Press Statements from DYFI and AIDWA on the Palghar arrest

Press statement from the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI), dated 20th November 2012:

Maharashtra government must stop patronizing semi-fascist forces
 
The Maharashtra State Committee of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) condemns the terror unleashed jointly by Shivsena elements and police authorities against two young women Shaheen Dhada and Rini Srinivasan residing in Palghar town in Thane district. As per media reports, 21 year old Shaheen  posted a comment in the social networking website ‘Facebook’ expressing her protest against forcing the people to observe ‘Bandh’ in the wake of Bal Thackarey’s demise. Rini is said to have “liked” Shaheen’s facebook posting. In an obviously co-ordinated move to terrorize these two girls, Police officials arrested the girls on false charges and Shivsena cadre vandalized the hospital run by Shaheen’s uncle Dr. Abdul Dhada.  The arrested girls were released on bail by a local court on the surety of 15000 rupees.
 
As rightly pointed out by Press Council chairman Justice Markandey Katju, if the state government fails to protect the two girls and punish the police officers who abused their power, it would simply mean that our state is not being run in a democratic manner as envisaged by the Constitution.
 
Congress-NCP rule in Maharashtra is characterized by brazen attack on the livelihood and economic rights of the people along with shameless looting of public wealth. This government consciously promotes semi-fascist Shivsena and MNS in order to disable the people from putting up united democratic resistance against corruption and neo-liberal economic policies that are causing misery to millions of poor and lower-middle class families. 
 
State patronage to Shivsena right from its earliest days is a well-known fact. The Shaheen Dhada episode is just another example of how government machinery under Congress rule connives with semi-fascist forces. 

We appeal to all democratic-minded citizens to unite in the great tradition of Samyukta Maharashtra movement and stand up against semi-fascist Shivsena, its break-away faction MNS and Congress-NCP regime who are out to take away basic rights of the people by terror tactics. We demand the following from the Maharashtra government:

1. Withdraw the case against Shaheen Dhada and Rini Srinivasan immediately.
2. Suspend from service and prosecute the Policemen who abused their power to terrorize Shaheen and Rini.
3. Arrest all the criminals who vandalized Dr. Abdul Dhada's Orthopeadic Hospital immediately.
4. Stop patronizing semi-fascist forces.

Adv.Bhagwan Bhojane (President)
Preethy Sekhar (Secretary) 
DYFI Maharashtra State Committee

=====================================================

Press statement from the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), dated 20th November 2012:

AIDWA DEMANDS STRICT ACTION AGAINST THE POLICE AND SHIV SAINIKS FOR ARBITRARY ARRESTS OF TWO YOUNG WOMEN

The Maharashtra State Committee of the All India Democratic Women’s Association (Akhil Bharatiya Janwadi Mahila Sanghatana) expresses deep concern and outrage at the high handed arrest of two young women in Palghar, Thane for expressing on ‘Face book’ their discomfort at the complete shutdown in Mumbai following the death of Bal Thackeray. The local Shiv Sainiks, true to the intolerance practiced by their party, intimidated them into giving a forced apology and complained to the police. Shockingly, the Palghar police, instead of providing them with security and taking action against those harassing them, arrested the two young women on serious charges of outraging religious feelings and posting an offensive message. These were later changed to an arbitrary charge of ‘creating enmity’ after a public uproar. This is a complete travesty of the Constitutional right to democratic freedom of expression available to every citizen of India. 

The complicity of the Police emboldened the local Shiv Sainiks and their supporters to vandalise two hospitals of a relative of one of the women and intimidate their families. The police did not act against, nor arrest, those responsible for breaking law and order. These developments seriously compromise our democratic functioning and weaken the law and order in the state. The AIDWA in Thane has continuously being raising the problem of arbitrary and false cases and lack of action by the rural Thane police who side with political elements and criminal forces.

