Sambhu Singh sleeps in his broken home in defiance

December 28, 2008

Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati

Sambhu Singh and his brother has now spent three nights in the rubble of their former home, taking turns to sleep on their own broken-down door, with a blanket bought by the money contributed by the people. The South City management put up a notice on the remains of their home, stating “unsafe, entry prohibited”. It is ironic that it is the same South City management who made the place, a home for a family, unsafe in the first place. It is public pressure that has maintained the position of Sambhu Singh in his home till now, but we don’t know how long that will be possible. Legal options are being explored, but nothing much can be done till 2nd January, when the courts are going to reopen after the winter vacation. South City cunningly selected this time to perpetrate this crime.
On 27th December, the CPI(M) controlled Nagarik Samiti, also held a meeting in “support” of Sambhu Singh, and condemned the people who have been with him from the beginning of the struggle as “naxalites”. I guess it isn’t very surprising, but this complicates the situation further. Today, Sunday, 28th December, there is another public protest in front of South City which everyone is invited to attend.

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December 29, 2008:

You have no future: CPIM’s Nagarik Committee pressurizes Mr. Singh, intervenes in favour of big capital
Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati

There have been ominous developments yesterday, that has again exposed the face of the CPI(M) as the agent of big capital.
In my last update I had mentioned that the CPI(M) controlled Nagarik Committee had organized a meeting on 27th December, ostensibly to support Sambhu Singh. On 28th December, leaders of the Nagark Samiti that included CPI(M) local committee members, compelled Sambhu Singh to go into a negotiation with South City management. Even though Sambhu Singh had been advised by us to only go if accompanied by his lawyer, he was not allowed to call his lawyer. In the negotiations, in presence 93 Ward Nagarik Committee members Amber Roy Choudhary, Pelab Mukherjee, Parimal Bhattacharya, Jayanta Poddar, Arun Agarwal and Tarun Mistry, Sambhu was threatened by Sushil Mohta and Man Mohan Bagree of South City that he had nothing in favour of him and he had no way to survive if he tried to stay back in his house.
The Nagarik Committee members supported this and persuaded him to arrive at a settlement with South City. Finally overwhelmed by these threats, Sambhu caved in, and signed on a non-legal agreement with South City, where he has agreed to give up possession all claims to his house, withdraw civil and criminal cases against South City, and accept that he has himself removed all his belongings (all of which was looted by South City’s hired security) from his premises.
All this in return of a paltry Rs 4 lakhs (4,00,000), when the actual vaulation of the space occupied by Sambhu Singh’s house is around ten times more!
There is no compensation, not even an acknowledgement, of the illegal assault on his family and their eviction.
This is a repetition of what is a common procedure in Bengal. South City realized that it was in a very bad sitaution after committing this illegal act and from the resultant public backlash, which they hadn’t expected would be there. In order to save them from this situation, appeared the CPI(M). Repeating what it had done when the workers of the Usha factory were originally thrown out of their jobs, it acted as agent and broker, allowing the corporation to get away with paying a pittance as compensation, victimising the poor worker.
Irrespective of the outcome regarding Sambhu Singh, it has been decided that the protests against South City would be intensified. Armed with this direct evidence of the Nagarik Committee’s heinous intervention in the matter, the struggle would be directed against the corporations and their agent and broker, the CPI(M)

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December 30, 2008:

Sambhu Singh fights back yet again

Sambhu Singh decided yesterday that he would fight back against South City and CPI(M) by lodging a complaint that he was made to sign on the plain paper agreement against his will and under compulsion.

Source: http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1183/#7

Sambhu Singh vs. South City: the battle against corporate retail and real estate in a microcosm

Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati.

