Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna’s autobiography JEEVAN SANGRAM is available in Punjabi ( Shahmukhi) at this link :
Indian Workers Association (GB) pays homage to Laxmi Sehgal
ਇਨਕਲਾਬੀ ਅਜਾਦੀ ਸੰਗਰਾਮੀ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ ਨੂੰ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ ਸਭਾ ਗ੍ਰੇਟ ਬ੍ਰਿਟੇਨ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਸ਼ਰਧਾਂਜਲੀ
ਨੇਤਾ ਜੀ ਸੁਭਾਸ਼ ਚੰਦਰ ਬੋਸ ਦੀ ਅਗਵਾਈ ਅਧੀਨ ਇੰਡੀਅਨ ਨੈਸ਼ਨਲ ਆਰਮੀ ਵਿੱਚ ਬਣਾਈ ਗਈ ਰਾਣੀ ਝਾਂਸੀ ਰੈਜਮੈਂਟ ਦੀ ਕਮਾਂਡਰ ਅਤੇ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਅਜਾਦੀ ਦੇ ਸੰਘਰਸ਼ ਵਿੱਚ ਮਹੱਤਵਪੂਰਣ ਯੋਗਦਾਨ ਪਾਉਣ ਵਾਲੀ ਕੈਪਟਨ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ ਦੇ ਸੋਮਵਾਰ ਨੂੰ ਕਾਨਪੁਰ ਵਿੱਚ 97 ਸਾਲ ਦੀ ਉਮਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਸਦੀਵੀ ਵਿਛੋੜੇ ਤੇ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ ਸਭਾ ਗ੍ਰੇਟ ਬ੍ਰਿਟੇਨ ਗਹਿਰੇ ਦੁੱਖ ਦਾ ਇਜ਼ਹਾਰ ਕਰਦੀ ਹੈ. ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ ਜੀ ਪੱਕੇ ਦੇਸ਼ਭਗਤ , ਨਿਰਸੁਆਰਥ ਸੇਵਾ ਦੇ ਪੁੰਜ ਅਤੇ ਮਾਰਕਸਵਾਦੀ ਕਮਿਊਨਿਸਟ ਪਾਰਟੀ ਦੇ ਸੀਨੀਅਰ ਅਤੇ ਸਤਿਕਾਰਤ ਮੈਂਬਰ ਅਤੇ ਆਲ ਇੰਡੀਆ ਡੈਮੋਕਰੈਟਿਕ ਵਿਮਨ’ਜ਼ ਅਸੋਸੀਏਸ਼ਨ ਦੇ ਸਰਪ੍ਰਸਤ ਸਨ ਜੋ ਸਾਰੀ ਉਮਰ ਔਰਤਾਂ ਦੇ ਮਸਲਿਆਂ ਅਤੇ ਸਮਾਜਿਕ ਮੁੱਦਿਆਂ ਤੇ ਅਣਥੱਕ ਸੰਘਰਸ਼ ਕਰਦੇ ਰਹੇ.
ਅਗਸਤ 1997 ਵਿੱਚ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਅਜਾਦੀ ਦੀ 50ਵੀਂ ਵਰ੍ਹੇ ਗੰਢ ਦੇ ਸਬੰਧ ਵਿੱਚ ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ ਸਭਾ ਗ੍ਰੇਟ ਬ੍ਰਿਟੇਨ ਵੱਲੋਂ ਬਰਤਾਨੀਆਂ ਭਰ ਵਿੱਚ ਪਬਲਿਕ ਮੀਟਿੰਗਾਂ ਆਯੋਜਿਤ ਕੀਤੀਆਂ ਗਈਆਂ ਸਨ ਜਿਹਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ ਹੁਰਾਂ ਦੇ ਨਾਲ ਕਾਮਰੇਡ ਹਰਕਿਸ਼ਨ ਸਿੰਘ ਸੁਰਜੀਤ ਹੁਰਾਂ ਨੇਂ ਵੀ ਸੰਬੋਧਨ ਕੀਤਾ ਸੀ.
ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ ਸਭਾ ਗ੍ਰੇਟ ਬ੍ਰਿਟੇਨ ਦੁਖੀ ਪਰਿਵਾਰ ਨਾਲ ਹਮਦਰਦੀ ਪ੍ਰਗਟ ਕਰਦੀ ਹੋਈ ਲਕਸ਼ਮੀ ਸਹਿਗਲ ਜੀ ਦੇ ਸੰਘਰਸ਼ਮਈ ਜੀਵਨ ਨੂੰ ਪ੍ਰਣਾਮ ਕਰਦੀ ਹੈ.
ਅਵਤਾਰ ਜੌਹਲ (ਜਨਰਲ ਸਕੱਤਰ, ਭਾਰਤੀ ਮਜ਼ਦੂਰ ਸਭਾ ਗ੍ਰੇਟ ਬ੍ਰਿਟੇਨ)
Baba Bilga cremated
Baba Bilga cremated
Kusum Arora
Tribune News Service
| Though Baba was given state funeral but Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal did not turn up to pay their respects to the departed soul. Many people present their criticised the CM and the Dy CM for not attending the cremation. “Senior and junior Badal are CM and DyCM respectively today because of people like Baba Bilga”, said an associate of Baba Bilga. Even media adviser to the CM, Harcharan Singh Bains could not reach the airport despite an official announcement yesterday. Only Sports Minister Gulzar Singh Ranike and Lohian MLA Ajeet Singh Kohar reached the venue. |
Jalandhar, June 3
“Mainu Bilga le chalo, mere desh le chalo( take me to my village, to my country”, was the last words of ghadarite Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga who breathed his last at Birmingham (UK), where his sons and grandsons live. The freedom fighter wished to reach his native place before breathing his last but it did not happen.
Baba’s body was consigned consigned to flames at his native village this afternoon. He was 102 on May 22. Before performing the last rites, Baba’s body was kept at Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall, which was built under his patronage and is known for literary and cultural activities.
Baba was given state funeral amidst slogans:Baba bilga amar rahe’ and ‘Baba bilga da pegam, zari rakhna hai sangram. As Baba commanded high respect among trade unions, revolutionary groups and other Left wing organisations and even intellectuals of universities and college, they were all present in large number to pay their last respect to Baba Bilga, whose death marks end of an era of Ghadar movement.
Kulbir Singh Sanghera said Baba died after a brief illness. He was in his senses even a few hours before he breathed his last, said Sanghera.
Among those who paid tributes to Bada were Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Ajit Singh Kohar, Lakshmi Kanta Chawla, Jagbir Singh Brar, Amarjit Singh Samra, Avtar Henry, Gurcharan Singh Channi and some senior officers including Deputy Commissioner Ajit Singh Pannu.
The Kirti Kisan Union, the Kul Hind Kisan Mazdoor Sabha, the Dehati Mazdoor Sabha, the Technical Services Union, the Punjab Khet Mazdoor Union, the Indian Workers Association and the Pendu Mazdoor Union also paid tributes to Baba Bilga at his village.
Amritsar: Members of the Left parties and farmer unions today gathered at the Rajasansi airport her to pay homage to freedom fighter Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, whose body was brought here here today at 2 am from London. Ajit Singh Kohar, Minister of Revenue and Rehabilitation, received the body at the airport on behalf of Punjab government.
Bhupinder Singh, president, Punjabi Virasat Foundation, general secretary Harjit Singh Rajasansi, leaders of Leftist parties Ajmer Singh, Jatinder Singh Pannu, Gurmeet Singh, members of farmer unions Jathinder Singh Chhina, Dr Satnalm Siongh Ajnala were among those who paid homage to the Baba .
The office-bearers of the Desh Bhagat Yadgaar Hall Naunihal Singh and Gurmeet Singh, general secretary and secretary, respectively, received the body of Baba Bilga at the airport, which was later taken to his native place Bilga near Nurmahal in Jalandhar district.
Red Salute to Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga
from www.lalkar.org
Red Salute to Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga
Last of the Ghadar revolutionaries
The revolutionary movement, and all Indian progressives and patriots, lost the last living link with one of the most glorious pages of India’s anti-imperialist history when Comrade Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, popularly known as Baba Bilga, passed away on 22 May in Birmingham at the age of 102.
Baba Bilga was the last surviving member of the Ghadar Party, a revolutionary party of Indians overseas, founded in California, USA, in 1913, pledged to the liberation of India from British colonial rule by means of armed struggle.
