• Debate on sending troops to Iraq
  No Justification for Indian troops in Iraq, whether multilateral or unilateral!

• Vajpayee’s visit to China—an event of significance

• Best Bakery Trial
  No hope of justice from the organisers of communal violence

• The struggle to end communalism and communal violence

• Condemn the state repression on the peasants in Jind, Haryana!

• A cruel paradox of the capitalist system

• PDS foodgrains out of reach of working people

• Advani’s US visit
  Advocating a dangerous imperialist course in alliance with the United States

• Heat wave deaths in Andhra—Apathy of government

• Colonial designs of the USA and UK

Debate on sending troops to Iraq

No Justification for Indian troops in Iraq,
whether multilateral or unilateral!

The past few weeks have seen widespread and gathering opposition within India to the reports that the Vajpayee Government was planning to send a division of the Indian Army to Iraq at the request of the US imperialists. The opposition among political parties and prominent personalities has been mounting, even as the Deputy Prime Minister made repeated statements in the US and UK that his government was in favour of an "Indian presence" in Iraq. He had even announced that a delegation of senior civilian and military officials of the Pentagon had been invited to Delhi to discuss the modalities of the troop deployment.

In the face of mass opposition at home, the Vajpayee regime has had to backtrack a bit on this question. It now says that it has not yet decided to send troops to Iraq; that it will consult all the parliamentary parties before taking a decision; that it will consult other countries including Iraq’s neighbours, that it will study the ground situation in Iraq, etc. Defence Minister George Fernandes has declared that the government had asked the American delegation certain "clarifications", in particular whether the Indian army will work under UN command or American command.

Asked by reporters whether the government was inclined to send troops to Iraq to bail out the Americans, Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, just returned from a visit to the US and UK, is reported to have said that it was in India’s interest to "have a presence in that region". (The Hindu, June 22, 2003). The spokesperson of the Indian Army has declared that the Army was "absolutely prepared" to operate in Iraq, once the government gave the go-ahead. Meanwhile, Sonia Gandhi, the leader of the Congress parliamentary opposition, has declared that her party would support deploying Indian troops in Iraq provided it was "part of a multilateral force" and "under UN Command".

From all these developments, two things stand out. First, that the pressure of public opinion in India, which is overwhelmingly opposed to supporting the US military occupation of Iraq, is forcing the government to backtrack. Second, the forces seeking close military and strategic collaboration with the US are desperately seeking ways to justify the deployment of Indian troops in Iraq.

The situation is demanding that the working class and people not lower their vigilance even for a moment, lest the ruling clique uses the occasion to drag our country on a disastrous course. Every argument or justification for Indian Army deployment as an aggressor force in Iraq, every argument for close military collaboration with bloodthirsty US imperialism, must be exposed and defeated.

The US Army is an occupation force which has conquered Iraq by brutal military might and is being opposed by the entire Iraqi people. It is now clear to all that "Operation Iraqi Freedom" was actually nothing other than a criminal colonial act to conquer Iraq and subjugate the Iraqi people. The strength of Iraqi opposition is such that the puppets whom the Americans wanted to install in power in Iraq have run away to save their skins, and the US military operations in Iraq are now continuing under the name "Operation Desert Scorpion".

The US forces, failing in their efforts to incite divisions amongst Iraqis on a Shia-Sunni basis, have unleashed a reign of terror on the entire population. Every day, there are reports of people being wantonly killed by the occupation forces, as well as patriots hitting back at the occupiers and inflicting casualties on them. The nearly 2 lakh strong US-British occupation Army is facing the heat in more ways than one, and it is now being admitted that the occupation Army will have to stay for at least two years, if not more. It is in such a situation that the US is using the carrot of offering sub-contracts in the loot of Iraq to the rulers of countries such as India, to induce them to provide cannon fodder for its imperialist occupation of Iraq. The US wants others to send their armies to Iraq to keep the Iraqi people in subjugation and do its own dirty work. Most countries, including traditional US allies, have refused to do so, in the face of strong public opinion against condoning the occupation. The most loyal American ally, Britain, has so far refused to increase its deployment from the current strength of 20,000 troops.

The imperialist occupation forces in Iraq are currently operating under unilateral command. In other words, there are troops under the US flag and there are troops under the British flag. If Indian troops are sent, under what flag will they operate? The Congress Party claims that it is justified to send Indian troops provided they operate under a multilateral command, under a UN banner. The US is reported to have suggested that Indian troops can act under their own command, that is, under the Indian flag. With this idea, the US imperialists are trying to lure India to join forces in Iraq.

If the Indian Army is sent into Iraq at this time, under whatever banner and pretext, it will be nothing but an occupation force. To call it a "peacekeeping force" is to turn the truth on its head. The Indian people, like people all over the world, have demanded the immediate withdrawal of US and British troops from Iraq. The Indian parliament endorsed this demand of the Indian people, unanimously.

The demand of the Indian working class and people remains, "Occupation forces, out of Iraq!" and "Not a single Indian soldier to join the illegal armed occupation of Iraq!"

If the Vajpayee Government ignores the demand of overwhelming public opinion on this question, it will be guilty of nothing less than betrayal of the Indian people and criminal collaboration with the American imperialist aggressors.

