Concept note

Founding Conference of
 All India Union of Forest Working People        (AIUFWP)

Town Hall, Puri, Odisha, India

3-4 June 2013

The forests of the country are inhabited by a sizeable section of forest working people who number about 15 crores, (150 million) dependent on the forests in some way or the other for their self-employed livelihood – procurement and sale of Minor Forest Produce (MFP), agriculture on forest land, plantation work, rearing cattle, extraction of minor minerals, fishing, making articles from forest produce, construction work, extinguishing forest fires, etc. A very small section of the forest people work as wage labourers in various Forest Department work, like plantation, construction work, putting out fires etc.

Forest based working people may be classified into two broad categories – one, who for centuries have been traditionally deriving livelihood  from the forests and who are referred to as forest people (Adivasis or moolnivasis -original inhabitants) and the other being those, who were settled by the Forest Department ,since the colonial period ,for plantation and other related forest work, from outside the traditional forest boundaries, into the forest, and those who are referred to as forest workers(Van Taungyas). About 60 % of forest dependent communities are adivasis including those who are not Scheduled tribes. Pastoralist/nomadic tribes have sizeable sections who are muslims. Women constitute the biggest percentage of the working force in the forests. Paradoxically, even though constituting such sizeable numbers, the forest working people lack visibility and are not even considered part of the larger recognized working class as such. However, from time immemorial, this community has been engaged in primary production and has played an important role in creating and preserving the country’s resources. From the beginning of primitive accumulation of capital which started in the colonial era in the capitalist development process, their labour has been wantonly exploited. This phase was marked by raw exploitation of a large section of the forest working people especially those constituting the Taungya community, who were subjected to primeval slave like treatment with bonded labour/ captive labour status.

The onset of the British presence on Indian shores saw the beginning of severe attacks on the forest based communities in the name of                    “development”, unleashed by the imperialist/capitalists for exploitation and appropriation of the forest and natural resources of the country. This resulted in the rapid and tragic displacement of the forest based communities from the very lifeline and socio-ecological bases of their existence. These attacks on the very foundations of their existence was opposed and many instances of heroic uncompromising resistances- sometimes long drawn out, on issues of their self rule and preservation of forest and natural resources- dot the period of establishment of colonial ownership of the forests. These struggles were led by icons like Tilka Majhi, Sidhu Kanu, Birsa Munda, Sitaramaya Raju, Lakhsman Nayak and leadership of multitudes of adivasis. But all these resistances remained local or regional at best and were suppressed with ruthless superior armed power. However the fury of these strong indigenous revolts made it amply clear to the colonialist rulers that such blatantly oppressive techniques of governance would not work out too long and that such struggles could take on a national character in no time. So after one hundred years of blinding loot of our forests, the British rulers brought in Forest Policies and Rules towards the later half of the 19^th century, thereby legalizing the loot through such oppressive legislations. All forest policies and rules made by the British had only one underlying objective – loot of forest resources.

In 1947 India became politically independent and in 1950, with the adoption of a new Constitution, India became a republic. Like the flood of democratic liberating expectations sweeping the multitudes of the country, the forest based communities were also hopeful of betterment in their lives. Nothing actually happened and worst, the Indian forests continued to be administered in the same colonially exploitative vein by the Indian government where people continued to be deprived of their basic rights. Article 21 of the Indian Constitution guaranteed “Right to Life” – implying that all Indian citizens had the right to live an honorable life by getting full opportunity for income generation and livelihood options. But the Indian ruling class through the colonial institution of the Forest Department went on a public land usurpation spree, and the boundaries of “forest land” expanded with the illegal occupation of village land and at the same time the rapid destruction of the forest continued and forest based communities kept getting displaced from traditional forest based habitats. As the pillars of “development” – industries, power plants, mines, big dams appeared, the forest cover depleted, people got displaced, millions of lives were torn asunder, unemployment grew....and when people opposed, the governments relied and believed only in increased state violence. The forest regions gradually became a terrain of violence. Neither people survived nor did the forests or the bio diversity of the forests. In the name of Wild Life or Environment protection stricter rules of controlling the forests were passed with more powers to repress any dissent. In three decades after independence it had become clear to the forest based communities that they continued to be slaves of the Forest Department and only a second war of independence could liberate them from this slavery. From the 90s the “neo-liberal” package of capitalist responses to counter the apparent deepening structural crisis of Capital, saw multi and translational companies arriving in hordes in the forests resulting in rampant exploitation of  forest, land, water, hills. People had to organise themselves in to protests against such ruthless exploitation. Post 80s, some sections of social movements and peoples movements started interacting closely with such movements of forest based communities and gradually a regional and national coordination began and grew, and within such co-ordinations and co-operations a process of forming a national platform began to take shape from 1993-94, resulting in the formation of Nation Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) in 1998.  Some more processes also existed at a regional level. This proved to be a critical moment in the Forest Rights movement in the country. An interesting aspect in the very formation of the Forum was a decision to, in future, transform itself in to a national federation of forest working people. It was clear such a transformation would be necessary to counter and replace the anti-people forest administration with a community based self rule of the forest people which would run on democratic republican principles. The forum from its formative days kept in touch with national, international workers movements with labour rights, environmental justice and right to livelihood as key common denominators. Simultaneously two other processes were seen in the forests – (a)the environmental process -  which questioned the very functioning of the Forest Department and talked of  protection of natural resources, but did not give  primacy to the  question of right to livelihood or the question of  changing the colonial forest governance structures. They kept searching for alternatives within the given structure – joint forest management, eco-development, social forestry etc (b) the political process - from the 80s onwards extreme left political ideologies engendered some political processes in the forested regions of the country and also established themselves within some forest based communities, these “processes” are currently broadly termed as “Maoist”. They also talked about dismantling the colonial governance structure but never based on the self rule of the communities; the only alternative they envision is capture and creation of a new state power by the Party. In the midst of the tussle of these different trends, the Forum concentrated on building a democratic movement for the creation of a new legislation replacing the government and the “eminent domain” of the state and their ruling classes over the forest and replacing current anti-people forest governance with a democratic community centric governance structure.

In formation of Forum women force played a very important role. They also played a very important role in all the struggles against the colonial legacy of State inside the forest area and in some key tensed areas such as Kaimur, Bundelkhand played instrumental role in creating a democratic space. They contributed immensely in forming, strengthening and widening the local organization. They could very well imagine that in order to take back their rights they have to fight the repressive and exploitative state that is present in the form of police, forest department, contractors, mafias, companies, feudals, capitalists, dominant sections etc. Simultaneously they launched multilayer struggles against these forces. The driving force for them was security and good life for their future generation. They were clear in their mind that they are fighting for generations to come and not for a short span of life. Hence they were more vigor, energetic, active to develop the strategy to fight these forces in a collective manner. In many areas such as MP, Bihar, UP, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand they were instrumental in implementing the Act in their own way by reclaiming thousands of hectare of forest land and sustaining it in a collective manner. It was through these initiatives that they felt very strongly that they need to unionize in order to sustain these lands and forest for their future generation, build economic activities based on the natural resources, build their own infrastructure of development, education , health etc and form new institution like cooperatives to strengthen these economic activities. Eventually union will help them to protect their rights and dignity.

 It is noteworthy that in the all the issues about environmental crisis and forest governance, the community never participated and were never in fact included in these debates. These debates were confined within the “expert” middle class and elites. It may be recalled that English education system and the professional/expert middle class were given birth to strengthen the bases of colonial rule, so that colonial governance could function smoothly. That is why this class has always been against people’s movements and the reason why the management of forest, land, water has continued to be dominated by official administrative thoughts, principles and actions and democratic processes have never been allowed to surface. This also resulted in the fact that democratic republican content was mostly absent in legislations on land, water or forests. To keep constricting the development of democratic spaces, such critical legislations like the Zamindari Abolition Act were passed with escape routes and loopholes were kept consciously so that manipulations could be done. The landless and the deprived thus could not derive any benefit out of such legislations. In this context the struggle for a democratisation of forest governance, the fight for forest rights was an important political struggle. Significantly, left political parties in UPA-1forced the inclusion of this issue in the common minimum programme and raised their voices in the Parliament. A new political climate emerged and Forest Rights Act was passed by the Parliament of India in 2006 and this was a victory of the strength of peoples’ movements across the country.

 This was the beginning of a new phase in the Forest Rights movement – for the first time the issue of democratic rights of the forest based communities came up on the national political plane. Almost simultaneously two other important legislations were passed by Parliament – (i) National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 and (ii) Unorganised Workers Social Security Act,2008. The rural and forest regions of the country are seeing  a new dimension being added to the communities ongoing struggles ,resulting in an unprecedented upsurge in mass peoples consciousness – which is now in the forefront of  challenging the neo-liberal policies and onslaughts. Interestingly, other social and political forces are receding from the battle grounds. It is now necessary to unite the scattered pockets of forest based community resistances dotting the forests of the country and to establish  it as a national political force. This was unanimously decided in the 4^th National Conference of the Forum in 2012 at Dehra Dun which felt that to establish a democratic community based governance of the forests, a national union of the forest based communities needed to be formed which would be able to establish the community leadership on a national plane. This national Union would struggle for the implementation of labour laws, social security laws and forest rights laws in the forest regions and accepting the many diversities across the forested regions of the country would build up the Union on federative principles. The Union would rely on militant mass struggles as the means to achieve its goals where members at all layers and levels would actively participate in such struggles. The Union would aim to develop and project women leadership; to assist members to organise cooperatives of the members to conduct economic activities to generate employment and enhance livelihood; to establish community control of the primary producers on the forest resources to ensure protection of forest resources, environment and livelihood of forest working people; to recognise women’s work, both paid and unpaid in the economy and the family.

