Speech on the occasion of the 44th anniversary of our Party

Comrades,

I have great joy in welcoming all of you to this celebration of the 44th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Ghadar Party of India.

As most of you know, our Party was founded at a time when the communist movement in our country had split into numerous parties and factions. Some of them had merged with the bourgeois state, claiming that socialism can be achieved through parliamentary struggle, without any revolution. They were acting like electoral machines, asking workers and peasants to place their faith in the existing system. Some others were resorting to individual acts of terror and advocating the path of encircling the cities from the countryside. In such conditions, we decided to establish a party of the working class, which would be neither an electoral machine nor a military machine but an instrument for the empowerment of the working class and all the oppressed. We decided to establish a party guided by Marxism-Leninism and committed to the aim of replacing the rule of the bourgeoisie by the rule of workers and peasants, and carrying out the revolutionary transformation from capitalism to socialism and communism.

In spite of the fact that the communist movement continues to be splintered under the influence of bourgeois ideology, we have not deviated from our aim of building a single vanguard party at the head of the Indian working class, in which all communists can militate.

Comrades,

We have gathered here today at a time when a grim situation faces the world’s peoples. US imperialism is striving for a unipolar world under its complete domination. It is resorting to the most inhuman and criminal means to achieve this aim, while weakening its rivals. The course US imperialism is pursuing is threatening to engulf human society in a new world war.

The US imperialists have shown utter contempt for the principles established after the Second World War governing relations between countries. They claim to be following a “rules based” world order. This “rules based” order is one in which US imperialism sets the rules and all other countries are supposed to accept. Other countries are refusing to accept such a US dictated world order.

Within this situation, the Indian bourgeoisie is striving to advance its own imperialist aims, in collusion and contention with other imperialist powers. Indian capitalists are striving to join the club of the world’s richest persons by intensifying the exploitation and robbery of the workers and peasants of our country.

Comrades,

The capitalist system is in the throes of an acute crisis on the world scale. In order to expand their profits in these conditions, the capitalist ruling classes in all countries are viciously attacking the livelihood and rights of the working class and people. They have unleashed massive attacks on religious minorities, national minorities, immigrants, refugees etc. They are whipping up national chauvinism to smash the struggle of the working class and toiling masses. All the victories the working class and people won through struggle in the twentieth century, in terms of recognition of their rights, are being reversed.

All over the world, working people are opposing the unjust wars that the imperialist powers have launched. Workers in all countries, including India, are fighting against intensified exploitation of their labour and denial of the rights that belong to them as workers.

In their drive for maximum profits, monopoly capitalists are destroying the social and natural environment. Capitalism is threatening to destroy humanity.

World over, the conditions are calling for replacing the capitalist system with a socialist system. This is the only way to save humanity from further disasters.

Comrades,

The workers and working people of our country face a very difficult situation. Unemployment is massive and growing. More and more people are forced to work as contract labour. Youth are compelled to work as gig workers and delivery workers, toiling for long hours with no job security whatsoever. Privatization has worsened the conditions of workers in the Public Sector.

More than half the population continues to depend on agriculture. Peasants are faced with growing insecurity of livelihood.

Most children of workers and peasants have to attend schools of very poor quality. Most working people within the country have to stand in long lines at overcrowded public hospitals.

At the other pole, Indian capitalists have joined the ranks of the richest capitalists of the world.

The terrible plight of workers, peasants and working people is because the means of large-scale production in our country are in the hands of the bourgeois class. The bourgeoisie is headed by about 150 monopoly houses, which dominate all sectors of the economy. The production of goods and services is geared towards ensuring maximum profits for the monopolies, and not towards fulfilling the needs of the people. The orientation of the economy is thus completely against the interests of the workers, peasants and other working people.

The bourgeoisie, which is the economically dominant class, has used the Indian state to also become the politically dominant class. The Indian state, consisting of the police and armed forces, the bureaucracy, the parliament, state assemblies and the judiciary, is an organ for maintaining the rule of the bourgeoisie. The system of parliamentary democracy serves to create the illusion that people are electing their representatives to run the country, while it is the bourgeoisie which is in fact ruling the country, through political parties that represent its interests.

Through periodic elections, the bourgeoisie decides which of its favorite parties will oversee the exploitation and oppression of the people for the next five years. The monopoly capitalists use their money power, their control over the media, their access to people’s mobile phones and outright rigging of the vote count to determine the results of elections. While the impression is created that people have elected the party of their choice, it is in fact the capitalists who use the electoral process to entrust the executive power to the party of their choice.

