Tuesday, November 03, 2015

Condemn the arrest of Revolutionary Singer Kovan! Release him immediately!
Shut down TASMAC in Tamil Nadu!

Shut Down The TASMAC,
Shut It Down

How Many Kids Should Perish
How Many Women Should Lose Home
How Many Women Should Lose Home
How Many Elections Till / Will You Wait
How Many Elections Till / Will You Wait
Shut It Down – Now, Its Evil – You Know, Shut It Down.

Shut Down The TASMAC,
Shut It Down

Liquor To Gather Crowd
Liquor To Garner Votes
Liquor To Garner Votes
Liquor To Shout Their Slogans
Liquor To Hold Their Flags
Liquor To Hold Their Flags
Parties You Know, Grow In The Brew
YOU, My Love, Are The Side Dish In Their Electoral Game.
You Are The Side Dish In Their Electoral Game.
Come On, You Only Need A Big Lock
Not A Vote
To Shut This Evil Down

Shut Down The TASMAC,
Shut It Down

Father A Drunkard, Together The Son, Also In The Bar.
For The Woman The Menfolk Is Useless
The Menfolk Is Useless
Life Drowning In Sea Of Debts
Honour Auctioned In Streets
Honour Auctioned In Streets
You Think They Give Us Freebies?
They Squeeze Our Lives As Price
They Squeeze Our Lives As Price
Life’s Light Is Gone, Darkness Drowns Our Homes
Curse On The Lady

Shut Down The TASMAC,
Shut It Down

Ruined Are Our Lives
Broken Are Our Homes
Broken Are Our Homes
Fire In Our Bellies
Who Invited This Hell Here
Who Invited This Hell Here
Out The Liquor Shops, Ours Is This Village – And
Who Is The Collector To Decide?

Shut Down The TASMAC,
Shut It Down

The State Is Raged Against You – Don’t Plead
The Police May Pounce Upon You – Don’t Fear
Down The Shutters
Who Will Stop Us?
No Tasmac Here, In This Village, Anymore

Shut It Down.

(Comrade Kovan was arrested on sedition charges for singing the above song against the State Govt policy of liquor. He is a member of Peoples Art and Literary Association and campaigning for Peoples Power!)


Sunday, October 04, 2015

BEEF, FASCISM AND PSEUDO-CRACY
In Manu’s rule death sentence for beef eaters!

Friends, in the present day India, it’s impossible to describe it as a ‘democratic country’. Why? Just turn around your attention and notice the trends, read newspaper and you will agree with this thought. The current BJP government has left no stone unturned to bring fascism in all its shades and demolish the democratic spirit in toto, whether it’s the saffronization of educational institutions through the appointment of Rightwing fundamentalists i.e. FTII, NMML, ICHR and etc. or through further strengthening the neoliberal policies of loot and selling out the country’s resources. One of the hallmark of BJP government is its love with ‘BANS’. That has been the classic funda of Hindu fundamentalists for long, ‘banning books’, ‘banning movies’, ‘banning food’, banning right to express one’s thoughts’ and what not. Ban on Beef is phenomena happening in full force for last one year. Do you remember about the Ban on beef in Maharashtra, or Ban on Beef in Karnataka, Haryana’s BJP Chief Minister Khattar asking for a nation-wide ban on beef, or the recent ban on Beef in Kashmir where the muslims are the majority. Interesting thing is that rather than providing accessible education to all classes, rather than creating more jobs for unemployed youth, this government’s top leader is busy in travelling around the world, as if he is on ‘tourist visa’ and of course with selfies, how can one miss this fact. Banning of beef is particularly important to understand the psyche of this fascist government to impose its outdated, majoritarian casteist oppressive agenda on the people of this country. The state is trying its best to foster the anti-democratic agendas by attacking religious minorities. It is a ploy to criminalize the cultural habits of different communities and wipe out whatever little democratic space people have created after decades of struggles. It’s not just about Muslims who eat beef, a sizeable number of people from other castes, ethnic adivasi communities do eat beef including Hindus. The underlying force of this attack is caste and religious fundamentalism which is brahminical and cultural nationalism.

Beef eating is punishable to death only in the Manu ruled India when Beef is eaten by the entire world. In many countries people are killed by accidents and even because of religion but in India only people get killed because of a food. Nothing is comparable to the Hindu religious fanaticism. Is there anything uncivilized and barbaric than this! 

