Karate Kattas

Shafi Rahman
INDIA TODAY July 17, 2008

Last week when Prakash Karat drove his mud-splashed white Ambassador car to meet with Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati in a surprise political move, it seemed like a new journey for the CPI(M) general secretary-from the walled garden of AKG Bhavan into the wilds of heartland politics proper.
Karat's move came at a time when he was being increasingly isolated, with even leaders from his own flock raising objections to his decision to vote alongside the BJP against the UPA Government.
By aligning with Mayawati, once the Left's bete noire, it seems Karat is trying to mold himself into a street smart politician to ensure the Congress does not end up winning the numbers game.
Emerging out of the meeting, Karat declared: "Mayawati reiterated her opposition to the deal. It was decided that there should be cooperation to stop the deal, and in the struggle against the UPA Government."
Karat is matching the brave words with some brave actions. He expects to fracture the Samajwadi Party (SP), a "natural ally" which ditched him midway, with the help of BSP.
With the Left breaking away from the SP for the first time since 1989 and joining hands with Mayawati, the BSP will be able to scrape off some of the "anti-minority" patina earned with its association with the BJP.
Though it will not mean much electorally for the Left, the move would embolden the Mayawati camp planning to woo fence-sitters prior to the crucial trust vote on July 22. The flowering political romance with Mayawati is only part of the picture.
Karat's gameplan also includes wooing smaller parties which could swing the confidence vote away from the Congress. Parties like the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM), Janata Dal (S), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and National Conference (NC), with a total of 13 MPs, are also being wooed with equal fervour.
While TDP leaders Chandrababu Naidu and Yerran Naidu have been entrusted with the task of wooing JD(S) chief H.D. Deve Gowda and TRS leader K. Chandrashekhar Rao, Karat himself is trying his persuasion skills with the NC.
Karat's plunge into street politics comes with a price. It has made him retract on contentious ideological issues. The CPI(M) had once termed Kanshi Ram a CIA agent and the BSP founder had returned the compliment by describing the Left as "green snake in the green grass".
Even the draft of the political resolution circulated in the recent 19th party congress of the CPI(M) had said that "the victory of the BSP in Uttar Pradesh highlights the challenges posed by the growing political mobilisation based on caste identities".
The reference to the BSP was diluted later when the political resolution was adopted at the party congress which, however, said that "a serious challenge is today posed by the growing political mobilisation based on caste identities".
Yet, so desperate is Karat to prevent the nuclear deal with the US from going through that such ideological compromises are now acceptable. That also comes with a price.
As the dust settles on Karat's decision to withdraw support to the UPA, his party is barely holding together. Karat is having to battle growing uneasiness among some party leaders over the decision to vote alongside the BJP.
West Bengal Transport Minister Subhas Chakraborty said that voting with the BJP would be against the party's policies "that will take years to explain the blunder".
With his political opponents also taking up Chakraborty's arguments, Karat says that the Congress has no right to blame the Left as it had voted with the BJP to bring down the V.P. Singh government in 1990 and later "conspired" to remove the governments of H.D. Deve Gowda in 1997 and I.K. Gujral in 1998.
"We have never said that we are voting with the BJP. We have talked to other parties, not to the BJP. If other parties want to talk to us, we cannot push them out. We are voting against the UPA because of its policies. If the BJP wants to vote against (UPA), they have a right to do so," says Karat.
The air of desperation will grow more evident if Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee decides to light another fire. He rebuffed Karat for not consulting him before adding his name to the list submitted to President Pratibha Patil by making public his plans to continue in the office.
He also shot off a stinker to Karat, which said that voting with the BJP triggered his decision to hold on to the Speaker's post. Chatterjee's decision, unusual in the party known for cadre discipline, has also diverted Karat's focus from his high-stake fight against the UPA.
Karat, on a fire-fighting mode, faxed Chatterjee's letter to West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya who rushed to Chatterjee's mentor Jyoti Basu asking him to intervene on the behalf of the party.
The issue of voting against the Government alongside the BJP is expected to come up for discussion in the Central Committee meet scheduled on the weekend.
That doesn't mean the long knives are out for him, and Karat is expected to ram his decision through the CPI(M)'s most powerful body, when the party congress is not in session.
Known for wariness to engage in political manoeuvres, Karat has transformed himself into a street fighter in a matter of a few days. Whether that new avatar makes him a better politician will be revealed on Tuesday.

