Elections in America

Elections in America

India Growth tops 8% after 15 years

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/760166.cms

Growth tops 8% after 15 years

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, JULY 01, 2004 01:24:33 AM ]

New DELHI: Jaswant Singh may be forgiven a wry smile or two. His successor, P Chidambaram, gets to bask in the glory of handling the world’s second-fastest growing economy, which clocked a scorching 8.2% growth in the year ended March 31, 2004.

That was marginally better than the 8.1% forecast by CSO in February, more than double the meagre 4% growth posted in drought-hit 2002-03, and the best performance by the economy in the last 15 years.

Only China, with 9.8% growth, fared better in the last fiscal. In fact, India had actually crossed the 10% mark in the third quarter of 2003-04, notching up a whopping 10.4%. It lost a bit of momentum in the final stretch, but still finished with 8.2% growth for both the fourth quarter and overall fiscal year, according to CSO data released on Wednesday.

Growth was driven by the farm sector, which bloomed thanks to a fabulous monsoon. Agriculture grew by 9.1% in the year, after notching up 16.5% and 10.5% in Q3 and Q4 respectively. But don’t celebrate already — agriculture had posted negative growth of 5.2% in 2002-03, so the base was pretty low to begin with.

In comparison, manufacturing, which had posted a healthy 6.7% rise in 2002-03, grew by 7.3% in 2003-04. Other sectors with more than 5% growth included electricity, gas and water supply (5.5%); construction (6.2%); trade, hotels, transport, real estate and business services (6.8%); and community, social and personal services (6%).

The size of Asia’s third largest economy expanded to $600 billion (Rs 27,72,194 crore) from $550 billion (Rs 24,69,564 crore), while the per capita income for India’s 1.073 billion people rose to Rs 20,862, against Rs 18,912 per head for 1.055 billion people in 2002-03.

Chidambaram now has his task cut out. Can he ensure that the economy grows at the same pace on his beat? Agriculture is unlikely to repeat the spectacular growth witnessed in 2003-04.

Even so, analysts believe that India should be able to manage at least 7% in 2004-05, especially now that the Met office has confirmed that this year’s monsoon will be ‘normal’.

us victory in iraq end of dictatorship

http://www.socialistalternative.org/justice34/0.html


This is an abridged editorial from issue #74 of Socialism Today, the magazine of the Socialist Party (the British section of the Committee for a Workers' International): www.SocialismToday.org



Saddam's regime crumbled under the impact of the US-British invasion as scenes of Saddam's statues being torn down were beamed around the world to convey images of "liberation."


But covering the tottering monument with the Stars and Stripes also signaled the arrival of an occupying power. The crowds on the streets in Baghdad were not a tidal wave of celebration. Most Iraqis were relieved at the end of the dictatorship, but they fear a foreign occupation. After years of deprivation imposed by Western economic sanctions, they have paid a heavy human price during this intense, three-week invasion.

The USA's relatively easy victory over Iraq refutes the claim that Saddam's regime threatened military disaster, especially the absurd fantasy that Saddam's weapons posed an immediate threat to the US homeland itself. No chemical weapons were used, and it remains to be seen whether useable weapons of mass destruction will be found. But the invasion brought death to thousands of innocent men, women and children, and has inflicted horrendous wounds on tens of thousands. Fiendish products of modern technology, such as cluster bombs, were used with complete disregard for human life. Basic services have collapsed. Millions are without water, electricity, telephones, and medical facilities. There has been widespread looting by gangs and the poor, particularly of the massive villas of Saddam's cronies, public buildings and even some hospitals.

Pentagon planners were evidently not prepared for this social collapse. They put in place no resources and personnel to provide even the most the basic life support to the population they supposedly "liberated." Instead, US imperialism was already implementing plans to loot the country's oil wealth and profit from rebuilding what it had only just destroyed. Bush and the Pentagon hawks claim that their victory vindicates their military tactics and demonstrates the USA's unchallengeable military supremacy. But their real problems in Iraq are only just beginning. Over the next period they will face incalculable repercussions from their military aggression.

The Middle East will become even more volatile as a result of the war on Iraq. The Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk and Mosul, at the center of Iraq's second-biggest oil field, has the potential to trigger armed intervention by the Turkish regime, igniting a war within a war. The lives of Americans, contrary to Bush's claims, will now be less safe. As Egyptian President Mubarak warned: "If there is one bin Laden now, there will be 100 bin Ladens afterwards."

A heavy economic penalty will be levied on the US working class. As Bush asked Congress for another $50 billion installment for the war, Congress cut $20 billion from the war veterans' budget over the next 20 years and Bush cut $172 million from schools for children of military personnel (The Guardian, 4/2/03). At the moment Bush may be riding high, but the downward slide of the US economy makes it far from certain that he can translate military success into re-election in 2004.

Pre-emptive military action by the US against Iraq marks a turning point in world relations. But so, too, does February 15 - the largest day of world-wide protests in history with perhaps 30 million protestors. February 15 and the many other mass demonstrations throughout the world did not stop the war, but nevertheless shook capitalist leaders everywhere. From the massive anti-war movement that emerged in just a few short months will come a new generation of working-class activists and young people who fight against war and its capitalist perpetrators and engage in the struggle for a socialist society.

A One-Sided War
Saddam's regime collapsed after a very one-sided military struggle. The mightiest superpower in history confronted an isolated, third-world regime with outdated, depleted resources.

Yet the US invasion was not the expected "cakewalk," as US field commanders were forced to admit. There was no military coup against Saddam nor any uprising to greet the invaders. At one point the leading US field commander General Wallace publicly stated that the resistance was much stronger than they had expected. "The enemy we are fighting," he said, "is different to the one we'd war-gamed against."

The US high-risk military tactics succeeded only because of the rotten character of Saddam's regime. It would have been entirely different if the US faced forces backed by mass, popular support. The majority adopted a passive, wait-and-see attitude. There was deep hostility towards Saddam's regime, but there was a very ambivalent mood towards the invading forces. With no mass resistance, the military balance of forces predetermined a US victory, with only the timing and human cost in question.

Weary with two decades of war and deprivation, the majority of the population may welcome the US role in overthrowing Saddam. But there is deep suspicion of the US. The CIA, after all, supported the coup that brought Saddam to power in the first place. The US armed Saddam during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, and hypocritically turned a blind eye at that time to his use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and the Kurds in Northern Iraq. There is universal understanding, moreover, that the US wants to get its hands on Iraq's oil wealth. There will also be resentment at the thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of serious injuries. There will be no mass support for a prolonged US occupation, and the longer it lasts the stronger will be the resistance.

Organizing the Occupation
The US wants strategic control over the Middle East's oil reserves, the world's biggest and cheapest. Direct control of Iraqi oil, the US calculates, will allow it to smash the power of OPEC and undermine the leverage of states like Saudi Arabia in world oil markets. This, they hope, will open up a new era of cheap oil, and, they imagine, revive the world capitalist economy (though oil at $10/barrel would spell disaster for most oil-producing states).

The US also wants to open up Iraqi industries and markets to US corporations. They have already begun by awarding "reconstruction" contracts to a handful of US companies mostly connected with the Republican Party. The US will enforce rapid de-nationalization of the large sections of Iraq's nationalized industry, allowing US and perhaps other Western companies to take over large sections of Iraq's economy.

