• Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India on August 15, 2001

• Down with the massacre of innocent people in Jammu and Kashmir!
  Down with the policy of state terrorism in the name of anti-terrorism!

• Decisions of the G8 Summit:

• Agreement on global warming reached in Bonn despite US non-participation

• The Pharmaceutical Industry: Reaping Profit Out Of Illness

• Liberalisation in the financial sector spells doom for the small investors

People must have the Right to Set the Course for India!

Down with the Sell-Out Program of Privatisation and Liberalisation!

Fight for the Democratic Renewal of India!

Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India on August 15, 2001

On August 15th this year it will be 54 years since India won independence from colonial rule. But what is the fruit of this independence today? Only a small minority of super-rich in society enjoys this fruit. For the workers, peasants, women and youth who constitute the vast majority of Indians, the fruit of this independence is very bitter.

What kind of independence is it when there is no security of livelihood — when thousands of hard working persons are thrown out of jobs with a packet of money called VRS, which cannot sustain them and their families for even one full year? This is what the workers are asking in many parts of the country. What kind of independence is this where peasants are being driven to suicide as a consequence of liberalisation of foreign trade policy in compliance with the conditions of the WTO?

What kind of an independent Republic is this where the Ministers and senior-most officials of the government collaborate with private profiteers to loot the State treasury and the savings of the public, as revealed by the UTI scam? What kind of a democracy is it where big business houses decide everything, while the people are at the receiving end?

Independence from colonialism was expected to end the enslavement of all Indians. Indian people expected that they would be able to set the course for their own society. Today, a majority of Indians are asking themselves what kind of independence is this where we have no say in setting the course of Indian society. A minority of big business houses and their agents and collaborators including foreign companies and institutions are setting the course of India. It is they who are the driving force behind the program of privatisation and liberalisation.

The main problem confronting Indians is that the system of political independence based on colonial and neo-colonial definitions does not fulfil the needs of the Indian people today. A new system is needed, which will mark a complete break with the European institutions of state that defend capitalist private property. Such a break was not made in 1947. It is urgently needed today in order to successfully complete the struggle for independence. The reconstitution of the Indian Union and the renewal of democracy are necessities of the times.

The Congress Party preached the path of political independence without social revolution. Life experience has shown that this path is not only useless but also dangerous. In the absence of social revolution, all the benefits of economic development have been monopolised by a minority of exploiters, while the poor have remained poor or become poorer. The same institutions of bourgeois political power created by the colonialists have been maintained and adapted by the traitorous Indian bourgeoisie. All kinds of medieval oppression and backwardness have been preserved.

The BJP emerged on the Indian political scene pretending to be the alternative to Congress rule and as the saviour of Indian values and Indian pride. But today the BJP stands exposed as the champion of Eurocentric remedies including the privatisation and liberalisation program, based on the notion of each one fending for oneself.

The Vajpayee Government is spearheading the sell-out of all the national assets and the complete opening up of the Indian market to imports in the name of "second generation reforms" and in the name of complying with the WTO. It is expanding the space for imperialist interference, especially American interference, by stepping up Indo-US military collaboration.

Culmination of the struggle for independence requires a clean break with everything that is alien and outdated. The modern definition of independence is that the people of India must enjoy the right to set the course for their society. The first step towards the fulfilment of this goal is to make a clean break with the colonial past and the European institutions of democracy.

The workers, peasants, women and youth of India must establish new institutions to empower themselves and actually become the masters of India. They can and will establish a new Indian state that empowers them to make decisions and shape the course of Indian society. That is the meaning of taking the struggle for Indian independence to its logical conclusion today. With political power in their hands, the Indian working class and people will be able to ensure that social production ensures protection and prosperity for all, in harmony with the natural environment and the interests of future generations.

On the occasion of the 54th anniversary of Indian independence, the Communist Ghadar Party of India calls on all Indian patriots to join hands and build the organs of class struggle and future organs of power among the masses of workers, peasants, women and youth! Let us join hands to block the path of the anti-national and anti-people program of privatisation and liberalisation! Let us fight for the empowerment of the working class and all the hitherto oppressed in society! Let us build the fighting political unity of all those who want to end the plunder and enslavement of India once and for all!