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GO CLIMB A VOLCANO

Tokyo, Jan 10, 2007

Tokyo has everything one always imagined of the city -- urgent rhythms of consumer life, shoe-box residential flats and punctuality freaks. Japanese professor Masaru Narisawa, a Tohoku University Professor of Korean Ethno Cultural System, took me on day one to a Sushi Bar. Raw fish, rice soaked in soyabeen sauce, horse radish. He places order for Sake, Japanese wine. There are two types of wines -- hot and cold. He threatens to blow me hot and cold. He asks me about India "Devis" and "Devas". I give him chartbusters from Hindu Pantheon of Gods. After an hour he is poorer by 8746 Yen. Our combined effort adds to Japans 3 trillion dollar eating-out industry.

My hotel has friendly staff as they promised in the brochure. It has a huge bath tub. An urban chlorine bouquet. I step in and spills water on carpet and prove Pythagorus again at Koraku Garden hotel.

Even though winter is in, cherry blossoms linger on. Public announcements follow you everywhere you go – in trains, shopping malls. Metro trains has announcements in Japanese with a peculiar tone – as if MS Subhalakshmi singing through a electric shaver.

I visited Tokyo Tower. Over 300 meter high. A tourist trap. A neon assault. Moon hits eye like a pizza pie.My trip to Kyoto was nice. I bought a 5-day travel pass for 11500 yen. It offers five day unlimited travel.I arrived at Kyoto after traveling in a night train. Winter fog is blotting its morning stars. Kyoto, the imperial capital between 794 and 1868, has all the old world charms. 1500 budhist shrines, 1000 Shinto shrines and a wayward Muslim.

Himmeji castle, built by Norimura Akamatsu in 1933 A relic from feudal era. Harakiri rooms and all. Kurosova shot The Magnificient Seven here. Rie Ito, an English teacher who moonlights as a tourist guide tells me. "Now people read comics. Nobody watches Kurosova," she laments. One could spot Geishas and apprentice geishas in streets of Kyoto. Vibrant restaurant scenes here. I stroll through famous path of Philosophy, a 6km walk in numeric terms. Plenty of chill down the bones and loads of chlorophyll.

Nijo-jo castle nearby has 'nightingale floors,' floors that are designed to creak and squeak when you walk on them. They were designed to trap enemies. During my stay in Osaka, near Kyoto, my friend Abhilash takes me to a popular Malayali dining spot, run by Job from Alappuzha. Japanese Rajani fans meet here regularly. Nara was the best spot I visited. The ancient capital, Nara Heijokyo, established in 710 A.D. and modeled on Changan, Capital of Tang Dynasty China. People, and even cats, seem to be on Valium and walks in slow motion. I managed to see a full-length village festival.

No matter how much rice and fish you eat, my friends say it is difficult to fit in Japan. Always sets of eyes burn on you when travel in train. Foreigners are seen as a freak, not one among by them by Japanese. I couldn't get a perspective of my own on these things. People look friendly in a distant way. But I also share some of my friend's doubts. So I follow the cardinal principal of journalism. When you are in doubt, take the risk and climb a volcano. I will visit Mount Fuji, a scenic volcano tomorrow. Bye for now.