When our group The New Materialists raised this issue in 2012-2013, we conducted public meetings on ‘Politics of Food culture’, ‘Why Beef and Pork food festival in JNU’ and raised the demand for organizing a Beef and Pork festival in the campus. The Delhi High Court put a ban from organizing any such festival and some members were sent show cause notices and rusticated by the administration. At that time the radical left of this campus kept ‘mum’. Left forces of many shades tried their best to divert attention of the student community from this issue and actually murdered the democratic spirit of raising such important issues. Some even went to the extent denying this as an issue to be raised by Left. One of AISA member, said in Outlook magazine that beef is not poor peoples issue. Some senior ‘comrades’ said, ‘we are largest and responsible organization of this campus’ and hence we won’t raise our voice against food fascism in JNU. The New Materialists was the only organization to raise this issue of ‘Beef ban’during that time and many individuals and other organisations supported this demand. Friends, it was unfortunate that the so-called ‘Left forces’ have not come forward and resisted this hegemonization and fought for the diverse cultures and nationalities and spoke the language of ABVP. That this will polarize the campus, our votes will get divided, ABVP will come to power in elections and so on. We strongly condemn the lynching of Akhlaq in Dadri by mob and demand that the priest of the temple and other individuals involved in the brutal murder of Akhlaq should be booked and punished under NSA. Not only condemning but we should encourage the beef eaters and beef eating and fight for their rights otherwise we will lose our culture and habits one by one on the Hindu Altar. We also appeal the progressive forces of this campus to raise their voice against this attack on democratic choice of food and fight against the Rightwing Hindu fundamentalist state. 

Saturday, August 08, 2015

Condemn the brutal assault of Pachiayappa College Students by Jaya’s faithful dogs Police Rowdies!

TNM strongly condemns the arrest & assault of college students of Pachaiyappa College organized by Revolutionary Students Youth Front (RSYF) against the state-run TASMAC liquor shops. TASMAC or Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation is the state sponsored shop for cheap goods, but in reality only sells liquor. These liquors are procured from different proxies of politicians of various parties including AIADMK, DMK etc. The sale of liquors through these monopoly shops started during 2003 with the turnover of 3,500 crores, the same was raised to 21,680 crores during the year of 2012-13. The exponential increase of profit by 28,188 crores from 6800 shops is achieved by ruin of lakhs of families of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu tops India in road accident deaths caused by liquor. Slowly the addiction has increased visibly even in school children along with the youth. Ironicaly, one would find that, there are 4000 government run schools in Tamil Nadu and 6400 TASMAC liquor shops.

People’s Authority (PA), a forum bringing together common people coming together for this issue, is putting forth a strong fight to bring about a complete ban on alcohol that is causing loss & degradation of many lives. One must not see this demand to be conservative as this proposed prohibition is not based on a moralistic argument against alcohol, but a practical concern arising out of state-fed poison which keeps the working class & youth docile & compliant. Instead this politicization of many women, children & youths affected by rampant alcoholism, has forged the mobilization that enables people to take over the defunct state machineries, may it be the social problems that come with alcohol or any other issue.

The struggle against TASMAC started with about 600 students of Pachaiyappa’s College near a liquor shop at Aminjikarai. The students raised the slogans “kudikkava? Padikkavaa?” (To drink? Or To study?), criticizing the government. The protest ended with the raiding of liquor shop. The police retaliated with verbal abuse & lathi charge. Umpteen numbers of students struggled to come out of the brutal attack of mob but in vain. Female students were attacked & kicked by police men. The students were arrested From the reliable sources & it has been confirmed that the students were even attacked under custody. Most of the students are under medical treatment at KMCH hospital. A similar brutal attack was done by police men on students who protested against Pondicherry Vice-chancellor’s illegitimate appointment and anti-student decision. Now the Pachiappa College students are standing up an example for the entire state in dealing with the Govt running wine shops.

Another liquor shop in Coimbatore was taken over & destroyed by PA. RSYF activists protesting in both places are being harassed in jails, both physically & mentally. However, people have put forth a sustained yet strong fight against this state terror of the fascist Jayalalitha government. Com. Raju State organizer of  PA and twenty others, has been arrested & denied bail.


TNM finds this movement exemplary as it goes beyond rhetorics & adopts radical modes of waging a war against the state which doesn’t pay heed to welfare of people. This issue is not simply about destroying a wine shop but the people themselves taking the authority in their hand. We must engage in similar militant struggles that knocks sense into the ruling class. If we want to fight against the Brahmanical state, such movements led by the people are key because they ensure a political mobilization that cannot be crushed easily.

Friday, May 01, 2015

May Day: Defeat the State Structure which is unworthy to rule! Establish Peoples Authority!
Dear Comrades,
May Day this year presents the most important political task for the working class. It calls upon the working class to challenge the authority of the ruling class and to carryout struggles to establish the rule of the proletariat. Yes! The political, economic, and social structures of our country are all trapped in deep, most extraordinary, permanent and irrecoverable crisis. These structural elements have all become bankrupt, failed, collapsed, and turned into opposite forces, and are unable to fulfil responsibilities assigned to them. Stuck in a crisis, they are contradicting with each other, and are unable to move forward or make any progress. The system as a whole has become an unnecessary burden to the country and its people. The question remains before us is “Why should we continue to shoulder this burden?”

