• U S and British forces – Out of Iraq!
  Make the war criminals pay for their crimes against the Iraqi people!

• The challenge before India’s working class is to fight for its program of democratic renewal of India!

• The UN must take immediate action to end the occupation of Iraq and punish the aggressors!:

• Colin Powell reveals US imperialism’s "extended agenda"

• The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003:
  Growing fascisation of life in the US

• Anglo-American aggression against Iraq:
  Self-serving geopolitical interests dictate the stance of the world’s powers

• Parliament reveals yet again that it does not reflect the will of Indian people

• The Indian State and its relation to the Indian economy

• Who should pay for the water crisis?

U S and British forces – Out of Iraq!
Make the war criminals pay for their crimes against the Iraqi people!

After years of debilitating economic sanctions due to which thousands of Iraqi children and civilians were killed, after three weeks of the most horrendous bombing in which thousands have been killed and tens of thousands maimed, the US imperialists and their British cohorts are now in the process of setting up an ‘interim government’ in Iraq. They claim that this will bring peace, order, democracy and prosperity to the Iraqi people! Such a travesty of justice can never be tolerated!

The entire premise for the aggression was based on blatant untruth and the most vile self-interest of the imperialists. The peoples of their own countries and of the whole world have seen through this. The millions of people who marched through the cities of USA, Britain, and almost every other country in the world have given the lie to the propaganda of the imperialists. They have made the imperialists continue to struggle to justify their aggression. The imperialists claimed that the former regime in Iraq had ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which made it a threat to the peace of the whole world. Now, it is clearer than ever before that if anyone uses weapons of mass destruction, if anyone is a threat to the peace of the world, it is the Anglo-American imperialists themselves!

The fall of Iraq is for the Anglo-American imperialists another stage in the conquest of Asia, coming just a few months after the fall of Afghanistan. The US imperialists have not bothered to hide their belligerence against the countries who are to be their next targets – Syria, Iran, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea and others.

"Freedom" for the imperialists means freedom of anarchy, freedom to grab whatever they can in this world for their own self-interest. In the manner of the colonialists, they have set about organising for the continued loot and plunder of the wealth of Iraq and the labour of her people in the name of "reconstruction". It is absolutely impossible for any civilised person to accept that the very forces which organised the destruction should organise the "reconstruction", and that too at the cost of the people who were aggressed upon in the first place! The peoples of Iraq must be compensated in full for all the death and destruction by the rapacious US and British imperialist aggressors!

For the people of the world, their opposition to this imperialist aggression on Iraq has just begun and they know it. US imperialism may appear to have achieved "regime change" in Baghdad, but it cannot be allowed to stay on and do its will. People must unitedly demand the immediate withdrawal of the aggressors from Iraq and punishment for them. The people of Asia in particular must stand as one to stop the US from aggressing further on any other country.

The peoples of Asia and the world must continue to stand united against the imperialists and their rapaciousness!

U S and British imperialists – Out of Iraq!

Make the Criminals pay for their war crimes!

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The challenge before India’s working class is to fight for its program of democratic renewal of India!

The first action was an expression of the growing opposition of the workers and peasants of India to the anti-worker, anti-peasant, and anti-national program of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation. The second was part of the worldwide protests of tens of millions of workers and working people against the absolutely unjustified war of aggression against the Iraqi people, in defence of the sovereignty of the Iraqi people.

What has been the reaction of the Indian bourgeoisie to these actions? It has arrogantly declared that it will pursue the anti-national program of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation with a vengeance. It has declared that the will of workers and peasants does not count. It has reacted in the same way on the issue of the occupation of Iraq, by conniving and collaborating with the aggressors.

The bourgeoisie justifies everything it does as being in "the national interest". When you dig deeper, beneath this cloak of "national interest", you will find the self-serving, extremely petty interests of the big monopoly houses and the financial oligarchy and their imperialist allies! The "national interest" to which the bourgeoisie refers, is all about how to extract the maximum surplus from the workers, peasants and working people of India, as well as how to extract maximum from the plunder of other countries. By this definition, the sale of India’s public assets, its factories, plants and natural resources, to Indian and foreign multinationals is in the "national interest". Feverish militarisation and warmongering, maintaining a constant state of tension against Pakistan, and collaborating with the American and British imperialists, all in pursuit of its hegemonic ambitions towards our neighbouring countries, is said to be in the "national interest". On the other hand, workers, peasants, tribal peoples and others who fight for their livelihood and oppose these actions of the ruling bourgeoisie are declared to be at best "selfish and narrow-minded" and at worst, "anti-national".

The stand on Iraq adopted by the Indian bourgeoisie as well as the ruling bourgeoisie of almost every country has starkly shown that the bourgeoisie cannot be trusted to defend freedom, independence or national sovereignty. The stand of the workers of India and the workers and working people of the whole world has revealed equally vividly that only the working class consistently defends the freedom, independence and sovereignty of peoples, nations and countries.

As long as the struggles of India’s workers and peasants, women and youth remain confined to defending their livelihood and those rights and liberties that are being taken away from them, it remains relatively easy for the bourgeoisie to isolate the struggle of each section of society from the other, to divide and crush these struggles. The challenge in front of the workers and peasants is to step up the fight in defence of their livelihood and rights, and while doing so, make the leap forward to forging these struggles into one powerful movement, a unified struggle around an alternative vision, an alternative program for India. The challenge is to elaborate this vision and program, build the political unity of workers and peasants around such a unified, fighting program, and work for its practical realisation. On the one hand, the working class has to lay bare the self-serving program of the bourgeoisie and tear the mask of "national interest" which cloaks it. On the other hand, the working class has to show to the mass of the toiling population of town and countryside how the program of the working class is indeed the only program that will open the path to progress for Indian society as a whole!

