Extended Hindutva: NGO Politics, Cocktail Ideology and Anarchist Icons
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 43
Palash Biswas
http://troubledgalaxydetroyeddreams.blogspot.com/
Kashmir crisis is quite reminiscent of pre Independence undivided India! I have already written on this topic:`Kashmir Crisis A Master Minded Hindutva Strategy to Stop Anti US Movement in India.’Mind you, just after Trust Vote I wrote,`They Stopped Mayawati and They May Stop Barrack Obama Also!’
Beware my friends!
Be aware my countrymen!
I have warned you of this time in earlier nineties with my serial interactive Novel, AMERICA SE SAVDHAN. It was my personal creative campaign against Imperialism and Colonisation! I am grateful that a personality no less than Mahashweta Devi recognised the incomplete and unsuccessful attempt.
Most of us know about the market economy. Most of us know the third world Economists led by Dr Amartay Sen and Md Yunus. All these great intellectuals of our times advocate shamelessly defending US Imperialism asn globalisation. We know well the FDI fed Media Power which invests everything to make way for the sovereign Market. We know the Slave leaders of third world countries who have made the concepts of nation, Nationality, Culture, Mother Language, freedom, Fraternity, Equality, Democracy, sovereignty, Production system, democracy and human Rights quite irrelevant.
We all know about the World Bank and its sister who fund the NGOs and tries its best to make the political borders diluted. World Bank is the US institution which is the foster mother of all the Civil Societies which tend to kill every opportunity for the Indigenous communities irrelevant!
We see in Bangladesh where the political system as well as economy is taken over by NGOs led by Dr Md Yunus, the Nobel Laureate!
The Left and third Front are united disassociating with UPA as well as RSS. It is a great development and should be noticed if we happen to be interested in some democratic space for the indigenous communities. We believe that without internal empowerment and autonomy no community may hold power. However it may upset the apple cart of the a Ruling power striking a suitable political equation to overwhelm the Majoritian Polity! We don`t believe that any individual or his personal achievement might do anything good for the Black Untouchables, the worldwide indigenous Black Untouchable brotherhood. But Indian Politics after Trust Vote has thrown the projected face of a Dalit Prime Minister in the Caste Hindu Arena of so called democracy! It may change the demographic equations in India. We should not forget the history how the Brahmins partitioned India to get a suitable demography to sustain Political Power after the Great Bargain with a Defeated Imperialism!
The situation is also reminiscent of operation Blue Star!
It is also reminiscent of anti Reservation movement.
NDA allied with UPA to stop Mayawati, I have written. I am sorry to write that the NGO Politics, Ideology Cocktail and Anarchist Icons are trying to create another Total Revolution movement to preempt anti Imperialism ant Fascism movement in India.
Personally, I respect all of them!
Medha Patkar!
Aruna Roy!
Banwari Lal Sharma!
Swami Agnivesh!
Rajendra Sachar!
Sandep Pandey!
Pratibha Shinde!
Ajit Jha !
Yogendra Yadav!
Rajiv!
and Kuldeep Nair!
On 3r August, 2008 these dignitaries met in New Delhi in a meeting of the executive committee of LOK RAJNEETI MANCH, which was launched in a BJP ruled state like Rajsthan in Jaipur in an inauguration convention held on 12th and 13th July, 2008. The executive committee assessed the political developments after the Trust Vote! Where are the minutes? We know only about the worry for the Parliamentary system and it`s so called holiness violated by Horse trading! These personalities are never interested to abolish inherent inequality, injustice, enslavement destined for the eighty five persent of the population which has no space for representation, awakening, empowerment, autonomy, identity in either Power hegemony or resistance hegemony monopolised by caste Hindus!
They have not called for a Change!
They do not demand for a new constitution Assembly!
What they did?
They threw their iconised hats in the Parliamentary Ring!
Yes, they have decided to launch another political party to participate in Parliamentary elections!
What happens the constituents?
The NGOs.
The Gandhian carbides!
The Socialist Oxides!
The Pro US forces of Total Revolution!
The ultimate subverters Sarvodayees!
Anarchist Icons without social honesty!
Environment activists without any social vision!
and
the Mass Movements which have no link in between them!
Organisationally the constituents are:
Azadi Bachao Andolan
Bharat Jana Andolan
Bandhua Mukti Morcha
Mazddor Kisan Shakti Sangathan
Samajvadi Jana Parishad
Lok Shakti Abhiyan
Asha Parivar
Prakriti Manav Kendriya Andolan
Rajsthan Sangharsha Seva Sangh
Uttarakhand Lok Vahini
Karnataka Sarvodaya Party
Jana Mukti Sangharsha Vahini
Maharashtra Socialist Front
Maharashtra Lok Rajneeti manch
NAPAM
Dhanbad Zila Mahila Manch
Mind you, Uttarkhand Lok Vahini was known as Uttarkhand Sangharsh Vahini and it had been a constituent of Indian People`s Front in eigties. The Vahini people are my personal friends and they have been associated to Naxalites, Gandhians and sarvodayees along with the socialists.
Any Organisation should have an convincible object!
What is the object of this new poltical parties thrown up by NGO poiltics?
Every Organisation has an Ideology. Two Ideologies may not run an organisation! How many ideologies make the Cocktail, we have to watch in this new political set up!
What would be the Central Command?
What would be done with discipline to tame the politically ambitious icons like Swami Agnivesh who has tasted Power Politics enough?
Let us go way back in sixties and seventies while Thundering Spring struck India! So much so that the documents of Charu Majumdar made it quite inevitable for the Ruling Hegemony to stand united.In 1971, our great army was used to crush the Naxalites in West Bengal and at the same time, it was fighting for the liberation of Bangladesh. The unprecedented achievement of Mrs Indira Gandhi as the third world leader and the resurgence of Indian as well as Bangla nationality proved to be fatal for Naxal Insurrection. Whatsoever infection left in the anatomy of the nation and particularly, the Youth and students, it was cured with the Gujrat and Bihar Students` Movement. Thundering spring was replaced by Total Revolution!
Do you remember the concept of Total Revolution?
It tried its best to undermine the anti Imperialist, anti Fascist anti Colonisation and anti feudal forces. Indigenous communities were too much involved in Naxalite Insurrection. They were killed mercilessly across the country and Indian Nation did not react. In modern times we watch with helpless inaction that the most parts of this divided bleeding subcontinent inhibited by indigenous communities are converted into Infinite Killing Fields as the MNCs and Foreign Hands have taken over the Political as well as Economic System!
Suppression Of Opposition, Total Revolution And Emergency In India are interrelated to sustain the Ruling Hegemony as Mrs Indira Gandhi underestimated the forces behind. She targeted the RSS but spared the socialists and sarvodayees to spread venom in the veins of the Nation. While she was unable to tackle the Bhashmasur as it once again occurred in Punjab while she created circumstances of Operation Blue Star to block Mandal commission report, Indira had no escape route but declaring Emergency which glamourised the Greatest pro US movement in India and which ultimately killed the Thundering Spring!The anrchy rooted deep in Indian psyche as we see no glimpse of genuine Mass Movements in Post modern Sensex shining India!
NAPM (National Alliance for People’s Movement), Uttar Pradesh
About NAPM
NAPM is a coming-together, a process of like-minded groups and movements who while retaining their autonomous identities, are working together to bring the struggle for a people-oriented development model to the center-stage of politics and public life. It is understood that such an alliance, emerging with a definite ideological commonality and common strategy, can give rise to a strong social, political force and a national people's movement.
NAPM Website: http://www.proxsa.org/politics/napm.html
Contact Person: Sandeep Pandey
Address: A-893, Indira Nagar, Lucknow-226016, U.P., India
Phone: +91-(0)522-2347365
Email Address: ashaashram_AT_yahoo_DOT_com
Jayaprakash Narayan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about Indian freedom fighther politican. For other Indian politician , see Jayaprakash Narayan (Lok Satta).
Jayaprakash Narayan (Devanagari: ???????? ??????; October 11, 1902 - October 8, 1979), widely known as JP, was an Indian freedom fighter and political leader, remembered especially for leading the opposition to Indira Gandhi in the 1970s and for giving a call for peaceful Total Revolution. His biography, Jayaprakash, was written by his nationalist friend and an eminent writer of Hindi literature, Ramavriksha Benipuri.
Early life
Narayan was born in Sitabdiara village between Ballia District of UP and Saran District of Bihar. His father Harsudayal was a junior official in the canal department of the State government and was often touring the region. Jayaprakash, called Baul affectionately, was left with his grandmother to study in Sitabdiara. There was no high school in the village, so Jayaprakash was sent to Patna to study in the Collegiate School. He excelled in school. His essay, "The present state of Hindi in Bihar", won a best essay award. He entered the Patna College on a Government scholarship.
He joined "Bihar Vidyapeeth"[1]founded by Dr. Rajendra Prasad for motivating young meritorious youths and was among [2]the first students of eminent Gandhian Dr.Anugrah Narayan Sinha[3],a close collegue of M. K. Gandhi who later became first Finance Minister of Bihar.
In October, 1920 Jayaprakash was married to Prabhavati Devi, a freedom fighter in her own right and a staunch disciple of Kasturba Gandhi. Prabhavati was the daughter of lawyer and nationalist Brij Kishore Prasad, one of the first Gandhians in Bihar and one who played a major role in Gandhi's campaign in Champaran. She often held opinions which were not in agreement with JP's views, but Narayan respected her independence. On Gandhiji's invitation, she stayed at his Sabarmati Ashram while Jayaprakash continued his studies.[4]
In 1922, Narayan went to the United States, where he worked to support his studies in political science, sociology and economics at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Iowa, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ohio State University.[5][6] He adopted Marxism while studying at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under sociologist Edward A. Ross; he was also deeply influenced by the writings of M. N. Roy. Financial constraints and his mother's health forced him to abandon his wish of earning a PhD. He became acquainted with Rajani Palme Dutt and other revolutionaries in London on his way back to India.
After returning to India, Narayan joined the Indian National Congress on the invitation of Jawaharlal Nehru in 1929; M. K. Gandhi became his mentor in the Congress. During the Indian independence movement he was arrested, jailed, and tortured several times by the British. He won particular fame during the Quit India movement.
After being jailed in 1932 for civil disobedience against British rule, Narayan was imprisoned in Nasik Jail, where he met Ram Manohar Lohia, Minoo Masani, Achyut Patwardhan, Ashok Mehta, Yusuf Desai and other national leaders. After his release, the Congress Socialist Party, or (CSP), a left-wing group within the Congress, was formed with Acharya Narendra Deva as President and Narayan as General secretary.
During the Quit India Movement of 1942, when senior Congress leaders were arrested in the early stages, JP, Lohia and Basawon Singh (Sinha) were at the forefront of the agitations. Leaders such as Jayaprakash Narayan and Aruna Asaf Ali were described as "the political children of Gandhi but recent students of Karl Marx."
Initially a defender of physical force, Narayan was won over to Gandhi's position on nonviolence and advocated the use of satyagrahas to achieve the ideals of democratic socialism. Furthermore, he became deeply disillusioned with the practical experience of socialism in Nehru's India.
After independence and the death of Mahatma Gandhi, Narayan, Acharya Narendra Dev and Basawon Singh (Sinha) led the CSP out of Congress to become the opposition Socialist Party, which later took the name Praja Socialist Party. Basawon Singh (Sinha) became the first leader of the opposition in the state and assembly of Bihar and Acharya Narendra Deva became the first leader of opposition in the state and assembly of U.P.
[edit] Sarvodaya
On April 19, 1954, Narayan announced in Gaya that he was dedicating his life (Jeevandan) to Vinoba Bhave's Sarvodaya movement and its Bhoodan campaign, which promoted distributing land to Harijans (untouchables). He gave up his land, set up an ashram in Hazaribagh, and worked towards uplifting the village.
In 1957, Narayan formally broke with the Praja Socialist Party in order to pursue lokniti [Polity of the people], as opposed to rajniti [Polity of the state]. By this time, Narayan had become convinced that lokniti should be non-partisan in order to build a consensus-based, classless, participatory democracy which he termed Sarvodaya. Narayan became an important figure in the India-wide network of Gandhian Sarvodaya workers.
In 1964, Narayan was vilified across the political spectrum for arguing in an article in the Hindustan Times that India had a responsibility to keep its promise to allow self-determination to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. He hit back at critics in a second article, dismissing the Indian version of the "domino theory" which held that the rest of India's states would disintegrate if Kashmir were allowed its promised freedom. In his graceful if old-fashioned style, Narayan ridiculed the premise that "the states of India are held together by force and not by the sentiment of a common nationality. It is an assumption that makes a mockery of the Indian Nation and a tyrant of the Indian State".
[edit] Bihar Movement and Total Revolution
JP called for Sampurna Kranti - total revolution - at a historic rally of students at Patna's Gandhi Maidan on the 5th of June, 1975Narayan returned to prominence in State politics in the late 1960s. In 1974, he led the student's movement in the state of Bihar which gradually developed into a popular people's movement known as the Bihar movement. It was during this movement that JP gave a call for peaceful Total Revolution Together with V. M. Tarkunde, he founded the Citizens for Democracy in 1974 and the People's Union for Civil Liberties in 1976, both NGOs, to uphold and defend civil liberties.
[edit] Emergency
When Indira Gandhi was found guilty of violating electoral laws by the Allahabad High Court, Narayan called for Indira to resign, and advocated a program of social transformation which he termed Sampoorna kraanti [Total Revolution]. Instead she proclaimed a national Emergency on the midnight of June 25, 1975, immediately after Narayan had called for the PM's resignation and had asked the military and the police to disregard unconstitutional and immoral orders; JP, opposition leaders, and dissenting members of her own party (the 'Young Turks') were arrested on that day.
Narayan was kept as detenu at Chandigarh even after he had asked for a month's parole for mobilising relief in areas of Bihar gravely affected by flood. His health suddenly deteriorated on October 24, and he was released on November 12; diagnosis at Jaslok Hospital, Bombay, revealed kidney failure; he would be on dialysis for the rest of his life.
After Indira revoked the emergency on January 18, 1977 and announced elections, it was under JP's guidance that the Janata Party (a vehicle for the broad spectrum of the anti-Indira Gandhi opposition) was formed. The Janata Party was voted into power, and became the first non-Congress party to form a government at the Centre.
[edit] An evaluation
Narayan spent the first 25 years of independence as the patron saint of lost causes: the Praja Socialist Party, the Sarvodaya movement, even self-determination for Kashmir. His most enduring contribution to the life of the Republic was the movement he led to unseat Mrs Gandhi, which provoked the Emergency. As the eminence grise of the Janata Party, the first non-Congress party to run the central government, he can take credit for catalysing the political forces that set in train the Congress’s political decline.
Narayan also wrote several books, notably Reconstruction of Indian Polity. He promoted Hindu revivalism, but was initially deeply critical of the form of revivalism promoted by the Sangh Parivar.
He died in October 1979; but a few months before that, in March 1979, his death was erroneously announced by the Indian prime minister to the parliament as he lay fighting for his life in Jaslok Hospital, causing a brief wave of national mourning, including the suspension of parliament and regular radio broadcasting, and closure of schools and shops. When he was told about the gaffe a few weeks later, he smiled.