Since December 25, something is happening in Kolkata which might turn into a major battle against corporate retail and real estate.
Many of you, who are from or have stayed in Kolkata, know about the huge South City complex (company logo: Live the way the world does), consisting of the largest mall in Kolkata and a huge residential complex consisting of 4 tower buildings. The complex has come up on the grounds of the erstwhile Usha Engineering works, a factory employing around 7000 people, which was shut down and the land handed over to South City. The workers were all thrown out and their living quarters were demolished.
Their story is one of the little known tragedies of the process of “development” , one of the facets of which is the conversion of urban industrial land into real estate. Anyway, the mall came up in a very questionable process, filling up a huge water body (Bikramgarh jheel), and is now a major source of traffic congestion in the area.
What I didn’t know was that a single worker, Sambhu Prasad Singh, had decided to fight it out! His is an epic story. He had challenged his retrenchment by Usha Engineering in court, and had stayed back in the workers quarters with his brother, the latter’s wife and their 10 year old son. Disregarding threats by South City, he had stayed on amidst the construction going on around him. He was staying in the workers’ qaurters all of which had been torn down leaving only his rooms, as there was a stay order from the court. In this situation the family had stayed on and struggled, sending the son to a good school and living a life of dignity. Their struggle was being documented by a film maker, Ranu Ghosh, who had been closely following their lives for the past 10 years. Some of her postings are at: https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-July/009568.html and https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2007-July/009568.html. You might find moreabout it if you do a search on internet.
Yesterday (25th December) morning, I received a call from a reporter at one of the Bengali TV channels, who told me that something horrible had happened to the family of Sambhu, but his channel and other media wouldn’t report on it as South City was involved. I informed Samik Chakrabarty, one of our Sanhati comrades, and both of us immediately rushed to the spot.
We found out that on 24th evening, when the city was taken up in Christmas eve fever, and the two men (Sambhu and his brother) were away from home, security guards of South City, under the direction of their security chief and property manager, had broken down their door, come in and tied the hands and feet of the mother and the 10 year old son, assaulted them and thrown them out on the streets. Then they had looted all their belongings, loaded it on a truck and taken it away somewhere. Then they had broken down the roof and the stairs leading up to their 1st floor house, practically rendering it uninhabitable. The two men came back late at night and found them out on the streets. Then they called up Ranu and she went there immediately.
From 25th morning, the battle started. We went to the Jadavpur police station and lodged a FIR. The police stated that it was a patently illegal act to evict sometime when the case is sub-judice, but they cannot put them back inside their home. However, they said that they have the right to stay in their home. Many activists, organizations and media had been informed by then, and some activists, from organizations such as FAMA started coming in.
During the day, we also found that the police inspector came in a jeep and entered the premises. After some time we came to know that people were demolishing what remained of the house of the worker inside the premises. We realized that they were trying to demolish the house in order to make it a fait accompli, so that there would be no hope of proving Sambhu Singh’s right to the place.
By that time some faculty of Jadavpur University and members of the intellectuals and cultural workers association had also arrived. We decided that we would try to enter the site and if prevented we would start a demonstration. As we tried to enter, the security guards set up a cordon infront of the gate and their head said that he wouldn’t allow us to enter. We insisted on the right of Sambhu Singh and us to enter and we went into a heated altercation with the security guards. People started collecting and soon there was a huge crowd. We had called the students of Jadavpur university and they, notably from the student organization PDSF, arrived. Soon they were joined by other students. It became an impropmtu public meeting.
Meanwhile, the authorities tried to move out the workers who had been breaking down house in a Tata Sumo. We blocked its exit and it turned tail and fled in another direction. We had also called up the local councillor, Mr. Ratan Dey of Trinamool Congress, and he also turned up after some time. When he came,some of us accompanied him and entered the site. We found that the house had nearly been completely demolished with its roof, the walls and the staircase completely destroyed. After sometime more people, accompanied by reporters of some TV channels entered.
We then decided that Sambhu Singhu would be staying inside there, in order to prove his right to live at that site. It was also decided that a protest meeting, where everybody would participate, would be held outside South City mall on 26th December. It was a partial victory as we had been able to reinstate Sambhu Singh in his house, which was rightfully his. He and his brother somehow managed to spend the night in that broken down house.
On 26th morning, I again accompanied Sambhu Singh, his brothers wife and her son, together with some activists from a local citizen’s forum and a lawyer to the police station. The woman lodged a detailed complaint and also added a list of her belongings that have been looted. The police now were quite hostile, unlike the previous day and tried to harrass and intimidate us. In the evening a public meeting, attended by around 500 people started infront of the gates of South City mall. Nearly all organizations and activists of Kolkata participated. Different student organizations participated. The students put up posters, distributed leaflets and talked to people, including customers who were coming to the mall. Some students stood with posters in front of the main door of the mall informing people about the incident and appealing to them to boycott South City.
It was a demonstration the likes of which South City has never seen before.
As you can understand, this will be a long battle. We have to explore all the legal options in front of Sambhu Singh and his family. It is difficult now as South City chose a time when the court is in vacation. Another protest meeting is planned for Sunday. People want to continue this protest against this grossly unjust and illegal act. I request everyone to express their solidarity and support for this movement which has started as a battle of justice for a wronged person but which is taking up the nature of a battle against corporate retail and real estate and their land-grabbing in the urban centres.

