Against Attack on Taslima Nasreen and ABVP's Fake Concern

Poster Against Fatwa on Taslima

Condemn the ‘Fatwa’ and Death Threats Against Taslima Nasreen!

By issuing death threats against the feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, a certain tiny fundamentalist fringe in the minority community is playing into the hands of the Hindutva fundamentalists.

Taslima Nasreen is a writer who has resisted every brand of communalism and patriarchy. She is critical of the hypocrisy and double standards of all religions towards women. Devout Muslims may have differences over her views on Islam – but despite these differences, Taslima is in fact an ally in the struggle against RSS’ communalism and genocide in India. Instead of mobilizing people to strengthen the resistance to communal assaults, fake encounters and state terror faced by minorities, the fundamentalist leaders with their ‘fatwas’ are trying to whip up hatred, violence and frenzy against this lone woman who wields no weapon but her pen and her strong sensibility for gender justice. Shame on them! By doing so, they are doing great injury, not only to the cause of women’s freedom and freedom of expression, but also to the anti-communal movement in the country.

11 August Leaflet

If Taslima Had Been Born In Gujarat, ABVP, RSS And Co. Would Have Raped And Killed Her…As They Have Done With Hundreds Of Other Muslim Women in the 2002 Genocide !!!

ABVP piously defending ‘freedom of expression’ and condemning the attack on Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasreen by MIM MLAs in Hyderabad. Pot calling the kettle black, indeed!

ABVP and the Sangh Parivar to which it belongs, uses force and violence to ‘ban’ women from wearing jeans, celebrating Valentine’s Day, and marrying outside the caste or community. They themselves recently assaulted a young student of Baroda University for his paintings which, according to them, ‘insulted Hindu sentiments’. Be it the freedom of women or the freedom of artistic and creative expression: who can be a worse enemy to these sentiments than ABVP and its Hindutva fundamentalist brothers?

Taslima Nasreen is a novelist who has been the victim of a witch-hunt – both in her native Bangladesh as well as in India – for her bold writing against every hue of fundamentalism. She is familiar with the many ways in which religion is used to silence women – and she is outspoken in her scathing critique of fundamentalist attacks on women’s freedom by any and every religion. It is indeed a shame that India’s UPA Government has been vacillating on giving Taslima citizenship, and that even the CPI(M) Government of West Bengal which swears by the rights of women and freedom of expression, banned her novel Dwikhandita. Taslima’s fiction and autobiography does not slander Islam as a religion – it critiques the hypocrisy of patriarchal society. Dwikhandita too exposed the patriarchal attitudes of many prominent Bengali male writers – and it is these writers who prevailed on the WB Government to ban the novel. The physical attack on her by AP MLAs from MIM in a public function deserves the highest condemnation.

Women who have written boldly of their sexuality and have dared to expose patriarchal hypocrisy have always borne the brunt of bans no matter in what society they live. Just as women who marry outside the community are accused of violating the ‘honour’ of the community, women who write about the patriarchal double standards of their own society or community towards women are attacked as being enemies of the community. Akka Mahadevi, the 12th century woman poet-saint who wandered nude and declared “People/male and female,/blush when a cloth covering their shame/comes loose…/

To the shameless girl/wearing the White Jasmine Lord’s/light of morning,/you fool,/where’s the need for cover and jewel?”; Kate Chopin, the American novelist who died young after facing social ostracism for her novel The Awakening; the courtesan Muddupalani’s poem Radhika Santwanam which was banned by British colonial rulers and Indian nationalists alike for its explicit expression of woman’s desire…the list is endless. British writer Virginia Woolf spoke of how every woman writer has to grapple with and kill the ‘Angel in the House’ within herself, which is a self-censoring voice that tries to stop her from telling the truth about society and about men in particular. Taslima Nasreen is a proud member of this community of women writers who have dared to refuse self-censorship.

But Taslima can well do without defenders like the ABVP! Will ABVP tell us what they have to say about VHP women’s wing leader Krishna Sharma who defended wife-beating in the following words: “Don’t parents admonish their children for misbehaviour? ...a wife must act keeping in mind her husband’s moods and must avoid irritating him...if she learns to stifle her screams, the matter will remain within the four walls of the house. Otherwise every house will become a ‘Mahabharat’.” (Tanika Sarkar and Urvashi Butalia ed. Women and the Hindu Right, 1995, p. 332-3)

Will they tell what they have to say about VHP leader Babu Bajrangi who has abducted 900 Hindu women who married Muslims or Dalits, and forced them to remarry within their community?

