Statement of Communist Ghadar Party of India, September 1984
A grave situation confronts the workers, peasants and other toiling people of India.
Statement of Communist Ghadar Party of India, September 1984
A grave situation confronts the workers, peasants and other toiling people of India. Through fire and sword, though repression and terror, the fascist Indira Gandhi regime of big capitalists and big landlords is trying to drown in blood the just struggles of the workers, peasants, the people of the oppressed nations and nationalities, women, youth and all sections of the toiling and oppressed people of India. Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and the entire North East are now under the jackboots of the murderous Indian Army of the big capitalists and big landlords. The brutal massacres carried out by the Indira Gandhi regime and her Army in Assam, Punjab, The North East, etc, the development of events in Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, etc have brought out extremely clearly the utterly fascist criminal character of the government of the big capitalists and big landlords.
Three months have passed since Indira Gandhi marched her army into Punjab. These three months have seen unparalleled crimes committed against the toiling masses, the enormous escalation of the fascist terror against the Punjabi people. A ferocious reign of terror has been unleashed by the butcher Indira Gandhi in Punjab. The imposition of direct army rule, the stationing of over 100,000 troops all over that province, the storming of the Golden Temple with tanks, helicopters and chemical weapons, and the unprecedented massacre of over 2,000 people by the armed forces of the fascist state, the continuing wanton indiscriminate killings of hundreds of people by the fascist army, the arrest and torture of thousands upon thousands of people in the Hitlerite detention camps, the kangaroo trials being conducted by the army, the indefinite extension of army rule and the declaration of Punjab as a "terrorist-infested area", etc, amount to nothing less than a declaration of war by the reactionary Indian state against the toiling masses. The Communist Ghadar Party of India condemns with deepest anger, this savage, brutal army terror unleashed by Indira Gandhi against the Punjabi people. The CGPI calls upon the people to escalate their struggle to protect their lives and liberties, the rights of the people, and fight resolutely and uncompromisingly the fascist terror of the Indian state, for the smashing up of the army rule.
The army action, the wholesale massacre of the people, is an act of outright fascism. No excuse, no justification can ever justify this monstrous crime, in which thousands of our own countrymen have been slaughtered by tanks and artillery, and millions of people held as virtual prisoners in their own land, under threats from bayonets and rifles. No just or democratic government, no government that represents the true interests of the people, can ever even contemplate such a fascist act, let alone perpetrate it. But Indira Gandhi's government is not a just or democratic government; it is a fascist regime of big capitalists and big landlords, which bases its rule on the use of unrestricted violence and terror against the people. Indira Gandhi and Zail Singh declare that the army terror was unleashed as a "last resort" with a "heavy heart" that they had "no choice". But fascist terror against the people can never be a "choice" for any government that claims to represent the people's interest. Indira Gandhi and Zail Singh claim that their position are just, and that at the same time they "had to" resort to fascist terror. But this can never be .If their positions were just, why then did they not convince the people of the justness of their positions? It is precisely because their positions were unjust, because they do not represent at all the interest of the people, that the fascist Indira Gandhi regime unleashed brutal army terror against the people. Only Hitlerite fascists could meticulously prepare conditions of violence and terror, and insecurity by unleashing communal terror, plan for the escalation of this terror through savage army terror, use Hitlerite terms like "operation purification" for the massacre of the people and then declare they have a "heavy heart" and "no choice". The fascist violence against the Punjabi people is further evidence of the thoroughly criminal barbaric nature of the regime of the big capitalists and big landlords.
In the so-called "White Paper" on Punjab", they have listed various murders, dacoities, shootouts, etc. But they have absolutely no evidence to show that it is the people who were responsible for these acts. Instead, in typical Hitlerite fashion, they repeat various pet phrases — "extremists", "terrorists", "danger to national unity", "criminals", "anti-socials", "naxalites" etc –to damn the people, and now through the kangaroo trials conducted by the fascist army, they are going to 'uncover' proof for all this .It is clear that the fascist Indira Gandhi was not and is not interested in serious solution to the serious problem in Punjab. The pet phrases Indira Gandhi employs can be used against anybody to justify the most monstrous crimes. They have done this in Punjab, and they have done this in the past, to justify the brutal repression of the various just struggles of the workers, peasants and other toilers.
