International Conference in Toronto Calls on South Asians to Unite to Oppose War in South Asia

A four-day long international gathering of academics, activists and concerned individuals from India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as from Canada, the UK and the US, concluded on April 26th at the University of Toronto after resolving to whole-heartedly work to eliminate the threat of war in South Asia. The movement to stop the war and military intervention in South Asia also echoed through the Second Annual Faiz Peace Festival and the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance which were being held concurrently in Toronto during these days, attended by hundreds of participants.

The conference to “Build the Unity of the People to Secure South Asia for the Peoples of South Asia” was jointly organized by the South Asian Peoples’ Forum, the Ghadar Heritage Organization and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups to discuss and develop an action plan against the escalating war and foreign military intervention in South Asia, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On behalf of the Organizing Committee, Sara Abraham opened the conference and presented the keynote paper on Aril 23rd evening in a festive social-political event, inviting the participants to openly voice their analysis of events and expound their views on solutions to the problems plaguing the peoples of South Asia. The opening session also included welcome remarks by representatives of the sponsoring organizations as well as remarks by Douglas Sanderson, Professor of Law at the University of Toronto, Prof. Sherene Razack of the Ontario Institute of Secondary Education, and Mr. Abid Hassan Minto, Senior Advocate of Pakistan’s Supreme Court and President of the National Workers’ Party, Pakistan.

The sessions of the conference were organized as panel discussions. A total of five panel discussions were organized to explore the themes of the military crisis in Sri Lanka, the sources of war in South Asia, violence and terrorism in South Asia, left politics and people’s unity in South Asia and the resistance struggles of the people against neoliberal economic reforms. K. Ahilan, Syed Azeem, Hamid Bashani, Shonali Bose, Horace Campbell, K. Chattopadhyay, Vivek Chibber, P. Dhakal, G. Hashmi, Hassan, Rohini Hensman, S. Kanavi, Soma Marik, Naeem Malik, B. Pain, Rajan Philips, Ahmad Salim, Gurdev Singh, Ijaz Syed, Amrit Wilson and Sima Zerehi served as panelists in these sessions. Amongst these panelists were professors, journalists, lawyers, communists, workers, students, film makers, activists and community organizers who came from far and near - from Calcutta, Mumbai, Islamabad, Delhi, Birmingham, London, Los Angeles, New York, Syracuse, San Francisco, Toronto and Ottawa. Different opinions and views were presented and debated for hours as the panelists and the participants labored to hear and be heard on the key problems of the peoples and the different visions for taking the struggles forward to victory. The feature film Amu was screened during the conference.

The conference concluded after adopting the following resolutions:

1. The Conference condemns all foreign intervention in the region and demands the immediate withdrawal of US, NATO, ISAF and other foreign troops from the region;
2. The Conference opposes militarization and war preparations by our individual governments, and stands against nuclearization;
3. The Conference condemns all acts of state terror and repression against our peoples and against all social and political movements under any pretext such as the war on terror, democracy, development, secularism, national unity and territorial integrity and others;
4. The Conference condemns political violence and acts of terror by non-state actors against civilians in the name of religion, ethnicity and nationalism;
5. The Conference holds that neo-liberal offensives have weakened the security of all ordinary people of South Asia and other parts of the world, and supports all struggles in defence of livelihood, economic rights, well-being and social security; and
6. The Conference resolves to disseminate the proceedings of the conference and to organize similar conferences in future.

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The Key to Ending War and War Preparations in South Asia is for the People of the Region to Unite and to Become Decision-Makers

Remarks by the AIPSG Representative, April 23, 2009 Toronto

It is my honour and privilege to welcome all the guests, speakers and participants in this historic international conference to build people’s unity to stop war and war preparations in South Asia.
The threat of war in South Asia is higher than ever today and the international balance of forces is such that any war in South Asia will inevitably acquire global dimensions.

South Asia is home to two nuclear armed states. The region is located where the spheres of influence of other nuclear powers collide. The old arrangements between China, the US, the former Soviet Union, the European powers and the countries of South Asia are ripe for realignment.

War occurs when other peaceful means to re-divide the zones of influence fails. AIPSG’s view is that the peoples of South Asia cannot look up to their governments to avert war because many of these governments themselves are factors for war. Unless the people of the region become the decision-makers to determine the destinies of their countries and nations, the powers-that-be will not hesitate to go to war to carve out their spheres of influence.

The AIPSG considers the issue of people becoming decision-makers in their own countries and nations as the most important ingredient for shaping the 21st century to a century of progress rather than a century of wars. Within the current economic-political conditions, people do not make decisions – big business houses make decisions through the governments in the name of the people, if at all.

The Westminster style or any other style multiparty election is the main mechanism that reduces people from being decision-makers to being a tool to legitimize the decision-making by the big business houses. For example, the government that will arise out of the general elections going on in India right now will not make the people decision-makers. The new government will pursue the aims of the Indian business houses to compete globally and make India a global power with its sphere of influence, even by going to war.

Nevertheless, it will claim legitimacy to those decisions in the name of the people. In the opinion of the AIPSG, a thorough overhaul of the multi-party political process can weaken the stranglehold of the monopolies and big business houses on political power and enable people to control decision-making so that their country will not participate in a war of aggression.

The AIPSG’s current fronts of work are on the renewal of the political process in India and the defence of rights. The work on political renewal involves broad study and exposure of the origins and foundations of the Indian state structure that was established by the colonial powers by force. AIPSG is currently elaborating on a new electoral process with candidate selection and election by the people to limit the scope of political parties to field partisan candidates and form partisan government on behalf of their big financial backers.