Parties of the bourgeoisie contend with each other to win the chance to wield executive power. One party or coalition forms the government, while the others form part of the loyal opposition. They are the loyal opposition because they are committed to defending the rule of the bourgeoisie.

Both the ruling and opposition parties in the parliament and state assemblies play specific roles in defending the capitalist system and maintaining the rule of the bourgeoisie. The ruling party implements the capitalist agenda while trying to fool the people that it is in their best interests. The opposition parties criticize the government and create the impression that they are speaking in the interests of the toiling majority. They wait for the day when they can form the government and implement the capitalist agenda.

While India is proclaimed to be the most populous democracy in the world, democratic rights of the people are blatantly violated on a daily basis. The Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) and other draconian laws are used to arrest anyone who is critical of the government.

Muslims and Sikhs are demonized as terrorists and enemies of the unity and integrity of India. This has continued under governments headed by Congress Party and BJP over the past four decades. The BJP government is actively supporting calls for the demolition of various places of worship, under the pretext that they have been built on the ruins of some ancient temple.

All this is being done to break the unity of workers and peasants. It is being done to smash their struggle against the anti-worker, anti-peasant economic course being pursued by the ruling bourgeoisie.

The increasing use of police powers, persecution of political opponents and the criminalisation of all dissent is revealing the truth that Indian democracy is nothing but a brutal dictatorship of an exploiting minority.

The bourgeoisie does not want its democracy to be fully exposed in the eyes of workers and peasants. This is the reason it used the 2024 General Elections to strengthen the parliamentary opposition and deprive BJP of an absolute majority. A stronger parliamentary opposition helps to strengthen the illusion that the concerns of workers, peasants and other oppressed are being addressed in the parliament. In this way, the bourgeoisie wants to prevent workers and peasants from seeking an alternative to the existing system of bourgeois democracy.

The only way for the workers and peasants to change their terrible conditions is to organise to replace the rule of the bourgeoisie by the rule of workers and peasants. The working class must lead the masses of working people in the struggle to capture political power, take over the means of large-scale production from the hands of the capitalist class, and reorient the economic system towards ensuring secure livelihood and prosperity for all. The challenge facing our party is to provide the working class with the consciousness and organisation needed to accomplish this task.

Comrades,

Our party has constantly emphasised the necessity to build the worker-peasant alliance, with the aim of establishing workers’ and peasants’ rule. We have opposed all attempts to line up workers and peasants behind the parliamentary opposition in the name of defeating BJP.

Our Party has brought workers of different branches of industry and services on one common platform, in the common struggle against privatisation. We have pointed out that privatisation is not only against the interests of workers but also against the general interests of society. We have worked to mobilise broad masses of people against the privatisation of railways, electricity distribution, health care, and other sectors. We have exposed and opposed the installation of smart electricity meters as an anti-worker and anti-people program.

The struggle of kisans at Delhi’s borders for 13 months was a historic struggle which galvanized the whole of the exploited and oppressed people. Our Party has worked to strengthen the unity of workers and peasants around a common charter of demands.

Kisans have been demanding a legally guaranteed MSP for all crops. This is a just demand. The government is refusing to fulfil this demand only because this will hurt the interest of the monopoly capitalists who want to profit from agricultural trade. Our Party has exposed the false arguments of the ruling class against MSP.

Workers and peasants have a deep desire for their children to be well educated. The existing highly unequal school system serves to perpetuate the class and caste hierarchy in our society. Our Party has initiated a mass campaign around the question: “Why not education of same quality for all?”

Our Party has actively participated in the struggle of women against sexual violence and discrimination. The discrimination and violence against women benefits the ruling bourgeoisie, in intensifying the exploitation of all the working masses. We have consistently upheld that the struggle against all forms of violence and discrimination of women is an inseparable part of the struggle for the liberation of the working class and people from all forms of exploitation and oppression.

Our Party has consistently exposed the illusion that the Indian state is anti-communal. The source of communalism and communal violence does not lie in just one particular party. It lies in the ruling bourgeois class and its strategy of divide and rule.

Our Party has exposed the false concern of the political parties of the ruling class about ending caste oppression and discrimination. The truth is that the ruling class perpetuates caste-based discrimination and oppression because it serves to super-exploit human labour and to keep the people divided and tied to their old identities.

Our Party has kept reiterating to the fighting people, that none of their problems can be solved by merely changing the party in power through elections. This is because the offensive against the livelihood and rights of the people is not just the agenda of one or another political party. It is part of the agenda of the ruling bourgeois class.