The M-factor

Farzand Ahmed and Shafi Rahman
INDIA TODAY July 10, 2008

When in desperation, put on your skull cap. The nuclear deal hitherto debated away from its communal implications, has been gaining the good ol' Muslim angle.
Though the deal is yet to be signed, community organisations and politicians are revving up for the occasion. It all started with CPI(M)'s senior politburo member M.K. Pandhe inserting the nuclear deal into the list of grievances of Indian Muslims and announcing that "an overwhelming majority of the Muslim masses" opposed it.
He urged Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav not to alienate them by supporting it.
Though the Left party quickly distanced itself from his comments, the debate gained momentum as political parties jumped to the conclusion that the deal with the "Satan" can be a big ticket item in around 100 constituencies, where Muslim votes are decisive.
Last week, as her arch rival Mulayam extended support to the Congress-led UPA over the nuclear deal with the US, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati felt political tremors under her feet and followed up Pandhe's comments with vigour. She targeted Mulayam by saying that his secularism had been a tamasha.
"Remember, it was Mulayam who had stopped Sonia Gandhi from becoming the prime minister and helped the BJP-led NDA to rule for six years. Now the Congress and SP are cosying up for the deal," she said.
She firmed up her "anti-Muslim" theory by inviting influential Sunni and Shia clerics to discuss the deal's impact on the community and the problems the Muslims faced.
It was due to the efforts of former Union minister Akhilesh Das and Siraj Mehdi, both of whom had recently resigned from the Congress to join BSP, that a group of ulema and maulanas including Shia cleric Maulana Kalbe Sadiq, Maulana Khalid Rasheed Fringi Mahali and Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman, many of whom were with 'Maulvi' Mulayam till recently, walked into her house to thank her for her bold stand on the deal and to pledge their support to her.
Mahali even declared that through her clear stand, Mayawati has won the hearts of Muslims even as Rahman, the firebrand Imam of Tilawali Masjid, warned Mulayam that if he did not desist from joining hands with the Congress, a fatwa would soon be issued against him.
In response to this, SP General Secretary Amar Singh, the main architect of the SP-Congress deal, said that the whole world knows that Mayawati has been hobnobbing with the BJP by sharing power with the saffron party thrice in the past.
However, Mayawati's move to win over the Muslims suffered a serious setback when Maulana Abdul Khaliq Madrasi, the deputy rector (naib mohtamim) of Dar-ul-Uloom Deoband and Hazrat Maulana Tauquir Raza Khan, the spiritual head of the Barelvi school of thoughts supported the nuclear deal and snubbed the handpicked clerics of Lucknow for supporting Mayawati who had "never cared for Muslims".
And these men head two of the highly-revered Islamic institutions that can influence many Sunni Muslims in north India.
The Congress, which has been wooing Muslim votes with a slew of schemes, is now trying to diminish the stirring nature of the anti-Muslim theory.
The party claims that the Muslim opposition is restricted to the policies of outgoing US President George W. Bush and not with the deal.
"Muslims may have an issue with the shopkeeper but not with the product," said Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi.
But like the Congress and RJD, SP leaders too seem to have turned the table upon Mayawati and the Left by trying to convince the Muslims that not only is the nuclear deal in national interest but that the BJP was a bigger threat to them.
Uttar Pradesh, with 19 per cent Muslim votes, plays a key role in deciding the fortunes of political parties in the Lok Sabha polls.
The community had been a strong pillar of Mulayam's Muslim—Yadav combination till Mayawati forged her rainbow coalition successfully. SP is, therefore, planning to announce its Muslim candidates for the Lok Sabha polls, before the trust vote in Parliament to keep its flock together.
The party is also making use of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam's endorsement of the deal to counter the anti-minority perception.
Leading Urdu weekly Nai Dunia, ironically, owned and edited by SP MP Shahid Siddiqui carried a survey that showed that 70 per cent of Muslims in the country were opposed to the deal.
It also said that 85 per cent Muslims considered America their biggest enemy while about 70 per cent felt that the UPA Government has done nothing for the Muslims.
The party under the changed situation has rubbished the survey. But the tragedy is that the survey was "conducted" when the party had been against the deal but was published when it had reversed its stand.
Major political parties of Jammu and Kashmir, the National Conference (NC) and People's Democratic Party have said that the deal is not against the community.
"We do not consider it against Muslims. The deal is either good or bad for the country. Where does the issue of Muslims come here?" said Omar Abdullah, NC president.
The CPI(M) in West Bengal and Kerala too is planning to hit the poll turf with the nuclear deal issue. In northern Kerala with a sizeable Muslim population, the party will play to community sentiments by raising the issue.
The Indian Union Muslim League (IUML), part of the Congress-led front in Kerala, will find it difficult to hold its turf. The IUML, whose sole representative in Parliament is Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed, will be meeting in the coming days to finalise its stand on the deal.
The party has been caught between risking electoral backlash and pulling out its man from the Government. The youth wing of the Indian National League, a Left ally, has already demanded that Ahamed should resign from the Government.
Pandhe's fresh gift to Muslim grievance roaster will surely add up to the election planks in the coming Lok Sabha elections. But, so far, there are no clear winners in the first stretch run towards the corridors of power.

