Defend the unity of the toiling people by exposing and resisting all forms of state terrorism

A number of apparently unconnected happenings in different regions of the country indicate the serious preparations of the ruling class to carry out “mid term course correction”, to ensure that the working class, peasantry and other exploited and oppressed do not unite and fight for their own claims. In different ways, the ruling class is unleashing escalated state terrorism on the workers, peasants and broad masses of toiling people and organizing sectarian clashes to break our unity. This onslaught is part of the worldwide onslaught of imperialism against the working class and peoples in different countries of the globe. The aim of this onslaught is to depoliticize the working class and people and keep them out of the political arena. The challenge before communists is to lead the workers and peasants in frustrating the designs of the bourgeoisie and imperialism.

Three years have elapsed since the bourgeoisie carried out a “course correction”, to ensure that the road of liberalization, privatization and globalization to achieve its dream of becoming an imperialist superpower by 2020 was not hampered. Under the slogan of “reforms with a human face”, it brought the UPA coalition to power, which has since been ruling with support of the Left Front. Three years down the line, the UPA government’s “reforms with a human face” are there for all to see. All sections of the toiling and oppressed people —workers, peasants, small shopkeepers, women, youth, tribal people, —have faced massive attacks on their rights and livelihood. And most importantly, all sections of the toiling and oppressed people have been resisting these attacks.

The bourgeoisie is hell bent on continuing the course of economic policy reforms, to become an imperialist superpower. It is utlilising the state machinery, and the different ruling class parties to unleash state terrorism on a widespread scale all across the country. The aim is to divert, divide and terrorise the workers and peasants along sectarian lines, so as to break the back of the people's resistance. It is using every weapon at its disposal – bomb blasts, caste riots, provocations against this or that community, communal and sectarian clashes — to achieve this aim. This is what the developments of the last few months reveal.

Why were bombs set off in religious places in Malegaon and in Hyderabad, followed by massive police repression? Why were bomb blasts organized in the Samjhauta Express to Lahore, in which many poor people died? Why was the state so keen to declare, without a shadow of evidence, that these were the work of Islamic terrorists from Bangladesh? It is not a coincidence that these terrorist strikes followed by police repression took place in the wake of countrywide protests against state sponsored terrorism in Gujarat and Kashmir. The reality that the state security forces are routinely killing, raping and murdering innocent people of the Muslim faith in the name of “wiping out terrorists” has shaken the conscience of people all across the country. These attacks have been a tool to spread fear and frustration among the people, creating a situation in which the people of Muslim faith are looked upon as “terrorists”, and any attack on them is justified on this basis.

The people of Assam, Manipur, Kashmir and other places are being deliberately targeted by the ruling class, through open repression by the armed forces and the draconian laws in place in these regions, as well as through bomb blasts and killer-squads of mercenary groups operating on behalf of the state agencies. This is taking place at a time when widespread support has begun to develop for the demand for the repeal of fascist laws like AFSPA and a political solution to the problems facing the people in these states.

In Chattisgarh, the state is openly unleashing repression on tribal people through its Salva Judum campaign. The Salva Judum campaign has become a vehicle for making tribals kill tribals, for inciting a civil war situation, using the alleged “Maoist terror”.

In Punjab, the growing united resistance of the peasantry and working class to the liberalization and privatization program of the bourgeoisie, to the attacks on livelihood, the SEZ’s, etc. is being sought to be divided by inciting sectarian violence between followers of different faiths.

In Rajasthan which has been the scene of militant and united struggles of the peasantry for the past several years in defence of their rights, we have the ruling class parties inflaming passions by holding out alluring images of reservations in education and jobs, openly attacking the people on the basis of caste identity and trying to incite people organized under one caste banner against people of another.

These are but a few of the instances which clearly reveal the dastardly aim of the ruling class, of using state terrorism to divide and terrorise the people and smash their united resistance.

The source of all the problems of Indian society lies in the fact that political power is not in the hands of the working masses, but only in the hands of the minority, parasitic exploiting ruling bourgeoisie. What is being witnessed in the struggles of all sections of the oppressed people today is the claim to political power, the demand for the right to take decisions concerning our lives, and for mechanisms to implement these decisions. The Communist Ghadar Party of India has been actively working to organize the people towards realizing this goal.

The situation calls for communists to boldly expose the diabolical aims of the ruling class and point out that the masses of working people are not terrorists, not communal, sectarian or responsible for the caste violence. It is the ruling big bourgeoisie and its political parties that are responsible for organizing terrorist and sectarian violence and cynically playing with the sentiments of the oppressed people, in order to forestall the real possibility of all the exploited and oppressed coming together on a common platform of putting an end to this hated rule of the exploiters. They will continue to heap tragedy after tragedy on the toiling people, in order to cover up the fact that they have no solution to the problems of the people and to safeguard their rule from the wrath of the people.

It is absolutely urgent that the working and oppressed people of all sections and communities all over the country unite around the common banner of ending this rule of the bourgeoisie and taking political power in our own hands.