The fascist terror in Punjab is directed against the workers, peasants and broad masses of toiling people. It is aimed at crushing the just struggles against exploitation and oppression. All over India, the reactionary Indian state has always used violence and terror to attack and suppress the struggles of the people for their rights, whether workers or peasants, women or youth, the people of different nationalities and regions, or any section of the toiling and oppressed people which fights for its interests, for the interests of the toilers. Just recently in Orissa, the same fascist government carried out the massacre of hundreds of workers and their families for simply participating in the port and dockworkers strike. Thousands have been killed in army violence and communal terror unleashed by the government in Assam. Not a day passes without report of the killing of the ordinary people by the police and army of the reactionary state, and many times more people by have been killed by the Indian army and Indian police in thirty-seven years rule of the big capitalist and big landlords than in all the years of British colonial rule. In recent years, workers, peasants, youth, students etc. of Punjab have been waging determined struggle for their right. In particular, the struggle of the peasantry against their brutal exploitation, for remunerative prices for their produce, and against the raising of water and electricity rates, have posed serious problems for the ruling classes. Through the communal and fascist terror they have unleashed, the reactionary ruling classes are striving to crush these entirely just struggle. The events of Punjab cannot be viewed in isolation. The massacre of people in Assam, the North east, Jammu and Kashmir, Maharashtra, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh etc. point to the escalating use of fascist repression and terror against the fighting people. Today, ten provinces of India are under the virtual control of the army, and events in Bombay and Hyderabad show that army is being increasingly used to crush the struggle of the people. At the same times the ruling classes deploy the barbaric weapon of communalism, unleashing communal terror to terrorize the toiling people, set them at each other's throats and divide the fighting people, and as a pretext for unleashing of army terror against the people .The recent events in Assam, Punjab, Bombay, Hyderabad, etc, clearly show this.
Indira Gandhi makes out that the army action was meant to deal with communal terror. But the events in Punjab show the exact opposite. They show that communal terror has intensified, first with the introduction of army rule. Despite three years of continuous hate propaganda, despite the killings, bombing, etc., the ruling classes could not organize large-scale communal violence between Hindus and Sikhs. Now Indira Gandhi hopes to achieve, it through the army. The army attack on the Golden Temple was the biggest communal act itself. The wholesale massacres of Sikhs by Indira Gandhi and her army, the special targeting of the Sikhs in the savage repression campaign, are precise communal acts to terrorise the people and incite communal hatred and violence. Indira Gandhi's fascist logic is that the attack on Sikhs and the massacre in the golden temple is not communal but the just anger and resentment of the masses and their resistance to the fascist violence is communal. The reactionary ruling classes want a communal blood bath in Punjab to drown the just struggles of the Punjabi people in blood. That is why our Party says that whosoever says that the attack on the Golden Temple means that the people must became communalist is playing into the hands of Indira Gandhi, just as those who justify the fascist terror because allegedly some communalists spewed their hate propaganda are nothing but the agents of darkest reactions. The communal and fascist terror of Indira Gandhi must be fought, but it cannot be fought by the people becoming communal; it has to be smashed by the united struggle of the toiling people and the criminals must be made to pay for their monstrous crimes.
The Indira Gandhi government, the Indian ruling classes, are behind the communal and fascist terror in Punjab. The British imperialists utilized the hated weapon of communalism to set the Indian people at each other's throats on the basis of religion, language, region, etc. and to destroy the unity of the people in struggle to overthrow the hated colonial rule. The British groomed the Indian big capitalists and big landlords and their political parties, who were the beneficiaries of the communal policy on a communal basis. The present Indian ruling classes are the inheritors of the communal policy of the British imperialists, they have used it time and again to destroy the struggles of the toiling people, smash the unity of the fighting people, keep the people bound hand and foot to the reactionary system of exploitation and oppression, and at the same time, to sort out their own internal contradictions. Communalism is the preferred policy of the Indian ruling classes. All sections of the Indian ruling classes, all the exploiters and oppressors of the people, have always benefitted from communalism, all of them utlise it against the interests of the toilers. All the parties of the ruling classes, whether Congress or Janata, BJP or Lok Dal, Akalia etc, as well as "C"PI and "C"P"M", are ardent defenders of communalism and promoters of communalism. The reactionary ruling classes only recognises communalism, they systematically divide the people on a communal basis. The reactionary ruling classes recognize neither the interest of the workers and peasants, which they brutally trample underfoot, or the interests of the various nations and nationalities inhabiting India. On the contrary, they strive their utmost to set peoples of various nations and nationalities against each other and against the struggles of the workers and peasants, in order to better exploit the workers and peasants and all the people of India and safeguard their fascist rule.