US imperialism undoubtedly hopes post-war Iraq will serve as a key point of military influence in the region by establishing permanent US military bases and tipping the regional balance of power in favor of the US and its key regional ally, Israel.

To achieve these aims US imperialism needs a "reliable" pro-US regime. It should be no surprise, therefore, that the so-called "Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance" is headed by an ex-general and arms dealer, Jay Garner. His administration will operate under the authority of the regional military commander, Tommy Franks, with 23 US "ministers" assisted by Iraqi "advisors." The real proconsul of occupied Iraq will be the US Defense Secretary, Rumsfeld.

The composition of the transitional government has brought new divisions within the Bush regime, along the same lines as the pre-war split between the Pentagon and the State Department. The Pentagon hawks, led by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, are pushing for their nominees, including former CIA director James Woolsey and Ahmed Chalabi. This is resisted by the State Department, the CIA, and Colin Powell - more far-sighted strategists of US imperialism who are alarmed at the simplistic, fanatical doctrine of the Bush hawks. They fear that the appearance of a US colonial administration and a stooge government will undermine US imperialism.

Role of the UN?
France, Russia, and Germany are using the United Nations issue as a lever to pursue their own imperialistic interests within the transitional regime. Attempting to maintain their own spheres of influence, these powers see the UN framework as a means of checking the actions of US imperialism.

Under pressure from Blair, who desperately needs UN cover in order to legitimize his own support for the US, Bush welcomed the UN to provide "immediate humanitarian assistance." (The Pentagon has shown no desire for its military forces to be tied up with humanitarian tasks.) But Bush spoke merely of seeking a new Security Council resolution to "endorse an appropriate post-conflict administration for Iraq." This is simply camouflage for the USA's determination to dictate the form of the transition.

Iraq's future government, claimed Wolfowitz, would be "chosen and run by Iraqis," and would "not [be] a colonial administration or a UN administration or run in any way by foreigners" (International Herald Tribune, 4/7/03). However, at the same time Wolfowitz was saying this, the US was flying Chalabi and other Iraqi exiles into Southern Iraq.

Chalabi comes from a prominent ruling-class family under the British-installed monarchy. He was also convicted in Jordan for a multi-million dollar fraud. The hawks recognize that, in this period, they cannot maintain direct colonial rule, but with the collaboration of stooges like Chalabi, the US will work to establish a client regime behind the facade of parliamentary forms.

A New Client Regime
The US plans to purge the top layer of Saddam's regime, but they are trying to salvage the bureaucracy and most of the army and police as the basis for a new, reconstituted state apparatus. The US will build up the military under US direction, and favored political leaders will be supported, financed as "agents of influence" for the US. In time, the US no doubt plans to hold elections in an attempt to legitimize a new regime. Financial support, business links, and control of the media will be used to attempt to ensure that US-backed forces win power through any election. US-backed personalities and parties will have an enormous advantage given the destruction of independent parties and trade unions under Saddam's regime, and the absence of information and free discussion.

In trying to establish a client regime, however, US imperialism faces the problem of the ethnic/religious make-up of the Iraq. Saddam's regime was based on the Sunni religious minority, while the Shia form the oppressed religious majority. A straightforward, direct election would result in a Shia government. That would strengthen the influence of the Shia-based Iranian regime in Iraq, the last thing the US wants, as it regards Iran as a second member of the "axis of evil."

In order to "preserve the territorial integrity of Iraq," in other words to establish a national capitalist state based on the Sunni minority, the US is likely to attempt to impose a federal constitution prior to any elections being held. The US will attempt to maintain a balance between Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds in the main state institutions (the presidency, ministries, parliament, etc.). Such a federal set-up would in reality be a power-sharing deal, mainly between the traditional clan and religious leaders of Iraq's main religious and ethnic groups. It would not satisfy popular aspirations or even the particular demands of the different religious/ethnic groups. Resting on a weak national capitalism, dominated by imperialism, a new federal state would not solve Iraq's social-economic problems. Moreover, the regimes of neighboring states - Iran, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia - will all try to exploit their influence over different sections of the Iraqi population to push their own interests.

The US will attempt to cultivate friends through bribery and create a client capitalist ruling class. But the US will not substantially raise living standards for the whole population. The US will face, over a period of time, terrorist attacks and growing opposition to US domination and any pro-US regime. Anger will grow at the looting of oil and other resources by US corporations and their Iraqi agents. A new generation of workers and youth will begin to rebuild the workers' organizations destroyed by Saddam's regime and to move into struggle to defend their class interests against imperialism, class oppression, and right-wing Islamic fundamentalism.

Growing Arab Anger
The initial Iraqi resistance to the US-British invasion aroused feelings of pride throughout the Arab states. Now there is a sense of humiliation and rage at yet another defeat inflicted on the Arab people.

Many of the Arab regimes fear that they will come under increasing pressure from the US, or even face the threat of US military intervention. They are even more afraid, however, of the angry mood on the Arab street. Mass anti-war demonstrations in the Arab states, which Arab regimes were forced to tolerate, were directed as much against these repressive regimes as against US intervention. There appears to be no relief from extreme economic and social crisis. There is outrage at the regimes' collaboration with the US. Mubarak allowed US warships through the Suez Canal, and the Saudi rulers permitted the US to direct its air strikes from their territory. Moreover, military action against Iraq is seen throughout the Arab states as a move to strengthen the Israeli state, and Sharon's right-wing leadership.

Far from stabilizing Iraq and the region and inaugurating a new era of free-market capitalism and liberal democracy, as the Washington neo-conservatives imagine, the US occupation of Iraq will provoke instability, social upheaval, and convulsive political changes. It has increased the possibility of right-wing Islamic forces coming to power in states like Saudi Arabia - the very opposite result from that intended by the Bush regime.

Neo-Conservative Strategy
The Bush hawks have made it clear that they regard the invasion of Iraq, the first war conducted under their new doctrine of pre-emptive war, as "a demonstration conflict, an experiment in forcible disarmament" (NY Times, 4/7/03). James Woolsey, the former CIA director (1993-95) who is the Pentagon's choice as post-war Iraqi minister of information, proclaimed that the US has (following the "third world war," the 1945-90 cold war) now engaged in a "fourth world war... More than a war against terrorism, this is a war to extend democracy to those parts of the Arab and Muslim world that threaten the liberal civilization we worked to build and defend throughout the 20th century." Having dealt with the "Ba'athist fascists," the US will now confront Iran, Syria, Sudan, and Libya, which all "sponsor and assist terrorism...[and] have sought weapons of mass destruction" (The Guardian, 4/8/03).

The Taliban regime was overthrown, but Karzai is shaky, and Afghanistan is still torn by conflict. The conflict between India and Pakistan could flare up again at any time, with the danger of nuclear exchanges. Bush's repudiation of the "sunshine" policy initiated by the previous South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, has led to a confrontation with North Korea, which has a massive conventional arsenal and possibly nuclear weapons. Even before consolidating its grip on Iraq, Rumsfeld was threatening action against Syria.

