Quarter of the World’s hungry lives in India – The Age
Surplus stock to rot in the godowns of the Food Corporation of India (FCI)
Bullets spare none, 16 or 65. Aug 13, 2010. Greater Kashmir
Indian paramilitary soldiers chase Kashmiri protesters in Srinagar. Photograph: Farooq Khan/EPA. August 13, 2010
This is the 64th year of Indian “independence”. At this juncture, an appraisal of the term “independence” from a range of viewpoints won’t be out of place at all.
When we say “nation”, it doesn’t point to merely an area festooned and ornamented with mountains, waterways and oceans. Rather, it indicates the majority of the inhabitants of that territory. So, we can declare a country to be prosperous, if most of its inhabitants are comfortable living there. A country where 80% of the population is deprived and underprivileged, we can’t lay claim that nation to be” flourishing” or “shining”.
There can be another perspective which can lend us a hand for an in-depth scrutiny of the expression “independence”. In reality, how much self-governance does the nation enjoy, where it has become a cliché to announce it as independent and sovereign? It’s time that a balanced and sensible person, reviews it in the luminosity of rationality and logic. The consequence of blindly believing the members of the press, essayists and politicians of a fraudulent and corrupt nation can ruin it on the whole. Setting aside any compulsion to maintain sightless confidence on printed words or amended reports on news channels, start inquiring, start thinking. To think and evaluate is a practice, a habit. Abstaining from such can pave the way to absolute self-catastrophe.
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We, the erudite, mention habitually that India accomplished independence from the British rule on 15th August, 1947. To quote the preface or preamble of the constitution, India happens to be a sovereign, democratic and republic nation. The said constitution was made enforced on and from 26th January, 1950. The 42nd amendment of the constitution was put into effect in 1975. In accordance to that, along with “sovereign, democratic, republic”, “socialist, secular” were added.
So again, we were made aware that India happens to be a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic and republic state. “Republic”…this implies that in India, the inhabitants or the citizens hold the cue and there is no existence of any opportunist group in the system.
Thus, the implication of the word “republic” is now understood. For the moment, let us keep aside the fiddly query …whether or not India is in fact a republic. Instead, on the eve of the 64th Indian “independence”, let’s us make an endeavor to appraise the independence of India without any prejudice and penchant.
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On 15th of August, 1947, the then British Government didn’t award any freedom to India. The unadorned truth is, India attained only the status of a self-ruled colony of the British régime. Therefore, 15th August, being the Independence Day of India, is far-off from truth and fact.
The Indian Independence Act 1947 (1947 c. 30 (10 & 11. Geo. 6.) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that partitioned British India into the two new independent dominions of India and Pakistan. The Act received the royal assent on 18 July 1947, and Pakistan came into being on 15 August 1947.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Clement Richard Attlee announced on 20 February 1947 that:
- British Government would grant full self-government to British India by June 1948 at the latest,
- The future of Princely States would be decided after the date of final transfer is decided.
The British government proposed a plan announced on 3 June 1947 (known as the 3rd June Plan or the Mountbatten Plan) that included these principles:
- Principle of Partition of India was accepted by the British Government.
- Successor governments would be given dominion status.
- Two new dominions were to emerge from the Indian Empire, Pakistan and India. The Dominion of India may be regarded as an expression of the desire for self-government of the all people in India, and the Dominion of Pakistan as the expression of the demand for self-government by the Muslims.
The endorsed proposal of the British Parliament was that Lord Mountbatten will be the Governor General and the Ex-officio Army Chief of this colony. It’s important to mention that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India and his accomplices nodded to such proposal.
On 21st June, 1948, Chakravarty Raja Gopalachary was chaired as the Governor General of India. In the swearing in ceremony on that day, the formal oath he took read “I, Chakravarty Raja Gopalachary, hereby pledge to remain and maintain obedience towards King George VI, his heirs and successors…”
So, what do we see here? The first citizen and the head of the state took an undertaking of political enslavement and obedience towards the British emperor and his descendants. If this is what we call independence then what’s slavery?
