VVVVVoice ofoice ofoice ofoice ofoice of Resistance Resistance Resistance Resistance ResistanceVVVVVolume 1 Noolume 1 Noolume 1 Noolume 1 Noolume 1 No..... 1 1 1 1 1 January 2012 Rs. 20Rs. 20Rs. 20Rs. 20Rs. 20

From the EditorFrom the EditorFrom the EditorFrom the EditorFrom the EditorOverwhelming majority of our people (may be 99.9%) are in great

distress due to anti-people policies imposed by so-calleddemocratically elected Govts. both at the Centre and in states. Indifferent parts of the country people are rising against the effects ofthese policies. Sky-rocketing prices of essential commodities, allpervading corruption, rising unemployment and worsening conditionsof the vast sections of people are characteristics of the trajectory ofthe policies being pursued by those in power. The rulers sing praisesof the high growth though it benefits a handful and pushes the vastmajority into abysmal poverty, destitution, malnutrition and starvation.Even after six and a half decades of their rule, millions of people donot get even safe drinking water, what to talk of other elementaryrequirements of human existence. It must shake the conscience ofall who care for this country and more importantly, its people.

Formal character of Indian democracy has been very much ondisplay in dealing with the problems and concerns of the people.Recent example of Lokpal debate in Parliament is yet anotherexample of the self-serving ruling politicians; many of them criminalsand a majority of them millionaires in chambers of ‘elected’representatives. Black magic of ‘will of the people’ acting againstthemselves is also what is Indian democracy. Struggles of the peopleare brutally suppressed with ‘rule by law established’ making amockery of even the rights recognized by law.

Some of us concerned citizens have decided to discuss theseissues in a Bimonthly journal. There are a number of periodicals andjournals in English, some of them respected by their readers. Yet weare encouraged in our present endeavour by the need to highlightthe concerns of the people and stand by their struggles. Its survivalwill depend on active participation of readers. We call upon you tocome forward to participate in discussion of issues of concern to ourvast masses.

Voice of Resistance will stand by neglected millions and theirstruggles. It will strive to open the windows of ‘equality, fraternityand universal brotherhood’ in fact and expose those intent on keepingthem closed. Oppressed are rising and there is no justification orscope of being neutral.

IN THIS ISSUEIN THIS ISSUEIN THIS ISSUEIN THIS ISSUEIN THIS ISSUE

The Discovery andAppropriation of a People’sPast : Mesopotamia 19th to

21st Centuries

End of a War Not of aEnd of a War Not of aEnd of a War Not of aEnd of a War Not of aEnd of a War Not of aVisionVisionVisionVisionVision

MULTINATIONALCORPORATIONS

SLAUGHTERED LIFE &LIVELIHOOD

Movement AgainstNuclear Power Plants

Whither Anti-CorruptionMovement?

On 28th February strikeOn 28th February strikeOn 28th February strikeOn 28th February strikeOn 28th February strike

Homage toGursharan Singh

Editor : Dr. N. K. Bhattacharyya nkbhattacharyya@gmail.com

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UPA II’s tenure has been marked by the exposure ofbig ticket corruption. Scams of enormous proportions cameto light exposing the murkier side of the ruling elite. It cameto light how gangs of ruling politicians, top bureaucratsand corporates with bigwigs of the media thrown in are inthe game of unabashedly looting the country’s resources,how the corporates with their media hangers on not onlymanipulated the power, but even brazenly put the peoplein power to suit their interests. Scams after scams sawthe light of the day, some of UPA II and some of the earlierUPA I. Commonwealth Games of 2010, 2 G scam (allotmentof 2G spectrum in 2008), Adarsh Society scam, ISRODewas deal, Mining Scams (Karnataka and Goa), KG Basinallotment, NHRM (UP) have been but a few of bigger onesexposed, with scores of others exposed both at the Centreand in the States. CAG reports on the loss to publicexchequer in 2G and Commonwealth Games scams shookthe people and these scams became present symbols ofcorruption of the ruling elite. Neera Radia tapesdemonstrated not only the brazen nexus of corporate,bureaucrats and ruling politicians but the power exercisedby the corporates in allotment of various ministries in theGovt.

This large scale loot and plunder of public resources inthe backdrop of the mounting burden of rising prices ofessential commodities, deteriorating conditions of the vastsections of people and growing suppression of people’sstruggles made this corruption a target of people’s anger.Stage was set for an outburst of people’s anger. The yeargone by witnessed such a powerful outburst againstcorruption in high places. This outburst saw an upswing ofmiddle classes on a good scale and evoked sympathyfrom the poor sections of people. However this outburstalso invited certain questions both from the status quoistangle as well as from the angle of those desiring and workingfor change.

This outburst was channelized into a movement by ateam under the leadership of Shri Anna Hazare. They putforth their Jan Lokpal Bill envisaging creation of aninstitution to investigate and prosecute those accused ofcorruption. Their attempts at channelizing people’s angeragainst corruption towards creation of Jan Lokpal, had agalvanizing effect by giving a target for the people’smobilization. But it also created an illusion that corruptioncould be eliminated within the ambit of the present systemthrough creation of some institution. While Anna Hazaremade a claim of eliminating 50 to 60% of corruption throughhis mechanism, his team sought to give an impression ofcorruption free India through this mechanism. Team Anna

also sought to relegate all other issues of the people intothe background projecting their ingenious mechanism asa panacea of all ills, in the process making claims flying inthe face of the areas they sought to give their Jan Lokpaljurisdiction upon. While their version of Jan Lokpal Billkeeps policy questions out of the bounds of their JanLokpal, Anna team kept on making claims about the issueswhich pertained to the policies being pursued by the rulers.

Team Anna’s efforts were also supported by mediacontrolled by corporates who through this movement soughtto refurbish their image tarnished by exposures of scamslike 2G and Neera Radia tapes. Bigger reason for theirsupport was however to influence the movement itself, toprevent the people from raising the issues relating to thepolicies underlying corruption scams exposed. They soughtthat the movement should raise only the issue of the shareof the loot accruing to the state machinery- rulingpoliticians, high bureaucrats and higher judiciary, withouttouching the biggest beneficiaries of this loot, thecorporates themselves. They sought to achieve this byinsulating the policy framework from the attack. In the eraof globalization, big capital wants its movement unfetteredby state boundaries and opportunities to earn maximumprofits without having to part least share of it to the stateelite. The question of transparency in the Govt. was broughton the agenda of governance in this background. It tapsinto people’s resentment against corruption of the rulingelite. However it sidelines questions of plunder of theirresources by the corporates - foreign and domestic. Thisdouble faced approach is targeted at maximizing theirprofits and opportunities. The corporates would rather notwant such a movement, but seeing the people's anger andsensing that it may lead to questioning their role andpolicies suited to their interests, they directed their effortsat influencing its course.

The approach of controlling corruption within the ambitof the present system runs into many obvious fallacies.First it presupposes that only a few of ruling politicians,top bureaucrats are corrupt. After all they will be appointingthe members of Lokpal. Second, the whole approach isjudiciary or legal centric while judiciary including higherjudiciary is itself deeply embroiled in corruption. Allimportant cases of corruption over the last decades madetheir way to High Courts and Supreme Court. What hasbeen the result? Generally clean chits. Higher judiciaryhas worked as a laundry where these dirty ruling politiciansand bureaucrats are cleaned of the stain and ruling elitecontinue or rejoin the power structure thus ‘judiciallycleaned’. Higher judiciary in India particularly Supreme

Whither Anti-Corruption Movement?

Aditya Prakash

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Court has been in the forefront of implementing new liberaleconomic policies claiming not to interfere in the questionsof policy when it concerned interests of the people butjumping into the fray when it concerned the interests ofcorporates. Obviously all questions of policy areinterconnected with the constitutional prescriptions ofDirective Principles and other legal rights. Higher judiciaryin India has been highly selective, arbitrary and judiciallyindisciplined, but always coming to the aid of ruling classesin accomplishing what the Govts. of the day did not musterenough strength to do. No Lokpal can have more powersthan Supreme Court which can supervise over investigation,order prosecution and pronounce judgement. And yet theresult is all too obvious to demonstrate the rosy picturebeing painted by Team Anna as utterly fallacious andmisleading. It is easier to find a needle in a haystack thanto find a non-corrupt in the power structure. The wholepower structure is so constructed that, to paraphrase again,it may be easier for a camel to pass through an eye of theneedle than a honest conscientious person to remain inthe power structure of this country.

The approach of Team Anna has been to lead thepeople’s anger towards a channel acceptable to the rulingelite as a whole. It has sought to cleanse the system ofthis scourge as if these were mere stains while corruptionis in the fabric itself. No wonder sections of ruling elite,bureaucrats, police and army officers lent their support.They saw in this a safety valve to diffuse the anger of thepeople and not let it join the mainstream of opposition,people's struggles, to this corrupt system. Team Anna’scampaign acted as a bridge between people’s anger andthe present corrupt system, exemplified by its aversion torally the exploited and oppressed people and its emphasisat rallying the sections from which emanate the corrupt.While using the anger of the people against the ruling elite,Team Anna clearly and cleverly made clear its intention tokeep the issue within the ruling class structure. Both inApril and August campaigns, Team Anna posited its faithwith the ruling elite. In April, it sought Joint DraftingCommittee having equal representatives from itself andthe Govt. with its representatives expressing confidencethat they along with the Govt. would be able to produce aneffective instrument against corruption. Failure of thismission led to revival of the campaign in August but thistoo was ended on the basis of sense of house resolutionon in principle agreement on the three issues articulatedby Shri Anna Hazare viz. Citizen Charter, bringing GroupC & D staff under Lokpal and state Lokayuktas. In April,they propagated the Joint Drafting Committee as a bigvictory and in August they did the same with the sense ofhouse.

August 2011 marked the highpoint of the people’smobilization, particularly of the urban middle classes, whichwas squandered and sacrificed for the sake of keepingthe movement within the confines of the present system.The Govt. and the ruling class parties were obviously not

interested in creating an institution outside their control.Underestimating the strength of the movement from Aprilto August and also due to their desire to utilize the plankof corruption in their jostling for power, ruling class partiesprepared for facing Team Anna in December 2011. In themeanwhile Team Anna, composed of disparate elementshaving sympathies for the different sections and partiesof ruling classes, took a stand against Congress leadingUPA II giving rise to widespread dissension among leadersof the campaign and was forced to retract it in the face ofwidespread corruption indulged by other parties of rulingclasses. They were drowned in the whirlpool of ruling classpolitics.

Govt. called a special session of Parliament fromDecember 29 to 31, 2011. Anna Hazare also declared a 3-day hunger strike in Mumbai. Congress approach has beento make a toothless Lokpal, even giving it constitutionalstatus but no real powers. It wants to retain dominant sayin the appointment of Lokpal members and their removal.It neither wants to loosen its control over CBI nor let Lokpalhave independent investigative wing. The main oppositionparty, BJP, too has the same approach, but also wishesto utilize issue of corruption against Congress. Hence itsall too obvious somersaults. One 29th December in LokSabha, BJP leader Sushma Swaraj argued for defermentof the Bill by three months and be brought back duringBudget session. But when on 30th December Anna Hazarewithdrew his hunger strike, next day in Rajya Sabha, BJPleader Arun Jaitley insisted on voting showing BJP intenton usurping anti-corruption plank. Other ruling class parties,parliamentary Left and ex-Socialists indulged more insinging praises of parliamentary democracy and citing itsachievements rather than the issue of corruption. Theykept busy in extolling the virtues of the present systemwhile to the people, it stank. Parliamentary parties spokein one voice for insulating the Parliament from people’sdesires, spoke for an autocratic Parliament. The sameparliamentary parties including BJP which had unanimouslyapproved 'sense of house' advocating state Lokayuktascame down heavily upon it in the name of federal structure.While inside Parliament ruling class parties showed theirtrue colours, outside Anna’s campaign was pronounced afailure by the same media which had been acclaiming itas voice of the country.

Both Congress and BJP along with several other rulingclass parties are opposed to bringing corporates withinthe purview of Lokpal. They consider it harmful to'investment climate' in the country for which they wish tokeep corporates above the law. Organizations of corporatesroutinely condemn any application of law to them as anti-development.

BJP has also been vehement against bringing foreignfunded NGOs under its ambit. No wonder - biggestrecipients of foreign funds over past years are NGOscontrolled by RSS. NGOs receiving foreign funds or Govt.

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funds must be covered by anti-corruption mechanism. IfGovt. funded NGOs are exempted, this would soonbecome the favoured route of ruling class politicians tosquander the Govt. funds.

Between August and December, there was a perceptibledifference in the approach of the media controlled bycorporates. Prior to the winter session of Parliament,corporate big wigs went on a spree to blame the Govt. fornot pursuing reforms. Corporate chieftains wrote in thenewspapers about "policy paralysis” and blamed thenegativity created by anti-corruption movement for this.They also exhorted the opposition ruling class parties toco-operate with the Govt. for pushing reforms andformulated Agenda for Renewal primarily focusing onmeasures for increasing FDI. There was a marked shift intheir stance which was reflected in the attitude of mediaduring December leg of the campaign.

Various steps of this campaign, which has been thedominant media theme in India, are well known. But themedia never went into the real issues which made thiscampaign strike a resonant chord with the people andbrought urban middle classes in the streets. They did notand possibly could not highlight that anti-corruption upswingof the people was a protest against the anti-people policiesbeing pursued by the ruling classes, of which corruptionhas been an integral part. Corruption is the most visiblepart of the iceberg of the crimes of the ruling classesagainst the people. Focusing on corruption to the exclusionof the subject of corruption, suits them as it keeps theunderlying policies out of attack. The earlier anti-corruptionmovements led by ruling class politicians, JP led movementin 1970s, and VP Singh led campaign during Rajiv Gandhirule, though succeeded in dethroning those in power atthe time, made little impact on corruption.

While its media supporters projected Lokpal as a veryeffective tool in tackling corruption, its critics made it appearas too powerful, too strong. But the fact is that neither itwould be very effective in tackling corruption nor is it toostrong. In fact it is quite weak. Anna team canvassed forCitizen Charter, but its provisions are too weak and tootedious. Anybody who can pursue the course enunciatedtherein, will in all probability get his/her work done. On theother hand, the punitive measures in this chapter are tooweak. It is apparent that Anna team brought it in only tomobilize common people, but failed to suggest effectiveremedies. Even on corruption in high places, the entireemphasis is on Lokpal's independence from the Govt. ofthe day, but not from the ruling classes. The whole approachis to project that but for the control of the Govt., theseinstitutions would be effective tools of fighting corruption.Large scale involvement of bureaucrats and judges incorruption is simply glossed over. Today higher judiciaryenjoys independence from the Govt. but its performanceon corruption cases is there for all to see.

Treatment of this anti-corruption mobilization of thepeople, particularly middle classes, by the corporate mediawas Anna-centric. While electronic media wasunidimensional at a time, in the print media, space wasalso provided to criticism of this campaign. However, inboth supportive and critical pieces, the approach was Anna-centric. Large scale mobilization of the middle classesand sympathy among the people at large, was only usedas a backdrop but people were treated as inert, being ledor misled. Issue of corruption was distilled from the rulingclass policies and movement against it was extolled orcounter-posed to other issues, but not treated as a partand parcel of the struggle against ruling class policies andhence their movement, at least potentially, part of thepeople’s struggle against the ruling classes. This is in syncwith their efforts to atomize and trivialize people’s strugglesand not let them be seen as different components of thepeople’s struggles against the present system.

Corruption has been and is the grease of this anti-peoplesystem, a facilitation of the loot and plunder of theresources and labour of the people. Corruption becomesthe vehicle for big capital –foreign and domestic- to robthe people. More the exploitation takes the form of lootand plunder and the less its public approval, even thoughmanufactured, more the role of corruption in this robbery.

While trigger for this anti-corruption movement wascorruption in high places, it also tapped into daily experienceof the people of the corruption in the state machinery andGovt. services. This has been all pervading, some of it soestablished as to become almost acceptable. These twotypes are distinct. Yet they both rob the people directly orindirectly. Extractions from the common people by police,administration machinery and in Govt. services for doingor not doing something, is result of their coercion. Thiscoercive corruption, taking away part of the people’searnings, their wages or other incomes, is directly robbingthe people. This corruption has been continuing for a longtime, particularly since the advent of colonial rule in thecountry, and is pre-capitalist in origin though it continuesand flourishes till date. It shows lack of rights of the peoplevis-à-vis state institutions, lack of democratic rights ofthe people generally. Here the bribe giver and bribe takerstand in antagonistic position. To say that bribe giver isas much guilty as the bribe taker, is in this contextobviously wrong and serves only to justify this extraction.The other type of corruption i.e. collusive corruption takesmany forms, is direct or indirect robbery of the people,their resources- natural resources or state exchequer orrecomepense of their labour. It seeks to appropriate orincrease surplus extracted by the exploiters from the people.Thereby it is essentially capitalist in nature. It robs themof their means of livelihood or depresses conditions oftheir livelihood. Robbing the state exchequer in variousschemes or projects or grabbing resources under thecontrol of the govt. are examples of indirect robbery while

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robbing the peasants of their land for minerals, urbanizationor industrialization, or depriving the workers of their rightsor depressing their wages are some of the examples ofdirect robbery. Here the bribe giver and bribe taker colludeagainst the people affected direcetly or indirectly, one isas guilty as the other, rather bribe giver being the mainbeneficiary and generally better placed is even more guilty.

