Call of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 12 November, 2023
We, the workers and peasants, produce India’s wealth. We make up more than 90 percent of the population. However, successive governments have been enacting laws and implementing policies to enrich capitalist billionaires, under the banner of liberalization and privatization.
Indian society is being dragged along a disastrous course. The huge gap between the rich and the poor is growing wider every year. The exploitation and robbery of workers and peasants is being intensified in order to fulfil capitalist greed. Central and state governments are enacting laws to enable capitalists to hire and fire workers as they please, and to make them work for 12 hours a day. Capitalist chieftains claim that workers must be ready to toil for 70 hours every week, allegedly for the sake of India’s development. They want to super-exploit one section of the labour force while another section is kept unemployed.
Indian and foreign capitalist companies are increasing their domination of all spheres of the economy, including the trade in agricultural products. Crores of kisans are sinking deeper into debt because the prices they receive for their produce are too low compared to the rising cost of agricultural inputs.
Growing unemployment, increasing job insecurity, low wages, rising cost of living, falling agricultural incomes and rising indebtedness are making the conditions of workers and peasants intolerable.
Those who fight for the rights of workers, peasants and other oppressed people are being branded as anti-national and thrown into jail. Using draconian laws such as the UAPA, they are kept in prison for indefinite periods without being tried and convicted. Frequent incidents of lynching and other forms of violence against religious minorities are being used to spread terror and incite communal conflicts.
Unions of workers and peasants have united around a common charter of demands. The demands of the worker-peasant front include a legal guarantee for the Right to Work, National Minimum Wage of Rs. 26000 per month, withdrawal of the four Labour Codes, halt to casualization of labour, universal registration of all wage workers with comprehensive social security and pension, immediate halt to privatisation, withdrawal of the Electricity (Amendment) Bill of 2022, waiver of farm loans and guaranteed procurement of farmers’ produce at a minimum support price of 50% above total cost of production (C-2).
The worker-peasant front has been repeatedly organising joint mass actions to press for these demands. Another round of mass protests will be held in all state capitals during 26-28 November 2023.
Even though workers and peasants make up more than 90 percent of the population, the government keeps on ignoring our demands. We have no role in setting the agenda for the country.
India is called the world’s most populous democracy but the political system excludes the toiling majority of people from decision-making power. The political process is designed to maintain the rule of an exploiting minority, headed by about 150 monopoly capitalist houses.
Indian and foreign monopoly capitalists use their money power and control over news and social media to determine electoral outcomes. Monopoly capitalists organize the victory of that party which can most effectively fool the people while implementing the program to enrich the capitalist class. Congress Party replaced BJP in 2004 and BJP replaced Congress Party in 2014 but the program of globalisation, through liberalisation and privatisation, has remained unchanged.
We, the workers and peasants must prepare to take the destiny of India in our hands. Our charter of demands must include measures to change the political system and electoral process. We have to fight for such changes that would serve to bring decision-making power into our hands.
In the present system, the party which wins a majority of seats gets to form the government and take whatever policy decisions it pleases. It is answerable only to the capitalists who financed its campaign. It is not accountable to the parliament. Members of parliament are accountable to their party leadership and not to the those who elected them. This has to be changed.
The Constitution must vest sovereignty in the people. The ministers who wield executive power must be accountable to the elected legislative body and all elected representatives must be accountable to the electorate. We workers and peasants must have the right to hold elected representatives to account and to recall them at any time if they do not serve our interests. We must have the right to propose or reject laws and policies. We must also have a say in selecting the candidates for election.
As long as the super-rich capitalists are allowed to finance the electoral campaigns of their trusted parties, it will be extremely difficult for candidates of workers and peasants to get elected. It is necessary to put an end to not only the mechanism of electoral bonds but to all forms of corporate funding of election campaigns. The State must finance the entire process of selection of candidates and the election campaigns of the selected candidates.
We must demand and fight for the repeal of draconian laws, including the UAPA, which allow the arrest and indefinite imprisonment of anyone who criticises the government. We must demand that those in charge must be punished when any section of the people is attacked on the basis of their religion or caste. We must demand constitutional guarantees for all democratic and human rights.
The ruling bourgeois class always uses electoral contests to break our unity and weaken our fighting capacity. We have to safeguard and further strengthen our unity in the face of the divisive tactics of the bourgeoisie.
Workers and peasants need to become the rulers of the country and reorient the economy to ensure secure livelihood and prosperity for all. We need to ensure that the democratic and human rights of all members of society are protected, without exception.
Defeat the liberalisation and privatisation program!
Onward with the struggle for security of livelihood for all!
Unite against communal violence and state terrorism!
Unite in defence of democratic and human rights!
Advance the struggle for workers’ and peasants’ rule!