UNITY CONGRESS - 9TH CONGRESS OF CPI[MAOIST]

RECIEVED VIA MAIL
Resolution on State Violence against Women.

The Unity Congress-9th Congress of the CPI (Maoist) condemns the increasing atrocities against women all over the country, especially the repression and atrocities of the State forces and state sponsored vigilante groups. The most widespread and brutal attacks have been on Adivasi women in Dandakaranya in the name of Salwa Judum. Both the para-military forces and counter-revolutionary vigilante Salwa Judum groups have resorted to raping and killing many women in inhuman ways in their campaign to crush the revolutionary movement and the spirit of the people. Budri was shot dead on her way to the Basaguda market. Korsa lakke and Sukki of Korma village were gang raped and killed while returning after performing sentry duties for protecting the village. Penta of Arwel village was killed by the Salwa Judum goons in the Dornapal camp because she refused to bring the rest of her villagers to the camp. These are only a tip of the ice berg of the atrocities on Adivasi women of Bastar.

They have forcibly driven thousands out of their homes and villages and detained them in relief camps which are in fact concentration camps. The conditions there are sub-human. Women and children are the worst sufferers of these conditions, their physical and mental health have been badly affected. Sexual exploitation is also going on in these camps. Even teenage adivasi girls recruited as Special Police Officers (SPO) by the Government are being subject to sexual exploitation. This is similar to the situation in Kashmir and the North-East where the masses are struggling for national liberation. Manipuri women struggling against the draconian Armed Forces Special Powers Act have been subjected to atrocities by the Army and Sharmila Irom on a hunger strike too has been repeatedly arrested.

To suppress the revolutionary peasant struggle in West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia the police and social fascist CPM goons are perpetrating different types of heinous crimes against women.

Women active in political movements especially the revolutionary movements are being arrested in large numbers. The jails of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka bear witness to this.
In Malkangiri of Orissa ten women were imprisoned in September 2004 and not yet released. In Koraput district, people protested against rape of village women by CRPF jawans of Kalab camp.

In Orissa, comrade Shobhadi, the inspiration and driving force of a vast rural women’s movement in Jharkhand, Bihar and Orissa, and comrades Lata and Jaya, District Committee Members in Andhra Pradesh, were incarcerated on trumped up charges.

Comrade Chaiti Pallo of Dandakaranya and comrade Lalitha of Gondia (Maharashtra) have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Several others are serving sentences in Orissa, West Bengal, Karnataka etc. The whereabouts of several women activists arrested by the Jharkhand police is unknown. State sponsored vigilante groups like the Cobras are threatening progressive women activists in Andhra Pradesh. Women PLGA members are being tortured and shot down even after arrest. In the last two years more than 50 women have been thus killed. The most recent is the cold-blooded killing of comrade Karuna by the special task force of Andhra police. Andhra police trample underfoot even the basic human rights by way of hand-cuffing the arrested women. They brought the wounded women activists who participated in Ganganagar (Visakhapatnam) fishery workers’ agitation to hospital with hand-cuffs.

To suppress the peasant movement against land acquisition in Singur in West Bengal the social fascist CPM goons raped and killed Tapasi Malik, a leader of the movement. In the movement in Kalinganagar against land acquisition among those shot dead include women. In brief, the ruling classes and their armed forces are using violence against women as one of their weapons.

Brahminical violence against women continues unabated. The brutal rape and killing of Surekha and Priyanka in Khairlanjhi by state-backed upper caste forces is a horrifying example of this. At the same time the spread of a debased patriarchal culture by the imperialists has led to an alarming increase in molestation and rapes of women in big cities. Women’s insecurities have increased.
The Unity Congress—9th Congress calls upon all sections of women and democrats to oppose the violence being perpetrated by the state forces and vigilante forces on women. It also calls upon them to oppose the violence in the name of Salva Judum, the cold-blooded killings in the name of encounters and the arrest of politically active women. It further demands the immediate release of comrade Shobhadi and other revolutionary political prisoners. This Congress calls upon all oppressed, exploited women to rise up against oppression and join the revolutionary movement for liberation.
*******
Resolution on Peoples’ Struggles the World Over
The Unity Congress – 9th Congress of the CPI (Maoist) is being held at such a time when imperialists, particularly the US-UK imperialists, have in the name of “war against terrorism” launched an all-round attack on the exploited-oppressed nationalities, classes, minorities and against the peoples’ wars being waged under the leadership of Maoist forces. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, they attacked Afghanistan first and then Iraq. Their own trusted West Asian military bull, Zionist Israel, repeatedly attacked the liberation fighters of Palestine and also launched an attack on Lebanon. Afghanistan and Iraq were devastated with several million tons of explosives hurled upon them. Now they have set their eyes upon Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea and others. Some comprador rulers who were propped up as appendages in the past by the US imperialists, having tried to shift loyalties, are now sought to be replaced through military action, so that they may continue to plunder the resources of the oppressed-exploited countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and exercise domination over the whole world.