In this Conference delegates from different regions would deliberate on various political, legal and organisational aspects of the Forest rights movement and arrive at conclusive positions and draw up the future strategies of struggle. The key issues to be debated would be :

1.      Right to livelihood in the context of environmental justice.

2.    The relevance of labour rights laws in forest rights movement.

3.    Social and political protection of  forest working people.

4.    Development of women community leadership

Organisational issues and new organisational structure and forms would be debated and discussed around the draft constitution.

Today we see the direct attack for control on the natural resources of the forested regions of the country from the capitalist forces. There is today a direct conflict between  Capital and the Community and progressive sections. The government is siding unabashedly with the forces of Capital. It is extremely important for us to understand as to who are on our side and who are on the Other side – this will help determine our strategy.

All India Union of Forest Working People would try to unite as many friendly forces as possible in this decisive fight against capitalism, feudalism and forest mafia , keeping its firm belief in collectivity and  justice as underlying structures of  a new society it envisions.

With an outlook of  protracted, long drawn mass peoples movement as the guiding strategy, the Union formation conference has been convened from 3-5^th June 2013, at Town Hall, Puri, Odisha. At this time Odisha is witnessing many important struggles on issues of  safeguarding forests and natural resources like anti- POSCO, Niyamagiri, Kalinga Nagar, Gandhamardan Hills,anti Vedanta University,anti Samuka Beach Tourism project (Puri) etc and it is important to build up strong co-ordination between struggling communities of other states and regions. Communities are expected to send their elected representatives to this inaugural conference, establish a strong organisation to ensure the protection of livelihood of forest based communities and forest resources.

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Convener’s Report

By Ashok Choudhary

4th National Conference of National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers

27^th May, 2012,Dehra Dun, Uttarakhand

Comrades,

First of all I would like to pay our heartfelt homage to comrades Dr. Viniyan, Prem Khawas, Noor Alam and last but not the least Bharati ji, all of whom we unfortunately lost during the very important and critical phase of our struggle. In the space of just five years, between 2006 and 2011, we have lost four of our leading comrades, whose physical absence in our midst is an insurmountable loss to the movement for forest rights. Their dedication and memories will always remain with us as a source of inspiration. I welcome you all to the 4^th National Conference in respectful homage to our departed comrades.

This conference is being held at a very critical juncture when the issue of forest rights, whether explicitly or implicitly, is becoming a key national issue and not just an issue in the forest regions only. A wide spectrum of the political, social and intelligentsia space is giving due importance to the issue of forest rights. Comrades, we have got to realise that the forest right movement today passing through an extremely important historically  phase, which will decide the future of the multitudes of traditional forest dwellers and the survival of the forests itself. It is in the context of this historical moment that NFFPFW and other organizations fighting for forest rights have to decide on their respective roles. Today, it is amply clear that we can play a decisive role in this movement only by making the right of self governance/rule of the forests (by the traditional forest dwellers) as our central focus. Though other related issues regarding forests and environment may influence the nature and context of this central struggle, but they will not be the deciding factor. It needs to be clearly understood that even worldwide, the struggles & movements for environmental justice have to focus on the right to self governance of forests and other natural resources by the dependent communities as the most critical and the core issue in this struggle. It should be this understanding which should form the basis of the political & organizational processes in the future struggle for forest rights.

In this context it becomes necessary that we, look back from the time of NFFPFW’s formation till today and carry out an objective analysis of this time span so that we may correctly estimate our strength and also understand the nature and content of this strength to appropriately face up to the challenges ahead. This analysis has to be an examination of the history of the organization from its inception and growth over the years. The movement for rights over forests as such is a 250 year old fight. It needs to be emphasized  here that the fight for the right to forest and other important mass movements on other critical issues are, in the present situation, an opposition to the onslaught of capitalism and thus in essence, a struggle towards systemic change.

Historically contextualizing all these movements would enable us to locate the essence of the four major streams of earlier movements which flows through the veins of our current movement. They are as follows:

1.                 The heroic struggle of the Adivasis (original inhabitants) against the colonial British Raaj for their rights to self rule/management of the forests, where thousands laid down their lives, was the first real fight for independence from the clutches of British imperialism and laid the foundation for our national freedom struggle. These movements remained confined to particular regions and could not take on a national character. To put a brake on such rebellions /upsurges, the imperialist powers enticed the then Indian elite into a game of give and take and compromises, thus creating a culture of compromise as the face of our later nationalist mainstream independence struggles. And in this scheme of things, the toiling, exploited millions were completely sidelined and excluded. But still, the battle for control over land, water and forests remains the core issue of national liberation and nation rebuilding.

2.                 1920 – 1930 saw a new beginning of revolutionary struggle/ movement – initiated by the phenomenal 23 year old martyr Bhagat Singh and his party the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association. The genesis of HSRA was rooted in Gadar Party and its revolutionary ideology, which had a strong base among the anti feudal peasant movement and youth movement in undivided Punjab. It laid out an anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, anti-feudal alternative for the national liberation movement and the goal was to create a socialist socio-political reality for the country. British imperialists and capitalist forces very carefully but surreptitiously suppressed the heritage/legacy of such revolutionary thoughts and practices from the people of the nation. But the ingenuity and commitment of Bhagat Singh and his young revolutionary brigade kept the embers of such revolutionary thoughts burning and by the 70s, such revolutionary thoughts had become a national political heritage.

3.                 The 1920s also saw the beginning of militant revolutionary peasant uprisings and upsurges against the tyranny of Zamindari and Jagirdari practices from Champaran. And this found its full fledged political articulation in the Telengana peasant movement, which with its call for “land to the tillers”, called for basic land reforms to usher in a paradigmatic change in the agrarian base of the economy. Today’s movements against land acquisition, for right to land , carry the heritage from Champaran through Telengana and later in the Naxalbari peasant uprising in the 60’s. The governments which have ruled independent India have always refrained from initiating comprehensive land reforms and have conspired to hand over land to the capitalist, feudal classes and displace people from their own lands and habitat.

4.                 Beginning from our national independence struggles and especially from the 60s, the country has seen the emergence of strong women’s movements. In the beginning these women’s movements were oriented towards issues of violence on women and were led by the middle class but later on labouring women also started participating in large numbers. Gradually, the texture of the movement changed. In the last two decades, the struggle of the labouring women has not remained confined to just issues of violence against women but has evolved into a full fledged fight against imperialism, capitalism, feudalism and the oppression of paternalistic domination on the lives of women. Demands for an overhaul of the economic, political and social structure of society have been coming up very strongly. And this has had its effect on the social movements and its organizational processes – today the issue of women’s leadership in all hues of socio-political struggles and in mass movements has become quite central. This has also effects on the children and youth who are questioning the entire edifice of injustice woven around their lives and living.

The last fourteen years of our organization’s struggles need to be looked into and analyzed against the backdrop of these four major trends or streams of movements. Only then would we be able to form a correct / objective reading and analysis of our actions/campaigns/movements and its organizational dimensions and processes – which in turn would help pave the way for the future.

Broadly speaking, NFFPFW’s life and times so far can be divided into three main phases. They are:

i)                   1^st phase – from 1993 when the formation process began to 1998 when the Forum was established; to 2002 when the 1^st National Conference was held

ii)                2^nd phase – 2002- 2006 i.e. till the passing of the FRA

iii)              3^rd phase – 2007 – onwards i.e. after the passing of FRA.

1^st Phase

In the beginning the process of formation of the forum began with the creation of NCL – an organization representing unorganized working class segments. It was then that a very important decision to prepare a report on the conditions of forest dwellers and push for a comprehensive legislation to protect the economic, social and constitutional rights of the laboring sections of forest dwellers was taken up. Further, keeping in mind the varying regional specificities of the forest dwellers, a powerful all encompassing charter of demands was sought to be created. In this process the different social/mass organizations working with various forest dwelling communities were contacted. For the first time probably, an effort to bring together the different organizations working amongst the different sections of the forest dwelling communities was taken up in India. Independent Trade Unions played a big role in this effort. Three years of relentless efforts saw the first coming together of many different such organizations in 1996 (Dehradun). After this , efforts continued at the regional and national levels to create an organization representing the forest dwellers, culminating in the formation of the National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers – NFFPFW- at Ranchi, Jharkhand, in 1998.