The AIPSG is carrying out activities in support of the struggles for rights - against state repression, torture and preventive detention, communal violence etc. in India and in defence of the rights of South Asian minorities abroad. AIPSG has argued that rights belong to one by virtue of one’s being. Everyone has right to conscience by virtue of being human and also has other rights by virtue of being part of collectives - as workers, as women, as minorities, as youth, as nations and tribes, as farmers and so on.

Everyone belongs to society and thus has the right to participate in decision-making. The affirmation of individual, collective and societal rights under modern conditions are necessary for social advance to occur in the 21st century. The AIPSG considers that building the unity of the people irrespective of their ideological differences is the tool to carry out the democratic renewal of the political process in each country so that people’s rights can be affirmed and harmonized.

The current rulers use ideological differences to divide the people politically, thus controlling political power and depriving people many of their rights. The AIPSG’s experience suggests that struggle for rights, opposition to state terrorism and repression, defense of minority rights, struggle against war, etc. unites people irrespective of their ideologies and outlook. We are confident this conference will prove once more how opposition to war unites the peoples of the countries of South Asia and all the peoples of the world.

I want to welcome all of you to this conference. We encourage all the speakers and participants to elaborate the issue under discussion from their unique perspective. The organizing committee is here to help you to make your contribution to this movement and wish success in your work. Thank you.

URL: www.geocities.com/aipsg

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Conference programme

BUILDING PEOPLE’S UNITY TO SECURE SOUTH ASIA FOR THE PEOPLES OF SOUTH ASIA

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Bennet Lecture Hall, Flavelle House, University of Toronto Law School

78 Queens Park, (Museum Subway Stop)

Jointly organized by the South Asian People’s Forum, the Ghadar Heritage Organization

and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups

www.sapf.ca, www.geocities.com/aipsg, Tel: 416-856-7212

Thursday April 23rd	Friday April 24th	Saturday April 25th	Sunday April 26th
	9:30AM – 12Noon IMPERIALISM AND SOUTH ASIA Location: Trinity St.Paul Church 427 Bloor Street West (Spadina subway stop)	9:30AM – 12Noon NEOLIBERALISM AND RESISTANCE	10AM – 2PM CONCLUDING PLENARY
2PM – 4:30PM SPECIAL SESSION ON SRI LANKA Location: Trinity St-Paul Church 427 Bloor Street West (Spadina subway stop)	2:30PM – 5PM SOUTH ASIAN STATES: COMMUNAL VIOLENCE, TERRORISM, AND SECTARIANISM	2:30 PM – 4:30 PM JOINT DISCUSSION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL RESISTANCE POETRY FESTIVAL	3PM – 6 PM LITERARY SESSION WITH SOUTH ASIAN WRITERS AND CRITICS Location: PORT CREDIT SCHOOL 70 Mineola Rd. East MISSISSAUGA (East of Huron-Ontario between QEW and Lakeshore)
6:30 PM CONFERENCE OPENING · WELCOME · KEYNOTE ADDRESS · FEATURED SPEAKER Abid Hasan Minto Advocate, Supreme Court of Pakistan · RECEPTION	7PM- 9:30PM LEFT POLITICS IN SOUTH ASIA AND PEOPLE’S UNITY	7:30 PM – 10 PM FILM SCREENING AMU FOLLOWED BY DISCUSSION WITH THE DIRECTOR SONALI BOSE AND OTHERS.	7PM - 10PM 2ND ANNUAL FAIZ PEACE FESTIVAL Location: PORT CREDIT SCHOOL 70 Mineola Rd. East MISSISSAUGA

Registration: $15.00; One day: $10.00

Faiz Peace Festival Ticket: $15.00

Co-sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Canada

and the South Asia Programs at York University and the University of Toronto

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INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

BUILDING PEOPLE’S UNITY TO SECURE SOUTH ASIA FOR THE PEOPLES OF SOUTH ASIA

April 23-26, 2009
University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

The current geopolitics of South Asia threatens a regional and global war that can devastate the countries and peoples of the region. This conference is being organized jointly by the South Asian Peoples Forum, the Ghadar Heritage Foundation and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG) to build the unity of the peoples across borders who alone can stop such wars. Speakers and activists from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal as well as from Canada, the US and the UK will discuss people’s common struggles in defense of their rights in all the countries and the ways to unite them for stopping the war and war preparations in the region.

The conference will discuss issues such as geopolitics of South Asia, divisions and violence in South Asia as well as the resistance struggles in all the countries. The movements of women in different countries and Canada-South Asia Labor solidarity will be addressed in separate panels. Special Discussions on Sri Lanka and Kashmir will take place during the conference.
Abid Hasan Minto, Senior Advocate at the Supreme Court of Pakistan has been invited to be the featured speaker for the Opening.

The conference will conclude on April 26th with the SEcond Annual Faiz Peace Festival held in conjuction with the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance in Toronto
The conference is being co-sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Canada, and the South Asia Programs at York University and the University of Toronto.

For more information please visit www.sapf.ca, www.geocities.com/aipsg, or call 416-856-7212.

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Second International Faiz Peace Festival

Second International Faiz Peace Festival

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25 February, 2009

TORONTO (ON) The second International Faiz Ahmed Faiz Peace Festival will take place in Toronto on April 26, 2009.Writers, poets and activists from the Greater Toronto Area and from around the world will gather to oppose the culture of war and violence and to promote in their stead, peace, democracy, and social justice. The gathering will include participants attending the concurrent First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance, Toronto, and the South Asian Peoples Unity Conference, Toronto. The Festival is being sponsored by the South Asian Peoples Forum.

