Hunger and want, oppression and humiliation are permanent shadows following the majority of Indians. Every year millions of poor peasant families finally know the inevitable _they cannot make ends meet on their meagre plots of lands, and bow to the inevitable. Indebted to the money lenders, many sell off their lands, and turn into agricultural workers working on the lands of others for a pittance. Others go to far away cities in search of livelihood, where they are exploited to the bone and humiliated. In the eyes of factory workers, rickshaw pullers, coolies in the railway stations, and construction workers, and of the agricultural workers, you see what India's economic and political and social system has produced and reproduced with a vengeance_hunger and want, oppression and humiliation. 

On August 15, yet again one more Prime Minister will deliver a speech from the Red Fort shedding crocodile tears about freeing Indians from poverty. When Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister made such a speech 51 years ago, hopes might have been raised in some people's hearts. Not any more. India is divided into two, the toiling masses and the middle strata on one side and the minority of rich on the other. Hunger, poverty and insecurity stalk the majority. The rich profit from this poverty and hunger of the majority. They profit from the oppression and humiliation of people on the basis of caste, gender, region and religion. It is these profiteers, the big bourgeoisie who control political power from 1947 till now. They have various political avatars_Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party, United Front, and so on. 

Why would those who benefit from exploitation and oppression want to end it? Why would Yama provide deliverance from death? 

No! It is those who suffer from hunger and want, from oppression and humiliation who must deliver themselves from these diseases. It is the workers and peasants of India who must decide to do it and do it. We are the backbone of India, it is we who have broken our backs day in and day out for generations to satisfy the greed of exploiters and oppressors. If we want our children to continue to suffer what we are suffering, then we can submit to these intolerable conditions. If we do not want our children to suffer, then we must take up the banner of revolt against this intolerable system. 

Only the revolutionary united front of workers and peasants and all the oppressed can liberate India from hunger and want. Therefore, it is the task of every conscious worker, every conscious peasant, every Indian in whose heart is burning the fire of anger against this system to pour their energies into building the united front of workers and peasants. Workers and peasants and all the oppressed have truly nothing to lose but their chains of bondage and slavery, while they have a world of freedom from hunger and want, oppression and humiliation to win, if they only dare. 

Communists swear by the red flag of liberation from all exploitation and oppression. The litmus test of every communist to this cause is this. Are they for the building of the revolutionary united front of workers and peasants or not? This is how history will judge their deeds. 
 

As the retrogressive privatization and economic restructuring programs continue worldwide, disrupting lives of millions of workers, farmers, middle strata and broad masses through unemployment, cutbacks in social spending, etc., world imperialism led by the US is perfecting the tools for ideological and political subversion as well as military intervention under the new conditions. One of the weapons being perfected to subvert the democratic struggles of the peoples is through direct or indirect intervention under the guise of a disinterested third party. But the facts speak eloquently that the only interest the US pursues under all circumstances is to either violently suppress the genuine struggles or hijack and transform them into vehicles for strengthening its interests for domination and plunder of the peoples. 

The most recent developments in the Balkans_both in Kosova and Bosnia, in Nigeria and in Ireland_are all examples of how the US involvement in these countries to promote "democracy" and broker "peace" has led to further division of the people and an escalation of violence, paving the way for the entry of the US forces to "keep peace" and to "make peace".  

It is for this reason alone, if not others, that all fighting forces, whether in Nagaland or Kashmir, among the youth or women of India, and in any of the countries of South Asia must maintain utmost vigilance against the overt and covert interference of the US in their affairs. 

The disequilibrium that set in after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90s continues with a vengeance. In South Asia, with the declining influence of the former Soviet Union in the post Cold War period, the US has stepped up its attempts to involve itself in the affairs of the region under the banner of "constructive engagement". The "constructive engagement" that the US officials peddle in their public dealings with Delhi hides the numerous clandestine activities they carry out in collaboration with government circles, opposition circles, and enemies of the people. The involvement of the US, either directly or through surrogates, in the struggles in the north-west and the north-east of India in the last decade are coming to light every single day.  

The keenness and urgency with which the US is forcing itself in the Indo-Pak conflict and its offer of "assistance" to resolve those conflicts now are accompanied by its increasing contact with various insurgent and "counter-insurgent" groups in the north-west and elsewhere in the country.  Besides, the direct flow of money to regional capitalist groups in India is another channel that the US uses to achieve its aims, as evidenced in the approval of the massive World Bank loan for Andhra Pradesh recently.  

The external disequilibrium has been accompanied by internal disequilibrium in India. The nuclear explosion by India and Pakistan in May can be traced to post Cold War destabilization of the bipolar world and the internal political crises in India and Pakistan.  The response of the Indian government and Pakistani governments are the most absurd; on the one hand they are fighting for their interests in the world through nuclearisation and so on in fierce opposition to the big powers led by the US and on the other hand they are promoting a sense of euphoria that their engagement with the US is leading to easing of US economic sanctions!.  

