India is currently holding
national elections for parliament, as well as legislative assemblies in some
states. The results are to be announced 16 May. As the media there and abroad
like to point out, with about 800 million voters, this is the world's biggest
electoral contest. But what is it really about?
The main contenders in the
general elections for the Lok Sabha (the lower, main house of parliament) are
the Congress Party, which leads the current government through its leadership
of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), headed by Rahul Gandhi, and the
National Democratic Alliance, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), whose
candidate for prime minister is NarendraModi. Modi is also a member of the
RashtriyaSawayamsevak Sang (RSS), a paramilitary Hindu nationalist organization
that literally looks to Nazism –
and Zionism –
as nationalist models. He was chief minister of the western state of Gujarat in
2002 when Hindu mobs led by local officials and police killed as many as
several thousand Muslims.
Following is a 24 March
statement by Abhay, the spokesperson for the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of India (Maoist) giving his party's views on these elections. We have
edited it for non-Indian readers. For more information on those views, see
"CPI (Maoist) Spokesperson Comrade Abhay Interview on General Elections – 2014" on
bannedthought.net.
The BJP, Left Front and other state
governments are also collaborating with the government in this. The BJP had
supported the UPA government in the past ten years on all the major policies it
implemented. The only difference being where they sat – whether in ruling or in opposition.
All their accusations and counter-accusations were done with the intention of
deceiving the people. There is not much difference between the central and
state governments too in this matter despite any party being in power.
Similarly this suppression is not confined only to the Maoist movement areas.
The struggles against the POSCO steel company and anti-nuclear struggles in
Kudamkulam are the fresh examples of this.
The hegemony of the U.S.
imperialists in the economic, polity, military and cultural spheres and the
intervention of its intelligence agency FBI increased during UPA rule. The
Wikileaks revelations made it clear that nearly a hundred thousand U.S.
soldiers and officers are staying clandestinely in our country and are
conveying all kinds of support and help directly and indirectly in imposing
fascism on the people.
The
Congress party in power continuously for ten years followed pro-imperialist,
pro-comprador and bureaucrat bourgeoisie and big landlord policies and was
responsible for the agonizing living conditions of the people and the
disastrous economy of our country and for the massacres of thousands of
activists of various democratic and revolutionary movements and people, and the
persecution of religious minorities in the name of fighting
"terrorists". It won the dubious distinction of being the originator
of the biggest and highest number of corruption scams in the parliamentary
history of our country. As a result it won the severe hatred of the people. To
escape this and hoodwink the people, the Congress party is bringing to the fore
its main slogan of "Bharat Nirman" [a business plan for creating
rural infrastructure], pointing towards the "development" it
achieved in its ten-year rule, and towards anti-corruption, land acquisition,
food security and anti-gang rape acts and welfare schemes that it formulated.
The Congress party has been in power at the centre and in most of the states
for the maximum time after 1947. It was mainly responsible for the anti-people
policies that were formulated and implemented. The massacres of religious
minorities, particularly the massacre of Sikhs in 1984, took place under its
rule. It was mainly responsible for suppressing the just national liberation
struggles of Kashmir and the present North East by massacring tens of thousand
of youth through its military brute force. It implemented all these anti-people
policies with the help of other parliamentary parties when in power and also by
colluding with the ruling alliances when not in power.
The
BJP’s
main attack is on the corrupt rule of the Congress. It is clear that it does
not have any basically different policies than Congress on any of the main
issues confronting the people and the country and has the same corrupt,
treacherous and dictatorial policies in every sphere. With the directive of the
RSS, the BJP announced the Hindu bigot and mass murderer NarendraModi as its
prime ministerial candidate. It is hiding its Hindu chauvinist agenda behind
the "Gujarat Vikas" (an electrical power company in the state of
Gujarat) model and is concentrating its entire machinery around Modi to capture
power at the centre one more time. The "Gujarat Vikas" model means
terrorizing the Muslim and Christian minorities, seizing their properties,
chasing them away from their abodes or making them servile through massacres of
Muslim religious minorities and subjecting them to innumerable atrocities along
with atrocities on Christian religious minorities; making the entire state a
hub for the investments of multi-national companies and the Indian big
bourgeoisie and opening doors to their endless exploitation and oppression. The
BJP are aiming to establish this Hitlerite model in the entire country by
coming to power in these elections.
The
Congress party came to power the previous two terms and won the severe wrath of
the people. So the ruling classes and the U.S. imperialists are openly
supporting the candidature of Modi for the post of Prime Minister as he would
implement their agenda ruthlessly. Accordingly the corporate media is
propagating Modi on a huge scale. Its attempt to win in the Delhi elections by
creating a religious divide and religious riots indicates its fascist face. A
statement by the SanghParivar [Hindu nationalist alliance] a few days
before the election dates apologizing to Muslims "if at any place any
wrong was done to them" is nothing but a ploy to hide the massacre of
Muslims carried on by Modi in Gujarat and gain their votes. But how could the
Muslim and Christian religious minorities forget the massacres, discrimination,
suppression and chauvinism that they suffered in the hands of the SanghParivar
from 1947 to the recent killings? The pogrom and persecution of religious
minorities in Gujarat under Modi met with unprecedented opposition and protest
not only in Gujarat but all over our country. Even if they come to power, the
Hindu fascists will have to face the countrywide active resistance of the
Muslim and Christian minorities, revolutionary and democratic forces. This
would be the foremost task of these forces then.
