The Mumbai Committee of Lok Raj Sangathan organised a seminar on “1857 – Ghadar Jaari Hai” in Central Mumbai on Sunday 29 th July 2007. Braving the rain that had been falling incessantly for three days, people from all walks of life – workers, youth, students, professionals and a large number of women came to participate in the programme. Apart from three keynote speeches, there were more than half a dozen other papers. The papers had been prepared with a good deal of research and they were presented in a lively, interesting way – many of them by young women.

The meeting was attended by close to a hundred people and included activists of Lok Raj Sanghathan, Communist Ghadar Party, Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha, the General Secreatary and Committee Members of Voltas Employees Union, the General Secretary of BEST Kamgar Union, the General Secretary and members of Ladaku Garment Kamgar Union, General Secretary of Ghar Kamgar Molkarin Sanghathana, representatives of SUCI, Prerna, Kashipur Solidarity Group, Airport Employees Union, Kashtakari Yuvak Sanghathana and Parivartan.

The first session was on pre-British India. The keynote paper gave a large number of facts to expose the myths propagated by our erstwhile rulers – that India was a poor, undeveloped, uneducated country, with no technology; that Indians are backward, superstitious and uncultured with nothing in their past to be proud of; that the West, particularly England, is the source of all knowledge and enlightenment; that India is very fortunate to have been ruled over and civilised by the British; that the British were very magnanimous in accepting the white man’s burden of ruling India, that Indians are casteist and communal, and so on. It explained how the British set about ruining our economy, destroying our agriculture, industry and social welfare systems, and imposing backward customs and practices that had largely died down due to the struggle of our own people. They destroyed our education system and set up their own to serve their interests. Apart from massacring more than a crore of our people, they committed cultural genocide and memocide – destroying the collective memory of our people. The effects of this violence are being felt to this day.

Today India is crying out for all-round renewal. To grapple with this problem, it is absolutely essential to know where we come form. We inherit a rich body of thought material from the past. We have to look at it from the vantage point of the needs of the present – preserve or renew what can help us and overcome whatever is acting as a roadblock. At the same time, we have to look at other cultures and accept what is progressive and in tune with our needs.

The second session was about the struggle for freedom. The keynote paper dealt with the innumerable glorious revolts against the British Raj of which the Great Ghadar of 1857 was the most important. The speaker pointed out that the revolts were inspired by lofty ideals and not by narrow self interest as the British and some of their lackeys tried to portray. He gave the example of Tipu Sultan who called upon various rulers of Asia to revolt against British colonization. He is known to have offered 1 lakh Rupees to Benjamin Franklin for throwing the British out of America. Whereas the British then, and the brown sahibs now, whom they created and who rule in India today, talk of the ghadar of 1857 as a revolt of some feudal elements to preserve their rule, the truth was that every section of the Indian population, farmers, weavers, soldiers and craftsmen and even some from the ruling classes revolted. That in the aftermath of the revolt, the British killed one crore Indians out of the total estimated population of 15 crores, is proof enough that the revolt was a popular uprising and not a revolt by a handful of princes and soldiers.

One paper in this session gave a large number of examples and quotations to expose the role of the Indian National Congress as the tool set up by the imperialists to safeguard their Raj. It was a forum for the rich classes created and promoted by the British to articulate their grievances and a way of co-opting them into the system. From its inception to this day, the Congress has behaved treacherously towards the people of our country. It has always tried to fool the people, divert them form the revolutionary path and has always upheld the interests of imperialism and of Indian capitalists and zamindars. The paper talked about how zealously the Nehru government safeguarded the interests of the British capitalists who had invested in India. In 1963, he proudly told a reporter that the profits of the British companies were higher than before independence!

Moving away from the Congress, the next paper touched briefly on the Ghadar Party that was formed by revolutionaries in 1913, with the aim of liberating our country and ending exploitation and oppression of our people. It boldly proclaimed itself to be the enemy of the British Raj and seriously took up the task of organising mutinies in the British Indian armed forces. The paper talked about the hundreds of martyrs who gave their lives for this aim.

Another paper dealt with the glorious uprising by the sailors of the Royal Indian Navy. This uprising shook the British Empire to its foundations and precipitated the inevitable. It pointed out the uprising was betrayed by the leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League, which was another party fostered by the British colonialists.

Another paper talked about the education system prevailing in India before the British Raj and the changes rung in by the British. It pointed out that the prevailing education system is also in the interests of the present day ruling classes of the country and not of the people.

One member of Lok Raj Sangathan talked about the fight of communists against the razakkars of the Nizam in the erstwhile Hyderabad state. He very proudly explained how his forefathers had participated and led the struggle in their village.

A young girl from Prerana organisation spoke passionately about the message of Bhagat Singh and about how necessary it is for all people’s organisations to make common cause and rid our country of exploitation and oppression – the cause for which innumerable martyrs sacrificed their lives.

“All this is very interesting”, a young girl said to the Convener during the lunch break. “But why are we spending so much time discussing the past when there are so many burning issues in the present?” Her question was answered by the keynote speech of the last session, which was on the theme, “Ghadar Jaari Hai.”