With the coming of NDA govt., Prime Minister at the centre, Chief Ministers at the states, the Central and the State Ministers, top police officials and bureaucrats – most of the individuals in these highest responsible positions are none but declared criminals; they not only go unpunished but are repeatedly elected or appointed to the same  position. All the important secret documents and the authority are given to this criminal gang which came to power through secret oath.

The Intelligence departments, police and the judiciary are all under the control of these criminals. Government administrative system, particularly the repressive machinery that has uncontrollable amounts of power and domination is omnipresent and is interfering in the lives of the people. Even the Supreme Court is afraid of reprimanding the military, paramilitary, police, intelligence and other repressive machineries for their criminal offences. Judges on the other hand turn-out be sexoffenders and criminals themselves, and are pawns in the hands of the aforesaid criminals. Justice has become not more than a mere commodity for sale.

Rule of law is completely absent and is, in fact, against the people. Administrative bodies are ripe with irregularities and corruption. Political system is criminalised. The troika of Criminal politicians, police and the bureaucrats are trampling upon the civil society and is dominating it completely.

The country's economy, tied to the imperialist world economy, is stuck in an irrecoverable crisis for more than a decade now, with one of the deepest of recessions, falling production, shortage of foreign currencies, and the irreversible decline in value of the Indian currency.

Universal education, eradication of child labour, public health, medical facilities, drinking water, toilet facility and shelter has all become a mirage. All these basic necessities of people are under the control of multinational corporations and criminal gangs. The livelihood of the farmers, fishermen, indigenous people, weavers, artisans, small traders are plundered to quench the insatiable thirst for corporate profits.

All natural resources of our country, not limited to forests, mountains, ocean, land, water and sky are plundered by domestic and multinational monopolies. The working class is being used as slaves by these corporations.

With atrocities against oppressed castes and religious minorities, sexual offences against the women are uncontrollably rising and society has become extremely intolerable and uncivilised. Social and cultural values ​​of the country and the organisational infrastructure are crumbling and are stuck in crisis. More than three-quarters of the population of the country are unable to sustain their living because of the caste atrocities and religious riots unleashed by brahminical fascists and oppressive castes.

Likewise, if each sector is analysed in detail, one can easily understand and realise that our country’s entire social, political, cultural structures as a whole are trapped under a chronic and severe crisis. It can be seen that the ruling classes, the state and the rulers are struggling, but still unable to recover the situation. This shows their inability and utter failure.

The ideologies, political theories, political policies, social norms, and rules that were justifying the legitimacy of this existing system, have gone bankrupt. Even the use of ideological, political and cultural weapons have not helped in recovering the country from the crisis, and it only shows the pathetic state of affairs where the country is sucked deeper and deeper into the black-hole of crisis.

The experts, ideologues and politicians of the ruling class, are unable to do anything about it; they are ideologically bankrupt and are unable to provide any legitimate solution for the crisis; they are silently declaring themselves to be unfit to govern.
What does this conveys?

·        Crises of our country’s social, political and cultural structures have reached their peak
·        These structures can no longer be reformed
·        The state and the ruling classes have lost the legitimacy to govern
·        Isolated struggle and isolated movements will not fetch us any results
·        There is absolutely no meaning in looking for a solution within the existing system which is totally bankrupt.
·        Solutions to our problems lie outside the existing political system!
·        The authority of the state and the ruling classes needs to be challenged!

·        People should build power structures of their own for their governance!

