[Marxism] ML Update Vol. 12, No. 27, 30 JUNE - 06 JULY 2009

[CPIML Liberation]

 *ML** **Update*

*A **CPI**(ML) Weekly News Magazine*

**Vol. 12        No. 27       30 JUNE – 06 JULY  2009

* *

*Resist the Neoliberal Assault on Education*


The UPA Government in its second term has made it a priority to aggressively
push through “reform” in education. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal has announced
the introduction of sweeping changes in schooling and higher education
policy that are deeply disquieting and will have long term implications for
India’s education system. The changes are being ushered in, in the name of
ridding education of long-standing problems and are as such being hailed by
the corporate media as “revolutionary.” Closer examination of the proposed
changes reveals, however, that all the progressive-sounding rhetoric are
only a smokescreen for policy changes which spell what the World Bank etc
have been recommending for long: freeing of the government from its
responsibility towards education, and institutionalizing privatization of
education.


The Right to Education Bill, soon to come up for enactment by Parliament, is
a typical example. While paying lip service to “right to education” and
“free and compulsory education for all children below the age of 14” (which
is after all a long-standing demand of educationists and the student
movement), the RTE Bill actually subverts any meaningful notion of right to
education. Refusing the educationists’ recommendations of a system of common
neighbourhood schools to ensure free education of equitable standards for
all, the RTE Bill instead institutionalises the existing system of good
schools for those who can pay and substandard, informal schooling for the
poor. In the name of ‘right to education,’ Sibal has announced the
introduction of ‘public-private partnership’ (PPP) in government-run schools
(including MCD schools in the capital) and a ‘voucher’ system for poor
students. In India, the greatest hurdle to right to education for all is no
doubt the fact that poor students cannot afford to pay for good schooling,
and the schooling available for them is of an extremely poor quality. Right
to education cannot become a reality unless it is backed by the political
and financial will of the government to take full responsibility for
education, and by getting rid of the writ of the private profiteers in
schooling. As it is, government spending on education in India is woefully
inadequate and schooling is de facto privatised; ‘PPP’ is a euphemism for
further withdrawal of the government from its duty to fund education. When
the powerful private players in schooling with impunity evade the current
stipulations to enrol 25% poor students, there is little doubt that
‘vouchers’ for poor students in a privatised, profit-based system of
schooling will meet the same fate.


The much-hyped move to make Std. 10th board exams optional is also a
cosmetic and hollow measure. The move is being touted as one that will free
students from excessive exam stress. Exam reforms are no doubt needed – but
they cannot be divorced from wider school reforms and social changes.
Students do not suffer stress only due to exams – but rather due to deeper
insecurities that are created and fostered by a system that forces them to
compete for shrinking space in education and employment. The UPA
Government’s policies are intensifying this insecurity by the privatisation
of education and the worsening of the unemployment crisis: and as such this
insecurity cannot be undone by mere cosmetic moves like making 10th boards
optional. Further, so long as these exams are ‘optional,’ even this limited
measure will go against poorer children. The market’s demand for high marks
in school exams will continue, and it is deprived students who will avail of
the ‘option’ to opt out of the exam system.


In higher education, too, Sibal has proposed sweeping changes such as
introducing of private and foreign universities, and replacing the UGC and
other government-run regulatory bodies with a single ‘autonomous’ apex body
– the National Commission for Higher Education and Research (NCHER). These
changes have been recommended by the Yashpal Committee on higher education
as well as by the National Knowledge Commission.


The HRD Minister has been quick to utilise major controversies over deemed
universities, capitation fees, and racist attacks on Indian students in
Australia, to push for the agenda of private universities and foreign
universities. Deemed universities have become notorious as fraudulent
enterprises cheating students to sell sub-standard education at a steep
price. Sibal has claimed that such flagrant fraud in the name of education
can be checked by doing away with the ‘licence raj in education’ and
allowing private players to set up universities without so much ‘red tape.’
Such reasoning is self-serving and illogical. If anything, the fate of the
‘deemed’ universities ought to serve as a nightmare preview of the fate
university education is bound to suffer if left to the mercies of the
market.


