India’s common people continue to reel under ever-increasing prices, retrenchment and job loss, hunger and farmers’ suicides. While the whole world holds the United States of America (USA) responsible for the global crisis that has intensified the sufferings of the poor all over the world, Prime Minister (PM) Manmohan Singh, visiting the US recently, took the opportunity to display his loyalty by hailing the strength of the US economy and the dollar. While many US citizens are calling for an end to the US occupation of Afghanistan, our PM shamefully assured his support for the occupation. Soon after, India once again voted against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). By reiterating his commitment for US-sponsored economic and foreign policies, Manmohan Singh has made it clear that the Congress Govt.’s priority is to protect the interests of the US empire, not those of India’s people.
The UPA Government, and state governments of various hues have displayed a consensus in favour of corporate loot of India’s resources and the land of the poor. In Jharkhand recently, we saw how former CM Madhu Koda amassed Rs 4500 crore illegally. The question arises - which mining companies paid him those thousands of crores in commissions; which other politicians got paid by mining companies? But all ruling parties that have shared in the loot want the answer to remain a secret. In Karnataka, however, the secret is out: the mining mafia of Bellary rules its illegal mining empire with the help of the BJP in Karnataka and the Congress in Andhra Pradesh!
The blatant corporate loot of precious resources exposed by the Koda scam, the Bellary episode, evidence of illegal mining in many other states including Chhattisgarh and Orissa, and the tussle between the Ambani brother over gas – all lend urgency to the demand for immediate nationalization of all mineral, oil and gas resources.
A recent report by the UPA Govt’s own Ministry of Rural Development highlights the “Unfinished Task of Land Reforms”, showing that, at last count, 77% of dalits and 90% of adivasis were landless in India. The report comes down strongly against betrayal of land reforms by Governments, violation of land laws and Forest Rights Act to grab tribal land, corporate land grab and misuse of water by SEZs and rampant homelessness in villages and cities alike. The report recommends strict implementation of ceiling laws with lowered land ceiling, redistribution of bhoodan land, tenancy rights to sharecroppers, and guarantee of homestead land for the rural poor and homes for the urban poor. But the UPA Govt. is turning a deaf ear to the report submitted by a Commission appointed by its own Ministry!
Struggles around land, livelihood and food are erupting all over the country. Corruption in NREGA and ration system, cutbacks in BPL coverage, eviction of street vendors, and of the urban poor from slums have all sparked off massive protests. Workers have been on the streets – be it in Coimbatore or Gurgaon – against the rampant violations in labour laws. Struggles against corporate land grab are being waged in the face of severe repression. In Bihar, the Nitish Government’s mask of ‘mahadalit’ empowerment has come apart, and the Government has chosen to be loyal to its primary feudal constituency and betray the recommendations of the Committee on Land Reforms headed by D Bandopadhyaya. With the entire ruling class opposition united against land reform, the CPI(ML) alone is mobilizing the rural poor to demand sharecroppers’ rights and homestead land. In Punjab, a struggle by agricultural labourers to make the Government keep its promise of homestead land for the poor resulted in mass jailing and repression of the rural poor.
At this juncture, it is becoming increasingly clear that the UPA Government’s declaration of ‘war on Maoism’ is a pretext – the real target is people’s movements and the protests of the poor. Any people’s movement that inconveniences the Government is being branded as ‘Maoist’ in order to justify repression of struggles and silencing of dissent. Draconian laws are mushrooming in every state. While military suppression of struggles has long been a grim reality in Kashmir and the North East, now the UPA Government is planning to bring the entire country under the shadow of its war on people – all to “make the country safe” for corporate loot and suppression of democracy – be it in industries or in society at large. Meanwhile, the so-called ‘secular’ Government is allowing those responsible for communal genocide to get away scot-free.
The CPI(ML) was born in 1969 in the crucible of revolutionary struggles where the rural poor sought to shatter the feudal fetters. The assault on democracy that began with brutal repression unleashed against the CPI(ML), very soon engulfed the entire country and ended with the imposition of Emergency. In the 40 years since its birth, the CPI(ML) has unleashed powerful struggles of the oppressed in several parts of the country in the face of fierce feudal violence and state repression.
Today, it is urgent that mass struggles for land, food, livelihood, democracy confront governments and ruling class parties with renewed vigour, defying the attempt to suppress and silence them with state repression. On December 18, 2009, the eleventh anniversary of the demise of former CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Vinod Mishra, the CPI(ML) rededicates itself to fulfil this task with all its might.