• Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, March 3, 2002
  Blame the State, not the people,
  for the communal massacre in Gujarat!

• Budget 2002-03
  Block the anti-people proposals of the budget!

• Enron collapse reveals a decaying capitalist system

• Protest in Mumbai

• Privatisation of public sector undertakings has to be stopped!

• BALCO workers fight pitched battle with police

• Growing isolation of the Anglo American imperialists

• Letter to Editor

• Indo-Nepal trade treaty revised

Statement of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, March 3, 2002

Blame the State, not the people, for the communal massacre in Gujarat!

First, a communally surcharged atmosphere was created in Gujarat as well as other parts of the country by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which has been spewing anti-Muslim venom publicly with the blessings of the Indian State. Second, a premeditated attack was organised by an unidentified gang in the form of burning the bogie of the Sabarmati Express carrying VHP supporters. Immediately following this incident, which was clearly pre-planned, large-scale violence against Muslims in general was unleashed all over Gujarat.

Government spokesmen claim that all this happened because of some "intelligence failure". To call it intelligence failure means that those in power wanted to stop the violence but they did not have the necessary information in time.This argument cannot be accepted because the facts show otherwise.

The BJP, which is in power in Gujarat and in New Delhi, cannot claim that it did not know the plans of the VHP, whose renewed activity to build a Ram mandir in Ayodhya was timed to coincide with the UP elections. Suppose we accept, for the sake of argument, that those in power in Gujarat did not know that violence was going to break out in Godhra on February 27. By that evening, the news was on television and the whole country had heard about it. If the governments in Gujarat and the Centre were really interested in avoiding the spread of communal violence, they could have easily brought in many battalions of the armed forces that are stationed close by at the Pakistan border. Instead, the communal gangs were given a free reign, with the state police watching from a distance. In other words, the communal violence in Gujarat, which has already lasted for over two full days, could not have happened if those in power did not want it to happen. To talk of "intelligence failure" is an attempt to cover up this basic fact.

The events of Gujarat once again show that the Indian State is communal, despite all the pretence of being a "secular" democracy. The events of November 1984 had already shown how the party in power can use the state machinery to attack any particular religious minority it pleases and get away with it. The events of February-March 2002 are a repeat performance. That time it was the Congress Party in power and Sikhs who were massacred. This time it is the BJP in power and Muslims a re the main victims. What is common about both is that those in power wanted the communal violence to take place, not to prevent it.

The communal holocaust following the Partition in 1947 took place because the British colonialists, who were still in control at that time, wanted it to take place. Since that time, an illusion was created that "it will not happen again", allegedly because the Indian people now had a "secular" state that would safeguard the life of every citizen.The experience of the past 54 years and 6 months, including the latest carnage in Gujarat, shows that the people cannot afford to live with such an illusion any longer.

The first step in finding a solution to the problem of communal violence is to accept the fact that it is not the broad masses of people but the state that is communal. If communal violence is to be ended, the people of India need to address this question of what is to be done with this communal state. What is to done with the existing political system and process of democracy that enable parties in power to unleash violence on a communal basis to achieve their narrow ends? This is the real issue.

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Budget 2002-03

Block the anti-people proposals of the budget!

Earlier, the Railway budget presented by Nitish Kumar unabashedly attacked the pockets of the ordinary people, first through a substantial across the board increase in Second Class Rail fares, including suburban fares as well as increase in freight rates on all items, which will be transferred to the consumers.

The increase in the prices of fertiliser and fuel has made a complete mockery of the supposed commitment of the NDA regime to the well-being of peasants. The peasants who have already been severely hit by falling prices of agricultural commodities, rising input costs and unbearable interest on credit, are boiling with anger.

Using the huge accumulated stock of rice and wheat in the government godowns as an excuse, the budget has also hinted that the minimum support price for wheat and rice will be withdrawn in future. The withdrawal of the minimum support price will also eventually lead to the liquidation of the public distribution system.

The proposed increase in income taxes and withdrawal of small savings incentives have affected millions of individual income tax payers belonging to the lower and middle income strata who have been regular tax payers and whose tax deposits forms a regular source of government expenditure. Additional taxation in the budget will force the ordinary people, who are the ultimate target of all taxes, to pay up an additional Rs 10,500 crores in the year. This has been one of the highest taxation proposals in recent years by the bourgeoisie.

