Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, August 11, 2008

Millions of us workers will go on a general strike all over the country on August 20, 2008. This is a criticalpoint for the Indian working class. It can become a turning point in our struggle against exploitation and foremancipation of labour.

Workers in the engineering, mining, steel, defence and other heavy industries in the Public Sector, industrial workers in the private sector, transport workers in airports, railways and roadways, teachers in schools and universities, workers of the, banking and insurance sector, workers of the municipal services and Central and State Government employees are some of the sections of our working people who will go on strike on that day.

This General strike of the working class is taking place at a time when the major capitalist economies of the world, with the US in the lead, are facing slowdown or recession. This is also having its impact on the Indian economy. The workers, peasants and masses of working people are facing its impact in the form of skyrocketing prices and shrinking of their real incomes, insecurity of employment and intense exploitation at the workplace.

In the conditions of the crisis of capitalism, the bourgeoisie of our country has signalled its intention to race ahead towards its dream of emerging as a world class imperialist power. It wants to use the world economic crisis to its advantage. It is demanding that the UPA government take immediate steps to facilitate its drive to increase its profits and Continued on page 9 shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers and peasants. We workers have to organize to block this dangerous path.

We workers have been demanding emergency measures to roll back the price increase of oil, food grains, pulses and other essential commodities. We have been demanding an expanded and universal modern Public Distribution System through which the entire population can get food grains, pulses and all essential commodities in adequate quantity, at affordable prices, and of good quality. We have been demanding that the statutory minimum wages be immediately raised to a level fit for human existence. We have been demanding that the government immediately pass a law that would affirm the rights of millions of workerswho have no rights at present: that is, workers in the so called unorganised sector.

We have been resolutely opposing pr i vat isat ion of publ ic sector enterprises, banks and other financial institutions, of pension and provident funds, to prevent the hard earned savings of working people from being handed over to private profiteering institutions. We have been demanding that the right to strike be recognised as a right for all wage earning and salaried people without exception. We have been demanding emergency measures to protect our peasant brothers from bankruptcy and suicide. We workers have been opposing the setting up of Special Economic Zones by forcibly depriving peasants of their only means of livelihood – land.

The UPA government has been refusing to letter heed of our concerns and demands for the past four years. On the contrary, it has already implemented, or planning to push through various reforms related to pensions and provident funds, banking and insurance, increasing foreign direct investment in insurance and retail sectors, privatisation of airports and railways, and capitalist land grab in the name of Special Economic Zones. It plans to open up defence production to Indian and foreign companies. It is impatient to implement reforms in labour laws as demanded by the capitalist associations. In sum, it is carrying out the behest of the Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists to maximise their profits through savage exploitation of the land, labour, and natural resources of our people.

Twenty four years of these "economic reforms" have shown that this is a course that has led to the immiseration and ruination of workers and peasants at one pole, and the enormous enrichment of the exploiting minority at the other pole. The bourgeoisie has clearly declared that it will pursue this imperialist agenda with a vengeance. We workers are organising this general strike to express our complete opposition to this course and agenda.

Down with the imperialist agenda of the Indian bourgeoisie!

Organise to defeat the privatisation and liberalisation program!

The General Strike takes place at a time when there is an escalation of terrorist strikes against the ordinary people. Bourgeois politicians are calling for new fascist laws, stepped up repression and persecution of socalled suspected terrorists in different parts of the country. State terrorism, including state organised communal and sectarian violence, and organising of terrorist attacks, have accompanied the 24 years of the capitalist reforms and imperialist drive.

The aim of the bourgeoisie and its state in organising bomb blasts and sectarian violence at this time is to implement its anti-worker, antipeasant, imperialist agenda, by breaking the unity of workers and peasants, and by terrorising and disorienting them. Through this general strike, we workers express our opposition to state terrorism including the state organised communal and sectarian violence, and our determination to foil the bourgeoisie's plans.

Down with state sponsored communalism and terrorism!

An attack on one is an attack on all!

The General Strike takes place at a time when the period of communist and left parties supporting Congress Party rule has come to an end. The UPA government was formed in 2004 with the promise of a middle path, of capitalist reforms with a "human face". Workers were told that this regime would balance the interests of the capitalist class and the working class. However, facts show that the UPA pursued the same agenda and
course of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. Workers need to draw appropriate lessons from this experience. One lesson is that there is no such thing as a middle road between capitalism and socialism. Another lesson is that no working class organization, no communist party, should ever again support a capitalist government. Did not the parliamentary left support to the government, effectively lead to the emasculation of our struggle? Were our struggles not blunted, fed as we were with the illusion that there was no need to struggle?

Four years of UPA rule with Left support, and 60 years of representative democracy have clearly revealed that this political system is an instrument of rule of the bourgeoisie. Workers can have no illusions that their interests can be defended or advanced in this system. It is the bourgeoisie which is exercising its dictatorship over all aspects of life of our society — the polity, the economy, and the foreign policy.

Capitalist reforms with or without a "human face" are only going to increase the misery of workers and peasants and working people. As we fight to defeat the agenda of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, we must prepare to put an end to the capitalist system and replace it with socialism. By socialism is meant a system based on social ownership and control over the means of production, a system that will ensure security and prosperity to all. Time has come for the working class to challenge the rule of the bourgeoisie. We must challenge the existing political process of representative democracy.

We must fight for overhauling the electoral process so that working people actually select and elect their best representatives and hold them to account. This can be done. This must be done.

Let us prepare to build the unity of the class and of all the exploited and oppressed in a political front of workers and peasants committed to take political power in their hands! Let the All India General Strike be a declaration of workers and toilers of our country that we will fight unsparingly to defeat the imperialist agenda of the Indian bourgeoisie, and march forward to replace the rule of capitalists with the rule of workers and peasants!

Forward with the struggle to establish a direct democracy of workers and
peasants!

Let us consign this representative democracy and talk-shop parliament to the dustbin of history!

Build the political front for workerpeasant rule!