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On May 10 nearly
twenty thousand people turned up from all corners of the country to participate
in the Anti-imperialist Globalisation Rally and to protest against the Gujarat
carnage and the black law going by the name of POTA. A group comprising 62
organisations and representing a wide range of the working people from workers
to peasants to social organizations came together on a single platform under the
name of the Forum Against the Imperialist Globalisation (FAIG).
The FAIG rally put up
the slogan of "Chalo Delhi, Save the Worker, Save the Peasant and Save
the Country." The FAIG considers that the Government of the National
Democratic Alliance has sold the country to the imperialists by surrendering to
the policies of the WTO, the World Bank, the MNCs and the IMF. Disinvestment,
Privatisation and Retrenchment have become the order of the day and to fulfill
the commitment the Govt. is up in arms introducing draconian laws like POTA.
These policies are taking a massive toll of the poor people thereby pushing
hundreds of millions of peasants, workers and the middle class professionals
into an unprecedented crisis. Jobs are being taken away from the people in the
name of reforms. The peasants are being pushed to extremes and they are
committing suicides in large numbers in all parts of the country. The working
class is facing mass scale closures of industries due the wholesale penetration
of MNCs. Youth faces a bleak future as the job market is shrinking day by day.
With the call that
India should come out of the WTO regime of the imperialists the organizers
called on the people to come to the capital to raise their voice and register
their protest against the rulers as well as the imperialists. The good thing is
that the rally has come at a point when the Indian working masses are beginning
to rise up against the living conditions which are becoming increasingly
unbearable due to all the above said reasons and also due to the steep rise in
the prices of basic necessities. Nearly three weeks ago one crore Indian workers
and the middle classes of the public sector had struck work and jammed all the
economic life lines of the economy sending a warning to the rulers that the
people are bound to come on to the streets if the situation is not redeemed.
Though the April 16 call for No Business as usual was given by all kinds of
bourgeois forces yet the huge response of the working people indicated that
things are beginning to take shape and the people no longer think that life can
go on as usual. The May 10 call was given by the progressive, democratic and
revolutionary forces to declare a decisive war against the WTO and the Central
rulers.
The rulers took it
seriously and as things developed it became clear that they had prepared
themselves in advance to stop the protesting people from taking out a protest
demonstration on the streets of the capital. People had come from as far as
Bengal, Bihar, Andhra, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand along with the northern states of
Punjab, Haryana, UP, Uttrakhand and Delhi itself in spite of the fact that in
the sweltering heat of May when temperatures have already crossed the 45 degree
mark. The rage and temperature of the people and their enthusiasm was also no
less hot. The huge turnout was an indication of that. The police action against
the protestors was also due to the fact that such a huge demonstration of
progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces in the capital would send a
clarion call for class struggles in the otherwise charged atmosphere of the
country due to the communal carnage in Gujarat as the organizers of the program
had made it clear that their purpose was also to protest against the fascist BJP
led government at the center against its partisan, rather complicit, role in the
massacres of the Muslims there. This added to the worries of the administration
as millions of Muslims live in the capital itself.
The meeting at the
Ramlila Grounds, which is the biggest ground in the capital, simmered with rage,
enthusiasm and a revolting spirit. This ground has only one gate and the rest of
it is barricaded with walls and wires by the administration to control any kind
of "uneasy" situation that may arise as it is often used for protests and
marches. The program went on for a few hours till the organizers thought of
taking out a procession on the streets. The police used the tactic of dragging
on the negotiations with the organizers to stop them from coming out in a march
and buying time. When the main organizers were discussing on what to do further
the police entered the venue from the gate and started dragging out and beating
the leaders. This infuriated the people and a large group confronted the police
with bricks and stones. A pitched battle ensued while many were thrown out of
order due the water cannons and the severe cane charge by the police. The police
had first acted selectively to single out the leaders and beat them then a
wholesale attack ensued. As said earlier that there are no other outlets in the
grounds the fight back remained quite restricted due the insufficiency of space
at the gate which was heavily fortified by the police forces. Yet the people
faced the attacks bravely and fought back well. The POTA State was having a
tough task tackling the leftist protestors. This has happened after a long time
in the capital city. The three conveners of the program were especially made the
targets. The clashes went on for more than an hour.
The organizers later
alleged that it was like the historic Jallianwala Bagh like situation where the
British could massacre a great number of unarmed people just because that was
overcrowded and had no other outlet. Here too the people were peaceful in spite
of the anger they had against the rulers.
Roughly 28 people
were hospitalized and nearly a hundred were injured. Scores of others were lost
in the ensuing skirmishes. Those lost included women and children though many of
them were later found due to the timely help of the Muslim people who announced
from two adjoining Mosques repeatedly through a public address system calling
those who had disappeared to come to the Mosques to get united with their family
members and their respective State groups. The injured also included children,
women and the older people. The police had declared that all participants of the
rally were under arrest. The state police arrested 18 people. The police have
declared that all those who had participated in the "riot" would be punished.
The police, in a dangerous bid to pounce upon the democratic right to protest,
have made a number of video movies to identify the protestors. This has become
its usual method to identify and gag the voices of protest. It is a blatant
practice of the state that is increasingly devising and using fascist means to
control the people. Better they go to Gujarat and arrest Modi and his killer
colleagues who have organized the killings of thousands. But this they will
never do. They are there to defend the interests of the ruling classes. For the
people they have water canons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and of course, the real
bullets.
Yet the police action
could not succeed in dousing the spirit of the protestors as a number assembled
the very next day at the Jantar Mantar and staged a sit-in against the police
action. The day after the sit-in a deputation of the forum along with some human
rights activists went to the palace of the President of India and handed him a
memorandum demanding that the Indian government come out of the WTO, arrest
and punish the chief minister of Gujarat for his organizing the massacres of
Muslim brethren and repeal the draconian law of POTA that is directed against
all the struggling people, whether they be minorities, nationalities, women or
dalits, of the country in the name of preventing ‘terrorism.’
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