Jalil Ansari, Eye Witness (Alimuddin Ansari Lynching) Threatened in Court Even as Wife Killed in a Suspicious Hit and Run: Jharkand

October 12, 2017

Eye witness Jalil Ansari was to depose before court in the case of mob lynching of Alimuddin Ansari in Ramgarh Court today, October 12, 2017. He was in the court when he received information that his wife met an accident and succumbed to the injuries on the spot. She was going to bring identity card of her husband which is required in court for identification purpose.

File Photo

Jalil Ansari has also told human rights workers that members of Bajrang Dal threatened him and his wife in Court premises with dire consequences if they deposed before the Court. According to what he told human rights workers, when she (Jalil Ansari’s wife) left the Court with the son of Alimuddin Ansari to get the identification documents, their bike was hit from behind by a vehicle allegedly in a planned manner which led to her death.

The Indian Express had reported on July 8, 2017 that Police said that Raj Kumar, suspected to be a “newly recruited” member of the local gau raksha samiti, followed Ansari from the time he left a market 15 km from Ramgarh town on June 29. The meat trader was lynched in Jharkhand’s Ramgarh district, police announced the arrest of a man who followed the victim on the day of the killing, kept the key accused informed about his movement and joined in the assault that led to the death of Alimuddin Ansari. This has revealed the close nexus between the cow vigilantes and the local police especially in states run by the BJP.

Police had told the Indian Express that Raj Kumar, suspected to be a “newly recruited” member of the local gau raksha samiti, followed Ansari from the time he left a market 15 km from Ramgarh town on June 29. Kumar was detained on Wednesday and sent to judicial custody on Thursday, said police. Police also said that lab tests on samples of meat recovered from Ansari’s Maruti van after the assault have confirmed that it was beef. They said the group that attacked Ansari had earlier complained that he had “ferried prohibited meat many times”.

Eleven people had been arrested in the case, including the BJP’s district media in-charge and the main accused, Deepak Mishra and Chhotu Verma, both linked to the local gau raksha samiti.

According to police, Kumar is a resident of Chitarpur under the Rajrappa police station area in Ramgarh. “The main accused gave him the number of Ansari’s van and asked him to follow the vehicle. Call records reveal that Mishra and Verma were in touch with Kumar all along,” said Ramgarh SP Kishore Kaushal.

According to sources, Mishra claimed during questioning that he had hit Ansari only twice, and that a mob that gathered there took over. “The group used a police baton to hit Ansari, which led to serious injuries,” said a local officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The officer said that the accused had tried to get Ansari arrested earlier on charges of transporting beef but did not succeed.

“A few days before Eid, Verma and Mishra had raised this issue during a peace committee meeting at the Ramgarh police station. They alleged that people were ferrying beef across the city and police were not able to stop them. They were assured that action would be taken. A few days before the lynching, two persons were arrested for cattle smuggling after a tip-off from this group. But on the day they waylaid Ansari, they did not inform police,” said the officer.

“Ansari was aware of these complaints but continued to buy prohibited meat and sell it in different areas. He had a criminal record,” said the officer.

On July 19, soon after this horrific incident Ghulam Nabi Azad, the leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, caused a stir in the upper house. Azad said that the recent spate of lynchings in the country was “not religious,” but was the “[Sangh] Parivar’s battle against everybody.” “In all the cases of lynching now, someone or the other belonging to the ruling party and the Sangh Parivar is involved,” Azad said. He further alleged that “there was an understanding” between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the central government, to allow such lynchings to continue.

The same day that Modi delivered the address, Bazar Tand, a market area with general stores, stationery shops, tea stalls, and vegetable sellers, located in Ramagarh in Jharkhand, witnessed the brutal murder of Alimuddin Ansari. A group of men lynched Ansari, who was in his 40s, for transporting cow meat in his car. As in other cases similar to his, Ansari’s killing was filmed, and the video was later circulated widely across social media. “Someone [who could be heard on the video] was saying, ‘make the video properly—his face should be visible,’” Shama Praveen, Ansari’s daughter, said. “Woh daya ki bheek maang rahe the, unke samne kam se kam 50-100 public hain, lekin sabki insaniyat mar chuki thi”—my father was begging for mercy, and there were at least 50–100 people in front of him, but their humanity had died.

Months before, in April 2017, Sagar, a correspondent with the Caravan magazine, submitted a Right to Information request to the Prime Minister’s Office, requesting details on what instructions, if any, the prime minister had given the home ministry to prevent such lynchings from occuring.

The PMO had denied my request, saying that my query could not be answered, as it was a “matter of opinion.” I appealed against this decision, but my request was denied once again. The appellate authority did so on the grounds that my “queries are framed in the nature of questionnaire whereby clarification/opinion have been sought with reference to PMO’s stand in the matter in hand.” The order added: “It is clarified that in the context that the information sought did not form part of the records of this office, calling given information not covered within the meaning of information under section 2(f) of the Act.” (Section 2(f) of the Right to Information Act defines the ambit of the term “information,” to include records such as documents, memos, e-mails, and opinions, among others.)

The journalist had had filed another RTI with the Home Ministry, wherein I had asked for information regarding the steps it had taken to stop such mob lynchings across the country. In its response, the ministry stated that on 9 August 2016, it had issued an advisory to all the states, asking them to be vigilant about such incidents.

A copy of this advisory was enclosed. Addressed to the chief secretaries, the first four points of the advisory—there were 9 points in all—referred to the need for cow protection.

The first point states that, “Historically cattle have a very special, respected and venerated status in Indian culture and history. In this regard, Father of the nation had stated ‘cow protection to me is not mere protection of the cow. It means protection of that (which) lives, is helpless and weak in the world.’” It then noted that Article 48 of the Constitution of India provided for the “preservation of cows.” Further, the advisory note quotes the seventh schedule of the constitution—which allocated the work of “Preservation, protection and improvement” of livestock to the state—to bolster its case for the requirement of cow protection.

The fifth point then says: “However, that doesn’t entitle any individual or group of persons to take action on their own to prevent the alleged slaughter or punish the alleged wrong doers.” It goes on to assert that no person can take the law into their own hands, and asks states to deal strictly with any individual who commits such violence in the name of cow-protection.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a batch of petitions on the violent perpetrated in the name of cow vigilantism.

Che Guevara’s Legacy

October 12, 2017

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara in the Bolivian mountains by the Bolivian military led by the CIA.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Che Guevara in the Bolivian mountains by the Bolivian military, led by the CIA. Although imprisoned, keeping Che Guevara alive in those days of October, 1967, was a temerity for imperialism even more so in a context where they were just starting to implement their new plans for counterinsurgency and national security that resulted in military coups and military dictatorships in virtually all Latin American countries in the 1960s and 1970s.

