25 December 2005

Eighty Years of Communism in India

/RAJ MISHRA AND RAJESH GOPALAN
The Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG), a contingent of the progressive forces worldwide, marks the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in India by drawing a balance sheet of the struggles of the communist, revolutionary and progressive forces and placing its own work in the context.

The balance sheet is a positive one even though retrogressive forces in India and abroad have recently seized the initiative to turn the wheel of social progress backwards. Internationally, the US has created the space for all the retrogressive forces to be on the offensive against the social rights of the people. Medieval values such as "might- is-right", "dog-eat-dog", "everyone-for-oneself", etc. have come to the forefront to replace the value of "all for one and one for all" that the socialist and communist forces had unfurled in the 20th century. The US has openly called upon Indian rulers to espouse the path opened up by the US in return for American support to India to emerge as a major imperial power. Democratic and progressive organizations have been charged by history to define afresh the ideals and values to guide the contemporary struggles for social progress within this situation and are ably rising to the occasion.

The growth of communism and communist politics in India after the Communist Party was founded in Kanpur on December 25, 1925 in the midst of the anti-colonial struggle changed India's political landscape in a fundamental way. It placed on the agenda the creation of a state power of workers and peasants by workers and peasants to end all forms of oppression and exploitation. Eighty years later, and nearly sixty years after colonial rule formally ended in India, the idea of workers and peasants wielding political power to bring an end to the oppression and exploitation finds widespread support and sympathy inside and outside India. Even after many splits and the fragmentation of India's communist movement, the ideal of one communist party leading the people with one revolutionary program for social, economic and political transformation reverberates around India. Progressive people all over the world support the strivings of the Indian communist, democratic and progressive forces to create a revolutionary leadership which could rally the workers, peasants, women and youth of India in one powerful movement to bring about thoroughgoing transformations.

Since 1968, Indian Progressive Study Groups (IPSG) have worked abroad to organize political actions in defense of struggles of Indian people against social, economic and national oppression. After the founding of the Association of the IPSG's in 1990, the policy to unite people in common struggle has become the cornerstone of AIPSG activities. With enthusiasm, IPSGs and the AIPSG have supported the progressive political movements and the efforts of Indian communists to create the united front of workers, peasants and middle strata around a common political program for thoroughgoing renewal of India. They have rallied progressive activists abroad by organizing actions to unite people politically to oppose state terrorism, communal violence, national oppression, violation of rights, war preparations, privatization reforms etc. in India. The study programs of the IPSG's and AIPSG have defined the aims of the struggles in India and of Indian people abroad at each turning point, providing the necessary ideo-political elaborations for the AIPSG to remain in step with the changing national and international environment and without compromising the ideal of social progress.

After eighty years of communist politics in India, the issue of compromise - compromising the interests of the workers, peasants, women and youth of India with that of a minority of big business houses and land owners who control the economic and political power in India - has emerged as the biggest obstacle for the people of India to establish a political power that would end their exploitation and oppression. Today, the political power in the hands of the big business houses of India, legitimized through a corrupt electoral process, negates the rights of the people. India pursues the agenda of a reactionary world power preparing for war. The politics of the Communist Party of India, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Communist Part of India (Maoist) and most other fragments of the communist movement that began 80 years ago is mired in the compromising politics, often bordering on betrayal. The largest communist groups seem to have abandoned the aim to end exploitation and oppression of humans by humans on Indian soil. They are fine tuning their political positions to come to power through the corrupt electoral process to run the existing Indian State more effectively than the BJP, the Congress or the Socialist Parties to transform India to a major imperial power.

On December 25, 2000, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the communist party in India, the progressive, patriotic and fighting forces comprising activists from every decade of the 20th century since 1925 assembled in Kanpur at a rally organized under the leadership of the Communist Ghadar Party of India. This gathering unanimously resolved to work towards uniting the working class and people around one revolutionary program, led by one communist party in whose ranks will militate all the communist and revolutionary forces of India. Today, much work still remains to be done for this goal. It can be safely said that the largest communist groups in India have not accepted the aim of building one revolutionary movement with one program under one communist party to end exploitation and oppression on Indian soil. Some others have gotten mired in sectarian politics and ideological divisions or are busy settling scores with each other while the work for building a united front of workers and peasants goes unattended. The work of the Communist Ghadar Party, which turns only 25 years old on December 25, 2005, must be commended within these circumstances.

