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Bathani Tola CoverMassacred by Ranveer Sena in Laloo’s Bihar –
Massacred Judicially in Nitish Regime!

The Bihar HC’s acquittal of all the accused in the Bathani Tola massacre case, overturning a lower court’s conviction of 23, has shocked and outraged people across the country. The acquittal has raised urgent questions about justice for the victims of the massacres of rural poor in the 1990s by the feudal landlord army, Ranveer Sena. In this booklet, we recall the social and political context of those massacres and the struggle for justice that followed. We also follow the trail of political complicity and patronage that has allowed the perpetrators to go free, and the continuing struggle for justice. This booklet is an urgent call for justice – justice against the perpetrators of feudal-communal massacres, and also justice for the people of Bathani Tola and Bihar, who defend their aspirations for an egalitarian and free society, defying the most brutal and barbaric attempts to make them relinquish their struggle.

(This article, first published in Liberation Annual Nutnebr 2002, has been updated on the basis of two important documents released in May 2002 : (a) Document of the 20th State Conference of CPI(M) held in February 2002 and (b) Draft Agrarian Policy Document of the West Bengal Government.)

BOTH ADMIRERS and critics of the Left Front Government (LFG) concur that its spectacular success in holding on to power rests on its achievements on the agrarian front — on its solid rural base. On 21 June 2002, the LFG completed 25 years in office; would it not be in the fitness of things to use this occasion to make a fair assessment of its agrarian programme and to examine the emerging trends in political economy and class relations in the Left-ruled state which boasts the most stable government in India?

References:

Basu, Dipankar (2001): Political Economy of ‘Middleness’ Behind Violence in Rural Wast Bengal, EPW, April 21.

Bose, Biman (2000): Expose TC-BJP campaign of slander and violence – unleasb Mass struggles. People’s Democracy, September 24.

Bhaumik, Shankar Kumar (1994): Tenancy Relations and Agrarian Development – A study of West Bengal.

Ghatak, Maitreesh and Ghatak, Maitreya (2002): Recent Reforms in the Panchayati System in West Bengal toward Greater Participatory Governance? EPW January 5.

Ghosh, Ratan (1981): Agrarian Programme of the Left Front Government, EPW, June (Review of Agriculture).

Government of West Bengal (1995): The Recommendations of The. State Finance Commission, 1990-95.

Khasnabis, Ratan (1994): Tenurial Conditions in West Bengal : Continuity and Change, EPW, December 31.

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich: The Agrarian Question in Russia Towards the Close of the Nineteenth Century, Collected Works, Moscow 1973, vol. 15. Marx, Karl: Capital, Vol. Ill, chapter 20.

Ray Ranjan (2000): Poverty, Household Size and Child Welfare in India, EPW, September 23.

Theisenhusen, William C. (2001): Poverty Amidst Plenty, in Horacio R Morales, Jr., James Putzel et al (eds): Power-In The Village.

-- Collection of Central Party School papers

22-24 June, 1994 in New Delhi

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The Central Committee of CPI(ML) convened a Party School at the central level on 22-24 June, 1994 in New Delhi. Altogether 112 comrades from all the sectors of our Party work, among whom 12 were women, participated as students. Apart from this, four comrades of Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) also attended the school as fraternal participants. Under the principalship of

Comrade Vinod Mishra, General Secretary of the Party, who also delivered the inaugural address,

Comrades Arindam Sen, CC Member and Editor of Party’s Bengali Central Organ Deshabrati,

Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, Polit Bureau Member and General Secretary of AICCTU and

Comrade B. Sivaraman, Polit Bureau Member, presented their papers.

In the light of the discussion at the Central School the authors revised their papers. Here we bring you the revised version of the papers in slightly abridged form.

"The members of the party are at all times ordinary members of the working people. They must not seek personal gains or privileges, lead plain and simple life, subordinate their personal interests to the interests of the party and the people, show respect towards the socially deprived sections of the people and uphold the dignity of the womenfolk."

Harvest of Death

Farmers’ Suicides and Rural Starvation in the Shadow of Globalisation

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The Indian Institute of Marxist Studies has produced this booklet in response to the current crisis gripping Indian agriculture, and as part of an ongoing commitment to critically address the key challenges facing the Indian people in the era of imperialist globalisation.

V. Shankar is a Central Committee Member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist).

R. Vidyasagar is a scholar-activist who has worked extensively on issues relating to rural labour and agriculture.

Introduction

We are passing through a period of great transition. On the one hand, the economy is in chaos, political system is breaking down and social fabric is disintegrating, and on the other hand masses are in motion, rising mass struggles for economic justice, political democracy and social harmony are generating high expectations and opening up new vistas. Autocracy is fast sp1ading its dragnet.

At this juncture, role of revolutionary theory assumes paramount importance. And if at this turning point of history, we want to take our motherland on the path of peace, progress and prosperity, Marxism is the only hope. Unfortunately the are many varieties of adultrated Marxism in the market aw hence a lot of confusion exists.

So, we decided to publish three pamphlates in a popular form dealing with three component parts of Marxism —philosophy, political economy and socialism, which may be of some help at the present juncture.

Marxist Study Centre

Delhi

August, 1981