The people of Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, especially those of Iraq have stood up to these all-round imperialist attacks. The entire Arab world is seething with anti-American rage. Iraq has become yet another Vietnam for the imperialists. The people of Europe held massive protests over the unjust war. 70% people in the US itself are demanding withdrawal of the armed forces from Iraq. The US is weakening not only economically and politically, but also militarily.

The uprising in France and the struggles in West Europe, Japan and Russia indicate how shocks caused by the crisis are being felt even in the imperialist countries. In a nutshell, the struggles of the proletariat in capitalist, imperialist countries are getting sharper. The ground is being prepared for the socialist revolution.

This Unity Congress declares that the oppressed-exploited countries continue to be the ‘storm centres’ of revolution. Even while facing numerous problems, the people of India, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines and Turkey are advancing on the path of protracted peoples’ war. This current of peoples’ liberation shows the way for the emancipation of all peoples the world over even as it unmasks all slander against Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.

This Unity Congress believes that struggles against the policies of imperialist globalization-liberalization-privatization are becoming increasingly sharpened all over the world. This is so not only in Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the imperialist countries, but such struggles are stirring up even in revisionist centres of the Dengist variety. The peoples’ struggles that emerged in China in 2006 are testimony enough.

This Unity Congress calls upon the genuine Maoist Parties working in suppressed countries and capitalist, imperialist countries to unite on a world scale and lead these struggles. The Unity Congress upholds all the just struggles of the world people. This Unity Congress calls upon the oppressed-exploited nationalities, classes and minorities to step up the revolutionary struggles against imperialism, particularly US-UK imperialism and the domestic reactionaries.
***********
Resolution Against Hindu Fascism

The crisis of the Indian ruling classes is all round affecting not only the economic sphere, but also the social and political spheres. This is resulting in growing anger and revulsion of the masses of the people against the reactionary ruling classes. They are finding it increasingly difficult to continue their oppressive rule in the old forms. Consequently the ruling classes have developed fascist social forces with the aim of establishing full fledged fascist rule. Through this they hope not only to overcome this crisis but also establish rule with consent, and facilitate the intensification of imperialist exploitation. Under the “patriotic garb” of Hindutva policies, they are meekly implementing the imperialist-dictated policies of liberalization-privatisation-globalisation, especially after the 80’s. For this they are conducting a Hindu fascist campaign, on the basis of which they will try to establish open terrorist forms of rule.

Since the early ’80s, the ruling classes have been promoting Hindu communalism, targeting religious minorities, with the hope of uniting the Hindu majority behind themselves. The Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 was a devious act committed with this very hope. The main vehicle of the Hindu fascist onslaught has been the BJP-RSS combine with its storm trooper organisations like the VHP, Bajarang Dal, etc. The Shiv Sena in Maharashtra too has been propped up to achieve this end. The Hindu fascists are particularly dangerous since they have the support of the most important arms of the state in all their activities.

Feb 2002 was a high point when the Hindu fascist forces in their laboratory, the BJP-ruled state of Gujarat, organized the worst-ever communal genocide since 1947. Thousands of muslims were brutally killed, thousands burnt alive or maimed. Hundreds of muslim women were gang-raped and murdered. Muslim property was targeted with absolute precision and destroyed by Hindu state organized goons of VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal in connivance with state armed forces. Even after four years, many of them have not been able to return to their native places because of the threat of Hindu fascists.

While Gujarat was their own laboratory, similar hate campaigns against muslims were taken in Karnataka at Baba Budanagiri mazar, in Madhya Pradesh at Jhabua, in Rajasthan, in Maharashtra at Malegaon, and at various other places. They use the smallest opportunity to flare up the sentiments against muslims, like with the singing of vande mataram.

The Indian state too has targeted muslims, branding them “terrorist.” After the 9/11 incident and the Parliament Attack Case muslims were targeted once again. Every muslim is supposed to prove his patriotism time and again. Indian state forces are even capturing and annihilating innocent muslims now and then, in the name of nabbing terrorists. Evidences implicating state and hindutva forces in “attacks” are being willfully suppressed, as can be seen in the Afzal Guru case and the attack on RSS headquarters at Nagpur.