George VI was the Emperor of India until 1947 and after ‘independence’, he became the King of India and was in this post until 1950! The Governors General were direct representatives of the King of India, and so they reported to him directly! After reading all these, I assumed that India was not an independent country even after we got ‘independence’, at least till we became a Republic. But I was proved wrong again. Britishers were the heads of the Indian army till 1949, Indian Air Force till 1954, and Indian Navy till 1958!
Even in 2010, India remains inept of framing and governing freely any of its strategies right from the home affairs, foreign policy, economy, procedures of industrialization, agriculture, education and so on. We have seen changes in the vanguard of our bosses…from the British, the baton went to Russia. And now, we remain obliged to the United States of America.
Let us recall an incident which occurred some years back. Traces of pesticide were noticed in widely sold beverages owned by the US based giants Coca Cola and Pepsi. Needless to say, those were extremely damaging to human health. The episode took the entire nation by storm. The then Indian Government, conceded to the public outrage and assured to initiate steps against both the companies and seal all their industrial units operating in India.
In a fast reaction, the government of the USA warned of economic cordon, if our government dared to touch any of those organizations. The response from India was even faster. Shrugging off all its “sovereignty” & “freedom”, the Indian government, dished out clean-chits to both organizations, and thus reassured their subordination to their present master.
Burial of an unknown child after the Bhopal gas tragedy
In 1984, Union Carbide, the US based Chemical giant, was responsible for the killing of 25000 people in Bhopal, who died due to leaking of a poisonous gas from their factory. Incidentally, the incident is still the worst industrial disaster this planet has ever witnessed, which subsequently crippled more than half a million of people. Warren Anderson was the then Chairman of that organization. Anderson was arrested. And then…? A phone call from the then American President to Rajiv Gandhi, who was then the Indian Prime Minister, did it all. It was truly “his master’s voice”. Anderson was released. Not only that, the Indian Government ensured his safe passage to the US through a special government flight.
This proves again that we are under the disposal of a dominant nation, and have no capacity whatsoever to think about our own people’s interest in defiance to the American commands.
We serve the war based American economy and exhaust our foreign reserves to buy weapons. Same is with our neighboring nations. Then, we get into some make believe wars (remember Kargil???). Yes…bogus and make believe of course, for the reason that there is a prohibitory order from our American master regarding getting engaged in true and full fledged combats. The reason is pretty simple. The US government doesn’t want his Indian market to suffer which feeds primarily on American stuff and commodities. So India remains nothing but entertaining puppets that dance on the pull of strings of our respected master.
India…the great “democratic “nation
80% of the Indian population is poverty stricken. The average spending power of the rural populace is Rs. 12 per day. For the urbanites the figure is Rs18. 27.5% of the total population lives below the poverty line whose average earning per day is less than Rs 12. The poor & underprivileged Indian people are deprived from all basic facilities of life like food, clean water, education, health care, clothes, and houses and so on. This section of the population that is the poorest of the poor and the most oppressed class are mostly tribal. They are now being driven out from forests and adjoining areas where they had been dwelling since centuries. The Indian state has declared war on them. Anyone who dares to resist the terror tactics unleashed by the Indian state is being bracketed as “Maoists”, “Naxalites” or “terrorists” and killed, tortured in the most illegitimate and ruthless manner. The terror pressed on by the Indian state include razing and blazing of their abodes, cold blooded murders, illegal detention in custody under fake charges, molestation and rapes and what not…
This 80% of the Indian mass, who are being humiliated, heckled, exploited and killed are undoubtedly bona-fide citizens of this nation. Just try to think how “liberated” they are in this “independent” India?
Let’s go through a few definitions
State: The basic concept is, a class divided society, the most economically well off class establishes its monopolistic hegemony over the rest.
