the tribal communities have contributed more than 40% to the total land acquired till so far. The Parliament has legislated the most radical of its Acts in the form of Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, applicable to 9 of the States. All these States under Schedule V have stringent laws protecting the corpus of tribal lands which, however, continue to be subject to steady erosion due to connivance of the Government machinery, weak implementation, a political economy growing around the tribal lands and marginalisation of tribals in the national polity.
1.11 There have been disturbing trends noticed in recent times. PESA area constitute the main target of mining/industrial zone/protected forest reserve after denial of rights/access of local community recently. Thousands of acres of protected & scheduled areas are forcefully transferred in the name of mining and industrialization. Masses in several North Eastern States have also suffered drastically on this count. In Assam alone, about 3, 91,772 acres of land has been transferred for development projects without considering either the ecological consequences or other adverse effects on life and livelihood of the marginalized communities.
1.12 Massive transfers of agricultural and forest land for industrial, mining and development project or infrastructural projects has created rural unrest and distress migration in those areas. Findings indicate that about 7,50,000 acres of land has been transferred for mining and another 250,000 acres for industrial purposes during last 2 decades [Centre for Science and Environment]. SEZs have mostly focused on prime agriculture land resulting in untold misery for poor peasants. Large chunks of land have been rendered degraded because of industrial waste and effluents. These industrial units have also affected the quality of river waters which have traditionally been the lifeline for the rural masses in a number of ways. Unplanned urbanization has frequently resulted in illegal grabbing of significant chunks of agricultural and commons land.
1.16 It hardly needs emphasis that all these key concerns need to be acted upon on an urgent basis for reasons of efficiency as well as equity. Ignoring just aspirations of the masses in rural India for inclusive development will only entail huge economic and political costs...As mentioned in the foregoing the process of rapid industrialization has resulted in acquisition of land on a large scale and displacement of population. Industrialization is important for the development of the country but it cannot be supported at the expense of agriculture and the basic rights for land and livelihood of the population. Thus it is very important that every state clearly demarcates land to be used for different purposes. So revitalization of Land Reforms Council at the Centre and Land Reform Boards for every State is an urgent need to clearly specify the land use policy. In fact it would be really worthwhile to have a Standing Land Commission for every State in the country.

POLICY IMPERATIVES
LAND CEILING
4.1 The land ceiling programme continues to retain its relevance; there is an urgent need to revisit and revive the same. The States may have the option to revise the ceiling even on regional considerations without exceeding the upper limit.
4.2 There should be discontinuation of the existing pattern of exemptions to religious, educational, charitable and industrial organisations, plantations, fisheries and other special categories. The religious institutions should not be allowed more than one unit of 15 acres while Research Organisations, Agricultural Universities Educational & Other Institutions and others may be allowed more than one unit on customised case-to-case bases.
4.3 Where more than one unit is allowed in addition to general exemption it shall be incumbent upon such beneficiary organisations to purchase from the open market and distribute an equivalent area amongst the landless poor.
4.4 Not more than one appeal and one revision should be allowed to be decided by Composite Tribunals including representatives of the landless poor and reputed community based organisations. Boards/ Fast Track Courts and Land Tribunals under Article 323-B, should be setup in all States.
4.5 There needs to be an urgent physical survey of all ceiling land including those not distributed and those in unauthorised possession and must be restored in the same transaction.
4.6 Not more than one acre of wet land and two acres of dry land should be allotted as ceiling surplus land.
BHOODAN LANDS
5.1 The status of the Bhoodan lands remains indeterminate. There should be an authoritative survey of all Bhoodan lands in a campaign mode involving the civil society and organisations of the rural poor and the Gram Sabha within a specified time frame.
5.2 Recognising the fact that multiple transfers might have taken place in the intervening period it is necessary that appropriate changes be brought to annul the effect of these transfers.
5.3 Restoration of possession and distribution of the Bhoodan lands to the rural poor including their village collectives should be completed along with the survey in the same or continued transactions.
1.1.4 The major recommendations of the Sub Group on Land Ceiling include:
(i) Ceiling limits must be re-fixed and implemented with retrospective effect. The new limit should be 5-10 acres in the case of irrigated land and 10-15 acres for non-irrigated land, to be decided by the concerned State Governments.
(ii) Absentee landlords or non-resident landowners should have lower level of ceiling.
(iii) Introduction of Card Indexing System for preventing fictitious transfers in benami names. This card should be related to allottee’s Voted I/D Card or PAN.
(iv) Discontinuation of exemptions to religious, educational, charitable and industrial organisations. The religious institutions should be allowed one unit of 15 acres.
(v) Research organisations and Agricultural Universities should be allowed more than one unit on customized case to case basis.
(vi) Withdrawal of the general exemptions to plantations, fisheries and other special categories.
(vii) Imposition of criminal sanction on failure to furnish declaration on ceiling surplus land.
... (xi) The Benami Transactions (Prohibition of the Right to Recover Property Act) of 1989 should be amended so that evasion of ceiling laws through fraudulent land transactions can be monitored.
.. (xii) Revision in definition of landless poor person to include one who owns no land...
(xv) A group should be set up composed of Gram Sabha members and revenue functionaries to identify benami and farzi transactions.
(xvi) Redistribution of the land acquired but not being used for the purpose.
xvii) Adoption of single window approach for redistribution of ceiling surplus. ...

