Charcha

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

2009-05-06T14:53:00.000-07:00

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:

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;
The Conference opposes militarization and war preparations by our individual governments, and stands against nuclearization;
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;
The Conference condemns political violence and acts of terror by non-state actors against civilians in the name of religion, ethnicity and nationalism;
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
The Conference resolves to disseminate the proceedings of the conference and to organize similar conferences in future.

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

2009-04-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

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

Conference programme

2009-04-14T04:12:00.000-07:00

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 23^rd

Friday April 24^th

Saturday April 25^th

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

2^ND 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

2009-03-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Second International Faiz Peace Festival

2009-03-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Oppose War and War Preparations in South Asia!

2009-03-18T15:41:00.000-07:00

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!

Intervention and War in South Asia must be Averted!

2008-12-01T13:00:00.000-08:00

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!

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

2007-11-30T09:04:00.001-08:00

(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!

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

2007-10-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

(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!

In Memory of Hardial Bains (1939-1997)

2007-08-24T00:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Forced Land Acquisition in Bengal - I

2006-12-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2006-12-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

(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!

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

2006-11-16T09:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Bush in India: In Search of a Strategic Ally to Conquer Asia

2006-03-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

L. Manu

President George W. Bush and the US delegation concluded its India visit on March 3, 2006 by asserting that "India in the 21st century is a natural partner of the United States because we are brothers in the cause of human liberty." With these words, the US sought to bring closure to the evolving post-Cold War search for an ally in Asia that would replicate the likes of the US-UK alliance in Europe and the US-Israeli alliance in the Middle East.

The alliance that the US built in Asia during the Cold War, especially with Japan, Philippines and South Korea, played out in its favor within the bipolar division of the world. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the US declared victory in Europe, its Asian alliances could not be developed any further to serve the new post Cold War ambitions to conquer Asia. Immediately, the US embarked upon the path of rearranging the security architecture of the post Second World War world to emerge as the uncontested power in a multipolar world. Fifteen years later, the contours of that rearrangement have been spelt out in the form of "natural partnership" between the US and India.
US Quadrennial defense review of 2005 openly lays down the US policy "to build strategic partnerships with other countries to counter possible risks to American interests around the world some 20-30 years from now". It wants to ensure that no other country, or collection of countries, come close to the US in terms of the military or economic power". It speaks of the US find a country to build special relationship, with an Asian country to manage Asia akin to the "special relationship" with the UK in the 20th century to manage Europe...The new candidate for "special relationship" with the US has "to share all the concerns of the US about China but without the potential to become a threat itself. It also must offer trading opportunities being siphoned off by China. India, with hostile neighbors, aspiring middle class and global ambitions fits the perfect choice."
In his closing speech in Delhi, Mr. Bush put this policy into motion when he declared that "by leading together, America and India can meet ... global challenges", asserting that "the United States of America and the Republic of India are working together to achieve two great purposes: to expand the circle of prosperity and development across the world, and to defeat our common enemies by advancing the just and noble cause of human freedom". He listed the areas where the US and India are leading together for the cause of "prosperity and freedom" in these words: "THE WORLD .... NEEDS INDIA'S LEADERSHIP TO OPEN UP GLOBAL MARKETS and that "America and India are allies in the war against terror and ...we will win this war together..... America and India will bring the light of freedom to the darkest corners of our Earth.... INDIA'S LEADERSHIP IS NEEDED IN A WORLD THAT IS HUNGRY FOR FREEDOM" (emphasis added).
During the State dinner on March 2nd, the President of India, Mr. Kalam, pointedly gave unreserved and unwarranted support to Mr. Bush's vision to "build free and prosperous societies" (around the world) to make "America more secure and the world more peaceful". According to Mr. Kalam, "I consider this (security) as your core competence along with technological and economic strength" - words that very few world statesmen and even the US domestic politicians are willing to say with a clear conscience!
It was not a surprise that this President and his government will defy the popular sentiment of the Indian people to give support for Bush's war-mongering diplomacy and quest for penetrating Asian markets. Mr. Kalam had laid out the vision of the Indian government along the same lines in his address to the joint session of the Parliament and he repeated that vision in front of Mr. Bush during the State dinner on March 2nd again so that no one misses the stand of the Indian government on the side of the US government on the two key questions of our times- militarism in global security and neo-liberal economic reforms. In Mr. Kalam's words,
"The Indian developmental model is anchored in the belief that human progress and human freedom are inseparable. As we seek to realise our aspirations, the people of India believe that the United States shares their vision of a better future and will partner them in the endeavour to become a Developed India.... Our partnership would become a truly global one when we step out together to address the key challenges of our times – whether they be of terrorism, energy demand, clean development, natural disasters or health pandemics. Our ability to work together, finding solutions and reinforcing capabilities, can benefit others in need.... India will be a key player in the global knowledge economy that is coming into being and is a natural partner for the United States, with its strong tradition of innovation and creativity."
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whose bravado in the past includes reciting Bismil's couplet "sarfaroshi ki tamanna ab hamare dil me hai....." when introducing the economic liberalization and privatization program in 1991 took his "fearlessness" to new heights by declaring that there was "no force that could stop" the choice he is making on the side of the US now!
With this visit, the US took a step towards ending the post second world war policy of "regional containment and no war-no peace between India and Pakistan". It closed the chapter that had reached a dead end by 2000, culminating in the infamous pronouncement of the then US president Mr. Clinton that the "Line of Control was the most dangerous place on earth" and his eagerness to offer the US "help" to de-escalate tension between India and Pakistan. What Clinton was not able to achieve in 2000 was sealed in 2006 by Mr. Bush because of a confluence of interests. After a 15 year search, the Indian State had chosen to go with the US to realize its ambitions for becoming a big power. The US had convinced itself that by allying with India, it could not only contain India's ambitions but also use it to contain China's ambitions in Asia. It had decided not to maintain a tense Indo-Pak border.
The US has been pursuing its Asia strategy with focus on India even before the end of the Cold War. The US Congress established a South Asia Bureau over 15 years ago to pay new attention to India and an Assistant secretary in charge of South Asian affairs has been operating in the State department in Washington for more than 10 years. Recent appointments in the State department saw 12 of the 74 new positions go to India and another 15 to China while Germany and Russia lost 7 and 10 positions respectively. Besides embracing the values of the Paris Charter of 1991 and implementing its market economy reforms, India has been on the side of the US on promoting multiparty democracy and rights of global capital since 1991. When the US realigned its South Asia policy to offer Pakistan military hardware normally limited to its NATO allies, it offered India the prospects of close Indo-US military alliance and a secure Western border so that India could develop a "look East" policy.
India has officially adopted a "Look East" policy, departing from the old Nehruvian policy (even Curzonian policy) that envisioned "India's zone of influence spanning from Baghdad to Camroon Bay", reaffirmed recently by the Vajapayee government. With the US blessing, India has set out to strengthen its Naval and air presence on the South East Asian waters. Mr. Kalam had spelt out these features of Indian diplomacy in his speech to the joint session of the Parliament in February 2006 very eloquently.
"The foreign policy of my Government is, as has always been the case, guided by enlightened national interest. It has been oriented to enlarge our policy choice....We attach high importance to strengthening our relations with our global economic partners. Our relations with the United States underwent a substantial transformation in 2005 and we carry forward our strategic partnership based on the July 18 Joint Statement of the Prime Minister and the US President. Government expects that the country may gain access to international cooperation for enlargement of our civilian nuclear energy sector based on the reciprocal commitments of India and the US in the Joint Statement. Parliament will be appraised of the on-going discussions on this subject in this session. The India-US relationship also encompasses many more important issues. Major initiatives are underway to encourage the expansion of investment, trade and technology transfers, accelerate cooperation in agriculture, health and human resource development, in cooperation for energy security, a framework for defence cooperation and expanding cooperation on key global challenges.
India maintains strategic partnerships with France, Germany and the UK, Our "Look East" policy was further strengthened with India’s participation in the historic East Asia Summit held in Kuala Lumpur which has the potential of defining the future regional architecture. This last year saw a marked change in the global perception of India as an influential actor on the international stage. This was a recognition of our emergence as a strong economy; of our ability to adjust to change – economic and social; and, of our capability to shoulder responsibilities – global and regional. Our country is destined to regain its due place in the comity of nations in the 21st century."
The outcome of Bush visit was summed up as follows by the magazine Newsweek:
"The rise of China is the fundamental strategic shift that is altering Asia's - and the world's-landscape. And the United States and India will be glad to have each other's company in that circumstances....Washington and New Delhi have different interests and thus will inevitably have policy disputes... The point is to build a relationship and association so that those disagreements do not lead to open struggle. India wants to be a great power in the world "in which it moves confidently across the global stage, and in which it is a friend and partner of the most powerful country in history".
Summing up the accomplishments of the George Bush-Manmohan Singh summit and the host of protocols signed during the visit, BBC commented that "India looks set to end its atomic isolation, without any caps on its nuclear arsenal and without opening up its plutonium-producing fast breeder reactors to international inspection.... According to the US State Department, the US wants to be helpful to India as "it emerges as a world power" without defining economic or military power." This echoed what the US undersecretary of Sate Mr. Nicholas Burns had laid out before the summit: "It (the economic and strategic protocols under consideration at the time) would have enormous benefits for India....This would really allow India to engage in international trade, in technology, in research and development with other countries who have scientific institutions in a way that has not been possible for thirty years. It would allow the nonproliferation community internationally, the regime that has been established internationally, to have the benefit of India meeting the same standards and practices in the civil sphere (as) the rest of us have been meeting for a long time."
Mr. Bush's trip met with mass opposition not only In Delhi and Hyderabad where he visited, but also in all the major cities of India (and Pakistan). Some 30 million people are estimated to have taken to the streets to denounce the US war in Iraq, oppose Mr. Bush's visit to India and reject the attempt of the Manmohan Singh government to closely ally India to the criminal US state bent on economic and military domination of the globe. There was a multifold increase of the number of demonstrators compared to the same in 2000 when President Mr. Bill Clinton paid his state visit. The credibility of the US state as promoters of freedom and peace is at an all time low and opposition to his politics is widespread. The support of many parliamentary parties for the street demonstrations this time was a departure from their antipathy in 2000. Because of the opposition of the Samajwadi party, CPI, CPI(M) and others, Mr. Manmohan Singh abandoned the idea of Mr. Bush addressing the Parliament. Manmohan Singh government has gone ahead with the signing of the many protocols and pacts with the US to tie the two militaries and economies together, but people can block the implementation of them by persisting on their rejection of the growing collaboration between Manmohan Singh and Bush regimes.
What is needed to transform India as a factor of peace in the world while assuring its people prosperity and security is to contest the vision of Indian business houses to make India a world power on the backs of the people by a vision to make India a beacon for prosperity and peace through the realization of the rights of the people. One immediate issue is to fight against the Manmohan Singh government's policy of paying out monetary and other material concession to the rich in the name of development and forcing it to increase domestic spending on social programs- the exact opposite of what Bush is demanding of India. On the security front, people have to reject the path of militarization to project India's big power status and build close relationship amongst the peoples of India, Pakistan and all other countries in the region for collective defense of rights of nations and peoples being negated by global capital and global powers.

