Volume 4, No. 9, September 2003

History does repeat itself, particularly when we look at the growth of fascism in the country. The above account would reflect the present-day version of rising fascism in Germany under Hitler. The similarities are too obvious to disguise, only the location and times are different. Unfortunately, the forces in the country pitted against it are far weaker than in Germany of the 1930s. They are also more dispersed, fighting their own battles independently, and not as a united force against the growing monster.

The action on the striking 11 lakh teachers/employees in the Tamil Nadu government service is unprecedented in its viciousness. 2,211 arrested, about 30,000 dismissed (official figure is 12,000, which does not include the 16,000 of those in aided schools & colleges and local bodies) FIRs slapped on some 60,000 to 70,000 employees. Such ruthlessness was facilitated by amending the draconian TESMA (TN Essential Maintenance Act) to make it even more lethal. {See report, page 4 } Such brutality even surpasses that of colonial times.

In Haryana the continued incarceration of the top BKU peasant leaders, including its president, Ghashiram, on various charges ranging from violence to sedition, is now passed six months. The number locked up is not being disclosed, while another 30 activists are running from village to village being hunted down by the police. With the charge of sedition (deshdroh) they are even unable to get bail. One peasant activist, Guni Prasad, who did manage bail after four months, was re-arrested after 15 minutes on cooked up charges. The SP of Kaithal said, doing a road-block for their demand of free electricity (the main electoral plank of the current CM, on which he got elected) amounts to revolt against the government. Here, even POTA (the dreaded anti-terrorist Act) has not been necessary.

Now, who are these workers and peasants? Are they too ISI agents, Kashmiri militants, North-East ‘terrorists’, or are they Naxalites? They are none of these. They are ordinary workers and peasants, fighting for their just demands, against the imperialist-dictated policies of the state governments to cut the wage bill of govt. employees (to reduce the fiscal deficit), and to sell electricity at a profit to enable its take-over by TNCs and Indian compradors.

The tragedy of the situation is that hardly a word of protest has come from the other sections of the population, particularly the trade unions. Particularly revolting is the attitude of the so-called left trade unions that have a sizable influence amongst the government employees. There was not even token action in support of the TN employees and the leaders withdrew it after a mere three days. With the type of strength they yield in this sector, they could have forced the TN government to its knees. They have, in the past, even gone so far as to try and woo the fascist and Hindutva Jayalalita’s AIADMK into an electoral alliance with it, when the latter fell out with the BJP. Also the Haryana peasants have had to face their battles themselves, with little condemnation/support from others, except for some civil liberty groups and revolutionary organisations in the area.

It is much the same situation with the struggling nationalities being crushed even more ruthlessly under the iron boots of the Indian State. First, they put forward their demands peacefully. But, even these peaceful agitations were met by the brute force of the State. They were then forced to take up arms to defend themselves. For over a decade now, over one lakh have been butchered, many of them innocent civilians, in the civil war that is continuing in these areas. They too are fighting their battles alone, not only with the Indian populace made hostile, in the name of ‘national integrity’ of the country (never mind if the country is sold to the TNCs!!!), but, with no coordination even between the struggling nationalities themselves. It is also the same with the naxalites, who have been awakening the most oppressed sections of the country, the tribals and dalits, to a new life. Hundreds continue to be killed, many illegally, thousands are incarcerated and tortured (including hundreds of lawyers, doctors, teachers, writers, poets — many of whom have even been killed in extra-judicial actions by killer gangs of the TDP govt.), and here again there is little sound of protest from the other sections.

And of course, when Muslims and dalits are lynched by the fascist hoodlums, together with the police, there is not a murmur of protest as they are looked down as inferior beings. In the Gujarat incidents, where the pogrom surpassed anything seen in the country since 1947, though some sounds were made, little concrete support was given to the victims of the butchery, par-ticularly at the time it was happening.

In all this, the judiciary has come out as a firm pillar of the growing fascist State. Not only was the Best Bakery Case an example, the Supreme Court’s judgment on the TN employees was in much the same vein — it called for the humiliating and illegal undertaking to be signed, and de facto gave the green signal to throw out over 5,000 employees. Even in the Gujarat pogrom, the Best Bakery case was the most publicized —36 other cases have also seen ALL acquittals. Even the prime accused in the Limbadiya Chowk massacre, where 34 were burnt to death, one Kalu Maliwad, was not only acquitted, but is now the BJP MLA from the same area!!! Not only that, even prior to the trials, of the 4,252 cases filed in the Feb.- May 2002 period, the police disposed of 2,032 cases for "lack of evidence".