He was born on either 1 or 2 April 1907, the same year as the great revolutionary martyr, Shaheed Bhagat Singh, in the village of Bilga in Punjab’s Jalandhar district. His village was known as a baghi (rebel) one by the British rulers and several of its young men were to join the Ghadar Party.
Not untypically, his early life was hard. His father, Hira Singh Sanghera, died when he was one year old. As he recalled in later years: “My maternal aunt took me to her village, Ajitwal in Moga district. She soon died of plague. Her husband and my maternal grandmother brought me up.”
Seeking work, Baba Bilga went to Kolkata and from there to Burma, Singapore, Hong Kong, Chile and finally to Argentina in 1931 at the age of 24. It was there that he met Ajit Singh, the uncle of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, who won him to the cause of revolution. He worked as a clerk in a railway store and became the General Secretary of the Ghadar Party in Argentina.
Revolutionary history of the Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party’s roots lay in the struggle against discrimination faced by Indian immigrants to Canada and the USA, but its focus was on freeing India from British colonial rule. The first issue of the party paper, published in November 1913, wrote:
“Today there begins in foreign lands, but in our country’s tongue, a war against the British Raj… What is our name? Revolution. What is our work? Revolution. Where will the revolution be? In India. The time will soon come when rifles and blood will take the place of pens and ink.”
The party was strongly secular. Sohan Singh Bhakna, one of its first leaders, recalled: “We were not Sikhs or Punjabis. Our religion was patriotism.” In this, the Ghadar Party echoed the maxim of Theobald Wolfe Tone, founder of the United Irishmen, who declared the need to substitute the names of “Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter with the common name of Irishman”. The eighth point of the Ghadar Party’s first manifesto was:
“No discussion or debate was to take place on religion within the organisation. Religion was considered a personal matter and it had no place in the organisation.”
The party developed strong organisation in numerous countries, including Mexico, Japan, China, Malaya, Thailand, Philippines, Indochina, and eastern and southern Africa. Very significantly, point nine of the party manifesto said:
“Every member was duty bound to participate in the liberation struggle of that country in which they were resident.”
Accordingly, the party built strong ties with the revolutionaries of many countries, including China and Ireland, and with such figures as Agnes Smedley, later to become a legendary chronicler of the Chinese revolution.
Like James Connolly and his comrades in Ireland, the Ghadarites saw the inter-imperialist war of 1914-18 as a golden opportunity to make a strike for freedom. In an open letter to the people of India, the party wrote:
“Another world war is approaching. We must take advantage of this opportunity. England is sure to get involved in the coming war. Political wisdom demands that we utilise this rare opportunity for our good. We must put forward our demand for complete independence when our enemy, British imperialism, is engaged in a life and death struggle.”
The Ghadarites also instantly grasped the significance of the Great October Socialist Revolution, which, in 1917, overthrew the tsarist autocracy in Russia and ushered in rule by the working class. A party statement of that year declared:
“The immediate object of the revolutionary party in the domain of politics is to establish a Federal Republic of the United States of India by an organised armed revolution…The basic principles of this Republic shall be universal suffrage and the abolition of all systems which make the exploitation of man by man possible…
“The Revolutionary Party is not national but international in the sense that its ultimate object is to bring harmony in the world by respecting and guaranteeing the diverse interests of the different nations; it aims not at competition but at cooperation between the different nations and states, and in this respect it follows the footsteps of the great Indian rishis [sages] and of Bolshevik Russia in the modern age. Good for humanity is no vain and empty word for Indian revolutionaries.”
Struggle before and after Independence
Baba Bilga therefore joined the Indian revolutionary movement at a time when the most advanced patriots had fused their struggle for national emancipation with that of the proletariat for its social emancipation on a world-wide scale. He was one of some 60 members of the Ghadar Party who were sent to Moscow to study at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East.
In 1933, he received orders to return to India. Trailed by British agents, his return journey took him a year. Travelling on a false passport, and using the name Milky Singh, his route took him through Paris, Berlin and Colombo, and then Kanyakumari, Nagpur and Kolkata, before arriving to Kanpur.