Back to Table of Contents

Vajpayee’s visit to China—an event of significance

Politically, the most important outcome was on the thorny question of the Sino-Indian border. Nothing was settled regarding the border itself or even the so-called Line of Actual Control (LAC). But it was tacitly agreed that the course of discussions and meetings at the level of the bureaucrats on both sides had run its course, and that a ‘political’ initiative was required to break the deadlock. Two ‘special representatives’ from the political establishment on both sides—Brajesh Mishra, the National Security Adviser, and the top vice-Foreign Minister on the Chinese side—were appointed to explore the avenues to settle the boundary question.

Another outcome was the agreement to open the way to border trade through Sikkim and Tibet via the Nathu La Pass. This was not so much an economic initiative as a political one, since already more than $2 billion worth of trade across the border is taking place illegally, and without a great improvement in the infrastructure on both sides, the amount may not go up substantially for some time. But it appears to be the first step towards Chinese recognition of the Indian annexation of Sikkim in 1975, in return for India re-emphasising that Tibet "is an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China".

On the economic front, there was an agreement to try and double the volume of trade between the two countries from the present $5 billion to $10 billion by 2005. The two governments also discussed coordination between their respective stands on WTO-related issues. However, probably more significant than the formal agreements that were concluded seems to have been the presence of the big Indian business delegation, including the bigwigs of India’s corporate world. The impression conveyed seems to have been that China is not just trying to learn from and compete with the Indian software industry, but is in the market for the products of India’s software and other companies in a big way.

Vajpayee also made a symbolic visit to the ancient capital of Luoyang where he paid a visit to the Buddhist monastery which commemorates the arrival of the first Buddhist missionaries from India to China in the 1st century AD.

The relations between India and China suffered a major downturn during the late fifties culminating in a border war. One of the important factors behind that downturn and the war was that US imperialism was egging on India to take a path of confrontation with the People’s Republic of China. Since then, over a prolonged period, particularly since the late seventies, India and China have been trying to settle their outstanding problems. These relations once again took a downturn when the Vajpayee government publicly pleaded with the US President that the Pokhran nuclear blasts were carried out to counter China. Following the conquest of Iraq by the US imperialists and its "coalition of the willing", both India and China have been making moves to mend their relationship. The recent visit of Defence Minister George Fernandes to China during the height of the SARS epidemic as well as the meeting between the Indian Prime Minister and Chinese Prime Minister in St. Petersburg were occasions to take steps in this direction. Vajpayee’s recent visit marks a further cementing of relations between the two Asian giants and neighbours.

It is in the interests of the peoples that India and China settle their boundary problems as well as other longstanding problems in a peaceful way. Given the harsh and largely unpopulated nature of the terrain through which any agreed upon border is likely to pass, a settlement is not likely to cause disruption or dislocation to settled populations, while it would help to ease tensions and reduce the possibility of flare-ups between troops facing each other across the boundary line. Increased trade and economic relations may bring good cheer to a number of big and medium-sized companies on both sides, without significantly affecting the economy of either country.

However, the unspoken question in all the hype about the ‘upswing’ in their relations is whether the nature of the cooperation envisaged between India and China is anti-imperialist or of the opposite kind. Is it a factor for peace and the strengthening of anti-imperialist forces on the world scale? Or it is an additional factor for imperialist aggression and imperialist wars?

India and China are not just any two neighbouring countries or developing economies, but two of the largest countries of the world. Together, they can be a powerful force in the world. Silence about important global issues in their ‘first-ever’ joint declaration, including silence about the activities of US imperialism, does not bode well for the world.

China is a country whose people actually dared to stand up to the imperialists and throw them bag and baggage out of the country a half-century ago. India’s people have always had strong anti-imperialist traditions. Yet the joint declaration of the two governments today holds out no encouragement for the peoples of the world who are angry with the situation in the present-day world, in particular with the activities of the US imperialists.

Cooperation between the two giants, China and India, would be of limited use to the peoples of both countries if it is only to assist a wealthy minority in each country to further its own imperial and expansionist ambitions.

Back to Table of Contents

Best Bakery Trial

No hope of justice from the organisers of communal violence

It may be recalled that in the course of the barbaric state-organised communal violence that engulfed Gujarat last year, 14 persons were burnt alive in Best Bakery in Vadodara’s Hanuman Tehri area on March 1, 2002, when a huge mob had set fire to the bakery owned by a person of the muslim faith.

The Best Bakery massacre was one of the best documented cases, in which witnesses and survivors of the massacre, including members of the family which owned the bakery, publicly recounted the story of the massacre and named those who attacked them. They petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), filed affidavits before the government appointed Commission of Inquiry, deposed before the Concerned Citizens’ Tribunal headed by justice V.R.Krishna Iyer and also spoke to the national press.

As has been reported, the Vadodara Sessions Court examined 73 witnesses, all of whom retracted their earlier statements. None of them was prepared to identify any one of the accused as the perpetrator of the crime; instead, they made statements describing the accused as their "saviours". The main complainant, Zahira Sheikh is reported to be "missing" after she deposed before the court, identifying the accused as "those who had tried to save people". It has also been reported that the witnesses were escorted into and out of the courtroom by a well-known BJP politician who was one of the prime accused in the massacre.