The formal end of colonial rule in 1947, the India-China war in 1962, the armed peasant uprising of Naxalbari in 1967 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 required the reorganization of Indian communist and progressive forces to wage the struggle for people's power in new ways. In each stage, weaknesses in the movement led to a disintegration of the compromising forces and realignment of the advanced forces. Taken as a whole, the people's movement was weakened in each stage due to lack of revolutionary leadership. Today, in the post 9/11 world, most communist groups in India have taken up liberal politics, the politics of strengthening capitalism and reforming its excesses by themselves coming to power through elections. This is a new development, an abandonment of social democratic politics when communists presented the program to build state monopoly capitalism as their aim.

On balance, the AIPSG's current program to unite people behind the aim of India's political, economic, social and national renewal by fighting for rights corresponds to the need of the progressive movement to end all exploitation and oppression of Indian people. An uncompromising stand against India's rise as a major imperial power at this time will assist the movement against economic privatization and war preparations. The Indian State, the Indian business houses and the parliamentary parties are ruthlessly pursuing a number of political reforms to shed off colonial vestiges and present India as a modern State, worthy of being recognized as a world power within the retrogressive political space defined by the US. The AIPSG considers the political struggle to derail this retrogressive agenda of the US and India and a thorough exposure of the liberal illusions about an imperial India as the most immediate struggles to open the path for India's progress.

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22 December 2005

Book Review: Future of India

/M. ALOK
Future of India: Politics, Economics and Governance
Bimal Jalan.
Penguin Group India, 2005, 212 pages, Rs. 350.

Bimal Jalan is a former governor of the Reserve Bank of India and a sitting member of Rajya Sabha. He also served in the ministries of finance, industry and the Planning Commission and represented India in the boards of the IMF and World Bank. The book, according to Mr. Jalan, is filled "with a fair degree of personal reflection and impressions" by someone "who had the opportunity to observe at close quarters the interplay of economics, politics and governance in determining policy outcomes and their impact on the country's (i. e. India's) economy".

The central thesis discussed in the book is that after swinging between "a country with an uncertain future" and "a land of great opportunities" since her independence, India's reputation as a democracy and as an emerging global economic power is at its peak at this time. It is the talk of the time that India will become a developed country in the next decade. According to Mr. Jalan, it is not just the economy, politics or governance of India but the interface between them and their combined effect on India's democratic system which will largely determine the future of India. He analyzes the causes of failures for India to realize its full potential in the past and argues that there is no certainty that the present euphoria about India becoming a developed nation in a decade will last for long. He goes on to suggest a number of reforms to be undertaken immediately to seize the present opportunity, such as, greater accountability among ministers; effective ways to curb corruption and enhance fiscal viability; strengthen Parliament and judiciary etc. He writes:

Ever since independence, India has been fortunate in having a string of highly reputed political leaders....,, a large number of top economists of international stature to advise the government in the process of planning and economic policy formulation... and the so-called 'steel frame' of permanent bureaucracy...And yet, after six decades sice independence, economic progress has been much slower than anticipated.....There was a substantial gap between what was considered to be economically sound and what was found to be politically feasible. Economic strategy seldom reflected our political or social realities or real political considerations. Similarly, the administrative implications of policies, launched with great convictions, were seldom considered or, when considered, these implications did not affect the actual evolution of economic policies or programs on the ground. For a better future and sustained high growth, it is essential to evolve policies that are practical and pragmatic, and can reconcile the country's economic interests with political realities within a democratic framework.

The book is divided into five chapters besides an introduction and epilogue. The first and fifth chapters deal with the evolution of Indian democracy and the changes that are required to "make the political system work for the benefit of the people as a whole, and not only in the interest of the leaders whom they elect". The second chapter deals with the process of economic policy making and the impact of colonial legacy and coalitions of special interests. The third and fourth chapters deal with aspects of governance and widespread corruption and suggest reform measures. The epilogue is titled 'resurgent India' and is a reflection of what Mr. Jalan thinks India needs to '"'revitalize country's institutions in order to realize her full potential".