During the period from 1993 – 2002 live debates/ discussions on the very definition of forest workers ensued and an understanding was arrived at that connecting and focusing on labour related aspects/ issues was central to fighting for forest rights. However, the Hindi name of the Forum – “van shramjiwi manch” was objected by many organizations as they felt that it did not reflect the very critical identity issue of forest dwellers. It is true that the issue of identity of the adivasis and other traditional forest dwelling communities is an aspect of great importance. Taking this debate forward saw the unanimous adoption of “Van-Jan Shramjiwi Manch”as an appropriate representation/naming in Hindi of NFFPFW at the 1^st National Conference at Nagpur – 2002.

Summing up, the major realizations of this formative period were:

i)                   A communication was established amongst the different organizations working across the forest regions of the country and many of them got involved in a broader organizational framework to fight for forest rights and the 1^st National Conference saw the participation of 90 such organizations.

ii)                A charter of demands for forest rights was adopted with a corresponding concept paper on devising a comprehensive legislation for the same. A political document of the Forum was also created from this entire process. Eminent social scientist Dr. Roy Burman contributed critically by establishing the legal definition of forest workers.

iii) The critical challenge in the formative period was in establishing an effective coordination between different organizations working for forest rights and secondly to develop a broad collective understanding about the movement.

iv)The kind of activities/campaigns we pursued during this formative period saw the participation of various kinds of organizations working for forest rights – from those involved primarily in intellectual pursuits to those directly involved in protests and struggles. Though all such organizations had a common purpose of ensuring forest rights to the forest dwellers but an effective framework to link up and unite these multipronged, multilayered efforts could not be effectively established. This did result in problems in the coming days. We should have focused more on creating such a framework from the very beginning but at that period we were not fully aware about this critical aspect.

2^nd Phase

Our first National Conference was very encouraging wherein we could give final shape to the organizational framework, unanimously pass the constitution and form the National Council as per accepted conventions/principles. This conference also saw the creation of a strong action plan for the realization of forest rights. Let us recall that from 2002 onwards; the Forest department (FD in short) had issued country wide notices for forcible eviction of so called “encroachers” from the forests (including orders for destruction of dwellings/homes/settlements). Assam saw one of the crudest forms of barbarity unleashed by the FD, when elephants were let loose on the forest dwellers to destroy their settlements. However, this barbarity was strongly opposed by the forest people and the Forum unilaterally supported this fight against the cruelty of the FD. The forest people across many states, buoyed by the unflinching and active support of the Forum, launched a movement against this forcible eviction denial of rights to forest land / resources resulting in spontaneous reclaiming of their dispossessed land in the forest areas. Regions where such heights of action did not happen, the Forum carried out intense campaigns against these brutal and illegal steps of the FD. It was during this phase that the forest based communities increased their demands for enactment of a law to protect their inalienable right to forest land and resources. The pressure created by such mass movements and the fact that Assembly elections were round the corner in many states with large forest tracts  in 2003, forced the Central Government to instruct the FD to withdraw their forcible eviction order. The then NDA government ran campaigns for the return of rights to forests for the forest based communities and in many states like Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa success was achieved. The following year, 2004, saw the Congress party announce its intention to pass forest rights legislation during the Lok Sabha electioneering process. The 2004 elections saw the defeat of the NDA and the Congress party with the support of regional parties, in which the Left parties had a major presence, formed the first United Progressive Alliance – UPA - government at the Center. A Common Minimum Programme was decided upon and this included the issue of forest rights. Due to the pressure built by the ongoing militant mass movements outside Parliament and the Left parties within Parliament, the UPA government, in 2005, presented a draft bill for giving forest rights only to Scheduled Tribes. However, Parliament immediately returned this draft bill and set up a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) to look into the matter. NFFPFW strongly opposed this draft bill which only talked of forest rights to just one section of traditional forest dwellers – the Scheduled Tribes. We argued that the forests have been traditionally home to many other sections of forest dwellers and also many Adivasis   ( Indigenous people) did not have recognition under the Scheduled Tribes Act. Further, our argument was that enactment of such lopsided act giving rights to one section amongst the multitudes of forest dwellers could very well lead to inter community and race based conflicts ultimately resulting in a stalemate situation denying rights to any section of the forest dwellers. The Forum strongly put forward its case of creating a legislation giving rights to all the traditional forest dwellers or forest based working people. The Forum’s delegation met the JPC and presented its case/argument. The JPC heeded our views and in its report to Parliament also called for a comprehensive legislation covering all sections of forest dwelling communities. This was indeed an important political victory for the organization. The JPC’s report was a reiteration and strengthening of our political views. This victory gave us the confidence that even Parliament is an important political space which should be used for ensuring comprehensive forest rights. The Forum believes that this political space must be fully utilized in our struggles ahead. Ultimately Parliament did pass this bill. However it put a 75 year domiciliary proof clause for non Scheduled Tribe dwellers which created problems in implementation of the Act and engendered an atmosphere of palpable tension amongst the various other sections of forest dwellers and Adivasis with ST status. But still the Forum believes that the enactment of this act is a big step ahead for achieving overall rights for all forest dwellers by opening up a strong new political space based on which a vibrant political movement may be launched for the right to forests for forest based working people. And not only this, the Forum under the relentless pursuit of women members lead by one of our founding members comrade Bharatiji strongly positioned equal rights to women to forest and natural resources.

During the entire phase there were certain parallel social processes which gave strength to the movement for forest rights and ensured success in the enactment of FRA. After 2002, NFFPFW plunged itself wholeheartedly in various national and international movements and initiatives and established its identity, at national and international levels. In  February 2003 the Forum’s participation in the national protest demonstration, Labour Rally in Delhi against the anti-labour policies of the Central Government along with NTUI ( New Trade Union Initiative); in January 2004 participating actively and jointly with NTUI and its constituent member organizations with prominent number presence in the WSF in Mumbai; further participating in December’04 World Dignity Forum in Ramlila Maidan in Delhi and aligning and coordinating with various other world wide socio-political struggles of the exploited ; in 2006 participating in NTUI’s inaugural conference and relating its struggle and establishing a political relationship with the working class struggles  -  all these were important milestones in the Forum’s evolution into a political entity of  repute. It was also during this time span that NFFPFW established its relations with the ongoing world wide environmental justice movements. All these political processes enhanced the political awareness of the communities attached to the Forum and helped create an unprecedented growth in the community leadership within the organization. The desire to participate in the broader struggles being waged all around grew noticeably among the community leadership. Most importantly all these political processes made it very clear that a collective leadership of community members and field based activists was developing which could lead this forest rights movement at the national level in the near future. New challenges came up for the organization very strongly.  This was also true for all other relevant mass political movement based organizations.        

3^rd phase

The passing of FRA in 2006 was a very encouraging milestone for the forest dwelling communities which helped to generate a dream of liberating themselves from the clutches of poverty and lack of dignity. Consequently,a new found political consciousness began circulating in their veins. At the same time however, the FD along with other administrative machinery created a ‘front’ amongst themselves to stall the implementation of the FRA. The FD which, right from its inception, thinks itself to be the lords of the jungle, just could not digest the fact that FRA, both implicitly and explicitly , was taking away their ‘birth right’ to lord over the forests and rule and exploit the forest dwellers for their personal gains. The Act actually kept the FD out of any decisive role in the implementation of FRA. Thus to keep its ‘lordship’ intact, the FD incorporated their old ally elites within their fold and in effect created a situation of direct confrontation between the State and the forest dwelling communities. The forest regions witnessed a new category of class conflicts. Further, the lapse of almost one year between the passings of the law in Parliament in Dec2006 to the framing of actual legal framework in Jan’2008 further complicated the implementation scenario. This situation also had its effect within the organization. The sizable sections of middle class of our associates, true to their class instincts, started vacillating and got into a negative frame of mind. However, the masses from the community of forest dwellers were on a positive high. The fact of the matter is that the ‘state of conflict’ prevailing between the community and the state pushed the middle class associates in to ‘state of indecisiveness and inaction’. This layer of leadership looked at the government as the prime mover in implementation of FRA and viewed the communities as mere beneficiaries! The government machinery’s lack of political will in implementing the FRA in effect created a sense of despondency, insecurity and vacillation in the middle class segments. It needs to be noted here that with the onslaught of the neo-liberal policies of floundering global capital the middle class’s appetite for political confrontation with the state has evaporated. On the other hand the appetite of the exploited multitudes of forest dwelling communities to take on the state machinery showed an exponential increase and it is this new force which is leading this challenge against the exploitative Indian state. The communities are no longer satisfied at being mute recipients of crumbs thrown in as relief by the state but are becoming aware, involved and demanding their rights. This new found positive and constructive political consciousness of the toiling masses of forest dwellers is creating a tussle with the vacillations of the middle class. Increasing active involvement of the women in the movement has also intensified such tussle.In fact this trend can also be located in numerous socio-political and working class organizations and movements. It is exactly for this reason that these intervening five years from the enactment of FRA and now that our organizational processes and dynamics have faced serious challenges. The whole question boils down to the fact that either strengthening the organizational functioning and dynamics to lead the movement towards achieving broader political objectives should be the challenge or focusing on “other safer issues” to get away from the ‘state of conflict’ inherent in the movement for Forest Right and thus reorient the very founding ideological base of the organization itself and “survive” – these are the two choices before us. The challenge now is to “take on” this ‘state of conflict’ without the fear of dragons in front or tigers at the back, rather than become deserters from the flaming battlefields.