The Best Bakery case was the first case to be tried in connection with the communal massacres in Gujarat last year. The cases of the Naroda-Patiya and Gulbarga society carnages in Ahmedabad and the Sardarpura village events in which more than 250 people were burnt alive, are still being investigated. However, as has been reported, many BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders, who had earlier been named as accused, now seem unlikely to be arrested for "want of evidence".

These cases are being tried by the fast-track courts set up by the state government, allegedly to ensure "speedy justice". What is ironical in these trials is that the prosecutor is the state, the accused is also the state (for it is now widely known that the massacres were state organised and the perpetrators had the full protection and backing of the state government and the police), while the judiciary which is meting out the judgement is also an arm of the state! Moreover, the perpetrators of the crimes continue to go around scot-free, aided and abetted by the state and police, while the victims, who are the witnesses, live in constant dread of being attacked again. Therefore the outcome of the trial is hardly surprising.

The verdict of the Best Bakery case has been such a damning indictment of the judicial system that the NHRC has had to intervene. In an attempt to shore up some credibility for the system, the NHRC has now asked the state government of Gujarat to explain how all the 21 accused were acquitted. It has suggested that the Gujarat High Court should order a re-investigation. Earlier in June, responding to media reports that the majority of witnesses were withdrawing their statements, the NHRC had asked the Director General of Police at Vadodara to provide protection to the witnesses, so that they may depose before the government appointed Commission of Inquiry "without fear".

The verdict has evoked sharp condemnation by all human rights activists, peoples’ activists and progressive public at large. Among many other such initiatives, the Washington-based group Human Rights Watch has released a 70 page report titled "Compounding Injustice: the government’s failure to redress massacres in Gujarat", accusing the state government of actively sabotaging the investigations, so that 16 months later, not a single person has been convicted, while the hundreds of thousands of affected people continue to suffer the injustice, in constant fear and deplorable conditions.

State-organised communal violence is one of the most tried and tested methods by which the Indian bourgeoisie rules this country. Overwhelming public opinion has demanded each time, that the guilty should be punished. However, the guilty have not even been convicted, let alone punished, whether in the case of the communal massacre of Sikhs in Delhi in ’84, the communal violence in many parts of the country in ’93 or the communal carnage in Gujarat last year, or any other. In fact, it appears as if the present Gujarat government has learnt a lesson from the November ’84 massacres, many cases related to which are still pending after 19 years, during the course of which the political careers of some of the politicians directly indicted have been under a cloud, even though they have in no way been punished for their crimes. So the Gujarat government is adopting the strategy of "fast track courts" and sham trials, like the Best Bakery trial, to quickly bring down the curtain on its crimes and emerge politically on the offensive, rather than on the defensive.

The Best Bakery trial verdict once again reinforces what the working and oppressed masses, the most vulnerable targets of the communal and fascist violence and terror of the state, realise through their own life experience – that they can never expect justice from the perpetrators of the crimes against the people. The working and oppressed need to take state power into their own hands, to ensure that the guilty are punished and that the horrors of state-organised communal violence are ended once and for all.

Back to Table of Contents

The struggle to end communalism and communal violence

Fifteen months after the bestial slaughter of thousands of men, women and children in state organised communal violence in Gujarat, the killers go around with impunity, holding the highest offices of the state. Lakhs of victims are homeless, living in conditions of terror, trying to rebuild their shattered lives. To add insult to injury, the guilty are now being acquitted for "lack of evidence" and portrayed as "saviours", in farcical trials being conducted by the state. The Indian state has once again declared that it will continue to use communalism and communal violence, each time with even more devastating effect, to reopen old wounds and inflict new ones. From the massacres that accompanied the partition of the subcontinent 56 years ago, to the slaughter of people of the Sikh faith in November 1984, and the slaughter of Muslims in 1993-1994, upto and including the Gujarat massacres, one thing stands out. The perpetrators of state organised communal massacres have never been punished by the present Indian state and its institutions.

What must be done to put an end to communalism and communal violence once and for all? This is a question that has emerged as a burning problem in India. Various political parties, including some within the communist movement, are advocating that the solution lies in voting a coalition of ‘secular’ parties to power, in place of the BJP and its allies. They claim that the issue is to defend the ‘secular foundations’ of the Indian State. However, analysis of the facts shows that the foundations of the present-day Indian State are communal. Hence, merely replacing one party or coalition by another cannot solve the problem. It requires the replacement of one kind of state by another. The struggle to end communalism and communal violence will be crowned with victory only with the establishment of a worker-peasant state.

It is said that the Indian State has secular foundations. Yet hundreds of thousands of people have fallen victim to violence unleashed against them on the basis of their religion or caste, over the past 55 and a half years since independence. Such incidents have repeatedly exposed the criminal complicity of the state agencies and the parliamentary parties contending for power, in organising communal violence. Yet the people of India continue to be blamed for communalism and communal violence, while the Indian State continues to be presented as the neutral arbiter, whose role is allegedly to maintain ‘peace’ and ‘communal harmony’.

A communal state is one that defines the rights of individual members of the polity by classifying them into communities on the basis of the religion into which one is born. On the other hand, secularisation refers to the progressive elimination of religious authority from social and political affairs. A secular polity is one that recognises the individual rights of all human beings, including the right to conscience, as inviolable.

