Volume 4, No. 2, February 2003

It is now over one-and-a-half years since the holding of the historic ninth Congress of the CPI(ML)(PW). Major events since then have shaken the world. Sept. 11 has catalysed a war scenario in the world, with US imperialism flexing its military muscle. In India too, as the US-India axis tightens, the Hindu fascists have taken on menacing proportions, threatening the entire country with a Gujarat-style blood bath. Its recent victory in the Gujarat elections will act as license to repeat the experiment in the other states, with disastrous consequences.

Today fascism, state-terrorism and war threaten the lives of millions of people throughout the world, including India. With the second Central Committee meeting of the ninth Congress of the CPI(ML)(PW) completing its month-long deliberations, it warns of the dangers looming on the horizon, and calls on the people of the country to unite against this band of international gangsters and their Indian accomplices.

And as the economic crisis in the world economy deepens, these vampires extract more and more blood from the masses, pushing an ever-increasing number of people to destitution and inhuman poverty. The second CC meeting calls on the people of India to fight back the devastation and the loss of Sovereignty caused by the policies of Globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation.

It is in such a situation that the second CC meeting of the CPI(ML)(PW) assessed the situation, both internationally and at the all-India level, and drew up tasks for the immediate future.

The economic crisis of imperialism continued to deepen during the last 18 months, hitting all the major imperialist powers (the US, the European Union, Japan, Russia). US imperialism particularly has been caught in the worst crisis since the 1980s. It continues to deepen. The recession in Japan is now over a decade. Europe is in the doldrums, with the German economy going into recession in the current year. The Russian economy continues in a state of stagnation after being reduced to a size smaller than that of Belgium. The crisis has hit several countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. The economy of Argentina which has a huge $140 billion external debt has collapsed sending shock waves across whole of Latin America and elsewhere. This crisis has resulted in the further sharpening of all the fundamental contradictions in the present-day world.

The imperialists have sought to push the burden of their crisis on to the backs of the people of the backward countries of the world, directly and through the multilateral institutions like the WTO. US imperialism, has been trying to overcome the crisis and to divert the people from the causes behind the crisis by resorting to massive war preparations and militarisation of their economy. The September 11 incidents acted as a catalyst that further intensified the crisis of the US economy and enhanced its war mongering throughout the world. It has been used as a smoke-screen to justify their huge allotments to the military operations and their attacks against non-compliant States, national liberation struggles, revolutionary movements and the so-called terrorist organizations. Huge amounts were allotted for ensuring security in all imperialist countries in the name of countering terrorism. In the US itself, the Bush government had amalgamated 22 intelligence departments into the Homeland Security department. Fascist measures are initiated through legislation and ordinances.

War against Afghanistan, raids on Iraq and threats of massive bombing and destruction of the country, banning of several organizations all over the world, freezing the assets of these organizations, detention and torture of anti-imperialist protestors and members of Muslim organizations and their sympathizers worldwide has become the order of the day. US imperialism has stepped up its attacks against the revolutionary forces of the world, particularly against the Maoist movements of Nepal and the Philippines. Indirectly it sponsors the Low Intensity Conflict campaigns against the revolutionary movements throughout the world, including India.

Thus the imperialist offensive, particularly that of US imperialism, has emerged as a graver threat to the world people than ever before after September 11. US imperialism, the sole superpower, is the number one enemy of the people of the world. Almost all the comprador governments too have become part of the so-called Global Alliance against Terrorism and have begun implementing fascist measures to suppress all the democratic, revolutionary movements in their countries. There has been a massive spurt of people’s movements worldwide — a manifestation of the sharpening of all the fundamental contradictions in the world today.

The crisis in the imperialist economies have led to the growing contradictions between the major imperialist powers, particularly between the US and Europe. This is reflected not only in the sphere of trade, but also in the geo-political sphere, as on the question of Palestine, Iraq, etc. The US seeks to keep this rivalry within check through strong-arm methods and unilateral actions on other countries of the world. This was particularly seen in the tug-of-war over the UN resolution on Iraq, where a compromise resolution was finally passed. But as the economic crisis deepens these contradictions will inevitably sharpen. This will result in a more favourable condition for people’s movements in the world.

