Violence in Chengara, police complicity, and the CPIM
Winds of change must blow in the party – violence in Chengara, police complicity, and the CPIM
Mass peaceful squatting: Chengara challenges the grammar of protest
*******************************
Winds of change must blow in the party – violence in Chengara, police complicity, and the CPIM
This report, dated August 8 2008, appeared in Kerala Letter
What happened at Chengara (in Pathanamthitta district) the other day is not something the regime and those who lead it can recall with pride. Thousands of landless people have been on an agitation there for a year demanding farm land. Three activists who went there to express solidarity with them on the first anniversary of the struggle were stopped by a group of men who claimed to be plantation workers. They also damaged their vehicles. All this happened in the presence and under the patronage of the police. At the request of the police, the organizers had to shift the venue of a public meeting, planned for the next day, at another location. Events of this kind are not new in Kerala. But society needs to recognize factors which make the Chengara developments different.
The violence in Chengara was planned. Even the police does not say there was any provocation from the side of the agitators. What they have been carrying on for a year is a peaceful struggle of endurance. This is quite different from the agitations that the political parties organize. A parallel that one can point to is the agitation that the Adivasis staged at Muthanga under the leadership of CK Janu. After the attempt to discredit that agitation by alleging extremist presence failed, the government created provocation and used needless violence. AK Antony, who was Chief Minister at the time, sought to justify the use of brute force, saying the Centre had asked for eviction of Adivasis from the Muthanga sanctuary. At Chengara, too, the authorities alleged extremist presence. A plantation owner got an order from the High Court for the eviction of the agitators. But the court’s directive to avoid bloodshed came in the way of Muthanga-style solution.
Tapan Ganguly, who had come from Bengal, environmental activist CR Neelakantan and a priest and former college teacher Abraham Joseph were the victims of violence. From the eyewitness account given by Fr. Abraham Joseph at Thiruvananthapuram the next day, it appears the violence was perpetrated by a bunch of goons who were behind the plantation workers. The workers complain that the land agitation was adversely affecting them. But what happened there was not a mere protest demonstration. When workers who are under different party flags and the army of goons in the pay of the estate owners form a united front against landless Dalits and Adivasis, what emerges is a picture of the new class division taking place in Kerala. It is a phenomenon the genius of Marx could not comprehend.
It cannot be a coincidence that police arrangements there were at a low level and provided the assailants an opportunity to run riot. The only point on which there is room for doubt is the level at which the decision to keep the police presence at a low level was taken. According to the practice in democratic societies, it is the duty of the police to check those perpetrating violence and protect those engaged in peaceful activities. The very opposite happened at Chengara. There the police checked those who maintained peace and protected the perpetrators of violence. This indicates the direction in which police reform, of which we hear a lot these days, is moving.
The responsibility for the Chengara events cannot be laid on the shoulders of the small police force present there. The circumstances suggest that they were acting in accordance with the wishes of those who decided that limited police presence will do. Even if it was an official who took that decision, the responsibility has to be shared by Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. He is not known to have expressed displeasure over the police conduct. As such, it must be presumed that it has his approval. In the Communist Party of India (Marxist) dispensation, the party is above the individual. No minister, not even the Chief Minister, has the right to take a decision that does not have the party’s approval. In the circumstances, it will not be right to limit the responsibility to the minister. It extends to the party.
Most of those engaged in the agitation for land are Dalits and Adivasis. Some others are also at Chengara. What unites them all is landlessness. The government has a duty to solve this problem. A Left government has greater responsibility in this matter than any other regime since it was the Left that raised the slogan ‘Land for the Tiller’. It was the failure to make good this promise that led the Dalits and the Adivasis to the path of struggle.
The Dalits and Adivasis have traditionally stood with the Left. The party congress, held at Coimbatore, acknowledged that these sections were moving away from the CPI-M and decided on steps to bring them closer to the party. Following this, General Secretary Prakash Karat planned to lead a protest demonstration in a Tamil Nadu village, where a wall had been erected to segregate the Dalits. The government pulled down the wall even before he arrived. The party’s intervention thus yielded result. But the governments in Kerala and West Bengal have not taken any steps in the light of the party congress decision. The party leadership presumably believes that it can attract Dalit support nationally by projecting Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati as the Third Front’s prime ministerial candidate. But Mayawati’s elevation as Prime Minister will not solve Dalits’ problems just as Indira Gandhi’s elevation did not solve women’s problems. The party has to demonstrate its sincerity by solving the problems of Dalits and other weaker sections in Chengara and Nandigram.
