Sixty-Five Years After Independence From British Colonial Rule –
The Revolt Continues!
By Communist Ghadar Party of India
13 August, 2012
Countercurrents.org
Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India , 12 th August, 2012
Sixty five years after independence from the British colonial empire, it is clear that the Indian Republic guarantees only a privileged elite the freedom and independence to pursue its aims. This is the class of private owners of factories, mines and other means of large-scale production, headed by the capitalist monopoly houses. It is they who control the Indian Republic , make and break governments, and even decide which member of the ruling party or coalition should be allocated particular ministerial portfolios.
The big bourgeoisie has used the state of the Indian Republic to become the most dominant and ruling force of society, and is dragging the entire country on a dangerous path today. Its vision is to rapidly expand its capital and clout on the global scale, to become a recognised big imperialist power by 2020. It is carving out its own sphere of influence and domination in the world, in collusion and contention with other imperialist powers. It is pursuing this aim by trampling underfoot the rights of all the nations, nationalities and peoples who make up our country. The course on which it is leading the country is fraught with grave dangers for the people of our country and our region, and for world peace.
Our country is made up of numerous nations, nationalities and peoples with distinct cultures, languages, territories and a long history of experience with statecraft. Telengana continues to burn. Assam is bleeding. Manipur, Nagaland and Kashmir remain under army occupation. No section of our people is free from national oppression. The Indian Republic truly remains a prison house of nations.
The big bourgeoisie is pursuing its narrow-minded aim through maximum possible exploitation of our youthful working class, and escalated robbery of peasants and tribal communities of their individual and common property and of the fruits of their labour.
Workers are not free from the threat of unemployment. They are not free from soaring prices that make them poorer. Peasants are not free from extreme uncertainty in a market dominated by capitalist monopoly traders and profit maximising banks, resulting in ever-growing indebtedness and suicides. They are also threatened with forcible acquisition of their land, as are various hill and forest communities. Women face violence and all-sided oppression; they are not free to decide on anything to do with their lives. Religious minorities are not free from persecution. They are not free from the threat of state-organised communal violence. Inciting of passions and Hindu-Muslim enmity, far from ending with the communal Partition, has remained a preferred method of rule in independent India .
Workers who demand their rights as the creators of social wealth face brute force and state terror in the name of curbing extremism . Peasants who fight for their rights are being offered the choice of selling out or being treated as a “ law and order problem ”. People who demand and fight for their right to conscience are persecuted in the name of curbing fundamentalism or on the charge of sedition . Those who demand and fight for their national rights are subjected to open fascist army rule, in the name of defending the unity and integrity of India .
The truth about the much-trumpeted democratic state of the Indian Republic is that it is an instrument to suppress the striving of the vast majority of people for freedom, so as to ensure that the capitalist monopoly houses enjoy unrestricted freedom to expand their wealth and global clout.
The big bourgeoisie is growing richer and more powerful not only through internal but also through external plunder. The Tatas, Ambanis and other monopoly houses are aggressively expanding their investments abroad, thereby sowing the seeds for various nations and peoples to hate India , and Indian imperialism. The Indian state is rapidly accumulating arms and armaments, to serve the imperialist expansionist drive of the big bourgeoisie.
In their drive to become an imperialist power, the capitalist monopoly houses are eager to attract the biggest global monopolies to invest in our country, so as to rapidly build up their potential to penetrate and dominate markets abroad. Foreign capital has been invited with open arms to come and plunder our natural resources, super-exploit the labour of our workers and rob part of the value created by our peasants.
In international affairs, the Indian state has shed all pretensions of being part of the anti-imperialist camp and become nakedly self-seeking in the present period. It has refused to stand up in defence of the sovereignty of Iran , or of Libya or Syria . It abstained from the recent vote on Syria in the UN General Assembly. It follows an unprincipled and opportunist policy, driven purely by whatever benefits Indian monopoly capital. It refuses to lift a finger against the criminal interference of US imperialism in Pakistan , but rather seeks to exploit it for its own ends.