We demand that the Maharashtra Government takes strict action against those responsible for the arbitrary arrest and charges. The Shiv Sainiks responsible for the harassment and violence must be arrested immediately. The Government must ensure protection for the young women and their families, withdraw the false cases and compensate them for the high handedness of the police.

Kiran Moghe, President
Sonya Gill, Secretary
Mariam Dhawale, Vice-President

The Shiv Sena: Ace Practitioner of Reactionary Identity Politics

The CPI(M) has always had sharp political differences with the Shiv Sena (SS) and its leader the late Mr Bal Keshav Thackeray. Under his leadership, the SS always played upon the reactionary politics of identity, which diverted attention from the grave problems facing the people of Maharashtra.  

First, the CPI(M) has resolutely been opposed to the violent culture of regional chauvinism practiced by the Shiv Sena, and now also by its breakaway organisation, the MNS. Mr Thackeray began his politics by portraying the south Indian community of Mumbai as stealing the jobs of Maharashtrians, and later expanded the same logic to migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Enmity, thus, became the basis of his party's programme, which was in complete contradiction to the spirit of unity put forward by the Samyukta Maharashtra movement that was effectively led in the 1950s by the Left and secular forces, comprising the Communist Party, Praja Samajwadi Party, Peasants and Workers Party and Republican Party.

Secondly, the Shiv Sena ideology was deeply communal and the CPI(M) has consistently fought this ideology. In 1992, Mr Thackeray welcomed the demolition of the Babri Masjid. The Shiv Sena was deeply complicit in the Mumbai riots and the violence against Muslims after the Babri demolition, and this role of the Shiv Sena and Mr Thackeray was detailed with evidence by the Justice Srikrishna Commission of Enquiry. Not surprisingly, the Srikrishna Commission Report was rejected out of hand by the then SS-BJP state government.

Thirdly, the Shiv Sena's politics was deeply anti-working class and anti-communist, and in this it received the full and consistent support of successive Congress governments and of the big capitalists of Mumbai. In the late 1960s, it were the Communists who were at the receiving end of Mr Thackeray's violent political practice. Offices of the Girni Kamgar Union were regularly attacked by Shiv Sainiks and Communist leaders were brutally assaulted. In June 1970, this violence against communists reached its peak when Comrade Krishna Desai, MLA, was murdered by Shiv Sainiks. But the communist movement in Maharashtra has survived in spite of these physical attacks and constant threats.

Fourthly, the Shiv Sena's politics was deeply anti-Dalit. This was made clear in the physical attacks by Shiv Sainiks on the Dalit Panthers in the early 1970s leading to the death of Panther activist Bhagwat Jadhav; in the SS stand opposing Dr Ambedkar's 'Riddles in Hinduism'; in the action of the SS-BJP state government withdrawing all the police cases of atrocities against SCs in Marathwada region; and most of all, in the shocking police firing by the SS-BJP regime at the Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar in Mumbai, which led to the killing of 11 innocent Dalit people.

Finally, there was the Shiv Sena's opposition to democracy and support of dictatorship. This was made amply evident by Mr Thackeray's support to the Emergency; his open glorification of Hitler; and the constant SS attacks on journalists, cultural and literary figures and others who dared to be critical.

This last point has been repeated today with the arbitrary arrests of two young girls in Palghar, and the attacks on the hospital of the uncle of one of them. These young girls were arrested simply because they, on social networking sites, expressed disapproval of the bandhs of the last couple of days.

The CPI(M) Maharashtra state committee condemns the arbitrary arrests of these young girls, demands that the cases against them be dropped forthwith and further demands strict action against the police officers who instituted these cases and also against the goons who attacked the hospital. The Congress-NCP state government must take immediate action and stop pandering to the whims and fancies of the SS, as it has often done in the past.

The CPI(M) has always, and will in the future, continue to fight the chauvinist, communal, casteist and anti-working class policies of the Shiv Sena.  

Dr Ashok Dhawale
Secretary, Maharashtra State Committee,
Member, Central Committee,
Communist Party of India (Marxist) - CPI(M)