In 1998, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, in recognition of his social work. Other awards include the Magsaysay award for Public Service in 1965.
Narayan is sometimes referred to with the honorific title Lok nayak or 'guide of the people'.
A university (J P University in Chhapra, Bihar) and two Hospitals (L N J P Hospital in New Delhi and Jai Prabha Hospital in Patna) have been opened in his memory. The capital's largest and best-equipped trauma centre, the Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, also honors his contributions.
[edit] References
^ Dr. Rajendra Prasad's Letters. "First Finance cum Labour Minister". Rajendra Prasad's archive. Retrieved on 2007-06-25.
^ Kamat. "Biography: Anugrah Narayan Sinha". Kamat's archive. Retrieved on 2006-06-25.
^ aicc. "SATYAGRAHA LABORATORIES OF MAHATMA GANDHI". aicc. Retrieved on 2006-12-08.
^ "Jay Prakash Narayan", liveindia.com
^ Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan
^ Biography of Jayaprakash Narayan
[edit] Bibliography
Bimal Prasad (editor). 1980. A Revolutionary's Quest: Selected Writings of Jayaprakash Narayan. Oxford University Press, Delhi ISBN 0195612043
Jai Prakash Narain, Jayaprakash Narayan, Essential Writings, 1929-1979: A Centenary Volume, 1902-2002, Konark Publishers (2002) ISBN 8122006345
Dr. Kawaljeet, J.P.'s Total Revolution and Humanism (Patna: Buddhiwadi Foundation, 2002). ISBN 81-86935-02-9
Dr. Ramendra (editor), Jayaprakash Vichar Sankalan [Hindi] (Patna: Rajendra Prakashan, 1986).
[edit] External links
A plea for the reconstruction of Indian polity
Total revolution
On Hindu revivalism
Magsaysay award acceptance speech; Citation; [ht
Biography
Small story showing his greatness
JP's visit to an RSS camp, as told by Sita Ram Goel in "Perversion of India's Political Parlance"
JP's Total Revolution and Humanism by Dr. Kawaljeet
JP information from Gandhi museum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayaprakash_Narayan
JP's 'total revolution'
TRANSFORMING THE POLITY — Centenary readings from Jayaprakash Narayan: Selected and introduced by Ajit Bhattacharjea; Rupa and Co., 7/16, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002. Rs. 195.
RESTLESS AND struggling hard with the might of a titan against the dark forces of power politics, massive corruption, demon of communalism, bureaucratic dominance and moral bankruptcy, Jayaprakash Narayan (1902-1979) lived the life of a hero. It was his deep concern for the common man (that earned him the popular prefix "Lok Nayak"), which led him through Marxism and Socialism to Gandhian way.
As the eminent editor, Ajit Bhattacharjea, puts it in his introduction, "The change from his own early Marxist phase is reflected in the contrast between his praise for State power in Why Socialism, written in 1935 and his censure of it in From Socialism to Sarvodaya, more than 20 years later. But, he later went further to find Sarvodaya inadequate in remedying deep-rooted social ills and stressed the need to mobilise mass struggle. He grew increasingly impatient and justified violence if the Government failed to perform, as he announced in New Delhi in 1969."
Born in Bihar, Jayaprakash Narayan studied in the U.S. when he came in contact with radical socialist ideas. Returning to India in 1929 he worked with the Indian National Congress and formed the Congress Socialist Party in 1934 within the Congress organisation.
He took a leading part in the Quit India Movement (1942-43), escaping from the high-security Hazaribagh prison. Soon after Independence, he formed a separate political body, the Socialist Party, which was later merged with Kisan Mazdoor Sabha to become Praja Socialist Party.
Following Gandhiji, JP recognised the prime necessity of change in the individual who takes upon himself/herself the task of changing the society. In this lies the whole philosophy of JP's total revolution.
The gist of this concept is presented in his letter to people of Bihar and an extract from the Notes on Bihar Movement, both written in 1975. Earlier, he had also pleaded for reviving the ancient concept of dharma to suit democracy so as to ensure that the main mould of life remained indigenous. His basic objective is succinctly told in the text reproduced from JP's weekly, Everyman's. By 1957, Jayaprakash Narayan had quit active politics and took great interest in Vinoba Bhave's programmes of Bhoodan-Gramdan and soon became known throughout the world as the Sarvodaya leader. In that capacity, JP espoused many a cause as that of Nagaland, of the surrender of dacoits, of Kashmir and communal harmony.
The main quest, however, remained where and what it was, namely a relentless confrontation against corruption, money power and misuse of political authority which seemed to dominate the national scene even after 30 years of parliamentary democracy.
JP could not sit idle when politics began at last to drift to an authoritarian rule. He was imprisoned on the eve of promulgation of Emergency in June 1975 but was released next year on account of shattered health and an unaccountable kidney trouble. But physically weak JP saw in the encircling gloom a ray of hope.
He inspired political parties other than the ruling one to combine as a single Janata Party against dictatorship and the smothering of all freedoms under Emergency regime.
It was his leadership and guidance, which mainly led to the victory of the Janata Party in the March 1977 elections. All went well for a few months.
But unfortunately forces of selfishness, struggle for power and partisanship reasserted themselves and JP was a disillusioned man at the time of his death in October 1979. His long letter to the then Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, reflects his utter disappointment.
The book under review is the first of several books proposed by the National Committee set up by the Government of India to celebrate the birth centenary of Jayaprakash Narayan (born on 11 October 1902).
Carefully culled short extracts from JP's writings, carrying a crisp introduction, have been arranged under 13 broad topics with prefatory notes.
The selections should give a kaleidoscopic over-view of JP's observation and aspirations most of which are very relevant even today and encourage the readers to go for the full text of his writings.
LA. SU. RENGARAJAN
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/br/2003/01/07/stories/2003010700110300.htm
The Means and End Of Revolution
Who needs the Revolution?
This, I think, is the most crucial question that every revolutionary must ask himself, "Who will inherit this earth?" Will crucial question that every earth belong to anyone? Will it belong to the man who can conquer it by his sword or to the man who can purchase it? Will it belong to the sword first or the sceptre? "To whom shall this earth belong?" That is the most crucial question, because there are more people on this earth who are deprived of their inheritance. They are driven from pillar to post. The law in its majesty forbids them to sleep under bridges, to sit and live on the pavement and to beg on the streets and to steal from houses where there are heaps of bread. They have no place, not even a few inches to stand upon God's earth. And we have been chanting almost every day; "0, Mother earth, you have been supporting all people on your breast, while you have been supported by the God Vishnu Himself."
This question asked by the destitute and the poor has never been answered. Who is it that needs a revolution? Those who enjoy status and prestige in the present social order? They do not need the revolution. Any social change would be to their disadvantage. Therefore the revolutionaries call them the 'vested interests.' It is in their interest to maintain their status quo.
So it is this 'last man' who has to make this revolution. He is not only the man who will benefit by the revolution, but also the maker of the revolution. Therefore the revolution haste be brought about in the context of democracy and by democratic methods, whether constitutional, extra-constitutional or un-constitutional. Democratic means peaceful. It is calculated to bring man nearer to each other: a revolution that will not prove divisive. We have to explore a technique of revolution which will be cohesive.
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The Means and End of Revolution
In our vision of this revolution, all progress means advance and all advance means approach-approach to one another, coming nearer to one another. So we have to explore, to find out a technique of revolution that will bring men closer together; closer in mind also. Because, if men come closer together merely in body, and not in mind, then what will happen? They may not embrace each other, but merely wrestle with each other. The process is the same. In wrestling also you have to embrace each other. But as Harold Laski once wrote, "I embrace my enemy the better to choke him." So this embrace of death is not calculated to bring about any revolution that will be human: human in the sense that it will be a revolution that brings each man closer to his brother.
This is not a question Of violence or non-violence. The fundamental question in democracy is, "Who will be the supreme authority-the soldier or the citizen?" Who will depend upon whom? Will the soldier depend upon the citizens or the citizens depend upon the soldier? What will be the sanction of our democratic order? Whether the final arbiter will be the ploughman or the hangman?
I had a heart to heart talk with an enlightened gentleman this afternoon and he told me, "there can be no morality without fear." And I can tell you that from what I know and what I feel, and what I have experienced that fear is the dark room in which all negatives are developed. The morality which fear begets is a counterfeit morality. It is a misnomer. That is why our ultimate sanction in the other world is Yamaraj, the god of death. He metes is not Lord Vishnu, the preserver. We worship Vishnu, but in the heart of our hearts we pay tributes to Yamaraj, who after all seems, to be the power behind Vishnu.
Our orthodox pundits often say, "the glory of the Vedas rests on the bow and the arrow." The Koran in one hand and the sword in the other." The Bible in one hand and the crusades in other." What does it mean? It means that it is brute force, physical power on which on our democracy rests today. The citizen is sovereign under the constitution, but actually it is the citizen on whom the soldiers depend.
So, what does this revolution signify? What is its objective? We wanted to liberate the plough and other implements of production from the domination and dread of the sword and from the abject subservience to the throne, which is the symbol of the 'state' under any social order. This is the primary aim of the revolutionaries; in the world, belonging to whatever persuasion.
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War: Detrimental to the Evolution of Humanity
I am reminded of the Third International held in Moscow in 1919, which declared the aims of Communism-Communism as it is understood in Russia, because Communism is also not the same everywhere. There is a Communism of the Russian orientation, there is a Communism of Marxist orientation, there is a Communism of the Namboodripad variety, the Naxalite variety, Dange variety, Jyoty Basu variety. So we have several brands of Communism. In his book on Communism, Harold Laski wrote: "Communism is like a hat that has lost its shape because everyone wears it . That is what is happening to our concept of 'revolution.'
The Third International in Moscow laid out the aims of Communism. The first waste end the domination of capital, the second was to wipe out the state boundaries, the third was to make war impossible. It was not Gandhi, who for the first time asserted, that war was inhuman, and detrimental to the evolution of humanity. 'It was Karl Marx who for the first time uttered this truth which will hold true for all time to come. This is the timeless truth that he uttered, and he alone had the courage to do so. No religious leader, no rishi or saint, no prophet before Karl Marx had the courage or the vision or the foresight to utter this truth.
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No Poor : No War
Every religion prescribes charity-`daan'. And the Christian scriptures say that poverty was designed with a view to charity. Unless you have poverty, you can't have charity. If you have to be bounteous, generous to the poor there must be some people who suffer from want; want in order to provide you with an opportunity for charity. So every religion has prescribed charity, but no religion has asserted so unambiguously as Karl Marx that there will come a day when there will be neither be poor nor the rich on this planet; and there will come a day when there will be no war. He never asked whether this was possible. As revolution is the art of making the impossible, possible; the possible, probable; and the probable, feasible. A revolutionary mind is not pragmatic. Pragmatism, as a matter of fact, does not exist in any of our relationships.
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Hand in Hand to Hell
Life means relationship; and relationship is based on mutual faith. If men did not believe in each other, they could not even sin together. If you want to commit a murder with the other companion there has to be good faith amongst you, which they call 'honour among thieves.' In one of Shakespeare's works there is a very fine sentence, "So march on. Let us on to it. But hand in hand to hell."
Freedom means the freedom to go to hell. It is my choice whether I want to go to hell or heaven. The hell of my choice is heaven, and the heaven that is imposed on me by another is prison, it is hell. That is what Milton wants to convey in his 'Paradise Lost' seems to have glorified Satan.
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Togetherness Means Sharing Weal and Woe
We, in this country have the freedom to go to hell if we like. But, let us go to hell hand in hand, because if you want to go to hell singly, personally, the way to hell is paved with good intentions but evil consequences. This togetherness is the first necessity of social life. And togetherness means sharing weal and woe. Sharing not only material goods but sharing weal and woe. Sharing is not distribution. Distribution is an entirely different thing. And revolution does not strive merely for distribution, not even equitable distribution, but Sharing. And in sharing, the basis is love, brotherhood, fraternity. So it is a familistic, fraternal, social order, for which this revolution ought to work.
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Mutual Support Society
Who will be the architect of this revolution? The man who needs most. But the difficulty is that the man who needs the change most in the social order does not seek it. The necessity is there, but it seems that the aspiration is wanting, because his mind has been conditioned in the present social order by politicians, by educationists and by religion. Why does the poor man bear the burden of his poverty? He suffers the pangs of poverty, because he hopes to become rich someday. So this hope sustains him in his poverty, and in his penury.
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And why does the rich man bear the Burden of his Riches
It is not in the nature of man to possess or to amass. Man wants use, not possession. Possession is a liability. If he had the assurance that he could get a thing whenever he wants it, he would not hoard. He stores because there is insecurity for the morrow. So he provides for a rainy day. Everyday is a rainy day, because there is no security. So, psychologically, fundamentally, the poor man and the rich man have the same mind. The rich man is afraid of becoming poor, and the poor man hopes to become rich. That is why both co-operate with each other in maintaining the present social order. He was also once poor. Rich man does not belong to a different species. He was also once poor. Just as every saint has a past and every sinner a future, every rich man has a past and every poor man has a future. Therefore when we say that if we liquidate the rich man, poverty could be eliminated, we are labouring under a serious delusion.
This is a delusion, because a rich man does not belong to belongs to the same species as we do. This what we call I call faith or in Sanskrit you may call it 'astikata·' Faith in, the goodness of every man, because goodness is man's nature Wickedness requires a reason.
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Sympathy
So this revolution is trying to find out, is in quest of, a technique that would be effective as well as human; that will be in consonance with our end, the end in view being that men should come closer together. All advance is approach.
Every step in this revolution muse bring men nearer to each other. In democracy, your opponent is not your antagonist just as in a game, say of cricket or of cards; your opponent is your playmate on the other side. A playmate on the other side is not your adversary; he is a part of the game.
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A Contradiction
But there is a serious contradiction in our present democratic set-up. The candidate belongs to a party, but the representative is a representative of the people. It is the voter who has elected him, but the party can order him out. So I have always felt that the party is a conspiracy against the people. We want a voter democracy and not a democracy of the candidates. Candidates are concerned not with public opinion, but with gathering votes.
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Mob and people
Pickwick was once asked by his friend Snodgrass, a very difficult question, "How to act when in doubt?" Pickwick was a quick-witted guy who could answer any question offhand. So he said, "when in doubt, follow the mob." But that did not solve the problem. So Snodgrass asked, "What if there be two mobs?" "Then follow the largest." That was Pickwick's prescription.
But there is a world of difference between a mob and the people or the public. What is a mob? A faceless, amorphous blob of population. So it's neither the people nor the public. The people are an entirely different category. What is a mob? A mob is a congregation of people, a collection of people which has several heads, but no brain. Several breasts, but no heart. The people have consciousness, a purpose. They gather together for a certain purpose. So democracy is not the 'cracy' of the crowd, neither is it my cracy. As the orthodox people always say, orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is your doxy." Democracy is cracy and autocracy is your cracy. That is the level on which our politics has been working for the last few years, for the last several years you might say.
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Changing the Context
So, we have to change the very basis of our political system, the system of our democracy. Democracy of the candidate is an auction of the candidate and of the voter. It was perhaps Edmund Burke, remember right, who said, "Leaders are bidders at an auction on popularity'. So in the capitalist context, even democracy will be auctioned. Even gods will be auctioned, men will be auctioned of course. That is why we want to change this context. Revolution has three-dimensions-change of context, change of value and change of heart. We want to change this context, because in the context of commercialism and capitalism, every blessed thing becomes a commodity. It is either purchased or sold, including man and So, we want to liberate man from this context. And what man? It is not we who will liberate him. It is the last man who needs a revolution, a social change, who will liberate himself.