On the basis of the diseased capitalist economic system, we unavoidably face growing barbarism and war on a global scale, not the "freedom" and "liberal civilization" promised by fanatics like Woolsey. It is urgent that we build a world-wide working class movement for the socialist transformation of society to lift humanity out of the mine-strewn quagmire of capitalism.

congress comes to power in india

http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-3-1914.jsp

India’s benign earthquake
Antara Dev Sen
20 - 5 - 2004


The defeat of the ruling BJP by Sonia Gandhi’s Congress Party was followed by Sonia’s refusal to become prime minister. As Indians reel in amazement at their own democratic handiwork, Antara Dev Sen in Delhi makes sense of a political world turned upside down.






“If you trust me, allow me to make my decision.” With that Sonia Gandhi, prime minister designate of the world’s largest democracy, stepped down from the podium in the central hall of New Delhi’s parliament. The moment ended almost three hours of hysterical begging and pleading by her fellow Congress politicians – a frenzied flurry of choked voices, joined hands, moans, tears, entreaties, eulogies, baby threats – some of the most senior people’s representatives beseeching their leader not to reject the prime ministership. But Sonia Gandhi had made up her mind.

It was close to 10pm on 18 May 2004: a day that saw endless twists and turns in the drama of democracy, a day that made history. There can’t be many designates in the history of democracy renouncing the post after carrying their party on their shoulders to a clear win. The original Gandhi comes to mind, but the Mahatma was a saint: he stood for simplicity, humility and renunciation.

Sonia Gandhi, on the other hand, with her Italian origin, lavish parties and impeccable sense of style, is not just unrelated to her great namesake; she is unlikely to be taken for “a naked fakir”, as Churchill had termed the Mahatma. Why, then, was she doing this? Was she buckling under the pressure of threats from the defeated Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) against the “white-skinned foreigner”? Were her children, who had lost their father and grandmother to assassins, scared for her life? Or was this just another stunt?

After all, the lady does protest too much. For years, she has been professing reluctance, then stepping regally into the power game. Only the day before, on 17 May, Sonia Gandhi had gone to meet the president to discuss the government she would be forming, then returned home and declined the post. Only after much pleading by senior Congress leaders had she relented.

For those few hours, the country had held its breath – except of course the stock markets, which had promptly plunged to a spectacular low. But that was largely due to the Left parties, allies of the Congress, waxing eloquent on television about their aspirations for economic reforms. This time, the renunciation drama continued through most of the day, and half the night, as the country waited to exhale.

Outside the residence of the reluctant Sonia, Congress workers were slashing themselves with razors, writing protest letters in blood, and threatening to kill themselves in various ways. Amid the frenzy, one old man clambered high up a tree with astounding agility and refused to come down until Sonia accepted the top job. A former MP stood atop a car, flailing a sword to keep people at bay with one hand and holding a gun to his temple with the other. He would shoot himself if Sonia didn’t accept the post, he said. And members of the Congress resigned en masse, as parliamentarians refused to accept anyone other than “our leader”.

Finally, late in the evening of 19 May, Sonia Gandhi declared that she would not change her mind, and that she had nominated for the prime ministership Manmohan Singh, distinguished academic, ex-finance minister and the architect of India’s economic reforms.

For the umpteenth time in the last few days, India staggered in astonishment. And relief.

Surprise, surprise!

The Sonia Gandhi melodrama was the culmination of a week of stunned disbelief for Indians. We had already keeled over when we discovered that we had thrown out the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) – the right-wing, BJP-led central government – and elected ourselves a “secular” government to be led by the Congress.

This wasn’t expected to happen. Well, a lot of us in this country of one billion people hoped that it would – clearly a lot more than we knew about. But the exit polls, the media, the industries, the bureaucrats, the ever-growing breed of psephologists, the recklessly revered astrologers, even the politicians themselves, didn’t imagine that it would be such a cakewalk. Why was everyone wrong?

Frankly, can’t say about the astrologers, maybe their stars were not right. But all the others were heavily dependent on each other, and I am inclined to believe that the failure to gauge the mood of the people had two main reasons: the role of the media and the overpowering arrogance of the ruling party. The third reason would be the natural political unpredictability of a vast country wracked by poverty, corruption and violence and still beset in parts by vote-rigging and booth-capturing. Meanwhile, caste politics and religious factors will, I am sure, have been taken into account by the wise psephologists – and they are likely to be right on those.

First, the media. Traditionally, the Indian news media has been wonderfully free – hard-hitting, fearless yet compassionate. It has exposed injustice, forced constructive action and strengthened democracy through its adversarial relation with the ruling powers. But for over a decade now, it has been affected by the global “dumbing down” phenomenon. One result is a “narrowcasting” focus on the aspirational; selling dreams, always a good part of any business, has moved centre stage. The previously subsidiary role of entertainment has become the first priority, followed by news as entertainment, while drab, non-entertaining news is gradually turfed out.

This aspirational, Eurocentric, escapist culture being wrapped around media users – readers or television watchers – is not entirely invented or alien, but neither is it truly integral to their lives. It becomes unreliable primarily because it edges out other socio-cultural considerations that have more to do with the daily realities of rural and urban India: hunger, education, health care, unemployment — those tedious, unappealing segments that line the cutting-room floor of television news, or are buried in single column, four-centimetre news items on the inner pages of dailies.

If we had paid more attention to those news items, we may have known better.

And even when we were attempting to understand the trends, our tools were wrong. Commercial media, threatened by cut-throat competition, likes to give the reader what he or she wants. In order to customise news for the media consumer, it serves up what their consumers would “like” to see, and packages news as entertainment. It revolves around celebrities and fun stories, and offers a partial picture as representative of all of reality.

Moreover, different consumers of specific media products – in practice, mostly the urban middle class – get to see different versions of reality. I have earlier called this the “Sim-City syndrome” (the computer game Sim-City had just been released). This targets a particular audience as its citizens and mostly excludes others, the non-consumers of the media product, who may get a guest appearance once in a while, but are strictly to be viewed as aliens and not worth too much bother. As a result, we seem to be building imaginary and exclusive small islands, detached from any sense of the social whole, operating according to imaginary rules and experiences. We come genuinely to believe that our little Sim-Cities are our whole nation. The syndrome has become a serious affliction.

This was vividly clear as the May 2004 elections approached. Print and television news was full of celebrities (every second film star was either standing for elections or campaigning for some party) and attractive personalities; the same set of people held debates and discussions and generated the same set of views.

This apparently “commercial” imperative has a significant political dimension. The left has less visibility in the media — and when it does, its spokespersons are not always the best people for quick responses, given their inclination to hold politburo meetings before divulging little more than their names. The spotlight moved away from the centrist Congress during its years of exile from power, and all but its more glamorous stars were eclipsed.

The right, by contrast, contains excellent media managers, who have successfully used their six years in power to make friends and win over enemies in the media. And where they cannot convert you with ideology, they just make life so much simpler for you: in particular, the “promotional” culture that allows you to economise on time and news-gathering expenses seduces you into their comfort-zone. Several influential journalists and editors are also partisans of the right, and have been rewarded with prestigious presidential awards and parliamentary nominations.

The result of this media reshaping of reality is that non-news, smoothly presented by important authorities who pamper your ego, makes headlines; the alternative is harmful rabble-rousing quotes unleashed on the reader or viewer with very little editorial comment.

In short, Indian commercial news media in recent times has been losing the alertness and restraint it was previously known for. As, day after day, we saw these usual suspects debate the same middle-class issues and non-issues on various channels and publications, and as we saw the self-appointed psephologists derive their own news from these people and media – then tell us wisely which way we were headed – we became convinced that it was true.

