COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Press Release
January 13, 2012
Revolutionary greetings from CPI (Maoist) to
the friends of Indian revolution and well wishers
Comrades and Friends,
On 24 November, 2011 the Indian revolution lost its great leader and the oppressed masses of India lost their most reliable servant. November 24 would remain a dark day in the history of the Indian revolution. On July 1, 2010 the Indian ruling classes had murdered our Politburo member and spokesperson Comrade Azad. Within one and a half years, another Politburo member Comrade Koteswarlu (who is popular among the people and party ranks as Kotanna, Prahlad, Ramji, Kishenji and Bimal) was caught alive in a covert operation, tortured inhumanly and was killed in a fake encounter. In India which claims to be the largest democracy in the world, the feudal and comprador bureaucratic bourgeois ruling classes, with the support of the imperialists, particularly the US imperialists, are trying to suppress the democratic, national liberation and revolutionary movements with iron heel. Particularly, since 2009 they are carrying on an unjust war on the people in the name of ‘Operation Green Hunt’. They are shamelessly violating even the constitution and the laws formulated by themselves and are killing people, activists and leaders of the movement. They are unsuccessfully trying to justify all their unlawful murders in the name of a lie named ‘encounter’ tracing the footsteps of the British colonial rulers. Now it is an established fact that ‘encounter’ anywhere in India means a conspiratorial murder by the state.
Comrade Koteswarlu was born on November 26, 1954 in Peddapalli town of Karimnagar district which has a legacy of the glorious Telangana armed struggle. He led the Indian revolutionary movement for nearly four decades. Comrade Koteswarlu was brought up by democratic thinking parents and imbibed patriotic feelings and love for the oppressed people since childhood. He was a top rank representative of the generation after the glorious Naxalbari rebellion. Though the Naxalbari rebellion which established Maoist Protracted People’s War as the path for the Indian revolution was suppressed within a few years, it had a great impact all over the country. Peasant rebellions arose in many areas following its model. It awoke the students in colleges and universities. The slogan ‘Naxalbari Ek Hi Rasta’ (The Only Way is Naxalbari) reverberated all over the country. It was this backdrop that turned Comrade Koteswarlu into a Maoist revolutionary. Firstly, at the end of 1970s, he organized the peasantry against deeply entrenched feudalism in his home district of Karimnagar and led many struggles. He played a key role in the peasant movement popularly known as ‘Jagityal Jaitrayatra’ (Victory March of Jagityal). In no time this spread to the whole of North Telangana apart from Karimnagar and Adilabad districts. Even while mobilizing peasants into anti-feudal struggles, he greatly strove to attract students, writers, intellectuals, workers…all oppressed classes and sections of people into the fold of revolutionary movement. In this course, he worked as a party organizer at first, then as the district committee secretary and was later elected as the secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Sate Committee and won the accolade of the people and the party ranks. Since 1986, he played a crucial role in the development and expansion of the revolutionary movement in central, eastern and northern parts of India. He particularly concentrated on Dandakaranya for eight years and on West Bengal for eighteen years. Since 1993 till he breathed his last he worked as a Central Committee member, later as Politburo member member and held responsibilities for Northern and Eastern Regional Bureaus. He contributed greatly in many spheres in the party such as political education, magazines, propaganda and shone as a man of many talents. He played a prominent role in enriching the party documents and in developing party political-military line and policies. He represented the CC in the meetings and bilateral talks held with various national liberation organizations and Maoist forces in South Asia. He strove a lot to unite the Marxist-Leninist groups and individuals that divided and scattered after the setback of Naxalbari and particularly to achieve unity of the ML and MCC organizations which continued as separate streams since Naxalbari. Thus his role remains etched forever in the annals of the history of Indian revolution.
