Resist The Assaults On The People Of Nonadanga
By Democratic Students union
03 May, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Resist the assaults on the people of Nonadanga by the fascist Trinamool government in Bengal! Fight for the immediate release of student activists Debolina and Abhignan! Support the Relief Campaign for the Evicted People of Nonadanga!
Nonadanga, a slum area in the Kolkata suburbs has by now become synonymous with many a things in Bengal. It glaringly reflects how despite the so-called ‘change’ in West Bengal government, after three decades of social fascist rule by the CPM, what did not change is the continuous eviction of people in the name of ‘development’, ‘beautification’ and other jargons used to justify the devastation of imperialist capital. It also shows the mounting state repression on people’s activists who chose to stand by the fighting people, incarceration of democratic activists with trumped up charges, and persistent clamp-down on voices of dissent. On the other hand, it exemplifies the continuing resolute fight of the people against the ruling classes, notwithstanding the party in power, carrying forward the legacy of Singur, Nandigram and Lalgarh struggles. While the new chief minister Mamata Banerjee is going ballistic in the media ‘threatening’ people not to raise their voices in protest of any kind against her fascist rule, the people in Kolkata have once again become vocal against the same, particularly the people in Nonadanga made it clear that they are not going to give up. Despite their houses being razed to the grounds with all their belongings, the people have refused to move from their land, trying to reclaim what was forcefully snatched from them. While the state has erected walls around the seized area of the slum and are planning more demolitions and evictions, the people of Nonadanga are resolutely fighting back unitedly with people of other adjoining slums.
The tale of eviction, demolition and dispossession of people will not stop at Nonadanga, unless we resist it now! Apprehending the mass upsurge of people against her ‘development drives’, Mamata is applying all kinds of fascist tactics to throttle all voices of dissent. The incarceration of two student activists, one of them being booked under the draconian UAPA is a part of that fascist design, while the other under sedition charges. The following is an appeal issued by concerned students and alumni of Jadavpur Univesity to demand the unconditional release of Debolina and Abhijnan who have been falsely implicated and arrested for standing with the Nonadanga evictees. The appeal also gives a call for contribution of relief for the fighting people of Nonadanga. DSU is conducting a relief collection campaign, and we request you to contribute for this relief fund. An all India Students team from various universities including JNU will visit Nonadanga on the 8 of May. We appeal to the students, teachers and karamcharis of JNU to contribute for the relief of the evicted residents of Nonadanga and stand in solidarity with the fighting masses and incarcerated activists.
- Democratic Students union (DSU)
Call for Solidarity with the evicted people of Nonadanga & for the Unconditional Release of Debolina and Abhijnan from concerned students and alumni of Jadavpur University
The arrests and continuing incarceration of the people’s activists Debolina Chakrabarti and Abhijnan Sarkar is a matter of concern for one and all. Why is it that Debolina Chakrabarti and Abhijnan Sarkar have become specific targets for the fascist government of Mamata Banerjee? As students of Jadavpur University—Debolina has discontinued her studies while Abhijnan still continues to be a student—both of them have been in the forefront of all people’s movements and their struggle against displacement let alone the policies of loot and plunder of people’s resources aggressively followed by the CPM-led government and now the Mamata Banerjee led regime.
On this occasion both were actively participating in the students and intellectuals’ solidarity with the people of Nonadanga who were forcefully evicted and their settlements demolished by the state forces on 30th March,2012. Nonadanga residents constituted primarily the resettled cyclone victims from Sundarbans or evicted slum dwellers from several other quarters of Kolkata –victims of a manmade catastrophe named ‘development’. The entire 80 acres of land in Nonadanga have been a target for eviction to be handed over to the real estates ever since CPM regime. What is happening today under Mamata is a continuity of the same - exposing her pro-people rhetoric. Ever since the eviction, state forces repeatedly cracked down upon the protesting Nonadanga evictees and its supporters constituting over hundred arrests and lathicharges on April 4th, 8th, 9th, 12th and latest again on 28th. While others have been released eventually after continued public outcry and protests, Debolina and Abhijnan continue to be behind bars.