The Budget has also announced a wide ranging package of policy measures, all of which are aimed at facilitating maximum profits in the hands of the big capitalist companies and multinationals, both Indian and foreign, through more intensive and extensive super-exploitation and plunder of the land and labour of India.

The peak customs duty rate has been brought down from 35 per cent to 30 per cent. Import tariffs have been cut on some imports. Depreciation allowance has been increased, and tax on foreign companies has been lowered. The interest rate cut will benefit the big capitalist borrowers at the expense of the savings of the ordinary people. Tax on dividend income has now been shifted from the companies to the receiver, affecting thousands of small investors eking out their living on interest and dividend income.

It is very evident that the greed of the bourgeoisie has been impelling them to fleece the people further even when the Indian economy is in a crisis with the vast majority of the people unable to buy the excess goods in the market because of falling purchasing power. This drive for maximum profit is bound to worsen the crisis in the economy.

The current budget has to be met with a fitting response from workers, peasants and masses of Indian people. The bourgeoisie is resorting to increased militarisation, and unleashing communal mayhem to divide, disorient and divert the working class and peasantry and crush their resistance. The working class and peasantry and all working people must exercise great vigilance as they step up the struggle to block the anti-people measures of the budget.

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Enron collapse reveals a decaying capitalist system

The Texas based Enron Corporation, which was rated as the seventh largest among the Fortune 500 companies with revenues of more than 100 billion dollars, went bankrupt in the later part of last year. This collapse not only made its more than ten thousands employees jobless, it also wiped out their retirement savings, which were held as Enron stock. Many others have also been affected through mutual funds that heavily depended on the Enron stock. It is estimated that Insurance and mutual funds had invested over 2.4 billion dollars in Enron stock, which lost its value after the collapse. However, as is most often the case in capitalism, the big bourgeoisie enriched themselves by siphoning off money through hefty salaries, contracts and by manipulating the company stock, while the workers and society at large have been made to foot the bill.

The Enron collapse came as a surprise to many because capitalism presents itself as having checks & balances, transparency, accountability, independent auditing, and so on. In reality, however, it is nothing but a conspiracy of the highest order with corruption occupying the central stage. Over the years, capitalism has perfected the art of looting the wealth of society even with the so-called check and balances. The rules and regulations are themselves designed to hide the complex ways in which the process of loot takes place. Thus as the Enron stock was rising in the stock markets, the big Enron bosses were in full knowledge of the impending collapse and were able to sell their shares just before the collapse. Examination of the facts of the collapse of Enron, reveals clearly the real processes operating in capitalism.

Facts of the Enron collapse

The basic modus operandi followed by Enron consisted of building partnerships with other companies, both in the US and outside, which were controlled by Enron. Enron bosses siphoned off funds, putting these partnerships in great debt. It is well known that billions of dollars have been extracted from Enron de facto through subsidiary companies in South Korea, China, Philippines, India, Britain, Canada and throughout Latin America, in addition to the US itself. However, under the capitalist law, Enron was free not to show the debt of partnerships as Enron liability. Hence over a period of time, although the financial condition for Enron had become extremely bad, through their influence in various political and financial circles, Enron's image was kept up as a solid company, worth investing in. Various pension funds, mutual funds and financial institutions continued investing in Enron stock, which soared at heights, not justified by the economic health of the company. This situation could thus be exploited by bosses who were in the know of the real situation. For example, Lou Pai, chairman and chief executive of Enron unit Enron Accelerator, allegedly gained 353.7 million dollars from insider trading of Enron shares, followed by Enron chairman and CEO, Kenneth Lay, who made 101.3 million dollars. It has been estimated that 29 Enron officers gained about $1.1 billion from the sale of more than 17.3 million shares over the past three years.