The figure of Che Guevara has always been very controversial. Hated by the right-wing and by reactionary forces across the continent. And controversial, even among the progressive and left-wing sectors.

In those years, the left was very dogmatized, and with each thesis, a new group was formed. Each group labeled Che according to their manuals, and some classified him only as an adventurer, an idealist. After all, it was more convenient to follow the bureaucratic and peaceful tradition of some parties that defined themselves as communists. There were those who were frightened by his practice. After all, it was too much to ask of a common militant to follow such boldness. And others even misrepresented his ideas, turning his example into a mere stimulus to a false heroism unrelated to the masses, which was summed up in the thesis of Régis Debray, who argued that “it was enough that a small group of well-armed and willing men, to climb the mountains and create the focus for the exploited masses to follow them. ” It was “foquismo.”

These were definitely not Che’s ideas, not even about the military strategy of taking power. And even in his “Guerilla Warfare” manual, written from his concrete experience in the Cuban revolution, the principles of guerrilla warfare are only present as part of the mass struggle as a means, not an end in itself. In it, he also discusses the need of the various subjective, objective conditions and the correlation of forces, for its triggering.

But, being that Che was so controversial and so misunderstood regarding strategy and tactics, and having been victorious in Cuba but defeated in Congo and Bolivia, what would Che’s legacy be?

One cannot idealize Che’s image as if he were a super human. Nor dogmatize him as a single and absolute example. Nor exorcise it, reducing him to a myth. Che represents the synthesis of a revolutionary historical period of our continent. His ideas, his ideals, and his practice formed the symbolism of the feelings and the practice of a whole revolutionary movement, of various popular organizations in Cuba and throughout Latin America.

Therefore, when referring to it, it must be borne in mind that he has become a political reference because he represents a synthesis of the historical experience of various Latin American peoples.

And perhaps his figure was as strong as a synthesis, because, as historians and contemporaries say, Che was one of the few revolutionaries who managed to live intensely, coherently and daily, everything he thought.

“My father, – said Aleidita in a statement -, “sought to live every day coherently with what he thought.”

And it is in this consistent, everyday practice that one finds Che’s greatest legacy for the present generation of idealists and revolutionaries.

Briefly, one can identify ten great values that would represent Che’s legacy in the history of Latin America.

1. Humanism
Man should be the main objective.

Your well-being, your self-improvement as a being that seeks to perfect itself, that seeks happiness, that seeks to live in a just society. The struggle, the party, the guerrilla, are always interpreted by Che as means. The aim is to achieve a society of free and fraternal men. That is why, even after taking power, in Cuba’s case, there was an endless struggle for the construction of a different society. In this Guevarian humanism, Marx’s ideals are deepened, and the more generous view of the main objective of a social revolution is restored. Contrary to the practice of some leftist parties, which have transformed the conquest of power, the control of the state and the strengthening of its organization in an end in itself.

This humanism is also present when he defends the idea that what makes a person a “true revolutionary” is when that person moves permanently by a deep feeling of love for his peers.

2. Rebelling Against any Social Injustice
This phrase has become a principle of practice for any revolutionary. Che argued that the practice of any person claiming to be revolutionary should be enough indignation to rebel against any social injustice felt against any human being anywhere in the world or under any circumstances.

In this principle, the fundamental idea of social relations conceived by Che is present. The sense of equality and justice. And, at the same time, the rebellion and the courage to encourage all individuals to seek equality, rebelling against any situation of injustice. This view breaks the individualistic conception of caring only about oneself or one’s friends. And it breaks with the illusion that to be revolutionary, it is necessary to have theory, to be in a revolutionary organization. Take pride in dogmas and symbols and forget about everyday practice, where, at any moment and in small things, one can be a great revolutionary as we fight against these injustices. Against these situations of oppression that classist societies and capitalism produce.

3. Latin-Americanism
The idea of the Latin American identity of the peoples who inhabit this continent, despite the cultural and ethnic differences, have been present since the struggles for independence. Quite often Simon Bolivar is mentioned, and especially Jose Marti. These ideals are present in many literary works, in political speeches and party programs, in all the countries of the continent. But surely, Che’s figure was the bluntest expression of this character, by his life example.

History reserved for him the opportunity to be born in Argentina, to have traveled the continent by land and to have gotten to know its illnesses more closely. To fall in love with the cause of all the Latin American peoples. Thus, he was able to devote himself with the same passion in Guatemala, in the preparation of the Granma, in Mexico, in the mountains of Cuba. In the revolutionary government, on the UN platform, and on the Bolivian highlands.

His life put into practice the ideas of Martí. And it consolidated this Latin American spirit. Because it has contributed to the understanding that the causes of the people’s social problems in different countries are the same. That the imperialist role of the United States oppresses all. And that the solution, in the long run, will unite all in a similar, Latin American path. An isolated country won’t be able to build a just and fraternal society in Latin America by itself. Even in the case of the victory of the Cuban revolution, one should note the sacrifices imposed on the Cuban people by the North American siege and the recent infeasibility of other revolutions in Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.

4. The Missionary Spirit
The missionary spirit present in Che’s ideas and practice is based on the feeling of solidarity, not adventure. Che used to say that “the most beautiful quality of a person is the feeling of solidarity.” And it was with this feeling that he preached the missionary spirit. Get rid of everyday tasks, of the easiness of organized life. And be willing to give up this easiness and go to other places, other villages, and even other countries. Contribute in some way, with humility, so that other people can live better. This missionary spirit took him to many places. But always with the same feeling of solidarity. Never to teach, to give orders, to impose. Or take some personal advantage.

This feeling of solidarity is what has stimulated thousands of Cuban revolutionaries to contribute with their knowledge, with their goodwill, in the field of healthcare, of techniques, with other peoples, in almost every continent.

5. The Spirit of Sacrifice
The spirit of sacrifice was not a moralistic, false, or religious discourse, to seek paradise in eternal life. Not a masochistic deviation. But it was part of life. The worst task, in any job or mission, was assumed by Che. And he preached that every militant, that every revolutionary should assume this obligation for himself. With these values, one would have enough morality to serve as an example to the all of the people and the construction of a different society.

6. The Example of Work
Work has always been seen by Che as the transforming force of men, as the basis for building all wealth in society. But above theoretical and philosophical concepts, his legacy is to have practiced the basic idea that “no one can ask another to do something without doing it first.”

That’s why, on many occasions, he was the first to do the tasks, the first to start doing the job. First, he tried to do it himself, and just then he would ask if others could also do it and move on.

This spirit is present in Che’s enormous contribution to the organization of mass work, in the form of task-forces, where the entire adult population was called to engage.

This same spirit was present in the political planning and in the debates with Cuban workers and Cuban society in the process of building socialism. It shows that a more just society, with better well-being, is not built with discourses, or only ideals, but that it depended, fundamentally, on the increase in the production of goods, of commodities, of wealth. And that would only be possible with much work. That is, a more advanced and more just society would only be achieved with more work from the present generation, to build a more dignified future for future generations.

