Condemn the Series Violence by CPI(M) and SFI Against Dalit Activists and Student

In a heinous incident of political violence and intimidation, 9 Dalit activists, including three women, were brutally attacked by CPM cadres at Nandankuzhi in Madikai, Kerala on 6th April, Sunday. CPM workers unleashed attack on Dalit Service Society (DSS) activists who were campaigning for their candidate at Nandankuzhi. CPM has also threatened the Dalit activists from visiting the colonies and seeking votes. (http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Dalit-Activists- Attacked/2014/04/07/article2154024.ece#.U0Usj3nrbIX)
In another shameful incident, a Dalit student from M.B.A Healthcare Management of University of Hyderabad was brutally beaten up by SFI cadres on the last day of university’s annual fest “Sukoon”. The student sustained several injuries on his head, eye and back side of the body when he was attacked with stones by SFI hooligans.
AISA strongly condemns these incidents of casteist targeting, political intimidation and violence.
These two incidents are nothing but some latest instances of CPI (M)-SFI’s grisly politics of silencing any voice of dissent and opposition by brutal violence, particularly targeting activists from oppressed sections. The entire CPI(M) machinery has also routinely indulged in the practice of spreading canards against political opponents to cover-up or at times even justify the vicious attacks, killings and sexual violence.
We have not forgotten the brutal rape and murder by the CPI (M) of Tapasi Malik, the 18 year-old dalit girl, who was a highly motivated member of the “Save Farmland Committee” spearheading the struggle against land acquisition in Singur. Just after her murder, the CPI (M) spread malicious slanders claiming that she had been killed by a lover or had committed suicide due to a tiff with her lover. After the CBI investigation, Court has found Debu Malik, a powerful local CPI(M) activist, and Suhrid Datta, the Singur Zonal Committee Secretary of the CPI(M), guilty of the rape and murder of Tapasi Malik, and has sentenced them to life imprisonment in 2012.
But, even today, even in the JNU campus itself, SFI-CPI (M) is unashamedly unapologetic about their history of political vendetta, killings and sexual violence. Just a few days back, the SFI’s GSCASH candidate defended the rape of Tapasi in the UGBM asking us to understand the “political context” of the rape! On last 22 February, AISA organised a Public Meeting at Periyar Mess, to mark the release of a book in the memory of Com. T.P. Chandrasekharan, who was hacked to death for the ‘crime’ of leaving CPI(M) and forming an alternative Left party. SFI cadres came to the meeting in an organised group. When one of the speakers called upon the house to stand up in one-minute silence in memory of Com. TPC, the SFI cadres refused to do so and sat through in bizzare distasteful show of arrogance. Subsequently, they raised several questions branding Com. TPC as ‘rightwing’ in a shocking attempt at justifying his heinous murder by the CPI(M) goons in Kerala.
Indeed, it is not just the culture of violence and vendetta, but also organised justification of the violence which constitute the distinctive hall-mark of CPI(M)-SFI politics. CPI(M) machinery in many ways perfected the art of political violence which is anyway an integral part of the ruling class politics. We appeal to the student community to reject CPI(M)-SFI’s cult of politics of vendetta and their routine justifications.