Call of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India on May Day 2022
Comrade workers,
Today is May Day, a day of celebration for the workers of all countries. In our country, workers in all regions are participating in militant rallies, meetings, and processions. We are celebrating the victories we have won and discussing the lessons from the setbacks we have suffered.
The Communist Ghadar Party salutes the workers of all countries who are waging a courageous struggle for their rights, against capitalist exploitation, national oppression, racism, fascism and imperialist wars, for the victory of revolution and socialism.
Let us renew our pledge to relentlessly advance the uncompromising struggle in defence of our rights, as workers and as human beings. Let us resolve to fight to create a society free from all forms of exploitation, a society where those who work will enjoy the fruits of their collective labour, and where nobody can amass wealth by exploiting the labour of others.
Over the past year, we have waged powerful and united struggle for our rights. Over 20 crore workers participated in the two day All India General Strike that took place on 28th and 29th of March. Workers of coal mines and steel plants, petroleum refineries, electricity distribution companies, railways and roadways, banking and insurance, defence sector, workers in manufacture and services, teachers, doctors and nurses, agricultural workers, ASHA and anganwadi workers, have waged many courageous battles under difficult conditions.
We workers have actively supported the struggle of the kisans. The Kisan Andolan has supported the charter of demands of the workers’ unions. The unity of workers and peasants has grown stronger.
We are fighting for the repeal of the four labour codes which trample on workers’ rights for the benefit of the capitalist class. We are fighting, for living wages, for an 8-hour working day and for an end to contract labour. We are fighting for social security for all workers.
We are fighting for an immediate halt to the anti-worker, anti social and anti national program of the bourgeoisie of privatisation and liberalization. The bourgeoise has arrogantly declared that it will hand over all public sector enterprises to Indian and foreign capitalist monopolies. Workers of all public sector enterprises – be it banking and insurance, electricity, railways, roadways, coal and steel, petroleum or defence production – have come out on the streets in strength to oppose the sale of these precious assets that belong to society to private monopolies.
Education, health care, housing, electricity, water, sanitation, rail and road transport, banking and insurance are all necessities for a civilised existence. We are fighting for all of these, as a matter of right. We oppose all efforts to turn these and other vital needs of society into arenas for capitalists to profiteer from.
India urgently needs a universal public procurement system for all agricultural produce so that kisans are assured remunerative prices for their produce. India urgently needs a universal public distribution system to ensure adequate supply of all essential goods to all working people at affordable prices. These are necessary conditions to ensure civilized human conditions for all working people of town and countryside. They are longstanding demands of workers and peasants.
It is perfectly possible to fulfil the longstanding demands of the toiling majority. What is blocking it is the greed of monopoly capitalists for maximum profits. The monopoly capitalists want to use every sphere to enrich themselves at the fastest possible pace, by intensifying exploitation of workers and robbery of peasants. The rule of the bourgeoisie has become a block to the progress of society.
The source of all the problems facing our people is the economic system of capitalism and the state which defends the rule of bourgeoisie over workers and peasants. The economy and government policies are oriented to fulfill the insatiable greed of the bourgeoisie. The Indian Republic and all its institutions, including the party in charge of the government and its cabinet as well as the parliamentary opposition, the police and armed forces, the judiciary and news media, are instruments in the hands of the bourgeoisie to exercise its dictatorship over workers and peasants.
The system of multi-party representative democracy ensures that workers and peasants and working people are forever deprived of power. Decision making power is concentrated in the hands of the Cabinet constituted by the party having a majority in parliament. The bourgeoisie decides which of its favourite parties should be given charge of the executive at any particular time. It uses elections to legitimize its rule.
Comrade workers,
Over the past year, we have succeeded in strengthening our unity in the course of fighting for our rights. Workers, irrespective of party and trade union affiliation, are coming together under one common banner of struggle. Workers of all public sector enterprises are coming together to unitedly fight against the privatisation program. Working people are increasingly realizing that “An Attack on one is an Attack on All”.