Come, let us take up this nation building project in earnest! The time has come to end the rule of the bourgeoisie and establish the rule of the working masses.
Renewal of India is the call of the times!
Workers, Peasants, Women and Youth! We constitute India! We are her masters!

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Down with the massacre of innocent people in Jammu and Kashmir!

Down with the policy of state terrorism in the name of anti-terrorism!

Following the Doda massacre, Union Home Minister Advani said that the government would plan a "proper response". He vowed to crush what the Government of India has been referring to as "cross-border terrorism" and taunted General Musharraf’ s statement during his visit to India that there was a freedom struggle being waged in Kashmir.

On 7th August ‘01, over nine people were gunned down in Jammu station. On 8th August, the government declared four districts including Kathua, Doda, Jammu and Udhampur as ‘disturbed areas’. Armed with the special black law for disturbed areas, the armed forces have been given the go-ahead to unleash terror in the name of "combating terrorism". The Home Minister’s bluster shows that the terror of the Indian state on the people of Kashmir will be stepped up. These killings are providing the Indian state a convenient justification for unleashing a fresh and intensified wave of state terrorism.

Whose interests do these killings serve? The working and oppressed people in Kashmir and in the rest of India, who yearn for peace in Kashmir do not gain from the killings in Doda and Jammu. It is only those who have vested interests in perpetuating the conflict over Kashmir and tension between India and Pakistan who stand to gain. Judging from the response of Home Minister Advani, it appears that the Indian ruling classis trying to make the most of these killings, to add weight to its claim that "cross border terrorism sponsored by Pakistan" is the cause of the problem in Kashmir and the main roadblock to peaceful relations between India and Pakistan. Whatever the politicians of the Indian bourgeoisie may say, it cannot be denied that the Kashmir problem is a political problem. It needs a political solution. The recent killings do not contribute to a political solution. The policy of state terrorism on the part of the Indian state, in the name of fighting "cross border terrorism", also does not contribute to a political solution. On the contrary, the policy of the Indian bourgeoisie, enunciated by Home Minister Advani, is a policy of keeping Kashmir forever boiling, as a permanent source of tension and war between India and Pakistan. It is a policy that serves those who benefit from tension and war. It deserves to be condemned by all peace loving people.

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Decisions of the G8 Summit:

Crocodile tears about ending poverty to push through the ruthless agenda of imperialist globalisation

Much of their communiqué is devoted to their "Strategic Approach to Poverty Reduction." The most "effective poverty reduction strategy," the G8 leaders said, is "maintaining a strong, dynamic, open and growing global economy."

The imperialists’ agenda for globalisation through liberalisation of trade and markets, and the privatisation of the hitherto social sector has increased poverty and inequality worldwide. This is a well-documented fact. However, the G8 Summit demagogically declares that this same globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation is somehow going to solve the problems the peoples face! The G8 leaders are promoting the disinformation that the main cause of poverty in the impoverished countries is the peoples of these countries themselves. The imperialists paint themselves in the role of "good samaritans", who are desperate to "help the poor of the world".

The G8 Summit declared arrogantly that the only path allowed for countries is on the basis of the imperialists’ system of "free markets" and "democracy." "Open, democratic and accountable systems of governance, based on respect for human rights and the rule of law, are preconditions for sustainable development and robust law." Therefore, they state they will "help" developing countries promote "accountability and transparency," "mechanisms to fight corruption", and "legal provisions" to enable the private sector, "civil society" and NGOs "freedom of economic activities."

Likewise, they offer trade-related assistance to "help developing countries benefit from open markets." The international financial institutions are "encouraged to help" by "removing obstacles to trade and investment and establish the institutions and policies essential for trade to flourish."

The United Nations reports that 11 million children below the age of die every year from preventable diseases — about 30,000 a day. There are 1.2 billion people attempting to live on less than $1 a day and one billion are without access to clean drinking water. At the same time, throughout the world the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow.

Globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation is wreaking havoc on the world’s peoples, especially the working class and peasantry. It is leading to increasing inequalities between rich and poor in each country and between countries as well. The economies of entire countries have come under the dictate of a handful of imperialist conglomerates and the imperialist controlled financial institutions. The consequences of pushing for privatisation of water supply, of education and health services, and other social services have been truly devastating world-wide. All this is the result of the capitalist system and the ruthless drive for imperialist plunder. These same imperialist states then don the mask of "saviours" to extract even more from the peoples in the name of "poverty reduction".

There is no cure from the gods of plague, which is what the G8 chieftains are. Through their powerful protests in Genoa and in cities around the world during and after the G8 summit, the anti-imperialist peoples of the world clearly expressed their utter contempt for the G8 and their complete disbelief in the pious declarations of the imperialist chieftains.

The imperialists and their ideologues want to hide the fact that they are the cause of the problems and have no solution except to further exacerbate the problems. They continue to have the hated approach of the "white man’s burden" consistent with which the colonialists imposed their "civilisation" on our people and other peoples of Asia, Africa and the Americas and justified their savage exploitation and plunder.

The solution to the problems of poverty lies in the peoples taking the destiny of their countries into their own hands. They do not need false saviours; they need to affirm themselves as their own saviours. Today, peoples everywhere are demanding a say in decision making: in how the economy of their country should be oriented and what kind of political system and political process will enable them to orient their country’s economy in a direction beneficial to the majority. This is the message that the valiant protestors in Genoa from all countries gave in front of the whole world.

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Agreement on global warming reached in Bonn despite US non-participation

As the polluting gases freely move about in the atmosphere, their ill effects are not restricted to the countries which are responsible for emission of these gases. It is well known that the country responsible for the maximum emissions is the USA, accounting for more than one third of the total global emissions. In contrast with the per capita emissions in the most industrialised (‘G8’) countries, the per capita emissions in the developing countries are miniscule. Therefore, people in the developing countries are forced to bear the ill effects of the pollution caused by the industrialized countries.

Over the years, the pressure from the environmentalists and the people around the world has been mounting and has forced the governments to start discussing the issue. In 1992 an International Framework Convention on Climate Change was held. This Convention requires 38 developed countries to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent to bring the pollution levels 5% below the 1990 level by 2008. This requires substantial reduction in the emission levels by US, Canada, Germany, Britain and Japan. Eight years elapsed before the steps to implement these reductions were proposed in the Kyoto treaty formulated in July 2000. However, the polluting industrialized countries have been reluctant to sign the treaty. The meeting held in The Hague in October ’00 collapsed due to disagreements. In the later part of July this year, another International meeting was held in Bonn, Germany to renegotiate the treaty. The USA refused to participate in the meeting though it is the biggest polluter in the world. Other industrialized countries have sought to get concessions and to make the treaty not legally binding.

The global debate taking place to protect the environment is a step forward. The working class cannot keep aloof from the issue. We have to ensure that the environment is cleaned up and that the cost of cleaning up the environment is borne by those who have caused the pollution and not shifted on to the backs of the working people around the world. Environment protection can only be fully guaranteed if production is directed by the well being of all the toiling people and by the narrow motive of maximization of profits of a few.

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The Pharmaceutical Industry: Reaping Profit Out Of Illness

In a civilized society, it is expected that the basic services of health should be of the finest quality, easily affordable and readily available to everyone. On the other hand, squeezing high profits out of illness, making life and death an issue of money, is something that goes against the common sense of decency. However, this is exactly what capitalism has to offer human beings, as this study of the pharmaceutical industry will try to demonstrate.

What disease you get generally depends on how rich or how poor you are. Diseases like cholera, typhoid, gastroenteritis, etc. generally affect the poor in our country. They are related to hygiene – to living conditions. To eliminate them, all efforts and resources have to be focused on improving the living conditions of our people. What is actually happening is exactly the opposite. The water supplied is impure; the drainage system is going from bad to worse. As the poor in the villages become poorer, they are forced to migrate to cities in ever-increasing numbers. The dwellings of the poor in the cities are becoming ever more crowded. This causes the infectious and contagious diseases to spread even more readily. Just last year there was a major epidemic of cholera in Ulhasnagar (a town near Mumbai) caused by the water supplied being mixed with sewage. There were many deaths. Just a few years back Surat was in the throes of a plague epidemic.

