• Condemn the bestial massacres of innocent people in Kashmir! Support the just struggle of the Kashmiri people for self-determination!

• The agrarian policy of the ruling class and the agrarian policy of the working class

• An Attempt to cover up the Real Criminals

• A step towards prosecution of those charged with grave crimes against the people

Condemn the bestial massacres of innocent people in Kashmir!

Support the just struggle of the Kashmiri people for self-determination!

With great anger, the Communist Ghadar Party of India condemns the ghastly massacres of over a hundred innocent men women and children in different parts of Kashmir on August 1-2, 2000. Amongst those killed were dozens of pilgrims to the Amarnath shrine as well as local residents. The Communist Ghadar Party of India extends its deepest sympathies to the families and close ones of the victims of these gruesome killings.

The responsibility for these massacres rests squarely on the cabal of reactionary forces who want to further communalise the situation in Kashmir. This includes the US imperialists and the reactionary bourgeoisie of India and Pakistan.

Over 50 years ago, it was imperialism that created the problem of Kashmir, with the collaboration of the bourgeoisie of India and Pakistan. The imperialists partitioned the homeland of the Kashmiri people, and turned millions of Kashmiris into refugees forced to seek a livelihood in distant parts of the world, to escape the violence and terror in their homeland.

Neither the Indian state nor the state of Pakistan recognises the sovereignty of the Kashmiri people, who have been brutally divided in 1948 against their will. The rulers of India and Pakistan have waged numerous wars against each other over Kashmir. In between, the beautiful land of Kashmir has been drenched in the blood of countless victims of rape, torture, encounter deaths and genocidal killings.

The Indian State has committed unparalleled crimes against the Kashmiri people. The scale of killings, torture and rape of innocent people carried out by the armed forces of India can only be termed a genocide. Today, there is one armed soldier stationed in Kashmir for every six civilians. Nearly half of India's million strong armed forces is stationed in the Kashmir valley. It is within these conditions that the current massacres have taken place, right under the nose of the Indian army. These killings are a continuation of the policy of state terrorism and organised chaos; in particular, it follows the brutal massacres of Sikhs in Chattisinhgpur which coincided with Bill Clinton's visit to India in March 2000.

In the Cold War period, US imperialism manipulated the rights of the Kashmiris and their just struggle for sovereignty into a weapon to advance its own reactionary interests. The Kashmir problem was perpetuated and all possibility of solution was blocked. US imperialism used its economic and military influence over Pakistan and played the Kashmir card to pressurise India. This policy also served the Indian bourgeoisie to portray the struggle of the Kashmiri people as an "imperialist sponsored" or "Pakistan sponsored" movement in the eyes of the rest of the Indian peoples. This was used by the Indian state to justify brutal repression and divert from the question of sovereignty of the Kashmiri people.

In the post-Cold War period, following the end of the bipolar division of the world, US imperialism has embarked on new tactics towards world hegemony. In South Asia, it has unfolded a policy of pro-active engagement with the Indian bourgeoisie. The Indian rulers have responded positively, as witnessed by the close Indo-US collaboration during the Kargill war and after, and especially during and since the visit of Clinton to South Asia. The US intelligence agencies have activated their agents in Kashmir and so has the Indian State, signalling the fact that these two powers have agreed to cooperate at this time to take the initiative with respect to Kashmir.

Imperialism and the reactionary bourgeoisie are pushing for a further partition of Kashmir along communal lines, to destroy the national aspirations of the one Kashmiri people who are divided between Pakistan and India. The latest massacres are aimed at providing credibility to the Indo-US "peace" initiatives, to their efforts to impose a "solution" on the Kashmir people and discredit the fighters for national liberation in Kashmir. Judging from the angle of political motive, the needle of suspicion points to US imperialism and the Indian State as being responsible for this latest crime.

The Kashmiri people are a martyred people whose homeland is blood-drenched and divided as a result of the anti-Kashmiri policy pursued by the imperialists and reactionary rulers of India and Pakistan over the decades. The Communist Ghadar Party of India firmly upholds the right of the Kashmiri people to self-determination, the right to determine their own destiny, and calls on the people of India and of the whole world to extend unconditional support to this just struggle.