Village for Sale: Agrarian Crisis Taking Grotesque Turn

2006-02-06T18:12:00.000-08:00

/N. TALWAR
Indian news agencies report that, six entire villages in the Punjab state (Bhutal Kalan and Bhutal Khor in Sangrur district, Malsinghwala in Mansa district, Harkishanpura, Mandikhurd and Ramanwas in Bhatinda district) and one full village in Maharashtra state (Dorli in Wardha district) have been put up for sale. This is the latest development in a series that began with thousands of farmers committing suicide or selling kidneys and blood plasma. It highlights the desperation in India's countryside that has resulted from the economic liberalization and privatization policies running amuck. It comes at a time when the National sample Survey data reveal that more than 40% of agriculturists are keen to quit farming altogether.

When an entire village is put up for sale, it is not merely an uprooting of families from a place they had called their ancestral home. It is a fundamental break with the "immutable village community" that has been the backbone of India’s social-economic structure for millennia. Historically, India’s villages had reproduced themselves exactly as before and perpetuated India's social system through most of history. A change came under the British rule; village communities started to break up as colonial policy forced land ownership to pass from communal ownership to British-created feudal ownership and later to private capitalist ownership. This latest development of an entire village being put up for sale may appear to be land merely changing hands, from private ownership of the members of the village to another form of private ownership, possibly by agribusiness. But in the final analysis, it is a negation of the small proprietor land ownership, a deep-going alienation of land from the tiller. It is the start of a form of capitalist land ownership dictated by finance capital. It heralds the supremacy of financial capital (read parasitic forces) over the countryside in India for which the economic liberalization and privatization policies have prepared the conditions.

An entire village is put up for sale when the majority of its inhabitants are in extreme indebtedness and no single villager is in a position to emerge as the "super farmer" and buy up the land of the distressed farmers. The anarchist transformation of farming from sustenance production to market driven production in the past decades created this indebtedness. The costs for such farming (tractors, fertilizers, special seeds, water, pesticides etc.) rose alongside concurrent cutbacks in subsidies for these inputs; this forced the farmers to borrow money from banks using their land as collateral. With falling procurement prices regulated by the state that favored agribusinesses, farmers could not repay their debts and were driven to destitution. Many are committing suicide and, now, entire collective of villagers en mass are declaring bankruptcy and putting up their entire villages for sale. This is a dream come true for the agribusiness sector which is eagerly waiting to move in to consolidate the small parcels to large holdings and make a fresh start to set up cash crop farms. The evicted villagers, with little money, no land, no house and no skills for employment in modern industry are “free” to fend for themselves. It is a tragedy that did not have to happen and should not be allowed to grow since it will materially affect a majority of India’s people and cause hardship of unseen proportions.

