Uphold the Legacy of November:
Meet Vajpayee's Threat of 1965
with the Spirit of 1967

This 7th of November, as America's war on Afghanistan moves into its second month, and its trade war against the rest of the world threatens to intensify with the WTO ministerial summit beginning at Doha on November 9, communists and other anti-imperialist fighters the world over will observe the 84th anniversary of the Great November Revolution. Decades have gone by, a new millennium has dawned, and even the dissolution of USSR has become a thing of the past, yet the legacy of November continues to shine in all its resplendent glory. The energy unleashed by those unforgettable Ten Days that Shook the World continues to outlast the accumulated impact of all the American bombs that have been dropped on this earth from Hiroshima to Heerut.

Imperialism means war. But in November 1917 Lenin had shown us the art of transforming the era of imperialist war into the era of proletarian revolution by snapping the imperialist chain at its weakest link. The collapse of the Soviet Union seven decades later did cause a momentary disorientation and demoralisation in the international communist and anti-imperialist movement. But soon it paved the way to a new era of global exposure of US imperialism and the rise of a new wave of anti-imperialist resistance. As the USA over-stretches itself economically, politically and militarily, it is only inviting greater fury and resistance. The arrogant American vision of an Americanised world may well find its ultimate defeat in the emergence and consolidation of new bastions of post-Soviet socialism in the new century.

Back home, the war has forced the pseudo-nationalists of Sangh parivar to come out in their true comprador colours. The chant of 'Jai Shri Ram' has now found its new complement in the feverish chorus of 'Jai Shri Bush'. A pleased USA has extended its blessings by lifting the sanctions it had imposed on both Pakistan and India. This means American weapons will discover bigger markets in the subcontinent and the sale of weapons will soar in direct proportion as tension increases between the two countries. The NDA government has reciprocated by lifting the ban on the role of middlemen in defence deals. It is against this backdrop that Rumsfeld meets Fernandes in New Delhi while Vajpayee petitions Washington for closer Indo-US military ties.

The growing stockpile of weapons will of course necessitate periodic wars and Vajpayee has already warned the country about a war-like situation prevailing on the Indo-Pak border. He says he is reminded of 1965 when India and Pakistan had fought their second war. What were the hallmarks of 1965? War apart, the country then witnessed acute food shortage, deepening economic crisis, humiliating American intervention in India's internal affairs, and of course, large-scale 'preventive detention' of communists.

All those obnoxious features are once again ripening quite dangerously under Vajpayee's saffron regime. But will Vajpayee also care to remember the fallout of 1965 for the then Congress government? A crisis-ridden economy and a repressive political regime, increased imperialist intervention and a tiring war of attrition with the neighbour, all this went on to trigger the first countrywide decline of the Congress and then came Naxalbari, the first major outbreak of the revolutionary fire after Telengana.

The threat of 1965 issued by the saffron rulers can have only one answer from the people: an emphatic resurrection of the spirit of 1967, of the legacy of November. The combined rampage of the US imperialists and their saffron stooges must be stalled with a determined national reawakening. The battle lines between "Bushbhakti" and "deshbhakti" have seldom been as sharp and clear as they are now, and we must be ready to win this battle.

CPI(ML) Opposes Rumsfeld's India Visit, Criticises BJP's Exercise of Building 'National Consensus' on Terrorism

Opposing the US Defence Secretary Donand Rumsfeld's India visit, the CPI(ML) took strong exception of the Govt.'s decision of lifting the ban on arms dealers and middlemen and slammed George Fernandes for his "clandestine lobbying with the US war establishment". The Party said that the US wants "to get over the crisis of economic recession by engineering war and investing heavily on war industries" and "trade arms and ammunition with other countries, particularly India, for the single purpose of profiteering and strengthening military-industrial complexes in the whole of Asia". The Party held that Rumsfeld had come to India to "tag India to the American war designs" and "trade arms with Indian establishment and war lobbies."

"The saffron establishment is selling out India's strategic independence and providing more and more space to the US to interfere in the South Asia", the Party said.

Reacting to the BJP's declaration to build 'national consensus' on terrorism and assertion that this issue was their main electoral plank, the CPI(ML) said, "in essence, Vajpayee govt. is trying to manufacture a consensus on its own dubious and sinister agenda of support to the American war of aggression, abject surrender to the US interests and framing of draconian ordinances and laws like POTO." So, "the most important agenda before the progressive-democratic opposition in the country today is to build up a national consensus on the issue of fighting back the saffron agenda of pro-Americanism and consolidation of fascism."

