On March 14 at Nandigram in West Bengal 14 peasants were shot dead by police during a protest at the imposition of a Special Economic Zone in the area due to be developed by an Indonesian consortium, Salim, on 10,000 acres of land. Not surprisingly this was not popular with those whose land would be stolen.
From all available reports it is clear that an advance decision had been taken to shoot to kill, which alone can explain why so many people were shot well above the regulation below-the-knee height Bengal and member of the CPI (M) (Communist Party of There is an atmosphere of growing violence across the country. How do you read the signs? In what context should it be read? You don't have to be a genius to read the signs. We have a growing middle class, reared
a diet of radical consumerism and aggressive greed. Unlike industrializing Western countries, which had colonies from which to plunder resources and generate slave labor to feed this process, we have to colonize ourselves, our own nether parts. We've begun to eat our own limbs.
The greed that is being generated (and marketed as a value interchangeable with nationalism) can only be sated by grabbing land, water and resources from the vulnerable. What we're witnessing is the most successful secessionist struggle ever waged in independent India — the secesSri Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, the Chief Minister of West India, Marxist) which has long governed the state, has side stepped calls for his resignation by cancelling the Nadigram CPM GOVT. STOP SACHING LAND SALIM GROUP! СРУН FOR SEZ and putting on hold others in the state.
But he and his party remain deeply committed to the policies of neo-liberalism that led to the massacre.
A petition calling for his resignation appears at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/rbb2007/petition.html Indian activist and novelist ARUNDHATI ROY spoke to SHOMA CHAUDHURY of India's leading independent weekly" newspaper Tehelka on March 26 about the events at Nandigram, the stepping up of the Maoist campaign in in Bijapur and the overall political situation in the country. can be found at http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ltemID=12425 sion of the middle and upper classes from the rest of the country. It's a vertical secession, not a lateral one.
They're fighting for the right to merge with the spurned and humiliated. world's elite somewhere up there in the stratosphere. They've managed to commandeer the resources, the coal, the minerals, the bauxite, the water and electricity.
Now they want the land to make more cars, more bombs, more mines - supertoys for the new supercitizens of the new superpower.
So it's outright war, and people on both sides are
choosing their weapons.
The government and the
corporations reach for structural adjustment, the World Here we print a shortened version of the interview which
Bank, the ADB, FDI, friendly court orders, friendly policy makers, help from the "friendly' corporate media and a police force that will ram all this down people's throats. Non-violent movements have knocked at the door of every democratic institution in this country for decades, and have been
Those who want to resist this process have, until now, reached for dharnas, hunger strikes, satyagraha, the courts and what they thought was friendly media. But now more and more are reaching for guns. Non-violent movements have knocked at the door of every democratic institution in this country for decades, and have been spurned and humiliated. Look at the Bhopal gas victims, the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The NBA had a lot going for it - high-profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to rethink strategy.
Is mass civil disobedience possible within the structure of a democratic nation state? Is it possible in the age of disinformation and corporatecontrolled mass media? Are hunger strikes umbilically linked to celebrity politics?
Would anybody care if the people of Nangla Machhi or Bhatti mines WCHE on a hunger strike?... That should be a lesson to many of us. I've always felt that it's ironic that hunger strikes are used as a political weapon in a land where most people go hungry anyway.
We are in a different time and place now. Up against a different, more complex adversary. We've entered the era of NGOs — in which mass action can be a treacherous
We have demonstrations which are funded, we have sponsored dharnas and social forums which make militant postures but never follow up on what they preach.
We have all kinds of 'virtual' resistance. Meetings against SEZs sponsored by
the biggest promoters of
SEZs. Awards and grants for
environmental activism and
community action given by
corporations responsible for
devastating whole ecosystems.
In a climate like this, when
people feel that they are being
worn down, exhausted by
these interminable "democratic processes, only to be
eventually humiliated, what
are they supposed to do?
Of course it isn't as though
the only options are binary -violence versus non-violence.
There are political parties that
believe in armed struggle but
only as one part of their overall political strategy.
Political workers in these
struggles have been dealt with
brutally, killed, beaten,
imprisoned under false
charges. People are fully aware
that to take to arms is to call
down upon yourself the
myriad forms of the violence
of the Indian State.
The minute armed struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world shrinks and the colors fade to black and white. But when people decide to take that step because every other option has ended in despair, should we condemn them?
Does anyone believe that if the people of Nandigram had held a dharna and sung songs, the West Bengal government would have backed down? We are living in times when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.... How does one view the recent State and police violence in Bengal? No different from police and State violence anywhere else
including the issue of hypocrisy and doublespeak so perfected by all political parties including the mainstream Left. Are Communist bullets different from capitalist ones?
Odd things are happening. It snowed in Saudi Arabia. Owls are out in broad daylight. The Chinese government tabled a bill sanctioning the right to private property. I don't know if all of this has to do with climate change.
The Chinese Communists are turning out to be the biggest capitalists of the 21st century. Why should we
expect our own parliamentary
Left to be any different?
Nandigram and Singur are
clear signals.
It makes you wonder - is
the last stop of every revolution advanced capitalism?
Think about it - the French
Revolution, the Russian
Revolution, the Chinese
Revolution, the Vietnam War,
the anti-apartheid struggle,
the supposedly Gandhian
freedom struggle in India...
what's the last station they all
pull in at? Is this the end of
imagination?
The Maoist attack in Bijapur —
the death of 55 policemen. Are
the rebels only the flip side of
the State?
How can the rebels be the flip
side of the State?