Geography Archives: India

In the previous part of this article we saw that the Indian rulers are actively preparing the legal groundwork for parting peasants from their land. In the following part we place this in an international context.

The protesting kisans on the borders of Delhi repeat one thing over and over: When fighting against the three farm-related Acts, they are fighting to save their land.

Governments from diverse political dispositions have responded to the pandemic by arming themselves with unprecedented emergency powers. India offers a stunning example of how the pandemic can be recast as a security concern.

The ASEAN Chair’s statement of Feb, 1 recalled the “purposes and the principles enshrined in the ASEAN Charter” which include respecting the principles of sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, non-interference, consensus and unity in diversity.” 

At 21 years of age, Arya Rajendran is barely eligible to vote. Nevertheless, she is now the mayor of Kerala’s capital city Thiruvananthapuram, population 2,585,000. She is a second-year student at All Saints College. She concentrates in math.

On 26 January, India’s Republic Day, thousands of farmers and agricultural workers will drive their tractors and walk into the heart of the capital, New Delhi, to bring their fight to the doors of the government.

Protesting farmers are reclaiming the idea of the nation.

“The nationalists to be effective must harness the nation into action, into revolt.… The nation will stir itself to action only on assurance of nationalization. i.e.… Freedom from slavery of Imperialist—capitalists.” —Bhagat Singh

A vaccine alone will not be enough to end the pandemic as it must also be made available at an affordable price and allocated in a way that achieves equity. It follows that suspending intellectual property rights related to COVID-19 is the most appropriate solution to our current situation of global vaccine apartheid.

The peasants gathered on the Delhi border understand all these issues much more clearly than either Modi or the intelligentsia advocating a shift away from food grains. Ironically, it is the latter group who are suggesting that the peasants are ignoramuses!

First, it is led by over 500 farmers’ organisations in the country, who have united under the platform of Samyukta Kisan Morcha(SKM). All sections of the peasantry have joined together. 

Ms Rajendran had won from the Mudavanmughal ward of the city corporation, bagging 2,872 votes, 549 more than the rival Congress candidate.

The farmers’ movement for the repeal of the three farm laws which affect them closely but have been rammed through without consulting them, has now entered its second month.

The kisans gathered around the Delhi border have unerringly put their fingers on the real issue confronting them, namely their very survival as peasants.

The Communist movement in India celebrated its centenary on October 17, 2020. The party was founded in Tashkent (USSR) in 1920. A decade later, most of the leaders of the Communist Party of India (CPI) were arrested by the British colonial state and imprisoned in Meerut.

On 11 December 2019 one of the largest peaceful Civil Disobedience Movements in India after Indian Independence in defence of the Constitution and Constitutional rights, began under the leadership of Indian Muslim women in Delhi.

THE historic nationwide farmers struggle that began on November 26 entered the fourth week on December 17. It was intensified and broadened even further after the unprecedented support that was expressed by the people of India through the Bharat Bandh on December 8.

The alliance led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has won more seats in local government bodies than the opposition groups combined.

Revolutions are very costly in terms of human lives and suffering, and so “we” are shocked that “you” radicals even consider them as options. And so “we” have to express “our” rejection and condemnation.

Millions of day labourers in India lost their jobs overnight earlier this year when Narendra Modi’s central government hastily announced a national lockdown.