And now, for the first time in the history of the Supreme Court, supposedly the final say to achieve justice in the country, has itself come out with the most unjust decision ever passed — the de facto banning of all strikes. What the IMF/WB have been pressurizing the govt. to do, through amendments in the labour laws (and have not yet been done due to the unpopularity of the measure, particularly in the light of the coming elections), is being faithfully done by the highest court in the country. In a judgment on Aug.6 it declared that "Government employees have no fundamental, legal, moral, or equitable right" to go on strike even for a just cause. They further added that " Strike as a weapon is mostly misused which results in chaos ad total misadminis-tration. Strike affects society as a whole and particularly when two lakh employees go on strike en masse, the entire administration comes to a grinding halt". They went so far as to state that "for redressing their grievances, instead of going on strike, if the employees do some work diligently and efficiently, such gesture would not only be appreciated by the authority but also by people at large".

It is the clear, the ruling-classes are clear: all legal doors, whatever little existed, for the people to get justice, are being shut. Hard-won rights are being systematically curbed. It is pushing people to the only method left — direct action to achieve justice. And, that too not merely through legal methods (as that landed thousands in jail) but through alternative methods. The people will find their own ways of effective struggle. Let these ‘judges’ and other agents of the money-bags beware!!

It is not that the masses of the country are not fighting back as the skeptics would have us believe. They are fighting; but in isolation, and with leaderships that betray them again and again. Divided and betrayed, each skirmish is lost to an enemy groomed on Chanakya-style cunning and Hitlerian ruthlessness. The innocent masses after successive defeats, fall victim to pessimism, losing all hope in any struggle, thinking it not only futile but also disastrous. Imagine the psychology of the TN employees that are taken back; they may not only fear any action (all were made to sign a bond before being taken back), they will think it counter-productive when they see it resulting in the loss of not a few jobs, but thousands of ruined families. As for themselves, they have not only to continue to see their pensions and PFs drastically cut, they have also been forced to accept a one-month cut in wages. Continuous defeats of the struggling masses destroys their moral, their self-confidence being shaken, weakens their fighting spirit, — and in this mood of total frustration, makes them put more faith in religion as a last straw to clutch onto, and excellent raw material for the fascists. And the main culprits to push them to such a state of hopelessness has been the task of the revisionist CPI/CPM, who make a show of struggle, in order to diffuse peoples’ growing anger, and then betray them. This is being repeated again and again.

What then is the answer? Is it that people are to be condemned to an existence of impotency, while the money-bags and powerful play with their lives, to extract the maximum from them? Must they see their jobs snatched away from them, their wages and pensions cut, their agricultural system ruined, their welfare schemes slashed, their job opportunities finished, their self-respect crushed, their small and petty businesses wiped out by the giants, and, on top of all this face lathis, arrests, torture and even death in judicial and extra-judicial killings/massacres? India is being turned into a vast prison-house, worse even than in colonial times. The glitter of TV, Cinema, consumerism and advertising mask the death and devastation all around us. Is the only salvation of the people to be got through their intoxication by TV and liquor, consciously promoted by the rulers?

No!! There is a way out. But, it requires a force that that can bind all these various sections against the common enemy — the Indian ruling-classes and their imperialist sponsors. A force that can show them that the struggle of one section is necessarily in the interests of the other. A force that can show up the betrayals of the revisionists and reformists and replace it with genuine and self-sacrificing leadership. A force that can give self-confidence to the people in their own struggles by leading them to victories even in minor skirmishes, through tactics that combine the legal with the illegal, and a militancy that shakes the enemy. A force that can rouse the people to action.

It is no use moaning about the lack of response of the people. It is necessary to go into it’s the causes and seek to remedy the situation by conscious intervention. It is necessary to go deep into the lives of the masses, dispel their wrong notions and bring them onto the right track for their liberation. No doubt, in the initial phases there will be resistance, may be even hostility, to accept the correct views; as they have been fed such poison for decades. But, the objective reality can be more potent, and is a great facilitator to help people realize the truth. Yet, the truth will not dawn on them spontaneously, as the poisonous weeds are nourished continuously by, not only the money-bags and ruling-classes, not only by the Hindutva brigade, but also by the fake opposition of the ‘lefts’ and NGOs. This veil of darkness has to be torn asunder; only then the light can bring a new realization, and motivate people to revolutionary action.

This force alone can be that of the communist revolutionaries. For it is they alone who fight uncompromisingly for the rights of the most oppressed workers and peasants; it is they alone who give unconditional support to the oppressed nationalities, the oppressed castes, the minorities, and women, of the country; and it is they alone who present a concrete alternative, economic, political, social, to the existing rotten and inhuman system.

Let us begin this new awakening by taking up cudgels for the victimized workers of Tamil Nadu and the incarcerated peasant leaders of Haryana, and loudly protesting the Supreme Court decision!!

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