This “villages for sale” phenomenon highlights the displacement of farmers from agriculture without providing alternate means of employment. It also points to an awakening of the peasants and farmers to the awareness that this requires a common solution. After embracing the chemical intensive production method in agriculture, people have realized how the fertility of the land as well as the quality of water and air are being severely compromised from pesticides and fertilizer usage. Not only is people’s material wellbeing under attack, but also the natural environment under threat. A man-made catastrophe is in the making. Conditions to organize the people to fight this anti-people development path and an attack on their social and natural environment are ripening.

56th Anniversary of the Indian Republic: DEVELOPED NATION IT IS NOT, BUT IT WILL BE!

2006-02-01T18:57:00.000-08:00

/RAJ MISHRA
On the eve of the 57th Republic Day on January 25, 2006, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, President of India, delivered a televised address where he asserted:

"We are well on our way on the path of development and transforming India into a developed nation before 2020."

With this assertion, he elaborated on his next mission:

"To protect our progress and further sustain the earning capacity of individuals and people" we need "to promote ethical values in all walks of life which will enable creation of synergy between establishments for realizing our dream of seeing the smiles on the billion faces".

But for the tragic situation faced by hundreds of millions of Indians who continue to live below poverty line and the hundreds more urban and rural masses who are being forced into destitution as the privatization and liberalization agenda of India takes its toll, the above assertion and the agenda would be comical. Any assertion that India is well on its way to a developed nation flies in the face of any and every accepted social-economic index by which the world community measures development.

If this is in deed the verdict of the Indian government and the State, it is not only cruel and inhumane for the deprived and the oppressed but an affront to the sensibilities of the thinking men and women of India. It is a declaration that the big business houses and their government and State fully intend to build their imperial dreams by turning their back on the poor and the oppressed of India. It is a clarion call to all the conscientious women and men of India, all those dissatisfied with the status quo and fighting for progress of India that they must rise to the occasion and block the juggernaut of this imperial India.

The assertion that "developed India is on the rise" and strengthening certain "ethical values" are the need of the hour to put "smile on the billion faces" is not a mere slip on the part of the Head of the State. Facts suggest that it is a conscious act, a continuation of the now discredited “Shining India” slogan. Indian government has been working overtime to present itself as a major power in the world stage.

Using the multiparty parliamentary system and nuclear-armed military as the foundation of this pretension, it has embarked upon a reckless economic privatization program of handing out vast amounts of public resources to private hands to build a thoroughly capitalist economy, including the agrarian sector that even the World Bank is reluctant to embrace. It is on a mission to overhaul many of the anachronistic colonial institutions to inject modernity to its state apparatus. Even communal violence, the bullwork of Indian state terrorism for past six decades, is being given a facelift by firing a central mister following Nannavati commission report on Delhi massacre of Sikhs in 1984. Even an attempt is being made to provide 100 days of work to the unemployed rural families as if a year has only 100 days!

The long line of foreign bankers and investors lining up to open shop in India and the increasing number of foreign acquisitions by Indian businesses are the backdrop to the assertion that India's "Vision 2020" is already a fait accompli. Opinion makers in India must believe that repeating a lie many times over could make it the truth!

India needs development and Indian people will make that development happen. But that development will be social and human development in the first place. Such development will follow empowerment of the people. What the President of India calls development is nothing but capitalist growth. Its essence is the GROWTH OF PRIVATE PROFITS which is taking place on the basis of strengthening the ownership of all productive property in private hands under state supervision. It is the opposite of what constitutes HUMAN AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT.

At a time when all aspects of life are becoming more and more social, when production and distribution of all goods and services are becoming more and more social, the use of the state machine and state institutions to facilitate the growth of private profits and simultaneously cut back social services is the very anti-thesis of human development. Yet this is the process that has been let loose in India and worldwide. Time and again, global statistics is showing human indices of development and social indices of development to be declining across the globe in the post cold war period and the poverty index for India and South Asia remaining at the top the list. Yet the Indian government and Indian businesses have embraced wholeheartedly the discredited theory of “growth” and "trickle down".

Proliferation of cell phones, combat aircrafts and bottled water are not the barometers of development but a sign of uneven development of capitalist growth. Privatizing healthcare, education, water supply and so on, scaling back social services and making everyone look after oneself etc. do not point to a society that is lifting itself up. To confuse these features of India with human development where goods and services are produced and circulated to meet the rising needs of a cultured population and where all for one and one for all is the motto is to practice deception and public fraud. When this is done by those holding positions of power, it violates every ethical norm - ancient Indian or modern.

How can it be said that the need of the hour is to promote ethical values such as "lead an honest life free from all corruption", "truth in thinking and action" and "honesty, sincerity and tolerance in our day-to-day living" to maintain the momentum for developed India before 2020? How can it be concluded that compulsory NCC training will usher in "disciplined politics, business, judiciary, bureaucracy, scientific pursuits and sports and games" in India and propel India to developed nation status? Is not this a fact that ancient Indians had all these ethics and even a bulk of the society subscribed to them at one point of time? What happened? Why did those values fail the Indian people when foreign invaders and colonialism deployed overwhelming force, introduced wholesale public corruption and extolled capitalist greed? If it would have ever been the case that Indian people lacked ethics and values and one billion Indian faces will smile if those ethics are brought to the forefront, Indian society would have become the paradise. No. such is not the case. Putting smiles on one billion faces will not be the result of the "developed India" of "Vision 2020". Nor administering ethical "oaths" to the youth to "lead an honest life free from corruption" will create the "developed India" which has little to offer to the majority of India's 540 million youth. Developed India will be created by hard work of two billion hands and one billion minds when one single mission to affirm the human dignity of all Indians will become the goal. The requirements for that developed India are to put back more into the economy than what is taken out, to expand social sectors and stop handing out public wealth to private profiteers; not preaching ethical values to the masses while stuffing money in the pockets of millionairs and billionairs.

The State of India, whose raison d'etre is to perpetuate the colonial and pre-colonial arrangements in the economic, political and social spheres and nurture them within the conditions of market economy and militarism can only dream of a developed India with modern weapons, modern entertainment and modern amenities at the service of the wealthy minority. People of India also have a vision for development and in that vision, human development and social development take center stage. The precondition for that development is for the people to become their own masters, own decision makers in a way fundamentally different from the existing corrupt parliamentary system where wealth makes decisions. Wealth has an upper hand today but people are not out. History is on their side to build a developed India. How soon that will happen now depends on how soon the billion minds converge on a conscious program to affirm their right to govern themselves.

