January 16-31, 2007

People’s Voice/MEL condemns the cold-blooded murder of communist revolutionaries, V. Chandramouli and his wife Kavitha by the Andhra Pradesh police in Visakhapatnam on December 28. It is reported that the couple were arrested in Orissa and later handed over to the Andhra Pradesh police, who shot them near Panasapalli and then claimed that they had been killed in an “encounter”.

Ever since Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared that Naxalism was one of the “main enemies”, the state has stepped up its campaign of elimination of revolutionaries, and state terror on the masses.

Just a few weeks ago, a prominent woman communist and political activist in Jharkhand, leader of the women’s organsation of CPI(Maoist) was arrested and tortured by the police. Several communists and political activists in Bihar, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Delhi have been picked up and detained and tortured by security forces in recent months, many of whose whereabouts are unknown. As we go to the press, we received reports from the media of arrests of people in MP, Jharkhand and other states for being allegedly involved in “maoist activities”.

The tribals, peasants and other toiling people in Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal, MP and other states have been organizing and fighting back valiantly against the efforts of the state to deprive them of the right to their land, natural resources and livelihood. In particular, they have been opposing the policies of liberalization and privatization, whereby their land, natural resources and forests are being handed over to the biggest multinationals to reap super profits, while they themselves are being driven to destitution. The state of the big bourgeoisie perceives this popular struggle as a threat to its plans and has been resorting to fascist repression on the leaders and activists of this struggle. The murder of these two communist revolutionaries and the detentions and killings of hundreds of other political activists is part of this fascist onslaught.

“Encounter” killings, detention without trial and killings in custody of communists and political activists are standard tactics used by the ruling class to terrorise the people fighting against their exploitation and oppression and to crush them into submission before the armed might of the state. The reason why most of these political activists, who are regularly branded by the state as “terrorists”, “naxalites”, etc. are never given an open trial is because the state of the big bourgeoisie is mortally afraid of the truth coming out. The big bourgeoisie is afraid that if people all over the country were to come to know of the cause for which the communists and political activists are fighting, then the toiling and oppressed masses would sympathise with and support their cause, while the big bourgeoisie would stand exposed and isolated.

The thoroughly barbaric and anti-people character of the state of the big bourgeoisie is being exposed day by day, as people of various sections of society, in different parts of the country, in urban and rural areas, are coming out in ever larger numbers to protest against the injustice that they are doomed to suffer under this system. People are demanding an alternative to this barbaric and unjust rule that tries to pass itself off as the “world’s largest democracy”. This alternative is to usher in the rule of the workers and peasants, which alone can ensure that all the land and natural resources are placed at the service of the people, rather than to enhance the profits of the exploiters.