Radio Free Punjab

Rudy is joined by Jasdeep and Sangeet to talk about the recent farmers protests going on in Northern India, especially around the regions of Punjab and Haryana. They discuss the origins of the movement and of the farmers union, how the movement relates to workers and urban dwellers and how the questions of caste, religion and gender are dealt with. The conversation then examines the total participation of society in the movement and how this was achieved, and what we can learn from it. We finalize by discussing the future of the movement, and what we can do to help it from anywhere.

Check out Sangeet’s work on women’s participation in the ongoing movement and on another historical movement hundred years ago, and how religion plays a role in the culture of defiance.

2020.06.24

To Live and Die in Kerala

Rudy, Ahmed, and Remi join Sam Agarwal, a PhD student at Johns Hopkins University in sociology, whose research on and fieldwork in Kerala provide insight into the Indian state’s handling of societal crisis like the 2018-9 floods and COVID-19. We discuss the left politics of the CPI(M) and its various rival parties, the Indian political climate, the feminist movement, the handling and mitigation of climate change, and what we can learn from a contemporary communist-governed state while dealing with its limitations.

Check out Sam’s work here: https://truthout.org/articles/this-state-in-india-shows-us-why-fighting-covid-19-requires-working-class-power/

Books recommended include: The Rise of Hindu Authoritarianism: Secular Claims, Communal Realities by Achin Vanaik and The Phoenix Moment: Challenges Confronting the Indian Left by Praful Bidwai.

2020.03.02

The Situation in India and How it Has Gotten Here

Statement by By Zenab Ahmed, Rohith Krishnan, and Djamil Lakhdar-Hamina on the pogrom in India.

The Pogrom

Last week, Hindu nationalist mobs spent days ripping through the homes, businesses, and religious sites of Muslims in the slums of India’s capital city. Roaming gangs of young men with saffron marks on their foreheads shouted “Jai Shri Ram!” while the police looked on without a word. This isn’t new – India has faced outbreaks of violence, between Hindu and Muslims, as well as organized massacres of minority groups by mobs in the past. Yet the pogrom in New Delhi takes place in an alarming context. India has been electrified by protests, sit-ins, and intense struggle as a result of a new citizenship law passed by Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The law grants preferential citizenship terms to non-Muslim Indians, clearly discriminating against Muslims and other Indians who are not Hindu (including Sikhs and Christians). President Trump was on a tour of India, and meeting with the fiercely nationalist, and Hindu supremacist, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with the aim of deepening ties on trade, security, and Anti-Chinese policy. Trump’s presence appears to have emboldened the crack-down on opposition to the law, with Modi himself taking three days to condemn the killings after they began taking place.

The Left must condemn last week’s sectarian bloodshed, which in four days led to dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries. Concrete steps must be taken to prevent such violence from growing and spiraling into a nationwide pattern of ‘killing waves’. If Modi and the BJP are not removed from power, and if the ideology of Hindutva (social organizing based on Hinduism as a unifying force) is not defeated, India will spiral into a pattern of increasingly far-right national governance, complemented by street violence, that may eventually culminate in ethnic cleansing and genocide. The BJP is pushing India in an increasingly fascistic direction, and there can be no doubt that the brutal confidence on display in India will feed into the strength of the far-right worldwide. There is no room for complacency, anywhere.

Origins of the BJP

First, it is important to acknowledge the BJP’s roots as a party, and the reasons why it has now been able to achieve popular and electoral success. Modi’s rise was not inevitable. Indeed, Hindutva, and its major proponents in the right-wing paramilitary volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a broader constellation of Hindutva organizations called the Sangh Parivar, largely didn’t have widespread appeal until political and economic crises in the 1970s. The Hindu Mahasabha/Jan Sangh, the torch-bearer of Hindu nationalism in the decades after independence, never controlled a state government, nor did it maintain a notable parliamentary presence. Nevertheless, it was able to develop a strong cadre base, which would be key to its reversal of fortune. The Emergency of 1977, during which the Congress Party’s Indira Gandhi briefly assumed near-dictatorial powers, allowed Hindutva to rebrand itself as a force for democracy and ‘ordinary people’ against the corrupt excesses of Congress. During this period, the Economist described the Sangh as “the world’s only non-leftist revolutionary force.”