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The agrarian policy of the ruling class and the agrarian policy of the working class

The National Agricultural Policy blames the lack of investment by the state in agricultural infrastructure in the past decade on the alleged diversion of resources into agricultural subsidy and food subsidy. Declaring that growth in agricultural will be market driven, and threatening to remove agricultural subsidies, the ground for intensified attack on the peasantry has been prepared. All facilities will be provided for the big bourgeoisie and the imperialists to further penetrate and dominate agricultural production and distribution by liberalising trade in agriculture, and changing land ceiling laws.

At the time of independence, India's peasantry, who formed the backbone of the freedom struggle, envisioned freedom from landlordism and all the evils of remnants of feudalism and colonialism, so dominant in the countryside. They wanted return of the land to the tiller and an end to the cruel oppressive plunder of the peasantry by the state and its minions, carried out through moneylenders and petty officials and the police in league with the big landlords in the countryside.

53 years down the line, it is clear that the capitalist path pursued in India has failed to address the problems of the peasantry. Nearly half the population in the countryside consists of landless peasants and agricultural workers, who toil for a pittance in the lands of the rich peasantry or the feudal gentry. Some of them migrate to the towns in search of a livelihood—as rickshaw pullers, as migrant agricultural workers in Punjab or Haryana, as taxi drivers and cleaners in different towns and cities, as construction workers in the cities, as unskilled workers eking a miserable living.

Capitalist development has led to differentiation of the landowning peasantry into rich and poor. The majority of peasants are poor or middle peasants, barely able to ensure their survival from crop to crop, season to season. A minority of rich peasants and big capitalist landowners have benefited by the capitalist development and used their positions in the state apparatus to advance their interests. They are the ones who have benefited to the maximum from the "socialistic pattern of society". They have cornered the lion's share of the subsidies to agriculture. They have gained from every flood and famine through hoarding and taking over the lands of the poor. They have gained from the loans advanced by the financial institutions of the state, as well as gained from the pricing policy of the state of definite crops. In their fight with the big bourgeoisie, the rich peasants and the landowners have always striven to win over the broad mass of peasantry, specially the middle peasantry, behind their platform. However, the rich peasantry and the big landowners are afraid of the alliance of the working class and the toiling peasantry taking shape, for they see a threat to their dominance in the countryside from such an alliance. The big bourgeoisie and its allies in the countryside create maximum illusions that the middle peasantry can become rich within the present system, in order to keep the peasantry tied to their own coattails and as their reserve.

The new agricultural policy is a policy of carrot and stick held out to the rich peasantry and big landowners. The carrot offered by the big bourgeoisie is that by opening the agricultural sector to international markets, those rich peasants who can compete in the international market can grow fabulously rich. Of course, this will be done under the wing of the big bourgeoisie and the international food multinationals who will dictate what should be produced and what price would be paid for it. The stick is that the subsidies in terms of bank loans, subsidised electricity, seeds, fertilisers etc will be dramatically curtailed if not withdrawn. It is natural that this policy will meet with great resistance from the peasantry.

What is the working class proposal to the peasantry?

The working class approaches the agrarian question with its perspective that India belongs to the workers and peasants of all the different nations, nationalities and tribes constituting present-day India. India certainly does not belong to the big capitalists and big landowners and the foreign imperialists, against whom so much blood was shed for freedom. This capitalist system can only bring ruin and destitution for the vast majority of peasantry. This is what the past 53 years have clearly revealed. This process of ruination at one pole and concentration of wealth at the other pole is going to get accelerated in the countryside as a result of the new policy. Liberalisation and globalisation of agriculture will lead to growth of quantity and quality of poverty in the countryside. What is inevitable is that some of the rich peasantry and big landowners will become richer, while the majority of peasantry will be driven into ruin. This is what is happening to the middle and poor peasants all over the country - whether tobacco growers in Andhra, potato growers in Bihar, or paddy farmers in Haryana and Punjab, or coconut growers in the south, just to name a few. Every crop, every season, brings fresh tragedies, as peasants are ever in danger of getting into the debt trap of the money lender, whether private or the government banks. The bourgeoisie and its government says to the peasantry—fend for yourself, the state has no responsibility to you. Under this slogan, it is removing whatever little subsidies the peasantry has been getting (or at east some of the peasantry were getting) in the name of cheap electricity, fertilisers, water etc. The state however does not tell the big capitalists and the multinationals to fend for themselves. It makes explicit laws and policy decisions to favour these sections. The toiling peasantry must clearly understand that the Indian state is a state of the capitalists, a state that will never serve the interests of the toiling peasantry. This state is a continuation of the colonial state with the same classes and sections benefiting from it—the big capitalists, the imperialists and the big landowners, with the difference that a small section of peasantry has benefited from it, has become rich at the expense of the vast majority of peasantry, and has joined hands with the rich landowners and the big bourgeoisie.

