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Ocassion: inaugural function

The lady is K K Lathika teacher , A M L A from Meppayyur , Kerala.

The hand belongs to some comrade from calicut

Comrade V S Achuthanandan Chief Minsiter of Kerala also attended that function.

Who is CPM batting for?

The CPI(M) has expressed sympathy with the kashmiri people who are protesting. “The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road must be opened for trade,” former legislator and party leader Khalil Mohammad Naik told The Indian Express.

While GOI, continues to maintain that the highway from Jammu was absolutely free of obstructions and that the disturbances in the Valley were actually hurdles to free movement of goods and traffic.

The Centre said that the Valley protestors were being "influenced by misleading propaganda". The government said that it was the calls for bandhs and strikes in the Valley that were affecting traffic.

source

source

CPM Councillor 'beats' pregnant woman

In a shocking incident, a pregnant woman lost her baby after she was allegedly hit by a CPM councillor in Adilabad when she went to seek rain compensation from the councillor.

A resident of Ranadhivinagar colony in the town, Lalitha, who was into her six month of pregnancy, went to counsellor Annapurna's house on Saturday night urging her to help her get the compensation. Instead of taking her representation, Annapurna reportedly kicked Lalitha on her stomach.

Though the relatives immediately shifted Lalitha to a nearby hospital, the doctors confirmed that she lost the baby due to heavy bleeding. Angered by the councillor's action, the BJP activists took to the streets on Sunday and staged dharnas.

According to the family members, a CPM worker Ganganna on Sunday noon went to the hospital where Lalitha was admitted and threatened her to withdraw her complaint against the councillor. But the enraged relatives beat up Ganganna and handed him over to the police. Meanwhile, the police have registered a case.

Source

Verbal fireworks in Kerala CPM

Intense infighting is back in Kerala CPM. However, this time Comrade VS Achuthanandan increased the stakes by calling his rivals in party the "unspeakable and Taboo" word - Revisionist. He said indirectly referring to his rivals from within the party

"opportunists and revisionists are afraid of extremists,"

He also rubbed salt on old wounds of his rivals when a near total rebellion by party members party to field him in assembly election

“Some said at the politburo that the Congress-led United Democratic Front will win the elections if I am fielded in the Assembly polls. After this I opted out. But later, in response to demands from the party committees, the people at large and following media reports, the party fielded me”.

His recent outburst have to be read in the background of the deliberations at the just-concluded three-day party state committee dumping his hard-line positions. The stinger against Achuthanandan in the policy document ratified by the committee was

“those who argued for a second spell of land reforms were in fact uttering extremist rhetoric that would only divide society”.

Source

CPM Stands true to its "Traitor" Image

CPM Leaders have again proven that its only their body which is in India their heart is always is in Neighbouring Countries. For some like Yetchury its in China while some like Tripura Food and Civil Supplies Minister Sahid Choudhury have their heart with HUJI, a suspected Bangladeshi militant Group responsible for several Terrorist Attacks in India.

According to investigators, Choudhury helped Mamun Mian an HuJI activist and Bangladeshi national procure an Indian passport as well as a permanent resident certificate (PRC). Mian was held by the West Bengal CID on March 27 from Agartala following the arrest of two Bangladeshis, Alamgir Hussain and Shamim Akhtar, from Howrah along with some arms and explosives. The two also carried details of Army bases in north Bengal. Mamun Mian is also suspected of involvement in a fake currency racket across the Northeast. “He is believed to have circulated fake currency worth about Rs 200 crore in the past few years,” an official said.

The police is also examining whether Choudhury also had any links in the smuggling of foodgrains and arms across the Indo-Bangla border.

Instead of Expelling the TRAITOR for the Party and handing him over to police, CPM has come out strongly in Support of him. CPM central committee member Bijan Dhar said.

"We do not believe Sahid Choudhury has links with HuJI or any other terror outfit. He resigned from his post to facilitate a free and fair probe after controversy broke out over his alleged ties with a Bangladesh national,’’

Source

West Bengal BANS Anti China Protests!

Olympic torch relay may be happening in New Delhi but CPM led West Bengal Government has banned all Anti China Protests in West Bengal!