The Emergency greatly boosted Hindutva’s legitimacy, but not its political strength, although regional political forces such as Shiv Sena borrowed from its ideas to maintain consensus for conservative politics, and decimate both the urban labor movement and parliamentary left. During this period, Hindutva was gaining increasing appeal outside of the RSS’ traditional base in the domestic merchant class, as well as among expatriate communities that began supporting it financially. Expats played a critical role in cementing, and broadening RSS patronage to various sections of the Indian bourgeoisie. The BJP was formed by the RSS as an independent political wing in 1980, in order to exploit a heightened sectarian and ethnic supremacist climate, stoked in no small part by Congress, whose anti-Sikh pogroms following the assassination of Indira Gandhi still mark the most intense act of sectarian violence in post-independence India. After 1989, the BJP abruptly rose to prominence in national politics, expanding from the “Hindi Belt” and exploiting an ongoing economic crisis that culminated in a 1991 liberalization of the economy. The BJP campaigns of the late 1980s and early 1990s centered explicitly on Hindutva, most prominently the Ram Janmabhoomi campaign to build a Ram temple in Ayodhya, which led to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in 1992. In 1996, the BJP briefly formed a national government, which collapsed in a matter of weeks, only to come into power again from 1998 until 2004.

Until the mid-2000s, the Sangh Parivar continued to be defined by an upper-caste vote bank. Following their 2004 loss, Hindutva groups managed to expand outwards, at the same time that they got increased financial support from a bourgeoisie disillusioned with Congress. During its period in opposition, the BJP moderated its Hindutva rhetoric, shifting to a more developmentalist approach, and in due course, brought Narendra Modi to the fore as party leader. Modi himself is a former RSS cadre who takes pride in his humble origins as a tea seller and was assigned to the BJP in 1985. He was the Chief Minister of Gujarat in 2002 during a campaign of major ethnic cleansing in the state, which led to him being denied a U.S. diplomatic visa in 2005. As Chief Minister of Gujarat, Modi oversaw the so-called “Gujarat Model” of development, characterized by the extensive investment in urban areas coupled with strict austerity. While Gujarat’s public goods and rural infrastructure crumbled, investment expanded exponentially, the BJP focusing upon connections to the news media and telecommunications.

The BJP successfully passed itself off as a different party than the violent communalist organization of the 1990s. Modi was elected Prime Minister in 2014, and by 2016, the party had taken back control of several state governments on a platform of development and anti-corruption. The BJP also established a unit for social media, informally known as their “IT Cell,” which capitalized on the spread of internet access and mobile phones to centralize and rationalize their political messaging. Since that time, these accounts have been used to coordinate lynch mobs, incite riots, and create what can only be described as an alternative reality for many BJP supporters. Since Modi’s developmentalism has largely withered on the vine, with sluggish growth, rising food prices, and the state dealing a crippling blow to its own economy through demonetization, social media radicalization along with an aggressive foreign policy has become extremely important. Following reelection in 2019, the BJP has turned up the communal heat, revoking Jammu and Kashmir’s statehood, creating the largely undiscussed National Register of Citizens, and passing the Citizenship Amendment Act. The party will continue to get more violent, along with India at large.

Statement of Condemnation, Call to Arms:

As communists, in such a situation, we stand by the victims of the police and the pogroms, we condemn class-traitorous enemies of the working-class, and we only express solidarity to the working-class victims. To see an example of a failure to do this, one should read the statement of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in which they ask to meet with the notoriously bigoted home minister Shir Amit Shah, having the gall to ask why he didn’t intervene sooner to stop the violence. This vacillation is shameful. Those in the non-Indian Left must condemn, and take seriously India’s increasingly fascistic politics on the national and street levels with the harshest possible language and maximal contempt for state forces. The BJP is successfully instituting genocide and ethnic cleansing on a national scale, achieving the Sangh Parivar’s vision of an India violently purged of Islam, Communism, and other ‘foreign influences.’

