• Imperialist Chieftain Clinton, Keep Off India!

• Key lessons from the Uttar Pradesh power workers strike

• American Imperialism in the New Millenium:
  "Peacemakers" who'll disarm everyone else

• CIS Summit Embraces the Doctrine of Anti-Terrorism

• Organise to replace Party Rule by People's Rule! - Part 2

• LRS meeting at Trivandrum on January 26:
  Meeting in Kerala calls for renewal of the political system

• Bitter Truths Regarding Privatisation of Modern Foods

• Brutal burning of girl students:
  Down with criminalisation of politics

The Communist Ghadar Party of India resolutely opposes the visit of US President Clinton to India proposed for March 21, ‘00. US Imperialism is the power responsible for terrorising millions of people the world over. It has led countless military attacks on nations and peoples, it has fuelled the fires of internecine wars, shamelessly intervened in the internal affairs of several counties, trampled the sovereignty of many peoples' underfoot, and mounted severe attacks on human rights and the rights of working people everywhere. Permitting the chieftain of US imperialism to set foot in India would constitute the greatest insult to this country.

American imperialism, whose cause Clinton wishes to further, has its hands stained with the blood of millions of workers, peasants and other working people from every country of the world. For over ten years, its military forces occupied Vietnam and other parts of Indo - China, until the brave peoples of those lands threw them out, sacrificing thousands of their best sons and daughters in the course of the long war of liberation. Fascist dictators were fully supported economically and armed to the teeth with deadly weapons in Iran, Chile, Indonesia and many other countries. The progressive and freedom loving people of India and elsewhere cannot forget or forgive the repeated dastardly bombings of Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan; the bloody interventions in Nicaragua, Panama and other countries of Central America, the blockading of Cuba, the shameful interference in the Middle East and the keeping alive of tensions between the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, the scorching of Kosova and Yugoslavia by repeated bombings and the continued intervention in the Balkans, the military intervention in Timor, and much more. In the name of "economic assistance", American Imperialism has attempted to enslave every nation, and has tried might and main to force all countries to adopt its’ own economic and political system to facilitate its control over them. Bloodthirsty as American imperialism is, it has arrogated to itself the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world allegedly to stop "human rights violations"

The ruling bourgeoisie in India has a shameful history of collaborating with US imperialism in order to achieve its own ignoble aims. By inviting the US imperialist chieftain Clinton to visit India, they have deeply insulted the dignity of the workers, peasants, women and youth of this country. It is imperative that everyone who regards himself or herself as communist or progressive, everyone who is democratic and freedom loving, every patriot and indeed, everyone who is a self-respecting Indian should work to keep this representative of bloodthirsty US imperialism away from the beloved soil of our land.

Arise comrades! Arise friends, patriots, women and youth! Let us unite and form a mighty force that will spew fire at Clinton and all his ilk! Our united opposition should be so strong that their very souls must tremble!

Down With the Indian Visit of Bill Clinton!

Down With the Indian Rulers Collaborating with US Imperialism!

After a marathon session of negotiation between the Struggle Committee and a delegation of ministers of the Government of Uttar Pradesh on January 25, 2000, the strike of 88,000 electricity workers of UP concluded with a signed agreement. What are the highlights of this agreement? What are the main lessons from this important battle? What are the lessons for the struggle of the working class and people against privatisation?

The bourgeoisie claims that this was a useless strike, which did not gain anything for the workers. As usual, the bourgeoisie is lying. Before the strike, the Government of Uttar Pradesh was all geared up to privatise electric supply in Kanpur city. As a result of the strike, the Government had to agree at the negotiations on January 25, to postpone the Kanpur privatisation plan until a review is conducted. This opens the door for the working class and people to put forth their views and create roadblocks in the plans of the bourgeoisie. This is an important gain for the working class and people.

The agreement signed at the negotiating table on January 25 ensures that all the benefits of the workers will be protected in spite of the unbundling and creation of 3 separate publicly owned companies in the year 2000. This includes provident fund, gratuity and the terms of outstanding loans. The agreement also ensures the reinstatement of all workers dismissed during the strike as well as full pay for the period of the strike. These are not small achievements, as will be obvious to workers who face the threat of privatisation or dismissal on account of an "illegal" strike in other states and in other industries.

