Police in the south-western city of Pune have started an inquiry on June 2nd at the Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU), concerning some documents on the universities website, that are allegedly “Maoist”. The documents in question were apparently uploaded over a decade ago by Professor Sujata Patel under the title ‘Documents on Human Rights Violations’.
Arvind Sovani, an Anti-communist who sparked the inquiry stated that “there was nothing about human rights in them” since they were open ‘Maoist’ documents. What these documents actually entail neither the police nor Mr. Sovani tell us. But what is the actual ‘human rights’ situation in India?
Human rights abuses are very common in India. For example, over 100 million people have been robbed of their land and been “displaced” since the Indian independence 1947, which is one of the highest numbers worldwide, even per capita. Attacks by fascist groups on national and religious minorities like Muslims are very common.
These atrocities do not just happen on their own, they are the result of the national, semi-colonial oppression of India, as most of the land of “displaced” people is used for mining and agriculture by big corporations, and the biggest share of these profits and resources goes to US, Russian and European companies. The state is the loyal servant of this imperialist exploitation and also facilitates the oppression in their interest. There are many examples of instances where the state has facilitated massacres against oppressed peoples, for example against the Muslim minority.
Only by overcoming their semi-colonial oppression will the Indian people be able to overcome these ongoing violations of ‘human rights’. There is no other way to resolve national and religious conflicts than through national liberation from imperialism. The imperialist oppressors however will not let that happen peacefully. This can only happen through new democratic revolution. The only force that is realizing the new democratic revolution through peoples war is the CPI(Maoist), the group that is the source of their fear and the aim of the censorship.
The Censorship is necessary for the Indian ruling classes because they need to create confusion about the character of India to prevent the masses from solidarizing with the people’s war. They cannot afford to have such documents available “for academic and educational purposes”.
They are also afraid of organizations an universities. This was shown by the wave of arrests of activists last year, which marked another big step by the Indian state towards fascism.
They can deal great damage to the peoples war through their fascist censorship, this is true. But they cannot hide the true semi-colonial character of the country from the Indian people forever, because they see it day after day in their life.
Therefore the Indian people will reject their message once they see who the the true servants of the country are and who is selling it.
Support the people's war in India!
Long live international solidarity!