The Festival programme includes poetry and paper readings, presentations, dance, and music. International and local personages expected to attend include Muneeza Hashmi, daughter of Faiz Ahmed Faiz from Pakistan, Nancy Morejon, Poet Laureate of Cuba, Allison Hedge Coke, the Reynolds Chair at the University of Nebraska, USA, Gary Geddes, Lieutenant-Governor Award winner in B.C., Canada, Marilyn Lerch, President of the New Brunswick Writers’ Federation, Canada, Jorge Etcheverry, Ambassador in Canada of Poetas del Mundo. Published poets from France, Brazil, and other countries will also attend. The South Asian writers and activists expected to attend include Hamid Akhtar, Muno Bhai, and Abid Hussain Minto from Pakistan and Soma Marik from India. Rekha Suria from India will be the lead singer along with local Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Indian artistes. Community and youth groups will participate through audio visual presentations and cultural performances.

The Festival will take place at the Port Credit Secondary School Auditorium, in Mississauga, from 6 pm. Around 600 people are expected to attend.

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Oppose War and War Preparations in South Asia!

Oppose War and War Preparations in South Asia!

Joint statement by the South Asian People’s Forum, Ghadar Heritage Foundation and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG)

The question in the first decade of the 21st century has emerged as how to avert the war that the big powers are preparing in South Asia. The new U.S. administration has articulated a militarist agenda for South Asia. Under the pretext of hunting for terrorists, the Americans plan to mobilize NATO and other allies to deepen their occupation of Afghanistan and enter Pakistan. It is up to the people of the world and the people of South Asia in particular to stop such intervention and bring an end to the current occupation. The times require the building of a movement against war and war-aims to also ensure that war does not become the means for the big powers to emerge out of the current economic, political and military crises engulfing the world.

An occupation army in Afghanistan is already killing innocent people; and Pakistan’s territory is being bombed everyday by the US. The secret agencies of the US and allied countries are roaming through South Asia under the pretext of capturing terrorists. Their fore-most aim in these countries is to secure a strategic advantage and lay hands on the resources and markets. War will provide them with the best opportunity to accomplish those aims. People in all the countries of South Asia are already waging resistance struggles against the neoliberal offensive and violation of rights and they can avert the march to war through their united opposition.
India and other countries of South Asia have been building their military machines and linking their military with the U.S. and other big powers for some time. Occupation and aggression from abroad can become the occasion for war amongst the countries of South Asia to settle old scores and pursue their own ambitions. We have a duty to support the people’s struggles being waged in the countries of South Asia through our struggles for the same aims, irrespective of where we live.

Please participate in the conference and help build this movement against war as our contribution to world peace in the 21st century!

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Intervention and War in South Asia must be Averted!

Speech by the AIPSG representative at the Ghadri Mela in Toronto, Nov 16, 2008
It is my privilege to bring the greetings of my organization, the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups, to the organizers, invited guests, artists and all the participants gathered in this festival to celebrate the revolutionary heritage of the people of South Asian origin resident in Canada and elsewhere.
It is an honor for my organization and myself to salute the deeds of Shahid Kartar Singh Sarabha whose 93rd anniversary of martyrdom is today and the deeds of the ghadri babas, our predecessors, who travelled on the path of struggle for dignity and rights of our immigrant forefathers and in support and defense of the rights and freedoms of their compatriots in South Asia. This celebration symbolizes that we are marching on the same path as they have marched, tackling the problems of our day as they tackled the problems of their day to open the path for society’s progress.
The problems of the day when the ghadri babas made their mark in the first decade of the 20th century was the anti-colonial struggle of the peoples of South Asia and the struggle against the racist policy of the Canadian state. The question in the first decade of the 21st century has emerged as how to avert the war that the big powers are preparing for in South Asia. As you all know, the American election campaign that just ended has articulated an agenda for South Asia – under the pretext of haunting for terrorists, the Americans plan to mobilize Canada and NATO and together want to strengthen their occupation of Afghanistan and enter Pakistan and the neighboring areas militarily. It is up to the people of the world and the people of South Asia in particular, irrespective of where they live, to stop this planned intervention and bring an end to the current occupation. It is for us to be in the forefront of creating public opinion against military intervention and occupation so that it does not occur; it is upto us to build and support the movement against war and war aims wherever we live.
Under the pretext of killing terrorists, already there is an occupation army in Afghanistan killing innocent people; already territory inside Pakistan is being bombed and innocent people are being killed. The secret agencies of the US and others are roaming all over South Asia under the pretext of capturing the terrorists. You all very well know that when these powers enter other countries, they do so for strategic aims as well as to put their hands on the resources and markets there. War will provide them the best opportunity to accomplish those aims. Only by relying on the strength of the peoples, this march to war can be blocked. History calls upon us to rise to that occasion and build the movement to stop the US and NATO intervention in South Asia.
Friends, the AIPSG, along with the Ghadar Heritage Foundation have decided to cosponsor a conference to be organized by the South Asia People’s Forum in Toronto in the near future to develop this movement. This conference will invite writers and artists, public personalities, scholars as well as people from all walks of life who stand against war and intervention in South Asia to present their proposals about what must be done. There is an urgent need to build a campaign to create public opinion against the impending war. Now is time to organize rallies and demonstrations against war in South Asia and create a powerful movement from Toronto to Lahore, Mumbai to Kathmandu, Colombo to New York and Dhaka to London to defeat the war aims of all the powers in South Asia.
India and other countries of South Asia have been building their military machines and linking their military with US and other military establishments for some time. A war of occupation and aggression from abroad can become the occasion for war amongst the countries of South Asia to settle old scores and pursue their own imperialist ambitions. We must raise the banner of opposition to all wars in South Asia immediately without forgetting that wars can be ended when the people of the region become masters of their own destiny – just as the ghadri babas, the martyrs like Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru, the Naxalites and all the other fighters for rights have envisioned. The struggle for people to become decision-makers and organize the political power to serve their interests still remains the main struggle which the ghadri babas were part of. Support for that struggle being waged in the countries of South Asia through our own struggles for the same in countries where we live is the task of our day. Let us all unite and join this historic battle for social progress, affirmation of rights and world peace. Thank you!