7. The Dispossession of Material Goods
Che held the most important positions in the Cuban state. He was Minister, President of the Central Bank, took part in countless international delegations representing the Government and the Cuban people. He could have settled in the positions and the quiet life that his trajectory assured him.

When he said goodbye to his children, he was careful to point out that he left them no material goods, and hoped that the revolutionary state would guarantee them the same welfare and education that it should guarantee to all the children of the people.
His habits were simple and modest. Almost Franciscan.

And this spirit of the person that does not cling to material goods as if they were the only source of happiness, was present in his preaching.

It counteracted the need of man to have access to knowledge, cultural goods, education and a life of solidarity and equality as the basis of happiness. Goods related to the basic needs of man are fundamental. But the practice of individualism, of selfishness, of the accumulation of goods as ostentation of social differentiation would undermine morality needed for the construction of a more just society.

This principle is also based on the practice stimulated by Che, of voluntary work. He saw in voluntary work, carried out in the time off, on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, a way of practicing this detachment for material things, and the way of practicing concrete acts of social solidarity. He also believed that the great concrete problems of Cuban society would only be possible to resolve more quickly if there were a donation, a greater surrender of all in the carrying out of voluntary unpaid work.

8. Belief in the Power of the Masses
The popular force and transformative capacity of the organized masses are present in every political thought of Che. Even in the theorizing of military strategies, contrary to the diffusion “foquismo,” Che preached that the revolutionary victory would only be possible if he could organize a true popular army, of the whole people.

The deviations of putchtism or the heroism of a small group that could free the people were never present in his ideas.

This same conception is present by allying the force of the masses with the spirit of sacrifice and voluntary work. And so, many efforts were made to solve concrete problems of the population. From public cleaning, the construction of popular housing, to the cutting of sugarcane and the defense of the motherland, when Cuba, for example, was invaded by military forces organized by the United States in the famous episode of the Bay of Pigs, and in 72 hours, with the mobilization of all the people in arms, managed to defeat and arrest all the invaders.

9. The Relationship of Leaders x Masses
The daily practice of Che’s example also brings an important legacy as to how he related to the masses. He defended and practiced the necessary bonding of the leaders with the masses. He was always among them. And he tried to listen to their yearnings, problems, difficulties, and criticisms of the revolutionary process.

He had an essentially anti-bureaucratic, anti-cabinet, anti-avant-garde, anti-director practice. Avoiding and fighting that an organized core of the party could know everything about the people and choose the best way for it. Being always in the midst of the people was the best way to make fewer mistakes.

10. The Education of Cadres
The experience of building socialism, the experience of the people’s administration of a revolutionary state under conditions of underdevelopment, led Che to devote much thought to the need for the education of cadres. There are many reflections recorded in speeches, articles, essays, on this issue. He saw the need to educate cadres as vital for the revolutionary process. And again, it manifests its connection with the popular force, in defending the idea that a policy of cadres was a policy necessarily directed at the masses. So that the masses, especially the youth, could form as many people as possible as revolutionary militants, within the technical and political needs. But, above all, that with a political, moral and cultural development, they represented the practice of values of the new man that would serve as an example to the whole mass.

He argued that the cadres should be highly disciplined. Technically prepared, with a passion for the study and scientific knowledge. Willing to tackle any task. With capacity to analyze the problems and their causes, and with enough creativity to seek a solution. But, above all, he should earn respect for the workers and the people, for his example and his affection and dedication to his peers.

In this way, people would become examples, and by way of example, they could be called revolutionary cadres.

Conclusion
The figure of Che Guevara is still so present in our midst, fundamentally because of the legacy that he left us. The living situation of the peoples of Latin America has not changed. The productive forces developed. But the social and concrete problems of our people continue.

It is up to the popular organizations that claim to be revolutionary to reflect on this legacy. Look for the universality that exists in it, regardless of the social category, the environment or the country in which it operates.

Believing in Che’s legacy does not mean to copy strategies or tactics of power grab used in Cuba or Bolivia. Each country, each people, each situation will have its own strategy and tactics, determined by objective, subjective conditions and by the correlation of forces. To believe in Che is, above all, to feed the possibility of revolution permanently. To make the revolution every day. By our practice, by the permanent encouragement of the trust in our ideals, and by the certainty that it is possible to defeat the oppressors (internal and external) and that one day we will build a more just and fraternal society. And certainly, as Martí and Che Guevara dreamed, Latin American.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

Need Uniform Civil Code (UCC) that is Egalitarian, Citizens hand Draft to Law Panel Chief

October 12, 2017

As many as eight eminent citizens, including scholars, a retired senior Army officer, a Magsaysay award-winning activist, writers, classical singer and a legal luminary have lent their weight to the draft that they say is humane and egalitarian

Image: Indian Express

Shifting the debate away from the majoriatarian discourse on the issue generated by the present regime, a draft of a potential Uniform Civil Code, termed the ‘Progressive Uniform Civil Code’ (PUCC) was presented to the Chairman of the Law Commission, Justice (retd) BS Chauhan by a group of eminent citizens today. The indian Express reports on this development today.

Last year, Justice Chauhan was tasked with helping formulate a draft on Uniform Civil Code, that the government could consider later. The Law Commission sent out a questionnaire to several faith groups, leading to some hostility and concerns over ensuring that Constitutional values apply to all personal laws. Sources close to the Commission said that the Draft UCC is a work in progress.

Eight eminent citizens, including scholars, a retired senior army officer, Magsasay award winning activist and a classical singer, writers and a legal luminary have lent their weight to a draft that purports to provide “equal rights in marriage, divorce, child custody, guardianship, inheritance and succession”, that too “irrespective of their gender, sex and sexuality, religious or cultural traditions or beliefs.” It sets out at the onset to bring about progressive uniform laws, “in line with globally accepted values of human rights”.

The signatories include TM Krishna (singer and artiste), S Irfan Habib (historian), Mukul Kesavan (writer), Dushyant (lawyer), Maj Gen S Vombetkere (retd), Nilanjana Roy (writer), Gul Panag (actor) and Bezwada Wilson (Safai Karamchari Andolan).

Krishna told the Indian Express that “The idea of a UCC has been floated by people for sometime now. But under the present political dispensation there has been a conscious attempt to use it to create a Hindu majoritarian country. The targets of such an agenda are the minorities, which include religious, sexual and socially marginalised citizens of India whom they want to homogenise as per upper-caste Hindu norms. This needs to be challenged with robustness. We have therefore proposed a UCC that is progressive, forward thinking and creative. It looks at the wonderful possibilities that exist in such an idea.”

