The dissolution of
the Assembly ten months before schedule by the fascist TDP, headed by the World
Bank stooge and imperialist agent, Chandrababu Naidu, and its attempt to make
Naxalism as the major plank for the elections is not a sign of strength but an
act of desperation.
Aware of the
dissatisfaction and wrath of the people towards the pro-imperialist and
anti-people policies pursued by the TDP government since the last 8 years,
particularly the recurring famines, increasing suicide deaths, unemployment,
brutal police repression and encounter deaths, etc., the TDP lost confidence
that it can win the elections if they are held as per schedule. Hence it had
brought the issue of "Naxal violence" to divert the attention of the masses from
its own failures during its two successive tenures. If at all it had confidence
on its tall claims of development, then the common sense question is, why should
it go for election without the completion of its full term? It is striving hard
to sell its outworn, Goebelsian rhetoric that development is being retarded due
to the so-called Naxal violence. Lies are being propagated that the
CPI(ML)[People’s War] has links with the ISI and that a senior leader has gone
to Karachi to procure arms.
Chandrababu Naidu is
dreaming of winning the elections through a sympathy wave by focussing on the
attack on his life by the heroic Special Action Team of our People’s Guerilla
Army. He has been trying to pose himself as a victim of "Naxalite violence" and
that his government’s policies are undermined by the actions of the Naxalites.
By this, he is only deluding himself and creating a media lie about the
so-called sympathy factor. In fact, a greater section of the masses were
overjoyed by the daring attack on Chandrababu Naidu in October by our
guerrillas.
The intolerance of
the TDP under Chandrababu has grown to such a magnitude that it is even branding
anyone, including the bourgeois Opposition, that they are hand in league with
the naxalites whenever they raise the question of Talks with CPI(ML)[People’s
War] or demand that the Naxal issue should be seen as a socio-economic problem
rather than as a law & order problem. It has been accusing that the attacks by
Naxalites on the TDP are instigated by parties like the Congress(I). This is a
reflection of the deep-rooted frustration, intolerance towards any form of
dissent, and the fascist mind-set of the TDP. It is a ploy to divert the masses
from the burning problems that are a result of its World Bank-dictated policies.
By seeking vote to
endorse its policies towards the Naxalites, it is actually asking the people for
a blank cheque or a mandate to drown the people’s struggles in rivers of blood.
Not having been satisfied with the blood lust of the fascist police officers,
and the vigilante squads set up by the police themselves like the Green, Red,
Tirumala, Palnadu Tigers and so on, that had seen the bloody elimination of over
1450 Naxalites and their sympathisers, Chandrababu’s party now wants to unleash
violence on a scale unheard of in the state’s history. And for this blood-bath
that it wants to unleash, the TDP wants to make the people as the partners!
Similar to a Hitler seeking mandate from the Germans to kill the Jews, a Bush
seeking the mandate of the American people for massacring the Iraqis, an Ariel
Sharon seeking endorsement from the Israeli masses for unleashing genocide of
the Palestinians. Or a Vajpayee or Narendra Modi seeking people’s mandate for
eliminating the Muslim masses in the name of curbing terrorism.
It is not just the
Naxalites that the TDP-BJP fascist alliance is aiming its guns at but against
all forms of dissent in the name of curbing the "Naxal menace" and removing the
impediments to TDP’s so-called development. All the democratic organisations and
individuals, all the fighting masses in the state should see through this
heinous and bizarre scheme of Naidu’s TDP and BJP and teach them a fitting
lesson. It is the TDP’s politicians, the top police brass who have a vested
interest in continuing the policy of brutal police offensive and a rule of
lawlessness in the state in the name of curbing the Naxalite violence, and the
mafia lawless gangsters like Nayeem, Jadala Nagaraju, Haribhushan and such other
cut-throats, apart from the imperialists and the compradors like Ramoji Rao, who
will be the principal beneficiaries from the policy of blood-bath pursued by
Chandrababu Naidu.
In fact, the move by
Chandrababu to make the so-called Left-Wing extremism or Naxalism as a threat to
development, peace and progress is nothing new nor is it surprising to the
revolutionaries. It is manufactured in Washington and is a part and parcel of
the ‘Bush Doctrine’ that is now creating havoc throughout the world. The
so-called war against terrorism—the essence of the new Bush Doctrine—is a
declaration of war against the oppressed people, the growing people’s movements
against the imperialist policies of globalisation, war and suppression of
national aspirations of the people. It is a declaration of war against
socialism, communism and the revolutionary movements led by the Maoist forces
worldwide. That is why butcher Bush had declared the revolutionary parties such
as the Communist party of the Philippines, the Communist party of Nepal(Maoist)
as terrorist and has declared total support to the reactionary, puppet regimes
in unleashing a blood-bath in these countries.