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

'BANNING' BEEF & 'SLAUGHTERING' DEMOCRACY

The present BJP led NDA government since it has been in power, has been waging ‘brahmanical terrorism’ in various forms- whether it’s imposition of Sanskrit or making Vande Mataram compulsory or ‘Good Governance’ day or ‘ghar-wapsi’. In less than a year’s time Modi government has left no stone unturned in saffronization through the education system or through the ordinance culture or continuous attacks on missionaries & vandalization of Churches. It is this brahmanical cultural aggression that has led to the destruction of identities of diverse traditions and nationalities. Their weapons such as Ayodhya issue, uniform civil code, installing sanghi members as heads of educational institutions are all aimed at imposing a hegemonizing culture, murdering the spirit of democracy & establishing the hindutva model of ‘neoliberalism’. The recent budget was a manifesto of the ‘corporate houses’ with increase in indirect tax, sharp decline in social welfare schemes and massive cut down of funds and subsidies in the sector of education, health, child and women development. Similarly, in the name of ‘reforming’ labour laws, BJP ruled governments have been attacking the working class by providing ‘hiring-firing’ power to the companies. The recent Land Acquisition act is another such step to exploit the farmers and providing lands on cheap rates to the corporates. 
The recent banning of beef in Maharashtra is continuation of these steps towards saffronisation of the diverse cultures of this country. ‘Maharahstra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 1995’ has received President’s assent. Twenty years back Shiv-Sena & BJP government had initiated it but was not sent for president’s approval. In the amendment cow-slaughter has been made a ‘non-bailable offence’ and this time the imprisonment will be 10 times more- 5 years. This is just another attempt to impose the superstitious beliefs and values which were opposed repeatedly by rationalists like Dr. Narendra Dabholkar (1945-2013) and Comrade Govind Pansare (1933- 2015). The BJP in Maharashtra formed its government with the help of another fascist offshoot the Shivsena, which had promised to deal with the problems of farmer suicide and unemployment. However, by camouflaging its Sanghi motives of so called “Holy Cow” protection the BJP-Shiv Sena brigade has again slaughtered the culture of food habits and choices. The Shiv Sena, adept in attacking the South Indian restaurants in Mumbai for serving beef receives Hafta (protection money) to stop the attacks. Their motive is only to spread the poisonous beliefs for imposing the hierarchical model of Hindutva.  These Sanghi elements are trying their best to foster their anti-democratic agendas by attacking religious minorities and kicking in controversial statements in the name of culture. Today Maharashtra has a 61% deficit in cow fodder. Peasants who have earned livelihood by selling their cows that aren’t milch or otherwise useful will bear the brunt as cow fodder shortage will affect them the most; such adverse situations will have a negative impact on the farmer suicides. Along with the poor peasants even the middle classes that used to consume beef will be gravely affected by this beef ban as their only option next to beef- mutton- is 4 times expensive and not as nutritious as beef. The real intention behind the ban is not protection of cows but it is about attacking the beef-industry comprising mostly of Muslims and about criminalizing the food habits of Muslims, Dalits, Shudras and minority nationalities by discarding their rights. The legal case by the Beef Merchants’ Association will also be futile as the judiciary is being controlled by Modi.
With this, Maharashtra joins many other Indian states where cow-slaughter has been banned - Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Bihar, Gujarat, Odisha, Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh; however the implementation differs depending on the political party in power. On the other hand some states such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland allow cow-slaughter and don’t even require ‘fit-for-slaughter’ certificates. BJP clown Subramanian Swami has asked central government to bring a central legislation on anti-cow slaughter so that other states can follow it.  It is unfortunate that the progressive forces of this country have not come forward and resisted this hegemonization and fight for the diverse cultures and nationalities. 

This beef ban under is yet another act of appeasement by the Bengali Brahmin Pranab Mukherjee to the Fadanvis Govt in the Sena-BJP regime in the Brahmanical land of Peshwas. If this Brahmanical terrorism continues it will be of no surprise if cow urine is declared as a national tonic one day! TNM has been raising this issue since its inception and the pseudo-left of this campus has shown nothing but the ‘criminal silence’ on this fight for democracy. We appeal to all the progressive forces of this campus to raise their voices against this ‘Brahmanical food untouchability’ and the onslaught on diverse cultures.

Sunday, February 08, 2015

CONDEMN THE BRUTAL POLICE ATTACK ON THE MADRAS LAW COLLEGE STUDENTS !!

 Demanding Immediate arrest of the Police officers who are responsible for this!!

Condemn the police attack on the students of 150 year old Dr. Ambedkar Govt Law College, Chennai that made their future questionable. The Police launched its murderous attack on struggling students against the proposal of shifting the college to the suburban area. We insist that a case has to be filed against the police against the assassination attempt and the criminal police officers should be arrested who are responsible for this.
This college is centrally located in Chennai and the students struggle on various issues creating an impact that pressurizes the government. These law college students are the one who have repeatedly raised their voice for various social issues.  There are many examples of their militant nature from the fight against the imposition of Hindi in 1965 to the Struggle for Tamil Eelam at 2009. Many political leaders and activists have emerged from this college. The Government wants to destroy the militant nature of the students and most importantly their stance that "the students should not be political, “is an attempt to keep the students away from the political scene. They are branded as renegades and rowdies so that they cannot fight for their rights.
At the same time, the government has tried to remove a lot of colleges to the suburbs where particularly the working class peoples children study, starting from the attempt to remove Ranimarry college which was abandoned due to the militant protest by the students. Next was an attempt to remove the Pachiappan college in the name of Metro project. Now today it is the law college. The actual purpose of the shifting the college is to let the upper class& CEOs to live in a protest free city. This means that the struggle for the rights or for raising the voices against the state, can be dealt with removing colleges from the metropolis. This means the privatization of public colleges in the future will be acceptable without any resistance due to such step-by-step depoliticization that happens through such atrocious attack on student politics.

Therefore, we should stand in solidarity with the struggling students as this is not the problem of a particular educational institution. The New Materialists extends its solidarity and support to the protesting students.