Statement of the Mumbai Regional Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, November 12, 2024
Elections to the 288 seats of the 15th Vidhan Sabha of Maharashtra will be held on 20th November 2024. People of Maharashtra are being asked to choose between the two ‘grand’ alliances – Mahayuti consisting of BJP, and a faction each of Shiv Sena (SS) and of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), on one side and Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) made up of Congress, and the other factions of Shiv Sena and of NCP, on the other side. Their leaders have been busy switching from one party to another or switching from one alliance to another to improve their chances of winning the election. This shows that there is no fundamental difference between these parties.
Coalition governments have run this state for the past three decades. The BJP – Shiv Sena coalition governed between 1995 and 1999 and from 2014 to 2019. The Congress-NCP coalition was in government for 15 years between 1999 and 2014. Immediately after the elections in 2019 we know what happened and to what lengths the fights between the BJP, Congress, Shiv Sena and NCP went, resulting in changes of governments within 24 hours in the first instance, and the rupture of SS as well as NCP. From 2019 to 2024, first MVA and then Mahayuti coalitions were in government.
The life experience of the people of Maharashtra has shown them that whichever alliance comes in power, it is not going to alter the conditions of the workers, peasants and toiling people of the state. Irrespective of which party or alliance has formed the government, over numerous decades we have seen that this state has the maximum number of farmers’ suicides. Education and health budget are grossly inadequate, contractualisation of the work force continues to increase, and youth continue to suffer high and increasing levels of unemployment. Attacks on minorities and women have continued, every government has tried directly and indirectly to promote privatisation of vital sectors like electricity. Fascist laws remain in force. Both the alliances that have formed the government have maintained the use of anti-people, anti-worker central laws like Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and Maharashtra specific laws like Maharashtra Essential Services Maintenance Act (MESMA), Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), etc.
For whom do these parties work?
These parties claim to work for people but they actually work to enrich the biggest capitalists and themselves.
Workers, peasants and other working people have no say in deciding how the country should be run, what should be its policies, laws and the orientation of the economy. The economy is directed towards maximising the profits of the capitalist class.
In Maharashtra, despite severe opposition by the people, projects like SEZs, the Jaitapur Nuclear plant, the Barsu refinery, the Nanar project, the Wadhwan port, Dharavi redevelopment, as well as handing over of forest land to capitalist companies, increasing contractualization and so on are being bulldozed through, for the benefit ofcapitalists.
Who rules our country?
The capitalist class is the real ruler of the country. The political power — the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, the institutions such as the Election Commission — all serve as instruments of rule of the capitalist class over the vast masses of people. Multi-party representative democracy is an instrument of the rule of the capitalist class over the working class and people.
The capitalist class is constituted of persons who own the means of social production as their private property and live entirely off the labour of others. Members of this class earn their income from the capital they own, in the form of profit, interest or rent. They include owners of industries, mines and service providing companies, wholesale traders, money lenders, land and building owners and capitalist farmers. They are several tens of lakhs in number. Along with their family members, they make up less than one percent of the total population.
Even within the capitalist class, it is the wealthiest who dominate. There are about 150 big corporate families, some of whom are among the richest in the world. Their wealth is more than the GDP of several countries.
These big capitalists have a monopolistic grip on almost everything in the country – like food, diesel, petrol and kerosene, valuable minerals, electronic equipment, other appliances, clothes, shoes, transport, health, retail and other services. They are also making concerted efforts to promote corporate farming and want a control over the agricultural trade, both wholesale and retail.
When prices of all these essentials rise, these monopolists earn super profits at the cost of the public at large. They earn maximum profits by way of privatisation of public sector enterprises and services, by increasing working hours of workers, by worsening their working conditions and so on.
The capitalist class nurtures and funds various political parties to market and implement its agenda. At a given point of time the party considered most capable of implementing the capitalists’ agenda while claiming that it is for the benefit of people so as to fool them, is heavily funded and promoted through the media.