Magsaysay Award winners, TM Krishna, Bezwada Wilson and lawyer Dushyant met the Chairman of the Law Commission on Wednesday to submit a draft proposal to him for his perusal.This draft, defines marriage as “a legal union” between straight and gay couples. On many matters, like divorce, it aims to provide perfect equality between both partners, irrespective of gender.

“I have been grappling with the question of personal laws of various religions, and the need for an UCC which is not only uniform but more importantly progressive. Inequities caused by one set of laws should not be replaced by inequities and discrimination of another type in the garb of UCC. The group came together on that fundamental premise,” said Dushyant who drafted the proposal.

If brought into force, Triple Talaq, unequal rights of men and women to parental property, polygamy, and unequal privileges like the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), which allows for special tax concessions to Hindus would go.

“We need a UCC that rejoices in humanity, a law that attempts to equalise the inequalities inherent in our society, a code that celebrates and protects every individual, their rights, faiths, sexualities and choices. This draft is such an attempt, which is open to discussion and debate,” Krishna added.

Article 44 of the Constitution (Directive Principle of State Policy) states that ‘The State shall endeavour to secure for citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India’. UCC has been an article of faith with the ruling BJP and a core issue with them since the 1980s, ever since the Congress government under Rajiv Gandhi was seen to have sided with the Muslim orthodoxy on the question of maintenance given to divorced women and reversed the Supreme Court order in the Shah Bano case in 1987.

Bharatiya Janta Party has issues with Rohingyas – Indians don’t

October 12, 2017

On 13 September 2017 the Union Home Ministry, following the 2015 order of the Supreme Court, decided to grant citizenship to Chakma and Hajong refugees. Victims of religious persecution in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, the predominantly Buddhist Chakmas and Hindu Hajongs began immigrating to the north eastern region of India 1960s onwards. The then central government, eventually, moved a large number of these refugees to Arunachal Pradesh; while Arunachal Pradesh is their zone of concentration, a considerable number of Chakmas and Hajongs live in Mizoram and Meghalaya too. The decision of the Home Ministry, however, did not go down well with the indigenous tribal population of Arunachal Pradesh; the All Arunachal Pradesh Students’ Union protested against the move citing threats to life and livelihood of the native inhabitants of the state. On 14 September 2017 the Union government assured the protesters that a middle-ground – between honouring the law and commitment towards protecting the rights of the people of Arunachal Pradesh – would be found.

Image by Dan Kitwood / Getty

While we wait for the middle-ground kind of solution of the issue, it is important to understand the reasons behind the government’s initial decision to go ahead with the implementation of the apex court’s order. We can think of three which are: first, commitment to legal principles, second, humanitarian concern for the Chakmas and Hajongs, and third, religious identities of the refugees. About the first two we have nothing much to say, but it is the third reason which is deeply unsettling. For the current BJP led NDA government, of course, this is not the case because ideologically, the RSS-BJP is only too happy to have more Hindus (Hajongs) added to the Hindu parivar (family) and its vote bank; the Buddhists (Chakmas) are treated (appropriated) by the RSS-BJP as nearly Hindu, for Buddhism, among others, is an ancient co-Indic (read Hindu) faith. Legally, the BJP, in addition to the Supreme Court order, hopes to amend – through the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 – the Citizenship Act, 1955 which, (if and) when amended, will enable all religious minorities, except for Muslims, fleeing persecution on religious grounds in neighbouring countries to claim, upon completion of a brief period of residence, Indian citizenship. So, whether directed by a 2015 court order or a (future) law, this government is (and expects to be) on a firm legal (plus the ideological) ground regarding the Chakma-Hajong citizenship issue.

The Chakmas and Hajongs, in all likelihood, will get, as they should, their due soon. However, another eastern refugee group, perhaps far more brutally persecuted on the basis of religion in neighbouring Myanmar, may not be so fortunate. We are talking about the Rohingyas, a Muslim majority, stateless people, who have been, for quite some time now, arriving in India – to its northern and north eastern regions – fleeing the military repression unleashed by the Myanmarese state. In the past, India always maintained a civil and open position regarding refugees and asylum seekers from Tibet, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and so forth. For that matter, it offered shelter to Myanmaris, who fled the last military regime, as well. In most cases the government, with recommendations from the UNHCR, addressed the issues faced by these groups. With the Rohingyas, a large number of whom are registered with the UNHCR too, the earlier humanitarian policy/convention, based on liberal and secular values, has gone for a full toss. The current government, clearly for communal reasons, has refused to grant even asylum status to the Rohingyas because, as Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh says, they are illegal immigrants; their future citizenship is obviously out of the question unless the joint parliamentary committee examining the ideologically crafted, politically motivated Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 rejects it to keep the existing Citizenship Act, 1955 in place.

In fact, the government’s unabashed arrogance and complete disregard for human dignity, rights, compassion and constitutional justice in dealing with this wretched, helpless community has seen its legal counsel press in the Supreme Court for the deportation of close to 40,000 Rohingyas. The government’s legal stand is problematic and unsustainable on two counts: it goes, one, against the fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution (Articles 14, 21) and two, certain signed international declarations, conventions and protocols. Anyhow, the three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice, we are certain, will take serious note of these legal lapses in its upcoming detailed hearings; it will benefit additionally by considering the views of agencies like the UNHCR and the NHRC. At the same time, the court must also prepare itself to legally and forcefully counter the government’s absurd argument (accusation) that all Rohingyas are either already fundamentalists/terrorists or on the road of Islamic radicalisation. This has actually been the government’s prime and long-standing defence of the decision to involuntarily deport the confirmed/potential Rohingya Muslim “terrorists” who, we are repeatedly told, pose a grave threat to the nation’s security.

Indeed, when it comes to something as critical as national security and “greater good”, the BJP led government seems to believe that both legal and humanitarian concerns ought to and can be set aside, if required forcibly and violently. National security is important for sure, and the law and order machinery must do its job of identifying and prosecuting the guilty irrespective of their ethnicity and religious affiliation. But to dub an entire community guilty of unlawful activities including plotting to wage war against (Hindu) India without any admissible evidence and fair trial is not only disgraceful but also dangerous. The Sangh Parivar organisations with BJP as the cheerleader have a long history of targeting and campaigning for the deportation of “illegal” Muslim immigrants from Assam, Delhi and elsewhere. The post-truth politics we hear so much about these days was never unknown to these organisations. In case of the Rohingyas, again, it is about to serve its purpose. Moreover, we now have a democratically elected, BJP dominated government to officially manufacture truths/lies on behalf of the Indian nation.