Two weeks after it allowed Tibetan activists to hold a candlelight vigil, the CPM-led West Bengal Government has denied them permission to hold a three-day anti-China public rally scheduled to begin today forcing them to go indoors.

Ironically, there were as many as 11 rallies in the city during the day. These included a rally by the Trinamool in Park Circus to protest against the state government’s failure to check prices and a similar one by CPM supporters in Tollygunge to protest against inflation.

Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Mao Siwei was quick to give much deserved praise to CPM

“This is a correct decision because the Government of India made a commitment to the Government of China that no anti-China rallies will be allowed to take place anywhere in the country,”

Remember this is the same CPM which had said

right to strike is a fundamental rights of not only government employees but of the entire working class

I guess the for CPM Loyalty towards their masters in China is more important that "some fundamental Right" of people.

Source

HYPOCRISY!

Technorati Tags: China,Hypocrisy,Tibet

Yechury More Worried about Olympic Flame than Human Life

Kiran Bedi has pulled out, and Rahul Gandhi’s mind is not known yet. But when Aamir Khan runs with "the Beijing Olympics torch in his hand and a prayer for Tibet in his heart", he will be rubbing shoulders with Chinese securitymen recently described as 'watchdogs' and 'thugs' in Europe

Security agencies fear self-immolation bids and burning of Chinese flags to disrupt the relay.

Concerned that Tibetan protesters may succeed, CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury called upon the government on Wednesday to see that there were no disruptions.

Mr Yethury, It so sounds like you are more worried that Fire may get Hurt when a person attempts self-immolation bids

 

Link

Silence of the Jackals

Annual wholesale price inflation has jumped to its highest in more than three years at 7 percent. At a time when the Lower and Middle Class of India is reeling under the pressure of Price Increase, CPM the so called WatchDog(No, its not Dog with a Watch) and Saviour of Poor has strangely decided to Remain Silent.

We didnot see CPM Trademark Bandhs and Agitations. If  in Rome, it was Nero Playing fiddle when Rome was burning. India has its communists who decided to play Party Congress when Nation was facing Gravest of Issues. 

The Best we heard was the usual Barking. The CPM party congress called for “sustained and militant actions” which could mobilise crores of people affected by the price rise.

Statistics shows Youth and Women donot See CPM as Alternative

Statistics shows that the young Indian does not see CPM as an attractive political option. only 17% of its members are below 30 years and it has only 12% of women wholetimers across the country.

More Worrying is the attrition Rate whcih CPM is facing, In Kerala, the dropout rate from the party's membership is 10.5%, which is 3% higher than the national average of 7.5%. The dropout rate in West Bengal, where the Left Front has ruled for four decades is only 3.5%. While in Tamil Nadu, there is 16.5% dropout from the party every year.

No wonder the political organisational report of CPM confesses that there is a problem of getting wholetimers in the party.

Report

Technorati Tags: CPM

CPM's 3 conditions for prospective allies

Kick starting efforts to formulate a policy for the third alternative, the Communist Party of India-Marxist on Sunday laid down three essential conditions that any prospective ally must meet.
Senior Politburo member Sitaram Yechury said the party has started discussions on the third alternative and any party that wants to be part of it must:

1. Uncompromisingly oppose communal forces.

2. Oppose the anti-people economic reforms, which are against the working people and which divide the country into shining India and suffering India.

3. Oppose all efforts to try to make India a subordinate ally to United States' imperialism.

Lets start with the first Condition of  Uncompromisingly oppose communal forces

1. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-led Democratic Progressive Alliance in TamilNadu has both IUML and CPM. In the last election, the DMK  contested 130 seats, the Congress 48, the PMK 31, the CPI(M) 13, the CPI 10 and the IUML two. So its is obvious that CPM would have canvassed and Voted for IUML. and this entire alliance was supported by Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam (TMMK). Currently, TMMK was in news opposing an art show on Aurangzeb at the Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai.

2. During Last Kerala Assembly Election, CPM was actively supported by Jamaat-E-Islami. In fact, T Arif Ali, Kerala Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami openly issued support calls for CPM.