Mr. Jalan recognizes that the people of India are deprived of their power by the political system and the political process and writes eloquently as follows:

The elections are truly the hour of triumph for India's democratic tradition, which have set standards for other countries to follow. At the same time, as I reflect on what Indian democracy has been able to achieve for the people, apart from the right to vote, there is an unavoidable feeling of disappointment and unease. As soon as the elections are over, and a new government takes office (of whatever complexion and colour), the government becomes a power unto itself. The people's interests tend to be overtaken by the power of special interests and, in political scientist Mancur Olson's famous phrase, 'distributional coalitions'. These coalitions are generally more interested in influencing the distribution of wealth and income in their favor, rather than in the generation of additional output for the benefit of the public.


Ministers and their bureaucrats become authoritarian, self-centered and autocratic. They are no doubt subjected to some checks and balances by the Parliament and judiciary, but, by and large, they are able to do as they wish. Their accountability to the public is also more apparent than real - until the next election.... In practice, the accountability of the government to the Parliament and legislatures is perfunctory and minimal...As long as the government and the parties represented in it have the majority support in the Parliament, they can literally get away with anything, including ministerial corruption....

Political parties, small and large, are firmly under the control of their leaders and ...therefore, the government is accountable to only a handful of leaders of the parties that are represented in the Parliament .... Parliament and legislatures generally do what the government wants them to do, rather than the other way around....

The government's real accountability to the judiciary is also minimal...A determined government can more or less do what it wants - except change the basic structure of the Constitution. It has unfettered powers to have new legislation passed as long as it has majority, and except under exceptional circumstances, these statutory provisions are binding on the judiciary. As far as economic policies are concerned, the government's powers are virtually unlimited, provided appropriate business rules and legislative procedures are followed....The actual statutory provisions, as approved by the Parliament, may provide for 'due process' and accountability. However, all Acts of Parliament generally have an ominous provision whereby the government is free to make 'rules' under the relevant Act through executive notification.

Looking for coherency in his experience of the political system being anti-people and his prejudice to see India emerge as a big power under the same political system, Mr. Jalan quotes from I. M. D. Little's 2003 book titled "Ethics, Economics and Politics: Principles of Public Policy" that discusses the difference between the State and the Government. He writes:

The State comprises all the legislative, executive and judicial institutions, and the laws governing the inhabitants of the territory to which it lays claim. It also has the monopoly of the use of force over its citizens and foreigners (as only the State can declare war). Governments, on the other hand, may be thought of as tenants of the State. They come and go in accordance with the Constitution or customs of the State. While in office, a government in power - whether elected or unelected- may change the institutions and laws of the State, but at any given moment, it is the agent of the State. While the State is expected to be permanent, the authority of the government to make policy is likely to last as long as it continues to be in office....The State is the sole and legitimate custodian of public interest and sovereign power, and not the government of the day. Public institutions are expected to be permanent, and they should not be allowed to be governed by the whims and fancies of ministers 'temporarily' in power.

Mr. Jalan describes the workings of India in such intimate detail that few can surpass it. The shortcoming of the book lies in his failure to draw the conclusion that stares him in the eye - that the people of India have to get rid of the current Indian State power and create a new power to serve their interests. He even writes in page 67 of the book, "For the poor in India, country with lowest per capita incomes in the world, the political system as it has evolved over the past few decades does not have much to offer-except the periodic satisfaction of casting their votes". Mr. Jalan's prejudice to see India emerge as a major power with the current State in tact, without some baggage, blinds him to see the poor of India as the social force that can discard this State and the political system and create a new one to serve its interests and there by make "India achieve her full potential". To answer his own question "What should India do to achieve its full potential?" he looks at the same forces who wield power today and implores them for the sake of India to implement a set of reforms.

Ultimately, the book becomes mired in the dilemma of a liberal who knows more than anyone else about the failure of the system but wants to preserve and grow that system because it has served him or her well and the alternative of a revolutionary transformation of that system scares him or her more than the unconscionable economic-political system that he or she is so disgusted with.

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People Must Defeat the Agenda for the Agrarian Catastrophe

/N. TALWAR
The miserable living condition of peasants and agricultural laborers in 21st century India is a fact that no political force can ignore any more. With over 75% of the population dependent on agriculture and a majority of them living at or below subsistence level, any claim of "Developed India" lacks credibility. It is not a coincidence that the government of India, the big business houses of India, political parties of all hues and even the international financial institutions have placed "agrarian crisis" as the main problem to be taken up for solution.