Corruption performs economic function for the rulingclasses. State machinery and Govt. services can bemaintained at lower cost, part of it recovered from the peoplethrough bribes. Colonial administration promoted it to makestate machinery hostile to the people, giving it power ofextraction and this practice is continued by Indian rulingclasses after 1947 too. On the other hand such corruptionridden machinery comes handy in suppressing the peopleand depriving them of their resources and fruits of labour.Herein the two are interconnected. The collusive corruptionmakes it easier for capitalists to rob the people of theirresources and fruits of labour and make them navigatethrough political, bureaucratic and judicial jungle, andincreases their profits. It thereby plays an important rolein their accumulation, particularly increasing rate ofaccumulation. However, there is a by-product as well. Itgives employment to anti-corruption crusaders to fight,lawyers to take up cases from both sides, media to writeabout and a whole plethora of anti-corruption literature, itswriters, publishers and experts, lecturers to give commentsand talks about it.

It appears that the present cycle of anti-corruptionmovement has completed a circle. The present leaders ofAnna led campaign have sought to find a way throughlabyrinth of ruling class politics. They have apparently failedto find a ruling class solution to the issue of corruption andhave been outwitted by more seasoned practitioners ofthat art. They cannot attack any single party or alliance asall of them are embroiled in corruption. They do not wishto attack all of them, though they will be increasinglycompelled to do so. The ruling class politics in the countrytoday has been aptly characterized as ‘policy consensus’among the ruling class parties, including on corruption andhow or how not to tackle it. In this period, how to attackthis policy consensus without attacking all of itsprotagonists and without attacking these policies is thedilemma before the Team Anna. The more they will beroaming in this jungle, their search will be futile and theywill continue to do a disservice to the anti-corruption moodof the people by attempts to lead it astray.

Corruption cannot be fought without fighting the corrupt.Leave the task of fighting corruption to corrupt, and restassured nothing will come out of it. Similarly struggleagainst corruption cannot be isolated from struggle againstthe rule of the corrupt and the policies underlying corruption.

Middle classes whose urban sections came into streets inthis campaign, have to see this interconnection. They haveto stand with the laboring masses, poor people of thecountry who are at the receiving end of these policiesengendering corruption if they wish to see their strugglechallenge corruption. And when they do so, they will standwith the struggles of the people fighting against the presentcorrupt system and the anti-people policies of the rulingclasses. Anti-corruption movement can find its principledallies only in the revolutionary ranks and with them theymust ally. Then only the real content of the people’s angeragainst corruption will find expression. Only then anti-corruption movement will become part of the struggles ofthe people against this decadent corrupt system. It is inthe interest of the ruling classes to insulate this movementfrom the concerns of fighting people, it is in the interest ofthe struggle against corruption to break this insulation andbecome part of the people's struggles.

The large-scale mobilization of the middle classesagainst corruption is definitely a welcome development.Efforts are needed to lay bare the roots of corruption andthe role it is playing in the loot and plunder of our countryby foreign MNCs and their domestic collaborators. Whilethe whole picture may not be visualized by those agitatedat corruption, nor all ramifications understood, nor thelimitations of NGO conducted campaigns grasped, it isnonetheless postive that the people came out in struggle.It objectively makes the task of mobilizing them in favourof people's struggles easier. It is needed to lay bare thelink between corruption and anti-people policies of the rulingclasses and their rule, to mobilize different sections onpeople's issues including issue of corruption, into allcompassing struggle against their rule. In this context,experiences of 2011 will be useful in intensifying struggleagainst the present decadent anti-people system.

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Sometimes we can learn from the past experiencesof other countries more easily than we do from our ownpast. This may be because we can distance ourselvesfrom the histories and humiliations of others, and beobjective rather than emotional. At the same time wecan also observe similarities with (and differences from)our own past experiences, so that we can ask theimportant questions, ‘why’ and ‘how’ such thingshappen.

Most students of history know that in the 19th andearly 20th centuries, it was the dominant countries, thosewho ruled empires and colonies, who wrote the historyof the world. You know that the British set the way Indianhistory was to be researched: the Sanskrit and Persiansources given much greater importance than the writingsand literatures of regional languages, the division ofperiods into ‘Hindu’, ‘Muslim’ and ‘British’, etc. Thereare many other ways in which the Western powers madetheir interventions, among them the setting up ofmuseums and archaeology departments in the colonizedcountries. You will also be aware that many art treasuresfrom not only India but also Greece, Egypt, and Iraq (toname only a few countries) are today to be seen in Paris,London, Berlin, and New York.

This is the text of a talk I gave in Delhi in July 2011.I hope it will be of interest to students—especially inthe context of the great violence exercised by theWest over the people of Iraq (Mesopotamia)— and opentheir eyes to the ways in which the colonialization ofknowledge works. Mesopotamian civilization is olderthan ours; because of the great natural resources of theland, there were high populations, huge cities, and long-continuing traditions of learning, literature, mathematics,and craft work.

Mesopotamian civilization is remarkable for its earlyurban revolution, its long duration, and its intellectuallegacy comprising among other things a voluminousliterary, corpus and amazing advances in mathematicsand astronomy. Mesopotamia gave us our division ofthe day into 24 hours, and the hour into 60 minutes.Like the Egyptians and other early peoples, the peopleof Mesopotamia used a lunar calendar comprising 12lunar months (or 12 cycles of the moon) in the year; bythe time of Hammurabi, around 1800 BC, they wereadding extra months to adjust this year to the cycle ofthe earth’s orbit around the sun. They calculated thesolar year to be 365 days, 5 hours, and 41 minutes,

which is out by just 7 1/2 minutes. Around 1800 BC theyhad also grappled successfully with the value of “2".

The land lay in a desert, with very low rainfall, butthe people were prosperous because of a highlyproductive agriculture on the fertile Euphrates alluvium,huge herds of goats and sheep (providing, among otherthings, fine wool that was also exported), river andmarsh fisheries, date palms, and more—a truly broadspectrum of resources. A broad spectrum means thatwhen one resource fails, people can fall back on theothers. Here flowered the first known urban civilization,and as early as about 3000 BC the cities werecomparatively enormous. The plains of the Euphratesand Tigris being open to invasions and pastoralistimmigration from the steppe and the Zagros ranges,Mesopotamia saw repeated cross-fertilization of itsculture with new peoples, new breeds of animals, newlanguages, and even new gods. Unlike Indians, Iraqisdo not bemoan the repeated migrations into andinvasions of their country, ascribing this or that failureto them.

It was in the cities that many crafts and long-distancetrade arose—Mesopotamia lacked mineral resourcesother than clay, bitumen, and some outcrops oflimestone: fine stones, metals, and good wood had tobe imported. To a large extent it was the kings of thedifferent city-states who organized these activities, ledtheir people in war against other cities, and also built,cared for, and bestowed wealth on the temples. Theyrecruited the populace for temple building: with onlymud being available, the facades could be decoratedwith multi-coloured clay cones, and the inner walls withinlay panels. Thus early surplus-mobilization in this landwas largely the mobilization of labour. No early statecan allow its population to handle its own disputes andpunishments: the Stele of Hammurabi, a copy of whichstood in our National Museum for some years, showsthe god Shamash handing the law of the land toHammurabi to proclaim to his subjects.

Profoundly valued was the written word, thewrit ten record of temple/palace receipts ordisbursements, of the work done by personnel andrations thereby allotted, and of the instructions of a rulerto his officials, the latter sometimes encased in‘envelopes’. In Anatolia, Syria, and Palestine, besides,there were centres that emulated the Mesopotamianwriting system and language, mainly Akkadian. Second-

The Discovery and Appropriation of a People’sPast: Mesopotamia 19th to 21st Centuries

Shereen Ratnagar

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millennium BC Pharaohs of Egypt whose inscriptionsfor domestic reading were in Egyptian, wrote to theircontemporaries and clients abroad in Akkadian. The epicof Gilgamesh (about an early Mesopotamian king andhis adventures and attempt to find immortality) inAkkadian or translation into a local language, was foundon local tablets.

Between 3000 and 300 BC, the cylinder seal wasrolled on containers or written (clay) tablets to protect orauthenticate goods/messages. The seal was somethinglike our ‘ID card’ today. But it was also a work of skilledcraftsmanship, and could bear images of divine beings,which in their turn endowed their owners, it is believed,with power and protection from the god. Some of thefinest artistic achievements of early Meopotamia werethe iconic Warka Head, a stone bull head, etc.

And so to the discovery of Iraq’s remote past in thenineteenth century.

In India, the British engaged in scholarly research, inmapping, in recording ancient monuments, and otheractivities. This was a land to which they were committedas rulers. They needed adequate knowledge of Indiantraditions, languages and laws. Their engagement withthe Indian past was based on a conception of India as atraditional society, so that the legal codes or the practiceof religion, for instance, went back to ancient times.

But nineteenth-century Iraq was a province of theOttoman empire, its capital in Istanbul in Turkey. Whatspurred the Europeans to archaeology in Iraq? We canrule out any curiosity about the antecedents of Islam,we can rule out any desire to delve into the cultural rootsof Islam.

A major impulse came from the Biblical connection,the connection with the Old Testament or first part ofthe Bible. There are Mesopotamian elements in the OldTestament, the Hebrew scripture, which is largelynarrative and drew from disparate myths, epics,genealogies and other forms of narrative between 1200and 200 BC. These came from across the Aramaic -speaking world that encompassed the region fromMesopotamia to the Mediterranean Sea. (After 1000 BC,there was a gradual language shift in Mesopotamia fromAkkadian to Aramaic which was a language brought inby immigrant pastoralist groups.) Sumer or the region ofsouthernmost Mesopotamia is ‘Shinar’ in the OldTestament; Uruk is ‘Erech’. The Book of Genesis saysthat Abraham set out from Ur of the Chaldees to Harranand then the land of Canaan. In the Books of Kings andChronicles are references to assaults on Israel byAssyrian kings. Sennacherib the Assyrian had hisassaults on Israelite forts depicted on his palace in reliefsculpture. There are also references to the destructionof Jerusalem by Nabuchadrezzar, who deported some

of the defeated population to his native Babylonia (centralMesopotamia). Some scholars believe that it was duringthe Babylonian exile that the writing of the Hebrewscripture was undertaken, a compilation of material in36 Books. It cannot but be significant, for the argumentof my talk, that the Mesopotamian was the adversary ofthe Biblical peoples.

In the Books of Jeremiah and Isaiah are propheciesof the doom and desolation that awaited Assyria andBabylonia. When the Europeans began to explore earlyIraq and saw its ‘formless ruins’, they recalled the Biblicalprophecies. The weathered ziggurat of Borsippa or BirsNimrud, a second-millennium BC town, with vitrifiedbricks sticking upwards at the top, was mistaken forthe Biblical Tower of Babel –as depicted in a watercolourthat Postgate has reproduced in his book, The FirstEmpires.

Postgate’s book also contains the reproduction of apainted portrait of Austen Henry Layard (1817-1895), apioneer ‘archaeologist’. He was an adventurer amongthe tribes of the Ottoman empire, learning theirlanguages, making money. Between 1846 and 1855 heexcavated at the Assyrian city of Nimrud, thinking itwas Nineveh. His digging was chaotic. He would godeeper in search of artefacts and push the earth asideas he did so, so as to pull out the maximum loot withthe least time and effort. The winged-bull colossi manyof you will have seen in the British Museum come fromLayard’s activities. These are protector spirits whoguarded the Assyrian palaces, keeping jealous demonsaway from the king. They were more than 3 m high, fearfulto behold, and, according to Layard, some of his workmenran away in terror when they appeared from the ground.At Nineveh, Layard found inscribed reliefs depictingAssyrian attacks on Israelite forts.

There was cuneiform writing describing the eventsportrayed in art on the Assyrian palace walls. How werethese read by modern scholars? How scholars learnt todecipher cuneiform is an inspiring tale. It began withthe decipherment of a Persian emperor’s rock inscriptionsthat flanked his relief on three sides. This is the famousBehistun inscription of the Achaemenid emperor, Darius.The same message is written in Old Persian, Akkadian,and Elamite. The alphabetic Old Persian version, withonly 40 signs and several counterparts to its names andphrases in Pahlavi, was the first to be deciphered. (Analphabet is a system of letters in which one sign conveysone consonant or one vowel.) This decipherment wasthe achievement of the German scholar G. Grotefend,in 1802.

Some of you may recognize the name of H.Rawlinson who had been with the East India Companyin India. He was subsequently posted, as Consul, toBaghdad. He sent a lad up in a rope swing toward therock face of Behistun to make a paper cast of the

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Akkadian version, in syllabic cuneiform writing, in around1840. By 1851, he had deciphered it and published it—a truly outstanding accomplishment. Syllabic writing (onesign=one syllable. A syllable is a vowel+consonant, ora consonant+vowel or else a consonant-vowel-consonant) has hundreds of different signs.

Rawlinson continued his work at the British Museum,studying cuneiform tablets that were accumulating therefrom the ‘excavations’ in Assyria. (By this time Layardhad become a hero in England.) Rawlinson hademployed one George Smith to help him organize thebroken tablet fragments from Nineveh. Smith recognizeda few lines on one fragment as mentioning a ship andthe setting free of a dove: an echo of the Biblical storyof Noah. In 1873, The Daily Telegrap (a Londonnewspaper) offered Smith £1,000 to go out to Ninevehand seek the full version of the Flood. Smith was indeedlucky, and found the eleventh tablet of the Epic ofGilgamesh—in this section, Utanapishtim, an old sage,explained to Gilgamesh how the gods had, in very earlytimes, decreed the destruction of humankind by a flood.Utanapishtim describes what he did to survive thedisaster.

Meanwhile, the French were digging in Khorsabad(Assyria), the Germans at Babylon. At Babylon, RobertKoldewey pioneered methods of stratigraphic excavation.MogensLarsen has written about the late nineteenth-century German elite under Wilhelm II, and its fascinationwith the recently discovered tablets. The German OrientalSociety was founded in 1898, lectures were held at thepalace, Wilhelm II himself authored a book onMesopotamian kingship. A scholar of Akkadian,FriedrichDeltizch, said about the Biblical connection thatarchaeology in far places was not easy but it wasnecessary as it gave people a sense of their scripture.Parallels were coming up in the cuneiform tablets, tothe Flood, the story of the birth of Moses, to the laws inthe Book of Exodus. Many pamphlets and newspaperarticles came out. How could a Bible story be also thestory of a different—adversarial—people?

Some scholars suggested that the cuneiform materialauthenticated the Old Testament narratives. Delitzch’sposition was that there were similar stories not becauseof a literal truth, but because Israel and Judah were partof the greater civilization of Mesopotamia. SomeGermans objected to the idea of the Bible being derivedfrom somewhere else, but today it is realized that bothliteratures ultimately come from a fund of oral narrativesthat had been told across a wide region.

As field archaeology began in an organized way inIraq, the l i teral truth of the Bible remained apreoccupation. There was the Englishman LeonardWoolley, gentleman archaeologist, who saw the story ofAbraham migrating from Ur to the land of Canaan assymbolic of a step up the ramp of cultural development.

Digging at Ur in the 1920s -1930s, he found an amazinglyrich royal cemetery dating around 2600 BC. (Woolleyexcelled at the careful removal of the most intricatelyconstructed treasures such as musical instruments andmust be commended for that. ) He deputed thearchaeologist Max Mallowan to do the routine digging of‘Pits F and Z’, but later Woolley successfully publicizedwater-laid deposits in them as evidence of the Flood. Inhis memoirs he implies that the almost 4-m deep strata,left by still water, was so obviously the Flood that hiswife almost immediately recognized it. Nowadays, ofcourse, no one calls this evidence of the Flood. If suchreasoning is seen elsewhere, the West terms it“fundamentalism”.

So far we have seen that there was a concern for thebackground of the Bible, as well as a deep engagementin philology and the reading of a millennia-old literature.I now move to a third ingredient that explains Britishinterest in Mesopotamia: this was the imperative to doarchaeology there. On the eve of World War I, Woolleyhad been recruited by D.G. Hogarth, Keeper of theAshmolean Museum, to join a group that was engagedin archaeology-cum-intelligence-gathering in westernAsia. Britain had her eye on the Suez Canal and onOttoman territories. The plan was to foment an Arabrebellion against Ottoman rule.

A fourth ingredient I would list as an imperative toarchaeology was the need to guard the route to India. Itwas a practice for the East India Company to station arepresentative in Baghdad—one of them, C.J. Rich, infact excavated at Babylon for a while.