While filing for bankruptcy, Enron laid off more than half of employees at its Houston headquarters, promising each a few thousand dollars in severance pay. Contrast this with 600 higher-ups, who received more than $100 million in bonuses in the last month. As part of liberalisation measures, the Bush administration had encouraged employees to invest their retirement fund in the company stock itself. For weeks before filing its bankruptcy petition, while the share price were plunging down, Enron prohibited its workers from selling stock held in voluntary retirement plans. The Enron 401(k) account (retirement account) was worth 350,000 dollars before the collapse was reduced to just 20,000 dollars after the collapse!

Bribes at the highest levels

Enron's operations were facilitated by the influence it had bought in the highest circles of the government and other institutions of the US State. Enron has been closely linked to the Bush administration. Enron poured millions into Bush’s political career starting from his first run for Texas governor in 1994. See the box on Enron's PPA (Political Purchase Agreement). In return, Bush appointed at least 30 Enron executives, consultants, and investors to his administration including Senator Thomas E White who once owned 50 million dollars in Enron stock. Like so many other insiders, White dodged the bullet and sold his stock for a handsome profit before it became worthless. Other Enron-connected Bush officials include Defence Senator Donald Rumsfeld, US Trade Representative Robert B Zoellick, White House adviser Karl Rove, and economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey.

Three top White House advisors who helped draft the Bush administration's energy plan own stock in (or earned consulting fees from) the Enron Corporation. Enron officials interviewed candidates to fill vacancies on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (which regulates Enron's main markets) and Lay’s picks, Pat Wood III and Nora Mead Brownell, were ‘coincidentally’ the President’s choices as well. When Vice President Richard Cheney set up his energy Policy Task Force, he met with or spoke by telephone at least six times with Lay to make sure that every word in the plan conformed with Enron’s drive for total deregulation of the energy monopolies. It is well known that using the deregulated energy market, Enron was able to extract huge surplus in California by engineering the energy crisis there.

In addition to bribing the government officials and politicians, Enron money was used to buy "cooperation" of auditors, regulatory bodies, Wall street analysts and others. For instance, Enron was paying fees to their auditor firm, Arthur Anderson, to the tune of one million dollars per week! It is no wonder that these ‘watch dogs’ rang no alarm bells for years, since the Corporation had become unviable.

Enron is not the only company to play havoc with lives of thousands and thousands working people. In fact, it represents one of those few companies that has come to the public scrutiny and represents only the tip of the iceberg of capitalism in decay. The list of corporations, notorious for their anti-social activities, is growing. For example, the Global Crossing Unlimited went bankrupt, yet its CEO walked away with 700 million dollars. Oklahoma based Williams company, which is also a amalgamation of energy companies is also on the brink of collapse due to practices similar to those of Enron. Tyco corporation has come to limelight as two of its top executives have sold more than 100 million dollars worth of shares while claiming that they rarely sell their company's stock.

Enron is now the target of a number of investigations. There are at least eight hearings scheduled before the US House and Senate committees. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating and so is the General Accounting Office. A striking fact of this scandal is the difficulty of finding elected officials without ties to Enron to conduct the investigation! Even the Attorney General of the US, Ashcroft had received 57,000 dollars from Enron in his run for Senate re-election in Missouri. The entire US Attorney’s office in Houston was forced to remove itself from the Enron probe because they are so tainted by ties to Enron. Given the experience of such investigations in the past, the object of such investigation would be more to cover up rather than to expose the real nature of capitalism and imperialism. Revelations about Enron show the real nature of capitalism in decay and reconfirm Lenin's teaching on imperialism as to how the big bourgeois use the power of capital and state machinery to extract a tribute from the whole of society. 

Enron's PPA (Political Purchase Agreement)

• In the last election campaign, Bush had raised a record $21.3 million in a single fundraiser hosted by Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron.
• Half the Senate and one third of the House, both Republicans and Democrats, received campaign contributions from Enron.
• Among the biggest recipients of Enron largesse were former Texas GOP Senator Phil Gramm and his wife Wendy. At the specific bequest of Enron, Senator Gramm won quick approval of legislation exempting energy commodity trading from government regulation and disclosure. Wendy Gramm pushed through similar exemptions for energy corporations in 1993, and was rewarded with a seat on the Enron board of directors. She was paid 915,000 dollars in salary and 1.85 million dollars in stock options and dividends from 1993 to 1998.