The Finance Minister Mr. P. Chidambaram and the Prime Minister Mr. Manmohan Singh of India want to resolve the "agrarian crisis" by transforming the Indian agriculture to a fully market driven sector of the economy. The Indian government sees the private investors as the social force that will resolve the "agrarian crisis". The finance ministry has deployed budgetary tools (tax concessions, tax credits, concessional investments) to promote private investment in agribusiness. Projects such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the National Rural Health Mission and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan have been launched to provide skilled and stable work force for the investor class.

Private capital invests solely on the basis of rate of profit. If agriculture lacks investment, it is only because it is less profitable. Since rate of profit in agriculture is universally lower than that in manufacturing and service sectors, such government initiatives to give handout to private investors are aimed at making investment in agriculture lucrative. The bet is that what is good for investors will also be good for peasants and agricultural laborers even though history teaches that what is good for capital is not good for labor and vice versa.

Mr. Prakash Karat, the leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), has emerged as a champion of the "market mechanism" approach. He has called for an "agenda to enhance material production" through stepped up investment in agriculture. He is the champion of partnering with "private sector investment and foreign direct investment" to increase industrial and agricultural production to resolve the "agrarian crisis".

If the "agrarian crisis" would in deed be because of low rate of profit that scares private investors away, the government initiative would help. However, any dispassionate analysis of the Indian economy and especially the agrarian sector will show that the main social forces impacted by the "agrarian crisis" are not the private investors but the poor peasants and agricultural laborers. The reason for the crisis is that those who work the hardest to create the agricultural products do not own the land and the means of production.

Most producers are engaged in near-subsistence production process as a result. They have to hand over a substantial portion of the produce to the land owners as rent, share cropper payment or farm products. Low rate of profit is a result of the production being mostly subsistence production. "Agrarian crisis" can be resolved by involving the producers directly in the solution of the ownership (of land, water resources, pasture etc.) question and distribution question. Giving more power to the investors will only make the situation worse.

It needs no proof that the response of the authorities in India is a reactive response to the prospect of various trends in peasant and landless laborer movements merging in a single movement of a new kind. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's has given the following rationale for his "New Deal" for rural India:

As I look at the history of India in the last 50 years, the gap(between rural and urban India) has widened. It has not become narrower and there lies the great danger for social, economic and political stability. We have to reverse this trend (through the "new deal").

The fear Mr. Chidambaram and Mr. Karat have is that rural people may be close to giving themselves a program to resolve the agrarian problem in their favor. The farmers, peasants and agricultural laborers view the lack of control over land and other resources as well as the profit-driven disposition of the agricultural products by the investors and owners of land as the main obstacles to increasing agricultural production because the fruits of any increase disproportionately go to the land owners and investors in stead of enhancing rural prosperity. They see the mad rush of private investors (rich land owners, bankers and agribusinesses) to take control of water, forest, grazing land etc. as immediate threats to their existence rather than being factors of their prosperity. Mobilization of the rural masses under banners such as "water is a right", "land is a right", "forest cover is a right" in response to this encroachment is a new development in India. These movements in defense of rights are beginning to merge with struggles of farm laborers for wages, of farmers for fair procurement prices or seed and fertilizer supply and of peasants for land rights or share cropper rights.

If all the movements of rural people are examined carefully, it is easy to see that they are directed towards the authorities in power in the form of appeals to resolve the problems of the countryside. These struggles would thus appear as political struggles but with a crucial difference - that they are not yet articulated or directed towards people taking power to their hands. The rural people still view the government and the state as "givers" and they are appealing to the authorities to redress people's problems. Within the parliamentary democratic system, they are still looking up to political parties in hopes that a new set of elected representatives will implement people's appeals. A real political movement of the rural people aimed at creating a new kind of political power in their hands and wielding that power to reorganize agricultural production has still not gripped the mass consciousness.

Far from being a danger for stability, the victory of the people's movement of the new kind will bring stability to the polity and the country. This new movement will ensure that people themselves decide how to organize land, water and forest resources to best meet the needs of the rural people and provide for the food needs of the country. It needs everyone's full support.
Two visions appear to be in sharp conflict- one to boost profit of agrarian investors and the other to create power that would let peasants and agricultural laborers organize agricultural production. CPI(M) leader Mr. Karat has taken a stand on the side of big business of India even though many laborers, peasants and farmers look up to the communists for leading their struggles. Mr. Karat has no reason to fear the outcome of people's struggles as it would only brighten communism's future. His current position could potentially create difficulty for the rural people's struggles.

