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The art of hypocrisy and Double Speak is an age-old
art practised by the Indian rulers and engraved in the history by the cunning
Kautilya in his Artha Shastra. The art of deception seems to have achieved
further perfection under the modern-day Andhra Kautilya, Chandrababu Naidu.
Without being good at the art of deception, no ruler can continue to be in power
for long. And this maxim of Kautilya is rigorously pursued by Naidu ever since
he came to power through a palace coup in 1995 overthrowing his father-in-law
and the founder of his Telugu Desam Party, NT Rama Rao. All the promises made at
the time of the Assembly elections in December 1994 were reversed within the
span of a few months in the most unabashed manner: prohibition was lifted, the
Rs 2-a-kilo-rice scheme was scrapped, power tariff and water cess were hiked,
and so on.
The latest of his acts of Double Speak and
deception is the invitation extended to the Peoples War for "peace" talks. The
proposal came within a few days after the PW guerillas had annihilated Naidu’s
right hand man — former Home Minister and the then serving Panchayati Raj
Minister of AP — Madhava Reddy, in March last.
At first, the Chief Minister announced on the floor
of the Assembly that his government was willing to hold negotiations with
Comrades Gaddar and Varavara Rao — two of the outstanding personalities of the
revolutionary literary and cultural movement in the country — to resolve the
Naxal problem. That the statement of Naidu appeared on April 1st — All Fools’
Day — might not be just a coincidence.
For, even as the statement was made in the
Assembly, Naidu’s uniformed goons — the Grey Hounds, Special Striking Forces,
the CRPF and the local police — were going on the rampage — arresting,
torturing, killing village youth sympathetic to the PW and deploying a large
force to eliminate the armed squads of the PW and even those of other
Marxist-Leninist parties.
The summer campaign to suppress the revolutionary
movement was worked out much before at the highest political level. The plan was
to concentrate the state’s repressive forces in large numbers during the summer
months to inflict the maximum damage possible to the armed squads of the PW, by
taking advantage of the climate which is unfavourable to the guerillas. The
much-reduced green cover and the scarcity of water during the summer months
makes it easier for the enemy to carry out the combing operations. The decision
of the AP government to eliminate the ‘Naxal menace’ was reiterated at the
meeting of the chief ministers of the five states of AP, MP, Maharashtra, Orissa
and Bihar on April 4th in Delhi presided over by the union home minister. Nadu
pressed for an all India ban on the CPI (ML) [PW] and the centre assured them
that it would take a decision soon on the matter.
In fact, Naidu’s TDP has all along been maintaining
that the Naxalite problem is a law and order problem and not a socio economic
and political one. It has refused to treat the Naxalites, particularly the PW,
as political activists. Instead, it treats them as criminals.
Yet, it wants to fool the people that it stands for
a peaceful resolution of the problem.
Quite naturally, Comrades Gaddar and Varavara Rao
issued a joint statement on April 3rd questioning the sincerity of the TDP
government in bringing about peace in the state. They exposed the double
standards displayed by Naidu in seeking their intervention on the one hand and
at the same time stepping up murderous attacks on the Naxalites. They demanded
an immediate halt to all fake encounters and attacks on the people who are
sympathetic to the revolution; a high level judicial enquiry into the ‘Koyyur
encounter’ of December 2, 99 in which three senior leaders of the PW were
killed, and so on. They demanded that the state government should give up its
terror campaign and create an atmosphere of peace which alone would be conducive
for any negotiations between the two sides.
Within days after this, on April 14th, the
government’s stand became crystal clear, when the vile salesman-manager of the
multinational companies in the pay of the World Bank, announced that there was
no question of lifting the ban on the PW and other mass organisations.
He also ruled out direct talks with the PW unless
it gave up arms. Speaking to the press in Delhi, he questioned like a schoolboy,
as to how it was possible to hold talks with the PW delegation when they carry
arms. He also announced the setting up of an advisory council for dealing with
the law and order problem in AP.
It is quite obvious to even a lay man that a
dedicated party carrying on protracted people’s war to liberate the country from
the clutches of feudalism, imperialism and comprador bureaucrat capitalism can
never think of laying down arms until the achievement of final victory.
There could, of course, be periods of cease-fire
depending on the given concrete conditions. Whether the PW leadership is ready
for such a cease-fire at the present juncture or not, is another matter. But the
impossible conditions proposed by the government for the talks makes it clear
that the TDP government is not really serious. The conditions proposed are
nothing but a call to surrender. The guise of talks is just a ploy resorted to
by the government to fool the peace loving citizens who have been clamouring for
an end to the violence and bloodshed of the state.
When Naidu’s real intention behind his bogey of
talks got exposed to everyone, there were more fervent appeals from prominent
journalists and the Concerned Citizens Committee. A statement prepared by the
CCC and signed by several journalists was released to the press on April 23.
They specifically demanded that the government should recognise the Naxalite
movement as a socio-economic-political one and not treat it as a mere law and
order problem. It also called for an unconditional cease-fire on the part of
both the state and the PW from a prefixed date in order to serve as a first step
towards the establishment of "peace". But surprisingly, while the statement
appears to be neutral, asking both sides to implement the cease-fire from a
mutually agreed date, it appeals to the PW to show the initiative even as the
state’s repressive forces were going on a killing spree. The statement was
signed by the editors of almost all the daily newspapers published from AP
barring, of course, the vicious mouthpiece of the fascist state — Eenadu.
The state unit of the CPI (M) too made a similar
appeal to both the sides on May 8. Newspapers wrote editorials urging both sides
to give up violence and to sit at the negotiating table.
The secretary of the CPI (ML) [PW] issued a press
statement in the first week of May which exposed the hollowness of the
government’s call for talks and demanded an end to all fake encounters, arrests
and harassment of people, and a high level judicial enquiry into the Koyyur
encounter and so on.
Naidu’s brutal regime, of course, continued to lie
that it was ready for negotiations while stating in the same breath that
Naxalites should give up arms. Simultaneously it was perpetrating the bloodiest
massacres.
In the month of April alone 32 revolutionaries
including nine women comrades were brutally murdered by the police in AP. On
April 14 four PW cadres were killed in the state capital city Hyderabad. On the
same day, an LGS commander and another woman squad member, were shot dead in
Nizamabad. On April 26, basing on prior information, the police pounced on the
guerillas in Tallavellam village in Nalgonda and killed six comrades, some of
them belonging to the Rachakonda squad. And to cap these brutal killings came
the ghastly murder of 12 comrades in the Chandragiri hills in Warangal on April
27. Of the 32 revolutionaries killed in April, 26 belonged to the PW while six
belonged to other ML parties. It is clear that the state is bent upon
eliminating not only the PW but also all those who come under the label of
Naxalites. For, without crushing the revolutionary forces — the only genuine
opposition to the anti people’s policies of the government — it is impossible
for international capital and its local comprador managers to implement the
policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. The so-called
invitation for talks and ‘restoration of peace and democracy’ is only a
guise to hide the ugly fascist offensive of the Indian ruling classes. Talks or
no talks, the class war in AP and elsewhere in the country is going to become
sharper and bloodier with every passing day, as attacks on the people at large
become even more brutal. There is no alternative for the revolutionaries but to
intensify the people’s war, fight even more resolutely, and unite all the forces
that can be united with, to form the broadest united front to defeat the fascist
onslaught of the TDP and BJP governments of the state and at the Centre.
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