Dear Comrades,
As we usher in the New Year 2017, workers, peasants, small traders and others are being subjected to untold suffering as a result of acute shortage of cash, which is expected to continue into the New Year. The State has deprived people of the right to decide in what form they can keep their savings out of the income they have legitimately earned.
Many sectors of the economy have been wrecked. Many lives have been lost. Crores of toiling people have lost all means of livelihood. At the other pole, the capitalist monopoly houses are rejoicing that the Note Ban will pave the way for them to reap enormous profits from digital payments starting in 2017.
The aim of the Note Ban is not to fight against corruption or terrorism. It is not to make national wealth benefit the poor. The real aim of attacking the bulk of the currency in circulation, through the Note Ban, is to force people to put all their savings into banks and move from cash to digital payment mechanisms. The end goal is for monopoly capitalists to take control of the savings of the entire people through the commercial banks and new payment banks.
Moving away from cash and towards digital payments is part of the so-called governance reform agenda that is promoted by the Anglo-American imperialists and by the World Bank, Gates Foundation and other donor agencies. Monopoly capitalists of the world are interested in this agenda for multiple reasons. Besides expanding the base for taxing the population, it also expands the base for banks and payment service companies to rake in maximum profits by charging a fee for every transaction. In addition, it creates large databases with detailed information on every individual, which can be used for targeted advertising, targeted political propaganda, sabotaging any effective resistance and for preventing the threat of revolution.
Getting the bulk of people’s savings under the control of the banking system enables the capitalist State to more effectively and extensively rob the people of the value of their savings, and make them pay for the crisis caused by the monopoly capitalists. In our country, big capitalist defaulters created a financial crisis for the banks and now the toiling people are being robbed for the sake of boosting the profitability of the banks.
As we move into 2017, unfolding events are bound to reveal more and more clearly that a financial austerity program has been imposed on the vast majority of Indian people, so that a tiny minority of capitalist billionaires can amass more wealth.
People are being fed with lies on a daily basis through the media controlled by capitalist monopoly houses. They are being told that the Note Ban is a crusade against terrorism, corruption and black money. They are being told that the continuing cash crunch is due to some mistake in planning and implementation, and that it will ease very soon. All of this propaganda is aimed at hiding the fact that the Note Ban is a well-planned deliberate attack on the livelihood and rights of the toiling masses of people, for the benefit of the richest capitalists. The continuing cash shortage is part of the plan.
Comrades,
The existing system of parliamentary democracy and its political process are being more and more exposed as a system of rule by the big capitalists, headed by the monopoly houses. The political process creates the false impression that all public decisions are being taken by the ruling party, with the Parliament acting as a check. The reality, however, is that the big capitalists are the ones who set the agenda.
The Note Ban was a decision taken and implemented without even issuing an Ordinance, which would have required subsequent approval by Parliament. The planning was done in secret by a small coterie, rubber stamped by the Reserve Bank Board, and implemented through a notification.
When the discontent and anger of the people rises, the big capitalists blame the party in power and install another in its place through the electoral process, only to continue on the same path of enriching themselves at the expense of the toiling majority.
The year 2016 witnessed a perceptible growth in the united struggle of workers against the privatisation and liberalisation program and in defence of their basic rights. Over 17 crore workers participated in the General Strike in September. Faced with the rising working class resistance, the ruling class is resorting to diabolical methods of rule. It is resorting to widespread attacks on livelihood and rights, covered under the cloak of nationalism. Anyone who stands up for people’s rights and opposes the attacks of the State are deemed to be “anti-national”. It is inciting communal tensions and caste rivalries, escalating state terrorism against people fighting for their rights, carrying out systematic hate propaganda against Pakistan, and preparing for war.
The big bourgeoisie of our country is building a dangerous strategic alliance with the United States, which is the most aggressive, warmongering and terrorist state in the world. This is further accentuating the danger facing our society.
Opposition parties in Parliament direct all their criticism only against the ruling party and not against the class in power. They spread the illusion that the problems can be solved if only they get elected to run the government. Communists are duty bound to smash this illusion and awaken the working class to the truth.
The truth is that a thorough-going revolution is needed to rid Indian society of all forms of exploitation, oppression, parasitism, corruption, violation of dignity and human rights. It is not some individual hero, nor any party of the capitalist class that is going to eliminate the diseases afflicting our society and open the road to all-round prosperity and protection for all. It is the Indian working class which has the interest and capacity to do so, in alliance with the toiling peasants and all the oppressed. Our task, as communists, is to organize and provide leadership to the working class to carry out its historic mission.
A revolution that will put an end to capitalism, remnants of feudalism, colonialism and imperialism is the call of the times. Only such a revolution can save our country from the disastrous course on which our rulers are dragging us.
It is essential for us communists to carry out ceaseless propaganda amongst the people explaining that it is the biggest monopolies at the head of the capitalist class who are ruling today. It is their rule which has to be overthrown. The working class, in alliance with the toiling peasantry and all the oppressed, must carry out a revolution to replace bourgeois rule with the dictatorship of the proletariat, the rule of those who produce the nation’s wealth.
The conditions in our country and on the world scale are pointing to the possibility of revolutionary storms breaking out in the near future. One hundred years ago, the victory of the Great October Revolution in Russia paved the way for the creation of the world’s first socialist State. This centenary year of that earthshaking event calls on all communists to accelerate preparations for another round of victorious revolutions.
There can be no loftier mission in life than to dedicate oneself to the cause of the liberation of the working class and toiling masses, the cause of socialism and communism. Wish you all success in the New Year!
With revolutionary greetings,
Lal Singh
General Secretary
Communist Ghadar Party of India