Debolina and Abhijnan are good examples of students who have conscientiously moved forward from the four walls of their class rooms to the bitter reality of the everyday lives of the toiling masses to be part of them – from Singur to Nonadanga. It is this kind of a political culture in service of the people, to be in solidarity with their struggles to build a new world that Mamata Banerjee is unable to face politically and hence would pull all efforts in her capacity using her lawless police and bureaucracy to criminalise such youth through false cases.
Debolina was a student of the International Relations Department of Jadavpur University. She left her studies to carry on democratic movements and stood by the side of the people. She was associated with the Singur anti-land grab movement that had prepared the ground for Mamata to come to power. When the people of Nanigram raised their voice against the formation of SEZs and Chemical hubs under the notorious Salem industrial group, she went there and took part in the people’s heroic struggle launched by the Bhumi Ucched Protirodh Committee (BUPC) against displacement from their land and habitats and was also instrumental in forming the Matangini Mahila Samiti (MMS). The MMS was a women’s forum that fought against patriarchy, against SEZs and imperialist capital and against CPM hermads. It was associated with the day-to-day struggles against all onslaughts carried out by Lakshman Seth-Binoy Konar-Sushanta Ghosh-Tapan-Sukur-Naba Samanta gang.
After coming to power, Mamata Banerjee turned her ire against the ongoing peoples’ movements and initiated a slander and intimidation campaign by denouncing the Matangini Mahila Samiti as a ‘satanic brigade’. The police as usual described Debolina as a ‘Maoist’ who could be detained, tortured, humiliated and made a prisoner at will. It is crystal clear that the intelligence officials would subject Debolina to brutal mental and physical torture and send her to prison to languish there for as many years as possible. Should we allow such injustice to be done by this vindictive, cruel and anti-people chief minister of West Bengal? Debolina has started a hunger strike to protest against the unjust incarceration.
Abhijnan Sarkar, an engineer and a researcher in the metallurgy department of Jadavpur university, has been a member of the student group RSF and has actively participated in peoples movements in West Bengal for many years, as part of different solidarity fora. He is the editor of the periodical “Towards a New Dawn” in Kolkata which is circulated throughout India. Abhijnan is also associated with the Sanhati Collective and has reported on the police repression on the Nari Ijjat Bachao Committee in Lalgarh. Abhijnan was detained once by West Bengal CID while he was coming to give an interview in ICSSR in Delhi in 2010. He was thoroughly interrogated about his role and involvement in various people’s
struggle like that in Nandigram. In 2011 he was once again detained along with a doctor by the notorious joint forces while they were attending a medical camp in the remote villages of Lalgarh. But in both the cases the police could not frame him in any case and were forced to release him. Currently he has been booked under the false bogus cases of Haldia. The draconian sedition act and arms act have been slapped on him.
We appeal to all justice-loving and freedom-loving people of the country to raise their voice against the continuing incarceration of Debolina and Abhijnan on the basis of cooked-up charges and demand their unconditional release. Their only crime is to stand in solidarity with the people of Nonadanga and raise their voices against the gross injustice. As conscious students it becomes our duty to stand up for the right to dissent. By demanding the unconditional release of Debolina and Abhijnan we as students in turn make a significant stride towards strengthening the will of the fighting people of Nonadanga. The smokescreen of the ‘unlawful’ and the ‘illegal’ built around Debolina and Abhijnan by the state is actually a deliberate infringement of the right of students to join hands with the toiling masses against a dog-eat-dog policy of the government in the form of Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation. We must stand against such fascist tactics of muffling the democratic struggles of the poeple. We thereby appeal to all students and intellectuals of other universities also to join this struggle in support of the people of Nonadanga and for the unconditional release of Debolina and Abhijnan. We also appeal for the contribution of relief to be delivered to the Nonadanga evictees in solidarity with their continued struggle.
- Concerned students and alumni of Jadavpur University
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