Basing ourselves on these definitions, we will have to conclude that the basic premise of the Indian State is communal. The Constitution of India identifies every human being only on a religious or caste basis. His or her rights depend on whether he or she belongs to the ‘Hindu majority’ or one of the religious minorities, whether he or she belongs to a ‘scheduled caste’ or one of the ‘other backward castes’ or to the ‘general category’. It does not recognise identities based on nations and social classes. Instead of eliminating the role of religious authority from social and political affairs, the Indian State and its various organs interfere actively in religious disputes and in organising communal violence.

The polity continues to be defined on a communal basis as it was in colonial times, divided between a ‘Hindu majority’ and other ‘religious minorities’. When it comes to matters of the family, including laws governing marriage and divorce, adoption and inheritance, there is one law for Hindus and one law for Muslims, while there is no provision for one who does not believe in any religion.

The Indian State intervenes in religious matters on a regular basis, in the form of handing out budgetary grants or favours to religious trusts and to educational institutions run by religious bodies. Religious ceremonies are regularly performed at official functions. The state maintains links with the different ‘religious leaders’ who are promoted as the ‘community representatives’ and activated whenever the ruling class wants to heighten communal tensions or organise communal violence.

The Indian State is conceptualised as an instrument to bring about ‘tolerance and harmony’ among the warring communities. This is the real essence of the notion of secularism projected in the Constitution of India. The much-celebrated principle of Dharma-nirpekshta, or not taking sides with any religion, is the means by which the interference of the Indian State in religion is legitimised. This reactionary Dharma-nirpekshta must not be confused with the ideas that emerged in the past out of the progressive movements for the secularisation of society.

Secularisation of society

Secularisation of society refers to the progressive elimination of religion, or beliefs about the ‘other world’, from all political and social affairs. Today, secularism is presented by the bourgeoisie as if it is a struggle in the realm of ideas alone, divorced from the struggle to end the conditions of imperialist enslavement, capitalist exploitation and feudal oppression. Thus, even Prime Minister Vajpayee can preach about how Indian people should be tolerant and not be taken in by any provocation, in the aftermath of widespread terror and communal tension created and spread by his own party in power in Gujarat. And the Congress Party, after having earned the reputation of being the biggest organiser of communal killings in India, can pontificate about defending the ‘secular foundations’ of the Indian State, which BJP and the Sangh Parivar are allegedly out to destroy.

It is the economic and political struggle of classes, between the oppressors and the oppressed, which gave rise to those ideas that challenged the authority of religion and of those who ruled on the basis of such authority. The struggle for the secularisation of society in the 18th and early 19th century Europe was led by the bourgeoisie, which was a progressive class at that time. The European bourgeoisie fought against feudal absolutism and religious authority. The progressive forces of that time fought for the elimination of the authority and influence of religion and the Church from the affairs of State, demanding that reason and science be the basis for laying down the law in society. It was a reflection in the ideological sphere of the social revolution against feudal absolutism.

However, the bourgeoisie did not remain progressive for very long even in Europe, not to speak of the colonies. After the crises of overproduction that struck capitalism starting from 1825, the bourgeoisie transformed the progressive ideas that emerged from the secularisation movement into the philosophy of secularism. This philosophy of secularism went hand in hand with liberalism and the notion of ‘tolerance’ of religious authority, of both ‘majority’ and ‘minority’ religious beliefs. With the development of capitalism to its highest stage of imperialism at the end of the 19th century, the bourgeoisie began to proclaim that religion was a state duty.

At an early stage in the development of Indian society, the authority of the State was based on its duty of providing sukh (prosperity) and raksha (protection) to all members of society. However, with the institutionalising of the caste system as the basis for preserving class distinctions in society, the very definition of sukh and raksha was transformed. Sukh for a man born in a low caste family merely meant the opportunity to perform his caste duty. As long as he could serve persons of the higher caste he was deemed to be happy. The meaning of raksha became the preservation of this caste order of society, which was considered the principal duty of the State. In effect, society became divided into those who enjoyed all the rights and those who had only duties but no rights. It is against such an order, which negated the rights of human beings, including the right of every individual to his or her conscience, that the Bhaktas and the Sufis arose.

The struggle against religious authority, backward customs and the domination of the rigid Brahmanical caste system has a long history in Indian society. The Bhakti and Sufi movements in the 15th and 16th centuries were part and parcel of the rebellion of the oppressed masses for the democratisation of society. Even though the ideas of these movements retained the religious shell, the essence of these movements was the struggle for the affirmation of the individual’s right to conscience, independent of the authority of Brahmanism or Mullahism or any kind of religious orthodoxy. By challenging the norms of those days that restricted access of the toiling people and of women to God and to knowledge, such movements inevitably challenged the political theory that stipulated that only a minority of privileged castes and royal families were fit to rule.

The right to conscience and to acquire knowledge, irrespective of gender or the caste of one’s birth, has remained just an aspiration in India, as the development of the class struggle was rudely interrupted and blocked by the colonial conquest. The British colonial state was based on the alliance of British capital with everything backward in Indian society. The hated caste order, against which broad masses of people had risen up in rebellion all across India, was given a new lease of life by the colonial laws such as the Gentoo Code, in the name of ‘tolerating’ local customs and beliefs.

