Morcha.
Yesterday I visited the settlement around the iron-ore mines of Dalli Rajhara where the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha’s battle began. Now it has spread across the whole of Chhattisgarh. I was deeply moved by what I saw and the people I met. What inspired me most of all was the fact that yours is and always has been a struggle not just for workers’ rights and farmers’ rights, not just about wages and bonuses and jobs, but a struggle that has dared to dream about what it means to be human. Whenever people’s rights have been assaulted, whether they are women or children, whether they are Sikhs or Muslims during communal killings, whether they are workers or farmers who were denied irrigation, you have always stood by them.
This sharp, compelling sense of humanity will have to be our weapon in times to come, when everything—our homes, our fields, our jobs, our rivers, our electricity, our right to protest, and our dignity—is being taken from us.
This is happening not just in India but in poor countries all over the world, and in response to this the poor are rising in revolt across the world.
The culmination of the process of corporate globalization is taking place in Iraq.
Imagine if you can what we would feel if thousands of armed American soldiers were patrolling the streets of India, of Chhattisgarh, deciding where we may go, who we may meet, what we must think.
It is of utmost importance that we understand that the American occupation of Iraq and the snatching away of our fields, homes, rivers, jobs, infrastructure, and resources are products of the very same process. For this reason, any struggle against corporate globalization, any struggle for the rights and dignity of human beings must support the Iraqi people who are resisting the American occupation.
After India won independence from British rule in 1947, perhaps many of your lives did not undergo radical material change for the better. Even so, we cannot deny that it was a kind of victory, it was a kind of freedom. But today, fifty years on, even this is being jeopardized. The process of selling this country back into slavery began in the mid-1980s. The Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha was one of the first people’s resistance movements to recognize this, and so today you are an example, a beacon of light, a ray of hope for the rest of the country—and perhaps the rest of the world.
Exactly at the time when the government of India was busy undermining labor laws and dismantling the formal structures that protected workers’ rights, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha intensified its struggle for the rights of all workers—formal, informal, and contract laborers. For this Shankar Guha Niyogi and at least sixteen others lost their lives, killed by assassins and police bullets. 1
When the government of India made it clear that it is not concerned with public health, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, with contributions from workers, built the wonderful Shaheed Hospital and drew attention to the urgent necessity of providing health care to the poor.
When the state made it clear that it was more than happy to keep the poor of India illiterate and vulnerable, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha started schools for the children of workers. These schools don’t just educate children but inculcate in them revolutionary thought and create new generations of activists. Today these children led our rally, tomorrow they’ll lead the resistance. It is of immense significance that this movement is led by the workers and farmers of Chhattisgarh.
To belong to a people’s movement that recognized and struggled against the project of neo-imperialism as early as the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha did is to shoulder a great responsibility.
But you have shown, with your courage, your wisdom, and your perseverance, that you are more than equal to this task. You know better than me that the road ahead is long and hard.
As a writer, as a human being, I salute you. Lal Johar.
Part
Yesterday I visited the settlement around the iron-ore mines of Dalli Rajhara where the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha’s battle began. Now it has spread across the whole of Chhattisgarh. I was deeply moved by what I saw and the people I met. What inspired me most of all was the fact that yours is and always has been a struggle not just for workers’ rights and farmers’ rights, not just about wages and bonuses and jobs, but a struggle that has dared to dream about what it means to be human. Whenever people’s rights have been assaulted, whether they are women or children, whether they are Sikhs or Muslims during communal killings, whether they are workers or farmers who were denied irrigation, you have always stood by them.
This sharp, compelling sense of humanity will have to be our weapon in times to come, when everything—our homes, our fields, our jobs, our rivers, our electricity, our right to protest, and our dignity—is being taken from us.
This is happening not just in India but in poor countries all over the world, and in response to this the poor are rising in revolt across the world.
The culmination of the process of corporate globalization is taking place in Iraq.
Imagine if you can what we would feel if thousands of armed American soldiers were patrolling the streets of India, of Chhattisgarh, deciding where we may go, who we may meet, what we must think.
It is of utmost importance that we understand that the American occupation of Iraq and the snatching away of our fields, homes, rivers, jobs, infrastructure, and resources are products of the very same process. For this reason, any struggle against corporate globalization, any struggle for the rights and dignity of human beings must support the Iraqi people who are resisting the American occupation.
After India won independence from British rule in 1947, perhaps many of your lives did not undergo radical material change for the better. Even so, we cannot deny that it was a kind of victory, it was a kind of freedom. But today, fifty years on, even this is being jeopardized. The process of selling this country back into slavery began in the mid-1980s. The Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha was one of the first people’s resistance movements to recognize this, and so today you are an example, a beacon of light, a ray of hope for the rest of the country—and perhaps the rest of the world.
Exactly at the time when the government of India was busy undermining labor laws and dismantling the formal structures that protected workers’ rights, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha intensified its struggle for the rights of all workers—formal, informal, and contract laborers. For this Shankar Guha Niyogi and at least sixteen others lost their lives, killed by assassins and police bullets. 1
When the government of India made it clear that it is not concerned with public health, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, with contributions from workers, built the wonderful Shaheed Hospital and drew attention to the urgent necessity of providing health care to the poor.
When the state made it clear that it was more than happy to keep the poor of India illiterate and vulnerable, the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha started schools for the children of workers. These schools don’t just educate children but inculcate in them revolutionary thought and create new generations of activists. Today these children led our rally, tomorrow they’ll lead the resistance. It is of immense significance that this movement is led by the workers and farmers of Chhattisgarh.
To belong to a people’s movement that recognized and struggled against the project of neo-imperialism as early as the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha did is to shoulder a great responsibility.
But you have shown, with your courage, your wisdom, and your perseverance, that you are more than equal to this task. You know better than me that the road ahead is long and hard.
As a writer, as a human being, I salute you. Lal Johar.
Part
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