India: Article on the Recent Arrests of Anirudh Rajan and Ajay Kumar

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Why are Trade Unionist Anirudh Rajan and Lawyer Ajay Kumar Behind Bars? Matters of International Concern

This week, the reactionary Indian state’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), an outfit designated with the sole task of terrorizing all revolutionary, democratic and progressive forces in the country conducted several raids across the states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. The targets ranged from human rights lawyers like Pankaj Tripathi, student leader like Devendra Azad to peasant union leader Sukhwinder Kaur. At the same time, anti-displacement activist and lawyer Ajay Kumar was arrested, brought to his home in Mohali, which was then raided and he is now under custody of the reactionary Indian state in Lucknow, where he is to be indicted under the NIA’s “Northern Regional Bureau (NRB) Revival” case. During the same week, the Anti-Terror Cell (ATC) arrested Manesar General Mazdoor Sangh (MGMS) President Anirudh Rajan in Bengaluru during his journey back home to Chennai under charges of organizing “meetings to radicalize people” and being a Maoist courier. Rajan is still under 14-day custody and one can only imagine what torture the Indian police will mete out on the trade unionist and labour rights activist, for whom the NIA has already left Delhi for Bengaluru to potentially indict him into the NRB Revival case.This not the only such case that the NIA is overseeing, others like the Magadh Zone Revival case and the amoeba that has become the case of Sanjoy Deepak Rao in Telangana has allowed the NIA to target more than a thousand different activists, students, lawyers, educators, intellectuals, trade unionists, professionals, workers or farmer. No activist is spared as part of these spider-web-like cases, all under the garb of countering the activities of the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist).

The arrests of Ajay Kumar and Anirudh Rajan though, are a sign of not only an intensifying onslaught on activists but is an alarm bell for the working class organizations all across the country: saffron terror is at their doorsteps and the current state of inaction will only spell disaster for the various trade unions and labour rights organizations in the country. While the various revisionist trade unions and their political parties hold onto the idea of India still being a legitimate claimant to the branding of “world’s largest democracy,” tooting this horn at this juncture and relying on the slogans of the reactionary Indian state is to put one’s own hand into the mouth of a predator in the hopes that it will not bite. To understand this better, let us deal with firstly, why are these two arrests so important for the democratic rights struggle in India and secondly, why the Indian state has violated the provisions of its own Constitution to make for such arrests.

Corporate Loot: Broken Backs of Peasants and Workers

Nestled in the bosom of one of the world’s oldest geological features on Earth, the Aravalli Hill Range, lies the town of Manesar in Haryana. It is an established industrial township, constructed for the sole reasoning of providing an avenue for manufacturing and assembly industries. Manesar is also home to the famous Maruti Suzuki workers’ struggle. Stuck between rural Haryana and the glitz of Delhi-NCR, Manesar displays the typical characteristics of India’s few industrial belts. The workers in Manesar, who come from all parts of the country, live in spartan conditions, many in temporary jobs the loss of which will often compel them to move to non-existent greener pastures in the hopes of getting paid. It is also home to some of the most advanced proletariat in the country. It is here that Anirudh Rajan dedicated his work. From Karl Marx to Vladimir Lenin, all revolutionaries have found in the proletariat the most advanced class for leading democratic and socialist struggles. Marx, in the Communist Manifesto, famously concluded, “the proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.” The proletariat thus holds the power of changing the course of society as a whole upon its march, when it turns the tools against the ruling class.