As BJP and the government go about doing what they please, we must, nevertheless, do our bit. Both civil society and the judiciary are not only unwilling to buy such truths/lies but also resist, in a just manner, their spread. The Rohingyas are Muslims, therefore sinners and untouchables for the RSS-BJP. But they are not so for most Indians, and definitely not all Hindus; Hinduism, unless it is the militant RSS variety, neither preaches nor propagates hatred and xenophobia. Moreover, a very large number of Hindus do not require the RSS-BJP for lessons on self-protection and how to relate and respond to fellow human beings; an equal number believes that it is, in fact, the RSS-BJP which is endangering both the spirit of Hinduism and lives of Hindus. This kind of misrepresented Hinduism results in reverse xenophobia in which case a Hindu is targeted either for simply being a Hindu (in many north eastern states) or being a lesser, imperfect (say, meat/beef eating) one. India, and particularly the Indian state, has rarely allowed religion and the clergy to dictate its policies unlike Myanmar or Sri Lanka. Since this seems, quite unfortunately, to be happening now, it is urgent that we rescue it before it is too late. The Rohingya issue can be a starting point, for it has the support of a secular constitution and a well-meaning, human public. By being sensitive to the plight of Rohingyas, India can show, like it did in the past, that a progressive, secular narrative vis-à-vis a (Theravada Buddhist) fundamentalist one is possible. It can confidently tell its people and the world that nothing is more unethical – unrighteous – and violent than indifference to human suffering.

Nabanipa Bhattacharjee teaches Sociology at Sri Venkateswara College, University of Delhi.

Courtesy: Kafila.online

Folk Singer Amad Khan Lynched to Death Brutally in Rajasthan, Muslims Flee Village: PUCL Report

October 12, 2017

It was caste and religion that equally viciously both worked against Amad Khan (50 years) in village Dantal in Jaisalmer district a few days ago when he was unable to satisfy a village faith healer Ramesh Suthar with the quality of a raag (melody) he was asked to sing on Navratri. He was beaten on the spot, and later at night picked up from his house and allegedly killed. His body had severe marks of injury all over. The ghastly incident happened on September 27. It has not caused wide ‘national outrage.’ The FIR, according to PUCL was filed only on October 2.

गाना गाते हुए आमद खान (बाएं). हमेशा के लिए शांत हो चुके आमद (दाएं) Image: http://www.thelallantop.com

The village where the incident happened is Dantal, Phulsund Thana, Jaisalmer district.The bhopa of the temple and the main accused is Ramesh Ram Suthar. The other accused are Tara Ram and Shyam Ram Suthar, brothers of Ramesh

Aamad Khan Manganiyar is survived by his wife and four children, one son and one daughter are waiting to get married

During Navratra the devi is supposed to come into the bhopa. He had asked Aamad khan to sing raag parcha (devi)which has both powers miraculous and that of destruction, it has always been sung by the Manganiyar in temples. Here Aamad khan was asked to sing and he was not good enough, that they, the bhopa and his brothers screamed at him and probably beat him, broke his instrument that he left the place, since there was a big crowd of devotees, so maybe the Bhopa felt embarrassed that he could not jhumo, (be in a trance)and complained that the bhopas singing was the reason.

Aamad khan was reportedly picked up later. By the bhopa and his brothers family, Some say that in the maar peet, he fell on a stone and died, some say he was deliberately killed by the bhopa and his brothers. Well it is murder whatever be the manner in which he died. The post mortem report shows serious assault injuries.

An FIR was lodged four days later. According to the localites the Suthars promised to give some money to the bhopa family, But when it didnot come in 4 days they lodged the FIR. Also one of the educated relatives of the manganiyars family arrived from jodhpur and got the FIR lodged. whatever it be, every murder must have an FIR and we are glad the the Manganiyars didnot submit to community pressure of not lodging the FIR

This was seen as breaking the village code and lodging an FIR against the Bhopa, who is a religious head and rich. It resulted in all the communities coming together against the manganiyars. Remember this village is rajput dominated. Sarpanch Rajput. The suthars are OBC and have the support of the rajputs and others.

The anger and consolidation of the other communities against them for having taken police recourse, led to the exodus of the 40 manganiyars families.

The day the body was exhumed nobody even gave them water for washing and vaju. Which is when they all Left. And stayed in a close by place called Balad in the open, where they have relatives. The fear was such that they left their cows, goats and one even left a horse behind and didnot have the courage to bring it. Finally the police brought the ghoda.

These manganiyars are so poor and none have ever gone abroad, donot even have passports. They are absolutely local kalakars, who even today get 10 rs for a song. Many go to the NREGA work sites. Very low and poor wages they get in NREGA.

The 40 families could not depend on their relatives for too long, so about 20 of 40 families of the manganiyars in exile left Balad and came into Jaisalmer on the October 9. About 160 of them. Others are with relatives.

The police of Phulsund Thana arrested the bhopa and still his two brothers have not been arrested. The district police assured them of a chowki, motivated them to come back but they are not going back.

“The fear is real. They are now in the city will probably do hard labour (mazdoori) and survive. Living in a rein basera, temporary community says PUCL.

Was it the ‘Muslim angle’ that got him lynched ? PUCL says possibly not “They are mirasis, the untouchable Muslim dholis although in the category of caste are OBC. (You also have hindu dholis are SCs). If there was the caste / religion angle then the manganiyars in the first place would not be singing parcha and devi raag in the temple, during navratri, which is a normal feature. The fact that they were not submissive and challenged the caste and religious authority they are facing the wrath.

On the October 10, the district collector called the Sarpanch a Rajput to mediate and take the manganiyars back. But it did not work out as the manganiyars are really scared, the brother Baryam of Aamad khan said, that nobody helped us that day when we were requesting for.help when they killed our brothef

What is the village demography of Dantal ? As of now: 15 suthars, 40 manganiyars (=33 have ration card), 250 rajput, 20 charan in dhanis, 50 meghwal ( the last time there was a meghwal Sarpanch ) and then other castes

PUCL statement:

“The PUCL condemns this murder. This murder as a part of the increasing lawlessness in the state, related to brutal aggression by dominant castes and religions. Lynching of an untouchable, a muslim singer, by the dominant castes with the tacit and active support of the other castes in the village, also because the manganiyar didnot accept their fate and lodged an FIR, so the threats by the rest of the villagers ki gaon ki baat toh gaon mein hi rahni thi, has to be condemned in no uncertain terms. .

*What is the district administration doing that the community of more than 200 people had to move out of the village in exile. An already impoverished community who are the nation’s heritage for their incredible music, which is world famous, and not given support and have to end up as mazdoors in the city as refugees, is shameful.

*The administration should restrain those who are threatening the manganiyars. File criminal cases against them. And immediately restore the Manganiyars back into the village

Demands:

— Immediate compensation of Rs 25 lakhs against the untimely death. He is survived by his wife, four children, 2 sons and 2 daughters. Only one daughter and one son is married. Compensation for them.

–Vasundhara Raje government is not interested as to what happens to people as just now she is trying to garner votes for the Ajmer and AlwAr seat. Manganiyar votes don’t matter but Rajput, charan, meghwal, suthar votes matter so she is not even sayjng anything.