The same is true
whether in AP or in any other state in India where people’s war and national
liberation struggles are at an advanced stage. While unleashing the worst forms
of violence to suppress the struggles in Kashmir where an estimated 60,000
people have been eliminated by successive governments in the past 14 years, the
BJP government at the Centre talks of peace and development and cross-border
terrorism. In West Bengal, the social-fascist CPI(M) government led by Buddhadev
Bhattacharya, talks of peace, progress and even socialism on the one hand while
unleashing the worst atrocities on the struggling masses, particularly the
CPI(ML)[People’ War], in order to carry out the World Bank-dictated policies in
the state. In Chathisgarh, the Congress(I) government of Ajit Jogi, totally
neglecting the interests of the masses, particularly the adivasis, has been
raising new battalions and deploying huge police forces to suppress the
CPI(ML)[People’s War] that has been leading the just struggles of these poor
adivasis for their liberation from all sorts of oppression. The BJP government
in Jharkhand, headed by Arjun Munda, has been trying to pursue the same
reactionary policies as the TDP in AP in suppressing the CPI(ML)[People’s War]
and the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCCI). The Congress (I) government in
Karnataka led by another World Bank agent, SM Krishna, began his offensive
against the CPI(ML)[People’s War] by gunning down two woman guerrillas last
week. In Tamilnadu, fascist Jayalalitha’s AIDMK government killed and jailed
several activists and sympathisers Orissa, Bihar, and UP too, similar policies
are being pursued. And the Home Secretaries and the DGPs of nine states, who met
on the 21st of November 2003, chalked out the strategy to suppress the Naxalite
movement through a coordinated police offensive. The thugs announced Rs. 3000
crores for this purpose. And in chalking out all these strategies of
counter-insurgency warfare, it is Chandrababu Naidu who is in the forefront
pushing his counterparts in other states and goading the Centre to unleash a
simultaneous military campaign against the Naxalites.
The imperialists and
reactionary ruling classes all over the world require a ghost, a pretext, an
alibi, for unleashing the worst forms of state violence in order to carry
through the policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation and to
fleece the people. Terrorism and extremism have become handy weapons
particularly after 9/11 bombings of the WTC and the Pentagon. Using the pretext
of fighting terrorism they have whipped up mass frenzy, a feeling of mass
insecurity and helplessness among the people in general in order to step up the
fascist attacks on all types of dissent, to curb personal freedoms and
fundamental rights. That is how they want to cling on to power and to force
down their neo-liberal policies on the people. Just as Bush, Blair, Berlusconi
and other imperialist bandits are trying to unleash such repression worldwide,
their hirelings in the Third world countries such as Vajpayees and Chandrababu
Naidus, Ajit Jogis and Arjun Mundas, Buddhadevs and SM Krishnas—whatever be
their Party banner—will use the same tactics to pursue these ulterior goals.
Terrorist or extremist threats to peace, progress, democracy, development,
empowerment, and so on are the catchwords under whose guise the fascist
repression is let lose. We repose enormous faith in the politically conscious
masses of AP and are confident that they will certainly see through this global
conspiracy of which Chandrababu-Vajpayee’s anti-Naxal plank is an integral part,
and will smash the sinister designs of these autocratic cliques. We call upon
the masses to fight back the attempts of the TDP-BJP to curb all democratic and
human rights and to chase them away when they come for seeking the votes for
such fascist project in the name of those very people.
Chandrababu’s TDP is
bringing this issue to the fore only to divert the people’s attention from the
gross underdevelopment that has taken place in the state during its 8-year rule
and the untold violence that the TDP gangster government had unleashed on
CPI(ML)[People’s War] and other ML parties in nexus with murderous gangs armed,
trained and deployed by the top police officials as revealed by several covert
agents and exemplified by the most recent case of one Siraj. Such is the track
record of the murderer in power in AP whose hands are stained with the blood of
over 1450 young sons and daughters, including great leaders like Shyam, Mahesh
and Murali, who worked day in and day out for the liberation of the people from
the yoke of feudal and imperialist oppression. Chandrababu’s scam-tainted,
corrupt TDP leaders have no moral right to point an accusing finger at the
dedicated, selfless and honest revolutionaries who are working for the masses in
the midst of the most brutal repression unleashed by the TDP fascist government.
