The Classes of India and Their Political Roles: A Thesis of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India

From the Fourth International, Vol3, No.3, March 1942

Editorial Note from the editors of Fourth International: At this moment when India takes a central place in the International arena, there opportunely arrives from our Indian comrades a series of documents and the most encouraging news.

The following document is a section of a thesis adopted in the latter part of last year by the Formation Committee of the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India as the program on which all Marxist revolutionists could form a single revolutionary party. Together with certain other groups, the original committee has now constituted the Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India as an adherent of the Fourth International. The party is now centering its agitation on the central slogan of the Constituent Assembly (see the Editorial Comment in this issue).

Together with the Ceylon Socialist Party (the Lanka Sama Samaja Party) and a recently-formed organization in Burma, our Indian comrades have established the Federation of Bolshevik-Leninist Parties of Burma, Ceylon and India, for the revolutionary destiny of these three peoples is closely linked together.

All three parties stand firmly on the program of the Fourth International. On the decisive question of defense of the Soviet Union and the character of the USSR as a workers’ state, they stand with Trotsky and the Socialist Workers Party against the petty-bourgeois opposition of Burnham and Shachtman who abandoned Trotskyism.

In documents which we have received, the parties of the Federation make unambiguously clear their agreement on the Russian and all other questions with the Fourth International against the petty-bourgeois opposition, which has been spreading false stories about the position of the Indian and Ceylonese comrades.

Readers of our magazine have been previously informed of the successes of the Ceylon Socialist Party (see particularly our September, 1989 issue), the leading proletarian organization in this important colony of six millions bordering India. For some years it functioned as an unaffiliated organization. In 1941 it adopted a new program and declared for affiliation to the Fourth International. This document we shall publish next month. Although a number of its leaders have been imprisoned since the beginning of the war and the party itself is illegal, it has nevertheless managed to continue publishing its three newpapers – a Sinhalese organ for Ceylonese workers and peasants, an English one for students and certain other purposes, and one in Tamil, the language of the Hindu immigrant laborers from India who form a tenth or more of Ceylon’s population.

The rich experience of our Ceylonese comrades In organizing trade unions and peasant organizations in Ceylon, where they have played the leading role in a surging mass movement, will undoubtedly be invaluable to the new party in India during the coming great days. They have already contributed greatly to the theoretical foundations of the new party.

The document which we print below demonstrates by irrefutable facts that to the great masses of India the question of independence is inextricably connected with the agrarian revolution. Of no avail will be the deals in Washington and London with the Indian bourgeoisie whom Nehru and Gandhi represent. The laws of the permanent revolution will sweep those agreements into the discard.

Every advanced worker should carefully study this document. Though written nearly a year ago, it will tell him far more about what is going on in India than the abundantly publicised reports of the negotiations between Cripps and Churchill, Nehru and Gandhi, Roosevelt and Chiang Kai-shek. With the collapse of British armed power in the Far East, the revolution has begun in India!

Trotsky on India

The Revolution in India: Its Tasks and Dangers

-Leon Trotsky

India is the classic colonial country as Britain is the classic metropolis. All the viciousness of the ruling classes, every form of oppression that capitalism has applied against the backward peoples of the East is most completely and frightfully summed up in the history of the gigantic colony on which the British imperialists have settled themselves like leeches to drink its blood for the past century and a half. The British bourgeoisie has diligently fostered every remnant of barbarism, every institution of the Middle Ages which could be of service in the oppression of man by man.

It forced its feudal agents to adapt themselves to colonial capitalist exploitation, to become its links, its organs, its convoys to the masses. The British imperialists boast of their railroads, their canals and industrial enterprises in India in which they have invested close to four billion gold dollars. Apologists for imperialism triumphantly compare present day India with what it was prior to colonial occupation. But who can doubt for a moment that a gifted nation of 320,000,000 people would develop immeasurably quicker and more successfully were it freed from the burden of systematic and organized plunder? It is enough to recall the four billion gold dollars which represent the British investment in India to imagine what Britain extracts from India in the course of only some five or six years.

Allowing India carefully weighed doses of technique and culture, exactly enough to facilitate the exploitation of the riches of the country, the Shylock of the Thames could not however prevent the ideas of economic and national independence and freedom from penetrating more and more widely into the masses.

