ML Update: a CPI(ML) Weekly News Magazine

Three months after the World Trade Centre towers in New York fell to terrorist strikes, the Parliament building in New Delhi became the target of another stunning terrorist assault. Whether or not there were specific intelligence inputs regarding this particular incident, there were indeed widespread apprehensions about such an attack. December 13 would now be remembered as the unfortunate day which saw one of those worst fears come true.

While the casualties have been mercifully quite low, the political magnitude of this abominable assault can indeed prove to be enormous. The aftermath of the attack has already started following the American pattern in the wake of September 11. Media headlines in India have begun to scream "India Under Attack". The cabinet resolution adopted five hours after the attack echoes the same language and accent the world has heard ad nauseam from President Bush. And hawks of the Sangh Parivar are being joined by their non-saffron or not-so-saffron counterparts in the political establishment in demanding Afghanistan-type action against Pakistan.

Spokespersons of the Vajpayee government describe the incident as a handiwork of the Pakistan-based militant outfits Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. In fact, they see the entire incident in the framework of the India-Pakistan-Kashmir triangle and the retribution is therefore seen to lie in teaching Pakistan a 'befitting lesson'. They believe that after September 11, the US will not be able to prevent India from pursuing such a course however much it may be fraught with the grave danger of a fourth full-scale war between India and Pakistan. A variant of this argument would like the US to intervene on India's behalf and extend the Afghanistan war straight inside Pakistan.

But the December 13 attack need not necessarily be a direct offshoot or fallout of the insurgency in Kashmir or of Indo-Pak hostility for that matter. By siding so uncritically with Washington in the Afghanistan war and by virtually condoning the heinous Israeli attacks on Arafat and Palestine, India has incurred the wrath of the entire Islamic and Arab world. Every terrorist grudge against Washington is now also directed against New Delhi. Indian policy of blind pro-Americanism has evidently increased India's vulnerability manifold. There is of course little that is Islamic or anti-Islamic about it, many other pro-US regimes in Islamic countries or in countries with sizeable Muslim population are liable to suffer a similar fate.

Beyond the obvious immediate parallels between the World Trade Centre tragedy and the assault on the Parliament House, observers of world history may well remember another 'attack' on another parliament in another time. The Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933 in Germany had served as a major pretext for Hitler and his men. Whoever might have been responsible for the burning of the Reichstag, the incident was used to the hilt by Hitler to silence the opposition, ban the German Communist Party and consolidate his fascist Nazi rule. It is not difficult to discern a similar reflex in Advani's response to the December 13 terrorist assault on the Indian Parliament.

In his interview published in the Sunday Times of India, Advani has once again started complaining about the 'ultra-soft' nature of the society and state in India. "The nature of our polity is a constraint when it comes to countering terrorism. We have allowed ourselves to become a soft society and our government, being a part of the same society, is also too soft," says Advani. The answer, according to him, therefore lies in a fascist transformation of the Indian society and state. Post-December 13, Advani has set his sights not just on enacting POTO but on reaffirming the fascist orientation of the Sangh Parivar.

While condemning the terrorist assault on the Parliament House, it is therefore all the more necessary to reject not just POTO but the entire gamut of fascist arguments emanating from the Sangh Parivar. In the same TOI interview, Advani has also confessed that it is difficult to stop a suicide attack. We can only add that while it is difficult to eliminate terrorism, it is possible to lessen the risks by creating a political environment that discourages terrorism. Advani's is however a prescription for greater terrorist risk and bigger disasters. For every genuine arrest of a terrorist under POTO, at least a hundred innocent citizens or imaginary terrorists would also be subjected to state repression. And this is the surest way of producing at least a dozen more terrorists in real life.

Fascism can only breed and feed terrorism, it can never weed it out. If terrorists had chosen Parliament as their theatre of action to threaten democracy, it is no wonder that Advani has also fired his fascist salvo on the same polity. Terrorists and fascists are indeed fast friends. This is undoubtedly a testing time for India. We must reject any military misadventure and fascist short-circuiting of the constitutional rule of law. Without a firm democratic resolve combined with a patient and realistic political handling, there can be no reduction of the terrorist threat.