TENANCY REFORMS
6.1 Tenancy should be legalised in order to provide the rural poor with access to land, discourage the land being left fallow and for enhanced occupational mobility of the rural poor. Subsequently, depending upon the experience leasing could be legalised for all areas up to the ceiling limits.
6.2 In order to facilitate land leasing standard contracts in simple language protecting the rights of both the parties should be devised enforceable at the Panchayat level rather than getting mired in judicial proceedings thereby reducing the transactions cost to a bare minimum.
6.3 Women farmers’ co-operative and other women land based groups should be encouraged on a preferential basis to lease in land as experiences show that such organisations of women farmers have emerged as the most viable farming units.
6.4 All States should impose ceiling on operational holdings and not just ownership holdings. Under no circumstances should the landowners having land above the ceiling limit be allowed to lease in land for agricultural purposes.
6.5 The fixation of fair rent may be reconsidered in areas with high institutional strength and the market determined rent should be allowed to prevail.
6.6 All tenants and sub-tenants including share-croppers/under-raiyats may be recognised by law regulating incidents and conditions of tenancy. There should be adequate safeguards including adequate institutional support and rural development schemes to overcome poverty and indebtedness. The financial institutions will be required to come up with suitable schemes of credit support directed either through the collateral institutions or Self-Help Groups.

HOMESTEAD RIGHTS
7.1 Homestead land and a house need to be recognised within the minimum rights structure of every homeless/landless. A priority list of landless/homeless should be prepared with the approval of the Gram Sabha.
7.2 A minimum of 10-15 cents of land should be provided for such landless-homeless in a time bound manner and land entitlement should be in the name of the women.
7.3 The SC/ST and OBC beneficiaries, as decided at the State level, may be given land in contiguous blocks with infrastructural facilities like road, electricity, school, drinking water, health centre and technological and extension support for supplementing the livelihood, etc.
7.4 A National Policy on Homelessness should be prepared and put in place in consultation with the States.

