• 13 years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid:
  Open collaboration of the Congress Party and the BJP in covering up their crimes

• International Human Rights Day:
  Fight to establish a democracy which enshrines and enforces human rights

• 21 years of Bhopal Gas tragedy
  The guilty must be punished!

POLITICS

• High Court Stay Order on sale of mill land in Mumbai:
  An advance for the working class and people

WORLD

• Halt further commitments by the Indian government in WTO!

• Talk of “failed states” -- a justification for imperialist intervention

• Massive working class protests in Australia

13 years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid:

Open collaboration of the Congress Party and the BJP in covering up their crimes

Thirteen years ago, on December 6, 1992, the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was demolished. This barbaric act was carried out under the supervision of the Kalyan Singh government of the BJP in UP and the Congress Party government of Narasimha Rao at the centre. It took place in full view of the media, in the presence of top leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party who egged on the frenzied mobs indulging in the destruction, while thousands of Central and state security forces stood by. Images of this gruesome event were flashed on the television and in the headlines of newspapers all over the country and throughout the world, again and again. The destruction of the Babri Masjid heralded a whole period of criminal state-organised onslaught against Muslims in Surat, Mumbai and other parts of the country.

Developments over the last 13 years have clearly shown the collaboration of the two major political parties of the ruling class, the Congress Party and the BJP, in covering up this ghastly crime. The statements given by various political leaders and state officials before the Liberhan Commission, set up to investigate the events of December 6, 1992 at Ayodhya, and the very manner in which the Commission has been functioning, provide ample evidence of this.

In these 13 years, Vajpayee, Advani and other leaders of the BJP and the Congress Party have declared that they were not responsible for the demolition and the subsequent massacres. They have sought to dissociate themselves from the demolition. However, the real facts are well known to people.

The announcement of the kar seva to be held at the site had been made several weeks before. Politicians of all hues outdid each other in trying to exploit the situation to advance their own narrow interests. The Supreme Court gave its blessings to the kar seva by putting no restriction on the number of people who could gather there and allowing it to be widely advertised through the news media and TV.

Prime Minister Narasimha Rao later declared that he was not responsible for the demolition of the ancient monument, dating back to the 15 th century, but that the UP government was responsible. Meanwhile, top police officials in charge of the situation at that time have alleged that the Central government of Narasimha Rao ordered the security forces to restrain themselves and not prevent the mobs from carrying out the demolition. Narasimha Rao in his deposition before the Liberhan Commission, said that he had acted “in good faith”, that he believed that the BJP government in UP and the mobs would follow the SC orders which had put a stay on demolition of the Masjid. When asked what steps were taken by the Central security forces to ensure that the Supreme Court orders were followed, he had no answer.

Kalyan Singh, then Chief Minister of the BJP government in UP, evaded appearing before the Liberhan Commission for 12 years, with the contention that this would prejudice his criminal case pending before the CBI court in UP. Meanwhile, he has switched his party allegiance many times. In June 2003, during the NDA government of Vajpayee at the Centre, Kalyan Singh who had left the BJP and was then heading the Rashtriya Kranti Party, told the media that “there was a conspiracy between Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K.Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi to demolish the disputed structure”. At that time, Union Home Minister L.K. Advani was reported to have said that the then UP government of Kalyan Singh was responsible for the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, as it had not taken adequate security measures. When Kalyan Singh was eventually forced to appear before the Commission, he accused the Central government of Narasimha Rao of a conspiracy. Kalyan Singh, who was by then back in the BJP, also wanted to withdraw his earlier statement about Advani and Vajpayee, alleging in an affidavit filed by him, that he had said so “in anger”, after reading news reports that the NDA government counsel had sought to put the blame for the demolition on the state government headed by him.