The aforementioned conflict within the leadership in the 3^rd phase of our organization’s journey has led to the development of a strange situation wherein a huge gap has opened up between the leadership and the regional bases. Though the fight on the ground has gathered momentum, the leadership has gradually become ineffective and for all practical purposes rudderless at the national level. There is also a conflict of interest between practicing and non-practicing activism. And it is because of this that parochialism and escapism has clouded the minds of a big section of the national leadership. The situation calls for a complete restructuring of the national leadership.

2007 onward – an account of the movement and organizational dynamics

The passing of FRA ’06 saw the emergence of a strong desire amongst the forest dwellers to get their rights and in different areas some solid actions, programmes were undertaken at their initiative. In March’07 thousands of the Forum’s members joined other mass movement based organizations under the banner of Sangharsh – a newly created platform which brought together other mass movement organizations, organized a three week long sit-in demonstration in front of the Parliament to successfully get across their stiff opposition to the land acquisition law. This joint sit-in demonstration by different mass organizations from different regions created an atmosphere of deeper understanding of each others issues and most importantly, a sense of co-operation amongst each other. Participants felt the power of collective strength and its role in helping attain each others rights. During these demonstrations under the Sangharsh banner members of different communities met ministers and secretaries from different ministries by being part of delegations which went for dialogues with such ministries. This definitely bolstered the morale of the fighting communities who got an exposure to take the state machinery face to face. Though people associated with the Forum and other organizations have been participating in big mass programmes earlier, this new found enthusiasm of Sangharsh’07 rally in Delhi, ensured increased participation and initiative from all sections of the people for all central programmes henceforth organized under the Sangharsh banner in the following years. The struggling people could form their own understanding and assessment of the working ways of the state machinery while participating in high level dialogues with Central ministries .The people emerged more positive and went back to their respective regions and areas of struggle with renewed vigour and an open call to up the ante and establish their control over land, minerals, water and forests. It was this belief and enthusiasm so generated by the Sangharsh interactions that in April 2007, people organized themselves in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh , reclaimed (dakhal) about 4000 acres of fallow forest land and started cultivating the same and sowed seeds for regeneration of the forests. Prior to this, from 2002 onwards, the Sonbhadra region in UP was witness to such reclamation of forest land and forest regeneration activities. Taking cue from these successes and emboldened by the Sangharsh experience, people achieved major successes when they started challenging the very authority and legitimacy of the Forest Department. The comrades and fellow fighters of the communities were aware of imminent attacks on their movement by the forest mafia and Forest Department and so it happened. But the ‘prepared state’ helped people to counter such attacks strongly and boldly and even helped them repulse armed police battalions ,who were sent scurrying back to their barracks in the face of this united and democratic mass resistances. This sent shock waves down the corridors of administrative channels and they reacted by labeling such mass resistances as Maoist. False cases were filed which were fought tooth and nail and reversed; though thousands of such false cases are still hanging on the shoulders of members from different forest communities across the country and the government is not taking any meaningful steps to clear the people from false implications of the legal noose that are always used to drag down such peoples movements. Women in the movement in Sonbhadra area and kept control over the several thousand acres of reclaimed forest land. Fellow comrades from fraternal organizations united on the Sangharsh platform also co-participated in dialogues and discussions which were forced down the unrelenting threats of the administration, whereby the administration had to publicly acknowledge that land issue was a complicated matter and traditional inhabitants of forest areas should be given back their rights to forest land and resources. Today, in many of these regions, forest dwelling communities are cultivating the still legally entangled forest lands on a collective basis and re-nurturing and re-growing forests and beginning to get back the sense of dignity in their lives. Kaimur area which is spread across a terrain common to the political spaces of different states of the Indian polity – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh  and especially the Sonbhadra district of the state of Uttar Pradesh has become the lighthouse for other common sea farers on the rough seas of the overall battles ahead – the rights to forest lands and its resources could very well be the stepping stone in the lives of the teeming millions of this part of  India to turn the course in the journey of humanity towards more humane, liberating and ennobling experiences in life and living. Such battles have won them the possibility of legally getting their collective rights to forests – which is at the threshold of a new history. Our departed leader Dr. Viniyan’s silent fight for the right to land for the poor people of Kaimur region spanning the states of Bihar and Jharkhand was a long battle already being waged on a militant but peaceful basis, creating ripples in the latent layers of smoldering rage at the injustices assimilated over ages. Dr. Viniyan led the fight for self rule of this region under Schedule V status, which raised the political awareness of the people of this region considerably. Comrade Viniyan, also a cofounder of NFFPFW, was ultimately snatched away sudden death and the movement suffered a setback. This was August 2006. But comrades from Sonbhadra joined in their struggle and helped people of the Kaimur region falling under the state of Bihar to regroup to fight against the illegal landlords to reclaim their lost land and forest. In the kaimur region different communities under the leadership of women have collectively reclaimed more than 20,000 acres of forest land. Of course this did not happen overnight. Strengthening the organizational network, depending on  the political wisdom of the people, facilitating the process through continuous interactions, protests, collective negotiations for  implementation of FRA’06, facing and countering administrative and political forces working against the movement, but always maintaining the Forum’s democratic mass based intent and practices on ground , a praxis centered around the growth of political consciousness at the grass roots with leaders, developing from within the communities, leading movements, of course with the commanding presence of conscious and capable women leaders – all of this collectively combined to give strength to the  Kaimur area movement. Very noticeable in this region is the successful operation of collectives run by women. The movement and new experiments in Kaimur region will be very crucial for NFFPFW in the near future. Other successes in our mass movements, like the one in Surma village in the Dudhwa National Park area, where villagers wrested rights to their land in a village within the core zone of a Tiger Reserve in Dudwa National Park under the FRA’06. This was an unprecedented event in the country – for the first time, instead of being evicted as always, a village earned constitutional right to land within a Protected Area. Further about 28 Tongiya “van-grams” (forest-villages/settlements) received their ownership rights in U.P. as per FRA’06.

          Other states have also seen a gathering momentum in the struggle for forest rights. Himalaya-Niti-Abhiyan, a collective forum of 26 local movements taken up in Himachal Pradesh is an organization which we, as a Forum, have been talking to and interacting with for some time. Since 2008 they have intensified their struggle and have used the FRA’06 as weapon to save the pristine but severely endangered Himalayan natural resources from the nakedly irresponsible loot by big corporations. Unfortunately the State Govts in the Himalayan states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, the North- Eastern states, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam have shown no interest so far in implementing FRA’06, though of late the Himachal Pradesh government has agreed to implement the same.

          The power and strength in the enactment called Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, commonly referred to as Forest Rights Act 2006, or FRA’06 in short, became evident to the nation during the struggles and legal victory against the opening up of the Niyamagiri mines and the anti-Posco movement in Odisha. The wanton loot of natural resources of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh by big transnational corporations bolstered by Global Capital, was nakedly laid before the eyes of the entire nation and the people of the country sat up. The power inherent in this piece of legislation became obvious as a potent weapon in this fight. Activities and campaigns to fight for the implementation of FRA’06 in southern India has picked up pace with several like minded organizations coming together to set up the South India Forest Rights Forum in Bangalore. The situation in Assam is quite volatile with our member organization Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti’s rally in Guwahati to press for implementation of FRA’06 in Assam being fired upon by the state government, leading to the death of seven community comrades and consequent unleashing of repressive measures by the administration. Akhil Gogoi and several comrades are behind the bars for leading anti big dam protests in Assam. West Bengal also represents a dismal scenario as far as getting FRA’06 implemented. The Forest Department there is firing upon and torturing Adivasis in the Buxa Tiger Reserve. Only under pressure of mass mobilizations has Sunderban area in West Bengal seen some implementation of FRA’06 rights, but still is desired.

Overall the persecution of forest dwellers continues unabated. Chattisgarh too has not seen much progress in the actualization of the legislative rights conferred on the traditional forest dwellers as per FRA’06; and being also Maoist territory, has led to a very awkward situation, where the democratic political space has become constricted because of the armed confrontation between the State and the Maoists, with people caught in the cross fire.

For all practical purposes the states are looking at FRA’06 as some kind of distribution programme of “pattas” and they are advocating the inclusion or treatment of the individual rights as enshrined in FRA’06 within the limited scope of “patta”. Besides this conspiracy by state govts, there is this unfortunate situation where many of the organizations working for forest rights also view the rights in a similar light. The West Bengal Government official website treats the rights as per FRA’06 as “patta” rights, which is illegal. At present no govt. body is really talking about the community right to forest land and forest resources and neither is the government in any way interested in understanding this aspect of FRA’06 or has the political will and strength to face up to the implications of accepting community forest rights. Rumors and confusions are being planted inside the forest dwelling communities e.g. they are being made to run around within the perimeters of individual rights; Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers are being made to fight over the 75 year resident clause inserted deliberately in the FRA with the sole purpose of driving a wedge between the traditional forest dwelling communities. This deliberate sidelining of the most important right granted under FRA’06 tantamount to a replication of the already accepted “historic injustice” committed on the forest dwelling communities. Member organizations of the Forum should deliberate on this matter with all due seriousness during the Conference and arrive at unanimous decision to bring this central right back into focus as the central fulcrum of our struggle. The Forum based on the experience gathered so far is of the clear opinion that unless the community rights of forest dwellers is ensured, the individual rights whatsoever granted cannot be sustained on a long term basis.

