by Geraldina Colotti for the Italian daily Il Manifesto. (Translation by the International Department of the CARC Party)

Ans: I started my social activism during my student days, starting from 1989. I was associated with a revolutionary student movement called Radical Students' Union (RSU) which originated in 1980 in the state of Andhra Pradesh. This student body mobilized hundreds of thousands of students on all social and political issues along with that pertaining to students and educational institutions. It gave the historic call of 'Go to Villages' to the students. This call actually revolutionised the urban spaces in Andhra Pradesh. This organization was banned by the government in 1991. A number of revolutionary student leaders were killed in cold blood by the police/armed forces of the state. Later on I started working in an anti-imperialist organisation formed at the all India level called All India Peoples' Resistance Forum (AIPRF). This anti-imperialist organization worked to mobilize hundreds and thousands of people all over the country in major rallies and demonstrations against Dunkel draft, WTO, suicide deaths of farmers, against imperialist wars and all other major pro-imperialist policies of Indian rulers. The AIPRF in 2005 merged with other similar organisations to form Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF). It is a federation of revolutionary people's organizations like workers, peasants, youth, students, women and revolutionary cultural organizations across India in 13 states. In most states, its members and main functionaries are arrested and incarcerated. Hundreds of its functionaries either suffer in prisons or work in different forms. But it still works among the people vigorously. Its members are being branded as having links with CPI (Maoist) just because it also believes in revolutionary transformation of Indian Society. But then an overwhelming majority of the Subcontinent does so.

Presently our organization is involved in mobilizing democratic voices against a major military offensive that the Government of India (GOI) has initiated on the indigenous people of the country, called the Operation Green Hunt (OGH).

I am an assistant professor of literature at the University of Delhi. I originally come from Andhra Pradesh but for the last one decade am settled in New Delhi.

2) What are the activities of the Revolutionary Democratic Front of India?

Ans. This front, as has been mentioned above, is a federation of revolutionary mass organizations working at grassroots level. While each of the constituent organizations works among the various sections of the people on their issues, to revolutionise them as per the understanding of New Democratic Revolution (NDR), the front focuses on larger political issues pertaining to all these sections at state and country-wide level.

In 1997, Arundhati Roy's first novel The God of Small Things made her the first Indian woman to win the prestigious Booker Prize. More than six million copies of the book were sold worldwide.

Since then, she has turned her pen to politics. During the Bush years, she was a fierce critic, calling the invasion of Afghanistan "an act of terror on the people of the world".

In India, she has campaigned against mega dams projects, denounced the rise of Hindu nationalism, and has been imprisoned by the Supreme Court of India for "corrupting public morality".

Kabir Suman, the maverick musical genius and activist, who resigned as an MP, tells PARTHA DASGUPTA he rues the state of politics in India

Wasn't your resignation inevitable?

You could say so. I am a product of the peoples' movement. I am a self-proclaimed anarchist. I am a political man by all means but not a man of politics. The Singur-Nandigram uprising brought me to the centrestage of West Bengal's anti-government politics and I was persuaded to contest an election by some well-meaning friends and a large section of the civil society as well as Mamata Banerjee. Everyone thought I was just the right man to function as the 'people's voice' in Parliament. Little did I know then that for a first time MP, to be able to raise a point in Parliament is almost impossible. Add to it the fact that I was continually harassed, humiliated and slighted in public by a section of the Trinamul Congress leadership. I couldn't take it any more. I was losing my identity.

Hello and welcome to CNN-IBN special in the aftermath of killing of 76 CRPF jawans in Dantewada by Maoists, there has been a nationwide debate which has been polarized one.

One argument is to about to use maximum force to crush the Maoists and the other argument is about to initiate outreach program, democracy and rehabilitation. Joining us here is the author and the activist Arundhati Roy, who has written several writings on Maoists and her open sympathy and empathy for them, has created a great degree of debate and controversy. Thanks very much indeed for joining us.

Last month, quietly, unannounced, Arundhati Roy decided to visit the forbidding and forbidden precincts of Central India's Dandakaranya Forests, home to a melange of tribespeople many of whom have taken up arms to protect their people against state-backed marauders and exploiters. She recorded in considerable detail the first face-to-face journalistic "encounter" with armed guerillas, their families and comrades, for which she combed the forests for weeks at personal risk.

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B D Sharma is one of India's foremost experts on tribal issues. He has served as collector of undivided Bastar district in Chhattisgarh and commissioner for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes and has campaigned extensively to protect the rights of tribals. Currently, the coordinator of Bharat Jan Andolan, a network of grass-roots organisations, Sharma tells that current notions of development are at the root of the Maoist insurgency.

What has changed since you were collector of Bastar?

That was 40 years ago! Outsiders didn't have so much influence there, except in Bailadila. The presence of the administration also wasn't much. As collector, i didn't sanction any mining lease. When sanctions started being given, discontent grew, and in the 1980s, the Maoists came.