3. Abdul Nasser Madhani who was accused of Coimbatore Bomb Blasts is actively supported in CPM

CPM who banished Taslima Nasreen from West Bengal and banned her Book has no right to speak about "opposing" Communal Forces. In fact, under CPM Communal forces have garnered strength.

Secondly, CPM Professes their Love for Working People.

1. The love of CPM for Working People is detailed in Here "The New Feudal Lords of Kerala"

2. If that was not enough we saw the Love for Common people being Expressed in Nandigram and Singrur. Scores of Innocent people have died their, their only mistake was opposing the forceful Land Grab in the Name of "development"

3. lastly, their reaction to the Uprising in Tibet has exposed what ever little decency was left with CPM

Lastly, They donot want India to Ally with USA

1. We can understand who the first preference is for Chinese representatives in India.

Hypocrisy!!!!!

Technorati Tags: CPM,Hypocrisy,Secularism

End of a Era for CPM

The CPM is beginning Coimbatore party congress without its last remaining founding fathers, Jyoti Basu and Harkishen Singh Surjeet.

This is the first time the two veterans — members of the original politburo that had presided over the CPM’s formation by splitting t he undivided communist party in 1964 — will be absent from the important meeting. Both have opted out, citing their advanced age.

Now the Next Era belongs to Leaders like  Husband Wife Duo Prakash and Brinda Karat.  It is Ironic that the UK Educated General Secretary of CPM which claims to be representative of  Workers and Peasants has never worked in his life to earn Livelihood! In fact, According to his own admission he went to Edinburgh University to Avoid Working!

"I wanted to avoid taking a job after my graduation."

His Wife, Brinda Karat was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. A Career Airhostess and a Parttime Actress (she has acted in Amu, a film directed by Shonali Bose), She did her schooling from Premier  Welham  Girls School in Dehradun and College was done from Miranda House one of the premier Women's Institutions of Delhi University. Her political activities ranged from campaigning against the mandatory wearing of skirts in the airlines to accusing famous Hindu seer Baba Ramdev of violating labor laws, and publicizing accusations about his workers mixing human body parts in potions

The best part is the Husband Wife Duo has never won a Popular Election.

Now in Coimbatore, Prakash Karat shares a larger-than-life poster with Fidel Castro and his wife is busy providing "soundbites" to secular media.

What a fall for a party who used to Boast of Leaders like EMS etc...

Technorati Tags: CPM,Hypocrisy

A.B. Bardhan gets his Due in Andhra

CPI party general secretary A.B. Bardhan had a bitter experience when a group of Telangana youngsters manhandled him.

The youth, reported to be supporters of former Telangana Students Union leader Pasham Yadagiri, descended at the ongoing 20th National Congress of the CPI around 9.15 p.m. and started circulating pamphlets in support of Telangana state. They managed to gain entry and tried to corner Bardhan over the delay in announcing the partys stand on separate Telangana.

Bardhan refused to accept the pamphlet from them. Angered over this, the youth pushed him aside and started questioning the State leaders about their stand on Telangana. With the situation going out of control, the volunteers of CPI intervened and bodily lifted the youngsters out of the venue.

Technorati Tags: CPI,Hypocrisy,Politics,U Turns

Jyothi Basu's Secret Tryst with BJP Leaders

Even though publicly the Communists loathed the BJP, Communist patriarch Jyoti Basu held a clandestine meeting with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani when the National Front was in power.

The former West Bengal chief minister sought a meeting with him and Vajpayee because he felt that the multi-party National Front government led by V P Singh was not functioning well.

But Basu laid a pre-condition: the meeting had to be under cover. The message was send thru Viren Shah's a successful Mumbai-based industrialist, a friend of both Advani and Basu, played the emissary. The Message was

“No one should know about our meeting. Especially people in my party would not like it. This government is not functioning properly. I feel the three of us - Atalji, you and I - should meet to discuss the situation. Why don't we meet at Viren Shah's residence in Delhi?”

In their response to Shah, the BJP leaders said:

“We thank Jyoti babu for his suggestion. If he is interested in meeting us, we are prepared to go to Kolkata to meet him there. Otherwise, if he wants the meeting to take place in Delhi, he is most welcome to come to either Atalji's house or my house for dinner.”