FOREST LANDS
8.1 Considering the half-hearted implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 being undertaken by the States it becomes necessary to create awareness and mobilise the Gram Sabha to recognise and protect the rights of the forest dwellers and the tribal communities in a definite time frame.
8.2 Forests have traditionally served as commons both ecologically and economically for the tribals dependent upon them. Biodiversity of the ecologically fragile regions like the North-East and Western Ghats also need to be safeguarded to ensure their role as ecological buffers for the burgeoning human population. In most of the hilly regions – south Rajasthan, Western Ghats, Central India, Himalayas and Eastern India large tracts of forests lands are part of many local watersheds. Proper development and management of these common lands is critical to the success of a watershed as they act as reservoirs of water and are also often located along the watershed ridges.
8.3 Common property rights of the community over forest lands including the village forests need to be recognised, recorded in the record-of -rights and protected.
8.4 The role of Tribal Advisory Council (TAC) should be strengthened. Under article 238/2, the Governor can make regulations for the Scheduled Areas by prohibiting and restricting transfer of land by or among the members of Scheduled Tribes and regulate money lending. There is provision for TAC in Schedule V areas and the Governor is bound to consult them.
8.5 Withdrawal of minor cases filed against tribal communities under encroachment/ violations of Wildlife Act/ other forest offences etc.
8.6 Tribal communities who were earlier displaced because of national parks and wild life sanctuaries must be rehabilitated under the purview of FRA.
8.7 All land acquisition process in tribal areas must be stopped before settlement of tribal community under FRA.
8.8 All primitive tribal groups must be exempted under FRA without their date of occupancy on a particular piece of land. Any land that has been claimed under FRA must not be identified/ utilized for Jatropha plantation.
8.9 All primitive tribal groups must be exempted under FRA without their date of occupancy on a particular piece of land.Any land that has been claimed under FRA must not be identified/ utilized for Jatropha plantation.
8.10 All claims of non-tribal communities on the same piece of land must be taken to a fast-track court for timely settlement.All claims for common property resources should be brought under time bound action and resettlement should be provided on the basis of ‘Record of Rights.’ Forests should be recognised as Common Property Resources (especially protected forests and unclassified forests and rights and concessions must incorporate the needs of the community for non-timber forest produce)
8.11 All land regularized under FRA must not be alienated/ acquired in the next 100 years and in case of any emergency acquisition, the same category of land must be provided.
8.12 The tribal communities who lived in Salwa Judum camps must be resettled in their occupied land irrespective of the cutoff date under FRA (2006).
8.13 No Special Economic Zone and/or Special Tourism Zone will be allowed on forest land and V Scheduled Areas.

TRIBAL LAND ALIENATION
9.1 Consent of all the stakeholders should be considered before land is acquired. This is imperative for smooth implementation and also for getting the right kind of benefits to the people. Thus, Gram Panchayat should be consulted at the time of acquiring land.
9.2 In many instances unutilized land acquired for a public purpose is difficult to reclaim. There should be a speedy process to reclaim and take possession of the unutilized land. Moreover, used land, especially in case of coal and other mines should be reclaimed and acquired instead of acquiring agriculture land for public purpose.
9.3 These assessments should be thoroughly carried out involving the stakeholders before projects are executed. And based on these assessments future course of action should be decided. Social impact assessment is highly advisable to deal with compensation, rehabilitation and resettlement issues....

4. Sub Group -IV : Tribal Land Alienation & PESA
4.1.4 The Sub Group notes with dismay that the process of restoration of alienated land is worse than alienation. The NIRD studies conclude on the basis of examination of records that the tribals would have been better off by purchasing the land by open market rather than obtaining to the State led process of market. All Courts, bureaucrats and mostly public men, the Sub Group finds are interlocked against the tribals presenting a formidable front. Even in Jharkhand, a State which has been carved out to protect the interests of the tribals the process of alienation has hastened under tribal Chief Ministers leading to impoverishment of the tribals. In Jharkhand the per capita income of tribals is less than half of the per capita income of the State and more than 45 per cent of the tribals live in poverty, 27 per cent under extreme poverty (IHD 2008). The State has developed into a rent extractor tribal impoverishing mechanism. Even the judgments of the Supreme Court like in the case of Samata Judgment are not implemented by the States claiming blatantly that it does not apply to them.

LAND ACQUISITION
...
10.4 Survey and settlement operations should be taken up in those areas where it has not been done so far to remove any confusion or uncertainty. Following the recommendation made by the Expert Group on Tribal Land Alienation, survey of the hill slopes up to 30 degrees should be mandatory in the states with Schedule areas and such lands should be settled in favour of tribals who do shifting cultivation and subsistence agriculture. This will not only confer land rights on the tribals occupying such lands, but also help improve the forest cover. The areas under shifting cultivation should be brought under tribal community management.The Government land encroached by poor tribal families should be settled in their favour. (This has already been covered under the Forest Rights Act, 2005)
10.5 Tribals who have been living within a reserve forest, sanctuaries, wild life sanctuaries, national parks, biosphere reserves for generation and cultivating agricultural land should be given permanent patta rights and should not be displaced....
9.6 The legal provisions prohibiting the alienation of tribal land in Schedule V areas and its restoration should be extended to the non¬scheduled areas also. A cut off date should be prescribed while extending these provisions to the non¬scheduled areas.
10.7 A senior competent authority should exercise judgement in sale of tribal lands and protect the interests of tribals. The State should promote the concept of a Land Bank wherein tribal land is purchased by the State and allotted to other deserving tribal families in the same area. (Ceiling Surpluses should be distributed on a priority basis. CPRs should not be distributed).
10.8 At present PESA is applicable only to the scheduled areas but a large part of the tribal population lives outside scheduled areas. Therefore, the provisions of PESA should be applicable mutatis mutandis to village/areas where there is a sizable tribal population or where majority of the population consists of scheduled tribes. ...