The parties that form governments after winning a majority of seats in elections are nothing other than managers for capitalists. Once a given party gets so discredited that it falls in the eyes of the people, there is another party also of the same class, which is promoted and funded to take its place in the next round of elections.
That is why we see one party that has vociferously opposed the government when it was occupying the opposition benches; suddenly make a U-turn when it is a part of the government. This happens both in the Centre and in the states. Since these parties are of the same class, they are fundamentally no different from one another. That is why politicians of one party so readily jump into another of the capitalist class, or why two members of the same family coexist as members of different parties.
It is the capitalist class which is setting the program and agenda for society. That is why parties in government change but the agenda and polices do not. That is why repeated rounds of elections have not made any difference to the condition of workers, peasants and other toilers.
The current electoral process
It is no longer hidden that Indian elections are among the most expensive in the world. These big parties who win the elections do not have any legitimate way of earning the thousands of crores that they spend. Leaders of course earn in hundreds of crores when in government. However, the election funds come mainly from big corporate houses. Electoral bonds are merely the tip of the iceberg. There are a variety of ways in which money is given. There are also indirect means through which some parties are promoted – by making available private jets and other equipment, infrastructure and other essentials for campaigns as also promotion through the media – TV, print, electronic, social media, etc. The media is also in the control of the big corporates.
Candidates representing the workers and peasants have very little chance of winning elections in this system. Parties of the capitalist class dominate the electoral process. The government that is formed is only accountable to the capitalist class, headed by the monopolies.
How does the capitalist class rule?
The existing political system and electoral process serve to maintain the rule of the exploiting minority. The exploiters and oppressors of the people use elections to legitimize their rule and to settle contradictions among themselves. They use elections to deepen divisions amongst us, and to stop us from fighting for our rights and common interests.
The ruling class has mastered and further developed what the handful of British did to rule over and loot our country for so many centuries. They have continued to implement and have even further developed the infamous strategy of “Divide and Rule”. The parties of the ruling class try to divide the working class and other toilers on the basis of everything under the sun – religion, caste, region, language, union or party affiliation, and so on. Systematic attempts are made through the media to convince the people to look for enemies within the toiling classes so that they do not target the ruling class.
The state apparatus was developed by the British to maintain their rule – the police and armed forces, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, the legislative bodies and other state institutions served them against the people. This state apparatus was inherited by the new rulers of India in 1947and they further perfected it. Today it serves the capitalist class to maintain its exploitative rule.
Pathetic state of people in Maharashtra
The result of the rule of the capitalist class through its chosen parties is that in the richest state of India, Maharashtra, with the largest number of billionaires, the condition of crores of people is pathetic!
- Lack of jobs and tens of lakhs of jobs lost in large as well as small and medium scale industries during demonetisation, GST and Covid lockdown.
- Anti-worker laws being pushed. Contractualization is being promoted in place of permanent jobs.
- Farmers in deep distress due to unremunerative prices for farm produce and rising cost of inputs; the largest number of farmer suicides and malnutrition deaths.
- Capitalist agriculture, driven solely by profit, is destroying natural sources of water. Sugar cane farming has been promoted in drought prone areas of the state.
- Investments in essential public services like education, health care, sanitation, public transport, the building of roads, etc. have been slashed. All these public services are being neglected and going from bad to worse. The public distribution system has been systematically wrecked by successive governments. Around 37% of posts in public health are vacant. Only 4.2% of the state budget is spent on health, making Maharashtra second from bottom among all Indian states.
- Thousands of posts in government aided schools and colleges are lying vacant while teachers are being forced to work on contract and even clock hour basis. Thousands of schools across the state have been closed over last two decades, depriving youth from rural and Adivasi areas of education.
- Privatisation is being promoted in all the above essential public services. Every arena where the big capitalists see possibilities of reaping maximum profits is being opened up, and incentives are offered to lure private investors.
- Massive land grab of both urban and rural land is being carried out by the state and handed over to capitalists, in the name of “cluster development”, for bullet train, etc.