“Class divided society” indicates a system or social arrangement where:
* There is no equality or parity of comfort
* Most of its citizens do not have access to their basic needs
* Some of its people are financially at the top rung of the ladder…may be billionaires, while, another class reels under abject poverty and can earn at most Rs 12 a day
* A class remains deprived, subjugated and exploited. And another class, by virtue of their financial supremacy, controls the state power and keeps rolling their bandwagon of exploitation to keep the hegemony intact.
From monarchy to bourgeoisie republic / democracy, the state character remains the same.
Between these two extreme classes, lies another lobby, the middle class. In general their class character is like an opportunist and they remain frightened and unwilling to changes. They always opine for maintenance of the social status-quo. This is how the mainstream middle class section is.
Democracy: Democracy means participation of adult citizens in functioning of a government. In democracy all citizens are equal in the eyes of law. The definition of democracy further mentions that every citizen has equal right in economic, political and cultural life irrespective of his/her caste, religious faith, color, sex or language.
In a society riddled in classes, the government “elected” through funding from industrialists and business lobbies steers all policies in their favor. In such a system laws are usually enacted in consideration of the interest of these business magnates, who actually fund the election bills. All statutes are drafted in a manner where exploitation can be carried out even by adhering to all laws. Such a democracy is compulsively superficial.
Going by this definition, do you still think India to be a democratic nation?
Sovereignty: We shall accept a state to be sovereign, if it has the liberty to frame and execute policies pertaining to home and external affairs, education, industries, culture and others on its own. A state which dances to the tune of a foreign power cannot enjoy any such decisive ability in policy making. Such a state can no way be called sovereign. India is a nation that has a geographical boundary, people and government. One of the primary conditions of a nation to be a state is sovereignty, which India doesn’t have. Let’s remember that a state without sovereign power is like a hypothesis of impracticality.
Communism: This terminology indicates an ism that speaks of a society which is devoid of exploitation, social oppression and political or state terrorism. It further indicates total abolition of poverty, illiteracy and ensures health care for all its citizens. In return, all people with normal abilities living in such society shall have to put in their labor/ effort in assignments dedicated to the society. The intra-citizen relationship will be of co-operation instead of competition. True democracy will indeed be established in such a system.
A brief account of the organizations dedicated to build up a communist social system in India
Naxalbari Movement (1967-1977): Inhabited mostly by tribal, Naxalbari is a medium hamlet in Darjeeling district of North Bengal, close to the Indo-Nepal border. It was during the mid sixties when Jangal Santhal was the peasant’s leader in Naxalbari. He was at that time associated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI (M). In those days Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal and Souren Basu formed the district leadership of CPI (M) in Darjeeling.
During the end of April 1967, the leaders and workers of the CPI (M) Peasants’ Front (Krishak Sabha) of Darjeeling district and Siliguri sub-division drew up a program to take over all illegal land beyond the land “ceiling” i.e. the land area an individual can lawfully hold. From 20th to 22nd may, 1967, the local farmers of Naxalbari kept such unauthorized land of Prasad (a local landlord) under their hold. The then United Front government of West Bengal took a tough stand on the issue and decided to resolve the matter by applying force. As a result, those rebel farmers had a bloody confrontation with the police and para-military contingent, which killed 10 tribal.
The news swelled throughout the nation like a wildfire. Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal , Souren Basu and Jangal Santhal were expelled from CPI (M).
By the end of 1967, the process of a split in CPI (M) was already in the making. The Naxalbari movement gained thrust during the period ranging from 1967-1971.
In 1971, Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India pressed army into action to assist Bangladesh. In fact, army stepped into action (to eliminate the rebel Naxalites) in West Bengal as well, where a chapter of the movement was brutally crushed through terror, unimaginable torture and genocide.
Charu Majumdar expressed his political visions from 1965-1967 in eight different essays. These essays were later termed as “Eight Documents”. In his first such essay, Charu Majumdar identified “Peasants’ Revolution” to be the mainstay of Indian revolt.