World-wide, there is a rising consciousness amongst farmers that food is a right and farmers are responsible for providing the food supply of their nations. They are rising in large numbers against the WTO driven agrarian policies favoring the big capital to reap profits from agriculture sector globally by negating the rights of the farmers and the people as a whole. They are recognizing that the WTO driven policies of the Indian government and other governments are driving the world towards catastrophic water and food scarcity. They are recognizing that India is a party to the agenda of world capital for lopsided development of cash crops and profit-making agribusiness when it is sitting at the WTO table.

The recipe that the government of India has advanced to enable private capital to invest in agriculture sector, especially by financing the rise of agribusiness, has its origin in the discredited IMF model of economic "growth" to solve poverty through "trickle-down" effect. If not others, Mr. Karat knows this very well. Growth in capitalist economy first and foremost means growth of profit. Private capital will invest in agriculture only if it will provide equal or better rates of profit compared to the manufacturing and service sector. But because agriculture lags behind industry in productivity in general, and the character of land capital is qualitatively different from money or industrial capital, government subsidies have been in place in all the countries to "lift" the agrarian sector and attend to food security. With changed conditions, those policies are up for change and WTO is leading the charge to change the policies in favor of capital over people and their national interests.

In short, agrarian crisis is objective and its resolution requires the social forces engaged in agriculture to come to the forefront of socio-economic movement in every country. If the WTO driven agenda supported by the main capitalist countries of the world succeed in making agriculture fully capitalist, it will bring huge shortages of food and water globally. This must not be allowed to happen.

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21 December 2005

Behind the Invisible Disinformation Campaign

/M. ALOK
According to Mr. Mike Furlong, Deputy Director of the Joint Psychological Operations Support Element at the Pentagon, the US military has awarded three five year contracts worth about 300 million dollars "for placing pro-American messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the U.S. government as the source". The justification for the disinformation campaign is to "counter terrorist ideology and sway foreign audiences to support American policies" through "newspapers, websites, radio, television and novelty items such as T-shirts and bumper stickers!" The program will operate throughout the world, including in allied nations and in countries where the United States is not involved in armed conflict.

The three companies that have been awarded the Pentagon contracts are the Lincoln Group and SYColeman of Washington DC and the Science Applications International Corp. of San Diego. Lincoln Group is a small firm created in 2004 as Irqex by Christian Bailey who was a co-chairman of a political group aligned with the Republican Party called Lead 21. The company is currently under investigation for paying Iraqi journalists and news outlets to run pro-American articles ghostwritten under a separate military contract. Science Applications is one of the largest defense contractors with more than $7 billion in revenue last year. The Pentagon awarded Science Applications a no-bid contract in 2003 to run the Iraqi Free Media Program, a network of newspapers as well as radio and television stations and spent $80 million before dropping the program amidst criticism. SYColeman's president is retired Army lieutenant general Jared Bates, who spent six months in 2003 helping to set up the Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance that first governed postwar Iraq and awarded the Iraq Free Media Project contract to Science Applications.

What is appalling is that such meticulous, well funded and professionally managed propaganda in foreign countries by the US government is permitted under the US laws. According to the US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "the worst about America and our military seems to so quickly be taken as truth by the press and reported and spread around the world." Clearly, the military is launching this propaganda campaign not to counter those "truths" because such refutation is being done openly and with little impact. Radio Liberty, Radio free Europe and other such open channels have operated or are operating to openly "spread good news" on the US. The clandestine campaign is to shift the context of the debate and discussion about the US agenda and its military activities. This campaign marks a confluence of disinformation, deception and misinformation rolled into one. The fact that this campaign is not limited to any specific country or countries suggests that all political movements against the US agenda will be targeted. Journalists and news media will be sought out, cultivated and compromised in an organized manner. What has been disclosed about bribing Iraqi journalists and news outlets by the Lincoln Group will be surpassed given the corruption that permeates the monopoly controlled media these days.

People's forces around the world are creating new journalism to counter the journalism dominated by media conglomerates. The Pentagon initiative only serves notice on the alternate journalists to be more vigilant and redouble their efforts to inform and educate the people - not just against the open misinformation and disinformation of the monopoly media but against the worst form it will take through double agents and agent-provocateurs, paid to be "wolves in sheep's clothing", calling upon people to take a stand against their own interests. A very high level of political awareness and political culture can defeat this campaign by the US.