The struggle against the Power Reform Program of the Indian and international bourgeoisie is a crucial front of the class struggle of labour against capital at the present time. The key lesson from the UP electricity workers’ strike is that the working class must take the offensive in this battle and put the bourgeoisie on the defensive. To take the offensive means to speak in the name of the whole of society, as the Struggle Committee of the UP electricity workers did. When they demanded the rolling back of the reform program, they were not speaking just about defending their own terms of employment. They were speaking in the interests of the all the workers and peasants and all the consumers of electric power in the cities and the villages.

By fighting in defence of the general interests of society, the UP electricity workers also succeeded in defending their own working conditions and benefits. This is an important lesson for the working class in the struggle against privatisation.

According to the original program of the Government of UP, privatisation of electricity distribution in Kanpur was going to be the major action in the year 2000. Now the bourgeoisie has been pushed into a defensive position, agreeing to a review before implementating this plan. The agreement does not specify who should conduct the review. The workers can very well raise the demand that a Review Commission should be set up with adequate representation of workers and consumers of every category. Having forced the bourgeoisie onto a defensive position on the question of Kanpur privatisation, the time is ripe for the working class to push further.

The arena of struggle may shift to Kanpur during the year 2000. The workers of Kanpur, who have a long history and tradition of class struggle, should keep in mind the lessons of the January 2000 Strike as they prepare for the coming battles.

American Imperialism in the New Millenium:

The last "State of the Union" speech made at the end of January ’00 by outgoing U.S. President Clinton outlines the strategy which he as the head of the US state thinks ought to be continued to help American imperialism increase and consolidate its’ domination over the world. This strategy calls for economic and political intervention one the one hand and military intervention on the other, to undermine the sovereignty and independence of countries and peoples’ and dominate them. While the economic and political intervention is to be carried out by agencies like the WTO, IMF, World Bank and other instruments of globalization; appropriate handles such as "human rights violations", "terrorism" and "drug trafficking" are to be conveniently used to justify military interventions in any part of the world either by the UN, NATO, or even by the US on its’ own.

The economic and political strategy has been in the making ever since the collapse of the Cold War and the declaration of the Paris Charter in the early 1990’s. Particular targets of this strategy now are Russia and China , who are to be helped to "overcome the legacy of communism", and become "stable, democratic, nations". The actions in the Balkans over the last two years, and especially the NATO led bombing of Kosova and Yugoslavia in the summer of ’99, have helped give concrete shape to the military intervention strategy. Together they form the full arsenal of the tools the US is poised to use against peoples and nations in the coming decade as it competes with other big powers for markets and zone of influence in the post Cold War "multi-polar" world.

According to Mr. Clinton, the US must be "peacemaker" wherever American interests are at stake and where the US can make a difference. Apparently, the US is now ready for "peacemaking" in South Asia, a region it considers as a hot spot citing the tension between India and Pakistan. "Peacemaking", is of course the euphemism the US used to justify its military intervention in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosova, in the Middle East and so many other places. Lumping "terrorists" and "potentially hostile nations" such as Iraq and North Korea into the same category, Mr. Clinton has also raised the issue of ratification of Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as one of the objectives in the context of safeguarding US from threat. Curbing the flow of technology to such nations is seen to be of vital importance, and the CTBT is seen to be an important means of doing so. In the least, such characterization of countries of South Asia which have long-standing disputes and who have refused to sign CTBT calls for utmost vigilance by the workers and people of India and Pakistan.

"Narco-terrorism" continues to provide a convenient excuse for continued US military, political and economic interference in the countries of Central America, especially Columbia at this time. Clinton dis not mince words in demanding, from the Senate and Congress an increased funding of US military efforts- "Our final challenge is the most important: to pass a national security budget that keeps our military the best trained and best equipped in the world, with heightened readiness and 21st century weapons, raises salaries for our servicemen and women, ..."

With the continuation of the post Cold War disequilibrium and the sharpening of the rivalries among the big powers for the redivision of the world, the threats to peace as well as the sovereignty of peoples’ and nations is very high. The ruling circles in countries like India, with their history of collaboration and capitulation to imperialism and their own ambitions to emerge as an imperial power, are more afraid of mobilizing their people to defend the sovereignty of the country than compromising with the US and other big powers to the detriment of the people. Stepping up the struggle to vest sovereignty in the people will be the surest guarantee that the US will not be able to turn India and South Asia to a zone of hot war.