THIRD DEATH ANNIVERSARY OF COMRADE VINOD MISHRA

Comrade Vinod Mishra had taken over as the General Secretary of our Party, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) after Comrade Jauhar was encircled and killed by the armed forces of the state at Babubandh in Bhojpur district on November 29, 1975. This was a very critical juncture in Indian politics and more so in our party history, when constitutional democracy in India was being throttled behind the iron curtain of Emergency and our fledgling party was just preparing itself for its Second Congress to revitalise the movement and revive the organisation after the severe countrywide setback of the early 1970s.
From this crisis-ridden early phase, Comrade VM successfully carried forward the revolutionary communist legacy of comrade Charu Mazumdar and Comrade Jauhar and led the party tirelessly and heroically for 23 years till the cruel hands of death snatched him away from us most prematurely on December 18, 1998 right in the middle of the year-ending session of the Party Central Committee in Lucknow.

"India of my dreams is essentially an integral India where a Pakistani Muslim won't have to procure a visa in search of the roots of his evolution; where, likewise, for an Indian the great Indus Valley Civilization shall not fall in a foreign country; and where a Bengali Hindu refugee will finally shed away the bitter memories of Decca and a Bangladeshi Muslim will not be hounded as a foreign national in India.

"Sounds like BJP? But then the BJP has only thrived upon the great division of the country -- between a Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, albeit not so 'pure'. As BJP continues to stretch this division to extremes with all the disastrous consequences, great thinkers will surely arise in all the three countries and remold the public opinion for a brotherly reunion. And, be sure, that will be the doomsday for the forces like BJP.

"India of my dreams shall rise in the community of nations as a country which the weakest of the neighbours shall not fear and which the most powerful country in the world shall not be able to threaten or blackmail. This India will rank among the first five countries of the world in economic prowess as well as in Olympic tallies.

"India of my dreams shall have a secular state which shall rest upon the principle of Sarva Dharma Varjitah rather than Sarva Dharma Sambhav. While not interfering with the individual's faith, the state shall actively cultivate the scientific and rational world outlook.

"I dream of a great resurgence of rational ideas where the human essence alienated in the form of God shall retrieve itself. This great reformation of human minds shall accompany a special revolution where the producers of wealth shall also be the masters of their produce.

"Finally, for me the mother of all dreams is a motherland where political liberty of each of its citizens will be valued mostly where dissent will be considered legitimate and where Tiananmens of the system will be handled by the morally strong statesmen and unarmed forces of people's militia. ... In India of my dreams ... no work of art and literature will be subjected to state censorship...

"India of my dreams is built upon the fundamental process at work within the Indian society and for whose realization many like me are committed to the last drop of their blood."

"... We stand for building up a left pole as the core of the Peoples Democratic Front and therefore have called for a left confederation, a confederation that shall include all the forces of revolutionary democracy ranging from communists, socialists to various left oriented forces of new social movements. Forces of radical democracy are rising from the gross roots and will be seldom found in the precincts of the parliamentarism. Moreover, all the so-called secular forces are not necessarily democratic too and in many a case they are extreme rightist forces. They are also liable to change colours in favour of communal politics as and when it suits them.

"Collapse of UF and moreover failure to grow and worse still, the erosion of base of CPI and CPIM in some states have raised serious questions within them on tactics towards bourgeois opposition. Again there are strong resentments on joining hands with the Congress. Sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the left ranks as expressed in their party congresses were for the left to unite and act independently. The slogan of left confederation, therefore, reflects the aspirations of the left ranks as well as that of the broad masses of the working people.

