|
After increasing the AP electric charges worth Rs.
1100/- crores by the AP Electric Regulatory Commission, the people all over AP
rose against these shocking charges and demonstrations started spontaneously. On
seeing the people’s reaction, the World Bank-stooge, Chandrababu Naidu,
immediately declared that he would give a Rs. 281 crore subsidy to the electric
board so that, to that extent, charges would come down. That means he decided to
push electric charges worth Rs. 840 crores on the people’s head. The individual
charges will be increased by 15% with this hike. Though he declared an
eye-washing subsidy of Rs. 281 crores, people were not ready to bare the Rs. 840
crore hike. So struggles started all over the state against this hike.
As the struggle started, Chandrababu, as well as
the Transco, Regulatory Commission, started a propaganda campaign supporting the
hike.
The state was reeling under severe drought when the
AP government announced the increase in electric charges. 18 districts of the
total 23, were declared drought-affected. 688 mandals of the total 1104, were
severely affected with drinking water shortage. People from many severely
affected districts migrated to other states for their living. In this situation,
the hike in electricity charges gave a heavy blow to the masses and everywhere
protests started against the electricity charges. Faced with this situation,
Chandrababu tried to divert this movement by organising the ‘Neeru-Meeru’ (Water
and You) campaign in which he retorted that people are recklessly using water
without taking responsibility to recharge water to the earth and so that houses
should dig water pits so that rain water will stock there and the earth’s water
table will be maintained, and droughts will not occur. A big propaganda campaign
was started for this in the newspapers, TVs and meetings. The cause of water
depletion in the earth is due to the reckless drive for commercial crops using
deep borewells. In addition the government is permitting foreign MNC
agribusiness companies who sow hybrid seeds which root out water from the earth.
So, the government’s drive for diverting both the struggles (mainly the
electricity struggle) did not gain much attention. So demonstrations started and
the opposition parties entered into the movement.
On the one side there was the people’s anger to be
suppressed and on the other to need to refute the attack of the opposition
parties. So, Chandrababu announced that he would organise ‘Gram Sabhas’
to explain to the people the reason for the hike in electricity charges. He also
said that in these Gram Sabhas officials of the AP Transco and TDP
leaders will explain the circumstances leading to the increase in charges.
Fearing that the Gram Sabhas would oppose the hike he quickly changed his
decision. He immediately declared that he was not going to organise Grama
Sabhas but that ‘Consumers sessions’ will be set up to discuss the
issue. He said that only AP Transco officials will address these sessions and
not the TDP leaders. He even said that the main subject to be discussed in these
meetings is the ‘regularisation of illegal current connections’ and tried
to blame the illegal electric consumption for the current electricity hike. He
also announced, with hi-tech propaganda, that a law should be enacted to punish
illegal consumers.
After that, the government propagated daily in
newspapers that there was a good response from the people for these consumers
sessions and that the number of applications coming for the regularisation
proves the people’s positiveness for the hike. Actually, the applications for
the so-called regularisations were not from illegal consumers, but by several
new consumers as well as multi-portioned house owners, who applied for new
connections due to the drive by Transco officials. Only a small number of
illegal consumer applications came. Chandrababu Naidu also attended several
consumer session meetings and propagated that as he is trying to stop the
illegal connections, the opposition parties are encouraging the illegal
consumers.
As the agitation was not subsiding with the
Consumer Sessions, Chandrababu Naidu also tried his best to turn women who
are in the DWCRA groups, against this agitation. He announced in July itself
that he would start the Mahila Janmabhoomi from August 1st, and so ‘Chaitanya
Sadassulu’ (Enlightenment sessions) will be conducted for the DWCRA women
before. He used all the government machinery for the mobilisation,
transportation of DWCRA women to these sessions. Heavy amounts were spent for
this purpose. The government ordered that all the DWCRA women should
compulsorily attend these sessions. They were provided with free transportation
and free meals. In this way, by mobilising women, Chandrababu tried to show that
women are on his side. He used these meetings to attack and propagate against
the electricity agitation.