In West Asia, an explosive situation has developed with the continuing ‘intifada’ (uprising of the Palestinians) in the Palestinian territories. Zionist Israel has launched fascist attacks on the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and other territories of Palestine. The US imperialists who had hitherto been banking on Yasser Arafat to contain the militant liberation movement in Palestine, have now begun to do it directly through Israel. The so-called war against global terrorism has come in handy to the US imperialists and Israeli expansionists to launch brutal attacks on the Palestinian territories. Arafat’s policy of appeasing the US and the Israeli fascist rulers, and giving up any resistance to these attacks, had eroded his credibility and that of his PLO. This had given rise to several militant and armed organizations of the Palestinian fighters. Suicide bombings by the Palestinians have become the order of the day. While Israeli tanks resort to the destruction of the homes of the Palestinians and decimate the Palestinian population, anger and unrest are seething in the Arab world and there is a growing sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Israel today stands totally isolated in the Arab world and its brutal deeds are condemned by the people the world over.

The economic crisis has led to severe political crisis and mass unrest leading to massive street protests and armed clashes between the people and the armed forces. The massive demonstrations in Genoa in Italy resulting in militant clashes with the police; the demonstrations in Greece and elsewhere against the WTO and World Bank-IMF; the strikes by the working class in Europe and Russia point to the accentuation of the contradiction between labour and capital worldwide.

The September 11 attacks on WTC and Pentagon by the Islamic fundamentalists which hit at the financial and military might of US imperialism, have proved the vulnerability of US imperialism. It had enthused the world people even as it gave scope to US imperialists to launch savage attacks against world people. As a result of these developments, American imperialism stands even more isolated and exposed as the No.1 enemy in the world and that it is essential for the world people to form a broad front against it. The intensification of people’s movements worldwide against imperialism, particularly US imperialists has been growing in strength. The gigantic rallies in Britain, the US, Italy and elsewhere in Europe indicate the extent of people’s discontent in the developed countries against the policies of Globalisation and the US’s aggressive war-mongering.

The ongoing people’s wars led by the Maoists as in Nepal, India, Peru, Philippines, and Turkey; the continuing national liberation movements, as in Palestine, Kashmir, Chechenya, etc., and the upsurge of people’s struggles on their burning problems that are being accentuated due to imperialist globalisation and ruthless plunder by the imperialists and the Comprador Big Bourgeoisie, point to the sharpening of the contradictions at the international level.

South Asia has become a boiling cauldron. In Nepal, the ongoing people’s war has touched new heights. The imposition of emergency in last November and intense operations by RNA and other security forces in Nepal with the aid and abetment of the imperialists, particularly the US imperialists, and the Indian expansionists have turned out to be a big flop. Thousands of innocent people have been killed or maimed and thousands more arrested. Yet the people’s war has been growing from height to height creating a scare amongst the Nepali ruling classes, Indian expansionists and their imperialist masters.

These international developments have also had their impact on the Indian economic and political scene. The crisis in the Indian economy has deepened further. The impact of the imperialist-dictated globalization, liberalization and privatization is felt by the masses everywhere in the country. Drought has ruined the lives of vast section of the people and the collapse in agricultural commodity prices has ravaged not only the middle peasentry but large sections of the rich peasantry. Galloping unemployment and wage-cuts have ruined the working class and a large section of the middle-classes. Lakhs of small indigenous businesses have been pushed to ruin. The huge cuts in social welfare schemes, the cuts in interest rates on savings and the rapacious loot of people’s savings through scams, frauds and outright robbery in the banking and investment sector, has added to the hardships and the sense of insecurity of the masses. All this has snowballed into a severe political and social crisis.

