Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, 20th March, 2011
Elections to the Tamil Nadu state assembly will take place at a time when the credibility crisis of the political system in our country is extremely acute. The majority of people are fed up with parties that rule in the name of the people, while working to enrich the biggest capitalists and themselves. They are disgusted with the Parliament which is filled with the leaders of such self-serving parties.
Statement of the Central Committee of Communist Ghadar Party of India, 20th March, 2011
Elections to the Tamil Nadu state assembly will take place at a time when the credibility crisis of the political system in our country is extremely acute. The majority of people are fed up with parties that rule in the name of the people, while working to enrich the biggest capitalists and themselves. They are disgusted with the Parliament which is filled with the leaders of such self-serving parties.
They have no confidence in the first, second or third fronts that have replaced one another in New Delhi, to implement one and the same program of privatisation and liberalisation. People can see that it is the capitalist monopoly houses that are setting the program for society and selecting the ministers to implement it. Parliamentary democracy stands exposed as the rule of an exploiting minority – the capitalist class headed by the monopoly houses.
The regional parties and fronts that have ruled in Tamil Nadu in alliance with the Congress Party or BJP, headed by the DMK and AIADMK, rode on the tide of the Tamil national movement in the past. They promised to fight for the right of Tamils to shape their own destiny. Today it is clear that they have entrenched themselves in the Indian Union and the exploitative order it defends. They have reduced the Tamil national cause to the narrow pursuit of the capitalists of the region to join the Indian and global big leagues.
The capitalists of Tamil Nadu formed the DMK as a vehicle for establishing their leadership over the Tamil national struggle and consolidating their domination over the state legislature. The origin of the AIADMK lies in a factional split within the DMK, reflecting the contradictions within the capitalist class.
The DMK and AIADMK have both worked to enrich themselves and their capitalist patrons while pretending to represent the toiling masses. They have implemented the privatisation and liberalisation program. They have competed with each other to cultivate vote banks by introducing special schemes for distributing subsidised rice, saris, free cooking gas connections and colour TV sets. They are an integral part of the state monopoly capitalist system, defended by the colonial style Indian Union and legitimised by the party dominated political process.
State monopoly capitalism is a system in which big business houses dominate the markets for all commodities, monopolise sources of raw materials and control the state machinery; a system in which the state acts to promote the interests of the monopoly capitalists. The colonial style union ensures the domination of big capitalists over all regions of the country, suppressing any resistance to this on the part of any nation or people. The party dominated system of parliamentary democracy enables the capitalist money bags to sort out their internal contradictions and present their dictate as the ‘people’s mandate’.
Tamil Nadu has experienced relatively rapid capitalist development in recent decades. Enormous wealth has been accumulated in a few hands, while the working class, peasants and other toilers face unbearable conditions of life, with several basic food items having become unaffordable.
Whether it is auto workers, electronics or construction workers, textiles or plantations, transport, education or health, IT sector or BPO workers, the degree of exploitation of labour has been rising. Workers in many sectors are made to work for extremely long hours. The availability of educated, skilled and young workers for super-exploitation is the reason why capitalists of the world are keen to invest in Tamil Nadu. More and more workers are employed on contract, with no security of tenure. Rights of workers to form unions have been under attack. Workers who fight for their rights are subjected to constant police harassment and brutal repression.
The workers of Tamil Nadu were among the first in our country to hoist the red flag on May Day. The working class has grown in size, evolved in composition and includes highly skilled and educated women and men. In spite of heavy odds, workers in many sectors are waging organised struggle in defence of their rights, including the right to form unions. The workers of Tamil Nadu have been active in the struggle against privatisation of health, education, water supply and other essential services. This struggle has gained the support of broad masses of the urban poor and middle strata.
The development of capitalism and the integration of agriculture into the all-India and global markets have enriched various capitalists, while it has resulted in heightened insecurity and indebtedness for the vast majority of peasants. With guaranteed state procurement confined to paddy, the Tamil peasants who grow a variety of crops have been left to fend for themselves in a volatile market dominated by giant monopolies and big profiteering banks. Their land is under threat of being grabbed by the government and handed over to big capitalists.
The peasants of Tamil Nadu are an organised and largely literate force with long years of political experience. They feel betrayed by the capitalist parties and their promise that liberalised trade and contract farming will bring them prosperity. They are demanding that the state must guarantee procurement at stable and remunerative prices for all crops. They are looking for a way to transform agriculture into a remunerative activity for all those who till the land. Fishing families and other sections of the toiling majority are also demanding security of livelihood and guaranteed state protection.
There is widespread opposition among the intelligentsia and the middle strata to state terrorism, to the use of force to deal with political and economic demands; and to the forcible acquisition of urban land by politicians in power. There is a growing movement against the violation of human rights, against political persecution and police brutality.
There is a growing desire among the people to break out of the stranglehold of self-serving capitalist parties over the political process. This finds expression in numerous ways, including the rise of people’s candidates to contest those of the ‘recognised’ parties. The enthusiastic response among broad masses of people to the campaigns launched by our party and other organisations to expose the existing democracy has revealed the longing that exists for an alternative system and political process.
