{"id":2602,"date":"2012-04-26T10:28:10","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T09:28:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socialism.in\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2012-04-26T17:22:51","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T16:22:51","slug":"abhay-sahoo-on-present-stage-of-struggles-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/?p=2602","title":{"rendered":"Abhay Sahoo on \u201cPresent Stage of Struggles in India\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In a meeting organized by Indian Social Institute, Bangalore on 24th April, Abhay Sahoo<\/strong> (CPI member and leader of the anti-POSCO movement in Odisha) spoke on the present stage of struggles in India today. Abhay Sahoo is on a solidarity tour in South India, which also includes amongst others, a solidarity visit to anti-Koodankulam struggle area in Southern Tamil Nadu. <\/em><\/p>\n

After over 7 years of resisting the POSCO steel plant (which includes spending one and a half years in jail on false charges), Abhay Sahoo first of all spoke of the thousands of people languishing in jails in India today on false charges for fighting against the corporates and the Indian state. His own two sons (both engineering graduates) have been forced to go underground on fears of being arrested. The villagers struggling against POSCO have been denied basic facilities like health care and food supply, but yet they remain determined to not to give even an inch of land to POSCO, billed as India’s largest FDI. Anti-POSCO struggle is not merely a struggle against the South Korean steel giant POSCO, but also a struggle against the corporates, the International finance capital and the Indian ruling class.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the struggle itself, Abhay Sahoo specifically mentioned that this is a democratic, broad-based mass movement and not under the control of any party. Support for the anti- POSCO movement includes the ordinary supporters and members from the ruling BJD party in Odisha itself. He scathingly criticized the government for not heeding to the demands of the people on scrapping the POSCO project for years, while immediately giving in to the demands of the Maoists in response to the recent abductions. The mining scam in Odisha is bigger than the 2G scam and Odisha has been plagued by hundreds of Reddy brothers and Yeddyurappa’s (a reference to the connection between the mining mafia and the ruling BJP in Karnataka).<\/p>\n

He mentioned the different government panels that rejected the POSCO project on various grounds including the latest verdict from the National Green Tribunal. But yet POSCO and the government are doggedly trying to grab the land from the villagers. He spoke of the nexus between the Indian judiciary, the political class and the corporates, saying the judiciary cannot be trusted. While the government claims that it has acquired 2000 acres of land for the project, not a single acre of land has been acquired till date. Now the latest game-plan for POSCO is that it is been trying to bargain, saying that they will not acquire land in Dhinkia but acquire the land in Gobindpur. But the struggle has reached a point of no return and villagers will struggle till the end.<\/p>\n

Abhay Sahoo also spoke on the importance of linking struggles across India as well as internationally. The Indian bourgeoisie and the MNC’s are one and the same and hence it is important to internationalize the struggles and integrate the movements, only then will the movement be able to confront these multinational corporations. With reference to the anti-POSCO struggle itself, he requested the activists in Bangalore (dubbed the silicon valley) to get all the support they can gather, both financial as well as solidarity support by any means, including the Internet.<\/p>\n

N P Samy (National Center for Labour – NCL<\/em>) and Jagadish G Chandra ( New Socialist Alternative CWI-India<\/em>) also spoke during the meeting. N P Samy spoke of the government’s passion for Global Investors Meet (GIM) giving thousands of acres of land to the multinationals. But yet no industry has come up and certainly no jobs have been created. He said that the MNC’s have set their eyes on land and primarily agricultural lands.<\/p>\n

Jagadish G Chandra being the Convenor of the Solidarity for anti-POSCO struggle in Karnataka,\u00a0 spoke on the importance of the anti-POSCO struggle, the biggest anti- globalization struggle in India today. He also said it is important to recognize the role of the unheard and unseen villagers who have stood against all odds and resisted all attempts to grab their land in the name of development. An appeal for financial support was made by Jagadish, and a collection of Rs. 10,335 was raised in the meeting itself which was handed over to Comrade Abhay Sahoo for the struggle fund of the PPSS.
\n
\nAnand Kumar<\/em><\/p>\n

Bangalore<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a meeting organized by Indian Social Institute, Bangalore on 24th April, Abhay Sahoo (CPI member and leader of the anti-POSCO movement in Odisha) spoke on the present stage of struggles in India today. Abhay Sahoo is on a solidarity tour in South India, which also includes amongst others, a solidarity visit to anti-Koodankulam struggle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalist-globalisation-india","category-bangalore","category-odisha"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2610,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/2610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialism.in\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}