The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at its summit held in Moscow in the last week of January, gave its endorsement to the doctrine of "anti-terrorism" under which all manner of attacks on the rights of the peoples are being justified by various states in today’s world. Acting on a proposal put forth by the acting president of Russia Putin, the member countries voted almost unanimously to set up a Unified Anti-terrorism Center in which the military would play the leading role, and also gave broader powers to the existing Defense Minister’s Council to "fight international terrorism".

The various "common security concerns" cited to make anti-terrorism a priority at this summit included the attempted assassination of President Shevardnadze of Georgia and President Aliev of Azerbaijan, the separatist movement in eastern Kazakhstan, the Crimea and Tadjikistan, breakaway governments in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagarno Karabakh and Trans-Dniester (Moldova), as well as the activities of Wahhabi groups in Central Asia and the North Caucasus. It is a fact that most of the members states of the CIS, which emerged in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, have been ridden with violence and anarchy from the beginning. The rulers of these states describe the situation in their countries in terms of "separatist movements, attempts to redraw borders, terrorism and challenging the authorities in power", and many of them even hold Russia responsible for some the "separatist" problems. However, the real reason for the anarchy and violence is that the populations of these countries are refusing to accept the situation of unbridled freedom for capital and no rights for the people that has prevailed there since the early nineties. It is mainly because of this that various struggles have been breaking out in all the CIS countries ever since.

Lt. Gen. Alexander Sianaisky, Secretary of the CIS Defense Minister’s Council, announced at the end of the summit that this year Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan will hold anti-terrorist exercises in the Fergana Valley to develop strategies to prevent a possible incursion of Wahhabis from Afghanistan. President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia meanwhile agreed to prolong the mandate of Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia to avoid a possible Bosnia or Kosovo-type solution there. Russia made a proposal to the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to send its "peacekeepers" to the neutral zone in Nagorno Karabakh to keep the Karabakh and Azeri forces apart. Even the idea of a NATO peacekeepers’ presence in Nagorno Karabakh was mooted at the summit. In other developments relating to military integration and cooperation among the CIS countries, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Uzbekistan formed a new military-political grouping – GUUAM – with previously neutral Moldova and Ukraine. The GUUAM countries already held their first joint military exercise "to explore ways to protect oil and gas pipelines" passing through Southern Caucasus and Black Sea "from terrorist attacks".

The heightened "anti-terrorist" campaign and preoccupation with military integration comes against the background of the brutal Russian campaign in Chechnya in which the Chechen capital Grozny was razed to the ground through aerial and ground fire. It also comes in the context of the increasing sale of Russian arms abroad. Russia’s arms sales surpassed 4 billion US dollars last year and is expected to reach six billion US dollars this year (90% of them going to India and China). What these developments are pointing towards is the rise of a reorganized militarist Russia which flexes its military might over its own peoples and over the peoples of the former Soviet Union on the one hand, and contends for its own sphere of influence and markets abroad on the other hand.

The failure of the CIS summit to make progress on economic issues, while agreeing to step up moves for military integration on a new basis (anchoring it to the policy of anti-terrorism, peacekeeping and so on), brings to mind the approach that the US has taken in the post-Cold War years, which has been to base its striving for global domination primarily on its military power and military exports. That these two former rivals have come to define "terrorism" as their number one enemy and have given themselves the license to wage war against peoples like Kosovars and Chechens, are matters of grave concern for the working class and peoples of all countries. For the Indian working class and people in particular, the eagerness with which Russia has extended its support to the Vajpayee government in its crusade on anti-terrorism is indeed a cause for concern, because it shows that these two states are coordinating their attack on those peoples fighting for their rights, especially national rights.

Comrades!

In order to be able to establish our rule and actually become the masters of society, we need to put an end to the confusion created by the bourgeoisie on the question of democracy. Democracy is a feature of a society based on class divisions. The 20th century has seen two distinct types of democracy. It has seen capitalism, where the bourgeoisie exercises power, with multi-party democracy and party rule as the political process and method of governance. It has also seen socialism, where the working class exercised power, with proletarian democracy and direct control by the producers as its political process and method of governance.

The Indian Republic, established 50 years ago, is modeled after the western bourgeois republic, the form of state established by the capitalist class when it assumed the leadership of society in Europe. Such a state speaks in the name of the public but defends the private property of the capitalist class as the foundation of civil society. At the same time, parliamentary parties, acting as the intermediary between the people and political power, create the impression that it is the people who are making all the decisions.