But all the earlier Mahila Janmabhoomis had failed
to solve the women’s problems. As the state and central governments have been
competing to increase the prices of essential commodities, the women’s lives
were becoming more and more miserable. Without touching these basic problems,
Chandrababu Naidu tried to destroy the electricity agitation by organising this
Mahila Janmabhoomi. The opposition parties propagated that this Mahila
Janmabhoomi was fake and that it was being used to divert people from the real
issues. They gave a call to boycott this Janmabhoomi. Chandrababu, to counter
the opposition’s call, asked the women to repulse the electricity agitators and
protect their Mahila Janmabhoomi themselves. But, the women were not easily
deceived by his words. Suspecting that this Janmabhoomi might fail, he again
drew out his old assembly election slogan of the Gas Scheme. He announced that
he will provide 4 lakh gas connections, smokeless stoves, old-age pensions in
this Janmabhoomi programme, so that all women should participate in this
Janmabhoomi programme. He tried to put DWCRA women against this agitation by
organising these sessions and Janmabhoomi. But his efforts did not yield much
success. In many places women questioned his schemes. They asked him about the
rising prices and other basic needs. They questioned him about the electricity
hike. He became furious and tried to shut the mouths of the questioning women
with angry venom, shouting "You are
retorting much!", "Are you a communist?"
As this was going on, bombs broke out in the
churches of Ongole, Tadepalligudem and a Masjid at Guntur. Chandrababu and the
BJP tried to put the blame on the Congress. The Congress blamed the RSS
elements. Chandrababu without trying to arrest the real culprits, propagated
widely and blasted the Congress and opposition parties for resorting to violence
and organising agitations against the electric charges. He tried to divert the
people’s attention to the blasts issue. He even organised a peace march in
Guntur. He even blamed the opposition parties for the People’s War Party’s
presence in the agitation.
As the agitations continued, the Assembly sessions
started in August to vote on the budget. Some people thought that the
electricity charges issue would be solved in the current session of the
Assembly. As usual Chandrababu tried to support the hike and tried to cool
opposition tempers by saying that a legislative committee will be formed and it
will tour all the states and examine the electricity production and charges
position there and would give a report and then the government will act basing
on that report. The opposition demanded the reduction of charges upto that
report’s arrival. Chandrababu didn’t agree even for that. He retorted that the
people had given power to him and there was no need to act on the directives of
the opposition. As usual, with the ‘heated exchanges’, suspensions, walkouts by
the opposition benches, the session ended without discussing any issue including
the power charge hike (The assembly expenditure for a minute is Rs. 5000/-).
Repression on the
Struggle
While on the one hand Naidu used heavy hi-tech
propaganda against the electricity agitation, on the other he tried to suppress
it with the police force. At several places the agitators were lathi charged. On
May 30, i.e., on the third day after the charge hike, people demonstrated
infront of Chandrababu Naidu’s convoy and blocked it at Vishakhapatnam. The
police brutally lathi charged the crowd and dispersed the agitators. There was a
similar lathi charge on the people (mainly women) who tried to gherao the
Agricultural Minister, Vadde Shobhanadreswar Rao at Vijayawada. A bundh was
observed against this brutal lathi charge on women. In Armoor (Nizamabad
district), and Amarachinta (Mahaboobnagar district) several peasants were
injured in the lathi charges. In Ongole, the police went further, not only
arresting the severely injured people, but even tied them to the hospital beds
with iron chains. In Kurnool, in the DWCRA group’s Chaitanya Sadassu which was
attended by Chandrababu Naidu himself, there was a severe lathi charge on the
women demonstrators, and their clothes were torn infront of the Chief Minister.
The photographers who tried to take photoes of that incident were also beaten by
the police. Chandrababu Naidu was not satisfied with these police ‘measures’. He
tried to form a private armed gang to suppress the agitation. He announced his
intention to establish a ‘Telugu Sena’ (Telugu Army) to counter the
agitation. As his announcement came, attacks were started in several places (Vijayawada,
Kurnool, Cuddapah, Ongole) on agitators by TDP goondas. Protests came from all
sections of the people against these attacks by the TDP goons. So immediately
Chandrababu announced that the ‘Telugu Sena’ was not formed by him and
those attacks were not his concern. This sena was a rehearsal for the future, to
counter the emerging people’s agitations and future election rigging.