WOMEN’S LAND RIGHTS
14.1 All new homestead land distributed to landless families should be only in women’s name. Where more than one adult woman (widows, elderly women, etc.) is a part of the household, the names of all female adults should be registered.
14.2 When regularising the homesteads of families occupying irregular and insecure homesteads, the homesteads so regularised should be in the names of both spouses and single women.
14.3 Government should make provision for equal availability of agriculture inputs to women farmers.
14.4 Government should promulgate laws that protect women’s rights to adequate housing and land, for instance, introduce government orders mandating joint registration and joint title for marital property in the names of men and women, and registration of women’s property in the names of single women.
14.5 There should be representation for women, especially for SC/ST women, in agencies set up to monitor land reforms.
...

GOVERNANCE AND LAND REFORMS
15.1 Schedule-I of the EIA notification, 2006 issued by the MoEF under item 7-C covers industrial estate/parks/complexes/areas/Export Promotion Zones/ Special Tourism Zones/ Biotech Parks/ Leather Complexes. The above categories continue to be exempted from the requirement of a public consultation even in the new notification. That needs to be brought under urgent amendment in concerned laws and policies.
15.2 Scrap Special Economic Zone Act (2005) under purviews of environmental and ecological concern where SEZ is completely silent. Single window clearance feature makes the Approval Committee at the State level under the District Collector responsible for approval of all SEZ units and even compliance to conditions of approval if any are to be mentioned by the Assistant Collector. There is no mention of the role of the Pollution Control Board. There is no mention of Coastal Regulation related provisions in the SEZ Act and rules. However, the amendment to the CRZ Notification 1991, have allowed for SEZs to be located in ecologically sensitive coastal areas and ‘no development zones’ that need to be brought under strict regulatory authority adequately represented by project affected community and local representatives.

The status of “Deemed Foreign Territory” to SEZs will snatch the sovereignty of locals from their lands and natural resources which sustains the local economy. The concentration of powers in the hands of Development Commissioner at the state level and board of approvals in the Centre is greatly going to challenge the local governance. The SEZ Act provides that grievances related to the SEZ can only be filed with courts designated by the State governments which will only be for trials related to civil and other matters of SEZ. No other courts can try a case unless it goes through the designated court first. Building of a physical boundary around the SEZ and restricting entry to authorized person’s only means that it would be difficult for any individual or civil society groups and independent agencies to enter the area without prior approval of the Development Commissioner.
SEZ Act (2005) has no mention of the sources of water for the proposed zones; leave aside the question of restrictions or impact assessment. The SEZ Act of various states gives a blank cheque to the water requirement for the zones. For example, the Gujarat Act says, “The SEZ developers will be granted approval for development of water supply and distribution system to ensure the provision o adequate water supply for SEZ units”.
As per the official website of the Mundra SEZ (Gujarat), it expects to get at least 6 million liters per day from the Sardar Sarovar Project, as promised by Gujarat Water Infrastructure Ltd. Critical water requirement would be 400 million liters per day. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India for Gujarat for the year ending on March 31, 2006 has already criticized Gujarat government for extra allocation of 41.1 million liters per day water from the Sardar Sarovar Project for industries. The CAG report said that this will affect share of water for drought prone areas.
The water requirement, as given on the POSCO website, is 286 million liters per day, will be procured from Jobra barrage on the Mahanadi River in Cuttack, district in Orissa. The water for this is forced to come from the upstream Hirakud dam. There is already an agitation against reservation of water from the Hirakud dam for industrial purposes.
The pattern of land distribution in India, therefore, reflects the existing socio-economic hierarchy. While large landowners invariably belong to the upper castes, the cultivators belong to the middle castes, and the agricultural workers are largely dalits and tribals. According to the 1991 census, 64 percent of dalits and 36 percent of tribal people were agricultural labourers who own no land and work as unregistered sharecroppers, un-recognized temporary or informal tenants or agricultural labourers for subsistence without any security. The National Sample Survey of 1992 reported that 13.34 percent of the dalits and 11.50 percent of the tribals were absolutely landless. While, in 1997, the Ninth Draft Plan Paper, placed 77 percent of the dalits and 90 percent of the tribals as either de jure landless or de facto landless in India. No uniform data on these categories is available in the country and the discrepancies in the data on landlessness from different government sources raise obvious questions of reliability. But at the same time, the data of absolute landless families proves that the feudal society is firmly anchored in large parts of India, notwithstanding claims to the contrary.