Baba Bilga plunged himself into underground work and had many close shaves with the authorities. He organised strikes in the textile mills in Bengal and established underground presses in Kanpur and Lahore.
He joined the Congress Socialist Party and was elected a member of the All India Congress Committee. In the 1938 Congress meeting, he sided with Subhash Chandra Bose, who called for an armed struggle. Throughout his life, he remained a member of the Communist Party of India or of revolutionary communist organisations and never wavered in his ideology.
He kept up his struggle after independence, about which, he once said: “It was merely a compromise between the British government and the leaders, who took the country through a change of power and not freedom struggle…The India of our dreams is yet to arrive.”
As one of the country’s most respected veteran revolutionaries, he remained loyal to Ghadarite secular values, when the reactionary communal demand for ‘Khalistan’ was raised, and spread by vicious terrorism, in Punjab in the 1980s. Bilga recalled those times: “We recruited more than 200 young intellectuals to pacify the fanatics. Most of them were gunned down…I once went to a condolence meeting of a slain Hindu and addressed Sikh mourners there against the movement. After coming back home, I sat in the courtyard awaiting my death. I desperately wanted to be a martyr.”
In latter years, Bilga devoted himself to maintaining and running the Desh Bhagat Yadgar Memorial Hall. Honouring the revolutionaries of the Ghadar Party, it is a treasure trove of the revolutionary movement, with 17,000 books and countless original documents, including 2,000 rare photographs of underground revolutionaries. Bilga recalled:
“I have dedicated myself to this museum which has 35 other freedom fighters as its members. It traces the life of each and every Ghadari along with their photograph. We have collected them from their villages, relatives and friends, in India and abroad. And all this to tell the world that Englishmen didn’t leave India because a handful of Indians threw salt into their eyes. They left because we sent them packing.”
As late as his 102nd birthday, on 1 April this year, his political clarity was still razor sharp. On this occasion, he told Indian newspapers in telephone interviews:
“Governments came and went but the issues of development of society still lie unaddressed. The picture of India is not the same as conceived by the freedom fighters.
“We had never dreamt during our days of struggle that a situation shall arrive where a Prime Minister like Manmohan Singh just weaves the magic of a few numerals to falsely claim that the country is doing well…
“Today the country needs another Bhagat Singh to save it from corrupt leaders. Shaheed can return in the form of our youth if they follow his ideology.”
Baba Bilga spent the last year of his life in Birmingham, where he had come to stay with family and to have prostrate gland treatment. He had planned a return to India in September. Living each day to the full, in Britain as in India, he was always at the service of the revolutionary movement, making time particularly for the youth, who he firmly believed were the future.
A Birmingham memorial meeting was held for Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga on 30 May, attended by some 600 people, who heard speakers from the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist), Indian Workers’ Association (GB) and other revolutionary, progressive and community organisations, pay tribute to an outstanding patriot, communist and internationalist, whose revolutionary life was truly one “with the century”.
Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga – Lal Salaam!
Indian Elections-Analysis
from www.lalkar.org
Elections to India’s 15th Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian parliament) took place in a five-stage process, which began on 16 April and ended on 13 May 2009. In this month-long process, involving 828,804 polling stations, 6.1 million police and civic personnel, 1.4 million electronic voting machines, the participation of 1,055 political parties and numerous independent candidates, 417 million of the 714 million eligible voters cast their votes – a turnout of 58 per cent.
Congress wins
The results were declared on 16 and 17 May. To the surprise of everyone, including the winners, the Congress Party and its electoral allies won 261 of the 543 available seats. Though short of an absolute majority, the Congress needed the support of merely a couple of dozen others to form the government. Without much difficulty it secured such support and has since been installed in office. Congress alone won 206 seats, 61 more than it won in 2004: this was its best showing since 1991 when the wave of sympathy following the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi at an election rally, half way through the election campaign, gave the Congress Party a huge majority. The Congress share of the vote this time round was 28.6% (2% more than in 2004), with 119 million people voting for it. Manmohan Singh has been reappointed prime minister. This is the first time since 1962 that an Indian government, having served a full 5-year term with the same prime minister, has been re-elected.
