The Kalinganagar Killings: And The Lessons Thereof
12 Adivasis killed by police firing, 12,000 bighas [1600 Hectares] or more of arable and habitable land grabbed from them to give as tribute to capitalists, thousands evicted and more waiting for the same fate — Kalinganagar, Jajpur district and the state of Orissa as a whole thus pave their blood-stained path for what they call industrialisation, development, in the first week of the year 2006. The happy harvesting-festivity days of the month of Pousha, which reaches its peak on the Pousha Sankranti, sadly ended suddenly and early, throttled by bullets of the police and blood of the resistance-fighters.
In the recent time we are witnessing a mad race among the govt and parliamentary parties leading them, a mad race of attracting capital investments into their own state and thus to develop their own state. The eastern and southern states are more crazily in this new version of gold rush. To do so, they are opening up the land, including all natural resources, ruled by them to loot and rape by the capitalists, and doing their best to keep the law and order situation under control, the toiling poor people and unemployed ones calm, obedient, slavish using brutal force of the state machinery whenever seducing speeches fail to do so. Greedy capitalist sharks are invited for the iron, aluminium ore and mineral rich Orissa. For those parties votes are certainly dear, but staying as investor-friendly is their most precious adornment. Congress, BJP, The CPIM & 'left' parties, BJD, RJD, etc old-JD pieces, Telegu Desham, both DMK fragments, all the old-Jharkhand party splinters — they are all the same.
But whenever a Kalinganagar like episode occurs, what is most intolerably abominable, those very parties who are in the 'opposition' in the state start shedding Crocodile Tears for the victim, and demand compensation, justice, etc. Accordingly the BJP ? TNC and the Congress behave in West Bengal against the recent large-scale land acquisition by the state govt for foreign and deshi capitalists; and so behaved the Congress, CPIM and others in Orissa. Mr. J B Pattanaik shouted demands in his public address there: bhumiro paribartey bhumi, basasthanero paribartey basasthano, rojgarero paribartey rojgaro, etc. But will JB answer what the Congress governments of MP and MR in the Great Narmada Eviction did? The BJP state unit threatened CM Naveen Sahib that they would withdraw support from the govt when they fathomed the logical deep scar and the just and moral sense of revenge among the adivasis. But the BJP chieftains and also the RSS swadeshi-wallahs do not feel that way; hadn't they committed the same crime in the Narmada case and etc and had dreamt of doing more thro' their pet mad and devastating project of connecting all major Indian rivers? Can the CPIM forget what they have done to let the Promoter-Raj (and the govt too) loot the Calcutta fringes by throwing out the settlers of dozens of villages with a very paltry compensation? Do these party bosses think that the adivasis are enough fool and illiterate and don't know such episodes? Do they think that the toiling people will always succumb to their bluffs?
Surely amount of compensation is of secondary importance: the Kalinganagar (Orissa) dwellers got perghaps only Rs. 12,500 per bigha of land; the WB govt sells Rajarhat land even at a price 1000 times or higher than what paltry sum it gave the dwellers there as compensation. But giving much more compensation cannot dodge the primary important questions: Why Land and parts of Nature will be so dishonoured as by affixing "price tags" to them? Why Nature and Humanity, Resources and Human capacity to perform fruitful Labour, will bear the indignity of becoming purchasable and saleable, merely Commodities? Why human society doesn't have full and safe control over their economic and social life, over their environment? ...If such questions seem 'utopian', 'orthodox-Marxist' in these "Rule Capital Rule The Waves (And Lands Too)" days we are ready to get labelled as utopian-crusaders or Orthodox-Marxist rebels. Simultaneously, we shall like to hurl some more 'practical' questions to the Parliamentary Political Bosses: 1: How can you call this beloved process of yours as industrialisation? Industrialisation, in real sense, happened in the early capitalist days; and the latest worthy-to-be-called industrialisation happened in, as for example, Germany, during 1848-1905. In this Imperialist age 'industrialisation' in proper sense is impossible in the 'Periphery' countries (if we use the term coined by Samir Amin) or what you call the developing countries. What happened in South Korea and a few countries after the 2nd World War are exceptions; Imperialists were compelled to do so for the fear of advancements of the Red-Power. Certainly such conditions are not present now here. Production of means of production necessary for the development of those (Periphery) countries is relegated to secondary importance in these countries by sheer imperialist pressure; only such things are produced