During the course of this struggle for implementation of forest rights, the Forum’s community leadership has arrived at a clear understanding that people’s power, the combined strength of communities is the engine to lead this fight for overall community management and ownership of all traditional forest dwellers. This realization has augmented the process of being organised amongst the people of the communities. A strong leadership – with women and youth in the forefront – is merging from amongst the community members. And they are leading the struggle on the fields as well as in the corridors of authorities at regional, state and national levels. Through these activities and dialogues communities are creating and expanding their democratic political space, which we may very well term as “advanced consciousness”. This can be visible in changing the language of the movement, which is more direct and unambiguous challenging the status quo.  

Along with constant struggle these struggling communities are also wringing in changes in the very relations of production. An effort to bring in the co-operative/commune type of organization of economic activities is being given priority. And these practices are convincing people that the best way to win their rights is on a collective basis, which is quite naturally setting into their advancing consciousness about the essence of the fight against the state. In many regions like, Kaimur, Terai etc collective efforts to farm and collect forest produce on a co-operative basis is being experimented with, though these quasi co-operatives do not operate currently on any legal or organizationally sanctioned framework. But for the past one and half years people have been exchanging opinions and sharing experiences to form Co-operative Societies within various communities. Com Thankappan and other comrades of New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) have participated in various legal ideological issues of setting up /operating/managing /sharing surpluses etc of Co-operatives. NTUI is also helping carry out primary surveys of existing modes of functioning of fledgling co-operatives; various relevant statistics like quantum of land under their control are being collected. Videographic evidence of the new forest sowed and lands cultivated by communities are being gathered and it is also being checked whether appropriate land records, maps etc are available with the communities. Unfortunately however, in lot of other areas where the struggle is not so intensified, the consciousness of the people are lagging way behind ; here people are only interested in getting “pattas” for their individual land rights.

It must be seriously taken unto consideration that today in the forest tracts or amongst the multitudes of the unorganized sector there is no framework or space for negotiations and dialogues with the state machinery for an overall solution to problems plaguing such areas, in a democratic fashion. And this is resulting in increasing tensions between the state and the working people in some places and in most cases the state is resorting to violence to “resolve” issues. In such a situation it becomes imperative for us to force open a democratic space for interactions between people and administration in the form of Public Hearings/Tribunals where people express, interact, and reach collectively arrived at decisions in the presence of top most echelons of state state/administrative machinery relevant to districts/regions/state levels. In the last couple of years the initiative of the organization in some regions has seen effective Public Hearings being organized. These Public Hearings have seen intense and effective dialogues between the community members and the administration and with the political class on issues of forest rights and many critical and important decisions could be arrived at. This initiative of the regional organizations has seen the Forest Right movement to-day attain a political importance in the corridors of power and most importantly helped to create a space for democratic political mass movements, something which till recently was almost non existent. In future such initiatives should be taken in all states/regions fighting for their rights to forests.

The Movement and women

It is the Forum’s realization that to strengthen the organization , to bring the fizz back into the struggle and to expand the organizational reach and areas of struggle, empowering women into leadership roles is an absolute must. In the last two decades mass movements and resistance struggles against capitalist and feudal attacks have undergone an unprecedented growth where working women have played a very important and decisive role. In a way the women have taken up the cudgels themselves and have woven a new texture into the entire fabric of mass struggles. They have challenged the chain of capitalism-imperialism-feudalism-paternalistic domination end to end, thus shaking the very foundational shackles of the chains of tyranny. Women leading such movements have been targeted, attacked, victimized, tortured; but they have come back stronger and more united and fought back the oppression and helped achieve major successes. Women are going ahead and imagining and creating alternative structures of socio-economic functioning, thus challenging the present day socio-economic framework. The essential orientation in all these alternatives is collective. Women have through participation in struggles carved out a niche for themselves within the organization also. Thus, in short, it is absolutely imperative that we strengthen women leadership at all levels of the organization and its day to day functioning.

Wanton exploitation of Natural Resources and its unified opposition

It is from the era of the British imperialist rule in India that the capitalist attacks on natural resources and the race for increased profits has accentuated the limitless exploitation of land, water, forest and other natural resources. Capitalists of all hues and geographies – British and Indian – co-operated in wanton cutting down of forests, using cultivable land for profiteering activities, the limitless mining of mineral wealth and establishing control over sea and reverie resources ,thus in the process polluting the same irreversibly. Independent India, in the name of “development” kept up such ruthlessly irresponsible exploitative practices. This resulted in lots of the working and toiling masses being displaced physically from their productive domains and which in turn engendered a situation of grave environmental catastrophe. The neo liberal economic practices over the last two decades have multiplied the loot of natural resources. Profiteering has displaced millions and heightened the environmental imbalance to dangerous proportions. Observed carefully, it is evident that it is Natural Resources which are bearing the brunt of this desperate capitalist attack. Our government not only participates directly but also acts as a middleman in this rape of natural resources of the country. Investments made to facilitate this massacre are not easily available or assessable. One study reveals that 2% of the total investment is made for equipment/technology, about 5% for overall direct business infrastructure. Where the rest of the money goes, there is no real clue. Understandably a huge chunk of it is used to buy political control. Across the country protests have taken place keep getting organized against such anti-people policies and practices which the government is trying hard to suppress, pressurize by labeling them as Maoist with the sole purpose of pushing such mass based democratic out of the democratic political space. The progressive sections of the middle class, sympathetic to people’s causes are also being targeted, victimized, to terrorize them out of any alignments with ongoing mass movements.

It may be reiterated here that in many of the important regions / areas of the Forum’s operation, Maoist organizations are also active. Now the Maoists also oppose anti-people governmental policies. However, it must also be noted that in areas where the Forum’s member organizations are leading mass movements, Maoist activities are not that prominent. In fact Maoists are present only in some special areas and not across the country. Different organizations in different areas are leading struggles as per local specificities. On the whole it may be said that all Maoist and mass movements have similarity in causes, but there are major differences in ideological and operational practices. Maoists also raise the issue of alternative systems and are putting into practice some such alternatives. However, the focus of their practice is not mass based and whatever mass organizations they are setting up are controlled by party diktats, which eliminates the possibility of real participation of the people in ideological and strategically decision making processes. A dialogue process has not been established between Maoists and various mass movements. All mass based struggles have democratic processes as key, wherein a sense of collective leadership is evolving gradually. Many of the mass movements are influenced by different thought processes which have still not been filtered down into one common framework and there is lack of concrete co-ordination between the various streams. Some of these efforts are very individual centric. Thus it cannot be concluded that all these efforts are similar. On the contrary, these different strains have ideological, political differences. The necessity of the hour is to establish a continuous process of dialogues, debates between these different streams and through the process of sharing of experiences, through various forms and processes an overall collective unanimity should be arrived at. Without strengthening democratic practices and processes, democratic mass movements cannot be sustained on a long term basis, even though some such mass movements may see some immediate high points.

In these movements the role of workers basing their livelihoods on natural resources have a very important role and which has the potential to influence all working class movements. The fight for the right to forests is also a part of this overall battle. Thus it is imperative that forest rights movements establish a deep political and operational co-ordination with other on going movements for protecting natural resources like the movement of the fishermen , the landless peasants and farm labourers, the anti- illegal and irresponsible mining  struggles, etc. The movement for forest rights is the oldest of such movements and it is necessary for our sake to unify all the different mass movements; in fact it is a challenge to find out the path to bring all these movements under one common platform. In reality the future sustenance and success of the forest rights movement depends heavily on forging such a unity.

Based on this understanding NFFPFW has initiated a process of dialogues with different movements fighting for safeguarding natural resource based working community movements with the sole aim of bringing together the different array of movements under a federative framework i.e. simply to form a Federation. The planned Federation should be so constituted that it can challenge capitalist aggression, safeguard natural resources and thus voice strongly the struggle for protection of livelihood of working people based on natural resources. In June 2011, Banjar in Himachal Pradesh saw the beginning of this process of setting up a Federation with the declaration of formation on december16th, 2011, of Federation of Natural Resource based Workers Organization. NFFPFW has to play a key role in shaping the structure and establishing federative practices. Through the formation of this proposed federation the movement for forest rights has the potential to reinvigorate and reinforce other widespread working class and social issue based movements. All natural resource based workers movements are essentially a fight against the onslaught of international capital’s orchestrated attempts to globalize the rabid exploitation of natural resources. This fight is a decisive one against world capital and industrial working class movements, on their own, cannot generate this decisive offensive against global capital and its cohorts. The working class requires establishing an ideological and operational unity very urgently and this requires a new framework. NFFPFW has to play a key role in giving shape and life in this framework. The struggle to save natural resources is very much a social struggle for which widespread co-operation needs to be established amongst the other ongoing social movements especially movements against arbitrary land- acquisitions, against setting up of SEZs, movements against big dams etc. It is noteworthy that  communities based on natural resources for their livelihood are essentially from  backward, dalit and adivasi communities for which they have to face an additional tyranny – that of the elites and upper classes. The fight for social equity is thus also an essential facet in the forest rights movement. So the Forum has to participate vigorously in all these fights of the exploited sections. Today the social movements are passing though a phase of internal frictions. On the one hand we have the middle class dominance and on the other we have the advancing politico- organizational consciousness of the exploited sections, which gaining momentum and strength from the ongoing struggles will definitely challenge the middle class dominance in social movements.

