Sat, Mar 28, 2015 at 12:20 PM
Complete account of the brutal lathi charge
Police action on workers outside Delhi Secretariat on the orders of Kejriwal Government
From the beginning of this month, various
workers' organizations, unions, women's organizations, student and youth
organizations have been running 'WADA NA TODO ABHIYAN', which aims at reminding
and then compelling the Kejriwal government to fulfill its promises to the
working poor of Delhi, like the abolition of contract system in perennial
nature of work, free education till class 12th, filling 55 thousand vacant
seats in the Delhi government, recruiting 17 thousand new teachers, making all
the housekeepers and contract teachers as permanent, etc. The Kejriwal
government and the Police administration had already been intimated about the
demonstration of 25th March and the Police had not given any prior prohibitory
order. However, what happened on 25th March was horrendous and as I was part of
the activists who were attacked, threatened and arrested by the Police, I would
like to give an account of what happened on March 25, why did scores of workers,
women and students go to the Delhi Secretariat, what treatment was meted out to
them and how the majority of the mainstream media channels and newspapers
conveniently blacked out the brutal repression of wokers, women and students.
I have been active in the student movement and working class movement of Delhi for last 16 years and I can certainly say that I have not seen such Police brutality in Delhi against any demonstration. Women workers and activists and the workers' leaders were especially targetted. Male police personnel brutally beat up women, dragged them on streets by their hair, tore their clothes, molested them and harrassed them. It was absolutely shocking to see how several police personnel were holding and beating women workers and activists. Some of the women activists were beaten till the lathis broke or the women fainted. Tear gas was used on the workers. Hundreds of workers lied down on the ground to continue their peaceful Satyagraha. However, the police continued to brutally beat them. Finally, the workers tried to continue their protest at the Rajghat but the Police and RAF continued to hunt them down. 18 activists and workers were arrested by the Police including me. One of my comrades, Anant, a young activist was beaten brutally even after being taken in custody in front of me. The police abused him in the worst way. Similar treatment was meted out to other activists and workers in custody. Almost all of the persons taken in custody were injured and some of them were seriously injured.
Complete account of the brutal lathi charge
Police action on workers outside Delhi Secretariat on the orders of Kejriwal Government
On 25th
March, we witnessed one of the most brutal, probably the most brutal lathi
charge on workers in Delhi in at least last 2 decades. It is noteworthy that
this lathi-charge was ordered directly by Arvind Kejriwal, as some Police personnel
casually mentioned when I was in Police custody. It might
seem surprising to some people because formally the Delhi Police is under the
Central Government. However, when I asked this question to the Police, they
told me that for day-to-day law and order maintenance, the Police is obliged to
follow the directives from the CM of Delhi, unless and until it is in
contradiction with some directive/order of the Central Government. The AAP
government is now in a fix as it cannot fulfill the promises made to the
working class of Delhi. And the working class of Delhi has been refusing to
forget the promises made to them by the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal. As is known,
on February 17, the students of School of Open Learning, DU went in sizeable
numbers to submit their memorandum to the CM. Again, on March 3, hundreds of
DMRC contract employees went to submit their memorandum to the Kejriwal
government and were lathi-charged.
Why did thousands of workers, women and student go to the Delhi
Secretariat on March 25?
As mentioned earlier, a number of workers'
organizations have been running 'Wada Na
Todo Abhiyan' for last one month in Delhi to remind Arvind Kejriwal of the
promises he and his party made to the working people of Delhi. These promises
include the abolition of contract system on work of perennial nature; filling
55 thousand vacant posts of Delhi government; recruiting 17 thousand new
teachers and making the contract teachers as permanent; making all contract
safai karamcharis as permanent; making school education till 12th free; these are the promises that could be
fulfilled immediately. We know it will take time to build houses for all
jhuggi dwellers; however, a roadmap must
be presented before the people of Delhi. Similarly, we know that providing 20
new colleges will take time; however, Mr. Kejriwal had told the media that some
individuals have donated land for two colleges and he must tell now where are
those lands and when is the state government going to start the construction of
these colleges. It is not as if Kejriwal
government did not fulfill any of its promises. It fulfilled the promises made
to the factory owners and shop-keepers of Delhi immediately! And what did
he do for the contract workers? Nothing, except a sham interim order pertaining
to contract workers in the government departments only, which ordered that no
contract employee in government departments/corporations shall be terminated till
further notice. However, newspapers
reported a few days later that dozens of home guards were terminated just a few
days after this sham interim order! That
simply means that the interim order was just a facade to fool the contract
workers in the government departments and people of Delhi at large. These
are the factors that led to a suspicion among the working people of Delhi and
consequently various trade unions, women's organizations, student organizations
began to think about a campaign to remind Mr. Kejriwal of the promises made to
the common working people of Delhi.