Comrades,

Almost all parties in the communist movement say that they agree that the strategic aim of this movement is the replacement of bourgeois rule by workers’ and peasants’ rule. However, many of them argue that the immediate tactical aim is to defeat BJP by supporting the Congress-led INDIA alliance. Marxism-Leninism teaches us that tactics must serve the strategic aim. Joining hands with Congress and other bourgeois parties in the name of defeating BJP will not take us closer to our strategic aim of workers’ and peasants’ rule. On the contrary, historical experience shows that tailing behind the parliamentary opposition has always blunted the class consciousness of workers and peasants. It has served not to advance but to set back the class struggle against the bourgeoisie.

During the period 2004 to 2008, for instance, some of the parties in the communist movement extended support to the Congress-led UPA government, in the name of keeping BJP out of power. They claimed that the Congress-led government was implementing a common minimum program that would benefit both capitalists and the working people. This served to spread the false consciousness among workers and peasants that they do not have to fight so hard because their interests are allegedly being looked after under the common minimum program.

The notion that there can be a common program that would serve both the exploiting and exploited classes is based on the idea that the Indian state is an organ that can be used for reconciling the interests of the exploiters and the exploited. This idea is completely against the fundamental teachings of Marxism-Leninism.

Marxism-Leninism teaches us that the interests of the bourgeoisie cannot be reconciled with the interests of the workers and peasants. The state arose at a certain stage in history precisely because society had been divided into classes whose interests cannot be reconciled. The state is an organ for maintaining the rule of one class over others. The Indian state is an organ for maintaining the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. It protects the interests of the ruling bourgeois class, not the rights of the exploited and oppressed masses of people. This is the case irrespective of whether the BJP or Congress or some other party is in charge of the government.

The politicians of the bourgeoisie are spreading a great deal of confusion at this time about the nature of the existing political system. The ruling and opposition parties in parliament are accusing each other of endangering democracy. They are calling on the people to save democracy.

The truth which the bourgeois parties hide is that the existing system is a democracy only for the capitalist class, which is free to exploit and plunder the land and labour of our country. It is a brutal dictatorship over the masses of working people.

Those parties in the communist movement who are giving the call to save democracy by defeating the BJP through elections are conciliating with the bourgeois propaganda that the outcome of elections is an expression of the people’s will. They are contributing to cover up the truth that it is the bourgeoisie which determines electoral outcomes in the existing system.

The task of the working class and toiling peasantry is not to save the existing system of parliamentary democracy. The task of workers and peasants is to replace this bourgeois democracy by a system of proletarian democracy.

Bourgeois democracy serves to maintain the capitalist system, with the bourgeois class setting the agenda. Proletarian democracy is a system that serves to carry out the transition from capitalism to socialism and communism, with the working class setting the agenda. It is a system in which the democratic rights of the working people will be protected, while the bourgeoisie will be deprived of the “right” to exploit workers and peasants.

Proletarian democracy is a system in which sovereignty will be vested in the people. Masses of working people will have the decisive say in selecting the candidates for election. We will have the right to propose laws and policies, and the right to recall our elected representative at any time. The state will finance the entire process of selection and election, ensuring equal time and opportunity for all the candidates to communicate with the people.

Comrades,

Workers and peasants are longing for a new system which will defend their interests. The decisive factor in realizing this aim is the building and strengthening of the vanguard party of the working class, which firmly upholds the scientific teachings of Marxism Leninism.

What we have built in these past 44 years is precious. It is the decisive factor that will determine the fate and future of Indian society.

Let us further strengthen the party by building basic organisations in the midst of the working class, peasantry, women and youth! Let us pay utmost attention to implementing the organizational principle of democratic centralism in practice!

Let us step up the work to build the political unity of the broad masses of workers, peasants and other working people against the bourgeoisie, in defence of their livelihood and rights!

Let us escalate the work to restore the unity of the communist movement, by waging irreconcilable struggle against all forms of conciliation with bourgeois ideology!

Let us become masters of Marxism Leninism! Let us arm ourselves and the working class with the Marxist-Leninist science and dispel all illusions about the existing system!

Let us pour our energies into clearing the fog of confusion that has been spread about democracy and about the state! Once workers and peasants understand the necessity to replace the existing bourgeois state with a proletarian state, then no force on earth can stop the forward march of the Indian revolution!

Long Live the Communist Ghadar Party of India!

Inquilab Zindabad!

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