Diabolical games of ruling class parties to divide people

Over 25 people have been killed during the weeklong agitation over reservation in Rajasthan, fuelled by the May 29 police firing on protestors demanding the fulfillment of an electoral promise.

The BJP – ruling the state - had four years ago, assured the Gujjar community prior to the state Assembly polls, that they would be reclassified as a “Scheduled Tribe” instead of as “Other Backward Classes”.

The Gujjar Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti – that is spearheading the agitation - has temporarily suspended its agitation on June 4, after the Rajasthan Chief Minister agreed to set up a committee to look into the claim for inclusion of the community in the Scheduled Tribe category.

As tens of thousands of people organized around this demand blocked the highways in South and East Rajasthan, the Congress Party provided fuel to the agitation from behind the scenes, both in Rajasthan and in nearby states, to corner the BJP.

On the other hand, the Raje Government continued to try and quell the agitation using massive police repression.

Both the Congress and the BJP have been spreading rumours through the media as well as their agents in different caste based organizations, to set people against each other on the basis of caste. A dangerous situation has been created in entire southern and eastern Rajasthan. Full preparations have been made by the ruling class parties for organizing bloody sectarian clashes on the basis of caste to ensure their continued domination over the polity.

Who is responsible for the mayhem and violence in Rajasthan and other parts of northern India in this past week?

It is clear as daylight that the blood-letting on the streets of Rajasthan is the handiwork of the ruling class parties.

They have divided the polity along caste and other lines, to ensure that the toilers and tillers do not unite and fight for the rights of all. Instead, as in colonial times, the ruling class promotes various elements belonging to this or that sect, caste or community, who act as its leaders and put forth narrow sectarian demands. These demands are then gratuitously accepted in public by the leaders of the ruling class parties like Congress, BJP and others.

Which party or parties “benefits” from this at a particular moment or in a particular election, which party pushes an “agitation” at a particular time varies according to the situation. The crucial issue is that these parties base their rule on the division of the polity along sectarian lines and the unleashing of sectarian violence to achieve their aims. State power, including party and caste organizations, is deployed routinely to achieve these aims.

On June 5, the Supreme Court ordered the police chiefs of Rajasthan, Haryana, UP and Delhi to report within ten days on what action they have taken against the agitators. The Supreme Court in its observations has expressed “horror” at the large scale destruction of property during the bandh in Delhi and other states and has suggested that collective fines be imposed on those who participated in the agitation.

The Supreme Court of course has no punishment for the real forces that are behind the mayhem in these states - the Congress, BJP and other ruling class parties.

There is no doubt widespread concern amongst people at large at the police repression, the sectarian violence unleashed bv the state and ruling class parties. The people want those guilty of committing crimes against the people to be punished. This means firstly, that the crime must be recognized. Secondly, the perpetrators of the crime must be identified. The Supreme Court is horrified at destruction of public property, but it does not consider the destruction of the polity that has been engineered by the ruling class parties a crime. It does not consider the loss of lives of ordinary people as a result of state repression a crime. However, people who protest this state repression are being considered “criminals”! In other words, people have to pay twice and thrice over for the crimes of the ruling class and its parties. On the other hand, the ruling class consolidates its rule, having achieved its aim — keeping the toilers and tillers divided and at loggerheads, even more marginalized from political power than before.

The Congress, BJP and other political parties of the ruling class have always used reservation to deceive and divide the toiling people. The oppressed and deprived sections of the society are always told that the maximum they can hope for is a bigger share of the miniscule number of government jobs available.

So, with more communities battling for the OBC share of the pie, striving for SC or ST status is suggested as a way forward.

Through this politics of reservation, people are deliberately kept away from the path of demanding that it is the duty and responsibility of the state to provide gainful employment and livelihood to all. People are diverted from focusing on the main source of their problems, i.e. the exploitative rule of the big bourgeoisie, which cannot and will not provide for all. At this time when the state of the big bourgeoisie and the political system managed by its political parties is increasingly getting discredited in the eyes of the masses, reservation is being used again and again as a tool to prevent the oppressed masses from fighting to overthrow this rule and reorganize society and all its resources to provide livelihood and well being to all.

The developing situation exposes with great clarity the grave error of those in the communist and workers' movement who are serving the strategy of the bourgeoisie by promoting demands for further extending caste based reservation. M azdoor Ekta Lehar/ People’s Voice calls upon all communists to condemn the ruling class parties and oppose the division of the polity on sectarian lines.