Speaking about the English bourgeois, as early as in the 17th century when a compromise was struck in England between the merchant and manufacturing interests and the great landowning families, Comrade Engels wrote: "He was himself religious; his religion had supplied the standard under which he had fought the king and the lords; he was not long in discovering the opportunities this same religion offered him for working upon the minds of his natural inferiors, and making them submissive to the behests of the masters it had pleased God to place over them. In short, the English bourgeoisie now had to take a part in keeping down the ‘lower orders’, the great producing mass of the nation, and one of the means employed for that purpose was the influence of religion" (Special introduction to the 1892 English edition of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific).

Under British colonial rule, communalism and secularism became two sides of the same coin, two faces of the strategy of divide and rule. India was defined on a communal basis, as consisting of Hindus, Muslims and other minority communities. The colonial Indian State entrenched itself in religious affairs, promoting various communal organisations covertly while at the same time preaching ‘tolerance’ and ‘communal harmony’, pretending that the State is based on ‘secular foundations’. This same tradition continues to this day, as the Indian big bourgeoisie wields the communal Indian State and preaches the imperialist ideology of secularism, meaning tolerance of every backward idea and custom, with the State allegedly playing a role of ‘equidistance’ from all religions.

In order to realise their strategic aim of subjugating the Indian peoples, the colonialists nurtured from within Indian society a stratum raised on European bourgeois values. The English educated liberal men from India, trained at Oxford and Cambridge, and subsequently in the prestigious colleges of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay and inducted into the senior civil service and officer cadre of the army, became the carriers of European values, including secularism. This imperialist and imported philosophy subsequently became part of the ruling ideology in independent India.

The struggle against communalism and communal violence must be guided by the values of our predecessors who fought for their right to conscience, such as the heroes of the Bhakti and Sufi movements. It must be guided by the values of the anti-colonial movement, such as those of the heroes of the first Indian war of independence in 1857, who asserted the right of Indians to sovereignty with the slogan: "Hum hai iske malik; Hindustan humara!" (India belongs to us; We are her masters!).

The struggle against communalism and communal violence cannot and must not be guided by the philosophy of secularism, of ‘tolerance’ and of ‘not taking sides’. It must be guided by the theoretical conclusion, confirmed by life experience, that the foundation of the Indian State is communal. Hence those who oppose communalism cannot and must not tolerate this state of affairs. It is necessary to take sides – namely, to take sides against the existing Indian State and the attempts of the ruling class to divide the polity on a sectarian basis. We must fight with the vision of a new India that is constituted on a new foundation that respects the rights of individual human beings and of the collectives that make up modern day Indian society. We must fight for the reconstitution of the Indian State as an instrument for the empowerment of the nations, nationalities and tribal peoples, and of the workers, peasants, women and youth. By wielding such a state, the toiling masses must indeed become the masters of India.

Back to Table of Contents

Condemn the state repression on the peasants in Jind, Haryana!

It is not without significance that Chautala, who claims to be the leader of the peasantry of Haryana, and who came to power on the basis of a pledge to supply free electricity to the peasantry, has been at the forefront in attacking the peasantry of Haryana, on precisely the question of electricity. As soon as he came to power, Om Prakash Chautala reneged on his pledge. Not only did he substantially hike the electricity tariffs, his government slapped huge arrears for the last decade on the hapless peasants. This has unleashed their fury. It is well known that with ground water levels going lower and lower and paddy requiring huge water resources, the peasantry have had to install more and more powerful pumpsets to draw out the groundwater. This translates into steeply hiked input costs, at a time when the Central government is refusing to procure wheat and paddy, citing the excuse of overflowing stocks in the godowns. The Central government is in addition planning to end the procurement scheme altogether. This will completely ruin the peasantry. In such conditions, slapping these arrears on the peasants has left the bulk of them with no choice but to fight for their very survival.

The Chautala government has played a double game with the peasantry. To divide them, it declared that those who paid 25% of the arrears would not lose their electricity connections. On the other hand, it began arresting those peasants who refused to pay this 25%, and began to cut their electricity connections. Since last summer, the peasants in Haryana have been agitating against the Chautala government’s demand that they should pay 25 % of the pending electricity bills, regarding this as the first step towards charging full commercial rates for electricity from them in the future.

Throughout last year, under the leadership of the Bhartiya Kisan Union, the peasants organised sit-ins, rallies and blockades in Jind and other districts. They demanded that the state government withdraw cases filed against their leaders relating to incidents in Kandela in Jind district in 2002, when the peasants took 7 policemen hostage, including two DSPs. That agitation had made headlines in the media because eight farmers were killed in police firing, while dozens more were injured and many put behind bars. However, the repression, police firing and arrests did not deter the spirits of the agitators. The agitation spread to newer areas and gained the support of peasants across the state, forcing the state government to initiate negotiations with the agitating peasants.

Once again this year, the agitating peasants of Kandela village in Jind, Haryana have successfully blocked all the major roads leading to the area. Youth, children and women are reported to be enthusiastically participating in the agitation. The peasants are demanding release of their arrested leader and an end to the ruthless state repression of their struggle. They are also demanding that the state government withdraw the high tariffs on electricity, fulfil its pre-election promises to the peasantry and stop giving concessions to the big capitalists instead.

