• Workers, Peasants, Women and Youth
  We constitute India, We are her masters!

• Maharashtra Electricity Board workers win partial victory

• Debate over autonomy hides real problem in Kashmir

• Oppose the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2000!

• Unite and fight for the destruction of this man eating capitalist system that deprives workers of livelihood and dignity!

  Unite and fight to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country!

• Workers of Kunjika Garments, Mumbai, fight against terror tactics of employers

Workers, Peasants, Women and Youth

We constitute India, We are her masters!

For workers and peasants, azaadi means freedom from hunger, poverty and want; from insecurity of life and livelihood. azaadi means that the toilers and tillers must have a roof over their head, food and clothing, healthcare and education, a life of dignity. azaadi means that the sons and daughters of the toilers and tillers must have a secure present and future. azaadi means that the people must be free from police terror and repression, from state organised communal violence. It means that our mothers, sisters and daughters, the dalits and others amongst us who have been victims of age old caste oppression, our tribal people, must be able to stand with their heads held high free from any fear, any exploitation and discrimination. This real azaadi has remained unrealised all these 53 years.

53 years ago, the Nehrus and Gandhis declared India’s independence from colonial rule. Through this act, the big bourgeoisie gained political powerand established its dictatorship over the land and people of India. It replaced the colonial rulers and thereafter had unrestrained freedom to exploit the land, labour and rich natural resources of our people. The state machinery guarantees security and prosperity to the exploiters, Indian and foreign, by defending with the force of arms the capitalist system, the imperialist domination and the remnants of feudalism - in sum, the entire colonial legacy.

The political system and political process that was established over five decades ago has clearly revealed itself as democracy for the minority of exploiters, and a brutal dictatorship over the vast majority. The Indian Union, in the manner it is constituted, negates the collective rights ofthe nations, nationalities and tribal peoples who inhabit India. In other words, for 53 years, the ruling big bourgeoisie, a minority, has usurped political power and has ruled as the illegitimate malik of India.

The central question in the struggle raging in India today is who will be the malik of India. It is clear that the vast majority of working people, the working class, peasants, women and youth, no matter to which nation, nationality or tribe they belong, constitute the real maliks of India. However, the big bourgeoisie will not easily give up what it has captured —that is, control over the land, the rich natural resources, the factories and mines, and the labour of our people. It uses violence and repression as well as deceit to maintain its control over our motherland. In this it is assisted by the conciliators with capitalism and the colonial legacy within the working class movement. Such conciliators, like the Mir Jaffers and Jaichands of old, spread the illusion that the working masses need notoverthrow the capitalist system and the colonial legacy to open the road to progress. They spread the illusion that the azaadi that the workers and peasants are fighting for can be won without overthrowing the illegitimate rule of the kale angrez. Or else they spread pessimism that the working class should give up its vision and adjust itself to being slaves of the capitalists and imperialists, content with the crumbs it gets.

Workers and peasants need political power in their hands in order to suppress the exploiters and oppressors, and win freedom from poverty, hunger and want, insecurity of life and livelihood. They need political power in order to end the oppression of nations, nationalities and tribes, in order to end the savage oppression and exploitation of women, the remnants of the caste system, and the hated imperialist domination. They need political power in order to overthrow the capitalist system and the colonial legacy that are at the roots of all of India’s present problems. Political power in the hands of the toilers, the means of production in the hands of those who toil and till — this is the necessary condition for Indian society to progress.

The core of the program of the working class is the fight for transfer of political power from where it rests today, in the hands of a minority of the exploiters, into the hands of the workers, peasants, women and youth of all the nations, nationalities and tribes constituting India. The core ofthe program of the working class is that India belongs to its workers, peasants, women and youth and it is these forces who must and will shape the future destiny of India, not the big bourgeoisie.

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Maharashtra Electricity Board workers win partial victory

According to news agency reports, the Maharashtra government has conceded the demand of the employees and agreed to not pursue its privatisation plans. It has also declared that it will not trifurcate the state electricity board without consultation with the employees.

Earlier, the power sector strike severely affected normal economic activity in the state.