‘Maoism’, State and the Communist Movement in India - III

‘Maoism’, State and the Communist Movement in India

Arindam Sen

Part III

We promised to share with readers the experience of our encounter with Maoists in different parts of the country in this issue. Due to some unavoidable reasons, we are saving that for the fourth and last installment, taking up here the story of evolution of Maoist anarchism.
In part II we have seen how the historic conflict and overlap between anarchism (understood in the sense or senses in which founders of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought encountered it in their practical work, that is in the course of organising the working people for revolution, and hence also in theory, as outlined above) and revolutionary Marxism – or more generally between petty bourgeois and proletarian revolutionisms – took different shapes in different countries. Let us now survey the Indian scene.

Genealogy of ‘Maoism’ in India

Anti-British terrorist/anarchist trends in India, like those against Tsarist autocracy in Russia, were in existence well before the foundation of Communist Party of India. Later most of these forces joined the CPI. Following a short spell of left adventurism under BT Ranadive (1948-50) and then a few years of centrist ambivalence, the party adopted a right opportunist line of parliamentary cretinism. Rebellion against this led to the formation of the CPI(M) in 1964. In the wake of the Naxalbari uprising (May 1967), revolutionaries came out in numerous groups all over the country and joined forces first in the AICCCR (May 1968) and then the CPI(ML) (April 1969). The only major group that stood apart from both was the Dakshin Desh group (so named after a Bengali magazine published by it), which became the Maoist Communist Centre in October 1969. Gradually – and after the setback of early 1970s, increasingly rapidly – it abandoned mass peasant struggles for squad activities mainly in forest and mountainous regions even as they spread beyond West Bengal. Later on certain like-minded groups joined them, such as the Punjab-based Revolutionary Communist Party and the "Second CC" in 2003, leading to the formation of Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI).
While this original ‘Maoist’ body remained the main vehicle of ultra left/anarchist activities, similar trends emerged within and around the CPI(ML) also. This occurred in three distinct phases: in the wake of Naxalbari; following the setback of early 1970s; and since the 1980s.

Upsurge and ‘Left-Wing’ Communism

In one of his most celebrated classics, Lenin showed how left adventurist trends emerged in course of struggle against right opportunism during the formative period of communist parties in different countries (‘Left-wing’ Communism – An Infantile Disorder) at the end of the second decade of the 20th century. He saw this as a normal teething trouble (“infantile disorder”) that could lead to catastrophic consequences unless cured in time. A similar phenomenon was to be observed in our country too during the formative years of the CPI(ML).
Charu Mazumdar (CM), the founder of CPI(ML), developed a clearly cut-out proletarian connotation or framework of agrarian revolution: build concentrated areas of anti-feudal peasant movement and extensively propagate the total politics of seizure of power; establish the leadership of landless and poor peasants – as the vehicle of proletarian leadership on peasant struggle – and rely on them rather than on party organisers from petty bourgeois background for unleashing militant peasant movement; encourage peasants to arm themselves with locally available weapons rather than sophisticated fire arms; combine different forms of struggle – mass seizure of crops, for instance – with armed attacks on class enemies and the state; and so on.[i]
CM cautioned comrades against the dangers of isolation from broad masses and the national mainstream if base areas were to be built in mountainous or forest regions and drove home the need and feasibility of developing bases in the plains. On this question, as on many others, he was keen on developing the distinct features of an Indian path of revolution. With a rapid surge in the revolutionary movement, he came to place more and more emphasis on the fight against anarchist ideas and practices such as militarism and infatuation with "actions". When students and the youth in Calcutta were celebrating the festival of revolution in their own – often adventurist – ways, CM personally met and placed before them "only one task: go among workers and landless and poor peasants – integrate, integrate and integrate with them".[ii]

