The Call of the Communist Ghadar Party of India on the occasion of Mayday 2021 must resonate with every worker and toiler in our country. As described in the Call, millions of our workers and peasants are living and working in the most inhuman conditions. They are being exploited to the bone and have no means to give their families a decent existence.
On the one hand this is the situation for those who toil. On the other, there is a super-rich minority who live luxurious lives with the wealth made out of exploiting the toiling majority.
How is this possible that such an inequal and exploitative society has been preserved over the last 70 years and more? The Call of the Party has explained this very clearly. The ruling class, which is a minority, has successfully deceived the exploited majority in more than one way. Firstly, by blaming us for the condition we are in. They tell us that we have not worked enough, we are lazy and we only want free lunches. Secondly, they keep us divided on the basis of religion, language, place of birth and whatever other basis, pointing fingers at our own brothers and sisters for our miserable conditions. But the biggest deceit they have succeeded in practising is that this system will deliver us from our misery if we vote the right party to power!! The ruling class has created the biggest illusions about this so-called parliamentary democracy!
So we are made to hope election after election that the party that forms the government this time will do something in our interest. Like the Call explains, through this system, the illusion is created that our conditions of life depend on the party in charge of the government. People are bombarded with daily propaganda to show that Party A is corrupt or fascist and therefore we should rule for Party B or Party C. But our experience tells us that this is not true at all.
It does not matter which party comes to power; it is the minority class of capitalists who rule. They set the agenda for the country to serve their interests. They can do this because they control the means of production and exchange.
What is to be done then to change the order of things? This is where we have to pay utmost attention to the Party’s call and our own experience. We have been in struggle for decades for our rights and against the attacks of the ruling class. But as long as we keep our demands within the boundaries of this system, the ruling class is not threatened, it is not affected. It will accede to some of our demands and deny some others. What we need to do is to challenge the present order of things. We need to claim ownership of the means of production and exchange. Why should this belong to a minority? We have to take over the factories, the mines, the banks, the natural wealth of the country and establish social ownership over them, so that they are used in the interest of the whole society and not a minority.
We mark Mayday every year to celebrate our victories and to honour those who have fought and are fighting today for their rights and against exploitation. We redouble our energies for more struggles ahead. But most crucially, we must commit to fight with the aim of becoming the rulers. We must organise with this as our aim – to eliminate this order and usher in a new order.
I am in total agreement with the Call to replace capitalist rule with worker-peasant rule. This is our goal, this is our commitment, this is our struggle.
Long live Mayday, International Working Class Day!
Lakshmi
New Delhi