The strike by Maharashtra State electricity board employees comes in the wake of the two week long strike of UP power sector workers in January over the same issue. There too, the power sector workers were successfully able to stall the privatisation plans of the government to some extent. That struggle provided the inspiration to electricity workers all over the country to not accept the trifurcation and privatisation program lying down. It may be recalled that the states wherein the electricity reforms were rushed through earlier, without much resistance, such as Andhra Pradesh and Orissa have now seen the bitter consequences of these reforms, with steep hikes in electricity tariffs for the rural and urban consumers, and no improvement in services.

Power sector workers throughout the country constitute an extremely important section of the Indian working class, one of its most organised contingents working in a vital sector of the economy. Mismanagement and blatant corruption has plagued this sector, as the capitalists as well as the politicians have used it as a milking cow to fatten themselves. A massive propaganda is carried out that firstly the workers of this sector are corrupt and inefficient, and secondly that the electricity boards are "subsiding" the rural and urban consumers. The aim of this propaganda is to disorient the middle strata and the small capitalists who have to face the corrupt system for their daily needs, and isolate the electricity board employees in the bargain. The big bourgeoisie, as well as the big bureaucrats and politicians of various hues who have plundered this sector for decades on end are the least bothered about corruption and mismanagement. Today, they view the power sector as a profitable sector provided any social obligations of this sector towards the workers and peasants and the middle strata are eliminated. This is why, as the axe of privatisation comes closer and closer on this important section of the working class, the electricity boards are being deliberately allowed to completely degenerate in every manner of speaking.

Power sector workers have an uphill battle ahead of them. They must not have illusions that the partial victories achieved in Uttar Pradesh earlier or Maharashtra now signal the end of the struggle. Far from it being so, the stage is set for much bigger confrontations, in which the power sector workers must necessarily go beyond the bounds of simply reacting to the privatisation and trifurcation program of the government of the capitalists. They must put forth a program for reform of the power sector that will actually end its ills, expose those who have fattened themselves over the decades by plundering this sector, and put forth demands that can rally the peasants as well as the urban consumers. This is necessary in order to really challenge the bourgeoisie’s anti-social offensive.

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Debate over autonomy hides real problem in Kashmir

What was clear right from the start was that the Union cabinet was fully informed and not unduly alarmed that the resolution would be passed. Equally, it was clear that the Cabinet and later on the Parliament would reject the autonomy resolution once passed by the state assembly. Moreover, it is a well known fact that even when Jammu & Kashmir had earlier had a comparable degree of autonomy in theory, before 1953, it was never allowed to actually exercise the powers ascribed to it. So the movers of the resolution knew very well that the proposed autonomy would never actually see the light of day. Its opponents at the Centre also seemed to be quite sure that the Jammu & Kashmir government would not launch a major confrontation over the issue.

From this whole business, what can be concluded? It only shows that Farooq Abdullah’s National Conference, the Union Government and various parties within and outside the Union Government, are all getting together to make "autonomy" within the present Indian Union and Constitution the current focus of public discussion on the Kashmir issue. Should Jammu & Kashmir be given autonomy or not? If so, how much autonomy should it be allowed? Should it have a ‘special status’ vis a vis the other states of the Union, or not? The attempt is to focus attention on these matters, while the real nature of the crisis in Kashmir is ignored. And in the meantime, another diversionary issue has also been pushed to the forefront as a result of the recent developments – that is, demands for the trifurcation of the state into Jammu, the Kashmir Valley and Ladakh.

This whole trend of discussion will surely keep the politicians and the legal and constitutional experts happily occupied. It will also serve to aggravate animosities and tensions between various peoples within the Indian Union. But it will not solve even a single aspect of the grave problem in Kashmir.

The problem in Kashmir has several components that urgently need to be addressed. First of all, the terrible situation faced by the people of that state on a daily basis, in which their lives and liberties are being trampled underfoot by the repressive armed forces and state-sponsored terrorists, has to be ended. The treating of Jammu & Kashmir as little more than a pawn in the rivalry and hostilities between the Indian and Pakistani states, must also stop. The security concerns of the Indian state cannot be used to label the concerns and aspirations of the Kashmiri people as "anti-national" or "extremist", and to suppress them on that basis.