Ah, the exit polls! What about them? Would you, living in a country where you might get killed for voting against the party you have been instructed – or paid – to vote for, come out of the booth and tell a perfect stranger how you marked your ballot?

Thus, immersed in our very cerebral, very stylish media-driven navel-gazing, we missed the basic issues that haunt the country where 70% of people live in villages. Just like the ruling BJP, in fact. And except in a few rare cases (like the Indian Express or The Hindu or small, regional-language newspapers) we didn’t get to see much of the unappealing side of “India Shining” – the governing coalition’s advertising campaign.

The ruling party’s self-immolation

Which brings us to the second reason for our failure to anticipate the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance’s routing at the polls: its unimaginable arrogance. Not satisfied merely to manipulate the news media, it decided to repackage itself as a media product. The result was a feelgood advertising extravaganza projecting India’s wonderful state of being, clearly borrowed from aspirational media. The NDA government reportedly spent about 2.5 billion rupees (Rs) on “India Shining”, but additional inputs from various government departments pushed the total cost of the campaign to an estimated Rs 4.5 billion. It is also believed that this money came from the public exchequer at the cost of social development programmes – like the one for “development assistance” under the department of economic affairs (which had only Rs 1 billion budgeted for it).

But “India Shining” backfired, spectacularly.

People saw these pretty pictures, their expectations were raised, their hopes soared – and then they realised that they had been completely left out of the picture. In a country where millions are unemployed, the NDA prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s promise to create 10 million jobs a year seemed to them an unkind joke. The landless in rural India now number 100 million. There is a serious deficit of working health centres and schools. The rural population still lack basic necessities like water and electricity; hunger and debt drive many farmers to suicide. But – sometimes – the rural poor do have access to television. When they saw the “India Shining” campaign, they wondered why they should “Feel Good”. So they walked for miles in the blazing heat and dust on voting day, and marked their protest. As Sonia Gandhi said in declining the prime ministership, it was not a vote for her, it was a vote against the BJP-led government.

This same blinding arrogance led the government to do badly in urban centres as well. The target of “India Shining”, the urban middle class, especially its younger members, had bought the dream. In a globalised world, you want to be a global citizen. You don’t want tiny salaries in public sector organisations – you want Silicon Valley, holidays in Europe, all that the TV is selling to you. But the sectarian rhetoric of the government in power, with its emphasis on Hindu temples. or Sonia’s “foreign origin”, seemed dissonant with these aspirations. The role models, and the needs, of this urban middle class had changed. A large chunk of them were tired of minority-bashing and ashamed of the 2002 massacre of Muslims in Gujarat. They wanted to be not just members of a Hindu nation, but global Indians.

The fact that the BJP’s allies in the south included autocrats like Jayalalitha and Chandrababu Naidu didn’t help either. The party that had come to power with a show of humility and the promise of honesty and integrity had degenerated into a haughty, corrupt and self-important unit that allowed pogroms like Gujarat and refused to dismiss its hardline chief minister, Narendra Modi, even after criticism of him by the Supreme Court.

There is a further irony. The repackaging of the BJP-led government as a brand meant that slogans and quick brand-identification stood in for real issues. Atal Behari Vajpayee was chosen as the brand logo, and a personality cult built around him. It didn’t stand a chance against the mother of all personality cults – the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty. The Congress is the party of India’s first prime minister (Indira Gandhi’s father, Jawaharlal Nehru), two assassinated prime ministers (Indira and Rajiv) and three waiting in line (Sonia and her children Rahul and Priyanka).

The killer blow was that Congress, like its allies on the left, raised real issues: poverty, water, health care, the minorities’ right to live. It wasn’t difficult for it to show that India was not really shining.

Sonia Gandhi: the path to victory

It is all clear in retrospect; but to be fair, the NDA, pollsters and everybody else were not entirely unjustified in believing that the NDA would win. The coalition had swept the elections for four state assemblies in December 2003. The economic growth figures were good. Besides, there was a doubt about Sonia Gandhi’s acceptability among Indians – she was Italian by birth and looked foreign enough, she spoke accented English and broken Hindi, she wasn’t a great orator. Her political judgment was also in question: when the Congress party finally managed to inflict a parliamentary defeat on the BJP-led government in 1999 by a single vote, she enthusiastically declared that it had the numbers to form the government, but she was proved wrong. Congress couldn’t find partners and India went to the polls, where the party lost badly.

Sonia Gandhi was never interested in politics, and fought long and hard to keep her husband Rajiv out of it as well. It took seven years of pleading, and the 1998 election drubbing, for Congress to persuade her to join. Even as the country’s symbolic daughter-in-law, she did not fit in. She was, it is true, Indira Gandhi’s favourite; the prime minister had died with her head in Sonia’s lap after being fatally shot in 1984 by one of her own guards. She was also the ideal wife to Rajiv Gandhi, and maintained a remarkable dignity and composure even at the time of his assassination in 1991 – qualities in contrast with the emotive breast-beating in the rest of the country.

But she was heavily dependent on a coterie inherited from her husband – a group that was neither represented nor trusted by Indians. Moreover, her connection to Ottavio Quattrocchi and the allegations in the Bofors howitzer scandal persisted. The BJP floated rumours that her father had been an antique smuggler. She was politically uncultured, a housewife, a foreigner – what chance did she have of winning against the manic muscle and ruthless diligence of the Hindutva forces of the Indian right?

But the right underestimated both the drawing-power of the Gandhi name and the staying-power of the Italian daughter-in-law. Faced with humiliating defeat in the December state elections, Sonia tucked in her sari and did what she had seen her mother-in-law do: go from village to village, mingling with the people, sharing their fears, finding out their problems.

Her roadshows were very different from the high-flying, “now-you-see-them-now-you-don’t” campaigns of other major leaders. She forced the Congress to descend from its pedestal and appreciate the importance of regional parties, prepare for a coalition, and forge wise pre-election alliances with secular forces. She made friends with opponents, sent birthday messages, made phone calls, graciously hosted non-Congress leaders who were screaming against her. And – perhaps to keep her sanity, after hearing out all her party colleagues and cronies – she turned for final advice to her children: daughter Priyanka, an excellent speaker and her campaign manager, and son Rahul, who after finally entering the political arena won his first election in his father’s constituency, Amethi.

It worked. The allied forces, now referred to as the United Progressive Alliance, won. They captured most seats in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, the states ruled by the NDA’s allies Jayalalitha and Chandrababu Naidu, and took about half the seats in the BJP’s bastion of Gujarat, laboratory of the Hindutva experiment. Also, the belief that the Left Front would back the Congress made the communist parties perform better than ever in their Kerala and West Bengal heartlands. By shedding its arrogance and bowing to the age of coalition governments, the Congress achieved what it could never have managed on its own.

Where next?

Late on 19 May, the name of India’s new prime minister was announced: Manmohan Singh. Singh lost (to the BJP) the only election he ever contested; he is a nominated member of the India’s upper house of parliament. He may also lack the kind of charisma that voters love in a prime minister. But, against this, his range of positive qualities is formidable. Singh has an impeccable record of unquestionable integrity, honesty and efficiency. Though he laughs at himself as “an extinguished economist”, his track record is impressive: educated at Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the architect of India’s decade-long economic reform strategy, a former member of the governing board of the International Monetary Fund, and secretary-general of Geneva’s South Commission. He is also a passionate campaigner against corruption in politics, and he enjoys the confidence of the financial sector.