US-Centric New World Order and George Bush's India Visit

2006-01-30T05:37:00.000-08:00

/L. MANU
US President George Bush has confirmed that he will pay a state visit to India and Pakistan in March 2006. This visit will be the latest in the Whitehouse roadmap to implement the agenda to create new international arrangements to serve US interests in the 21st century.

US Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice articulated America's contemporary foreign policy goals in a signed article in December 2005 as follows:

We live in an extraordinary time -- one in which the terrain of international politics is shifting beneath our feet and the pace of historical change outstrips even the most vivid imagination. …In times of unprecedented change, the traditional diplomacy of crisis management is insufficient. Instead, we must transcend the doctrines and debates of the past and transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests. What is needed is a realistic statecraft for a transformed world.

Our statecraft today recognizes that centuries of international practice and precedent have been overturned in the past 15 years. Consider one example: For the first time since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the prospect of violent conflict between great powers is becoming ever more unthinkable. Major states are increasingly competing in peace, not preparing for war. To advance this remarkable trend, the United States is transforming our partnerships with nations such as Japan and Russia, with the European Union, and especially with China and India. Together we are building a more lasting and durable form of global stability: a balance of power that favors freedom….

Our experience of this new world leads us to conclude that the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the international distribution of power. Insisting otherwise is imprudent and impractical. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. Attempting to draw neat, clean lines between our security interests and our democratic ideals does not reflect the reality of today's world.

In other words, the US is on a mission to create an alternative international arrangement of states outside the current United Nations system and the doctrine of collective security. Rice’s assertion that “Major states are increasingly competing in peace, not preparing for war” is not only false in the face of current realities of militarization worldwide but also lacks historical validity. History teaches us that ever since our world has been divided among big powers, any redivision among a new set of big powers leads to war. Any apparent peace in a world waiting to be redivided due to a change in the relative strength of big powers is a prelude to a full scale war between the big powers.

We are currently living in such a world. The US drive to create a new international order that “transcend(s) the doctrines and debates of the past and transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests” is not about averting future conflicts but to abandon the old arrangements of the old divided world and prepare for a US victory in future conflicts.

The interest of the people of India requires that India is not a factor for future conflicts in the first place. India can’t be the target of war nor a party to war for the redivision of the world. The Indo-US military collaboration is already organized to make India a party to future war on the side of the US. Indian statecraft today shows no striving to avert future conflicts amongst big powers for redivision of the world. India is not fighting to strengthen the institutions of collective security (i. e. the UN system) and democratize them so that big power domination of the current world gives way to equality of all nations and countries big and small. It is striving to secure a seat in the most undemocratic Security Council of the UN on the one hand and participate in the creation of a new arrangement in the international arena outside the UN system under the US on the other. There is little sign that the Indian diplomacy is even looking at the agenda of democratizing the UN system to avert future wars and stop big power machinations.

What is clear is that while the interests of the people of India and that of the US government are diametrically opposite, the interest of the Indian business houses and their representative government is converging with the interest of the US government. During Dr. Rice’s visit to India in March 2005, the US proposed to help India be recognized as a major power in the world if India sides with the US in its new international rearrangement.

During Manmohan Singh’s state visit to the White House in July 2005, Bush floated the idea of asking the US government and the world governments to acknowledge India as a nuclear weapons power. This is the first step towards India being recognized as a major power suitable for participating in future redivision of the world, and carried the proviso that India separate its domestic civilian and military nuclear programs, placing the former under international safeguards and opening the later for mutual monitoring as per the US non-proliferation agenda.

The crux of this proposal was blurted out in a diplomatic gaffe by the US Ambassador to India, David C Mulford, in January 2006 when he said:

We have made it known to them (India) that we would very much like India’s support (vote on the side of the US against Iran’s nuclear ambitions) because India has arrived on the world stage and is a very very important player in the world....If it (India) opposes Iran having nuclear weapons, we think they should record it in the vote. ..(A negative vote’s) effect on members of the US Congress with regard to (Indo-US) civil nuclear initiative will be devastating. I think the Congress will simply stop considering the matter. I think the initiative will die in the Congress not because the administration would want it.

Much has been said to control the damage caused by Mr. Mulford’s gaffe and much is being done to create momentum towards George Bush’s visit to India. The nuclear deal has come to the centre of the summit agenda because the Indian government needs a nuclear agreement not only for its strategic ambitions but also for its economic and business needs - more electrical power that simply cannot be met without access to nuclear fuel from abroad. The US has recognized India’s energy vulnerability and mobilized US corporations to become cheerleaders for India’s energy market and through it for the lucrative domestic market as a whole to be opened up for investment and profiteering. According to the US State department,

There's the hope and desire on both sides that the president's trip be a historic trip that really signifies a changed relationship between the US and India. We have over the course of the past several years worked very hard ... to forge a new strategic relationship with India across a number of different areas: in the economic sphere, in the trade sphere, in the technology-sharing sphere.

The US business community is keen to benefit from a relaxation of US nuclear export controls to India which will affect trade, technology sharing and economic interactions between Indian and American corporations in a broad way. The Indian corporate world is spearheading the Indian agenda for such collaboration. Pakistan is already looking for a similar recognition from the US and this has the potential to affect the weapons trade even more than what the growing defence cooperation has already created. In Ms. Rice’s words, the US wants to “transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests”, which directly translates to driving Indo-Pak relations to serve US economic and strategic interests in Asia for new market and new strategic alliance by changing the nuances of Indo-Pak war to a new basis.

India and Pakistan can provide much needed foot soldiers for the US misadventures in the region and engage China in a way that helps the US interests in Asia if the current volatility is transcended. George Bush’s visit to India and Pakistan has these items on the agenda and that is why the state department dubs the upcoming Presidential visit to be “historic”.

Indian people have to reject this initiative of the Indian government and the US government in its entirety and wage a struggle to reverse the defense and other regressive collaborations that have already been agreed to and implemented via social spending cutbacks, privatizations and outright handouts of collective wealth to private investors.

Through street actions and through resistance at all levels of government, people can derail the prospect of India joining the new security arrangement of the US. People can put the government on notice that its blueprint for hitching Indian market, Indian defense and Indian politics to the US is against their short-term and long term interests for independence, prosperity and security and people will fight against this blueprint and any government that embraces this blueprint until final victory. The upcoming Bush-Singh summit provides an opportune occasion to strengthen this movement.

Workers' Action without Agenda and Leadership

2006-01-24T18:43:00.000-08:00

/B.PAIN
News agencies report that members of CITU (trade union affiliated with the political party CPI(M)) and their families from all over Kerala laid siege to the administrative headquarters at the state, district and taluk levels on December 20, 2005 and shut down all government functions. Both in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, and in district headquarters, people formed a thick human chain before the start of the working day that lasted till late afternoon, preventing anyone going inside the offices. The protest was peaceful.