Perspectives of Indian Economy

 BY Youvraj B

Certain policy decisions transcend their visible peripheries and acquire more of strategic significance especially so when they read out political statement of the regime in response to changed socio-economic circumstances. Decision to de-regulate petroleum prices taken last year (in July 2010) is one of such. After creating rumble last year the issue is back on agenda after on 15^th May OME (Oil Marketing Enterprises) declared price hikes in petrol by Rs. 5 and again on 24^th June in diesel and LPG. Considering the onslaught of globalization over past 2 decades and commitment of UPA government under leadership (?) of Manmohan Singh to neo-liberalism, this should have been merely a step further in that direction. However significance of petroleum prices on socio-economics of the country and a peculiar backdrop of global crisis of capitalism highlights its strategic prominence. Country largely depends on import (around 85%) for crude oil and later profoundly influences union budget and overall economic scenario. Any upward surge in prices only fuels inflation higher. Considering this dependence on import and its knock on effect on inflation the petroleum prices were kept under regulation since 1973. Though Indian economy was ‘opened up’ in 1991 subsequent governments of both Congress and BJP repeatedly dodged the decision of deregulating these products for last 2 decades and maintained status quo. On this backdrop the decision taken by UPA government on this reflects major shift in policy & attitude in dealing with politically and socially sensitive issues that have bearing on economic growth of the country. With the view of analyzing changed circumstances that led to such shift in policy the article reviews the post-recession economy and draws out perspectives for the coming period.

Global Recession and Indian Economy –

Let us first consider the peculiar backdrop of global and Indian economy in 2010 when the decision to deregulate petroleum products was announced. The collapse of Lehman Brothers wrecked havoc in 2008 and Indian economy like other major economies went deep into coma. Though things improved marginally over next 2 years many of the economies were still in ICU. But not so for Indian economy. By 2010 it was well recovered. Share market index graphically illustrates this. On 15^th Sept BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) was at 14402. Following collapse of Lehman Brothers share markets all over the world raced to bottom and BSE too reached its lowest in next few weeks. After lingering at bottom for next 6 months the index turned northwards from March 2009 and on 25^th May 2009 i.e. in merely 8 months it reached 14625, pre-crisis levels.

BSE

(http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=^BSESN#chart3:symbol=^bsesn;range=20071001,20110527;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off)

On the contrary Dow Jones (American Stock Exchange) took 20 months to regain its pre-crisis level.

Though complete meltdown of global economic system was somehow avoided, leading economies were still grappling hard in 2009 and 2010. On the contrary Indian economy showed the signs of relatively stronger recovery from mid-2009. Obviously it boosted the morale of Indian bourgeoisie and its rulers. The decision to deregulate petroleum prices well reflects the elated sprit and hence audacity of this class.

Analyzing the recovery –

Here we must analyze the recovery of Indian economy deliberating over its reasons and more importantly its character. The key role in this recovery was played by huge surge of liquidity in the market with carry trade in US dollars. In response to credit crunch Federal Reserve and ECB (European Central Bank) drastically reduced their interest rates as shown below.

Fed interest rate that was above 5% in 2007 was brought down to 2% through 2008 and has been maintained at lowest level of 0.25% from Jan 2009 till date. (Bank of England has maintained it at 0.5 %). Accounting into inflation, the funds were made available at practically negative interest rates. This was done to encourage capitalists to borrow money for investment that could generate employment, demand and get the jammed wheels of economy moving.

http://www.gecodia.com/India-Repo-Rate--Reserve-Bank-of-India-Repo-Rate_a1256.html

Interest rate in India too came down from 9% to 4.5% in 2009. Still that was significantly higher than that of advanced countries. Over next few months international speculators flooded Indian and other emerging markets with huge inflow of borrowed funds. In 2009 FIIs invested $ 17.23 bn in Indian market through this route flushing it with liquidity and share market index soared up.

Another factor was stimulus package declared by the government. In particular implementation of Sixth Pay Commission recommendations made additional funds available to public sector workers while huge tax sops were declared to corporate sector. This along with boosted liquidity and availability of cheaper credit boosted demand for industrial goods to some extent. Also giant stimulus package of $ 585 bn and investments in infrastructure by China benefited exports further boosting industrial production in second half of 2009. Subsequently IIP (Index of Industrial Production) reached 16.7 in Q1 of 2010.