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Blind Left Turn

Shafi Rahman

July 10, 2008 INDIA TODAY

The urban legend has it that a certain CPI(M) politburo member lives in the bunkers of AKG Bhavan, the party headquarters in Delhi, with no permission to travel beyond its premises.
This bunker comrade—untainted by the world outside—provides the party its last word on ideological issues.
As the UPA-Left relations went into a downward spiral through the year, and hit rock bottom with a resounding thud this week, it was clear that party General Secretary Prakash Karat had done at least one job well— that of imitating the intellectual aloofness of his imaginary colleague from the bunker and showing none of the pragmatism of his predecessors.
Not only did Karat miscalculate the Congress battle plan, but he also allowed natural ally Samajwadi Party (SP) to drift away and failed in living up to the mandate given to him in two consecutive Party Congresses in 2005 and 2008 to build up the Third Front.
As he anchored his plans in a no-government-without-us belief, Karat, the policy wonk, saw his dream of being taken seriously as a street-smart politician dissolve as quickly as his party's plans to emerge as a national player.
Even as his comrades were perhaps busy mailing miss-you notes to Marxist veteran Harkishan Singh Surjeet, Karat tripped badly on delivering his baby, the Third Alternative.

Karat blocked UPA�s market-led reforms at every pointHis grand statement to the cadre at the party's 19th Congress at Coimbatore in April that "on the nuclear deal also, we were able to rally the SP and the Telugu Desam Party", now sounds hollow with Mulayam Singh Yadav opting for expediency over ideology.
"By raising common issues and initiating joint campaigns and struggles, the way can be paved for building a Third Alternative," he had told the Party Congress in April.
But on the ground, he failed to cosy up to the SP on the nuclear deal. His party's push for the Women's Reservation Bill did nothing to better the relations, with Karat failing to understand SP's concerns in the Hindi heartland and playing to what one MP called "urban feminist slogans".
Even bigger problems lie ahead. Mulayam's call to "strengthen secular forces" by joining Congress's fold leaves the CPI(M) with the unpleasant task of defining which is the bigger enemy— imperialism or communalism.
Early this year, Karat himself had warned against BJP's politics, saying the Party Congress would work out "appropriate tactics" to isolate communal forces and prevent any opportunistic alliances for electoral gains. Now not only is Karat left waiting for the deal to happen, but he also runs the risk of seeing the BJP back in power at the Centre.
With Surjeet bedridden and Jyoti Basu now available only for birthday celebrations, Karat has a free run over the party's affairs.
West Bengal Chief Minister Budhadeb Bhattacharya has been lying low since the Nandigram fiasco while Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan is busy securing his turf in a factional feud.
But it cannot be denied that his primal instinct-that of protecting the "Left-leaning vote bank" in the two states-has kept the party relevant in India long after the world has booted out communism.