The starting point

The economic and social problems confronting the masses of Indian people living in the cities and the countryside, in the hills and forests, are well known. Grinding poverty, illiteracy, ill-health and homelessness afflict them. The "development" programs of the bourgeoisie are leading to intensification of these problems. The sources of livelihood for workers, peasants, tribal peoples, hill people and others are getting progressively restricted and eliminated. 56 years of the rule of the Indian bourgeoisie, including 13 years of the economic reforms program, have only greatly compounded the problems. Meanwhile, women, dalits and other victims of age-old discrimination and oppression, remain oppressed and disadvantaged.

The program of the working class has to attack these problems on a war footing. It must put forth demands that force the ruling class to take measures that can be implemented on an immediate basis, while at the same time opening the path to eliminating the real root of these problems – the capitalist relations of production, combined with vestiges of feudalism and imperialist domination. The working class must put forth means by which it will raise the resources for the implementation of such a program once political power has been won by the worker-peasant alliance.

The program elaborated by the working class has to deal head on with the mechanisms and weapons with which the bourgeoisie is able to keep the workers, peasants, women and youth, suppressed, divided and disoriented.

State terrorism, fascist decrees, the use of communalism and organised communal violence, as well as the attempts to divide the polity on "communal" or "secular" lines are some of these weapons of the bourgeoisie.

An important weapon in the arsenal of the bourgeoisie is the system of parliamentary democracy and the party system of governance. This system is proclaimed to be one that reflects the will of the people, but in fact it has proven itself to be an instrument to keep workers and peasants divided and out of power, with the bourgeoisie retaining supreme power.

The "war against terrorism" is another such weapon. The bourgeoisie tries to hide that it is the capitalist system that spawns terrorism, that terrorism is the weapon of the biggest capitalist imperialist states directed against the working class and people. It hides that far from being a victim of terrorism as it paints itself, the Indian bourgeoisie is the organiser and beneficiary of terrorism, in just the same manner as the bourgeoisie of US, Britain and other countries.

The constant warmongering against Pakistan is another preferred device of the Indian ruling class to keep the toiling masses chained to its program.

In sum, these devices, together with the army and police and intelligence agencies, are the weapons that the bourgeoisie uses repeatedly, to line up the mass of toilers behind its narrow, self-serving program. The independent program of the working class, therefore, has to expose and lay bare for all to see, the bourgeoisie’s hidden agenda.

Opposing these weapons of bourgeois rule demands that working class, in its own program, put forth the mechanisms by which power will actually vest in the people. These include establishing a new political system and political process that will actually reflect the will of the working people. These include rewriting the fundamental law of the land, the Constitution, to ensure human rights for all, with enabling provisions to ensure that these do not remain just words. They include repeal of all fascist laws and exemplary punishment for those guilty of crimes against the Indian people.

There are many other important issues to be considered in formulating the program of the working class. The key thing is the realisation that the working class cannot liberate itself from its present position of exploitation and slavery, without uniting around and fighting on the basis of a program that has the vision of liberating the whole of the Indian society from the shackles of capitalism, the remnants of feudalism, imperialist domination, i.e., the entire colonial legacy

Can the working class do it? It has to, and it will. Indian and world developments are clearly pointing to this. The future of over one billion people is at stake. The bourgeoisie does not care for our future. It is we, workers, peasants, women and youth and all the exploited and oppressed, who have to take our future into our own hands.

Only the worker-peasant rule with a clear immediate program of democratic renewal can save India. The unified leadership of the organised vanguard of the working class, i.e., its communist party, is instrumental in advancing this program. The working class needs to immediately elaborate, unite around and fight for the realisation of such a program and open the path for the liberation of all the oppressed and exploited.

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The UN must take immediate action to end the occupation of Iraq and punish the aggressors!:

In the entire period since the end of the Cold War, and specifically in the lead up to the conquest of Iraq, as well as after, the UN Security Council has been following an agenda dictated by the US imperialists. The sanctions regime set up by the UN against the former regime in Iraq was very clearly dictated by the US Pentagon. Its effect was to kill thousands of hapless Iraqi children and civilians, through lack of proper food, medication and access to proper infrastructure and facilities. Having thus weakened Iraq and her people systematically, the Anglo-American imperialists started clamouring that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed a threat to the whole world. The UN Security Council, at the behest of these predatory powers, set up an inspections regime, whose purpose was to disarm Iraq, and leave it defenceless. Time and again, the US issued threats to the world body that it was free to invade Iraq with or without the UN rubber-stamp, but the UN Security Council never clarified its position on this. When the Security Council finally declared that the "inspections were working", and refused to sanction US aggression on Iraq, the US and Britain simply launched their barbaric war of conquest.

Far from immediately condemning this illegal and unjust war, as demanded by the world’s peoples, the UN Security Council is now busy once again trying to give legitimacy to the US occupation. We have the spectacle of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan scraping before the US and asking it to maintain "law and order" in Iraq as well as ensure "humanitarian relief"! We have the UN Security Council discussing, not what should be done to the aggressors, but how the booty should be divided up amongst the aggressors and others in the name of "reconstruction". In other words, we have the sordid spectacle of the UN Security Council working overtime to legitimize the aggression and occupation of Iraq!

The peoples of the world, including those of the US and the UK, have vocally expressed themselves against the aggression and called for and continue to call for the aggressors to leave Iraq immediately. However, many governments have not been that forthright. Most of them have avoided condemning the aggression out of pragmatic reasons. These range from the greed to share a portion of the plunder of Iraq in the name of "reconstruction", to fear that they might be targeted for economic, political and military encirclement by the US if they were to take a principled stand. Be that as it may, what has come through is that the cause of freedom and sovereignty and peace is not safe in the hands of the UN Security Council, or in the bourgeois governments ruling in different countries. The working class and peoples have to take up even more strongly the banner of freedom and sovereignty and peace.

The dangers confronting the world’s peoples have increased following the conquest of Iraq. At the same time, the strength of the people’s movement against imperialist war remains the factor that can stay the hands of the warmongers. As an immediate step, the peoples of the world must demand that the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly forthrightly condemn the US-British aggression, demand immediate withdrawal of the occupation army, and award exemplary punishment to the aggressors, including payments for damages to the nation of Iraq. They must demand that the war crimes committed by the US and UK imperialists not go unpunished. On no account must the UN legitimise the aggression.

