NEW DELHI: More than 30,000 people are now in prison for having taken part in the left-wing land-grab movement launched at the beginning of August, orthodox Communist Deputy Bhupesh Gupta told the Upper House yesterday [Aug 20].

Mr Gupta and other Communists and socialists condemned the attitude of some state Governments as “anti-democratic” as they had ordered the arrests of a number of deputies who support the movement. Socialist Deputy Ram Sewak Yadev Seleva complained that the Uttar Pradesh Government arrested the Vice-Chairman of the Socialist Party after last week arresting Mr Dange, the Communist Party Chairman. — Agency

[Meanwhile, as reported by our correspondent in Colombo,] The Sumuktha Socialist land-grabbers will occupy Indira Gandhi’s 14-acre farm in New Delhi next Sunday, party leader Rajnarain announced yesterday [Aug 20]. He said the land grab movement would spread [to] all Indian states by the end of this month. He said the movement launched a fortnight ago had resulted in forcible occupation of 45,000 acres, 20,000 acres in Bihar and 10,000 acres in Uttar Pradesh. …

Two international trade union organisations — The World Federation of Trade Unions, Prague, and the General Trade Unions, France — protested to Indira against the arrest of Communist leader S.A. Dange....

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2020