As the keynote speech pointed out, when we look back at the situation prevailing in India around 1857, or later till 1947, it appears as though we are looking at the picture of India even today. Whether it is the repetitive famines across the length and breadth of our country, the impoverished peasantry driven to despair, the ruined artisans, or the complete ruination and neglect of public education and health system, one feels as if nothing has changed for the better for the working people of our country.

The British imperialists used Indian soldiers as cannon fodder to fight their wars of expansion and aggression, and also to brutally suppress the patriots fighting for liberating our motherland from their clutches. They used to spend a huge portion of taxes collected from the Indian people for maintaining their massive military machine. Post 1947, the ruling classes of India are also pursuing similar policies. They want increased militarization for achieving their own imperialist ambitions. They repeatedly use the police and military to suppress the patriots of today who are fighting to rid our people of exploitation.

The British imperialists adopted policies, which ensured the highest possible returns for their investments in the Indian economy and used to provide them the fullest protection. Post 1947, the Indian ruling classes have not only not confiscated the British property, but in fact, they have consistently been fully protecting the investments of all the imperialists. Take the example of Union Carbide which was responsible for death of lacs of Bhopal residents or ENRON which as a company had to be dissolved in the USA after its fraudulent deeds were exposed and which was responsible for the total ruination of the power situation in Maharashtra. The assets of these companies have been protected by the Indian government, while those who have been fighting against these companies for justice have been showered with lathis and bullets. These are just two examples. The Indian government stands as a guarantor for all the foreign investments, thus going many steps beyond what the British government did!

The presentation thus clarified that what happened on 15 th August was not real freedom but just the Transfer of Power. It was not a break from the past but just the continuation of the old, albeit in different hands.

So it is no wonder that post 1947, the Indian ruling classes through their well-developed and well-camouflaged multiparty parliamentary system have followed similar policies as those of the British colonialists.

• The Indian ruling classes have perfected the use of the diabolical policy of Divide and Rule.
• The Indian ruling classes regularly organise communal massacres.
• The Indian ruling classes have maintained the same judicial system which professes that “Unless convicted everybody is considered by law as innocent” and that “everybody is equal in front of the goddess of justice’’, while in reality ensuring that the judicial system is used to keep the common man completely chained to the system and along with the other arm of state i.e. the police, ensuring that the fighting people are suppressed.
• The Indian ruling classes have used the system of Privileges, the Politics of Accommodation, the policy of setting up enquiry commissions to cool down the anger of people and many other policies initiated by the British.
• The Indian ruling classes, just like the Britishers, endeavour to hide the progressive values and learnings of our people and to keep them chained to backwardness. This becomes clear from the education policies which they have been pursuing and also their attempts to hide the reality of not only Ghadar of 1857 but of many other uprisings and rebellions of the Indian people, both before and after 1947. The Indian ruling classes are also feverishly pursuing Eurocentrism, which Britishers systematically established through their educational policies.

Anybody who raises his voice against the present system is labelled as a Terrorist and anybody who talks of overthrowing the present ruling classes is labelled as seditious by the Indian ruling classes. This is exactly what the Britishers used to do with the Ghadarites of 1857 and with many other great patriots before and after them.

Thus what happened in 1947 was just Transfer of Power. The Ghadar of the Indian People is still On! The presentation called upon the Indian people to give up this entire Colonial Legacy and to organise and fight for the emancipation of our people.

One of the speakers in the third session talked on state terrorism that is such a major problem in India today. As a part of the so-called “War on Terror” launched by the Anglo-American imperialists, the Muslim community worldwide is being maligned and targeted. The Indian state is also guilty of this.

When the floor was thrown open, a young woman from the audience got up and told the people how her totally innocent uncle, along with 12 others also from the Muslim community has been arrested and tortured continuously for months together as culprits of the 7/11 bomb blasts in Mumbai. She said that they were poor people who had no resources to fight the state that had already decided that they were guilty, and that the judge was not interceding on their behalf though the marks of torture were very evident on their bodies. She said that the state is responsible for these acts of terror – it does not punish the guilty but goes on harassing and torturing poor, innocent people. She passionately appealed to those present to help them in their fight for justice.

The Convener of Lok Raj Sangathan assured her that their organisation would do all in its power to help and appealed to the other organisations to help the cause. A member of LRS, an old, respected teacher, got up and very emotionally declared that he would not rest while this sister was in trouble.

A young man from the Kashipur Support Group described the fight to save their land and livelihood that the local Adivasis were waging for 13 long years against the might of the multinational companies, Indian and foreign that had the full backing of the state and central governments. Repression had increased and leaders of the struggle were being arrested and held on trumped up, serious charges.

Another youth from Prerana talked about the need to fight for socialism. He denounded the Indian State’s attack on the muslim community and explained that it was because the muslim community was at the forefront in opposing the hegemonistic policies of US imperialism.

The seminar concluded with the song “Nafaz nafaz” rendered by a group of youth. Many people stayed behind and congratulated the Lok Raj Sangathan for orgnasing such an important seminar.