The specific stage of liberalization of financial institutes in the country too played a significant role. Though liberalization was carried out in banking and insurance sector, nationalized banks and institutes still dominate the finance sector. Few like ICICI and HDFC banks with larger proportion of foreign capital holding do not reflect the general state of Indian finance institutes. The functioning of nationalized banks was re-oriented towards market in this period. Instead of financing priority sectors like agriculture, small scale industries these banks financed real estate, private automobiles and other commodities thus stroking and sustaining ‘debt driven consumption’ and in turn ‘consumption led growth’. However their sphere of functioning has been mainly domestic market. Consequently their exposure to US Sub-prime market was only negligible. C.V. Kamath, then President of CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) remarked that this exposure amounting to $ 450 mn could be less than 0.5% of banks’ balance sheet. (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Citi-UBS-like-subprime-debacle-not-to-repeat-in-India-Kamath/articleshow/3001816.cms) Of this $450 mn the share of nationalized banks was merely $90 mn highlighting their role in limiting the scale of exposure to the crisis. Of course the bourgeoisie and its executives in the parliament do not deserve any credit for this. Instead it was trade unions, left organizations and to some extent left parties that staunchly opposed wholesale privatization of public sectors banks. Was it not for this, the Indian economy too would have gone burst. What happened to Iceland speaks for itself. In 2007 the country with highest per capita income was declared ‘happiest nation’ on the earth. In the boom period 3 banks of the country invested feverishly in sub-prime market earning huge profits (and as usual IMF and other institutes applauded them for this). With onset of sub-prime crisis these banks literally went bust. Now the country with $ 14 bn GNP is weighed down under public debt of $ 100 bn.

During this period Indian capitalists resorted to indiscriminate job cuts to sustain their profit levels. This was true for not only unorganized but for organized sectors as well. Information Technology business depends solely on human labor and hence job cuts is the quickest way to prevent profits from dropping lower. IT companies in India brutally resorted to these tactics leading to large scale job cuts. For IT workforce that enjoyed feverish growth in 2000s the period was literally like reign of terror. An employee could receive a call from HR Dept anytime threatening to resign ‘voluntarily’ or else he or she could be blacklisted with NASSCOM (Software service providers’ association) precluding them from obtaining any other job in future. Thus for the very first time IT workforce experienced what could be termed as ‘dictatorship of bourgeoisie’. A worker of one of the leading IT Company harassed by HR bosses in this way ultimately lodged police complaint against the company. (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-12-03/software-services/28076769_1_wipro-employees-wipro-technologies-wipro-officials). Another worker from the same company committed suicide by jumping off 11^th floor of the office. Given the vast experience of Indian bourgeoisie in dealing with such ‘trivial incidents’ no wonder the cases were suppressed. This however highlights the hideous and ugly face of IT capitalists masquerading as the blue-eyed boys of shining India.

It's the time to party!

By - Abhijit

Everyone, get ready! It's time to party once again. Let us stop bothering about the 2G and Adarsh Scams, let us forget that one more budget has given nothing to people, let us forget that the petrol prices and inflation are now going through the roof, let us also stop bothering about the nuclear catastrophe in Japan and the upcoming one at Jaitapur... because, the great party of all times is coming! Yes, India meets Pakistan in the semi-final of the world cup! That is the one thing we have been waiting for years, that is the magic cure of everything and it is here! Let 's party folks !

We are common people and common people have nothing to bother about the mundane problems like poverty, illiteracy, health and environment... All we need is our daily dose of media extravaganza and hysteria and we'll happily forget everything! See, when the likes of PMs, CMs, Prince Charming, Cricket Minister who also sells onions, and even the heart-throbs of Bollywood are dying for this event, how can we, their loyal followers, be left behind! We were, we are, we'll be there!

Tomorrow we'll religiously watch all the commercials, and forget that in the end, it is the sponsors who win and not India or Pakistan. One a side note, we don't have to forget it, because we never wanted to care for it -- that we the people of India not only SHARE ALL OUR PROBLEMS, BUT SHARE THE CRICKET HYSTERIA TOO with the Pakistanis. Tomorrow, we'll have only one thing to achieve in life -- beat Pakistan in the match. Nothing else, even recovering of all the money of 2G scam from Reliance, Tatas, Birlas, Mittals, will match it!

