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Anti-Dam Movement In Assam: Are Maoists From Jupiter?

By Trevor Selvam

01 January, 2012
Countercurrents.org

The Anti-Dam Movement in Assam is in an important phase. It has been shaping up for a while and is beginning to assume significance. Recently however its prominence has been accelerated and upgraded by the State to pre-empt the movement from growing, by mischievously assigning Maoist vectors to it.

Progressive folks should be aware now and not regret later. Because it will be too late to review it, when blood streams down the rivers of Assam... And it will be too late also for the people of Assam, when “progressive “ websites wake up, smell the tea and start analyzing the Maoists again in the same manner that some of them did as “experts” on the shows broadcast from New Delhi and Mumbai during Lalgarh and after various clashes with Maoists in Bastar. The blood will have dried on the parched soil of Assam, by then.

Aside from the Government's pre-emptive political manipulations, there are other significant issues worth pointing out.

The reports are that folks with a Maoist background are involved!

Terrifying! Is it not? For folks who watch TV incessantly, follow blogs and make routinely incoherent and stupid comments on whatever they read, this is another alarming spectre. The spectre that the nation is being “invaded” by aliens and therefore an opportunity to pour out their xenophobic, China- baiting nonsense. It is expedient for the government to tickle their nerves. By putting the Maoist stamp on any movement that is a legitimate reflection of peoples’ aspirations, the governments of Assam and India are playing games. The mainstream media, as well, who have no interest in carrying out in depth, on site interviews, as do the folks in Russia Today and Al Jazeera, will routinely make alarming statements to further ratchet up the sense of alarm. They play out their traditional role of parroting whatever the State Secretary puts out by way of press releases. Like NBC, ABC, CNN and others. It is the headlines that count. Behind every notorious headline (“Naxals kill elephants to sell ivory and buy Chinese arms, Naxals grow pot and buy Pakistani arms, Naxals sign up with Anti-India ULFA militants, Naxals against education, they blow up schools” all actual headlines in Indian media, without a shred of evidence ever provided) there is a nefarious attempt by the mainstream media to shore up the collapsing body politique of the Indian State.

Why should the Maoists not be involved? Are Maoists aliens?

From Jupiter? Why should they not be involved? They are Indian citizens, who are workers, students, women activists, journalists, trade union activists, civil rights workers, film makers, lawyers, civic society intellectuals, economists, engineers, environmentalists, anti-GMO activists and most importantly aboriginal people and peasants who care for their country and who have the right to intervene where they feel masses of people are upset with the non-democratic process that is deployed.

And then there are the website Leftists

“But this is a mass movement and how can Maoists be involved?” they ask naively, as always. It is another attempt to undermine the other organizations who are working “democratically”! " Maoists don’t do mass movements! " It is constantly repeated that they are into guerilla-ism and don’t carry out mass work. When they do get involved in a large scale movement, as they have done on countless occasions, it is seen as sabotage.

Have we not heard that banter from the usual anti-Maoist crowd?

"They infiltrate good causes, create violent incidents and then walk away into the jungles!"

How do these movements begin?

Well, this is how it typically begins. Maoists don’t infiltrate, neither do they sabotage. They are there as individuals or representatives of their party in most locales. The movements throw up natural leaders who galvanize their community. The movement spreads, as there is widespread community support. Maoists do not stand by and watch as spectators. They get involved in grass roots activities. They often provide the organizational backbone and the means for the mass organization to defend itself, when attacked. This is what happened in Singur and Nandigram as well. Maoists cannot remain bystanders for too long. The Maoists have also learnt a lot of lessons, however painfully, from movement to movement. And each time they seem to improve their strategy, change their tactics and there is no doubt about their sincere belief in their cause. They keep coming back no matter what losses they suffer. Without a doubt, they are engaged in praxis, like no other group in India, as far as popular struggles are concerned.

Is Rasta Rokho too violent a process, for those who have an anal disposition towards non-violent means?