Yet, the various trade unions are typically stuck with revisionist leadership which has introduced passivity among the organized proletariat. Anirudh Rajan’s vision of the trade union was one where the proletariat played the very vanguard role in the struggles against all forms of oppression and exploitation, along with the struggles for its own economic demands. The revolutionary trade union to him is a union of the workers which is dynamic in its ability to counter both the economic suppression of the workers along with the fulfilling the proletariat’s political task of social revolution. The dangerous potential of this political assertion is not amiss for the Indian state, which had already established an Anti-Naxal Cell in Manesar along with the training facility for the National Security Guard (NSG). The arrest of Anirudh Rajan is the manifestation of the ruling class anxiety against proletarian mobilization against brahmanical Hindutva fascism. In the last decade, all pretenses of “labour rights” have been put to the side with the introduction of the new Labour Codes. The revisionist trade unions have failed to build any movement against these changes and the compromised politics of revisionists have paved the way for not only the proletariat failing to prevent the erosion of its economic demands, but has also been unable to participate in the struggle for democratic rights, in unity with peasants who have been waging protracted struggles since 2020 from the borders of Delhi to Silger, or even in anti-fascist assertions. During COVID-19, the Yogi Adityanath government even went as far as to suspend providing licenses to new unions in a bid to curb and any and all organization and politicization of the working class. The arrest of a trade union leader under the charges of being part of the CPI (Maoist) opens the floodgates to the arrest of various labour rights activists and union leaders who have until now, not borne the major brunt of UAPA cases, Enforcement Directorate (ED) and NIA raids which have become commonplace under the brahmanical Hindutva fascist regime. Any political agent intent on breaking from the passivity of revisionist trade unions will be a victim of state terror.

While attacking a leader of the working class, the arrest of Ajay Kumar is an attack on a major leader of the anti-displacement struggle serving the interests of the Adivasi peasantry in India’s resource-rich regions as well as peasants in various parts of Haryana. The All-India Convenor of Visthapan Virodhi Janvikas Andolan (VVJVA), Kumar’s politics was in direct opposition to the interests of imperialist multi-nationals and big corporates against whom the Adivasi peasants, from Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana to Chhattisgarh, have been vehemently struggling. VVJVA’s work spanned over nearly two decades, which saw the joint platform accumulating popular support in favour of the anti-mining and anti-displacement struggles in the region. VVJVA stood in direct opposition to imperialist and big Indian corporate interests, in favour of people-centric model of development. Upon the defeat of Operation Green Hunt, the Indian state arrested various anti-displacement activists such as Dr. G.N. Saibaba, before it commenced Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar. The Indian state has now concluded Operation SAMADHAN-Prahar and has launched the Surajkund Scheme, an escalation which takes the tactics deployed inn Bastar and other areas of red resistance to the entire country, in an offensive against all revolutionary, democratic and progressive forces. The arrest of Ajay Kumar, a contemporary of Dr. GN Saibaba, is an attempt to silence all such voices rousing a movement against this Surajkund Scheme. The arrests of Ajay Kumar and Anirudh Rajan is a representation of the brahmanical Hindutva fascist Indian state’s strategic offensive upon the interests of the proletariat and peasantry of India.

Is Being A Maoist Enough To Warrant Imprisonment?

The charges against both individuals are those of being members of the banned CPI (Maoist). But why is this enough to warrant imprisonment in the first place, in what claims to be the “world’s largest democracy”? Given the principles enshrined in the Indian state’s own Constitution in Articles 19 (freedom of expression of ideas) and 21 (right to protection of life and personal liberty), the arrests of Anirudh Rajan and Ajay Kumar are illegal within the context of the reactionary Indian state’s own democratic claims! No weapons were found upon the arrests of both the individuals, the only charge is that they were allegedly organizing meetings to “radicalize” people, to “recruit them” within their organization and were members of CPI (Maoist). While no evidence to prove this claim itself produced by the NIA, mere membership of any organization, even proscribed ones, is not a crime.

In Elfbrandt v. Russel (384 US 1966), Justice Douglas of the US Supreme Court stated, “those who join an organization but do not share its unlawful purpose and who do not participate in its unlawful activities surely pose no threat, either as citizens or as public employees. A law which applies to membership without the `specific intent’ to further the illegal aims of the organization infringes unnecessarily on protected freedoms. It rests on the doctrine of `guilt by association’ which has no place here.” Similar sentiment was echoed in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath (341 US 1951) by the US Supreme Court. The Indian Supreme Court recognized these two judgements and further added, “we respectfully agree with the above decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court, and are of the opinion that they apply in our country too. We are living in a democracy, and the above observations apply to all democracies.” In State of Kerala v. Raneef (2011), Dr. Raneef was charged with association with Popular Front of India (now, a banned organization) and it was recognized that mere association with the organization, even it was illegal, is not enough to warrant criminalization. In Arup Bhuyan v. Union of India (2011), this was established firmly as part of Indian jurisprudence when the Supreme Court bench stated, “mere membership of a banned organization will not make a person a criminal unless he resorts to violence or incites people to violence or creates public disorder by violence or incitement to violence.” The organization in question here was the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), a militant national liberation organization.

