Kashmir: As Tension Mounts on Indo-Pak Border, Entire Opposition, Including the Stalinist-left, Throws its Weight Behind the War-Hysteria, Fascism and the Saffron Government

Sonia Gandhi, President of the Congress Party, in bed with the Saffron regime and Stalinists

On Wednesday, September 28, Indian armed forces allegedly carried out military expedition, termed as ‘surgical strikes’ 3 kms inside the Pak administered region of Kashmir, claiming 38 dead. The operation is claimed to have been conducted at seven different points between the two military sectors Poonch and Koopwara, in retaliation to the attack by Pakistan sponsored terrorists upon the Uri Military base of Indian forces, earlier this month. Later in the day,fearing retaliation from Pak army, territories over 10 kms strech on Indian side of the line of control passing through Kashmir and Punjab, have been ordered to be evacuated.

Pakistan however has denied any such surgical operation by Indian forces, claiming it to be ‘false boasting’ for oblique purposes, but admitting to casualties, two dead and nine injured, in heavy cross-border artillery shelling and firing. The feeble and half-hearted denial however does not inspire much confidence. Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan had called an emergency meeting of his cabinet after denouncing the ‘unprovoked and naked aggression’ by India.

Post strikes, the Indian Interior Minister Rajnath Singh, also called the all party meeting, at his North Block office on September 29, purportedly ‘to discuss the ensuing situation’. The explicit purpose of the meet was however to rope in all opposition parties, from Congress to Stalinists, in celebration of the aggression and to endorse and approve the policy of the saffron government aimed at escalation of war.

All leaders of the opposition parties, including Sitaram Yechury, leader of the Stalinist Left-front, supported the alleged military strike by the government, in one voice.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj drove across to 10, Janpath, at around 4 pm to brief and convince Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

After dubiously criticising the soft paddling by the Modi government in response to the Uri attack earlier this month, the Congress-led Opposition finally joined hands with it to back the Army’s “surgical strikes” on terrorist launchpads across the line of control, openly.

The leaders, present in the meeting, including Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, CPM’s Sitaram Yechury, NCP’s Sharad Pawar, JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav, BSP’s S C Mishra and RJD’s Prem Chand Gupta, were informed about few details of the military operation, that took place allegedly at few points across Kupwara and Poonch.

The meeting was attended by top brass of the ruling party and the government, including the Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Defence Minister Manohar Parikkar, Information and Broadcasting Minister Venkaiah Naidu, and Minister for Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan.

Over the last ten days after Uri attack, the Congress and the opposition led by it, had been urging the government to respond strongly to Pakistan. On Thursday, it backed the government fully after the alleged retaliatory military strikes by it.

Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi tweeted:
“All of us stand firmly united against terrorism and those who support and sponsor it. The Congress Party and I salute the Indian Army and our jawans for acting valiantly to defend our country and our people. Jai Hind.”

Sonia Gandhi, President of Congress party, said in a statement that the party “stands with the government in its actions today to protect our country’s security and deal with the menace of terrorism from across the border”. She said that the strike was a “strong message that conveys our country’s resolve to prevent further infiltration and attacks on our security forces and our people”. Congratulating the Army, she hoped that “Pakistan will recognise that it bears a great responsibility in the continuing cross-border terrorist attacks against India” and said that she expected Islamabad to take “effective action to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism that it has supported…”

Former defence minister and senior Congress leader A K Antony said that the strike was “inevitable” since infiltration by terrorists trained by the Pakistan Army is continuing unabated. “Given the situation, it was an inevitable action. I congratulate the Army and the government. Pakistan should now stop sending terrorists into India. There is a limit to India’s patience.”

Venkaiya Naidu said after the all-party briefing, that “details were given by the DGMO about five-six places across the LoC along Kupwara to Poonch”. “All political parties complimented the Indian Army enormously. They assured that they were totally with the government to face any situation. They were all very happy,” said Venkaiyah Naidu. “The feedback we are receiving is that the entire country is very happy about the swift action taken by the Indian Army,” he said.

JD(U)’s Sharad Yadav said that “all parties spoke in one voice”. RJD’s Gupta said the leaders backed the government for “all actions being taken in the interest of the nation”.