The "development"
that Chandrababu is talking of during his long tenure as the Chief Minister is
the "development" of a debt-entangled economy with over Rs. 50,000 crores of
debt; it is the "development" that forces the vast masses of the peasantry to
commit suicides in hundreds; it is the "development" that leads to unheard of
famines for the vast majority of the masses in the state every successive year;
it is the "development" of a mass of unemployed, "development" of indescribable
poverty, misery and disease unheard of in the history of AP. While this is the
"development" for the vast majority of the people, on the other hand, there is
the "development" of a Ramoji Rao, with his over a thousand crore rupees empire
of films, media and diversified spheres spanning across the country with the
blessings of the TDP government; a Ramalinga Raju, through his Sathyam computers
amassing enormous fortunes; an Anji Reddy, using the people as guinea pigs for
the products of his Labs; and a host of other comprador industrialists and
imperialist companies. The development that Naidu’s TDP is talking of is the
"development" of a neo-rich class of unscrupulous contractors, black-marketeers,
racketeers, scamsters, top police and revenue officials, TDP politicians, real
estate brokers and mafia gangsters all of whom have fattened themselves by
sucking the blood of the masses. In short, it is the "development" of dirty
blood-stained money in the hands of the ruling elite on the one hand, and misery
and starvation for the vast majority on the other. And it is this hoax of
development that the CPI(ML)[People’s War] is opposing. And it is this
hypocrisy and misrule of the TDP that is getting exposed by the struggles waged
by our Party. No wonder, the TDP is itching to finish off the forces fighting
against its anti-people policies and that our Party, being in the forefront of
this movement, should be the principal target of its campaign. It is a
well-hatched conspiracy to make the people’s movements leaderless so as to carry
out their exploitation unhindered.
The TDP’s loud claim
that the Naxalites are the hurdle for its so-called development (even taking its
own claims of development), is illogical and hollow by all counts. What happened
to the scores of Janmabhoomis, Rythu Bazaars, Velugu, Deepam and a host of other
schemes that are publicised in the media over the years? Who had become a hurdle
for the implementation of these schemes? Is it the Naxalites or the unscrupulous
TDP politicians and higher-up bureaucrats who thrive on these funds taken from
the World Bank, the imperialists and from the taxes fleeced from the poor? Is it
not the TDP politicians and their kith and kin who sell the rice under "Food for
Work" programme in the blackmarket? How much the TDP leaders like Krishna Yadav
through scams, kickbacks, commissions and other such underhand deals pocket
people’s hard-earned money? It is time for all sections of the people to
question the immoral acts of the TDP when in power and to reject its false
claims of development. It is the TDP under the World Bank stooge, Chandrababu
Naidu, that is the real hurdle for the development of AP. It is the TDP that is
facilitating the imperialists to exploit the state at will.
Chandrababu’s TDP has
transformed the state into the property of the imperialists at great misery for
the majority of the people; Chandrababu himself is the most trusted manager and
loyal agent for imperialist capital. His rise to power is directly stage-managed
by the World Bank and the imperialists. When the latter found NTR unreliable to
carry on their globalisation policies effectively on account of his whimsical
attitudes and populist slogans, they dumped him and brought Chandrababu to power
according to a well-laid out conspiracy in 1996. And immediately,
CPI(ML)[People’s War] was banned along with some mass organisations; subsidies
to the poor were scrapped, prohibition was lifted, and privatisation proceeded
at a rapid pace. The state of Andhra Pradesh is taken as an experimental model
for imperialist globalisation and for the suppression of the revolutionary
movement. Chandrababu carried this out most loyally and brutally together with
the full cooperation from his ally BJP at the Centre.
