Maoists meet after 36 years, Kashmir to Manipur on agenda

By Shafi Rahman
New Delhi, February 21, 2007: Giving the Union Home Ministry a rude shock, the banned Maoists, who fight a low-level war with Indian state along "red corridor" down a swathe of central India from the border with Nepal in the north to Karnataka in the south, have hosted their 9th party congress at the "liberated zones" along Jharkhand-Bihar border with a call to extend support for secessionist struggles ranging from Kashmir to Manipur.
The month-long Unity Congress, held after a period of 36 years since the 8th Congress in 1970 and first to be held after merger of the Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC) and the People's War Group in 2004, was attended by 100 delgates from 16 states including activists of the fraternal Maoist parties from Nepal , Philippines and Bengladesh.
While vowing to fight the SEZs coming up in different parts of the country, the CPI (Maoist) Congress also supported the demand for pardon of Afzal Guru, convicted in parliament attack case, as well as for formation of separate states of Telengana and Vidarbha. The Congress also exhorted its cadre to use every possible means to free its detained activists by organising jailbreaks, apart from using the constitutional means.
"We should support "just struggles" of nationalities and sub-nationalities that demand a separate state for their development. Kashmiris and various nationalities of North East such as Assamese, Nagas, Manipuris and Tripuris have been long since waging armed struggle against the Indian Government for their right to self-determination, including the right to secede from the so-called Union of India," Muppala Lakshman Rao alias Ganapathi, who was re-elected as general secretary, told the delegates who attended the Congress which concluded on February 3.
Focussing on Kashmir Pproblem, he said: "The conflict between Indian forces and Kashmiris, which has continued unabated, has generated fresh mass resentment in the wake of the Centre's designs to hang Afzal Guru. The Kashmiri people, along with the enlightened democratic sections all over India, have raised the just demand to desist from hanging the innocent Afzal Guru.
The Congress decided to form organizations, "such as 'Committee to Release Prisoners' along with intellectuals, democracy-lovers and members of the families of imprisoned comrades, in solidarity with prisoners' struggles and to lend them strength. "In this direction efforts are already underway," the general secretary said.
According to credential committee report of the Congress top six activists in Andhra Pradesh and 26 in Tamil Nadu are detained under POTA, and 16 in Karnataka, and about 25 comrades in North Chhattisgarh have been languishing in jails.
"With support from the masses, we had carried out historic actions such as the Jehanabad and R Udaigiri Jailbreaks. The Congress calls upon the entire Party ranks and the mass organization rank and file to prepare in this direction and educate the masses," Ganapathi told delegates.
The Congress, upbeat with inroads it made in organizing dalit protests and protests against SEZs, resolved to further strengthen people's army, deepen the mass base of the party.
Recognising role of the caste in class revolution, the Congress made significant additions to the party documents by pin-pointing of the specific character of Indian feudalism/semi-feudalism as being deeply interwoven with the caste system and brahmanical ideology.
The congress reaffirmed the general line of the new democratic revolution with agrarian revolution as its axis and protracted people's war as the path of Indian revolution that had first come into the agenda with the Naxalbari upsurge.
The Maoist Communist Centre of India (MCC) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) People's War (also known as the People's War Group or PWG) merged to form a new entity, the Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) on September 21, 2004.