Source: http://sanhati.com/excerpted/1183/

Defeat War Conspiracy; Build Up Anti-imperialist Unity Among The People of India And Pakistan

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After heinous terror strike in Mumbai, both the neighbouring states, India and Pakistan are roaring. India has been accusing Pakistan of being involved in the Mumbai terror strike and the Pakistan state machinery does not accept it. Meanwhile both of them prepare themselves for a war--- Pakistan gradually moves its military forces towards Indo-Pak border and India has already made its forces alert.

We, the common people of both India and Pakistan are fully aware from our past experiences that war cannot make any better in our daily life, instead the huge expenses of war has to be borne by the common people. Whenever the exploiting classes of this subcontinent find themselves in difficult situation, get involved in war with the nationalist propaganda. Right now the financial crisis of the imperialist system has proved that capitalism-imperialism does not have any future. It cannot solve the problems of providing basic needs to all human beings. Extraction of maximum profit, which drives the imperialist production, actually throws huge number of people out of his market everyday and thereby increases poverty. India and Pakistan, neo-colonial type semi-colonies, which supply cheap labour and the raw materials to the imperialist and comprador capitalists, cannot be out of this crisis. Already, the export oriented industries of India is at stake and as a remedy it has started to cut its work force short. Obviously, this will shorten the internal market and soon the crisis will engulf other sectors.

In this context it is very easy to understand that the socio-political unrest followed by anti-imperialist movement which is going to storm over this subcontinent in near future will be beyond the control parliamentary politicians. The leadership of these struggles will be eventually in the hand of real communist revolutionaries. In order to divert the point of attention of the people, to weaken the anti-imperialist revolutionary consciousness and unity among the people, the state machineries of both the countries have therefore to spread the backward ideas like communalism, chauvinism etc. No doubt, to serve their purpose they have different forces, whose activities have been reflected into the blasts of different places all over the sub-continent that killed numerous people. Under this backdrop, the war mongers of two countries are all set to start a fresh war, provoking people to get satisfaction from the killings of innocents at the other side of the border.

We condemn this war preparation.
We are against any fratricidal war.

We believe that the progressive and democratic forces of India and Pakistan will fight at their level best to resist this war-conspiracy.

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Bush shoe attack a big hit online

An Iraqi journalist’s shoe attack on George Bush has spawned a number of online video games. And their popularity is growing by the hour, reflecting in part the universal loathing the outgoing US President commands.
In one virtual game, players of Bush’s Boot Camp take on the role of a gun-toting security agent and must shoot shoes out of the air before they can hit the hapless President.
In another, players are invited to take aim at Bush, even as he bobs and weaves on the podium. At the end of this game, every successful player is greeted with a flashing message: YES YOU CAN!
TV reporter Muntadar al-Zaidi was tackled to the ground by Secret Service personnel after he started throwing his shoes at Bush. The footwear missed Bush, who ducked, but Zaidi was bundled out yelling: “This is a farewell kiss, you dog.”
Footage of the attack has been viewed over half a million times on video-sharing site YouTube. “If you watch the clip, the Secret Service don’t move to protect Bush until the second shoe’s been thrown,” said Sadi Chishti of T-Enterprise, the company behind the game.
As Zaidi’s fame in the Muslim world grows, an Arab channel reported that a Saudi citizen had offered $10 million to buy the shoes.
However, for the muchreviled Bush, it was just another incident in a long tenure marked by his choking on words, and pretzels. “I don’t know what the guy’s cause is, I didn’t feel the least bit threatened by it,” the US President joked with mediapersons.

