The Two Indias: One declares war against the other

Mukul Sinha



For quite some time the Prime Minister has been trying to persuade the country that the “Maoist” are the greatest threat to the security of India. May we ask a humble question to our Prime Minister - which India does he have in mind? The India that has enriched itself enormously during the two decades of globalization or the India that does not get two square meals?

In the recent UNDP report, the poverty in India has once again been high lighted. Out of the human development indicator issued for 182 countries, India occupies the 134th Rank. In 2007 its rank was 126 where as in 2008 it was 128. No lesser person than Amrtyasen has stated that in the course of globalization and privatization the poor in India being pushed outside the development.

Most of the governmental projects are made keeping the middle class in mind and whatever little is adopted for the poor never reaches them due to corruption. The human development indicator is prepared based on education health and income of individual and in all these three, India is extremely backward even as compared to Bhutan and Srilanka. In area of public health 20 lakhs children die under the age of 5 every year of which 28% die due to want of potable water.

In our country the poverty line (BPL) is decided on the basis of consumption of calories. Those who consume between 2100-2400 calories are considered outside the BPL .By this yardstick as per the planning commission 28.5 % are within BPL but committee appointed by the Rural development ministry headed by N C Saxena has put this figure at 50% since to consume that amount of calories, a person has to spend Rs 1000/- in cities and Rs. 700/- in village instead of Rs 535 and 356 estimated by planning commission. The claim of government that globalization has reduced the percentage of poverty since 1999 is thus fully belied. The lakhs of farmers who have committed suicide in “developed “states like Maharashtra and Gujarat also expose the hollowness of government claim. On the other hand, the enormous wealth accumulated by a hand full of Indian capitalist led by Ambanis and Tatas would go to show that privatization and globalization has only helped the rich to become richer.

Keeping in mind the above facts and figures, let us examine the threat perspective posed by “Maoists” as alleged by the Government. It is said that the “Maoist” consists of around 5000 or so rag-tag militia carrying assortment of guns and explosives. Can it be believed that the mighty Indian State with millions of military, Para-military, police and other forces armed with the most sophisticated weapons can be threatened by such a rag-tag militia?

It may not be an altogether coincidence that ever since P.Chidambaram became the Home Minister of India, the war cries against the “Maoists” have become louder. It may be interesting to recall that Shri Chidambaram was previously the Board member and also the counsel of the Vedanta Group of companies which through Sterlite Company hold major interest in mining and minerals including BALCO in Chhattisgarh. It is also a geographical coincidence that mines and minerals are below the ground in remote areas inhabited by adivasis, the class of people which the “Maoists” allegedly support. It would therefore be reasonable to draw the inference, that it is not really the rag-tag “Maoist” militia that bothers the Indian State but the millions of adivasis and other poor people who live in the remotest areas of this county who are sitting on the billions worth of valuable minerals. We do not agree with the violent methods of the “Maoist” but we also do not agree with the threat perspective that is being touted by the Government. It is not a war against another army but it is a war against the poor to appropriate their share of wealth.

Editorial: Fading Out Of The Saffron

The last few elections seem to be bad for the saffron color. The Loksabha elections had already proven to be unfriendly to the saffron brigade and the results led to several convulsions including the ejection of Jaswant Singh. The elections to the Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh assemblies turned out to even more hostile. Irrespective of the party, whether BJP or the Shiv Sena, both had their common color fading away in Maharashtra. The other two states had otherwise also nothing to do with this color.

Ordinarily, one should not read too much into the results of the election since the electorate, having very little choice, keeps tossing the parties in and out every five years.

But the results of the Maharashtra elections cannot be brushed aside so lightly. With two saffron outfits, namely BJP and Shiv Sena wooing the majority committee communally as well as regionally and further with the Congress-NCP misrule for the past five years, the election results rejecting the BJP-SS combine unambiguously was indeed surprising.

The electorate in the last few elections including the elections to the Rajasthan Assembly is sending a message; the majority community cannot be fooled for all the time!