Background:
Rajasthan has been home to some of the most gruesome incidents in recent months. Amad Khan, from a folk community Langar Maganiyaar, would sing during Navratri at the local village temple. This time around he was doing the same when Suthar reportedly asked him to sing a specific raga so that the spirit of the goddess of the temple entered his body. Sutha, according to the locals, would ‘cure’ local problems, getting his authority from the spirit of the goddess as it were.

But this time the goddess eluded Suthar, and he blamed Khan for not singing properly. He assaulted the singer, broke his musical instruments. And at night Khan was reportedly abducted from his residence, with his body being thrown outside the house later. Local reporters said that Khan’s family received threats later and warned against going to the police. His brother told local reporters that they were terrified and so buried his body quietly.

However, a few days later they mustered the courage with the support of relatives and others who visited them to register a complaint with the police. But after this the threats took real shape and at least 20 terrified families of about 200 persons left the village, Suge Khan was reported as having said.

The Dantal village sarpanch, according to the Hindustan Times claimed that Khan had died of a cardiac arrest, and that the Muslims had left the village in anger when the locals did not accompany them to the police station. The police, however, confirmed that he had died of physical assault. Jaisalmer superintendent of police SP Gaurav Yadav has been quoted as saying, “We have assured them of protection if they want to return…We have also spoken to village elders and told them that cases would be lodged if they threaten the Muslims.” Yadav added.

However, caste seems to have played a major part in this violence. PUCL activist Kavita Srivastava told Sabrangindia that since “Amad Khan a Manganiya broke the code and went went against the bhopa, all the communities came together against the Manganiyar in this Rajpur dominated village.” She said that Suthars are OBC’s, relatively few in number and so have the support of the Rajputs here.

Srivastava said that the “anger and consolidation of the other communities against the Manganiyars for having taken police recourse, led to the exodus. The day the body was exhumed nobody even gave them water for washing and prayers. Which is when they all left. And stayed in a close by place called Balad in the open, where they have relatives. The fear was such that they left their horse behind and did not have the courage to bring it to them. Finally the police brought the horse.”

The police have arrested Suthar but two of his accomplices charged with abducting and killing Khan are still at large. The families are too scared to return to the village, Srivastava said adding that they will probably work in the city as labour and somehow survive.

According to Kavita Srivastava, the Muslim angle in this incident is not dominant. Khan and the other families who have fled are “ untouchable Muslim dholis” There are Hindu dholis as well, she said, suffering from the same caste discrimination. “ If there was the caste / religion angle then the manganiyars in the first place would not be singing parcha and devi raag in the temple, during navratri, which is a normal feature,” she added.

The upper caste consolidation against them was because they were not submissive and challenged caste and religious authority, Srivastava said.

CMIE Says India’s Unemployment Rate 8.2%, Highest in 11 months, Greater Unemployment 15%

October 12, 2017

One of India’s premier independent consultants, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), has estimated that India’s urban unemployment rate in the week ended October 8 is 8.2 per cent, the highest in the past 11 months. This has happened, says CMIE, despite the fact that the “urban labour participation rate has recovered to its level during the last December-January period.”

Unemployment

This is how CMIE explains it, “The rise in labour participation rate and the unemployment rate shows that labour is returning back to the labour markets but it isn’t finding jobs”, adding, “The fall in labour participation rate began soon after demonetisation. We are probably seeing a recovery after about a year.”

These estimates are based on surveys carried out jointly with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the CMIE believes, it’s data, which reflected in its about-185-page statistical volume, “can help us understand employment and unemployment in India through the demonetisation period, and going ahead, through the Goods and Services Tax (GST).”

The volume, which is produced at the interval of each quarter, “provide estimates of the labour force, labour participation rate, employed and unemployed persons and the unemployment rate”, it adds. Pointing out that the methodology used by the volume shows a “useful set of additional indicators” about “greater labour force and the greater unemployment rate”, CMIE regrets, a person is considered unemployed only if s/he is “willing to work and is actively looking for a job but, is unable to get a job.”

Who has done this survey ? Carried out by Mahesh Vyas, Managing Director and CEO, the CMIE analysis of the data says, while calculating unemployment, “three conditions must be fulfilled — the person must be unemployed, must be willing to work and, must be actively looking for a job.” It adds, “The last criterion implies applying for jobs, appearing for interviews, making enquiries for jobs, standing in queues for jobs, etc.”

Unfortunately, CMIE underlines, “If an unemployed person is willing to work but is not actively looking for a job then s/he is not counted as an unemployed person for calculating the unemployment rate.” Calling it an “international practice and this is what we follow”, the CMIE says, if one considers as the unemployed those who are “willing to work but are not actively looking for a job”, the actual unemployment today would around 15 per cent.

“During 2016, the unemployment rate was 8.2 per cent”, equal to what it is today, “but, the greater unemployment rate was 15 per cent”, says CMIE, adding, actually, “the labour force is simply the sum of the unemployed as defined above and the employed. And, the unemployment rate is the ratio of the unemployed to the labour force.”

Answering the question why “should an unemployed person who is willing to work not be looking for a job?”, CMIE says, “Possibly, because such a person does not believe that a job is available. Maybe, there is a seasonality in seeking jobs. Or, there could be social constraints that refrain a person from seeking a job.” CMIE insists, “While the reasons for such behavior could be interesting, it is perhaps, very important to know the size of such persons who are willing to work but do not actively look for jobs.”

” The sum of unemployed who are willing to work and are actively looking for a job and, unemployed who are willing but not actively looking for a job is the greater unemployed”, CMIE says, adding, “Interestingly, the unemployed who are willing to work but are not actively looking for a job was about 70 per cent of the size of the unemployed who are willing and looking for a job.”

Reporting from Ground Zero, Yeovatmal: Pesticide Deaths in Kapas (Cotton)Cultivation

October 12, 2017

Photo of Father (Rajarao Vadkar )of a farmer (Vijay Rajaram Vadkar) who is admitted patient of spray poisoning admitted

I am in Yavatmal for an assignment and thought of finding the facts about the farmer poisoning in this area. I went to Yavatmal Govt Hospital, Sri Vasantrao Naik hospital in Yavatmal.I met Dr. Elke, medicine department, he is in-charge of briefing about the hospital/patient data.
The dean had asked me to meet him.

Our report from Yeovatmal:
Dr. Elke said till yesterday (Wednesday October 11,2017) 445 patients have been admitted for poisoning due to chemical spaying in the farm. The first patient of poisoning came in on July 6
and to date 445 persons are admitted in this hospital, all victims of pesticide poisoning.