Yet as Manmohan Singh ascends to office, the reasons for Sonia’s refusal remain unclear. The Congress wants to credit her with a concern not to divide the country on the issue of her foreign origin. The BJP has indeed been playing the issue for all it is worth. The spitfire BJP minister Sushma Swaraj had dramatically declared on national television that this was a matter of India’s honour – that she would tonsure her head, wear widow’s white, sleep on the floor and live on horse-gram and water as long as a “foreigner” was in the prime minister’s chair. Uma Bharti, another flamboyant BJP chief minister and a sannyasin, had elaborately resigned in order to start a nationwide campaign against the “white-skinned woman” who had humiliated the country and threatened its national security. If this campaign did have an effect, this would be the first time that the fear of mob rule has prevented a legally elected leader of India from assuming its top political office – and yet another example of our failure to live up to the egalitarian values of our liberal constitution.

In any case, the Congress-led coalition is a curious alliance. Of the 542 seats now declared (in a total of 543), the Congress and its allies have 219, the NDA 188, the Left Front 63, and others 72. Around 100 MPs – including leftists, regionalists and secularists – might support the government from a safe distance, but not join it. But any prime minister will be aware that this group could also withdraw its support at any moment. In short, the next government will not be easy to run.

The massive dip in the stock markets on 17 May is another indicator of the difficult task ahead. The shy, unassuming Manmohan Singh swiftly moved in, advising the outgoing finance minister, making calls, using his personal contacts and experience – as former finance minister and former governor of the reserve bank – to halt the markets’ nosedive. When, next day, his name was floated as the possible prime minister, the markets rose swiftly, blossoming in relief. The left, for its part, kept its counsel or approving noises – India’s economic reforms, after all, had been launched by Manmohan Singh and a minority Congress government that it supported. There is little danger of the left stopping reforms, or pulling down the government on that issue.

The new government’s challenge, then, is fourfold. First, the new government has to continue the economic reforms, but in a way that puts the poor back in the picture. It needs to balance Nehruvian socialism with better living standards and economic growth, to combine reforms with social justice. In short, in an era of heightened expectations and the inescapable aspirational media, it has to deliver. With Manmohan Singh at the helm, that is achievable.

Second, it needs to be truly secular and discard the soft Hindutva line that the Congress often takes a trend inaugurated by Indira Gandhi, continued by Rajiv, and even now indulged by senior leaders like Digvijay Singh who seek legal protection of the cow as an object of worship. The new government cannot gloss over the issue of secularism anymore.

Third, it has to take a clear stand on human rights issues. When the NDA brought in the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), which suspends the democratic rights and freedoms of the accused and was used mostly against Muslims, the Congress and secular forces protested. They need to prove whether they meant what they said: the act should be repealed.

Fourth, the coalition government must be democratic. The Congress, which ruled the country for decades, has its own history of arrogance, which it needs to check. The BJP-led NDA was not democratic; only two or three parties (among an alliance of twenty-four) had a real voice in its decisions. The new government has an even more difficult and potentially alliance to maintain; but unless every partner in a coalition really has a say, we cannot have a working democracy.

India’s people, after this astounding week in the history of their democracy, deserve no less.


http://www.marxist.com/Asia/indias_elections_0504.html


India's Elections: The BJP's Defeat and the Rise of the Left - The Communist Parties Must Not Make Pacts With Bourgeois Parties


By Phil Mitchinson


In the western media whenever parliamentary elections loom in India we are treated to the same old condescending twaddle about the wonders of the "world's greatest democracy." The 2004 elections saw no deviation from this tradition. There was great enthusiasm for the numbers involved in the election and the new electronic machines used to cast votes. Here's what The Economist had to say in this vein: "They are vying for the favours of 670m voters, of whom, judging by the past few polls, some 60% will turn out, about ten percentage points more, for example, than in the 2000 American presidential election. There are over 700,000 polling stations, with 1,075,000 electronic voting machines."

However, this fawning over the wonders of India's democracy has now been replaced by shock and even panic at the surprise result of the election. The reactionary BJP has been defeated, and its programme of economic neo-liberalism (ie privatisation) has been rejected.

In advance of the election one could read everywhere that the result was a foregone conclusion - Vajpayee's BJP were a shoe-in. The editorial of The Hindu, on May 14, confirms this: "No pollster or party leader of any significance allowed for a verdict in which the Congress, not the Bharatiya Janata Party, would emerge as the single largest party in the 14th Lok Sabha.

"Nobody could foresee the Congress-led alliance ending up 30 seats ahead of the BJP-led combine. Nobody could predict the significant increase in the weight of the Left in national politics, with more than 60 seats in a 543-member Lok Sabha."

The BJP leaders were convinced they would win, that is why they called the elections early. The Economist shared this confidence in the result as, it seems, did the leaders of Congress who were equally sure the BJP would be re-elected,

"Congress, which ruled India for most of its first half-century of independence, and is still the only truly national party, has shed its traditional aversion to "pre-poll alliances" and has already shared seat allocations with a strong local coalition partner in four of the six biggest states, with a total of 169 seats (Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu). It hopes for more than the 112 seats it won last time. But even party strategists say the maximum it can achieve is around 135." (The Economist, April 15th, 2004 - my emphasis)

This demonstrates how little the leaders of Congress understood the impact the economic liberalisation policies of the BJP were having on millions of Indian workers. In the end they won 145 seats, to become the biggest party in a hung parliament. 272 seats are needed for a majority.

From the Indian bourgeoisie's point of view there was worse news to come. Even more shocking than the result in general, was the success of the Communist Parties. The CPI won five and a half million votes taking 10 seats, while the CPI (M) won 22 million votes and 43 seats. The Left Front combined won a record 59 seats in the election.

This was not in the original script. The elections to the fourteenth Lok Sabha were called early, to take advantage of Vajpayee's perceived popularity and the economic boom which saw India's economy grow by 8 percent last year. However, being popular with foreign bankers, and economic growth predicated on squeezing the working class and widening the poverty gap into a chasm, did not prove to be vote winners.

All the opinion polls - conducted, one assumes, in the more metropolitan areas, and not in the slums - pointed to a BJP re-election. The economy had shown steady growth in the last few months, and the "disinvestment of government owned production units" (as they called privatisation) was continuing apace. The Forex Reserves of India stood at more than US$ 100 billion (the 7th largest in the world, and a record for India). The BJP was supposed to have been riding on the crest of a wave enjoying the benefits of the "feel-good factor". Ironically, it was precisely these 'achievements' that would prove to be the cause of their defeat.

Ordinarily, this result would be nothing more than a minor irritant for the bourgeoisie, after all Congress is a bourgeois party too - it has spent 45 years in office since independence. Far more disturbing for the Indian ruling class, and the foreign capitalists who have been investing in wringing profits out of the misery of the Indian masses, is the record result achieved by the left, and by the Communist Party and the Communist Party (Marxist), in particular. How is this shock result to be explained and what does it tell us about the situation unfolding inside India?

In the first place these election results are the consequence of years of IMF inspired economic liberalisation and privatisation policies pursued by the BJP government. The headlines in the economic press tell us that the economy grew at a rate of 8 percent last year. While this statistic is accurate, it tells us little on its own. Growth in the economy can mean more employment, higher wages and social reforms - particularly if the leaders of the workers' organisations fight for them. In this case growth was at the expense of the working class and the poor masses.