Agrarian Labour Conferences in Bihar

Patna District Khet Mazdoor( Agriculture labourers) Conference was held at Dulhin Bazar on 31 October and Samastipur District conference was held on 2 November. Both were inaugurated by Com. Rameshwar Prasad, convenor of BPKMS. The conferences discussed the question of resistance to repression on agrarian labourers launched by private armies, police and local feudals. After attending Samastipur conference, Com. Rameshwar visited Chainpura village of Muzaffarpur where an agrarian labourer was burnt alive by local feudals, and demanded from the local administration immediate arrest of criminals.

Anti-War Conventions Held in Bihar

As part of the ongoing campaign against war, anti-war citizens' conventions were held at Arrah, Patna, Madhubani, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, Bihar Sharief and Gaya. Party General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya addressed these conventions. Similar conventions held at Arwal and Jahanabad were addressed by Party State Secy. Com. Ramjatan Sharma.

Addressing the conventions Com. Dipankar warned of the dire consequences that will follow the destructive acts by America in the name of finishing off terrorism. The real motive behind these acts was to establish hegemony over the globe, he said. A great danger is hovering over democracy because of the open license given to the CIA to commit political murders. He pointed that it was a well-planned conspiracy to link terrorism with Islam and China. A well-conceived theory is now being constructed to search its philosophical, civilisational and cultural roots and portraying it as a threat to the Western civilisation. Com. Dipankar said that efforts to convert secular India into a 'Hindu Rashtra' are also being intensified and fascism is being imposed on the country by means of suppressing anti-war movements and imposing black laws like POTO.

He said that soon after the Central Govt. banned SIMI, the Laloo-Rabri govt. quickly started implementing it, but it never showed courage to impose ban on Bajrang Dal and VHP like organisation. The West Bengal Govt. declined to impose POTO, but they already have a black law in its place, the POCO.

Earlier on 22 October, all the ML groups jointly organised an anti-war march in Patna. The convention held in Patna was presided over by a veteran of JP movement, Shri Arshad Azmal. Many renowned citizens including Prof. Ishwari Prasad of JNU also participated in the meeting.

Movement on Minimum Wages in Hajipur, Bihar

In Hajipur (Vaishali) of Bihar, daily wage labourers have been conducting a struggle on minimum wages for a long period. Eight Workers led by Com. Surendra Singh started indefinite fast to press the demand since 1 November. On 4 November, around 400 people blocked the road in their support. After four hours, DM and senior police officials came to the spot to hold talks. On the assurance of resolution of the problem within a week, the roadblock and the fast was withdrawn. Party as well as Khet Mazdoor Sabha( Agriculture Labour Union) took active part in this movement.

Anti-War March in Siwan

An impressive anti-war march, participated in by around one thousand youth, was taken out from Shahid Chandrashekhar memorial in his native village Bindusar which after passing through streets of Siwan town culminated in inaugural session of RYA district conference at Gandhi Maidan. It was led by RYA president Mithilesh Yadav, Gen Secy Lal Bahadur Singh, Kamlesh Sharma, Paramhans Kumar and CPI(ML) leader Amar Yadav and Satyadev Ram. Kaushalya Devi, mother of martyr Com. Chandrshekhar was present at the dias. Two short plays exposing Vajapyee govt.'s abject surrender before American war designs received applause from the gathering.

Dharna by Panchayat Representatives

Panchayat representatives of Patna district staged one-day dharna at Income Tax Square to protest police oppression on block pramukh, panchayat samiti members. They submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanding dismissal and arrest of OC of Dulhin Bazar Police Station, DSP of Paliganj and culprit police officials.

CPI(ML) Investigation Team Visits Gonda, UP

A Party investigation team led by Com. Lal Bahadur Singh visited the violence-affected areas of Gonda in UP on 30 October, where curfew had been imposed after vandalism by communal elements following immersion of Durga idol. The team arrived at the conclusion that the violence was pre-planned and perpetrated with a view to accentuate polarisation for the coming elections in UP. BJP leaders led the attack on the Muslims after raising provocative slogans during the immersion procession. The people however foiled the conspiracy and Muslims displayed utmost tolerance. The district administration sided with the rioters and police remained mere spectators while goons burnt some 50 shops belonging to Muslims, entered a Masjid and arsoned the place. In place of arresting the rioters a good number of Muslims were arrested. State Committee has condemned the incident and announce to stage dharna on demand of action against the culprit police officials.

Long Live the Memory of Com. Prithwiraj Singh

Veteran communist leader and freedom fighter Com. Prithwiraj Singh died on 31 October at Karkathal village in Ahmedabad district of Gujarat. Born on 1 Janurary, 1917 in Jahanabad district of Bihar, he joined the freedom movement at the age of 15 leading a students' strike against celebrations of the birth centennary of George V in 1932. He became fully active in 1934-35 and in 1938 he organised workers of Cotton Mill in Gaya in a trade Union and became its joint secretary. He was one of the participants of the first meeting held in Munger in 1939 to form the Communist Party in Bihar. He took part in the peasant movement led by Swami Sahajanand and spent 18 months in jails. He was secretary of Gaya District Party Committee of CPI in 1951-52.