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Protest in Mumbai

On the evening of 5th March 2002, about 100 activists gathered in Hutatma Chowk, in down town Mumbai to condemn the killings of innocent people in Godhra and the rest of Gujarat. They included the activists of Ekta, NBS, CPDR, Lok Raj Sangathan, Nirbhay Bano Andolan, Muslim Front, Muslim Intellectuals’ Forum, Vidrohi Sanskrutik Manch, Rashtruya Yuva Sanghatan, Indian Center for Human Rights and LawVoice of the Exploited, Sarvoday Mandal, Nirmala Niketan, Xaviers’ College, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Communist Ghadar Party of India etc.

Justice Suresh, Vice President of the Lok Raj Sangathan, addressed the gathering. "Gunahgaron ko Saza Do!", "Defend your neighbour and defend your neighbourhood", "Hum sab ek hain!", "Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Isai, Mehnatkash Sab Behna-Bhai!" were among the slogans raised.

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Privatisation of public sector undertakings has to be stopped!

Weeks before the budget session the central government announced plans for the "strategic sale" of VSNL and four hotels owned by the ITDC and Hotel Corporation of India.

In the case of the privatisation of VSNL, a reservation price based on questionable assumptions was fixed by the government. The highest bidder among those falling above this reservation price was declared the winner. The government fixed a reservation price at Rs 1218.38 crores for the 25 per cent stake being disinvested in VSNL. Pantone Finvest, a Tata group company, won the bid for an offer of Rs 1439.25 crores. Considering that VSNL owns huge assets whose real value is still being speculated, as well as the prevailing market price of VSNL shares, it has been widely commented even in the bourgeois press that the sale was irrational.

In the VSNL sale, private monopolies were the sole bidders. The government has now announced the privatisation of BPCL and HPCL, two large public sector petrochemical companies. While the public sector monopoly, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was allowed to bid in the privatisation of IBP, it has been disallowed in participating in the privatisation of BPCL and HPCL on the grounds that if IOC were to win the bid then the entire industry will become highly monopolised. In the absence of IOC, it has been widely speculated that the Reliance group will be the winner, considering its huge financial resources and control over the petrochemical industry. In fact, with the merger of Reliance Industries and Reliance Petrochemicals, the merged entity will have a turnover of more than Rs. 58,000 crores and will be a Fortune 500 company. It will be the second largest monopoly in the Indian petrochemical industry after IOC.

It is also being noticed in the media that it is not without coincidence that two of the largest monopoly houses in India, the Tatas and Reliance, will each get a share of the most strategic public sector pie, the former in VSNL and the latter in HPCL and BPCL.

In all, privatisation has been marked by blatant manoeuvring by India’s biggest monopolies in collusion with the state of the capitalists to acquire control over the most strategic resources of the people and that too at minimum cost. But it is not just murky dealings that characterise these sales. The most striking feature of these sales is that all the justifications that ruling parties at the centre gave to the people at the time of launching privatisation of the public sector have now been proved to be a complete whitewash.

The bourgeoisie claimed that privatisation will broad base the ownership, i.e., actually transfer control of ownership from the state to thousands of individual small investors. After making some initial noises about public offers, the ruling class has now taken a unilateral policy that the "strategic disinvestment" route is the best, where a single large investor gets management control over the entire enterprise for a fraction of its total asset value. Privatisation will merely be a transfer of control from one oligopoly to another within the industry.

The bourgeoisie claimed that privatisation will encourage competition by introducing private players in the industry and the consumers will benefit by reduced prices. The case of disinvestment of Modern Foods and VSNL has amply proved that disinvestments have made a private monopoly even bigger and removed even existing competition. Hindustan Levers and the Tata group, who have gained control over Modern Foods and VSNL respectively, have become even bigger monopolies in their respective industries.

The bourgeoisie claimed that privatisation will bring in badly needed fresh investments and new technology into the industry claiming that the state cannot be expected to do this due to the difficult financial situation and high deficits. The cases of Modern Foods and Balco reveal that this is far from the truth. In both these cases, the new owners are resorting to contract labour. There is no evidence of infusion of any technology, but there is strong evidence of increasing the exploitation of labour, cutting back the workforce through retrenchments and VRS, closing down of various plants.

