Volume 5, No. 7, July 2004

The congress along with its United Progressive Alliance partners has assumed power at the centre riding on the resentment of the people against the anti-people Liberalization-Privatization-Globalization (LPG) policies and communal fascist rule of the NDA led by BJP. The people especially voted with vengeance against the draconian rule of Naidu in A.P., Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu and Narendra Modi in Gujarat. These three led by Advani and co. are the torch bearers of the Hitlerite fascist rule in these states and centre.

The government however may have to adopt some policies with a "human face" even if temporarily to mollify the feelings of the people and also in order to further consolidate the wafer-thin majority that it got. Most likely the government will renege on the promises made to the people. Inspite of the clear verdict of the people against the LPG policies, the prime minister and the finance minister are busy reassuring the foreign monopoly capital and Indian comprador capital that nothing would change rather than assuring the people that their concerns would be taken care of. The LPG policies are nothing but an integral part of the designs of the World Bank and IMF to make the whole world into an unbridled free market for imperialist monopoly capital. The Dalal big capitalists of India are hand in glove with this to collect the crumbs from the booty resulting out of exploitation of the Indian working masses. They are together making the lives of the toiling masses miserable by the day. Hence we demand an immediate stoppage to the LPG policies, being followed aggressively since the early 90s.

We demand that the privatization of all the PSUs should be stopped. The farmers and the rural and urban poor have been heavily hit by the practical scrapping of the Public Distribution System, farming subsidies resulting in hunger deaths, mal-nutrition deaths and suicides. The large scale penetration of imperialism in to Indian agriculture and largely man made drought is uprooting the farmer from the land and from the village. India which has joined the WTO has mortgaged all the interests of the Indian farmer to the imperialist market. The public distribution system has to be immediately revived and strengthened. The electoral results in A.P. and even in Karnataka have especially proved that the Indian masses have rejected in no unequivocal terms the ‘high-tech lap-top’ development model which was being projected to be emulated throughout the country but which has only unilaterally stressed the development of a miniscule section of the farmers and rural masses leading to large scale deaths. The Congress party rose to power in A.P. and at the centre also by only promising to reverse this process and reviving the rural economy. The central and state governments have to bring about a sharp change in priorities giving utmost priority to the agricultural sector which is in a serious crisis. This can only be done by implementing the land reforms, improving the irrigation facilities (not by privatizing it), reintroducing the fertilizer and power subsidies, revitalizing the minimum support price system etc. It is also important that the import of food grains of which India is self sufficient be immediately stopped which is having a disastrous effect on the Indian farmers. Moreover in the long term this will have a threatening effect on the food security of India. Only these measures can protect and improve the Food Security System of India. One can not of course hope that any ruling party will fulfill these, but the people have to demand and build up movements demanding their implementation.

The last decade has only seen jobless growth, if at all there is any. Apart from the negligible number of the jobs in the IT sector no new jobs are being created and lakhs and lakhs of workers are retrenched resulting in a vast army of the unemployed. It is important that the industrial development model has to be changed so as to absorb all the working force of the country. The small scale and cottage industry has to be protected from the sharks of the capital.

The last decade has also witnessed many an attack on the rights of workers and employees. While the central and various state governments have been bringing about new labour policies at the behest of monopoly capital, the judiciary has been more than a willful ally in this systematic attack on the workers’ rights. We demand that there be an immediate full stop to all such anti-labour policies and that the rights of the workers be restored immediately.

POTA — the dreaded anti-terrorist act should be immediately scrapped. Though there is agreement on this even in the common minimum programme the Union home minister is also talking about suitable amendments. We demand that this draconian law should be immediately done away with lock-stock and barrel with retrospective effect. If that can not be done then the review committee should immediately lift POTA from all the cases. The ban should be lifted on all the organisations including the CPI (ML) [PEOPLES WAR] and MCCI, proscribed under this draconian law. We demand that all the political prisoners languishing in the jails be immediately released and the false cases foisted on Communist Revolutionaries withdrawn.

Chandra Babu Naidu made the naxalites issue the central issue for the elections. The results are for every body to see. The people protested against Naidu in the only way they were allowed to and declared their vehement opposition to the repressive policies of this stooge of the World Bank. The newly elected chief minister of AP, Mr. Rajashekhar Reddy has declared that he would consider lifting the ban and announced in a press conference that combing operations and fake encounters would be stopped. This is a positive step from the side of the government to develop conducive atmosphere. But now it is time that a formal seize-fire be announced from both the sides simultaneously through the help of democratic people who are ready to mediate. Then other modalities and agenda can be finalized. We hope that learning from the ongoing history Mr. Rajashekhar Reddy’s government would stick to the promises it made to the people about this issue.

A Joint Operational Command (JOC) of nine states has been functioning under the leadership of the central government to suppress the revolutionary movement and under its direction more than 2500 revolutionaries have been murdered in the past seven/ eight years. All these states have been sent thousands of central and para-military forces. The revolutionary movement has been the most consistent fighters against the anti-people policies of the government. So even the present government is likely to continue and intensify the repressive policies. We demand that the JOC be scrapped and all the central forces deployed to suppress the revolutionary and democratic movement be called back from all the states.