At the end of 1970s, Comrade Koteswarlu played a crucial role in the Jagityal peasant movement and in the first decade of the 21st century he became the architect of the illustrious Lalgarh people’s upsurge. He was an inspiring leader who never left the people and the cadres and who stood firmly during many an ebb and flow in the Indian revolutionary movement with courage and initiative. He was an organizer with initiative, a warrior commander and a guide who imparted love and care. His very presence proved to be a hard nut to crack for the enemy right from the beginning. He successfully fought back several attacks and attempts to murder him. He was a tireless warrior who fought incessantly and uncompromisingly and never let go of any opportunity to attack the enemy politically and militarily. That is why the ruling clique of this country led by Sonia-Manmohan-Chidambaram-Pranab-Jairam colluded with the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee and killed him in the cruelest manner. The brutal signs of torture on his dead body indicate the fascist nature of the enemy, his cowardliness and his defeat. On the other hand he bore all the inhuman tortures in the hands of the enemy and emerged victorious even in the face of death. The crimson of the international red flag of the proletarians turned deeper with the blood spilled by him in Jungle Mahal.
With the murder of Comrade Koteswarlu @ Kishenji the Indian revolutionary movement lost a great leader. This is a huge loss for our party. Our party has been continuously losing main leadership forces since a few years and this loss cannot be surmounted under these circumstances. However our party would fight firmly to advance the Indian revolution on the path of victory by overcoming these losses. The exploitative ruling classes can never comprehend the truth that people and the people’s movements give birth to hundreds and thousands of leaders like Koteswarlu and Azad and they continue daydreaming that they could suppress the movements by killing the leaders. As long as there are exploitation and suppression, people would continue to revolt. Leaders like Koteswarlu keep on emerging. That is why the great struggles with sacrifices and the ideals established by the thousands of great martyrs serve as an inspiration.
Our Central Committee pays red homage with bowed heads to the great martyr Comrade Koteswarlu. Our CC is expressing deep empathy to mother Madhuramma who was calling upon the people to follow the footsteps of her son even while immersed in deep sorrow, to other family members and friends of Comrade Koteswarlu. Our Central Committee calls upon entire Party, PLGA, activists of mass organizations and revolutionary masses who are immersed in deep sorrow and agony with the brutal murder of Comrade Koteswarlu to overcome the grief and intensify the People’s War. Our CC calls upon the youth to join our Party and PLGA in large numbers and to march forward in the footsteps of Comrade Kotanna to fulfill his cherished dreams. Our party is sending revolutionary greetings to the democrats and revolutionary sympathizers who brought the deadbody of Comrade Koteswarlu from West Bengal to Peddapalli and to all the people who participated in the funeral procession on a huge scale to pay last respects to the fallen leader by overcoming many restrictions and encirclements of the governments and police forces. We humbly express our thanks to various mass organizations, civil rights organizations, revolutionary parties, democrats, writers, journalists, media friends, artistes and the agitators of Separate Telangana struggle who condemned the brutal murder of Comrade Kishenji. Our red salutes to all those writers and intellectuals who have written articles and reports unequivocally condemning this killing. Our CC is sending revolutionary greetings to all the revolutionary parties and democratic organizations of several countries that condemned the murder of Comrade Kishenji and the war unleashed by the Indian government on its people and sent condolence messages to our party.
Our CC is firmly taking the vow once again on behalf of the entire party, PLGA, revolutionary mass organizations and the revolutionary masses of India that we would advance by overcoming all the hurdles in the path of accomplishment of New Democratic Revolution of India with the aim of achieving socialism and communism and that we would carry the unfulfilled aims of the thousands of martyrs including Comrade Kishenji till their fulfillment. It is assuring the oppressed masses of India as well as entire world that it would not rest until feudalism, comprodor bureaucratic bourgeoisie and imperialism are sent to the grave and all kinds of reaction are put to an end.
Long Live Comrade Kishenji!
Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!
Long Live Proletarian Internationalism!
(Abhay)
Spokesperson,
Central Committee,
CPI (Maoist)