Woolley had joined Hogarth at excavations atCarchemish, an important ancient sett lementstrategically located for the control of diverse land routes.This was a good place to observe the ongoing Germanconstruction of the Berlin-Baghdad railway. T.E.Lawrence was at the excavations, so also Gertrude Bell,author of the path-breaking Syria: The Desert and theSown (1906). Archaeology was a good cover for Belland Lawrence’s activities amongst the various tribes ofthe countryside, provoking dissatisfaction and—falsely—promising them independence after the fall of Ottomanrule.

The fifth ingredient, I suggest, is petroleum. Oil hadbeen discovered in south-western Iran in the 1880s. Itis important to note that between 1911 and 1918 theBritish navy shifted from coal to oil as the fuel for itsships. The Berlin-Baghdad railway was viewed as apotential threat to British access to the oil reserves nearthe head of the Persian Gulf.

I have just mentioned Gertrude Bell. She was anaristocrat. She was wealthy, and, as every internet entrywill tell you, the first woman to read history at Oxford.

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She spoke many languages, including Arabic andTurkish. During World War I, the British occupied thevilayats of Basra and Baghdad. In 1917, the Ottomanempire was militarily defeated. In 1920, the Britishobtained a Mandate over Iraq—meaning both the rightto rule and an assumed obligation to care for thesubjugated people. Percy Cox was the first HighCommissioner. Bell had lobbied hard for the sons of theSharif of Mecca and Medina (the Guardian of the holyplaces) to be placed on the thrones of Transjordan andIraq, and in 1921, Faysal I was installed as “constitutionalmonarch” of Iraq. When, under the Mandate, eachministry was allotted a British adviser, it is obvious thatFaysal’s own adviser would be Gertrude Bell, hisbenefactor.

Bell also set up the department of antiquities, and in1922 King Faysal declared her its director. In 1923, sheset up a small museum in Baghdad. This aristocrat, whotravelled with a small entourage sometimes on camelback, and who chain-smoked and dined with shaikhs(as every website will tell you), was a colourful person,and certainly an able administrator. Bell drafted andhad passed an Antiquities Act in the face of Iraqiopposition. (Iraqi opposition is not always mentioned inbiographies of Bell and in British accounts of early Iraqiarchaeology.) Her law ensured that there would be nomore looting Layards on the scene: each excavationteam must have qualified persons including experiencedexcavators, qualified architects, epigraphists. And thelaw said that all finds must be numbered and registered.(Many scholars would agree that the work of JohnMarshall (Director-General in India) on excavations couldhave benefitted from the supervision of a person likeGertrude Bell.)

All this was good. However, the troublesome partabout Gertrud Bell’s law concerned the division ofexcavated finds. Westerners were doing almost all thedigging in Iraq and they obviously wanted rewards fortheir work. On this aspect of the law, Bell was advisedby high officials of the British Museum, and by anadvisory committee in London. The British position wasto agree in principle that nations were the owners of theirown antiquities. However, the level of education in Iraqwas low. Bell wrote that local expertise being limited,the interests of science dictated that important finds besent out of Iraq. Several researchers have written aboutthis. There is M Benhardsson’s Reclaiming a PlunderedPast, 2005, and a careful review of this work by MacGuireGibson in 2006. From these and Hind Haider’sdissertation of 2001 from McGill University, it is evidentthat British perceptions were to avoid the kind oflegislation that had been enacted in India (with the IndianTreasure Trove Act of 1878 and the Ancient MonumentsPreservation Act of 1904); that Western interests shouldbe assured, and the export of excavated antiquitiesshould be protected by law. The archaeologists in

England pressed for the start of excavation and in1920 it was suggested that Westerners be allowed totake all finds back to their respective countries, “undercovenant to return one half to Mesopotamia if and whenrequired to do so.” The staff of the British Museum wereconscious that this institution lay at the centre of theempire.

However, in order that Britain not appear as pillaging,it was decided that excavated antiquities be dividedhalfway. The Iraqis objected, citing the laws of othercountries where antiquities remained the property oftheir people. But Bell prevailed on King Faysal, herpuppet, to have the law passed in 1924.

Not only did Bell devise the law, she implementedthe division of excavated objects herself, going to thesites at the close of each season with her Englishassistant. No Iraqi was ever present at such divisions.It appears that men like Leonard Woolley were quitepersuasive at such division meetings. Woolleyexcavated Ur on behalf of the British Museum , but muchof the funding came from the University of PennsylvaniaMuseum. Significantly, the latter authority had declaredit did not have a competent field excavator to send toIraq and had asked the British to name the projectDirector. The exquisite treasures from Ur in the BritishMuseum and the University Museum, Pennsylvania,came from this episode of joint excavation—half thetotal finds from Ur went to these two institutions.

After the British left (1932) and Iraq joined theLeague of Nations, Sati al Husri became Director ofEducation, and in 1934, Director of Antiquities (Bell haddied in 1926). He amended the antiquities law. Followingthe Egyptian model, it was decreed that all artefacts ofmore than a certain age were the property of the Iraqistate and that the Director-General could allow theexcavating country only copies or casts, and half of anyduplicate items, which were to be exported with a specialpermit.

Iraq is the home of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans,Chaldeans, Assyrians and Armenians; of Shia, Sunni,Jew, Christian and Yezidi; of feudal lord, nomadicherder, town merchant, and peasant. Since the time ofFaysal there had been thinking about the “glue” thatwould hold this nation together. Sati al Husri realizedthe importance of language, and had the medium ofinstruction in schools changed from Turkish to Arabic.He ordered that in the school curriculum, English historymust be replaced by lessons on Babylon and Assyria.He set up the Arab Antiquities Museum (1937). Heheaded a tussle for a return of the antiquities excavatedby Germans in Samarra (and seized by Britain as warbooty), the great Abbassid capital, a tussle in which theactions of the British Museum emerge as particularlyshabby. Samarra has nothing to do with classical

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Mesopotamia. But the case is of interest to us as itbrings to focus a sixth ingredient in the Britishengagement in Iraqi archaeology: avarice, and/or the ideaof entitlement.

In 1958 Iraq overthrew its monarchy and some yearsthereafter, the Ba’ath party came to power. Not only wasthe issue of nation building a continuing one, SaddamHussein also had to legitimate himself and his variousactions. He repeatedly referred to the greatness ofBabylon, and to invasions, thousands of years ago, ofIraq from Elam (today in Iran). Most internet sites willtell you how Saddam Hussein ordered the use of bricksstamped with his own name, in the restoration ofBabylon. In his time the Ishtar Gate with its colouredbricks was restored and set up in a different locationfrom the original. But this should not obscure the factthat he ordered restorat ion to fol low on mostexcavations, that he allowed many foreign excavatorsinto the country, and that many provincial museumswere opened under his rule. The rebuilt Iraq Museum ofhis time was a light and airy building, spacious, andwith a logical display of its stupendous holdings.Saddam Hussein encouraged folklore and folk festivalsand the recitation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. By then,moreover, many Iraqis were accomplished cuneiformscholars and diggers. Finally in 1967, the division ofantiquities came to an end. Well before that time, itwas rued that there were more cuneiform tablets in thecollections of western universities than in Baghdad.

In the academic realm, concern for the truth of theBible endured for some Western people: some Larsa-period (1900 BC) houses in Ur were restored for a visitin 1997 of Pope John Paul II, who wanted to “worship inthe birthplace of Abraham”. There is yet anotherdimension to the paradigm of “roots”: with theaccumulation of knowledge about Mesopotamia (andEgypt) and with Gordon Childe’s magisterial sweep ofthe Bronze and Iron ages of the old world, Mesopotamiaand Egypt remain in scholarly perception the foundationson which the cultures of Greece and Rome—in their turnthe foundations of Europe’s rationality, architecture,aesthetic norms—were built. (This in spite of ColinRenfrew’s Before Civilization (1971) which emphasizedthe early dates of many European cultures.) Suchlineages have endured. In 2000, J. Bottero titled a bookon Mesopotamia Ancestor of the West. In the sameyear , S. Parpola gave a lecture in Harvard entitled“The Mesopotamian Soul of Western Culture”. The greatEgyptologist J.H. Breasted, conceived for the entranceto the Oriental Institute at Chicago (founded 1919) a reliefin which an Egyptian hands over the gift of civilizationto a Western man.

The puzzle then arises, if Mesopotamia was the seedbed in terms of Europe’s scripture and culturaldevelopment, why did the West allow its heritage to be

so shamefully pillaged? Why was the Iraq Museum leftunguarded, after the US invasion of 2003, between 11April and 16 April? Why did the US set up a militarycamp complete with concreted surfaces, helipad,barracks, etc. on top of the site of Babylon, the greatestcity of the world in the sixth century BC?

Our first clue comes from a private letter of Breastedwho conceived the Oriental Institute portal showing the(humble?) reception of civilization by the West from theOrient. That same Breasted wrote in a private letter, in1935, “Our job is to educate a small group of theseignorant and fanatical Iraqis and I propose to undertakeit.” Zainab Bahrani points out that in an exhibition at theMetropolitan Museum of Art on the Royal City of Susain 1992, neither Iraq nor Iran was mentioned in eitherthe maps or the signage. The idea of a civilizationalancestor obviously does not go with any respect for theheirs of that civilization. Those heirs, after all, constitutea population of subjugated (and later, inferior) people.M. Liverani terms western archaeology in western Asiaan “appropriation”; R Matthews uses the term “hi-jack”.

My eyes were opened to the true depths of thissituation when some British Mesopotamianists wrote ajoint letter to The Independent in 1991 during the bombingof Iraq in the First Iraq War. This letter requested themilitary forces of the Western coalition to create a cordonsanitaire around the Iraq Museum and refrain frombombing it because of its very precious antiquities. Butwhat the letter omitted was even a token or hypocriticalregret for the loss of Iraqi lives.

Western allegations that Arabs are not interested intheir pre-Islamic heritage are proved wrong by SaddamHussein’s policies and by recent events in Cairo. Duringstreet demonstrations in Cairo, a little pillaging of theMuseum had begun, but ordinary people made humanchains around the building to stop further thefts. Arelocations such as the Louvre, the British Museum, theBerlin Museum, the only safe havens for antiquities?Do only uneducated “Orientals” loot their sites? WhileGertrude Bell admitted that she could not stop the lootingof sites during her tenure, her successor in the IraqiAntiquities service, one Richard Cooke, was caughtsmuggling antiquities. And the glorious modern PaulGetty Museum overlooking Los Angeles, the papers nowtell us, “chased illicit masterpieces” for four decades,finally surrendering several of them to the authoritiesand spending millions on its legal defence.

By the way, a large stone guardian figure fromBoghazkoy the capital of the Hittites (north-centralTurkey) that the Germans took to Berlin for “restoration”in 1917, was returned only this year, 2011, after pressurefrom the Turkish government.

The most alarming case is reported in the annualreport (2011) of the Netherlands Institute for the Near

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East, Leiden. The Persepolis Fortification Tablets, loanedin the early 1930s by the Government of Iran to theOriental Institute Chicago, some thousands in number,for translation and study, are now under threat. TheRepublic of Iran having been seen as the culprit behindterrorist attacks in Beirut (1983) and Jerusalem (1997),is required to pay $3.5 billion in restitution to the victims.A case is on in the US demanding that these antiquitiesbe sold to raise the money, should the Government ofIran not comply with the demand for restitution. The OICDirector, Gil Stein, has condemned such a move, butthis incident proves among other things that antiquitiestaken out of their own countries do not necessarily carrycultural value. They soon assume the value and functionof commodities.

As for the British Museum, we have seen that itsrecord is hardly impeccable. Keepers like Wallis Budge(1883-1924), says Julian Reade, would not allowscholars from outside to study the best antiquities inthe western Asiatic collection, listing these in a blacknotebook. Debarred scholars included such outstandingmen as Alan Gardiner. Worse, Budge openly stated hispreference for purchased (if not illegal) over excavatedfinds. The latter, he said, carried too much baggage(data) and were often damaged. He had hundreds ofexcavated tablets, ivories, and bronzes packed intoboxes and put away, out of sight and out of mind.

To set the perspective right one needs to mentionthe admirable work of the current Keeper of WesternAsiatic Antiquities at the British Museum, John Curtis,who in 2008 made a joint survey with Iraqi, European,and American archaeologists. They flew to eightsouthern sites in turn to check up on their state ofpreservation. This work was done by RAF helicopter ingreat heat and at some risk to life. The team found thatsome sites had suffered from the activities of lootersand quarriers. Significantly, however, it was found thatthe site of Uruk was unharmed because the Germanshave faithfully carried out their responsibility for payingfor security at the site. Another large site, Lagash, isalso unharmed because it is the local tribe of the area,the Beni Said, who are caring for it and making theirown arrangement for its protection.

No one can deny that Western intervention has meanta huge accumulation of knowledge. Mesopotamia is anexciting field of enquiry to be in, whether one is engagedwith the early state or the interdigitation of steppe andfield, early house form, the urban revolution or the labourrevolution, or the archaeological correlates of empire.The Chicago Oriental Institute has in recent weekscompleted the 22-volume Chicago Assyrian Dictionary.Yet the imprint of Orientalism survives in translationsthat rush to find harems, eunuchs, and veils on the headsof women, as M. van de Mieroop has remarked. Worseis the inevitable counterpart to a rapacious engagement

in which professors of Assyriology are, as the IndianIncome Tax authorities would put it, living in a styleincompatible with their known sources of income. Thecounterpart to this is the kind of research article that isstill churned out: “Cylinder Seals in the Collection ofMr. XYZ”, or the “ABC Collection of Tablets”—whatpossible coherence can such seals/tablets have,unless Mr XYZ can actually vouch that he dug themout from the same house floor or temple cache?

Western interventions continue. Unable to digextensively in Iraq, several French, British, American,and Italian archaeologists are busy in Syria, especiallywhere dams are being built. This makes them the activepartners, while the local villagers and local departmentsof archaeology remain the passive partners. Obviouslyit is the former who set the agenda. Is this another formof subjugation?

I end by asking, what does this have to do with us?

1. First, let us not be taken in by any futurestatement made by a Director of the British Museumthat his institution holds the world’s heritage “forthe world”. If such a statement is made in the futureto an Indian audience, we can prepare to startrapping our spoons against our lunchboxes toexpress our scorn.

Or else we can ask that Director, how arethe Amaravati sculpted gateways the culturalproperty of 99 per cent of Andhravadus who cannotexamine them at close quarters or from the anglethey prefer, because they cannot travel to Londonand do not have access to the internet (on whichone or two images may at best be projected)? Howare they the property of the people of southern Indiawhen they are pulled out of the context in whichthey had stood for centuries, and are now enshrinedin a building whose architecture does not hold muchmeaning for south Indians?

2. But we can also learn from theMesopotamian experience. When localcommunities are taught about sites and areempowered, they can and do (as at Lagash) carefor their own sites. Not only that, we have found inGujarat that farmers are full of ideas aboutindividual aspects of the sites, eager to be givenmaps of their areas, knowledgable about how theirown areas are distinct in land use from the regionsof other sites. Uoto now, the Archaeological Surveyof India has however been treating them, in truecolonial style, as daily-wagers and chowkidars,instead of recruiting the most intelligent men andwomen on salary to play a useful role in at leasteducating visitors to the sites, and keeping a watchagainst thieves.

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3. Gertrude Bell has taught us something—even in the 1920s, in Iraq there had to be thoroughregistration of antiquities. But are we Indianssatisfied with the standard of the cataloguing at ourmajor sites? Has John Marshall, with his emphasison extending the area dug, and sloppy ways ofkeeping notes in the field, left a spurious legacy inthe ASI?

4. Saddam Hussein too taught us that whenyou give an archaeology department muscle, whenyou raise salaries and bureaucratic ranks of itsofficers and give them greater autonomy andfinances, the department does better. Its employeeshave a new confidence. And please do not forgetthat Zah iHawass, till a few days ago Director ofAntiquities in Egypt, was a full-fledged member ofthe cabinet of ministers. (Now, however, there willbe a reversion to the old Supreme Council ofAntiquities. And certainly many Indians have beensomewhat shocked at the wholesale subjection ofthe Egyptian heritage to masses of ignorant anduncaring tourists from the rest of the world.) Doesnot our present state of affairs in India reflect ourignorance about the importance of our own heritage?Does not our Director-General deserve greaterpowers? And should this post not always be filledby a qualified archaeologist?

5. The most important lesson we may learnis that globalization may get me or you a freebie toCalifornia but it gets us neither enlightenment norrespect. We become clients to be patronizedoverseas.

7th Anniversary of KalinganagarFiring Day

Tribals of Kalinganagar have played a pioneering rolein the Indian peasants’ struggle against forcibledisplacement. Their struggle changed the direction ofseeking relief and rehabilitation to opposing thedisplacement. A number of struggles took "No toDisplacement" pioneered by tribals of Kalinganagar as theirslogan and made supreme sacrifices in course of theirstruggle. On January 2, 2006 14 of the struggling tribalswere gunned down by the Odisha police for forcibleoccupation of their land for Tatas.