Nevertheless, the BJP leaders borrowed the slogan of the Indian tourist board, "Shining India", to associate itself with this economic development. After all, India was now a thriving economic power based on information technology, the stock market and outsourced call centres, according to Vajpayee and co.

Government figures proclaim that more than 100m people have been "rescued from poverty", the number of mobile phones has tripled in two years, the IT industry is booming, and a Confederation of Indian Industry delegation is lobbying Washington with the confident message that India is "moving slowly but steadily towards becoming a global power".

But this is not the India of most Indians' experience. The BJP has presided over a staggering economic polarisation of Indian society. The one million employed in the IT sector is dwarfed by the 40 million unemployed. Two-thirds of the population remain tied to agriculture for a living. The virtues of creeping globalisation mean nothing at all for the 35 percent who survive on less than one dollar a day, according to United Nations figures. In addition, last year's GDP growth was inflated by a good monsoon after two years of drought. The media usually forgets to mention this little fact.

The IT industry generates less than 2% of national income, fewer than 5% of Indians have access to any kind of phone, and more than 40% of adults are illiterate. Spending on universities rather than schools sees the country produce 2 million graduates a year and leaves more than half the country's women illiterate.

The propaganda of the BJP - presenting a vision of India as a software superpower - was palpably not true for most of the 387 million who voted let alone the hundreds of millions that did not. No one knows the size of India's much written about middle class, but most accept that two-thirds of the country's 1 billion people live in rural areas where electricity, running water and usable roads are luxuries not necessities. The 'digital divide' is such that the country, as investment bank Goldman Sachs observed, is home to "nearly a third of the world's software engineers and a quarter of the world's undernourished". The flourishing and the withered exist just a few feet apart.

The result is that India's upper classes live more opulently than the rich in America, while its poor are chained to poverty levels comparable to Africa's. In the British paper The Observer (02/05/04), Raekha Prasad paints a vivid picture of how the lives of India's wealthy few are being improved at the expense of the impoverished masses:

"Mohammed Ibrahim woke to Delhi's sun and waited for his life to collapse. He had known it was inevitable from the blaring megaphone driven past his door the day before. By 6am three generations of the rickshaw driver's family had ferried their possessions into the open. Just after 9am, six bulldozers crushed to rubble the two-room home he had built.

"With the machines, Ibrahim says, came more than 1,000 police officers carrying tear gas and batons. They destroyed his neighbours' houses too. Up to a third of a million people living in Delhi's biggest slum are being evicted under a government plan to transform the banks of the city's Yamuna river into a tourist and leisure centre…

"Most of the 150,000 people whose homes have been destroyed in the past fortnight earn around 2,000 rupees a month (£25) as domestic servants, rag pickers, construction workers and rickshaw drivers. They have no option but to live among clumps of rubble, facing police intimidation when they try to erect makeshift shelters.

"Slum clearances are central to the government's plan to make over the capital. Delhi is India's richest city, with a burgeoning and vocal middle class impatient for the trappings of a twenty-first-century consumer lifestyle…

"Temples, some dating back 30 years to when the first dwellers moved in, are all that's left of the Yamuna slum. Those still living among the rubble pull out plastic bags stuffed with their voting and ration cards, without which the poor are deprived of everything.

India's Tourism and Cultural Minister, Jagmohan, is spearheading the Yamuna evictions and talks of reviving the area. As the right-hand man of Indira Gandhi's son Sanjay, Jagmohan - who only uses his surname - gained notoriety in the 1970s for taking charge of slum clearance programmes during Indira Gandhi's 'Emergency', when India's democracy was suspended…

"In the midst of India's general election, activists argue that Jagmohan, a member of the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), will benefit from the timing. "Delhi goes to the polls this week and the majority of the slum dwellers are Muslims who traditionally support the opposition Congress party. Although contingencies for relocating evicted families were promised by the Government, relief agencies estimate that only a quarter have been moved.

"For a plot the size of a garden shed on Delhi's limits some 35km away from the slum, they must pay the equivalent of three months' wages. Unable to afford to travel such a long journey, many have lost their jobs.

"Jai Narayan Mahot is one of them. Standing in front of a brick pile that was once his home on the relocation site of Holambi Kalan, he is waiting to rebuild. His cigarette shop inside the slum was also destroyed. He will travel back to the banks of the river to vote for the Congress party.

'I want to defeat Jagmohan and the BJP for putting us here. They have done nothing for us,' he said. 'They're against the poor.'

This is as clear an illustration of why the BJP were defeated as you will hope to find. Millions are born, live and then die on the pavements of the Indian metropolitan cities. All this surrounded by apparent indifference. And yet the rulers of India have the cheek to claim that "India is shinning".

Of course slums must be cleared, this is an urgent task, but they must be cleared to make way for housing, schools and hospitals for the majority of India's population not leisure complexes for the rich and idle few. Is it not bad enough that these people have to live in shanty towns in the first place? Now even these desperate refuges are torn down so that the wealthy can have a place to relax, to gamble and to dine.

The real record of the BJP regime and the Indian bourgeoisie is not at all what the capitalist media presents. In terms of economic statistics, despite India's population amounting to 17% of the world, it has only 2% of world GDP, and just 1% of world trade. For all their talk of a prosperous middle class, only a handful have benefited from the recent boom, and at the expense of unendurable poverty for the vast majority.

For all the foreign press' praise for the 'biggest democracy in the world', the truth is that while the masses starve and the elite flourish, bourgeois politicians - from Congress as well as the BJP, look on with utter indifference. According to the former head of India's election commission J.M. Lundok "The politicians of India are a cancer for this country. None of them have any sympathy for the masses in their hearts." Corruption, nepotism, bribery and crime are rooted deep inside the life of Indian politics. The whole political super-structure is rotten to the core. Consider the words of former Indian cabinet secretary, TSR Subramanian. "Very few, if any, of the ministers had any interest in developmental matters or in the economic or social transformation of India. Genuine alleviation of poverty, and upliftment of the rural masses, was the last thing on their minds. Their only interest was their own future - aside from feathering the nest." This is only a manifestation of the profound socio-economic crisis that infects India. The name of the disease is capitalism. This is the root of the problem. The western media likes to blame corruption for the ills of Indian society, 'if corruption could be eradicated then all would be well.' This is true only in the sense that to clear away all that is rotten and corrupt requires the overthrow of capitalism and the transformation of society along socialist lines. The profit system and its ruling class, the foreign bankers, advisors and 'investors' cannot begin to tackle the problems facing Indian society. They have demonstrated that over decades - for much of that time with a Congress government in office.

For all the pompous claims of having developed Indian industry, more than 52% of the economy is now based on the service sector. 21% of industry has been closed down in the last few years. The official budget has hit a deficit of 10% of GDP. India is one of eight countries in the world where the public health budget accounts for less than 1% of GDP. About four-fifths of healthcare spending in India is effectively private medicine. This indifference to public health shows up in another statistic. India has more tuberculosis infections than any other country. Over 20,000 Indians catch TB each day and almost 450,000 of them die of it each year.