What about the Gujarat genocide of 2002 in which hundreds like Bilkis Bano were raped, their unborn children dragged from the womb and killed?

If Taslima Nasreen had been born in Gujarat rather than in Bangladesh, isn’t there a good chance she too would have been raped and massacred by the RSS? If ABVP has the guts, they should call Taslima Nasreen to a public meeting and ask for her views on BJP-RSS and the Gujarat genocide!

Against Khammam Firing and Nandigram

Nandigram, Khammam and CPI(M)'s Double Standards

Khammam – 8 peasants struggling for land killed in police firing

Response of Congress Government of AP:

• Firing ‘unfortunate’;
• Judicial enquiry underway;
• Blames ‘naxalite’ participation in rally and ‘provocation by the protestors’
• Chief Minister need not resign

Nandigram: 14 peasants struggling for land killed in firing by police and CPI(M) cadres

Response of CPI(M) Government of W Bengal:

• Firing ‘unfortunate’;
• Judicial enquiry underway;
• Blames ‘naxalite’ participation in protest and ‘provocation by the protestors’
• Chief Minister need not resign

The massacre of peasants at Nandigram on March 14 had evoked an explosion of outrage among the Left intelligentsia. Many intellectuals broke ranks with the CPI(M) after Nandigram, choosing to side with the valiant struggle of the Nandirgam peasantry. Intellectuals close to the CPI(M), however, had issued a statement that had expressed pain and anguish at the incident while continuing to assert faith in the progressive intentions and democratic credentials of the CPI(M)-led LF Government in West Bengal. Many of these intellectuals , supporters of CPI(M), are teachers at JNU - like Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh and others.

Of course, this statement, while expressing pain at the loss of life and injuries of the Nandigram victims, had stopped short of expressing solidarity with the Nandigram peasants’ struggle to defend their land. One can’t but help contrasting this with the excellent statement signed by many of the selfsame intellectuals in the wake of the Khammam firing. That statement unstintedly expresses “our total solidarity with the mass upsurge of the poor for land”. Is a mass upsurge of peasantry for land to be recognised as such only when led by one's own party?

But what is to be appreciated is that these intellectuals loyal to the CPI(M), in their statement on Nandigram, had been confident that the CPI(M)-led Government of West Bengal genuinely regretted the firing and was committed to ensuring justice for the victims.

Their statement declared that “nobody belonging to the Left would ever justify repressive action against peasants and workers who are the basic classes of the Left”, had termed the “tragedy at Nandigram” to be “an entirely unanticipated, unjustified and unfortunate turn of events”, and had confidently claimed that “the state government has committed itself to recompensing the families of the victims”. In view of the state government’s efforts, these supporters of CPI(M) had then appealed for some closure so as “not to let the wounds of Nandigram become festering sores.”

Has the CPI(M) lived up to this confidence reposed in it by its own loyalists?

Consider the following statements made by senior CPI(M) leaders following the Khammam firing:

“At Khamman, the situation had not warranted police firing…Only some brickbats had been thrown. But, at Nandigram, the police were forced to open fire” – CPI(M) PB Member and former WB Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, Hindu, July 31

“The CPI-M is not at all ashamed of the Nandigram incident and the question of giving compensation to families of those killed in police firing on 14 March or taking action against police officials doesn’t arise… At the best we can offer some pity.” - CPI-M Central Committee member Benoy Konar (Statesman July 31) (emphasis ours)

“(At Nandigram) it was a revolt against the state and an elected government’s authority. In Andhra, we did not wage any armed struggle against the government, but launched a people’s movement asking it to fulfil its electoral promise of land reforms.” – Konar, Telegraph, July 31

Is the Nandigram firing really “unjustified” according to the CPI(M)? Clearly not. The CPI(M), in fact, is belying the confidence of its supporters that “nobody on the Left would ever justify” police firing of workers and peasants. In exactly the same manner as AP Chief Minister YSR and the Congress are justifying the Khammam firing by claiming ‘provocation’ and ‘violence’ by ‘Naxalites’, CPI(M)’s topmost leaders (including the veteran Jyoti Basu) continue to claim that the police firing at Nandigram was required, necessary.