Former Minister of State for Defence and Congress leader M M Pallam Raju, speaking to reporters in Hyderabad, supported the military action, cautioning the government that Pakistan was expected to retaliate.“I think this is a good retribution. But at the same time, we have to be prepared. We should also be prepared for retaliation from their end,” said Raju.

General Secretary of CPI (M) and leader of the Stalinist left-front, Sitaram Yechury assured the government of the support of the left on the issue and asked the government to “ensure the safety and security of the country from cross-border terrorism”.
 

Resorting to demagogy, Yechury expressed hope that now there would be no “further escalation in hostilities”. “We hope that now incidents like those at Pathankot and at Uri will not recur,” he said, implying that Pakistan must learn a lesson. Fully conscious of the fascist, warmonger character of the saffron government, Yechury continued to advise it to engage in ‘diplomatic and political moves to defuse tensions’.

Opposition parties, Stalinists included, have carefully prepared the ground for this support to fascist government. After the attack on Indian Army base in Uri, they dubiously criticized the Government, for its inaction and soft stance on the issue. Through such criticism, they in fact consciously facilitated the government to carry out the cross-border military expedition.

Bourgeois parties aside, the Stalinists were in the frontline in performing this dubious duty towards the government. Paying only lip service to the cause of peace and harmony, the Stalinists did never oppose the war efforts of the government and the conscious built-up of nationalist hysteria around it.

Stalinists are crisis managers of capitalist regimes. On all vital issues and important turns they have stood support to them and have rendered critical assistance to the regimes enabling them to overcome the crisis, again and again.

Hailing the military strike, Arvind Kejriwal, leader of AAP claimed, “the entire country stands behind the armed forces”. AAP Minister Kapil Mishra demanded the withdrawal of the status of ‘most favoured nation’ from Pakistan.

United resolve of all opposition parties on the issue of war and their tacit support to the war policy of the government underscores the class character of the war in the offing, in the interests of the class of the rich and the elites.

The strikes of September 28, are another step ahead that draws South Asia even more closer to first ever open armed conflict between the two nuclear armed states of India and Pakistan. Since 1965, both states of India and Pakistan have been in almost permanent war mode against each other, now covert, then overt.

Mounting tensions between India and Pakistan are offshoots of the military drive directed by the US led NATO military alliance, all over the globe. The deep geo-communal divide, the legacy of the reactionary partition of 1947, between implicit hindu India and an explicit muslim Pakistan, supplies necessary fuel to these rivalries. Indian sub-continent is fast turning into a battlefield between the rival imperialist powers and national states backed by them.

Recent backout of India and Afghanistan followed by Bangladesh and Bhutan from SAARC meeting at Lahore, is the clear sign of escalation of these tensions in the region and polarization of the national states into rival camps.

Both India and Pakistan are tilting to hostile big power alliances led by US and China, respectively. Both are armed with deadly nuclear weapons. Any conflict between them may develop into a nuclear conflagration and may turn entire South-Asia into a huge graveyard of human corpses. The damage is incalculable.

It is clear that the military strikes of 28 September, had followed the green signal from the US, as US officials have refused to condemn the strikes. For long, US is pampering and encouraging aggressive designs of India to balance the Chinese influence in Asiatic region and with express motive of roping in India into an anti-China alliance.

After coming into power in 2014, the saffron government under Modi has stepped up the offensive against Pakistan in covert war. Restraining itself from raking up a direct conflict against China, Modi government eyes the softer target Pakistan for a convenient ride. Last month, it had openly threatened to dismember Balochistan from Pakistan. In the process, Pakistan is driven closer to China, perfecting the military polarization in South Asia.

Massive military built-up in South Asia makes it spectacular that war is on the horizon and anytime the volcano may erupt, engulfing entire region to its flames.

As pseudo-left takes to sharp right turn to national chauvinism and war, the task before the working class is to oppose the war from an internationalist perspective and use the anti-war platform as ready bastion for socialist revolution.

Without necessary assistance of the lefts, to bind the youth and workers behind the war designs of their bourgeois regimes, it would not be easy for the regimes, if not at all impossible, to make through to the war. It is thus imperative for the working class, in the struggle against war, to expose the pseudo-left, primarily Stalinists, as stooges of their national bourgeoisie and nationalism. The fight against war is above all the fight against the false left, inside the camp of the working class, to foil their designs to befool the working class and youth and tie it down to the war agenda of bourgeois regime.
 