and only in such a way as the Global Division Of Labour (And Resources), chalked out by the imperialist masters of the 'Metropolis', dictates. So India is blessed with BPO ? IT sector and the likes. Indigenous agricultural researches using Indian seeds were wiped out to give place to imperialist born Green Revolution. Big Dams did spread worldwide only for the profit of big TNC giants and contractors, and at the cost of environmental and human disaster. We can prolong this list to a couple of pages more, but for the sake of brevity let us stop here. 2: Why at this stage of development of human knowledge we are forced to commit the same grave error of the early capitalist age, that of utter degradation of Nature? Already in the mid-nineteenth century Marx showed it in his Capital (Volume 1, Chapter: Machinery and Modern Industry, end part). And why shouldn't we abide by the humane and civilized maxim of Engels: Human's struggle against nature is limited by the fact that human is a part of nature! 3: Who are actually 'developing' by your development policies, and at the cost of whom? Your policies and their effects so far make it amply clear that you care for the topmost layer of the Indian society, that 5-7 percent or so, and also for the aspirant middle-class (a very clumsy word to define a socio-economic category like class) who constitute perhaps another 10-12 percent. For their speeding cars you make the multi-lane highways, for them you improve and add airports, for them 'consumerism' has a meaning ? the rest cannot afford to consume much, ... ... But for the others you only have your 'trickling down' theory, and simultaneously, meagre wages or unemployment, underemployment, uncertainties about every tomorrow, malnutrition, etc misery. For the rebels, you have lockouts, hunger and brutal forces of the state and hooligans. How far is Kalahandi from Kalinganagar? How far are the Jute workers, or, 'partly lockout' Hindustan Engineering workmen from the shining Sector-E of the Salt Lake City, Calcutta? You don't bother for the society; you are the real anti-socials. And you are also evictors, murderers. All the imported perfumes of France will not wipe out blood from your hands.
The evictors await eviction by the masses of toilers. That may be a future prospect and not nearby. But their footsteps are already heard in the present; future revolution can be smelt, felt in and is partly prepared by today's rebellions. The spontaneous anger and outburst of the adibasis, its quick spread to other parts of the state, point to this. In WB also we are noticing some spontaneous rebellions against those parties and fight building up among workers (particularly Jute, in some way Tea also, etc) and the rural poor. What grabs our attention very much, the Kalinganagar struggle showed a departure from the much perceived 'Format 'of the anti-eviction movements so far: the rural poor, the peasants, agricultural workers, none waited for any 'political heavy-weight' or some 'superstar' like person or any globe-trotting famous "NGO-Star"; they didn't go through lengthy ethical, legal battles, Supreme Court Proceedings, or colourful media-illuminated programmes. They have broken down the happy-family peace and tranquillity of 'law and order' of the imperialist bosses-bourgeoisie-landlords, and have taken a mass-way, so to say. In the opposite side of the globe, in Latin America also, we saw working peoples' successful (in terms of attainment) movement for the nationalisation of Water, Natural Gas and Petroleum, etc natural resources in Bolivia. Years after the demise of the Bolsheviks and without the presence of any working class party, the Venezuelan workers are demanding, and to some extent trying to practise, Workers' Control. Advanced workers, although a few, of the West are starting to look back and find out why they failed to resist fierce capitalist aggression. The masses of toilers are slowly, but surely, turning from helplessness to struggle. At present these revolts are not much strong compared to Capitalism-Imperialism and their native cronies; the needed party of the working class (not just 'for' the class) is yet to be born and lead the workers' and peasants' struggle; the sum up of the past big failures of the International Socialist Movement is yet to be even half-finished. But history will prove its forward march; we have the belief not because we are blind believers, but because we are already seeing the first few tiny shoots to germinate. People disappointed over the defeat of the 1st international glorious march of the proletariat are rethinking, and summing up the experiences in their own way; and these are reflected through their actions and rejections. They need help from the conscious tiny contingents of the proletariat in this field. All For The Present War Front: endeavour hard to help these early shoots develop, endeavour hard for the re-awakening of the International Communist Movement, endeavour hard for the conscious sum-up of the past disastrous defeat.
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