This mass action was to protest against anti-worker, anti-people policies of the current government. The call for the protest was given by the state CPI(M) leadership. News agencies report that the Leader of the Opposition in Kerala Assembly, Mr. V. S. Achuthanandan, "termed the day's action as a wake-up call to the working class to rise against the UDF and defeat it in the coming Assembly elections."

Like many other mass actions all over India, this mass action is a manifestation of the rising anger and activism of the workers against their deteriorating living and working conditions under the economic liberalization and privatization regime. However, the Kerala action is organized by the CPI(M) to improve its electoral ascendancy in the next assembly elections, due in six months. An objective movement of the workers is being consciously hijacked and channelized for narrow political gains by a party to come to power.

What would be the aim of any protest against "anti-worker anti-people policy" in India today? The CPI(M) wants people to believe that the aim should be to elect a "pro-worker pro-people" party to power. This is precisely the logic of parliamentary democracy where the ruling and opposition parties alternate places through elections to run the same economic and political superstructure but one being "anti-" and other as "pro-". The New Delhi government has changed hands between Congress, BJP and the United Front government five times since 1991, without ever abandoning the "anti-worker anti-people" economic policies or other policies even though all of them have presented themselves as for or against policies of the incumbent party. Experience suggests that the longer people are misled to believing that replacing the ruling party by the opposition party will solve their problems in today's India, the more acute will their problems get.

Can it be said that the content of the workers’ movement against the “anti-people anti-worker” policies is to fight for an alternate brand of liberalization-privatization program? Far from it. In the very least, the aim of the workers' movement has to be a complete REPUDIATION of the "anti-people anti-worker" policies, and not just this or that version of the liberalization-privatization program. Similarly, a roll-back to pre-1991 days is a non-starter, because the space for the liberalization-privatization was created in the first place because of the failure of the "socialistic pattern of society" and the "social-welfare state".

What was needed in 1991 in India was to stop the big business houses from monopolizing the surplus wealth being generated in the private and public sectors through a complex licensing and quota raj. Instead the privatization and liberalization program launched in 1991 enhanced the profitability of big business houses of India even further. All political parties funded by different business interests in India signed on to the 1991 policy very quickly. Since then they have been falling over each other to convince the business houses that they can run the economy and politics better than their competitors if supported to come to power through elections. CPI(M) seems to have totally accepted this approach to coming to power by using communist label to secure votes from the workers and the oppressed just as BJP and Congress who employ hindutva and secular labels respectively to line up votes from the depoliticized urban and rural vote banks.

People of Orissa Make a Political Statement

2006-01-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

/M.ALOK
Government and commercial activities throughout Orissa were brought to a halt by a state-wide hartal for twelve hours on Jan 7, 2006 to protest the killing of 12 of people by the police during a political action in Kalinga Nagar a few days earlier. Some 30 million people responded to the call of the Kalinga Nagar Surakshya Samiti (Defense Committee) to stage the shutdown, staying away from commercial and government activity, shutting down factories and shops, paralyzing rail and road transportation and closing down schools and colleges.

Tribal residents of the Kalinga Nagar area had organized political actions to protest the acquisition of their land by authorities without due compensation. The state government, instead of first settling the land acquisition question, permitted Tata Steel to proceed with construction work under police escort to erect a plant. Police fired on a large gathering of men, women and children when the demonstrators refused to move out from the disputed land to make way for bulldozers.

Organizations all over the state, far and near from the Kalinga Nagar killing site, mobilized people in large numbers to press for justice and call for a political settlement of grievances without the use of force. According to news paper accounts,

At Kalinga Nagar, the centre of attention, the tribal agitators took out a rally from Madhuban, where mass cremation of the 12 victims was conducted, till Duburi. A cycle rally was also taken out to the cremation ground. The Express Highway, as usual, was deserted. Three protestors were injured in a clash in Sukinda during the bandh. Police deployment was massive at Kalinga Nagar even as thousands of tribals were transported into the region. More than 32 platoon police were pressed into service.

The shutdown was thus a political response of the entire people of Orissa condemning the state authorities for settling political questions by force. The reaction of the political parties of Orissa state was most pathetic. The ruling party and its leader Mr. Naveen Pattnaik – the Chief Minister of Orissa - “thanked the people for their peaceful protest”, willfully ignoring the fact that the police force under his command was the one that committed violence and was standing ready for more violence in defense of his government’s policy to use force to settle a civil conflict on land ownership and compensation question.

The leader of the opposition Mr. Janaki Pattanik, an ex-Chief Minister of Orissa, characterized the protest as a reflection of the “growing demand of the people for the government to quit”, reflecting his partisan opportunism to return to power by hijacking the protest of the people against the use of force by authorities that he is a part of. These responses and the responses of other smaller legislative parties were in line with their common desire to transform the street demonstrations to serve their narrow parliamentary maneuvering for power.

The mass action in Orissa was a spontaneous manifestation of unity in action for common political aims. The fountainhead of that political action was the consciousness that the killing of 12 members of the Oriya polity was an attack on the entire polity of Orissa. It also reflected the realization that people could not rely on the political parties to provide solutions to the compensation issue and deliver justice without direct political intervention through street action. The partisan response of the political parties in fact pointed to the fact that people have to prepare for more such mass action in defense of their rights.

People’s forces must draw the conclusion that unity in action is the need of the time and with proper organization, spontaneous struggles can give way to an organized movement for conscious political aims.

Eighty Years of Communism in India

2005-12-25T01:59:00.000-08:00

/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.

Book Review: Future of India

2005-12-22T08:32:00.000-08:00

/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.

People Must Defeat the Agenda for the Agrarian Catastrophe

2005-12-22T02:04:00.000-08:00

/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.

Behind the Invisible Disinformation Campaign

2005-12-21T05:03:00.000-08:00

/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.

Renewed Efforts to Push Privatization

2005-12-20T03:45:00.000-08:00

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.

Amu - A Film that Stirs Emotions in a Modern Way

2005-12-13T02:18:00.000-08:00

/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.

15th Anniversary of the AIPSG

2005-12-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

/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!

Editorial - July 2005

2005-07-05T02:18:00.000-07:00

People's Forces Must Unite Now!

The problems and rewards of unity of political activists, especially those inspired by a vision to make this world more humane and more democratic, came alive in the US in March when Narendra Modi's visa spectacle unfolded.

On the one hand, people's activism forced the issue of Modi's culpability in the Gujarat Massacre of 2002 to take centre-stage in India and abroad. On the other hand, the US timed itself well to silence any opposition from the people's forces as Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice made a push to tie India and South Asia further to the military machinations of the US through oil pipeline diplomacy, weapons sales and the US promise "to help India become a major power".