Is the CPI(M)-led Government accepting the responsibility for compensation to those who lost loved ones, livelihoods (being unable to work due to severe and debilitating injuries including widespread loss of eyesight), and homes as a result of the repression? Far from it, CPI(M) leaders are saying that the question of paying compensation or punishing even police officials does not arise. To add insult to injury, they have the temerity to “at best” offer a grudging “pity”.

Comrade Basu and Konar, weren’t the martyrs of Nandigram also CPI(M) cadres, comrades of the Khammam martyrs, until the threat of land grab by the CPI(M) Government? Weren’t the peasants of Nandigram inspired by the legacy of the Left-led Tebhaga movement just as those at Khammam were inspired by the legacy of the Left-led Telengana movement? At Khammam peasants were asking the Government to implement land reforms; at Nandigram, they were demanding that the Government keep its promise of ‘land to the tiller’, and stop handing over poor peasants’ lands to corporate houses.

Isn’t CPI(M)’s crude and callous justification of the Nandigram firing an insult –not just to the martyrs of Nandigram – but also to the martyrs of Khammam, and to the expectations of its own most loyal supporters among the intellectuals?

For a discussion of the deep discomfort of CPI(M) intellectuals over Nandigram, and CPI(M)’s own total refusal to address their concerns, see http://sanhati.com/front-page/304/

30 July Leaflet

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CPI(M)'S CONTEMPT FOR ITS OWN RENOWNED JNU ECONOMISTS

Prof. Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, and C P Chandrashekhar are renowned intellectuals and Left economists.
But their own party, the CPI(M), has scant respect for their views. Its West Bengal Government prefers to take advice from imperialist agencies like McKinsey, World Bank, ADB and so on rather than from the economists in its own party.

Read the following excerpt from the CNN-IBN interview of West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya with Diptosh Majumdar, dated July 1, 2007:

Diptosh Majumdar: But is the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee rate of growth causing confusion in the party hierarchy in Delhi also? For example, Prabhat Patnaik and people like that who are heading state planning boards in Kerala—are suggesting no loan should be taken from any financial institutions especially World Bank. You are propagating a completely different view. Are you not at loggerheads with this kind of idea?

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: I have read Prabhat Patnaik’s statements and I don’t agree with what he has said.

Diptosh Majumdar: Prabhat Patnaik is supposedly the economist of your party.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: That is correct. But I have serious differences with him over what he is writing now days about industrialisation.

Diptosh Majumdar: Do you have differences with the entire group—Prabhat Patnaik, Jayati Ghosh, Utsa Patnaik?

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: I don’t want to mention their names. But there is a group of people with same ideas. They are writing on many issues—developments in India, China. I generally do not accept their views. I feel they are a bit academic. They don’t understand the real situation. What you mentioned about foreign loans from World Bank, in our last party congress in Delhi, it was decided we can take loans from any organisation like World Bank, ADB, Japanese Bank of International Cooperation and others without any conditions.

They should not impose any terms and conditions—that is the only issue. They should not impose any conditions. And so far as our state is concerned, we have taken loans from World Bank, ADB, DFID, Japanese Bank of International Cooperation without any conditions. We are taking these loans from stand-alone basis. And on this issue if Prabhat Patnaik says no this is not correct, I can tell him that the party congress decided it and we are following that.

Diptosh Majumdar: You are not afraid of Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and senior politburo members taking their side and not your side.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee: The politburo is solidly behind our government.

Would SFI tell us if it agrees with Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's views that JNU's Left economists are "out of date" and "cut off from reality"?

Faiz’s Dawn of Freedom, on the 60^th anniversary of India’s Independence and the eve of Bhagat Singh’s Birth Centenary

As the celebratory clamour of ‘60 years of Indian Independence’ accompanied by boasts of our strategic partnership with the US and jingoistic roars against Pakistan threaten to deafen us, let’s take a minute to hear Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s Subh-e Azadi (Dawn of Freedom) speak to us. Its words are as hauntingly familiar, as evocative, as inspiring as they were 60 years ago. Then, its view of “this night-bitten dawn”, stained by the communal bloodshed of Partition, mocked at the triumphalism of Nehru’s Tryst With Destiny speech which announced that “India will awake to life and freedom”.

