Die Rote Fahne, Austria: the Indian State Murders Revolutionary Leader Basavaraj in a Counterrevolutionary Attack
Hereby we publish an unofficial translation of an article published by the newspaper Die Rote Fahne.
On the 21st of May, five days ago, the Minister of Home Affairs of the reactionary Indian State Amit Shah, announced triumphantly, that the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), Comrade Namballa Kesava Rao – with the nom de guerre Basavaraj – has been murdered. According to the reports of the Media, 26 other comrades have been supposedly murdered by the reactionary Modi regime. Basavaraj was since seven years ago the leader of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), the strongest revolutionary force in India, which is considered by the Modi government as the “biggest internaldanger in the Indian State”.
And that with reason, because the People’s War that is being led by the Communist Party has deep roots in the Indian population, especially in the indigenous people (Adivasi) and the poor peasants of central India, and counters the tremendous exploitation of the Indian population and natural resources, as well as the militarization of the country that stands under the leadership of the Hindu-nationalists.
According to the media reports, the massacre took place in the forests of Abujhmad of Narayanpur, a frontier region of the federal state Chhattisgarh and Telangana (central India). It is a part of an operation, that was baptized “Black Forest”, and that was led by the units of the “District Reserve Guard”, a counterinsurgency unit that was trained specially for the murder of revolutionary Cadres and leaders. There are various different versions of the detailed circumstances of the murder and it is a usual manner of the Indian government and its armed forces, to spread false information, why it is necessary to wait for the position of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), to report about the certain circumstances of the murder of this doubtlessly important revolutionary leader and communist.
“Operation Black Forest” is part of the current biggest counterrevolutionary campaign by the Indian State, “Operation Kagaar”, in the federal State of Chhattisgarh, the heart of India and one of the centers of the New Democratic Revolution that is lead by the Maoist Party. At the same time this region is one of the richest in natural resources of the country, why the Indian government is pushing through expansive expulsions of indigenous and peasants, to hand over the natural resources to the international monopolists, and enrich itself. The expulsions of the population is one of the reasons of the strength of the revolutionary movement int this area, because the revolutionary, communist forces (in India they are also known as the “Naxalites”) lead in the last decades many successful struggles against the mega-projects and expulsions and lead in these areas that have been liberated of the Indian central force the construction of a new People’s Power, independent People’s Committees, where the people themselves manage their own affairs.
Since 2017 Chhattisgarh has been continuously militarized by the Modi government, at the moment there are, only in the area of Bastar (a part of Chhattisgarh) 320 military and paramilitary bases and over 66,000 soldiers and paramilitaries in the whole federal State, that “shall annihilate” the “internal enemy” in a encirclement campaign. Prime Minister Modi repeatedly put up the goal of destruction of the revolutionary movement, this time until the 31st March 2026. Spitting slobber, the minister of home affairs Amit Shah proclaimed the murder of Comrade Basavaraj and said that this treacherous attack “has broken the backbone of the Maoist movement”. But the weight of this loss, that the Indian revolution and the Communist Party of India (Maoist) by the murder of Comrade Basavaraj and 26 other Comrades suffered, hinting the 70 year old history of the revolutionary movement as well as the contemporary representatives of the progressive and revolutionary movement to another development, different to the one the Hindu-Fascist State apparatus is dreaming of. Comrade Ajith, a long term communist leader of the revolutionary movement, who himself got imprisoned for years without process by the Indian State, wrote in response of the “triumphant” news of the Minister of inner affairs, the following: “What it fails to realize [Translator’s note: the government], blinded by its fascist arrogance, is this — the new democratic revolution was not born from an individual. Nor will it end with the martyrdom of an individual, no matter how precious that life was for the people and the revolution. This is not the first time that the Maoist movement in India has lost an eminent leader. This is not the first time the ruling classes gloated over it. Soon enough it proved to be temporary. Soon enough they were forced to once again acknowledge the Maoist movement as the biggest threat to their rule. That is what is going to be repeated, again and again and again… till the revolution wins.” Similar words expresses the revolutionary journalist Harsh Takor, who sees the social-economic reasons for the revolution in India as biggest source for its following development, reason why despite singular successes the Indian State didn’t manage to drown the revolutionary movement in blood in its campaigns of annihilation: “This genocide is certainly a mortal blow for the new democratic revolution, but somehow will crystallise the beginning of a new episode, where the ongoing fight will be intensify , standing on one side are the greatest children of India who are sacrificing all their might to protect the country’s water-forest-land and on the other there are some cowardly paper tigers who are executing their country’s citizens on the behest of the Ruling Party and foreign corporates”.
The “subcontinent” India, the most populated country in the world , with its vast forests, gigantic landscapes, rich resources and geographic location, doesn’t only show in the interior that the sharpening contradictions of a capitalist-bureaucratic exploitation machine that is taking advantage of the feudal structures of latifundium and the cast-system, but also inside the blocks of power of the imperialist world system is under dispute. In the last decades the USA has located more than ten thousands of soldiers to support the Indian government in their “War against the People” and is hoping to to not only gain economic liberties, but also to find in the Indian government a “henchmen” against their “strategic enemy” China. Israel is sending high modern drones that are used in Chhattisgarh region in the counterinsurgency. The vast military equipment of the international big powers as well as their lackeys in the oppressed countries, has mostly its biggest opponent in its “own” population and the Indian revolution is a big example for the fact that a real reorganization of society, the down throw of the ruling imperialist order is only possible through the force of the people and their own revolutionary leadership.
That’s why the murder of the General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) is unleashing a wave of consternation and sadness inside the Indian revolutionary movement as well ans the international communist movement. But more then the sadness, the will and firm conviction to break the counterrevolutionary campaign Kagaar and to develop the new-democratic revolution is strengthening, it means the same struggle that the Comrade Basavaraj was dedicating his life to. Charu Mazumdar, who was one of the founders of the revolutionary movement in India that is orientating itself in its worldview on Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and who himself got tortured until death for his revolutionary activism, facing hard times and challenging moments the following: “This is not the time for grief Comrades, – this is the time to rise like fire!”
We want to call our readers to visit and support the current campaigns, actions, and events against the Operation Kagaar and the defense of the revolution in India.
Sources:
– Al Jazeera: ‘Warzone’: Why Indian forces have launched a deadly assault on Maoists.
– Harsh Takor: Let us dip or blood in memory of CPI (Maoist) General Secretary Comrade Namballa Keshava Rao, who was killed in genocide carried by the Indian security forces.
– Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization (FACAM): Condemn the cold blooded killing of Nambala Keshava Rao, Basavaraj, general Secretary of CPI(Maoist) and 26 Rebels, while maoists observe unilateral ceasefire.
– Ajith (Murali): INDIA: In memory of Comrade Basavaraj, Nambala Keshava Rao