Video: Iraqi Journalist Throws Shoe at Bush

Leaflet On Lalgarh Resistance

Fllowing is a bengali leaflet published by People's Committee Against Police Repression:

AN ARMED PEOPLE OPPOSES ARMED COUNTER-REVOLUTION

A Reply To A Reader From The Editor of The PEOPLE'S DAILY. June 16, 1950.

[In this reply the editor of People's Daily discussed in great detail Com Stalin's comment (of 1926) on Chinese revolution, which was mentioned and explained in different articles of Com Mao. That the character and form of the revolution of the semi-colonial, semi-feudal countries like China of Asia, Africa and Latin America was different from the western independent capitalist countries; that the agrarian guerilla warfare or in other words protracted people's war was the principal form of national liberation; was discussed in this reply. Red Barricade]

Comrade Huang Tse-chun,
We have received your letter in which you state that, having studied Chairman Mao Tse-tung's The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party and having pondered over the nature of the Chinese revolution, you believe Staiin's statement that "the characteristic of the Chinese revolution is that an armed people opposes armed counter-revolution" conforms to historical reality in China. But, you ask:
"Perhaps the revolution of no country in the world will diverge from this pattern. Why did Stalin not say that this was the characteristic of the revolution of all countries but instead described it as purely the characteristic of the Chinese revolution?"
Very obviously, this characteristic—an armed people opposing armed counter-revolution—is something which was not present in the revolutions of any capitalist country in the past. This characteristic first appeared during the people's liberation struggle in semi-colonial and semi-feudal China. But under certain historical conditions, it can become the common characteristic of the people's liberation struggle in many colonial and semi-colonial countries.
Stalin's famous saying on China's armed struggle which we all quote was made during an address to the Chinese Commission of the Executive Committee of the Communist International on November 30, 1926. The whole passage is as follows:
"During the 18th and 19th centuries, revolutions always started in the following way. Generally the bulk of the people, either unarmed or very poorly armed, started an insurrection and clashed with the army of the old system. They tried to crush the old army or at least win a part of it over to the people's side. This was the typical form of previous revolutionary outbreaks. This was also the case in Russia during 1905.
But in China, it is different. In China, it is not the unarmed people but the armed people represented by the revolutionary army, who rise up against the army of the old government. In China, armed revolution opposes armed counter-revolution. This is one of the characteristics of China's revolution. It is one of the advantages of China's revolution. Herein also lies the special significance of the revolutionary army in China."
This charactetistic first, appeared in China because China was the largest and most important semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. The enemies of the Chinese people were imperialism and the domestic reactionaries dependent upon imperialism. They enforced the most brutal military despotism. Moreover, it was not merely one imperialist country, but many imperialist counties, that invaded and dominated Cnina. They had contradictions among themselves, which caused disunity, schisms and struggle among the domestic reactionaries. This in turn provided the people with convenient condition? for launching and resolutely sustaining an armed struggle, In the chapter of 'The Chinese Revolution and the Chinese Communist Party which you are now studying, Comrade Mao Tse-tung has clearly pointed out :
"In the face of such enemies, it is a pre-determined fact that the method and major form of the Chinese revolution cannot be peaceful but must be armed. This is because our enemies do not leave the Chinese people any possibility of peaceful activity and the Chinese people have no political freedom at all. Stalin said, 'The characteristic of the Chinese revolution is that an armed people oppose armed counter-revolution.' This is an extraordinarily correct formulation."

