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Friday, May 16, 2014

India- Oppose arrest of G.N. Saibaba and overall repression on Revolutionary Democratic Front!

This is an important issue that has been reported by left presses. It’s important that people in the world know about this injustice. We also need to stand in solidarity with Professor G.N. Saibaba of India. - សតិវ អតុ

From Kasama project:

The formation of revolutionary democratic Front in India in 2005 with the merger of the All India Peoples Resistance Forum and the Struggle for Peoples Resistance has historic importance in the annals of the Indian democratic Movement. It has waged heroic struggles for defending the democratic rights of the people repressed by Operation Greenhunt and their struggles on the agrarian and urban front. The R.D.F has fought against all odds to survive against attacks of the state and defend the legitimate right of the C.P.I.(Maoist) to be given political status as well as it's sympathizers and members. Last year it's vice-president Ganti Prasadam was assassinated by goons it's general secretary Raj Kishore arrested in his village in Bihar and deputy secretary G.N.Saibaba's home raided. Revolutionary activists world over have to defend the right of Revolutionary Democratic Front to survive and be allowed to legally function. Unofficially it is suppressed and banned and it's activists incarcerated. The arrest yesterday of its head G.N.Saibaba was not just an individually attack but an attack on the democratic movement on the whole by the Indian state which wishes to label revolutionary activists as 'C.P.I.(Maoist) members. Although the Revolutionary Democratic Front has a legitimate right to function within the framework of the constitution unofficially or morally it is banned from functioning in any state openly. Inspite of repression it frequently brought out it's Hindi journal 'Jan Pratirodh' which defended the gains of the agrarian movement and the building of people’s democratic power. Sadly we do not have its English translations which would have been great to have online.(36 issues have come out)It also conducted a protest in Delhi protesting the massacre of tribals in Bijapur village of Chattisagrh in June 2012.There was also a joint protest rally within forum against war on the people conducted in a region in Bihar exposing Operation Greenhunt. Against all odds its activists and units are struggling to build a revolutionary democratic movement. be it on the agrarian, urban or cultural front.
Earlier,a constituent of the Revolutionary Democratic Front, the All-India Peoples Resistance Forum staged 3 conferences. These took place first in Calcutta in 1994, a fantastic mobilization in the rally consisting of over one lakh people)then in Hyderabad in 1997 and finally in Sangrur in 2000.They were historic steps in assembling the struggling revolutionary organizations like the Andhra Pradesh Radical Students Union and Andhra Pradesh Rytu Collie Sangham or the Mazdoor Kisan Sangrami Parishad  and Bharat Naujavan Sabha in Bihar etc. They also gave solidarity to the nationality struggles ,democratic rights of minorities and the anti-imperialist mass movements .The author cannot forget the 1992 rally in Calcutta attended by 10 lakh peasants resembling a storm thundering, literally lighting a red flame .I also have similar feelings towards the seminar on ’50 years of independence ‘held in Mumbai. Here all aspects of repression and struggle were represented throwing light on the armed peasants struggles in Andhra Pradesh, Dandkaranya and Bihar. Above all the best programmes were those opposing the state repression in Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Dandkaranya carried out in 1999 in Punjab, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh. It brilliantly utilized the legal channels available and got great response from the broad masses. A repetition of that campaign is a virtual need of the hour. They lit a torch in opposing the iron feet of oppression by the state against the democratic revolutionary peasant movements. The author recommends readers to read the April -June issue of Peoples Resistance and many of its earlier issues which reports the democratic revolutionary struggles of Andhra Pradesh, Dandkaranya and Bihar .I wish all of those were posted online which constitute a historic part of the archives of the Indian democratic movement. 
Sadly since its formation, insurmountable repression has been launched on the Revolutionary Democratic Front. In West Bengal 2 of their office bearers have been arrested and in Jharkhand open rallies are virtually prohibited. They are simply dubbed as ‘Maoist’ outfits and their revolutionary democratic identity is virtually erased. The R.D.F. has units in Punjab, Uttarkhand, Delhi, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar. However it has still been unable to form effective functioning units becoming consistent victims of state repression. In Orissa it was banned even before officially forming an organization, while in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana or Maharashtra they have stray contacts but no proper organization. In recent years the R.D.F carried out a huge range of programmes covering every sphere of struggle. They fought for the release of political prisoners, defended struggles of nationalities, opposed repression on minorities, gave solidarity to peasant movements in Lalgarh and Dandkaranyanya  and supported anti-imperialist movements. It is a tribute to the organization that withstanding the repression they held sammelan sin Punjab in 2007 and 2011, in Bihar and Kharkand in 2009  and in Uttarkhand in 2010.One of the most significant solidarity movements was that of opposing the death sentence on the peasants in 2004 on the Bihar peasants. Thousands of mass activists from around the struggling areas were even prevented from participating in the conference and in Chattisgarh 35 activists were arrested on the way to the venue.

After 2006 there were great  efforts to curtail the movements of the R.D.F. The most important struggles which the R.D.F launched independently were for the unconditional release of political prisoners from 2-8 2006,,against Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh from 19-25 January in 2006,forming the Campaign committee for the release of political prisoners in April 2006,a bandh call in Orrisa, Jharkhand and Bihar on 14th October 2006 against the arrest of leader Sheela Devi, an all-India conference on March 23rd 2007 opposing displacement on Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom day. With other organizations R.D.F. under the banner of CATAS  launched a campaign from 10August to November 10th  against Salwa Judum in 14 states with a culmination convention in Delhi on 9th and 10th November with a public rally organized and a memorandum given .R.D.F. endorsed several anti-war fronts  and promoted a series of joint forums condemning the killing of Azad and opposing Operation Greenhunt. Against Nandigram and Singur RDF joined a series of Dharnas. It also sent civil liberties activities to visit places of State repression. Sadly we could not witness the level of open struggles like the erstwhile organizations like the All-India Peoples Resistance Forum.
The historic first conference of the Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) went underway ton 22 April 2012 in the Sundarayya Vignana Bhavan in Hyderabad with the hoisting of the RDF flag by Goru Madhav Rao, the veteran fighter of the Srikakulam Armed peoples’ uprising and the founding president of All India Peoples’ Resistance Forum (AIPRF). The red flag was hoisted with slogans hailing the ongoing revolutionary movement and condemning the Indian state’s repressive class violence in the form of Operation Green Hunt and now Operation Haka and Operation Vijay. The martyr’s column was unveiled by Mallamma, the mother of the martyred revolutionary leader G. Shankar, also known as Sheshanna and Shamsher, state committee member of the North Telangana Special Zonal Committee (NTSZC) of the CPI(Maoist). Resistance songs were performed by members of Jharkhand Abhen, Praja Kala Mandali and Revolutionary Cultural Front.
It is a tribute to their tenacity that they have defended the struggles in Dandkaranya and Jharkhand and remained a fighting force. The need of building broader independent revolutionary democratic forum to defend the revolutionary rights of the masses is the need of the hour and the formation of the Revolutionary Democratic front is an answer to this. 
Above all a united democratic rights movement and strong democratic rights organization is the need of the hour to thwart the repression of the state on activists and movements. Without it we can never build a strong revolutionary movement.

Long Live the Revolutionary Democratic Front of India and condemn the attacks and arrests on its activists!

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