 Youth and workers must oppose the war and jingoism and must muster their weight around the program of Workers’ Socialist Party that proposes to reverse the reactionary partition of 1947 through a revolution from below, reunify the Indian sub-continent and on that basis unify the South Asian Countries into a Union of Socialist Republics under a Workers’ and Peasants’ Government.

-Rajesh Tyagi/30.9.2016

http://workersocialist.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/as-tension-mounts-on-indo-pak-border.html

How the Right Wing BJP Could Secure Unprecedented Victory?

Modi mobbed

Extreme right wing, hindu supremacist Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), is voted to power, ousting the Congress-led UPA-II Government under Manmohan Singh, that ruled for a decade. While BJP alone secured 282 seats in run up to Lok Sabha, Congress got squeezed to 44 seats.

 

The spectacular victory of BJP, has come on the wave of widespread dissatisfaction and unrest against the misrule of Congress led government, that was marred by massive corruption, soaring prices, raging inflation, and vast unemployment.
 

Congress, hitherto the chief party of Indian big business, was trapped between the pressing need to put in place the most rudimentary welfare schemes in rural employment and food guarantees, on the one hand, while on the other, the dictates of the capitalist market that demanded dismantling of all such schemes, wiping out all social spending. Result was a double discrediting of the Government. As meagre spending, clubbed with corruption and pilferages, failed to bring the promised results, masses of workers and toilers turned against the Congress regime.  Alongside, the corporate gradually dissociated itself from Congress Government, leaning more and more on the right wing BJP, as in its estimation, the Congress regime failed to put the economic reforms in place, at desired pace. Large sections of big business, thus, mobilized their support behind the BJP.

Conscious of the explosive consequences of rule in the hands of fascists, the ruling big bourgeois, in its quest to arrest the fall of its economy that has set in after the 2010 currency crisis in India, is dragged behind the BJP. As the economy has since continued to shrink, dispelling the foreign investment, international credit rating agencies have recently issued ultimatum to the government, commanding it to ‘do or die’. 

The claims of corporate media, as to a 'sunami' in favour of Modi, are however, a blatant lie, as despite of an apparent parliamentary majority, BJP could get only a 31% share of popular vote, while its NDA allies added 7% more to it. This is the lowest share of vote, that any winning party has got, till date. Equally false are the claims that vote in favour of BJP is the vote for agenda of "economic reforms". On the contrary, the vote is against all 'reforms' that had been pushed by the ousted Congress regime. BJP could capture even this much vote, only as it succeeded in masquerading as an opposition to the rule and policies of Congress, while hiding its real agenda of pushing through the 'economic reforms' at far higher pace than ever.

Victory of BJP has come by 'default' against the anti-people policies, crushing failures and misrule of the Congress Government and the shameful complicity of Stalinist left with it.

Needless to say that Congress led UPA governments, have done their best to serve the interests of big business, including a massive drive for dismantling the public sector, withdrawing subsidies, and ending price controls over most essential commodities like diesel. However, the constraints of bourgeois-democracy to dupe the masses through keeping in some semblance of a welfare state amidst rabid reforms, ‘reforms with a human face’ as they put it, has prevented the UPA from daring to take to the harshest anti-people decisions.

In estimation of Indian big business and foreign investors, only a right-wing authoritarian government under the BJP can accomplish the tasks that Congress could not perform. These include, complete wiping out of social spending and taxing the working and toiling people even more, to shift the burden of all economic crisis upon their shoulders.

Ironically, the big-business succeeded in channelling the anger of the masses against its own regime and its own policies, to induce a push, towards the right, bringing the arch communal BJP to power.  

BJP is the political front of most rabid communal formation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), that is ferociously hostile to working class and socialism, and is modelled on the patterns of Fascist black shirts under Mussolini in Italy. It holds its traditional social base among most backward sections of petty traders and small businessmen and ropes in most conservative elements in bureaucracy, security agencies, police and army, that are deeply inimical to working class and poors. It is flanked by equally communal Shiv Sena and MNS in Maharahstra, Akalis in Punjab and ethno-linguistic AIADMK in Tamilnadu, and TDP and TRS in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana respectively.