All in all, NFFPFW has to strive to become the effective link between the various hues/ strains of working class and social movements. And new initiatives and practices need to be developed to attain this goal of an effective link. A new challenging phase is in the offing and the challenge is  to create the conditions for the emergence of a new leadership in the movement by uniting the diverse  working people with oppressed and deprived communities. The organizational structure has to undergo far reaching changes. It is only when these changes are incorporated that the decisive war against the structural logic of Capital can be led to victory.

As stated earlier organizational framework overhaul is a must to face up to the political challenges of the times. To strengthen collective leadership and to empower the emerging women leadership, the organization has to undergo an extensive and intensive restructuring right from bottom to the top (the approach has to be bottom - to – top). The real strength of the organization lies in its regional movements; thus it is extremely important to strengthen the organization at regional levels so that their independent identity is established and maintained and their effective representation and say is established at the national level. This will ensure that gaps do not persist between national and regional leadership. Keeping these challenges in perspective, the Forum proposes to transform itself into a federative structure i.e. NFFPFW should begin to function like federation. At the regional level also regional federations have to be put in place which will carry out the federative organizational responsibilities at the regional level. Even regional federations have to ensure appropriate representation of local units. At the national level, the Federation leadership will be constituted from the regional federative leadership. In this way we can ensure the desired democratic practice of paving the way for local unit leaders of today to grow into national leaders of tomorrow. To achieve this goal we have to first of all change the current constitution of the Forum through extensive and intensive discussion and debates. A Committee needs to be set up to oversee this process. This committee will prepare the draft of the proposed constitution and place it for discussion across al units and layers of the organization. Of course a time frame has to be kept in mind for reaching unanimity in the proposed new constitution which will be finally done by calling a general assembly. Till then National Committee members will function as earlier. It is also proposed that in place of Convener, we elect a Chairperson and a General Secretary and also an Organizing Secretary so that the Forum may transform itself into a full fledged federative organization.

Shadman Chouck, now formally Baghat Singh Chouck, a small victory in Lahore, Pakistan

28th September, 2012

Dear all,

One small victory: Shadman Chouck named formally yesterday by Lahore administration as Baghat Singh Chouck. This is the place where Baghat Singh was hanged by British imperialism on 23rd March 1931. 

A decent friendly media coverage yesterday of our Baghat Singh birthday celebration might have an effect on the mind set of the Lahore administration. 

This was our demand, that is met, we will celebrate this victory again this week after consultation with the committee. 

The next target is to build a Baghat Singh Azadi museum at his native home in village Bingha in Tehseel Jaranwala. 

Here is the link of Daily dawn news confirming the name change.

Farooq Tariq

http://dawn.com/2012/09/30/bhagat-singh-chowk-henceforward/

Bhagat Singh Chowk henceforward

From the Newspaper | Our Staff Reporter | 1 hour ago

LAHORE, Sept 29: District Coordination Officer Noorul Amin Mengal on Saturday directed City District Government of Lahore officials to rename Shadman Chowk (roundabout) as Bhagat Singh Chowk.

Mr Mengal passed this direction to CDGL Chief Publicity Officer Dr Nadeem after a man requested him at Town Hall to rename the spot as Chaudhry Rehmat Ali Chowk.

“You know who Bhagat Singh was. He was martyred at this place (Shadman Chowk) after he fought the British army by raising a slogan of revolution in the subcontinent,” the DCO argued.

He said all citizens, including Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Christians, had equal rights under the Constitution of Pakistan and no one should raise any objection to the decision.

He ordered the officials to immediately place a board indicating Bhagat Singh Chowk besides issuing a public notice in the print media for seeking public comments.

The DCO also ordered the officials to rename Jail Road Chowk (near PIC/Services Hospital) as Chaudhry Rehmat Ali Chowk.

The DCO told Dawn the decision to rename Shadman Chowk was an acknowledgement of the revolutionary spirit of Bhagat Singh for the subcontinent.

Labour Party Pakistan

1/7 Street 7, Mohammed Nagar, Allama Iqbal Road, Lahore, Pakistan

tel: 00 92 42 36315162
www.laborpakistan.org

Bhagat Singh and the Anti imperialist Struggle

(On the occasion of 105th Birthday of Bhagat Singh)

Roma and Ashok choudhury

Translation by Avijeet chatterjee

South Asia, which is home to the maximum number of impoverished people eking out a bare minimum existence, ascendant capital and its current neo liberal policies of tightening the noose of the grip of capital on the lives of people, has deepened the crisis of unemployment, ecological balance and the overall lives of the people of the subcontinent (as it has all over the globe).Some social movement based mass organizations and trade unions of Pakistan and India have come together to commemorate the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh – the still now not fully known or realized icon , who was the first person from this part of the sub continent to have endeavored to understand Capitalism from the sub-continents perspective and challenged imperialist forces – by naming Shadman Chowk as Bhagat Singh Chowk. This was the place where he was hanged until dead. This is planned to be done on 28^th September – Bhagat Singh’s birthday. These organizations from India and Pakistan clearly refuse to confine Bhagat Singh within the precincts of either Pakistan - India friendship, Indian nationalism, or even Sikh nationalism. They see him and his organized political activities as possibly the only organization from the undivided Indian sub-continent/ south Asia to have really shown the way for the liberation of the impoverished souls from the choking oppression of deeply entrenched feudalism, Indian elite/dominant classes and of course British colonial/imperial subjugation.

Bhagat Singh was undoubtedly a revolutionary of Himalayan proportions. By commemorating his martyrdom by renaming Shadman chowk as Bhagat Singh chowk, these organizations from Pakistan and India actually want to unfurl a new phase in the world wide anti- Capitalist struggle, especially from the South Asian perspective. It must be realized that Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom was just not for India’s freedom from the British colonialists; but for the freedom of the entire Indian subcontinent.

Bhagat Singh’s political journey started at what would be considered as tender young age and didn’t last too long as he had to walk to the gallows aged 23yrears and some months. But in this short lived life he struggled very creatively, with boldness, clarity and ingenuity which opened a new vista in India’s struggle for freedom. This allowed him to open a new space in the political firmament of India’s the then anti imperialist struggle and secured him a position, which stands very relevant in today’s India – at danger of  being sold off  at the feet of floundering world Capital.

Tracing Bhagat Singh’s life and times:

To understand the phenomenal importance of Bhagat Singh, it is extremely important to be aware of the nature of historical times when he appeared on India’s political horizon. The 1920s was witness to events in the nationalist struggle and especially some events in Punjab, which need to be taken prior note of to situate Bhagat Singh better.

The end of the 1^st World war saw the imperialist powers aggressively put down any and every struggle against them, anywhere in the world – whether peaceful, traditional or breaking new grounds (revolutionary). The Russian revolution of 1917 had instilled a new vigor amongst the peasants, workers and youth all across the globe and helped create a new revolutionary consciousness and zeal. This also impacted / influenced the ongoing independence struggle in India. Punjab saw the outbreak of strong peasant and youth uprisings and movements. During one such movement, during the “baisakhi” day gathering on April 13^th, 1919, the peacefully assembled people were brutally massacred by General Dyer. Bullets flew indiscriminately in a non-stop ten minute blitz which saw Jallianwalla Bagh littered with dead bodies, while a nearby well overflowed with dead bodies of women and children. This incident was like a spark which lit the prairie fire – the flames had the potential to burn the British Empire in India. Bhagat Singh and the youth, the peasants, the workers smoldered in anger and looked at avenues to express their latent wrath on the British colonialists. A few years later, following this gruesome brutality at Jallianwallah Bagh, the peaceful protest march against Simon Commission, led amongst others by Lala Lajpat Rai, was cruelly lathi charged and the Lala succumbed to injuries received during that lathi charge. The youth were boiling with anger and the idea of taking revenge was nestling in the agitated youthful minds and Bhagat Singh was no exception. The nation awaited a strong response from the then national leadership on these incidents. But the Gandhi led Congress Party – amalgam of various streams of nationalist struggle, sat paralyzed by some inexplicable indecision. In 1921 Gandhi started the No Cooperation movement which, due to reasons best left for analysts to analyze, withdrew the movement all of a sudden and this created a vacuum in the political space in India’s ongoing political tussle with the British colonialists. The level of peoples’ aspirations and the response levels of the Congress Party were quite at different wavelengths. Naturally , as it has always happened when the collective consciousness of people races ahead of the organizations/ leaderships consciousness , which often happens during the highs/ peaks of social movements ( the long ones), the struggling masses of peasants , workers and youth  feel let down , as it happened in Punjab then. The youth were extremely agitated by what they felt to be a serious let down. They yearned for a fitting response to the ruling colonial power’s nonchalant disdain and disregard for the Indian people. It was in this context that Bhagat Singh emerged on India’s political horizon. He and his mates decided to kill the butcher of Jallianwallah – General Dyer. Dyer escaped but General Sanders was killed. This action garnered tremendous acceptance for Bhagat Singh and his comrades amongst the people of Punjab as well as the people across the country. His, was a direct challenge to British Colonial rule in India.