The only rational and coherent response of the people under these conditions can be that they take advantage of the credibility crisis and step up their struggle for economic and political renewal of India, rejecting the thesis that foreign capital can be a factor for people's prosperity or that nuclearization can be a factor for security. It is only in this way that the true content of the US policy of  "peace-making" or easing of sanctions and its interference in Kashmir or Nagaland  can be defeated.  

It is now clear that the US, China and other permanent members of the Security Council of the UN are stepping up their interference in the affairs of India and South Asia in the name of "peace making", which includes military intervention to bring peace and avert the danger of nuclear conflagration.  Any peace deal the US tries to broker, whether involving Kashmir or Nagaland, Tamils or Chakmas,  and others can only serve to keep the people out of any solution and to further divide them as they have done in the case of the Irish Peace Accord. The massive disinfor-mation campaign to convince people that their cause and interests are the ones that drives the US to become a disinterested third party mediator and so on are directed against the people who are rearing to fight for the renewal of India. 
 

The condition of women in India is abysmal. As part of the working class, they suffer from poverty, hunger, disease and the lack of education, but, in addition, as women, they face severe hardships on the economic and social fronts and become victims of gender-based violence. Casteism, religious fanaticism and superstition take their toll on women, above all.  

Women have always therefore been in the forefront of the struggles to end this system of exploitation and oppression and to build a glorious future. Women are demanding equal rights for themselves, and for all other sections of exploited and oppressed people. They are demanding political empowerment so that they can themselves determine and build their future. 

When the women's reservation bill was discussed in the Parliament, these conditions of women were not discussed at all. Nobody discussed the problems or demands of women. Would the reservation bill address the problems of women, or to what extent_these aspects were not discussed at all. Instead, in a very shameful way, the ruling and opposition parties indulged in hooliganism and hurling abuses at each other and brought the whole matter to a standstill. In order to justify their shameful acts, they used other sections of oppressed people as scapegoats and tried to sow divisions between these sections and oppressed women. 

For three days, they brought proceedings to a halt and made it impossible to discuss the question of price rise or other important matters. 

These actions make it clear once again that the parliamentary parties are all interested only in keeping their seats intact and that they are not interested in solving any of the problems of the country or of the people. 
 

Indian women have constantly waged a struggle against the oppression they face at the hands of the state and society, against discrimination and unequal treatment, against poverty, unemployment and other problems. From every section of oppressed people, women are coming forward in this struggle. In this way, the struggle for the emancipation of women is an important and integral part of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class and other oppressed sections. In recent times, the women's movement has been in the forefront of the struggle against the new economic policies, liberalisation and privatisation policies, against state-sponsored terrorism and against the attacks on the living standards of the people. 

The ruling classes have presented the reservation bill as the answer to the struggles of the women, as the answer to the demand for political power in order to transform society in favour of the exploited and oppressed masses. Every party or political formation which came to power in the last five years_ the Congress, the United Front and now the BJP_promised with great fanfare to pass the reservation bill for women. According to this bill, 33% of all the seats in Parliament and at all levels of the political institutions would be reserved for women. This step has been proclaimed to be a great victory for women in India and a great step towards their emancipation. However, do the recent shameful events in the Parliament actually encourage women to take part in the affairs of Parliament? Is this the right that the masses of oppressed women are fighting for and yearning for _the right to fight like cats and dogs over the seats in Parliament? Parliament has no connection with and no interest in the problems of ordinary people in the present system. It is a place where different politicians and parties dance to the tune of the big capitalists and capitalist groupings. The common people are made pawns in the games that are played in Parliament. Are women as a whole, or women of any oppressed section going to win their rights by sending representatives to such a parliament? 

Our country has a long history of reservations. The British started this system, as a method to build and strengthen walls of division between the people of different religions and castes in this country, and to grant privileges and buy over a section of persons from different strata of society. The Indian Republic adopted and continued and strengthened this system with the same aims. All this was done in the name of giving rights to the oppressed and exploited sections, but actually it was aimed at granting privileges to a selected few, while denying rights to all. The results of fifty years of this practice is there for all to see. By placing a handful of selected persons from particular sections in the seats of power, it is said that these sections have all been politically empowered, whereas the most bestial forms of violence and exploitation against these very sections continue unabated on a big scale with the full connivance of the state. Is this the form of empowerment that the women of India desire? Will this fulfil the aspirations which have inspired their ceaseless struggles? The fighting women of India must not be diverted from the truth that as long as state power is in the hands of the big capitalists and their foreign supporters, and the Parliament and state remain in their service, the working class and working people, women, youth, the oppressed and exploited castes and tribes, the oppressed nationalities_all will be the victims of poverty, unemployment, state terror and oppression, all will remain politically disempowered. A political system based on the granting of privileges cannot assure rights for the exploited and oppressed. For their rights, for power in their own hands, women must forge their united front with all the toiling people, and all others who want to transform society, and fight for the transformation of this system based on exploitation and oppression. 
 

Capitalism, in this era of imperialism, is characterised by the ever increasing concentration of production and capital, leading to the merging or decimation of small enterprises by big ones. These big capitalist enterprises concentrate in their hands huge productive capacities and energy and raw material resources and grow into monopolies. 