One conclusion that must be drawn is that such "opportunities" must be denied in future. The time is ripe to organize and unite people's forces against next such "opportunity" that will certainly coincide with Mr. Bush's planned visit to India in December 2005. Mr. Bush's visits to other countries have met with opposition and this will happen if he goes to South Asia.

Looking deeper, people's forces must come together and build one united movement that will oppose war preparations, war, state terrorism, communal violence, neoliberal globalization etc. as an integral component of the proactive struggle for the affirmation and realization of rights, prosperity and security of the peoples. The chance to set such an agenda now to unite people ahead of Manmohan Singh's visit to the White House on July 18th must not be missed!

Agrarian Sector Taking Center Stage in Indian Economy

2005-07-04T02:21:00.000-07:00

/N.TALWAR
One of the key features of the current economic discourse in India is the importance of agriculture. Agriculture is not only appearing as the sector that provides food and raw materials for industry but is also redefining the consumer spending of the rural households and in turn driving the manufacturing sector. Agro industries and food processing are the hub of entrepreneurial activity of small capitalists as well as big business houses and multinationals. Financial sector, farm input sector (fertilizer, tractors and combines, seeds and pesticides etc.) and traders are looking for opportunities to expand with an expanding agrarian sector.

In his speech to the joint sitting of the budget session of the Parliament last February, President of India said:

Rural India should be seen as a growth engine and public investment is required in the area of rural infrastructure to unleash its growth potential. My Government proposes to undertake a major plan for rebuilding rural India called “Bharat Nirman”. This will be a time-bound business plan for building rural infrastructure in the areas of irrigation, roads, housing, water supply, electrification and telecommunication connectivity.

He was followed by the Finance minister, who, in his budget speech announced that 80bn rupees ($1.8bn) will be spent on building rural infrastructure and flow of funds to agriculture will be increased by 30%.

The approach the government of India is taking towards agrarian sector was eloquently summarized by Prof. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University who wrote on the eve of the budget session in February 2005 as follows:

The government (of India) should not be running industrial companies or hotels or banks and insurance companies. But if you turn to agriculture, there is no doubt in my mind that the government has a role in promoting basic scientific research in improved crop varieties, biotechnology, in helping agricultural expansion so that farmers get the information they need in order to adopt modern technology. Governments have a role in liberalizing markets and helping ensure that India's competitive farmers have access to foreign markets, in providing basic rural infrastructure, such as roads to villages and electrification.... The advancements in health and education, in rural infrastructure and agricultural productivity that are being talked about right now aren't concessions to a left wing agenda or a painful compromise. These were investments that should have been made in the last ten years but weren't made".

What is most striking is that land ownership, especially by the tillers, is no more broached in the discussion of agrarian question by the government, the UPA partners or the policy advisors. The entire agrarian question is presented as if capitalist ownership of land is a fait accompli and growth is the only objective. Input costs and labor costs are the variables to produce agricultural goods for the market. President's "Bharat Nirman" announcement, his "Vision 2020" blueprint, Finance minister's budget proposals and policy statements place major emphasis on input to capitalist agriculture. Irrigation, electrification, fertilizer and pesticide, information technology to aid soil-nutrient and water management, climate modeling etc. are presented as input costs to improve farm productivity and state is called upon to bear these expenses, akin to public sector paradigm of the 1950's India. Food processing, cold storage, transport, etc. would help agricultural output to be market driven and private-public investment in these areas are being proposed. The state is taking up new taxation policy, including VAT to create an integrated market and also pay for the state investment. Rise of capitalist monopolies in wholesale and retail trade is already underway and the policies are meant to accelerate that process as well.

Closer scrutiny of farm income and farm productivity around the country shows that ownership of the land by the tillers is far from a closed chapter in India. In fact, those areas of the country where land distribution problem has been addressed to some extent (see article on West Bengal in this issue), there has been an increase in farm productivity and vice versa. Where outright capitalist farming has been adopted, such as in Punjab and AP, the farm sector has lagged in profitability behind the non-farm sector, causing new investment to dry up and affect productivity.

Wherever tiller has gotten possession of the land he or she tills, productivity gains have been accompanied by new capital infusion as well as intensification of labor of the land proprietor. The surplus value generated through the intensification of the labor of the tiller has become the main reason for his or her increased indebtedness. Agricultural input owners, lending institutions, traders and governments (though tax policy) have stepped up their demands for a share of the wealth produced by the tiller because of any gains in productivity. The surplus generated by the agrarian sector has once again become a major component of the domestic capital accumulation (reflected in the national savings rate) on which Indian industrialists and big business houses are basing their ambitions for world power status.

It is important to recognize that it will be in the interest of the farmers and rural farm workers to stop this integration of agriculture to market mechanisms and "growth" as it will deepen their exploitation by the agro-monopolies and agro-financiers. The rural households, who have not yet succeeded in throwing off the oppression by landlords, will be ruined further by the demand of capital to transform not just the agricultural produce but the families engaged in agriculture to commodities, stripping them of the ability to even resist such onslaught because of lack of any organization in the villages. Already farmers suicides are on the rise and only one can imagine what will happen when crop failure due to water scarcity or unexpected pest attacks could expose entire regions of rural India to capital's mercy. In fact, it is in the interest of all the people of India to take a stand against this approach to agriculture and insist that productivity increase be tied up with the solution of the land ownership question first..

Agrarian Question in India III

2005-07-03T02:24:00.000-07:00

Contradictory Trends in the W.Bengal Economy
/K.C. DEV
According to statistics released by the government of India, average increase in domestic product for the last 10 years has been highest in West Bengal. A 7.1% annual rise of domestic product for West Bengal is ahead of Karnataka's 6.4%, Gujarat's 6.1% or Haryana's 5.8%. The average income in W. Bengal has grown at a rate of 5.5% in the same decade, the fastest in India. Farm output in W. Bengal has increased at a rate of 5% in the past year, again the fastest in India.West Bengal's employment growth has been less spectacular.

Only 70, 000 jobs were created in that state through 1991-2004 following liberalization and privatization. The same statistical data puts the amount of private industrial investment flowing to West Bengal at 27,000 crore rupees in the 13 year period. In contrast, Gujarat created 1,40,000 new jobs with almost the same amount of new private capital inflow and Maharashtra added 1,50,000 new jobs with less new private capital inflow. Government statistics puts the current number of unemployed in West Bengal at 7 million. The pattern of investments have been capital intensive and according officials, some new investors have even imported captive workers from other states and kept them within factory walls, "even chaiwallas outside these plants do not get any business because the workers can't come out."