The bourgeoisie is extremely scared of the growing unity among workers and peasants. It has stepped up its efforts to break our unity. It is deploying diabolical methods to achieve this. State-organised communal violence is being unleashed in many parts of the country, aimed at dividing us on the basis of religion.
The violence unleashed against people in various parts of the country, including Jehangirpuri in North Delhi, have been portrayed as clashes between different religious communities. This is a deliberate distortion of the truth. Armed gangs with official state backing carried out violent attacks on people living in these areas.
People who have lived together in harmony for decades, sharing weal and woe, came out to defend each other.
State terrorism, including state organised communal violence, is the favorite weapon of the ruling class, which it unleashes time and again, to break the united opposition of the workers and kisans to the all-sided attacks on our livelihood and rights.
In Delhi and many places all over the country, the authorities have once again launched a campaign to demolish slums, jhuggi jhopris and other working people’s colonies. Working people who live in such places are accused of being criminals and anti-nationals.
The truth is that these slums and jhuggi jhopris, ensure a steady supply of cheap labour for capitalist factories. These colonies have been in existence for decades. People have voter ID cards, Aadhar cards, electricity connection. The big capitalists are using the state machinery to take over the land on which workers have built their homes, in order to fulfill their rapacious greed for maximum profits. The bourgeoisie and its media are deliberately giving a communal colour to the demolition of people’s homes, so that we workers do not unitedly oppose this attack on our brothers and sisters.
Comrade workers,
The struggle in our country is not between people who practice different religions. The struggle is between the exploiting minority and the exploited majority. It is between the bourgeoisie, headed by the monopoly houses, on one side, and the workers, peasants and other toiling people on the other side.
The bourgeoisie is pursuing a dangerous course against the interests of our country. It is selling the country’s precious assets, and natural resources to Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists. It is strengthening its military strategic relationship with US imperialism, the greatest enemy of humankind and of peace. It keeps inciting enmity amongst our people against the people of neighbouring countries. It wants to divert the workers and peasants of our country from fighting against our real enemy – the Indian ruling class and US imperialism. It wants workers and peasants of our country to fight against the workers and peasants of other countries.
We need to be vigilant about the attempts of the bourgeoisie to divide us and disrupt our struggle. We need to build and further strengthen our fighting unity – the unity of all workers, and the unity of workers and peasants. We need to build ourselves into a political force that is capable of taking charge of the country, dislodging the bourgeoisie and its parties from that position.
We, the workers and peasants, make up the majority in society. We are the producers of India’s wealth. We should become her master. Only then can we reorient the entire economic system to provide prosperity and security for all. Only then will India become a factor for peace in South Asia and the world.
Comrade workers,
132 years ago, on May 1, 1890, workers of all the countries of Europe jointly celebrated May Day through rallies and strikes with the demand for the 8-hour day. They were responding to the call of the Socialist International, founded in 1889. Since then, the May Day movement has spread all over the world. Workers of all countries have been relentlessly fighting for their rights, and for the creation of a world free from capitalist exploitation and oppression, free from imperialist domination and subjugation, and imperialist wars.
Let us step up our united struggle for the rights which belong to all workers without exception, and for the rights of those who till the land and feed the whole society. Let us further strengthen our fighting unity against the exploiters headed by the monopoly houses.
Let us defeat the efforts of the ruling class to divide us. Let us rally all the exploited and oppressed people of our country around the aim of establishing workers’ and peasants’ rule in place of the rule of the bourgeoisie.
Our cause is just. We are fighting for the interests of the overwhelming majority of our people. We will certainly win!
Long live workers’ unity!
Long live worker-peasant unity!
Inquilab Zindabad!
Well said…
“The struggle in our country is not between people who practise different religions. The struggle is between the exploiting minority and the exploited majority. It is between the bourgeoisie, headed by the monopoly houses, on one side, and the workers, peasants and other toiling people on the other side.”