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Colin Powell reveals US imperialism’s "extended agenda"

In his interview, Powell is also reported to have threatened Iran and Syria with dire consequences if they continue to sponsor "weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and support to the Saddam regime in Iraq". He is also reported to have threatened Iran and North Korea, who have been earlier declared by Bush as part of the "axis of evil", for sponsoring terrorism against Israel and for "harbouring weapons of mass destruction".

Powell’s statements only reconfirm what the communists and progressive people in India and the rest of the subcontinent have been saying, namely that the Anglo-American imperialists’ "war against terrorism" is only a cover for its real plans for the conquest of Asia. The brutal aggression on Iraq, in flagrant violation of all international conventions and world public opinion, is also an integral part of this plan. This is the "extended agenda" that Colin Powell is referring to. It is a declaration that Anglo-American imperialism is determined to proceed, with no regard whatsoever for the rights of sovereign nations and peoples to determine their own economic and political systems and to settle their own affairs without outside interference. It is a cruel violation of all the international norms and conventions that the people of the world have fought to establish in the 20^th century. It is an agenda that holds grave disasters for the people of India and the entire subcontinent, as well as of the rest of Asia.

In the face of mass condemnation of the Anglo-American imperialist aggression on Iraq throughout India and all over the world, the Indian government has chosen to adopt a "middle path", hoping to utilise its close collaboration with Anglo-American imperialism’s "war against terrorism" to advance its own hegemonic designs against Pakistan and other neighbouring countries of the region. The official position of the Indian government that it does not want any outside mediation in the problem of Kashmir or Indo-Pakistan relations. However, the reality is that over the past 18 months or so, it has not lost a single opportunity to use the slogan of "war against terrorism" to heighten its warmongering against Pakistan, to seek US support for its own position, and to shamelessly demonstrate its support for the Anglo-American imperialist agenda in this region. Even in the context of the present war on Iraq, the concern of the Indian government is more for "the real source of terrorism in our neighbourhood . . ." (an obvious reference to Pakistan), rather than the unjustness of the war and the tragedy being enacted on the people of Iraq. In fact, the External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha has gone so far as to publicly say that the US aggression against Iraq gives the Indian government a perfect case for a "pre-emptive strike against Pakistan". In response to this, the Pakistani government has said that they would retaliate in tit-for-tat measure.

The situation of conflict and warmongering between India and Pakistan, which the rulers of India and Pakistan are intent on keeping alive, much against the will of the peoples on both sides, actually provides a convenient justification for the Anglo-American imperialists to intervene in the affairs of this region, in the name of "settling the conflict" or "averting a nuclear war". This is evident even from the recent statements of Powell. In this situation, the stand of the Indian government clearly shows that our rulers cannot be relied upon to defend of the sovereignty and security of our nation and people. It shows that in pursuit their own selfish, short-sighted aims, our rulers have no qualms about the tragic and devastating consequences that this could have for our people and all the peoples of this region.

The Indian people as well as the other peoples of this subcontinent must have no illusion that the Anglo-American imperialist intervention in this region will in any way advance the cause of peace in this region. We can no longer afford to bury our heads in the sand, like the proverbial ostrich. The writing on the wall is there for all to see, that the Anglo-American imperialist agenda is the conquest of Asia, including the Indian subcontinent, as spelt out by Powell. It is high time that we, the Indian people, unite and intensify our struggle against Anglo-American imperialism and against the Indian ruling class, which is day by day showing itself as more interested in collaborating with imperialism for its own self-serving ends, rather than in defending the independence and sovereignty of our nation and people, and peace and security in the region.

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The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003:
Growing fascisation of life in the US

Following the September 11 events, fascist attacks by the American state on different sections of the American people have been steadily increasing. As part of the "war against terrorism", first the people of Arab and Asian origin were first attacked, and this was followed by fascist laws attacking the rights and freedoms of all the American people. The USA Patriot Act was passed, which among other things, gave the government the power to spy on Americans without so much as probable cause or a search warrant. Persons arrested on grounds of suspicion of having "links with terrorism" are to be tried in secret courts that issue rulings that cannot be appealed by anyone other than the government itself.

Now, it is widely reported that a new "Patriot Act II" has been drafted, officially known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. This new law, Patriot Act II, would give the government "broad, sweeping new powers to increase domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement prerogatives, and simultaneously decrease judicial review and public access to information," according to informed sources. The legislation would allow the Justice Department to secretly "detain" anyone indefinitely, at least until an indictment is secured against the person. It would make it a crime to reveal the identity — or even existence — of such a detainee. The legislation would also allow the government to take away an American citizen's citizenship if he joins a "terrorist" organization — or even supports a terrorist organization!

American citizens suspected of links with "terrorist activities" would lose all their rights, according to this new Act. The Act would allow the police to secretly spy and keep tabs on individuals and organisations who are not even accused of any specific crime, to send photographs and communications intercepts to employers to get people fired from their jobs, and to secretly build up huge dossiers on "suspected" organisations and individuals, which can then be shared with the federal government.

The DSEA would also allow the FBI to create a DNA database on "suspected terrorists," a term defined to "include association with suspected terrorist groups, and noncitizens suspected of certain crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist." The new law would remove the option of bail in "cases involving terrorism".

Thus, if the new Act comes into force, any individual American citizen or member of an organisation suspected of being "terrorist" or having "links with terrorists", could have his living quarters raided and searched without any warrant, could be secretly apprehended and whisked off by the law enforcement agencies, and tried secretly in a military tribunal. They could be deprived of citizenship, and their family and friends could be subjected to similar harassment as well. They would have no protection against being shot dead or subjected to torture and life imprisonment.

This is the kind of "democracy" that the American administration is practising at home, on its own citizens. And presumably, this is the kind of "democracy" the US imperialists wish to impose, through fire and sword, through the most undemocratic disregard for all international norms, on other sovereign nations and peoples.