Other parties
BJP (Bhartiya Janata Party), the main opposition party, won 116 seats (its lowest in two decades) as compared to 138 in 2004, while its share of the vote declined by 3.5%. The BSP (Bahujan Smaj Party), the caste-based party which claims to represent the aspirations and interests of those on the lowest rung of the Indian caste hierarchy – the Dalits – had entered the election fray by projecting its leader, Kumari Mayawati, as a prime ministerial candidate and contested more seats than any other party (500 as opposed to the 430 contested by Congress and 433 by BJP), secured a mere 21 seats – 20 of these from the state of Uttar Pradesh.
The number of seats secured by the communists was a disappointing 24 (in comparison with 62 in 2004) – their worst performance since 1952. This was mainly due to the gains made by the Congress and its ally, Trinamool Congress, led by that shrieking freak, Mamta Bannerjee, at the cost of the CPM (Communist Party of India – Marxist) in the state of West Bengal, whose provincial government it has led for the last three decades and which is its strongest base of support. Although the CPM’s share of the national vote this time, at 5.33% was only marginally lower than the 5.66% it secured in 2004, it suffered a more pronounced decline of 5% in its share of the vote in West Bengal, which made a huge difference to its representation in the new parliament. Similarly, the CPM suffered losses in the state of Kerala – another of its strongholds.
Some erstwhile partners of the Congress-led UPA (United Progressive Alliance) did very badly indeed. The RJD of Laloo Prasad Yadav, Railways Minister in the last government, hit an all-time low with a drop of 11 percentage points in its share of the vote in Bihar, down from 30.7% in 2004 to 19.3% in the election just held. RJD won a mere 4 seats, with Laloo Prasad himself managing to win only one of the two seats he contested. Ramvilas Paswan, with the dubious reputation of having served as a minister in the governments of every hue since 1996, suffered an ignominious defeat, as did his party LJP, which did not win a single seat.
Reasons
Having briefly sketched the results of the 2009 Indian parliamentary elections, it only remains for us briefly to outline the reasons for the electoral fortunes of the Congress and its allies, as well as the misfortunes of its opponents. The Congress owes its victory to a combination of good fortune and a very clever and carefully crafted appeal to the rich as well as the poor, especially the rural poor. In the run-up to the election, the Congress-led government implemented a hike in the pay of public employees; in May 2008, it put into effect the $14 bn (€10.8 bn; £9.7 bn) loan waiver scheme; launched the public-works scheme, known as NREGS (National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme), under which every rural household was guaranteed 100 days of paid labour a year – thus benefiting 44 million families; it made promises of cheap grain to the poor and passed the Forest Rights Act.
In addition, India’s economy during the past 5 years of Congress-led government, has grown at an average annualised rate of 8.5%, while the same period witnessed four good monsoons, with the result that agriculture (accounting for 20% of India’s GDP and supporting 60% of its 1.1 bn population) has grown at a relatively healthy rate of 3.4% a year. At the same time, with its pro-corporate policies and prime minister Manmohan Singh’s reputation for economic management firmly established in Indian bourgeois as well as imperialist circles, the Congress Party has become the most popular party among the richest 20% of Indian, who in the recent past had voted for the BJP. These are the sections who expect, and will get, the most from the Congress government in terms of policies which favour the rich and the privileged at the cost of the poor and underprivileged.
If the Congress thus positioned itself to be seen in a favourable light by the richest 20% of Indians as well as by large swathes of the rural and urban poor, especially the former, its major rival, the BJP, offered little other than the politics of communalism, religious divide, bigotry and Hindu chauvinism, which looks upon India’s 160 million Muslims with suspicion and treats them as insufferable aliens, organises communal orgies against Muslims and Christians and the destruction of ancient historical national monuments such as the 16th century Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. One of its rising stars, Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujarat, oversaw the 2002 anti-Muslim riots which claimed the lives of 2,000 innocent people. During the election campaign, while neglecting issues of social welfare, BJP concentrated on questions of security and last November’s terrorist attacks on targets in Mumbai. Thankfully the Indian electorate have had enough of the divisive communalism and demagogy espoused by the BJP. Even in Jammu, in the sensitive state of Jammu and Kashmir, it got nowhere with its Amarnath shrine-centred campaign.
In comparison, the Congress-led government of Manmohan Singh, with its measured response to the Mumbai attacks, combined with a tough diplomatic approach, looked much more statesmanlike and electable.
