Anti-nuclear women
Soma Marik is one of the organisers of Maitree (Friendship), a network of 34 Indian women's organisations. • Tell us about Maitree... Soma Marik: Maitree is a loose network. It was formed as a follow-up to the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women. as some of us telt that locallybased platforms of action were needed. The result was a Charter of Demands drawn up on the occasion of International Women's Day 1996.
Those who drew up the Charter eventually felt the need for some organisational unity. At the same time we had past experiences when disparate organisations had been brought into too tight a configuration only to split after a while.
We recognised that quite distinct currents existed. Some of us were socialist feminists. Some were non-feminist socialist women's groups. Then there were Non-Governmental Organisations. Finally there was even the School of Women's Studies at Jadavpur University. So we decided to form a network with no permanent leadership. Each organisation is to take turns to provide meeting space, circulate minutes, maintain links between all the groups, and so on. • After India's nuclear tests, Maitree joined the anti-nuclear movement... Maitree has always condemned the many ways in which violence is inflicted on women. My own organisation, the Calcutta-based Forum Against Oppression of Women, regularly handles cases of violence, including state violence.
We felt that war further empowers the State to be violent even towards its own citizens. All the oppressed including most certainly women, bear the brunt of this. Patriotism or nationalism is used as a flag to attack the struggles of the exploited and the oppressed for any sort of social justice.
Ever since the nuclear tests at Pokhran [in India] and Chagai [in Pakistan], the government response to economic or political demands has been the stoking of patriotic fires.
Our anti-nuclear stance has led to charges of our being inspired by imperialism. The fact that there are some NGOs in Maitree is used to spread this canard. In fact, as regards NGOs, the Maitree network is committed to a policy of self-funding.
We opposed nuclear power because the talk of cheap and safe energy is a giant hoax. The budget for the Hanford clean-up operation is around US$30 billion. A country like India would never be able to produce similar funds.?
Raja Ramanna, one of the architects of the 1974 Pokhran test, is on record as saying that too much is made of the need for safety. So in India, expansion of nuclear power will mean continuous accidents and radiation hazards. • What was Maitree's role in the recent protest movement? Members of Maitree have been participating in all the protest meetings, and rallies since 16th May, the day of the first protest rally in Calcutta. We were insistent about the need to form a united committee, and in alliance with others like the Anti-Nuclear Forum, the Gana Bijaan Samannay Kendra, and the Inquilabi Communist Sangathan, we felt we could achieve a fair degree of unity. 51 organisations formed the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons, and endorsements for the 6th August march eventually came from 97 organisations and over a hundred prominent citizens."
We also organised an awareness building event in the CSIR Museum on Ist August. School children from 125 schools participated. Anti-nuclear and anti-war posters were drawn by them. We have also put up a number of informational posters. • What sort of political focus does your campaign have? The most important thing was to oppose the nationalist hysteria. We explained the relationship between fascism, right-wing nationalism and militarism. We pointed out that the Bharatiya Janata Party's [dominant component of India's coalition government - Ed.] overall strategy is to create what could be called a broad right-wing bloc with a fascist core, and that nuclear power nationalism helps in consolidating the bloc.
Recent declarations in New Delhi suggest the building of a military-industrial complex. Raising the surplus value through union busting contains an inbuilt crisis, as the domestic market will shrink. Having a large armaments industry would help to offset this problem.
We had to contend with pro-BJP murmuring about how India needed nuclear weapons. Interestingly both the Maoists and the BJPites waxed eloquent on anti-imperialism. Both said that if five big powers have the nuclear weapons, stopping India from acquiring
India *
This is like saying since five rapists have got away with their crimes and are walking about boldly, other potential rapists should be encouraged!
The ultra-lefts see no distinction between the BJP and other parties. For them the existence and destruction of bourgeois democracy makes little difference. • You have repeatedly talked about the fascist threat. Do you propose an anti-fascist united front, and do you see the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons as a step in that direction?
Maitree is not, and will not be, subordinate to any political party. Here I am speaking for myself. The question of an anti-fascist united front is only partly one of subordinating movements to Stalinist or Social Democratic parties. Equally it is about subordinating mass movements to bourgeois politics in the name of not antagonising the so-called anti-fascist bourgeoisie. This is something about which Maitree has no position. But personally I do not see the Campaign as a step in that direction, and do not wish to follow that route.
We can fight the fascists successfully only by retaining our independent movement with a clear anti-capitalist outlook. We have seen what fascism of the Indian variety does to women. It intensifies the exploitation of unorganised women workers. It glories in the mass rape of Muslim women, as in Surat after the destruction of the Babri Masjid, and it seeks to turn a section of Hindu women into violent fanatics.
The Pokhran test is being billed a "Hindu Bomb" against the so-called threat posed by "Muslim Pakistan". We have to resist this, and proclaim that the main enemy is at home. * Soma Marik is a member of the Forum Against Oppression of Women (Calcutta) and active in Maitree (Friendship), a network of 34 women's organisations and many individual activists. She has been active in the anti-nuclear movement that developed in West Bengal after India's nuclear tests, representing Maitree in the negotiations that produced a unified movement against the nuclear tests, and has been a member of the co-ordinating committee of the Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons. Marik teaches History in Calcutta and is a regular contributor to the press of the Inquilabi Communist Sangathan (Indian section of the Fourth International) on women's issues, history and Hindu communalism. Notes: 1. See dossier on Fourth UN Conference on Women, International Viewpoint #271 November 1995 2. At the Hanford Nuclear reservation in Washington state in the USA, liquid nuclear waste was poured directly into the Columbia river. In spite of the cle up there is still widespread radi 3. "India's Hiroshima Day #303 September 1998
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