Kerala CPM to face several Singurs this election

The hypocrisy of the
CPI(M) with regard to its promises to the hapless people about
allocation of land will be one of the biggest issues the party will be
facing in this Lok Sabha election along with the allegations of massive
corruption against its top leadership. If the CPI(M) in Bengal is
facing just one Singur and Nandigram, the symbols of CPI(M)’s fascist
acts in Kerala are many, and all of them would come into play in the
polls.

The families of Moolampally, Ernakulam district, who have
decided not to vote in the coming election or to vote against the Left,
are just the tip of a huge iceberg of hatred the CPI(M) is facing in
Kerala from the victims of the pretensions of social and economic
justice the party has been adopting since it came to power in May 2006.

These 12 families are the victims of directionless development,
and they who had once been living in either tile-roofed or concrete
houses just more than a year back, are now living in polythene-covered
sheds, open to the elements of nature. The officials of the LDF
Government had pushed them out of their houses on evening and razed
their dwelling units with earth-moving machines to acquire land for a
massive development project in Kochi. If these residents of Moolampally
would be seen as a symbol of totalitarian approach in issues like land
acquisition, at least five major struggles for land for landless
Adivasis and Dalits would be used against the CPI(M)-led LDF in the
State. The argument is that when the CPI(M)-led Government is pumping
out crores of rupees in stipends, scholarships and retirement benefits
for Muslims to ensure their votes, it is determined not to give even
enough land to the poor Dalits and Adivasis to live. “The Marxist
bosses are convinced that we are not a force to reckon with as far as
voter strength is concerned due to the scattered nature of our
population. But this time they are going to learn it the hard way. Our
struggles for the basic necessities of human life will make a
difference in this election,” said Mohandas, a Dalit at agitation for
land in the Chengara hills of Pathanamthitta district.

It was on
the late evening of February 6, 2008 that Revenue authorities assisted
by police and demolition machinery pushed the villagers of Moolampally
out into the streets of Kochi by demolishing their houses without any
notice or rehabilitation package. The officials did not allow the
families even to salvage the books of their children or the medicines
of their old.

When they were protesting peacefully against the
fascist act of the Government, Chief Minister and CPI(M) Politburo
member VS Achuthanandan announced an invention that the Moolampally
protestors were part of a Maoist gang. The court intervened in the
issue and ordered rehabilitation before January 15. There was also a
package to give them rent for houses _ Rs 5,000 per month per family _
till the rehabilitation was completed. The rent amount stopped coming
in December but the plots for rehabilitation are not yet ready. They
are still living in sheds in marshy lands open to the foul elements of
industrialised Kochi.

About 10,000 Dalits from nearly 6,000
families have been on a till-death struggle in the Chengara hills
demanding allocation of land and livelihood since August 4, 2007. The
Chief Minister calls them rubber thieves, the CPI(M) calls them
extremist who get foreign help and the party use the physical force of
its trade union to manhandle the Dalits, rape their women, block food,
water and medicine for them and to deprive their children the chance to
attend schools.

The Sadhujana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi,
spearheading this stir, has already decided to support the Congress-led
UDF ‘unconditionally’ just to teach the CPI(M) a lesson. They also
assure that the sentiment of the Chengara Dalits would not be confined
to the agitation camp but a similar backlash will hit the CPI(M) in the
Dalit-backward front all through the State in the coming election.

The
Adivasis of Muthanga, Wayanad, where former Congress Chief Minister’s
police had unleashed terror by killing and maiming Adivasis, also would
be using their right to vote against the CPI(M). The party had come to
power promising them to cancel all the cases registered against them
with regard to the police action in Muthanga on February 18, 2003. This
never happened, and more than 300 of these poor Aborigines are still
frequenting the various courts on various charges, some which are for
killing and attempt to murder. The land, for which they had struggled
was never given to them, and almost all of them are living in total
starvation under the sky without roofs over their heads.

All
such sections complain that the CPI(M), said to be a party secular from
top to bottom, are showing criminal apathy to them while showering
money on certain religious communities simply because they are vote
banks.