According to the government's planning commission, more than 40 million Indians are registered with employment exchanges, (millions don't bother to register because the pathetic state of the bureaucracy makes it largely pointless) and population projection suggest that 35 million new workers will join the labour force by 2007. That means India will need to create a staggering 75 million jobs over the next three years.

That is not going to happen. Since 1997 the public sector has eliminated 4.5 million jobs-or roughly 15% of its workforce. The private sector was supposed to make up the difference through rapid growth, but instead has slashed a million jobs of its own in the last seven years. The Congress pledge to create 10 million new jobs will solve nothing, even if they were to achieve it. Hemmed in by the profit system they will not.

India's infrastructure is in an appalling condition. More than half of India's population is deprived of electricity. Sixty three percent of rural household have no electric supply whatsoever, and those that do face long shut offs and load shedding. The list of such statistics can be added to at will. They demonstrate the inability of capitalism to provide even the bare bones of a civilised existence for the mass of the population, even at the height of a boom. The misery and impoverishment of Indian society is the best that capitalism has to offer.

Under these circumstances the song and dance made by the BJP about the 8.1% growth rate only piles insult upon injury for at least 750 million people. For this huge majority of the population the fast-growing economy is just a distant rumour. Not only have these much trumpeted growth rates not improved the lives of more than two thirds of the population, worse, this growth has been achieved at their expense.

Around 370 million voted in the elections, approximately the same number that lives on less than a dollar a day. Twice as many survive on less than two dollars a day. The population below the absolute and general poverty line will grow. The social and economic conditions facing the majority of Indian society are the only explanation for this election result, which much of the western media finds so inexplicable. More than that however, they constitute a finished recipe for unprecedented upheavals, and even revolutionary movements of the Indian proletariat in the next period.

This is the key to the future of India. It is not simply the existence of poverty amidst plenty that disturbs the bourgeoisie. What we are witnessing here is not just a polarisation between rich and poor, but a class divide. The Indian proletariat is immensely powerful, and has a tremendously revolutionary tradition. Once it begins to flex its muscles the earth will shake beneath the feet of the feeble Indian bourgeoisie. We saw evidence of this earlier in the year in the shape of a General Strike.

On February 24, an estimated 50 million people participated in a mighty nationwide general strike. They were demanding a review of the Supreme Court judgement on the right to strike and the reversal of the BJP government's economic policies. It is no accident that this latter was the key to their electoral defeat.

The strike was called by the central trade unions and industrial federations, and was total in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura - precisely where the Communist Parties secured their strongest vote. The militancy of the strikers in some areas went beyond the bounds of an ordinary industrial dispute. In Assam, Haryana, Orissa and Jharkhand it resulted in a semi-insurrectionary ("bandh-like") situation.

The strike demonstrated the vital importance of trade union unity for the struggles of the working class. The CITU, the All-India Trade Union Congress, the All- India Central Council of Trade Unions, the Trade Union Coordination Centre, the United Trade Union Centre and the UTUC (LS) backed the strike. The All-India Bank Employees Association, the All-India Insurance Employees Association, the All-India State Government Employees Federation and the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers also supported it.

The Indian bourgeoisie became increasingly nervous about the implications of a strike that, in essence, challenged its right to rule. The full weight of the state was brought to bear on the strikers. There were reports of police charges and large-scale arrests in Delhi, Haryana, Orissa, Pondicherry and elsewhere. The workers, however, refused to be intimidated.

The February general strike explodes the myth that governments can prevent strikes through anti-trade union laws. The Indian working class has asserted its right to strike in open defiance of the prohibition by the Supreme Court. What does this show? Its shows that once the working class is united and mobilised in struggle, no power on earth can stop it.

This magnificent strike shows the enormous revolutionary potential of the Indian working class, once it is mobilised for struggle. The massive response to the strike by the working class exposed the complete hollowness of the claims of the government that Indian capitalism has created prosperity for all. The election result now confirms this for anyone still in any doubt.

Vajpayee and his cronies boast that the Indian economy is doing very well. But this is a lie. A minority of the super-rich are doing very well indeed, and some sections of the middle class have obtained jobs in foreign companies that pay wages that may be considered reasonable by Indian standards but which are very low compared to workers in Europe, the USA or Japan. But the overwhelming majority of the people of India - the workers and peasants - have gained nothing. As a result the workers have taken general strike action, and the BJP have been defeated in the elections.

The February strike exposed the propaganda of Vajpayeee. AITUC general secretary, Gurudas Dasgupta, said: "The strike was to protest against the fraud being perpetrated by way of the feel good factor by the Government. If India is really shining, the response would not have been so massive." He charged the Congress with backing the NDA (the BJP led coalition) by not coming out with a clear alternative to the government's economic policies. "The struggle will continue, irrespective of whichever party comes to power, and till there is a total reversal of these policies," he said. These words must now be put into action to ensure that any attempt to continue with the economic attacks suffered by the working class under the old BJP regime are met with a massive mobilisation of the working class.

Only by seeing the election results in the context of social, political and economic developments in India can we begin to understand them. The industrial militancy demonstrated in the general strike has been expressed on the electoral front by the defeat of the reactionary BJP and by the record breaking results of the Communist Parties in these elections. These developments must be seen as two interconnected elements of a single process of mounting militancy on the part of the Indian working class.

The CPI(M), which has ruled the state of West Bengal since 1977, netted its largest-ever parliamentary tally and along with its allies now controls some 60 seats - 15% of India's 14th parliament. This growth in support for the CPI(M), now with 43 MPs, has caused apoplexy amongst the ranks of India's bourgeoisie. However, their experience with the leaders of this party would not seem to warrant such concern.

After all the party has been far from communist in power, banning strikes in the software industry in West Bengal, for example, where they have been in office for years. Nationally the left coalition led by the CPI(M) will now be considering entering a coalition with Sonia Gandhi - hiding behind the idea of keeping the BJP out no doubt - or just supporting the government from outside. The party leaders will be hungry for ministerial portfolios. They will claim to be using their influence to halt the privatisation process. The response of the Communist Parties should be: Let Congress put forward the necessary bills to halt privatisation, and CP MPs can vote for them without propping up the government. The CP leaders should have been fighting privatisation hand-in-hand with the trade unions for years, and now too they must prepare a campaign to fight any new attacks on the working class.

Congress will try to lean on the CP to form a government. This would mean ministries in the hands of Communists in "the world's greatest democracy". The prospect of communists taking national office in India, a first in itself, saw the Bombay stock exchange slide nearly 330 points to close at 5069. It was the worst one-day plunge in four years. The initial response of the bourgeoisie was one of horror:

"I shudder to think what would happen to the markets if the communists took control of any of the key economics ministries," said Siddarth Mathur, a strategist with the investment bank JP Morgan in Bombay.

Manmohan Singh, the most probable choice of Congress for the post of finance minister, rushed out to talk to reporters in an attempt to reassure panicked markets: "We are not pursuing privatisation as an ideology. What we want is to create a climate for enterprise."