As regards the BSP, lacking any coherent ideology, it is merely a vehicle for the ambition of its leaders, masquerading as the saviours and protectors of the Dalits, who have fared no better under the BSP administration in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) than under other governments. Dalits account for 22% of UP’s 175 million people, while taking India as a whole, its 250 million Dalits represent approximately a fifth of India’s population. Far from representing the interests of this most downtrodden fifth of India’s people, its leader, Mayawati, has made a personal fortune of $12 million during her political career. She is no more accountable than the leaders of other bourgeois parties, exercising a personal veto over the selection of candidates.
The BSP, just like many other Indian bourgeois parties, boasts of gangsters in its ranks, like Mukhtar Ansari, who contested from Varanasi, while being locked up in a prison cell for the murder of a BJP lawmaker. A nearby BSP candidate was a high-caste Hindu gangster by the name of Dhananjay Singh, accused of murdering a rival candidate, Bahadur Sonkar – a Dalit. In its patronage of Mafia and criminal politicians, Mayawati and her BSP are second to none.
With no economic programme, the BSP’s election manifesto declared itself against the ‘dangerous’ spread of computers and the English language. Ever since winning the 2007 election to the UP State Assembly, the BSP, instead of protecting the landless, the poor and the oppressed, has been preoccupied with the installation of statues of Mayawati across the state. And this woman was wooed by the notorious Third Front as its prime ministerial candidate! In the end the Indian electorate proved far more perspicacious than those who cobbled together this rickety outfit of turncoats and rank charlatans.
In UP, the BSP secured 20 seats (one more than in 2004), but it came third in the state behind the 23 of the SP (Smajvadi Party) and 21 of Congress. Clearly, the BSP’s Bhaichara deal (Brahmin-Dalit brotherhood) is coming apart, with the oppressed Dalits feeling betrayed. It is no surprise then that BSP’s share of the Dalit vote in UP dropped from 80% in 2004 to 62.2% in 2009.
In view of the goons who grace the BSP and some other bourgeois parties, even the Congress Party appears uncommonly virtuous in comparison to its opponents, including the 72 who have entered parliament charged with serious crimes.
The Left and the CPM
While the best part of the election has been the rejection to a considerable degree by the electorate of the politics of regionalism and casteism, its worst aspect is the failure of the Left. Far from making electoral advances, the Left suffered serious reverses. As the biggest constituent of the Left, the CPM must undertake a serious analysis of the election result and look into the causes of this debacle. Doubtless part of the explanation is that many a party in West Bengal, having in the past been unable to unseat the left-front government in that state and who hate the CPM, combined their forces in an endeavour to inflict defeat on as many CPM parliamentary candidates as possible. This was to be expected. The question, however, is: how come that a significant section of the Bengali electorate went along with this endeavour? In our view, the explanation of the electoral setback experienced by the CPM is attributable to the following factors:
Firstly, the left-front government’s inept handling of the Singur-Nandigram peasant land acquisitions in order to clear the way for a car factory and a petrochemical plant respectively – an ineptness of which its opponents took full advantage, successfully portraying the CPM-led government of West Bengal as anti-peasant, repressive, bureaucratic and arrogant, a tool of the monopolies both Indian and foreign.
Second, in the summer of 2008 the Left parties, headed by the CPM, withdrew support from the UPA government of Manmohan Singh over the implementation by the latter of the civil nuclear cooperation deal with the US. While the UPA survived the vote of no-confidence that followed the Left’s withdrawal of support, the CPM and the rest of the Left was never able to convince the Indian masses of the alleged harmfulness of this deal. Frankly, the position of all the communist parties in India on the question of India’s (and Pakistan’s for that matter) nuclear weapons, nuclear tests and nuclear energy, is entirely misplaced. It is a policy of bourgeois pacifism barely concealed by the accompanying revolutionary rhetoric. Such a policy can never form part of the programme of the revolutionary proletariat. No wonder, then, that a campaign around opposition to India’s attempts to secure nuclear fuel failed to catch the imagination of the electorate.