Even Karat's staunchest critics can't deny the ferocity with which he had successfully prevented any reforms that pro-market advocates may have wanted to pursue in the 49 months of the UPA's rule.
"It was the firm stand of the party and the Left which prevented a full-fledged entry of FDI in retail trade, the opening up of the private banking sector to 74 per cent FDI and stopped a legislation which would have allowed privatisation of government employees' pension funds. We can claim that we have checked some of the harmful measures and retrograde policies which the Government wanted to pursue in the name of reforms. Further, we have also been able to slow down the pace of implementation of neo-liberal policies," he had said, with fierce pride, in the organisational report in April.
His critics charge him with the lack of political skill to script a working arrangement with the UPA Government, while continuously blocking the UPA's reform initiatives.
Yet, though many moan the iron-clad ideologue, Karat has restored the Left's pet concerns to the mainstream from where they had been banished by the market-driven din and Surjeet's somewhat flexible interpretation of communist dogma.
Within the party though, many insiders feel Karat has failed to steer political debate over controversial issues to help the organisation grow.
His dissent notes to government policies may have been vehemently worded but they did not articulate a coherent ideological perspective.
While leaders like E.M.S. Namboodiripad wrote reams defining the party's ideology in relation to contemporary issues, Karat's legacy may well be the literature he has generated on arcane details like pension reforms.
He has also come under attack from his own colleagues for "outsourcing opinion" to Left intellectuals on vital issues like external loans for Left-led governments.
It hasn't helped that his much-hyped Hindi-heartland plans are yet to take off. Instead of rising, the party membership in Uttar Pradesh fell from 6,346 in 2006 to 6,175 in 2007, while in Punjab it fell from 10,508 in 2006 to 10,140 last year.
With the party now at pains to explain a possible future scenario where the Congress may seek its support to stop the BJP from coming back to power, Karat seems to have lost his golden boy sheen.
And while he is not headed irrevocably for the exit, it may well be that when the Marxists make their habitual appraisal of current events a few years down the line, this will be yet another historic blunder on the Red Brigade's road to redemption.