Problems of this kind cannot be solved except through negotiations. The government had made some efforts to settle the Chengara agitation. At one point the Chief Minister had called the leaders of the agitation as well as elected representatives for talks but there was no progress. Later the District Collector had talks with the agitation leaders. As long as the CPI-M leadership maintains a negative approach towards the problems of the landless, talks by the government at whatever level are bound to fail. Winds of change must blow in the party.
Based on column ‘Nerkkazhcha’ appearing in Kerala Kaumudi dated August 8, 2008
*****************************
Mass peaceful squatting: Chengara challenges the grammar of protest
This report dated April 14, 2008 appeared on Kerala Letter
The wretched of the earth are standing up in Kerala and re-defining the politics of agitation. Their young middle class supporters are rewriting the grammar of protest. All this has stumped the political establishment, of which the traditional Left is now the dominant element.
It all started when CK Janu marched into Thiruvananthapuram with hundreds of her tribal followers in 2001 demanding restoration of their alienated forest lands. Breaking with the tradition of staging rallies or holding meetings, they erected makeshift hutments in front of the State Secretariat and camped there.
At first, the authorities ignored the agitation. But by the 48th day Janu was able to extract from Chief Minister AK Antony a promise to allot alternative lands to all landless Adivasis.
As the government failed to honour the commitment, Janu launched another agitation. This time the Adivasis squatted in the Muthanga forest. They were driven out in February 2003 in a police action, which resulted in the death of one Adivasi and one constable.
Despite the Muthanga brutality, squatting soon became the landless Adivasis’ favoured mode of agitation. In the biggest such agitation, more than 21,000 people have been camping in a plantation at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district for the last eight months, seeking allotment of land.
The Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktavedi (united front for liberation of poor people), which has organized the movement, is led by Laha Gopalan, a retired government employee. All the squatters are not Adivasis or Dalit, but they are all are landless, he says.
A private firm, which claims ownership of the plantation, has obtained a court order for eviction of the squatters. The order contains an express directive to avoid bloodshed. This stands in the way of police action a la Muthanga.
Recently the government sent a police party to evict the squatters. It beat a hasty retreat when some of the agitators clambered up trees with ropes and threatened to hang themselves. The suicide threat can be seen as a measure of the despair of the landless.
Although the United Democratic Front has not taken a definite stand on the Chengara agitation, prominent Congress leaders like VM Sudheeran have made gestures of support.
Chief Minister VS Achuthanandan convened a meeting of Samyuktavedi representatives and leaders of different parties recently to discuss the Chengara issue. He asked the agitators to file applications for land individually and await the government’s decision. Laha Gopalan rejected the suggestion.
Nothing positive could have emerged from the meeting as the Communist Party of India (Marxist) had taken a strong position against the agitation. It accused the Samyuktavedi of luring landless people with false promises.
The party also alleged that extremists and non-government organisations receiving funds from abroad were behind the agitation. Detractors had made similar allegations against Janu’s agitation too.
Early last month a group of young men and women from different parts of the State gathered outside the Secretariat for a ‘night vigil’ in solidarity with the Adivasis. Late at night, as the protestors were relaxing, a television camera stealthily recorded scenes showing them chatting, smoking and frolicking.
The CPI (M)-controlled Kairali channel aired the visuals with a commentary that suggested that the youth had violated the norms of public conduct. The party newspaper Deshabhimani also took up the issue.
Apparently the voyeuristic visuals were offered to other channels also, but none of them evinced interest in them.
The CPI (M) followed up the propaganda campaign with a demonstration of its own. It deputed leaders of the State unit of the All-India Democratic Women’s Association, which is affiliated to the party, for ritual cleansing of the area dirtied by the protesting youth.
The AIDWA campaign drew a derisive response from Anitha Thampi, a well-known poet. She wrote:
Don’t laugh, dance or even smile!
Life is too serious a business;
Revolution is not laughter and merry making–
Stand up with reverence for the “second coming”:
Don’t speak, don’t smoke, don’t hug, and don’t laugh–
Such heresies are injurious to the health of the revolution.
Media activist CS Venkiteswaran, writing in Paadhabhedam, deplored the snooping on the protestors and said, “This moral police must not be allowed to control our agitations and determine our morality.”
On Saturday the young people whose unconventional protest had angered the ruling party gathered again in Thiruvananthapuram. At a day-long conclave, they asserted their right to reject the establishment’s code and evolve their own forms of protest.