In our country many murderers go scot-free if they are from affluent sections like land lords, big bureaucrats, politicians etc. or masterminds of pogroms like Bal Thackeray and Narendra Modi remain unscathed and even murderers like Shahabuddin get all the protection from the echelons of power but the dalit agricultural workers and poor farmers are arrested, tortured and jailed without trial for many years and are even given capital punishment. The recent such examples are of four poor and landless peasants of Bihar related to the Bara and Durgawati incidents in Bihar. We demand that the present government save these and other prisoners from going to the gallows.

The Central government is trampling on the aspirations of various nationalities of the North-East and Jammu and Kashmir. While enacting the drama of talks with the Kashmiris and Nagas to diffuse the movements, it is leaving no stone unturned in suppressing the Kashmiri, Assamese, Manipuri and other struggles. We demand an immediate stop to the repression and recognize their right to self-determination. We also demand to immediately fulfill the aspirations of the people of Telangana, Vidarbha, Bastar and other regions by forming separate states.

There are many attempts by different governments to do away with or dilute all the protective laws enacted from time to time because of the struggles of the tribal people like 1 of 70 Act in A.P., Tenancy Act in Jharkhand etc. This is being done in the name of the tribal welfare. But these attempts will only spell further deterioration of the conditions and alienation of tribal people. So we demand that all such attempts should be immediately stopped. We extend our solidarity to all the struggles being waged by them for their rights and we will stand in the forefront along with them in their struggles.

Though minorities are arrested and jailed under POTA even on the slightest pretext, the butchers of Gujarat, Narendra Modi and others are not only roaming with their chest wide open but trying to subvert by all means even the judiciary so that not even a single murderer is punished. The congress has also been guilty of soft Hindutva. So unless all steps necessary are taken to ensure that all the cases of pogroms in Gujarat are reopened and tried and Narendra Modi is punished, the secularist pretensions of the congress and other UPA partners will only prove to be another means of hoodwinking the people.

The systematic saffronisation of education and all social and cultural fields by the BJP has to be corrected. In the name of making these fields devoid of any "ism" or "ideology" , the present government is only trying to nullify all the scientific advances in these fields. We strongly demand that they all be revamped with scientific ideology.

The defeated Sangh Parivar forces are sure to revoke again communal frenzy in the country. People have to be ready to fight the Hindutva offensive that is sure to be let loose by the BJP and other Sangh Parivar members.

The NDA government has proved to be one of the most servile and spineless governments with respect to imperialists, especially the US. The groveling Vajpayee and Advani were on the verge of sending troops to Iraq. The consistent opposition of the people and a section of the army had stalled this. We demand the present government to desist from making any such servile efforts and clearly pronounce that Indian troops will not be deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. even in the garb of humanitarian peace keeping and with or without the UN pretext.

We also demand the present government to stop behaving like a regional bully with expansionist designs especially in South Asia. The South Asian countries and especially its people are quite vary about India’s expansionist designs. India has earlier interfered in the internal affairs of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Recently it has sent troops into Bhutan in the name of flushing out ULFA and other organisations. It is interfering in Nepal’s affairs covertly at present against the Maoist forces there and in future it may turn out into an overt attempt. We warn the government from entertaining any such thoughts.

All the democratic rights and the social welfare measures are only the fruits of hardly fought struggles and battles by the toiling masses. It is not on any account due to some benevolent government. The ruling classes are always on the look out for taking away these rights to enhance their exploitation whenever the movement is on the ebb. Therefore it is only the vigilant masses and their struggles on the streets that can pressurize the government to fulfill the promises it made during the elections. Only their consistent struggles can stop further LPG policies. People have also to be battle ready to confront the comm-unal fascists of the Sangh. We call upon all the people to continue to militantly fight against all these World Bank dictated LPG policies and the communal policies of the Hindutva brigade.

We would like to call upon the people to not to nurture any illusions about the newly elected governments at the centre or in other states. It was the congress which served and protected semi-feudal exploitation in India for more than four and half decades in the country. The pressures of the Left Front is also only to dupe the people as the CPI (M) government is itself implementing the WB policies with zeal in West Bengal. The people may get only a very temporary, shallow and short respite. The people of India can only get rid of the all-round crisis confronting them by building up a strong anti-feudal and anti-imperialist struggle. This can be done by building a strong armed agrarian revolutionary movement which can serve as the back bone of the broad anti-feudal, anti-imperialist struggle. The ultimate overthrow of this exploitative order to build a exploitation free India is possible not through this electoral system but by advancing the revolutionary struggle by area wise seizure of struggle. It is necessary for this to strengthen the people’s red army, PGA and PLGA led by our parties for without the armed strength the people can neither protect their hitherto won victories nor can further achieve more victories. Hence we call upon the people to join, support and strengthen the PGA and PLGA to continue to fight for a new democratic and egalitarian India.

Janardhan

Bahujan

Pradeep

Central Committee, C.P.I.(M.L)[People’s War]

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