The confrontation between the peasants of Haryana and the state government is a reflection of the deep discontent among the population in rural Haryana, due to the anti-social offensive of the ruling class in the name of globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation. Industries are being closed down, production is declining and there is widespread unemployment. The big bourgeoisie is using its control over the state to extract the maximum from the peasantry, causing rapid impoverishment and ruination of the small and middle peasants. The unbearable debt burden on the peasantry has driven many to suicide.

The struggle of the Haryana peasants is part of the struggle of millions of toiling people against the increasing attacks on their livelihood by the ruling bourgeoisie. It is part of the people’s struggle to give a new direction to the economy, so that the livelihood of the working masses of town and countryside and their needs and interests will be the motive force behind this economy and not the profits of the big capitalists.

Back to Table of Contents

A cruel paradox of the capitalist system

The quantum of foodgrains held in FCI godowns is enough to feed these 500 million people with 100 kg of foodgrains per person, enough to last for at least 8 months. But instead of declaring a state of mergency in the drought-ridden districts of Rajasthan, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and other states, and distributing these foodgrains on a war footing, the Indian state has been doing just the opposite. It has been cutting down the food distributed through ration shops to the people and instead exporting grains at below procurement prices. Rice and wheat are being sold in the foreign market at rates charged for "below poverty line" (BPL) ration card holders in India. Instead of using the abundance of foodgrains to raise the nutrition levels of the working people, the Indian state has been fattening its foreign exchange reserves over the dead bodies of people who are dying a horrible death in famine conditions.

For the ruling class, reducing the budget deficit has become an end in itself. Arguing that the food "subsidy" is the primary reason for the budget deficit, the government cut down its procurement operations as well as increased the food prices for ration card holders. In 1997, the United Front government introduced the Targeted PDS (TPDS) in which households were demarcated on the basis of an income criterion into "below-poverty-line" (BPL) and "above-poverty-line" (APL) populations. The foodgrains distributed to the people "above the povderty line" were at prices not differing from those in the open market, effectively ensuring that millions of working people in the cities and countryside were removed from the PDS system. This division of the PDS system was done in the face of clear and scientific arguments advanced by progressive forces that this would only contribute to the provision of substandard food to the most vulnerable sections of the populace, that it would lead to massive corruption and increase in administrative costs in the processes of identifying who was BPL and who was APL, that it was aimed at liquidating the very concept that the state had responsibility to provide not only foodgrains, but all other essentials of a healthy living, to the entire working population at good quality and affordable prices.

In recent years, unemployment has been increasing both in the cities and in the countryside. Rural real wages have declined and increasing numbers of peasants have been deprived of their land and belongings and forced to migrate to the cities in search of livelihood. Foodgrains have become unaffordable for larger and larger sections of the working population.

Food and agricultural input "subsidies" never reached the mass of peasants or the working class of city and countryside. A substantial portion of it was cornered by the big fertiliser and pesticide monopolies. Another huge portion of it was wasted on inefficient storage and transportation operations by the FCI. The remaining part of the subsidy, which was supposedly given to the peasantry to improve their incomes, was taken away by the big merchants and traders who dominate the grain market in India. Thus, the system of subsidies created by the Indian state has served as a convenient conduit for transferring money fleeced from the peasantry to the big monopolies. Actually, agriculture has been subsidising industry, and the agricultural and industrial workers have been subsidising the capitalists.

In spite of all this talk about "subsidies" being handed out to workers and peasants, the food "subsidy" as a ratio of the gross domestic product of the country has remained unchanged over the past 30 years. During the period 1966-67 to 1996-97, the food "subsidy" given by the Indian state averaged 0.3 per cent of GDP. This is a very low proportion compared to world standards. Even in Sri Lanka, our neighbouring country, food "subsidies" accounted for 1.3 per cent of GDP, four times the proportion as that of India.

Several studies have pointed out that in all these years of "subsidy"-oriented agricultural growth, the divide between the town and countryside has become deeper. Wealth has become further concentrated in the hands of a small section in the countryside at the expense of the vast majority of labourers and peasants, and agricultural and other monopolies have siphoned off huge profits from the countryside.

Forced by severe opposition to its policy of starving the people during the recurring droughts of recent years, the ruling class has announced a number of schemes for free food distribution such as the Earthquake Relief Fund, Food for Work programme, Mid-day meal scheme, Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana, and so on. These schemes have been even more preposterous than the PDS, since they operated have operated completely according to the whims and fancies of the government functionaries and politicians and their touts.

The acid test of the food distribution exercise is the nutrition level of the population. If the PDS and the welfare schemes had really put more food in the hands of the working people then this would be reflected in their improved health and nutrition.

Other studies point out the drastic fall in the level of consumption of pulses, roots and tubers, milk, millets, vegetables and so on. If nutrition levels along with income and employment status are examined then it is clear that nothing short of fifty percent of the population live in abysmal conditions of poverty, victims of malnutrition, ill health, illiteracy and every kind of debilitating diseases.

While these studies capture the malnutrition levels in terms of numbers and percentages, what is not evident is the extreme dehumanisation that is taking place in the country due to the onslaught of capitalist reforms. In states like Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan people are forced to eat wild leaves, poisonous roots and pulses during severe droughts and natural disasters. Thousands of parents in working families helplessly witness life being steadily snuffed out of their children due to lack of safe water and nutritious food. The vast majority of Indian people live in bestial conditions. Capitalism has been eliminating all that is healthy in Indian society along with life itself.