The bourgeoisie claimed that privatisation will improve the fiscal position of the central government and generate resources for badly needed investments in education, health care, irrigation, and so on. While thousands of crores have been earned through these sales, state investments in the social sectors have actually gone down in terms of per capita expenditure or in terms of percentage of the GDP invested.

Thus, on all counts, the privatisation of public sector undertakings have been only in the interests of the big capitalists and Indian and foreign monopolies. Further privatisation has to be stopped!

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BALCO workers fight pitched battle with police

Over 1000 workers were participating in the meeting, called to protest the practice of the new Sterlite management to stop hiring local labour and to bring in contract labourers from elsewhere. Police had earlier tried unsuccessfully to prevent the meeting from taking place by confiscating the tents and loudspeakers. They had also resorted to harassment of women and other workers in their basti the previous night. Finally, while the meeting was in progress, they brutally attacked those gathered and tried to drag off the speakers. The workers, both men and women, militantly fought back. Over 200 workers were injured and more than 250 arrested.

After Modern Foods, BALCO was the next major public sector company to fall victim to the government’s policy of privatisation. There was huge opposition to this, both among the workers of the company, as well as among the people of the region and among the working class in other parts of the country. Lately, the government and big capitalists are trying to give the impression that the struggle has died down, and that it is back to ‘business as usual’ at BALCO. The latest incident shows that, firstly, Sterlite company is losing no time in trying to attack the workers and their means of livelihood. Secondly, it shows that the anger and organised opposition of the workers of BALCO is far from over. This is a warning to the government and the big capitalists as to what is in store for them if they press ahead with their privatisation drive at the cost of the working people.

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Growing isolation of the Anglo American imperialists

US imperialist chieftain, Bush was greeted with traditionally vigorous protests when he visited South Korea on February 20, 2002. The Korean people were particularly angry with Bush for having described North Korea as part of an "axis of evil". Thousands of people participated in the protests. North Korea responded to Bush's remarks by issuing a toughly worded Foreign Ministry statement on February 22, 2002 rejecting his call for talks and dismissing him as a "politically backward child" bent on using arms and money to change the North's political system.

Korean people living in the US also had made their strong disapproval of such vitriol spewed by Bush. In a letter written by community representatives, they have said : "As Korean-Americans we have imprinted in our memory not only 9-11 but also 6-15." This June date is recalled by all Koreans as the day the heads of both Koreas met for the first time and agreed to the principle of peaceful reunification. .. However, its (N Korea’s) people are united under their leader, resolute in defending their country, to the last, from any external force including the world's superpower -- the U.S. …No one will be convinced that the DPRK has any connection to international anti-American terrorism."

U S imperialist chieftain Bush had to backtrack on his remarks as a result. In remarks meant to soothe the fears and anger of South Koreans about what he had called an "axis of evil" made up of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, Bush said he fully supported the "sunshine policy" of negotiations with the North embraced by the South Korean president. He was also forced to say in Seoul that the United States had no intentions of invading or attacking North Korea and that his goal in the Korean peninsula was peace!

The last issue of People’s Voice carried an item describing the deep distrust against the Anglo - US imperialists discovered by the Gallup pollsters among the people of the Islamic countries. This distrust has manifested itself in numerous strong protests and demonstrations against the war in Afghanistan and the barbaric treatment of the Afghan people and especially the prisoners of war incarcerated by the Anglo American imperialists. Protests have by no means been confined to the Islamic countries – there have been vociferous protests in Korea as described above and in the Philippines as well, where the Anglo American imperialists have commenced their "second front of the war against terror" in January 2002.