The panic on the stock exchange did not reflect a fear of the leaders of the CPI(M) and their programme. The bourgeoisie are worried that, in the first place, to live up to their election pledges, and to lean on the CP, the new Congress government is likely to slow down the privatisation programme. They may even abolish the ministry responsible. This will all be for show. The Economist, after it recovered its breath, reassured investors:

"Bad for the credibility of almost every pundit and pollster; bad for political stability; even perhaps bad for economic reform… An unstable coalition government, relying on the support of the Communists, is unlikely to prove radical, and may be short-lived. But the presence of Mr Singh in Congress-as a senior economic policymaker, at any rate, if not in the top job-is one reason for guarded optimism that the election result will not mean the stalling of economic reform. It was Mr Singh, in fact, who launched the opening up and liberalisation of the economy in 1991. Congress's manifesto commits it to a policy of sustaining and even accelerating current rates of economic growth. That will not be possible without continued reform: cutting the fiscal deficit; continuing to foster competition; privatising more state-run enterprises."

Any illusions that ordinary workers may have in Congress will soon be dashed. The new government will not take much persuading by the IMF and co to return to the same disastrous economic programme as their predecessors. Nevertheless, in the short term the bourgeois will no doubt be annoyed that the gravy train might have to be slowed down at least temporarily. However it is not this that fills them with dread but the growth of the left and the rise of the CP. They will no doubt make their usual appeals to the leaders of the Communist Parties - especially the old 'you must prop up Congress or you will let the BJP back in.' The bourgeoisie will no doubt feel they have little to fear from the leaders of the Communist Parties, but what terrifies them is the mass of workers standing behind them. The election gain seen in the context of the general strike, clearly illustrates a growing mood of militancy and a sharpening class polarisation in Indian society.

The outcome of the election came as a surprise but, of course, the ruling class has nothing to fear from Congress - it is their party, a bourgeois party. In their previous 45 years in power they did not solve a single problem of the masses, and faithfully served the interests of the ruling class. The bourgeoisie cannot solve one of the problems of Indian society. Their politicians are corrupt and venal. Their government must not be propped up by the parties of the working class and the village poor. The Communist Parties must not enter into deals and pacts to prop up an anti-working class government.

Since the criminal partition of 1947 the bourgeoisies of India and Pakistan have repeatedly demonstrated their complete inability to take society forward. The Indian bourgeoisie once claimed to be secular, democratic and even "socialist". More recently we have seen the ugly face of reaction in the shape of the BJP. Despite the "moderate" speeches of Vajpayee, the BJP remains the face of open reaction. It was responsible for the ghastly anti-Moslem pogroms in Gujarat. Behind it stands the openly communalist Rashtriya Swamyamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the quasi-fascist Shiv Sena. This turn to the right politically coincided with the turn to brutal, imperialist inspired, neo-liberal, anti-working class economic policies. Both reflect the inability of the bourgeoisie to play any progressive role in Indian society.

In reality, however, the Congress is no better. It is a measure of its bankruptcy that it has to rely on Sonia Ghandi, who is not even Indian. After decades in power, Congress is split and in crisis. Both the BJP and Congress are reactionary anti-working class parties. What is needed is an independent class alternative.

The CPI and CPI (M) have a mass base among the workers and peasants of India. Even on the electoral front - which provides us with a far from complete picture - the CPs combined won 27.5 million votes. They must break with the bourgeoisie and begin a campaign of mass mobilizations. There must be no concession to the idea that opposing Congress will allow the BJP back in. This is not a question of the lesser of two evils. With such mass support in society the Communist Parties should be raising the need for a workers' and peasants' government. Such a campaign would receive the enthusiastic support of millions of workers, peasants, dalits and members of the oppressed nationalities. It would instantly cut the ground from beneath the feet of the communalists and reactionaries. If the working people of India were strong enough to defeat the British Raj, they are strong enough to defeat the Indian landlords and capitalists. What is required is strong and determined leadership!

Only the proletariat can show a way out of this terrible impasse by revolutionary means. The Indian working class is the most powerful in the region. It has very militant traditions, as was shown by the 50-million strong all-India general strike against the BJP government's privatisation plans in April 2003, and again in the magnificent general strike of February 24, 2004.

The workers of India cannot place their trust in the bourgeoisie. The workers' parties must not prop up their government of crooks. They cannot support either of the two groups of rival gangsters who have disputed for political power for so many years and have given nothing to the masses but pain and misery. Half a century is long enough to judge the historical potential of the Indian landlords and capitalists. They have been weighed, they have been measured and they have been found wanting. They have squandered the wealth of India and condemned its people to penury. They have transformed what should be a paradise into a hell on earth. They do not deserve to rule!

The working people are the crushing majority of India. They demonstrated their power in the general strike. They merely flexed their muscles and all India trembled. That shows the way forward!

The election success of the left too is another step forward in the growing radicalisation of the working class. The aim should not be to secure this or that ministerial portfolio within a capitalist government. For the Communist Parties this should not be the end of the matter but the beginning of a mass campaign of protest against unemployment, poverty, privatisation, and the entire rotten capitalist system.

A great responsibility rests upon the shoulders of the trade unions and workers' parties of India. It is necessary to set aside all divisions and work out a programme of action based on the most pressing needs of the workers, the peasants, the unemployed youth, the downtrodden women and the oppressed castes. It is necessary to unite the oppressed masses of all India - Hindus and Moslems, men and women, Kashmiris and Sikhs - against the common enemy - the landlords and capitalists.

The CPI (M) and CPI should join forces to organise a serious campaign of struggle together with the trade unions. The Communist parties and the workers organisations must unite in struggle not simply to keep out the BJP - and certainly not to maintain Congress in office - but to seize control of the fabulous wealth being squandered by the pampered few and organise it in the interests of society.

No pacts and coalitions with the bourgeois parties! For an independent programme of working class action! What is needed is a nationwide campaign of action for working-class demands, culminating in an all-Indian hartal.

The bourgeoisie promised to abolish the caste system. They have not. They promised to solve the agrarian problem. They have not. They promised to modernise the country. They have not. They promised that India would be independent yet today India is even more dependent on imperialism than it was before 1947. The rotten Indian bourgeoisie has revealed its total bankruptcy. It has forfeited the right to rule.

The future of India depends upon the ability of the proletariat to take power into its hands. Once that is done, the road would be open to find a solution to all the problems that torment the masses and create poverty in a land of plenty. The working class will sweep away all the accumulated muck of thousands of years. It will transform society from top to bottom and reconstruct it on entirely new, socialist lines.

Alongside their brothers and sisters across the Subcontinent, a workers' government in India will be able to reverse the abhorrent crime perpetrated by British imperialism - with the connivance of Jinnah and Nehru - in 1947. These monsters carved up the living body of an entire Subcontinent and created a bloody wound that has festered ever since.

The Balkanisation of the Subcontinent is the main reason why it is weak and dominated by world imperialism decades after the achievement of formal "independence". The working class cannot accept the existing frontiers that cut across all natural boundaries and divide people who speak the same languages and have shared a common history for thousands of years.

The proletarian revolution will not be constricted within the borders imposed by imperialism. The slogan of the Socialist Federation of the Subcontinent as the only way out for the peoples of the region must be emblazoned across the banner of the Indian working class. Uniting the tremendous productive potential of the whole Subcontinent under the democratic control of the working class is the only way to permanently improve the lives of all the peoples, firstly beyond the bare needs of civilisation, and then to their true stature.

For the vast majority India today is most definitely not 'shining,' but once the proletariat moves decisively to transform society and, with their brothers and sisters throughout the subcontinent, put an end to decaying and decrepit capitalism, the sun will dawn on a new world where the socialist federation of the subcontinent will shine like a beacon of the future to the masses of the whole world.

May 18, 2004