September 28, 2007 marks Bhagat Singh’s Birth Centenary. Written in August 1947, Subh-e Azadi resounds with echoes of Bhagat Singh’s own warnings that freedom could hardly be genuine if it just meant replacing white sahibs with brown ones. Both Faiz and Bhagat Singh and their legacy of Communism and anti-imperialism are deeply cherished on both sides of the border. The Indian ruling class does its best to kill the memory of Bhagat Singh the revolutionary; Faiz spent a large part of his latter life in Pakistan’s jails.

Come September, the dark clouds of US imperialism blot out the weak light of democracy and sovereignty in both Pakistan and India – with US threats of military intervention in Pakistan and attempts (eagerly supported by the UPA Government) to take India into an even closer strategic embrace with the Nuke Deal.

As our rulers outlaw all dissent and permit only paeans of praise to the 9% growth rate, let’s remind ourselves, with the help of Faiz and Bhagat Singh, that this dawn – of nuclear deals, farmers’ suicides, fake encounters, corporate land grab, starvation deaths, police firings and jingoistic wars – isn’t the dawn we set out for… That quest for the “promised Dawn” of freedom continues!

Dawn of Freedom (August 1947)

These tarnished rays, this night-smudged light

This is not that Dawn for which, ravished with freedom,

we had set out in sheer longing,

so sure that somewhere in its desert the sky harbored

a final haven for the stars, and we would find it.

We had no doubt that night’s vagrant wave would stray towards the shore

that the heart rocked with sorrow would at last reach its port.

Friends, our blood shaped its own mysterious roads.

When hands tugged at our sleeves, enticing us to stay,

and from wondrous chambers Sirens cried out

with their beguiling arms, with their bare bodies,

our eyes remained fixed on that beckoning dawn,

forever vivid in her muslins of transparent light.

Our blood was young, what could hold us back?

Now listen to the terrible rampant lie:

Light has forever been severed from the Dark;

our feet, it is heard, are now one with their goal.

See our leaders polish their manner clean of our suffering:

Indeed, we must confess only to bliss;

we must surrender any utterance for the Beloved, all yearning is outlawed.

But the heart, the eye, the yet deeper heart,

Still ablaze for the Beloved, their turmoil shines.

In the lantern by the road the flame is stalled for news:

Did the morning breeze ever come? Where has it gone?

Night weighs us down; it still weighs us down.

Friends, come away from this false light.

Come, we must search for that promised Dawn.

- Faiz Ahmed Faiz, (August 1947), translated from the Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali

SUBH-E-AZADI (August 1947)

Ye dagh dagh ujala, ye shab-gazida sahar,
Vo intizar tha jis-ka, ye vo sahar to nahin,
Ye vo sahar to nahin jis-ki arzu lekar
Chale the yar ke mel-jaegi kahin na kahin

Falak ke dasht men taron ki akhiri manzil,
Kahin to hoga shab-e sust mauj ka sahil,
Kahin to jake rukega safina-e-gham-e-dil.

Jawan lahu ki pur-asrar shahrahon se
Chale jo yar to daman pe kitne hath pare;
Diyar-e-husn ki be-sabr khwabgahon se
Pukarti-rahin bahen, badan bulate-rahe;
Bahut aziz thi lekin rukh-e-sahar ki lagan,
Bahut qarin tha hasinan-e-nur ka daman,
Subuk subuk thi tamanna, dabi dabi thi thakan.
Suna hai ho bhi chuka hai firaq-e-zulmat-o-nur,
Suna hai ho bhi chuka hai visal-e-manzil-o-gam;
Badal-chuka hai bahut ahl-e-dard ka dastur,
Nishat-e-vasl halal o azab-e-hijr haram.

Jigar ki ag, nazar ki umang, dil ki jalan,
Kisi pe chara-e-hijran ka kuchh asar hi nahin.
Kahan se a'i nigar-e-saba, kidhar ko ga'i?
Abhi charagh-e-sar-e-rah ko kuchh khbar hi nahin;
Abhi girani-e-shab men kami nahin a'i,
Najat-e-dida-o-dil ki ghari nahin a'i;
Chale-chalo ke vo manzil abhi nahin a'i.

AISA Leaders in JNUSU in Solidarity With Doctors Against Caste Discrimination at AIIMS

The JNUSU Vice President Tyler Walker Williams and General Secretary Sandeep Singh mobilised JNU students to join the protest at Parliament Street against discrimination against SC/ST/OBC students at AIIMS on 13 August. The protest was called by the Progressive Medicos and Scientists Forum consisting of Resident Doctors at AIIMS. Below is the pamphlet issued by the PMSF which gives the facts of the matter, accompanied by a photograph of JNU students participating in the protest.