Though this repression was going on, MLAs, MPs of
the ruling TDP didn’t dare to come before the people. They moved around with a
police force. They failed, in every meeting, to convince the people on the
electricity charge hike. Chandrababu himself moved around with hundreds of
police force. All opposition party leaders were arrested one day before his
Kurnool meeting. The Home Minister, Devendar Gowd tried to convince the
opposition parties that the Chief Minister and other ministers were in the hit
list of the People’s War Party, so they should not obstruct their convoy.
The August 27 Firing
The opposition parties called for a statewide rally
and public meeting on 27th August to protest against the hike in power charges.
The government had not given permission to the rally or meeting though it was
organised by the ‘constitutional opposition’ parties. The police tried to create
confusion whether the meeting would be held or not. At the last moment, though
the government gave the permission, it tried to obstruct attendance of the
people to the rally and meeting. All roads entering Hyderabad city were blocked
with police. Several lorries, vans and other private vehicles were seized all
over the state. Lathi charges took place in several railway stations when the
people tried to step into the trains to attend the meeting. Barbed wire fences
were constructed around the Assembly building as a precautionary measure.
Though the government tried to stop the people with
severe repression, thousands of agitators entered the City in batches. From
Indira Park they went in a procession to Basheerbagh Circle at 12 noon. As they
were nearing the police control room, the police swooped on the agitators with
lathis and severely beat the agitators. The police were not satisfied with that.
Mounted police on horseback even attacked the people. In this attack several
agitators as well as some leaders were injured. Immediately the angered
agitators repulsed the police attack with a rain of stones. Police also started
throwing stones on agitators in addition to tear gas. The people tried to
disperse as their eyes were burning with the tear gas. The police again swooped
on the dispersing agitators like wild beasts and lathi charged them. Again
agitators repulsed the advancing police beasts with a rain of stones. Then one
police officer fired with his revolver indiscriminately until it was emptied.
Then the police started firing with 303 rifles. A militant agitator who was
injured at the Basheerbagh Circle challenged the police to fire on him by
bearing his chest. The police beasts didn’t spare him. They killed that youth
agitator by pumping bullets into him. In 1927, when the Simon Commission visited
India, the British police didn’t dare fire on Tanguturi Prakasham who showed his
chest to the police. But, in ‘independent India’, the ‘Golden Andhra’
Chandrababu’s police has earned much applause outdoing the British police by
killing the militant youth agitator.
Chandrababu’s police didn’t stop there. A severe
lathi charge and firing was done on the agitators at Fatehmaidan club. Normally,
police should not enter the legislators’s quarters without the permission from
the Assembly Speaker. But, the Task Force police ignored that rule and entered
the MLA quarters where the opposition leaders were on hunger strike. They
severely lathi charged the people who came there to inform about the lathi
charge and firing that took place in the city. The police even destroyed the
vehicles of some legislators. The police then beat every person whom they
suspected to be an agitator in all the streets upto the evening. Another person
also died in this police firing on that day.
The police as usual concocted the story of
encounter firing. They made a statement that some agitators tried to snatch the
revolver from a SI, and so the police fired on them. They also propagated that
extremists were also there among the agitators. Chandrababu even retorted that
he had the tapes of the agitators’ vandalism on the police. The British rulers
even did a nominal enquiry into the Jalianwallabagh massacre, but the ‘Indian’
Chandrababu didn’t agree for a judicial enquiry into this firing. Why was he
backtracking to order an enquiry into that incident ? Because, he must give
impetus to the morale of the police for ‘future’ firings.
This firing unleashed on the agitation led by one
section of the ruling classes was not an accidental phenomenon. The government
did it as part of an intentional plan. This agitation, although it seemed to be
for the reduction of electricity charges, will not stop there. The Chandrababu
Naidu government is hiking the charges in accordance with the dictates of the
World Bank and imperialists. These hikes naturally results in protest from the
masses. If the government reduces the charges by a role-back, tomorrow again the
people will agitate for another reduction. So, this is an obstacle to the
interests of the imperialists. Hence, it is trying to suppress the agitation
although a section of the ruling class led it.
