Statement of the Central Committee of the Communist Ghadar Party of India, 4 March, 2024
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2024, the Communist Ghadar Party of India hails the women of our country and all over the world, who are boldly raising their voice in defence of their rights as women, as workers and as human beings.
We salute the ASHA and Aanganwadi workers who have been waging a determined struggle for their rights as workers. We salute the women wrestlers, nurses, teachers and others who have been courageously resisting discrimination and sexual harassment at the work place.
We salute the lakhs of kisans, women and men, who are braving the lathis and bullets of the state, in defence of their just demand for a remunerative price for their produce. We stand with the millions of women in our country who are in the front ranks of the struggle against privatisation of public assets and services, against state organised communal violence and state terror, for the right to secure livelihood and a living wage, and against all forms of discrimination and violence against women.
We stand with women all over the world, who have come out on the streets in defence of their livelihood and rights, in opposition to capitalist exploitation. We extend our complete solidarity with the heroic people of Palestine, who are fighting for the very right to exist as a people, in the face of a genocidal war unleashed by Israel with the full military and political backing of US imperialism. We condemn the imperialist powers who are unleashing reactionary wars in different continents, destroying nations, and turning mases of peoples into refugees.
The subordinate position of women in society has its source in the class division of society. Women will remain oppressed as long as the exploitation of one class by another prevails in society. The leaders of working women in North America and Europe recognized this more than 100 years ago. It was at the initiative of communist women that the 8th of March began to be celebrated as International Working Women’s Day, for the first time in 1911. They declared that the path to the liberation of women lies in the struggle to eliminate the exploitation of human labour through the transformation from capitalism to socialism.
The rulers of India claim to be taking many steps to empower women. They point to the fact that women in our country have made their mark in many professions and services. What remains hidden is that women have achieved these successes in spite of, and through very tough struggle against, oppression and discrimination at every stage of their lives. It hides the harsh reality of the conditions facing the majority of women in our society.
Women in our country are victims of multiple forms of exploitation. They suffer from capitalist exploitation, caste discrimination as well as numerous backward social customs and practices that degrade women and justify their oppression. Capitalism has developed in our country by perpetuating caste and gender-based discrimination and oppression. The subordinate position of women in society helps in maximising capitalist profits through their super-exploitation.
Women carry the double burden of working for a livelihood and of bearing and nurturing the new generation. A large majority of women and girls in urban and rural India continue to be deprived of access to education, adequate nutrition and basic health and maternity services. They are paid less than men for the same work, and are the first to be thrown out of jobs. Women are the worst victims of every form of communal and sectarian violence. They are deprived of an equal share in family inheritance. They are treated as objects of sexual gratification and super-exploitation. The institutions of the state, including the bureaucracy, the police and the courts, openly discriminate against women and hold the women victims themselves responsible for the numerous crimes committed against them.
The root cause of continuing discrimination and oppression of women lies in the fact that the entire economic system and the state which maintains it are geared to enrich a wealthy minority, the bourgeois class headed by the monopoly houses.
It is the bourgeoisie which rules the country. In the existing parliamentary system and political process of multi-party representative democracy, decision-making power is concentrated in the hands of political parties which faithfully implement the agenda of the ruling class.
While perpetuating the illusion that “people choose their government”, the monopoly capitalist houses determine the outcome of elections, through their money power and control over the media as well as manipulation of voter lists and EVMs. People have no mechanism to select their candidates for election, to hold them accountable or to recall them. Elected representatives are not accountable to the electorate, but to the high command of the political party they represent. People have no mechanisms to make laws or amendments to laws.
The recently passed law mandating 33% reservation for women in all legislative bodies is based on the notion that the problems of women will get addressed if more women occupy official positions. The accommodation of more women in legislative positions will only create an illusion of power. Creating such illusions is part of the method of bourgeois rule.
Increasing the number of women in parliament will not change the class nature of political power. The same class will continue to rule. The state will continue to maintain the capitalist system of exploitation. It will continue to blatantly violate the rights of workers and peasants, both women and men. The vast majority of women and men will continue to be excluded from decision-making power.
Women have rights as human beings and as members of society. They also have rights as women, due to their crucial role in the reproduction of human life. Capitalist society and the existing state do not guarantee these rights for all women.
Ending the rule of the bourgeoisie, headed by monopoly capitalists, and establishing workers’ and peasants’ rule in its place, is the first and necessary step to open the path for the profound revolutionary transformations that Indian society is crying out for. Women and all the working people need political power in their hands, so that they can set the agenda, make crucial decisions that affect their lives and change their conditions. The means of production, which are at this time the private property of the capitalists, need to be converted to social property, in order that the economy can be oriented to ensure the fulfilment of the needs of the people, not the greed of the capitalists. This alone will open the path for the complete emancipation of women and their full participation in all aspects of social life.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2024, the Communist Ghadar Party of India calls on all progressive and democratic forces to unite in defence of the rights of women. Let us escalate the struggle against all forms of exploitation, oppression and discrimination against women!
| Origin of International Womens Day
In 1910, at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen, Denmark, the German communist leader Clara Zetkin had proposed the observance of an international day of struggle of women for their rights and their emancipation. This proposal was enthusiastically accepted by the Conference. The years preceding this conference had seen many fearless and organised struggles by women workers in various sectors and different cities of the world against their exploitation. March 8 came to be chosen as International Women’s Day in commemoration of a heroic struggle by women garment workers in New York on that day in 1857. The first celebration of International Women’s Day was in 1911. International Women’s Day began to be celebrated at a time when capitalism was developing rapidly, and millions of women were entering the work force. Capitalism, far from bringing freedom to women, only enslaved them in factories, broke up their families, and increased the burdens on them as women, as workers and as homemakers, while denying them any rights. Women workers came together and brought their protests out onto the streets, showing enormous courage and resolve. Through their fearless struggles, they were able to wrest some victories from the exploiters and the ruling classes. It is this tradition of struggle and sacrifice that International Women’s Day has always celebrated. International Women’s Day naturally from the first was closely linked with the overall struggle against capitalist exploitation and for a new society free from all forms of exploitation and oppression – the struggle for communism. The history of the past century and more shows that struggle of women for their complete emancipation has made the greatest advances in the countries where the working class in alliance with all the exploited and oppressed overthrew the capitalist system and began building the new socialist society free from all forms of exploitation and oppression of persons by persons. Women of India were second to none in the struggle waged by our people to overthrow colonial rule. Today, they are in the front ranks of the struggle of our people against capitalism and all other backward relations, for deep going transformations of Indian society. |