The meeting finally took place at Shah's residence.

Source 

Technorati Tags: CPM,Hypocrisy,Politics

CPI goes ballistic over Pelosi`s meeting with Dalai Lama

The Communist Party of India (CPI) has severly criticised US Speaker Nancy Pelosi's meeting with the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala and termed the Tibet issue an "internal affair" of China.

CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan said

"The Government should see that their meeting does not turn into an anti-China meeting,"   .

Perhaps he had Kashmir in Mind when he gave a indirect warning

"All countries have internal areas where the situation is sometimes disturbed. There should be no interference from anyone," 

However, it was earlier in the year CPI was going all out (CPI) supporting the decision of the Seven Party Alliance (SPA), which was spearheading the pro-democracy campaign in Nepal, to spurn the proposal of the monarchy to hand over power to the Alliance.

In fact, the same Mr. A.B. Bardhan  took  exception to India welcoming King Gyanendra's readiness to hand over power to the SPA.

CPI general secretary A.B. Bardhan said the Centre had reacted in a hasty manner.

HYPOCRISY!!!!!

Source

Technorati Tags: China,CPI,Hypocrisy

In the Land of "Land Reforms" Kerala's landless dalits battle for Land

CPM always boasts about revolutionary changes brought about by land reforms ushered in by the communists, starting from the Kerala's first communist government of 1957. But Land struggle in Chengara,
Pathnamtitta district of Kerala by landless Dalits and Adviasis  a different story! The same CPM is now providing leadership to the group opposing this agitation.

Chengara Agitation started on 4 August 2007 demanding permanent
ownership of agricultural land through transfer of ownership from the
Harrison Company to the Landless Dalits and Adivasis. According to
Sadhujana Vimochana Samyukta Vedi (SJVSV), Harrisons Malayalam Limited got chengara land, 1,048 hectares, on lease for 99 years from Chengannur Mundankavu Vanjipuzha Matom and the lease expired long ago and they have not been paying any lease rent to anyone since 1985-86. SJVSV also allege that the company is in fact in possession of almost 5,000 hectares, not 1,048 as per the lease records. So SJVSV is   demanding 5 acres of land and Rs 50,000 for each Landless family.  C R Prakash, youth leader of the SJVSV says

"We've nothing against the plantation as such. We are only occupying land that belongs to us, which was encroached upon by the company. Let the government measure the land and show the company their limits."

RPG group's Harrisons Malayalam Limited is India's largest rubber
plantation company with nine major rubber plantations, and the second largest tea producer in south India, owning 10 tea plantations. The rubber and tea plantations are spread over more than 20,000 hectares of land in South India.

Ironically CPM, The party who brought in Land reforms in Kerala is leading campaign against the agitation. They alleged that the agitators have encroached upon private property, that there are landowners among them etc.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) State secretary Pinarayi
Vijayan has alleged that the agitation at Chengara in Pathanamthitta
district is being funded by U.S.-based imperialist forces. Mr. Vijayan
said

"there were authentic reports on the role of U.S. espionage agencies also playing a role at Chengara and the agitation was an attempt to grab land. Most of those on agitation there were not landless as it was made out to be. The backing given to the Chengara agitation was part of a U.S game plan to defame Left governments in India."

He also added that this was to avenge the strong opposition registered
by the Left parties against the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal.

Home Minister Kodiyeri Balakrishnan  said that "certain other forces" were behind the agitations for land at Chengara. Not to be left behind,Chief Minister VS supported his Home minister alleging that those who were leading the stir were not landless and homeless people.

AK Balan, who is responsible for looking after the interests of the Dalits and Adivasis in the State as its Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister was suspecting that there was an explicit move to transform the Chengara struggle into a Muthanga-type movement.One Adivasi and a police constable had been killed when hundreds of policemen had marched into the Muthanga Wildlife Sanctuary to quell an agitation by Adivasis for land to live on February 2003.

HISTORY REPEATS itself as farce, so went Marx's dictum. In Kerala, where his footsoldiers pulled off the first democratic win in the world, the Red party has turning against their own Policies and people in a vicious somersault.