The Cong-led UPA came to power projecting itself as a secular force, but it is the Congress party itself that has been mainly responsible for most of the communal riots ever since the transfer of power. Congress party is even more pernicious. It projects itself as a messiah of muslims, but in real practice it leaves no stone unturned to spread malicious propaganda against muslims and other minorities. The anti-Sikh pogroms of 1984 were one such example. In the name of equally opposing all types of fundamentalism, CPI and CPI[M] have actually helped in maintaining the status-quo of domination by the Hindu fascists. Various regional parties have made alliances with the Hindu fascists for the sake of votes and have become apologists for the Hindu fascists.

These Hindu fascists are trying to impose a hegemonistic Hindu culture on the various culturally diverse people of India. While their attacks are mainly concentrated against muslims, they are also targeting Christians, especially in the tribal areas, aggressively converting tribals to Hinduism. Similarly, they also attack dalits.

The Unity Congress - 9th congress of the CPI(Maoist) calls upon the revolutionary masses, all democratic forces and the oppressed religious minorities to unite in a struggle against the Hindu fascists. The worldwide experience of the struggle against fascism teaches that the fascists can be defeated only by militant class struggle in the streets, factories and in the rest of the countryside. The fascists can be defeated only by isolating them from the people and smashing their organizational forces, and by developing and intensifying protracted peoples’ war with the aim of new democratic revolution, then socialism and ultimately establishing communism. The CPI(Maoist) pledges to fight resolutely against each and every instance of the trampling on the democratic rights of the oppressed minorities and others by the Hindu fascists. It pledges to do its best to defend the sections of the population targeted by the Hindu fascists. Our party is willing to unite in a broad front with all the genuine democratic forces which would be willing to fight back the Hindu fascist offensive.
**********
Resolution on Farmers’ Suicides
The number of peasants committing suicides has increased phenomenally. This is particularly so in Vidarbha, AP & Punjab. In past 10 years several thousand peasants all over the country have committed suicide. In Maharashtra alone the number is almost 7000. From June 2006 to end of December, 900peasants had committed suicide. Cotton cultivators have been particularly affected.
The Central and State Governments are diverting attention by placing the blame on loans for wasteful expenditure, poor crop/output, family and other psychological tensions. The financial package announced by PM Manmohan Singh is nothing but a cunning attempt of the finance department to befool the masses. While the peasants did not get a paisa the money went to cooperative banks. Hence rate of suicides has increased.
The real cause for these suicides is the pro-imperialist globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation policies pursued by the governments together with the continuing backward semi-feudal relations. These policies have led to the reduction of subsidies for agricultural inputs and low prices for agricultural products. Facing losses, peasants were forced to take loans, first from banks. When banks stopped giving loans they turned to money-lenders. More than 60% of loans are from private money lenders charging exorbitant interest rates. Failure of MNC Monsanto's BT Cotton Seeds was the final straw. A section of farmers' leaders like Sharad Joshi had already betrayed the peasants by supporting globalisation. Disheartened farmers have turned to suicides. These are in reality killings by a government acting in the interests of the imperialists.
Unity Congress-9th Congress of CPI (Maoist) strongly opposes the pro-imperialist policies of the government and expresses its heartful sympathies with the peasants and appeals to them not to resort to self-destruction but to wage militant struggle, to organise and refuse to repay all debts and to join the ongoing revolutionary peasant war.
This Congress calls upon peasants to demand that all debts of peasantry be waived, agricultural subsidies be restored, investments in irrigation and other agricultural needs be increased, proper prices for agricultural products and ban on MNCs like Monsanto and their GM Seeds, and opposes the policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation.
Only New Democratic Revolution will solve the problems of the peasantry. While struggling on immediate demands we pledge to organise the vast masses of the peasantry to intensify the armed struggle to overthrow this semi-colonial, semi-feudal system.
* * * * * *
Resolution on Prisoners’ Struggles

A movement of various classes and sections is breaking out against the imperialist-dictated policies of globalization, liberalization and privatization and other anti-people policies being implemented by the ruling classes of India. In a bid to suppress these movements, the Indian Government has increasingly carried out repressive policies and become increasingly fascist. Several draconian laws have come about and are already in force. The main target of this repression campaign has been the struggles being waged against imperialism, feudalism and comprador bureaucrat capitalism under communist revolutionary leadership. Among these revolutionaries, particularly the leadership comrades, those who escape the inevitable fake encounters somehow or the other, find themselves thrown behind bars with numerous false charges heaped upon them.
Six comrades in AP, 26 in Tamil Nadu are detained under POTA, and 16 in Karnataka, and about 25 comrades in North Chhattisgarh have been languishing in jails. In many other states also the situation is not different. Hundreds of women comrades have also been incarcerated in different jails in the country. Besides them, thousands of other comrades and people have also been thrown into jails. Arrested comrades are not produced in court for days on end in stark violation of civil rights; any kind of protest by prison inmates is prohibited while depriving them of all their rights; lathi-charges are conducted to suppress any organized protest; leadership comrades are banished to distant jails; locked up in cells or harassed in other ways; visitors are denied permission to meet the inmates; they are not provided with medical treatment; bribes are extracted too often than not; false charges are framed against imprisoned comrades in instalments; “fast-track trials” are conducted to serve sentences without much ado even by the dint of false supporting evidence. These and other nefarious means have become common occurrence.