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State Terror in Nandigram is an Affront to All the People of India

(Statement issued by the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG) in the wake of state organized attacks on innocent people in Nandigram, West Bengal)

New York, Nov 30, 2007


The AIPSG condemns the unconscionable attacks in Nandigram earlier this month by the party activists of the ruling Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) aided and abetted by the security forces of West Bengal. The unprovoked attack in the midst of the annual Kalipuja festival led to the uprooting of thousands of families from their homes, and left a number of innocent men, women and children dead or injured. To this date, neither the Manmohan Singh government at the center nor the left-front government in the state has taken any steps towards investigation, justice and rehabilitation.


The calculated terror was directed against the peasant masses that, for better part of this year, have been resisting the forcible acquisition of their land by the West Bengal state government. Last December, the government had indicated that 15,000 acres of land in Nandigram would be converted into a chemical hub and handed over to the Indonesian conglomerate, Salim Group of Industries. The events in Nandigram come in the midst of widespread land acquisition drives by the West Bengal government for the purpose of creating special economic zones (SEZ) in several parts of the state.

The state violence and terror in Nandigram is the latest manifestation of the longstanding policy of the Indian State to resort to state terrorism – from draconian laws, organized massacres, and military occupations - to liquidate the resistance of people. The aim of state terror since the 1991 launch of the liberalization and privatization programs has been to break the resistance struggles against the sale of public assets to private businesses, cutbacks in social spending, retrogressive WTO trade rules, ruination of small traders, and land acquisition for SEZ.

The experience of last 16 years has made it clear that the privatization and liberalization policies of successive governments have not worked in the favor of people. India today is home to the largest number of deprived and dispossessed people on a per capita basis. As the reform program has gotten more discredited in the eyes of the people, and as their resistance struggles have gathered steam, the authorities have resorted again and again to the time-tested methods of terror and violence. The recent killings in Singur, Nandigram, Kalinganagar, Earasama are not some aberrations but symptomatic of the desperation of a political system that is unable to convince people that the reform programs are in their interest. In the face of the Nandigram experience, no body can afford to have an illusion that the CPI(M) or the left-front government in West Bengal stands either against state terror or against neo-liberal globalization.

People all over India are looking for alternatives to the neo-liberal offensive and the vision of Manmohan Singh, Abdul Kalam, Atal Vajpayee and others to make India into an imperial global power on the backs of people of India. Rejection of state terror, irrespective of the pretexts used to justify it, is one key ingredient of the alternative. Repudiation of the liberalization-privatization agenda is another. However, despite its claims of being pro-people and anti-imperial, the record of the “secular left alternative” today shows that it has repudiated neither. The same is true for the entire establishment comprising of the Indian State. Nandigram is a sobering reminder that people of India cannot count on those holding power today at the state and central governments to defeat neo-liberal policies.

People have a right to wage their resistance struggle against neo-liberal reforms that threaten their right to livelihood and security. They have the right to demand from the government and the state that those guilty of crimes against the people, irrespective of their positions, party affiliations, ideologies and power, are brought to justice and the victims are compensated and rehabilitated! Ideologies aside, the call of history is to defeat neo-liberal capitalist offensive on the collective and individual rights of the people all over the world. It is not a “left”, “right” or “center” issue, but an issue of profound significance for the realization of rights of the people. The AIPSG calls upon everybody to take a stand!

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Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru’s Deeds Live on!

(Speech by the AIPSG representative in Delhi at the rally organized by Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha to commemmorate the birth centenarry of Bhagat Singh)
Delhi, Oct 7, 2007

It is my pleasure to bring the greetings from the Association of Indian Progressive Study Group to the participants and organizers of this magnificent celebration to commemorate the birth centenary of Shaheed Bhagat Singh.


The heroic deeds of Bhagat Singh. Sukhdev and Rajguru live on in the deeds of the youth of today – the youths of 2007 who stand in the forefront of the struggles for rights all across India and fearlessly face the brutal onslaught of the police and paramilitary on defenseless people. The heroism and bravery are a continuation of the fidelity and sacrifice of Nirmla in the height of Naxalite uprising, Bhagat Singh Sukhdev and Rajguru as they took their valiant stand against British raj and the death defying deeds of Mangal Pandey in the great Indian war of indepenedence. The event here is also a continuation of the work of Jayshankar and Lalit Panda, two Indian youths who took up the work of Indian revolution while studying abroad and died in course of carrying out revolutionary activities. We mark this occasion of the centenary of the birth of Bhagat Singh also as the 150th anniversary of the first war of independence, 40th anniversary of the Naxalbari spring thunder and the 30th anniversary of the decision of the Hindustani Ghadar Party –organization of the Indian Marxist Leninists abroad – to re-establish revolutionary communist party in India. These historical events were spearheaded by the youth and our generation is taking the future into its hands as so magnificently exemplified in today’s event. There is a river of heroism and bravery that is flowing down the entire country from the past to the present, nurturing the present with all the healthy nutrients from the past and we are swimming in that river that is rising fast. We are not going to allow the traitors to pollute and poison that river and suffocate us – we will drown them and sweep them out.