The replacement of the UGC/AICTE etc with the NCHER as well as the
withdrawal of the Government from the responsibility of the funding and
functioning of higher education is being pushed in the name of ‘autonomy.’
What does ‘autonomy’ mean in these circumstances? Will it mean the autonomy
to hold students union elections; the autonomy of students to conduct
democratic activity; the autonomy to pursue research of one’s own choosing?
The Yashpal Committee report says that the NCHER will be “an autonomous
body” with a 7-member board, and that one of its 7 members would be “an
eminent professional from the world of industry;” further, the NCHER will be
“independent of all ministries of the Government of India.” This makes it
clear that ‘autonomy’ thus defined is nothing but neoliberal shorthand for
freedom for the market and the specifically the profiteers to dictate the
agenda in education. This can only spell the worst un-freedom for the
teachers, students and researchers, and for the spirit of university
education itself.


The experience of health care is warning enough that private for-profit
players cannot serve the needs of the mass of poor Indians. Their steep
prices put them out of reach of the poor, who remain dependent on the
shrinking public healthcare; their claims of superior ‘quality’ are suspect,
with rampant cases of neglect and corruption; and they have largely relied
for prestige and ‘quality’ on the best medical practitioners imported from
the public hospitals, thereby weakening the institutions on which the poor
rely. Private universities will be no different. Foreign universities which
will open shop in India, too, are not likely to be the ‘top’ universities
unless the government is willing to subsidise them; they will instead be
mediocre institutions seeking to shore up their financial crises by reaching
out to India’s vast market.


Sibal has promised to implement the Yashpal Committee’s recommendations
within 100 days. While in such a hurry to implement the recommendations of
the Yashpal Committee and the National Knowledge Commission, it is telling
that no government, in the last four decades, implemented the Kothari
Commission’s recommendation that 6% of GDP be spent on education!


Sibal, it is apparent, is not so much throwing out the baby of education
with the bathwater of deemed universities, capitation fees, etc..., he is
throwing out the baby, with a sleight of hand, while pretending to throw out
the bathwater. It is urgent that we expose these ‘revolutionary’ moves for
what they are – moves to privatise and commercialise education – and resist
them with all our might, while demanding that the UPA Government instead
meet the long-pending demands for at least 6% of the GDP to be spent on
education.



Bihar Police Brands as ‘Extremist’

legendary Bhojpur MLA Comrade Ram Naresh Ram and other CPI(ML) leaders, CJM
Issues Non-bailable warrant

The Bihar police has decided to target and brand as ‘extremist’,
octogenarian CPI(ML) MLA and legendary icon of Bhojpur’s struggling poor,
Comrade Ram Naresh Ram and other CPI(ML) leaders. It has issued non-bailable
warrants against these leaders in a nearly decade-old case pertaining to a
protest against police firing which had claimed the lives of four CPI(ML)
supporters who were participating in a protest demonstration against the
killing of a CPI(ML) leader in a fake encounter.

On 20 August 2000, a massive protest demonstration was held at the Arrah
Collectorate against the fake encounter in which popular CPI(ML) leader
Vishwanath Ram was killed. The police opened fire on the demonstrators and
four of them, including a 16 year old student Anand Kumar, were killed. The
other three martyrs are – Vishram Pandey, Harey Ram Mushahar and Dharmendra
Kumar. The CPI(ML) filed a case against police firing, and that the case is
still pending trial. The police had also filed a case against CPI(ML)
leaders (No. 237/2000) in the Ara/Nawada Police Station. In the latter case,
the Investigating Officer, a police inspector, recently wrote to the CJM,
asking that non-bailable warrants be issued against Comrades Ram Naresh Ram,
as well as former MLA and AIALA National President Comrade Rameshwar Prasad
and 8 other leaders, invoking various IPC Sections (147, 148, 149, 323, 324,
253, 332, 333, 337, 307, 188) as well as the Arms Act and Explosives Act.
The IO’s letter claimed that “sufficient evidence” had been obtained against
these leaders, who “are always taking the law into their own hands and,
hiding secretively, and at the first sign of any carelessness, take up arms
and lay siege to the police” (hamesha kanoon ko apne hi haath me liye rahte
hain aur luk chipkar thodi hi asavdhani hone par hathiyar liye pulis par
dhava bol dete hain). The CJM has reportedly issued NBWs against the CPI(ML)
leaders in question.