Rise of the BJP to power, is direct, first and foremost result of the shameful failure of the Stalinist left, which has failed the entire working class, behind it. Fascists could have and really have rode to power, only on the back of this failure of working class, to put challenge to the misrule of big bourgeoisie.

The left under Stalinists, instead of leading an opposition to the anti-people regime of Congress-led UPA, remained adhered to it and kept the working class completely dormant, inert and sterile. For decades, stalinist parties continued to support and sustain the minority governments under Congress. Even when the most reactionary neo-liberal policies were being put in motion since 1991, by the Narsimha Rao government, trashing even residues of ‘congress socialism’, public assets were being sold off to corporates at throw away prices, Stalinists stood support to this party of the big-bourgeois, on false slogans of democracy and secularism.

BJP led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) had come to power in 1998, due to the pro-investor thrust of Congress government since 1991, supported by Stalinists. But Stalinists drew no lessons and again supported the minority UPA-1 in 2004, assisting in resolving the political and constitutional crisis of the bourgeoisie. They continued the support till in June 2008, they were kicked out of the alliance on the nuclear issue. Still refusing to draw any lessons, they continued to lend support to the government of UPA-II formed in 2009 general elections, by holding back any opposition from the working class to the policies and actions of bourgeois government. More recently, Stalinists had been sending feelers for an alliance with Samajwadi Party (SP) of Mulayam Singh, while SP has been associated with the communal riots in Mujaffarnagar, hand in gloves with the BJP, to communally polarize the people in vote banks. It is worth to mention that similarly, CPI (Maoist) was instrumental in bringing the right-wing Trinamool Congress (TMC) under Mamata Banerjee to power in last assembly elections in West Bengal.

The state governments, that were led by Stalinists, in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, were platforms for implementation of the same neo-liberal and pro-investor policies, that were implemented by other governments including the right-wing governments. The government under Stalinist left-front in West Bengal was discredited for deploying the most rabid means through concerted police-goon violence against poor peasants, in Singur and Nandigram regions, while forcibly seizing farm-lands for big capitalists like Tatas. Tatas, were among the chief funders for recent election campaign of BJP.

Workers and toilers have again and again voted for Stalinists in expectation that these bearers of red flag would lead them in opposition to capitalism,  but Stalinists have betrayed them everytime, by delivering them, bound hand and foot, to the leaders and parties of capitalists.

Out of total 67 years, since the Indian bourgeois came to power in 1947, Congress had led the bourgeois governments at the centre for 54 years. In all these years, Stalinists had stood support to the regime, open or tacit and have assisted these governments to employ the most reactionary measures for loot and plunder of working class and toilers.

This political strategy of Stalinists, is, in turn, guided by the false Menshevik policy of Stalin and Mao, who argued that in democratic stage of revolution, working class has to ally with the bourgeoisie. For Stalinists, it is the democratic revolution in India, going on for decades, that underscores the need of an alliance between parties of workers and capitalists. Due to their misunderstanding of revolution in general and the democratic revolution in particular, Stalinists keep adhered to the parties of bourgeois, one after the other, chiefly to the Congress, the central party of the big Indian bourgeoisie. Through this adherence, Stalinists keep the working class tied to the political regime of bourgeois, and prevent it from taking to independent road, from rising in opposition to the class dictatorship of the bourgeoisie under the guise of democracy.

In this, four major parties of Stalinists and Maoists- CPI, CPM, CPI ML Liberation and the CPI (Maoist) share the essentially same perception and program, despite superficial differences among themselves, which remain of no more than archival importance in face of their rooting in the same politics of democracy extricated from socialist revolution, acceptance of alliances with bourgeois parties, and finally denial of proletarian dictatorship as the starting point for revolution.

As Stalinist-Maoist parties ally with the parties of Indian bourgeois, the hopes of the workers, toilers and rural and urban poors, get dampened and the ready vacuum is created instantly for manipulations by the ruling bourgeois to push the political swing towards more and more right.