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Anglo-American aggression against Iraq:
Self-serving geopolitical interests dictate the stance of the world’s powers

The conquest of Iraq was vital for the US imperialists for continued domination over the resources of the world’s peoples. The war was required not only for controlling the strategic oil and gas resources around the world, but also to revive the economy of the US through "reconstruction" contracts to big US multinationals, and to refurbish the dollar against the challenge mounted by the Euro, the currency of the European Union. It is the first time that the hegemony of the dollar has been challenged since the end of the second World War, Iraq being the first country to start trading oil in a major currency other than the American dollar.

Well before the start of war against Iraq, when blueprints were being drawn in Washington to build a new world order under American hegemony, cracks in the US-European alliance started appearing. The stakes were high for the European powers because Iraq under the complete control of the American imperialists would mean that firstly, the two biggest oil-rich countries in the world— Saudi Arabia and Iraq — would come under the control of the US; secondly, conquest of Iraq and Afghanistan would mean that all of West Asia and Central Asia would be under US domination.

The French government argued that if the UN Security Council had approved the invasion of Iraq, then it would have lent "international legitimacy" to the US action. The French Prime Minister, Raffarin, commented to the effect that in the absence of such "legitimacy" the US has made "a triple error – moral, political and strategic".

Last year, the imperialist war machine NATO had started moving nearer to Russia with the formation of the NATO-Russia Council. This was part of the strategy of the US imperialists, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, to bring its erstwhile constituents into the orbit of the NATO. This produced some jitters among France, Germany and Russia, who feared that this was a move by the US imperialists to weaken them. Their fears were well-founded.

Imperialist Germany has always looked towards Central and Eastern Europe for sources of raw material and markets. It had great hopes of realising this with the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, US imperialism moved in a big way into this region, including into East Germany, blocking the attempts of Germany to gain supremacy. Russia meanwhile is being blocked on all sides, its former sphere of influence being whittled away from the South and the East. The French imperialists had nightmares of a US invasion of Iraq putting an end to their preeminent position over Iraqi oil. To add salt to the wound, the US imperialists initiated measures to keep the European powers divided. In a move to wean away Russia from the other European powers, the NATO Secretary General George Robertson, while addressing a Brussels conference in Oct 2002 which discussed the Alliance's role in a world which has changed, singled out co-operation with Russia among the five basic principles NATO will adhere to in the 21st century.

The clash between the Anglo-American imperialists and the major European powers continued on the diplomatic plane also. Right from the time that the US imperialists made known their plans to invade Iraq, Russia, France and Germany opposed the invasion with subtle arguments that neither committed them to outright condemnation of war against Iraq nor showed them up in a bad light as craving for power and oil. The strategy was not to oppose the unjust disarming of the Iraqi people by the UN, but only to buy time to consolidate their alliance and bargain for a better deal in sharing in the plunder of Iraq.

The Iraq tragedy and the rift in NATO has revealed that all is not well with the dream of American imperialists to establish a new world order under its total hegemony. For the US imperialists, the conquest of Asia is the key to the conquest of Europe and the world. But, the European powers want their share of the loot and plunder of the world’s peoples too.

Hence, the scenario after the conquest of Iraq is fraught with no less intrigue and conspiracy than before. The redivision of the world is still on the agenda, the contradictions on this issue even more acute. The world’s imperialist powers are as busy as ever manoeuvring to further their self-interests at the cost of progress and peace.

In the beginning of April, when the takeover of Iraq by the Anglo-American forces was imminent, the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and Russia met in Brussels. When the fighting Iraqi forces were all but vanquished, they called for an immediate end to hostilities. It appeared that by now the European powers were reconciled to an American puppet regime in Iraq, but they wanted a fair share in its "reconstruction". Since then they have been advocating that the UN should play a key role in rebuilding Iraq, in the hope that this would prevent the US imperialists from cornering the entire loot. The American imperialists have retorted that while the UN would be involved, it is the US that would call the shots!

When powerful anti-US demonstrations took place in Russia, President Putin, quite unlike his French counterpart, expressed in crystal clear terms that he did not want the immense anti-US feeling in Russia to jeopardise its relations with the US. "I will do everything I can, everything in my power, to keep Russia from being drawn in the Iraq crisis" he declared. Even while opposing military action against Iraq in the UN Security Council and criticising the war as a "big political mistake", Putin wanted to continue cooperation with the US in the "larger interests". He said that "Russia and the US are the biggest nuclear powers and share responsibility for maintaining stability." This is to say that the American imperialists should acknowledge Russia as a major power while embarking on the redivision of the world. The US imperialists, however, were not overawed by Russia’s military might since, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia has become severely indebted to the US and the international financial institutions, leaving it little scope to dictate terms. The US is also an important trade partner of Russia.

The Japanese imperialists approached the Iraq war with the same logic as the British—be firmly on the American bandwagon, but keep the bridgehead to Europe open. The Japanese government expressed concern at Washington’s plan to establish an interim authority for governing postwar Iraq. Japanese officials commented that such a U.S. initiative would limit the role of the United Nations in Iraq's rehabilitation, and in that case Japan would find it difficult to actively engage in postwar "reconstruction" of the country. The Japanese government plans to embark on talks this week with countries "concerned about postwar reconstruction projects" in Iraq. Yukio Okamoto, an advisor to the Cabinet of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, will visit Iraq's neighboring countries, such as Kuwait and Jordan, beginning this week, while Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi will tour Britain, France and Germany from next week.. Both trips are aimed at sounding out these countries on the possibility of Japan playing a role as a transatlantic coordinator between the US and European imperialists who are at odds with each other over the role of the United Nations in postwar Iraq.