The IO’s letter is preposterous to say the least. CPI(ML) leaders like
Comrade Ram Naresh Ram are popular mass leaders, icons for the socially and
economically downtrodden and exploited. The open mass protests led by them,
including the 20 August 2000 demonstration, are not conducted “hiding
secretively.” The only weapons in evidence on 20 August 2000 was the massive
presence of people and the force of their demand for justice. The IO’s
letter itself reference to ‘carelessness’ by the police is an oblique
reference to the fake encounters, human rights violations and
high-handedness by the police, often in collusion with upper caste
landlords’ private armies and ruling parties. The whole thing is a
calculated move to try and humiliate the revolutionary working masses of
Bhojpur, by slandering their leaders and issuing NBWs against them, branding
them as common criminals and ‘extremists.’

On 29 June, CPI(ML) MLAs protested vigorously in the Bihar Assembly and
demanded that the Chief Minister take a stand on this mischievous act of
political targeting of the leaders representing the rural poor. Nitish Kumar
was forced to promise to “look into it.” The next day again, the Bihar
Assembly witnessed vocal protests, asking the Chief Minister to clarify his
stance. CPI(ML) has declared a statewide protest day on 1 July.

The episode exposes the Nitish Government’s tall claims of justice and good
governance, revealing in Nitish’s rule, too, representatives of the
oppressed will be targeted and harassed. It is also a fresh instance of the
discourse of ‘extremism’ being deployed against popular forces by struggle –
by Governments of all hues from Orissa to Punjab to West Bengal and now
Bihar and all over the country. For the CPI(ML), such targeting is nothing
new. In Bihar itself, in Congress rule, the CPI(ML) faced severe state
repression; in Laloo-Rabri rule, popular elected leaders like Shah Chand
were convicted under the lapsed draconian law TADA; and in Nitish rule now,
again, the same pattern continues. In Punjab, too, the CPI(ML) is facing the
same kind of repression.



Table the Liberhan Report Without Delay

Punish the Perpetrators of the Babri Masjid Demolition

After a delay of 17 long years, the Commission of Enquiry headed by Justice
Liberhan has submitted its report to the Prime Minister. The Liberhan
Commission was set up to enquire into the fascist act of demolition of the
Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992. Acts of communal violence – be it the
Hashimpura-Meerut riots of 1989, the Bombay riot of 1992, the anti-Sikh
riots of 1984, or the Gujarat genocide of 2002, have notoriously evaded
justice. The inordinate delay in the process of enquiry of the Liberhan
Commission – over the course of governments led by the BJP as well as by
self-proclaimed ‘secular’ coalitions – is further indication of the immense
lack of political will to prosecute communal politicians for their crimes.

6 December 1992 is indeed a mark of shame for our democracy: when in full
view of the nation, communal mobs, pre-armed with implements, and egged on
by triumphant and gleefully grinning BJP leaders, laid siege to the
historical Mughal-era monument, the Babri Masjid. The Congress Government at
the Centre, notoriously, turned a blind eye to the full-blown preparations
for the demolition and allowed the saffron mobs to gather at Masjid, thus
facilitating the demolition. The demolition of the Masjid was preceded and
followed by bloody communal violence that claimed the lives of innocent
Muslims. Denial of justice in communal riots, and the impunity to communal
Hindutva leaders even in the face of overwhelming evidence against them, is
the single biggest factor that has deepened the alienation of Muslim
minorities in India.

Even today, while the BJP in its response to the submission of the Liberhan
report has denied involvement of its leaders in the demolition, the RSS
which runs the ‘parivar’ to which BJP belongs has defended the demolition as
a result of ‘pent-up anger’ for which BJP leaders cannot be held
responsible. Meanwhile Uma Bharti, who as a BJP leader danced on the
shoulders of Murli Manohar Joshi as the mosque came down, and has now
deserted the BJP, declared that she had wanted the mosque to be demolished
and was not about to apologise for the demolition.