In India, there are various fully developed nations and nationalities, as well as the tribal people, etc. All the nations and nationalities and the people of the different regions of our vast country are savagely exploited and oppressed by the reactionary state, just as the workers and peasants are savagely exploited. The reactionary Indian union was formed on the basis of the forcible subjugation of the different nations and nationalities inhabiting India and the violation of the right and interests of all the peoples. None of the states have been formed on the basis of the historic development of the different nations; their borders are not on the basis of the common historical ties of the people. As a result, innumerable border disputes are existing which serve the reactionary ruling classes in diverting the struggles of the people for their national rights into internecine fights between the different peoples of India.
The fascist Indira Gandhi government declares in the "White Paper" that India is not a multi-national state; it openly denies the existence of different nations and nationalities in India. This is true of the ruling classes as a whole, including the "C"PI and "C"P"M" revisionists, who are deadly opposed to the just struggles of the different nations and nationalities and the tribal people, and label them as "foreign-inspired", "separatist", " chauvinist", etc, in order to discredit these struggles and crush them. But it is not up to Indira Gandhis and Zail Singhs and the Jyoti Basus and Rajeswara Raos, etc to decide whether their rights are legitimate or not. History, the struggles of the people against the reactionary state of the big capitalists and big landlord shows this, and the victory of the People's Democratic Revolution, the establishment of Peoples’ Democratic India will lead to the restoration of the rights of the different nations and nationalities inhabiting India, the different peoples of India, just as it will lead to the ending of the exploitation of the workers and peasants.
The reactionary ruling classes have organized the states on their own arbitrary basis, dividing them on the basis of religion, language etc, in complete violation of the rights of nations. Thus, Punjab was first divided it on the basis of religion, then again on the basis of language, and now they are trying to divide on the basis of religion once again. Bengal was divided on the basis of religion. The ruling classes have divided the nations not just on the basis of religion or language. Thus Kashmir has been divided by India and Pakistan, violating the rights of the Kashmiri people.
The reactionary ruling classes of big capitalist and big landlords do not regard the wealth and natural resources as the property of the people. Whether it is the rich mineral resources of the East or the foodgrains of Punjab of the oil and timber of Assam, etc, the ruling classes arrogate to themselves the unrestricted right to loot and plunder the people and fatten themselves at the expense of the people. But when the people of different nations and nationalities, the tribal people, etc, fight for the control of their own natural resources, fight that these should be harnessed for the benefit of the people, the fascist Indira Gandhi and the Government, the reactionary ruling classes of big capitalists and big landlords, the political parties of the ruling classes, come out with their pet phrases of "national unity endangered", "foreign – inspired movements", "separatist movement", "anti-national", "extremist" and "terrorist" etc, to discredit and isolate the fighting people, justify the fascist repression of the toiling people, and safeguard their loot and plunder and exploitation and oppression of the people. Thus among other things, the fascist Indira Gandhi has declared the problem in Punjab to be a "problem of plenty" and not a "problem of poverty". This is another fascist attempt to confuse the issues, to play on the regional differences, which are the product of history, to set the rest of the toiling people against the Punjabi people by making out the Punjabi people as "selfish". This is how the reactionary Indira Gandhi is dealing with the question of the river waters too. But it is very convenient that the ruling classes themselves, who have fattened themselves over and over with the blood and sweat of the toiling people and by looting the rich natural resources of our people, do not accuse themselves of having a "problem of plenty", but only the workers and peasants, who with their sweat and toil create the wealth of the nation, are accused of having a "problem of plenty" for simply fighting for their rights, The fact is that the ruling classes of big capitalists and big landlords recognize it as their unrestricted right to loot and plunder the wealth of the fatten themselves on this basis, and they consider it their sacred right which they defend with the force of arms.
What the imperialists and reactionaries and revisionists call the "biggest democracy in the world" is nothing other than the brutal, merciless fascist dictatorship of the big capitalists and big landlords, which unleashes repression and terror against every struggle of any section of the people, for their rights, for democracy and social progress. When the bourgeois "opposition" and the "C"PI and "C"P"M" revisionists scream about "democracy endangered", they do not at all mean the escalating attacks on the rights of the people, the savage exploitation of the workers and peasants, the daily mowing down of the people with bullets and lathis. What they do mean is that their own reactionary interests have been threatened. The "struggle for democracy" of these criminals and enemies of the people is nothing other than a dogfight amongst the different sections of the ruling classes for a bigger share from the exploitation of the land and labour of our people. That is why the revisionists and bourgeois "opposition" first screamed that "democracy was endangered" when Rama Rao lost his position and are now screaming about "democracy restored" just because Rama Rao has emerged once again in power. As far as the toiling masses of India are concerned, there is not a shadow of democracy for them in this India of the big capitalists and big landlords. Real democracy for the toiling masses can only be ensured when the state of the big capitalists and big landlords is overthrown and replaced by a state of the toilers, a People's Democratic India, where genuine democracy exists for all the toiling masses.