Technorati Tags: CPM,Land Reforms,Hypocrisy

CPM: Land reform was for developing capitalism

Ask any comrade worth his salt on the biggest Achievement of CPM in India, the answer would be land reforms. However after Nandigram and Singur, comrades are questioning the rationale  of the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government's policy of industrialisation by acquiring farmland. They are desperately looking for directions from the CPM leadership on how to go to the electorate in the coming elections. As the rural population is seething from the state government's aggressive approach in forcibly acquiring land for industrialisation that runs counter to the party ideology of championing the cause of poor farmers.

The Marxist Leadership is at pains to explain the shift in its ideological
and tactical line in favour of its class enemy - the capitalists. after much brainstorming, the CPI-M leadership has come out with a new theory during the Recent West Bengal State Conference. Now according to the Marxist Leadership:

"the land reforms programme implemented during the past 30 years was a process of capitalist development and it is wrong to find in it elements of socialism"

And as a logical corollary to this ideological line, they said

 "current industrialisation initiative is likewise capitalist in character. Both (land reforms and industrialisation) are two different forms of capitalist growth. Capitalism is the intermediate stage between feudalism and socialism. We have to use the  opportunities of industrial growth, while continuing the fight against its negative aspects and keeping in view the objective of abolishing the capitalist system".

I guess as per the new theory of CPM Capitalism is not that bad, after
all they have spend last 30 years implementing it! A "Petite
bourgeoisie" is not a hated word!

Source: By Uday Basu. Kolkata, Jan. 15. A ">The Statesman report

Technorati Tags: Hypocrisy,CPM,Politics,West Bengal

Kerala's New Feudal Lords

It is fifty years since Kerala Elected Worlds First Communist Government. They came to power promising to end feudalism and kingship and lead the state to Prosperity. Fifty years later, now we have a new generation of Feudal Lords, The Communist party Themselves!

Their Power range from Capturing (Reclaiming as CPM calls it) farmers land to setting up the calendar for farmers specifying when they should plant and harvest! They even decide on what means should be used to harvest the Paddy!

Unlike elsewhere in the country, no farmer in Kerala can use "bourgeois" things like harvesting machines, unless they have the comrades sanction. Each farmer must apply to the local office of the CPM’s Travancore Karshaka Thozhilali Union (TKTU), part of Kerala State Karshaka Thozhilali Union (KSKTU), the party’s farm worker union. The union will then consider the applications on a case-to-case basis, send its own inspection teams to the farms. The comrade-inspectors will determine if enough of their union members are really not available to manually do what farm machines could do a lot cheaper and much more efficiently — at wages fixed by the union. Any farmer who dares to use a farm machine without union sanction has to be ready for the consequences.

C K Bodhanandan, TKTU general secretary Thunders

“Farm machines are good only for farmers, helping them make big profits. But they don’t benefit workers. We won’t allow machines to harm workers’ interests,”

Ironically, in this state with a mounting unemployment rate(A recent NSSO survey has found that Kerala has the highest unemployment rate) farmers seldom get enough workers to reap their crop in time each harvest season, and can’t use machines without the comrades’ nod, either.

TKTU chief Bodhanandan says the union has decided on a solution: Make all the farmers sow and reap, taking staggered turns and not at the same time as they have been doing. This is to fit their farming with the availability of union hands to do the farm work.

“We are finalising a calendar for farmers here. From next year, they should plant and harvest at the times specified in it for each, so that enough workers are available, so that they need not come to us asking to be allowed to hire machines,”

Who will educate this union leader "who has never stepped" into a Paddy field that rain and other events of nature necessary for farming Donot follow "Party Calendar".

Due to all the problems, farmers were forced to level paddy fields and cultivate less labour-intensive crops there. But there also, The "Feudal" Comrades had plans for the farmers!

The KSKTU launched the anti-reclamation stir. The anti-reclamation stir earned the sobriquet "vettinirathal samaram'' following the violent methods resorted to by the KSKTU cadre. It was CM Mr. Achuthanandan himself who had inaugurated the agitation in 1996-97. As part of the agitation, the KSKTU workers destroyed the crops completely and then they will plant the red party flag in the "reclaimed" land thus forceful occupying it!