- Unbridled loot of the state treasury has led to ever-increasing burden of public debt on the heads of the toiling masses. The state is one of the most indebted states of the country with a debt of Rs.7.85 lakh crore.
- Attacks on minorities continue. Sexual harassment of women is rampant. So is caste-based discrimination and oppression.
- Whether in the rural areas or in the urban, measures are being taken to further enrich the big monopoly capitalists in agriculture, industry, construction, trade and services at the cost of workers, farmers, other self-employed persons and small businesses.
People effectively have no power in this system!
Every time elections are announced people are told that exercising your voting right is your prime duty and that you must choose good candidates as your representative. The truth is that once the right to vote is exercised, people become powerless. The elected candidate is not accountable to people but to its party high command, which in turn is accountable to the capitalist ruling class.
The Legislative Assembly, like the parliament, is just a talk shop and debating forum.Nothing of value is discussed there. It is merely an arena for different matches like shouting, insult trading, kushti (wrestling), mike and shoes throwing, drama, marathon walk (outs). When in opposition, party opposes the government but implements the same when back in power. The actual decisions are already taken beforehand, and the members of the ruling party have no option but to rubberstamp what their leader puts forth. Power is concentrated in the hands of a handful of ministers (not even the entire cabinet) and this coterie is controlled by the biggest capitalist corporations!
The drama in legislative bodies serves the ruling capitalist class to divert the attention of the working class and toiling majority of people from their own agenda to advance the struggle against exploitation and oppression. The working class and its parties and unions must be vigilant and not fall into the trap being set by the bourgeoisie through the high drama in Parliament or state assemblies. The conflict between the two alliances is nothing but a dogfight within the bourgeoisie. The working class does not gain from taking sides in this dogfight.
What do we need to do?
There is wide dissatisfaction amongst the toiling and oppressed majority of people with their powerless condition in this system which reduces them to vote banks. For the working class and broad masses of people to end their powerless condition and become the decision makers, it is necessary to establish a new system and process of democracy based on the principle of vesting sovereignty in the people. Communist Ghadar Party of India has been consistently agitating for immediate political reforms in this direction, and developing this platform in close collaboration with all other progressive forces.
The right to elect and be elected must be guaranteed to every voter. The right to select candidates must be taken out of the hands of political parties and vested in the hands of the electorate. An elected Constituency Committee must be established in each constituency, mandated with powers to enable the people to exercise their political rights, including their right to select candidates before any election is held. No private interest, including political parties, must be allowed to spend on the election campaign of any candidate. The state must fund the electoral process, giving all the selected candidates equal opportunity to present their views before the electorate.
Once people cast their votes, they must not hand over all powers to those who get elected. People must retain the right to initiate legislation, to approve major public decisions through referendums, and the right to recall at any time the one they elected. The executive, the council of ministers, must be accountable to the legislature, and the legislature must be accountable to the electorate.
The present ruling class will never allow such fundamental political reforms of the present system as it will hurt their interests.
Replacement of capitalist rule with Worker-Peasant Rule is necessary
The people of Maharashtra have to draw important lessons from their experience of being governed by different parties that have been brought to power through Assembly and Lok Sabha elections held till now. While we continue to fight to preserve what we have by way of income and working conditions, under the rule of the capitalist class, all our successes are temporary. Governments are notorious for going back on their promises, because there is no mechanism whereby the people can hold them accountable. While we continue to strengthen our defensive struggles, we also have to fight for replacing the rule of the exploiters by the rule of workers and other toilers!
We should use the opportunity of the coming elections to make the workers, peasants, women and youth conscious of the need for a qualitative change in the political system in order to end the rule of the capitalist class, establish workers’ and peasants’ rule and reorient the economy to provide for all.
Let us build our unity in the course of our struggle against the attacks on our livelihood and security! Let us build the political unity of all the oppressed around the vision and program of ending the rule of the capitalist class and establishing a new State and economic orientation geared to ensure prosperity and protection for all!