Editorial: 'Left-Wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder

While we wholly disagree with the declaration of the Prime Minister that the CPI (Maoist) is the gravest threat to the security of the country, it is equally difficult for us to agree with the violent activities of the Maoist in the name of “revolution”. The call to boycott the recent assembly elections in areas of Maharashtra and other by-elections and trying to disrupt the same by violent means indicate a large degree of infantile disorder. Perhaps the party cadre should be referred to the classical work of Lenin himself on this issue. Lenin's last major work, addressed to the supporters of the Russian Revolution in the West, was entitled “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder - a critique of the “left-ism” of those who wanted to imitate the Russian Revolution, without paying attention to the specific conditions of their own country. Maoists are doing the same by aping the Chinese revolution.

Marxists seek to foster and educate the left-wing to develop a more sober and scientific view of the political terrain, to learn to understand the motivation of other social layers and how to win battles, rather than just fighting valiantly. A Marxist leadership does not look for the most left-wing position on any given problem, but rather tries to find the policy which strengthens and builds the self-confidence, unity and self-consciousness of the working class as a whole. The Maoist seems to have forgotten this basic lesson of Marx and Lenin after they dropped the suffix (ML)!

JET Airways Pilots Refuse To Fly

as reported by Sanjay Singhvi


In December last year, the management of Jet Airways called upon all sections of the workmen to voluntarily accept a cut in wages and allowances. Many sections of the workers accepted. The pilots of Jet Airways were, at that time, organised into a society known as the Society for the Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP). SWIP communicated to the management that the pilots would be ready to accept any reasonable cut in wages if the foreign pilots were removed. Jet airways employs both Indian and international pilots. However, it pays almost double to international pilots than it pays to Indian pilots.

The management, however, refused to have anything to do with SWIP claiming that they were only a “welfare body” and not able to negotiate on behalf of the pilots. It went ahead and cut the allowances of the pilots unilaterally, resulting in a cut in allowances to the tune of up to 40% for pilots. In response, the pilots decided to form a union.

The management soon came to know of the formation of the union and on 29th July 2009 summarily dismissed the General Secretary and the Joint Secretary of the union. On 22nd August 2009 issued a strike notice to the management that a strike was called for 7th September if the management did not take back the dismissed pilots in the meantime.

On midnight of 7th September, pilots of Jet Airways, in a rare display of unity started reporting sick. The whole of the airlines operations ground to a halt. After 5 days of total strike, the pilots signed a settlement in which the four dismissed pilots (two more had been dismissed after the start of the action) were reinstated.

GFTU salutes the JET Airways pilots for their militant movement.

Meeting against Fake Encounters

A national meet was organised by the Jamia Teachers' Solidarity Group (JTSG) at the Jamia Milia University at Delhi on 1st October, 2009 against the fake encounters that were becoming a regular feature of delivering “justice” to the “terrorists” by the police administration of several States. The meeting was presided Justice Sachhar. The meeting was addressed by both human rights activists as well as leaders from political parties. The meeting was being held with the back drop of the completion of one year of the Batla House encounter where two boys and a policeman had died.

The meeting reiterated its demand for a judicial Inquiry into the Batla House encounter. Representatives of Jan Sangharsh Manch also addressed the meeting

BJP-CPM Alliance in Bengal: Turning a full circe

In the election of the president of Baxirhat Panchayat held on 12 October 2009, the BJP candidate Madhavi Pradhan won with the support of CPM members. The Congress and Trinamul Congress boycotted the election realizing that they were outnumbered by CPM- BJP combine. As the CPM gets cornered by in WB by Trinamul Congress it has adopted an unusual and unprincipled tactics of supporting the candidate of any other political party to defeat the Trinamul candidate.

In recent past election of the Mayor of Siliguri Corporation CPM backed the Congress candidate and defeated Trinamul candidate. To justify the support to the BJP candidate, Baxirhat zonal committee's president Sri Dhananjay Rabhasaid that to resist the violence unleashed by Trinamul we decided to support the BJP candidate. The party position after in the 29 seats Panchayat Committee is the CPM won 10, Trinamul 8, BJP 8, Congress 2 and Independents 2.

Left Alignment

60th Anniversary Of The Peoples Republic Of China: Celebrating The End Of Maoism

Mukul Sinha



At the time when the Government of India has banned the Communist Party (Maoist) and declared an all out war against the Maoist party, the Chinese Government had no qualms to organize one of the biggest marches on 1st October, 2009 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the revolution holding high a massive picture of Mao-Tse-Dong! The irony is that Mao still lives in India whereas in China, Mao is just a sanitized icon! To understand this great contradiction, it would necessary to trace the brief history of the “Cultural Revolution” that led to the rise of Deng Ziao Peng, the architect of the capitalist China.

