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The much-publicised
eighteenth round of Janmabhoomi programme personally overseen by the Chief
Minister of AP, Chandrababu Naidu, from 2-11 january 03, ended up as a big
fiasco in most parts of the state. Never before during the several rounds of the
Janmabhoomi programmes had the officials faced such wrath of the masses. People
in hundreds of villages did not allow the officials to hold the gramsabhas and
boycotted them when the officials tried to forcibly organise the meetings. The
officials had to turn tail unable to answer the volley of questions raised by
the people.
It was for the first
time that people’s issues had come into such sharp focus in the context of the
Janmabhoomi programme which signifies the worsening living conditions of the
people over the years under the misrule of the World Bank stooge Naidu. Scarcity
of drinking/irrigatiion water, power shortage, price rise of essential goods,
harrassment of the peasants by the officials of the electricity department for
the recovery of dues, etc., became issues that roused the wrath of the peasantry
and led to the gheraos and detention of the officials.
JB is an attempt by
the Chandrababu government to divert the attention of the masses from the
serious crisis aflicting the state’s economy as a result of the World
Bank-initiated reforms of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. While
declaring war on the struggling people on the one hand, the anti-people and
traitorous TDP rulers had unleashed a host of pseudo-schemes such as Deepam,
Aadarana, Shramadaanam, Roshni, Mundadugu, JB, etc. all of which are only meant
to create illusions among the masses and divert the people from the path of
armed struggle.
JB is a boon to the
lower-rung officials of the TDP and the government bureaucracy for gobbling up
the funds of the Panchayati Raj department. Having come to power based on
rigging and fraud, the ruling party is seeking to perpetuate its rule by
utilising the socal base created by such reforms. Thus there is a multi-pronged
attack by the state militarily, socially and politically to isolate and suppress
the CPI(ML)[PW] and the people’s war. It is the first time that the boycott was
organised on such a massive scale in the district with over a hundred villages
boycotting it. The ruling classes and their imperialist mentors were thus
exposed by the opposition shown by the people.
Wide propaganda was
conducted throughout the district to boycott JB from January 2nd. In the
guerrilla zone area, it was decided not to allow the government reforms, and
instead, wide propaganda was carried out that revolutionary reforms and
establishment of alternative people’s power alone was the real solution for the
problems faced by the people.. The mass organisations and the militia responded
actively to the call and tried to implement the alternative revolutinary
programme.
The boycott of JB was
most pronounced in the district of Guntur where in almost a 100 villages the
masses held demonstrations and took the officials to task for not fulfilling the
promises made during the earlier rounds of JB. The protests showed the rejection
of the psuedo-reforms of the TDP government under the dictates of the World
Bank.
A tense but
favourable atmosphere was already created in the district by the time of the JB
programme due to the success of the 2nd Tactical Counter Offensive Campaign (TCOC)
from July-October 2002; the series of successful famine raids in the Palnaad
area of the district until December last numbering around 13 in all; and the
several fake encounters staged by the district police, the prominent being the
killing of Easwar, a commander of the LGS, Siva, a deputy commander, on Novemebr
23rd, after they were arrested along with a EC member of the AIPRF of Krishna
district, Rachamalla Venkanna, who was an auto driver. A district bandh was
successfully organised on November 25th. Hence in such a background, the Party
cadre, the militia and the mass organisation activists participated actively in
the prograame to boycott JB. The anti-psuedo reform struggle was linked
effecively to the ongoing people’s war and achieved success.
As part of this
campaign, the MRO, a veterinary doctor and other mandal-level officials of
Bellamkonda were kidnapped in the first week of January 2003 when they visited
Kothur village for the JB programme. The two officials were given sound
thrashing as they were corrupt and notorious for their anti-people activities.
Three of their jeeps were set afire. Tacken aback, the government decided to
send the officials to the JB programme with police escort. However, the PW
guerrillas took up the challenge by launching attacks on the police at several
places. They attacked the Grey Hounds-trained policemen, who came as escort near
Kothur village in Dachepalli mandal, with Claymore mines and killed three
policemen. On the very next day, claymore mines were set off near Ravulapuram
village in Bollapalli mandal and injured some Grey Hounds-trained policemen. And
the day after that, mines were set off outside the village of Morjampad when JB
meeting was going on in the village. This created panic among the officials and
the policemen who came for JB and fled to the nearby town of Piduguralla. With
this, the JB programmes in the entire area were cancelled. Around the same time,
a procline belonging to a TDP leader was destroyed in Pamidipadu village. Bombs
were blasted near Dachepalli PS and near Adigoppula and Kancharagunta villages
when the JB programmes were forcefully being held. The programmes had to be
abandoned half-way.
The district police
officials led by the SP Ayyannar ( who was specially brought to the district
from North Telangana to deal with the Naxalite ‘problem’ in Guntur), and the of
OSD for Palnaad ( a post newly created to deal with the Naxalite movement), who
had thrown a challenge in the wake of the kidnapping of the JB officials that
they will make JB a success, turned mad after the series of militant actions by
the PGA militia. The SP declared, like a street ruffian, that the police were
capable of taking revenge by killing ten Naxalites for every policeman killed.
These provocative statements were supported even by the state DGP who had flown
to Guntur in battle fatigue indicating that his mercenary forces were all ready
for war. And, true to their words, the police staged two ghastly encounters in
the first week of January when the JB was in its fourth day. Six innocent
persons were killed in two separate encounters in Kothur and Bodipalem Tanda
villages. Three of these were dalits including a woman, and three others were
adivasis. These brutal killings brought state-wide condemnation and the High
Court even ordered the re-postmortem of the corpses. The dreams of creating a
reign of terror in the Palnaad area and thereby boost the morale of the police
officials through such brutal deeds, proved illusory as hundreds of people came
out into the streets condemning the killings and demanding an impartial judicial
enquiry into the incidents. These incidents made a mockery of the Janmabhoomi
programme in the district. The state-wide bandh on 18th January called by the AP
state committee of the CPI(ML)[PW] to protest against the fake encounters in
Guntur drew wide support in the district and the bandh became a success.
The people’s anger
against the government’s crass negligence of the burning problems of the masses,
the impact of the WB-sponsored policies on the lives of the masses in AP had all
accumulated over the years and found an outlet during the 18th round of JB not
only in the areas of PW activity but also in other areas. In the villages where
the PW’s base was strong, the campaign of boycotting JB was linked to the
ongoing people’s war and this created a good political impact on the people of
the state. The fact that the people of the village of an ex-legislator of the
ruling TDP boycotted the JB shows the depth of the anger of the people against
the government’s so-called reforms. Overall, people of around 100 villages in
Palnaad, Velinaad and Sathenapalli areas boycotted the JB programmes. The
people’s militia actively participated in the campaign.The successful programme
demonstrated once again that struggle on political issues should be effectively
linked to people’s war. It is through the active involvement of the masses in
the boycott-JB campaign that it could achieve success.
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