In the post independence period, he took part in the nationwide railway strike in 1960 and suffered prison hardships and torture. In 1962 he firmly stood by proletarian internationalism and in 1964 split, he sided with the CPI(M). He spent 18 months in jail under DIR in 1965-66. He joined the CPI(ML) in 1969 and was active in the movement against Indira autocracy. He played a significant role in the formation of Bihar Pradesh Kisan Sabha and was one of the organisers of its Patna rally in 1981. At the age of 64, while addressing a public meeting at Kamta village in Jahanabad, he was badly beaten by the police. Because of his significant role in building IPF he was elected President of Bihar unit from 1982-88 as well as IPF's national vice president. He had hoisted the flag at the recently held Bihar state Party conference. Condoling his death, a meeting was organised at State Party Office on 1 November, attended by Com. KD Yadav, Saroj Chaube, Prabhat Kumar, RN Thakur and Ashok Kumar. His corpse reached Patna on 4 Novmeber. Party General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya laid down red flag over his corpse and offered floral tributes. He also took part in the last rites performed at Bansghat in Patna. Apart from Com. Ram Naresh Ram, Nand Kishor Prasad, Ramjatan Sharma and other senior leaders, leaders of CPI and CPI(M) as well as a number of renowned intellectuals and representatives of student-youth, women and workers' and peasant organisations joined the funeral procession and offered their tributes to the departed veteran communist.

Down with Doha WTO Conference

Representatives of Six ML Parties including Com. P.V.Srinivas, [CPI(ML)-Liberation]; Com. Yatindra Kumar [New Democracy], K.N.Ramachandran [Red Flag], P.K.Murthy [Unity Initiative], Bachao Ram [COI(ML)] and Omkar [MCPI] issued a joint press note, which says that "The forces of American imperialism and its closest western ally United Kingdom have been bombing Afghanistan for the past four weeks.... The aggressors are the same forces who are trying to impose neo-colonial plunder on developing countries through proposed agenda for "new round of negotiation" to be aggressively launched at Doha Ministerial Level Conference of WTO."

It says that Doha Conference "would be yet another severe assault on the interests of the world people, especially on the people of Asia-Africa-Latin America. ... Most obnoxiously, it is being held at a time when US is bent on bombing Afghanistan back to stone age and protests against this tyranny are being voiced by broad masses in third world countries, America, Europe and other developed countries.

The heads of G-7 (among G8) countries have agreed to keep away their differences and to aggressively snatch substantive results at Doha so that the burden of intensifying recession in their countries can be transferred to the already devastated third world countries. Besides further liberalization of export-import policies which has already led to de-industrialization and crisis in the agricultural sector in all these countries, the intention of imperialist countries in this conference is to speed up implementation of patent act and imposing provisions of GATS demanding speedy privatisation of service sector. They are also particular that the non-implementation of already agreed provision by them should not be taken up. When a decade of globalisation and seven years of WTO regime have ruined the economy and devastated vast majority of the working classes and peasantry, further assaults at Doha conference is going to create unprecedented miseries in all fields. In this situation organizing all-round resistance to Doha conference in order to force the government to boycott this conference and to quit WTO are of paramount importance.

Prohibition on Buddhist Rally condemned

Party condemned Vajpayee govt.'s decision to prohibit the rally to be organised on November 4 by the All India Federation of SC/ST organisations. The organisers had announced that around one lakh dalits will embrace Buddhism (Hindu, 28 October, 2001). Sangh Parivar, especially VHP, started spreading rumours about "forcible conversion", that Muslims and Christians were behind this programme, and they pressurised the government to impose ban on the ceremony. The BJP-led govt. without any provocation ordered the Delhi Police to withdraw the permission given earlier for the rally. Ultimately the organisers of the Buddhist ceremony had to shift the venue. This is a violation of fundamental right of people to chose their faith and shows that the government has started adopting authoritarian measures to press its Hindutwa agenda.

Anti-war Rally in Madhya Pradesh

An anti-war rally was taken out at Gwalior on 26 October in which around one hundred activists from RYA, AIPWA and the lawyers' forum participated. Demanding that the war against Afghanistan must be stopped immediately, the rallyists condemned BJP's attempts of whipping up war frenzy in the country. They also appealed to all patriotic people to launch a united opposition to war. The rally was led by Com. Gurudatt Sharma, Vinod Rawat, Anwar Ali, Rashid Khan and others.