It was perhaps the greatest triumph of history when the poor peasantry under the leadership of Mao overthrew the feudal rule in China and proclaimed the Peoples Republic of China on the Sept. 30, 1949. The Soviet Union was the closest ally of the new republic but with the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushev, the Sino-Soviet relations plummeted. Khruschev was bitterly critical of Mao and his Commune programme. On July 18, 1959, Khruschev publicly attacked the Commune movement while speaking at Pozan, Poland. At the same time, the then defense Minister of China, Marshal P’eng Te-Huai also attacked the Commune programme and other Maoist policies. The simultaneous attacks of Khrushchev and P’eng Te-Huai were obviously more than a coincidence. Under such shady circumstances, CCP had no other alternative but to dismiss P'eng Te-huai in Sept. 1959. This dismissal is of great importance in the Cultural Revolution

By the end of 1964, the Chinese party had split in two camps. One led by Mao Tsetung representing the revolutionary faction and the other led by Liu Shao-chi and Deng-Ziao Ping, the pro-Soviet faction representing the bourgeois classes in China.

THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION:

The faction led by Liu Shao-chi fired their first slavo, not in the political sphere but in the cultural field. They came out with the anti-Mao play titled 'Hai Jui Dismissed from Office'. This play was written by Wu Han in the year 1959. Wu Han was a historian and a close associate of Peng Chen, the Mayor of Peking belonging to the Liu Shao-chi group. The play dealt with the arbitrary dismissal of ‘good’ ministers Hai Jui by the evil emperor. Mao Tsetung wrote in the People's Daily (29-5-1967) attacking the play:

'THE CRUX OF THE DISMISSAL OF HAI JUI LIES IN THE DISMISSAL ITSELF. EMPEROR CHIA-CHING DISMISSED HAI JUI; IN 1959 WE SACKED P'ENG THE-HUA. P'ENG THE-HUA IS HAI JUI'.

The intense struggle that ensued since 1966 raged till 1969 and though this struggle goes under the name of “Cultural revolution” in reality it was an intense struggle for capturing the State power between the two factions. At the end, the rightist forces under the leadership of Deng emerged victorious and the final curtain was drawn on the revolution with the death of Mao in 1976.

THE PRESENT:



After the rightists captured the State power, they did something that no other capitalist country had attempted. Deng did not dismantle the monolith State structure of a single party rule. On the contrary, keeping the red flag flying and a benign Mao staring down the Tiananmen Square, Deng changed all the production relations.

Till 1988 there was no law to employ more than eight workers in a non governmental organization. However many private organizations in connivance with local party leaders used to take advantage and they used to be called red-cap capitalist. During the end of nineties they started coming out in open giving up their red caps. The local and small sectors government organizations (SOE) were privatized and in most cases the managers of SOE became the new owners. Outside the agricultural sector about 50% of the production is under private ownership of this around one third are party members which includes “Siahiya” entrepreneurs who were earlier the leaders of the party. . Ofcourse one aspect is generally known some of the entrepreneurs were friends and relatives of party leaders.

Recent figures show that out of 3300 Chinese citizens, who have property worth 1.4 crores dollars, 2932 are children of some or the other highly placed party members. Many nationalized organizations are being run by powerful political families. In last few decade new political –manager class has arisen which has taken control of properties. The monopolistic political power has created especially an aggressive capitalist and corrupted system. Any international business deal between Chinese and foreign company there is always a political interference, secret deals and bribes. During the end of 2008 the richest man of China, Huang Guangui was arrested as the party leaders feared that some one had become more powerful than them.

The land market has grown so fast that promoters in connivance with local party leaders demolished the houses in the old areas by bulldozers over night. The residents wake up in the morning to find the word “Chi” written in white on their wall and this word means to demolish. There can not be any protest or any hope of compensation.

Today, unlike the Government of India, the fears of Imperialist America are the wealth of China and not Mao who has become merely a sanitized icon in his own country!