The proletariat is not disinterested in the question of the rights of nations, in the question of boundaries and waters and other natural resources, of the different nations and nationalities. The borders must be defined taking into consideration history, on the basis of the common historical ties of the people. The different nations and peoples have the right to the natural resources of their land, not the government of big capitalists and big landlords The proletariat fights for the rights of the nations and nationalities and peoples of India as an important component part of the anti-imperialist democratic revolution.
Indira Gandhi has launched a furious propaganda campaign to convince the masses of people of India that her fascist terrorist violence against the people of Punjab was necessary. Among other things, she and her government are raising the issue of Khalistan, they are marking out that the problem in Punjab is the creation of some who support Khalistan. This is an outright diversion, supported by all the parties of the ruling classes in order to divert the attention of the people from the real source of the problem in Punjab, the fascist Indira Gandhi and her government, to cover up the fact that the source of the communal and fascist terror is none other than Indira Gandhi and her government of big capitalists and big landlords. The demand for Khalistan is the outcome of the internal contradictions of the Indian ruling classes. We do not agree with any of the premises of Khalistan, none of the problems of the workers and peasants and the toilers will be sorted out in this way. But the fascist Indira Gandhi, all the criminals, murderers of the Punjabi people, are raising this issue to divert the people from the real criminals, and to prevent a solution to the grave problems facing the people. The issue confronting the people of Punjab is communal and fascist terror of the Indira Gandhi regime.
Indira Gandhi raises the bogey of "foreign hand" in the same way as a diversion. The fact is that both the imperialist super powers have their interest in India and the Indian ruling classes fully collaborate with these two superpowers. Soviet social-Imperialism fully supports the communal fascist terror of Indira Gandhi and the US imperialists are not opposed to it either. Both these imperialist superpowers want communalism and communal division in India, both want the suppression of the aspiration of the workers, peasants and oppressed nationalities and preservation of their rights to loot and plunder the land and labour of India. The issue of "foreign hand" is being raised to divert attention from the hand of Indira Gandhi and to justify war against Pakistan, which the ruling classes are feverishly preparing for, as part of their own expansionist aims.
All the "opposition" parties, including the "C"PI and "C"P"M" revisionists, have fully supported the slaughter of the Punjabi people by Indira Gandhi. They have spouted the same filthy propaganda about "extremists", "terrorists", "foreign hand", "national unity", etc, to justify the crimes of the government. Their stand once again clearly exposes the utterly sham character of the "opposition" of these parties The fact is that they are parties of the ruling classes of big capitalists and big landlords just like the Congress (I), parties of the bitter enemies of the Indian people. Their "opposition" to each other is only over sharing the spoils of the loot and plunder, the exploitation and oppression of the land and labour of our people. On the question of the lives and liberties of the people, the rights of the people, they all stand on the same side, they are all assassins and hangmen of the people. They are united in their hatred for the masses of toiling people, in their determination to crush every struggle of the toiling people through fascist violence and repression.
The "C"PI and "C"P"M" revisionists, these hardened criminals and traitors, have once again shown their consistency and steadfastness and loyalty to the state of big capitalist and big landlords by their vociferous support for the fascist terror unleashed by Indira Gandhi in Punjab. Their defense of the army action is further evidence that in the life and death struggle between the workers, peasants and all the toiling people on the one hand, and the big capitalists and big landlords on the other these enemies of communism, these enemies of the best interests of the workers and other, toiling people, are irrevocably in the camp of the exploiters and oppressors of the people, who will defend with force of arms, the criminal fascist rule of the big capitalists and big landlords. Completely betraying the revolution, the ideals of communism and the aspirations of our people, they fear revolution, the struggles of the people, like plague, because they are an integral part of the state of the big capitalists and bog landlords, and benefit from the exploitation and oppression of the people. The argument they used to justify the terroristic massacre of the people — that the struggle of the people is "communal", "separatist" and "anti-national" and has a "foreign hand" behind it, that it is "terrorist", "extremist", etc, ad nauseum — is no different from the argument of the butcher of the Indian people, Indira Gandhi. In the late sixties and early seventies, when the communist revolutionaries aroused the broad masses of workers and peasants to rise up, arms in hand, to defend their interest and fight for the overthrow of the hated rule of big capitalists and big landlords, the "C"P"M" revisionists in West Bengal took up the dirty task of brutally assassinating the revolutionaries by sending the armed forces of the state against the fighting people. Then too, they raised the same propaganda that the revolutionaries were "foreign inspired", that they were "extremist", "terrorist", "anti-national", etc. Whenever the people of any region, the oppressed nationalities, etc, have risen up in defense of their rights, as in Assam, the North East, etc, these traitors to the people have fought arms in hand side by side with the fascist Indira Gandhi to crush the just struggles of the people, labeling then as "foreign-inspired", "chauvinist", a "danger to national unity", etc. There is not an ounce of communism in them. There is nothing patriotic or progressive, nothing democratic about these hardened criminals and counterrevolutionaries. They are the worst traitors, agents of imperialism and darkest reaction, counter-revolutionaries and fascists who have the deepest hatred for the workers, peasants, the oppressed nationalities and all the toiling people of the India and their struggles. The sinister crimes of these criminals and traitors against the workers and peasants, against the Indian revolution, cannot and must not ever be forgotten. The people must not allow them to sabotage their struggles; they must deal with traitors as with the fascist Indira Gandhi and all other fascist and reactionaries.