WAR AND STRATEGY

In Problems of War and Strategy, a part of his summation at the Sixth Plenary Session of the Sixth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (on Nov. 6, 1938), Comrade Mao Tse-tung pointed out still more precisely :
"During periods when there is neither Fascism nor war, the conditions in all capitalist countries are as follows: internally, the country does not have a feudal system, but a bourgeois-democratic system; externally, it oppresses other nations and does not experience national oppression. On the basis of these characteristics, the task of proletarian parties in all capitalist countries lies in passing through a long period of legal struggle, of educating the workers, of building strength and of preparing for the final overthrow of capitalism.
"In those places, a long period of legal struggle means making use of parliamentary rostrums; it means economic and political strikes; it moans organizing trade unions and educating the workers. There the form of organization is legal and the form of struggle is bloodless (non-warlike). To the Communist Party of those places, war means opposing the imperialist wars of one's own country. If such wars occur, the Party's policy will be one of ensuring the defeat of its own country.
"The only war the Party itself wants is the internal war which is being prepared. But such a war should not be undertaken until th3 bourgeoisie is actually powerless, until the majority of the proletariat are firmly determined to have and armed insurrection and wage war, and until the peasant masses are already willing to help the proletariat. When the time comes for an insurrection and war, cities should first be occupied and afterwards the country-side should be attacked. This absolutely cannot be reversed. All of these things have been practised by the Communist parties of capitalist countries and were confirmed during the October Revolution in Russia.
"But China is not the same. The characteristic of China is that she is not an independent, democratic country, but is semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Internally, there is no democratic system, but the oppression of the feudal system; externally, there is no national independence, but the oppression of imperialism. Therefore, there are no parliaments to utilize, and no legal right to organize workers r carrying out strikes.
"Here the task of the Communist Party is not basically one of undergoing a long period of legal struggle in order to carry out insurrection and war, nor is it to occupy the cities first and then the countryside. Our path is just the opposite."
This was Comrade Mao Tse-tung's penetrating summation of the problems of war and strategy, based upon the theories of Lenin and Stalin and the experiences of the Chinese revolution.
The victory of the Chinese people's revolution has entirely proven the correctness of Mao Tse-tung's reasoning. During the past 20-odd years, most of those who committed errors in the Chinese revolution did so because they did not understand the laws of China's society and revolution, and violated Mao Tse-tung's theories. This was the case both politically and militarily.
One of the reasons for the failure of the first domestic revolutionary war in China from 1925 to 1927 was the opportunistic leadership of Chen Tu-hsiu, who overlooked -the great significance of armed struggle. After the failure of this revolution, Chen Tu-hsiu still advocated carrying on legal activities under Chiang Kai-shek's reign of White terror, taking the so-called 'National Congress' as the central slogan. Moreover, he slandered peasant guerilla warfare, led by the Chinese Communist Party, by calling it the behaviour of 'bandits'. Thus, Chen Tu-hsiu and his small clique of collaborators sank to becoming counter-revolutionaries.

CHINA'S EXPERIENCE

Those who committed 'leftist' errors in the second Evolutionary civil war from 1927 to 1937 also underestimated the military struggle, especially the importance of peasant guerilla warfare and of rural revolutionary bases. They wrongly imagined that the Chinese revolution might attain victory by relying upon the development, under the high pressure of counter-revolution, of mass struggles in the cities, such as the strikes staged by workers and students. They did not rely on the development of the armed peasant struggle in the countryside, where the counter-revolutionary forces were comparatively weak. Consequently, they did not subordinate the secret revolutionary work and the mass struggle of the cities to the armed struggle of the countryside. On the contrary, they demanded that the work of the rural armed struggle be subordinated to the underground work and mass struggles of the cities. The result was that not only the urban work suffered a serious setback but the rural work was harmed as well. Had it not been for the correct leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung and comrades-in-arms, which overcame the mistakes of the opportunist deviations that occurred at various times, the present victory of the Chinese revolution would be unimaginable.
This experience of China's revolutionary victory is very important for the people of the countries which are still under the rule of imperialism and their domestic reactionaries. That is to say, this characteristic of armed struggle which appeared in the course of China's revolution can under certain historical conditions become the common characteristic of all revolutions of other colonial and semi-colonial countries. This has been explained in the Outline of the Colonial and Semi-Colonial Revolutionary Movement issued by the Sixth Congress of the in August 1928.
In this outline, the following subjects were analysed: "Imperialism still continues to intensify its war preparations," "World capitalism develops post-war crisis" and "The socialist construction of the Soviet Union has a revolutionizing Influence; the Communist movements in all capitalist countries grow steadily more consolidated and proceed to support the struggles of colonial peoples,"
Continuing, the outline points out: "All these conditions have immeasurably accelerated the political awakening of the broad masses in colonial and semi-colonial countries and have given rise to many large-scale revolutionary armed insurrections on the part of the masses. Moreover, in the majority of cases, these revolutionary armed insurrections have been closely coordinated with the development of the anti-imperialist liberation struggle and with the development of the intensity of the class struggle within the Country."

