Women Hold Up Half the Sky!

Sexual harassment and DSU’s action on it: The DSU public notice of 20th Feb. informing the campus of the expulsion of a leading DSU activist after being found guilty of sexual harassment by an internal enquiry, has left many with a feeling of shock. In a campus which is essentially patriarchal despite all its pretensions to be gender sensitive, such organisational steps are hardly taken in the right spirit. While this action has received no formal public response, all kinds of rumours are being circulated enthusiastically; the most outrageous being that this was a clash between Serohi Nandan and his partner which has been organisationally manipulated to ‘victimise’ him! That he is an innocent victim of a political gimmick by overboard feminists! In all such speculations, the political aspects are often lost: that sexual harassment is a serious offence, which vitiates the organisational and political space for women in general, apart from negatively affecting the individual woman it is committed against, meriting exemplary punitive action. Also, that when any incident or allegation of sexual harassment by a member comes to the notice of an organisation, it is the responsibility of that organisation to take it up seriously instead of trying to cover it up.

Although it is not Serohi Nandan’s partner who had faced sexual harassment in this case, the identity of the aggrieved woman should be irrelevant. The enquiry carried out by the organisation has given us sufficient reason to believe that it is a clear case of sexual harassment and therefore strong punitive action has been taken against the leading activist even before the GSCASH complaint was filed. Despite being in the organisation for a long time, Serohi Nandan’s irresponsible behaviour shows his failure to internalise the politics DSU upholds. We consider this to be a betrayal of our fight against patriarchy as well as the general principles of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. DSU has taken punitive action organisationally, and now it is up to GSCASH to deliver justice as an institution which is entrusted to deal with this kind of issues. We are confident, that the GSCASH verdict will vindicate our stand and deliver justice to the aggrieved woman.

The slander campaigns by a certain section of the campus do not come to us as a surprise. In a campus where politics is synonymous with elections and garnering votes by any means, shielding sexual harassers by organisations is the usual practice. The struggle against sexual harassment has suffered tremendously due to the non-serious and opportunistic approach adopted by almost all organisations. We would like to reiterate that suspending, enquiring against, and then expelling a leading activist and a fellow comrade has not been an easy task for us. But to be true to our politics of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, we saw no other course of action open to us that would do justice to the issue at hand. Our action is not just a vindication of MLM politics, but also an attempt to stay true a basic political ideal: that we are accountable to our political principles and the students of this campus, which is why the whole matter was made public by DSU instead of trying to keep quiet and taking a position only under pressure.

This action could be a beginning of militant assertion of women against sexual violence, and that is a cause for fear for many men and patriarchal interests on campus. Women and men in other organisations and also those not in any organisation are aware of the kind of harassment that is perpetrated, suffered, covered up and hardly ever brought to justice. The time now is to demand justice for each and every crime of sexual harassment, and violence against women in general.

Treating sexual harassers with leniency emboldens harassers in general. The tendency of overlooking such cases, or worse, shielding or defending harassers, as done by organisations such as SFI and AISA which claims itself to be ‘left’ or even ‘revolutionary’ essentially betrays the politics they claim to uphold. A breach of political principles in practice is something no communist organisation worth its name can endorse. The attitude of other organisations towards sexual harassment reduces the space of women to participate in politics or other public events and spaces. Anything less than an uncompromising struggle against patriarchal exploitation is inadequate and unacceptable. The DSU action is a step in that direction.

We strongly feel that this is an occasion for us all as a campus community, and not just as an organisation to reflect on what constitutes patriarchal behaviour in our ‘public’ and ‘private’ domains. None of us are "patriarchy-free" in that sense. As students committed to progressive politics, we need to undertake a prolonged and oftentimes difficult struggle against patriarchy to transform ourselves which is a part of the larger struggle for transforming the society. We must remember that even the progressives are not completely free from the entrenched patriarchal values. Therefore in a case where a leading activist of an organisation and someone who we took for granted to be progressive has been found guilty of sexual harassment, it is our responsibility to collectively reflect on the principles we uphold, how much we have internalised them, and to what extent they translate in our daily lives. To refuse to accept or even consider this, only serves to show the hypocrisy and refusal to really struggle against patriarchy in all its forms.