Corner plot politics

Shafi Rahman
July 3, 2008 INDIA TODAY

When it comes to splitting up the family silver, the nation's politicians are beginning to resemble eternally fractious Indian families.
As the Government doles out plots to political parties for the construction of their future headquarters, some are turning green with envy as bigger parties get their hands on posh properties while they are being given down-market addresses.
The Ministry of Urban Development is disbursing these plots following a Supreme Court order to evict parties from the heritage sites in the capital they have been squatting in for many years.
It was meant to be an act in good governance, but the allotment spree has produced a windfall for many parties, especially the ruling Congress.
In the capital, where the real estate business is often a blood sport, land is being lavishly bestowed upon a fortunate few.
As the land will be disbursed according to a party's combined strength in the two houses of Parliament, the policy allows for four acres to be given to parties with more than 200 MPs, two acres to parties having 101-200 MPs, one acre to those with 51-100 MPs and half an acre to parties that are 26-50 MPs strong.
The other parties fume that the criteria have been devised in this manner to suit the Congress. With 217 MPs, it has already got its pound of flesh-four acres-on the capital's Deen Dayal Upadhyaya (DDU) Marg.
The Opposition BJP, which is eligible for only two acres, has refused to take up the land offered to it on DDU Marg. It has written to the Ministry of Urban Development asking for the same amount of land as is earmarked for the Congress party.
"There should not be discrimination while allotting the land to the national parties. The present guidelines are discriminatory," says V.K. Malhotra, deputy leader of BJP in the Lok Sabha .
The smaller parties are also questioning the rationale behind anchoring the allotment of land to the present combined strength of parties in Parliament.
"They can't do it in an election year. The current strength of the parties is expected to change dramatically during the upcoming polls. The Government should immediately stop the allotment," says AIADMK leader V. Maitreyan.
Property hunt
Under the new policy, land will be allotted to parties according to their parliamentary strength.
A party must have at least seven MPs to become eligible.
The Congress gets four acres, BJP two and CPI(M) one.
Smaller parties feel they are being given a raw deal.
Most parties are eyeing plots on DDU Marg, a real-estate hot spot.
CPI(M) finds itself on a street named after its ideological foe
The Congress has played down the allegations made by other parties. "BJP may argue that since they have a 'waiting prime minister', he should be put next to the residence of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Race Course Road.
Constitutionally, that argument is not valid," says All-India Congress Committee (AICC) Secretary Tom Vadakken, "BJP has no national presence and should try to touch base with reality."
However, Maitreyan argues, "For national parties like BJP and the Congress, there won't be any dramatic shifts in the seats. But for regional parties like AIADMK and BSP, electoral fortunes change with every election."
BSP, without waiting for the Government allotment, has already started building its headquarters on Sardar Patel Marg in central Delhi. Those fortunate enough to be eligible for land are now involved in unseemly catfights for upmarket locations.
Land is being allotted in institutional areas near M.G. Road, Vasant Kunj, Safdarjung and DDU Marg, with many eyeing plots on the centrally-located DDU Marg.
"We have asked the ministry to allot land on DDU Marg. We are yet to get the final nod," says Jimmy George, national secretary of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP).
NCP has also demanded that the Government hike its allocation as its parliamentary strength has gone up from 12 to 17. But the ministry insists that the allocation is based on the strength of parties on the date of the government order that detailed the guidelines two years ago.
Rashtriya Janata Dal has also been allotted land on DDU Marg, while the Shiv Sena is waiting for its turn. "We have been asked to go to Vasant Kunj, which is away from the city. This is not acceptable to us and we have asked for an allocation near DDU Marg," says Mohan Singh, chief whip of the Samajwadi Party (SP) in the Lok Sabha.
One party turning red over its new address is CPI(M). The idea of having a party office in an enclave named after RSS ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyaya has not gone down well with the communists.
Especially when its would-be neighbours are Sangh-affiliated organisations like Sanskar Bharti, Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh, Bhartiya Kisan Sangh and Sewa International.
According to the guidelines, in the case of parties that were allocated land earlier, fresh allotments shall be considered after deducting the quantum of land already distributed.
For example, CPI(M) was allotted a 1,197-sq m plot on Bhai Vir Singh Marg where it built its headquarters, A.K. Gopalan Bhavan. Now the party will get the remaining 2,850 sq m it is due on DDU Marg.
With subsidies being doled out, the CPI(M) central leadership may end up paying only Rs 60 lakh for a piece of land that is actually worth over Rs 50 crore.
So far, most parties have been making do by squatting in various government-owned properties. Around 40 houses are occupied by political parties and the Congress leads the pack, occupying 16 flats and bungalows.
The other parties that are squatting in bungalows are BJP (3), CPI (1), CPI(M) (2), SP (1) and BSP (1). BJP has been using 11, Ashoka Road as its party headquarters since March 21, 1985.
One of the properties the Congress has been holding on to is the office at 24, Akbar Road. First sanctioned to G.K. Moopanar, then general secretary of the party, in 1978, AICC shifted into the bungalow after being pushed out of its old office near Jantar Mantar following the party's split after the Emergency.
The plot on Raisina Road, now hosting the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, was allotted to the Congress for its national headquarters during Rajiv Gandhi's tenure as prime minister.
The building was inaugurated by him at an inauspicious time of the day, Rahu Kalam, after arriving late from a function. Many Congressmen have blamed its subsequent political reverses on the jinxed date with the stars and delayed the full-fledged shift of the party headquarters into the new building.
After the Congress leadership distanced itself from the Gandhis, the first family started operating from the plot on Raisina Road, before returning to Akbar Road after Sitaram Kesari was defanged. The Raisina Road plot was later occupied by the multi-crore Rajiv Gandhi Foundation.
The National Youth Congress office at 5, Raisina Road, which was allotted to AICC on July 5, 1976 "as a purely temporary measure", is another property occupied by the party. A few years back, the rent arrears of the office were estimated to be over Rs 18 lakh.
The Congress now plans to move its frontal organisations to the new headquarters with amenities like a media centre, a full-floor office for the Congress president and a conference hall to hold meetings of the Congress Working Committee.
By treating prime estate in the capital as their own and modifying the original structures, political parties have played havoc with the vision of Edwin Lutyen, the architect who planned New Delhi 100 years ago.
"These bungalows are meant to be residences. Political party offices have no business being there and should move out fast," says A.G.K. Menon, founder-member of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage.
The parties have been given three years' time to vacate the bungalows, identified by the World Monuments Fund in New York as one of the planet's 100 most endangered heritage sites.
Another party Which won't be getting much land this time is CPI. It had taken the trouble to set up a full-fledged office on subsidised land in 1971.
The headquarters, Ajoy Bhavan, was designed by well-known architect R. Jhabwala and is seen by many as a combat-ready structure that meets the "necessities of future class war". "Some see the sprawling bunker inside the party office as a part of the security apparatus," says a CPI leader.
Others dismiss the underground hall, now a grand library, as a "bourgeois-deviation" by a top leader who had wanted to house a central air-conditioning system but whose plans were eventually shot down by others as it was considered incompatible with the principles of a proletarian party.
Such working class sentiments are rare in the race for an address that suits the working style of our political class.