The battle to establish “Agro-communism” that began in 1967 and got extensive in shape and size received total backing of Mao-Tse-Tung, the legendary Communist leader of China. The opinion of Mao-Tse-Tung came out in various reports of “Shin Hua” news agency published from China on 26th July 1967, 2nd August 1967, 17th August 1967 and 16th December 1967. Mao unequivocally declared this battle as a true struggle of the oppressed, exploited and have-nots.
Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or CPI (ML) was formed on 22nd April, 1969. Peasants’ revolution, capturing of state power through armed battle and establishing a communist society featured in their declared agenda.
1st May, 1969: In a public rally held in the Ochterlony Monument (Shahid Minar) ground in Kolkata, the formation of CPI (ML) was formally announced.
1969: Seven leftist groups discarded the ideology or political line of Charu Majumdar terming that to be a path of killings and lawlessness that can never bring communism. These seven groups formed a separate forum.
1969-1971: In Kolkata, the Naxalite leaders loyal to Charu Majumdar got occupied in intense factionalism over personal differences with each other. The Kolkata coffee house became the hub of such intra-party rivalry and different coffee tables represented groups lead by leaders like Ashim Chatterjee, Saibal Mitra, Azijul Haque, Jaya Mitra and Biswanath Chakraborty. Charu Majumdar was himself a tell-taler. His such nature got the party infested with factions & unprincipled rivalry in particular amongst its Kolkata based leaders.
1972: On 16th July, Charu Majumdar was arrested. He died in police custody on 28th of July.
1972-1977: Three-way operation was jointly launched by the cadres of CPI (M), Congress (I) and police/ paramilitary forces with the sole aim of assassinating Naxalites. Such cold blooded murders was nothing but state terror lead by Indira Gandhi former Prime Minister of India, Siddhartha Sankar Roy and Jyoti Basu, the former Chief Ministers of West Bengal.
Now, let’s have a look at the history behind such operation. In 1971, the United States of America and then Soviet Russia briefed Mrs. Gandhi about the unfavorable political situation of Bangladesh (the then East Pakistan) and the certainty of the pro-Chinese Naxalite group to capture the state power there. She was urged upon to annihilate any such possibility by sending in the Indian army to Bangladesh. Mrs. Gandhi was also assured by the USA that though they have a war related bilateral agreement with Pakistan; it won’t pose any hassle for the Indian army. By the time the US will send the seventh naval fleet in support of Pakistan, the Indian army should be able to free that region and make Mujibur Rahman, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She was further made sure that Russia, being an Indian ally and adversary to China, will remain silent on the issue. Finally, she was insisted to steam-roll the Naxalites after freeing Bangladesh.
Today we know, this was exactly how the things went.
1977: The Naxalites got split into 40 odd sub groups, where each group was determined to wipe off another.
1980: CPI (ML)-PW or Peoples’ War Group (PWG) was formed in Andhra Pradesh on 22nd April by Kondapalli Seetharamaiah, one of the most influential Naxalite leaders in the State and a member of the erstwhile Central Organizing Committee of the Communist Party of India–Marxist-Leninist, (CPI-ML).
1982: CPI (ML), the Bihar based outlawed Naxalite group formed a cultural front to boost up mass relations. It was named Indian Peoples’ Front (IPF).
1982-1992: The IPF entered parliamentary politics and began to contest elections and won the Ara seat from Bihar in 1989. They get tagged as “reactionary” by the other Naxalite groups.
We need to understand that there is no substitute to cultural movement before, during and after the revolution. We define revolution as building up of a better society free from exploitation. In other words, revolution also meant forming of self- sufficient villages through co-operatives and communes. A cultural movement has to be omnipresent with the goal to uproot superstitions, corruption and vulgar rituals.
Keeping the intellectuals in the “reactionary” bracket and thus forcing them to stay aloof from the movement were two of the greatest blunders the Naxalites committed. In consequence, they got alienated from the mass and the movement collapsed in no time.
Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India began to exchange ideas with various leftist clusters.After relentless conferencing; it was able to induce most of the like minded forums to agree on the significance of cultural movement. During such meeting a very pertinent issue was raised by the association. The apex leadership of other leftist groups were requested to ponder and analyze on questions like:-
(a ) In the present stage of ultra modern and advanced war technology whether it is at all possible to capture state power only through armed combat and,
(b) Can there be a more effective and practical way to establish communism?
It was from the year 2001 we see the concept and idea of communes, co-operatives, collective farming and self sufficient rural belts. The theory further mentioned that in the present context, restraining of arms (and not surrendering) is the necessity.
This theory began to receive endorsement of the various Naxalite groups from 2004.
The theory so floated was named as Neo-Socialism that began spreading rapidly and at present grips around 257 districts out of 600 in India, besides other nations like Nepal and Venezuela.
1995: CPI (ML)-Liberation, another Naxalite split group founded by Vinod Mishra expressed its desire to participate in elections and got enlisted accordingly with the Election Commission of India. Thus, they too became a part of the forged Indian bourgeoisie democracy.
1992-1998: The three Naxalite bands namely Maoist Communist Center (MCC), CPI (ML)-Liberation and PWG got engaged in killing spree among each other.
1998-2002: During this period, the death toll in Bihar alone was around 400, when cadres of the MCC and PWG used to kill each other on sight.
2004: After a series of meetings, discussions and round table conferences, the top leadership of the PWG and MCC finally join hands and formed the Communist Party of India (Maoist).
These Maoists are not driven by the policies of the Naxalites instituted by Charu Majumdar. The agenda of the Maoists doesn’t include seizure of state power through armed battle which is a major deviation or modification from the program initiated by the Naxalites under Charu Majumdar.
2009: A letter dated 31st December signed by Mallojula Koteswara Rao alias Kishenji, a member of the Politburo of the CPI (Maoist) reached the desk of many journalists. In that letter, irrespective of ideology all political parties that contest elections had been kept in the same category. The letter mentions that, “…let the CPI (M), Trinamool Congress and Congress (I) abjure violence…let you too give up that path if you are in…violence and ferocity had never been in the program of the Maoists and will never be so…”.
Today, the Indian government is playing a broker’s role of certain corporate that are desperate in owning the nation’s forest and mineral resources, mostly inhabited by tribal.
To achieve such objective, the “democratic” government of our nation has announced an absolute unilateral war against the poor tribal people who are unwilling to get displaced from places they had been dwelling since decades. These tribal or ethnic dwellers have every right to defend themselves from state terror. To resist and thwart the state terror, those tribal are being helped /assisted and trained in warfare methodologies by the Maoists, who are truly their comrades.
The Maoists resolve never to indulge in Guerilla warfare, if the state gives up oppression and confers civil rights to the tribal mass.
Thus, the onus is entirely on the Indian government to show its intention in ending the prevailing civil war like situation.
A final round-up
Lessons from past slip-ups and blunders, has taught us that capturing state power through armed struggle is more dreamy than practical. It has also taught us that an ism demands modification with passing of time…so is the methodology to institute an ideal social system. The war today is less of bullets and more of ideas…and that’s what is called the “brain war”.
The Neo-Socialist movement, based on the theory of setting up of communes, cooperatives and self-contained rural communities has intensified manifold and keeps on doing so. The advancement of this movement across the globe has panicked and sent shivers down the spine of the political, cultural and financial tyrants, who are now hell-bent to mash the progress of such silent revolution by applying brutal force, torture and terror.
This time however, the march of the mass towards a new dawn of true democracy, fraternity and liberation cannot be stopped.
On 14th August 2010
Debashis
General Secretary, Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India
From : Asian Tribune 16.08.10
Picture Courtesy: The Age, http://www.fnbnews.com, Greater Kashmir, Associated Press, http://www.guardian.co.uk, Tehelka Magazine, Asia Times
***Debashis is the General Secretary of Rationalists’ and Humanists’ Forum of India since 1st March 2011
RATIONALIST DEBASHIS 