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20 December 2005

Renewed Efforts to Push Privatization

The finance minister of India, P. Chidambaram, has recently announced that the ministry has identified 20 profit-making public sector companies (PSU) for privatization. Initially, this will consist of diluting of government’s share in these companies through public offerings. According to the finance ministry, they expect to start the selling shares in half-a-dozen companies real soon. On the immediate chopping block are some big PSUs such as Maruti Udyog Ltd, Shipping Corporation of India, Cement Corporation of India, remaining 44% shares of BALCO, NALCO, Indian Airlines, and Air India.

This is only the first move – more for jump-starting the privatization program that has virtually stalled since 2002 as a result of both opposition from the working class and infighting within the highest echelons of the business and political circles.

The latest initiatives were formally put on the agenda by prime-minister Manmohan Singh during the Congress Working Committee on May 16 this year. The initial plan was to go for Rs. 80-100 billion worth of partial sale of a number of “big-ticket” PSUs including “Navratna” companies such as Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL).

The plan ran into some rough weather this summer over privatization of BHEL due to stiff opposition from the left-parties in the parliament that opposed the sale of a “Navratna” company. After having to abort privatization of BHEL, the government seems to have now invoked plan-B that calls for selling shares in a large number of non-Navratna PSUs - both profitable and loss-making. At the same time, there is a move to delist some of the “Navratnas”, such as ONGC.

There appears to be two differences in the current round of privatization efforts. First, the limited sell-off (only 8-10% sale of PSU shares are being proposed currently proposed) is being justified with promises of strengthening the PSUs and the social sector. In the previous years, money raised through the sale of PSUs paid for the reduction of fiscal deficits. However, according to the new plan, money from the current sale is earmarked for the newly created National Investment Fund (NIF). NIF is supposed to reinvest its funds for rehabilitation of the public sector enterprises and for covering social sector expenses.

Secondly, the current stint of sell-off appears to have the blessings of at least CPI(M), one of the biggest parliamentary left party. Prakash Karat, the general-secretary of CPI(M) is on record stating “We are opposed to disinvestment of navaratna companies but shares can be sold in other companies”. He has also recommended the government to adopt the West Bengal model for PSU reforms. The left-front ruled state of West Bengal has already devised an interesting name for privatization: the joint sector route for reviving sick public sector undertakings. Under this scheme, the state government can sell off up to 74 per cent of its stake in a PSU to the private sector through a strategic sale. The British government's Department for International Development (DfID), is said to be financing the pay-off to the workers in PSUs that are sold-off.

We are only in the beginning phase of this current cycle of privatization, which is just beginning to gather steam. It is too early to tell whether the new justifications and support from the left will carry the day for the Indian state. However, one thing is for certain. Indian workers, who have never accepted the rationale of privatization, are only going to intensify their struggles.

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13 December 2005

Amu - A Film that Stirs Emotions in a Modern Way

/RAJ MISHRA
Watching Amu at Toronto film festival was a first for me on three counts. I had never been to a screening at a film festival. I had never attended a screening that ended with the director and the executive producer fielding questions. It was also my first chance to see the award-winning and highly acclaimed film. Everything I had heard and read about Amu had not quite prepared me for the 100 minutes that I was to sit captivated.

Amu was released in India last January at the Mumbai international film festival, receiving its first award. It ran to packed theaters in several Indian cities for many weeks. It has received many more awards since then, has been applauded in the critic’s circles and much-admired by viewers. I had known about the outline of the story line in which a child orphaned during the horrific carnage of innocent Sikhs in Delhi in 1984 comes to uncover the facts as a young adult some 20 years afterwards.

I was also eagerly waiting for the first feature film made by director Shonali Bose whose earlier documentary, Lifting the Veil, on the impact of liberalization and privatization in India in the 1990’s had me yearning to see the cinematic rendering of a complex political-cultural milieu of our time.

The film was not a disappointment on any count. Much has been written about the film by many reviewers around the world during the past year. I have also written a commentary on the film after an animated discussion with young filmgoers in Delhi last winter. But nothing had prepared me to watch the film on a big screen at the downtown Toronto theater when the coloUrs and sounds of India’s capital city came alive in front of me. If one has to experience the complexities and the joys of life in urban India, this film captures it like no other film, almost as a documentary. The storyline and acting are a bonus, but what a bonus they make.