On the 7th anniversary of Kalinganagar firing, theBistapan Birodhi Jana Manch vowed to continue theirstruggle against forcible land acquisition. Like past yearsthis year also the BBJM organized a rally of more than3000 people carrying red flags and traditional weapons likebows and arrows and chanting slogans against forcibleland acquisition in the name of industries and mines like“Balapurbak silpayana bandh kara”, “Bikas nare BinashChaliba Nahin”, Kalinganagar Amar Saheed tumaku janauLal Salam” etc. The rally started in the morning fromChampakoila, the place where the police fired upon tribalskilling 14 of them on 2nd Jan 2006 and it ended at Birbhumicovering a distance of nearly five kms. After the rallyreached at Birbhumi, the site where the stone pillars inmemory of tribal matyars are standing, the red flag washoisted and floral tribute was given to those martyrs’ pillarsby the leaders of BBJM and other supporting organizationspresent there. Revolutionary songs in the memory of themartyrs and urging people to carry forward the strugglewere sung by BBJM activists.

In the afternoon the public meeting was started underthe chairmanship of Com. Amarnath Banra, the presidentof BBJM. The family members of the martyrs were calledto the stage one after another and were honoured withclothes by the guests. Com.Rabindra Jarika, secretary ofBBJM in his introductory speech described the plight ofthe people displaced by different industries in Kalinganagararea. He said those who are at one time left their homesby the allurement of Tatas are in a distress condition now.Many displaced people who were betrayed by Tata havejoined in our today’s programme. He urged the tribal peopleof Kalinganagar to unite and resist the land acquisition bydifferent companies. Leaders of BBJM Com DabarKalundia, Com.Nati Angrai, two elected sarpanches ComSwarnalata Banra and Rajendra Kalundia also spoke atthe meeting. Com. Bhalachandra, state spokesperson ofCPI(ML)-New Democracy, CPI(ML)-Liberation state leaderMahendra Parida and social activist Praffula Samantaraalso spoke on the occasion.

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Due to inherent defects and dangers of ‘capitalist’system erstwhile developed countries of the worldare in utter chaos and distress. They were blindlyfollowing anti people laissez-faire and private wealthaccumulation mechanism that enriched hardly 1percent of people in these countries and 0.01 percentin the emerging economies. It was never meant toremove the economic distress of 99 percent or moreof the people. 99 percent of people in erstwhiledeveloped world on either side of Atlantic and in SouthKorea and Japan along Pacific are openly challengingthe Govt’s policies on Corporations, their variouspuppet organ isat ions, s tock and commodi tyexchanges. Capitalism in 21st century refused tochange with time and insisted to follow age oldstinking philosophy of ‘privatisations of profit andsocialisations of losses’ in this dynamic world. Whathappened since 2008 in the Capitalist system andsupported by organisations like ‘tea party etc.’ in USAis criticized throughout the world by organizing protestmarch and demonstrations since September 2011 inthe streets and parks of more than 1000 cities of thisworld (Ocupation Wall Street, OWS). Is it a mereaccident in 21st century that the deprived, unemployedand under employed millions of the world, both indeveloped and poorer countries have to fight togetheragainst destructive capitalist system and its modern‘monost rous ’ med ium ca l led Mu l t ina t iona lCorporations (MNC) led by fraudulent ‘financial czarsin USA, Europe, Japan and South Korea.’

Let us understand why lakhs of people arecondemning the corporate sector for the present stateof af fa i rs. Greed of MNCs compel led them toaccumula te wea l th and they coerced the‘democratically elected Govts' to fully implement theirant i people pol ic ies and that brought lakhs ofleaderless people in the streets. In 2008 financialinstitutions on either side of Atlantic were declaredbankrupt for their destructive financial and lendingpolicies. The situation went from bad to worse despitetrillions of dollars aid given during this period by theGovts. even in capitalist system. Billionaires weregiven liberal state subsidies and ordered to reduceexpenses.These crooked people in turn reduced their

workforce and pocketed all types of state help. Worstsufferers were workers who even after three years ofmeltdown are stil l out of jobs in thousands andstudents are thrown out for failure to pay installmentson education loan taken from banks. By increasingthe retirement age employment of young job seekersare denied forever. There is state sponsored totalanarchy and fascist exploitation by the ‘wealth loving’greedy corporations. However, their CEOs continueto earn fat salaries and huge bonuses while lakhsare kept outside factories and offices. Most of thesecountries like USA, Canada, U.K., Germany, France,Italy, Greece etc. are not banana republics, they aresound examples of democracies, even then theirGovts refused to take any punitive action against evena single big boss of any corporation in any country.Elementary question posed here is do we need anyGovt or union of Govts e.g. European union (EU) torule in such a ‘jungle Raj’?

In USA of f ic ia l unemployment f igure is 9.5percent(!) since 2008 but figures of underemploymentare not published . People are punished for ‘insidertrading’ though this has remained a common practiceand is taught in all standard MBA courses. Yes, 9/11attack is condemned by everyone in the world, butBoard of Directors of MNCs who are looting anddestroying the natural resources and polluting waterand environment for narrow selfish personal benefitsshould also be sent to prison. This is more relevantin poorer countries like India.

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Supreme Court of India among other issues is tofind out how many poor people are there in India, thisis a major constitutional human right issue and can’tbe kept any longer in cold storage. A country tryingfor permanent membership of “Security Council’ andinhabited by around 1.24 billion people out of 7 billionin the world wants to know correct figure of these‘hungry people’. Then only one can effectivelydebate what will be nature and direction of economicpolicies for the country and Govt has to explain topeople why it deliberately ignored the basic needs of

MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS SLAUGHTERINGLIFE AND LIVELIHOOD

A CASE STUDY OF INDIA

Dr. N. Bhattacharya

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such huge number of human beings in India forcontinuously six long decades

What is happening in India since melt downstarted in USA and gradually devastated the fragile‘developed world’ built on porous sand? In India somecivil society groups viz. Chambers of Commerce andvarious other associations of industry and trade usedthis golden opportunity and successfully got from theGovt. huge subsidies and bank credit at cheapestrate. The mainstream political parties have helped infunding these ‘monstrous corporations’.

Since World Bank’s ‘reform’ agenda was initiatedin India in 1991, wel l advert ised world bank’s‘inclusive growth’ resulted in lakhs of ‘suicide deathsof Indian farmers’ and at the same time remunerationpackage, for example, of one billionaire in India in2007-08 was around Rs 44 crores. This gentleman,however, voluntarily reduced his pay packet perannum to Rs 15 crores for next 3 years. In real lifevast majority suffered after 2008 and are still sufferingimmense difficulties due to cost reduction schemesannounced by industry and trade. To show how Indiancorporate sector is only interested to improve its ownnarrow selfish interests and nothing else is explainedfrom the following Table I.

TABLE I

Compensation package including bonuses of CEOs(Rs. crores)

CEO of Hindustan Managing Director Unilever of P&G India

2009 4.56 3.27

2010 4.75 3.18

2011 7.98 7.92

( Economic Times 11.11.11)

Recently Maruti Suzuki, one of the producer of carsentered into trade union fight with its own workers intheir Gurgaon plant. Workers demanded recognitionof their Union as per law of the country and the Govt.helped the company and punished the workers. Thiscompany increased its Profit before depreciation,interest and tax (PBDIT) between 2001 and 2011 by32 times and its wage bill increased by only 3.5 times.(ET 11.11.11). Such is state of affairs of our corporatesector advertising recession in market and Govts ascharitable institutions extended all types of fiscal andmonitory concessions to these people. However, asplanned, worst sufferers were the workers. This is

shown in the following Table 2.

TABLE II

GROWTH IN PROFIT OF CORPORATES AND LOSSTO WORKERS

2001 2011 RISE

Staff Cost 10515 39291 3.7

Director’s Salary 120 887 7.4

PBDIT 30581 141875 4.6

Wholesale price index 155.7 242.9 1.5

(Rise: no of times ; Figures rounded off; (Rscrores);PBDIT is Profit before Depreciation, Interest and Tax;ET: 11.11.11)

A lmost a l l the subs id ies and concess ionsdistributed lavishly in 2008 are still continuing thoughIndian organized and unorganized labour suffered dueto well planned anti labour policies of our mainstreampolitical parties. On the other hand Govts., both inthe states and in the Centre did nothing to initiatesupply side management. Govts remained justtoothless institutions, periodically announcing figuresof double digit inflation and assuring its end ‘verysoon’ for last 36 months. It helped organized tradeand industry to earn windfall profits. Such unilateralhelp to MNCs by India’s political leadership andpolicies implemented against the interest of the peopleof this country, created massive unrest among theorganized and unorganized workers. It is recessionnot only in USA, it has engulfed European Union andthese Govts can not explain why poverty strickenilliterate masses of the world should suffer for theirdestructive anti human policies.

From September 2011, scene in USA is quitechallenging for Multinational corporations and theirsuppor ters o f ‘ tea par ty ’ in USA Congress. ‘Occupation Wall Street(OWS) movement has nowspread over 1000 cities around the world and it isstill bringing in more and more young people in thestreets. Indian polit ical parties who forgot theirelectoral promises made since fifties to the peopleof this country, shamelessly made Indian farmers andtribals landless and destitutes. Our Govts. recklesslyfollowed anti people policies so that corporations canearn huge profit in a captive market by formingcartels. Worst feature in this game is that MNCs likeVedanta, POSCO, Dow Chemicals, Enron etc. etc.were allowed by our Govts. to destroy l ife andlivelihood of our own people. Our Govt is using muscle

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power to start a new nuclear plant in Tamilnadu, whenfore ign supp l ie rs o f these reac tors o f f i c ia l l yannounced to close down their own existing plants inpublic interests in their own countries. It is surprisingthat an ex- President publicly certified safety of thisnuclear plant in particular and all other nuclear plantsin general. With available knowledge, no human beingcan certify safety of any nuclear plant in 2011 unlesshe/she is a commission agent of such corporates. Inthis case the person concerned is a highly rewardedbureaucrat and gave up dedicated research work longtime ago after joining Govt. service. What was thecompulsion for Pokhran Test in late nineties when hewas President in a country which in 21st Centuryproudly claims(!) ‘no school’, ’no hospital’ and‘ nofood’ etc, etc to vast millions of this country!

Like that of rest of the world, till today India’seconomic policies are planned and implemented tohelp the rich of both India and rest of the world. If in2011 the main slogan of protesters of OWS is we are99 percent, in India that remaining 1 Percent is notmore than 0.01 percent. Total number of dollarbillionaires in 2010 in India was around 69, and thatof dollar millionaires in the same year was estimatedat 153000 out of 1240 millions. Thus it sounds hollowthat our GDP growth is no longer ‘hindu rate’ and ournational cake is getting bigger every day thoughIndia’s more than 99 percent people are in abjectpoverty. Our planning assures some selected few toenjoy all the latest comforts and for vast majorityvirtually there is no plan at all. Recently, a largenumber of children died in some Govt hospitals cummedical colleges of Kolkata and enquiry committeescertified that doctors did everything to save thosechildren. These children were already suffering frommalnutrition and other diseases. Incidentally childrenwere brought from far away places, because healthinfrastructure is totally concentrated in India only insmall number of mega towns. Present Health Ministerin W. Bengal is Chief Minister herself and leader ofher party in Loksabha is a Central Minister in HealthMinistry!

No one is surprised when Indian Prime Minister feltashamed to release a report prepared by one NGO thataround half (42%) of our children are suffering frommalnutrition. Every year Supreme Court is ordering StateGovts. that no one should sleep on the roadside. Mediareports that people die every year in extreme heat. Thus itis not only children but poor people die due to malnutritionin extreme weather conditions. To add to it we have officialrecords showing suicide deaths of lakhs of farmers forinability of payments of outstanding loans. This clearlyproves that our Govts since 1950s willingly followed those

policies by which only 0.01% had the opportunity toaccumulate wealth. This is totally against acceptedprinciples of ‘democratic principles’ and helping the growthof fascist forces in the country.

Already Govts. in the country are at war with its civilianpopulation. Tribals account for around 8 p.c. of populationand the forests where they live are protected by “ForestAct”. How Tribal boys and girls are homeless and doingodd jobs in towns? So the ‘illegal and legal mining’ in theforests must stop immediately and politicians and theircorporate friends must wind up and go to some othercountry. Their stock answer in old days was that they maymigrate to some other country, but today except India restof the world is hostile to corporations. It is the unity ofsuffering people which can compel the fascist rulers tomend their ways so that India can survive as a ‘secular,socialist federal republic.’ In this connection oneremembers the main logic to float World TradeOrganisation (WTO) in 1995. Developed world andtheir financial institutions were allowed to enter Indianmarket but they were never compelled to go tovillages, rather they were allowed to deal with blackmoney and other accounts related to underworldtransactions. It is reported in the press that oneforeign bank in India has disclosed names of someIndians who kept their black money in their GenevaBranch but that written information is not available.

Oppressed and starving people of India are forcedto fight back for survival. When many law makers inIndian Parliament are seasoned criminals and lodgedin jails, Election Commission looks the other side,then what is the fun of conducting so called free andfair elections! A country with 99.99 percent of peoplesuffering from lack of sufficient food, virtually withoutany medical cover and any civi l ized sanitationarrangements etc. etc. cannot give sermons in G 20meet ing on how to save EU f rom economicdestruction!

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The epitome of Punjabi people’s theatre, an iconof revolutionary cultural movement and deeplycommitted to communist ideology, Com. GursharanSingh passed away on the intervening night of 27th

and 28th September, 2011. He was a very popularfigure among the people of Punjab and they werestunned at the news of his death. Thousands ofpeople had besieged Chandigarh on 28th September,demanding the withdrawal of draconian and blacklaws. They all stood in silence to pay homage to Com.Gursharan Singh. He was 82 years old, suffering fromdiabetes and hypertension since many years and wason dialysis for some time.

Gursharan Singh was born on September 16, 1929at Multan, now in Pakistan. His family migrated toAmritsar at the time of partition in 1947 and settledthere. He was from an elite family, which was pro-Br i t ish and c lose to ch ie f Khalsa Dewan, anorganization of Sikhs which was liberal but pro-British.A western educated engineer, Gurbax Singh, a liberaland progressive in views, had set-up a colony calledPreet Nagar near Amritar. He had his own philosophyof utopian love and wanted to implement the life-stylebased on his philosophy in Preet Nagar. He wasbringing out a monthly journal, named Preet-larhiwhich carried liberal and progressive views and wasvery popular in the middle class and progressivecircles. This was read in the family of GursharanSingh. Child Gursharan Singh was emotionally rousedwhen he saw his very sensitive class-mate, Budhwawith a broom in his hand. Gursharan Singh alwayshelped him despite the opposition from his family.

Atmosphere in the house was changing. His elderbrother, Inderjeet Singh become active in the studentmovement led by communists. Students leaders likeJagjit Singh Anand, Navtej Singh (Son of GurbaxSingh Preet-Lari), Dev Raj Chanana and Randhir Singhused to visit his house. Often his younger sisterMohinder Kaur joined Activity College at Preet Nagar.Under the influence of his elder brother, InderjeetSingh, Gursharan Singh joined Communist Party andbecame the youngest member of the Party in Punjab.In the first elections after 1947 he campaigned forBaba Sohan Singh Bhakna, President of Gadar Partyand Communist and peasant leader at the time.

Gursharan Singh studied engineering and becamean engineer in Cement technology. He joined serviceat Bhakra where a big dam was being constructed.One evening, standing at a height, he thought if wecan change the way of the river, why we cannotchange life and he dedicated his life to this goal. Twoincidents clearly show the direction of his l i fe.Workers at the dam demanded that except skeletalstaff others should be granted a holiday for lohri, butmanagement refused. There was a strike. GursharanSingh wrote and staged a drama named ‘strike’.Secondly in 1955 Russian leader, Bulganin came toIndia and visited Bhakhra. A cultural programe wasorganized but entry was restricted for officers onlyand workers were not allowed. But Gursharan Singhrequested the artists to stay for another day and stageanother program. The artists, being close to IPTA,conceded and cultural programme for workers wasorganized in open ground. He organized a group andstarted theatre there. Later on he was transferred toAmritsar and he continued theatre there too. He chosethe weapon of theatre in his fight.

He was deeply inf luenced by the Naxalbarimovement. ‘Individual annihilation’ which was calledarmed struggle at that time, was the only form ofstruggle and party was underground. Ruling classeswere defaming the movement by painting CRs asmurderers and dacoits, there was no one to defendand represent the movement. Com. Gursharan Singhand Dr . Sur inder S ingh Dosanjh became theintellectual faces of the movement. They revived‘Kendri Lekhak Sabha’. Gursharan Singh was bringingout a monthly journal, named ‘Sardal’ which becamea platform of revolutionary literature and politicaldebate. Another Paper ‘Hem Jyoti’ was hunted downbut ‘Sardal’ continued for quite a long time till itscontinuation became impossible due to technicalreasons (Harbans Singh Jolly was its editor in name

Homage to Gursharan Singh

The icon of revolutionary cultural movement-S.S. Mahil

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and he was not prepared to take the risk). GursharanSingh then brought out similar journal named ‘Sardal’which continued ti l l nineties. Punjabi languagedepartment awarded a prize to Balraj Sahni for hisbook ‘Mera Pakistani Safarnama’. He gave the prize-money ( Rs. 5000) to Gursharan Singh and Gursharanstarted ‘Balraj Sahni Yadgari Pustak-Mala’ whichpublished hundreds of books of revolutionary andprogressive literature and sold them at cheap rates.

