PUCL Bulletin, Dec. 2000
Nobody
Hid This Crime: The Police Open Fire in Naidu.Com
-- By Vijay Prashad
This crime was committed under the shadow of the State Assembly in Hyderabad
(Andhra Pradesh). For three quarters of an hour the guns of the police tore
through thousands of people, hundreds fell, two never to rise again. The streets
could not hide the wounded and dead. Images of the slaughter flew across the
airwaves into cables, and to the television sets of distant audiences. Nobody
hid this crime. This crime was committed in the middle of the day. And the US
papers said nothing. Nor did Bill Clinton, friend of the man whose troops neglected
every rule that regulates their actions, Chandra Babu Naidu, Chief Minister
of Andhra Pradesh, also known as Naidu.Com, King of the Indo-Internet of High-Tech
Hyderabad. For three months this state has been engulfed with struggles led
by a vast, and novel coalition of the Left. The Communist Party of India (Marxist)
joined with their Left Front partners the Communist Party of India, and both
in turn made common cause with two Maoist (or Naxalite) outfits, Communist Party
of India (Marxist-Leninist) and the CPIML (New Democracy). To top it off this
Left ensemble allied with the Congress Party (that tired and tattered former
monolith whose path down the right was well-crafted by the IMF in the early
1990s). The Left demanded a rollback in the rates for power (electricity), which
had been raised through the roof by the ruling Telugu Desam government (who
are in a rather tenuous alliance with the BJP in New Delhi). The government
was obdurate. Too much is at stake, since the state government has vested its
fate in the hands of a kind of Cyber-Structural Adjustment: in 1996 the Andhra
Pradesh government signed an agreement with the World Bank called the Andhra
Pradesh Economic Restructuring Project. There is nothing special about Andhra
Pradesh in here, since it is the same old tonic, the same tired medicine from
the discredited quack. It asks for the government to withdraw services from
the water and power sector and to reduce government employees. The task was
to privatize electricity generation and distribution. In February 1999 the World
Bank and the Naidu government signed a five-year agreement to get the state
Rs. 40 billion ($880 million) in five installments in return for a 15% increase
in power rates per year. Since Naidu is up for election, the World Bank agreed
to postpone the measures till after the vote (so much for free elections) and
now consumers are hit with at least a 100% hike in fees per unit of power. The
parallel is with the Indian state of Maharashtra, where the private power company
is that old US giant, Enron.
On 24 March 2000, Big Bill met Naidu.Com and told him that 'the Andhra Pradesh
CEO was very much known in the US and very much admired.' He praised Naidu.Com
for his reforms and said that 'little wonder that Hyderabad is now known as
Cyberabad.' During their mutual love fest, and after his very brief stay in
the city, Big Bill noted that 'if you look at the example of this city and this
state, you will realize that good governance is also necessary,' and 'the Chief
Minister's role in accomplishing this is evident.' What must these people mean
by 'good governance'? Yes, the Internet monopolies have flocked to Cyberabad.
The social indicators in Andhra Pradesh are abhorrent and the 'reforms' seem
to only produce social misery for the people, many of whom came out for the
agitation led by the Left on August 28, 2000.
And that's when the police opened fire. No warning, no shots in the air, just
half an hour to forty-five minutes of gunfire toward and around the protestors.
This is 'good governance'? (By the way, the state authorities intervened with
cable operators to remove the segments on the police firing from television.
More 'good governance'?) The people marched toward the State Assembly, with
an agreement to remain peaceful. Women's organizations led the march, and in
a report from the All-India Democratic Women's Association, it becomes clear
that the police was ruthless. One woman, Mamta, noted that 'the male police
pulled my kurta [shirt] right up and tore it. I was lifted by them and thrown
on the [barbed] wire [fence].' Another, Devi, noted that 'the [police] men surrounded
me and started pulling my clothes. I protested. They used filthy language and
said "we will teach you to come to demonstrations" and tore my kurta
and pulled my salwaar. This is the State that brags about the 'empowerment of
women'; not in evidence on August 28th.
When the police blocked them, the people began to court arrest. Things went
awry. The bullets started to fly, and two men lay dead. One of them, Vishnu
Vardha Reddy, was a CPM activist. I quote from the AIDWA report about him: 'Vishnu
Vardha Reddy was targeted and killed by the police. He was 23 years old. This
is what his mother Durgamma said, "Vishnu was a gentle boy. He was working
in a factory called Aquapure earning about Rs. 1500 rupees a month. We come
from Tufran village of Medak district where we have a little land. We had to
come to Hyderabad to stay with Vishnu as my only other son Anji Reddy who was
older than Vishnu was killed in a traffic accident a month and a half ago. I
do not know whether it was an accident or whether he committed suicide. He was
very disturbed. He had taken a loan of a lakh of rupees from the moneylender
in the village to buy a pump. But the ground water level in our village is very
low. The richer people including our neighbour have a more powerful pump at
225 feet, which pulls all the water. My elder son had to dig twice to get the
water but the pump burned. He said he was ruined. One day he had gone out for
some work. Only his dead body came back. He left behind his wife and two little
children. We could not stay in the village because the moneylender wanted the
money. So we came to Vishnu. He used to work very hard and then he used to do
work for the other workers. He used to tell me 'we should do good work for the
people.' On August 28th he went as usual. I did not know that he was going for
a demonstration. But later some people came to us and said "Amma come quickly
your son is hurt". But he was not hurt. He was dead. They killed him, they
killed my gentle son." Vishnu did not threaten anyone's life. He did not
indulge in any violence. He was shot dead by the police during the indiscriminate
firing mentioned above. The Government has refused to give his family, of which
he was the only earning member, having lost his brother only a month earlier,
any compensation.
This is an urgent issue
which needs to be addressed.' Indeed, it needs to be addressed, both in India
and in the US, which emboldens people like Naidu against the wishes of the people.
Is the US content with the propagation of this kind of 'democracy'? On the bridges
to the 21st Century, lie the bodies of the people of Hyderabad. We are responsible
for this, as much as the oligarchy which now rules the state. And now in San
Diego, California, angered struggle against a 300% increase in power rates show
us how these fights are more than about solidarity. Private power (in both senses
of the term) is killing us. And nobody is hiding this crime.