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Man With Implements
Now, what is the distinction between the man who needs change and who does not need change? I shall just analyse this more or less in a symbolic manner. There is the man with the sword who enjoys his status in the present society; there is the man with the purse, with his coffers, who also enjoys considerable social status because he can purchase everything, he can purchase even democracy; and then there is the man of power. Power is the most dangerous of all these intoxicants. The man in power is tipsy most of the time. So, we have to liberate the man who has neither the sword nor power in his hand? He has the means and implements of production. But we have always conditioned him into the false notion, that power rests with the sword, the purse and the sceptre. As a matter of fact they are all created by the man who wields the instruments of production. Who made the sword? Who made the safe? And who made the throne on which the king sits T It is the man with the implements, tools, who has made all these symbols of social status and social prestige, as well as social power.
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Where Lies The Real Power?
So, it is the man with the implements and tools who forges the instruments of his exploitation and suppression. This is revolutionary trade-unionism. Organise labour on this basis, and they will realise ICQU the real strength is with them, not with the soldier or the capitalist or the man in power. This is the social revolutionary consciousness that we have to rouse among the common people. We been deceiving them, cheating them into believing that real power is not in the instruments of production, but in the instruments exploitation and destruction.
What's the difference between an implement and a weapon? If I were to use a sword to cut a cucumber, you would all ridicule me. You would say the poor man does not the poor use of a sword. The proper use of a weapon is to take life. It is to destroy life. The proper use of a sword is to take life. To use the sword for any other purpose is to misuse the sword. But the hammer and the Sickle, if you use them for destroying life, you are misusing them. They have been designed to produce life-giving, material goods. So real power, the ultimate power is with the man who has implements in his hand and not with the man with the armaments.
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A Cudgel to Keep Silence!
This is not a question of violence or non-violence. If you reduce a social virtue into an abstract theory or a principle, it loses its essence. It ceases to have any bearing on real life. This has happened to me in actual life.
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Spiritual Values
That's the monstrosity which we create a social value of a creed. That is why there have been more wars than religion and God than in the name of the kingdoms and property.
Spiritual values are quite different from religious values or ethical values. So I have given you some idea of the new context that we want to create, for a new value will require a new context. And who will bring about this revolution? The man has translated revolutionary values into his own life.
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Translate Values into Your Life
Once I was addressing a huge meeting, a mass meeting of students at Patna, and they asked me, "Well, what do you expect us to sacrifice? We have no property. So, we cannot give a portion of it in charity. We have no money. So we can't give you any donations. We are merely students at college. So, what is the actual programme, the code of conduct, that you could prescribe for us?
The students asked me what they could do I said, I can assure you about one thing. I can point out to you definitely one thing that you can do and that is, today you write to your father that relinquish all claims to his property, because you don't believe inheriting property. Not only private property but hereditary property. The secretary of the meeting came and whispered in my tit seems we have invited a wrong man", because they were prepared to do anything except translate revolutionary values into their own lives. So this is change of heart, and this change of heart to begin with the revolutionary himself.
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Let The Man With Plough Make History
I hope that you and I and all of us will realise that the maker history in the future will be the man with the plough and not the man with the sword. So far human history has been made by kings, warriors, heroes and politicians. We are looking forward today when you will be made by the common man. He will no longer be object of history, but the architect of history. History has not come to an end, time has not stopped and there is no last word in history; there is no last event in history. Every event that is recorded history is not repetitive. Every event is unprecedented. So let us task ourselves whether this has happened anywhere else. If it has not happened anywhere else, it should happen in India, simply cause it has not happened anywhere else. This is the spirit in which in which we have to approach this stupendous task of Total Revolution.
http://www.gandhimuseum.org/sarvodaya/dharma/dharmai1.htm
Total oblivion
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By conferring the Bharat Ratna on Jayaprakash Narayan, the BJP government has made amends for a national lapse. What is surprising about the decision is that it took so long to materialise. It is an irony that even the Janata Party government, which owed a lot to JP, fought shy of honouring him with the nation's highest award. And even when the Janata Dal, which claims to be the custodian of JPism, was in power, JP's claim was not considered. It obviously took solace in the fact that Gandhi had also not been given this award.
Ordinarily, JP should have been one of the first recipients of the award. His contributions to the Quit India and socialist movements, involvement in the Sarvodaya missions like Bhoodan and his pioneering role in the surrender of Chambal dacoits easily made him one of the tallest leaders of the nation. But the Congress government overlooked his claim as he was not favourably disposed towards it.
JP, who shunned power, would have been happier if the Congress leadership had followedthe Mahatma's advice and dissolved the party once India attained freedom. It is a different matter that JP got disillusioned with not just Congress politics but party politics as well. However, his doughty spirit that lay dormant during his Sarvodaya days got a spark when in the early Seventies students in Gujarat launched their anti-corruption crusade.
The Nav Nirman movement, as it was called, captured JP's imagination and when students in his home state too rose in rebellion, he found himself in the vanguard of a new movement with its self-proclaimed aim of Total Revolution. The agitation he spearheaded caught the fancy of the youth all over the country and its reverberations began to be felt even in the national Capital.
Indira Gandhi and her younger son Sanjay Gandhi recognised the threat JP posed to the domination of politics by the Congress party. Far from meeting the challenge democratically, Indira Gandhi took to the easier path of imposing the Emergency on the nation and putting JP behind bars.But the inspiration he provided was enough to unite heterogeneous forces like the Jan Sangh and the socialists under the banner of the Janata Party and bring down the Congress government in the 1977 election.
But the celebrations did not last long, as cantankerous Janata Party leaders fought among themselves and helped the Congress stage a quick comeback. The return of Indira Gandhi also marked the failure of JP's mission. His Total Revolution today lies in a shambles as can be gauged from the fact that one of its leading lights -- Laloo Prasad Yadav -- is now in jail charged with amassing a fortune through fraudulent means.
On the political front, the Janata Dal, which claims to follow JP's ideals, is now a spent force waiting for its obliteration even as its caste-based offshoots like the RJD and the Samajwadi Party stay afloat, purely on caste issues.
On the plus side, some of the political forces inspired by JP continue to play a leading role as in Bihar where the radical left movement owes itsgenesis entirely to him. The anti-landlord agitation in Bodh Gaya has spawned a political movement which has given the landless self-respect and the ability to stand up for their rights.
The irony is, none of these groups today professes any connection with Jayaprakash Narayan.
http://www.indianexpress.com/res/web/pIe/ie/daily/19981225/35950574.html
Why a National Alliance of People's Movements?
In the villages and valleys of India, on its hill-sides, beaches and festering cities, millions of people are struggling for a livelihood with dignity.
Villagers in different parts of India are trying to save their common natural resources like forests and pastures from privatization and exploitation for short-term profits, while the urban poor are struggling for their right to life and livelihood.
In many places adivasis and other rural people are struggling to save their lands from submergence by dams or from being ravaged by large industrial projects.
Elsewhere marginal farmers and landless labourers are fighting for land-rights and fair wages.
Traditional artisans whose livelihood has been undermined by the mechanized mass production of the modern economy, are striving to find ways of surviving.
Meanwhile millions of people, who suffered this fate over the last century are toiling in the expanding metropolitan cities and living in sub-human conditions. Even those who have acquired higher incomes and joined the middle class are caught in tension-filled, automated lives in which there are subtler form of alienation.
Even the elites, who live in luxury, are not entirely protected against the negative fall-out of what has passed for 'progress' and 'development' for over a century. They must, after all, breathe the same polluted air and suffer the impact of a depleted ozone layer.
Thus all over the world some people are urgently striving for a new kind of 'development' - one which does not irretrievably damage the environment and demean the sacrifice the toiling masses for the prosperity and pleasure of the upper classes.
In India this awareness has found expression in various different forms of thought, action and struggle over the last five decades. A diverse range of individuals, groups and movements have opted to stay out of the structure of state power and work for the unfulfilled promise of a democratic, egalitarian and independent India. These efforts have extended from local issues based campaigns and agitations to lobbying for policy changes, to nation-wide mobilisation on broader issues.
Over the last decade many people involved in this work have felt the need for building a common platform and formation which will go beyond mere networking on specific issues. Several attempts have been made in this direction and it is out of those experiences and processes that the National Alliance of People's Movements (NAPM) emerged in 1992, as the 'New' Economic Policy began to take effect and the Ayodhya agitation shook the nation. This lent a still greater urgency to the need for an effective alliance to strengthen the secular ethos and struggle for a development that empowers people against the hegemonic, exploitative culture associated with the terms 'privatisation' and 'liberalization'.
What is a National Alliance?
The NAPM has been a growing process. It does not strive to be a federation of constituent members. It is a coming together, a process of like-minded groups and movements who while retaining their autonomous identities, are working together to bring the struggle for a people-oriented development model to the centre-stage of politics and public life. It is understood that such an alliance, emerging with a definite ideological commonality and common strategy, can give rise to a strong social, political force and a national people's movement.
Over the last three years a series of discussions have led to the evolution of a minimum agreed ideological and programmatic basis. Evolving a finer understanding of these concepts and finding more effective ways of working towards these goals is an ongoing process which requires the participation of more and more people. Over the last four years there have been several national and regional meetings of NAPM all over the country. A mass rally was organised against Dunkel in Delhi and at other places. A meeting of like minded organisations, including some trade unions, organised in Bhopal on December 1, 1992, saw the process take a definite shape. The organisation held meetings and conclaves at Calcutta, Bangalore, Puri, Allahabad, Baroda, Bombay and various other parts of the country to thrash out many issues and areas of conflict and also to clarify the ideological aspects. However the alliance got strengthened with the shared campaigns and common programme that highlighted the issues at stake. Among other programmes, the public meeting at Delhi on March 3, 1993 against the Dunkel Draft and New Economic Policy (NEP) was attended by over ten thousand people from the grass root organisations from all over the country who expressed their resolve to fight against the current policies and the paradigm of development. Following that, regional meetings were held in all parts of the country and the campaign against NEP and multinational companies was observed. A national conference on development and displacement was organised at Mumbai in September 1995 in which eighty organisations engaged in mass struggles on development issues participated. A determination to form a political force with the victims of the post-independence development model, programmes and projects at the fore-front gave rise to a national strategy. Meetings of public interest lawyers from various states as well as of the artists and writers were arranged in Mumbai, to appeal to them to play a role. This process of dialogue with intellectuals, scientists, technologists and journalists is to continue in all regions hereafter. The alliance of movements and organisations with a mass base and separate identities is a people's political process that sees and stresses its role and relevance beyond the elections and electoral power politics. Our strategy, therefore, will always be drawn with the main purpose of putting the people's fundamental issues on the national political agenda.
The state of electoral politics today is that for the first time in post independent India, there is a similarity in the nature, policies and behaviour of all major political parties - national or regional. All of them are in power in one or more states and are pursuing NEP with vigour. In a sense, the present national politics and its agenda does not take cognisance of the issues of eighty percent of the population- the toiling masses, the real producers and the backbone of the nation. Moreover people are mad to believe that there is no alternative. So it is time to reaffirm our vision and our plan for a just and sustainable appropriate development. People should now take the initiative, dictate and control through a national endeavour outside of narrow electoral politics.
Thus NAPM's work has to gather the kind of momentum and scale that the present situation demands and become a national movement indeed. There is a need for many more people to come together and explore ways of creating an effective political platform for building a movement for fundamental change. This process requires a deeper dialogue and discussion on many more issues and questions than those we have addressed so far.
National Tour and Convention
With this objective in mind and in the context of the forthcoming general elections NAPM had organised and undertaken a National Tour from January 31 to mid March. The tour commenced at Ahmedabad and culminated at Sewagram Ashram in Wardha. Activists numbering 15 and more from various organisations traveled together, mostly by road in 14 States to meet like-minded organisations and hold discussions, public meetings and press conferences. The meetings discussed the possibility, nature and goals of a national level alliance. It focused on how the issues mentioned earlier could be raised to have a bearing on the forth-coming elections. The tour appealed to people to question candidates on these issues and also to explore other ways of placing them on the national agenda.
The tour culminated in a national convention in Wardha. Over 300 people representing about 100 organisations from 17 states gathered there to decide on how to strengthen this platform and launch a national movement for people based development.
We were aware that even though there is a widely shared sense of urgency and solidarity about the objectives outlined here, there may be some skepticism about the viability of such an endeavour. To some extent these doubts are a consequence of how the earlier attempts have fallen short of our own expectations. But we can learn from these experiences and by building closer working association, we can forge the links which will form a chain capable of sustaining a movement that will prevail.
It is towards this that the 3 day long deliberations at Wardha tried to evolve a People's Resolve. This is neither a manifesto nor a charter of demands. It clarifies our ideological position on most of the issues and can be a basis for strengthening the unity among people's organisations of a wide range and also for evolving a programme. A National Programme for NAPM which has a twofold action plan -at the local as well as the national level was finalised by consensus at Sewagram. Both the People's resolve and the Programme follows.
The organisational form and administrative framework was discussed to finally select a team of national convenors and the state convenors. The latter are to call a meeting of all concerned organisations and individuals at the state level to introduce our issues and goals and can forward the process of a national unity through state level committees and common action programs. NAPM appeals to all the concerned individuals and organisations to join us and be a part of the process to shape it as a national movement.
People's Resolve
NAPM resolves that:
1. We believe that people's right to life with dignity is paramount. We are committed to fight poverty, loss of livelihood, unemployment. We oppose all policies and processes which exclude people, deprive them of their livelihood, result in spiraling prices, create unemployment, and prevent their human potential to contribute to the enrichment of social and cultural life. We strive towards an equitable, just, and sustainable society which ensures rights and opportunity for all its members to live with dignity and without fear.
a. We are committed to a people-oriented and ecologically sound economic policy giving priority to protection of people's livelihood and production for people's needs in a sustainable way.
b. Such a policy requires the development of a people's democracy based on people's control over resources. This should be built up from the local community through the intermediate to the national level. The basic principle will be that the first claim on the use of resources will be with regard to the satisfaction of basic needs and the protection of livelihood. Regarding further use democratic planning and decision-making has to be introduced at all levels. A revised Panchayati Raj (Gram Raj), will be the basis for this. A basic precondition is the right to information and matching of experience with expertise regarding the availability and sustainable use of resources.