In 1947, when colonial rule came to an end, the Indian people expected that a new state would be established that would provide sukh (prosperity) and raksha (protection) for all. But the colonial masters transferred power into the hands of the classes they had created and groomed the big capitalists and big landlords. These exploiting classes did not want to make a break with the colonial state institutions. They did not want to establish a new state to liberate Indians from all forms of exploitation and oppression. They wanted to continue with the enslavement of the workers and peasants and brutal oppression of the lower castes, of women, of the nations and peoples within India, of the religious and national minorities, because they profited from it. That is the reason they retained the same state institutions, the same foundations of power created by the British colonialists.

The aim of the state established by British colonialism was to plunder the natural and human resources. This was the aim underlying the Government of India Act of 1935. The main pillars of this state, the army, police forces and prisons as well as the fundamental law and judiciary, all remained and were preserved by the 1950 Constitution. The Indian Constitution adopted in 1950 is for the most part a reproduction of the Government of India Act of 1935.

The Indian Republic does not draw on any of the Indian experience prior to colonial rule, even though there is a very long and rich heritage of statecraft in Indian history before the colonial conquest. It draws only on the experience of other capitalist countries including the US, Germany, Canada, Ireland and Australia. It does not draw anything from the experience of the numerous national and social liberation movements that gave rise to revolutionary political thought all over the subcontinent. It makes no reference to Bahadur Shah Zafar or Tipu Sultan, to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Sukhdev or any of the numerous revolutionaries from all parts of the country who have contributed to the development of Indian political thought. Nor does the Indian Republic draw upon the most advanced experience of Soviet democracy and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which is the best example so far of a voluntary union of different nations and peoples.

The root of the crisis of Indian society at this time lies in the fact that the Indian Republic did not break with the colonial legacy 50 years ago. The solution to the problems, the way to lift Indian society out of the crisis, therefore lies in making that break today.

It is time for the workers and peasants to organise to replace the existing Indian Republic, an instrument of dictatorship of the Indian and international bourgeoisie, and an alien imposition on India, with a new political power. If the working people are to reap the fruits of their collective labour, then it must be they who formulate State policy and make all major decisions. They cannot permit the representatives of the big capitalists and other Indian and foreign exploiters to sit in the Cabinet and the Parliament and make all the decisions, as is the case today.

The new political power must be based on bringing forward the best of Indian political thought and drawing on the most advanced experience of all the peoples of the world. It must be based on the principle that it is the duty of the State to ensure sukh and raksha for all. In modern conditions, this means adequate food, shelter and clothing, health care and education and other services, as well as social and cultural facilities. The State of people’s rule must defend the rights of the workers and peasants, and the right of every human being to a human existence. It must not permit anyone to sabotage this for the sake of accumulating private wealth.

This new power has to make a clean break with the colonial past. The working people must dismantle the institutions of state power created by the British colonisers, including the Civil Service, the Army, the Judiciary and the talk-shop Parliament. This will pave the way for new institutions of people’s rule, where representative bodies will not be talking shops but will be working bodies, executive and legislative at the same time. The new organs of people’s power, created at the work places, villages, mohallas and educational institutions, will be organically linked to the new central organs of power, based on the principle of democratic centralism.

In order to actually defend and enable the strengthening of unity in diversity, the first condition is to recognise and defend the right of every nation, nationality and tribal people within India to decide its own political future. Only if the working class wields political power, in alliance with all oppressed, can this condition be fulfilled. Only then can national strife, national oppression and the super-exploitation of tribal peoples be put to an end. The Indian working class is the only class that has both the interest and the capacity to replace the existing Indian Union with a new voluntary union among the numerous peoples. Only such a union can harmonise the interests of each collective with the general interest of all.

Comrades!

We are told that it is the Indian people who decide things today because we have the right to vote for the party of our choice. Universal franchise — the right of every adult member of society to vote — was an advance in 1950, compared to the situation under colonial rule. But the past 50 years have shown that merely having the right to vote is not enough for the workers and peasants to exercise political power. This is very clear not only from the experience in India, but in all countries of the world where this system and process of multi-party democracy and party rule exist. Under party rule, the fact that all adults have the right to vote does not mean that they have the right to rule. The working people do not enjoy the right to govern themselves.