So far he was staging dramas in a traditional wayat a large stage at Gandhi ground open air theatre byusing light and sound etc., basically urban theatre.But after 1970 he turned to the countryside. But therewere not the facilities required for theatre in thevillage. He modelled his theatre according to thesituation. Sometime two bullock-carts joined frombehind became the stage, in most villages a Tharha(small brick-platform) and sometimes joined tableswas the stage. This is now called Tharha theatre. Nowthis has become an established form of theatre. Inthis form for niceties to be conveyed, his powerfuland emotional voice itself had dramatic effect. Healso evolved a new form of drama, that is popularlyknown as Nukkad Natak. A short but powerful play,staged amongst the people where viewers too becomepart of the play.

He himself wrote his plays, some of them basedon novels and stories. He staged plays which haveduration of two hours and more than two dozen actorswhereas he also staged plays of 20 minutes durationwith 3-4 actors. His plays were on contemporarythemes as well as historical and based on folk heroes.Whatever may be the genre they always becamepeople’s voice, which cannot be suppressed by anytype of tyranny. When it was known that Bhindrawalehas a hit-list and he daily sends death squads to killsome of the names in the list, Gursharan Singh wrotea small play named ‘Hit-List’ where in the end peopleprepare a hit-list with Bhinderanwale's name at thetop. He wrote ‘Baba Bolda Hai’ on sikh massacre inDelhi in 1984. His play ‘Hawai Gole’ exposes theparliamentary system, ‘Jangi Ram di Haveli’ exposedthe rottenness of this system, ‘Planning’ exposes thehollowness of the plans and policies of ruling class-parties and ‘Nawan zanam’ was against caste-system. He wrote hundreds of plays. In an interviewhe said that since 1971 there was never a day whenhe did not stage a play; on the contrary sometime itwas at 2-3 places a day.

During Emergency on September 9, 1975 hestaged a play of Pakistani playwright, Sayyad NazamHussain, which was against the dictatorship of AyubKhan and it was also about Indira's dictatorship. On11 Sept. he was dismissed from his job. On 17 Sept.he staged this play at Jammu University. FarooqAbdullah and Giani Zail Singh were present. After the

play Giani Zail Singh in his speech described him as‘a gem of Punjab’ But he was arrested when hereached Amritsar alleging that he was training threeyoung men under a bridge near Khemkarn on how tobelow up the bridge. He never bowed before repressioneither by the state or Khalistani terrorists.

On 26 Sept. 1986, Com. Baldev Singh Mann,President Naujawan Bharat Sabha, Editor HirawalDasta and a popular peasant leader was martyred byKhalistani terrorists. Before that Arjun Singh Mastanaand Darshan Singh Canadian of CPI and ChananSingh Dhoot of CPM were gunned down by Khalistaniterrorists. Gursharan Singh was quite close to Com.Baldev Singh Mann, he was very upset over his death.He said, ‘’I cannot allow you to be killed separately,all CRs must unite on one platform and fight jointly."He published an open letter addressed to all the‘Naxal organizations’, calling for united action andconvened a Convention at Desh Bhagat Yadgar HallJalandhar which was attended by all organizationsexept C.T. and H.B.S. group. A joint front named‘Inqlabi Kendar’ was formed, with Gursharan Singhas Convenor. Orientation of this front was to opposestate and khalistani terrorism and support democraticdemands of Punjab. This front organized a long marchalong the Indo-Pak border in Amritsar and Gurdaspur,which was the hotbed of Khalistani terrorism. Passingthrough the whole of Punjab, the march concluded atKhatkar Kalan, the native village of Shaheed BhagatSingh. Police and CRPF stopped the march fromproceeding to the memorial of Shaheed Bhagat Singh,in the name of security of VIPs, but led by GursharanSingh marchers blocked the route, stopped themovement of so-called VIPs including C.M. Stateforces were forced to allow the march to pay homageat the Martyr memorial. This was a historic initiativeby Com. Gursharan Singh. If and when some CRorganization needed him in any way, he was there. Inan interview he expressed a grudge that generally hewas known and projected as a dramatist but, he said,he was a communist first. After the fall of SovietUnion, when most of intellectuals were bewildered andlost their bearings, he stood firmly.

Not only did he stage plays but he built a strongpeople's theatre movement. More than a dozen theatregroups are working in Punjab. For building alternativeculture, he organized Punjab Lok Sabyacharak Manch(Punjab People’s Cultural Forum). Though he wasawarded Kalidas award, Sangeet Natak Rattan awardand Sahitya Academy award but he never becamepart of the establishment. He was always a rebel.Though he acted in some films and T.V. serials butthis tinsel world could not attract him to its confines.

Our heartfelt homage to Com. Gursharan Singh,the Sipahslar of revolutionary cultural movement anda committed communist.

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A dead body with staring eyes lying near theNanthikadal (sea of conches) in Mullaiteevu marksthe end of a quarter century of war in Sri Lanka. Theincidents leading to the death remind one of the scenefrom Ernest Hemingway’s novel ‘For Whom the BellTolls’ where El Sordo and his comrades die in theirvaliant fight till their last on top of a hill.

As the guns have fallen silent, one can hazardany number of reviews and analyses. One is at libertyto praise or ridicule those who are no more. Poignantquestions can be raised on the responsibility for thegreat defeat that has pushed the Sri Lankan Tamilsthirty years back in to the history. Yehudi Menuhinbrilliantly captures the mood about the twentiethcentury as ‘that it raised the greatest hopes everconceived by humanity, and destroyed all illusionsand ideals’1. Is it true for the twenty first century too?History starts with a great beginning that ends as atragedy. Yet it is something that does not end withvain proclamations.

History tells us that Emperor Asoka turned toBuddhism after watching the great devastation in theKalinga war where a hundred thousand perished andanother hundred and fifty thousand were takenprisoners. That was more than two thousand yearsago. Now the whole world witnessed the BuddhistPresident of Sri Lanka kissing the blood soaked landstrewn with destruction. Hundreds of thousands ofinternally displaced persons (IDP) are held captive inthe squalor called refugee camps. Many of refugeesin the camps wouldn’t know which of their familymembers are alive. On the other side the chauvinisttriumphalism ruled the streets in its boisterouscelebration of the victory. History is a narrative thatthrives in the clutches of the victor. It is also theincessant wailing of the vanquished.

The Sri Lankan President states that over ahundred thousand people have died in the twenty fiveyear old civil war. Between April 27th and May 19th,during those last days of the war, it is estimated thattwenty thousand have been ki l led averaging athousand every day. Three hundred and fifty thousandare now in the refugee camps resembling an openprison. Thirty thousand amongst these are woundedand need medical care. The government declares that

they would not send these people to their homes untilthey get hold of every single ‘terrorist’ within thecamps. Women, children and the elderly – everyoneis a ‘suspect ’ in the eyes of the government.Theverajah Kajenthini, lost her parents and sister andis currently sheltered in Sivananda Thapovanamorphanage. Listen to her - ‘Like the other children inhere we don’t talk about the past. I am old enough toknow my parents are gone but the younger childrenlaugh and play and tell us their mums and dads arecoming back —— I saw my mother’s body. She wason fire after the shelling and died of burns to her faceand neck. Her head was black, it was the last I sawof her” 2

Price of peace for the innocent Tamils

Look at the devastation! Chinese weapons aid inone year was $ 10 billion. Military aid from Pakistan,amounted for $ 100 million. The aid from India is yetto be calculated. With armed forces of over 200,000in a country of less than 20 million, Lanka is amongthe most militarized countries in the world. In the TearDrop island the impoverished soldiers returned homein flower bedecked coffins with death on a full moonday3. What price is the victory? Cemeteries flood thedreamland of Eelam. What is the cost of the defeat?History is a ruthless soul. It is an edifice standingtall on the devastation and dead bodies. It gets rebuiltthrough the course of people’s struggles too.

Behind the current carnage lie six decades of futilepacts, empty peace talks and broken promises. 1956– The Official Language Act, No. 33 declaration ofSinhala as the sole official language and massacreof Tamils in the east. 1958 – the Bandaranaike,Chelvanayagam pact (BC pact), pact followed byagitation by the opposition and pogroms on Tamilslead ing to un i la tera l abrogat ion, 1965 – TheSenanaike, Chelvanayagam pact that was nevermeant to be implemented, Sinhala state sponsoreddrive to colonize Tamil majority northern and easternprovinces by planting of Sinhala settlements, 1972-Constitutional amendment making Buddhism the defacto state religion, 1974-75 – severe discriminationin university admissions against Tamil students, 1977– massacre of Tamils by Sinhala chauvinists, 1981-burning of the Tamil library in Jaffna and burning alive

End of a War Not of a VisionEnd of a War Not of a VisionEnd of a War Not of a VisionEnd of a War Not of a VisionEnd of a War Not of a Vision- S K Mohan

‘You have buried us on our land. Oh enemy, where will you bury our land’-Kasi Anandan, Tamil Eelam Poet

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of Tamils,4 1983-2009 – four Eelam wars interspersedwith vain peace talks and agreements each leadingto the next war. Wrecked agreements? Failed peacetalks? Broken promises? History bears testimony toall. History is a promise for the future. Yet, it doesn’tcomply with any of those accords and promises.

One has to note that this is the defeat of anestranged struggle. China, Pakistan and India – allthe governments within the region were rooting forthe defeat of LTTE. It has been banished by 32 stateswith a ‘terrorist’ branding. Could one expect a genuinehelp from western powers which were all engaged inthe genocides across the globe - Palestine, Lebanon,Iraq and Afghanistan with their usage of weapons ofmass destruction? Could one expect any assistancefrom mere condemnations & support statementsdevoid of any material action? What kind of supportcan one expect from a charade called ‘fasting’ beforeTV cameras? It is pertinent to note that the strugglewas alienated. But when the array of global andregional powers is aligned against one struggle andwith all of those mighty powers rooting for its defeat,can one expect it to last long? Can one expect it tosucceed? History is a blind alley that shuts down allescape routes for besieged to create martyrs.Strangely, those capable of breaking free are neverbeleaguered.

IIThe events in Sri Lanka provide important lessons

to peoples movements. While the rulers, their armiesand states learn their lessons from the victorious SriLankan state, peoples movements should learn theirlessons from the defeat of LTTE. One has to viewthe strategic and tactical errors that have lead to thisdefeat.

Changed Global Scenario

1. The cold war between USA and the Sovietcamp provided a specific setting for movements inthe world. In its earliest days, the progress of theSri Lankan Tamil struggle was influenced by thetussle between the two powers in the Indian sub-continent. While the Sri Lankan government was inthe US camp, the Indian government leant towardsthe USSR. During this period, the Indian governmentprovided support and training to the struggle. Thecollapse of the Soviet camp tilted the balance infavour of the Sri Lankan government. While someof the spectacular military successes were stillachieved during late 90s, external support to LTTEfrom international states was on the wane.

2. Added to the above, the new situation madelife difficult for armed movements that did not fit

into American geo-political strategy. And afterSeptember 2001, the brand of “terrorism” has madedirect international support very difficult. The lackof international support and inter-governmentcollaboration in suppressing struggles can also beseen d i rec t ly in the Sr i Lanka and Nepa ldevelopments.

3. The current decade also witnessed an activerole of China in the Indian Ocean rim as it is involvedin building of ports across Pakistan, Bangladesh,Myanmar and Sri Lanka. China signed a US$1 billiondeal in 2007 to construct a major port city insouthern Sri Lankan town of Hambantota. Given thefact that about 70 percent of the China’s oil importstraverse through the main east west trade route justsix nautical miles from Hambantota, it is viewed asthe Chinese strategy to ‘“take control over the worldenergy jugular.” China emerged as a major donorto Sri Lanka as its aid increased fivefold during2008.

“In April 2007 Sri Lanka signed a classified $37.6million (£25 million) deal to buy Chinese ammunitionand ordnance for its army and navy, according toJane’s Defence Weekly.

China gave Sri Lanka — apparently free ofcharge — six F7 jet fighters last year, according tothe Stockholm Internat ional Peace ResearchInstitute, after a daring raid by the Tigers’ air wingdestroyed ten military aircraft in 2007. One of theChinese fighters shot down one of the Tigers’ aircrafta year later.”5

The LTTE failed to adapt its strategy and tacticsaccording to the changed conditions.

Strategic Miscalculations

4. Organizations conducting a protracted armedstruggle need to identify strategic enemies andallies, and tactical all ies that can give limitedsupport for limited period. While the Government ofIndia (GOI) could help, the LTTE dependedexcessively upon it in the init ial phases. Thisprovided an opportunity for GOI to interfere in theinternal politics of Lanka and the Eelam struggle.Latter, by fighting a war with the Indian Peace-Keeping Force and killing Rajiv Gandhi, the LTTEpushed GOI into the enemy camp. With this act, itlost the opportunity of at least ensuring the neutralityof GOI.

5. At the same time, the LTTE considered GOIand opportunistic political parties to be it’s strategicallies. It expected great support from them in itshour of need.

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The above strategic political miscalculations on thepart of LTTE ultimately proved to be fatal.

6. On the military front, LTTE failed to correctlyestimate the strength and morale of enemy forces.In the earlier wars, the Lankan army could not matchthe LTTE and suffered considerable losses.

“LTTE succeeded in thwarting almost all majormilitary campaigns launched by Sri Lankan army –Operation Edibala (February 1997), OperationJayasikuru (may 1997-December 1998), OperationRivi Bala (December 1998), operation Rana Gosa(1999), and the first six offensives under OperationKinihira (1998-200) – inflicting enormous losses,destroying many small encampments and outposts,and capturing the major army bases of the north atMullaiteevu (July 1996) and Elephant Pass (April2000)….”6

“..however, the foregoing ‘achievements’ had severalnegative features among which the excessively heavyloss of lives among the LTTE cadres was moreimportant than any other, at least from the short termperspectives. The military confrontations referred toearlier resulted in a decline in the number of Tigerwarriors from an estimated 15,000 in 1997 to 7,000by early 2001, a reduction in excess of 50 percent…One of the consequences was the LTTE resorting toconscription of children..”

“Equally prominent on the debit side of the Tiger ledgerwas the fact that the pre-cease fire battle fieldvictories, though impressive as guerilla strikes, hadnot resulted in significant territorial gains except in asmall area north of the township of Killinochi and thestrategic ‘gateway’ of Elephant Pass. In the denselypopulated western segment of Jaffna peninsula, theheart of the ‘Tamil Homeland’, despite the do-and-die attempts, there were no tangible gains. Indeed,through operations Agni Kheela and Kinihira VII (bothconducted at the end of 2000), the Sri Lankan armyregained some of the territory lost to the LTTE inearlier confrontations in localities adjacent to thePalay air base and along the southern corridor ofaccess to Jaffna.”7

However , by the four th Ee lam war , thegovernment vastly multiplied its forces. The infantrynot only expanded its numbers but also learnt fromearlier losses. “Learning from the past, they builtup force levels on land, in the air and at sea toensure success against the Tamil Tigers. The SriLanka Army went on a recruiting spree. For instance,in the year 2008 alone 40,000 troops were added,to raise 47 infantry battalions, 13 brigades, four taskforce contingents and two divisions. The Army nowhas 13 divisions, three task forces and one armouredbrigade.”8 It adapted a strategy of inflicting massive

losses on the LTTE while minimizing its own.

The new strength of the air force is evident in theserial air raids. Analysts estimate that it conductedbetween 15,000 and 20,000 attacks.9

The navy was developed from coastal “brownwater”, to a “blue water” force. This seriously affectedthe LTTE’s supply lines. Sea lanes from Colombo andTrincomalee to Jaffna came under governmentcontrol.

“[The LTTE] totally lost their supplies and thatturned the war,” says Vice-Adm Karannagoda. “Itwas one of the major turning points of the war thathas been going on for the last 30 years.”

“With the Small Boats Concept finding successin sea battles against the Sea Tigers, use of DvoraFAC squadrons to gain control over the sea lines ofcommunication, and deployment of OPVs to attackwarehouse ships, the LTTE was unable to maintaindominance at sea. The number of recorded SLNcontacts with the Sea Tigers in the post-ceasefireperiod from 2006–08 declined dramatically. In 2006,the SLN had 21 encounters with the Sea Tigers, withup to 30 craft on each side engaged in battleslasting up to 14 hours. A year later, the number ofencounters had fallen to 11; in 2008 just fourencounters with the Sea Tigers were registered bythe SLN.”10

The LTTE underestimated the growth in theenemy force and its combat capability.

