The year 2007 has been a year of increasing attacks on the lives, livelihood and rights of the masses of people by the big bourgeoisie, as it strives to become a global imperialist power. It has also been a year when workers, peasants, women, youth, tribals and people of the various nationalities within the Indian union have been organising and fighting to challenge the rule of the bourgeoisie.

The privatisation of public sector enterprises and public utilities and services, such as power supply, water supply, health and education have posed major challenges before the working class and people. The central and state governments have been actively enabling the big Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists to reap maximum profits by exploiting the labour and natural resources of our people, in the name of creating a ‘favourable climate’ for finance capital. R, workers have been waging many militant struggles, the year culminating in massive rail r ights won by workers through years of hard struggle are being blatantly negated. Against this rail roko and rasta roko agitations, dharnas and demonstrations all over the country on December 4-5. Workers in the unorganised sector have been waging a relentless struggle for the right to organise and for legislation to guarantee their basic rights and security.

Braving the fascist violence of the state, peasants have been resisting the acquisition of their land by big Indian and foreign capitalists for the setting up of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and other enterprises, in Maharashtra, Orissa, UP, Chatttisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal and elsewhere. Peasants across the country who are reeling under the all-sided attack on their livelihood and very survival have marched into Delhi, time and again this past year, to demonstrate against the policies that have driven them to acute distress and suicides.

Adivasis have come out in large numbers opposing their displacement from their forest land and villages, to make way for giant projects by the big Indian and foreign monopolies in Chhatisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. Fishermen in the coastal areas of Tamilnadu and other states, who are being uprooted for various "development" projects, have also been active in the struggle in defence of livelihood rights.

Retail traders, wholesalers and hawkers across the country have been protesting against the threat to their livelihood due to the entry of foreign and Indian multinationals in trade.

The UPA government has been actively strengthening the Indo-US strategic alliance, and signed the nuclear agreement with the US, portraying this as being in the best interests of the country. Our party has consistently pointed out that the Indian people do not need such an alliance with one of the most bloodthirsty, warmongering imperialist powers known to mankind. Such an alliance is against the interests of the Indian people and the world’s peoples. The demand has been repeatedly raised that international treaties should be thoroughly discussed amongst the people and voted upon in a referendum organized for the purpose. They are too important to be left in the hands of the parliament or the executive. People from all sections of society have strongly opposed the Indo-US strategic alliance.

To break the resistance of the people and make them submit to the program of the bourgeoisie, brutal state terror has been unleashed. Bomb blasts and terrorist strikes have been organised, to spread fear and panic among the fighting people and vicious propaganda has been carried out against people belonging to the Muslim faith, in an attempt to break the unity of the fighting people. Fascist laws such as the Chhatisgarh Public Safety Act and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act have been used to arrest and torture all those opposing the program of the big bourgeoisie. People of Kashmir, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland have been suffering intolerable atrocities at the hands of the army and state security forces. Despite massive protests, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act continues to operate in the North East and Kashmir

However, all these fascist measures have not succeeded in crushing the struggle of the people. People have come out in large numbers, demanding that those guilty of crimes against the people be severely punished. They have demanded that the state fulfil its responsibility of providing security to its citizens, that the persecution of specific communities in the name of fighting “terrorists” be stopped, that draconian laws such as the AFSPA, UAPA and Chhatisgarh Public Safety Act be immediately repealed.

It is increasingly becoming clear to the masses of toiling people that the present political system of representative democracy actually excludes the majority of people from political power, from the right to make decisions and legislations that affect their lives. Organisations such as the Lok Raj Sangathan and others have been repeatedly raising the need for constitutional guarantees and enforcing mechanisms for human, democratic and national rights. In order to challenge the stranglehold of the bourgeois political parties over the political process, various people’s organisations have come forward to form their own committees, select candidates from among themselves and field these candidates in elections. These candidates have been fielded on the mandate that they will be accountable for all their actions to the people’s committees that fielded them and be subject to recall by the committee if they fail to perform in the interests of the people of their constituency. People have warmly responded to these initiatives.

The year 2007 has further exposed the existing political system and process of representative democracy as thoroughly anti democratic – a system and process that excludes the vast majority of people from political power, that imposes the agenda of the ruling big bourgeoisie of maximising its profits through exploitation of the labour and natural resources of the people on the whole of society through unbridled violence and terror. It has also shown that people are not willing to accept this state of affairs and are organising, not only in defence of their rights, but also to challenge this system and process itself and bring about an alternative, in which political power shall truly be in the hands of the workers and peasants and all oppressed.