Diseases like TB and anemia also mainly affect the poor. These are related to malnutrition and under nutrition. In fact, more than half of Indian women are anemic. The diseases of the rich include heart disease, high BP, diabetes, etc. These are mainly lifestyle diseases. There are also diseases like AIDS and viral diseases that affect everyone. In countries where the environment is more hygienic and health facilities better, cholera, gastroenteritis, polio, etc. have been wiped out. In the advanced capitalist countries, the biggest killers are heart disease, cancer, high BP and psychosomatic diseases like depression. The latter are caused by the alienation and loneliness an individual feels under capitalism, where the motto is each for himself and the devil take the hindmost.

If you happen to fall ill, your fate depends on how much money you are able to spend on the treatment. The following figures will give an idea of poverty and its impact on people’s life expectancy.

In our country we know how fast medicine prices and fees for treatment have zoomed up in the last few years. During the decade 1987 – 1997, the amount spent on health care as a percentage of the income has gone up by 4 ½ times for the low income group, by 1 ½ times for the middle income group and only by 1.12 times for the rich. The main reasons for the rise are increase in doctors’ fees and rise in the prices of medicines. Till a few years back, prices of drugs used to be controlled through the Drug Price Control Order (DPCO). In recent years this has been diluted, resulting in a massive price increase in the last decade.

It is the world’s most profitable industry, with the Cola industry coming a poor second. Its yearly turnover is $ 350 billion, i.e. about Rs.1, 75,000 crores. The pharmaceutical industry is dominated by the US. It is controlled almost all over the world by 5 – 6 big companies, although India is an exception. A great deal of monopolization has occurred in the drug industry globally, with the smaller companies being swallowed by the bigger ones. Due to reduced competition, prices have increased.

The Indian pharmaceutical market is less than 1.2% of the world market, though 1 out of every 6 people in the world is an Indian. Clearly, this is not because Indians are exceptionally healthy, but because they cannot afford drugs. 46% of the world population is found in countries that account for a mere 2% of the total expenditure on drugs for cardiovascular diseases. The annual per capita spending on drugs is $124 in Canada, $7 in China, and a mere $3 in India.

Patents have helped create monopolies. When a company patents a product, in this case a drug, it means that no one else can manufacture that drug in any form for a certain period of time. Thus the company that has patented the product has a monopoly over the product for the given period and can charge exorbitant prices. If another company wants to manufacture the product during the period when the patent is in force, it has to first obtain a license from the company that holds the patent. The company can refuse the license. If it does decide to award it, it charges royalty. Royalties can be huge sources of earning. In 1995, US companies collected half of the royalties in the world. A handful of companies and institutions in just 10 countries own 95% of the US patents and collect 90% of the cross border royalties and licensing fees.

In India so far only "process patents" have been allowed and not "product patents". Thus, even if a company has patented a drug manufactured by a particular process, another company can manufacture the same drug by another process. The resulting competition has restricted the drug prices as compared to other countries that allow product patents, as the following table will show:

Table :The times by which the prices for a given drug in other countries exceed those in India:

• This is the pricing power provided by patents. All countries given above have product patents, unlike India, which so far allows only process patents. From 2005, India is going to allow product patents, and the effects on the prices will be obvious.
• Patents are a big issue with the drug industry. They claim that it is to protect the invention of new drugs so that the money spent on R&D can be recovered. This is a big myth:
• ¨ Most drugs are developed at public expense in national labs and universities.
• ¨ A World Bank study puts the R&D expenditure currently at an estimated $ 70 – 90 billion (i.e. about Rs.35000 – 45000 crores). The taxpayer funds half of this.
• ¨ For instance, the AIDS drug Stavudine was discovered in 1966 in Yale University on a grant given by the government. So were four other drugs.