We call upon the
entire rank and file of our Party and the people of the state to smash the
TDP-BJP alliance, isolate them and concentrate their attacks on these two
parties which are presently the principal enemies of the people in the state as
they have come to the fore as the most trusted representatives of the interests
of the ruling classes. At the same time, there should be no illusions on the
other bourgeois-revisionist parties that are trying to fool the masses with the
promise that they would address their problems if elected to power. We cannot
forget the gory record of the blood-thirsty Janardhan Reddy regime of Congress(I)
between 1992-95 when over 400 of our comrades were killed in cold blood. The
Congress(I) should assure the people that it would not resort to such encounter
killings if it comes to power and that it will institute judicial enquiry into
the police killings during its own reign too apart from those under the TDP’s
reign of terror. The people should demand these parties to make their standpoint
crystal-clear on questions such as "Land to the Tiller", "development" of the
state, privatisation, the World Bank projects, separate Telengana state,
solution to the backwardness of North Andhra and Rayalaseema regions, solution
to the problem of recurrent famine, on the issues of Dalits and women and the
question of state violence. They should assure the people that they will set up
judicial enquiry into the fake encounter killings and punish the guilty
officers, disband the vigilante squads (nalladandu mutthalu) set up by the
police, scrap the rewards on the heads of the Naxalites, and first create a
democratic atmosphere for Talks. We stand by our commitment made to the
people on the question of Talks if such a conducive atmosphere is created. The
people of AP will, of course, realise the utter hypocrisy of Chandrababu and the
TDP leadership that had scuttled the Talks last year by stepping up their
blood-bath on the revolutionaries in spite of the restraint shown by our Party
and the PGA for months by respecting the appeals by several democratic
organisations and individuals. This is still fresh in public memory. The TDP has
thus lost the moral right to call our Party for Talks and none should have any
illusion about its ulterior motives. We too are forced to talk through the
gun with a government that sees the gun as the only answer.
All the opposition
Parties should clearly spell out their stand towards the Naxalite issue. In
spite of their bourgeois-feudal and exploitative class character, our Party’s
stand towards these Parties will depend on their open declaration of their stand
on the above-mentioned questions, and, their practice thereafter.
We appeal to the
ordinary members of the TDP and BJP to realise the bankrupt, anti-people,
pro-imperialist policies of these Parties and to come out of these Parties to
join the mainstream of secular, democratic and revolutionary forces which alone
can shape the future of this country. We have nothing against the ordinary
members of these Parties as long as they do not indulge in anti-people
activities. They should realise that their own Parties both in the state and the
Centre unleash violence in the first place. Whether it is communal violence,
factional violence, violence on the revolutionaries and against other legitimate
people’s movements, atrocities on women, dalits and other sections, it is the
TDP and BJP that are in the forefront.
We warn the
Chandrababu government that it alone has to bear the responsibility for the
counter-violence by our PGA and the Party cadres. It had killed 13 of our
comrades in cold blood in just a week after the announcement of the dissolution
of the state assembly. We vow to avenge the death of these martyrs and teach a
fitting lesson to the TDP-BJP fascist gangsters in power in the state and the
centre who are unleashing the worst forms of state terror on the fighting forces
and the religious minorities. Communist guerrillas know how to adopt appropriate
tactics to counter the tactics of the enemies. And we warn once again that we
are in no way responsible for any escalation in counter-violence, which is only
a legitimate response to the brutal lawlessness of the police state in AP.
Naxalism is not a problem but a solution to the problems faced by the system.
However much Chandrababu Naidu and his likes try to suppress it with brute
force, Naxalism will rise up, like a phoenix, again and again as the only real
solution to the people’s problems in this country notwithstanding the severe
losses in this process. The brutal suppression campaign by the TDP under Naidu
since 1996 has not only failed to suppress the ongoing people’s war, but, on the
contrary, our movement has now spread to several new areas in the state and to
over a dozen states in the country. The tall claims made by Naidu, and his
advisers and executers like HJ Dora, Ramulu, Vyas, Meena, Aravinda Rao of
yesteryears, and Anuraag Sharma, Nalini Prabhath, Praveen Kumar, Gautam Sawang,
Sajjannar and Ayyannars of today—who actually make the policies and execute them
without the need to abide by the Indian Constitution or the judicial system—that
Naxalism is finished, now sound ever so hollow what with the Chief Minister
himself admitting that Naxalism is the principal issue in the current elections.
Our great strength lies precisely in the deep roots that our Party has among the
oppressed masses due to our work for over three decades braving all difficulties
and hardships and the invaluable sacrifices of thousands of our cadres. We
assure the people of AP that our Party will face this challenge by adopting
appropriate tactics and will lead them in the struggle against the anti-people
policies of the TDP-BJP in the state and the Centre. We are a force destined to
grow, whatever be the magnitude of repression. It is only hypocrites, outright
liars and fascists like Chandrababu who will be consigned to the scrap-heap of
history.
23 rd
November 2003
Prakash,
Political Bureau,
CPI(ML)[People’sWar]
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