The need to ensure good quality foodgrains, pulses, milk and other essentials to the population at large at affordable prices is the very essence of a modern society. Similarly, ensuring livelihood for the peasantry who feed the entire nation, that is, ensuring availability of inputs at affordable prices and a system where they can exchange their produce for manufactured goods, is the hallmark of a modern society.

All these glaring inadequacies of the present day capitalist system in India point to the fact that this system needs democratic renewal. This system needs to be renovated and reoriented to fulfill the rising needs and aspirations of the working class and the toiling peasantry. Such a system would put the well-being of the people at the centre of the agenda and make it the primary aim of the economy.

Back to Table of Contents

PDS foodgrains out of reach of working people

Source: Dept of Food and Public Distribution

(Note: 2000-01 to 2002-03 figures include the food distributed through the Antyodaya scheme)

Back to Table of Contents

Advani’s US visit

Advocating a dangerous imperialist course
in alliance with the United States

Advani is revealing the vision of an imperialist and fascist India, marching with its military might alongside the US and other aggressive powers, trampling underfoot entire nations and the rights of peoples, all in the name of fighting "jehadi terrorism". The course he is advocating for India is that of an aggressive and expansionist colonial style power in the image of US imperialism.

Visiting Europe in May, Prime Minister Vajpayee had said that two camps were emerging in the world – the US and its allies, on the one hand, and those who had opposed military action in Iraq, on the other hand. According to Vajpayee, India was with both sides. He claimed that "both" wanted to take India along.

The visit of Advani, which has been followed by the visit of a military delegation from the US to India, shows that the rulers of India and the US are trying to work out a scenario of global and regional imperialist dominance, a scenario which accepts American pre-eminence but recognises India’s own sphere of influence, and hence its space to engage with states belonging to different camps. Such a course is diametrically against the interests of all the peoples of Asia and is a real threat to the sovereignty of countries in the South Asian region.

The US imperialists used the situation created by the incidents of September 11, 2001 to launch their offensive for the conquest of Asia and the redivision of the world. The Indian big bourgeoisie, for its part, claims to be under "terrorist attack" in Kashmir and north east India, and wishes to use this pretext of "countering terrorism " to extend and consolidate its sphere of influence in the region. The present ruling coalition headed by Vajpayee and Advani is showing more than usual interest in joining hands with the US, Israel and others in their racist and communal campaign against "Islamic terrorism".

News reports indicate that the Pentagon is seeking collaboration with the Indian government on the prospects for a new security system for the Asia-Pacific region, a kind of Asian NATO, anchored by the US and India. The ground for this has been laid by over two years of growing military collaboration between India and the US, with joint military exercises between the two, frequent exchange of visits of top military and security per-sonnel, as well as increasingly close diplomatic ties.

The US imperialists have shown with their acts of aggression, first against Afghanistan and then against Iraq, they do not have any respect for the sovereignty of any nation. All values of freedom and human dignity are easily trampled underfoot by the biggest marauders of our times. It is with such treacherous, rapacious, and fascist forces that the rulers of India are advocating closer alliance.

The big bourgeoisie of India sees collaboration with the US imperialists as a very important means of realising its own imperialist ambitions. In its quest to fulfill these ambitions, the big bourgeoisie is prepared to throw all caution to the winds and cast aside all pretence of principles. India, a country to whom the freedom-loving peoples of the world once used to look for support, is now pursuing a new West Asia policy dovetailed to the US policy for the region. If only the opposition at home were not so strong, the rulers of India would have gladly acceded to the US request to deploy troops to quell the rising struggle of the Iraqi people against imperialist occupation of their country.

The policy followed by the Indian government today and the vision being advocated openly by the likes of Advani, is a policy that is devoid of all principles. It will bring discredit to India in the eyes of the freedom and peace loving peoples of the world, while greatly aiding the US plan for the conquest of Asia.

Back to Table of Contents

Heat wave deaths in Andhra—Apathy of government

Dear Editor,

Chief Minister Naidu boasts about making the Andhra Pradesh capital of Hyderabad into a globally competitive centre for information technology. Billions of rupees have been poured into infrastructure and services aimed at attracting corporate investment to the state. At the same time, however, most people are compelled to live in conditions of abject poverty and are thus vulnerable to "natural" disasters abetted by the callousness of its so-called representatives.

The recent rains have lessened the heat but the tragic loss of lives in the heat wave is fresh in people’s minds. Here is my view on the recent heat wave.

With temperatures ranging between 46 and 49 degrees Celsius in most places, three years of successive drought, severe drinking water scarcity due to drying up of reservoirs and fast depletion of groundwater, life has become hell for most of Andhra Pradesh's 76 million people. The worst affected areas were the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. The maximum temperatures have been 7 to 10 degrees above normal. In Andhra Pradesh, more than 2000 people are reported to have lost their lives due to the severe heat wave.

As one reads about the toll one needs to remember that it is the poor—small farmers, elderly people, daily wage labourers, rickshaw pullers, construction workers, quarry workers, mine workers and street vendors—who mainly succumbed to heatstroke and dehydration in temperatures that reached 49 degrees Celsius. Andhra Pradesh has one of the highest concentrations of the country's poorest of the poor. Andhra Pradesh has almost 12 million poor people, about 15 per cent of its population, who live below the government designated poverty line.