The Congress government of Narasimha Rao was in power till 1996. Thereafter, the UF government was in power till 1998. The BJP led NDA government was in power from 1998 to 2004. The Congress Party led UPA government has completed one and half years in office. While making promises, none of these governments pushed for bringing out the truth or punishing those guilty of organizing the demolition. The terms of the Liberhan Commission have been extended again and again, the latest being from September 30 to December 31. It is clear that neither the Congress Party nor the BJP is serious about bringing out the truth regarding the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992; nor can they be expected to do, because they are both responsible for it.

13 years after the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the serious question that continues to pose itself before the communists and justice-loving people of this country is how, within this system, criminal political parties in power continue to get away with committing such ghastly crimes against the people. It once again points to the urgency of developing mechanisms to fix responsibility on those in command, to ensure that the guilty are punished.

International Human Rights Day:

Fight to establish a democracy which enshrines and enforces human rights

The situation in India today is marked by the growing resistance struggle of workers and peasants, women and youth, the oppressed peoples and nations to their increasingly intolerable conditions. They are fighting for the transformation of these conditions such that the economy guarantees livelihood and well being for themselves and the future generations. They are demanding an end to the rule by an executive, assisted by a legislature and judiciary none of which are under the control and supervision of the workers and peasants. They are demanding their right to determine the future course of India.

The Indian bourgeoisie flaunts multi-party parliamentary democracy as proof of its legitimacy to rule. It uses the fundamental law of the land, a law that allows the enslavement and oppression of the Indian peoples by the native and foreign imperialists, a law that the peoples of India had no role in framing, to declare which of the aspirations of the people are legitimate and which are not. At the same time, it upholds as legitimate all the claims of the multinationals and the financial oligarchy, Indian and foreign, defending them with fascist laws and by the force of arms.

In the India of today, a person who questions the existing institutions and system, who proposes changes to the fundamental law, can be incarcerated and killed. The right to conscience is denied. People are discriminated against and persecuted because of their religion and ideological considerations, because of their birth, gender, religion and nationality. The right to livelihood is not even recognized as a right, let alone enforced; nor are rights to housing and shelter, education and health care. The Indian state of today denies that India is a multinational country with numerous nations and peoples, all aspiring for their national rights and wanting to be free and equal partners in the building of a new India on the highroad of civilization. Slogans such as upholding the “national unity and territorial integrity of Indian Union” are used to outlaw the struggles for the realisation of national aspirations.

The fundamental clash in India is over who should wield political power. Only the politically empowered can enshrine their rights and ensure their enforcement. Today, the bourgeoisie and the imperialists are able to enshrine and enforce their claims precisely because political power is in their hands.

The political system and process of multi party parliamentary democracy and the present Indian Union guarantee and defend political power in the hands of the big bourgeoisie. Only the “right” to exploit and plunder the land and resources and labour of the Indian peoples is upheld as sacrosanct.

The workers and peasants need to be politically empowered. The peoples and nations need to be politically empowered. Workers and peasants, women and youth, the oppressed peoples and nations need to establish a new arrangement by which political power will be wielded by them.

The political power of the workers and peasants must establish a new fundamental law that enshrines human rights, including the right to conscience and livelihood, as inviolable and must provide for both the enabling environment and the enforcing mechanisms by which the people can exercise these rights.

Concrete mechanisms must be established to ensure the harmonising of the interests of the individual and collectives with the general interests of society. All members of the polity must be endowed with equal rights and duties. The claims of minorities and other collectives to ensure their all round participation in the affairs of the society must be fulfilled. The rights of nations, nationalities and tribes, the rights of women, of children and the old, the rights of the disabled, the rights of minorities –whether religious or linguistic or ethnic or tribal must be deemed inviolate. Mechanisms must be established to ensure equality of all members of the polity irrespective of caste, gender, property life style or any other consideration.

All draconian laws of preventive detention must be revoked. The armed forces must never be deployed against the civilian population anywhere in the country. Forces presently deployed must be immediately withdrawn to the barracks. All those guilty of state terrorism, communal and fascist violence, caste atrocities, atrocities committed against women and children, both in the home and elsewhere must be speedily tried and punished in an exemplary fashion.