For over five years now the economy has been pushed into a state of stagnation, with lakhs of small scale industries closing down and even large industries being swallowed up by giant TNCs. The major financial institutions (IDBI, IFCI, UTI) are in a state of bankruptcy with the government having to infuse over Rs.30,000 crores of tax-payer’s money to keep them afloat. The governments at both the state and central level are neck-deep in debt, resulting in an overall budget deficit as high as 10% of the country’s GDP. The intensification of this crisis is directly proportional to the speed of economic reforms being pushed through at both central and state levels.

The growing economic crisis is precipitating an endemic political crisis in the country, with most governments, at the Centre and the States, surviving through opportunist alliances or through hair-thin majorities. While the BJP’s survival at the Centre is dependent on an alliance of over 20 parties, most states are run by non-BJP governments. The maddening dog-fights within these parties, including the so-called pure sangh parivar, shows the depths to which the crisis has grown.

In order to get over the economic and political crisis and to divert the masses; to push through the second generation reforms dictated by imperialism; and, more importantly, to unleash fascist repression on the struggling masses by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre has been pushing through its fascist agenda most aggressively. They are whipping up anti-Pak war hysteria and had even brought the country to the brink of war with Pakistan at one point of time. They are hatching conspiracies to conduct pre-emptive strikes on the camps in POK in the name of curbing cross-border terrorism and are projecting the Kashmiri people’s struggle as the product of the "terrorists" across the border. They have been using the so-called war against terrorism (which is also directed against the Muslim masses apart from other revolutionary and people’s movements) to ban and attack the Muslim organizations like, SIMI, brought in POTO in the center and several draconian ordinances and acts in the states and have unleashed fascist repression. The Indian ruling classes, to bring in fascist legislation and massive repression in the name of fighting terrorism and safeguarding the country’s unity and integrity, utilised the December 13 attack on the Indian parliament. The Hindu fascist forces had also unleashed the most heinous weapon in their arsenal — the weapon of the Hindu communalism— to decimate the muslim population in Gujarat in a genocide reminiscent of Hitler’s pogroms. These attacks in Gujarat are a pointer to the shape of things to come in the country as a whole if the BJP-led fascist forces are allowed to continue their fascist agenda without strong resistance. This is leading to a Muslim fundamentalist back-lash which the Indian ruling classes very fondly desire.

In India there is a growing nexus between the ruling-classes and the US administration. This is to bee seen in all spheres, particularly in intelligence and the military. Israel too has established close ties, particularly in intelligence, and is today the second biggest arms supplier to India.

In AP, particularly, the crisis is being felt more acutely by all sections of the masses due to the severity of the problems as a result of the most consistent and loyal implementation of the imperialist globalization by the imperialist stooge, Naidu. Suicide deaths are on the rise. Workers of RTC, Electricity Board, and others are coming out into the streets.. The state’s economy is in severe doldrums with over 40,000 crores of rupees in debt. The anti-imperialist and more particularly, anti-World Bank, anti-WTO consciousness among the people at large is growing rapidly as a result of the imperialist-dictated policies being implemented by the Naidu government. The ongoing people’s war waged by our Party is leading to a radicalization of the masses as seen in the spurt of people’s movements.

In DK even after the formation of a separate state of Chattisgarh, the conditions of the people have deteriorated even further,, with the government bending over backwards to implement all World Bank policies. While drought ravages the countryside, the government is busy promoting tourism and horticulture for the foreign market. The giant aluminium plant, BALCO, has been sold for a song, and numerous projects are being set up to extract the rich raw material wealth for imperialist and comprador interests. In addition enormous funds are being diverted to repression, with three new battalions being set up to suppress the ongoing people’s war in the state. In the neighbouring Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, the entire district has been turned into a virtual police camp, with 3,500 specially trained police swarming the villages and the interior forests since the last decade. Hundreds have been killed in fake encounters, thousands more arrested and tortured, and just recently over 1,000 villagers were arrested and many hundreds beaten in just the Ahiri region of the district.