Despite a strong anti-incumbency wave in the offing against the Congress-led regime, the Stalinist left front, instead of leading the working class and toilers behind it against the misrule of Congress, continued to look out for alliances with regional bourgeois parties like AIADMK, TDP, SP, RJD etc. into a third front, while these parties were engaged in bargaining between the chief bourgeois alliances of UPA and NDA.

Stalinists got total 11 seats in Lok Sabha in 2014 , i.e. half of the seats they secured in 2009. In 2009, they could secure half of what they secured in 2004. In 2014, the largest party of Stalinists, CPIM, failed to secure its official recognition as a national party.

Despite all demagogy in the name of the working class, Stalinists and Maoists, both have no faith in the strength and potential of the working class and their whole politics is centered around collaborations with sections of the bourgeoisie. Their fate is bound up with sections of bourgeois, its leaders and parties.

All other factors, like colossal propaganda campaign funded by big capitalists, role of corporate media etc. are of secondary importance in bringing BJP to power. The primary factor is the role of Stalinists in failing the working class, that has created an instant space for rise of fascists.

Without much effort, one would see, that in the face of a fascist advance, not only the Stalinists, but other bourgeois and petty-bourgeois formations of liberals, reformists and ambedkarites, proved themselves of no real worth at all. Even put together, they could not have prevented the fascists from taking to power. The truth, however, remains, that all these petty-bourgeois tendencies find themselves more in proximity and in agreement with fascists, than the revolutionary working class. They play dubious role in dividing the working and toiling people on the lines of caste, community, nationality, language, regional and ethnic identities.

Fascists have risen to power, albeit, by misinterpreting their real agenda to the masses, fanning wild hopes of millions for better living conditions, employment, curbing of corruption and crime, expansion of economy etc. However, in the settings of a full blown economic crisis under way on national and international arena and the self-contradictory nature of their agenda, that calls for far more social spending than ever before on the one hand and complete wiping out of last remnants of the welfare state on the other, the farcical agenda and false promises would blow up, very soon.

Despite its initial strivings to strike a balance between the two, the new government would soon find this balancing impossible, and would be forced to lean furiously against the aspirations of masses. Within no time this government would expose itself as a battering ram in the hands of corporates, imposing their savage agenda of most intense exploitation and violence against the people. The government, breaching all promises it had made to woo the voters, would fall back to old fundamentalist agenda of BJP- abolition of Article 370 of the Constitution that gives privileged status to Kashmir, Construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya, and above all ouster of Bangladeshi migrants. It is also bound to trigger some sort of conflict with neighbouring countries, as the BJP had been long-time critique of Congress governments for going soft on Pakistan and China.

The hindu communal and fascist colouration of the BJP government, is bound to come in direct conflict, sooner than later, not only with religious minorities like muslims and Christians, but also with national, regional and ethnic minorities, apart from the working class and poors. This, in turn, would set off a whole series of social explosions, coupled with widest ever resistance, to its policies on economic and political front, bringing the mass of workers and toilers in direct conflict with the right wing government of big-bourgeois, and may have devastating consequences for it.

However, on this radical turn in history, the working class, the only class capable of rescuing the humanity from the clutches of capitalism decaying into fascism, remains on the fringes, fragmented and demoralized, due to decades of dominance of Stalinism over it. Bound up closely and subordinated to the sections of bourgeois through its leaders and parties, by the Stalinists, the working class has lost the last shreds of political class consciousness.

In order to push the political swing towards left, i.e, towards a proletarian revolution, working class has to strive, above all, for its class independence from all influence of the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie. However, the present opportunist leadership of labour movement, the Stalinists and Maoists, would never permit this to happen. Therefore, purging of the old and emergence of the new leadership in the movement of working class, armed with a program oriented towards the October revolution, is the foremost requisite for a proletarian revolution. Only such leadership, organized into a party, can lead the working class to triumph over capitalism.

-Rajesh Tyagi/ 19.5.2014

Reblogged from http://workersocialist.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/how-right-wing-bjp-could-secure.html

Also check these articles:

http://workersocialist.blogspot.in/2009/05/india-general-elections-lead-to.html

http://workersocialist.blogspot.in/2012/04/20th-party-congress-of-stalinist-cpm.html