Besides comrade Tapas, Central Committee member of our Party and another important comrade Pratul, five comrades from Asagarh, five from Bhamragarh and five from Tipragarh areas of Gadchiroli division and five peasants of Gondia division (Maharashtra), five comrades from Chhattisgarh, four comrades each from Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, and some comrades from Bihar and Jharkhand have been served with life imprisonment. Some ordinary villagers from Bihar, languishing in jail on charges related to Bara (Gaya) and Meral (Garhwa) incidents, have been served life sentences.

In spite of tremendous torture, our comrades languishing behind bars have kept alive the ever-inspiring revolutionary legacy of resistance and struggle against repression and oppression in jails. The struggle of 1995 that broke out in various AP jails all at once and the solidarity struggle from outside were indeed historic in terms of their impact and spread. Our comrades in West Bengal, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu jails have also launched movements in demand of the rights of political prisoners and against various repressive measures of the authorities. We earnestly believe that even while bearing with the most inhuman, tough and hapless conditions in these torture chambers, our comrades shall leave no stone unturned to forge unyielding unity among themselves and to carry ahead the revolutionary legacy of roaring aloud, as caged lions would do.

The Congress urges you to:
· Form secret Party units even in prison and carry on the task of running them regularly through secret methods.
· Build action committees such as ‘Jail Bandi Sanghursh Samiti’ behind bars. In case comrades are kept in separate prison barracks, then form barrack committees, and press with demands to keep all revolutionaries in the same barrack depending upon the concrete situation. Such action committees are quite helpful in further enhancement of the spirit of unity and sacrifice, and in identifying vacillators and coverts.
· Transform the prisons into political universities.
· In order to enhance your own theoretical-ideological and political levels, continue holding a series of study and political classes as far as possible.
· Arouse and mobilize common prison inmates, forming cultural teams, aid committees and various types of organizations.
· Develop the prisons as centres of struggle against the ongoing widespread extortion, corruption and atrocities as well as against the attacks on democratic rights. At the same time, unite and create a huge outcry in support of the revolutionary struggles being waged on the world scale, and against the repression campaigns aimed at them.

This Congress hereby adopts a resolution to take up every possible programme so as to express solidarity with the ‘struggles of prison inmates;’ to lend strength to their struggles; and to form suitable organizations. The Congress resolves to:
· Form organizations, such as ‘Committee to Release Prisoners’ along with intellectuals, democracy-lovers and members of the families of imprisoned comrades, in solidarity with prisoners’ struggles and to lend them strength. Such an organization shall conduct struggles on various demands related to the jail by establishing coordination between various Prisoners’ Action Committees. Employing different means, such committees shall help create public opinion about the assault upon the civil rights of the prison inmates. In this direction efforts are already underway.
· Organize progressive lawyers to provide legal support to the prisoners. Some efforts have been made in this direction. Yet we shall lay stress upon forming such organizations in different cities. These organizations shall provide legal support to imprisoned comrades as well as generate public opinion against draconian laws.
· Mobilize ‘Committees to Release Prisoners,’ lawyers organizations, civil liberty organizations and the common masses against ‘Fast Track Trials’ and such other outright anti-people provisions.
· Pay special attention to raise protest against and organize resistance to atrocities perpetrated upon women prisoners.
· Rope in various means of propaganda in order to highlight the inhuman conditions in prisons.
· Conduct signature campaigns on various demands of the prisoners and in support of their struggles in order to arouse and mobilize the masses.
· Strive to punish the prison officials who carry out atrocities upon the prisoners.
· Constitute a Prisoners’ Fund to help secure their release.

This Congress resolves to strive to carry out every possible means to free our comrades from the jails besides waging different forms of struggle within constitutional limits. With support from the masses, we had carried out historic actions such as the Jehanabad and R Udaigiri Jailbreaks. The Congress calls upon the entire Party ranks and the mass organization rank and file to prepare in this direction and educate the masses.