Separate Telangana: A Democratic Demand

Stop Rickshaw-walla;

I am coming;

You work from morning to night,

but your stomach cannot be filled;

So much blood and sweat,

yet you earn hardly anything…

(From Apuro Rickshaw, the first song written by Gaddar, 1971)

The 59-year old revolutionary balladeer Gaddar is visiting the country’s capital from 23^rd to 29^th February 2008 to intensify the demand for a separate Telangana state. Apart from participating in a protest demonstration on 28^th February at Jantar Mantar demanding a separate Telangana, he and his troupe will perform at two cultural programmes in Delhi University and JNU organised by Democratic Students Union (DSU) on 29^th February.

Gaddar: The living legend of the Indian revolutionary movement, Gaddar was born in a poor dalit family in Toopran village of the Medak district adjoining Hyderabad. His parents Seshaiah and Lachumamma worked as labourers to earn a living. After passing the 12^th standard from a government junior college in Hyderabad, Gaddar joined the Osmania University Engineering College to pursue a Bachelors degree in engineering, but was forced to drop out after the first year to earn a living.

He worked in a chemical factory before joining the Arts Lovers’ Association, which was renamed Jana Natya Mandali (JNM) in 1972. Gaddar has been actively pursuing the demand for a separate Telangana from the very inception of his political and cultural activism, starting from 1969. The Srikakulam Armed Struggle in Northern coastal Andhra fought by the adivasis inspired as well as drawn him towards revolutionary politics and culture. Even though he got a clerical job in a bank in 1975, Gaddar left it in 1984 to work as a full time activist of JNM. He was forced to go underground in 1985 after protesting against the killing of several dalits by upper caste landlords in Prakasham district.

In exile, Gaddar roamed through the forests of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa, spreading the revolutionary ideology through folk arts. Gaddar and his troupe adapted folk forms such as Oggu Katha, Veedhi Bhagotham (vernacular ballets using a combination of song, dialogue and dance) and Yellamma Katha (the story of the local deity) to revolutionary themes depicting the travails of peasants, labourers and as well as other exploited sections. With his revolutionary songs catching the imagination of the masses, Gaddar became a legendary figure among the toiling people. Hundreds of thousands of printed copies and thousands of cassettes and CDs of his songs have been distributed and sold over the last two decades.

After four-and-a-half years of exile, Gaddar emerged from hiding. On February 18, 1990, Gaddar met the media. Two days later, the Mandali celebrated its 19th anniversary at the sprawling Nizam College Grounds in Hyderabad. A staggering 200,000 people came to watch Gaddar perform.

In the last 15 years since he surfaced from his underground life, Gaddar has contributed to keep the separate Telangana movement alive. During this period, he has launched campaigns to protest against State repression in the countryside and brutal killings by the police in the name of ‘encounters.'

He along with Varavara Rao and Kalyan Rao was the emissary for the failed peace talks between the Naxalites and the Andhra Pradesh government. On April 6, 1997 there was an assassination bid on Gaddar. While two of the three bullets the assailants fired into him, two were removed. One was left untouched because of medical complications. The near-fatal attack, which the balladeer believes was engineered by the police, has not deterred Gaddar from being a champion of the downtrodden.

Separate Telangana Movement: Geographically, the state of Andhra Pradesh is divided into three parts: Rayalaseema, Coastal Andhra and Telangana. Telangana remains the most under-developed region after being systematically exploited by the dominant classes of the other two regions. Telangana is a land of poor people with rich natural resources. The people here have been historically denied their rights over resources, deprived of opportunities for political, economic, and cultural autonomy. The demand for a separate Telangana state is a long standing one, with the majority of the people from the region firmly supporting its creation. However, this democratic aspiration of the people of Telangana has been trampled underfoot by the various ruling class political parties in power, be it the regional or national ones. There is also the hostility of the ruling classes from Coastal Andhra against carving out of Telangana from present Andhra Pradesh. Therefore, even though various political parties have promised to make the state of Telangana a reality several times in the past, none of them has taken any concrete step to materialize it. In this respect, the present Congress government led by Y. Rajshekhar Reddy too is no exception. But despite the denial of separate statehood after a prolonged movement, it refuses to die down. The Separate Telangana movement continues to live on, now with renewed vigor, and will continue until the government is made to fulfill the demand. As a part of this movement, Gaddar is visiting New Delhi to impress upon the need for a separate Telangana.

