An important public event was held on the evening of August 23, 2011, in San Francisco, when Partho Sarathi Ray, an activist who is a member of  Sanhati, and a molecular biologist by profession, reported on the peoples movements in India.  Illustrating his talk with the many photos he has taken as an activist working with these popular struggles, as well as a video by the activist film-making group Canvas, Ray focused his report around the West Bengal area of Lalgarh, where since 2008 there has been a massive and militant uprising of the adivasi or indigenous people.

Statement on the killing of CPI(Maoist) Politbureau member Kishenji

Twenty two member team of four constituents of Coordination of Democratic Rights Organisation namely Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Bandi Mukti Committee and Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (Delhi) undertook a fact finding into the alleged encounter killing of Mallojula Koteswar Rao (aka Kishanji) on 1st December, 2011.

13 December 2011 from 2 PM to 8 PM

Speakers include:

• Justice Rajender Sachar, Retired Chief Justice, Delhi High Court
• Dr B D Sharma, Former National Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes
• Dhiraj Sengupta, APDR
• Debaprasad Roychoudhury, General Secretary, APDR
• Puskar Raj, PUCL
• Varavara Rao, Revolutionary Poet
• Apart from above speakers, some among the organizers will also speak.

Demands of the meeting:

• The Central and State governments should immediately stop ‘Operation Green Hunt’ and physical elimination of Naxal /Maoist leaders and cadres.
  
• The Central government should set up a high level Judicial Enquiry Committee on the killing of Kishanji.
• The government should register a case of culpable homicide under section 302 of IPC, so that the killers of Kishanji are forced to face the court trial, as directed by Supreme Court and National Human Rights Commission.
  

The Fact-finding team of various civil and democratic rights organizations established beyond doubt that the Maoist leader Kishanji was first captured and severely tortured by security forces and then killed on 24 November 2011 in a planned fake encounter under the connivance of both West Bengal and Central governments.

The Story of People's Resistance to Displacement in Jharkhand

January 6, 2012

By Stan Swamy, Sanhati

This article is an introduction to the trajectory of peoples' movements against displacement in Jharkhand in the last few years. As the author writes, the resistance in Jharkhand has resulted in the fact that "[o]ut of the about one hundred MOUs signed by Jharkhand government with industrialists, hardly three or four companies have succeeded in acquiring some land, set up their industries and start partial production." - Ed.

Displacement is painful for anybody - to leave the place where one was born and brought up, the house that one built with one's own labour. It is most painful when no alternate resettlement has been worked out and one has nowhere to go. And when it comes to the indigenous Adivasi People for whom their land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual sustenance, it can be heart-rending.

A very conservative estimate indicates that during the last 50 years approximately 2 crore 13 lakh people have been displaced in the country owing to big projects such as mines, dams, industries, wild-life sanctuaries, field firing range etc. Of this, at least 40%, approximating 85 lakhs, are Indigenous Adivasi People. Of all the displaced, only one-fourth have been resettled. The remaining were given some cash compensation arbitrarily fixed by local administration and then neatly forgotten.