The pharmaceutical industry claims that drugs are costly because of large money spent by them on R&D, which has to be recovered, but facts show otherwise:

1999 data: expenses as % of sales

Thus, the heavy expense is not on R&D, but on marketing and promotion.

Drug development is entirely in the hands of private companies. They price the drugs in a way that they recover the entire cost of developing a drug in 4 – 5 years. This gives them an additional 8 years of profit before the patent expires. What is the justification given by the drug industry for the high prices of drugs in poor countries? – "We agree that differential pricing is necessary, but our biggest worry is the diversion of the drugs from low-income countries to the developed markets."

Public spending on health care in developing countries is very poor, as the following table demonstrates:

What does the Drug Industry say?

Lets us look at some other statements made by the representatives of the drug industry:

• ¨ "Treating Third World illness is not the core business of the pharmaceutical industry."
• ¨ "For the industry, the market is the developed world, where patent protection gives it rights to charge the prices needed to sustain its activities."
• ¨ "The agenda is to treat the diseases of the western world – cardiovascular, neurological diseases, cancer and diseases associated with the western lifestyle."
• ¨ "AIDS is (unfortunately) a disease which afflicts both rich and poor countries, and hence the problem."
• ¨"Primarily, pharmaceutical companies are businesses and not charities."
• ¨"About 1.5 billion people benefit from R&D, 4.5 billion do not."

TRIP is a global regulation for trade in intellectual property and mainly deals with patents, software, etc. It results in uniformly high prices for drugs to combat general diseases, along with little investment in the development of drugs for diseases specific to the poor. This regulation has conferred multiple and added protection to prescription (branded) drugs. The rising cost of healthcare in the US is on account of the laws passed by the US Congress to prolong the effective patent life enjoyed by prescription drugs.

The most serious fallout of the patent regime is the increasing gap between those who can buy medicines and those who cannot. For the most vulnerable population in poor countries, essential drugs are becoming far too costly.

Impact of TRIP on poor countries like India

• ¨ The cost of medicines has shot up.
• ¨ Local manufacturing put under controls; thus a vital source of generic, innovative drugs that poor countries depend upon removed. India is a prime example of this.
• ¨ No incentive for research on drugs for diseases like TB and malaria that afflict the poor.
• ¨ 97% of the deaths due to communicable diseases occur in poor countries.
• ¨ Between 1975-1996, 1223 new drugs were developed. Only 11 of them were for the treatment of tropical diseases.
• ¨ Many drugs have been "orphaned", i.e. the drug companies no longer produce them because they are not profitable. For instance, production of Efflorenthine, a drug used to treat sleeping sickness, was stopped in 1995 because the drug company did not find it profitable. The active ingredient is now used in cosmetics for removing facial hair.

There are new sinister threats. These are not from new diseases, but from the pressure the developed countries are putting on developing countries to implement stricter patent regime than that required under TRIPS. This goes by the name of TRIPS +.

This new legislature is lethal for poor countries. This excludes safeguards such as compulsory licensing or parallel imports (shopping globally for the cheapest source of patented products) that are available in TRIPS to offset the negative impact of patents. Due to this, poor countries will not be able to buy cheaper drugs from anywhere in the world. It will not be necessary for multinational companies to manufacture patented medicines on poor countries (compulsory licensing).

• ¨ In West Africa this stringent legislation was forced upon 15 countries, most of which are the least developed.
• ¨ Drugs are more expensive wherever a tough patent regime exists; we have already seen that drugs are more expensive in Pakistan than in India because Pakistan allows product patents. Efforts are on to impose a new patent law on India, due to which after 2005, Indian drug companies will not be able to copy drugs sold in other countries.
• ¨ Due to TRIPS +, prices of drugs in all poor countries will shoot up further.

AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome):

• ¨ This disease is only 20 years old, with the first case having been detected in 1981. By now 2.2 crore deaths have been reported.
• ¨ 95% patients are from poor countries.
• ¨ As per the WHO, 6 lakh children were newly affected with HIV in 2000. About 5 lakh children died of AIDS in 2000 and 14 lakh were living with HIV. About 53 lakh people were newly infected in 2000.
• ¨ The world today has 3.6 crore HIV positive people. Out of these, 8 – 9 lakh are in the USA.
• ¨ AIDS is now the fourth leading cause of death globally, and the leading cause of death in Africa.
• ¨ In seven African countries, more than 20% of the population in the age group 15 – 49 years is infected with HIV.
• ¨ Drug cocktails have reduced AIDS deaths in the Western countries by 75%. In poor countries, victims die in six months or less due to the high cost of drugs (annual cost Rs.5-7 lakh).
• ¨ As AIDS rates decline in the developed world, they soar in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

In several places in the world, AIDS has become the rallying cry against the drug multinationals. For anti retroviral (ARV) medicines for AIDS, patent holders were charging $ 10000 – 15000 for one year of treatment. An Indian company, CIPLA, offered to supply these drugs at an annual cost of $ 350 per patient to the organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF). The result of this offer is that two of the biggest drug makers, Bristol-Meyers-Squib and Merck have slashed their prices to $600 to supply these drugs to African governments. Another drug company, Glaxo-Smith-Kline, has agreed to supply the AIDS drugs to Kenya at cost price – this amounts to 90% reduction.

In 1997 South Africa passed a law to allow it to import cheaper versions of patented AIDS drugs or to manufacture generic versions of these high cost formulations. Leading pharmaceutical companies filed a suit against the South African government against this law. Under pressure from people all over the world, they were forced to drop this suit on 19th April 2001.

Brazil is fighting USA on the same issue. Brazil has successfully handled the AIDS crisis by making medicines available at affordable prices. When AIDS erupted in the nineties, it was one of the countries at the most risk with the 4th highest number of HIV patients. The WHO had forecast that it would have 12 lakh patients by 2001.With an effective public healthcare program (that cost $ 300 million last year) it restricted the patients to 5.3 lakh. Thus the death rate has been cut by half and it has also saved $ 430 million in hospital costs. Brazil supplies drugs free to AIDS patients by locally manufacturing them at a fraction of the cost charged by the MNCs. Through this alone, it saves $ 200 million every year.

The USA initiated a WTO case against Brazil alleging that Article 68 of Brazil’s patent law, which provides for compulsory licensing and local manufacture of a patented product if it is not made within 3 years of a license being issued to a patent holder, violates TRIPS. USA insists that the dispute is not about healthcare or access to drugs but about a discriminatory regulation. Brazil has taken the issue to the WHO and the UN Human Rights Commission and got their backing for the right of poor countries to access cheap medicines.

AIDS in India.

• ¨ There are 38 lakh-infected persons on India, second after South Africa with 42 lakh.
• ¨ This means that .7% of the population is affected. 1% is considered to be an epidemic. If the infection rate is allowed to climb beyond 5%, the spread of the disease will greatly accelerate; India has the danger of becoming another country like those in sub-Saharan Africa.
• ¨ Public health officials expect the number of infected to reach 2 crore by 2004.
• ¨ The National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) has an allocation of Rs.180 crore, a mere 3.1% of the country’s health budget, which itself is disgracefully low. Of this, Rs.30 crore is being spent on the northeastern states, where infection rates have reached alarming proportions.
• ¨ Anti retroviral treatment costs Rs.15000 per year per patient, and so is not even considered by the public health system of India.

The drug industry is least concerned about providing medicines at affordable prices to patients. Its primary motive is how to make the maximum profit by taking advantage of the helplessness of patients. They use all possible means to achieve this goal and patent protection is a powerful aid for them to achieve their goal. The rich nations fully support the drug industry and have been working to install international trade regulations that will make drug industry even more profitable.

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Before the reforms in the financial sector, the Indian bourgeoisie did not mind relatively low rates of profit in the government owned banking and mutual funds sector. The banks were required to lend a minimum quota to the priority sectors of agriculture and the small-scale industry. The provident funds, pension funds and mutual funds were constrained by rules to assure a regular rate of return to the depositors. All this was done not because the bourgeoisie had any love for the people’s well being or any respect for people’s savings. Such regulations were aimed at ensuring a captive source of cheap finance to the central government, as well as cheap financing in support of the green revolution. A strong capitalist base, which the big bourgeoisie required to develop into gigantic monopolies, was buttressed by these cheap public funds.