On this occasion, I bring to you greetings from all the youth of Indian origin living abroad who are with you in spirit if not in person. They are fellow travelers of the great struggle of humankind for a society free of war, injustice, oppression and exploitation. On this occasion, I want to convey to you a desire, a request to the Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha to assist our struggles. It is to educate us about the living heroism of today’s youth; to give us examples of actual deeds of today’s youth hailing from different backgrounds who are personifying the spirit of Bhagat Singh, Nirmala, Jayshankar and Mangal Pandey year by year in taking up the cause of society’s progress while fighting in modern conditions for the rights of youth in different struggles in different parts of India. Let us, year by year, identify such youth and celebrate their work and inspire ourselves with contemporary personification of that iconic heroism and sacrifice for the progress of society that Bhagat Singh exemplified. We pledge together with you that youth of Indian origin living abroad will give carry forward the legacy of Bhagat Singh and all the other fighting youth of all lands.
Inquilab Zindabad!
Red salute to the youth of India!
Red salute to the youth of the world!
Thanks you!

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In Memory of Hardial Bains (1939-1997)

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the death of Hardial Bains who was the founder and national leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) and the president of the People’s Front of Canada. During his lifetime, Hardial Bains was also the architect of many other organizations to advance the causes of democracy, socialism and communism. Two of the organizations, the Indian Progressive Study Group (IPSG) and the Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG), were founded under his leadership in 1968 and 1990 respectively to defend and support the struggles of the Indian people against state terrorism and for the realization of their rights in a genuinely democratic state. Charcha, the discussion forum of the AIPSG, marks this solemn occasion with a pledge to march on the same path of uniting people behind the aim of a progressive and democratic India in the changing international conditions where an imperial India has entered the world stage.

Hardial Bain’s life and work are a testimony to his intense conviction in the ability of human beings to change this world through their conscious and organized action. Early in his political life, he had drawn the conclusion that “understanding requires the conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out.” This guiding principle acquired the center stage in his lifelong work to organize people dissatisfied with the status quo to create a humane and just society, one where the rights of the individual, the collective and the society will be harmonized. His last work addressed the “human factor-social consciousness” as the missing ingredient that can bring an end to the world where everything is organized to defend the rights of property and property owners and to create a new world where everything will be organized to defend the rights of human beings by building a new social, political and economic order. This task, to organize people with a social consciousness to transform the society by relying on their own forces, remains to be realized. The path pioneered by Hardial Bains remains the path to transform the current world order from benefiting a minority of wealthy individuals to one benefitting the majority of the world’s peoples.

The past ten years have seen the rise of a multipolar world, challenging the dream of the US to create a unipolar international order around the medieval notion of “might is right”. This multipolar world has not repudiated the thesis of “might is right”, rather it has set the stage for a contest amongst the “mighty” to test who is the “mightiest” of them all. Lesser powers like India, who always had ambitions of becoming a big power, have used this as their opportunity to build up military, economic and political institutions internally and fashion alliances internationally to emerge on the winning side after such a contest. This scenario not only negates the people but in fact tramples on their rights to take control of their lives and their country. Hardial Bains’ teaching on the need to create the “human factor-social consciousness” is the surest way to avert the catastrophe that the “big” and the “little” powers are preparing for on the backs of the world’s people. AIPSG and IPSG’s have important role to play in organizing the conscious movement to oppose India’s imperialist machinations abroad and support people’s struggles for national and social rights in India.

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Forced Land Acquisition in Bengal - I

A Test-case for the left-front government

With India poised to become the worldwide hub for small car production and sales, the TATA industries - a flagship business house in India – wants badly to start production of small family cars for the “common man”. No sooner than the left-front government was voted to power in West Bengal for the seventh consecutive time, TATA Motors started pushing for prime land near Kolkata to set up its Rs 1000 crore ($ 200 million) automobile plant. This venture is a part of an aggressive expansion spree undertaken in the last few years by the TATA industries.

Within days, Singur, located some 30 km west of Kolkata in the alluvial plains of the main river in Bengal – Hooghly, was identified as the site. With that also began the battle over 1300 acres of fertile and multicrop agricultural land. More than 15,000 peasants and their families in Singur now live under the threat of eviction and livelihood loss. The threat is growing ominous by the day since TATA Motors has given an ultimatum that they need the land by the end of this year, and the state government has threatened to clamp down the Bengal Land Acquisition Act 1890 - a law of colonial heritage – to procure the land for the TATA Motors.

While a handful of big farmers have sold their land, the small farmers have refused to budge. Organized under the banner of Krishi Jami Banchao Committee, the peasants are continuing their fight-back, preventing the entry of both the TATA Motors officials and the officers of WBIDC, the governmental development wing of Bengal, into Singur. Already they have been at the receiving end of police batons and large-scale arrests, including the recent incarceration of a large number of women.

Muddying waters, parliamentary opposition parties have also joined the fray in Singur, claiming to support the vulnerable farmers - strictly according to their narrow electoral interests and vote-bank calculus. On the other hand, CPI-M has mobilized its mass organizations to hold rallies in support of the land sale. Through its official organ, it has declared those opposing the land-sale to be “anti-development”, and have even gone to the extent of calling the land uncultivable. An irate Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, the chief minister of West Bengal state, has said: “They cannot stop us from setting up industry in the state. Let them shout as much as they can, we'll do what we have to”.