In Jarkhand, with the take-over by the BJP Marandi government, fascist repression has been unleashed on the people’s movements in the state on a scale never seen before. Hundreds of cadres and sympathisers of the CPI(ML)(PW) and the MCC have been ruthlessly killed. In the Bihar-Jarkhand region, to the heinous crimes of the government, have been added the murderous attacks by the feudal upper-caste armies of the Ranvir Sena and also those by the revisionist CPI(ML)Liberation.

In India, there has been growing protest from the workers, peasants and other sections of the population against the policies of privatization and liberalization. The significant struggle by the workers in the Western industrial belt last year, the struggle by the peasantry led by the BKU in Haryana show the seething unrest among the working class and peasantry. The anti-imperialist consciousness is growing among the workers and the peasantry and the role of the World Bank-IMF-WTO stands exposed in the eyes of the advanced sections.

Kashmir continues to burn. Lakhs of army and para-military personnel are deployed and Kashmiri youth are being exterminated with utmost vengeance. The farce of elections is imposed on the people of Kashmir and they are forced to vote at gun point. Despite the untold atrocities by the armed forces, Kashmiri nationals are continuing their fight with determination and courage, resorting to various forms of struggle and conducting daring attacks on the army and para military camps and patrols. The North East movements, though at a lower key, continues inspite of the capitulation of the Naga leadership. The Eelam movement, though moving towards compromise, will, no doubt result in the Tamil masses of Sri Lanka once again asserting their rights through violent revolt

The PW led by CPI (ML)[People’s War] on the one hand and the MCC on the other has made advances in the country. The end of the hostilities from both sides, the revival of comradely relations and more importantly, the joint offensives by the two parties on several issues (the 3-day economic blockade in Jharkhand in March 2002 is a case in point) have shaken the ruling classes. The formation of CCOMPOSA, the growing unity among the Maoist forces of India and other countries of South Asia is an encouraging development.

In such a situation, what then are the main tasks before the Indian people?

The above developments both in India and the world show that there is a good scope for building a broad-based movement against imperialist globalization, against US imperialism, against Isreali hegemonism over the Arab world, against Indian expansionism in South Asia, and against the growing fascist repression the world over.

There is a crying need for the progressive forces in India to unite with all democratic forces the world over to target US imperialism and its agents all over the world. There is need to unite with all the anti-US forces throughout the world, while strengthening the proletarian forces within it.

In India, political mobilization of the people against the POTO and state repression; against imperialist globalization, liberalization and privatization; and against the growing menace of Hindu fascism, should be effectively linked to the ongoing people’s war in the country. The masses participating actively in these movements should be politicized, armed, and consolidated into the Party and the PGA. The material conditions for implementing the calls given by the 9th Congress have become even more favourable in the past 18 months.

Strong anti-imperialist and anti Hindu-fascist movements must be formed as part of the on-going new democratic revolution; the Hindu fascists should be punished for their crimes against the people and these should be inter-woven with the people’s war in the country.

The Central Committee of the CPI(ML)(PW) appeals to all who have a love for their country and its people to come forward and fight for the freedom from the robber barons who rule us in league with their imperialist (particularly US) masters. Save the country from the blood-bath being sponsored by the Hindu fascists. Fight back the fascist offensive on the people’s movements throughout the country. Support and join the on-going people’s war in the country, which is the only beacon of hope for the coming generation for a just and democratic order. Let us all join hands a new society of the future, free from the imperialist sharks and their Indian accomplices, where all, no matter what their caste, status or sex, have equal opportunity to live a decent life.

To do so we, put forward the following demands for the people of our country, which should be interwoven with the on-going people’s war in the countryside :

1. Unite with all anti fascist forces in India and internationally to fight back the global offensive of US imperialism.

2. Fight back the imperialist (particularly US imperialist) penetration into our country, taking place under the signboard of globalisation, privatisation and liberalisation.

3. Fight back the Hindu fascist offensive, smash the fascist gangs.

4. Oppose State repression, scrap all undemocratic laws

5. Fight against all the false ‘friends’ of the people, particularly all forms of revisionism and the CPM social fascists.

With Revolutionary Greetings,

From

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