Partly compelled by public protests and partly motivated by self-interest, the Japanese Government took the stand that it would be difficult to gain public support for Japan's postwar "cooperation" in Iraq if the interim authority was similar to the occupation forces under Gen. Douglas MacArthur that ruled Japan after the end of World War II. However, for the Japanese imperialists, who have themselves been one of the most hated colonial powers mankind has ever seen, this cannot be more than a token threat. It is hard for them not to be tempted by the $100 billion business opportunities created in Iraq under the name of "reconstruction". In the 1991 Gulf war, Japan’s capital investment in the region was to the tune of $14 billion. With continued recession over the past few years, Japan has dropped down from being the number one exporter of capital through the Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) route. This may change in the year 2003. A white paper prepared in 2002 calls for increased "intervention" in war torn and post-conflict areas. In recent months, the flow of Japanese capital to east Timor, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Indonesia and the Philippines has been stepped up, ostensibly for maintaining "human security" and for preserving "national interests". It is quite possible that secret deals have been struck between the US and Japanese imperialists over Korea and East Asia, which are imminent targets of the US.

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Parliament reveals yet again that it does not reflect the will of Indian people

The people of India definitely expect their rulers to similarly express their deep anger and opposition to the unjust war unleashed by the Anglo-Americans. However, they are ruled by a bourgeoisie which has its own imperialist ambitions. The Indian people are unfortunately ruled by a class which upholds not the deeply cherished ideals of the Indian people for truth and justice, but the hated colonial legacy. This class deems it necessary today to be on the ‘right side’ of the US imperialists in particular. In true lickspittle sycophant fashion, this class deems it imprudent even to utter words to which the US imperialists may take a dislike, let alone to do anything which is against their interests.

The ruling class of India looks for acquiescence from the American imperialists and other imperialist powers to further their own regional and imperialist aims. They look for crumbs from the tables of the imperialists, a hyena’s share from the loot and plunder of Iraq and other lands on the list of the US imperialists. This activity has nothing in common with the sentiments and aspirations of the Indian people. The "national interest" as expressed by the ruling class is the interest of the big monopolies of India, of the richest minority. It has nothing in common with the interests of the one billion people of India.

For 21 days, as Iraq burnt, and the Indian and world’s peoples came out daily on the streets in mass protests against the illegal and unjust war, the government and opposition leaders merely agreed to disagree on what to do. In the process, they sent a clear and strong signal to the aggressors that the Indian ruling class was their reliable partner. Finally, Parliament met 21 days after the war had been launched! There was no discussion in Parliament on the war. Instead, the backroom boys of the ruling and principal opposition parties worked out a consensus resolution for unanimous approval! The resolution studiously avoided mentioning the US and Britain by name. It merely "deplored", and refused to unequivocally condemn, the war. However, in keeping with their age-old practice of saying what the people want to hear, while negating it in deeds, the Hindi version of the resolution carried the term ninda, which also means condemnation.

The Indian parliamentary system has once again revealed itself to be unrepresentative of the Indian people. The people’s opposition to the war, their demand for action against the aggressors, was brushed aside by the logic that India must pursue a pragmatic policy, that is, a policy that is in the interests on the biggest monopolies and the financial oligarchy. The workers and peasants of India, who have expressed their anger and outrage at the occupation of Iraq, must demand that Parliament thoroughly and openly discuss the issues involved in the aggression and occupation in full view of the people.

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The Indian State and its relation to the Indian economy

The political institutions of state are inseparably linked to the economic basis of society and its division into different classes. Political power serves the dominant class to pursue its economic interest. Marx and Engels established that the state is in general an instrument of the economically dominant class. In India today this economically dominant class is the bourgeoisie, headed by the big monopoly houses of Reliance, Tatas, Birlas and others.

The wealth of India is produced by the workers, toiling peasants and other small owner-producers, whose families together make up the bulk of the population. The fruits of the combined labour of the working population, the social surplus that they create, is enjoyed by a minority of exploiters consisting of capitalists who pocket private profits, landlords who thrive on rent income, and other parasitic sections of society such as moneylenders. The Indian State defends the private property rights of the capitalists, landlords and other parasites. It defends the conditions of exploitation and intervenes in the economic sphere in the interests of the exploiters.

The big capitalists and big landlords of India inherited a predominantly agrarian economy in 1947, in which more than half the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was from agriculture and plantations. They also inherited the colonial state apparatus, which has been used over the past 55 years to develop a diversified modern capitalist industry and capitalist agriculture. Today, agriculture accounts for only 28% of the GDP of India, while more than 72% of the population continues to live in the countryside. The big capitalists and many of the big landlords and former rajas and princes have matured into one bourgeois class today, which is headed by the big industrial and financial monopolies. The big monopoly bourgeoisie is the richest and most influential section of the bourgeois class, which concentrates the bulk of the surplus extracted from the toiling masses in its hands. It is this section that pockets the maximum rate of profit and grows consistently richer at the most rapid rate.

The Indian economy is characterised by a high and growing degree of concentration and monopoly. In modern industry and services, typically two to five companies or big corporations control the lion’s share of the market. Reliance controls more than 75% of all synthetic fibres and plastic raw materials produced and sold in the country; Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Reliance control the entire production and marketing of petrol, diesel, LPG; the Steel Authority of India, Tata Steel and three other steel companies control more than 75% of steel production; five large cement producers control more than 50% of production; the same is the case with TVs, referigerators, mobile phones, cars, scooters and motor cycles, etc. The degree of concentration is especially high in banking and the financial sector, with the State acting in the interests of concentrating the savings of the entire population and handing it over to the big bourgeoisie as cheaply as possible. The deposits with State Bank of India, the largest public sector bank in the country, account for 20% of the total deposits of all the banks together; ICICI Bank, the largest private sector bank, is many times larger than the next biggest private bank. The degree of concentration is also high in agricultural trade, with the Central Government in charge of public procurement and public distribution of rice and wheat, and a handful of multinational and Indian companies controlling the supply of seeds, fertilisers and other inputs. The Birlas, Tatas and a few public sector companies control the entire production and distribution of fertilizer in India.

The British colonial state intervened in the Indian economy to create and nurture propertied classes from within Indian society and enabled them to accumulate their wealth. This was within an overall system of plunder that channeled the lion’s share of the surplus into the pockets of the British bourgeoisie. Today it is the Indian big bourgeoisie that controls the central state. The Indian State intervenes in the interests of the propertied classes and channels the lion’s share of the surplus into the pockets of the big monopoly bourgeoisie.