Democratic Students Union (DSU): It is an independent students' organisation active in JNU and Delhi University in the state of Delhi. It is committed to work towards attaining the ideals of the New Democratic India, and supports democratic and people’s movements all across the country. DSU considers the demand for a separate Telangana state to be a just and democratic one, and therefore extends its solidarity with people of Telangana in their struggle for a separate state.

DSU is happy to organise and announce two cultural performances by Gaddar and his cultural troupe in solidarity with the separate Telangana movement on 28th and 29^th February in JNU and Delhi University respectively. We cordially invite you to be present in the above two programmes and extend your solidarity to the movement.

CULTURAL EVENT

Poets in Politics

DSU INVITES YOU

To An evening with

People’s Poet

BALLI SINGH CHEEMA

TAPTI MESS, JNU

9.00 PM 22 FEB.’08 FRIDAY

PUBLIC NOTICE

DEMOCRATIC STUDENTS UNION
JNU UNIT

In an Executive Committee (EC) Meeting of the DSU JNU Unit held on 17.02.2008, the following resolutions were unanimously passed:

RESOLUTION I: Taking note of the acts of grave misconduct and irresponsible behaviour by Serohi Nandan, a member of the Executive Committee, DSU JNU Unit, the EC held a meeting to discuss the same issues on 4th of February 2008. The EC framed certain charges against the said member. He was asked to step down from his responsibility as an EC member pending enquiry. A three-member Enquiry Committee was constituted by the EC to enquire into the said charges and to come out with its report within 10 days.

After conducting the enquiry the Enquiry Committee subsequently came to the conclusion that on the following charges Serohi Nandan was found guilty:

1. Sexual harassment against a woman.
2. Gender insensitive and anti-woman behaviour.
3. Irresponsible behaviour unbecoming of a leading committee member.
4. Misuse of organisational position.
5. Undermining his partner as a woman and a fellow comrade.

DSU condemns Serohi Nandan for his conduct. It is a complete breach of trust and organizational principles resulting from the failure to internalise the politics that DSU upholds.

Taking into consideration the Enquiry Committee verdicts and the serious nature of the offences committed, the DSU JNU unit strips Serohi Nandan off his responsibilities, rights and duties as a member and bars him from working for the organisation in JNU for life.

This grave misconduct and irresponsible behaviour by Serohi Nandan had vitiated the space for women inside and outside the organisation. DSU takes note of this in all seriousness. We take this occasion to deliberate, discuss and reflect on individual conduct in our personal relationships and public behaviour. Only an uncompromising struggle against patriarchy and other forms of exploitation can ensure that such instances are prevented.


RESOLUTION II: DSU appeals to the aggrieved person to come forward and file a complaint with the GSCASH. We extend our full solidarity and cooperation in her struggle for justice.

The above resolutions were placed in a General Body Meeting of DSU JNU held on 18.02.2008. Both were passed unanimously.

Upholding the spirit of the above two Resolutions, the DSU EC has filed a third-party GSCASH complaint against Serohi Nandan today at 6.20pm.

SALWA JUDUM: The Reign of White Terror in Chhattisgarh

‘From the People proceeds the power of the State.’

-But where does it proceed to?

Yes, where is it proceeding to?

There’s some place it is proceeding to.

The policeman proceeds through the station gate.

-But where does he proceed to?

-Bertolt Brecht

What is Salwa Judum? Salwa Judum, referred to as ‘Jan Jagran Abhiyan’ in official rhetoric, is the name given to the Indian state’s massive undeclared war against the adivasi population of the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh. The plan has been to pit a section of the adivasi population against the Revolutionary Movement, of which the adivasis themselves have been the major participant. Salwa Judum in Gondi language means ‘purification hunt’. The crime of the people of Bastar to face such a ‘hunt’: they inhabit a vast area of 39,114 sq. km. which is rich in natural resources, including mineral deposits and forest resources of various kinds. 70 percent of Bastar’s population is adivasi, and more than 75 percent of its land is covered by forests. They have also been the epicenter of the Maoist movement for the last 25 years. To pave the way for the unhindered loot and plunder of the natural resources by state as well as multinational companies, it is necessary for the powers-that-be to violently remove the adivasi population from their ancestral land. This however was not possible as long as the people were ready to defend their land and lives. Consequently, the repression of the state had to be directed against the peoples’ revolutionary movement.