The situation suddenly ripened the opportunity of opening up a truly revolutionary path to the mainstream political thoroughfare riddled with potholes of indecision and inactivity emanating from the class proximity of its constituent political alliances. A new fuel seemed to have energized the engines of the energetic youth of India. Bhagat Singh emerged as the beckon of this emerging revolutionary spirit and became iconic. The killing of General Sanders was a strategic action, which set into motion Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary political life, which in a few years time picked up such momentum that it posed a serious challenge to the mainstream freedom struggle’s compromising character and also simultaneously became the seed of the anti-imperialist struggle; the agenda for it was created. The sterile political space was invaded and assaulted by this fresh spirited, Bolshevism inspired, socialist ideology inspired offensive of Bhagat Singh.

The “Complete Chronicles of Bhagat Singh”, a pioneering compilation by Prof. Chamanlal, mentions this facet in his editorial introduction to the life and times of India’s first revolutionary in all respects of the term. Prof Chamanlal  opines that between 1857 – 1947 , in the 90 years of direct British Empire rule after the suppression of the country’s first pan Indian anti colonial mass upsurge in 1857, only 2 movements could claim its political relevance as truly anti-colonial and ant-feudal in the broad spectrum of revolutionary struggles and these 2 movements were :  (a) the 1914 Gadar Party led movement and (b) 1928 – 1931 period of Hindustan Socialist Republican Association’s movement , ideologically lead by Bhagat Singh and organizationally architected by the extremely skillful Chandrasekhar Azad.

The 1914 Gadar movement, for the first time, brought in a clear ideological revolutionary outline in the ongoing socio-political space. Essentially this movement was the first truly anti colonial and anti feudal movement in India. Lala Hardayal’s intellectual prowess coupled with the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh’s inspiration – Kartar Singh Sarabha (barely 18, when he was martyred) – saw this movement arouse the masses for decisive revolutionary battles. Sohan Singh Josh, Bhagat Singh’s close comrade, helped us unravel the times that were 1928-1931;understanding the times in which “talking about revolution” was the pastime of the youth; they were already thickly into political action along revolutionary agendas and readying to martyr themselves in the struggle for emancipation. Sohan Singh stated clearly that an understanding of  the “political world view” of Bhagat Singh should actually begin beyond the assassination of General  Sanders , when his thoughts matured politically and flowered and flourished in a 3 year eruption of a volcano full of the lava of  political thoughts, actions, practices which should assure him a place in the history of India’s , South Asia’s and thus of course world revolutionary socialist movement, a place which has not yet been duly accorded to him.

During the period 1928-31, Bhagat Singh spent time on intensive study and self analysis. He believed this to be a responsibility of all revolutionary worth his salt. He, of course had the political acumen to give importance to organization building and launching actions on the ground. Naujawan Sabha was his initiative and he wrote the manifesto.  This document stands out as a key document in the understanding of India’s revolutionary movement. It is in this document that Bhagat Singh delineates the critical approach of looking at political freedom and economic emancipation of the vast sections of the Indian populace holistically and laid down the political/strategic – tactical outlines to achieve this twin aims. It needs to be recalled that during the time of Bhagat Singh’s above mentioned revolutionary political positioning, the Congress had never talked of political freedom; they were only bargaining for limited economic freedom. The emerging Indian bourgeoisie supported this demand of the Congress. At this time, the feudal elites, after so long siding with the colonialists, under pressure from peasant movements / rebellions, was migrating to the Congress shelter. The public imagination had been aptly captured by Bhagat Singh and his comrades with their call for full political and economic freedom. The agenda was set by them. The Congress Party was in crisis. They had to follow suit. This was the reason why the Congress Party was forced to pass the demand for political freedom at its Lahore Congress in 1929. Jawaharlal Nehru, the leader of the progressive section within Congress took the initiative and saw to it that the resolution was passed and adopted in the Congress. The selection of the city of Lahore to hold this important Congress conference was understandable. Lahore was Bhagat Singh’s city and the center of the new wave of revolutionary nationalist struggle which was rocking the Gandhi led Congress boat of compromising, limited bargaining politics. Evidently the revolutionaries had created the political pressure.

Prof. Chaman Lal in his book has highlighted this fact. He writes ,”If you look at Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary life and practices, it is clear that in the last two and half years of his short life span, all the political steps were very boldly but maturely and meticulously thought out and thus achieved expected political dividends. All his actions – assassinating Sanders, exploding a bomb in the Central Assembly and courting arrest, leading hunger strikes in jails, using the court premises and the legal-juridical facade of the British colonialists as his medium of communicating his political ideas – exposed the naked butchery inherent in the colonialist regime of the British. To engender the growth and development of an alert, aware revolutionary socialist political movement, Bhagat Singh used his own death as well thought (and internally i.e. organizationally sanctioned) strategic action. These actions gave Bhagat Singh more mileage than expected and the very institutions/ apparatuses set up by the  British imperialist/colonial power to keep India subjugated , was brilliantly used by him. This was probably the first time ever that some revolutionary mind had succeeded in using the very machinery of colonialist / imperial power to propagate socialist ideals. Uniquely brilliant and pregnant with revolutionary potential for all struggling masses.

Besides concentrating his energies on core political issues, he also looked into the social issues of the country and kept his strong views on the same. Aged 18, in 1925, writing under the pseudo name “vidrohi” (closest English would be “Rebel”), he wrote a very important piece – “On problems of Untouchability”. In this article he tore apart the casteist foundation of Indian society and laid out the outlines of a socialist society. Not only that, he followed it up with advice to his revolutionary comrades to become active in building political organizations of untouchables and insisted on pursuing this activity as an important political task for the organization. With a clear understanding he wrote,” ....it is the responsibility of revolutionaries to participate in organization building for the underprivileged and untouchable section of Indian society”. This was a first ever political position which tantamount to a clear battle cry against the very edifice of casteism and the Indian feudal elites witnessed a first time political stance threatening its very foundations. It is noteworthy that in the coming decades, the father of Dalit/ backward/untouchable sections’ socio-political crusader, Baba Bhimrao Ambedkar had given a famous slogan – “Get educated, be organized and Keep struggling”, which is so close in spirit to what Bhagat Singh proposed. Thus, effectively, Bhagat Singh also raised serious questions on the oppressive feudal and inherently anti-woman culture of feudalism. The twin aspect of a holistic achievement of a state of freedom for people – political and economic – was a constant and strong focus in all his political writings. Achieving such heights of revolutionary political thought and action in his short life span of 20 odd years (he was martyred aged 23 years and some months) was indeed quite amazing. Pregnant in his thoughts are all the possibilities of re-igniting the passion of and dream of chasing the ever eluding mirage of turning the course of civilization towards more humane tracks. And as it did then, during the 1920s, potentially it can again become the rallying point of revolutionary movements. Due to pressures exerted by the colonial state machinery to counteract the growing presence, pace and passionate depth of mass articulation by the then youth of Punjab in particular and generally the youth all over the country, Bhagat Singh had to operate underground. But instead of adversely affecting his ideological political activism, it actually saw an exponential increase in his political activism. Study of revolutionary discourses were intensely taken up and coupled with appropriate organization building to give effect to their well thought out strategic political action oriented practice – it proved to be a heady brew for igniting the hurt emotions of the multitudes. In the process, Bhagat Singh read widely on international revolutionary movements, especially the socialist ones, but always had his eyes on the ground realities of the Indian sub-continent and kept expressing his strong critical views on our society.

Prof. Chamanlal very succinctly sums up the co-ordinates of Bhagat Singh’s political lineage: “.... he drew the revolutionary spirit of Indian particularity from Lala Hardayal, Kartar Singh Sarabha and the Gadar Party and internationally he quenched his thirst in Marxist literature and the Bolshevik revolution.......”

It really is unfortunate that lack of resources and co-ordinated efforts have severely impeded the sufficient dissemination of Bhagat Singh’s political ideological ideas. Lot of his original writings was discovered long after his martyrdom. Who knows if his writings had become available then, it may have forced a change in the compromising essence of the mainstream political parties and turned the course of societal rebuilding process.