The issue of Kashmir also poses very sharply the severe flaws in the way the Indian Union has been constituted. These problems stem first of all from the fact that the sovereignty of the various nations, nationalities and tribes does not constitute the basis of this Union. As the Union is presently constituted, the sovereignty and rights of the people can be violated at will by those in control at the Centre. This problem cannot be solved in a piecemeal fashion. It cannot be solved by this or that regional party joining an opportunist alliance controlling power at the Centre, and then using that position to bargain for some concessions for its own state. It has to be addressed in a holistic fashion – by fighting for the full sovereignty of all the nations, nationalities and tribes constituting India, and for the sovereignty and rights of the masses of people as a whole against the exploiters and oppressors of all kinds. A manipulated, diversionary and divisive debate on autonomy for Kashmir – because that is all that the present drama will amount to – will not only fail to resolve any of the problems, but will be positively harmful to the interests of the people of Jammu & Kashmir and India.

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Oppose the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill, 2000!

Every since the immediate predecessor of the new Bill, the hated TADA, was repealed some years ago on account of the huge outcry against it, various governments of the bourgeoisie have been trying to bring back a similar repressive law with a slightly changed form. Earlier attempts under previous governments got stuck either at the bill drafting stage or at the parliamentary committee stage. In some cases, individual state governments went ahead and promulgated their own laws, as in the case of the Tamilnadu Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act 1998. TADA itself had become synonymous with state terrorism of the worst kind. Of the large number of persons who were arrested under that law, the State was unable to bring charges that would hold up even in its own law courts against as many as 98%! But what TADA did serve to do was to enable the State to torture and jail tens of thousands of people, who could not be charged with any serious crime, without trial for years on end.

The new Bill is expected to serve the same purpose – that is, legitimise the persecution and incarceration of people on a large scale. The political crisis of the rule of the bourgeoisie in India is getting deeper all the time. None of the bourgeois parties or coalitions that have been brought to power have had any solution to the problems of the people, and their credibility is getting fast eroded. In this context, the ruling class cannot dispense with their weapons of mass terror and brutalisation of the people, as a way to deal with any opposition and to safeguard their rule. Despite the fact that there already exist hundreds of repressive laws on the statute-books, the ruling class feels the need to arm itself with newer and newer measures, particularly those that place violation of the human rights of the people by its armed forces beyond the scope of any possible challenge, even from its own judicial system. This is where the importance of the new Prevention of Terrorism Bill – which carries the worst features of TADA plus new anti-people provisions – comes in.

Under the provisions of this Bill, the scope of those who can fall into the police net becomes even wider than before. Because now, the clause has been added that any persons who are believed to be in possession of any information about a so-called "terrorist", and do not pass on that information to the police or investigating authorities, are liable for arrest and prosecution even if they have not committed an act that can be called "terrorist". What this means is that not only media persons, but families and friends of those sought by the State, and even whole communities, can be arrested and prosecuted. Families of persons wanted by the State will be further harassed by another clause that permits the police to summarily confiscate property that they believe to be "terrorist-linked". Such powers can also be used, even if not directly applied, to browbeat people, demand bribes from them, and so on. Already, such a phenomenon is going on in places like Kashmir and the North East, leading to terrorisation of the population there as a whole. The new Bill will give a veneer of legitimacy to this despicable process.

Some clumsy attempts have been made to make the new Bill more "acceptable" than its predecessor TADA. In fact, the Law Commission made a show of "consulting" various organisations before it drafted this Bill, but these tricks have not fooled anybody. For example, the Bill makes an attempt to define "terrorism" more strictly than before. But this must be viewed against the fact that the scope of those who fall within its repressive net will be much wider than before, as pointed out above. It is also being said that the new Bill, by dropping the earlier category of "disruptive activities" among the crimes inviting punishment under the proposed law, is less draconian than the earlier one. This claim too does not hold water. One reason for dropping this category could very well be that most of the leading politicians of the bourgeois parties could themselves be charged with making inflammatory speeches and inciting hatred between people and other "disruptive activities" according to the law. The dropping of this category gives an escape route for such elements. These futile efforts to disguise the real barbaric nature of the proposed Bill are typical of the two-facedness of the State, which pretends to be responsive to public opinion and criticism, while in fact it carries on relentlessly with its chosen agenda of intensifying the level of oppression against the masses of people.