Various Maoist groups have also discredited themselves in the development of events in Punjab. All along they have been making out that the problem in Punjab in "Sikh extremism" and some have given the reactionary call to "fight Sikh extremism with arms", in order to cover up the treacherous fascist role of the Indian state. Just as the ruling class parties, they too view the situation in Punjab with the communal outlook and stand on the side of the Indian state in its attack on the people.
The CGPI calls upon the people to unite and fight back Indira Gandhi's terror. Only the people themselves can defeat the dangerous conspiracy being hatched against them by all their enemies — the big capitalist and big landlords and the reactionary state.
Today the issue in Punjab is to build and strengthen the fighting unity of the people against the fascist terror of the Indira Gandhi government, foil the criminal plan of the ruling classes to organize the communal bloodbath in Punjab, and direct the resentment and anger of the broad masses of the people against the reactionary state.
The people can and must take matters into their own hands to defend their lives and liberties, they can and must organize to take action against the army and other criminals and gangsters.
Events in Punjab have once again clearly shown that the Indian army is a fascist army, the Indian police is a fascist police, the defender of the rule of the big capitalists and big landlords and murderers of the Indian people. This army of the exploiters and oppressors must necessarily be smashed and replaced by a people's army, an army which defends the interest of the workers and peasants and other toilers, the people of the different nationalities, and the India of the exploiters must be replaced by a People's Democratic India.
Without putting an end to the fascist army terror, there can be no question of protecting the lives and liberties of the people. The people must themselves organize to see that the state-organised communal gangsters are unable to commit any kind of atrocities against the people, that the criminals are caught and punished, as they deserve. The people must set up their own committees, relying on their own strength and unity, and be determined to fight and prepare to smash the army and parliamentary forces in Punjab. Only this can put an end to the communal and fascist terror unleashed by Indira Gandhi in Punjab against the Punjabi people.
The acute struggle that is raging in India today is a struggle of the workers, peasants the oppresses nationalities, the youth, women and other toiling people for their rights and freedoms against the dark medieval rule of the big capitalists and big landlords and foreign imperialists and social-imperialists. It is a struggle to build a new India, a People's Democratic India where the people will be the master of their own destiny, where there will be no exploitation of the workers and presents, where there will be no oppression of the nationalities, tribal people, etc, where imperialist and social-imperialist domination of our country will be ended once and for all. The people of our country, generations of patriots and martyrs, have fought and sacrificed their lives for this ideal, that India may be genuinely free, independent and democratic. There is only one way to realize these aspirations of our long suffering people, and that is to end the dark rule of the exploiters and foreign imperialists. The state apparatus of oppression must be dismantled, the fascist army and police replaced by a people's army and people's police, and the state power of the toilers set up. Only a People's Democratic India can guarantee the rights and freedom of the people, by ending all exploiters and exploitation once and for all.
The CGPI call upon the working class and people of India, all the oppressed nations and nationalities of India, all patriotic and democratic people to intensify and carry forward their struggle against the ruling classes, fight for the establishment of this new India of our dreams, an India of the workers, peasants and other toilers, where the deepest aspirations of the people for genuine freedom, independence, democracy and social progress will be fulfilled, a People's Democratic India.
BUILD THE UNITY OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST THE FASCIST INDIRA GANDHI!
ARMY AND PARAMILITARY FORCES, GET OUT OF PUNJAB!
UNITE AND FIGHT FOR A PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC INDIA!