The figures on the front pages of dailies of the victims of heat wave soon began resembling a score card where the number kept increasing day by day. While so many were getting scorched and baked, getting dehydrated and eventually unable to resist any longer….where were our representatives? Working out contingency plans for relief? Sorry, you must be joking! Summer time is holiday time – paid holiday times for our representatives and their families. They were busy forging friendships, attending conferences, some even shamelessly taking holidays abroad or in the hills to beat the heat. Look at these lucky representatives of ours who don’t even have to attend to business in summer! Remember. neither the parliament nor the state legislatures work in summer.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu declared: "The tragedy was unparalleled in the state’s history." But his administration has done virtually nothing to assist the victims or prevent further deaths. Naidu has promised to pay Rs.50,000 to the families of every victim, but many will not receive the assistance, as they did not file police reports.

The Chief Minister advised people to stay indoors and drink plenty of water until cooler weather arrived. Such advice, however, is a cruel joke. Many workers have no choice but to work outside. Moreover, for many poor farmers, even if they had the luxury of "staying indoors," conditions inside their thatched houses are worse than outside. Usually, they and their families sleep outside to avoid the heat. They have no protection, and their houses are vulnerable to catching fire in the heat and high winds.

As far as drinking more water, many people in Andhra Pradesh do not have access to clean water even in normal times. In conditions of drought, people have to walk kilometres to fetch drinking water. Serious water shortages have been reported from most of the towns.

India has experienced similar heat waves previously. The state and national governments have treated the current heat wave as just another natural disaster and the hundreds of deaths as regrettable, but unpreventable. In fact, as in the case of earthquakes, floods and cyclones, elementary measures including the provision of decent housing, clean water and free medical services, would prevent many, if not most, of these tragic deaths.

So is it the heat wave that is really killing people, or is it the apathy and callousness of our so-called representatives that have augmented nature’s wrath?
Yours sincerely,
Usha, Hyderabad, AP

Back to Table of Contents

Colonial designs of the USA and UK

It was a foregone conclusion that the USA and UK led war against Iraq would lead to the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime. In terms of military might it was no contest. This alleged victory does not make the question of the legality of the invasion any less compelling.

One must first think of the composition of the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’. It is the first time since the end of the Cold War that one saw a clear split in the camp of the western powers and Japan. During the NATO led strikes against the sovereign country of Yugoslavia, the international powers like France did not object to the use of force. As a result, there was only a muted world reaction against the US led military action there. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US, the 'retaliation' of the US against the defenceless country of Afghanistan was considered to be somehow just and there was no opposition to that either. Therefore the opposition to the adventurism in Iraq by some powers is not one of principle but one compelled by other political, economic and social pressures. Nevertheless the division in that camp is one that opens up opportunities for discussion of the behaviour of the USA and the UK in the post-Cold War era. Those who have themselves become members of the "coalition of the willing" are doing so, again not so much due to principle but due to enormous pressure brought upon them by the leading powers of the coalition. For instance, Japan continued to maintain that it was a member because of the now thoroughly discredited issue of 'weapons of mass destruction’. Japan is essentially buying itself guarantees that tomorrow North Korea would be disarmed militarily if diplomacy is not going to work. It has also bought itself guarantees of US protection against future Chinese pressure. The erstwhile East bloc countries are showing themselves to be willing servants of the erstwhile colonial masters in order win favours.

Domestically, in the USA and UK there is much debate raging on whether or not the members of the executive in each of those countries lied to the Congress, Parliament, UN and to the public. In the USA there is open admission that 'weapons of mass destruction' was a bureaucratic reason on which consensus was built amongst various sections of political opinion, while it was clear that this was never the real reason for the invasion (the real reason, of course, being 'regime change.') Nevertheless, sections of the media will in the coming months engage in riveting the attention of the public on who lied and at what time and how.

There are already and there will be many more commissions of enquiry which will deliberate and publish ponderous reports on the techniques of diversion of the Bush and Blair administrations. This will serve the purpose of creating an impression that there are somehow checks and balances within the system of Government in these liberal democracies.

The real issue of sovereignty of nations in the post Cold-War era will never be raised. The issue of whether or not alien powers have the right to carry out 'regime changes' will not be raised. The peoples of the world must learn from these the lesson that they must build up their own organizations and not turn to this or that commission or standing committee to come to their rescue.

The lesson to be learnt is that the peoples of the world are now living in a world fraught with danger. There will be frequent military interventions, as opposed to the old techniques of engineered coups and assasinations. Only Governments which are friendly to colonial loot and plunder will be allowed to stay in power. It is only a matter of time before there will be interventions in troubled countries such as Venezuela, to name one. In the Indian context, there will be great pressure to accede to the demands of imperialism in the region of Kashmir and/or the North-East.

The failure of the Indian state to resolve the problems of nationalities in the Indian Union in the past have created a fertile soil for imperialist interference. If the Indian Government does not engage in open and frank public discussion on this issue, it is an invitation to disaster.

It is imperative that public opinion be built on an urgent basis in countries across the world about the nature of the new colonial designs of the USA and the UK and to oppose their activities.
Sincerely, A. Narayan, Bangalore

Back to Table of Contents