7. Though LTTE had its own air force, it servedmore a propaganda purpose than to hit the enemy.There have been reports that during the peace talks,many LTTE guerillas had settled into family life andhad children this reportedly affected their ability tofight.11 Above all, with the revolt of Col. Karuna inthe east, the LTTE had to withdraw from there. Thus,the east came completely under government control.Without taking these into consideration, the LTTEopted for a positional rather than mobile war.

Thus, while underestimating the military strengthof the Sri Lankan state, LTTE also overestimatedthe capability of its own forces. These are thestrategic miscalculations of LTTE on the militaryfront.

Tactical Mistakes

8. Boycott of the 2005 elections helped thevictory of the hard-line Rajapaksa government.“Rajapaksa owed his victory over his UNP rival, theformer prime minister Ranil Wickremasinghe, tosupport from JVP and a similarly hard-line partyformed by some Buddhist monks…Even then he

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prevailed by only razor-thin margin in a closelyfought election – he polled 4,887,152 votes against4 ,706,366 fo r Wickremas inghe. The dov ishWickremasinghe would have won had the LTTE notca l led on the Tami l vo te rs to abs ta in . . .AWickremasinghe win would have recharged theisland’s peace constituency and opened up anotheropportunity – after the joint post-tsunami mechanismwas scuttled by Sinhalese-Buddhist extremists-torevive the peace process.” 12 The LTTE planned toresume armed struggle citing the attitude of theRajapaksa government. However, it isolated themore liberal forces and helped the emergence of ahard-line, militarist government. Its tactics unifiedthe enemy rather than divide it.

9. The LTTE agreed to a ceasefire in 2001.However, the LTTE’s attitude seemed one of tryingto come out of the pact and talks as early aspossible. Going by the reports of the ceasefiremonitors, the greatest number of violations was fromthe LTTE.

With these, the LTTE gave room for charges that itwas not prepared for peaceful negotiations. Theseare the tactical political mistakes on the part ofLTTE.

10. As mentioned above, LTTE chose for apositional defensive warfare rather than mobilewarfare. LTTE stuck to its positional warfare tacticsdespite the heavy losses, forced retreats andrapidly shrinking areas of influence. It surprising tonote that none of these factors made LTTE rethinkon its plans.

11. With the series of setbacks in the war, theLTTE moved ordinary civilians along with its forces.With this, it is natural to face accusations of usingunarmed civilians as human shields. However, ithas to be observed that i t is not possible toconstantly move over 2000,000 civilians with anarmy of just 20,000. It can be assumed that thecivilians went with the LTTE because they did nothave faith in the Sri Lankan government and itsarmy. However, the LTTE had its own interests inencouraging this. Their idea was that loss of civilianlife would put pressure on the government. The LTTEhas no satisfactory reply to the government’s chargeof using the people as human shields. Regardlessof this, civilians have been massacred and thegovernment is mainly responsible for this.

The tragedy is unparalleled in the annals ofmilitary history. During World War II, the Sovietcounter strategy to the ‘the greatest military marchin world history” (as claimed by Hitler) was ‘a war ofthe whole people.” The Red Army fought for “everyinch of Soviet soil,” and “in case of forced retreat,”

everything valuable was to be “evacuated ordestroyed”. “How this Soviet strategy exhaustedGermany, is told by Howard K. Smith in his book,Last Train from Berlin. The German war machineand the German people had fattened on the loot ofEurope; they starved when Hitler entered Russia.Their troops came to the Dnieper and happily sawbeyond the ruined dam the massive buildings of thegreat Dnieper industries, the first factories they hadseen intact in the USSR, says Smith. But when theyreached the buildings, every machine down to thelast bolt and nut, had gone East. ‘That was defense,’says Smith.” 13

Referring to Sri Lankan situation, Muralidhar Reddynoted that, “The Army marched through 68 small andmedium towns and villages under the administrativecontrol of the LTTE in the north. These includedKilinochchi, the so-called administrative and politicalheadquarters of the Tigers, and Mullaithivu, theLTTE’s military hub and the main base of the SeaTigers. But the astonishing thing is that only 5,000-odd civilians crossed over to government-controlledterritory or reported at the makeshift camps set upfor internally displaced people by the government.”

“The million-dollar question is, where did thecivilians disappear as town after town and villageafter village in the five districts of the north cameunder military control?”

“….. Correspondents based in Colombo, whowere taken on occasional conducted tours by theDefence Ministry to areas captured by the militaryin the north, were struck by the sight of ghost townsand villages over hundreds of miles.”14

As the war progressed, there is evidence thatLTTE dealt ruthlessly with civilians. However, from alogistical point of view, it would definitely not havebeen possible for LTTE to forcibly move the civiliansalong with them in the initial days.

The Chinese People’s Liberation Army defeatedencirclement through its “long march.” A vastgeographical area favoured the Chinese guerillas.In the limited area of Sri Lanka, the LTTE did notreconsider its military tactics. Moving thousands ofcivilians with them made mobile war impossible.Some times “a resistance too prolonged in a besiegedcamp is demoralising in itself. It implies suffering,fatigue, loss of rest, i l lness and the continualpresence not of the acute danger which tempers butof the chronic danger which destroys”15. The LTTEignored this aspect in its military tactics and stuckto its positional warfare.

Thus, LTTE’s tactical mistakes on the military frontare – sticking to positional warfare rather despite the

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setbacks and carting off along with the civilians thatprecluded the option of mobile warfare.

Lessons

1. The problem of supreme leaders and monolithicstructures has to be recognized here. It should benoted that the nature of the goal and its class basis(of both the goal and the organization) contribute tothe preeminence of individuals as the ‘supremeleaders’ . Whi le we cannot ignore the role ofleadership, one cannot ascribe infallibility to them.Monolithic organisations which do not permit dissentand debate stunt the phi losophical basis ofmovements. Predominance of such structures leadsto tremendous violence in society. This is a lessonthat has to be drawn from LTTE history. Oneperson’s vision with sole ambition of establishingEelam, his shortsightedness in ignoring changedcircumstances, his stubbornness and inflexibility,and opportunism in joining hand with anybody, histransition from being a leader to ‘Sun God’ (SooriyaThevan) status – the impact of all these on the riseand fall of the LTTE – these are the issues thatneed to be thoroughly examined. The attitude thatLTTE should be the sole representative of the Tamilpeople led to internal massacres. The absence ofdebate over tactics led to a situation where itsmistakes could not be corrected.

2. Organisations conducting protracted war have totake into consideration the ebb and flow of the war,weakness and decline of values in individuals, andthe i r own organisat ions. Enemies wi th vastresources, invariably exploit these weaknesses.Acquiring weapons and huge inflow of funds fromthe in te rna t iona l Tami l communi ty c rea tedcomplications in the LTTE. Jane’s IntelligenceReview estimates, the income of the LTTE in 2007as between $ 200 and 300 million.16 There have beenaccusations of involvement in drugs, fake creditcards, weapons trade and smuggling. The growingimportance of these activities in the LTTE led toserious internal contradict ions and created asituation where a second line of leadership couldnot emerge when the main leadership was liquidated.

3. The ups and downs of prolonged war intensifycontradictions within organisations. The social andregional base of individuals adds to these and createsopportunities for the enemy. The result of under-estimating these contradictions can be seen in theKaruna affair. Karuna exploited the dominance ofnortherners (‘Jaffna Tamils’) in the leadership of theLTTE (over the eastern ‘Batticaloa Tamils’) for hisends. The lack of freedom to air dissent complicatedresolving these contradictions.

4. Organisations conducting armed struggle mustrecognise another important fact - that their guidingprinciple must be minimising bloodshed and loss oflife. Though the enemy ignores all principles andva lues , the movement must upho ld them.Organisations fighting for lofty values and ideals mustconduct their struggle according to those values andideals. If those leading the movement do not upholdvales that the enemy violates, what values are theyfighting for?

Hobsbawm succinctly observes that, “there is a moredangerous producer of unlimited violence. It is theideological conviction that has dominated bothinternational and internal conflicts since 1914, thatone’s cause so just and the adversary’s so terriblethat all means to achieve victory or avoid defeatare not only legitimate but necessary. This meansthat both states and insurrectionaries feel they havea moral justification for barbarism. “17

This is no metaphysical debate over violence and non-violence, but a basic question of values and ideals.In this connection, one has to question the tactics of“suicide” attacks and political assassination that theLTTE practiced widely. The Liberation Tigers “are bestknown as one of the great pioneers and probablylargest operators of suicide bombing….Originally aspin-off from the Iranian Revolution of 1979, carryingits powerful ideology of Shia Islam, and with itsidealisation of martyrdom, it was first used to decisiveeffect in 1983 against the American by the Hezbollahin Lebanon”.18 The LTTE took the suicide bombing toits zenith. It has ignored all criticism of its meansand methods.

5. After the Vietnam War, few guerilla movementshave succeeded. There have been struggles invarious countries world over but most of them havenot been able to break the strategic stalemate andreach the strategic offensive phase. Even thosereaching the strategic offensive phase could notsustain for long. One has to thoroughly analyse theunderlying political and military causes behind this.The movements in Nepal and Sri Lanka have inspiredmany. There have been attempts to mimic thesestruggles in India. Such attempts met with a failureas they failed to take the specific socio, economicand political context in those countries.

6. The success of the revolutionary struggles is notsolely determined by the organisational capabilities.It is an undeniable fact that no other armed outfitcou ld match the LTTE in i t s mi l i ta ry andorganisational strength. It could fight even the Indianarmy which is mightier than the Sri Lankan armyduring the Eelam wars. Such being the history, whyis it that the LTTE met with a tragic defeat now?

23

The reasons for this defeat lie in the political andmilitary strategy and tactics pursued by the LTTE.Organizational and military fortitude alone can notguarantee the success of a struggle.

IIIAccording to ancient Sri Lankan history, after

defeating Elara, Sinhala King Dutugemunu orderedthat every horseman must dismount when he reachedthe tomb of Elara as a mark of respect to very manDutugemunu had defeated in war. 1919 Upali Cooray’sletter to his grand nephew

The current chauvinist triumphalism negates theworthy traditions of Sri Lankan history. The Sri Lankanauthorities arrested an astrologer Chandrasiri Bandarafor predicting that the government would flounder inSeptember and October because of political andeconomic problems. Doesn’t this act reflect theinsecurity of the victors? History is a pleasing notethat the rulers love to listen to as it resonates amongstthe cemeteries as they crush the rebellions. Yet italso points to a righteous anger that always hauntsthe rulers and fosters their insecurity.

History is replete with examples of mighty empiresthat have crumbled and redrawn borders that wereonce determined by the conquerors. No dictator inthe world has yet discovered a weapon that canpermanent ly suppress an en t i re na t ion . Thegovernment and Sinhala chauvinists may think theyhave destroyed the dream of Eelam. But, so long asa fourth of its citizens are treated as slaves, suchjoy is short-lived.

References(Endnotes)

1 Eric Hobsbawm, Age of Extremes, The Short TwentiethCentury 1914-199 (1994)

2 Dan McDougall http://transcurrents.com/tc/2009/06/

price_of_peace_for_the_innocen.html

3 Full moon day is considered sacred according to the traditionof Theravada Buddhism which practiced in Sri Lanka

. Prasanna Withanage’s poignant movie “Death on Full MoonDay” (1998) depicting the plight of poor families of soldiersdying the civil war in Sri Lanka and the rampant corruption wasbanned by Sri Lankan government. The court subsequentlyquashed the ban

4 For a brief chronology of Sri Lankan Tamil struggle, seeSumantra Bose: States, Nations and Sovereignty (1993)

5 Jeremy Page, Chinese billions in Sri Lanka fund battleagainst Tamil Tigers, The Times

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6207487.ece

6 G.H.Peiris, Twilight of the Tigers (2009)

7 Ibid

8 R.Hari Haran, Why LTTE failed?

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2610/stories/20090522261001200.htm

9 B. Muralidhar Reddy, Final act

http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2604/stories/20090227260400400.htm

10 Tim Fish, Sri Lanka learns to counter Sea Tigers’ swarmtactics, Jane’s Navy International of March 2009

11 D.B.S Jeyaraj, The last days of Thiruvenkadam VeluppillaiPrabhakaran

http://dbsjeyaraj.com/dbsj/archives/615

12 Sumantra Bose, Contested Lands (2007)

13 Anna Louise Strong, The War of the Whole People

http://leninist.biz/en/0000/ALS00000/SE128.08-War.Of.the.Whole.People

14 B. Muralidhar Reddy, Nowhere people

http://www.frontlineonnet.

com/fl2604/stories/20090227260401400.htm

15 Karl, Marx, Eastern Question, 14 Sep 1855

16 Janes Intelligence Review, Aug 2007

17 Eric Hobsbawm, Globalisation, Democracy and Terrorism(2007)

18 Ibid

http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2009/6/44626_space.html

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On the 28th of February 2012 (basically, a day beforethe scheduled Budget) an All India “General strike’ ofworking class is set to occur. It is the 14th All India ‘Generalstrike’ called by any conglomeration of trade unions since1991, i.e. the onset of New Economic policies. It wasinitially a move of trade unions of the various revisionistleft parties including Liberation with some others like HMS.This time the gamut of organizers is impressive – fromINTUC and BMS, to the unions mentioned above, and alsoinvolving SEWA and Ram Bilas Paswan backed LPF. Theorganizers have been taking up All India Conventions andother forms towards implementing the call and they statethat over two crore workers will be participating in thisgeneral strike.

Since 2009, among the sponsers of all India strike andother such programmes the BMS has figured quite regularlyand the INTUC has also been around on several calls. Soone fact is crystal clear. The dissatisfaction in the workingclass and the seething smouldering anger against thepolicies affecting it is now too widespread to be overlookedby the ruling elite. Thus firstly all the trade unions affiliatedto such parties are forced to speak out against the situationto retain their credibility and save their base.

The second harsh fact is that when the major gamut ofcentral trade unions are jointly calling for the strike andhave avowedly held and are continuing to hold so manyprogrammes to popularize the same, the working classought to be seething with activity. But it is not. Thegovernments perpetuating the policies under attack shouldbe worried. But they are not. As one spokesman of thestrike sponsers put it, despite so many months ofpropaganda the PM has not even bothered to call theorganizers for talks. The fact is that no government eitherat the Centre or in the states, expects the strike to giveexpression to the potential anger of the working class, butrather to go through the motions of creating a 'movement',which will both help to give credence to the major tradeunions (who help contain anger) and also convinces workersof the futility of movements in solving their problems.Because there is an appearance of struggle, but not anyreal struggle. Alongwith a huge section of the working classcovered by the demands – the unorganized sector and thecontract workers – are not going to be involved in the strike.Even in institutions where organized unions do exist, therule is that they do not cover the contract and casualworkers and gradually the latter have become the biggerand expanding section of workers everywhere.

When everyone opposes, who is the perpetrator?The unions involved in the strike include INTUC, BMS,

AITUC, CITU, HMS, AIUTUC, UTUC, TUCC, AICCTU,SEWA and LPF. So we have the gamut of all major partiesin power in different states including West Bengal rulerstill six months back. Now if one looks at the list of demands– and there is no doubt at all that all of the demands arerelevant, topical and represent some of the burning issuesof the working class – most of them fall under the perviewof the state governments (labour itself is on the state list).The others of course fall under the central government soit would either seem that AIADMK, Trinamool, BJD andMayawati are majorly responsible for all the woes of theworking class in India and the labour law violations astheir trade unions do not figure in the sponsors or of coursethat the central unions have no effect on the policies oftheir parties. This effect is also sought to be created bythe joint statement (of 24th November 2011) which saidthat the Congress led UPA II government remained passiveand unresponsive to the plight of the working people. Insteadthe Central and various state government have furtheraggravated the woes of the workers, farmers and commonpeople with frequent hike in tariff on fuel, water …..

Lastly, it should also be obvious that the charterof demands calls for no change in the policies whoseeffects are listed. No roll back of anti-people anti-national NEP is demanded – how will price rise becontrolled which has been severely exacerbated dueto effects of NEP or the policy of contractualizationor even the sale of PSUs can stop if this central issueis not attacked. Regularization of existing contractworkers figures nowhere in the demands. The truth isthat the consensus on New Economic Policies is afeature of the entire gamut of parliamentary partiesand this is reflected in the issues on the Charter.

The Charter of Demands

The five point charter of demands formulated jointlyinclude concrete measures to contain galloping price rise,concrete measures for linkage of employment protectionwith concession/ incentive packages offered toentrepreneurs, strict enforcecment of all labour laws,universal social security fund and stop disinvestment instate and central profit making PSUs (public sector units)

The issue of price rise is a burning issue of the workingclass as well as of the entire country. The maximum number

On 28th February General StrikeAparna

25

of workers belong either to the unorganized sector or arecontractual in nature. These workers are not even entitledto any form of DA linked to prices. In private sector, it isonly organized workers who access price relief. Howeveras the demands do not demand any rollback of the policieswhich are leading to price rise, the demand is merelyreflective of a common expectation. The Charter has noteven kept the issue of abolishing/cutting of indirect taxesimposed by Govts., which contribute significantly to pricesof the commodities.