By and large, the Singur landscape is dominated by small peasants who own more than 60% of the disputed land. According to the court decision, before any payment, a land holder is required to clear all outstanding dues. With the scourge of debt the way it is, small peasants expect to make precious little from the sale. And, once forced off the land, they have no other means of livelihood. Then there are innumerable agricultural laborers, unregistered sharecroppers, cottage industry workers and small business, who are simply left entirely to fend for themselves. Thjs is no “fair compensation” for the dispossession, displacement, loss of livelihood, and sheer insecurity that stares both at the land-owners and landless in Singur!

In fact, not far from Singur, another village has recently met with the same fate. Under the watchful eyes of the state government, Bankura was handed over to the Indonesian-based Salim Group of Industries for making a megacity called Kolkata West International, while the peasants were evicted from their land and dispossessed of their occupation, and slowly but surely pauperized.

Singur and Bankura are merely the first wave of forced land sale in Bengal. Keen to give a red-carpet welcome to domestic and foreign investments in Bengal, the left-front government has already chalked out plans for acquiring at least 40,000 acres in the coming years for various industrial projects. Ironically, it is the very promise of protection of farmers and landless laborers against eviction that brought the leftist coalition to power in Bengal 30 years ago.
There is a lot at stake for the left-front government in Singur. One would remember that the current year was ushered in with bloodshed over land-grabbing by another Tata entity - Tata Steel - in Kalinganagar, located in the neighboring state of Orissa. A massive agitation from the tribals who lost their land was met with police firing that took at least 13 lives and left scores injured. If the communist party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) and its left allies in West Bengal can now hand over the land to the Tata Motors with minimal fuss, they would have proven their worth to the big business of India. For some years now, the business houses of India have known that Bengal under CPI-M is super friendly and profitable for large investments. With a peaceful resolution of Singur, CPI-M would prove their ability to disperse opposition from the workers and peasants as well. With an organized mass base at its disposal, left-credentials to bank on, and its recent success at creating enthusiasm for the discredited dogmas of industrialization, investment and employment, will the parliamentary left be the one to finally deliver “reforms with a human face” - that coveted yet elusive wish of the big business in India? It will be people who will have the final word.

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Movement to Transform India into World's Bastion for Peace, Prosperity and Rights!

(Speech by the AIPSG representative to the rally organized by the Communist Ghadar Party of India at the Jawaharlal Nehru University City Center in New Delhi, India on the occasion of the 89th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia)

On behalf of the Association of the Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG), it is my pleasure to greet the participants in this rally and thank the organizers for giving us the opportunity to address this gathering.

The significance of the Great October Proletarian Revolution for the people of India and Indian communists has been eloquently articulated by many in the past and the discussion is still continuing. It could not be otherwise because October Revolution was the most important event of the 20th century and the world has not been the same ever since. The dignity of human person was irrevocably affirmed by the Great October Revolution not just in Russia but the entire world. Most, if not all, of the rights, especially social rights that we take for granted, are direct outcomes of the victory of the Russian people over Czardom and the building of a socialist society.

On this occasion today, I want to speak to you about one issue that preoccupies our organization at this time whose significance is easy to grasp in the context of the experience of the October Revolution. The movement of the Russian people that led to the victory of the October Revolution was the conscious movement for peace, land and bread. It was over this question that the Kerensky government lost its legitimacy in the eyes of the people and people marched under the banner of the Bolshevik party to complete the revolution.

Let us pause for a moment and think about the democratic movement in India today. Democratic movements are objective movements and they reflect the historical requirement of the society at a given time. Anyone can see how the Indian business houses and their state and government have defined their agenda for the post-Cold War world to hijack the historic movement of the Indian people for deep going democratic transformation to benefit the big business houses and their allies. This vision of the business houses is described in many ways - Emergent India, Vision 2020, India Shinning, India as Big Power etc. The political discourse in mainstream Indian media is taking place around this agenda - for, against, neutral, whatever. Whether you speak of India-US nuclear energy deal, the private-public partnership policy of the UPA government or the judicial orders for evictions and sealing in Delhi, i.e. global, national or local issues, the Indian ruling circles have been able to force their agenda to the center-stage in all these discussions while leaving the main requirements of Indian society for thoroughgoing democratic transformations in the sideline. They want people to be fixated on what makes India look respectable in the Eurocentrist imperial world, not what makes India become a factor of peace in this dangerous time while solving the problem of economic, social and political problems of the Indian people.

The agenda of the people occupying the center-stage is missing in the current political discourse of mainstream India. It is extremely necessary that everyone works to create a situation where people deliberate how India's priorities and policies at home and abroad to emerge as a big power are advancing or not advancing the cause of peace, the affirmation of the rights of individuals and collectives and the elimination of economic deprivation, social immiserisation etc. The movement for peace, rights and wellbeing will take shape if these questions take the center-stage in Indian politics. A democratic movement with this consciousness is nascent at this time even though objective movements of the people for livelihood, rights and peace are on the rise. It could not be otherwise because the work to build the conscious movement is lagging. Democratic movements are objective movements, but it is the subjective, conscious factor that provides definition to the movement as masses are gripped by that consciousness. A conscious organization built around the conscious movement safeguards the movement from the imposters and hijackers who are bent upon dissipating the democratic initiative of the masses in favor of their self serving agenda.