The new President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, declared in his swearing-in speech that we, the people of India , are engaged in a Fourth World War , which is the “ global war against terrorism ”. This is a clear signal that the Indian state will continue to persecute people of the Muslim faith. It will bully and dominate the smaller countries in the neighbourhood and treat national movements within India as a threat to unity and integrity. It will escalate state terrorism, including communal violence, as the preferred method to advance the imperialist interests of the biggest capitalist monopolies. It will participate in unjust wars and intrigues, in collusion and contention with the US and other imperialists.
In sum, the course being pursued by the ruling bourgeoisie is one of ever more closely tying up our country with the world imperialist system purely to advance its narrow aims. It is a course that means the negation of the rights and freedoms of all the peoples of our country. Internationally, far from fighting for a just world order in which the equality, freedom and independence of all countries is guaranteed, this ruling class is participating with other imperialists in creating an unjust world order, based on the subordination of all rights to the dictates of the most powerful imperialist powers.
National Rights and their Negation
The post-Cold War period opened in 1990 with the Paris Charter, a declaration by the imperialist powers of North America , Western Europe and Japan , that henceforth might is right . Any nation or state that does not fall in line with their economic and political prescriptions, or which contradicts their hegemonic drive in any way, becomes the target of imperialist pressures and armed aggression. One pretext or another is concocted and spread through the international corporate media to justify criminal violation of national rights. It is alleged that one state is harbouring terrorists, another is in possession of “ weapons of mass destruction ”, while a third is deemed guilty of having used force to put down internal rebellion.
Countries such as Cuba , North Korea and Iran have been the target of sanctions , military threats and all kinds of intrigues, for the “ crime ” of wanting to follow their own system. In our close neighbourhood, Pakistan is a target of US drone attacks on a daily basis, under the signboard of the “ global war against terrorism ”. The international corporate media portrays anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles for national independence and sovereignty as terrorist , fundamentalist or extremist .
The principle that every nation has the right to determine its own destiny and establish the state system of its choice was championed by the bourgeois class in Europe , during the period when capitalist nations were built. However, the bourgeoisie of each European nation defended this right strictly for itself, while denying it to the peoples in their colonies.
It was the working class and its creation, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , which provided the first and most outstanding example of a state which recognized the rights and equal status of all its constituents, big or small. The rise of the working class to power attracted and inspired numerous nations and peoples, formerly oppressed in Czarist Russia, to join hands voluntarily to create a powerful political union. The demand for the right of nations and peoples to self-determination expanded in scope, to include the colonially oppressed nations and peoples of Asia , Africa and Latin America . Marxist-Leninist communist parties emerged as the most consistent and leading champions of the national right to self-determination, which they defended as a matter of principle.
The constitution of the USSR recognised and respected the right of each constituent nation to self-determination, including and up to secession. Such a voluntary union provided the basis for unprecedented advance of hitherto backward and oppressed nations and peoples, achieved through the construction of socialism. The constitutional guarantee for the right to self-determination made it possible for the different constituents to become independent in 1991, without any bloodshed, when the union no longer satisfied the interests of its constituents.
Primary credit goes to the communist movement and the Soviet state for the victory of the peoples of the world over Nazi fascism, and for compelling all the world's powers to accept the right of nations and peoples to self-determination as a universal principle. It was one of the cornerstones of the founding charter of the United Nations in 1945.
India gained independence from colonial rule in that international context, when the right to national self-determination was being affirmed as a universal principle. The big bourgeoisie followed a two-faced policy in the early decades after independence. While it paid lip service to the right to self-determination for nations and peoples outside its own territory, it trampled this right underfoot within India . It sent troops to forcibly integrate Manipur, Nagaland and one part of Kashmir within the Indian Republic , and subsequently to annex Sikkim . The present period has revealed the complete opposition of this ruling class to national rights both within and outside the country.
Necessity for the working class to lead
The Indian bourgeoisie has reduced independence to mean only freedom for itself to expand its wealth and seek global domination. It has trampled in the mud the cause of freedom from imperialism and all forms of enslavement, for which our martyrs laid down their lives. Its selfish imperialist drive is accentuating antagonisms among the sister peoples of South Asia , and increasing the danger of war in this region.
