Indian Old-State Repression Against Revolutionary Democratic Magazine Nazariya Continues, Liquidationists Act as Accomplice

Nine activists were reportedly captured by the old-Indian state in July without warrants due to their activity with Nazariya Magazine, bsCEM (Bhagat Singh Chhatra Ekta Manch, a democratic student organization), and FACAM, according to FACAM (Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization). The abductions were carried out by the Delhi Police Special Cell.

FACAM reports on October 17 that the targeted activists, arrested between July 11 and July 21, were not provided with legal representation and that they were “subjected to brutal interrogation techniques, including electric shock, physical assault, and threats of sexual violence.” The statement details how women prisoners were stripped naked and left with drunken male police officers, without female officers being present. The captors, in one of the cases, heated up iron rods and threatened to rape a 20-year-old prisoner with them.

The activists captured in this illegal abduction are well known for advocating for the rights of poor Adivasi peasants, and have been targeted for their legal activity with the people’s organizations and publications. The increased repression, extreme brutality, and torture were carried out by the police in search of Vallika Varshri, the editor of Nazariya Magazine, which has come under attack by the old state, postmodernists, and their allies. Nazariya joins the ranks of other noble democratic publications repressed by the old-Indian state.

At least two of the tortured activists worked for Nazariya Magazine as editors at one time. According to FACAM, “the targetting of specific organizations—bsCEM, FACAM, and Nazariya Magazine—through detention of their members and interrogation of editorial staff signals a coordinated attempt to silence critical voices and dismantle civil society spaces.”

Background of Repression Against Nazariya Magazine

A campaign of slander and snitching was carried out against the staff of Nazariya in the months before the old-state abductions were carried out. In June, The Worker hosted a statement from the Revolutionary Student Front in India, exposing the “left” phrasemongering of the anti-communist group called “Students for People’s Democracy.” The RSF statement not only reveals the attacks on Nazariya Magazine, but thoroughly exposes and repudiates the attempts to smuggle in these bourgeois attacks from the so-called “left.”

They expose how “Students for People’s Democracy” (“SfPD”) attempt to confuse the masses by attacking Nazariya Magazine under the guise of “social justice,” with RSF calling the former “the clown of the big bourgeoisie and landlords” who have “promoted liquidationist trends in the revolutionary organizations” and “have actually collaborated with the state forces in order to break up the communist organizations.”

The RSF statement comes in response to the public and online activity of the snitches of “SfPD” launching a campaign against Nazariya Magazine and any organization that refused to join in the slander campaign. The same activists were targeted by “SfPD” before being apprehended illegally by the forces of reaction. The RSF comrades point out that by attacking Nazariya Magazine, then being silent when they are repressed by the state, “Students for People’s Democracy” is in fact siding with fascism.

RSF notes this is the case especially with the editor of Nazariya, Comrade Vallika: “When RSF and Virasam and other organisations published statements against the illegal and arbitrary investigation of Comrade Vallika by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad, not only did these state agents [“SfPD”] have no ire for the actions of the state, but they even tried to legitimize the state’s actions against Comrade Vallika in particular, and Nazariya in general.” The RSF statement goes on to say that another comrade “called out” by “SfPD” was illegally arrested in the same act of repression against Comrade Vallika.

The Snitches Find Friends Among Their Counterparts in the USA

In April, the US-based blog operating under the name “The Masses” produced an interview with the snitch organization “Students for People’s Democracy”, which promoted the slander and snitch campaign against Nazariya Magazine by lending it international support. “The Masses” not only provided a platform for the rats of “SfPD,” but, knowingly or not, assisted the repression of activists in India.

The interview in question is called “On the Mishandling of Sexual Misconduct within Nazariya”, published on “The Masses” website on April 19, 2025. On June 4, The Worker contacted “The Masses” with good-faith criticism and warnings about publishing such an interview. “The Masses” did not respond. Following the latest report from FACAM detailing the repression the comrades in India have faced in collusion with the snitches that “The Masses” interviewed, The Worker again reached out to “The Masses” as well as the “People’s Defense Committee” (PDC)—which “The Masses” now claims to be the “official press organ” of—on October 21, requesting comment on this decision. “The Masses” and PDC were informed that they had until October 23 to provide a response so their perspective could be included, as The Worker was preparing an article for publication on the matter. No response was received by the provided deadline.

Instead, on October 23, the interview along with all of “The Masses” original articles were taken down and replaced by a handful of statements from the PDC, while maintaining the website’s old logo and web address. The PDC was announced last month to have formed between the merger of the right-wing of the “Revolutionary Study Group” and the misnamed “Revolutionary Maoist Coalition.”

No explanation or comment has yet to be provided by “The Masses” on its decision to remove all of its previous articles as of this writing, or on whether or not it denounces the interview it conducted. They have not offered balanced coverage, even after the RSF statement has been made available. “The Masses” have refused to take accountability for their actions in promoting the snitches that are complicit in the repression of the activists in India by the fascist old-state.

The developments in the situation with Nazariya Magazine and the fact that “The Masses” publication has had ample time and opportunity to retract the interview and to take a principled stand against police work makes it necessary for us to make our objections known.