The Role of
Opposition Parties
After the announcement of the hike in electricity
charges, the Congress(I) party took the struggle into its hands and tried to
pose itself as the champion of struggle for the sake of the people’s interests.
After defeat in the ’99 elections, the electricity struggle had come in handy.
The Congress’s opposition is not against Chandrababu’s reforms. For, the
Congress itself first initiated these reforms when it was in power at the
Centre. The Congress governments in Orissa (in the past), Karnataka, Rajahstan,
Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are doing the same thing. Today or tomorrow the
Karnataka government is preparing for the hike in electricity charges.
Therefore, its aim is to encash people’s protests by organising demonstrations
for coming to power in the next elections.
The Left Front formed, by an alliance of the CPI
and CPM with some ML parties is little different from the Congress. All these
parties had close friendship with Chandrababu Naidu in the past. It was only
when Chandrababu allied with the BJP thinking it more profitable, did the ‘left’
parties turn against the TDP. When the Janata Dal was in power, the same World
Bank reforms were continued. All these left parties supported those reforms. In
West Bengal Jyothi Basu is a close associate of the MNCs. The only aim of ‘left’
parties is to get one or two seats in the future elections by acting as though
they are on the people’s side. By using the weakness of these opposition
parties, Chandrababu Naidu even challenged these parties by retorting that
"If you show a lower interest creditor than World Bank, I will go there".
All these left parties had no answer. The revolutionary path of building a New
Democratic Economy basing on self-reliance without taking loans from the
imperialists is the real alternative to the imperialist-stooge Chandrababu’s
debt-trap miserable economy.
The nature of all the opposition parties
participating in this struggle reflects their class nature. The people’s anger
against the hike gave strength to these parties. But these parties tried to
limit the struggle to their party cadres. The people’s participation in the
dharnas, rasta rokos, gheraos was nominal. Mainly the activists of these parties
participated in all these activities and tasted the wrath of the police. Though
the police was severely beating their lower level cadres, these parties never
even tried to retaliate by throwing a small stone on the police. Although the
anger against this hike intensified all over the state, these parties never
tried to mobilise all the people. By seeing this weakness of the opposition,
Chandrababu propagated that there were no people behind these opposition
parties. By why did these parties not mobilise the people ? The answer is, all
these parties have no real opposition to the hike. They merely tried to encash
the people’s mood to use it for their own election politics. But the suffering
of the people with the impact of this electric hike is different. Once they come
to the streets, they will not stop midway. They want to solve the problem, and
will fight till the end. They also feared that the masses may even question
these opposition parties about their policies in other states where they are in
power. Hence, these opposition parties tried to confine the struggle only to
their party cadre. They put the people outside the movement, and acted as though
they were fighting for the people’s cause. They even challenged Chandrababu to
hold elections to the local bodies.
The BJP, after the announcement, criticised the
hike and boastfully declared that their party will participate in demonstrations
against the government. Within a few days it turned back and announced it will
not participate in demonstrations though they oppose the hike. It never even
condemned the lathi charge or firing on the agitators, instead it supported the
government in the assembly. It did not even demand for an enquiry into the
August 28 firing.
The Future
The struggle against the electricity charge hike
reveals the selfish passive nature of the bourgeois opposition parties and
exposes their real intentions. The struggle also reveals the fascist nature of
the state in not even allowing the people’s demonstrations though it was led by
ruling class parties. But the AP people who have been steeled in many mass
struggles in the past, will come to the streets more militantly in future as
they are inspired by the revolutionary movement led by the CPI (ML)[People’s
War]. The police force or fake reforms cannot hinder the masses from taking up
militant struggles. The spontaneous eruption of mass struggles like the above
will indirectly aid the revolutionary movement in the countryside. The
revolutionary forces should try to turn these movements in the direction of
people’s war. |