Eleven have so far died out of the 445 seriously ill who had been admitted. The success rate of saving lives is 98%. ( Last year though lesser number of patients came and 6 died, the survival was 96%, this year there has been a marginal improvement in saving lives)

Dr Elke said that this year it has rained better than the last year. (it is drought affected area, the rainfall was less than the requirement but more than last year).The plants grow taller 5-7 feet if rainfall is adequate and this year due to rainfall plants grew tall. (mostly cotton Kapas plants, but same chemicals are also sprayed on Tuar daal and Soyabean too). The height of plants matter: when it is at the same or the higher level than the height of the person spraying it, the particles/fumes come back to the person, and they get soaked in the chemical, being affected and vulnerable totally.

Poisonous Pesticide

The organic Phosphorus Compound in the chemical is what caused poisoning. Most commonly Monocil (popular pesticide brand name) is used, it contains Monocrotophos, exposure (inhalation) of monocrotophos causes poisoning. It affects many vital organs in the body, and the deaths are caused due to a respiratory muscle paralysis.

Most of the farmers know how lethal this compound is, therefore, they hire poor labourers for spraying, the labourers take up this risky spraying job in seasons because they paid more than normal wages. Hence, most of the patients admitted in this hospital are the labourers, they are from the same or nearby villages.

There are many more poisoning cases and patients are being treated in various government and private hospitals. Total numbers can be availed from the collector or the civil surgeon.

Every year new brands of pesticides are entering the market, some farmers who had used similar pesticides previously never had this experience. There is no awareness or standard of toxicity in similar chemicals.

This is happening all over Vidarbha region, Dr. Elke could give data only about Yavatmal hospital. He said there is a separate data of suicides by drinking poison with poison, that is very common in Vidarbha and they regularly get such cases.

I also met a relative of two patients who are now out of danger.

Rajarao Wadkar has his son Vijay Rajaram Vadkar and a relative Haribhau Manik Kundekar admitted in ward no 19 of the hospital. They were lucky to reach hospital in time (on 30th sept and 1st oct), they are from Bhari Village only 9 kilometre from Yavatmal.

Background:
The Indian Express has reported on October 8 and 9 that on October 3, two and a half months after the first death, the government ordered a probe and announced a compensation of Rs 2 lakh to families of each of the deceased. This was after court proceedings, when on October 6, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court issued notices on a PIL seeking criminal action against the officials concerned and pesticide firms. While no action has been taken against anyone so far, Minister of State for Agriculture Sadabhau Khot on Tuesday said, “Officials responsible will be made answerable.”
Cotton cultivation experts and researchers have said the cumulative effect of several factors, such as humidity, spraying of pesticide cocktails and use of a new kind of spraying machine, seem to be behind the deaths of cotton growers in Maharashtra. The number of deaths climbed to 32 on Sunday.
According to these reports, since July 19, 18 farmers have died in Yavatmal and 14 in surrounding districts in the cotton growing belt of the state. The two fresh deaths have been reported from Nagpur and Akola.

Revolution Destroyed

October 12, 2017

As the Left celebrates the centenary of the Russian Revolution this month, it is important to learn lessons from its tragic fate.

The Petrograd Soviet in the heady days leading up to October. Photo credit: Time

The Russian Revolution is a startling paradox. It was a revolution largely based on the working class, the first workers’ revolution in history, creating a state that was not a workers’ state. This searing paradox would clinch the fate of the radical left for the rest of the twentieth century, since the chief outcome of the revolution (the regime known as ‘Stalinism’) would exert a preponderant influence on radical sectors of the left in countries like India no less than in Europe, and crucially affect the course of major political events internationally, most notably, Hitler’s unimpeded rise to power at the end of the twenties and the tragic fate of the Spanish Revolution a few years later.

As Don Filtzer showed in his seminal book Soviet Workers and Stalinist Industrialization, by the 1930s the working class in the Soviet Union ceased to exist as a collective force, and the sole basis on which a strong opposition might have emerged was therefore preempted. Even more tragically, ‘with Stalin socialism came to mean something altogether different from [its] revolutionary vision, as socialism became identified with top-heavy, centralized bureaucracy, government attempts to control every aspect of social and individual life, a repressive and brutal police apparatus, scarcity, and general economic mismanagement’. The key issue thrown up by the revolution, then, is how this came about or how this was allowed to happen.

The Bolsheviks had seized power in October 1917 by garnering the support of Russian workers because they were seen as endorsing the slogan of workers’ control of production and because of the support they extended to the Factory Committees that mushroomed from the middle of 1917. As the most detailed study of those committees suggests, ‘There is no doubt that the notion of workers’ control of production was very popular at the grass roots, and it was the willingness of the Bolsheviks to support this demand which was a crucial reason for their growing appeal’ (S. A. Smith, Red Petrograd, p. 165). Already by June, factory committees were widespread throughout the bigger establishments, where they were dominated by ‘skilled, experienced, relatively well-paid workers’.

Yet within a few weeks of the Revolution the Bolsheviks were demanding the subordination of the factory committees. The first Congress of Trade Unions held in January 1918 ‘voted to transform the Factory Committees into union organs’ (Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control, p. 32). By March that year, Lenin ‘made the first of a series of appeals to return to one-man management’ (Smith, Red Petrograd, p. 241). A year later, when the eighth party congress declared portentously, ‘the trade unions must achieve a de facto concentration in their hands of the whole administration of the whole national economy considered as a single economic unit’, the factory committees had ceased to matter entirely. With a brutal civil war dominating most of 1919 and 1920 and massive supply shortages throughout the country, Trotsky was arguing for the ‘militarisation of labour’, that is, for the unabashed exercise of compulsion in industry and other economic sectors, and for the subordination of the unions to the state. Although this was never officially endorsed, by 1920 industrial workers in post-revolutionary Russia were again subject to what one historian called ‘the familiar forms of capitalist industrial organisation’, as if the clock had moved full circle.

The only significant challenge to all of this, the group known as the Workers’ Opposition, which emerged at the end of 1920 to espouse a vision of an economy run jointly by the unions and factory committees in a sort of articulated system of management, came closest (among the Bolsheviks) to the revolutionary aspirations of 1917 but was met with sharp reprisals by the party leadership, causing widespread disillusionment among more class-conscious workers (many of them part of the Metalworkers’ Union) and effectively ending an earlier tradition of inner-party democracy. When ‘factions’ were banned at the tenth party congress in March 1921, the Workers’ Opposition was almost alone in opposing the ban publicly.
Suspended in a social void for lack of any organised expression of the autonomous power of the workers such as the factory committees, the Party ‘now exercised absolute power and was outside the control of any social force whatsoever’. This was the situation Kollontai would presciently denounce early in 1921. What it entailed increasingly over the 1920s was a ‘dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat’.