From May-June 2005, the state started recruiting a section of the adivasi youth for Salwa Judum, mostly through coercion and also by taking advantage of their economic hardship. Youths from disgruntled immigrant non-Adivasi families who had lost previous economic privilege due to the peoples’ upsurge, such as landlords, contractors, and businessmen also joined or supported this campaign. Mahendra Karma, the leader of the Congress party, conceptualized and led the campaign from the beginning, with full support from the BJP government of Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh. One Salwa Judum leader describes a typical mode of recruitment: “This is what happened in Bangapal. On 3rd August (2005) we held a meeting in Munder village. Villages from Munder ran away to the hills. The Naga Battalion went to the hills, caught them and brought them back, and made them join the Salwa Judum. Those who were unwilling to join were arrested.” [PUDR Report on Salwa Judum] The government camps where thousands of displaced adivasis are forced to live as refugees have also been an important recruitment base for the state for its Salwa Judum campaign. The youth residing in these camps were not given any opportunity of gainful employment. Moreover, as has been shown by independent fact-finding reports, each family is forced to send one of their young to join the Salwa Judum forces. As is the case with any mercenary army of the state, the Salwa Judum members, known as the Special Police Officers (SPOs) are paid Rs.1500 a month from the government coffers. The state has trained and armed them to use it against their own people and to facilitate the incursion of the state and the multinational companies. And all of this the state sought to do keeping the whole world in the dark. Even any independent media scrutiny of the events in Chhattisgarh was not allowed. As this radio intercept of an instruction by the Bijapur Superintendent of Police to his field forces reveals: “If any journalist comes to report on Naxalites, kill them.” [From a Report by Independent Citizen’s Initiative]

The extent of Repression: Out of 1,354 villages in the Dantewada district alone, 644 have been ‘evacuated’ by Salwa Judum forces and relocated in 20 ‘relief’ camps. These 644 villages have been completely deserted after they have been raged to the ground and destroyed by the invading mercenary armies of Salwa Judum. The official number of displaced people staying in these relief camps is said to be 50,000. As has been pointed out by Lingoo Markam, a ward panchayat member from Balood Panchayat of Dantewada block, “If the entire population of the 1,354 villages in the district is seven lakh, how can 644 villages have only 50,000 residents?!” He adds that nearly two lakh people has been displaced from these villages, and are now on the run to evade Salwa Judum and state police force’s reprisal. Many of them are hiding in forests, while many are forced to take shelter in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. Salwa Judum campaign has murdered more than a thousand adivasis in the last two years, and has unleashed a reign of terror through rape, torture, arrests, destruction of villages, crops, and livestock, apart from displacing millions from their homeland.

Why This Campaign for Hunting the Adivasis? The State, parliamentary political parties, as well as the corporate media have tried to sale the lie that it was a ‘spontaneous peoples’ movement against the Maoists’. This is how The Hindu reported of Salwa Judum in 2005: “From a handful in number to thousands. This is how the anti-Naxal movement is gaining ground in the main heartland of Naxalites in Bastar… After keeping their mouths shut for decades, the tribal people are getting united to battle against the People’s War.” However the facts that have come to light exposed such white lies. It is nothing but a state-sponsored undeclared war against the people and their Revolutionary Movement, by using vigilante gangs of marauding killers with the backing of the state machinery. By forcefully dispossessing the adivasis of their land, forests and resources of livelihood and making refugees in their own land, the Indian State wants to sell it out in a platter to the corporations such as the Tata, Essar, Mittal as well as multinationals who are greedily eying the minerals of the adivasi’s traditional land in Chhattisgarh. The biggest hurdle to this nefarious design of the Indian comprador ruling classes however is the Maoist Movement in the Middle India, and the adivasis that have built up this movement with their blood and sweat. To exterminate both, the Salwa Judum campaign has been unleashed. But as the people of Bastar continues to provide a stiff resistance, this has so far failed to crush the people and their movement.