2. We oppose the uncontrolled powers of global and national capital. We oppose all forms of foreign imperialist intervention which deprive a people of their control over resources and security of food and livelihood. The present process of globalisation is artificial and unsustainable. It is not irreversible as ideological propaganda tries to make people believe.
a. We oppose the profit-oriented New Economic Policy with its attendant liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation, because it marginalises and even excludes a majority of people and exhausts the resources of the nation for the sake of accumulation of profit in the private hands of a minority at the national as well as international level.
b. We, therefore, propose that India quits the WTO and campaigns for an alternative institution to regulate world-trade in a democratic, pro-people and environmentally sustainable way.
c. We propose that India refuses to submit to any conditionalities and structural adjustment programmes imposed by IMF, WB and similar international institutions. These organisations should not be allowed to formulate and influence polices in any sector, and particularly, the vital areas of health, education, communication, media, public distribution system, biodiversity, environment, labour legislation. These institutions should be appropriately democratised to reflect the composition and the aspirations of the world community.
d. Multinational companies should be made to quit India. We call upon people to boycott all MNC goods.
e. The foreign debt is, on one hand, unreal; and on the other, it is an imposition by the elite on our masses. This so called debt has been repaid several times over. It must be unilaterally written off. India should launch an international campaign to confront the global debt-regime, with its unjust and unsustainable mechanisms of accumulation. It should seek support from fellow Southern countries for an alternative international exchange, trade and finance system.
3. We struggle for a reorientation of economic policy. Priority will be given to the protection of existing livelihood, generation of useful and remunerative employment, production for people's needs, development and ecologically sustainable harnessing and use of natural resources.
a. We are committed to the removal of unemployment and control over spiraling price-rise by adopting decentralised production and marketing, using labour intensive technology, ensuring distributive justice which meets the needs of the people.
b. The village community as a whole must be in full control of natural resources, planning replenishment and utilisation of resources and implementing accordingly. This is to ensure fulfillment of basic needs and freedom from want. It will safeguard creativity within a simple lifestyle and ensure that biodiversity will also be protected. Special steps need to be taken to guarantee full participation of Dalits, Adivasis and women in all decision making of each village community.
c. We oppose the integration of agriculture into the world market. Priority should be given to food security and improvement of people's health status through it. This cannot and should not be pursued by banking on large-scale, high-tech farming which neglects and destroys the productive potential and the livelihood of crores of middle and poor peasants and landless labourers. We call for a reversal of the surplus extraction from agriculture/rural areas and the institution of fair and equitable wages for agricultural labour. We are committed to equitable redistribution of land and water controlled by local communities and people's institutions and with ecologically sustainable and non-destructive farming techniques.
d. We support the legal protection of people's right of access to common property, resources of forests, common land and water. Public debate and democratic procedures are needed to plan and monitor sustainable use and upgrading of these resources. Our aim is a revitalisation of the rural economy, including the resource-base for forest dwellers, rural artisans and rural industries with the help of old and new eco-friendly technologies. The same approach applies to the fisheries, fodder economy sector.
e. We oppose the present industrial policy which abandons social responsibility and devalues human labour, as it looks only at profitability and not at the usefulness of products, employment potential and environmental costs. First priority deserves to be given to create humane conditions in the informal sector which provides an extremely vulnerable livelihood to a large majority of workers in the country. Appropriate legislation regarding minimum-wages, safety, health, working hours and environmental protection is needed. The viability of production in this sector has to be enhanced by regulated prices of raw materials, public subsidy for relevant R&D, fiscal policy and other measures.
f. We oppose the irresponsible policy of closures and lockouts in the organised sector and support the take-over of units by the workers (along the lines of the take-over of Kamani tubes).
g. We oppose an energy, communication and transport policy which channels public funds into creating the infrastructure of big dams, telecom facilities, air and road transport, etc. for the benefits of global and national capitalists, consumerists and the elite. These funds should be diverted into the development of the Infrastructure of cheap local transport, small scale energy generation mostly through presently non-conventional, environmentally non-destructive and replenishable sources including bio-mass, solar, wind, and tidal energy, education and health facilities for the mass of people.
4. Human beings and nature have a unique relation. Natural resources are our life support. No living being can survive without using nature and hence all have a right to natural resources. Beyond survival, we love nature, its beauty and generosity. We relate to nature as a giver of life and owe its endowment to future generations.
a. We value conservation of our natural wealth - air, land, water, forest, mineral and aquatic wealth and biodiversity. Human and all forms of life are dependent on nature and are part of the larger universe. We oppose the irreversible destruction of nature. In the present critical condition, destruction of natural forests and rare, endangered species must be immediately stopped and regeneration should receive highest priority.
b. We stand for water management beginning with micro-watershed development and river basin as the unit of planning. We oppose large, centralised water projects. Within a watershed, community level distribution should be on per capita basis not excluding the landless and with priority for drinking water, one crop protection, water-intensive cropping and use for industrial purpose in that order. Forest management and protection should be done by granting community right to forest - with minor and major forest produce and maintaining 'community forest' with people's consent and participation.
5. We uphold human dignity and equality in all respects, but support positive discrimination as a historical necessity for justice.
a. We stand in solidarity with the struggles of the Dalits to secure fundamental human rights and justice. We support the policy of reservations for sections, economically and socially deprived for ages, irrespective of religion. We oppose casteism in its entirety and strive towards its total elimination, and the full and equal participation by Dalits in all aspects of social, political, economic, and cultural life which would make the reservation measures superfluous. We affirm freedom of religion provided it does not come in the way of any of the oppressed sections. We work for enforcement of laws against untouchability and discrimination through adequate mechanisms of implementation, irrespective of religion.
b. The nature based life, economy and culture of Adivasis - settled and nomadic - cannot be encroached upon. Their land and other life support taken away by illegal means or immoral ways should be returned back with proper historical investigation. We stand for tribal self-rule with their rights to natural resources and their distinctive cultural identities. We do not rule out the need for exchange between tribal communities and the rest of the society on technology, systems of knowledge, trade and economy with due protection from exploitation. Any change in their life should be on their own terms and with their meaningful participation in the decision making about their life and society.
c. We reaffirm freedom of religion and the foundational secular tradition of India, and the rich diversity of cultural, religious, and humanist traditions. We strive for the protection and equal participation by Muslims and all other religious communities within our nation. We oppose communalism and resolve to intervene in caste and communal riots to establish peace and protection of life and livelihood. We resolve to actively stem communalisation of politics as well as civil and administrative life; and to oppose all attempts to establish the social and political domination of religious nationalism.
d. We propose and stand committed to complete universal primary education in the mother tongue all over the country. The present emphasis on higher education and elite educational systems must be reversed. We believe that it is feasible to achieve universal primary education with the resources available in the country.
6 a. We denounce production, trade and import of all alcoholic drinks and harmful habit forming addictive drugs. They must be prohibited and banned. We will strive for educating and motivating people to be free of addictive habits.
b. We propose to prohibit and ban the propagation of consumerist culture which demeans the dignity of women, encourages child abuse, thwarts the growth of children into mature human beings and encourages violence; and develops insensitivity to the finer values of life. We value the conservation of our inherited plural cultures and values based on family and kinship of village community. There is an immediate need to halt the invasion through unrestrained broadcasting of Western culture through television, radio, and internet.
7 a. We envisage a new understanding of Bharatiyat (Indianness) grounded in the equality of all our cultures and languages. It should be possible for different, particularly, hitherto marginalised and excluded perceptions of Indianness to find a place within this broad definition of culture. These must be expressed and respected in the institutions of education, communication and governance.
b. We condemn all organized violence both private and state. The problem of terrorism which has arisen in the wake of the alienation and repression of minorities, cannot and should not be tackled by state-terrorism through the deployment of military and paramilitary forces and their intervention in civil matters.
c. The recognition of diverse cultural traditions should go ahead hand in hand with the affirmation and safeguarding of basic universal human rights and collective obligations. Arts and literature of various cultural traditions should be treated with dignity and uniqueness and not just preserved but facilitated and supported for fullest expression.
8. We oppose gender inequality, which is fundamentally based on patriarchy, in every form; and strive towards providing all basic human rights for women irrespective of caste and religion. We recognize that women are oppressed at the multiple levels of caste, class, religion, and gender. We work towards fully gender-just civil laws which shall govern marriage, divorce, property rights, inheritance, adoption, maintenance, free from discrimination on ground of religion. We support the equitable valuation of women's labour and recognize the significance of women's contribution in sustaining community and culture. We value women's empowerment and participation in all fields equal with men in all decisions, policy-making and implementation in social, economic and political aspects.
9. We are committed to a new polity which can't be achieved merely by changing a few politicians. Decentralisation of power and fully participatory democracy which will ensure maximum economic political power to rest with the people and the role of the State reduced to a minimum. We believe that the unity of people's organisations will go a long way in appealing to the nation to rise up and not just demand electoral reforms with right to recall but a basic transformation in political structures and administrative processes. Non-electoral politics too will have not a weak but strong position and role to play in empowering, mobilising the people, stirring the conscience of the nation and bringing to the central stage, people's agenda. It will be people's politics.
a. We support peace and peaceful resolution of conflicts in all arenas. We demand comprehensive global nuclear, chemical, and biological disarmament, and a ban on testing and development of all such and new weapons. We call for a drastic reduction of conventional armaments and forces to maintain minimum defensive capabilities.
b. We strive towards the establishment of fraternal and close relations in all areas with our neighbouring countries with whom we share common bonds of culture and history. We support people's initiatives to promote grassroots participation in this area.
c. We call for a restructuring and reinvigorating of the United Nations system to reflect the plurality of our world's cultures and communities. We demand that the UN system be fully democratised and made accountable to the people. All international economic bodies must be brought under the purview of this renewed United Nations.
10. We are determined to work for a humane, inclusive and democratic society based on mutual respect and care for life. Sadagi (simple living) is not an ideal dream. A commitment towards Samata (equality) and distributive justice necessitates a more judicious use of resources which ensures fulfillment of the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, health and education for all. This can be ensured only when superfluous public spending and wasteful consumption are stopped and not material abundance but creativity and selfless humanity is valued.
Cognisance must be taken of existing traditional knowledge systems that have existed through the ages. Such systems have contributed towards Swavalamban (self-reliance) and respect for nature. While encouraging the contribution of traditional knowledge systems to the Indian way of life, inegalitarian exploitative relations within and exploitation of these systems by foreign interests should be prohibited. We are neither against science nor do we reject technological innovation. We are committed to careful choice of technology based on our values and vision, goals and means. An organic interaction and interrelation between the traditional sustained practices and beneficial new discoveries should be promoted on the basis of equality and justice, to attain a truly prosperous and humane life for all.
The National Programme
1. To organise a strong agitation against the controversial proposed Enron Power Project with an aim to remove the multinational destructive project. The Enron Power Project is but a symbol of the so-called development planning which has been imposed on the people without their participation: lack of political transparency: politics of non- accountability: unequal globalisation and unwarranted role of Multinational companies and foreign capital: unsustainable power policy and anti-people paradigm of development. We will make an instant move against the project and strengthen the ongoing struggle.
2. We should struggle for the abrogation of the Land Acquisition Act and bring in the development policy, law for a decentralised planning with the right over the resources like land, water, forest, minerals and fish of the village communities and full participation in the development planning of these resources. The idea of the village self rule for tribal villages envisaged in the Bhuria Committee Report should be made applicable to all rural areas and opposition to displacement and 'no' to development without consent of the people. 'Land Grabbing' program for re-occupying the land which was alienated from the people fraudulently or forcibly would be taken up.
3. Opposition to the destitution and displacement from livelihood, villages in the coastal areas and fish workers and other communities due to globalisation, encroachment of the MNC's, on massive wealth, or due to Tourism, Prawn Culture and other forms of displacement. The Coastal Zone Regulations should be strictly implemented without violating the rights of the local people regarding livelihood and residence.
4. Every organisation will choose one or more villages within its range and work for the 'village self-rule' on the basis of equality and self-reliance. A camp of the representatives of the organisations will be organised in the Narmada Valley in June 1996 regarding the "identification and evaluation of local resources". The villages for such an action program would be declared on 15th August, and the evaluation, target and scope would be decided by 1996 October.
5. A camp of the women representatives of the people's organisations from all over India for the planning of a nationwide campaign on "anti- liquor, anti-lottery" agitation under the leadership of women. The camp would decide about the strategy, program and action.
6. Every organisation would launch struggle against 'atrocities on women'. Every organisation should write letters to the Chief Justice of Rajasthan High Court condemning the injustice meted out to Bhanvaribai and insisting on justice to her.
7. In case of raking up Kashi, Mathura or any other place after Ayodhya by the communal forces, strong action program against such attempts by the people's organisations all over India with the help of 'Rashtriya Yuva Sangathan'.
8. A sustained and intense campaign against MNC's with the slogan "Not Pepsi/Coke- we want water". A vigorous campaign for Swadeshi with the actions like smearing the posters/hoardings of Pepsi/Coke.
9. The alliance calls unto peasants all over India while raising the demands of-
(a). Doing away with the subsidies on consumerist items, urban-industrial elites sections and rural elites.
(b). Renumerative prices for the agricultural produces based on the real costs, like those of industrial products.
10. The emancipation of scavenger section of the populace from abominable traditions and their rehabilitation in an honorable profession and mobilisation against caste system.
11. National/regional convention for a campaign by the youth against corruption, consumerism, destructive industries. The youth groups should collect "superfluous" material from every house in their town/village on a voluntary basis. Auctioning of the 'swadeshi' articles (proceeds of which may go to NAPM and local movements) and bonfire of foreign goods.
12. Special programs for the local representatives of the organisations who happen to be from the depressed classes, whereby their leadership would emerge
13. Meetings/conventions of the lawyers, literateurs, artists, journalists on national/regional level. These are already fixed in West Bengal, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar.
14. Any atrocity, repression on any of the colleagues of the Alliance should be responded to immediately with the participation of all.
15. A documentation centre is to be started in West Bengal. All member organisations are requested to send data and documents.
16. A bulletin in English for communicating NAPM programs, propagation, consultative groups should be made available at various places for technical information, guidance etc.. The NAPM colleagues should help in purchasing the periodical (Rs. 5) as much as possible.
http://www.proxsa.org/politics/napm.html#appeal
Medha Patkar
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Medha Patkar
Medha Patkar
Movement: Narmada Bachao Andolan
Major organizations: National Alliance of People's Movements(NAPM)
Medha Patkar (Marathi:मेधा पाटकर, born December 1, 1954) is a social activist from India.
Contents
[hide]
1 Early life
2 Hunger strike
3 Arrested by Police in West Bengal
4 Criticism of Being Anti-Gujarati
5 Attack on Medha Patkar
6 Awards and Honours
7 External links
8 References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medha_Patkar
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New Socialist Alternative
HUMAN RIGHTS FEATURES
(Voice of the Asia-Pacific Human Rights Network)
(A joint initiative of SAHRDC and HRDC)
B-6/6 Safdarjung Enclave Extension, New Delhi 110 029, India
Tel: +91-11-619 2717, 619 2706, 619 1120; Fax: 619 1120
E-mail: hrdc_online@hotmail.com
Home Page: http://www.hrdc.net/sahrdc/
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HRF/7/99
Embargoed for 20 September 1999
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India Restricts NGO Meetings
The Government of India has recently acted to curtail Freedom of Assembly and Association, and further limit the effective operation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in India. From mid-1999, NGOs organising international conferences in India have required prior permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs and other relevant ministries (the clearance requirement). The clearance requirement is not pursuant to any law, rule or guidelines, it is simply the new practice of the Government of India.
In July 1999, three foreign nationals were denied visas to attend the 11th Annual John Hopkins International Philanthropy Fellows Conference on Building Civil Society, being organised by the Development Support Initiative, Bangalore. The individuals were told by the Indian High Commission in London that they should first obtain clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs in India. The High Commission in London reportedly told the applicants that "all conferences to do with the voluntary sector and which appear to be Government/politically sensitive has (sic.) to get clearance for participants from abroad" (as cited in The Hindu (New Delhi), 25 June 1999).