“Annihilation of Class Enemies”

However, the volcanic eruption of the pent-up revolutionary energies of the toiling millions led by revolutionary communists was naturally not free from 'left' excesses (it is these – not the whole upsurge – that we have called “left-wing communism”). This found concentrated expression in what was called the line of “annihilation of class enemies”. Emerging as a new form of struggle in the heat of Srikakulam peasant movement, it sought to combine, with some success, the beginnings of armed struggle with broad mass mobilisation. In certain pockets this led to the formation of peasant squads, mass upsurges and some agrarian reform measures. The valuable experience thus gained would subsequently help build sustained armed peasant struggle in Bhojpur and neighbouring regions in central Bihar. But in many areas annihilation was wrongly conducted as a “campaign”, with a lot of indiscriminate and unnecessary killings, in the process getting isolated from peasants’ class struggle. These were serious left deviations that did tremendous harm to the people and revolution. However, factors like overestimation of the revolutionary situation, generalising the form of struggle suitable for some areas for every corner of the country out of subjective wishes, infancy of the party and impetuosity on the part of the leadership as a reaction to revisionist betrayal, prevented us from taking corrective measures and the infantile disorder grew into a fatal disease with the first CPI(ML) Congress (May 1970) declaration that "Class struggle, i.e., annihilation will solve all our problems". CM later realised that annihilation had been taken too far and tried to formulate a policy of organised retreat in the shape of a militant united front of labouring people, particularly people under the influence of Left parties, against the Congress regime [see his last article “People’s Interests Are the Only Interests of the Party” – AS]. But a planned and orderly retreat could not be organized because, first, the retreat was still supposed to be a very temporary phenomenon and secondly, because the policy and methods of retreat were not clearly formulated in terms of various forms of struggle and organisation. These tasks remained on the unfinished agenda of revolution when, with the martyrdom of CM, curtains finally came down on the first phase of the CPI(ML) movement.

Setback and Semi-Anarchism

Among the many splinter groups into which the CPI(ML) was split after the total setback of 1971-72, there emerged three distinct trends or approaches on the question of evaluating the past and charting a course for the future. The first to emerge from the underground and carve out a niche for itself in the post-emergency democratic space was the Provisional Central Committee (PCC) led by SNS – an erstwhile PB member who in the name of fighting left deviation advocated unity with rich peasants in 1970 and in 1977 worked out a deal with Charan Singh, the then union home Minister, asking Naxalite prisoners to come out of jails by signing bonds abjuring violence. The organization built up largely on the basis of this ‘tactical’ surrender soon surrendered the banner of revolutionary Marxism. As this group happily abandoned all efforts of building revolutionary peasant struggle, Kanu Sanyal, who had the honour of announcing the foundation of CPI(ML) on 1 May 1970, now declared that the party foundation itself was a mistake and to make amends, now founded the Communist Organization of India(ML). The first batch of “rectifiers” thus went down the liquidationist path.

At the opposite end of the Naxalite spectrum there were groups which stuck to the letter and forgot the spirit of the revolutionary line represented by Charu Mazumdar, refusing to recognize the change in balance of class forces or take any serious lessons from the setback. They fell back on the ‘left’ deviations, as it were, to bring back the revolutionary days simply by mimicking the past. Thus it was that petty bourgeois anarchist trends, which remained submerged in and indistinguishable from the overall upsurge, now crystallised into distinct formations like Mahadev Mukherjee’s group, the Second CC, COC (PU) (subsequently CPI(ML) Party Unity) etc. We called these groups semi-anarchist in the sense that they still had one foot back in the CPI(ML) tradition of anti-feudal struggle even as they were moving in the direction of progressively abandoning class struggle for sensational squad actions. The same was more or less true for the semi-anarchist group outside the CPI(ML) stream – the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC).