The
AAP [Common Man Party], born and brought up with a NGO background and
on imperialist and overseas Indian funds and support, is not going into the
roots of this system and into the basic problems of the people and is resorting
to Gandhian feats for solving people's problems. They do not have any solution
for the basic problems of the oppressed classes, people and sections that are
being suppressed under exploitation and oppression. It is serving as a safety
valve to divert the erupting people's anger into peaceful and parliamentary
solutions and trying to cash in on it...
The
actual issues of the people never come up for discussion in the parliament and
the assemblies. They are under the control of the imperialists,
comprador/bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the big landlords. Where is the place for
democracy in this system where votes could be bought with money, liquor,
religious and caste-ist sentiments? It is ridiculous to call this a democracy
when criminals, bandits and notoriously corrupt politicians win in elections.
In fact, when we look into history we find that people's problems have always
been solved through people's struggles, class struggles and people's war and
not through parliamentary forums.
As
elections are being conducted like a farce each time, the Election Commission
of India vowed to strengthen democracy during these elections and is trying to
bring in several reforms along with including guidelines according to the
Supreme Court order to give the voters the "right to reject" [to
vote "None of the above", by pressing the NOTA button] all over
the country. In fact, this NOTA right suppresses the "right to
recall" the elected representatives that the people should rightfully
have. If they really intend to give the "right to reject", then why
are they deploying hundreds of thousands of government armed forces in areas
where our party had given the call to boycott the polls in the name of
conducting "free and fair" elections and carrying on attacks, search
operations, arrests, fake encounter murders and massacres?
The
great Marxist teacher Lenin stated in his State and Revolution, "Elections
are held to decide once every few years which member of the ruling class is to
repress and crush the people through parliament – such is the real essence of
bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-constitutional monarchies,
but also in the most democratic republics." This is all the more
applicable to our semi-colonial, semi-feudal country that claims itself to be
the "world's biggest democracy". That is why none of the oppressed
masses believe that their lives would change or that there would be a
fundamental change in this system through these elections. In all the elections
held in our country so far, a considerable number of voters are distancing
themselves from polling. The stronger parties occupy the polling booths with
their goon force and conduct vote rigging. Even those who vote are not doing so
with the belief that these elections would benefit them. They are voting just
for local needs or other pressures or lures such as caste, religion,
regionalism, money, liquor, goondaism [goon squads], etc. There is no
alternative for the people in this sham parliamentary system.
All the major parties coming to the
fore in the elections are subservient to the imperialists and represent the
Indian exploiting ruling classes. All these parties are anti-people,
treacherous, corrupt, oppressive, reactionary and fascist in nature. Serving
the interests of imperialism, the comprador and bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the
big landlord classes, keeping intact the Indian semi-colonial semi-feudal
system and crushing all democratic and revolutionary movements is the aim of
these parties. They are coming together to suppress our party, the CPI (Maoist)
that is coming to the fore as an alternative to this, the New Democratic
Revolution led by it and the embryonic new organs of political power that
represent the Indian people's democratic federal republic based on genuine
democracy and self-reliance.
Though these comprador parties loll
in the pig-sty of the parliament for power and engage in dog-fights with each
other for their share in the loot, when it comes to crushing the revolutionary
movement, by labelling it the "gravest threat to the internal
security" of our country they are all unanimous. They are resorting to a
severe multi-pronged offensive according to the US-dictated low-intensity
warfare strategy and tactics. Their deceptive proposals for peace talks and
reform schemes are aimed at diverting the people and the democrats and to carry
on a further heavy offensive on the revolutionary movement. The countrywide
multi-pronged offensive carried on in the name War on People – Operation Green Hunt – since mid- 2009 by the central
government by colluding with BJP and along with various state governments is a
part of this. They are trying without success through repression to preserve
this rotten exploiting system. But in a backdrop where the revolutionary conditions
are maturing day by day, they are doomed to be swept away by the people.
The present exploitative system
cannot be transformed with elections. The basic problems of the people would
not be solved. Even their basic needs would not be fulfilled. All the electoral
parties are dead against genuine democracy, self-reliance and the sovereignty
of our country. None of them is morally qualified to ask our people to vote for
them. That is why our party is giving a call to the entire people of India to boycott
these sham parliamentary and assembly elections and to march forward on the
path of prolonged people's war for the victory of the New Democratic Revolution
that is waged with agrarian revolution as the axis on the basis of "land
to the tiller" for building an Indian people's democratic federal
republic. This New Democratic state will be the people's democratic
dictatorship exercised by the united front comprising the proletariat,
peasantry, petty-bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie class under the
leadership of the proletariat based upon the worker-peasant alliance and
liberate our country from the clutches of the imperialists, the
comprador/bureaucrat bourgeoisie and the big landlords.
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