radicalblogger

Dear Tariq, When I was a very young radical, still a Maoist rather than a Trotskyist, it was your name, rather than that of Ernest Mandel, or of anyone else, that we came across, here in our part of India. There are still older comrades in West Bengal, who talk about a certain period of Fourth International history, in terms of “in those days of Tariq Ali”. This is why, a statement, even though signed by Chomsky, Zinn and others, along with the man who seems to have carried out the coup, a gentleman named Vijay Prashad, becomes most painful because you are among the signatories. As you once wrote in one of your wonderful books, about another comrade of yours, ‘there was fire in his belly in those days’. Perhaps we have all grown older, but some of us have refused to grow “wiser”. I read, and re-read, with a growing sense of wonder, shame and above all anger, the statement that some of you have signed. If you are uninformed, what gave you the authority to issue a pompous statement based...

One of the things we inherited from our erstwhile colonial masters was the cruel and humiliating tradition of “ragging” junior students. Administrations have traditionally tended to ignore or play down the matter. There are many reasons for this, not least of which is the reality that ragging divides the student community and turns students into torturers. This certainly suits administrations far more than getting radical student communities raising questions about imperialism, the exploitation of peasants and workers, environmental degradation, or other social issues. I remember that when we were students, in Jadavpur University, it was our organisation, the JU Democratic Students Front, that used to generate anti-ragging consciousness. Our elected office bearers used to move among the students, halting ragging. On occasion, we got hold of raggers and demanded that the administration must take action against them. The times have changed. There was a case of ragging in Jadavpur Univers...

A Brief Report on Nandigram On 25th March, several of us made a trip to Nandigram, partly to distribute aid, partly to find out the situation. Three of us subsequently went to the SSKM Hospital and met some of the victims who were being treated. This brief report/deposition is based on our observations and documentation at Nandigram and Kolkata. The following were the persons interviewed, on 25th March 2007, with such identification as we could obtain. Buddhadev Mondal -- independent social activist, Nandigram town. Ashish Mondal -- Bhumi Uchchhed Pratirodh Committee, Mahespur. Samad -- Jamait-ulema i Hind and Convenor, BUPC, Etimkhana, Nandigram. Kamallata -- Kalicharanpur. Interviewed at Nandigram Hospital. Anuradha Mondal -- Southkhali Char. Interviewed at Nandigram Hospital. Nur Jahan Bibi -- Garchakraberia. Interviewed at Nandigram Hospital. Mehrunnisa -- No. 7 Jalpai. Interviewed at Nandigram Hospital. Sheikh Sultan -- Nandigram. Interviewed at Nandigram Hospital. Manasi -- Sarbe...

Four years back, they beat us at Beeleghata. Five years back, they beat us at Tolly's Nullah. Few were there to fight. That is why this time they dared so much at Singur. I wrote this statement for ICS, of which I was then a member. We need to go back and look anew at the old battles. Stalinists Observe Human Rights Day by Fighting for Neoliberal Policies (Statement of the West Bengal Committee, Inquilabi Communist Sangathan, Indian Section of the Fourth International) On 10th December, 2002, on the day observed annually as Human Rights Day, police in Calcutta unleashed brutality on shanty dwellers in the Beliaghata Canal area. A large number of people were evicted from the only homes they had ever known, for the crime of being “illegal squatters”, in a country where a huge number of people live below the poverty line and where the idea of a room of one’s own is a distant dream for most men and women. Protesters were beaten up, and over a hundred were arrested, including Sujato Bha...

10th December was observed as Human Rights Day all over the world, including in West Bengal. The interesting thing about West Bengal was the programme organized by the State Human Rights Commission. In the presence of Shyamal Kumar Sen, the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee explained that there is a difference between preserving human rights and hobbling the police. When it is a matter of fighting terrorists, police should not be demoralized by criticisms. Excesses against terrorists should not be viewed as human rights abuse. This speech by Mr. Bhattacharjee came just five days after The Telegraph, English language paper claiming to be most widely circulated in West Bengal, wrote an editorial, where it advocated a very hard line against Maoists. It argued: “The menace of Maoist violence is not new to West Bengal. When it had first surfaced in the late Sixties and early Seventies, it was eradicated through counter-violence. M...

Violence in Singur: Hardselling Capitalist Globalization in the name of Left Alternative Kunal Chattopadhyay Several thousand police and paramilitary forces are now roaming Singur and adjoining areas in Hooghly district, West Bengal. On 2nd December, they fired tear gas and rubber bullets at villagers and a few outside supporters who had gone to the area. Television channels, so far strongly supportive of the moves of the Buddhadev Bhattacharjee government, now found themselves projecting a story totally at variance with the words their newscasters were being made to utter. Even as the bourgeois media went on mouthing claims that locals (later changed to Outsiders) were attacking the police, what could be seen , for example on the Kolkata or the Tara News channels, or even in Star-Ananda, was the picture of half a dozen hulking cops converging on individual hapless villagers, ...