To build an effective and strong organization of Indian revolutionaries , despite operating underground, Bhagat Singh travelled to the different political nerve centers of the country – Kolkata, Kanpur,Delhi, Lucknow and met and interacted with revolutionaries of these areas on political matters - prominent among them being Batukeshwar Dutta, Chandrasekhar Azad, Ajay Ghosh, Ganesh Vidyarthi etc. In this process a revolutionary organization based on socialist theories emerged – ‘Hindustani samajwadi prajatantrik sangathan, in english – Indian Socialist Republican Association. In the history of Indian nationalist struggle, the aim of setting up a democratic system based on scientific socialism was indeed a hitherto unique effort from Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Bhagat Singh was undoubtedly the ideological fountainhead while Chandrasekhar Azad was the organizational master mind. All the existing mainstream political parties – Congress, Muslim League, and Hindu Mahasabha felt equally threatened and were hand in glove with the British colonialists to help stifle the rapid propagation of their ideas. The mainstream parties completely avoided any reference or mention of such ideas. However, the only notable exception was Mohammad Ali Jinnah – elite Congress leader, who made a very important observation on Bhagat Singh wherein he said that this young lad talks about a democratic republic and thus cannot be castigated as merely a terrorist. But the Congress party avoided any mention of his name forget about any discussion on their ideas. The congress did not even criticize the death penalty awarded to Sukhdev, Rajguru and Bhagat Singh. Notwithstanding this, the interest of the common people, especially youth, in Bhagat Singh’s ideas and ideals kept growing and people highly appreciated his unflinching revolutionary life and practices. History is witness to such individual protests like the first judge appointed by the British to hear Bhagat Singh’s case, Justice Aga Haider refusing to take up the case. But one always had the likes of Sir Shadilal who being pleased with his British master’s gratifications took up the case and pronounced the death sentence of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev. This created a wrath amongst the people of India and people from various corners of Punjab decided to converge on Lahore to witness the martyrdom of the three gallant warriors of the country on 24^th March, 1931. The eminent political scientist Prof Randhir Singh reminisced that aged eight, he was with his father, part of the teeming thousands who were converging on Lahore and that was the day he had seen the dream of revolution. Clearly, the martyrdom of Bhagat Singh had created an unprecedented revolutionary fervor amongst the people of India, so much so that the till then arrogant and brutal all powerful British rulers became scared. Infact the British got so scared of the peoples mood and fearful that the latent wrath of the people may erupt into an uncontrollable upsurge strong enough to dismantle the British throne from India, that they secretly preponed the execution by a day and they were secretly executed on 23^rd march, 1931. Such tremors had run down the British spines that they did not even hand over the dead bodies to their families – fearing some mass upsurge around the bodies itself. Bhagat Singh and his comrades did send shock waves to make the once strong knees of colonial/imperialist British rulers totter in fear of impending mass rebellion. It is a matter of shame that even at this juncture, the entire leadership of Indian mainstream political movement kept mum. That his martyrdom would create favorable conditions for a mass political ferment was a clearly thought out political strategy which worked out as planned. Bhagat Singh had used his martyrdom as a political weapon. In a way he put his own life and the very existence of the organization at stake to create the necessary political consciousness in the masses. This indeed is a uniquely exemplary aspect of his political heritage. Very few such instances, if any, dot the lanes of human endeavors for achieving liberation. All his comrades knew that if captured, Bhagat would be hanged. Knowing this fully well, Bhagat Singh had debated with his comrades that he would explode the bomb in the Central Assembly and then use his arrest to take their revolutionary political ideals to the world at large. None of his comrades agreed; they knew without Bhagat Singh the party would face an existential crisis because Bhagat Singh was their ideological fountainhead and their party’s strength was its ideology. Bhagat Singh’s argument was that people new them but were not aware of their thoughts and as all routes to propagate their views were closed, there was only one space left – that of the enemy camp itself ; the court,  where he would openly speak about their thoughts, their ideology. And Bhagat Singh was best equipped to carry out this task. After three days of intense internal debate, Bhagat Singh got the sanction of his comrades and it was decided that he and Batukeshwar Dutt would explode the bomb in the Central Assembly and distribute the pamphlets, which Bhagat Singh had written, with the headlines reading as – “deaf ears need an explosion to hear...” To accept ones ideology to be above oneself and exhibit such steadfast commitment of thought and action was commendable; this ideological commitment burnt away all personal aspirations and sense of security- even his life was above the cause, the ideology. And this is exactly why Bhagat Singh became one of the most original revolutionary of his times and still continues to be so at present and for coming futures. Articulating ones revolutionary thoughts from within the very heart of British colonial state apparatus as skillfully as he did, was in itself unique.

Ramprasad Bismill, another martyr in the tradition of Bhagat Singh, aptly expressed this thought when he wrote this “sher”:

“e shahid-e-mulk-o millat mein tere jaan pey nissar,

teri kurbani ka charcha gairon ki mehfil mein.....”

It may be recalled that neither did he defend himself nor did he accept his “crime”. He simply argued that the British had absolutely no moral, legal authority to put up cases against the people of this country; they were invaders on a mission of loot and they should leave our shores at the earliest. Strategically he opened up a political space hitherto not thought of , to articulate the struggle against the ruling colonialist/imperialists using their very own legal/juridical apparatus  - their courtrooms became his platform to voice his deep political comments and arguments ; this practice was later adopted by many revolutionaries. Even the Telengana peasant revolt leaders used this tactic extensively. T. Nagi Reddy, the renowned leftist peasant leader, while defending himself in the ParvatiPuram Conspiracy case, used the courtroom to argue his case and his recorded statements later came out in published form – India Mortgaged and became the principal guiding document of the right to land (and livelihood) movement. So such is Bhagat Singh’s relevance and importance which should now, better late than never, be accorded the respectful place it deserves as a living guide to evolving revolutionary social movements. Bhagat Singh’s struggles within the jail – leading hunger strikes for better living conditions i.e. human rights even for prisoners were appreciable. The number of days he was on hunger strike during his 30 moths in jail was more than the total number of days that India’s famed Hunger Strike man , Gandhi was on hunger strike through out his life time! (These facts have been checked by eminent historian A.G. Noorani and were recorded in his fact finding report published in the English language magazine Frontline.)

Bhagat Singh stood up against colonialism/imperialism. He is not to be limited within the confines of a region, a religion, a nation. He is not a symbol for any one of them individually but definitely he symbolizes the trait of a committed revolutionary socialist with focus on fights for social equity and justice. In today’s era of neo liberal onslaught of ascendant (but structurally deeply fissuring) Capital, where national boundaries have in a sense lost all meanings, Bhagat Singh’s relevance is all the more enhanced. To fight the power of  Capital, a working class alliance across boundaries in Southern Asia, especially between Pakistan and India to begin with and Bhagat Singh is the lighthouse to guide the storm tossed ship of working class/ struggling masses alliance across borders in Pakistan and India as also other South Asian countries.

Combining all current streams of anti imperialist struggles being waged valiantly across different terrains of southern Asia with the liberating potential of Bhagat Singh’s ideas and practices, we could very well possess the potion to eradicate the roots of the illness of Capitalism afflicting our lives. In the present socio political scenario Bhagat Singh’s relevance becomes all the more important than has so far been realized by us. It is precisely with this possibility in mind that organizations leading the struggling masses of Pakistan, with fraternal support of organizations in India, have decided to celebrate the birthday of this great martyr in Lahore on 28^th September. Lahore was his city of political birth and eventually also the city of his martyrdom. National Forum of Forest Workers and Forest People – NFFPFW, is associating itself very strongly with this effort of co fighters in Pakistan and it is hoped that other like minded organizations would extend their support and participation. A Bhagat Singh Commemoration Committee has been formed for this purpose.

In India we pledge to reclaim the legacy of Bhagat Singh’s thoughts and practices in the context of revolutionary movements to fight the demon of Capital. Those who try to limit Bhagat Singh’s political contribution to the killing of Sanders do a great injustice to the one of the finest soldiers of revolutionary anti colonial/imperialist struggle. Thus it is all the more necessary that progressive forces across Pakistan and India should join hands and position Bhagat Singh as a world historical persona, an icon, a true vanguard of the world proletariat in the struggle against the dehumanizing rule of Capital.

In his last letter to his younger brother Kultar Singh, written a few days prior to his walk to the gallows, he wrote:

“....koi dum ka mehmaan hoon e ahley-mehfil

charagey – sahar hoon bujha chata hoon

Hawa mein rahegi mere khayal ki bijli

ye mushtey khak hai  Phani, rahey rahey, na rahey.........”

The life time of Bhagat Singh was a short one but his thoughts have lived long and will live longer. He started off the ideological struggle through the wars he waged on British colonial/imperialist powers and he has become more relevant today, especially for Pakistan and India. Bhagat Singh and his ideas are like the guiding pole star to us. The effort of fraternal organizations in Pakistan to reintroduce Bhagat Singh’s revolutionary potential into the fabric of our current ongoing struggles is more than commendable.

A big delegation from India was all set to participate in the birthday celebrations in Lahore. However due to non clearance of Visa formalities by the Pakistan government, the Indian delegation could not reach Lahore. It seems the Pakistani government is skeptical about the participation of Indian representatives for political reasons. Bhagat Singh is still a threat for the mainstream political formations and tendencies in the sub-continent.

REVOLUTIONARY REGARDS TO THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF BHAGAT SINGH.

INQUILAB ZINDABAD (Long live Revolution)

( This coinage “inquilab zindabad was Bhagat Singh’s and he used it in his trial , in the court rooms of the British colonialists and as he had envisaged ,the entire spectrum of struggling/ fighting masses across India have had this slogan on their lips ever since..)