The main aim of the market reforms that are currently being implemented is to orient the government-owned banking and financial sector towards the maximum rate of profit through commercial lending and investment activities. The result is a tremendous squeeze on small and medium-scale producers in industry and agriculture who have borrowed from these funds, retired pensioners, widows surviving on interest income and so on. The reforms have actually led to the further concentration of resources in the hands of the big monopolies who make the highest rates of profit, and to the further strengthening of the position of parasitic financial capital in the economy.

The insatiable thirst of the monopoly bourgeoisie in the country for maximum profit is turning every source of money into capital. Pension funds, post-office funds, provident funds, and national savings scheme (NSS) funds are being used by the government of the big bourgeoisie increasingly to bridge its deficits. The management of these funds are being thrown open to private monopolies and restrictions on their end use are being removed.

State owned corporations and funds such as the Life Insurance Corporation, the Employee Provident Fund and the Pension Fund have been playing on the fears of the ordinary people to mobilise crores of rupees, which they lend at rock bottom interest rates to the big capitalists. The LIC rips off the savings of ordinary people by playing on their fears of "dying too soon" while the Provident and Pension Funds defraud the working people by force of law, playing on their fears of "living too long".

There is a tremendous rage seething in the hearts of the small investors, insurance investors, provident and pension fund members, stockholders and borrowers. So many thousands of peasants have been so badly mauled by market forces that when they are faced with the confiscation (japti) of their assets by public sector banks and co-operatives they have preferred to commit suicide rather than live a life of indignity. Stock market reforms have opened the way for public and private corporations to mobilise huge amounts of capital from the gullible public. No interest is paid on this money; there is no guarantee of dividends and no assured price for these shares. Even those who invested in the shares of public sector undertakings such as banks have lost their life’s earnings. When millions of small investors were taken for a ride by unscrupulous private financial institutions (called "blade" companies), they sought haven in hitherto trusted funds such as UTI. Now even these public sector funds have left the investors, on whose shoulders these entities were built, in the lurch. The state, whose raison d’etre is to ensure that all people governed by it prosper, has abdicated its duty. The question then arises in people’s minds : why is there a need for such a state?

The Leninist analysis of financial capital is becoming reconfirmed everyday. Finance capital concentrated in a few hands and exercising a virtual monopoly, exacts enormous and ever-increasing profits from the issue of stocks, floating of companies, state loans, etc. It strengthens the domination of financial monopolies over the day-to-day lives of the people. It levies a tribute upon the whole of society for the benefit of the monopolies. The UTI is a living example of this parasitic feature of finance capital whose very existence has become a burden to the whole of society.

The UTI scam has made it blatantly clear that the entire economic life of the country is controlled by the financial monopolies, consisting of a few thousand individuals who are sitting in the Cabinet and Prime Ministers Office or who control the largest corporations in the country. These individuals decide on all investments. The public and private financial monopolies, along with the executive and high ranking bureaucrats, have direct links with the World Bank, IMF and other international financial agencies with whom they devise more and more ways to pauperise the people.

How can we tolerate a state such as this, which pawns the hard-earned savings of its own working people and tells them to go to hell when the time comes for redemption? How can we tolerate such a state where it is a crime to die too young because the dependents have to fend for themselves and it is also a crime to die too old because there is no security for old age people? How can we tolerate such a state, which ensures that in this zero sum game the winners are always the financial monopolies and the losers are always the people?

The program of reorientation of the Indian economy to serve all members of society is an immediate priority in front of the working people. Daily events are revealing that this program cannot remain a future policy objective. It has to be taken up as an eminently realisable plan. The basis for this program already exists in the close links of our people, in our collective tradition, in our conception of the state as an unflinching guarantor of people’s prosperity. Let us unite all our energies behind the realisation of this program.

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