ATROCITIES on SC / ST / OBC’s in AIIMS

Dear Friends,

Kindly have a look at the number of jobs given to the SC/ST/OBCs at AIIMS, the premier medical institute of this country à

Year	No of jobs	Selected
		SC 15%	ST 7.5%	OBC 27.5%
2004	148	09 (6%)	05 (3.4%)	Nil (0%)
2005	124	11 (8.8%)	07 (5.6%)	Nil (0%)
2006	239	18 (7.5%)	04 (1.6%)	32 (13.4%)

Source: RTI Act, Respondent AIIMS

Job Type (Group)	TOTAL	SC(15 %)	ST(7.5%)	OBC(27 %)
A	672	78 (11.6 %)	14 (2 %)	31 (4 %)
B	548	84 (15.3 %)	24 (4 %)	21 (4 %)
C	3818	782 (20 %)	234 (6 %)	375 (10 %)
D (excluding sweeper)	1049	456 (43 %)	51 (4 %)	125 (11 %)
D sweeper	533	533 (100%)	0	0

Annual statement showing the representation of SCs, STs and OBCs on 01.01.2006

Brahaminical forces are once again at their oppressive best in AIIMS. Constitutional violation, caste discrimination and atrocities on dalits and other backward section are rampant in AIIIMs under the tutelage of Prof. Venugopal. Despite glaring examples of caste oppression and denial of rights of dalits and oppressed by Director AIIMS, UPA govt., Congress party and Indian Judiciary are not only silent but actively patronizing this. Their role in sustaining caste prejudice in AIIMS has exposed their ugly manuvadi face. Few shocking examples of caste oppression in AIIMS over past one year:

1. Orchestrated anti-reservation stir actively supported by Prof. Venugopal in May, 2006. (Despite High Court directive prohibiting any dharna with in 500 mts of AIIMS).

2. Open desecration of books of Dr. BR Ambedkar in AIIMS hostels and wide circulation of CDs capturing this dastardly act.

3. Deliberate failing of an undergraduate MBBS student in final MBBS examination due to caste prejudice and victimization.

4. Gross violation of reserved quota and deliberate under filling of reserved posts at all levels in AIIMS (Karamchari, Students, Doctors and Faculty). They practice a unique “floating reservation” which is not used anywhere else in INDIA.

5. Most, recently, flagrant violation of all rules and regulations in selection of Senior Resident doctors, where only 24 reserved candidates were selected out of 106 posts.

Even, after such blatant violation, which is akin to robbery in broad daylight, the Judiciary and Government of our country are sleeping. For past one year, PMSF has been waging a war against this inhuman caste oppression.

We appeal to all progressive intellectuals and citizens to join us in the rally to parliament to end this anarchy at AIIMS, violation of the Constitution of India and perpetuation of Caste Discrimination.

The rally starts from Mandi House to Parliament on 13^th August 2007 at 1 pm.

General Secretary

PMSF

Call for Protest Against Nuke Deal

Defend India’s Sovereignty on the Eve of the 60th Anniversary of Indian Independence ! Scrap Humiliating Indo-US Nuke Deal !

The corporate media is full of paeans of praise for the Indo-US Nuke Deal which according to them represents a brave new world of civilian nuclear technology “transfer” and “trade” between the U.S. and India. The ‘123 Agreement’ between India and the US is being discussed in Parliament today. What a shame that on the eve of the 60th anniversary of Indian Independence, the UPA Government is going all out bind India in perpetuity to a humiliating Deal that is a blot on India’s sovereignty and hard won Independence.

Let us recap what the Nuke Deal really implies for India:

· Threat of US disruption of fuel supply will affect India’ sovereignty: A key section of Article 5 of the 123 Agreement permits the United States unilaterally to disrupt future fuel supplies to India and the only consequence of such a disruption for the U.S. under this unequal agreement is that... it will convene a meeting of other NSG nations! India will be forced to bend to US’ dictates on foreign and domestic policy under threat of disruption of fuel supply.

· Threat of US Military Intervention in the Name of “Return’ of Materials: Even more dangerously, the agreement in Article 14 grants the U.S. a unilateral right at any date “to require the return by the other Party of any nuclear material, equipment, non-nuclear material of components transferred under this Agreement and any special fissionable materials produced through their use....