According to West Bengal's finance minister, Mr. Asim Dasgupta, rural West Bengal spent 17,000 crore rupees in 2004 on non-farm goods and services, driving new consumer product companies to spring up. Urban consumption has also risen. Kolkata boasts to have India's largest Pizza Hut franchise and top-ranked Sony world franchise. The government is on a drive to attract even more investment from domestic and foreign capital to build new malls, airports and other infrastructure. According to government leaders, economic investments have been driven by consumer demands, especially rural demands. They point out that tillers in West Bengal own 80% of the farm land, compared to 85% of the tillers owning only 33% of the farmland on an all-India basis. This has led to high gains in land productivity and consuming power of the tillers. Grain production has given way to rising production of vegetables, potatoes, mangoes, pineapples etc. Cold storage facilities and transport facilities to store and move fruits and vegetables efficiently is attracting investments from food processing industries like Pepsi, Dabur and other firms.

West Bengal's leaders are hoping to develop West Bengal's industry and economy to be a hub to service Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, the north eastern states and even Myanmar, Bangladesh, South-East Asia and China - a sort of India's gateway to the Far East and China. It is a dream to repeat Robert Clive's road-map to conquer India and Asia from Kolkatta, still on the basis of rural Bengal! The irony is that colonialism created the working class who, together with farmers and peasants, is destined to shape that future.

Modi's US Visa Denied

2005-03-29T01:12:00.000-08:00

Who Benefits? Why Now?
/RAJ MISHRA
The US government has become the latest to join the list of forces working overtime to derail the movement for justice in Gujarat. The decision by the US to revoke Gujarat Chief Minister Mr. Narendra Modi's visitor/business visa and reject his diplomatic visa application has given a fresh opportunity to some of the political parties in India to play their divisive card afresh. .

The US State Department has joined the select "contrite" group that includes the former President of India, some judges of the Supreme Court and other public figures who silently watched the mayhem that transpired three years ago this month in the streets of Gujarat under Mr. Modi's watch, without exercising the power each had to weigh down on the killing spree at the time - but have belatedly "seen the truth". The women and men of conscience waging their uncompromising struggle for justice must ponder over the question of who benefits from the US visa decision. And why now?

The movement of the Indian people demanding rehabilitation of the survivors, punishment of the guilty and accountability of the authorities has endured against all odds and made a definite contribution to the political consciousness both inside and outside India. Amongst Indians abroad, the current opposition to Mr. Modi's visit is but the latest expression of the long running struggle against communal violence and state terrorism that has confronted Indira Gandhi, Morarji Desai, Rajiv Gandhi, Narasimha Rao, Atal Behari Vajapayee, Lal Kishan Advani etc. during their foreign visits in the past. Experience tells that only those forces who are seeking political accommodation with the status quo by narrowing the scope of the movement against communal violence and state repression may find the US visa action helpful to them.

Parties like the BJP, Shiv Sena etc. or certain anti-BJP UPA alliance partners must be elated as it provides them with a welcome opening to take some initiatives. But for the people, who have not succumbed to the self-serving judicial activism of the courts or the antics of the anti-BJP forces, this imbroglio is just one more way to differentiate the wheat from the chaff. In fact, various people's movements such as the movement against privatization and liberalization, against WTO etc. have begun to join forces with the movement for justice for the Gujarat massacre victims and Delhi riot victims, the movement of the gas victims of Bhopal, the anti-war movement, environmental movements and the show solidarity for each other's cause in recent times - and they must be amused by the one-upmanship of the US, the UPA government and the BJP.

That the decision to deny a visa to Mr. Modi was taken at the highest levels of American state can only mean that this action was dictated not by the stated reasons of "opposition to religious discrimination" under Mr. Modi's watch but to serve the US geopolitical interest at this time. The broader US strategy is to engage India within the context of conquering Asia. In the short run it means: isolate Iran and North Korea, stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq militarily and contest China's claims to be the pre-eminent Asian power. For the US, China being a "strategic competitor" of the US and the LoC in Kashmir being the "most dangerous place on earth" go hand in hand with the hunt for Islamic terrorists in the post 9/11 phase and the Islamic charm offensive in the post-tsunami phase.

The US strategy requires the Indian government to stay on the side of the US, accompanied by episodic ups and downs in the engagement. The US kept mum in 2002 when Gujarat burnt under the watch of the BJP-led right-of-the-center government; it has fabricated the current visa embarrassment to neutralize political forces within the Congress-led left-of-the-center government. The US Secretary of State, Ms. Rice, must be smiling at how easily the visa decision was able to drown out any opposition to her war-mongering Asia trip or proposals to Indian government for taking up a role on the side of the US in Asia.

The evidence points towards the US decision to revoke Mr. Modi's visa being dictated first and foremost by US self interest. It reinforces the post-tsunami “Islamic charm offensive”. In the context of India, it has translated to helping out the UPA government to ward off challenges from within for being pro-American. Within south Asia, it has provided a respite from criticism of the US policy in Iraq, Nepal, Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka etc. The people's movements have been served with a diversion, and the right-of-the-centre- forces have been provided with a cause to reorganize. What more can the people expect from the US which is bent on imposing its dictate on the entire world?Now is the time to build lasting links amongst the people's movements to defend and advance their common interests.

That the official organs of power in India are incapable or unwilling to mete out punishment to those committing crimes against the people or to block the path to future state organized violence is clear as clear can be. Now is the time to create organizations that will ensure justice is meted out for all the past crimes and no state organized violence succeeds in future. The US visa action is, in the final analysis, directed against this people's agenda being taken up and realized. Rejection of the US action as being hostile to the interests of the people of India is integral part of taking up the people's agenda.

Nato's Eastward March to Include a "Political Role"

2005-03-10T01:15:00.000-08:00

According to Mr. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO Secretary-General, NATO should become a more “political body” and take up roles such as shaping policy in Afghanistan, Kosova, Iraq and even Gaza,. “should the Israelis and Palestinians reach an agreement on Israeli withdrawal and request help from NATO”! He even added that NATO should debate on Iran’s nuclear program and any possible NATO mission!What is striking is that after the expansion of NATO to its current strength of 26, the military alliance is setting its sights on Asia and in the process steadily expanding the scope of its reach to the political domain. According to Mr. Scheffer, “a more political role for NATO may improve the relationship between the US and Europe”, strained since the Iraq war. Already there is discussion that NATO may not leave Afghanistan after the parliamentary elections are held next April, contary to the current agreement. This could be justified in the name of fighting the narcotics trade. NATO plans to set up a military academy in Iraq by the end of 2005 and is eager to send NATO troops to safeguard the school from Iraqi insurgents. Although not yet openely articulated by any official, a role in the Indo-Pak border to “oversee” a solution to the Kashmir problem is not far off in the list of political missions Mr. Scheffer is articulating.

Jobless Growth in India

2005-03-10T01:14:00.000-08:00

The average rate of growth of India’s national income in the past two decades works out to an annual rate of 6% - high by world standards. However, this has not been accompanied by expansion of employment. Agriculture contributes 22% of India’s GDP and accounts for 60% of employment.

