ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL WEEKLY

J anuary 34, 1681

batch of nine adibasis were brought in,
they were surrounded within the
hospital, assaulted and shot dead. As
per the official version nine rounds
were tired killing nine adivasis within
the hospital. This took place at 5 pm,
one hour after the first firing in the
market and in the presence of all
hospital stall who panicked and took
shelter in the operation room. The
dead bodies remained there till dark-
ness and the blood was not washed
off till the next day. That was why
Gua was closed for two days for out-
siders and not even a minister of the
state government an adivasi
accompanying the chief secretary was
allowed to enter Gua.
In India all sorts of barbarities have
taken place and are taking place every
day; but killing people who had come
with injury for treatment in hospitals
is something unheard of and utterly
levelling. I request the Indian Medical
Association to probe into the matter
immediately so that the hospitals are
not turned into slaughterhouses.
A K Roy, MP
Tribal Documentation Centre,
Gutusai, Chaibasa.
Forum agai nst National
Securi ty Act
AN All-India Forum against the then
National Security Ordinance and now
National Security Act (NSA) and
other such repressive laws was formed
in Bombay on November 30, . at the
end of a two-day All-India Conven-
tion against the NSO and the amend-
ment to the Criminal Procedure Code
(CPC) organised by the Lokshahi
liakk Sanghatana, Maharashtra. The
purpose of the Forum is to mobilise
people's opinion against the NSA and
the CPC and to build mass resistance
against such repression. The conven-
tion passed the following resolution
on th? then NSO:
The National Security Ordinance
and the Ordinance amending im-
portant provisions of the CPC re-
lating to bail and security proceed-
ings, etc, are a direct attempt by
the government, in the face of the
grim poverty of the vast masses of
people and other unorganised sec-
tions of the people in rural and
urban areas, to stamp out people's
efforts to organise themselves for
their democratic rights. The two
ordinances are also intended to stamp
out any criticism of the government's
failures. The ordinances are anti-
national and anti-people. Through
the NSO, the government is also
seeking to protect the interest of
imperialist countries with whom it
has friendly relations and treaties.
I t does this by threatening to use
the NSO against any real and ima-
gined criticism of these countries.
We demand the immediate with-
drawal of these two anti-national
and anti-people ordi nal s.
The Convention also demanded that
political activists, who out of convic-
tion strive to change the laws and
regulations governing society; must be
treated as political prisoners and while
in Retention accortfed necessary facili-
ties to enable them to keep in touch
with political events and activities. It
called for the immediate and uncon-
ditional release of all political prison-
ers now in custody.
The Convention adopted other
resolutions demanding the removal of!
the Disturbed. Areas Act, from the
statute books and the grant of bail as'
a matter of right to all arrested per-
sons. It condemned the government's
direct and indirect, attempts to sup-
press the peoples' right to investigate
and establish the truth about cases of
oppression and exploitation by the
ruling classes and the government. It
also condemned the so-called 'en-
counters' in which police murder
individuals in cold blood.
Finally,, the Convention declared
that the ruling classes have been
exercising their power to promulgate
ordinances against the interests of the
people and specially to suppress the
people's democratic rights and de-
manded the repeal of those provisions
in the Constitution which empower
I he Central and State governments to
issue ordinances.
A ntony Samy
, A nj al i PuRonn
Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana,
Bombay,
J anuary 14.
Little Nationalism Turned
Chauvinist
I HAVE just read Amalendu Guha's
article on Assam in your Special Num-
ber, October 1980. Although I am in
sympathy with most oft his main con-
clusions, I feel he is unduly biased
in favour of the CPI(M) as far as his
reporting on the resistance to chauvi-
nism is concerned.
It is quite absurd of him to claim
that Uttam Barthakur, the Marxist stu-
dent leader, is a CPI(M) cadre who
infiltrated AASU in order to thwart
chauvinist trends. Amalendu Guha
ought to have known that the CPI(M)
leadership has carried on a continuous
campaign of slander and denunciation
against the CPI(M-L) precisely for
attempting such a manner of dealing
with AASU. Uttam Barthakur's very
election to the general secretaryship of
the union Society at Cotton College,
the premier college in Assam, was
achieved due to the direct support of
the United Students' Federation (USF),
the student organisation which is close
to the orientation of the CPI(M-L).
For Amalendu Guha's information 1
would like to put on record the fact
that AASU leaders such as Brojen
Mahanta and Hareshwar Burman, long
members of the CPI(M-L), have tried
since 1972 to democratise AASU and
indeed had achieved majority in the
executive by 1977-78, I t was in the
next year that the Assamese bourgeois-
landlord clique went flat out to turn
AASU back into their own instrument
and captured the executive by un-
democratic methods. At that point,
thousands of AASU activists, under
the leadership of Uttam Barthakur and
others, joined the USF en masse. The
CPI(M) and its student wing, the SF1,
had nothing to do with this process
except to supply the leaven of their
usual slanders,
Amalendu Guha's article does not
mention the CPI(M-L) even once. Does
he not know of the nearly 30,000-
strong demonstration against chauvi-
nism in Gauhati by the CPI(M-L) in
September 1978? Even the chauvinist
press in Assam reported it on their
front pages. Or of the hundreds of
CPI(M-L) activists arrested by sections
of the chauvinist police? Or of the
three score or so CPI(M-L) cadres
seriously injured by chauvinist vio-
lence? Or, indeed, of the two CP1
(M-L) comrades killed by the chau-
vinists? Instead he has discovered
CPI martyrs when even the CPI has
not claimed any such martyrdom.
For this last error he may, at least,
blame what I believe to be a misprint
in the PUCL, Delhi, report, but what
about the omissions?
Amalendu Guhu even cites an
article by K M Sharma in your journal,
but does he know that Sharma is a
well-known militant who officiates as
a CPI(M-L) district secretary? It is
amazing that so old an Assam hand as
Amalendu Guha should be so conspi-
cuously in the dark about an important
aspect of the anti-chauvinist movement.
A r un Roy
Secretary, North Bengal
Regional Committee, CPI(M-L),
laljyaiguri,
J anuary 17.
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