Alexandra Kollontai

At the very congress at which the Workers’ Opposition presented its programme for workers’ management of the economy and opposed the ban on factions, Alexandra Kollontai, one of its leading spokespersons and the Revolution’s best known feminist, described the rapid bureaucratisation of the state as ‘breeding an atmosphere altogether repugnant to the working class’. She denounced a nascent party bureaucracy as the source of the cleavage between the government and the masses (Cathy Porter, Alexandra Kollontai: A Biography, pp. 367ff.). Although he derided Kollontai at the congress itself, even resorting to personal attacks, Lenin was perfectly aware of the justness of her charges. By the early 1920s there had grown up an ‘enormous body of functionaries who, according to Lenin, were former Tsarist bureaucrats’ (Moshe Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 8). Suspended in a social void for lack of any organised expression of the autonomous power of the workers such as the factory committees, the Party ‘now exercised absolute power and was outside the control of any social force whatsoever’ (Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 10). This was the situation Kollontai would presciently denounce early in 1921. What it entailed increasingly over the 1920s was a ‘dictatorship of the Party over the proletariat’, as Lewin describes it (Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 17). For the regime known as Stalinism to emerge all it now needed was the domination of the party itself by a clique or, as happened, by one man.

Lenin, who had suffered a stroke in May 1922, never fully regained his health. Further strokes followed in December that year, and in the last week he began to dictate a series of ‘notes’ on what he saw as the impending crisis in the party’s leadership. One of these said, in terms that can only be described as prophetic, ‘Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution’ (Lenin cited Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 80). On 4 January 1923 a further note added, ‘Stalin is too rude, and this defect, though quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General Secretary. This is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way to remove Stalin from that post’ (Lewin, Lenin’s Last Struggle, p. 84; my italics).

This never happened, of course. Lenin himself died in January 1924 and, as Victor Serge tells us, ‘In the meantime Stalin completes the job of packing all the party secretariats…with his creatures. In 1926 his work is done, he is the master of the party, of a party in whose ranks utter silence reigns; a party in which majorities, docile because they profit by being docile, do nothing but vote the resolutions prescribed by the Central Committee…’ (Serge, From Lenin to Stalin, p. 43–44). Stalin’s consolidation of power in the party in a regime where the party was the state, or the state a massive extension of the party, not only clinched the fate of the revolution but came to embody a form of state-power unique in history. Trotsky struggled with its characterization, never abandoning the delusion that somewhere at the heart of this new web of power lay a workers’ state. He continued to believe that a proletarian nucleus would reassert its control over the party (T. M. Twiss, Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy, p. 187), when the reality was that ‘the main thrust of regime policy was to break down the working class, to undermine its cohesion and solidarity… and destroy its ability to act collectively as a self-conscious historical force’ (Filtzer, Soviet Workers, p. 255). Without a cohesive working class and autonomous organs of struggle, the Left Opposition was doomed, its heroism matched only by its total isolation, Serge estimating that ‘there must be less than a thousand of us’.

The terrible repression of the 1930s extended well beyond this handful of revolutionaries to include entire groups – technicians, ‘kulaks’, ethnic minorities, military leaders (the whole Soviet General Staff!), large sectors of a brilliant intelligentsia, so-called ‘harmful elements’ (vagrants, prostitutes, the homeless, etc.), and of course tens of thousands of workers, peasants and other ordinary Soviet citizens. On the NKVD’s own figures, between the early 1930s and 1953 some 1.1–1.2 million Soviet citizens were executed, three-quarters of them in the years 1937–38. This was, as Serge called it, ‘the incessant massacre of an entire revolutionary generation’ (Memoirs of a Revolutionary, p. 396), but it was also genocide in a stricter legal meaning if only because national communities were being systematically liquidated (for this argument see Naimark, Stalin’s Genocides; on the terror itself there is a magnificent recent account in Karl Schlögel, Moscow, 1937).
Stalin’s consolidation of power in the party in a regime where the party was the state, or the state a massive extension of the party, not only clinched the fate of the revolution but came to embody a form of state-power unique in history. Trotsky struggled with its characterization, never abandoning the delusion that somewhere at the heart of this new web of power lay a workers’ state. He continued to believe that a proletarian nucleus would reassert its control over the party.

Leon Trotsky

The purges and the Moscow show trials ‘served one purpose only – to manipulate public opinion at home and abroad’ (Serge, Memoirs, p. 290). Today the mass media are a simple and effective way for the authorities and ruling groups to achieve the sort of integration that the Stalinist elite sought to achieve by altogether more primitive means. Stalinism produced a ferocious culture of conformity, in part through the intimidation produced by terror but even more importantly through the figure of Stalin himself. Stalin had to be worshipped, wrote Victor Serge, ‘because to the world he was the incarnation of the party…[The Opposition’s] capital error was that their attachment to the past prevented them from seeing that this party is dead’ (Serge, From Lenin to Stalin, p. 82). In the later Marxist tradition the only serious attempt to give a dialectical sense to what Serge might have meant by this ‘incarnation’ is Sartre’s unfinished masterpiece Critique of Dialectical Reason, whose second volume, among the most difficult written by any Marxist intellectual, is essentially an attempt to construct a theory of the Stalinist regime that would make its structure and dynamics intelligible.

Sartre argues that Stalin’s personality cult ‘was the first known attempt to change an entire society into a pledged group’, as if the whole of the USSR had voluntarily joined the party and pledged to work for it and for Stalin. Since Stalin’s power was a ‘condensation of the sovereign powers of the group [the party]’, he was ‘incarnated in the pyramid of ruling bodies’ (that is, the bureaucracy) as they were in him. But beyond this ‘reciprocity of incarnation’, Stalin was everywhere, ‘his millions of portraits were just one portrait’, and he was in everyone, as a structure of ‘interiorized inertia’ and as the ‘living (and deceptive) image of pledged passivity’.

Forced capital accumulation, the dispossession of millions of expropriated peasants, the silencing of the opposition, the banning of abortion and cult of the family, and then the paroxysm of violence known as the Great Terror – if this was socialism, then Stalin’s Russia was discrediting and destroying it for decades to come, and that effectively is what it did.

So the Revolution was tragically betrayed, destroyed or deviated, however one describes its overall trajectory. But behind this lies an important lesson, at least for the Left. In 1917, before October, the soviets and the factory committees had been the only real organised expressions of the power of the masses, veritable organs of mass democracy. Yet, when the Bolsheviks took control of the Petrograd Soviet in September, a more complex dialectic came into play. ‘The party was launched on the road of armed insurrection through the soviets and in the name of the soviets’, wrote Trotsky in his fine History of the Russian Revolution. Here in a nutshell was the dilemma. Where would the locus of real power reside? With the party or with the masses and their own mass organisations such as the soviets and factory committees, or factory councils as they were known elsewhere?

(This article was first published in Hardnews).

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Reporting from Ground Zero, Yeovatmal: Pesticide Deaths in Kapas (Cotton)Cultivation

Revolution Destroyed

As the Left celebrates the centenary of the Russian Revolution this month, it is important to learn lessons from its tragic fate.

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