The “right of return” section even goes so far as to allow for “the removal from the territory or from the control of the other Party” of this equipment and materials rather than the return. Isn’t this a clear authorization of a physical military intervention by the US in India, in the name of confiscating equipments and materials?

· Nuke Deal is subservient to US Laws: Manmohan Singh claims that the Nuke Deal is an international treaty and so does not need ratification from Indian Parliament. But the United States Supreme Court has held that as a legislative act of the US, even one passed subsequent to a treaty, can override an international treaty! India’s 123 Agreement, unlike the parallel US Agreement with China, contains no safeguard against the over-riding of it by the US’ Hyde Act or any subsequent legislation. Contrast India’s 123 Agreement with Article 2.1 of the parallel agreement the United States negotiated with China in 1985 which states:

“The parties recognize, with respect to the observance of this agreement, the principle of international law that provides that a party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty.”

The U.S.-Indian agreement contains the identical language in its Article 2.1, except that the italicized sentence does not appear. The failure of the Indian negotiators to obtain recognition of the elementary international law principle that U.S. obligations under the treaty cannot be superseded by U.S. domestic legislation speaks only to a colonial lack of self-respect.

Clearly according to the Agreement, the U.S. openly gains the power to threaten to deny ongoing fuel supplies (and even the forcible removal of supplies previously given) in order to control future Indian policy. Is this a remote speculation? We must recall that in the 1970s the U.S. unilaterally cut off all fuel supply to Tarapur, in material violation of the previous “123” agreement between the U.S. and India of 1963.

But this is only one aspect of a larger issue. This deal is a part of an ongoing project to absorb India into the U.S. imperial sphere of influence as a “strategic” junior partner.

The recent case of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier Nimitz anchoring in Chennai port followed by the Joint U.S.-Indian naval exercises in the upcoming months in the Bay of Bengal point to increased US military presence on Indian soil. The reassurances from Manmohan’s men could not mask the real purpose of USS Nimitz’s presence in Asian waters—to threaten the Persian Gulf with its deadly cargo until war is declared on Iran.

Despite verbal fireworks in parliament, regimes dominated by both the BJP and by Congress have worked with equal commitment to render India a client to the US. Manmohan Singh has issued an insulting challenge to the CPI-CPI(M)-led Left supporters of the UPA Government, challenging them to withdraw support if they dare. His arrogance is emboldened by the fact that in the past three years, the Left, despite occasional barking, has never really applied a bite on the range of anti-people policies peddled by the UPA Government. In fact on matters like the Patents Act and the SEZ Act, the CPI-CPI(M) have cheerfully passed them in Parliament and have displayed full commitment to these Acts.

Will the CPI-CPI(M) fulfil the historic call of the martyrs of 1857 and of Bhagat Singh by going beyond lip service and dramatics, calling a halt to colonial subservience and ensuring the defeat of the Nuke Deal on the floor of Parliament? Will they give a fitting reply to Manmohan’s arrogance by withdrawing support from the UPA Government which has misled the nation and Parliament on the Nuke Deal? Will they expose the hypocrisy of BJP’s opposition to the Nuke Deal by showing up its pro-US colours? Or will it limit itself to a walk-out from Parliament that leaves the field free for the Nuke Deal to be passed? All this remains to be seen.

AISA calls upon JNU students to join a Protest Demo at Parliament Street tomorrow, demanding that Indian Parliament scrap the Nuke Deal. This demo is part of the all-India Protest being observed by the CPI(ML).

CPI-ML's National Protest Day : PROTEST at PARLIAMENT 14 Aug 11 am Jantar Mantar

Reject Indo-US Nuclear Deal ! Resist UPA's Surrender To US Imperialist Diktats !! Defend India's Sovereignity !!!

6 August Hiroshima Day

HIROSHIMA DAY LEAFLET

What was the world’s worst, most cold-blooded terrorist act, killing lakhs of innocent civilians and poisoning all the generations to come?

Who was responsible for it?

Not 9/11, not Osama Bin Laden…

8:15 a.m. at Hiroshima 62 years ago: the world witnessed an unparalleled act of mass murder.

The entire city of Hiroshima was flattened by a single bomb, made with just 60 kg of uranium, and dropped from a B-29 United States Air Force warplane.