Comrades!
Elections are being held in Tamil Nadu in conditions of sharpening class conflict and deepening crisis of capitalist rule. The ruling class wants to use the coming elections to save the existing system from the wrath of the toiling masses, by replacing one capitalist front by another.
We communists must use this opportunity to present the real solution to the burning problems confronting the people. We must popularise the program for establishing a new system, based on new foundations, and mobilise the workers and peasants to take up this program as their own.
The source of all our problems lies in the system of political power and economic organisation, oriented towards maximum plunder by capitalist monopolies. The solution lies in changing this system – that is, in changing the class nature of political power and the orientation of the economy.
The toiling majority of people, led by the working class, must fight to replace the existing system of capitalist parties ruling in the name of the people with a new system in which they, the creators of wealth, will rule. The role of a political party in the new system will be to provide the masses of toiling people and progressive intelligentsia with advanced consciousness and vision, not to rule in their name. Workers’ unions, peasants’ organisations, women and youth organisations, people’s committees in every electoral constituency – all such organs of the people must enjoy the right to select candidates for election, with the final list to be approved in an open mass meeting in the constituency. People in every electoral constituency must exercise through their committees, the right to regularly check up on performance and to recall the one they elected at any time.
We must fight to reorient the economy towards investing in the human productive forces and their well-being, instead of super-exploiting them for maximum capitalist profits. Such a system will guarantee the availability and affordability of all essential consumption goods for all families, as a matter of right. It will guarantee public procurement of all crops at stable and remunerative prices for all the tillers of the soil, while encouraging small plot holders to voluntarily pool their land.
We must fight to replace the unequal and imperialistic relation between the central and state level authorities in the Indian Union by mutually beneficial and harmonious relations. We must fight for a new voluntary union, based on the principle of recognising and guaranteeing the sovereignty of every constituent.
The toiling majority led by the working class, with political power in its hands, will convert the means of social production from being private property of a minority into the common property of the peoples; and into the collective property of groups of peasants and other small producers. We will begin by socialising trade in food and other essential items of mass consumption, eliminating the space for capitalist profiteering in this vital sphere of the economy.
Comrades!
The capitalist propaganda at this time is focused on creating the impression that corruption is the single most important problem, and that its solution lies in replacing the most highly exposed political party and front with another capitalist party or front. The parliamentary left, headed by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), is contributing to this capitalist propaganda, by seeking an alliance with AIADMK against DMK, allegedly to fight against corruption.
The truth is that corruption is part and parcel of the existing system of state monopoly capitalism and the party dominated political process. Payment of bribes in exchange for privileges and favours occurs thousands of times every day. The scale of corruption has risen alongside the degree of monopoly and concentration of capital. The degree of exposure of normally hidden facts has also risen in the conditions of acute political crisis and intense dogfight within the capitalist class.
The CPI(M) and CPI ought to know that the DMK and AIADMK represent different sectional interests within the same capitalist class. Replacement of one by the other can at most change the distribution of the loot among the capitalists. It will not change the class nature of political power. It will not change the parasitic and corrupt nature of the economic system or its orientation. It is a line of action that serves to maintain the rotten system while only changing the management team.
Instead of using the crisis of capitalist democracy to make an advance towards revolution and socialism, as communists should, CPI(M) and CPI want to save this system. In Tamil Nadu they have always tailed behind one capitalist party or another in every election. They try to justify this with the erroneous thesis that the regional bourgeoisie is an ally of the working class and the movement for socialism. They have repeatedly allied with the DMK in the past, claiming that it was a secular party. Today they are seeking an alliance with the AIADMK, a party which they have called communal, corrupt and criminal in the past. The line of merging with the existing capitalist democracy has led to increasing exposures of corruption within CPI(M) itself, especially in the states where it has ruled.
CPI(M)’s line of supporting the so-called ‘lesser evil’ among rival capitalist fronts, and its notion of providing ‘immediate relief’ to the people through government welfare programs within state monopoly capitalism, are extremely harmful to the working class. The support extended by CPI(M) and its allies to the first UPA Government and its platform of capitalist reform with a ‘human face’ assisted the capitalist class to deceive the working class and weaken its resistance. The support they have extended to the DMK and AIADMK led fronts in Tamil Nadu has helped the capitalist class to remain in power and super-exploit the workers.
Comrades!
The Central Committee of CGPI calls on all its members, activists and supporters in Tamil Nadu to prepare for active participation in the coming electoral battle. We must use these elections to popularise the program for Navnirman – to lay the foundations of a new system of political power that would set a new orientation for the economy.
Let us work to enable the toiling masses to successfully select and field people’s candidates committed to fight for Navnirman, in as many constituencies as possible! Let us create a model of communist tactics, and call on everyone who is seriously committed to the cause of socialism and communism to join hands with us!