"It must be clearly understood that the slogan of left confederation is not just a pious wish to somehow bring all the forces of the left under a common umbrella; on the contrary it is the specific tactical response of revolutionary communists to the 'UF' kind of opportunist tactics. We must therefore persist with this slogan and carry forward this battle between two tactics of the left among broad left ranks and the working people and win them over to the side of revolutionary communism. It goes without saying that this is a long drawn process but this is an inalienable component of our historical struggle against social democracy. This tactics is at the same time the most effective antidote against anarchism because it is precisely the parliamentary cretinism of social democrats embodied in their 'UF' tactics that distracts the revolutionary youth from organised left movement and facilitates their swelling the anarchist ranks.

Organising the rural proletariat in their class organisation and developing their class-consciousness is a major challenge before the party in the agrarian revolution. ...

On the pretext of the crisis of Indian agriculture, owing to the increasing pressures from the WTO regime, social democrats are urging the rural poor to give up their struggles and rally behind the rich farmers. With the similar arguments the anarchists too have floated a common platform with the rich farmer organisations. This is a classic example of two extremes meeting at a common point. Some ex-Marxists, who have deserted the class viewpoint of Marxism, put the task of fighting against caste-discriminations as an end in itself. They therefore talk only in terms of caste categories, become prisoners of BSP kind of politics and virtually surrender the leadership of poor oppressed masses to the privileged stratum of leaders coming from dalit and backward castes who in turn use the people as cannon fodder in extracting their share of the loot within the parliamentary establishment. Such trends, which were quite pronounced in ML circles in Andhra, have resulted in marginalisation of movement and disintegration of some groups. In Tamilnadu too this has created lots of confusion... In Bihar too similar ideas led to groups like MCC and PU becoming pawn in the hands of powerful backward caste groupings and the ruling party.

Castes are undifferentiated classes and therefore fight against all caste discriminations, an inalienable component of democratic movements, facilitates the process of class differentiation in the entire society. As communists our primary concern is to consolidate the proletarian class forces emerging with a distinct identity amidst this great social churning and our party is precisely doing the same. While all those who deserted us under the spell of Mandal wave and in times of crisis of socialism have degenerated into either ideologues or activists of Laloo brigade, we stood our ground, organised our class forces, built up the communist party amidst the fire of mass movements and are gradually making forays in the citadels of so-called social justice forces. We must oppose all liberal ideas in the arena of agrarian struggles and firmly adhere to the party's class line. These struggles are the soul of the party and from here only will emerge the mighty forces of the people, which will change the face of the country.

We should particularly focus on its economic doctrine of wholesale globalisation and that of capitulation to international financial interests. Its gimmick of Swadeshi is thoroughly exposed and it is high time that the left forcefully espouses the cause of a self-reliant economy. December 11 (1998) action of the working class was a highly significant move in this direction. We have to take a much larger initiative among the working class where the ice has started melting and we have started getting a better response. It's an opportune moment to politicise the working class movement and our trade union leaders should go for less paper work and more direct interaction with the workers.

In the absence of firm grasp of Marxist viewpoint many comrades are easily swayed away by all kinds of liberal ideas and in an environment when party is seriously involved in parliamentary practice the party body becomes highly susceptible to such viruses. Party's 6th congress had warned, "Open and mass party, however, in no way means diluting the basic quality of a communist party, weakening its integral character and undermining its centralism and discipline. Hence a consistent struggle against all sorts of liberal ideas that seek to transform the revolutionary communist party into a social-democratic parliamentary outfit is imperative." This warning, to say the least, has only become more relevant now.

A strong communist party firmly upholding the red banner of revolutionary Marxism, a powerful movement of the rural poor and an all round initiative against the designs of the saffron power are the three major challenges before us in this year. Social democrats as well as the anarchists of all hues are facing serious internal disorders due to faulty tactical lines and every advance we make will further destablise them and establish us at the head of the left movement. Such a development is absolutely essential for building a democratic front that is really a people's alternative in contrast to various versions of bourgeois alternatives.