The issue of employment protection being ensured withincentive packages is relevant. It became an issue withthe economic crisis which exploded about four years earlierwhen especially the export sector in textiles was hard hitfor survival. Apart from forums of textile mill owners, itwas several trade union centres which raised the demandsthat governments support these units. IFTU had raisedthe demand that protecting all jobs of textile workers, millsbe given orders for cheap cloth which governments shouldpurchase and sell through ration shops to meet the vastneed of the country and also provide a market. Howeverthousands of textile workers were laid off or retrenchedwhile governments did precious little to defend their jobs.

Enforcement of labour laws would provide widespreadrelief to a maximum number of workers even if limited toenforcement of statutory right to minimum wages, ESI andPF. This is out and out a function of state governmentsand shows the complicity of the entire ruling classes inanti-worker policies. Corporates and MNCs have been longdemanding dilution of labour laws. When Second LabourCommission’s recommendations to this effect were bootedout by working class, when hardly any opposition partydared support the official dilution of labour laws for fear oflosing their base, the implementation machinery under allgovernments has ensured that these laws remain shut inthe lawbooks and are openly flouted. TUs should actuallyconcretely demand that adequate personnel be availablewith Labour department, that provision be there for quickpunitive actions against officials who either fail to ensureimplementation or dilly dally over the same and workersbe empowered to prosecute them.

By limiting the demand for stopping disinvestments toonly profit making PSUs, the attempt of governments ofstates and Centre over the years to make money out ofselling assests set up by public money in the name ofnon-profit is given a cover. Who does not know thatgovernment officials themselves are responsible for poorperformance of PSUs and corruption, nepotism and graftflourish in these government sector organizations? Rather,all disinvestment should be stopped and steps taken torender all these units perfoming.

Additional common five demands have been added tothe common charter. The first pertains to nocontractualization of work of permanent/perennial nature,

payment of wages and benefits to contract workers at thesame rate as to regular workers. The fact is that in totalviolation of the law as it is explicitly written, the LabourDepartment of various state government as also of theCentral Government are giving contractors license toemploy contract workers against jobs of perennial nature.In truth the demand should be extended to also demandexplicit regularization of these workers.

The second demand is for amendment to MinimumWages Act to ensure universal coverage (irrespective ofschedules), fix statutory minimum wages at not less thanRs.10,000. The third demand pertains to removal of ceilingson payments and eligibility of bonus and PF and increasingthe quantum of gratuity. Its relevance is obvious from thefact that ceiling for bonus is stuck at Rs.6500/- per monthwhen minimum wages have gone beyond this in severalstates.

Assured pension for all is the fourth demand. It needsto be specified that pension should not be a token amountbut be enough to meet the basic necessities of life. Thelast is for compulsory registration of all trade unions withinforty five days and immediate ratification of the ILOconventions 87 and 98. This demand springs from thevarious struggles waged in big MNCs situated in Noidaand Gurgaon for registration of trade unions which are notowner sponsored. State governments as varied asCongress government of Haryana, Mayawati governmentof UP as well as the earlier Samajwadi Party rule in UPare part and parcel of ruling class parties of India thattrade union laws of the land will not be allowed to disturbthe MNCs.

It is of course obvious that while Charter does raisesome issues of immediate relevance it leaves severalothers.

Only serious struggles of the workers against thepolicies of the rulers, which go beyond an annual one daystrike, can actually stop the current anti-worker offensive.This is the challenge before the genuine working classorganizations.

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The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster was aseries of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns, andreleases of radioactive materials at the Fukushima INuclear Power Plant, following the 9.0 magnitudeTôhoku earthquake and tsunami on 11 March2011.The plant comprises six separate boiling waterreactors designed and built by GE, and maintainedby the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). TheFukushima disaster is the largest of the 2011Japanese nuclear accidents arising from the Tôhokuearthquake and tsunami and is the largest nuclearaccident since the Chernobyl disaster, but morecomplex as multiple reactors and spent fuel poolsare involved.

Despite the calamitous events at the FukushimaNuclear plant in Japan which resulted in wide spreadcontamination and dislocation of thousands of people,our political leaders are unwilling to take a moreserious look at the whole quest ion of nucleartechnology and the adverse implications of anynuclear accident. The government’s insistence onpushing through with the Jaitapur Nuclear plantdespite wide spread protests from all quarters,especially from the local communities in Konkanreveals the deep rooted cravenness of India’s rulingclass in ful f i l l ing their obl igat ions towards theimperialist countries and their giant corporations,rather than of their own people.

India is increasingly becoming a huge repositoryof global hazardous waste and technology. Theincreasing import of Nuclear plants is one suchexample. With several nations banning nuclear energytechnology in their own countries, their governmentsare hard pressed to off load these many billions ofdollars worth of equipment, power plants, reactorsetc. to those countries whose political leadership arestill pliable and are willing to work as agents of thedeveloped countries. The irony is that, in the postFukushima nuclear disaster, many developed nationssuch as Germany, have banned Nuclear power witha complete phasing out by 2022; our governmentinsists on pushing it ahead even more and says thatby 2022 India will be stepping up our generation toeven higher levels from 4780 MW to 29,460 by 2022.

On Dec 6, 2010 five agreements at $25 billion fortwo nuclear reactors to be supplied to India by Francewere inked in the presence of Sarkozy and ManmohanSingh, two more are to be supplied in the future.Sarkozy stated that he wants to make civilian nuclear

cooperation the cornerstone of France’s ties withIndia. Sarkozy offered several tidbits and bribes tothe Indian PM who willingly accepted them. Some ofthe choicest offerings were a permanent UNSC seat,membership to the Nuclear Supply Group andcooperation with France on their space program.

Two days earlier, on December 04, 2010 whileManmohan Singh was busy cosing up to FrenchPresident Sarkozy, villagers and activists in severalvillages of Ratnagiri in Maharashtra came togetherto launch a campaign opposing what is supposed tobe the first big benefit of the Indo-US nuclear deal -two 1,000 MW plants proposed to be built by theNuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL) inJaitapur. The actual plant site is situated at Madban,a village beside Jaitapur, however the project hasbeen named after Jaitapur, as it is the port for theproject. The plants and the technological knowhowwill be supplied by France Conglomerate AREVA.

Fearing a public protest, that the people mightseek to exert their democratic right to protest, thestate clamped curfew in Jaitapur, despite whichvillagers defied section 144 to form a human chain atthe proposed nuclear plant site. Demanding that thereshould not be any nuclear plant in that region, theprotestors carried banners and shouted slogans suchas “Stop Anti People Nuclear Project !” “Scrap JaitapurNuclear Project which will destroy the economy andecology of the Konkan!” “No Nuclear Plant in Jaitapur”“Scrap all Nuclear Projects in India” in English,French, Marathi and Hindi. The peaceful protesterswere lathi charged and about 1500 people andpractically all the leaders were detained by the police,of whom former Justice of Mumbai High Court,Justice Kolse Patil of Janhit Seva Samiti and MadhuMoite of Konkan Bachao Samiti remained underdetention for a long period.

The people are united in their contention thathaving nuclear plants in their neighbourhood is riskyand therefore they will not allow the state governmentto acquire land even as a deadline looms to completethe acquisition process in this financial year for thefirst phase of the project. The government has long-term plans of expanding the project into a nuclearpower park and pushing the production up to 10,000MW. Villagers fear that radiation from the reactorswi l l t r igger hea l th p rob lems and hur t fu tu regenerations, fishermen believe that their livelihoodwill be hit as the water from the plants will be released

JJJJJaitaaitaaitaaitaaitapur :pur :pur :pur :pur : Mo Mo Mo Mo Movvvvvement ement ement ement ement AgAgAgAgAgainst Nucainst Nucainst Nucainst Nucainst Nuclear Plear Plear Plear Plear Pooooowwwwwer Plantser Plantser Plantser Plantser PlantsSachin

27

into the sea and will affect their catch. Nuclear powerplants generate massive amounts of heat and in thiscase the AREVA European Pressurized Reactor (EPR)will be using sea water as a coolant. This processresults in a sharp rise in the temperature where thesuper heated water from the plant is discharged intothe sea, which is obviously going to adversely affectthe 5000 large fishing community in this coastal area.

Surrounding hamlets and villages also saw hugeprotests. Around 2,000 fishermen gathered in Nateat early noon during Sarkozy visit, a village locatedjust 2 km away from the proposed nuclear plant siteand in Madban, the village closest to the proposedsite, around 3,000 people were protesting. Theprotestors demanded a reassessment of the EIAreport and insisted that the threat of building a nuclearplant on an earthquake prone zone must be addressed.According to the seismic survey of India, Jaitapurregion has a high risk of earthquake damage, rankedas Zone IV on a five-grade scale. Several farmersalso highlighted the major omissions of negativeimpacts in the Environmental Impact Assessmentreport (EIA).

The Jaitapur nuclear power project needs 968hectares of land in five adjoining villages - Madban,Niveli, Karel, Mithgavane and Varliwada - whichtogether have a population of 4,000. The mood of thepeasantry and the affected fishermen is upbeat andpositive and they are quite clear as to not wanting toengage with the government or NGOs on parting withtheir land and in refusing to ask for compensation. In2008 var ious progress ive groups organ isedthemselves under the banner of “Konkan BachaoSamiti” which was the first organisation to undertakea campaign against the proposed nuclear plant asearly as in 2008. The primary task was to build apeople’s movement against the project. From the verybeginning Mumbai IFTU Committee was an activemember of the Samiti and other than providing themovement wi th support , i t a lso undertook anawareness campaign about the pro ject whi lehighl ight ing the dangers of radioact ive waste.Currently a large part of the protest is organised bytwo other protest coalitions, “Konkan VinashkariPrakalp Virodhi Kruti Samiti” and “Jan Hit SevaSamiti” while several other political groups, NGOs,Gandhians, CITU, Prerana, CRBS, Janvadi MahilaSangathana have also lent their support to themovement.

There is a deep sense of desperation in Franceand Sarkozy to ensure that this deal for the proposednuclear power projects must come through. The lastfew years have been marked with sharp spikes inpeople’s protests across France. The people’s angerhas been spilling out on a wide range of issues such

as proposed reforms in the existing Pension plans,bad economic policies and unemployment. Theseprotests have garnered huge support, especially fromamong the youth, where 2 to 2.5 million people havecome out on the streets in militant surges of anger.Till recently the French state used to boast of itswelfare system which had very strict laws preventingcompanies the right to hire and fire at will, heavytaxat ion to subs id ise wel fare po l ic ies, soc ia linsurance, all of which are now under attack sinceFrance became a member of the E.U. and is therebybound to introduce more neoliberal reforms and alsoopen up its utility services to the market. Recentyears have also exposed the fact that though Frenchunemployment has hovered around 10 percent foryears, but the unemployment rate for the rioting youngpeople is well above 20 percent and in some immigrantneighbourhoods tops 60 percent. The riots in 1995were an indicator of this inequity. In recent yearsFrench ruling elite have also played on provokingxenophobic attitudes and heightened their jingoistpitch against immigrants, especially those who areMuslim and from West Asia and Africa, all of whichreflect a deep malaise in a nation which is deeplytroubled on the economic front and plays thesedubious cards to divert people’s attention from thereal problems.

The recession impacted France less than otherEuropean countries, yet in 2009 France registered arise in unemployment to 10% up from 7.4% in 2008;its deficit rose to 8% from 3.4% and it had to put intoplace a stimulus package of $35 billion in 2009, withadditional $25 billion to “protect” French industry fromforeign takeover and a $52 bil l ion package fordeveloping more R&D in Science and Technology.The major chunk of this “stimulus package” will gotowards developing and promoting the high techindustry, defence and the construction industry. In2009 industry contributed 18% of the GDP down from26% in 1998 whereas services contribute 79.4, upfrom 66% in 1998. France has a diverse and importantservices sector. Paris has the fifth largest stockmarket in the world. France’s 4 banks rank amongthe biggest 25 banks in the world and their insuranceindustry ranks fifth in the world.

Over the last few decades, since the 1970s, Francehas been struggling hard to retain its powress in heavyequipment, capital intensive production. One of theworld leaders in automobile, aircraft, nuclear power,metallurgy, chemicals, mechanical and electricalenergy, France has few natural resources and islargely dependent on imports and extraction from itsexisting colonies. The OPEC oil hike in 1973 forcedFrance to look for a more reliable form of powerproduction and the choice was for nuclear and coal,

28

however coal was apparently rejected because ofenvironmental concerns, but the real reason was thatthermal plants did not impose large capital investmentand running costs suitable for big business. Francehas a highly regulated electricity generation anddistribution system. France’s electricity sector isdominated by the wholly state-owned utility company,Electr ic i té de France (EdF), which produces,transports, and distributes over 95% of electricity inFrance. EdF is the last major state-run electricitymonopolist in the EU, as most of France’s neighbourshave privatized their electricity companies. There hasbeen, however, partial liberalization of some aspectsof France’s electricity sector attracting a lot ofcriticism from other EU members, especially Spain,UK and Germany, that while France is slow to openits own electricity market, it has heavy investmentsin the highly deregulated EU power market.

France is the world’s largest nuclear powergenerator on a per capita basis, and ranks second intotal installed nuclear capacity (behind the UnitedStates). Because of France’s limited domestic energysources, energy supply security and reliance onimports are major issues in France. Governmentpolicy has strongly promoted increases in nuclearpower generation over the past three decades.Currently, about 77% of France’s electricity comesf rom the count ry ’s 58 nuc lear reactors . Th isrepresents a dramatic change from 1973, when fossilfuels accounted for more than 80% of French powergenera t ion . In September 2001, the Frenchgovernment restructured its nuclear sector into asingle government holding company, Areva. TheAreva Group is a combination of Cogema, Framatome,CEA Industrie, and the Commissariat à l’EnergieAtomique (CEA), the French Atomic Energy Agency,which is the major shareholder of the Areva Groupwith nearly 80%. The group presides over thecountry’s major nuclear enterprises, including mining,fuels, treatment, recycling, decontamination andengineering. According to the company off icialwebsite, AREVA realized €13.16 bill ion in salesrevenue in 2008 and €417 million in operating income.However, AREVA had 6.2 billion Euros of net debt atthe end of 2009. In June 2010, it faced weakenedprofitability following a further €400 million provisionfor the over-running EPR in Norway. Nuclear powerproduction is highly subsidised in France.

The Indian nuclear program was largely motivatedby its defence program and technological upgradation.Till the 1990s during the pre liberalisation era, Indiaaligned with the Soviet Social Imperialists and afterits decline and the emergence of a unipolar world,the Indian ruling class ushered in neoliberal policiesand started aligning with US imperialists. The recentrecession has shaken the developed capital ist

economies and despite major injection of capital, therecess ion cont inues to haunt the deve lopedeconomies. One necessity of pull ing out of therecession is the sale of capital intensive machineryand plants which also require large running costs andhigh maintenance. The developed countries aredesperate to boost their economies through unequaltrade with the developing nations and are findingwilling partners with the Indian ruling elite. Thedeveloped countries in their desperation to completesale of their nuclear plants and technology have beenshown more than willing to modify their rules ofengagement with countries and subordinate their NPTrhetoric to their business interests.

However, despite much fanfare surrounding thesedeals, some provisions of the Nuclear Liability Actare not to the liking of these countries. To appeasethe nuclear industry of the developed nations, therewere several underhand and shameful attempts bythe Manmohan Singh government to di lute theimportant provisions of the Nuclear Liability Bill toavoid fixing responsibility on the “supplier” of theequipment and materials to be used for constructingthe nuclear plants. If we carefully study “The CivilLiability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010” we can clearlysee that it puts all the l iabil ity squarely on the“operator” which in this case would be The Departmentof Atomic Energy and the Central Government whilelargely absolving the “supplier” or the “provider” forany liability, except under very specific and restrictiveconditions as under clause 17(b) “(if) the nuclearincident has resulted as a consequence of an act ofsupplier or his employee, which includes supply ofequipment or material with patent or latent defects orsub-standard services.” These provisions, thoughweak and watered down, pose enough of a threat tothe business interests of the developed nations,because it would be very difficult for them to buyinsurance if there was even the remotest possibilityof any liability coming on to the companies whichproduce the required materials and equipment.

With GE and Westinghouse lobbyists up in arms,the U.S. administration initially suggested that theManmohan Singh government find a way to delete ornegate the two of fending sect ions. When theimpossibility of this was pointed out, they suggestedthat NPCIL be asked contractually to accept the entireliability burden of its suppliers in the event of anaccident. This suggestion was also vetoed. Obama’sv is i t to Ind ia was to press to ensure that i tscompanies were legally exempted from any liabilityburden in the event of an accident occurring in anAmerican-supplied nuclear reactor. Leaving aside theexplosive political implications of a public sectorcompany granting a free pass to an American supplier,legal advisers have pointed out that neither NPCIL

29

nor the government can sign away the provisions fortort and criminal liability that have been embedded inthe new law.