In Bhilai, anti-war dharna was held under AICCTU banner, participated in by 50 persons. It was led by CC member Com. Raja Ram, Dr. Shambhu Singh, Adalat Ali, Ashok Miri, Shekhar Rao and Shiv Kumar. In Raipur, observing AICCTU call some 50 workers belonging to Khadan Mazdoor Union took out an anti-war bicycle march on 15 October and held a meeting. It was led by Com. Narottam Sharma and Bhagbali Dhruva.

Noam Chomsky on Terrorism

The Reagan administration came to office 20 years ago proclaiming that the struggle against international terrorism will be the core of US foreign policy. In the Reagan years alone, US-sponsored state terrorists in Central America left hundreds of thousands of tortured and mutilated corpses, millions of maimed and orphaned, and four countries of ruins. In the same years, Western-backed South African depradations killed 1.5 million people. I need not speak of West Asia, or much else.

All of this, however, is barred from the annals of terrorism, by a simple device; the term "terrorism"... Terrorism is terrorism that is directed against the US and its friends and allies. Reviews of literature, including scholarship, reveal, not surprisingly, that this usage is close to universal, and of course not restricted to the US.

There is a great deal more to say about terrorism, in both the literal and propagandistic sense. But the threat of terrorism is not the only abyss into which we peer. An even greater threat is posed by expansion of the arms race into space; the term 'race' is inappropriate, because the US is, for now, competing alone. The plans for militarisation of space are disguised as "ballistic missile defence" (BMD), even if technically feasible, must rely on satellite communication, and destroying satellites is far easier than shooting down missiles. That is one reason why the US must seek "full spectrum dominance" such overwhelming control of space that even the poor man's weapons will not be available to an adversary. And that requires offensive space-based capacities.

The need for total dominance will increase as a result of the "globalisation of the economy", the US Space Command explains. The reason is that "globalisation" is expected to bring about a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots', an assessment shared by US intelligence. Planners are concerned tha the widening divide may lead to unrest among the have-nots, which the US must be ready to control by "using space systems and planning for precision strike from space" as a counter to "worldwide proliferation of BMD" by unruly elements -- a predictable consequence of the recommended programmes, just as the "widening divide" is an anticipated consequence of the preferred from of "globalisaion".
(Excerpts from Fifth DT Lakdawala Memorial Lecture organised by Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi)

Anti-War Movements Around the World

On 4 November, Afghan refugees at The Hague staged a march through the city centre on spontaneous initiative. They got the support of the executive of the Dutch National Platform Against the New War, in which over 200 organizations cooperate. The demonstration defied the ban. Dutch peace activists and people of other nationalities also participated.

In Greece, demonstration will take place on 8 Nov. in Athens and Thessaloniki. Every day more trade unions and mass organizations announce their participation. All over Greece broad anti-war committees have been created and demostrations and multi-form activities continue. On 30 October the Technological Institutions observed day of action against the imperialist war, while secondary school students and parent's associations demonstrated in Thessaloniki, shouting slogans against the war, demanding "expenses for the schools and the students and not for the war".

In New York, International A.N.S.W.E.R. has announced that they are converging at Union Square, the ad-hoc gathering place for youth and anti-war forces throughout the city as the next step against Bush's war on 14 November, the eve of Ramadan.

In Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, anti-U.S. rallies attracted thousands of protesters on Friday, 2 November. A group of about 600 marched in Dhaka toward the U.S. Embassy, but were stopped by police outside where they burned effigies of George W. Bush. In Indonesia, some 3,000 people protesting the U.S. attacks marched through the country's second-largest city, Surabya.

In UK, Over 2,000 overwhelmingly young people brought Edinburgh city centre to a standstill on 1 November in a magnificent anti-war demonstration that culminated in a rally outside the Scottish Parliament. The demo brought rush hour traffic to a halt. Speakers at the rally included Tommy Sheridan, Scottish Socialist Party MP, Margo MacDonald, Scottish National Party MP and Labour MP John McAllion, along with an Afghan refugee and a Palestinian.

A public meeting against the war was held on 4 November at the Millman Street Community Centre, Millman Street, Russell Square in London.

The French Communist Party demanded an end of the US-led military strike on Afghanistan at the closing ceremony of the party's three-day congress on 4 November. The congress issued a resolution reaffirming: "We demand the end of bombing against Afghanistan. We refuse the war."

In Netherlands, the third candlelit vigil, protesting the US war on Afghanistan, will be held in Sligo town 8 Nov., outside the GPO. It will be followed by meeting in the Rockwood Leisure Centre. In Leiden, The Netherlands successful peace demonstration took place and trade union peace campaign started. On November 4, 2001 a peace conference was held in Brusselles.