Imagine the fate of the people – living in the city which within seconds became a furnace of fire – with temperatures soaring to 4,000 C, more than 2,500 higher than the melting point of iron. Hiroshima was ravaged by massive firestorms. At 9/11 we saw the terrible sight of two towers reduced to rubble. At Hiroshima, savage firestorms ripped through innumerable buildings, reducing them to rubble and burning those within. Giant shock-waves releasing blast energy ripped through the city, wreaking more destruction.

Within seconds, 80,000 people were killed. Within hours, over 100,000 died, most of them crushed under the impact of blast-waves and falling buildings, or severely burnt by firestorms.

And the horror did not end with one day of terror. Waves of radiation followed, invisible and intangible, – but taking a slow, lethal, cruel toll. Thousands died within days from radiation sickness produced by exposure to high doses of gamma-rays or poisonous radio-nuclides. Hiroshima’s death toll climbed to 140,000. Thousands more died over years from cancers and leukaemia – their suffering was excruciating and prolonged. Those who survived envied the dead.

If attacks on civilians is terrorism, Hiroshima is certainly the world’s worst terrorist act.

Three days after the Hiroshima’s bombing, USA dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki – and more than 70,000 people perished in agonising ways.

The USA claimed the nuke bombs were needed to end the Second World War. The world knows that is a lie.

Historians Peter Kuznick and Mark Selden, in an article in the British New Scientist magazine two years ago, disclosed that three days before Hiroshima, US President Harry S. Truman agreed Japan was “looking for peace”.

General Dwight Eisenhower said in a 1963 Newsweek interview that “the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing”. Truman’s chief of staff, Admiral William Leahy, also said that “the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender”.

The real function of the two bombs was not military, but political. It was to establish USA’s unchallenged hegemony after World War II.

No US President was ever tried for the appalling war crime of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – surely a crime that was on par with Hitler’s murder of the Jews. No ‘War on Terror’ was ever launched against Harry Truman. The US never even had to apologise for this crime against humanity.

The same USA which is the ONLY country in the world to have perpetrated this nuclear attack now claims to be the nuclear policeman of the world….

Consider the following facts which expose US’ shameless hypocrisy:

• U.S. today has over 10,000 nuclear weapons

• US is the only nation with its nuclear weapons deployed on foreign soil

• US keeps about 1,700 nuclear weapons ready to use at immediate notice, on 14 Trident submarines, patrolling the world’s oceans

• US pours billions of dollars into finding ways to make nuclear weapons more useable in ordinary warfare – i.e to prepare for more Hiroshimas

• US has threatened other countries with nuclear attack at least 30 times

• US has recently even threatened Iran with nuclear attack

• In the name of its ‘War on Terror’, USA has perpetrated even more terrorist attacks on civilian populations of Afghanistan and Iraq

Today, the Congress and UPA are celebrating the ‘123 Agreement’ with the US as a great victory. But this agreement is nothing but Clause 123 of the US’ own Hyde Act – which requires India’s ‘full and active participation’ in the US efforts to ‘dissuade, sanction, and contain’ Iran. The Indo-US Nuke Deal, if signed, will bind India to supporting all US attacks on Iran. It will shackle India in chains of dependence to the world’s most shameless terrorist country. For India to sign this deal is an insult to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Unfortunately, the CPI-CPI(M) are yet to come out with a demand to scrap the Indo-US Nuke Deal. Instead, following the Prime Minister’s speech in Parliament in August last year, they had declared that they are ‘satisfied’ with his ‘assurances’. In December 2006 the CPI(M) had asked the UPA Government to ‘walk away from the Nuke Deal’ – but now that the 123 Agreement is on the verge of being signed, why is the CPI(M) vacillating? Why is not pressing for the UPA Government to walk away from the Deal any more?

Today, in India, the poor tribals of Jadugoda in Jharkhand suffer little Hiroshimas daily due to the uranium mines that poison their lives. Even the so-called ‘civilian’ and ‘peaceful’ uses of nuclear energy are deadly and devastating, causing cancers and birth defects for several lifetimes. The people of Koodankulam in Tamilnadu are protesting, demanding a CBI enquiry into nuclear power plants construction in their area that will endanger their lives. The only tribute to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be to resist US imperialism and wars, and say a resounding NO to nuclear energy in all its deadly forms.

On 6 August let us join millions across the world in raising the cry –

No Nukes! No Wars!

Let us demand to the UPA Government – NO to the Indo-US Nuke Deal!