Typically for a banned movement, this is how it always starts. This is how they engage in mass work. They block the roads. And they must work without blowing their cover. Mass road blockages, sit down occupations, general strikes... and not just stage-managed circus-tent like hunger strikes as in the Hazare movement. The people of India have known OCCUPATION technology for a long time... As they did in the Anti-Posco struggle as well as with Lalgarh, Singur and Nandigram. Large grassroots mass organizations develop peaceful mass struggles. But cannot always coordinate their gains, their leaders are continuously harassed, harangued, arrested, tortured or killed. Medha Patkar knows this, Chatradhar Mahato knows this and Sankar Guha Neogy knew it. Amongst many others, including the RTI activists who have been murdered, one thing should now be clear-- That if you have not thought out your strategy to deal with the ferociousness of the state or the mining mafia, the steel mafia and the corporate blue-eyed boys then there shall be losses and the movement will suffer. Your head is on the chopping block! The State is not in this game to protect you and your family.

When push comes to shove they will take out your family as well.

Unlike in OWS where North American young city folks are maced and pepper sprayed by city cops and there is full video coverage, in countries like India, Philippines and other countries, large mass movements have women and aboriginal leaders who get brutalized and baton charged, arrested, tortured and then the firing begins. They are always in the front lines and not as the mainstream media suggests-- that they are used as shields.

Then their leaders get beaten up and jailed. Then the road blocks start. The movements don’t get publicity when they start. In India there is lesser video coverage, as of now. The government of India and the Assam government have orchestrated propaganda for the past several weeks and upped the ante that some shady alliances are building up in the North East. China-sensitivity and border security issues then get applied with full force to create the usual petty-mindedness. The Delhi-based mindset does not change. India to them is the Hindi-speaking belt and as well the non-Hindi speaking South, which is rampant with xenophobia, even in relation to India's own citizens, if they do not fit this Hindi-South axis. No wonder that a large section of the people of the North East and Kashmir have scant feelings of citizenship. They are sidelined, viewed with suspicion and presumed as foreign collaborators very quickly. To that you add the Maoist dimension and an entire peoples' movement gets sidelined. Not one mainstream TV station is properly covering this agitation and it's socio- political genesis.

The PUDR in a statement dated December 29, has the following to say,

“Which ‘People’ are the Dams for?

People’s Union for Democratic Rights strongly condemns the police firing, lathi-charge and arrest of peaceful protesters of the anti-dam movement in Assam in the last two days. Nearly 400 people who had been gathering at the protest site at Ranganadi in Lakhimpur town of north Assam since 16th of December were arrested in the wee hours of 26th December. Later when thousands of protesters reassembled to continue their protest at Chauldhowa in the morning of 27th December, police fired in the air, burst tear gas shells, and resorted to lathi-charge to evict the protesters.

The people in the district of Lakhimpur are protesting as the government has started work on the 2010MW Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Project (LSHEP) on the Subansiri river, without taking into consideration the economic and social implications the dam would have for the people of rural Assam. The farmers of rural Assam have already experienced the outcomes of construction of dams in several other rivers. For past several years the cultivable agricultural lands have been damaged due to sand-siltation, and life has become miserable due to sudden floods caused by water released by hydro-electric projects. Even a report from an expert committee of scientists from IIT Guwahati and other universities of Assam has warned the government against such mega-dams in a tectonically instable region, as it might result in big earthquakes. ”

The Popular response so far

“A large public meeting held at Guwahati, Assam today expressed their support to the ongoing anti-dam movement in Assam. This meeting was attended by various opposition parties, human rights organizations, women bodies, civil society, student organization, bank unions, trade unions. The meeting condemned the Assam government's actions on the peaceful demonstrations. The speakers had asked the Assam CM, Shri Tarun Gogoi and the Indian government to realize the peoples' protest against the mega dams in Arunachal. “ -The Assam Tribune, December 29, 2011.

The Assam government however, is playing the Maoist card. “The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) is being helped by Maoists and the entire anti-dam movement is being orchestrated by the ULFA and the Maoists" – according to the Assam CM Tarun Gogoi.

Reacting to the Chief Minister’s statement, KMSS General Secretary Akhil Gogoi said, “Tarun Gogoi’s claim will only help Maoists and ULFA to establish themselves in Assam. People are being regularly attacked when they raise fear that the mega dams will bring more misery to their lives as they are dependent on rivers. Tarun Gogoi is not prepared to listen to the apprehensions of the people,” he told reporters at Chauldhowa in Lakhimpur district.

It is a strange spectacle indeed. Farmers and peasants who have known from experience that these mega dams bring destitution, deprivation and death unless there is proper consultation, explanation and rectification--- are being treated like non-citizens. Are they also from Jupiter?

Trevor Selvam is a frequent contributor to Countercurrents.org

 

 



 


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