Small property is widespread but is coming under increasing pressure from concentrated finance capital and the domination of markets by monopolies and multinational companies. Tribal peoples have either already lost or are threatened with losing their traditional means of livelihood. Capitalist development has brought widespread devastation and ruin in the Indian countryside, destroying old ways of making a living and providing no secure alternative in its place. Large numbers of victims of this process of immiseration of the rural masses have flocked to the cities where they live in miserable slums, in highly insecure and inhuman conditions. The growing population of the dispossessed and the unemployed, both in the cities and the villages, shows the inability of capitalism to provide secure livelihood to all the able-bodied in society.

There are remnants of pre-capitalist property relations, such as landlord-tenant relations as well as tribal and common property relations in India. Such relations of production are more or less prominent in different regions. Even where capitalism is more developed and the old style landlordism based on extracting rent from individual peasants has gone out of being, the remnants of the old order are being perpetuated by the bourgeoisie and its state institutions. Caste-based discrimination and oppression, for instance, are institutionalised in society as means for enslaving and super-exploiting the toiling masses.

Capitalism, which has reached its highest stage of monopoly capitalism, is the motor of the Indian economy. The drive of monopoly capital to reap the maximum rate of profit and expand the space for capitalist and imperialist loot and plunder determines the fate of the different classes of Indian society. The Indian State facilitates this process, this drive of monopoly capital. The big bourgeoisie controls the central state which acts in the interests of expanding the space for capitalism and further strengthening the position of the monopolies, Indian and international.

In the interests of expanding its own wealth, markets, territory and spheres of influence abroad, the Indian monopoly bourgeoisie collaborates and competes with the US and other imperialist powers and multinational companies. (Tata Consultancy, Wipro and Infosys, for example, desire to become global software companies and therefore do most of their business outside India; Ranbaxy, Dr Reddy’s, Wockhardt, CIPLA, etc. are striving to be global pharmaceutical companies and are eyeing the largest pharma market of the US; Hero Honda and Bajaj want to be the biggest two-wheeler producers of the world; Birla is already one of the largest producers in the world of Carbon Black, a raw material for production of tyres, and has more capacity outside the country than within the country). As part of this collaboration and competition, foreign capital is allowed increasing space to plunder the land and labour of India, in violation of the rights and at the expense of the wellbeing of the various nations, nationalities and peoples of our country. Coke and Pepsi have acquired all the major Indian soft drink producers. Similarly, the production of cars, TVs, refrigerators, phones, etc. is is predominantly is the hands of foreign-owned companies. The Indian State defends and facilitates this joint plunder, which was carried on in more indirect forms in the past and is conducted more openly today after India has joined the World Trade Organisation and embraced the prescriptions of privatisation and liberalisation.

The Indian bourgeoisie is neither a comprador bourgeoisie – that is, a puppet of foreign powers — nor is it an anti-imperialist bourgeoisie. The Indian bourgeoisie is an imperialist bourgeoisie that contends and colludes with other imperialist powers to achieve its own imperialist aims. The Indian State is part of the imperialist system of states, defending the worldwide imperialist system of domination and plunder.

State and the economy in the colonial period

The main aim of the various land settlement legislations enacted by the colonial Indian State in the 18th and 19th centuries was to establish commercial or market-oriented agriculture in India, that is, to create a stable base for sustained surplus extraction and plunder by the East India Company. The zamindars and other middle men created by these land settlements determined what the tillers of the land should cultivate. Production was redirected to the needs of the global trade of the British bourgeoisie.

The colonial state distributed privileges in the form of licenses to trade, to set up manufacturing units, etc. State intervention in the colonial period was dictated strictly by the interests of the British imperialist bourgeoisie. It led to the creation and flourishing of the big traders, capitalists and landlords of India, who colluded with the interests of British capital, while fattening themselves at the expense of the labouring masses.

The changes brought about through the intervention of the colonial state in the economy destroyed the stability of livelihood that Indian villagers were used to in the past. It gave rise to widespread and repeated famines in which millions perished, something that was unknown in the Indian subcontinent before its colonisation by British capital.

The colonial Indian State imposed restrictions on international trade in favour of complete monopoly by British imperialism, which were only temporarily relaxed at particular times, such as during the two world wars. Exporting to other colonies and supplying the British colonial armies became factors for faster growth in the profits of the Birlas, Tatas and other business houses of India.

In the colonial period, the British bourgeoisie controlled the principal means of production and distribution and directed the course of the Indian economy. The Indian big capitalists and big landlords derived a share of the benefits. They collaborated with, bargained with and occasionally even fought with the British colonialists, to expand their own space and increase their share of the loot and plunder. Along with their economic strength, the Indian bourgeoisie and landlords sought increasing political space in the state institutions and arrangements established by the British rulers.

The Indian State and the economy after 1947

After 1947, the Indian big bourgeoisie that inherited the colonial Indian State has used it to accelerate the development of capitalism and consolidate its own domination over the Indian economy. At the same time, it has claimed and tried to show that the Indian State was intervening in the interests of all classes in society and for the benefit of all regions of the country.

The Indian bourgeoisie came to power in the conditions of the victorious march of socialism and of the anti-imperialist and anti-fascist camp headed by the Soviet Union at the end of the Second World War. In India too, people were aspiring for an India free of exploitation and plunder and not just freedom from colonial rule. The Indian National Congress, whose leadership represented the interests of the Indian big bourgeoisie, chose to present to the Indian people the vision of a middle road between capitalism and socialism. Its aim thereby was to hide the fact that it strictly served the interest of the big bourgeoisie whose aim was to develop capitalism and emerge as an imperialist power. Its aim was to make the workers and peasants believe that the Indian State was intervening in their interests.

