People's Democracy

ON March 1, thousands of people led by the Left and secular parties held large mass demonstrations in over 100 centres throughout Maharashtra on the single demand of "Enron, Go Back!" On the day, the main action took place right outside the Enron power plant near Dabhol, over 300 km from Mumbai. Here, over 3,000 people staged a militant protest action and tried to storm the heavily guarded main gate of the Enron plant, struggling with the police and breaking three police cordons before they were arrested.

Simultaneously, in almost every district centre and several tehsil centres spread all across Maharashtra, the same clarion call against Enron and its Indian agents in the INC, NCP, BJP and Shiv Sena reverberated through large and militant demonstrations of the working people. The March 1 actions near Dabhol and throughout Maharashtra were jointly organised by the Anti-Globlisation Action Committee which comprises the CPI(M), PWP, CPI, JD(S), SP, RPI, Samajwadi Jan Parishad, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) and Kamgar Aghadi.

At the crack of dawn on March 1, hundreds of demonstrators of the above political parties from various districts of Maharashtra started converging at the Chiplun railway station of Konkan Railway in Ratnagiri district. The demonstrators came by rail, buses, tempos, jeep and cars, since the Enron plant is a further 40 km away from Chiplun. They were raising loud slogans like "Enron Hatao! Mahrashtra Bachao! Desh Bachao!", "Throw all those responsible for the corrupt and anti-national Enron into jail!", "Down with the Vajpayee regime, the servile lackey of American imperialism", "Smash the BJP government’s shameless budget", and so on. The convoy of vehicles left the Chiplun railway station by noon and proceeded towards Enron’s Dabhol plant. The vehicles were bedecked with the flags and banners of the constituent political parties.

Three kilometres away from the Enron plant, the police had put the first cordon. Here the demonstrators left their vehicles behind and marched on foot, broke yet another cordon on the way and reached the third cordon that was heavily fortified with barbed wire barricades and a large police force. Here a spirited public meeting was held and was addressed by PWP general secretary N D Patil, CPI(M) state secretary Prabhakar Sanzgiri, CPI state secretary Govind Pansare, JD(S) leader Sripatrao Shinde, SJP leader Mohammed Khadas, SP leader Ashok Jadhav and others. Other leaders of the above parties present there included Ahilya Ranganekar (CPI-M), Mrinal Gore (JD-S), Datta Patil and Vithalrao Hande (PWP), G V Chitnis (CPI), Gajanan Khatu (SJP) and several others.

Immediately after the public meeting, where all the speakers squarely attacked the Enron deal, all those responsible for it and also the LPG policies of the ruling classes that were at the root of such anti-national agreements, the 3000 strong gathering pushed ahead, broke through the resistance of the police, smashed the third polcie cordon and raced towards the Enron main gate which was blocked by an even more heavily fortified fourth cordon. For half an hour the demonstrators struggled to storm this last cordon and reach the Enron main gate, and there were better scuffles with the police before the demonstrators were finally arrested. Already thrown on the defensive on the Enron issue, the INC-NCP-led Democratic Front state government, faced with this action by demonstrators from its supporting parties, had obviously given instructions to its police to avoid large-scale repression for fear of the likely political consequences.

The Dabhol action was widely covered by both print and electronic media in the state, and so were the statewide actions by local media. The state-level Marathi daily Sakaal whose journalist was present on the spot, reported that it was the CPI(M) activists who were in the forefront in the struggle with the police for breaking the police cordons. The CPI(M) mobilisation for this action was both substantial and widespread, hailing from districts like Mumbai, Thane, Raigad, Pune, Nasik, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur and Parbhani. Amongst the CPI(M) leaders arrested were Central Committee members Prabhakar Sanzgiri, Ahilya Ranganekar and Ashok Dhawale; state secretariat members Krishna Khopkar, Kumar Shiralkar, Mahendra Singh and Suryaji Salunkhe; state committee members L B Dhangar, Kishore Theckedath, Ajit Abhyankar, Ghanshyam Pati, Allahbaksh Patel, Chandrakant yadav, Shankar Pujari, Raju Paranjape, Kiran Moghe and Rajan Kshirsagar, Jalgaon district secretary Prakash Chaudhary; MLA from Thane district Ramji Vartha and several other district level leaders of the party and mass organisations.

Over 500 demonstrators of the Action Committee broke the ban orders and denounced the Enron deal at Mahatma Chowk in Mumbai. This action was led by CPI(M) state secretariat member K L Bajaj, state committee member Sayeed Ahmed, Dada Samant of the Kamgar Aghadi, Prakash Reddy of CPI, Vidya Chavan of JD(S), Gautam Sonavane of RPI and others. Similarly, large actions took place on the day in several tehsil centres in Thane and Nasik districts, where thousands of working people were mobilised by the CPI(M), and also in several district and tehsil centres of Vidarbha, Marathwada, Khandesh and Western Maharashtra regions.

The Anti-Globalisation Action Committee had held successful conventions in 14 districts of the state in January and February, in which thousands of workers and peasants participated. After the anti-Enron actions of March 1, full-scale preparations are in progress for a massive statewide rally against Enron and against globalisation, to be held at Shivaji Park, Mumbai, on April 7.

As part of preparations for this rally, the CPI(M) state committee will organise a central jeep jatha from March 23 to April 6. The jatha will start from martyr Rajguru’s birthplace on the day of martyrdom of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, and will cover 14 districts before culminating in Mumbai. District level jathas will also be organised in other districts.