Political power in India is with the big bourgeoisie which rules in alliance with the big landowners in the countryside and the imperialists abroad. With political power in the hands of the big bourgeoisie, only the concerns of the rich of town and country and internationally are addressed. Therefore it is imperative that the toiling peasantry joins hands with the urban and rural working class and fights for a new India where political power is in their hands. With political power in the hands of workers and peasants, the united front of workers and peasants will be able to address the agrarian problem to satisfy the needs and concerns of the toiling peasantry as well as the urban workers and all working people.

As a producer of wealth, India's peasantry has a right to livelihood. What does this mean? This means that the peasantry must be ensured the conditions by which it can prosper and not be victim of insecurity. The state has to ensure adequate and cheap supply of electricity, water for irrigation, seeds, fertilisers, as well as tractors and other modern equipment for running farms efficiently. The state has to ensure guaranteed procurement prices for all crops, taking into account the present and future needs of society, so that the peasant producers are not at the mercy of the market.

But this is not enough to ensure security of livelihood. The state must take over wholesale internal trade, particularly in agricultural produce, as well as all external trade, so that the the exploitation by middlemen is ended and food security can be guaranteed to the rural and urban poor. The surplus that the state will make by such a takeover will in turn be used to raise the health and educational standards of the toiling masses of country and town. The agricultural workers must be guaranteed adequate wages as well as food security, clothing and shelter. The state has to ensure that the children of the peasantry get opportunity to go to school. It must ensure adequate health care in the rural areas for all.

The bourgeoisie is proposing an alliance with the big landowners and rich peasants behind which the middle and poor peasantry will be line up; an alliance that will lead to further destitution and ruin for the majority of peasants. The bourgeoisie has declared that the orientation of the economy must be or maximum profits for the native and foreign capitalists and the peasantry must slave for the fattening of the purses of the Indian and foreign rich.

In contrast, the working class is fighting for all alliance with the toiling peasantry on the basis of the slogan that India belongs to its workers, peasants, women and youth and therefore the economy must be reoriented to fulfill the needs of the toilers of town and country. The road to emancipation of the peasantry lies in the firm alliance with the working class. Opposing the savage attacks on the livelihood of the peasantry, the peasantry must rally behind the banner of deepgoing transformation of the Indian society so that political power is wrested from the big bourgeoisie and this political power is used for ensuring the allround wellbeing of the toiling people of town and country.

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An Attempt to cover up the Real Criminals

These events again clearly show how the working masses of our country are completely marginalized in politics. The ruling big bourgeoisie, through its political parties, whether in power or not, sets the agenda according to its interests. Through the deafening propaganda in the press and media, they keep the attention of the people focussed on to whatever the big bourgeoisie puts on the agenda. Through such dramas, they aim to make the toiling and oppressed people forget the basic problems of hunger and poverty, of livelihood and shelter, unemployment, insecurity and all sided deprivation that we face everyday. They aim to divide the working people into supporting one or another political party or formation, blaming this or that party, group or individual for the problems faced by the people. In other words, the main aim of the ruling bourgeoisie is to attempt to cover up the real criminals, to create maximum confusion on the question of who really wields political power in our country and what is the nature of this political power.

The two major political parties of the big bourgeoisie, the Congress and the BJP, together with the Shiv Sena and other organisations in the service of the big bourgeoisie were responsible for the violent communal massacres that followed the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992-93. Both were responsible for the colossal loss of life and property that occurred. The events of 1992-93 were, in fact, an eye opener to most Indian people, showing very clearly, how the big bourgeoisie controls political power and how the toiling masses are totally devoid of political power. It showed how, at a moment’s notice, the ruling bourgeoisie can use its political power to unleash violence and terror among the people, while the toiling masses are reduced to helpless victims, with no power to stop this. That is why events like these are repeated time and again, with terrible consequences for the working masses, while the real criminals, though well-known, are never brought to book.