The Left within must continue to push for national protests, and global acts of solidarity, to highlight Modi’s mismanagement of the economy and India’s need for deep structural change. While the removal of Modi and the BJP wouldn’t solve the heart of the problem (which is the capitalist system and the continued strength of British imperial structures in the country) it would certainly defuse the situation and slow the pace of mass killing. Otherwise, like Nazi Germany before it, India is likely to face pogroms like those which have taken place in New Delhi on a regular scale.

Concretely, what is demanded by the situation is the strategy of the United Front. All workers, peasants, and Muslim organizations dedicated to defense, the defeat of Hinduvata, and a future of sanity, reason, and good-will, must band together politically. For the most immediate threat, pogroms, it is time to start taking self-defense seriously. Different organizations and communities must exchange information and be there for one another, fighting back against slaughter and reaction. But more will be needed, as a successful and united front of the left must find a way to dislodge the RSS-BJP ideology from its mass basis. If that does not occur there is no knowing the dark outcome of the decade. Those suffering because of that same movement of Hindutva must somehow find a place, a movement to band together , both in the streets and at the ballot box, and those weaker elements recruited by Hindutva must be won away and given a new political home. It is unclear how this may happen, in India’s increasingly bleak national landscape, but surrender isn’t an option.

The international left must take what is occurring in India seriously. The global right-wing is not dead or defeated, and though historical analogies may be stretched, the cost of not seeing the proper extent could be fatal. After all, idiotic theories propounded in the 1930s by Communist officialdom predicted that Mussolini and Hitler were just a passing phase.

2019.01.182019.01.21

A Road Towards Workers’ Solidarity in the Indian Subcontinent

Nafis Hasan writes on the current strikes in India and Bangladesh and the history and possibilities for worker solidarity between Indian and Bangladesh workers and beyond.

The beginning of 2019 has seen the workers rise up in the Indian subcontinent. While the 200 million strong general strike in India has gotten much attention, especially in the US Left media, little importance has been given to the strike by ready-made garments (RMG) workers currently taking place in Bangladesh. The RMG workers, protesting against wage discrimination and pay inequality, have taken to the streets beginning Jan 11. This provides a great opportunity for solidarity across borders in the Indian subcontinent, especially at a time when ethno-nationalist authoritarian neoliberal regimes, led by Narendra Modi in India and Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh have solidified their hold on power. However, the workers should be aware of the previous history of revisionism and selling out of the communist political parties in both India and Bangladesh, especially if this strike is meant to continue. Given that Communist Party of India (Marxist, CPI-M) has led the most recent general strike and farmers have decided to join the strike, and that Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) in their 2018 elections manifesto revitalized a progressive program, there seems to be a glimmer of hope in that these political parties will actually stand with the proletariat of the two countries and across borders.

RMG Workers in Bangladesh vs The Ruling Class

The wage discrimination in the RMG sector is not a novel phenomenon — in 2016, RMG workers had also taken to the streets to protest against the lack of increase in their wages, and as a consequence, hundreds were fired from their jobs. Any act of resistance against the owners of the garment factories who form the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Association (BGMEA), has been met with police violence, often aided by the state apparatus, and indiscriminate attacks on workers, especially union organizers. The same is true of the current protests — striking workers have been met with batons and water cannons, rubber bullets and tear gas. Similar to 2016, hundreds of workers have been fired and union leaders have been arrested for agitating the workers. Similar to 2016, hundreds of workers have been fired and union leaders have been arrested for agitating the workers.

It is easily understandable why the state would use such repressive tactics against RMG workers: the BGMEA is clearly part of the ruling class (ex-BGMEA presidents Anisul Haque and Tipu Munshi became Mayor of Dhaka North City Corporation and the Commerce Minister, respectively), and the RMG sector is the most profitable industry of Bangladesh (valued at $30 billion dollars) and has largely been responsible for the continued economic growth in the country despite mass corruption. The RMG industry, considering that at least half of its workforce comprises of women, also serves as the beacon of women empowerment in the region, a claim that has gained the Bangladesh government accolades among the neoliberal elites of the Western world. The BGMEA has actually threatened to lock out the garment workers if the strikes continue because they are aware of the impunity and state protection they enjoy. In order to pacify the BGMEA, and also to keep the RMG workers subservient and maintain the status quo as the second largest exporter of RMG in the world, the Bangladesh government employs special police force in the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) where foreign companies enjoy tax benefits and low labor costs, and the Bangladesh army maintains a special division on the RMG sector.