The aim of the political process of bourgeois representative democracy, which is also called multi-party democracy, is to make the unjust rule of an exploiting minority look legitimate and just in the eyes of the people. This political process is dominated by parties that govern on behalf of the bourgeoisie, while speaking in the name of the people. The people have voting rights, but only the rich and privileged can get elected to office. Once elected, they can do what they please and the people do not enjoy the right to recall any of the elected representatives.

The working people do not even enjoy the right to elect, in the real sense, because they have no say in the selection of candidates and no control over those who get elected. All such powers lie with political parties and their high command. Party rule reduces the workers and peasants to voting cattle.

The point to note is that this system and political process of party rule originated at a time when capitalism was rising in Europe. Different sections of propertied classes, the merchants, the landlords and the manufacturers, formed their political parties to compete for control over the State, which defended the rule of the propertied classes over the labouring masses. At that time, only men with private property enjoyed the right to vote.

It was only in the 20th century, with the rise of socialism and proletarian democracy in one-sixth of the world, that the right to vote was extended to include all adult citizens in the capitalist countries. It was not extended automatically. It was the result of persistent and long struggle by the workers, peasants and women in such countries. However, as long as party rule remained, universal franchise could not change the class character of political power. The content of political power remained the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

In India, the British colonisers implanted institutions and mechanisms for political power based on the British model, to strengthen colonial rule with capitalism as its economic basis. While crushing the anti-colonial liberation struggle of the Indian peoples, they promoted the theory of the State being a "trustee" of the people. They co-opted the representatives of the Indian bourgeoisie into this political process. They also gave birth to a political party, the Congress Party, in the image of the British Labour Party, to act as a safety valve for the anti-colonial rebellious sentiments of the Indian people. In response to the struggles of the people, the colonial rulers permitted the leaders of this party to sit in the Constituent Assembly and draft the constitution for independent India. It is not therefore surprising that the netas of the Congress wrote the Constitution to sanctify what they had inherited from the colonial masters.

Thus, at the end of 50 years, one fact that must be clearly recognised is that the Indian Republic is an alien imposition on the masses of workers, peasants, women and youth of all nationalities within India. It was established to keep them out of power. It was established to make sure that sovereignty — the supreme decision making power — was transferred from the British Queen into the hands of the big capitalists and big landlords, not into the hands of the working peoples of this land. Multi-party democracy and party rule were introduced 50 years ago to ensure that it is the bourgeoisie that will rule, while creating the impression that it is the people who decide in this democratic Republic. The parliamentary parties play the role of the magicians who conjure up the illusion that the people are exercising their will under this system of party rule, while they carry out the will of the rich who pay them.

It is through party rule that the big business houses of India have managed to carry on with their dictatorship for five decades, in alliance with the big landed interests and foreign imperialist interests. Every time the State intervened to facilitate and expand the capitalist system of plunder, the system of party rule served to create the impression that this was being done on behalf of the people. This was the case with the land reforms in the 1950s and 60s, as also with the nationalisation of banking and insurance alongside the launching of the Green Revolution. While implementing the plans of the big bourgeoisie and its imperialist allies, the Congress Party, heading the Indian State, claimed that its aim was to eradicate poverty. It claimed that the people had given it this mandate. This is also the case today, when the BJP claims to have the people’s mandate to implement a second wave of liberalisation and privatisation to further step up the plunder and sell-out of the land and labour of the Indian people.

Over 50 years after the end of colonial rule it is abundantly clear that loot and plunder remains the orientation of the Indian economy and the economic policy of the Indian Republic. Both in the Nehruvian period when the public sector was built up with the taxes collected from the people, and in the current period when national assets are being sold to the highest bidder in the name of privatisation, maximisation of private profits of the biggest Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists has been the orientation.

In order to ensure that power resides in the hands of the working people, it is essential that parties must not be allowed to nominate the candidates. Workers and peasants must be able to select, from among their midst, candidates for election. People’s rule means that the workers, peasants and other working people have to be the decision-makers. We must exercise control over our representatives at all times. We must only delegate some part of the decision making power to our representatives, while retaining a crucial part in our own hands. Once elected, representatives will have to render account to us as frequently as we demand. We must have the right to recall our representative at any time. This is part of the crucial powers that we must keep in our hands.