Under the Nehruvian slogan of building a ‘socialistic pattern of society’, the Indian bourgeoisie took a series of measures for the development of capitalism and the consolidation of its own domination of the Indian economy. First, it created the state monopoly capitalist sector of heavy industry and infrastructure, with the Central Government in control of the ‘commanding heights of the economy’. The Steel Authority of India, Oil & Natural Gas Commission, Indian Oil Corporation, Fertilizer Corporation of India, Coal India, National Thermal Power Corporation, and Heavy Engineering Corporation are a few examples. The savings of the urban and rural population were concentrated and combined with external ‘aid’ and credits, supplemented by taxation and inflation – all to finance the creation of the base for the Indian big bourgeoisie to become bigger and emerge as a major industrial and military power in the world.

The Bombay Plan that was put together by the Tatas, Birlas and a few other business houses in the mid 1940s, in anticipation of the ‘transfer of power’ that took place in August 1947, was the first expression of the vision of the Indian big bourgeois class. The plan was signed by the leading industrialists of that time - Purshottamdas Thakordas, J.R.D.Tata, G.D.Birla, Sir Shri Ram, Kasturbhai Lalbhai, A.D.Shroff Ardeshir Dalal and John Mathai; Ardeshir Dalal was later appointed Member-Planning & Development by the British Government; John Mathai was made the Finance Minister immediately after independence. The Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956 embodied this vision of the Indian big bourgeoisie and led to the creation and expansion of the state monopoly capitalist sector of the economy.

Side by side with laying the foundations for a diversified industry, bourgeois land reforms were implemented to lay the foundations for the development of capitalist agriculture based on the application of modern technology, thereby expanding the home market for industrial goods. The land reforms of the 1950s and land consolidation measures in the 1960s were followed by the Green Revolution in the 1970s, sponsored by the Indian State with imperialist ‘aid’ and credits. The Indian State intervened to procure surplus food grains from selected areas through the Food Corporation of India. This policy gave rise to the emergence of classes of rich peasants who, together with big capitalist landlords, became the social base for the expansion of capitalism in rural India.

The series of five-year plans, from the First Plan (1950/51 – 1955/56) to the Tenth Plan (2002/03 – 2006/07), represent successive stages in the strategy of the Indian big bourgeoisie to emerge as one of the leading imperialist powers of the world. The successive five-year plans have resulted in expansion of the space for capitalism in India. This has in turn led, on the one hand, to the emergence of regional bourgeois groups in various parts of India. On the other hand, the growth of capitalism has been accompanied by the growing domination of the Indian economy by the big monopoly bourgeoisie and its foreign collaborators.

The growth of capitalism has been supported by the growing use of force and draconian laws by the central Indian State to impose the dictate of the big bourgeoisie on the whole of the territory of the Indian Union. It has been accompanied by the growing parasitism and military might of the Indian State, leading to an ever-increasing proportion of resources being drained out of the economy for totally unproductive purposes.

The Nehruvian strategy of development of Indian capitalism reached its limit in the 1980s. The economy went through repeated crises and the state was too bankrupt to bail the bourgeoisie out of the crises. The parasitism and decay of the system and the wholesale loot of the state treasury had reached unbearable limits. This led to the financial crisis of the central and state governments, as well as to repeated balance of payments crises. These crises exposed the fallacy of the claims of social-democracy and all its followers, that the interventions by the Indian State would allegedly regulate capitalism and ensure that it develops without crises, and also ensure that the interests of all classes would be looked after.

The above-mentioned internal factors, combined with the changes taking place on the world scale, indicated that the time had come to change the way the Indian State intervened in the economy, so as to adapt to the needs and interests of the big monopoly bourgeoisie. The Indian bourgeoisie understood that in order to realise its own imperialist aims, it had to loosen control over imports and give greater space to foreign capital in the joint plunder of India, in return for the capital and technology required for the globalisation of capital and production in India, for the capture of foreign markets for Indian capital.

In response to the crises in the 1980s, the big bourgeoisie began to ‘open up’ the Indian market, that is, liberalize foreign trade and investment policy, and also began to promote export-oriented growth through devaluation of the rupee. This ‘paradigm shift’ in economic policy was consummated in 1991, with the launching of the first generation of ‘free market reforms’ under Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh. This was a clear signal that the ‘socialistic pattern of society’ was being finally dumped in favour of a more openly imperialist policy. It was a sign that the Indian big bourgeoisie had grown bigger and that its needs at the present stage no longer required the same kind of state intervention as before.

The State and the program of privatisation and liberalisation

Since the mid-eighties and especially since 1991, the Indian big bourgeoisie has been singing the tune of privatisation and liberalisation. This is a sign that the Indian big bourgeoisie, at the head of an industrial-agrarian economy of continental size, is eager to go further towards its aim of emerging as one of the big imperialist powers of the world. Manipulating the widespread discontent of the working people with the failure of the "socialistic pattern of society" to provide security of livelihood, the bourgeoisie has been promoting "free market reforms" as the solution to the problems, claiming that such reforms will curb monopoly power and promote competition in the economy.

Over ten years of experience with the liberalisation and privatisation policies has exposed their real aim of benefiting precisely the biggest monopolies and the financial oligarchy. After fattening themselves for four decades by expanding state investments and by protecting the Indian market for their own domination, the monopoly capitalists now want to fatten themselves even more by intensifying the degree of joint exploitation and plunder of the land and labour of India. . They want to open up the home market to foreign companies in return for new openings in foreign markets for Indian capital. They want to take over productive assets from the state at throwaway prices, shifting the liabilities onto the backs of the people, as in the case of Modern Foods, BALCO, Centaur Hotel, etc. They want to rob the working people many times over, by collecting taxes from them and also making them pay monopoly prices for public goods and services including water, electric power, education and health care.

The drive towards globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation is leading to further and more rapid concentration of wealth in fewer hands. It is leading to heightened insecurity and agitation among the working class, as the most organised sections face attacks on their rights and livelihood. It is causing great turmoil and ruin among the peasantry, petty bourgeoisie and the owners of small-scale industry. Workers, peasants, women and youth all over India are coming out in mass protests against the attacks on their livelihood. They are opposing and contesting the claim of the bourgeoisie that the State should be responsible to nobody except big business interests. There is widespread opposition to the growing Anglo-American interference in South Asia and the warmongering policy of the Indian State.