Third, the CPM and CPI have for many long years busied themselves with the politics of parties, rather than of classes, concentrating on forging alliances with various bourgeois parties on the basis of the allegedly secular, national or progressive nature of various outfits – ranging from the Congress to SP, BSP and many others – while the real issues of mobilising the proletariat and the poor peasantry in the struggle for a democratic people’s revolution do not get even a ritual mention.
In the vacuum thus created, the Congress Party, for all its ingrained anti-proletarian and anti-poor peasant bias and policy, managed to step in and pose as the friends of the common people, while serving the upper fifth of the Indian population. The rich do understand the political physiognomy of the Congress Party and the significance of its own most recent electoral success. That is why the Bombay Stock Exchange jumped 17% (2,111 points, the highest single-day increase in any share index anywhere in the world) on the first day of trading after the election results were announced (18 May) in two dramatically curtailed sessions of trading lasting a total of just one minute. We only need to add that a mere 0.7% of households in India own any shares. Only a party rooted in class struggle, identifying with and championing the cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in their struggle for liberation can hope to loosen the grip of the ruling class parties on the Indian masses.
Interpretation
The corporate media and bourgeois ideologues have attempted to portray the latest Indian election outcome as a vindication of the UPA government’s pro-US and liberalisation policies and a rebuff to the ‘anti-development’ and ‘anti-US’ forces, especially the communists, with their allegedly obsolete ideas of Marxism and anti-imperialism. Far from it. The Indian masses have long democratic and anti-imperialist traditions. Possessed of a real hatred of imperialist bullying and grinding poverty at the hands of the Indian ruling classes, they long for the time when they will be free of the miserable and wretched existence to which the present economic and political system subjects them. If they voted for the Congress that is only because the latter had this time round something better to offer than any other bourgeois party. In the circumstances, characterised by a lack of any credible nationwide Left alternative, the masses may be forgiven for opting for the least worst of the bad choices facing them.
Now that the Congress has been re-elected, its government will not be able to reconcile its promises to the masses with its commitments to the rich. The new government faces formidable problems. Medical care for the poor is close to non-existent; school education, especially in the rural areas, presents a ramshackle spectacle; 60 million Indian children are malnourished (40% of the world’s total of malnourished children); rampant corruption characterises the Indian political establishment, the civil service, the police and sections of the judiciary; the fiscal deficit this year could well be in excess of 11% of GDP; and there is a chronic shortage of energy – India needs to add a minimum of 25,000 MW of power a year for a sustained growth rate of 9% a year.
In addition, the Indian ruling classes are being aggressively courted by US imperialism, which is trying to hitch India to its war chariot in an attempt to encircle the People’s Republic of China. Nothing good will come out of it for the Indian masses were such an alliance between the US and India to materialise. On the contrary, it would prove to be an unmitigated disaster of unimaginable proportions. The Indian people are still paying the price of the criminal 1962 war that the Indian ruling classes waged against China at the behest of US imperialism. Relations between India and the People’s Republic of China have improved over the past 15 years. The Indian masses must see to it that India continues along that trajectory of improving and deepening political, diplomatic, commercial and cultural relations with China. All attempts at forging an anti-China alliance between the US and India must be vigorously and vehemently opposed by the Indian masses.
On top of the above problems, the present economic crisis of world imperialism is imposing heavy burdens on the labouring masses of India, just as it is imposing on the masses in almost all other countries. Groaning under unbearable burdens that the global crisis of overproduction increasingly imposes on them, the Indian people are bound to intensify their resistance to increased exploitation and excruciating poverty. True to its traditions, the Congress government is bound to intensify the class war against the poor in an attempt to safeguard the interests of the rich. Through their rejection of the politics of regionalism, casteism and communal hatred, the Indian electorate have cleared the ground for the coming class struggle along the lines of crucial issues facing the Indian people – those of bread, land and liberty. This furnishes an excellent opportunity for the communists in India to provide leadership to the unfolding struggle and channel it along the road that leads to socialism through the intermediary stage of a people’s democratic revolution.
IWA GB urges all voters to vote Socialist Labour Party
IWA GB urges all voters in Britain to vote for Socialist Labour Party in the forthcoming European Parliamentary elections on 4th June 2009.
http://www.socialist-labour-party.org.uk
Avtar Singh Jouhl
General Secretary
Avtar Jouhl's Weblog 