Build the unity of workers and peasants in Maharashtra!

Call of the Maharashtra State Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, 20th September, 2009

The elections to the Vidhan Sabha of Maharashtra that are to be held on October 13 provide an opportunity to the vast majority of people who are deeply unhappy with their conditions to discuss and take steps towards securing a future of peace, security and prosperity.

It is quite clear that both the ruling Congress–NCP alliance that has been in power for 25 of the last 30 years as well as the BJP-SS alliance that has ruled for the remaining 5, have not and will not solve the immense problems facing the people, The state has been hit by the worst drought of the last twenty years and immense shortage even of drinking water and fodder for cattle is expected. Distress sales of cattle have begun. Food prices have soared to levels that people have been forced to forgo or cut their consumption. Maharashtra boasts of being one of biggest producers of sugar, but the masses of people are paying through their noses for extremely high sugar prices. Lakhs of workers in the industrial belt have lost their jobs in the past few years. More and more permanent jobs are being converted into contract work, signaling intensified exploitation of workers without even a modicum of labour rights. There is inadequate electricity production, and extremely uneven distribution, leading to hours of load shedding. The list of problems faced by the people is endless, as can be seen in the box. 

The Congress, BJP, NCP and Shiv Sena are funded by the big capitalists to act in their interests. Though they talk sweetly to the people from time to time, particularly before the election, this is just to fool them.

They are committed to implementing the agenda of enriching the bourgeoisie and fulfilling its ambition of becoming an imperialist global power as rapidly as possible. Their concern is to boost the profits of the big corporations, in the conditions of the crisis. This means stepped up impoverishment and ruination of the working people through various means.  It means further terror to divert them and drown their struggle in blood. Most of the leaders of these parties are big capitalists or financiers themselves, owning thousands of acres of land, many companies and factories, sugar co-operatives, banking co-operatives, etc.

Workers, peasants, self-employed and small business families who constitute more than 95 percent of the population of the State have suffered under the capitalist rule of the last sixty two years. All the coalitions which have come to power in Maharashtra post 1992 have actively pursued the liberalisation and privatisation programme started by the Congress at the Centre. This programme has further intensified the sufferings of the working people.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India believes that the time is ripe for the workers, peasants, women and youth to wage a united struggle to defeat the agenda of the bourgeoisie.  We can and must immediately halt and reverse the liberalisation and privatisation program.  We must push forward the alternative program for the renewal of India and of Maharashtra. 

Building this new future will require reorientation of the economy to ensure the right to food, housing and other basic needs for all. Reorientation measures will include immediate halt to unproductive government spending such as interest payments, sops and subsidies for the capitalists. It will include steps to discourage the cultivation of water-intensive crops such as sugarcane, which Maharashtra can ill afford.  It will include stepping up public expenditure to fulfill basic needs, including the right to full employment for all, and a universal public distribution system that covers not only food items but all essential consumption goods at affordable prices and of good quality and required quantity.

To reorient the economy in this way, we, the people, need political power in our hands. The existing political process is dominated by parties financed by the capitalists. The political process and electoral system is designed to bring one or another capitalist party to power, using workers and peasants as vote banks. The first step is for workers and peasants to reject this role of being vote banks for one or another party of the capitalist class. We the working people must build our own political force to challenge the bourgeois political parties.

Renewal of democracy means to break the stranglehold of the criminalized parties of the bourgeoisie.  It means to ensure that we, the working people, are able to select and elect candidates from among our midst, recall those elected at any time, and also initiate legislation in our interests. There is a long tradition of people in a village coming together to take charge of their common affairs, through popular panchayats. Today the panchayats have been co-opted into the political system of rule of the bourgeoisie and no longer enable the people to have a say in decision-making. We must build on the traditions, in tune with modern conditions, new organs of people’s power in villages, in factories, in bastis, and so on. We must build organs of power that challenge the bourgeoisie, its political parties and its electoral system.

Every occasion of elections is used by the bourgeois class and its parties to divide us on the basis of religion, caste, and region. The State has seen various political forces organize riots under the pretext of religious and other differences. People of Sangli and Ichalkaranji were the most recent victims of the divide and rule politics. Prior to that thousands of people of Maharashtra suffered due to the spurious campaign for ‘Marathi Manoos’. Unable to answer angry unemployed youths, the bourgeoisie launched the Marathi manoos campaign to divide and disorient people of Maharashtra, so that instead of fighting unitedly to demand jobs for all, they would expend their energy fighting each other. Both the Congress – NCP and the BJP – SS fronts are actively fueling this campaign. But people of Maharashtra asked these political forces, “ Weren’t the peasants who committed suicide due to your policies Marathi manoos? Weren’t the lakhs of textile workers who lost their jobs, livelihood and houses due to your policies Marathi manoos?’’ In the ensuing assembly elections also we must defeat this divisive campaign by exposing the true love of these political forces for the super rich, the big capitalists of the country.

Therefore, the urgent need is to build our unity as workers, as peasants, as women and as youth and not allow the capitalist political parties to divide us and make us fight with each other on the basis of religion, caste, language or region. We must forge our unity in struggle against the bourgeoisie and its agenda and foil their dastardly divisive game.

We, the toilers and tillers, must begin to strengthen our organizations at the base, in every factory and industrial township, every village and every district.  We must build people’s samitis everywhere, as the foundations of a popular political front. We must bring to the fore candidates selected by the workers, peasants, women and youth, by their unions and their local area samitis.

The Communist Ghadar Party of India calls on all communists, and all those striving for a workers’ and peasants’ democracy, to put their combined weight behind candidates who are committed to defeat the agenda of the bourgeoisie. Let us convert the electoral arena into a trial of strength between the working people and those who seek to exploit us to become global giants.

Let us promote politicians of the working class and peasantry who will fight uncompromisingly against the bourgeois offensive and work steadfastly for the program of worker-peasant rule. Let us utilise the election campaign to develop able spokespersons of the workers, peasants, women and youth.

Come, let us prepare to become the masters of India! India belongs to us, not to the criminal and parasitic capitalist class and its political parties!

Inqilab zindabad!