17 years is enough delay: the Congress-led UPA government must immediately
table the Liberhan Report in Parliament and allow the nation to know its
findings. The vacillation and prevarication on matters of majoritarian
communal violence that the Congress has perfected led to the demolition of
the Babri Masjid. The failure of no just Shiv Sena but even Congress
Governments in Maharashtra to implement the recommendations of the
Srikrishna Commission on the 1992 Bombay riots is also part of Congress’
shameful track-record on tackling communal violence. The same must not be
repeated now: the perpetrators of the Babri Masjid demolition must be
brought to book. Justice for 6 December 1992 is a crucial test for Indian
democracy.




Various Protests in West Bengal against the Lalgarh Operation

On 23rd June All India Students’ Association (AISA) and Revolutionary Youth
Association (RYA) activists held a militant demonstration in front of the
State Secretariat (known as Writers’ Building) in Kolkata in protest against
the operation against the tribal people of Lalgarh by an Indian version of
the "Coalition of the Willing" - comprising of state police force and
central paramilitary battalions. Later, 43 activists courted arrest. At the
police lock-up at Lalbazar, the arrested activists held a political meeting
and the walls of the lock-up echoed with songs and speeches condemning the
police action. The demonstration was led by Com. Shouvik Ghoshal, State
President of RYA and Com. Debolina Ghosh, State President of AISA.

On 27th June, the CPI(ML), Association for Protection of Democratic Rights
(APDR) and Mazdoor Kranti Parishad (MKP) jointly held protest meetings in
Belgharia. At Chuchura, a hundred RYA and All India Progressive women’s
Association (AIPWA) activists held a demonstration and blocked roads. The
police resorted to lathicharge during which an AIPWA activist was injured.
On 29th June, Nagarik Samanyay Manch held a protest meeting at Hazra More in
Kolkata which was attended by many progressive and democratic activists.

On 29th June, AIPWA and RYA, Hoogly dist. committee jointly organised a
protest rally at Chinsura, demanding withdrawal of State and Central joint
forces from Lalgarh, West Bengal. The rally was militant enough. After the
rally the police suddenly started lathi-charging the protestors and did not
spare even the women. Some activists got injured. This is yet another
incident that demonstrates the West Bengal State machinery’s intolerance to
any protest. Even after the lathi charge protest march moved forward
signifying people’s readiness to face all the brutality for restoring the
democratic space.

On 28th June RYA Belghoria local committee and CPIML- Belghoria Party
committee jointly held a protest march on the same issue.



AISA’s  Tamil Nadu Assembly Gherao to Demand Free & Quality Education for
All!

All India Students’ Association (AISA) gheraoed (encircled) the TN Assembly
on 30 June demanding free and quality education for all and against the
collection of excess fees in schools and colleges across Tamil Nadu. In TN,
the problem of excess fee has been on the rise for quite some time and
reflected in the State Assembly too. But, there was no voice inside the
Assembly to echo the concerns of students at large. Even the CPI and CPIM
members did not come forward with the demand of putting an end to
commercialisation of education and instead were suggesting corrective
measures to curb excess fee collection.

Outside the assembly dozens of student-activists of AISA raised the demand
for putting an end to the commercialisation of education and tried to gherao
the assembly. The police was taken aback by the sudden gherao, lost its cool
and tore away AISA’s banner and the memorandum given by the agitaitng
students. They snatched away the flags too. This incident attracted
significant media coverage as only AISA has highlighted the issue of excess
fee collection in TN. The agitating students were arrested but released in
the evening. Com. Bharathi, State organiser of AISA led the agitation.



Dharna against Today’s Growing Undeclared Emergency!

To Protest State Repression on People’s Movement!!