 

the serpent on the moon

the serpent on the moon

the serpent, with a husky voice

lay upon a stone in the board earth light

start sliding down to interior of a crater

half of the body under extreme hot

and half of it under extreme cold

as he cares both

he is listening to the trembling sound of a collided comet

and whispering to cosmos in anger

in every full circle of moon rotation

he looks straight in to the eyes of few dark suited human

seems unforgiving

he takes out his tongue out

to measure heart pulsation of child

to hear

sweet sound of heart beating 

still there

the serpent keeps data on his skin

and dragging them everywhere on the moon surface

he is swimming in the void between planets and galaxies

the serpent

the serpent land on a colony of worms

their skin glowed in the earth light

the serpent push his fangs in to deeper on their body
a Dracula bite
phosphorus poured out from their body

shiny

the serpent speak to a frog elsewhere in earth

the alienated frog cried

the lonely frog

the lonely and abandoned

the serpent speak to crows elsewhere in earth

they defy curfew

they on the street

they in protest

the dirty serpent crushed a sky bound building

before it touched the moon

the lazy, the romantic serpent

lie on the surface of the moon in silent

standstill

always....since long back...

CWG: Showcase of the Nation’s Progress?

By  Youvraj Bagade

Now it’s almost a month that Commonwealth Games (CWG) 2010 hosted by Delhi concluded (14^th Oct) after 12 days of competition. Games witnessed participation of 6000 athletes from 71 nations competing in 17 sports. Earlier in 2003 Delhi had fought stiff competition from Canada, Ontario, Hamilton to host the event promising higher amount to participating countries along with other free largesse. Indian bourgeoisie was determined to use this as opportunity to showcase country’s development and growth. Looking back it’s clear that CWG truly showcased India’s growth and development but only in a caricatured manner.

Games Ridden with Corruption

Mega projects like hosting CWG games offers a huge opportunity to make big bucks and corrupt ruling classes leave no stone unturned to make max out of it.

Financial regularities were widely observed across all projects executed under CWG umbrella and issuing of tenders was equally dubious. In one such project work was actually allotted to a bidder quoting highest price jumping off all procedural norms while in another instance contractor that won the bid after quoting lower price was allowed to change the figures later. Sleaze and perfidy of politicians could not take more vulgar form as deals on overlays.  Even the most expensive treadmill would cost 10,000 GBP at the most expensive malls in London but that didn’t deter Organizing Committee to pay Rs. 975,000 (around 14,000 GBP) for the machine. And if you are not shocked enough, then this is the amount not to buy the treadmill but only to hire it and that too just for 45 days. Similarly murky were dealings of chair, refrigerator and so on. Often such dealings ‘transcend’ political and even national boundaries. One of the firms that supplied overlays was owned by nephew of a BJP (opposition party) leader and another supplier Nussli is a Switzerland based firm. In another such transaction huge amount of funds totalling around 450,000 GBP were transferred to an obscure event management firm in UK.

Obviously issue of corruption acquired centre stage, as it often does in run up to the event. Intellectuals and column writers severely criticized politicians and bureaucrats involved. However often their analysis indicts them as immoral and fallen individuals bringing disgrace to the country. Not mentioned is how corruption is product of underlying social and economic structure of the society. In fact widespread corruption is prevalent not just in India but a common phenomenon characterizing colonial countries. Absence of bourgeois revolution implies corruption has not acquired pure ‘corporate’ form as in advanced countries. Instead co-existence of bourgeois, petty bourgeois and feudal interests found its expression in rampant corrupt practices followed at every step of life.

Be it contractor treacherously changing prices after allotment of work in CWG or a senior bureaucrat being gifted a luxurious flat for ‘facilitating’ a land deal in Mumbai or a minister openly taking bribe for clearing a file, if one looks at them closely these are absolutely ‘crude and rustic’ forms of corruption when compared with ‘sophisticated and legitimized’ forms in advanced countries. However later form of corruption is no more monopoly of imperialist nations alone. In India too there is large scale legitimization of corrupt practices to quench profit thirst of the economic interests. Deregulation of petroleum prices that directly results in windfall profits to private petroleum companies like Reliance, Essar is its recent example. While big industrial houses effectively use Parliament, Union Government and even judiciary to skew policies in their favor weaker sections of bourgeoisie along with petty bourgeois and feudal elements often have to rely more on lame malpractices linked to crony capitalism and nepotism.

It might be apt here to mention that involvement of international businesses in corruption in neo-colonial countries is not new though in their home countries they speak high of corporate morals. Be it mining deals in Africa or Oil exploration rights in South America international businesses have often resorted to corruption (in addition to other instruments of imperialism like military might) to push forward their commercial interests.