LESSONS FOR COLONIAL LANDS

On the basis of China's revolutionary experience and a correct analysis of the World's political situation after World War II, Comrade Liu Shao-chi further pointed out last December in his opening address; at the Trade Union Conference of Asian and Australasian Countries ;
"The imperialists and their lackeys do not give the people under colonial and semi-colonial domination any democratic rights whatsoever. For instance, this was formerly the case in China. We revolutionaries, hunted down by the imperialists and their henchmen, could not maintain a foothold in the cities under the White Terror. Consequently, we could only flee to the countryside or to mountain-tops and defend our lives with arms......
"In a colony or a semi-colony, if the people have no arms to defend themselves, they have nothing. The existence and development of proletarian organizations and the existence and development of a national united front is intimately linked to the existence and development of such an armed struggle. This is the sole path for many colonial peoples in their struggle for independence and liberation.
Hence, it becomes absolutely clear that the characteristic of an armed people opposing armed counter-revolution not pertain to China's revolution alone. Under the present conditions, it can and should become the common characteristic of the liberation struggles waged by many colonial and semi-colonial peoples.
In an editorial published on January 27 this year. For a Lasting Peace, for a People's Democracy organ of the Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers' Parties, commented that the path taken by the Chinese people, at Comrada Liu Shao-chi noted, "Should be the path taken by the people of many colonial and dependent countries in their struggle for national independence and people's democracy." The editorial further pointed out:
''As the example of China, Viet-Nam, Malaya and other countries shows, armed struggle is now becoming the main form of the national liberation movement In many colonial and dependent countries,"
It went on to stress the significance of China's revolutionary experience for India. After the publication of this editorial, Ranadive, General Secretary of the Communist Party of India, issued a statement expressing "full acceptance of the conclusions drawn by this editorial." He added:
"Under the leadership of Comrade Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese Communist Party has successfully applied the teachings of Lenin and Stalin in the course of the victorious liberation struggle of the Chinese people. The lessons of this victorious liberation struggle of the Chinese people will serve as an infallible compass for the Indian Communist Party and working class, which are responsible, for the task of leading the national liberation struggle".

Armed struggle against imperialist aggression is essential for the liberation of many colonies and semi-colonies. But the time and place for conducting this kind of revolutionary armed struggle must be decided according to concrete conditions. It can by no means be conducted in any colony or semi-colony at any time without the necessary conditions and preparations. In those countries where the objective conditions allow this armed struggle, whether or not this armed struggle attains victory is determined by the objective conditions of whether or not the people of these countries have a working class party to lead them and whether its leadership is correct or not. It is only because of the correct political and military line of the Chinese Communist Party, headed by Chairman Mao Tse-tung, that the Chinese people could win their great victory.
Today, the people of Viet-Nam have already scored tremendous successes in their armed struggle. In Burma, Malaya, the Philippine Islands etc., the people's armed struggle is just in the process of wide expansion. All these struggles are being conducted in each country under the leadership of the revolutionary working class.
The people in other colonial and dependent countries who are experiencing strong oppression and attack from imperialism and its lackeys—the domestic reactionaries— have no "democratic rights", and all illusions about "legal struggles" are fast vanishing. They will also take the path of armed struggle when conditions permit. One may be certain that if only they have the correct leadership of a working class party and gain experience from their struggles, the national liberation movements of these countries can march on to victory.