A modern democracy, a form of direct democracy of the workers and peasants must be established in place of the present multi-party representative democracy. A new fundamental law must be established by the people—a fundamental law that enshrines human rights, including the right to conscience and livelihood, as inviolable and provides for both the enabling environment and the enforcing mechanisms by which the people can exercise these rights The institutions of this modern democracy must end the supremacy of the executive over the legislature and must ensure that those who legislate are held accountable for the execution. The present talk shop parliament and state assemblies must be replaced with institutions which combine executive and legislative powers. The present unelected and unaccountable judiciary must be replaced by an elected judiciary. The parasitic bureaucracy must be dismantled and all administration must be brought under the control of the people.

The political process of this renewed democracy must end the role of the elected as gatekeepers who prevent people from exercising their power. The role of political parties as intermediaries and gate keepers to power must be ended by removing their right to select candidates for election and to hold political power. The role of the political parties must be redefined as that of the enablers of the people in their exercise of political power directly. The right to select, elect and recall the elected must vest with the people. The representatives of the people must be selected by their peers through special organisations established in mohallas, villages, and wherever people work. Elected organs of power, or constituency committees, must be created at the base of society all across the country on the basis of universal franchise. These organs of power along with a reconstituted election commission must be empowered to over see the selection of candidates at all levels of society. The power to ensure accountability of the elected and the power to initiate recall of unsuitable representatives must be vested in these organs of people’s power. The electorate must retain supreme power, including the right to initiate legislation. The limits of authority of the state organs at different levels of government must be strictly defined and all the residual powers must be vested in the organs of people’s power established at the base of society. Power at the top and power at the base must be organically linked with the power at the base controlling the power at the top.

A new voluntary union of consenting nations and peoples must be established in place of the existing colonial imperialist style union which enslaves the peoples. This modern Indian Union must be established as a free and equal union of all nations, nationalities and tribal peoples constituting India today. Appropriate organs of power at the level of nations and nationalities and tribes must be constituted to fulfill the economic, political and cultural claims of the people. All languages of the peoples must have equal status in the polity. The unity of the peoples must be built on the basis of mutual benefit and for mutual defence against imperialist predators. The fundamental law of the land must ensure the right to self-determination, up to and including secession, through the development of appropriate mechanisms for all the constituents of the union.

The creation of this new political power, a democracy that will enshrine and enforce human rights, is an exciting and challenging prospect facing the workers and peasants, women and youth, the oppressed peoples and nations. Communists, fighting for the creation of a truly humane society, free from all forms of exploitation and oppression of persons by persons, must plunge into this historic struggle for the creation of such a modern democracy.

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21 years of Bhopal Gas tragedy

The guilty must be punished!

21 years after killing thousands and leaving lakhs of people to face the disastrous consequence of the toxic gas, the culprits of the Bhopal gas disaster have not been punished. Several governments have changed both at state as well as central level, each one colluding with the American multinational Union Carbide and failing to provide either compensation or justice to the victims. Dow Chemicals, another American multinational and the present owner of Union Carbide, has refused to own to up the responsibility for paying up compensation, declaring that "Dow never owned or operated the Bhopal Plant". Even the compensation that was promised by the government has not reached the majority of victims.

Over the past 21 years, while the victims of this disaster and people both in India and across the world have been demanding that those guilty for allowing such a disaster to occur must be punished, including the highest officials of the Union Carbide, successive governments and various agencies have been actively collaborating with these multinationals and their imperialist backers in diluting the charges against those guilty. On May 24, 2002, the CBI filed an application in the Court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal, asking that the charge of "Culpable homicide" against the then Union Carbide Chief Warren Anderson, a fugitive now living in the United States, be reduced to "rash and negligent act". It is a clear case of the Central government's collusion with the US multinational, for once the case becomes a "rash and negligent act", it is not an extraditable offence. The government again conspired against the victims, when on June 7, 2002, the Group of Ministers on Bhopal took the scandalous decision to distribute the remaining compensation money to residents of other parts of Bhopal not affected by the tragedy, even while the victims have not got their dues. Following the agitation by the victims against this daylight robbery, the then Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers, S.S. Dhindsa, had to agree that the compensation money rightfully belonged to the victims and should not be squandered elsewhere.

