December 16-31, 2006

Comrades

Ahundred and fifty years ago, the people of India rose in revolt against colonialists of the East India Company. With the clarion call “Hum hai iske malik, Hindustan hamara” they challenged the colonialists with an armed rebellion. With death defying courage, the peasants and artisans and soldiers, men and women, young and old, fought the superiorly trained and organized forces of the colonialists.

Barrackpore, Behrampur, Patna, Varanasi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Meerut and many other big and small towns from Bengal to Punjab and from Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra became centers of the uprising. Uniting as one, cutting across caste and creed, the Ghadaris of 1857 captured Delhi and installed Bahadur Shah Zafar as the Emperor of independent India. For nearly three months, they defended Delhi from the onslaught of the colonial army.

Finally, the colonialists recaptured Delhi and took Bahadur Shah Zafar as prisoner. They shot his grandsons from cannons in the Khooni Darwaza in Delhi. They blinded 80 year old Zafar and sent him to prison in Yangon in Burma. The road from Peshawar in the West to Kolkata in the East was a gruesome witness to the spectacle of tens of thousands of patriots hung on each and every tree lining that road. The Buda Bargad in Kanpur is just one of the trees that is a reminder of the barbarity of the colonialists.

Why did the Ghadaris of 1857 rise up in revolt? They rose in revolt because they could not bear the unbridled loot and plunder of the land and resources of our country by the colonialists. They could not stand any longer the deprivation and humiliation heaped on our people. Arms in hand, they were the proud continuers of the traditions of the Bhaktas and Sufis, who had aroused in an earlier period, the Indian people against Brahmanism and the foreign invaders. The Ghadaris of 1857 were seeking, not to restablish the Mughal order that had decayed and died, but a new order, a new rule, where in the people of India would decide how they should be ruled.

Comrades and friends,

The aspirations of our people were drowned in blood and the British colonialists established the present Indian state in 1858 to supervise the ruthless loot and plunder of India. They learnt appropriate lessons from the Ghadar, and took measures to prevent future Ghadars.

A class of capitalists and landlords of Indian origin was created in whose interest it was to preserve capitalism, the remnants of feudalism, imperialism and colonialism.

The regiments of the British India armed forces were organized on communal lines, so that armed forces did not fraternize with each other and unite in rebellion against the colonialists.

The British parliament discussed and decided that India could only be ruled if Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs were set against each other. Towards this end, the colonialists went about with a definite plan, isolating the patriots of all religions and communities, and promoting their agents who would spew communal poison and defend colonial rule. The colonialists rewrote, and encouraged their agents to rewrite Indian history in such a manner as to portray Indians as a backward people, with no philosophy, political theory, but a people out to slaughter each other on communal lines. Communal massacres were organized, one after the other, in one region or another, to spread poison amongst the Indian people, and to smash our anti colonial struggle for liberation. The partition of India was the final blow to the anti colonial struggle and the aspirations of Indians to be masters of their own land.

150 years have passed after the Ghadar. Nearly 60 years have passed since India was partitioned and declared independent. In the India of today, the vast majority of our people— workers and peasants, women and youth, and the tribal peoples face savage exploitation and oppression. A minority of Indians, in league with foreign imperialists control the state and government, and use the state to guarantee the loot and plunder of India by the imperialists, Indian and foreign. The rule of the “kala Sahibs” has been firmly established in place of the “white Sahibs”. This is the rule of the Indian big bourgeoisie, who have always collaborated with the foreign imperialists against the toilers and tillers. The armed forces are regularly used to crush the struggles of our people, whenever they threaten the present arrangement of power. The present Indian state is a communal state, which uses state terrorism, including communal massacres, as part of its preferred arsenal to preserve the rule of the capitalists. It is an imperialist state, which colludes and contends with the other imperialists in the loot and plunder of India and her resources. It is a state that has preserved the colonial legacy whereby the state is an instrument to suppress the masses of toilers and tillers, women and youth and tribal peoples, and ensure the flourishing of capitalism. It is a state which is a direct continuer of the state that British colonialists established following the crushing of the 1857 Ghadar.

“Hindustan hamara hai” was the call that inspired the Ghadaris of 1857. Today too, the vast majority of our people are severely exploited and oppressed. It is a minority of Indians, who control the state and all the main means of production and use it to serve their profit motive. The masses of people do not have political power in their own hands. The political parties that run governments in the center and states are all but instruments of the capitalists and imperialists. They specialize in dividing the people along communal and caste lines. They specialize in keeping the people out of power, and serve the interests of the big bourgeoisie and the imperialists. They are loyal to the present Indian state, its fundamental law, its system of governance, all of which are alien to the Indian people. It is in their interests to preserve this system, as they benefit from it. The people do not benefit from this system; hence the people need to change it. This is the unfinished task of the martyrs of 1857 which today we have to fulfill. This is the challenge of our times confronting the workers and peasants, women and youth of our country today.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India, the Lok Raj Sangathan, the Mazdoor Parishad, and other organizations are organizing a Public Seminar in Lucknow on December 24, 2006 on the theme “The Ghadar of 1857 continues…”. This is part of a country wide campaign to draw appropriate conclusions from the experience of the Ghadar of 1857 to assist the Indian people in their struggle today. We call upon all those concerned about the fate and future of our motherland, to join actively in this campaign and contribute to the building of a powerful movement for realizing the call of the times “Hum hai iske malik, hum hai Hindustan, mazdoor, kisaan, aurat aur jawan.”