The experience of the October Revolution and all other revolutions of the 20th century teach us that without the leadership of the communist party it is not possible for the conscious movement of the working class to be built, be victorious and the victory be defended. So the tasks facing the communists of India are as clear as clear can be - to build the conscious movement of the Indian people for peace, rights and prosperity, lead it to victory and create a new social-political order to defend those victories. The ideological debate for articulating and debating the needs of the Indian people must be imposed on all the forces - progressives, communists, youth, women, as well as the bourgeoisie, revisionists, social democrats, liberals and nationalists. Let us impose on all the forces this agenda that they address themselves to the questions of peace, rights and prosperity and explain how the current policies are meeting or not meeting these requirements of India. Let us involve all the political forces of India in elaborating the program and building the organization around this consciousness. It is AIPSG's earnest appeal to the participants in this rally and all the people of India that they build this democratic movement. There are many ongoing democratic struggles already in India but the victory of all those will be conditional upon the victory of this movement and this movement will not be built or be victorious without communist leadership.

October Revolution teaches us that Bolshevik party was able to grasp what was the most important amongst all the tasks facing the Russian society in 1917 and organized around those tasks. The communists of our time have the same unenviable job today - identify with the objectivity of consideration the stage of development of Indian people's struggle for rights and within that context recognize what the agenda of the bourgeoisie is, how the enemies of the people are uniting around that agenda and monopolizing the political space to silence the voice of the people. That agenda of the bourgeoisie has to be contested and defeated. Let this rally resolve to launch the movement for the agenda of peace, rights and livelihood and wage the ideological struggle to place it at the center-stage of India's political space by organizing people around ir. Let the agenda of the Indian business houses to be a big power on the basis of militarization, state terrorism and unbridled capitalist exploitation be contested frontally. This what the AIPSG is working for and it is ready to unite with everyone taking up the same agenda. It is convinced that people of Indian origin living abroad will enthusiastically rally around such a movement in India in course of their own struggle for peace, rights and wellbeing in the countries where they are working and living. Thank you!

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Patriotic Indians are a Reserve of the Democratic Movement of the Indian People

Speech by the representative of the AIPSG at the 2006 Ghadri Mela in Toronto, Canada
October 22, 2006

Dear friends,
It is my honor to bring the greetings of my organization to all of you who have gathered here today to celebrate the patriotic traditions and honor the lives and works of the martyrs of the ghadar movement of colonial and postcolonial India.

When one speaks of the works of Ghadarites like Lala Hardial or martyrs like Shahid Udam Singh to whose memory today's function is dedicated, these works shine and take legendary dimensions within the context of the anticolonial struggles of the Indian people against British raj. It is the anticolonial movement of the Indian people that produced patriotic personalities like the founder of the Hindustani Ghadar Party in North America in 1913 or the young Udam Singh who avenged the massacre in Jalianawalabagh. Such patriotic personalities nourished the anticolonial movement by addressing to the tasks of that movement and in turn were nourished by it. The anticolonial movement was the biggest democratic movement of its time. The democratic movement of the Indian people is like the mother that nourishes the democratic personalities that personify the content the democratic struggle of that time. The content of the democratic movement changes as new tasks emerge to the forefront with time and in today's conditions, the tasks of the democratic movement are not the same as those during the anticolonial struggle. Yet, there is a democratic movement today and just as in the past, today's patriotic Indians, whether inside or outside India, are the standard bearers of the democratic movement of our time. The participants in this year's ghadri mela are the standard bearers of the democratic movement of our time both in India and in Canada.

What is the essence of the democratic movement of our time? This is not an academic question but a question that arises from the way we live, work and struggle. The world is passing through a very retrogressive phase when the ruling and powerful of this world have made common cause to turn the clock back on all social rights, national rights and even civil rights which are essentially individual rights. Naturally the democratic movement of our time is connected with the resistance movement against this retrogression. Today's cultural program captures our struggle against the retrogressive and decadent culture being imposed on our families and youth and is a magnificent manifestation of our movement for collective rights to develop our language and culture, especially our progressive culture.

The democratic movement against colonialism neither began nor ended with the slogan to end colonial rule - ending British rule became the converging point of many democratic struggles of the time at a certain stage in the evolution of the anticolonial movement. The advanced consciousness of the democratic movement in the fist half of the 20th century centered on questions of what will replace the colonial state and economy, what will secure the national rights to all the nations of India what will end the institutionalized casteist and communal divisions that propped the colonial system. Ghadrites espoused such consciousness and martyrs like Bhagat Singh organized around such consciousness. The inspiration our martyrs evoke in us today is because of the democratic movement they were associated with. That democratic movement carries on under new conditions, at a new time and with new blood. The consciousness of that movement is what defines the work of the patriotic Indians of today.

As we live through the nightmare of the neoliberal globalization and militarism, it is hard not to draw some conclusions about the main currents of our time. The main contradiction of our time - the contradiction between the rights of human beings and their political economic strivings vs. the rights of wealth and its political economic strivings, in other words between socialism and between capitalism. This contradiction had come to a head within the bipolar division of the 70's and 80's. The world reached a turning point when the bipolar division itself became the factor flaming the struggle for rights of human beings, bringing to the center-stage the social-political-economic strivings of the people. In the immediate aftermath for the cold war, the capitalist and imperialist powers used the transition period to disorient the people as if their rights had been won and peace and prosperity were around the corner. Even such sound ideopolitical forces of the Cold War period like the Party of Labor of Albania could not find their bearing under these conditions. Without the conscious factor playing its necessary role, the struggles of the people against the new onslaught of capital, but they also diverged in every direction.

