New Socialist Movement

Defeat Communal fascism and Globalization

Speech of Amrish Patel, Gen. Secretary, New Socialist Movement

In the Convention against Communal Fascism and Globalization

At Kolkata on 26^th September 2005.

I come all the way from Gujarat, the State which has now come to be known as the Laboratory of Hindutva. By calling it the Laboratory of Hindutva, we would however be restricting the significance and the objective of ruling classes and their political parties in Gujarat. Undoubtedly, the communal carnage of 2002, carried out against the minorities in Gujarat by Sangh Parivar, overshadowed the other anti-people and anti-poor actions of the ruling elite but over emphasizing the communal aspect would hide the true class character of the ruling elite of Gujarat. In reality, what happened in 2002 was a glimpse of communal-fascist practice of the ruling elite in the era of globalization. Gujarat is not just a Laboratory of Hindutva but also the fertile land for the birth and growth of the economics and politics of Globalization!

Gujarat in fact has just the right history to invite and embrace the foreign dominance. Let us remember that way back in 1608, the ships of the East India Company had first arrived in India, at the port of Surat. Sir Thomas Roe reached the court of the Mughal Emperor, Jahangir, as the emissary of King James I in 1615, and gained for the British the right to establish a factory at Surat. Today Surat is one of the most flourishing cities of Gujarat, the gate way for the earliest European infiltration in India. Manmohan Singh, one of our most ardent collaborator of the Global power, even a few months back, while visiting London, heaped praises for the East India Company and the British rule in India. Manmohan Singh was only echoing the thoughts of Pravin Togadiya, the International General Secretary of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, who in a larger context had declared in a T.V. Interview that Christian civilization and the Hindu civilization were the creative forces on this earth whereas the Islamic rulers were destroying the civilization. Togadiya therefore suggested the alliance between the Christian and the Hindu civilization to confront the Islamic world, which he held to be responsible for destroying the WTC buildings in New York on 11^th September, 2001 and the Ayodhya Mandir in the 1600s! An alliance between the Christian civilization and Hindu civilization in the present era can only mean the alliance between the forces of Globalization and the ruling classes of India apparently led by the Sangh Parivar! Togadiya may appear like a lunatic, but his thinking is absolutely clear. For him Hindutva is not just beating up a few Muslims in Ahmedabad or Godhra but is the ideological basis for creation of a Hindu Rashtra - an ally of the Global forces led by Bush and Blair. Togadiya is perhaps the only public figure that openly exhorted the Government of India to send the Indian Military to support and fight alongside the forces of Bush and Blair in Iraq! That’s the reason I said that Gujarat should not be seen as a Laboratory of Hindutva, but the Indian crucible of globalization.

The success of BJP in Gujarat of fascisizing the State machinery can only be compared with the Nazi Rule in Germany in the 1930s. The diabolic use of the Godhra incident to falsely project the Muslims of Gujarat as terrorists and instigate the Hindus to commit genocide of 2002 with the fullest support of the State administration including the police was the starting point of dividing the society in communal lines. The hate campaign against the Muslims and projecting them as cause of all problems in India and more particularly projecting them as terrorists is just the situation that Hitler had created against the Jews in Germany and this tactics is a part of the larger game plan to divide the country on communal lines in order that BJP can assume the role of the “savior of the Hindu majority”.

The New Socialist Movement realizing the game plan of the fascist forces, had made in depth enquiry into the Godhra incident and on the basis of the information available from the Nanavati commission has been able to clearly establish that Godhra incident was absolutely a spontaneous incident and that there was no conspiracy or pre-planning by any muslim group to burn the S-6 coach at Godhra, or to kill any passengers of the Sabarmati express as alleged by Modi. Infact the fire itself was accidental. This finding of Jan Sangharsh Manch a sister organization of NSM, had been made public and it appears that the Banerjee commission had also come to the same conclusion. By participating through its representatives in the Nanavati Commission, great amount of information has been brought out before the public regarding the direct collusion between the police and the BJP and the VHP activists who had killed thousands of innocent muslims after the Godhra incident.

The cross examination of police officers like Sreekumar, P C Pandey brought out the facts that it was Narendra Modi who had ordered the dead bodies of the Kar Sevaks who had died in the Godhra incident, to be brought to Ahmedabad for the purpose of instigating the majority community. Cross examination of Sreekumar had revealed that systematic attempts were made by the BJP leaders and ministers to sabotage all police investigations into the incidents of killing and looting of the minority and it was revealed that the police officers were obeying the political bosses rather than the superiors. By our effort therefore we could expose the truth of Godhra as well as post Godhra events and our efforts continue in that direction.