The precise operation of the clearance requirement is not certain as it does not operate pursuant to an established policy or procedure. It would, however, appear that conference organisers require permission from the Ministry of Home Affairs, then from the nodal Ministry dealing with the subject matter of the conference, and finally from the Ministry of External Affairs, in the event that foreign nationals are participating in the conference. Furthermore, it is mandatory for all foreign nationals attending seminars and workshops organised by the voluntary sector, to first obtain clearance from the Ministry of Home Affairs. They must provide detailed personal information and secure permission before being granted an Indian visa.
When Voluntary Action Network India (VANI)--an NGO based in New Delhi--contacted the Ministry of Home Affairs in relation to the clearance requirement, Joint Secretary Ambuj Sharma informed VANI that "there were no written rules but such was the practice that was being followed for sometime." Yet the procedure has only recently come to the attention of civil society, though there have been other cases of visa denial in the past.
In adopting the clearance requirement, the Ministry of External Affairs has established a firm political control over the subject matter of international conferences and the involvement of foreign nationals in conference regarding politically sensitive issues. The clearance forms from the Ministry of External affairs state that the Ministry takes note of the "political angle" in deciding whether to grant permission for the holding of an International Conference and the participation of foreign delegates.
The final approval is issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs upon consultation with other ministries. The approval--when granted--requires that the full identifying particulars of any foreign participant be furnished in duplicate to the Ministry well before the event. The details should include: the foreigner's name, parentage, nationality, date and place of birth, passport details, present and permanent residential address.
The new procedures provide for a blanket requirement across the NGO sector--all voluntary sector conferences must be approved. At a time when the Government of India is encouraging tourists from abroad to visit India, is selling permanent visas to Non-Resident Indians, and is hoping to attract greater international business; it is stringently restricting international conferences on matters of political sensitivity and limiting the participation of foreign nationals. This development represents a significant political control on the operation of NGOs in India. Through the clearance requirement, the Government of India is deeming some topics for international conferences and the involvement of some participants, off limits.
It should be noted that the clearance requirement is not manifest as a written policy with established procedures. It functions at the whim and fancy of the Government of India. This ad hoc operation places NGOS at a distinct disadvantage in its dealing with the Government of India as the procedure lacks transparency. The clearance requirement procedures are clearly prone to arbitrary use and abuse in the absence of established policies and procedures.
The clearance requirement amounts to a violation of Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which provides for freedom of association. India ratified the ICCPR in 1979. Clause 2 of Article 22 provides that "No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those which are prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order (ordre public), the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." Further the clearance restriction threatens the right of assembly and right of association guaranteed in Article 19 (b) and (c) of the Constitution of India respectively. Both provisions provide that the rights are subject to legislation in relation to the public interests--specifying national interests similar to those provided in Article 22 (2) ICCPR.
In relation both to the ICCPR and the Constitution of India, the clearance restriction requirement does not fall as an exception to the rights provided. Even if such conferences could pose a threat to the national interest--which is implied but not substantiated by the introduction of the clearance requirement--it is not prescribed in law. Further, the clearance requirement makes a mockery of the "Action Plan To Bring About A Collaborative Relationship Between Voluntary Organisations and Government" which was adopted by the Government of India in 1994.
The clearance requirement represents another diminution of political space for of NGOs in India. Organisations already working under difficult conditions, must now contend with a requirement that provides a substantial political control over their work, is in violation of India's constitutional guarantees and international commitments, and operates in the absence of an established policy or procedure. In the short term, the clearance requirement means more bureaucratic haggling for NGOs in the conduct of their work--which will unquestionably suffer. In the long term, it poses a considerable threat to good governance and the fundamental rights of all Indians.
-Human Rights Features
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SAGA OF LOST INNOCENCE
- No Indian party believes in a politics of principle
Commentarao - S.L.Rao
Strange bedfellows no more
The debate in parliament on the motion of trust in the government a few days ago marked the public loss of innocence of politicians and parties and the exposure of others. Can they do anything to redeem themselves?
The Left, which had supported the United Progressive Alliance government from the outside and controlled its policies was acting on ‘principle’. It did not want to have any association with the United States of America other than through normal trade and investment. It did not accept that the nuclear agreement marked a significant recognition of India’s prowess in nuclear technology and its responsible behaviour. The agreement ratified the crowning of India as the counterpoise to China in Asia. It is a development much desired by most Asian countries — certainly Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. The US was committing itself and so were the European powers.
This recognition is of great importance to India. It means that we will now no longer be alone in resisting China’s grandiose claims to Arunachal Pradesh, parts of Sikkim and the Aksai Chin area. If China again threatens to change the course of the Brahmaputra as it did some years ago, we can expect international support to our protests.
It requires a particularly perverse lack of national identity for any political party not to welcome such support. The Left has never been famous for being pro-Indian from the time of the struggle for independence, the days when the Soviet Comintern controlled all communist parties, the Chinese invasion of 1962 until now. The Left has exposed its supranational loyalties to the interests of China. It is no different from the religious fundamentalists who place religion above the nation.
The Left tasted power without responsibility for over four years by its control over the UPA government. The ostensible purpose of the support was to unite ‘secular’ parties. The real purpose was to hold back India’s growth and to look after the interests of China. In the trust vote, the Left forgot this ‘secular’ reason and was ready to coordinate with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the BJP’s former allies, namely Mayavati of the Bahujan Samaj Party, Ajit Singh and others. Secularism gave way to anti-US propaganda.
To redeem itself the Left must dismiss their inept and rigid general secretary, Prakash Karat. It must dissociate itself from the power-hungry Mayavati. It must clean up its policies in the states where it has power — on land for industry, relief and rehabilitation of displaced farmers and peasants, mindless backing of industrial and government employees at the cost of the economy, as well as on inefficient ways of subsidizing the poor.
In 1998, the Congress had been disgraced by the Samajwadi Party when it backed out of supporting Sonia Gandhi’s claim to form the government. The visual of the Congress leader outside Rashtrapati Bhavan proclaiming that she had the backing of 272 members of parliament is unforgettable. Since then, the Congress has hounded the Samajwadi Party whenever possible. When the UPA government was formed, the Congress snubbed the Samajwadi Party and its leaders who supported the government. Now the Congress has joined hands with the Samajwadi Party.
The speaker may soon reveal the truth about the transactions the two parties indulged in to achieve a majority in the trust vote. In the process, the hitherto impeccable integrity of the prime minister has been stained, as has been the Congress president’s. They have adapted to the rules of Indian politics that there are no enemies, only allies; that everyone has a price and it must be paid; that it is not the truth that is important but the ability to conceal one’s actions.
The prime minister and his party, for the remaining months they have power, must demonstrate that they want power for the good of the people, not merely for the nuclear deal. They must curb the deficit by rationalizing subsidies and more efficient spending on other areas like defence and performance-linked pay for bureaucrats. They must cut the volatile foreign fund inflows that have made a casino of our stock markets and stoked inflation. Tighter regulation on the many types of financial instruments and players is essential if we are not to recreate the American financial disaster. Retail petroleum product prices must rise to reduce losses of the state-owned oil companies. Steps must be taken to attract better and more teachers at all levels of the education system by implementing the reports of the administrative reforms commission. The pay commission report may be tweaked to provide substantial performance-based incentives. A firm and knowledgeable home minister to introduce and enforce legislation to fight terrorism is overdue. Incompetent Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ministers who have brought inefficiencies into road construction must be given some other ministry. Power needs a clear-headed and firm hand.
The Congress might also develop an agreed programme and code of behaviour with its present allies with whom it will probably also fight the coming elections.
The Samajwadi Party never had any innocence to lose and has behaved with its customary cunning and ruthlessness. It needs to demonstrate that it is a serious political party if it is to play an important role in the next parliament. It needs more basic policies that are for the nation and not merely for families and friends.
The BSP and Mayavati have displayed consistency. She was always out to grab the leadership position and she has now made the Left ideologue and political innocent, Karat, eat humble pie by becoming her second fiddle. He has certainly lost his veneer of innocence by accepting shady deals and shadier partners. Mayavati herself needs crash courses on India and aspects of its governance if she is to be different from the short-term prime ministers like Gulzarilal Nanda, Charan Singh, H.D. Deve Gowda, I.K. Gujral and Chandra Sekhar.
Telugu Desam to the National Democratic Alliance was like the communists to the UPA, the power behind the throne. It was unprincipled in accepting many favours from the NDA for five years. It saw opportunity for a similar position with the new United National Progressive Alliance. N. Chandrababu Naidu has lost his carefully cultivated image of a master political CEO and stands revealed as a small time grabber of the crumbs from the table of his new boss, Mayavati.
Bit players like Deve Gowda (prime minister for six months at the mercy of Lalu Prasad and Sitaram Kesri), Ajit Singh, and other such remain opportunists, negotiating the best deals, financially, for ministries, or creating their own state. These fringe players can be eliminated only if the national parties behave more responsibly.
What about the holier-than-thou BJP? Clearly, the BJP was also in the game to get defectors to vote on their side. They failed and instead lost eight MPs to the ‘for’ vote. L.K. Advani appeared to be against the government, not the nuclear deal. Despite his seniority as a parliamentarian he irresponsibly permitted the obscene sight of vast sums of money in thousand-rupee notes to be brought and dumped in the well of parliament. He should instead have gone straight to the speaker.
The ‘sting’ the BJP organized with a national television channel that did not air it, demonstrates that it was inept in attracting numbers. The BJP, with an octogenarian prime ministerial candidate, is not a true successor to the Vajpayee-Brajesh Mishra combine. That had principles and policies. Advani’s BJP is willing to abandon the nuclear deal that was a culmination of Vajpayee’s efforts in office. It is now talking of opposing the same economic reforms that Vajpayee pushed. The BJP’s redemption will lie in recognizing true national interests and not in unprincipled opposition. It needs a younger leader, more capable administratively, and a visionary, not a formerly good party organizer.
The author is former director- general, National Council for Applied Economic Research
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1080811/jsp/opinion/story_9669054.jsp
The Dravidian movement
By Gail Omvedt
``SO MANY movements have failed. In Tamil Nadu there was a movement in the name of anti-Brahmanism under the leadership of Periyar. It attracted Dalits, but after 30 years of power, the Dalits understand that they are as badly-off - or worse-off - as they were under the Brahmans. Under Dravidian rule, they have been attacked and killed, their due share in government service is not given, they are not allowed to rise.''
So says Dr. Krishnasami, leader of the militant movement of the Dalit community known as ``Devendra Kula Vellalas'' of southern Tamil Nadu and founder of a new political party, Puthiya Tamilakam. This sense of disillusionment with the Dravidian parties is pervasive among not only the Dalits but also many militant non-Brahmans as well. The anti-caste movements of the past, in Dr. Krishnasami's words, have failed to achieve their main goals. Mr. Thirumavalavan of the Liberation Panthers speaks of discrimination and atrocities against those who fight against the evil and adds: ``Castes keep their identity just as before, they don't intermarry, there are no longer any self-respect marriages.''
Like Dr. Krishnasami, he does not reject the goals of the movement, arguing ``the Dalit struggle has to be for the liberation of a nationality,'' and Hindutva should be opposed through Tamil nationalism. He feels that the existing Dravidian parties have betrayed the Dalits.
In Maharashtra also, militant non-Brahmans feel that ``Phule has failed.'' Militant Dalits discuss the reasons for the stagnation of their movement. There is widespread malaise. The spirit of the movement still exists, there are still activists committed to the cause but the public and political life of society, whether at a local level, where so many villages still maintain separate wells and separate drinking cups for the Dalits, or at the State or all-India level has not been transformed in the areas where the non-Brahman movements were the strongest.
In Tamil Nadu, the heights of corruption have been reached with a party calling itself ``Dravidian,'' while the major Dravidian parties are forming an alliance with the BJP. In Maharashtra, for all its progressive traditions, one of the most ferocious forms of Hindutva has been a ruling power for so many years. Police firing at Ramabai Nagar in Mumbai and the caste conflicts in southern Tamil Nadu show the persistence of the casteist attitude among even poor OBCs. It is not that there have been no gains but they have been so incomplete. In spite of the formal openness and some social mobility, caste continues to be highly correlated to both occupation and political power.
In spite of a powerful cultural challenge, the ``Vedic Sanskritic'' culture remains hegemonic in the very centres which mounted a challenge to it. There is a widespread assertion by the hitherto downtrodden and excluded communities throughout the country but the annihilation of caste remains a distant dream.
In Tamil Nadu, this failure contrasts with the apparent strength of the Dravidian parties. In Maharashtra, by the 1930s, the non- Brahman movement as a whole was absorbed into the Congress, with only Ambedkar leading an independent Dalit movement which saw itself as carrying on the heritage of Phule but was limited organisationally to the Dalits (and, among them, to the Mahars). In Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, Periyar's movement took on full force in the 1930s and 1940s, gathered people of all castes around it, made the commitment to women's liberation more of a mass force than Phule could, organised powerful mass campaigns against religious superstition and rather than vanishing into the ``mainstream,'' went on to found its own parties.
Why did the ideals fail in spite of an apparently powerful movement? Some will say the non-Brahman and Dravidian movements could not succeed because they were, in the end, ``bourgeois democratic.'' Some will point to the lack of a full economic and political vision - the movements focussed on ``identity'' issues but had no economic programme different from the Nehru Congress. Some will say the whole idea of a ``non-Brahman movement'' is an illusion since non-Brahmans are the immediate oppressors of the Dalits, their greatest enemy.
None of these explanations is sufficient. Let us begin with three assertions: that a strong movement would have achieved and developed its own political-economic vision, that traditional Marxism is insufficient because it has never confronted caste, never understood that ``Brahmanism'' (or the Brahmanic Social Order, as some put it) was a fundamental social structure and not simply an ideological effervescence, and that the Dalit and other non-Brahman unity is difficult but necessary and possible because the non-Brahmans also are oppressed by caste. On this basis some comparisons of the contributions and inadequacies of the non- Brahman movements in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, where they were historically the strongest, might help make a critical examination.
In many ways, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra had complementary strengths and weaknesses. Phule, in the 19th century, could give a founding thrust and powerful vision to a new movement but the conditions of the time prevented mass mobilisation. Ambedkar was, in the end, limited to being a ``Dalit leader'' - he could not galvanise the whole movement. This situation was remedied, in a sense, in Tamil Nadu with the emergence of Periyar, who had an all-encompassing vision for and commitment to the Dalits and women as well as a mass base among the majority non-Brahman castes. Yet, the strength of the Tamil movement was also its weakness. As no leader like Ambedkar emerged, the Dalit part of the overall movement remained weak; it seems there was no mass awakening or autonomous organising in the Dalit communities in the pre-independence period comparable to what happened in Maharashtra.