DSU Public Meeting:

DSU Invites you to a Public Meeting on

SALWA JUDUM:
THE FASCIST STATE'S METHOD TO
CRUSH THE PEOPLES' RESISTANCE
AGAINST IMPERIALIST PLUNDER


Speakers:

Sudha Bharadwaj
Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha,
and Human Rights Lawyer

Indira Chakrabarty
Jana Swasthya Abhiyaan

Tapti Hostel Mess, JNU
9.30 pm, Sunday, 10 February 2008

DSU Public Meeting:

DSU invites You to a Public Meeting on

IMPERIALIST DEVELOPMENT, PEOPLE’S RESISTANCE, AND
THE FIGHT FOR A REVOLUTIONARY SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION

Speakers

ARUNDHATI ROY
Noted Writer and Novelist

RAJ KISHORE
General Secretary
Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF)

Sutlej Hostel Mess, JNU
9.00pm, Sunday, 3 Feb. 2008

Since 1947, even after the transfer of power from the colonial rulers, the Indian state is following a path of ‘development’ that has been subservient to the needs of imperialist capital, thereby preserving the legacy of the British rule. Notwithstanding its rhetoric of sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic, the British nurtured Indian ruling class from the beginning has functioned as a faithful servant of British, U.S. and Soviet imperialism. Nehru’s model of development too has been engineered to serve the imperialist interests, and not the masses of the country. Nehru’s conception of India’s tryst with destiny was in actuality playing with the destiny of the poor millions, when he went on record urging the oustees of the Hirakud dam in Orissa to sacrifice for the “greater national good.” Then on, more than four crores of displaced lives are sacrificed at Nehru’s ‘modern temples’.

A pro-people model of development has to be for the benefit of the people at large, rather than at their cost. It must ensure people’s control over natural resources, conserve the natural wealth of the country and the environment at large. Thereby it would serve the people and utilise the natural environment in the most just and humane way possible. Therefore the natural resources of the country: land, river, minerals, forest and so on are to be extracted only to the extent that it meets the needs of the people, not for the extravagant needs of imperialist profiteers or private capital. Development cannot be what it is meant to be without bringing the human being to the centre.

Today, even the Post-1947 rhetoric of people-centric ‘development’ has been swept aside by the combustible mixture of Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization (LPG). With it doors have been opened wide for direct foreign capital and technology, strengthening the stranglehold of the transnational capital. And when the people rise to protect their livelihood and resist this naked imperialist onslaught, then they are labeled by the state as obstructionists of ‘development’, anti-nationals, or even terrorists. If 40% of the people displaced by planned development projects (until 1990) came from 7.5 % of India’s total tribal population—by far the most deprived and thereby at the same time the most in need of development—then for whom is India shining and for whom is the ‘development’?
Looking at the last decade, what is clear is the unprecedented withdrawal of the state, shrugging its social responsibilities—shedding even its rhetoric of ‘development’. And thereby, lines are being drawn clearly, sharply, with the oppressed majority in utter destitution on one side and the oppressors who are more visible in their ‘shining India’ on the other. The idea of the pace of this process can easily be gauged if we notice that a single state government signed 10 MoUs on a single day, 26th September, 2006 for thermal power projects (in Orissa). POSCO, the South Korean steel company’s investment of 39 billion dollars and its proposed plans to invest further in Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh will turn out to be more than India’s total Foreign Direct Investment inflow since 1991. Reading through the MoU signed by the Orissa government and the POSCO is a sordid instance of the comprador character of the ruling classes of this country.

The latest weapon in the armoury of the state, Special Economic Zones (SEZ), is undoubtedly the biggest corporate land grab initiative in post-1947 India. So far 67 multi-product SEZs in the tune of one lakh forty thousand hectares have been acquired mostly by state industrial development corporations. While the entire world has only two thousand SEZs and China has only six, India has already crossed two hundred approvals within a year. Today the proposals in the pipeline have equalled a whopping 600 SEZs. The land to be acquired for these proposals by the government is unlimited. Add to this the clever manipulation of the Forest Bill that is already been passed by the government which would be an easy way to rob the tribals their natural rights to forest land thus paving the way for the violent loot and plunder of forest wealth under the garb of ‘protecting’ it.