The average annual rate of growth in agriculture is currently at 2% and this is mostly due to higher productivity rather than higher employment. The service sector accounts for 51% of the GDP. This has been growing at a rate of 8% per year but employment in this sector has been growing a rate of less than 1% per year. Industry accounts for 27% of India’s GDP and has been growing at an annual rate of 6% in the past decade. But employment has been declining in the organized manufacturing sector in the past decade and the total employment in unorganized and organized sector has grown at a rate of just 1% per year only.

The labour force of India continues to grow at a rate of 2% per year and the rate will remain so for next 25 years. This amounts about 8 million new workers looking for jobs every year. By 2010, there will be 40 million more workers added to the current 410 million strong labour force. Contrary to what many may think, information technology sector can’t solve India’s unemployment problem. IT-related output of India is currently 1% of GDP. This sector employs less than 1 million people and most optimistic scenario puts the employment to grow to 2 million by 2010. This sector needs a high-skill work force. Since only 5% of India’s relevant age group children receive college education, the rate of growth of IT sector may even be constrained by a shortage of a skilled labour force.

India has invested heavily in the past 40 years in industry, especially in capital-intensive heavy industry. In this period, industry’s share of India’s GDP has grown from 20% to only 27%. With a very low level of productivity in agriculture and with heavy industry not giving rise to a proliferation of light industry, new investment has been directed towards the service sector where profitability has been high. The experience of other economies suggests that 51% of the economy in a service sector can’t be sustained with 49% of the economy in the productive sector, especially because the level of productivity is so low. What is not produced cannot be serviced after all! World Bank economists are arguing that in view of the rising labour costs in China and other Asian economies, India could expand its employment base if it embarked on a path of export-oriented growth of light industry and agro-industries through an infusion of foreign investment to these sectors.

These would have to be accompanied by changes to labour laws to remove any employment protection provisions and also doing away with small-scale industry reservations. In the coming months, it is expected that the new economic policies will be presented by the left-of-center New Delhi government in the guise of being “good for the workers” and for employment. Broad sections of workers will be affected by these policies and the scope for broadening movement against liberalization and privatization program will be very high.

"Amu" Stares Down at Justice Nanavati

2005-03-10T01:13:00.000-08:00

DELHI DIARY
A. S.
It is late January and the foggy morning has given way to a sunny but cool Delhi street where Shonali Bose's feature film "Amu" is playing in a theatre to full capacity for the past two weeks. .Tickets for the A-rated film (no one under 18 allowed) cost 150 rupees, but are still hard to get. Finally my host manages five seats for a show on the day after my scheduled departure.

Others in my travel group will be able to see it, but I have to wait for another opportunity.My host, a 21 year IIT Delhi grad student who has seen the film and been around during its filming a year ago, gets emotional in response to leaked media reports that the soon-to-be- released Nanavati Commission findings will exonerate some of the culprits of the riots because of lack of evidence. He asks innocently: how can a former judge of the highest court of India cover up the reality of the 1984 riots to a public that was an eye witness? Like the main character of the film, Kaju (played by Konkana Sensharma), my host was a baby in 1984 and is now coming to grips with his own being. Even though he has grown up in Delhi in an activist family, his peers' circle has a bare minimum impression of how the lives of Delhites are shaped by the infamous massacres of 1984.

For him and his peers, the film provides a view of their own life from a close range.The story line in the film unfolds with an adopted Indo-American girl Kaju, who has grown up in Los Angeles, going back to India to find out what happened to her birth parents. She uncovers and confronts the cold-blooded massacre of innocent Sikhs in 1984 that engulfed both her birth parents and adoptive parents, shaping her own life.

The cinematography, acting and sensibility are blended and balanced masterfully by the director to take the audience in a captivating journey with Kaju to discover Amu, the birth name of the baby whose adoption was predisposed by the riots. My host, along with his friends who have seen the film tell me that beyond the storyline, the cinematic rendering of the psyche of the contemporary Indian youth makes this film linger well after one leaves the theater. Whether one has lived in Los Angeles or Delhi, every young Indian has to come to terms with his or her identity and mission - the contradictions of modern India juxtaposed against the past and the future.

The same India that makes one proud also makes one easily depressed unless one discovers the space where the incongruities can be challenged and changed. Amu helps the viewer to place him or herself in the context of the present. Justice Nanavati's callous judicial rendering of an event that stole life away from so many can only make the search for ones identity and dignity as an Indian more urgent, assures my host as I leave.

Gujarat Three Years Later

2005-03-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

On the third anniversary of the Gujarat riots, two commissions are still probing various aspects of the events, the former President has accused the former Prime Minister of culpability, many of the court prosecutions set up over the last two years are collapsing, and Narendra Modi is planning to tour the US. Meanwhile, the plight of the victims has scarcely got any better.

Early in March, the former President of India, K.R.Narayanan raised a furore by breaking his silence over the Gujarat riots. He described what has been widely known for three years now – that the state apparatus he headed was deeply implicated in the horrors that took place. He blamed the tragic course of events on a conspiracy hatched between the central government and state government of Gujarat, and has directly blamed the former Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee for his inaction.

As for the judicial proceedings, one of the high profile cases transferred to Maharashtra is proceeding, while another has spectacularly collapsed. Bilkis Bano, who was gang-raped while pregnant, and who’s her three year old child, mother and two sisters, and ten other family members were killed, publicly identified 12 people by name in late-February. But overall, the judicial process is once again limping along in slow motion, and frequently collapsing. Virtually nobody has been convicted or held responsible in any way for thousands of incidents of murder, rape, violent assault, arson or the destruction of property. Emblematic of this is the tragedy turned farce of Zahira Shaikh, of the infamous Best Bakery case. Twelve members of Zahira’s family were burnt alive in the Best Bakery in one of the most gruesome cases reported during the March 2002 riots. When it first came to court in mid-2003, a total 39 of a total 73 witnesses mysteriously turned “hostile” and recanted their earlier statements.

Following the ensuing public outcry, Zahira spoke out to say that she and her family had recanted because they were under heavy intimidation, and hinted at the role of a BJP legislator. As a result, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial, and relocated the proceedings from Gujarat to Mazagaon in Maharashtra, together with the Bilkis Bano case. When, after numerous suspicious delays, the retrial finally began in October 2004, there was another shock in store. Zahira Shaikh and her family recanted again, and once again, mysteriously claimed that her earlier statements and accusations were all false. A month later in December, it emerged that she had been under serious financial stress since the riots, and that a relative of the same BJP legislator had paid her Rs 18 lakhs to change her story.

Meanwhile, Gujarat’s notorious Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, whose political fortunes were rescued from the abyss by the massacres, is visiting the US in late March, and is special guest in at least two speaking engagements in Florida and New York. The Asian American Hotel Owners Association (AAHOA) has invited him as chief guest and keynote speaker in their annual convention in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on March 16-18, 2005. Later, Modi is scheduled to speak at New York’s Madison Square Garden by the Association of Indian Americans for North America.