The time has come to organise and fight for a system in which we — the workers, peasants, women and youth of all nationalities — shall really be the masters of this land. Only then can we, the working people, ensure that sukh and raksha are provided for all.

To be continued

Meeting in Kerala calls for renewal of the political system

A well-attended meeting to mark the 50th anniversary of the Indian Republic was held at the AICUF Centre, Trivandrum. Organised by Lok Raj Sangathan (LRS), the central theme of the meeting was the necessity for the renewal of the political system so as to ensure the genuine empowerment of the people.

Speakers elaborated on both the historical evolution of the present political system as well as the measures that need to be taken at the present time to open the way for renewal.

The main speech was delivered by Dr. N.A.Karim, ex-Vice Chancellor, Trivandrum University, who talked exhaustively on the Indian Constitution and the nature of the democracy in India which has benefited only the rich. He traced the roots of this democracy from the time of the Greek republics, explaining how the representative democracy of the British Westminster type had been adapted in India. He stressed the need for a complete rejuvenation of the political system. Another speaker, Prof. Stephen, spoke about the complete marginalisation of the people in the present political system. He also said that appropriate mechanisms have to be set up for the people to be able to exercise their right to select, elect and recall candidates and to make elected representatives accountable to the people. Prof. T.S.N.Pillai, on the other hand, elaborated on the need for practical action on this front. He stressed that research and practice have to go hand in hand. He also emphasised the importance of effective communication of these ideas with the masses of people and the need to build on the people’s experience to set up appropriate mechanisms for people’s empowerment.

The meeting, which was marked by the high proportion of youth participating in it, resolved to work towards setting up a regional branch of LRS in Trivandrum.

Recently, a spokesman of the Government of India declared that "the Government was not in the business of making bread", while announcing the desion to privatise the potentially profit making concern Modern Foods which has been making good quality bread at prices more affordable to the working people in several units across the country. Modern Foods, with land and assets worth thousands of crores of rupees in many towns of India, is to be sold off to the multinational Hindustan Lever for the paltry sum of Rs 106 crores. A full length interview with Shri Gobind Yadav, General Secretary of the Modern Foods Karamcharis’ Union, appears in the Feb 16 - 29 ’00 issue of Mazdoor Ekta Lehar (Hindi). Shri Gobind Yadav has pointed out that while it will be the workers of Modern Foods who will be the first to be attacked under this deal and stand to lose their livelihood, the working people of India at large are also under attack since they will be deprived of the good quality affordable bread. He has pointed out that the real intention of the government in privatising Modern Foods and Indian Airlines is to demonstrate its’ commitment to the capitalists and multinationals in India and abroad to the second round of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. The agreement with Hindustan Lever guarantees workers their job security and benefits only for a period of one year, after which Hindustan Lever can remove workers at will. The Union is determined to fight against the privatisation wirth might and main. People’s Voice appeals to all toiling people to support the just struggle of the workers of Modern Foods in defence of their livelihood and in defence of the right of all working people to wholesome food at affordable rates.

Brutal burning of girl students

Down with criminalisation of politics !

All over Tamilnadu and other parts of the country, people have been outraged by the cruel and barbaric burning to death of three girl students of Tamilnadu Agricultural University (TNAU) in Dharmapuri district on February 3, in a calculated act of violence by the leading political parties of the state. The killings followed in the wake of the sentencing of AIADMK leader Jayalalitha by a court for her role in a corruption case. The torching of the bus in which girl students of TNAU were travelling as part of a study tour, was conducted in broad daylight in front of scores of eyewitnesses, who have all testified as to how the police and political goondas turned a deaf ear to the pleas of the frantic students who tried unsuccessfully to escape from the burning bus.

Following the killings, Tamilnadu has seen unprecedented and sustained agitation on a mass scale by men and women students all over the state, who have unequivocally put the blame on the main political parties and their criminalised politics. Together with large numbers of other people who have been stunned by the incident, they have joined hands to demand an end to the criminalisation of politics, and to the playing with the lives of students and other innocent people for the sake of partisan political gains.

People’s Voice expresses its deep grief and outrage over the barbaric killing of the students of Tamilnadu Agricultural University. Not only must the ruthless criminalisation of politics by major political parties be unitedly and openly opposed, in fact people must work to take power in their own hands!