During the 1930s and 1940s, under Ambedkar's leadership, the Dalits in Maharashtra organised themselves. Their fight - and the militant activist youth growing up then were conscious of this - was against Brahmanism and the caste system but it was often the lower class non-Brahmans they confronted directly and physically. All the years, Ambedkar called upon the Maharashtrian non-Brahman leadership to unite in a strong alliance against ``capitalism and Brahmanism,'' His weekly Janata was giving details of atrocities carried out in fact by non-Brahman castes. In the ``Hindu-Mahar riots'' in Nagpur in the 1940s, the Dalits defended themselves with sticks, stones and daggers against the OBC ``Hindus'' provoked by nationalist propaganda to see the Ambedkarites as traitors. The Dalits not only defended themselves, they drove Gandhi himself off a stage in 1941 when some self-designated ``Harijans'' tried to organise his rally. In other words, the kind of battle for dignity being waged today against Thevars in southern Tamil Nadu was fought by the Mahars in the 1930s and 1940s in Maharashtra - but under a banner proclaiming that the main fight was for the transformation of all of India.
In this sense, it may be said the main problem is not whether the Dalit-other non-Brahman unity is possible; rather, that the Dalits in Tamil Nadu as in most other parts of India (including the non-Mahar Dalits in Maharasthra) are still fighting to achieve its preconditions, their own organisation and a recognition from other communities of their dignity.
The question still remains: once autonomy, self-respect and some empowerment are achieved for the most downtrodden, how will the movement go forward to seek a wider unity and the annihilation of caste? Here it is necessary to consider and reconsider the answer given by Periyar and the Tamil non-Brahman movement generally: that the way forward is through a kind of national liberation, a recognition of a positive alternative community which was taken to be a ``Dravidian'' identity or a ``Tamil'' national identity.
THE NON-BRAHMAN movements of western and southern India during the colonial period were the most powerful expressions of a pan- Indian upsurge that sought to confront and destroy the millennial-old caste hierarchy. Brahmanism had been given shape as the ideology of the ruling class in the middle of the first millennium BC, with an exclusive intelligentsia claiming cultural purity and sacredness. This ideology and the caste hierarchy it was linked to gained hegemony over its greatest rival, Buddhism, about a thousand years later. It succeeded in maintaining its dominance under vastly changed material conditions even during the colonial period and the 50 years of Independence, with the Congress representing the ``moderate'' and the Jan Sangh (now BJP) the ``extremist'' form of the Brahmanic ideology.
One aspect of its success was the ability of the elite to define the ``Indian'' identity in its own terms, claiming that the core of Indian culture lay in Sanskrit, the Vedic tradition and the Vedanta. Since the 19th century this has been projected as ``Hinduism.'' This was the ``Great Tradition,'' the national tradition. All other challenging cultural traditions, whether based on the masses of the Bahujans and the Dalits, or among the Adivasis or in linguistic-national identities, were relegated to regional or local ``Little Traditions.'' Devatas like Murugan or Vithoba were proclaimed as forms of Vishnu or Shiva; Adivasi religions today are similarly appropriated. The choice placed before the masses was and is ``Sanskritisation'' versus ``westernisation;'' no force has existed projecting a ``Dalit'' or ``Bahujan'' or ``Dravidian'' all-India identity.
The non-Brahman movements all sought, in their own way, to challenge the claim that Brahmanism provided a national culture. Phule, for example, fiercely criticising the elite claims to form an ``Indian National Congress'', wrote, ``According to the mischievous selfish religion of the Aryas, the cunning Aryabhat Brahmans take the ignorant shudras and Mahars as low; the ignorant Shudras take the ignorant Mahars as low and the ignorant Mahars take the ignorant Mangs as low. Since they all stopped inter-marriage and eating together, various customs of thinking and behaving, eating and drinking, rituals exist and they don't mix with each other. How can the empty unity of such an agglomeration lead to a `Nation' as an integrated people?''
The basic issue posed by Phule was that a nation could not even come into being without overcoming the major force separating and handicapping its citizens, caste; what was held up by the Brahmanised elite as the core of the national culture, in fact, destroyed national unity. Phule also realised that an alternative Indian culture had to be created as a mass culture. His efforts included projecting an alternative universalistic religion, creating alternative progressive marriage rituals and eulogising an original, equalitarian peasant community of ``non-Aryans,'' symbolised by the `rakshasa' king Bali. Yet his voice remained a regional one, limited to Marathi, its influence hardly spreading beyond Pune district in his own time, while the Indian National Congress of the Brahmanic elite established its organisation throughout India. ``Non-Aryan'' as an identity was too negative and vague to capture the imagination of the people, even in Maharashtra. Phule failed. The non-Brahman movement could not move beyond gaining a share of power for some of the non-Brahman elite.
Ambedkar, in turn, wrote in English and sought to build an all- India movement, focussing its fight on what he called in 1938 ``Brahmanism and capitalism.'' He tried to establish an alliance with non-Brahmans in Maharashtra; outside, he tried to unite with leaders such as Periyar and Swami Sahajanand of Bihar for a progressive, broad non-Congress alliance. His choice of Buddhism was linked to an analysis of millennial-old historical conflicts described in terms of ``revolution and counter-revolution in ancient India. ``Buddhism was seen as a choice not only for the Mahars but for the cultural regeneration of all of India, as indicated in changing the new name of his weekly Prabudda Bharat. His Republican Party, in turn, was projected as a party of all oppressed masses. Neither could transcend the social limits of the Mahar community of Maharashtra and a section of north Indian Chamars. Ambedkar also failed.
And the Dravidan movement? Periyar brilliantly made ``self- respect'' a mass movement, building up a powerful force involving activists drawn from all castes and from both men and women. And, in projecting a ``Dravidian'' identity and rooting it in what was perceived of as the culture of the Tamil people, he succeeded in giving a powerful political thrust to this mass-based social alternative.
Yet the Dravidian movement also failed in establishing itself as an alternative to the ``Vedic Aryan-Brahmanic'' force it despised. Not only did it lose its radical social thrust, which would have included the liberation of women and full human rights to the Dalits; it remained confined to Tamil Nadu. In focussing on Tamil national identity, the concept of a ``Dravidian'' civilisational identity was lost. Even the people of the other southern States were not ready to accept their identity as Dravidians, let alone the vast majority of people in Maharasthra, Orissa, Gujarat or elsewhere. In spite of the fact that the Dravidian (or ``Tamil'')-speaking Indus civilisation was based in northwest India, in spite of evidence everywhere of the ``non- Aryan'' (usually Dravidian, sometimes Austro-Asiatic or other) origin of popular religious cults and cultural practices throughout India and in spite of the fact that languages like Marathi are said by linguists to have a `Dravidian substratum,'' the majority of Indians will think of themselves as having primarily a Vedic-the Aryan heritage.
The consequences for the popular Indian culture are stark. African-Americans had a ``black is beautiful'' movement; but television and the cinema throughout India testify to the fact that for Indians still ``light is right.'' Dark-skinned girls feel they are not beautiful, and every religious serial on Doordarshan continues to show the ``gods'' as light-skinned and ``rakshasas'' as dark, without protest. It is not surprising that a large section of the Indian masses fail to recognise Mrs. Sonia Gandhi as ``foreign''; she looks like what they have been taught as the ideal of beauty.
At least part of the fault for this dismal situation should lie with the acceptance of racist themes even by the opponents of the ``Aryan'' racism. In turning the Aryan theory of race upside down and taking non-Aryans as superior, Phule did not confront its racial limitations. When Periyar attacked ``Aryan Brahmans'' as the enemy, it was as if all Brahmans were pure descendents of Aryans, as if no non-Brahman had any Aryan blood, leave aside the question of accepting the ``Aryan'' caste culture. He identified these with the north, expressing the conflict as one of ``north'' versus ``south.''
Ambedkar was much more farsighted on these issues, rejecting the ``Aryan-non-Aryan theory'' as a historical explanation and asserting that caste was vastly different from race. He carefully characterised the enemy not as ``Brahmans'' but as ``Brahmanism,'' which he harshly attacked but defined not in terms of a specific group and simply as ``the negation of the values of liberty, equality and fraternity.'' But Ambedkar is not heeded by many of his followers on this issue today. By falling victim to racist/chauvinist attitudes towards ``north Indians'' as a group and ``Brahmans'' as a whole, the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu condemned itself to remaining a sectoral force, powerful in its homeland but warped even there and severely handicapped in contributing to an all-India liberatory movement.
Fourth International, October 1944, Volume 5 No. 10, Pages 324-326
Transcribed, Edited and Formatted by Ted Crawford and David Walters in 2008 for the Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line.
The Present Political Situation in India
Theses of the Political Committee of
Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India and Ceylon, Adopted
August 4, 1944
The second imperialist world war has been the governing factor in the Indian situation in a very direct sense, especially since the entry of Japan into the war. On the one hand, there has been a readily discernible correlation between the major developments in the military situation internationally and the main developments in the political situation in India. On the other hand, the general development of the military situation—adversely to Anglo-American imperialism for a long period, and favorably thereafter—has had a direct bearing, though with a greater time lag than in the case of the political situation, on the rate of deterioration of India’s economic condition.
The most dramatic and significant event in India during the last year was the Bengal famine, which wiped out several millions of landless and the poor sections of the peasantry. It was the tragic culmination of that accelerating process of which inflation and the denudation of the country of essential food supplies were the most marked features—by which British imperialism transferred onto the backs of the always poverty-stricken Indian masses an intolerable proportion of the burden of its war effort in North Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. It was the dramatic highlight of an All-India food shortage which, worsened as it was by maladministration and maldistribution, led to actual famine conditions also in Malabar, Orissa, Kashmir, Andhra (ceded districts) and certain smaller areas; and extreme stringency in every province save the surplus producing provinces like the Punjab and Sind. It was the measure, in terms of actual human suffering of the intolerable “sacrifices” imposed by a steadily weakening British imperialism on the one major area of imperialist exploitation, outside Africa, which is still left in its unchallenged control. And it was the mark of the extreme economic dislocation (reflected in the tremendous growth of hoarding and of the black market) and administrative disorganization (leading to actual breakdown in Bengal) which accompanied the feverish process of rapidly and heartlessly transforming India’s economy into a war economy, subserving the military needs of British imperialism.
During the last year too, the process of transforming India’s economy into a war economy has continued to go forward. But the pace has slackened both by reason of the fact that the process itself. Famine among the peasantry and a wide-spread any attempt to advance the process much further without consolidating the advances already made would have imperilled the process itself. Famine among the peasantry and a wide spread series of short-lived strikes among the workers in connection with the intolerable shortage—amounting to scarcity generally and an absolute lack of supplies frequently—of elementary consumer’s commodities drove the government to a series of measures which, coupled with certain facilities for importation that the turn in the military situation provided, enabled it belatedly, from the beginning of 1944, to arrest the catastrophic rate of deterioration which threatened India with economic collapse. The inflationary process has been considerably slowed down, though not completely arrested (the paper currency is being added to still by one to two crores a week).
Food and other elementary articles of consumption are being more effectively distributed, if even at bare subsistence level, through more wide-spread rationing in the principal cities and towns. A more general, if yet considerably ineffective, system of price control has helped to arrest somewhat the upward flight of prices of a fair range of articles of civilian consumption. At the same time, an increase in imports, primarily of grain as also of certain articles of civilian consumption, coupled with the sharp reduction (as a -result of the Anglo-American victory in North Africa) of the need for supplying the Middle East, has increased the actual quantity of supplies available and so has helped to ease the scarcity of these commodities. The general economic and administrative dislocation consequent on the rapid transition from a peacetime to a war-time economy has thus been substantially reduced, although it still continues to prevail in important ways in various areas of the country (of which Bengal is still the chief) and in various branches of the economy (e.g, coal). The prospect of a deteriorating economic situation leading rapidly to the precipitation of mass struggles, a prospect which seemed immediate in the middle of 1943, has thus receded in the course of 1944; and there is no reason to anticipate a sharp change in this respect in the period immediately ahead.
The Peasantry and the Urban Petty Bourgeoisie
The ever-increasing burden of the intensified war effort falls on the backs of the masses. The acute shortage of necessities, resulting from the diversion of goods from civilian to military consumption, continues, although there has been some little easing of the situation in this respect. Moreover, although the inflationary process has been retarded and therewith also the steep rise in the cost of living, the retardation itself has been at the point of such a fall in the currency value (the rupee is worth only five annas today) and of such a rise in the price level (the price index is treble the pre-war) as to represent no improvement in the condition of the masses, but merely a retardation in that rate of deterioration which had already brought broad strata of the population to the point of utter destitution. Rationing cannot bring food to the pauperized; nor price control, supplies which are not available. Despite various half-hearted government measures, therefore, the black market continues to flourish, as also hoarding, speculation and profiteering—and will continue to flourish so long as the scarcity and uncertainty induced by war continue to exist. As British imperialism, weakened by war, intensifies its exploitation, the already pauperized strata of the masses either fall into beggary or literally perish.
The conditions summarized above have struck the urban petty bourgeoisie with devastating force. Many petty traders are no doubt flourishing, and there has also been a relative increase in the volume of middle-class employment, particularly in the civil and military administrative departments of government. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the standards of living among the urban petty bourgeoisie have been shattered and the process of their pauperization accelerated. The objective conditions are thus driving this stratum onto the revolutionary road as was demonstrated during the “August struggle” (1942) in which they, and in particular the students, were everywhere in the forefront. Their subjective attitude has, however, undergone a transformation since that period. The utter defeat of the struggle has demoralized them completely and save for a thin stratum whose political consciousness is highly developed, they have turned their backs temporarily to politics.
The overwhelming majority of the peasantry has not reaped the benefits of the increase in the price of agricultural prod. ucts The main weight of the war burden has indeed fallen on the poor and landless peasants, that is to say, the section of the population least able to bear it. Caught in the “scissors” of well-nigh stable, if somewhat increased, agricultural prices, and steeply rising prices of industrial products, the poor and landless strata of the peasantry, as also the lower sections of the middle peasantry, have been driven to destitution, starvation and misery. Even in the famine areas, where food prices soared to 10-25 times the pre-war level it is the upper strata of the peasantry, especially the rich, who have benefited from the rise in prices of agricultural products. As a result of these various factors there has been a sharpening of the differentiation among the peasantry. The poor and lower-middle peasantry have had to sell their lands to the upper-middle and rich peasants and traders, not only in famine stricken Bengal but also, for instance, in agriculturally prosperous Sind, on such a scale that legislation had to be introduced in these provinces in an endeavor, which would be vain even if it were not deceitful, to arrest the process. Objective conditions are thus driving the poor and landless peasantry to the revolutionary solution of their problems; but their conditions today are so sub-human as to deprive them of even the power of action, let alone the will to it. The starving cannot fight—any more than the overfed. It is to the middle peasant that we must at this stage look for political action—as was demonstrated during the “August struggle” which, in the areas where the peasantry moved into action, drew in largely this section of the peasantry. Here too, however, the crushing of the August struggle has led to general demoralization. Other processes must intervene before the peasantry will move again.
The Proletariat
The working class has been directly affected by the increase in prices and the shortage of necessities, but not to an extent that is comparable with that of the urban petty bourgeoisie. For this fact there is a two-fold reason. In the first place, the fall in real wages, which has only been partially offset by the dearness allowance, has been compensated for in a real sense by the increase in aggregate family earnings. Industrial employment has increased sharply and steadily during the war; the volume of general working class employment has probably doubled. Most adult members of working class families are therefore today in active employment.
