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Radical socialist statement on the Arrest of Manoj Mahato

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Published on Wednesday, 06 July 2011 08:47

Written by Radical Socialist

Radical socialist statement on the Arrest of Manoj Mahato

Manoj Mahato, the former president of the Peoples Committee Against Police Atrocities, has been arrested. A few months back, this would have resulted in immediate noises from west Bengal’s fiery opposition leader, who would have rushed to Lalgarh and proclaimed that against the police and the “harmaads” she stood by him and all oppressed adivasis.

The times, however, have changed. It is that former opposition leader who is now the Chief Minister, as well as Home Minister, of West Bengal. And the knives are out again, against adivasi struggle against exploitation and for dignity. If we had a past Chief Minister who did not know the difference between language and script, and referred to Alchiki as a language, we now have a Chief Minister, who thinks that along with Sidhu and Kanhu, another martyr of the Santal Rebellion was Dahar, not realising that Dahar meant originally a cart track, here simply meaning road or street. This is not a light comment. This is a measure of how adivasis are treated in West Bengal, as in the rest of India. It is against not just economic exploitation, but equally, the marginalisation of their history, culture, and lives.

The PCPA was originally created after police atrocities in the final years of the Left Front government. The attitude of the government had been simple – to treat the PCPA as a forntal outfit of the CPI(Maoists). Two vital comments need to be made. The first, and most crucial, id that such efforts are always made against all peoples’ struggles. Using the label of some “anti-state” organisation is a good way of seeking to justify state violence on them. Secondly, it is true that there were and are Maoists involved in the area and some of them could be influencing parts of the PCPA. But the way the PCPA was created, the nature of its original demands, all show that not any imposed discourse from above, but an indigenous initiative fuelled by anger had created it. So whether it has Maoists or not, it is a voice of a section of the people. To arrest its leaders repeatedly, the way the state has moved, shows that the state’s claims about democratism extends only to permitting people to periodically vote and decide which set of MPs and MLAs will misgovern them. That Ms. Mamata Banerjee’s government has moved so swiftly against the PCPA, and that the sycophantic media has instantly raised a hue and cry about maoist regroupment, shows that silencing the alternative voices by force are the aims of the new regime as they were of the old.

We demand unconditional release of Manor Mahato, Chhatradhar Mahato, and all others detained for political activities.

We demand the repeal of the UAPA, and the non-application of the UAPA or other emergency draconian laws against agitating people anywhere.

We reject equating Maoist violence with state violence. We do not accept Maoist politics and believe that it actually disempowers the working class since it lays stress, not on working class self emancipation but on anyhow fighting with guns by a substitutionist force. But we believe that for the state Maoism is a bogey that it uses to crush all popular opposition.

To those leftists who had supported the TMC in the election of 2011, our question is, will they stand up unequivocally for Manoj Mahato, or will they choose to keep silent by arguing that against the CPI(M), the TMC regime is the “lesser evil:, thereby condoning the crimes of the new regime as an earlier generation of soft lefts had done with the crimes of the CPI(M)?

5 July 2011