But this plunder has not gone unresisted. The country is already witnessing the resilient fight against land grab put up by the people of North-East, Orissa, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Goa and Nandigram. When Abhay Sahoo—who is one of the leaders of the anti-POSCO movement in Orissa in Jagatsinghpur—calls for armed resistance with whatever means at the disposal of the people there against this brutal loot and plunder of the people (through a press statement which was widely publicized in the press), it is an indicator of the nature of the resistance that various peoples in the subcontinent are contemplating today while fighting the killer machine—development in the age of LPG. And that is precisely why the Prime Minister himself has gone on record calling anyone who stands against the present march of ‘development’ in the jungles, water resources, and mineral resource belts of the length and breadth of the country as anti-national—against the national interest of an India who is marching forward as an economic power in the 21st century and also brands the Naxalites/Maoists who are the sole force resisting his imperialist agenda as the ‘biggest internal security threat’! The ruling classes of India have come to realise that the people who are at the receiving end of the bulldozers and the gun-totting mercenary army –private and public- have already started digging their trenches in anticipation of many more Nandigrams.

PUNISH THE ABVP LUMPENS!

LETS ENSURE THE PUNISHMENT OF THE ABVP LUMPENS RESPONSIBLE FOR
STALLING THE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE ’07 THROUGH THEIR VIOLENT ACTS.

The union elections of last year in JNU witnessed an unprecedented attack on the democratic culture of the campus by a particular section of the student community. On 31st October 2007 during the presidential debate, the right-wing lumpens led by ABVP activists not just disrupted and derailed the debate, but indulged in an unprecedented violent attack on the students and their democratic rights. Hundreds of students were witness to the rampage and destruction unleashed by these lumpens, which continued for almost 4 hours. Attacking the dais as well the Election Committee members and presidential candidates with stones, sticks and chappals; shaking the poles of the pandal and the electricity wires, thereby endangering lives of all students present there- the ABVP, along with their sangh pracharaks from outside made clear that violence and lumpenism is a vital part of the existence of their politics itself.

How can we forget that future of 2007’s elections was itself threatened and left hanging in uncertainty till hours before the scheduled polling day, because of the ABVP running riot at the presidential debate (and even for the next two days, they continued to intimidate and threaten the EC and common students when their presidential candidate was disenfranchised). We need to keep in mind that the JNU administration is waiting for an excuse to curb student politics in the university through any measure, particularly by trying to impose the Lyngdoh Committee Recommendations. Even on the night of the incident, instead of taking action against the perpetrators present there, the administration reacted by asking for deployment of riot control police and police personnel in unnecessarily large numbers. It succeeded in exaggerating the tenseness of the atmosphere, and creating further fears among common students, while letting the perpetrators of this violent hooliganism continue with their actions and roam around freely thereafter. It is a disturbing fact that those ABVP activists who led this assault are still proudly walking around unpunished and without any fear, having indulged repeatedly in violence against other students on several other occasions. Their remaining unpunished have encouraged them to carry out their lumpenism even after the day of the presidential debate.

We, the students, should remember that the administration on its own will not act or take action and bring to the books these lumpen elements. This can be achieved only through a consistent and mass pressure on it to do so from those students of the campus who oppose the right-wing and its terror-tactics. The night of 31st October was ultimately also a reflection of the failure of the democratic section of the campus to prevent, and then to resist and fight these lumpens on that spot in a united manner. Instead, some sections indulged in petty electoral politics with each other even at this time of crisis. This enquiry well be only one of the opportunities for all of us to ensure that our mistakes with regard to the right-wing do not continue.

The last date to submit written depositions in this case had been 29th January 2008, about which the majority of student community was unaware. Notification regarding the dates for the depositions was curiously missing from everywhere, except a few hostels. Now, after demands from the JNUSU and the students, the last date for this has been extended to 8th February. We appeal to all students who witnessed the large scale rampage of the Sangh giroh on the 31st October, to come forward and give their written accounts to the Chief Proctor’s office in the Administration building by this date, so that justice can be done.

We also demand the proctorial board set up for this purpose be reconstituted, knowing fully well that the right wing has many defenders in the administration. We appeal to the JNUSU to push for this in order to ensure a fair and unbiased enquiry.