Peasants in various regions who have benefited from subsidised or free electric connections for running pump-sets to irrigate their land, are now on the warpath against the power sector privatisation program, which threatens to cut the power subsidy to agriculture. The champions of the privatisation program argue that such subsidies should be cut because "it benefits only the richer peasants". However, the real aim of these ‘reformers’ is not to benefit the poorer peasants, but to benefit the big monopoly capitalists at the expense of the entire peasantry.

The majority of so-called economic experts of the bourgeoisie claim today that too much state intervention was the problem with the Indian economy in the past. They claim that the solution lies in the withdrawal of the state from the economic sphere and its confinement to a minimum of ‘core’ functions of governance. This is the argument of the champions of liberalisation and privatisation. There are other so-called leftist economists who try to oppose these arguments by defending the past policies of the Indian State. A diversionary debate is thus imposed on public consciousness, creating the impression that the choice before the people is between more state intervention and less state intervention in the economy, or between liberalism and social-democracy.

The question, however, is not how much state intervention, but for whom and for what end? It is not the quantity but the quality, the class character of the intervention, that counts. What currently exists is a system of state monopoly capitalism. The monopoly capitalists control the state, which acts in their interests. The ‘reforms’ being implemented are not aimed at changing this character. Trimming down the size of the state monopoly sector of the economy does not amount to a change in the fundamental character of the system of state monopoly capitalism.

The State and the program for reorientation of the economy

The workers and peasants of India need political power in order to reorient the Indian economy to ensure prosperity and protection for all the toiling masses and to fulfill the needs of the extended reproduction of society. What is needed is a worker-peasant State that will intervene to protect and promote the interests of those who toil, as well as the general interests of society. As a first step, the worker-peasant state would organise to win the war against poverty on an emergency footing.

Changing the entire orientation of the economy will take many years to accomplish, as it involves changing the property relations, by expropriating the wealth of capitalists and landlords and collectivising small peasant farming. While we work towards achieving this long term goal the immediate program needs to consist of all those measures that can be taken at once. It can and must include measures such as imposing a moratorium on payments to the money-lending institutions and on armament purchases, and seizing the unaccounted wealth in corrupt hands so as to re-allocate resources to fulfill the needs of workers and peasants.

The first steps to be taken by a revolutionary worker-peasant regime will also include measures to restrict the space for private capital accumulation and expand the space for cooperation among workers and peasants. While today the state intervenes in trading to facilitate a minority of profiteers, the worker-peasant State will intervene to prevent profiteering at the expense of the producers and consumers. It will intervene to ensure that trade between the cities and villages benefits both the workers and the peasants. It will regulate imports and exports to ensure that foreign trade serves the all-round development of the Indian economy on a self-reliant foundation.

Far from extending and withdrawing state support to agriculture at different times, unevenly in different regions, which is the nature of bourgeois state intervention in agriculture, the worker-peasant state will ensure reliable and stable support for the scientific development of agriculture. It will not merely promise but ensure the rapid realisation of the real and complete electrification of all villages and hamlets in the country, as the basis for raising the standard of living of the entire rural population.

The working class is interested in gradually narrowing and ultimately eliminating the difference between town and countryside, and between the conditions of workers and peasants. This interest of the most revolutionary class will have its imprint on state policy during the entire period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, starting from the period of the worker-peasant republic, which is the first stage of the proletarian revolution in India.

State intervention in the Indian economy will end when all class distinctions have come to an end, that is, when society has advanced to the stage of communism. There will then no longer be any need for a special apparatus, the State, to suppress or protect any class interest.

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Who should pay for the water crisis?

Who is getting all the water? It is the VIPs in the NDMC and Cantonment areas. They are getting double of what everybody should get, i.e. 400 litres per day against the stipulated 200 litres per day. The State Government has asked them " not to waste water" washing their cars and watering their gardens with piped water! On the other hand, we have the case of thousands of poor people and slum dwellers subject to severe shortage of water, or worse, complete drought in their supply pipes! Thus, the inequality of distribution is within localities as much as it is between different localities in the capital area.

The uneven supply of water is totally indefensible. Where is the justification for supplying generously to a minority and then requesting such privileged citizens to "avoid wastage"? Providing equally to all areas is the first step that has to be taken, as all citizens are equal under the law.

The authorities think that they have done their duty by warning us that this is going to be a bad summer. They say that this is "inevitable" and that all ordinary citizens have to put up with it. They blame Haryana for supplying bad water, and they blame Uttar Pradesh for its low supply because of the Kumbh Mela. They say that they are helpless because of the power cuts that will come when the temperatures rise.

The fact of the matter is that water conservation and water resource management have only remained policy objectives for all governments so far, at the Centre and state levels. While plans and blueprints have been announced countless times in response to people's demands, nothing has been implemented seriously to alleviate the problem. Over the years, many natural tanks have been allowed to dry up and get clogged with silt and waste matter. This shows that the governments are not interested in solving this very basic issue in the interests of the people.

While people are suffering from lack of water, the authorities shut their eyes to private profiteering from this scarcity. Money is made through supply of water packets, through awarding contracts to suppliers of water in mobile tanks, etc. Why should the people be made to pay twice or more for something that is rightfully theirs? The burden of the crisis of water must not be allowed to be shifted onto the backs of the people.

What should citizens do to force the authorities to provide and meet the needs of the large masses of ordinary people?

Citizens should demand this basic service as the right of every citizen.

They should organize themselves into local samitis in every residential mohalla to agitate against the authorities till their demands are met. They have to put continuous and consistent pressure on the government, local representatives (Municipal Councilors, MLAs) to provide solutions. They should demand that each zonal authority provides a clear plan and shows what efforts are being made to address the situation and how the existing condition is being managed.

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