The film takes the viewer through an emotional journey that is heart-wrenching and exhilarating at the same time, evoking all the contradictory emotions of life in the 21st century. These emotions are brought to life in the superb acting of Konkana Sensharma, Ankur Khanna, Brinda Karat, Yashpal Sharma and others, handled masterfully by the director.

Ankur Khanna, acting as a college student in Delhi, renders ably the cultural currents the modern Delhite youth are subjected to – caught between the migrating rural peasants and laboUrers, the wandering NRIs, the political elite and their underlings as well as the middle strata in its eternal quest for upward mobility. In course of the film, this character discovers his identity as an Indian youth of the 21st century - conscientious, fearless and caring.

He takes a stand on the side of justice as he learns the truth about the Delhi riots through methodical investigation. The depiction of him falling in love with the lead female character Kaju, acted by Konkana Sensharma, is an interplay between individual and social love. The film captures very well how social love brings depth to the interpersonal relationship. Brinda Karat acts out a facet of modern life that many conscientious Indian women and men experience in their lives. She depicts the character of a volunteer trying to help the victims of the Delhi riots. Her life changes as she adopts an orphan whom she brings to the US to raise for a better future. She renames the child from Amu to Kaju and weaves a make-believe story about her identity to wipe off the debilitating memories of the riots.

Her dilemma as she rears Kaju in a Los Angles suburb builds the audience anticipation for its resolution. When Kaju pieces together the facts about her childhood and the tragic deaths of her parents, her mother does not relent to face the truth. Neither moralistic nor overwhelmed with guilt, she affirms her actions in an emotional but dignified manner. Her conflicting actions are placed in the context of her conscious pursuit to give a better life to an innocent child. The bond between the mother and the daughter is strengthened when both of them have the same social consciousness about the anti-Sikh riots.

Konkana Sensharma acts as the adopted child of the 1984 Delhi riots who has grown up believing to have been orphaned by an epidemic in India. As a college age NRI visiting India to seek her roots, Kaju starts out with a childlike innocence to learn about her parents and her childhood. She unravels the corrupt and sordid political life of India in the process: the criminal nature of the political system and its players – the bureaucrat, the police, the political class, the legal system, etc. Through her acting she brings forward the fearless and unrelenting spirit of the Indian youth, whether brought up in India or abroad. As she and her Indian friends uncover the depths of injustice in India’s social-political life, their spirits rise against the cruel system.

The film peels off layer by layer the injustices of modern India. It also shows the inherent unity of all the characters and their revulsion at the injustice around them even when they play out their parts in that cruel drama. The sweet stall owner, the auto rickshaw driver, the student, the mid-level bureaucrat and so on see themselves on the side of the young students and their pursuit for truth and justice.

The most refreshing aspects of the film turn out to be the modern and forward looking approach of all the characters within their complex environments, without succumbing to nihilism and degeneration nor compromising their conscience. Such a modern depiction of Indian values in art form uplifts and inspires the viewer to be unrelenting in the pursuit of justice. The director, who also is the author of the book with the same title, must be commended for creating such positive cinema.

At the Toronto Film Festival, one of the festival organizers introduced the film as one he personally had selected for its bold content. He commended the director for her fearless exposure of the complicity of the authorities in Delhi in the massacre of the Sikhs with impunity. During the question-answer session, the director explained how she had been directly involved in the relief work after the 1984 massacre when she was a college student and witnessed the tragedy first-hand. In response to the question from the audience as to who organized the violence and why, the executive producer explained that the real question that needs discussion is not who organized but who benefited. Looking from that angle, one will be able to answer a host of other questions including why the perpetrators still roam free and also why similar or worse massacres of the kind (such as in Gujarat) continue to occur. One may then be able to draw conclusions about the role these massacres play in Indian politics to keep the masses terrorized and disoriented as Indian State carries out economic, political and military reorganization to benefit the big business houses.

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05 December 2005

15th Anniversary of the AIPSG

/RAJ MISHRA
The Association of Indian Progressive Study Groups (AIPSG) completes its 15th year of activities in a world much changed since the time it was founded in November 1990 in Montreal, Canada under the leadership of the late Hardial Bains.