Consequently, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA) was initiated on March 3 with a
demonstration of contract workers of DMRC. At the same day, the Kejriwal
government was informally informed about the demonstration of 25th March and
later an official intimation was given to the Police administration. The Police
did not give any prior prohibitory notice to the organizers before the
demonstration. However, as soon as the demonstrators reached Kisan Ghat, they
were arbitrarily told to leave! The police refused to allow them to submit
their memorandum and charter of demands to the Government, which is their
fundamental constitutional right, i.e., the right to be heard, the right to
peacefully assemble and the right to express.
What really happened on March 25?
Around 1:30
PM, nearly 3500 people had gathered at the Kisan Ghat. RAF and CRPF had been
deployed there right since the morning. Consequently, the workers moved peacefully
towards the Delhi Secretariat in the form of a procession. They were stopped at
the first barricade and the police told them to go away. The protesters
insisted on seeing a government representative and submit their memorandum to
them. The protesters tried to move towards the Delhi Secretariat. Then the
police without any further warning started a brutal lathi-charge and began to
chase protesters. Some women workers and activists were seriously injured in
this first
round of lathi-charge and hundreds of workers were chased away by the
Police. However, a large number of workers stayed at the barricade and started
their 'Mazdoor Satyagraha' on the
spot. Though, the police succeeded to chase away a number of workers, yet,
almost 1300 workers were still there and they continued their satyagraha.
Almost 700 contract teachers were at the other side of the Secretariat, who had
come to join this demonstration. They were not allowed by the police to join
the demonstration. So they continued their protest at the other side of the
Secretariat. The organizers repeatedly asked the Police officers to let them go
to the Secretariat and submit their memorandum. The Police flatly refused. Then
the organizers reminded the police that it is their constitutional right to
give their memorandum and the government is obliged to accept the memorandum.
Still, the police did not let the protesters go the Secretariat and submit
their memorandum. The workers after waiting for almost one and a half hours
gave an ultimatum of half an hour to the Police before trying to move towards
the Secretariat again. When the Police did not let them go to the Secretariat
to submit their memorandum after half an hour, then the police again started
lathi charge. This time it was even more brutal.
I have been active in the student movement and working class movement of Delhi for last 16 years and I can certainly say that I have not seen such Police brutality in Delhi against any demonstration. Women workers and activists and the workers' leaders were especially targetted. Male police personnel brutally beat up women, dragged them on streets by their hair, tore their clothes, molested them and harrassed them. It was absolutely shocking to see how several police personnel were holding and beating women workers and activists. Some of the women activists were beaten till the lathis broke or the women fainted. Tear gas was used on the workers. Hundreds of workers lied down on the ground to continue their peaceful Satyagraha. However, the police continued to brutally beat them. Finally, the workers tried to continue their protest at the Rajghat but the Police and RAF continued to hunt them down. 18 activists and workers were arrested by the Police including me. One of my comrades, Anant, a young activist was beaten brutally even after being taken in custody in front of me. The police abused him in the worst way. Similar treatment was meted out to other activists and workers in custody. Almost all of the persons taken in custody were injured and some of them were seriously injured.
Four women
activists Shivani, Varsha, Varuni and Vrishali were taken into custody and
particularly targeted. Vrishali's fingers got fractured, Varsha's legs were
brutally attacked, Shivani was attacked repeatedly on the back by several
police personnel and also sustained a head injury and Varuni also was brutally
beaten up.. The extent of injuries can be gauged by the fact that Varuni and
Varsha had to be admitted again to the Aruna Asaf Ali Hospital on 27th March,
when they were out on bail. Women activists were constantly abused by the
police. The police personnel hurled sexist remarks and abuses on the women
activists, that I cannot mention here. It was part of the old conventional
strategy of the Police to crush the dignity of the activists and protesters.
The 13 arrested male activists were also
injured and five of them were seriously injured. However, they were made to wait, two of them bleeding, for more than 8
hours for medical treatment. During our stay in the Police station, we were
repeatedly told by a number of police personnel that the order to lathi charge
the protesters was given directly from the CM's office. Also, the intent of the Police was clear from the very beginning: to
brutalize the protestors. They told us that the plan was to teach a lesson.
The next day four women comrades were granted
bail and 13 male activists were granted conditional bail for 2 days. The IP
Estate Police station was asked to verify the addresses of the sureties. The
police was demanding 14 days police
custody for the arrested activists. The
intent of the administration is clear: brutalizing the activists again. The
police is constantly trying to arrest us again and slap false charges on us. As
is the convention of the police administration now, anyone who raises their
voice against the injustice perpetrated by the system is branded as
"Maoists", "Naxalite", "terrorists", etc. In this
case too, this intent of the police is clear. This only shows how Indian
capitalist democracy functions. Especially in the times of political and
economic crisis, it can only survive by stifling any kind of resistance from
the working people of India against the naked brutality of the system. The
events of 25th March stands witness to this fact.