Communist Solidarity Across Borders: A Brief Overview

Communism in the Indian subcontinent, especially in India & Bangladesh, followed along either in orthodox Marxist, Marxist-Leninist, or Maoist lines depending on the era. Of course, ideological differences have led to many splits in the existing political parties, but the two main lines of thoughts that currently exist in the power structures are orthodox Marxist (CPI-M, CPB) and Marxist-Leninist (CPI-ML, also gave rise to the Naxalite movement in 1967). In Bangladesh, while there are several small parties tied to the communist cause, they have recently grouped together under the banner of Left Democratic Alliance and has revitalized a socialist program that was initially adopted by the first Bangladesh government in 1972.

Cross-border communist alliance and solidarity were at their height during the Naxalite movement in the late 60s and early 70s. The Naxalites, tired of the electoral games of CPI-M and the stagnation of CPI-ML, decided to implement Mao-Tse Tung thought against the ruling class and class collaborators. Led by Charu Mazumdar, Kanu Sanyal, etc, in West Bengal, and Siraj Sikder in East Bengal, also known as East Pakistan pre-1971, and the East Bengal Proletarian Party/Purbo Banglar Sarbahara Party, the Naxals politically agitated the peasants and indigenous tribes that were facing land grabs by the Bengali ethnic majority. However, following a brutal suppression of the Naxal movement by both Indian and Bangladeshi military and paramilitary forces, the Naxalites who survived resigned from the cause and joined the CPI-ML to fight electorally in the Indian Congress. The death of Siraj Sikder meant the end of revolutionary communism in Bangladesh. It should be noted that the CPI-M was complicit in the murder and torture of the Naxals as it threatened their status quo, especially in West Bengal (for a more detailed analysis, look here).

Over the decades, while Maoist guerrilla groups have fought against the neo-imperialism of the Indian government as it sold off indigenous land to multinational companies for bauxite mining, especially in Central India (see Walking with Comrades, Arundhati Roy), the CPI-M and CPI-ML have done little to fight against the ruling Congress. In Bangladesh, the mainstream communist parties joined in the protests against the military dictatorships in the 80s by forming alliances with neoliberal political parties that have been squabbling over petty differences over the last two decades. In the most recent election, the CPB and other small leftist groups formed the Left Democratic Alliance (LDA) which ended up joining in a bigger alliance with the increasingly authoritarian Bangladesh Awami League, that has returned for a third time to power.

Why does this history matter? It is because it goes on to show that while communist political parties do exist in India & Bangladesh, the political ideology exists only in name and has actually worked actively against the interest of the working class in both countries by putting their political and personal ambitions first. Therefore, any international solidarity should keep in mind the historical roles these communist parties have played and should be directing their support to the workers, and not the parties.

Bangladesh garment workers on strike clash with police

The Significance of the Current Protests

The strikes across the borders in India and Bangladesh portray the rising dissonance of the workers with the ruling class. The ruling class in both India and Bangladesh have profited enormously from the global capitalist economy, and the effects are acutely felt by the working class. Given that the biggest cash cow for the ruling class in Bangladesh, the RMG industry is now in revolt over wage discrimination and policy failures since the Rana Plaza tragedy to protect the workers, and that in India, the 200 million strong strike comes right after the Kisan Long March in 2018 led by farmers, the proletariat in the subcontinent is on the rise again. Elsewhere, the tea workers in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh, who have been historically exploited, are organizing in syndicates led by the Bangladesh Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, and can play an important role in building solidarity with the Muslim population in the Assam region of India, who face the risk of displacement as they have been left out of the draft citizenship list.

Western leftists should take note of the political tides in the Indian subcontinent in this global economy. Any socialist revolution should constitute internationalist solidarity with workers around the world. Even more, given the role that the workers from the Indian subcontinent play in the global economy, in particular, the RMG workers in Bangladesh, it is important for the labor movement to stand in solidarity with their struggles.