Experience shows that the introduction of each new law of this kind has heralded a new onslaught on the lives and liberties of the people. Various people’s organisations, human rights and other groups, have already gone on record denouncing the new Bill and its provisions. The government has been put on the spot by the criticism leveled by its own National Human Rights Commission. Nevertheless, now is the time for all those who oppose the Bill to come together and out onto the streets to oppose its being made into law. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that the struggle cannot be confined to the repeal of this or that bill or law in this or that form. The drive to step up the repression of the masses of the people stems from the very nature of this man-eating system and the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, and the deep crisis in which it is enmeshed. The aim of this struggle must ultimately be the replacement of the crisis-ridden rule of the exploiting classes with the rule of the working class and toiling people, who will use their power then to decisively put down those who have oppressed them.

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Unite and fight for the destruction of this man eating capitalist system that deprives workers of livelihood and dignity!

Unite and fight to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country!

Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India,

addressed to the fighting workers of the textile mills of BIC and NTC, Kanpur, July 24, 2000

Comrade workers!

You are coming to Delhi yet again to voice your grievances before the rulers of our country. More importantly, you are protesting in the capital of our country to tell the toiling masses of India your story of struggle and sacrifice and betrayal. And to tell the entire country and the whole world that the courageous textile workers of Kanpur, who have more than 8 decades of revolutionary, militant struggles behind them, have decided to challenge the entire capitalist-imperialist system that is bringing ruin and destruction on the masses on an unprecedented scale. The Communist Ghadar Party of India hails your just and heroic struggle and pledges to fight for the triumph of this struggle.

For six long months, you have been deprived of wages by a callous government that can spend crores of rupees on the police and armed forces and in paying the imperialist money lenders and in subsidies to the capitalist moneybags of our country. A government that starts counting its pennies only when it comes to the working class who are the creators of all the wealth of this country, on whose labour and sweat and blood these capitalists and imperialists have built their empires.

For many years, you have been fighting a battle with the slogan on your lips "baitke vetan nahi chiye, in haathon ko kaam chahiyee" (We do not want wages for sitting idle, these hands are thirsting for work). After the heroic struggles of the late seventies and the early eighties, you well know that the traitorous "leaders" of the movement of the textile workers imposed a solution that would eventually prove disastrous for the entire movement. This solution was to close down the mills and pay wages for being idle. As no efforts were made to reopen the mills or modernise them, large numbers of workers began to take VRS. Kanpur city, once the fifth largest city of India, the heart of the working class along with the workers of Mumbai, Kolkotta and Chennai, is now in ruin and decay, a ghost town. You workers are still fighting, but you are being told daily that you are fighting a losing battle, and this is sapping your energy. You are fighting for your livelihood, you are fighting for the reopening and modernisation of the textile mills. Your struggle is just. You must expose and fight those agencies in your ranks who spread pessimism about the outcome of the struggle.

You will recall that the same forces who are preaching today that privatisation and closures are inevitable sang a different song the other day. When the textile mils were nationalised, they sang hymns in praise of the capitalist government of the time, conveniently ignoring the fact that nationalisation was done not to provide cheap clothing to the poor, or to provide employment for the workers, but for something very different. They hid from you that nationalisation was carried out to bail out the capitalist mill owners who were in a crisis. If you look at the whole course of nationalisation and privatisation, you will find one significant running thread. When the government nationalised private mills or other private companies, it paid a very generous compensation to the capitalists and took over all their losses. Now, when it has now decided to sell enterprises, it is writing off the debt (that is, taking over the capitalists’ losses again) and handing over huge assets at extremely low prices to the capitalists and imperialists.

