NEW DELHI: The assassination of Bhilai worker’s leader, Shankar Guha Niyogi, appears to be a logical culmination of the strategy adopted by local industrialists and the Madhya Pradesh government apparently operating in tandem, says the Citizen’s Committee on industrial unrest in Bhilai.
The panel, comprising D S. Tewana, former chief justice ‘of Punjab-Haryana and Calcutta high courts, Kuldip Nayar, journalist Vijay Tendulkar playwright, ‘Dr. Anil Sadgopal, education stand Rakesh Shukla, Supreme Court advocate toured the Bhilai industrial belt for five days in November last year and came up with a Al-page report on the circumstances leading to the killing of ‘Niyogi in September 1991 and the ‘nature and content of the workers movement .the report was released to the Press by Nayar Tewatia and ‘Sadgopal in the Capital on Friday. “There is no doubt in our minds, that some industrialists wanted him ‘out of the way because he dared to sive the workers their due. Who among them got it carried out is being probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, but it is clear to us that he was a victim of the climate and circumstances which ‘some industrialists had created in Bhilai said Nayar and Tewatia. ‘The constitutional and legal demands of the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha led by Niyogi posed a threat to the huge illegal profits of the industrialists says the report. ‘The conspirators had the monetary and political backing to manage the act of assassination and yet suppress their role in it says. ‘When the industrialists were unable to crush the movement by victimizing agitated workers with dismissals, they, with at least the knowledge if not also connivance of the administration and the police launched further victimization at the factories, goonda and police attacks on workers and their leaders, registration of false cases against hundreds of workers under sections ranging from that of preventive detention to attempt to ‘murder and refusing to talk to the CMM-affiliate trade unions for ‘more than a year, the panel says. ‘The Committee’s report demolishes the claim of the industrialists that the movement had been at low ebb and had died almost two months before Niyogi murder and hence they had nothing to gain by this act. The state machinery is at best in effective and in fact openly serves the interests of the industrialists, says the report. The police it says, has converted a genuine labour dispute into a law and order problem as well as turning a blind eye to the well-orchestrated attacks on workers by mafia gangs ‘operating on behalf of the industrialist.
The report assails the Labour Department for “criminally neglecting its role as a regulatory and enforcement agency for the various Labour laws or over two decades.” Its officers have shown callous indifference to the wide spread and blatant violation of almost each and every industrial and Labour law in the region since the sixties. Hence the ultimate responsibility for the speedy resolution of the dispute lies squarely to the door of the Labour Department and the State Government the report says.
Despite immense provocation, the workers displayed a combination of militancy and nonviolence, the committee reports. “We found a sense of insecurity among the ‘workers. They accepted low wages and inhuman working conditions ‘while the rich industrialists allowed in luxuries and behaved like feudal lords, the panelists say.
‘The committee says it was baffled as to why Niyogi was not protected despite repeatedly saving his life was in danger, despite conveying it to the President, Venkataraman, the Prime Minister, P.V Narasimha Rao, and the BIP leader, L.K. Advani. It’s not without significance that the ‘powers that be took their own time to refer the matter to the CBI for ‘enquiry, the report says.
Thus Niyogi’s as the first nakedly committed political murder, ‘sums up the report.
Article extracted from this publication >> March 13, 1992