Secondly, the government, interested as it is in uninterrupted war production and anxious as it is to avoid general working class unrest which might well be a prelude to another mass uprising, has followed a deliberate policy of appeasing the industrial proletariat by providing to them, though often tardily, minimum supplies of elementary necessities at controlled prices. Grain shops, later extended steadily to other necessities, have been opened in the principal factories and workshops, and the government has given to supplying these a priority which aims at preventing either unduly prolonged or excessively acute shortages. Coupled as this policy has been with prompt suppression of every kind of militancy (arrest of strike leaders, etc.); and aided as British imperialism has been by the traitorous support of the trade union bureaucracy and the Stalinists, who everywhere act openly as British imperialism’s agencies within the working class, the government has succeeded in avoiding general or prolonged working class action.
Sporadic economic struggles, principally on the food, dearness allowance and bonus questions, have, however, taken place in every industrial area, and the total of workers involved in these struggles during the nine months following November 1942 reached a very high figure. Moreover these struggles have generally been short and of a protest character. Hence their failure to develop into a connected or systematic series of integrated struggles on some general issue like the food, dearness allowance or bonus questions, on which working class feeling is certainly wide-spread if not very deep-going. At the same time, they have paved the way to certain concessions on these very issues and have served to show that although the demoralization consequent on the August defeat has had some influence on the working class, nevertheless the prevailing demoralization among the petty bourgeois masses has not also caught up the working class decisively in its sweep. The reason for this mainly is that the working class as a whole, although it was sympathetic, did not go into militant action (save in certain isolated cases, e.g., Tata, Nagar) during the August struggle. This fact was no doubt the principal cause of the August defeat; but it has at the same time prevented that defeat from exercising a deep-going influence on the working class outlook and attitude to struggle. Thus, the working class is certainly not quiescent: it is even restless. But the restlessness does not as yet go so deep as to lead to the determined action which is necessary today even in partial economic struggles, since even these tend to rise rapidly, in war-time conditions, to the political plane. With the temporary easing of the economic situation, there is no immediate prospect of deep-going working class struggle, unless other processes, which cannot be concretely anticipated, intervene to change the situation.
The Indian bourgeoisie and landlords have amassed and—despite the excess profits tax and the increase in the tax on income and government’s largely ineffective anti-black market measures—are continuing to amass vast profits due to the war. But this increase in their capital resources does not reflect itself in anything like a corresponding rate of industrial expansion. Although the exigencies of war have compelled British imperialism to permit a certain expansion in some branches of industry to subserve war needs, this expansion does not correspond even to its military requirements. The long term interests of British finance capital stand in the way of permitting any significant expansion of Indian industry. Consequently the government deliberately prevents any such development through the use of such instruments as control of the flotations of companies, forced loans, the excess profits tax, the setting up of monopolistic corporations of a semi-government nature, limitations on trade, blocking of supplies either directly or by denial of transport facilities, exchange control, importation of consumers’ goods which Indian industry can now well supply instead of capital goods which Indian industry badly needs, etc., etc.
The attitude of the Indian bourgeoisie to British imperialism during this war has largely been governed by their estimate of the military situation. This is best demonstrated by the developments in the war time policy of the political party of the Indian bourgeoisie, the Indian National Congress .
The outbreak of the war found Congress in office in 7 out of the 12 provinces of India. These Congress Governments which had gone into office in 1937 on the declared policy of breaking the Constitution from within, found themselves caught up instead in the steel frame of the imperialist administration, and were seen not unwillingly working this very Constitution in active cooperation with the Viceroy, Governors and the Civil Service. Congress policy in office, if a little less reactionary in many respects than that of imperialism’s own administrations in the past (concessions to the peasantry, release of political prisoners, etc.), proved in essentials to be no different from that of imperialism itself, particularly in relation to the working class.
he Indian Bourgeoisie
In Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces (Cawnpore), the Congress Governments showed no hesitation in shooting down strikers; and the Bombay government introduced and rapidly passed, despite organized working class opposition, a reactionary trade union bill which struck directly at the fundamental working class right to strike. There can be no doubt that these bitter memories played a part in determining the working class attitude to the August struggle, which, though spontaneous, was conducted uniformly in the name of the Indian National Congress.
The outbreak of the war therefore found the Congress Governments, and therewith Congress itself, considerably stripped of prestige and decreasing in mass influence. It also found these governments in an impasse. With their limited powers and limited finances, they found themselves unable to go forward with even the mildly liberal measures that they knew were necessary to lull the masses. Instead they found themselves engaged substantially in the day-to-day administration of a regime they were supposed to oppose.
The war gave the Congress High Command a way out of the developing impasse. Acting on the plea that India had been dragged into the war unconsulted—which, of course, was true, but not surprising—he High Command ordered the Congress Governments to relinquish the reins of office; which they did, with varying degrees of reluctance and delay, taking every care to smooth the way for direct administration by the British imperialists.
Having thus gained the necessary freedom of maneuver, the Congress High Command set about implementing the Indian bourgeoisie’s war aim, viz., the utilization of the wartime difficulties of British imperialism with a view to improving their own position within the partnership of British Imperialism & Co., by calling on British imperialism to define its war aims, particularly in relation to India. It was a maneuver designed to evoke a statement of British imperialism’s bargaining terms. The British imperialists easily countered the maneuver with—platitudes.
Congress was therefore forced to come out with a statement of its terms. This it did in July 1940 by a resolution passed at the Poona meeting of the AICC. By this resolution admittedly influenced by the German victories in Europe, Congress offered cooperation on condition of an unequivocal declaration of India’s independence and the formation of a National Government at the center. Preparatory to this demand, and as a demonstration of Congress sincerity in its offer to support the war, Mahatma Gandhi, proclaimed pacifist, was relieved of the leadership of Congress. To the Poona offer of Congress, the only reply given by British imperialism through the mouth of Viceroy Linlithgow (in August 1940) was an offer to expand the Viceroy’s Executive Council and a haughty reiteration of Britain’s determination to remain in power in India on the plea of its self-imposed role of “protector” of “minority interests."
In this situation Congress was compelled to look for means of bringing pressure to bear on her recalcitrant partner. Here Congress came up against a difficulty. It is important to note that whether at this stage or later, Congress never characterized the war as imperialist and the Congress leaders openly declared their sympathy with the Allied powers. The Congress had therefore to seek a way of going into opposition in a way that would not embarrass the British war effort. The solution to this problem was found, as was to be expected, by Mahatma Gandhi.
The solution was—individual satyagraha ”. It was designed expressly to prevent mass action and any embarrassment of the war effort. Chosen Congressmen from October 1940 onwards went out to shout slogans after informing the authorities of their intention. They were, of course, promptly arrested. Nevertheless, the policy was continued till December 1941 when it was allowed to die off after the release of all satyagrahi prisoners from jail. Congress was searching for another move—when Pearl Harbor intervened.
Gandhi’s Tactics
The rapid advance of the Japanese through the Pacific regions and to the very gate of India transformed the political situation in India. The prestige of British imperialism was severely shaken; the sense of unshakable British power was undermined. The mass needs rose; and with it the bourgeois sense of opportunity. Proportionately British imperialism’s former need of intractability also visibly softened. It sought a settlement with Congress as a means of consolidating itself.
This was the background of the Cripps mission. Although the Cripps proposals were in form an offer of “Dominion Status” after the war, they were in fact hedged about with conditions which made the offer itself unreal. In particular, it was made a condition precedent to any “transfer of power” that a treaty be signed which “will cover all necessary matters arising out of the complete transfer of responsibility from British to Indian hands …. (and) will make provision, in accordance with the undertakings given by His Majesty’s Government, for the protection of racial and religious minorities .”
Under this vague and far-reaching clause, British imperialism retained a maneuvering power which would enable it to insist on almost any terms it chose to impose, and even to find a way out of the proposal altogether. Further, no change whatsoever in India’s status was contemplated during the war. On the contrary although “leaders of the principal sections of the Indian people” were to be invited to participate in “the counsels of their country,” this was no different from the former offer of an expanded Viceroy’s Executive Council, inasmuch as the Council continued to be advisory and the Viceroy’s powers remained as absolute as ever. On this question of the Viceroy’s powers the Cripps negotiations with Congress broke down.
The real reason for the failure of the negotiations, however, was the sharp change that had taken place in the military situation. The threat of the application of a “scorched earth policy” in the case of the expected Japanese invasion had caused important sections of the Indian big bourgeoisie to take a sharp leftward turn. Further, Japan’s advance had not merely hardened the attitude of the Indian bourgeoisie towards British imperialism but radically changed it. Contemplating the possibility of a successful Japanese invasion of India, the Indian bourgeoisie began to consider the possibility not merely of altering the terms of their partnership with British imperialism but even of changing partners; i.e., the possibility of Japanese imperialism replacing the British. In other words, the bourgeoisie were preparing to climb the fence so as to be in a position to decide which way to jump at the proper time.
Thereafter events moved swiftly. The Congress Working Committee met in July and announced its current terms for a settlement with British imperialism. These were “withdrawal of British rule in India” immediately and the negotiation of a treaty between “free India” and Great Britain “for the adjustment of future relations and for the cooperation of the two countries as allies in the common task of meeting aggression.” Coupled with these terms, however, there was, for the first time, the open threat of a non-violent mass struggle in case they were not granted. An AICC meeting was called for August to endorse this decision. Congress had moved with the worsening military situation for Britain from conditional support to open opposition. The next move lay with British imperialism.
British imperialism’s answer was categorical and dramatic—not words, but action. On the very morning after the AICC session of August 8th at Bombay, where Congress authorized mass action under Mahatma Gandhi’s leadership as a means to forcing British imperialism to accept the Congress terms, the government struck at Congress with a wide-spread series of simultaneous arrests which completely paralyzed the Congress organization.
August 9 Movement
Government’s action evoked an unexpectedly prompt widespread and violent mass response, namely, the mass uprising which began on August 9, 1942. This uprising had the character of a spontaneous rebellion against the British power. It is important to note, however, on the one hand, that it did not draw in important provinces like the Punjab at all; and, on the other, that save in certain areas like North Bihar, Eastern UP, Orissa and Midnapore district, the upsurge never went beyond the proportions of a violent demonstration. This derived from the perspectives which the bourgeoisie themselves had set before the masses through the Congress generally and Mahatma Gandhi in particular. These perspectives were exactly comprised in the latter’s slogan, “Quit India,” which was more an invitation to the British to quit than a call to the masses to drive them out. In other words, the Congress perspective was not the overthrow of imperialist rule and the seizure of power, but at the most, the paralyzing of the government administration as a means of bringing about an agreed devolution of power.
This analysis of the Congress perspectives in August is in no way invalidated by the Gandhian slogan of August 8, viz., “Do or Die.” Read in the context of non-violent action and “open” rebellion in which Mahatma Gandhi put it forward, the “Do or Die” slogan was itself not a call for an organized mass onslaught on British imperialist power but for individual action of an anarchist type—let each man consider himself free and act as if he were free; that was Gandhi’s own advice.
The basic reason for the August movement not outstripping in any significant manner the bounds of the bourgeois perspectives was the failure of the working class to move into militant class action on a decisive scale. This failure was due principally to the absence of a revolutionary working class party to lead the workers. No doubt the Communist Party acted as a brake upon the working class. And no doubt there was working class suspicion of the bourgeois leadership, particularly in Bombay. But in view of the fact that the working class did demonstrate its solidarity by an actual widespread stoppage of work, there can be little doubt that they would have gone into militant action had there existed a working class party to provide it with an alternative and militant leadership. As it was, with the lack of militant working class participation, the movement was bound to fail.
It failed disastrously. The movement was violent but government met it with a himalayan display of organized violence unexampled in India since the great Mutiny of 1857. The movement rose in places to revolutionary heights, e.g., Bihar; where little statelets were actually thrown up for little periods like foam on the crest of a rapidly advancing wave. And the very height to which the struggle arose resulted, in complete defeat, in the depth of the subsequent fall. Above all, the petty bourgeois who led and the petty bourgeoist who fought—it was mainly a petty bourgeois uprising—lacking the leadership of the working class with its consistent revolutionary perspectives, and bound by the bourgeois perspective of “pressure politics” as distinct from revolutionary politics, bound up, that is to say, by a narrow horizon of violent action without clear revolutionary aim, fell away from the struggle on its defeat, nonplussed and confused. Passing from a sense of frustration to a feeling of futility, he fell away ultimately not only from the struggle but from politics itself. In other words, the petty bourgeoisie became generally demoralized.
Meantime the bourgeoisie have once more changed front. Hard on the heels of the collapse of the mass struggle has come also a sharp turn in the military situation. The Japanese, are, no doubt, still at the gates of India, but they are no longer knocking on them. The Germans have been pushed from El Alamein and Stalingrad right across North Africa on the one side and Russia on the other, back into “Festung Europa.” Russia is nearing the Eastern borders of Germany. The Anglo-American armies have landed and advanced in Italy and landed and consolidated a bridgehead in Normandy. Away in the Pacific, Japan is being pushed from her outer island screen back onto her first line of inner defenses. Everywhere the Axis is on the defensive and in retreat; and Anglo-American imperialism, conscious of its overwhelming power, looks triumphantly forward to victory and unchallenged world- domination.
Post-August Developments
The Indian bourgeoisie have reacted rapidly to this change in the military situation favorable to British imperialism. They have come down once more from the fence they climbed, come down on the side of Anglo-American imperialism. Though they still cast covert glances in the direction of the American imperialists (they have long appealed to Roosevelt to solve the political “deadlock” in India) they have for the present at least plainly decided to throw in their lot openly once more with British imperialism. Hucksters that they are, however, they still look round to see whether some little concession cannot be salvaged from the wreckage of the 1942 hopes.
The first sign of this turn in the bourgeois attitude came in fact during the August struggle itself. Scared by the violence of the masses, they quickly tightened the purse-strings of Congress on the receipt of a private government assurance that the “scorched earth” policy would not be applied to India in case of a Japanese advance. The open signs of the change in the bourgeois attitude came later, however, in the form of a vociferous press campaign for a resolution of the political “deadlock.” This was in fact, a demand that imperialism itself should take the initiative in restarting negotiations with the very Congress it had just smashed, as Churchill had always held it should be smashed. Imperialism was adamant. It demanded “unconditional surrender.” The newspaper tune thereupon underwent a significant change. From the demand for the release of the Congress leadership’ as a preliminary to negotiation, the demand became one for the government to provide facilities for the Congress leadership in jail to meet in order to propose new terms. Imperialism still remained’ adamant; it was not prepared to negotiate at all. It demanded that the Congress leadership should come in sackcloth and ashes to accept the terms that it (British imperialism) was prepared to impose. The deadlock therefore continued.
The Bombay Plan
Meantime, political agreement or no, the bourgeoisie were actually entering intimate cooperation with the government. Economics determines politics. The bourgeoisie were not only making profits out of the war but they were also looking ahead to the post-war world. Having failed in their bid for power, they were concerned at least to occupy certain strategic positions in the administrative machinery as a means of safeguarding and, if possible, advancing their interests to some little extent at least. In other words, they wanted Congress in office once more. The problem was how to pave the way for a political settlement.