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.

Then the lantern dulled its deep red glow

Amar Bari, Tomar Bari,
Naxalbari, Naxalbari.
My home, your home,
Naxalbari,Naxalbari.


Naxalbari (West Bengal): Welcome to poll-bound Naxalbari, home to the Revolution, tucked in the history and blue hills of the eastern rim. After 29 years of the Left rule, the CPM is at home in Naxalbari.
At Phansidewa constituency, which includes mostly Naxalbari, only the CPM has finalised its candidate. Three-time MLA Prakash Minjh has been dropped from Phansidewa. Choton Kisku, the saha-sabhadhipati of Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad and an educated tribal leader, will be contesting in place of Minjh.
Of 18 panchayaths, 13 are run by the CPM and the rest by Congress and Trinamool in Naxalbari, which shot to fame with peasant revolt in 1967. Claiming many lives and adding a desi word to Marxist lexicon, Naxalbari send waves of hope, scare, strength and doubt, depending on which side of the fence one sat on.
The movement, hailed by Communist China's People's Daily' as Spring Thunder over India, was later poltically and physically lynched by the CPM and troubles within. "Call us revisionists or reactionaries, if you like. But we have touched lives of the people here. Minimum wage levels have been increased from 1977 level from Rs 14 to Rs 85. Naxalbari has four higher secondary schools and a college. Land reforms have been implemented to fullest extent. Panchayath has even constructed roads in private estates to benefit tea workers. We have defeated Communist adventurists with our commitment to people's development," claims Gautam Bose, the CPM Naxalbari area secretary.
"Last year we created 10,000 fresh employment in tea gardens in consultation with the management," says Bose sitting under watchful eyes of Lenin and Stalin hung on the walls of the area committee office.
Two kilometers away, at Sebdella in Naxalbari, sits Kanu Sanyal under another set of Lenin-Stalin photographs, wearing cotton pants and 7'O clock shadow. "Farmers fall for immediate benefits. Larger issues still remain unfulfilled. Peasants are given agricultural loans by the Government and are being dragged into debt-traps," says Sanyal, one of the key leaders of the Naxalbari movement along with Charu Majumdar.
"Naxalbari peasants uprising was a remarkable armed struggle. Now everyone is branding themselves as Naxalites and indulges in individual acts of violence," says sanyal. Sanyal's party, the CPI (ML), is yet to announce candidates for the fourth round of polls in the area.
But the road to revolution has hit many crossroads. "Sanyal has diluted the ideals of Naxalbari movement by joining electoral politics. Our democracy is false. After British regime, a new set of masters have taken over us. Only a blood-wet revolution could save us," says Pavan Singh, an activist owing allegiance to CPI (ML) Mahadeb Mukherjee group. Singh's mother Dhaneswari Devi was killed at Prasadjote firing during the uprising.
He regularly keeps vigils at busts of Charu Majumdar, Stalin, Lenin and Stalin at the venue of firing. "The CPM activists once tried to destroy the busts. Since then we keep a vigil on it," says Singh.
Onil Sonya, a farmer living next to the firing venue, has already pledged his vote for the CPM. "The party has given a piece of land and arranged me an agricultural loan," he says.
Singh has also decided on what to do on voting day. "I will boycott the elections as per our party's call. On the polling day I will go to the hills and graze my cows. It will be much useful than going to polling booth," says Singh as he spits in anger. Singh's words drown in heavy downpour outside.