The leadership of society by the bourgeois class is in direct opposition to the interests and aspirations of the vast majority of our people. The aim and aspiration of our revolutionary martyrs since the Great Ghadar of 1857 was that once the alien ruler is driven out, we the people must establish our own political and economic system. This goal was betrayed by the traitorous big bourgeoisie in 1947, represented by the leaders of the Congress Party and Muslim League, who collaborated in the communal Partition.
The time has come to negate this state which negates the rights and aspirations of all our peoples. This task can be carried out if and only if the working class takes the lead. Among all the exploited and oppressed, the working class is the special product of large-scale social production. It has both the interest and the capacity to lead the struggle through to the end.
The times are demanding that the working class “ must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation ”, as was proclaimed in the Communist Manifesto.
The most organised sections of the working class are coming together today to mount a united opposition to the capitalist offensive. There is need for unified communist leadership of this growing working class opposition, to make it a political force capable of leading the vast majority of our people and shaping the course of Indian society.
The Communist Ghadar Party of India is committed to the goal of restoring the unity of communists in one vanguard party at the head of the working class. It is focusing its energies on the urgent task of preparing the working class to take the lead, armed with its own program for the Navnirman of India , independent of and in opposition to the program of the bourgeoisie. We call on all communists to focus on this task as the most crucial at this time.
The issue is not to debate why the working class failed to become the leading class at various times in the past, including in 1947. The issue is to respond to the call of the present, and plunge into the work to prepare the class to become the leader of society, armed with the vision of India as a bastion of democracy and progress on a modern basis.
For India to be free and independent, it is essential that every part, every section of our people, are free from oppression or discrimination of any kind. With this enlightened outlook, communists must lead the working class to demand and fight for the reconstitution of the Indian Union on a voluntary basis. This means a new Constitution that guarantees equality and the right to self-determination, up to and including secession, to every nation, nationality and tribal people. This would put a complete end to the colonial legacy. It would create favourable conditions for those nations that were divided by the communal Partition to reunite if they so desire.
With this aim, communists must lead the working class to uncompromisingly oppose state terrorism and defend national rights, exposing and opposing the fraudulent justification that national oppression is allegedly necessary to defend the “ unity and integrity of India ”. To defend national rights means to oppose every act of imperialist interference and violation of sovereignty in every part of the world. It means to oppose hostile acts by the Indian state against the sovereignty of Pakistan , Bangladesh , Sri Lanka or Nepal .
Indian communists are duty bound to champion the cause of unity of South Asian peoples against imperialism, and to mobilise the working class and people to demand that Anglo-American troops and intelligence agencies be immediately expelled from this region.
The working class is already uniting in opposition to the capitalist reform program of globalisation through privatisation and liberalisation. Communists must direct this growing unity towards the goal of becoming the leader of society. We must ensure that all sections of the class unite and agitate for an immediate halt to the capitalist program and the attacks on workers' rights, to the privatisation of food distribution and other essential services, to the sale of public property to private bidders, to the open door policy towards foreign capital and to the corporate land grab. We must also lead the workers to demand immediate nationalisation and social control over banking and trade, as measures needed to bring down the soaring prices of essential goods and services.
We must ensure that the working class escalates its united struggle against the capitalist offensive, uniting around its own program and not allowing the struggle to be subordinated to the parliamentary games of any party.
Communists must lead the working class to demand and agitate for a superior system of democracy, in place of the existing system which is designed to exclude the vast majority from decision-making power. The working class must champion the struggle for a modern democracy that vests decision-making power in the hands of the people. The political process of such a system will not place self-serving parties in power, but will permit only such parties to operate, which are committed to keep decision-making power in the hands of the people.
Communists must strive to make the working class conscious that its strategic aim is to transform the crisis-ridden capitalist economy into a self-reliant, stable and dynamic socialist economy. Such an economy will ensure that the surplus created by the labour of Indians is put back to enhance the means of production and the standard of living of the population. It will be independent of the imperialist system, and contribute to the struggle to put an end to this system on the global scale.
On the 65 th anniversary of independence, the Communist Ghadar Party calls on all communists, all parties and organisations of workers, peasants, oppressed nations, nationalities and peoples, to unite firmly around the program to reconstitute the Indian Union on a voluntary basis, redefine democracy to empower the people, and reorient the economy to provide for all!
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