Immediately after the post Godhra incident the Narendra Modi Government in order to suppress the Muslim even further, had deliberately used POTA against the innocent Muslim youths and had arrested 100s of such young people dubbing them as “terrorist”. The complete denial of legal justice to muslims, both the riot victims and the POTA victims was a well planned strategy for fascisizing the entire state machinery with the tacit support of the civil society. After having gained the sanction of the civil society for their fascist rule, the attacks against the other sections of the oppressed people started. The slums of the urban poor started being demolished without any notice, without any protest coming from the civil society. The working class also came under sharp attack and their rights to minimum wages, regularization were systematically taken away. Under the new agriculture policy, corporate farming and contract farming are being promoted in a big way and under the corporate farming policy, large tracts of land in the villages which are presently owned by the Government are to be leased out to big companies for agricultural purpose. Presently thousands of dalits and other poorer sections of the people live on such lands and also grow some food for their own consumption. The corporate farming would deny to such people even this minimum resource. This being the situation the New Socialist Movement along with Jan Sangharsh Manch had created a larger platform for struggle called the Gujarat Janandolan where on one hand the minorities were organized to join the democratic struggle for their own rights and on the other hand, all other sections of people like the working people, dalits, farmers and slum dwellers were organized to struggle against the anti-people, anti-poor actions of the Gujarat Government. The May Day rallies of the last three years were memorable in the sense that for the first time in the history of Gujarat, muslims, dalits, farmers, slum-dwellers and other sections of the oppressed people united to rally against the policy of the BJP government of Gujarat. A convention against the communal fascism and globalization which was held in Ahmedabad on 10^th September 2005, primarily by NSM and CPI(ML) in which many of our CPI(ML) comrades had participated had received an overwhelming response from all oppressed classes and after the convention, a very militant rally through the sensitive areas of Ahmedabad was successfully taken out.

The New Socialist Movement is therefore a rising tide of struggle against the communal-fascist forces in the era of globalization and NSM reaches out to all revolutionary movements which are directed against the global forces and the their domestic lackeys.

We are of the opinion that after the Second World War, the old imperialist powers (Britain, France, etc.) that had dominated the world for past 300 years have joined the new imperialist forces (USA, Germany, Japan, Italy, etc.) for the purpose of exploiting the wealth and the labour of the rest of the world. They now do it under the new banner of globalization, under which they create international organizations like World Bank, WTO , IMF etc. and force all other countries to abide by their norms. Realizing that in this era of globalization the contradictions would sharpen as the world’s economy goes from one crisis to another, the global powers are determined to curb the democratic rights of the people so as to suppress their struggle. Scuttling the democratic framework and promoting the fascist tendencies are therefore the hallmark of globalization. The Gujarat carnage of 2002 led by Narendra Modi is thus the manifestation of politics of globalization. Let us not forget that in the last four years, the Americans have destroyed the sovereignty of two countries, namely, Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of fighting “terrorism”. It should also be remembered that the Americans never condemned the Gujarat carnage.

NSM is of the considered opinion that the following contradiction should be addressed at the present stage in India.

1. The contradiction between the forces of globalization and the broad masses of working people of India.

2. The contradiction between the Indian bourgeoisie and the broad masses of the working people of India.

3. The contradiction between rural and agrarian masses on one hand and the big farmers and the corporate houses in the agrarian sector on the other hand.

The broad masses of people of India are already engaged in resolute struggle to overcome the above contradictions, despite fierce oppositions from the political establishments like NDA and UPA and their supporters. Struggle against the MNCs, struggle of the dalits and minorities, struggle of the working class against the privatization and liberalization, struggle of the slum dwellers against the demolition of their slums, struggle of the rural poor against the policy of corporate farming are but the manifestations of the struggles in relation to the three contradictions stated above.

Today in India, almost all organs of the state are bending over to support the forces of globalization and the judiciary is no longer an exception. In recent times the judiciary as infact over turned all the pro-labour judgments. So acute is the situation that it would be the bounden duty of all the revolutionary forces to come together to defend the rights of the broad masses of the working people of this country. Even if the different organizations representing the struggling masses are not able to immediately resolve their ideological differences, it would still be an absolute necessity for all revolutionary organizations to come together with the common understanding of fighting the global forces and their lackeys in India. Needless to point out, one of the primary struggles should be directed against the communal-fascist forces and defend the democratic rights of the working people. On behalf of NSM therefore, I call upon all organizations participating in this convention to come together and form a common platform for direct struggle. Let not the tactics of the ruling elites of Gujarat overwhelm the country, rather, let the working people overwhelm the reactionary forces of Gujarat and not permit the Gujarat experiment to succeed anywhere else.