The wilful negligence and callous attitude of the Indian ruling classes towards the health, safety and well being of people of India continues, alongside increasingly closer relationships with arrogant multinational corporations and their imperialist backers. Capitalist corporations are being offered concessions in environmental safety regulation, disregarding the health, safety and future of the people, so that these corporations can reap maximum profits. However, with each such instance of mass murder, the demand that the Guilty must be Punished is intensifying and people are demanding action against those controlling command positions.

High Court Stay Order on sale of mill land in Mumbai:

An advance for the working class and people

On 24 October, the Mumbai High Court issued a stay order on the sale of land by five mills belonging to the National Textile Corporation (NTC). These plots of land had been sold over the past year for a total of over Rs. 2000 crore to private Indian and foreign real estate companies and local politician-cum-builders, including one of the sons of Bal Thackeray. The Court also called for a halt to the redevelopment of land belonging to private owners who had closed down the once flourishing textile mills of central Mumbai and thrown lakhs of workers on the streets. In addition, the court also appointed a committee to look into the redevelopment of old workers’ dwellings in the chawls of Worli, Sewree, Naigaum and Delisle Road.

The Mumbai High Court was forced to give this verdict in the face of sustained pressure from the trade unions, citizens groups, political parties of workers and peasants, eminent architects and town planners, lawyers, retired judges, etc. People’s Voice congratulates the working class and all the hard working and justice loving people of Mumbai on having won this verdict through their united and sustained struggle.

For several years, numerous forms of mass protest have been launched against the brazen violation of all norms in the sale of mill lands. Activists even stormed the meetings being held in plush hotels where the big capitalists were discussing how to ‘redevelop’ the working class areas. Trade unions protested against the eviction of textile workers from central Mumbai. Broad sections of the residents of the area opposed the conversion of mill lands into super luxury apartments, commercial complexes and casinos.

The people’s anger was roused because the governments of the day – be it a Congress or a BJP led government – were bending backwards to change all laws to accommodate the rapacious greed of the big capitalists. In 2001, the then Congress Government of Maharashtra, led by the present Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, surreptitiously amended the rules without any debate even in the state assembly. By this amendment, mill owners were exempted from surrendering two-thirds of the land for public use, as had been stipulated in the original Mumbai Development Control Rules, 1991(DC Rules). Following this, many mill owners became real estate developers overnight, and constructed swanky malls, plush hotels, and forty storey towers on mill land.

After the Mumbai High Court gave its verdict, the Union Textiles Minister, Shankar Sinh Vaghela, declared that the Government of India would go to the Supreme Court in appeal against the High Court decision. Closely following this, the Union Agriculture Minister , Sharad Pawar, declared that if the High Court decision was implemented, the mills would allegedly not be able to pay the dues of the workers. The court verdict has exposed the fact that owners of mills that have been closed down have no right to sell the land on which the mill stood. They were given conditional possession of public land for a specific productive purpose, namely, for the purpose of operating textile mills. As soon as the productive activity ceased, the land should have been handed over to public ownership and people’s control. This is a just demand that has been raised by the movement against sale of mill lands to private profiteers.

The big bourgeoisie and its politicians obviously do not like the fact that the working class and people have won something. Their response shows that they will try all means at their disposal to reverse this gain. Hence the working class and people must not slacken their vigilance. They must build on the High Court verdict to further strengthen their position and step up the struggle.

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Halt further commitments by the Indian government in WTO!

As the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting of the WTO scheduled for 13-18 December 2005 draws near, trade ministers of member countries are preparing their country strategies for this critical meeting, two years after the collapsed Ministerial at Cancun in September 2003.

