India – RSF Condemns Evictions in West Bengal
We hereby share an unofficial translation of a statement published by Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF) on the 31st of May.
“Power grows out of the barrel of a gun” — Comrade Mao Tsetung
Since seizing power in West Bengal, the Brahminical Hindutva fascist RSS-BJP government has been taking one anti-people step after another across the state.
We have seen that people’s homes have been demolished in several places, calling them ‘illegal’. Houses have been demolished with bulldozers without compensation in the name of road expansion. Hawker evictions have started everywhere on roads and stations. Along with this, slum demolition is also going on with the help of railway authorities. All this is being done with the gunfire of armed police and CAPFs. Hawker evictions were carried out in the Dum Dum station premises at around 12 midnight tonight. Although the people peacefully resisted, shops were undemocratically demolished by using bulldozers in the presence of hundreds of police and military forces. The government has already carried out evictions in almost every station including Howrah, Sonarpur, Sealdah, Uttarpara, Memari, Burdwan.
On one hand, the employment picture across the country is terrible. Unemployment is the highest in the last decades. Recruitment tests are highly irregular. Despite a large number of vacancies (more than 1 million) remaining in various fields, minimal recruitment is being carried out. In fact, many vacancies have been abolished instead of recruitment. In the meantime, all the examinations that are being conducted are also being postponed due to various allegations including question leakage, fraud. This is the real picture of the service sectors across the country. On the other hand, agriculture has become unprofitable for ordinary peasants. In fact, a large part of the peasants in our country do not have their own land. That is, they work as sharecroppers or agricultural laborers on other people’s land. Even then, the income from the crop ends up in paying loans, crop fertilizers, seeds, machinery rentals, etc. At the end of the season, there is nothing left in hand. The terrible picture of the agricultural system can be understood from the statistics of peasant suicides (about 28 peasants and agricultural laborers commit suicide every day). The condition of the labor sectors was already unhealthy. We have seen that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were massive layoffs in various organizations and factories. Currently, thanks to the four labor codes of the central government, the owners have the right to lay off workers at will, reduce wages, increase working hours, and protect workers from liability.
In this situation, many people have been forced to take loans from various private institutions at high interest rates to provide food for themselves. Here too, they have not got the facilities of government banks. The only source of income for many families is their shop, rickshaw, pushcart or van. The current fascist government is busy demolishing their workplaces and homes without providing proper livelihood and rehabilitation to these people. We have seen that hawkers were evicted during the previous Trinamool government. At that time, the then opposition leader, BJP’s Shuvendu Adhikari, gave a message to stand by the hawkers. But today, having assumed the post of Chief Minister, they are evicting hawkers and slums on a larger and more destructive scale.
These small traders or hawkers are an important part of our domestic economy. Clearly, the double engine fascist government is inherently anti-small traders as brokers of the big bourgeoisie at home and abroad. After the hawkers were evicted by labeling them ‘illegal’, more attacks are being directed at them. Notices have already been issued to their shops in various places and verbal threats have been made.
We have seen that since coming to power at the Centre, the BJP government has repeatedly put small traders in danger with decisions like GST and demonetization. In fact, the big bourgeois Adani, Ambanis, Tata, Birlaras want to monopolize the markets at the grassroots level of the country. Shopping malls and big store chains are being opened. The BJP government’s ‘development model’ against hawkers and small traders is in the interest of these capitalists. They have set out to fulfill this very purpose with the help of the party-police-goondabahini clique.
We, on behalf of the Revolutionary Students’ Front (RSF), call upon all democratic, anti-fascist, progressive organizations and individuals of the State to unite against the anti-people eviction plan of the fascist government. A comprehensive anti-fascist collective militant mass movement is the call of the hour in the interests of all the oppressed and marginalized people of the society, including workers, peasants, hawkers, small traders, students, women, Dalits, minorities, tribals.
We demand:
1) The government must compensate all affected hawkers and small traders.
2) The government must provide employment and housing for every victim.
3) The illegal and unconstitutional, fascist bulldozer rule must be stopped immediately.