The bipolar division of the world is now history, while the unipolar world desired by the US is being met with stiff resistance. People have rejected the facile ideological divisions imposed during the Cold War as they take to the streets in large numbers in one country after another to fight against neoliberal globalization, war and fascization. India has shed its anti-imperialist pretensions and is making a claim for recognition as an imperial power.

Within this complex and evolving new world, the AIPSG greets the future with the confidence that India's people hold the key to any future progress. Through their struggles, they will resolve the fundamental problem of our time - that of the marginalization of the peoples from the decision-making power that remains firmly within the grip of big capital.

Since its founding, the AIPSG has organized its work around the issue of the affirmation of rights. The numerous and diverse struggles erupting around the world - be it against the WTO, war, or the privatization of social services - are in essence a struggle against the rights of big capital and the big powers to negate and usurp people's rights and to turn the clock backwards. The upsurge of the people in India and the world is an assertion that they have inherent rights and they are ready to fight for the affirmation of those rights.

A look at some of the struggles around the world shows how the students are fighting against fee increases under the banner that education is a right, how nurses and junior doctors are fighting against healthcare cutbacks under the banner that healthcare is a right, how farmers are resisting the WTO mandated imposition of market mechanisms in agriculture under the banner that food is a right, how people are fighting against housing shortages under the banner that housing is a right, and how young workers are fighting against high youth unemployment under the banner that jobs are a right. Women are second to none in the current struggle for rights in every front, as women and as part of the social force in different sectors of economy and society. Workers are emerging in the forefront of the struggle for collective rights and against the attacks on individual rights and right to conscience.

The most important struggle for rights is unfolding in the form of struggle for national rights, the rights of a people to become their own decision-makers. Iraq and Afghanistan are in insurgency against occupying forces. Other struggles for people to become their own masters is raging in the form of Quebec's quest for the right to self determination, Korea's search for national unification, the Palestinian striving for statehood and Manipuris' struggle against Indian armed forces. There is a nascent national struggle raging in every continent - working women and men are challenging the existing governments and states that openly defend the rights of big capital and attack the rights of the people.

The struggles of people in India and in every other country against neoliberal policies, social cutbacks, arbitrary police powers, and war preparations are elements of the new movement of the peoples to affirm their national and social rights. As the rulers abandon any pretense of defending the rights of the nation and implement anti-people policies to erode hard won social and individual rights, people's struggles are acquiring the character of national struggles for the rights of the nation and the people to decide their own affairs. The struggle against foreign interference in India has become a struggle against India's capitalist rulers and the capitalist system.

The experience of the AIPSG in the past fifteen years teaches us that in the contemporary world, individual and collective rights cannot be affirmed without at the same time affirming the national right - the right of the people to become their own decision-makers. Decision-making powers are today vested in the social forces who control wealth, especially those who control capital and they have become the force spearheading the erosion of individual and collective rights, not just in India but around the globe. It is in the service of the big monopolies that laws such as POTA and the Patriot Act have been introduced. These same forces are behind social cutbacks as much as military spending and war. A giant propaganda machine spreads disinformation on a massive scale to secure the consent of the people for decisions they make to advance their interests.

The need for the people to take the decision-making power into their hands in a substantive way, beyond merely voting for candidates put up by the massive propaganda and money machines of the wealthy, has become urgent. The struggle for rights has become the main political struggle of our time, transcending the judicial and electoral arena as well as trade unionism, feminist or student activism.

For the past fifteen years, the AIPSG and various IPSGs have been building the movement against state organized racist, communal and fascist violence. The AIPSG has been uniting people to oppose all attacks organized with the active and tacit involvement of the Indian state machinery and successive Indian governments. It has elaborated on the need to build modern political movements, and for a thorough overhaul of the political process. It has been elaborating the way various rights pose themselves today and the specific political mechanisms that the status quo uses to negate the rights of the masses.

It has been elaborating a modern political program and modern political mechanisms which can make people the decision-makers on the basis of defending the rights of all. The experience of the past fifteen years convinces us that this path is the path for the future progress of India and the world, the path that will uplift the overwhelming majority of the people that the current economic and social reforms are abandoning and enslaving.

The AIPSG dedicates itself to march on that path in future. It calls upon everyone to join in the struggle for their individual and collective rights in a conscious and organized way and work for the convergence of those struggles into a movement for people's empowerment!

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