We know how militarism has come to occupy the center-stage of the post cold war world and how Indian capitalists have become one of the most bellicose of the 21st century powers, building their military might and creating an India-centric cult advancing slogans like resurgent India, India shinning, vision 2020, and what not! What has this done to the democratic movement in India? It has put tremendous pressure on many of the movements to adapt the attitude of "defense of Mother India". You see political forces in India who were identified with the democratic movements of the people in the past adopting new slogans like "enlightened self-interest" to defend the India-centric attitude of the Indian capital. You see a serious fragmentation of the people's forces at a time when the forces of capital have launched new assault on the rights of the workers and peasants through privatization of all sectors economy including defense sector on the one end and agrarian sector on the other. The point to grasp is that the big capital of India has worked out its line of march in this period. This is the consciousness of the movement the retrogressive forces are leading. The question is what is the consciousness of the movement that the progressive and patriotic forces must associate with.

For us, the Indian expatriates living and working abroad, these questions are very urgent to deal in course of addressing the problems we face in Canada. The big capital of India is appealing not only to those expatriates who see opportunity to align with Indian capital and grow their wealth within the liberalised Indian economy and India's position in the new world order but also to the patriotic sentiments of the expatriate Indians suggesting that finally India is countering Eurocentrism with Indo-centric values and all expatriates must rally around this "shining India" to affirm their identity in this world. It is a struggle emerging in front of us - a struggle to win the hearts and minds of the all the expatriates and for the democratic minds of the entire world against this agenda of the Indian big capital on the backs of the Indian people. We have the duty to ensure that this struggle is won in favor of the democratic movement in India and not the movement of Indian capital with its shinning India slogan and militarist policy.

The democratic movements in India are many - I can list movements like the worker's resistance to privatization and liberalization, farmer's resistance to WTO mandated capitalist modernization of agriculture, resistance to army and police occupation of the North East and elsewhere, resistance to war preparations, resistance to Narmada dam project or the land grab from tribals. There is also the nascent democratic movement of the people of India which is a conscious and organized movement to turn the situation around in favor of the people, enabling them to affirm their rights and achieve their social-political-economic emancipation. I want to speak about this movement for a specific reason. At this age in India, it is not possible for any democratic movement of the people to succeed if this movement is not a conscious and organized movement - this is the conclusion of the pre- and post-colonial world experience. The world capital is very experienced in financing and corrupting the spontaneous movements through many mechanisms. Every day we see exposures of how the world capital channels funds and "advice" to certain civil society organisms, journalists, agent provocateurs besides working directly through agencies like the police, certain partisan political, communal other divisive forces. They have ample experience in dissipating many fighting organization of the people or rendering them harmless to the interest of capital in myriad ways and letting loose their military machine to cause bloodshed. Only a conscious and organized movement with its goals consistent with the historical requirement of the people to affirm human dignity in the contemporary conditions can turn the situation around by defeating the machinations of capital.

For us, the expatriate Indians, it is of utmost urgency that we channelize our patriotic sentiments to defend and nourish such a conscious and organized democratic movement of the Indian people. Today this movement is not a broad movement that captures headlines in world media. It is a nascent movement working to win over the people to the aim of making the people decision makers - the highest expression of their right to control their lives individually and collectively. Today the decision makers are the minority of the people who control capital. This may not seem obvious because there is a system of elections to seek legitimacy for those who sit in ruler's positions and work through a parliamentary system to put the neoliberal anti-people policies in place. No one can deny that the people at large, the overwhelming majority of working people in the cities and countryside do not make decisions for themselves or the country. The movement for creating an alternate political system out of the current political system is the democratic movement of our time. Our struggle is against everything that strengthens the current political-economic system to enable the big capitalist houses of India to wield more control over every resource of India for private gains and renders people to the position of an accessory for big capital to make more money and grow.

As you know the Indian capital is recruiting Indian expatriates feverishly to invest in India, to run for political office in India and to become the defenders of Indian policies in foreign countries. What you do not see clearly the organization of Indians actively organizing in support of the movement of the Indian people to create a new political process in India to make people decision-makers. You see people organized abroad to support social movements, to spread education and literacy, to provide help for irrigation and healthcare to the underprivileged, to support mass agitations such as Narmda Bachao or the struggles for civil rights. These are manifestations of the patriotic bond we have to our motherland. What is missing is the convergence of this support around the movement for a new political process. It is not fortuitous because this convergence has not taken place in India. It will not be inaccurate to say that, as the convergence takes place in India, the work of the patriotic Indians will also converge. However this does not mean that we wait outside for something to happen in India. We are integral part of the force that is charged with the historical task of creating that convergence in a conscious and organized manner. We create this convergence here by appealing to all Indians to lend their support for the conscious movement for an alternate political process. That is the task of our times.

Friends, Uddam Singh, Mewa Singh, Lala Hardial and others inspire us today to live as dignified Indians in an adopted land by creating the framework of how one's own struggle in the new homeland is intimately connected with the struggles of the people that we have left behind within the conditions of world retrogression and threat of war. It is one struggle for affirming our human quality - to live and work to the best of our ability without exploitation and harassment, in peace and in a culturally uplifting environment. As we create that environment here through our daily struggles in Canada, we also give expression to our sentiments and feelings that we cherish the same for our brothers and sisters in India through events like this Mela. Let us make a bold pledge to build that movement - the democratic movement for people's empowerment amongst Indian expatriates abroad and support the same movement in India while creating support of the peoples of the world for this striving of the Indian people. Thank you.

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