The bourgeoisie, or rather the dominant section thereof, the big bourgeoisie, e.g., the Tatas and the Birlas, solved this problem with a masterly maneuver—he Bombay Plan. This plan, which in form is a blueprint for the industrialization of India, is in fact, a scheme for the more thoroughgoing exploitation of India by a combination of Anglo-American and Indian capital. It is also a propagandist device for swinging mass opinion once more behind the bourgeoisie by lavish promises of future prosperity under -bourgeois leadership (the plan stresses the raising of mass standards of living as its aim, though it does not indicate how this is to be achieved except as a putative by-product of the bourgeois search for profit). Above all, it is the basis for the reopening of negotiations by Congress for a surrender-settlement. The planners stress the need for a “National Government,” i.e., a government of the native exploiters under British imperialism, as an indispensable instrument for implementing their scheme.
The maneuver is bold—and it has succeeded. By diverting attention from “politics” to “economics” its authors have succeeded in creating the atmosphere for a surrender by Congress which can look something like a “peace with honor”—going back to office in order to “serve the people.” And in this atmosphere, the master-tactician of the Congress, Mahatma Gandhi is back in action once more.
Since his release, Mahatma Gandhi has taken three significant steps in the direction required by the bourgeoisie—and the imperialists. He has announced that the sanction clause of the August resolution has lapsed; that is to say Congress had abandoned the role of active opposition. He has condemned the violence of his followers and called on those who are “underground” to surrender to the government. He has thereby condemned the August mass struggle itself, for it was universally violent; organized, insofar as it was organized at all, and sustained by underground workers. And finally, he has proposed fresh terms as a basis of negotiation with the government.
The terms now offered by Mahatma Gandhi have a two-fold significance. They abandon the demand that British imperialism should quit India; and they offer full cooperation in the war. All he demands for today is a “National Government” at the center, which is to handle the civil administration in such a manner as to subserve the imperialist war effort (the military administration, including transport, etc., is left outside its purview).
British imperialism has already announced through the mouth of Mr. Amery that these terms do not provide a sufficient basis for immediate negotiation. Though Wavell has abandoned Linlithgow’s “sackcloth and ashes” demand, he still demands unconditional surrender in substance. Will Congress agree to the demand?
This is the immediate question of Indian politics. And there can be only one answer to it Congress will surrender—only an appropriate face-saving formula remains to be found. Congress will then have turned full circle, along with the war situation. It will be back in office once more, and this time, not even supposedly to break the Constitution from within but to work it.
What are the likely consequences of the coming Congress-Government settlement (a) on political parties, and (b) on the masses? -
As to political parties—Congress itself will, on settlement and taking of office once more discredit itself both before the masses and before the more radical sections of its own membership, especially as those who really fought during the struggle are likely to be left to rot in imperialist jails. This radical section is already showing open discontent with the moves towards surrender that Mahatma Gandhi is making. When settlement comes, therefore, some portion of this section is likely to break away from Congress itself in search of some alternative organization, be it one that exists or one that is to be created anew. Once Congress is back in office, moreover, and thereby, on the one hand, takes on its own shoulders the responsibility for the repressive war-time measures of the imperialist government and, on the other, becomes directly associated in the minds of the masses with the intensified exploitation and consequent misery that imperialist war entails; the already disillusioned masses will turn away from Congress in search of an alternative leadership. In short, the radical intellectuals and the petty-bourgeois masses who have hitherto followed Congress will not only fall away from Congress but turn against it.
What of the Congress Socialist Party? It is important to note that the official leadership of the August struggle came from this hybrid organization of petty-bourgeois radicals who cling to the coattails of the Indian bourgeoisie. The struggle showed the distinctive stamp of their limited ideology and futile methods, especially after the mass movement began to ebb. The CSP leadership realized the need for violence, but did not know how to direct it in an organized fashion to a revolutionary purpose. Hence the orgy of negative destruction unaccompanied by a constructive attempt at a seizure of power.
The CSP leadership recognized, belatedly, the need for working class action; but it did not know, or knowing, did not dare use (because it would bring down on their heads the condign displeasure of their bourgeois masters) the class appeal for militant action. On the contrary, when the struggle was already ebbing it called on the working class to leave the factories and go back to the villages, thus seeking to use them as mere pawns in its scheme artificially to sustain the struggle. It is no wonder, therefore, that the working class failed to be moved by the ultimatist appeals of the CSP.
The CSP leadership found itself directing a peasant upsurge of remarkable militancy which, however, it could not develop further because it clung to the Congress perspective of no threat to landlordism. Consequently, the only method of deepening and widening the peasant struggle was never used—“Land to the Peasants” was never advanced anywhere by the CSP, but only “Refuse to Pay the Land Tax.” “Against the Government but Not Against Landlordism”—hat was the content of its policy for the peasantry.
The Congress Socialist Party
Above all, when the mass movement began to ebb from the impasse created by limited perspectives and government repression, the only manner in which the CSP could think of trying to continue and revive the struggle was adventurism. The partisan band of guerrilla fighters, who not only fought the government but also forced, by threats, the now reluctant peasantry into helping them, became its characteristic method in the countryside. The saboteur group of casual bomb-throwers became its characteristic method in the city. But these methods of “continuing” the struggle individually and of “electrifying” the defeated masses once more into a struggle, failed, as they were bound to fail, miserably. The mass movement was dying—and no CSP methods could revive it. Thus the CSP leadership, which had by force of circumstances (the official bourgeois leadership had been put away by imperialism into its jails) received an unexpectedly complete opportunity for putting its “revolutionary” talk into practice; proved completely, in action it was simply unable to outstep the bounds of bourgeois “pressure politics” perspectives, and that, though “socialist” by label, it was merely Congress in fact.
Despite these facts, however, the CSP has gained in prestige and influence among the younger radical adherents of Congress by reason of its breach with the Congress tradition of non-violence and its determined effort to give the struggle both organization and leadership. But with the defeat of the August struggle and especially with the return of Mahatma Gandhi to active politics and the attendant strengthening of the Congress Right Wing, the CSP finds itself in an increasingly anomalous position within the Congress. And when the Congress-Government settlement comes it will find itself in a dilemma.
Such a settlement will carry with it Congress cooperation in British imperialism’s war and Congress participation in the suppression of the masses. It is impossible for the CSP, if it is to remain true to its August tradition, to support such a policy; and it is extremely doubtful that the Congress High Command will, in such event, tolerate its functioning as an organized opposition within the Congress fold. The CSP will thereby be forced to a choice—and this choice can only lead to the political demise of the CSP as a distinctive organization, for it will have either to surrender to the reactionary Congress Right Wing or to leave Congress altogether. The most probable outcome is a split in the CSP ranks. The CSP Right Wing has already surrendered to the reactionary Congress High Command. It is the CSP Left Wing, therefore, that will be really forced to the choice. If it surrenders, it is politically doomed. If it walks out, however, the question is whether it can carry with it enough adherent to launch a new political organization which would constitute an entirely new development in Indian politics inasmuch as it would connote the appearance of an Indian equivalent of the Social Revolutionary Party of Czarist Russia (such mass influence as the CSP has possessed has always been among the upper strata of the peasantry and not the lower strata or the working class). It is impossible at present to determine the probable outcome, especially as the Left Wing leadership and most of its active adherents are in the imperialist jails and unable to do anything regarding the present moves towards surrender. In any event, the CSP as such has no political future, even if it has a past.
The Communist Party of India, pursuant to its policy of unconditional support of the British imperialist war effort, openly and actively opposed the mass struggle, thus making themselves the tool of British imperialism in India. The confusionist and diversionist role that the Stalinists played during the height of the mass struggle was invaluable to British imperialism, particularly as they played an important part in holding back the working class from making that bid for leadership which alone could have carried the mass struggle forward to an effective onslaught against imperialist power.
The rank treachery of their role has resulted in the entire loss of such mass political influence as they had acquired in the days of their illegality. But they are still able to act as a brake on the working class in its economic struggles by reason of their bureaucratic control of a considerable number of trade unions and the opportunities for legal propaganda and activity which British imperialism finds convenient to accord them. Today they are active in the service of British imperialism. In the economic field they are carrying on a campaign for increased and uninterrupted production. In the political field they make feverish attempts to divert the discontent caused by the shortage of commodities and the rise in the cost of living away from its true cause, the imperialist war and imperialism, by suggesting that it is all due to “Fifth Column agents,” or hoarding, or the stupidities of the bureaucracy which they divorce from its imperialist context. Their main political activity, however, is the organizing of the most shameless class-collaborationist “Unity Campaign” directed towards gaining mass support for a “National Government” under imperialism, which could only represent an alliance of the feudalists, the Indian bourgeoisie and the imperialists against the masses themselves. With the signing of a Congress-Government settlement the Stalinists will also take on fully the task of doing coolie service for the Indian bourgeoisie. There is every probability that they will seek entry into the Indian National Congress; but whether the CP is accepted within the Congress fold or not, it will in fact make itself an agency within the working class for the Congress far more effective than the CSP has been or could ever be.
A Congress-Government settlement is likely to have important consequences on the feudal political organizations, viz., the Muslim League and the Hindu Maha Sabha. In the “August days,” British imperialism, faced as it was with a mass revolt and the opposition of the Indian bourgeoisie, leaned more heavily than ever on these feudal organizations. In pursuance of this policy it used every device, especially to strengthen the Muslim League and to jockey it into political position and office. At the same time, the ebb of the mass struggle as well as the pauperization of the petty bourgeoisie also resulted in a certain drift of petty bourgeois elements into these organizations and a certain increase in their influence among the petty bourgeoisie. In recent months, however, a certain change has taken place in their position, especially in that of the Muslim League. With the mass movement smashed and the Congress drifting back towards a surrender, the value of the Muslim League as a political weapon of the imperialists has been sharply reduced and therewith the strength of government’s support to it has visibly declined. The failure of Mr. Jinnah to browbeat the Muslim Premier of the Punjab was clearly due to imperialism’s support of the latter. Moreover, imperialism, while using the “Pakistan” demand as a stick with which to beat the Congress bourgeoisie, has nevertheless also declared its opposition to the vivisection of India—a British Imperialist—Indian bourgeois alliance of exploiters wants a consolidated India for exploitation and not a Balkanized India. The Muslim League is therefore on the decline. But it is no negligible factor in Indian politics.
There can be no doubt that, for various reasons, it has today obtained a genuine following among the Muslim masses. Whether it can hold it long is, of course, doubtful, for, as the Muslim League reaches the pinnacle of office in the imperialist administration, it tends to split in its leadership (e.g., recently in the Punjab, UP and Sind) on the one hand, and to lose its mass following, through disillusionment on the other. It is the consciousness of this fact which probably has moved Mr. Jinnah to agree to meet Mahatma Gandhi with a view to discussing the latter’s recent proposals for a settlement. Whether a settlement between Congress and the Muslim League will come, it is impossible to prophecy, but the cooperation in opposition recently of their respective wings in the Central Legislative Assembly is an important pointer to the future. Should a Congress-League settlement come, however, the position of the League among the masses will, after some temporary strengthening, continue to decline, especially as it will no longer be able as effectively as before to use the Pakistan issue as a means of diverting attention from its reactionary and repressive policy.
Possible Variants
What will be the likely consequences among the masses of the coming Congress-Government settlement? Will it release any forces that will change the present mass mood?
The present situation in India is one of wide-spread mass apathy consequent on the August defeat. Among the petty bourgeoisie it amounts to demoralization and a turning away from politics. Any perspective of a resumed mass movement is thus pushed away into an uncertain future. There are, however, two important saving features.
In the first place, the prevailing demoralization, though it has influenced the proletariat too, has not caught it up to the same extent. It is significant that the wave of strikes on the food question followed the August struggle; that there have since been important strike struggles (e.g., the Karachi Docks strike) which in some cases have been very prolonged (e.g., the Nagpur textile strike); and that, even recently, sporadic strikes on such questions as food, bonus and the dearness allowance have taken place. Although the working class too, is politically apathetic, it certainly is not demoralized and is even ready to take action on economic issues that affect it vitally and interest it directly.
Secondly, there has never been a greater hatred of British imperialism among the widest masses than there is today; a hatred so deep that it would actually welcome (and this is its reactionary aspect) a change of imperialist exploiters because a change would entail the end of British imperialism. This hatred reflects itself also in the mass attitude to the war, an attitude which, if it is not one of active opposition, is definitely one of complete indifference, namely, that it is not their war at all. And not all the propaganda of the National War Front, the Stalinists and the Royists put together has been able to accomplish any significant change in mass opinion in this respect.
The present political situation is thus deeply contradictory. It is largely a question of the subjective factor and not of objective conditions. And this subjective factor can undergo a rapid transformation in the event of a sharp change in the correlation of forces internally or externally. Whether such a sharp change will take place in the near future it is impossible to foretell; but the setting of the imperialist world war in which the Indian political situation is developing makes swift changes always possible. Until a change takes place, however, the present mass mood will not lift. And until the mass mood lifts, whether as a result of slow molecular processes within the masses, or rapidly as a result of some sharp change in the correlation of forces, mass work must necessarily proceed on the basis of the program of elementary democratic demands.
The return of Congress to office is likely to initiate a change in the mass mood. The opportunity that will arise for engaging in “constitutional” politics will arrest the demoralization of the urban petty bourgeoisie and cause a return by them to political activity. In particular, the demand for the release of all political prisoners will undoubtedly provide a strong plank for general agitation among them. Among the peasantry, especially in the areas where the “August repression” did not strike with its heaviest force, partial struggles on elementary issues are likely to arise. Most of all, among the working class, by reason of the relatively higher level of morale, partial economic struggles are likely to break out. In participating in these struggles, the task of the party will be to extend their sweep when they are based on general issues like wage, food, dearness allowance, and bonus questions, and to raise their level by linking them up through such questions as the arrest of strike leaders, with more general political issues like the release of all political prisoners.
Further, a sustained agitation on such questions as the right of independent trade union organization, free speech and meetings, the right to strike, etc., must be systematically conducted as a means of reviving militant trade unionism. Insofar as such revival takes place it is bound to lead also to a revival of the general working class movement, for there cannot be, in present conditions, any militant trade union activity which will not immediately pose political issues. Above all in all its agitational and propaganda work, the party must ever keep to the fore the issue of imperialism and the imperialist war. The setting up of a “National Government” at the center and constitutional governments in the provinces will provide imperialism with a facade behind which to operate and thus reduce the sharpness with which the anti-imperialist issue was posed by reason of the bourgeoisie’s going into open opposition. In this situation, the party must help the masses not only to withstand the treacherous role of the bourgeois Congress but also to see behind the facade the real power it actually faces, viz., imperialism. The party must, therefore, in all its work, clearly and concretely, relate all issues to this question by bringing home to the masses the all-pervasive effect on economic and political conditions of the imperialist war and the intensified exploitation it entails.
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THE HIMALAYAN DISASTER: TRANSNATIONAL DISASTER MANAGEMENT MECHANISM A MUST
We talked with Palash Biswas, an editor for Indian Express in Kolkata today also. He urged that there must a transnational disaster management mechanism to avert such scale disaster in the Himalayas.
http://youtu.be/7IzWUpRECJM
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THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS TALKS AGAINST CASTEIST HEGEMONY IN SOUTH ASIA
THE HIMALAYAN TALK: PALASH BISWAS TALKS AGAINST CASTEIST HEGEMONY IN SOUTH ASIA
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