The working masses of Mumbai and other parts of India are outraged at this kind of organised massacre and violence, repeatedly unleashed against the people. People have been angrily demanding that the guilty should be punished. Faced with the pressure of the people’s anger, the bourgeoisie organised this drama of "arrest of Bal Thackeray", but, as might have been expected, any actual punishment of the guilty was again scuttled.

Political power in India is in the hands of the ruling big bourgeoisie. It is this class that sets the economic and political agenda of the country and enforces its implementation through fire and sword. This is true of the entire political apparatus of the state, including the executive, the legislative and the judiciary. The current debate that is going on about the powers of the executive and the judiciary is again another such issue that is being used to create confusion about the fact that the entire state apparatus is today in the service of the big bourgeoisie. As long as political power remains in the hands of the big bourgeoisie and its state, the toiling and oppressed masses cannot expect any salvation from their burning problems of hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease, unemployment and insecurity of life and livelihood.

Political power must be in the hands of the working class, in order that we, the workers, peasants, women and youth, we the oppressed of every nation, nationality and tribe in India can control our destiny. With political power in our hands, we shall very effectively mete out justice, in accordance with the will of the people, to these criminals who exploit and massacre us. With political power in our hands, we shall organise the economy in such a way that the rich natural and human resources of our people are utilised to enhance the well being of all the working people. With political power in our hands, we shall ensure that the devastating communal massacres and the organised violence and terror unleashed on the people shall be things of the past.

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A step towards prosecution of those charged with grave crimes against the people

The Chilean court’s ruling is a victory for all those forces that have been persistently demanding that the mass murderer Pinochet be punished for his crimes, after the setback earlier this year when the British courts had refused to allow him to be extradited to Spain to stand trial for disappearances of Spanish nationals in Chile between 1973 and 1990, on the grounds of his alleged ill health. While the actual trial and possible conviction of Pinochet in Chilean courts will take as much as eight more years to be completed, this judgement marks an important stage in the quest of the Chilean people and all the justice-loving peoples of the world who are demanding that the crimes committed against the peoples be investigated and the accused be tried, so that those found guilty can be punished irrespective of the positions they hold.

In a related development, on the same day, Italian police arrested retired Argentine army officer Jorge Antonio Olivera, after a French judge had issued an international arrest warrant for him in connection with the 1976 disappearance of Marie Anne Erize, a French national who, along with 14 other French nationals, went missing from the province of San Juan in northwestern Argentina following the coup that took place there. Argentina was ruled directly by the military from 1976 until 1983 and more than 9,000 people are officially listed as having been killed or disappeared under the military regime, while the actual figure may be closer to 30,000. Given that the French authorities had also filed for the extradition of the Chilean tyrant Pinochet for trial in France for human rights abuses, the development of the Olivera case from here on also holds significance for the prosecution of Pinochet.

In another case, a complaint has been lodged before the European Court of Human Rights on behalf of relatives of Argentine sailors killed during the Falklands war between Argentina and Britain. In the petition, the families of the 323 sailors who died when the British army sank a warship under orders from Margaret Thatcher are seeking damages from the British government. The case, however, is yet to be heard.

These three events, however unrelated or related they may be, reveal the deep yearning of the people around the globe for new arrangements in which the rulers can be held accountable for their ghastly crimes against the people, no matter what. People want to break the old arrangements that made such crimes possible. The significance of these developments cannot be lost on the people of India who also are demanding punishment of those in power who have been responsible for numerous crimes against the people over the last few decades, including the countless massacres, communal carnage, custodial deaths, encounter killings and so on, that have taken place all over the country.

What is clear from the cases against Pinochet, Olivera and the British government headed by Thatcher, is that the individuals and the families of the victims of their atrocities, and the people at large, have not accepted the injustices done against them and are ready to fight to see justice done. The role of the US in the Chilean and the Argentine disappearances as well as in the Falklands war are well-known, and it is only a matter of time before their crimes also will be brought to the fore. What will be decisive will be the extent of the determination of the people to fight to see that justice is done.

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