Distrust of the Anglo American imperialists has been voiced not only by the peoples of Asia, which they are seeking to re divide. Their European allies who were expected to be steadfast partners in their "war on terror" have also voiced grave doubts about the intentions and plans. Following the Munich Conference on Security, held February 2 and 3, 2002 in Germany, news agency reports characterized European speakers as "bristling" at the U.S. delegation's "hawkishness" and calling for the U.S. to "consult its allies in the war on terror." Though the U S chieftain Bush himself has been speaking of his plans to enforce a "regime change" in Iraq some time now, (see last issue of People’s Voice), there were quite a few voices raised against these plans. In a radio interview, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said he has been presented with no evidence linking Osama bin Laden with Iraq. He added, "The international coalition against terror is not in and of itself a blank check to invade some country, especially not unilaterally." On these points, he said, "all the European foreign ministers agree."

The Anglo American imperialists are thus facing troubles in convincing not only the masses of people in Asia that the war they are waging is in their interests, they have been unable to convince even the governments of the West European countries, hitherto considered their strong allies. The people of Iran and the people of Korea have given a very clear message that they deeply resent Anglo American imperialist threats and interference, and that they will fight might and main against them. Indeed, this is the correct path for all the peoples of the world who desire to live in peace and harmony and retain their sovereignty and self respect.

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Letter to Editor

People’s Voice

Recently, Ms Arundhati Roy was ordered to be imprisoned by the Supreme Court. The Bench has said that Ms Roy has "scandalized and lowered the dignity" of the Supreme Court.

As a layman, I am really at a loss to understand what exactly her crime was, and who suffered as a result of this crime. She has been said to have committed "contempt". Has she been spewing communal venom and inciting hatred? We are aware that there are quite a few people, some well entrenched in high places, who have done that in the recent past in Gujarat and elsewhere. Their venom has caused hundreds of innocent lives to be lost, but they remain free. And going by the experience of those who did similar things in 1984 and 1992 –93 and so on, they never need fear incarceration or punishment of any kind! Will the highest court of our land do anything substantial on this account? Then I would be the first to applaud it for upholding justice!

Apparently, Ms Roy has made certain comments about certain judgments and policies of the Supreme Court. She has been "unrepentant" in that she has not recanted. It is not even alleged that her comments incite hatred amongst people or similar, only, they question the wisdom and perhaps intentions of the Court. Are we to understand from this judgment that no individual or collective has the right to make any comment whatsoever (except for heaping praise, of course) on any pronouncement of the Court? In other words, is the Court an institution which is superior to all others in our country? But I thought that we were supposed to be a democracy, and that freedom of speech, entailing freedom of conscience, was one of the cornerstones of democracy!

In earlier times, those who ruled over us invoked God – given rights to assert their supremacy. The "Divine Rights of Kings", for example was a devise by which monarchs of England affirmed their sovereignty. But, in a democracy as our country is supposed to be, it is the people who are supposed to be sovereign. Recall, for example the Preamble to our Constitution, which begins with "We the people,….". All power and authority is supposed to emanate and flow from us, including the power of the judiciary, and yet none of us have the right to even comment about it! Would someone be kind enough to elucidate to a citizen like me, how this contradiction can be resolved?

Yours truly, Kunal, Delhi

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Indo-Nepal trade treaty revised

Under the new treaty, goods from Nepal will have significantly greater difficulty of access to the Indian market. "Sensitive items" imported from Nepal, like acrylic fibre, copper wire, zinc oxide and vanaspati (!) have now been assigned a fixed quota which, if exceeded, will attract customs duty of as much as 30%. Other items can also be unilaterally included by India in this category if there is a ‘surge’ in imports from Nepal.

Other measures to "safeguard" the huge Indian market from Nepal include: levy of special additional duty of customs (SAD) by India, obligation on the part of Nepali vanaspati exporters to prove a value addition of 25%, the demand that the goods imported must have ‘local content’, imposition of an export tax by Nepal, restricting the points through which goods can enter India and making checking much stricter on the Indian side.

It is known that the Indian government put up a stiff position when the earlier treaty of 1996 came up for renewal, and delayed the process by several months to press for the new provisions. These measures to restrict India’s trade with Nepal, and particularly the flow of goods from Nepal into India, are being implemented at a time when the barriers to the inflow of goods from developed countries into India are being lowered in one way or another. They are bound to exacerbate the feelings of discontent against India that are growing in this important neighbouring country, and to contribute to increased tension in Indo-Nepal relations.

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