Reorganisation of CPI(ML) and the “Rectification Campaign”

Diametrically opposed to both these extremes, there was the party centre reorganized on the second anniversary of CM’s martyrdom (28 July, 1974), comprising comrades Jauhar (Subrata Dutta), Vinod Mishra and Swadesh Bhattacharya. The reorganization provided a new fillip to the armed peasant struggle, but persistence of old metaphysical ideas prevented us from formulating a comprehensive policy for developing mass movements. We suffered serious losses in different areas. In November ‘75 comrade Jauhar died fighting the enemy’s encirclement and suppression campaign in Bhojpur. Comrade Vinod Mishra then took over as the General Secretary. The Second Party Congress ( February 1976) played an important role in uniting the revolutionary forces and in keeping alive the flame of revolutionary peasant struggle in the plains of Bihar in the face of enemy offensive during the emergency. But, as the Political-Organisational Report of our Third Party Congress pointed out,
“Over this entire period of 1974-76, our main drawbacks consisted, firstly, in our failure to link up with the anti-Congress upsurge of students, youth, and all sections of people of Bihar (the leadership of this upsurge was later captured by JP and it degenerated into impotency) and secondly, in our failure, when the movement collapsed with the arrest of leaders and repression on the masses, to provide a new guideline to organise the remnant forces. Although we maintained the political line of building an anti-Congress united front and upheld our areas as models of the same, we could not link this with the actual anti-Congress mass upsurge. This so happened because we had a mechanical conception of the development of united front on the basis of what Comrade Charu Mazumdar had said and we refused to analyse the concrete way in which things were actually developing beyond that mechanical framework.” During the 1974-76 period, “heroic actions and great sacrifices notwithstanding, the line was clearly left-adventurist in character”, as comrade VM later noted.[iii]
However, things did not stand still either in the party or in the society at large. “By 1976, the dialectics of practice had clashed violently with the metaphysics in theory and, given the required conditions, the Party was poised for a major change.”[iv]The post-emergency watershed in national life saw an explosion of democratic and opposition impulses in various forms and class dimensions. If the Janata Party became its big bourgeois tribune, the CPI(ML)(Liberation) emerged as the proletarian platform while the CPI(M) came up with its new project of formation of stable governments in states and “conclaves” with parties of bourgeois opposition at the centre. The inner-party campaign that enabled us to make this historic transition has been known as the rectification movement.
This movement or campaign started with the limited purpose of correcting wrong ideas and practices concerning armed units, but quickly developed into a full-fledged onslaught on the metaphysical viewpoint of dogmatism and perfectionism. This led to great changes in the party’s political and organisational lines. Mass organisations were built up on students’, workers’, peasants’ and other fronts, later brought together under the umbrella of Indian People’s Front (launched in April 1982).

Semi-Anarchism Crystallises into Anarcho-Militarism

Meanwhile, the semi-anarchist groups were going through a long and complex process of coming together and falling apart to give rise to several short-lived and few relatively stable combinations. The CPI(ML) People’s War (PWG for short) was founded in 1980. There was a long and tortuous course of three-way unity talks among MCCI, PWG and PU, frequently interrupted by internecine clashes including a "black chapter" (as the concerned organizations called it after the merger). In 1998 the PU merged with the PWG. Then in September 2004, the two "Maoist" formations merged to form the CPI(Maoist). The long process of centralization of semi-anarchist groups around two centres – the MCCI and PWG – was thus brought to culmination. The quantitative growth and enhanced strength led to a qualitative leap too: the unified body started its solitary journey tangentially away from the CPI(ML) trajectory as an anarcho-militarist current.
In an unprincipled attempt to satisfy the cadre of the two organisations, both Charu Majumdar and Kanai Chatterjee were projected as co-founders of the new party! The two leaders who in their lifetimes consciously and resolutely avoided uniting in a single party were now posthumously compelled to do so by their followers! The post of general secretary went to PWG's comrade Ganapathy while the group agreed to drop the ML tag and with it the residual commitment to the CPI(ML) tradition, without, of course, saying it in so many words. The new organisation's ideological-political orientation came to be fully dominated by the MCC brand of Maoism.
The primary immediate task announced by the new organisation in its first press communique was to transform the existing armed squads into a full-fledged People's liberation Army (PLA) and the existing guerrilla zones into base areas. But the first task that the world actually saw it taking up was a truce with the Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, a 'tactic' that backfired before long. After losing much of their old bases in AP at the hands of the YSR government, which ironically they had helped to come to power, they concentrated their activities in relatively newer areas like Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, Koraput-Rayagada region in Orissa and the Bankura-Purulia-Medinipur belt in West Bengal.