A revolutionary publication in the US has neither the ability, responsibility, nor prerogative to conduct an investigation into a revolutionary publication in India to determine the guilt or innocence of individuals involved in alleged actions. This reveals how un-serious “The Masses” really is. Furthermore, the method of public “call-outs” of individuals targeted by the state for revolutionary work amounts to police work by facilitating the state’s campaign and attempting to generate public opinion against them. To strike a false moral pose in the name of “social justice” against activists facing lethal repression is downright arrogance.

Such methods epitomize the postmodernism common among the US “left”, in which identity politics and subjectivism fuel knee-jerk reactions rather than the materialist dialectics of dividing one into two and investigating the two aspects of every situation. These self-proclaimed Maoists ignore key principals of Maoism: “No investigation, no right to speak” and “first make a preliminary investigation and study of the two basic aspects of the problem or contradiction before you can understand the nature of the contradiction.” The snitches in India find their collaborators in the US online; they unite because they share the same ideological deviations associated with postmodernism and because they have the same petty-bourgeois class stand.

It is worth noting that there is no statement of solidarity with the activists and their organizations in India on “The Masses” website, though they face documented and real threats of sexual abuse at the hands of the old-state. Material sexual violence at the systematic level of state repression does not rank even a few lines, yet an entire interview was produced on the basis of accusations against the revolutionary democratic publication of Nazariya Magazine. This proves what “The Masses” is really about.

Also of note, aside from “calling out” the Nazariya editor, another individual “called out” in the interview shares a name with one of the people listed by the October 17 FACAM statement as among the targeted comrades in the Indian old-state’s campaign of illegal arrest and torture, though it is not confirmed whether this is in fact the same person in both cases.

The interview itself is steeped in the language and criteria of postmodernism and bourgeois “social justice” in fashion among ruling-class intellectuals. This position always seeks to blow up the contradictions among the people and the contradictions inside of revolutionary and progressive organizations because there is no distinction made between contradictions among the people and between the people and the class enemy. The interview concludes with “The Masses” referring to the “SfPD”, clowns of the big bourgeoisie and landlords, as their “comrades.”

The chauvinism of activists in imperialist countries can be seen in the conclusion of the interview when “The Masses” demands that the besieged and repressed Nazariya Magazine, bsCEM, and FACAM acknowledge the “criticism” of the opportunist rats and issue “public self-criticism” for “failing to handle the case properly”—all in the name of the “gender-oppressed” masses. The same bourgeois ideological positions that lead snot-nosed Americans to think they are entitled to such interventions are tied intrinsically to anti-communism in the sense that the useful tools of India’s snitches have no faith in the organizations there, let alone the Party and revolution to solve the problems.

Expose all Police Work, Especially When it Enters the Working Class Movement Disguised with “Left” Phrase-mongering

One of the tried and true tactics of attacking the communist movement is from the inside, by attacking individuals and personalities using “call-outs”. Such public snitching campaigns attempt to destroy reputations of suspected leaders and organizers in order to cost them support, including when—and to facilitate when—they are captured by the state forces of reaction. The Communist Party of Peru details these types of methods:

“The reaction has two principles to destroy the revolution: to annihilate its leadership and to isolate the guerrilla from the masses. But in synthesis, its problem is to annihilate the leadership, because it is what allows us to maintain our perspective and reach our objective.”

This is universally true at both higher and lower levels of revolutionary activity. Every organized effort has leaders and active elements, and everywhere the reaction is the same—it seeks to annihilate leaders, including leading publications only engaged in free speech, in order to separate the active elements from the masses.

The US movement is no stranger to such attacks, as The Worker has detailed against the rats of the Politically Degenerate Right Liquidationists, as well as their agents and useful stooges active under the false banner of Maoism. It hardly surprises us that “PDC” would have an official organ engaged in police work against Indian comrades while trafficking in solidarity with the People’s War in India. We have documented and exposed the machinations and opportunism of “New York Revolutionary Youth”—now called “Anti-Imperialist Student Front – CUNY—in their campaign of slander and police work, which has shared the PDC founding statement. We have detailed the ideological deviations including postmodernism of the “Austin RSG”, which is now a chapter of “PDC,” according to their social media. It is our understanding that the fledgling “PDC” is in no short supply of snitches and PDRL collaborators. We hope this is corrected by the organization itself so that it can fulfill its self-ascribed mandate.

The Worker’s interest in publishing the above article is first and foremost that of our duty as internationalists to the comrades facing persecution in India, and secondarily it is our duty to condemn police work and snitching around the world and especially in this country as a matter of principle. It is necessary for all genuine revolutionaries and revolutionary publications to take a firm position against such call-outs and police work, to have no tolerance for it, and to struggle against it. We encourage our readers to demand “The Masses” repudiate the now-covered-up police work interview with the rats of India and boycott all engaged in snitching and collaboration with snitches. This is a matter life and death as the process unfolding in India confirms.

Image: detail of graphic accompanying the October 17 FACAM post, from FACAM social media.

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