What happens next?
It is a
common mistake of the rulers to assume that brutalizing the struggling women,
workers and students would silence the voices of dissent. They commit
this mistake again and again. Here too, they are grossly mistaked. The police
brutality of March 25 was an attempt of the Kejriwal Government to convey a
message to the working poor of Delhi and this message was simply this: if you
raise your voice against the betrayal of the Kejriwal Government against the
poor of Delhi, you will be dealt with in the most brutal fashion. Our wounds
are still fresh, many of us have swollen legs, fractured fingers, head injuries
and with every move we can feel the pain. However,
our resolve to fight against this injustice and expose the slimy fraud that is
Arvind Kejriwal and his AAP has become even stronger.
The trade unions, women organizations and
student organizations and thousands of workers have refused to give up. They
have refused to give in. They are already
running exposure campaigns around Delhi, though most of their activists are
still injured and some of us can barely walk. Kejriwal government has
committed a disgusting betrayal against the working people of Delhi who had
reposed a lot of faith in AAP. The working people of Delhi will not forgive the
fraud committed by the Aam Admi Party. I
think the Fascism of Aam Aadmi
Party is even more dangerous than the mainstream Fascist party like the BJP, at
least in the short run, and I myself witnessed it on March 25! And there is a
reason for it: just like small capital is much more exploitative and oppressive
as compared to big capital at least immediately, similarly, the regime of small
capital is much more oppressive as compared to regime of big capital, at least
in the short run! And the AAP government represents the right-wing populist
dictatorship of small capital, of course, with a shadow of jingoistic Fascism. This fact
has been clearly demonstrated by the events of 25th March.
Apparently
enough, Kejriwal is scared and has run out of ideas and that is why his
government is resorting to such measures that are exposing him and his party
completely. He knows that he cannot fulfill the promises made to the working
poor of the Delhi, especially, abolition of contract system on perennial nature
work because if he even tries to do so, he will lose his social and economic
base among the traders, factory owners, contractors and petty middlemen of
Delhi. This is the peculiarity of AAP's agenda: it is an aggregative agenda (a
ostensibly class collaborationist agenda) which ostensibly includes the demands
of petty traders, contracters, rich shopkeepers, middlemen and other sections
professional/self-employed petty bourgeoisie as well as jhuggi-dwellers,
workers, etc. It can not fulfill all the demands mentioned in the agenda,
because the demands of these disparate social groups are diametrically
opposite. The real partisanship of the AAP is with the petty bourgeoisie and
the bourgeoisie of Delhi which is already apparent in the one-and-a-half-month
rule of AAP. AAP actually and
politically belongs to these parasitic neo-rich classes. The rhetoric of 'aam
admi' was just to make good of the opportunity created by the complete
disillusionment of the people with the Congress and the BJP. This rhetoric was useful as long as the
elections were there. As soon as, the people voted for the AAP en masse, in the
absence of any alternative, the real ugly Fascist face of Arvind Kejriwal has
become exposed.
Even
internally, the AAP politics has been exposed due to the current dog-eat-dog
fight for power between the Kejriwal faction and the Yadav faction. This is not to say that had Yadav faction
been at the the helm of affairs, things would have been any different for the
working class of Delhi. This ugly inner fight only shows the real character
of AAP and helps a lot of people realize that AAP is not an alternative and it
is no more different from the parties like the Congrees, BJP, SP, BSP, CPM, etc.
Particularly, the workers of Delhi are understanding this truth. That is the
reason why the workers of Hedgewar Hospital spontaneously went on strike
against the police brutality and the Kejriwal government on the evening of
March 25 itself. Anger is simmering among the DMRC workers, contract workers of
other hospitals, contract teachers, jhuggi-dwellers and the poor students and
unemployed youth of Delhi. The working class of Delhi has begun to organize to
win their rights and oblige the Kejriwal government to fulfill its promises;
the desperate attempt of the Kejriwal government to repress the workers will
definitely backfire.
Workers',
students' and women organizations have begun their exposure campaign in
different working class and poorer neighbourhoods of Delhi. If the AAP
government fails to fulfill its promises made to the working poor of Delhi and
fails to apologize the disgusting and barbaric attack on thousands of women,
workers and students of Delhi, it will face a boycott from the working poor of
Delhi. Each and every of the wounds inflicted on us, the workers, women and
youth of Delhi on March 25 will prove to be a fatal mistake of the present
government.
(*Editor, 'Mazdoor Bigul' and 'Muktrikami Chhatron-yuvaon ka
Aahwan', Writer of blog 'Red Polemique' and Research Scholar in History
Department, Delhi University)