Ironically, the Kuttanad Chethu Tozhilali Union office, where the anti-reclamation stir was inaugurated, was constructed in a filled up paddy field. Guess, the feudal Lords have their own rules!

The result: Harvesting was delayed due to stiff resistance of Left farmer Unions like KSKTU, to bringing in harvestor-machines and non availability of Farm hands compounded by the problem. The entire ‘puncha’ crop in Kerala’s once-acclaimed rice bowl, Kuttanad has been damaged due to untimely summer rains. Thousands of acres of paddy fields is submerged by summer rain over the last few days. Initial estimates by the district administration pegged the loss at around Rs.5 crore, unofficial estimates point towards a loss of at least Rs.10 crore.

Technorati Tags: CPM,Kerala,Politics,Hypocrisy

"Uprising" in Tibet adds Indian communists Misery!

These are not good times for Indian Communists. They are getting dragged from one issue to another and with every Issue their carefully cultivated Mask is slipping off! Last year, It was Carnage at Nandigarm, Few weeks back it was carnage at Kannur and now its their stand vis-à-vis the uprising in Tibet.

On Tibet, Sitaram Yechury, leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, refused to condemn the violence in Tibet, described by the Dalai Lama as 'cultural genocide' by the Chinese government.
Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Yechury said the clashes were an internal affair of China. He asked.

"How can we condemn the incidents in Tibet, which is an internal part of China?"

Ironically, Sitaram Yechury was part of the seven-member political delegation that had visited Nepal in Year 2005 to express solidarity with the people in their "struggle for restoration of democracy". After his trip to Nepal, he had proudly told reporters that the delegation told the Nepali leaders that while Indian political parties were in Kathmandu to express solidarity it was for the people of Nepal and the political parties to address issues such as the character of democracy and its structure, the role of the king in a future set up.
He had said

The struggle for democracy would intensify after the festival period of Dusshera and Deepavali. Last time the struggle for democracy in 1990 took 60 days and hopefully it would take less time now.

When asked about the incident of stoning and black flags being shown to the delegation on its arrival in Kathmandu, Mr. Yechury said,

"In a democracy there is a right to protest ... we only want the king to give such rights to all."

Well, We can understand the predicament of Mr. Yechury. That was Nepal "the Only Hindu Country" and this is China "CPM's Mentor"

Even in parliament, Usually at the forefront of action, particularly over human rights issues, the Left presented a muted picture as MPs cutting across partylines expressed anguish and concern over the crackdown on protesting monks in Tibet. They were even silent even when Gorakhpur MP Adityanath took a sharp dig at Left MPs, referring to them as "China's representatives" in Parliament. I guess sometimes Dogs Do not Bark and this is one of such times.

The Left's silence was all the more striking as the "Red" parties have spent most of last year strenuously denying that their opposition to the India-US nuclear deal had anything to do with their "soft" spot for China which has not been too comfortable about India officially becoming a member of the nuclear club.

Shamefully, they even tried to club Tibet Issue with Kashmir issue which even China has not done! CPI leader Sitaram Yechury said warned

"those who talk of Tibet should remember that Kashmir could well be India's Achilles' heel"

This reminds me of the story "King has new clothes" I guess in this case, it would be safe if we say "CPM has new clothes"

Technorati Tags: China,Hypocrisy,Political Murders

Morichjhanpi Massacre

The Left Government in West Bengal is not new to Mass Murder of Innocent Citizens. Nandigram is just the latest in the series. Before Nandigram it was  the Morichjhapi massacre of the 1970s, featured in Amitav Ghosh's Hungry Tide. There, it was East Bengal refugees in the Sundarbans who were cordoned off, fired on and the survivors evicted. The cost in lives is still unaccounted, but it is likely that thousands were killed.

In the 1960s and 1970s (especially after the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971, Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975 and Zia-ur-Rahman’s coming to power) communal agitations were directed against the Hindus who had remained in East Bengal. Hounded out of East Bengal,  Bengali Hindus from East Pakistan and subsequently Bangladesh entered West Bengal in the hope of settling down. They were however sent to various inhospitable areas outside West Bengal with the assurance that they would eventually be relocated in West Bengal. Ironically, during that time CPM Led opposition, denounced the Congress attempts to evict the refugees from West Bengal and promised that when they came to power they would settle the refugees in West Bengal and that this would, in all probability, be on one of the islands of the Sundarbans.