‘Maoist’ Sect versus Revolutionary Communist Party

With their dogmatic adherence to the Chinese path, our Indian Maoists continue to negate the very essence of Mao’s method. Mao had to conduct a firm struggle against Chinese dogmatists, who despite severe losses were bent upon blindly copying the Russian model in Chinese conditions. The famous formulation of Mao on the integration of the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete conditions of China arose only in the course of this struggle. Our ‘Maoists’ gloss over the huge differences between Indian and Chinese conditions; and by upholding and absolutising one part of Mao's teachings (political power growing out of a gun) in isolation from the other part (party, that is ideology and politics, commanding the gun), they in effect turn the whole thing upside down.
Similarly, from the rich experience of the application of Mao Zedong Thought in Telangana and Naxalbari-Srikakulam, they have isolated the armed dimension (the element of squad activities) from the mass dimension (the element of broad peasant movement). Whereas CM was no advocate of isolated and exclusive armed actions – for him the two key phrases were “integration with the landless rural poor” and “politics in command” – our Maoist friends have delinked the whole question of arms from this essential context and have thus moved beyond the purview of the CPI(ML). Perhaps this was why they found it necessary to choose new names to describe their ideology and organization.
In clear contrast to the anarcho-militarist trajectory of the Indian Maoists, our Party has boldly re-emerged as a frontline organisation of revolutionary communists, reclaiming and upholding the revolutionary legacy of now nearly nine decades of communist practice in India. Drawing on an expanding mass base and armed with a rich variety of struggles and organisations, we have effectively combated the sectarian conceptualization of “Naxalites” as a special kind of New Left current or a product of the cultural Revolution in China and repositioned the CPI(ML) in the mainstream of the Left movement in opposition to opportunists of all hues.
The wholesome development of our Party – of course this is not to forget the many weaknesses – has been based primarily on two things. First, our success in critically assimilating the lessons of the past, separating elements of petty bourgeois anarchism from proletarian revolutionary steadfastness, discarding the former and developing the latter. Second an open, honest, serious ideological struggle rather than factional manoeuvres as the key link in party building and gradually perfecting the system of democratic centralism. Over the last few decades this party culture has enabled us to protect the party from the intrusion of both rightist/liquidationist and ‘left’/anarchist ideas and move forward through a series of readjustments in political line and policies with a united and consolidated party organisation.

[i] In Fight against the Concrete Manifestations of Revisionism he wrote:
“Chairman Mao has pointed out: ‘Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor; it is people, not things that are decisive.’ The oppressed and persecuted peasants launch their struggle against the ruling classes with bare hands or with whatever they have, but as needs arise with the development of the struggle and dictated by the compulsions of advancing the revolution, they begin snatching and seizing arms from the ruling classes. This is how people’s armed forces develop. It is impossible to wage a revolutionary war by bringing arms from the outside. This is so because, as Chairman Mao has taught us …‘The revolutionary war is a war of the masses; it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on them.’”
[ii] Notes Taken in a Meeting with Student Comrades, Collected Works of Charu Mazumdar published in Bengali by CPI(ML)(Liberation)
[iii] CPI(ML) – The Firm Defender of the Revolutionary Legacy of Indian Communists
[iv] Political-Organisational Report of the Third Party Congress of CPI(ML), which serves as the basis of the evaluation of the past in this article.

Corrigendum:
In part II (P13 in LB January) Lenin’s quote in para 2 - in place of old illegality, read old legality.