There are several major issues on world trade that are to be discussed at this meeting, specifically in areas related to the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). From the Indian perspective, all these are major areas of concern. In each of these, there is the concern of the workers, peasants and a large section of the working people that the Indian government has already given away too much in return for too little and that nothing more should be agreed to at this Ministerial.

Take the case of agriculture. Negotiations on agriculture began in early 2000 during the Uruguay Round, under Article 20 of the WTO Agriculture Agreement. The main thrust was to move away from the then prevailing quantitative restrictions to a regime of tariffs. The plan was to reduce these tariffs over a period of time. By November 2001 and the Doha Ministerial Conference, 121 governments had submitted a large number of negotiating proposals; India submitted its proposals on 15 Jan 2001. These proposals had commitments to deadlines for implementation and modalities for effecting the agreement.

The purpose of the WTO negotiations has been declared as the progressive curbing of barriers to trade, in whatever form, as the basis for increasing global trade. But the implementation experience of both the Uruguay Round and the Doha Round has amply indicated that the AoA has been unable to meet the deadlines set for reduction of domestic support (government support to growers), export subsidies and non tariff barriers to trade that have been used by the more industrialised countries to protect their farmers and dump their produce on the world markets.

The Indian government has refused to use all available means to restrict imports and dumping in its market and thus failed to defend the interests of the majority of our peasants. Instead, it has been trying to claim greater market access for exports of a few agricultural products, to benefit a handful of powerful agricultural interests. In the meantime, import duties on a large range of agricultural goods have been reduced drastically or even completely over the past decade. This has had eliminated disastrous effects on a large section of the farmers and on Indian agriculture.

Whereas the US and EU, predominantly, have safeguarded the interests of their agri-corporations and powerful farm lobbies, they have been pushing for the opening up of India's huge markets for their goods and services, clamouring for reduction of import duties on industrial goods, and liberalisation of regulations in India that seek to limit investment in manufacturing and services sector.

This is the context of the negotiations on NAMA and GATS that are of serious concern for the workers and peasants of India. Over 160 services sectors will be on the list in the demand for liberalisation under the GATS, containing clauses regarding market access and non-discrimination to foreign services providers. Services from credit and banking to provision of water and energy utilities will be opened up to foreign direct investment. What is the Indian government's calculation in this scheme?

The Indian government is looking for concessions in exporting services abroad through greater access to EU and US in terms of the movement of persons (or what is termed as mode 4 in cross-border supply of services). This is the crux of India's approach to the Hong Kong negotiations - allow more Indian professionals to go abroad on temporary visas in return for concessions elsewhere. This move is expected to benefit, in the main, a handful of IT corporations that make big money through such operations. Infosys, TCS, WIPRO, and a few more large companies in the IT sector secure huge contracts for development of software and installation of system for customers in the US, and elsewhere that requires their employees to stay in these countries for a few months.

In return for allowing India a larger quota in the overall number of such professionals who are granted this visa, groups suc h as the EU are demanding aggressive liberalisation in Foreign Direct Investment and are calling for restrictions on foreign ownership in India to be removed. The interest of the European Union (EU) and US lies more in establishing a greater commercial presence in developing countries, and in securing more liberal policies on foreign direct investment in sectors like insurance.

All this points to the fact that the Indian government is defending the interests of a handful of big players in agriculture who are looking for markets abroad and a handful of IT and other big corporations, who are expanding beyond the domestic market and collaborating with foreign financial capital t o achieve the same.

The government must not make any further commitments before there is full and informed discussion. Across the country, as people have felt the impact of globalisation, they have informed themselves of the issues and there is continuing debate amongst workers, peasants and wide sections of working people. While the government claims that it is acting on behalf of the interests of the Indian people, it is acting at the behest of a handful of capitalists. We do not want a "fait accompli" this time around, and further commitments must be halted till there is further discussion; the needs of the vast majority cannot be disregarded for the benefit of a few.