In 1977, when the CPM Led Left Front came to power, they found the refugee had taken them at their word and sold their belongings and land to return to West Bengal. In 1978 a group of refugees fled from the Dandakaranya camp in Madhya Pradesh and came to the island of Morichjhapi in the Sundarbans with the intention of settling there. In all, 1,50,000 refugees arrived from Dandakaranya1  expecting the government to honour its word. Morichjhanpi, an island in the northern-most forested part of the West Bengal Sundarbans, had been cleared in 1975 and its mangrove vegetation replaced by a governmental programme of coconut and tamarisk plantation to increase state revenue.

The state government was in no mood to tolerate such a settlement. It stated that the refugees were ‘in unauthorised occupation of Morichjhanpi which is a part of the Sundarbans government reserve forest violating thereby the Forest Acts’.  However, according to journalist Niranjan Haldar, who extensively reported and researched the carnage, the refusal of the Udbastu Unnayansil Samity, an association of refugees, to merge with the CPI(M) led to their eviction.

On the January 31, 1979 the police opened fire killing 36 persons. The media started to underscore the plight of the refugees of Morichjhanpi and wrote in positive terms about the progress they were making in their rehabilitation efforts. Photographs were published in the Amrita Bazar Patrika of the February 8, 1979. Fearing more backlash, and seeing the public growing warm towards the refugees’ cause, the chief minister Jyothi Basu declared Morichjhanpi out of bounds for journalists and condemned their reports. The repeated pleas from the dwellers of the island did not reach the mainland owing to the iron fisted control of the left front, over the media. The plight of the refugees was supposed to be published in parts in the Bengali Daily Jugantar,25th July, however after the first part, it had to be discontinued. Later the editor Amitava Chaudhuri wrote, how the CPM led government forced him to back off from carrying forth the further publications, in spite of the declaration of the forth coming 2nd part in the 25th July issue itself.

After the failure of the economic blockade (announced on January 26 – an ironical twist to Republic Day!) in May the same year, the government started forcible evacuation. Thirty police launches encircled the island thereby depriving the settlers of food and water; they were also tear-gassed, their huts razed, their boats sunk, their fisheries and tube-wells destroyed, and those who tried to cross the river were shot at. To fetch water, the settlers had now to venture after dark and deep into the forested portion of the island and forced to eat wild grass. Several hundred men, women and children were believed to have died during that time and their bodies thrown in the river. In all 4,128 families who had come from Dandakaranya to find a place in West Bengal perished of cholera, starvation, disease, exhaustion, in transit while sent back to their camps, by drowning when their boats were scuttled by the police or shot to death in Kashipur, Kumirmari, and Morichjhanpi by police firings. How many of these deaths actually occurred in Morichjhapi we shall never know. However, what we do know, is that no criminal charges were laid against any of the officials or politicians involved.

Source

Technorati Tags: cpm,West Bengal,Political Murders

Why do CPI (M) politburo member & Kerala Party Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan carry bullets in his cabin Baggae?

Last year Chennai airport security confiscating five live .38 rifle cartridges from the cabin baggage of CPI (M) politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan. He was on his way to Delhi for a party meeting. He had earlier reached Chennai via Paramount Airways flight

With the preliminary inquiry of CISF manning the Thiruvananthapuram airport suggesting that no bullets were found in Vijayan’s baggage before he boarded a Paramount Airways flight at 11.30 am to Chennai (before he was to take a Jet Airways flight to Delhi at 5.30 pm).

Pinarayi Vijayan said

“There has been a threat to my life,”

Kerala chief minister VS Achuthanandan added:

“Our leaders had been facing threat and he (Vijayan) procured the revolver on the advice of the home department.”

If Party Secretary of Kerala's ruling Party dont feel safe in Kerala and he has to carry his own gun for his safety the how safe is the common man?

Technorati Tags: hypocrisy,Kerala,VS Achuthanandan