Even more important, what was also hidden was how to turn the advanced class-conscious workers of the textile industry away from revolution. Our country has been ripe for revolution for a long time, and it is a fact of history that the textile workers of Mumbai, Kanpur, Coimbatore, etc., have been in the forefront of this struggle. You know, more than all of us, the epic battles that you and your fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers have waged, sparing no sacrifice. The sixties were a period of revolutionary storms. If at that time, workers of the textile industry could be pacified by the illusion of job security, then this was a small price for the bourgeois government to pay in the immediate and long-term interest of the exploiters. The most criminal part was played by those who promoted illusions amongst you that you need not fight for revolution, for political power. That the peasants and students who were fighting for revolution at that time were doing something wrong. That the capitalist system could be peacefully transformed into socialism.

The retreat of revolution will turn into flow

Today the revolution has suffered a setback on the world scale. This means that temporarily, the bourgeoisie and imperialism have gained ascendancy over the proletariat and its allies. This is why the bourgeoisie is extremely arrogant, openly and viciously attacking the workers and peasants. It is openly abandoning any pretence of concern for society as a whole. It is openly declaring that only the interests of the money bags count, nothing else. The refusal of the capitalist government to pay even the measly wages you get, its refusal to accede to your demands despite the most persistent and heroic struggle you have been waging on the streets of Kanpur on a daily basis, are a reflection of the attitude of the bourgeoisie in this period.

Comrade workers, the current retreat of revolution will sooner rather then later turn into flow. This is the iron law of social science. There are already signs that this will take place soon. India is seething with revolt. The workers of the Public Sector Enterprises, the most advanced and organised section of the working class, are breaking out of the slumber imposed on them by the false leaders and preachers who promoted all along that these workers should not fight to overthrow the capitalist system, should not fight for revolution and socialism, because allegedly their rights would be guaranteed within this system. The year 2000 has seen massive attacks on the workers of state owned enterprises; it has also seen the beginning of organised revolt of the workers of these enterprises. The key question is with what outlook, what goal, we wage the struggle against privatisation and closure, in defence of our livelihood. If the outlook is defensive, if the goal is limited to trying to defend one’s own job, the struggle is doomed to failure. This is so because the capitalist class in power will succeed in setting one section of workers against another. That is to say, they will first attack one while they hold back the attack on another for a time. There must be no illusion that this capitalist class is going to restore the old order of things.

This is why the Communist Ghadar Party of India calls upon our class, the working class, to wage the struggle with a revolutionary perspective and program. Our immediate program is to lift Indian society out of crisis and address the problems of guaranteeing livelihood, education and health for all the toiling masses. Our perspective is that the capitalist system must be overthrown for any of the problems of workers and peasants to be addressed. It is only in this wretched capitalist system that mills are kept forcibly idle while millions of people still do not have clothes to cover their bodies. It is only in this capitalist system that it is considered right to have crores of people hungry and starving, crores of peasants at the mercy of nature and of the capitalist forces, crores of people without jobs, while money is freely spent in militarisation, on the maintenance of the massive oppressive military-bureaucratic apparatus, and on satiating the insatiable greed of the moneylenders.

Today, the means of production— the factories, the mines, the water, the rich mineral resources of our country — are the private property of the capitalist class. This is so whether some enterprises are in the public sector or some are in the private sector. The only difference is that the public sector belongs to the capitalist class as a whole to facilitate their loot and plunder. We workers must take over the means of production of the whole of society from the capitalist class. Only then can we orient production to fulfil the needs of the toilers of the present and future generations. Only then can we guarantee livelihood, shelter, health and education for those who have been so long deprived. We must fight for political power in our own hands to ensure that the means of production are in our hands. This is the perspective with which we wage the struggle. We will use our own political power to crush with an iron hand the capitalist class and empower all the toilers politically as well as economically. We will establish the dictatorship of the proletariat in place of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that exists today.