Even when such positions have been established by the Indian state itself, the arrests made in this case are in complete contravention to the democratic principles established under the Constitution. It should come as no surprise that in 2023, the Arup Bhuyan 2011 judgement was reviewed by the Supreme Court and overturned, on matters of mere procedure, to make way for arrests in vein of Bhima Koregaon-16. On matters of principle, it still stands that such arrests arein violation of Articles 19 and 21. This was once again echoed in GN Saibaba & Ors v. State of Maharashtra, where the Supreme Court reiterated that upholding Marxist-Leninist-Maoist philosophy, accessing Naxalite literature, studying, propagating this ideology is neither evidence of membership of CPI (Maoist), nor enough evidence to claim that one is engaged in “terrorist” activities, rather, it amounts to a violation of Article 19. But even when the old jurisprudence is still reflected by the Indian Supreme Court, it should be clear that the process by which these activists will have to go through is itself such a protracted one that the process itself will become the punishment since bail is rarely granted in these cases. The prolonged periods of undertrial incarceration will ensure the damage done to the political tasks being pursued by these activists and will at the end, fulfill the interests of the ruling classes which the reactionary Indian state serves.

Why is This A Matter of International Concern?

Imperialism is facing one of its worst crisis yet, and as the old imperialist alliances are changing to formation of new ones, amidst sharpening inter-imperialist contradictions, oppressed nations and people are bearing the brunt of the crisis, whether it be through proxy wars such as the Russia-Ukraine war or the escalation of existing class wars such as the Palestinian national liberation war and Israel’s genocidal offensive. At the same time, the imperialist lust for superprofits is manifesting in semi-colonial semi-feudal states to cast away all pretenses of democratic rights and resort to fascism, rescinding welfare measures for the sake of naked corporate loot of natural resources and exploitation at the service of foreign finance capital. These local governments, at the service of imperialism and the local comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie are pushing “development” via the barrel of a gun, through rampant militarization of resource-rich peasant-inhabited areas. These are also the areas home to precarious flora and fauna, rich in wildlife and ecological value, which have now been turned into warzones. Abhujmaad hills in Bastar, for example, is lush with greenery, which has now been turned into the world’s most militarized area (in terms of military personnel appointed per inhabitants). The only reason the Dandakaranya forest at large has not faced the same ecological destruction that occurred in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil is because of the presence of organized resistance by the Adivasi peasantry. Activists like Ajay Kumar played a key role in this process and the arrests of his like are an internationalist concern for all concerned with the environment. The emboldening of fascist regimes across the world, the granting of “democratic” credentials to said states, will only further erode the overall state of affairs in terms of democratic rights for all across the world. The success of class struggle in the oppressed nations will translate to success for the workers all over the world. When dealing with England’s imperialist domination over Ireland, Karl Marx concluded, “the English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important for the social movement in general.”

Concluding Remarks

It is in these times that all aspiring activists, democratic-minded individuals and revolutionaries must galvanize, in times of fascist onslaught by the reactionary Indian state and the ruling classes, and combat the saffron terror being unleashed upon revolutionary and progressive movements. With India’s rich history of revolutionary struggles, the masses of the country and its leadership have the potential to replace every murdered and incarcerated revolutionary with 50 more of the same, hardened and sharpened by the experiences of the old. The immediate release of Anirudh Rajan and Ajay Kumar is a task of utmost urgency, for which all democratic-minded peace-loving people must struggle or else the fascist state will be further emboldened in its attack upon people’s leaders. At the same time, young revolutionaries marching onto the footsteps of Anirudh Rajan and Ajay Kumar must recall what Karl Marx wrote, in his Reflections of a Young Man on the Choice of Profession, “if we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for mankind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people.”