The CPI(ML) Delhi State Committee organised a dharna at the Parliament
Street in New Delhi on 26 June, 2009, which marked the 34th anniversary of
the infamous Emergency, in which the Central Government headed by the
Congress Party had muzzled all dissent, jailed all opposition, banned all
forms of protest and criticism of the government’s policies – all in the
name of ‘stable government.’

Behind the soothing rhetoric of ‘democracy,’ ‘development,’ and ‘good
governance,’ we are very much hearing the footfalls of an undeclared
Emergency even today. The dharna cited the paramilitary terror in WB as the
state’s answer to the Lalgarh adivasis’ demand for justice against police
atrocities, and the Home Minister telling the civil society not to visit the
area – so that the repression remains shielded from public scrutiny; Punjab-
the Dalit agricultural labourers who were protesting Govt.’s betrayal of its
promise of house-plots for poor households, are jailed in thousands; in
Shopian, Kashmir, women protesting against the rape and murder of two young
women by security forces are being fired upon or jailed, are a few of other
such incidents being perpetrated.

The dharna was attended and addressed by CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar
Bhattacharya, many distinguished citizens of Delhi, Human Rights’ Activists,
teachers/professors and students apart from Party’s leaders- comrades
Prabhat Kumar, AICCTU General Secretary Sapan Mukherjee and Delhi’s Party
Secretary Sanjay Sharma among others.

Condemning the paramilitary forces’ offensive and terror against the tribal
of Lalgarh who were demanding justice, Com. Dipankar said that the Central
Govt.’s and Home Minister Mr. Chidambaram’s ‘zero tolerance approach’ is in
reality a borrowed idea and phrase from the American lexicon of ‘war on
terror’ and it essentially seeks legitimacy for all sorts of infringement
and assault on democracy and human rights, whether directly by the state or
through some Salwa Judum kind of public-private partnership. Criticising the
recent amendments to AFSPA, Chhatisgarh Public Security Act and the UAPA he
said that these have been legislated more for attacking and suppressing the
people’s movements for democracy. He strongly condemned the Govt.’s
justification of gruesome repressive tactics like the Salwa Judum. He also
criticised the Delhi’s Congress Govt. for its extreme reluctance in
conducting a magisterial enquiry into the Batla House encounter despite the
directions from the High Court and the Human Rights’ Commission.

Main demands voiced through the dharna are: (1) end to the paramilitary
operations at Lalgarh, (2) peaceful political solution, based on meeting of
adivasis’ demand for justice against police atrocities, (3) release of
jailed CPI(ML) leaders in Punjab, (4) Stop fake encounters, scrap draconian
laws! and (5) No to war on civil liberties in the name of war on terror!


NREGA Workers Receive Police Beating against Pending Wages

In Chheta panchayat that comes under Barwadih block of Latehar district in
Jharkhand, the NREGA workers facing several injustice and mal-treatment,
decided to publicly convey their woes to the higher officials of the
Administration at the 18th June ‘Development Festival cum Health Camp’
organised by the Administration. The assembled NREGA workers gheraoed the
BDO and asked him to clear their pending wages. It is noteworthy that the
Administration did not ensure the due entry of daily work record and dates
in the job card of many labourers. Neither was there any arrangement of very
basic conditions necessary for continuance of physical labour, like drinking
water, first aid, resting tent etc., whereas these facilities were shown to
be provided on paper and vouchers made and claimed for the same. The workers
demanded action against the officials responsible for the illegal
withdrawing of funds and also demanded implementation of the agreements
reached at, at the Lok Adalat held in 2007-08. When the BDO tried to flee
instead of taking note of the serious injustice meted out to these workers,
he was surrounded by them and slogans were raised against him and the
Administration. At this point the police present there emboldened by more
police reinforcements that just then arrived started to attack these
innocent labourers and severely lathi-charged them. Half a dozen women were
also injured. Incensed by all this hundreds of workers marched in protest at
Barwadih in the evening. This was followed by protests all over Jharkhand on
June 20.

* * *

Phone:22521067; fax: 22518248, e-mail: mlupdate at cpiml.org,
cpimllib at gmail.com,  website: www.cpiml.org


*