The conciliators with the capitalist system must be exposed and isolated

Comrade workers, one of the factors for the retreat of revolution and the present massive onslaught on the working class in India and internationally is the role played by some in the communist and workers movement who have conciliated with capitalism. In India such a role was played in the earlier period by the parliamentary communist parties who integrated themselves with the state, created illusions about the "socialistic pattern of society" of Nehru and Indira Gandhi and preached the "peaceful and parliamentary road to socialism". Today, the conciliators with capitalism within the communist and workers movement are spreading maximum pessimism about the outcome of the struggle of workers against privatisation and closures. At the same time, they collaborate with the openly bourgeois parties to divide the workers in each factory and industry. They treat the workers as vote banks in the parliamentary struggle of capitalist parties for power, and prevent the workers from fighting for their own power. Today, these same conciliators are resurrecting a discredited "third Front" or "secular front" as an "alternative" to the BJP. You workers have seen numerous governments in power at the Centre and in Uttar Pradesh in the last so many years. Is it not the case that as far as the working class is concerned, all of them have attacked our interests? Is it not a fact that as far as liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation are concerned, all these governments have been advocates of it? Workers should ask these conciliators with capitalism as to how their program is really addressing the problem of the people’s livelihood. We must ask them how their program brings the working class closer to the conquest of political power.

Comrade workers! You, the textile workers of Kanpur are waging a heroic struggle for your livelihood. Through your struggle, you are showing the rest of the working class and peasantry the glorious revolutionary traditions of the textile workers of Kanpur, who have etched an indelible name in blood and sacrifice for the great cause of freedom from colonial rule and freedom from capitalist slavery over the decades. Today the struggle has entered a new phase, but the aim remains the same. Over fifty years of capitalist dictatorship have shown that it is nothing but the rule of the gods of plague. Workers and peasants and all toiling people are undergoing terrible suffering in this system. The time has come to boldy challenge the rule of the bourgeoisie. The time has come to rally the entire working class of India and the peasantry around the one program of deep-going transformations so that political power is wrested from the bourgeoisie and the means of production pass into the hands of the working class. The Communist Ghadar Party of India calls upon you, the workers of Kanpur to play your rightful role in the struggle to build the new India.

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Workers of Kunjika Garments, Mumbai, fight against terror tactics of employers

The capitalists running Kunjika Garments in Mumbai have amassed crores of rupees through the unbridled exploitation of its workers the since the unit was set up in 1993. The workers, manufacturing trousers and jeans, are not given even the legally fixed minimum wages, nor are they given bonus, ESIS coverage, provident fund, earned leave or any other statuary benefits. The tailors are paid on piece rate basis, and the capitalists arbitrarily fix this piece rate too.

The workers joined the Ladaku Garment Kamgar Union in order to fight against their unbridled exploitation. The capitalists reaction to their workers so organising was to illegally throw the workers out of their job, declare closure of the unit, and shift all the machinery to Dadar, another locality in Mumbai. The Union complained against this in the Industrial court, whereupon the court directed its officer to inspect the premises to which the machinery had been shifted along with Union representatives.

However, when the court officer and Union representatives went to inspect the premises, hired goons prevented them from doing so. The goons threatened them with dire consequences if they dared to set foot in the locality again. When the Union activists went to the Dadar police station, the police refused to lodge an FIR (first information report, which would have meant they would have to take the matter more seriously). Instead, they only lodged an NC (non-cognisable offence, which means that they could treat it as hearsay). The police also did not give the workers permission to take out a procession in the area, and threatened to arrest the workers instead if they did so.

The Union decided to give a fitting reply to the terror tactics of the capitalist with the tacit connivance of the police. On July 16, 2000, a militant demonstration was organised in the compound of the posh Worli Sea Face housing society where the capitalist lived. The entire area resounded with the militant slogans of the workers of the Ladaku Garment workers’ Union from the affected unit, who were joined by Union workers from other units, workers of the Hotel Labour Union, activists of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, and others. The workers patiently explained their case to passers-by, and received support from many people. When a delegation went up to the capitalists’ house to meet her, they found that she had fled the place in fear! However, she sent a representative who expressed her willingness to discuss matters with the General Secretary of the Union. The workers of Kunjika Garments are determined to carry forward their struggle to victory.

The bourgeoisie claims that workers do not toil if they are given security of service, and is actively working towards removing all statutory protection hitherto given to workers. The present case is typical of the conditions faced by the vast majority of workers in India, who are not given even the minimum benefits and protection provided for by labour laws today. The attitude of the police in this case is also typical - they threatened to arrest the victims rather than the capitalist who brazenly flouted the law. The workers of Kanika garments Mumbai have taken the only path they can, if they wish to live a dignified life - the path of struggle against the capitalists and their system.

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