Even before Obama’s visit to India in November,2010 there was a flurry of activity by the UPA tonegate those sect ions which can hold foreign“suppliers” liable in the event of an nuclear accident,and protect the interests of imperialist capital andindustry and path provided for them was through theConvention on Supplementary Compensation forNuclear Damage (CSC). This international covenantprovides a framework for channelling liability andproviding speedy compensation in the event of anuclear accident. The IAEA is the “depository” of theCSC, which has so far been signed by 14 countriesand ratified by four, including the U.S. The CSC willenter into force only when at least five countries witha minimum of 4,00,000 units of installed nuclearcapacity ratify the treaty. Even if India ratifies it,which is unlikely to happen soon, the CSC will notenter into force unless at least one or two countrieswith a large civilian nuclear programme also do so.Wi th Ind ia s ign ing the CSC and the Obamaadministrat ion issuing the requisi te ‘Part 810’licensing certifications, the stage is now set for theNuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. to begin full-fledged commercial negotiations with General Electricand Westinghouse for supply of two 1,000-MWereactors. India promised the U.S. in 2008 that it wouldsign the CSC, a treaty that requires signatories topass a domestic liability law in conformity with amodel text. The CSC provides no forum for signatoriesto cha l lenge each other ’s nat iona l laws on lyarbitration as well as adjudication by the InternationalCourt of Justice but the U.S. entered a reservationwhile ratifying the Convention in 2008 declaring “thatit does not consider itself bound by these disputesettlement procedures.”

The U.S. insistence on India being a party to theCSC is different from the position of Russia andFrance, the other potential suppliers of nuclearequipment and materials to India. While the Indo-French Agreement of 2008 requires India only to“create a civil nuclear liability regime based onestablished international principles”, which wouldinclude provision for ‘right of recourse’ as well, theIndia-Russia Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) of2008 stipulates (Article 13.1) only strict and absoluteliability of the NPP operator with no provision thereinfor the operator’s recourse in case of a supplier’s fault.A later proposal by the Nuclear Power Corporation ofIndia Ltd (NPCIL) to include the right of recourseprov is ion in the commerc ia l con t rac t w i thAtomstroyexport of Russia was apparently rejectedby the latter, which stated that all contracts have toconform to the IGA. The constant insistence on a

level playing field for U.S. companies, and its mentionin the joint statement along with the remark on nuclearliability, suggests that the U.S. wants a level playingfield vis-à-vis Russia in this regard.

Why would India give such an urgent deadline forratification of the Convention when there is no suchimperative for enabling nuclear commerce with othercountries? Domestic legislation on civil nuclearliability, which conforms to international standards,was sufficient for this purpose, even when the USAtook 11 years to ratify the convention. Potentialnuclear suppl iers to India, including Americancompanies, have been doing business with countriesthat have not even signed the Convention. Even thetotal available Convention fund works out to about$154 m (about Rs. 682 crore), of which only 50 percent is available for damages within the territory of aContracting Party. Moreover, this is available only ifthe damages exceed the maximum liability providedfor in the national law, which in the case of the IndianAct in its present form is already about Rs. 2,100crore. The quest ion is whether this addit ionalContracting Parties’ contribution of about Rs. 350crore is significant enough for India to ignore theprovisions of concern in the CSC.

A combination of CSC and provisions of theAmerican law effectively negates the possibility ofusing the Right of Recourse provision of the IndianAct. Article XIII.6 of the CSC says: “A judgment…shall, upon being presented for enforcement inaccordance with the formalities required by the lawof the Contracting Party where enforcement is sought,be enforceable as if it were a judgment of a court ofthat Contracting Party. The merits of the claim onwhich the judgment has been given shall not besubject to further proceedings.” It can be argued thatsince the U.S. is a party to the CSC this provisioncan be invoked, and any judgment against a U.S.supplier in an Indian court would be deemed legallyenforceable in the U.S. and the operator would beable to recover damages from the supplier. But inArt icle XIII.5 of the CSC it also states that “Ajudgment that is no longer subject to ordinary formsof review entered by a court of a Contracting Partyhaving jurisdiction shall be recognised except… (c)where the judgment is contrary to the public policy ofthe Contracting Party within the territory of whichrecognition is sought….” the applicability to U.S. lawwould be its Price-Anderson Act (PAA) of 1957, whichdoes not provide for the operator’s right of recourse.The CSC-implementing U.S. legislation is part (Sec.934) of the Energy Independence and Security Act,which was passed in December 2007 which clearlystates: “This section does not provide an operator ofa covered installation any right of recourse under theConvention.” This, therefore, means that if an Indian

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operator wins a case against a supplier in Indiancourts, this cannot be enforced in the U.S. under theCSC as this judgment would be deemed contrary toU.S. public policy. So any claims of damages by anoperator against a U.S. supplier under the Right toRecourse provisions of the Indian Act cannot actuallybe enforced. It is therefore clear that the rush to ratifythe Convention arises from U.S. interests andpressure and the corresponding remark was includedin the Joint Statement on demand from the U.S. Thefact that India rushed to sign the CSC shortly beforeObama’s arrival on October 27 is another indicationthat there was sustained U.S. pressure on India tosign the Convention with the UPA willingly capitulatingto their terms.

Yet there are sti l l major concerns and otherpressing reasons why the developed nations will notactually invest in nuclear plants under the current laws.One of them would be the extension of liability tothose manufac turers who produce smal le rcomponents or parts of machinery which are finallyassembled by big corporations such as Areva or GE,Westinghouse-Toshiba and others. In particular,Japanese corporations are extremely concerned aboutthis small provision which marginally protects India’sinterests. France, like the other big N-suppliers theUS and Russia, also has similar reservations andwants the liability of any nuclear incident or accidentto rest solely on the “operator” and wants its firm,like Areva, to be buffered from the claims fromdamages from a nuclear accident. The foreignsuppliers are insisting that this clause is at odds withwhat they consider “standard international practice”wherein liability is legally channelized only to theoperator and the supplier is exonerated.

Under clause 7(a), the Act enjoins upon thegovernment to make good on losses over and abovethe limited liability of the operator, in the event of anuclear incident. It also makes the government liablein the case of an accident at a nuclear installationowned by it. The limited liability for this has beenfixed at a mere 1500 crore, ($ 340 million) whereas inthe Bhopal Gas accident case, in 1984 the court fixeddamages at ($470 mi l l ion) which was grosslyinadequate for compensating the people on thewidespread loss of lives, bad health and property. Inone sweep, the UPA Govt. under the leadership ofManmohan Singh has turned its citizens into subjects,whi le bending backwards to accommodate theinterests of global business and finance capital.

The Indian establishment has been falsely claimingtheir insistence on these nuclear deals is for powergeneration, claiming that the agreement with Arevaprovides for two reactors and then four more leadingfinally to 10,000 mw of power, whereas India’s current

capacity is 4000 mw. The PMO also claims to bepromoting this cooperation with France to greatlyincrease non-polluting supply of power to finallygenerate 20,000 MW by 2020. The truth is that evenif India does generate this amount of power fromnuclear energy its cost will be exorbitant and if wetake into account the expected growth in overall powergeneration, nuclear energy will only contribute a mere5% of the 4,00,000 MW to be produced. However ifwe look at the current manner in which nucleartechnology is coming to India and the way in which itwill be implemented, the costs of putting a nuclearplant is exorbitant, the time for installation andproduction of power is much longer than other formsof power genera t ion , i t s runn ing cos ts andmain tenance and h igh insurance premiums,dependence on foreign suppliers for spares andmaintenance eventually make nuclear technology arisky proposition for India.

India has adequate supplies of coal, while newreserves of oil have recently been discovered in theKrishna basin and in Barmer. Large parts of India alsohave excess sun light throughout the year and thecoasta l be l ts are wel l su i ted for w ind powergeneration. However, even though solar and wind arerenewable energy, they do not provide much incentiveto the developed nations and large corporations forinvestment, because they do not require muchmaintenance costs and the technology can easily beadapted and developed indigenously. From the profitsof the ten biggest oil monopolies in the year 2007 of180 billion US-dollars alone, 450 000 wind powerplants producing 7500 MW of power could be installedat a rough estimate of USD 2 million per MW. Withthe profits of the international energy monopolies often years, the entire worldwide demand in electricitycould be shifted to renewable energy. Whereas theenergy monopolies get 21 - 23 cents/kwh from theconsumer, the small wind power plant suppliers getonly 9 cents/kwh. Solar thermal power can beproduced and transported for 5 cents/kwh. This showsthat regenerative energy is available at low costs,but not the monopoly prices of the energy monopolies.

It is important for the imperialist countries todevelop high tech, capital intensive technologieswhich are in very specialised fields such as nuclear,nano technologies, space, defence, genetics andheavy engineering, while insisting that the developingnat ions import these technologies and remainproductive only in labour intensive small engineeringand non special ised forms of industry such astextiles, agro industry and handicraft. It is imperativefor the developed nations to have an assured marketfor the specialised goods they have developed.

USA, Japan, France and Russia wish to control

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and curtail the growth of the indigenously developedspace and India’s advanced nuclear program whilemaking India dependent on their technologies. Indiahas already made strides in its Space and NuclearTechnology programs. Recently India developed afast breeder reactor using reprocessed fuel. All thiswas achieved despite India being excluded for 34years from trade in nuclear plant or materials. Thebenchmarks which were achieved despite oppositionfrom the developed countries, is now sought to bereversed and Manmohan Singh and the earlier NDAregime sought to dismantle the institutions built earlierand relegate us to a mere market for equipment andtechnology which the west desperately needs tooffload.

Another impor tant fac tor tha t governs thedeveloped countries' focus to dismantle Indianindigenous technological institutions for nuclearenergy is the large presence of Thorium 232 in India.India’s Kakrapar-1 reactor is the world’s first reactorwhich uses thorium rather than depleted uranium.India, which has about 25% of the world’s thoriumreserves, is developing a 300 MW prototype of athorium-based Advanced Heavy Water Reactor(AHWR). The prototype is expected to be fullyoperational by 2011, following which five morereactors will be constructed. Considered to be a globalleader in thorium-based fuel, India’s new thoriumreactor is a fast-breeder reactor and uses a plutoniumcore rather than an accelerator to produce neutrons.

The propaganda campaign launched by thegovernment is desperately trying to push a “GreenPower” eco-friendly label to nuclear power, that thispower will bring “development” and progress to theKonkan region. What are hidden costs and dangersare that there are no known and fool proof methodsto store nuclear waste and the current costs fordecommissioning a nuclear plant are exorbitant. It isalso important to note that the EPR which is beingtouted as “state of the art” is already running intoserious implementation difficulties in a plant beingsetup by AREVA in Norway. This has resulted in hugecosts overruns because of the delays. RecentlyAREVA also lost a $20 billion bid to supply EPRs tothe UAE. The UAE favoured a Korea Electric PowerCorporation (KEPCO)-led consortium which beat thoseof GE+Hitachi and Areva to win a $20 billion tenderfor four 1,400MW civil nuclear power reactors of theGenerat ion-3 APR-1400 k ind, so there is nonecessary consensus on the claim that EPR are thebest possible reactors either.

Movement against Jaitapur project is witnessingthe involvement of several groups, political partiesand independents while other groups belonging to theGandhians and NGOs are seeking to defuse and

dampen people’s anger to prevent the protests fromturning into a militant mass movement. Parties suchas Shivrajaya Party, a newly launched outfit by Retd.Brigadier Sudhir Sawant attempts to cash in on theregional identity of Konkan.

While the ante has been raised in the Konkan beltof Ratnagiri, several divergent voices and movementshave created coalition against the Jaitapur nuclearproject. The power plant has assumed a politicalpower-centric image, with Shiv Sena, stepping in to“save the f ishing v i l lage”. Sena CEO UddhavThackeray announced that his party would opposethe nuc lear p lant on the grounds o f eco logyconservation and loss of livelihood. The Sena isdesperate to regain Konkan as its electoral strongholdand defeat Congress minister Narayan Rane.

If we study the projected power demand in thecoming decade we can see that the greatest demandis from the urban and industrial centres surroundingMumbai ; Panve l , Thane, Neva Sheva. Wi thburgeoning shopping malls, each of which consumeelectricity of upto a hundred villages and power hungryinfrastructure and industrial development projectscoming up, the power generated from Jaitapur projectwas never meant for “development and progress” ofthe local people and communities. It is a project forthe benefit of the corporates while its cost will beborne by the peasantry and the people and risksshouldered by the common inhabitants of the region.

Using Japanese Nuclear Safety Commissionnumbers, Asahi Shimbun reported that by 24 March2011 the permissible dose for Japanese nuclearworkers was increased to 250 mSv/year , fo remergency s i tua t ions a f te r the acc idents .Approximately 111 personnel have received nuclearradiation higher than safe limits. The JapaneseMinistry of Health, Labour and Welfare announced thatlevels of radioactivity exceeding legal limits had beendetected in milk produced in the Fukushima area andin certain vegetables in Ibaraki. On 23 March 2011,Tokyo drinking water exceeded the safe level forinfants, prompting the government to distribute bottledwater to families with infants. In seawater near thedischarge of the plant, elevated levels of iodine-131were found on 22 March 2011, which had increasedto 3,355 times the legal limit on 29 March 2011. Alsoconcentrat ions measured for caesium-134 andcaesium-137 were more than 100 times above thelimit. Four months following the disaster, radioactivefood is still occasionally found on sale throughoutJapan.

More than 80,000 local residents living within a20km radius of the plant have been evacuated fromtheir homes. A “stay indoors” pol icy has beenoperating in the area 20-30km from the plant. The

area under extreme radiactive pollution will possiblynever be fit for human use.

Postscript : The Fukushima Nuclear Disastershould serve as a grim reminder of the severehazards of nuclear power generation, especially in acountry l ike India, where the government hascompletely absolved itself of all important welfareservices and is completely incapable of handlingyearly flooding of the rivers during the monsoons,leave alone having the expertise to deal with a highlytechnical and dangerous nuclear accident. It wouldnot be wrong to say that the government would spendmore time and energy in playing the blame game ratherthan assuaging the needs of the people.

Despite the severe fallout of the Fukushimaincident there has not been any serious debate orconcern voiced by the Indian establishment withregard to the upcoming controversial KudankulamNuclear Power Plant. India’s nuclear power plantoperator NPCIL is building two 1,000 MW nuclearpower reactors wi th Russ ian technology andequipment in Kudankulam, around 650 km fromChennai. The project work has, however, come to astandstill since late 2011 as the agitators, led by thePeop le ’s Movement Aga ins t Nuc lear Energy(PMANE), intensified their protest by blocking roadsleading to the nuclear power project site.

The Experts Group, constituted by the Uniongovernment on the Kudankulam Nuclear PowerProject (KKNPP), indicated its willingness to havediscussions on “all technical and scientific matters”with the experts’ panel of the People’s MovementAgainst Nuclear Energy (PMANE).

At a meet ing on 18 November 2011 at theTirunelveli Collector’s Office with representatives ofthe PMANE, the discussions revoloved on the KKNPPdesign and safety features; discharges and radiationaround the KKNPP; health hazard including cancerin the neighbourhood; radioactive waste management;KKNPP safety features protecting against Fukushimatype of events and the global trends and the need fornuclear power generation. But, it could not deliberateon issues such as seismicity, tsunami, radiation inthe environment and the impact on fishing due to the“refusal” of the representatives of the EG for such apresentation. On the question of liability, the EG feltthat the subject was “beyond its scope.” This criticalissue of Nuclear Liability will haunt the future of IndianNuclear Energy for the coming years.

Russ ian a tomic power p lan t supp l ie rAtomstroyexport will not be governed by India’s civilnuclear liability law for the two 1000 MW reactorsinstalled at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project .

The agreement with Russia was signed in 1988 whenthere was no civil nuclear liability law in India. Theagreement has some indemnification clause similarto the ones signed with Canada and America whileimporting reactors from them. India’s nuclear liabilitylegislation caps the operator’s liability at Rs.1,500crore ($331 million) and gives the operator the rightto seek damages from suppliers i f there is anaccident. The contentious Clauses 17 and 46 of theliability law have caused discomfort to all the nuclearcompanies – domestic and foreign – as the operatorsof nuclear plants under the “right to recourse” clausecan channel the liability to the supplier for faulty partsor design. These provisions have been dampened bythe rules of implementation notified on 11 Nov 2011which stipulate a time limit linked to the warrantyperiod and a cap on the liability amount with themax imum l im i t no t exceed ing the ac tua lcompensation paid by the operator. Foreign suppliersare now concerned about higher insurance costs aswell as the risk of legal cases. The moot point is, ifboth suppliers and the government are vehementlyinsisting on the safety of nulcear energy, why is itthat they are themselves yet to be convinced aboutliability issues?

The agreement for importing third and fourthreactors from Russia is yet to be signed and Russiais strongly opposing their inclusion under the civilliability legislation which has prevented the signingof Kudankulam 3 and 4 due to concerns over theliability law and pricing issues. Russia is expectingthe “same terms of liability” as Kudankulam 1 and 2,which are not under the purview of the new law. In all6 reactors have to be installed at Kudankulam.

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