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Talk of “failed states” -- a justification for imperialist intervention

In the recent Summit of SAARC held in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke about how “failed states” in the region are increasingly becoming a threat to the security of South Asia. This statement, coming from the mouth of the head of the largest country in South Asia, which has strained relations with almost every other country in the region, smacks of big power arrogance. Even worse, it contains a veiled threat of interference in the affairs of other countries under the guise of their being “failed states”.

The term “failed states” is not an innocent term by any means. It was first coined and has been widely used by the government of the United States – the headquarters of imperialist aggression in the post-Cold War world – to refer to countries where, according to the logic of US imperialism, foreign intervention is justified for various reasons. According to the notion of “failed states”, the United States and other big powers can arrogate to themselves the right to march into any country, overthrow its government and establish an occupation regime, by claiming that it has become a “failed state” which poses a threat to the peace and security of other countries. What exactly constitutes a “failed state” is also left to the completely arbitrary judgement of these powers, on the basis of the principle of “might is right” – while it is a fact that it is precisely these imperialist powers that caused the "failure" in the first place. Using this argument, the US and its allies have militarily intervened in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosova, Afghanistan, Iraq and so on. The US-based “Fund for Peace” has even compiled an index of countries that are, or are most likely to become, failed states! According to this list, the most “at risk” countries are the Ivory Coast in Africa, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti. Further down the list, but also “at risk” are Bangladesh (17th), Guatemala (31st), Egypt (38th), Saudi Arabia (45th), and Russia (59th).

From this it becomes clear that when the Indian government talks about “failed states” in the South Asian region, it is presuming to have the same licence to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries in the region, in the name that their problems can affect India's “national interests”. Indian officials and political leaders have several times in various forums expressed “concern” over civil strife or other conditions in Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, claiming that this has bearing on India's interests. It has intervened in other countries of the region in the past, and is fully prepared to do so again when it feels that is in its interests. By aping the US imperialist language of “failed states”, the Manmohan Singh government is trying to present its imperialist ambitions in the neighbourhood in a language and form that matches the policy and practice of the US and other big powers at the present time, to try and win their approval or concurrence.

The Indian people do not accept, and indignantly condemn, Manmohan Singh's talk about “failed states” in our region. This does not represent the outlook of our working class and people towards the neighbouring peoples and countries. In every country in this region, the activity of the exploiting classes acting hand in glove with foreign imperialists has bogged down the peoples in a cycle of poverty, insecurity and strife. It is up to the peoples in each country to settle their own affairs in the manner they choose. Neither the Indian state nor any other state has the right to judge what is the course that any other people should pursue, or to use the conditions in those countries to justify aggression or interference in any form.

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Massive working class protests in Australia

More than six lakh workers in Australia took part in co-ordinated protests in cities around the country on November 15. This was the biggest workers' demonstration ever seen in Australia. In the city of Melbourne alone, more than one lakh workers took part, while a major highway in Sydney was blocked by transport workers taking part in the protest.

The workers were protesting the draconian anti-worker and anti-union laws sought to be passed by the government, which are currently before the federal parliament. These laws if passed will have serious adverse impact on the living and working conditions of the working class in Australia, considered one of the most “developed” countries in the world.

Among other things, the proposed laws would allow minimum wages to be set by a government-appointed Commission on the basis of "competitiveness", without regard for fairness and decent living standards. They would give sweeping powers to the employers, allowing them to decide unilaterally on matters like annual leave, bonuses, overtime rates and other provisions for many workers, especially younger workers and those starting a new job. They would also facilitate the system of workers being given individual employment contracts, and remove protection from unfair dismissal for all workers in workplaces employing less than 100 workers.

The laws are above all an attack on the rights of the workers to unionize and fight collectively for their rights. Trade union activities would be restricted, and the government would be given sweeping powers to prevent industrial actions if it considers them harmful to the economy.

The proposed laws are a fascist attack on the working class of Australia. They reflect the frenzied drive of world capital in this period to step up the exploitation of the working class and people in all countries by trampling on their hard-won rights. The protests are a clear warning to the Australian government and the capitalists that the workers are not going to take such attacks lying down and will fight back.

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