CPI(ML) strongly condemned the attack on Indian Parliament and expressing concern over the grave incident. Party said that whosoever has done it, there seems to be a well-planned script behind it. Coming heavily on the government, Party said, "It is a matter of concern that the BJP has gone to the extent of proposing postponement of scheduled parliamentary process." The Party said that the incident has pointed to serious loopholes and lapses in the security system of the country and demanded that the government should come out before the nation with the whole truth.

The CPI(ML) found it ironical that when the country's high institutions like Parliament remain insecure, people like George, who are neck-deep in scandals such as Tehelka defence deals and Kargil coffin case, are at the helm of security affairs and the Prime Minister is busy defending them. The Party said that the nation's concern is about whether country's defence, security and sovereignty can really be safe in the hands of those involved in such murky deals. The CPI(ML) said, "The country doesn't need any FBI or CIA interference, what it needs is thorough and sincere probe into our security system which includes dubious defence deals as well as security lapses."

The Party said that December 13 incident has provided a beleaguered government the opportunity to distract people's attention from its corruption and criminality. A section of the ruling establishment is bent on invoking jingoistic passion in the country which will further aggravate the situation. The CPI(ML) condemned the RSS and its affiliates for pursuing their sectarian and communal agenda in the wake of the incident.

AISA held a seminar in Patna University on 15 December on "Saffron View of History: A Fascist Onslaught". Main speakers included Com. Ramji Rai, editor Samkalin Lokyudh, Prof Bharati S Kumar, Prof Santosh Kumar and journalist Ali Anwar. Com. Ramji Rai said that history is not merely a recollection of the things of past, it is a continuum. But for our saffron rulers history is about eternal things, where nothing dies out. For them, history is mythology, where no change can take place. You are to decide between knowledge and blindness. This is a war of two world outlooks. The seminar was conducted by Abhyuday, AISA leader. Hirawal, a Patna-based cultural team, presented revolutionary songs. A poster exhibition against saffronisation of education was also held at the venue hall.

Anti-capitalist activists drawn from across Europe assembled in Brussels to protest before European Union inter governmental leaders meeting there on Dec.13-15 behind a heavy screen of security to darft a Constitution and common policies on privatisation, unemployment, security.

On Dec.13, 100,000 people organised by the trade unions demonstrated. The biggest contingent was from British public service unions, followed by France, Germany, and Ireland. On the same day, buses in Eastern Flanders and Limburg city went on strike to protest against privatisation. The demonstrators demanded the European Union give labour unions a larger role in shaping social policy and do more to cut unemployment. A day before, 42 environmentalist activists had been arrested. Radical ecological organisations organised an occupation of the CEFIC (European Federation of Chemical Industries) headquarters in Brussels. 22 Dutch activists were sent back to Holland.

On Dec14, again 25,000 activists organised by the NGOs, ATTAC and International Socialist Resistance demonstrated. Despite the cold, there was a very combative mood. Under the banner of "another Europe for another world," activists, including D-14 anti-globalists, demonstrated separately. Another demonstration by 8,000 took place in front of the venue, turned into violent confrontation. Belgian police used water cannon to disperse anti-globalization demonstration.

Third March on Dec. 15, some 1,200 people took part in a separate "March for Peace" through Brussels on Saturday, condemning any European military involvement in Afghanistan. Anti-capitalist marchers hurled Molotov cocktails at police and damaged the buildings. Police damaged a bank and broke windows of various buildings and cars to blame the protesters. 40 people were arrested. Another 60 German protesters were taken from a Cologne-to-Brussels high-speed train. Police used four water cannons and fired tear-gas to disperse several hundreds .The riots erupted after 12,000 demonstrators had marched demanding for an end to war and economic inequalities. At point along the route, The two separate marches turned into a standoff between marchers and police. Scores of police backed by two water cannon trucks attacked the marches. But Brussels demonstration clearly shows the forward movement against globalisation inspite of imperialist War phobia.