[A-List] India's Maoists: Bandh and Strategy

["Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/DEL31119.htm>
Trains halted as Maoists join India's land unrest
20 Mar 2007 08:32:17 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA, India, March 20 (Reuters) - Train and bus services were
disrupted in parts of rural east and central India on Tuesday as
Maoist rebels joined protests over a policy of establishing industrial
parks on farmlands.

The rebels had called for a 24-hour strike in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh,
West Bengal, Orissa and Bihar to protest against last week's killing
of at least 14 villagers when police opened fire on demonstrators in
Nandigram in West Bengal.

But the strike call had no impact on cities, police said.

The villagers in Nandigram were angry at plans to force them off their
lands to make way for a low-tax special economic zone (SEZ), a
proposal that has since been shelved.

At least a dozen long-distance trains were cancelled as rebel
activists blocked railway tracks at several places in Jharkhand and
Bihar, police and witnesses said.

All bus services to Maoist strongholds in the southern tip of
Chhattisgarh and in parts of the neighbouring southern state of Andhra
Pradesh were cancelled.

<http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/sahni_maoists_4451.jsp>
India and its Maoists: failure and success
Ajai Sahni
20 - 3 - 2007

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In any event, the temporary de-escalation came to an obvious end after
the ninth congress of the Maoists - held at an undisclosed forest
location, believed to be in Jharkhand on the last days of January and
1 February 2007 - resolved to focus on four key aims:

   * "to advance the people's war throughout the country"

   * to extend support to the "nationality struggles against
     Indian expansionism" in Kashmir and the northeast

   * to call on "dalits (the oppressed segments of the pernicious
     Hindu caste system) to rally under the revolutionary banner
     to militantly resist... growing attacks and discrimination"

   * to mobilise a "militant mass movement against the neo-liberal
     policies of globalisation, liberalisation, privatisation", focusing
     immediately on "SEZs (Special Economic Zones) and
     displacement", and on marshalling support from
     "small industries and traders" who have been "pushed... to
     bankruptcy" by the "massive imperialist/TNC (trans-national
     company)/CBB (comprador-bureaucrat-bourgeoisie) offensives".

In effect, the Maoists propose to exploit each existing and potential
pool of grievances, every Indian faultline, in order to engineer a
gradual consolidation across the country.

<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IC20Df01.html>
Mar 20, 2007
India's Maoists take their war to a new level
By Sudha Ramachandran

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Maoist documents and statements provide pointers to their growing
ambitions and changing strategy. In 2004, Maoists, who had hitherto
focused their operations in rural India, spoke of a new strategy to
target urban centers. Their Urban Perspective Document lay down
guidelines for working in towns and cities and for mobilizing support
among students and urban unemployed. They identified two belts as
targets for urban mobilization: Bhilai-Ranchi-Dhanbad-Kolkata and
Mumbai-Pune-Surat-Ahmedabad.
--
Yoshie