"... the rise of monopolies as the result of concentration of production in general is a universal and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism" 

Such gigantic enterprises have a national and international character. Within their own country they ruin most of the small proprietors and industrialists. On the international plane they grow into colossal concerns having sway over whole branches of industry, agriculture, construction, etc., in many countries. 

This situation is true in India as well, where capitalism is the driving force of the economy. Capitalism has been growing in India at a rapid pace and has been increasing its hold on various branches of the Indian economy. Through mergers and takeovers, various capitalist enterprises in the public and private sector_set up with both Indian and foreign capital_have become world scale monopolies having command over huge labour and natural resources of the country. A significant portion of the nation's production is controlled by these big industrial enterprises. 

The scrapping of the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act and the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act have further accelerated the process of concentration of production and capital through mergers and takeovers. The victims of concentration are not just small and medium enterprises, but even big financial enterprises and groups. As a result of the insatiable appetite of the monopolies for high monopoly profits and the extreme sharpening of competition, this process is assuming colossal proportions. Some recent examples have been the merger of Brooke Bond, Lipton and Ponds with the consumer products giant Hindustan Lever; the take over bid of Raasi Cements by the cement monopoly in South India, India Cements; attempts to take over several smaller hotels by the Tata group, Indian Hotels; the attempt to take over Shree Digvijay cement by the A.V. Birla group, and so on. 

Small and medium-sized enterprises are directly dependent on these monopolies. They receive orders from the monopolies and work for them; they get credits, raw materials, technology, etc. from them. In practice, they have become appendages of the monopolies. 

This intensification of the process of concentration of production and capital has further exacerbated the basic contradiction of capitalism, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private character of appropriation, along with all the other contradictions. In India, the colossal income and super profits realised from the savage exploitation of workers are appropriated by a handful of capitalist magnates. Likewise, the means of production are the private property of capitalists, while the working class remains enslaved to them and its labour power remains a market commodity. 

Profits outweigh social expenditure 

An analysis of the financial performance of 590 companies (both in the public and private sector) in 1997-98 by Business Line Research Bureau revealed that their sales increased by 10.86% and net earnings by 14.23%. The sales of these companies increased from Rs. 3.7 lakh crores in 1996-97 to Rs. 4.02 lakh crores in 1997-98. This sales volume is about 28.5% of the gross domestic product of the country (the entire country's production capacity). Post-tax earnings of these companies increased from Rs. 29,107 crores in 1996-97 to Rs. 33,250 crores in 1997-98. The magnitude of this profit can be understood if we compare this with the plan allocations made by the government in social sectors. The profits of these companies is about 40% more than the entire plan allocation in this year's budget for the ministries of education, agriculture, health, rural areas and employment, welfare and women and child development. Of this sample, 11 companies_ONGC, SBI, VSNL, ICICI, IDBI, Reliance Industries, Gas Authority of India, Indian Oil Corporation, BHEL, ITC and Bank of Baroda_alone registered a 37.83% rise in net earnings.  

Another study by the Reserve Bank of India analysed the financial results of 1,262 non-financial companies in the private corporate sector for the first half of 1997-98. The study indicated that their sales rose by 8.6% in the first half (April to September) of 1997-98 to Rs. 1,12,661 crore from Rs. 1,03,763 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Profits after tax of these companies amounted to Rs. 7,161 crores. Of this sample, the top 170 companies each with a paid-up capital of Rs. 25 crores or more accounted for as much as 62.7% of the total paid-up capital. 

According to a Financial Express survey, the biggest 1,100 companies in terms of market capitalisation had a sales turnover of Rs. 2.91 lakh crores in 1996, amounting to nearly 30% of the GDP of the country in that year. The gross fixed assets of these companies added up to Rs. 1.77 lakh crores. Even among these companies, the top 10 companies cornered 48.6% of the total sales and 49.4% of the gross fixed assets of this sample. These figures indicate the extreme concentration of production and capital even among these gigantic enterprises. 

Since independence, investment in education has been determined by the priorities of the big bourgeoisie and political compulsions within and outside the country. Accordingly, the total investment in education as well as the inter-sectoral_elementary, secondary, technical and higher education_allocations have been made on the basis of whether it will serve the interests of big capital or not. 

The Indian education system is characterised by a severe degree of underinvestment. The rate of growth in investment, both total and per capita, have actually deteriorated since the 1950s. The Indian government at present devotes 3.5% of national income to education. This is grossly inadequate to:  

- provide reasonable levels of quality education to all the students enrolled presently;  
- meet the requirements to provide universal elementary education of 8 years for every child in the age group of 6-14 while ensuring the growth of secondary and higher education. 

Educationists recommend an investment of 8% of national income for countries with a low literacy base such as India. On the contrary, the proportion of national investment in education in India is less than in many other economically developing countries in the world. India ranks 98 among 166 countries for which data are available in 1995. 

The relative importance given to education in the Five year Plans declined gradually from 7.9% in the First Five Year Plan to 2.7% in the Sixth Five Year Plan. It increased to 4.5% in the Eighth Five year Plan, but it is still much less than in the First Five Year Plan. 

When the Indian bourgeoisie inherited the Indian state from the British, they also inherited an education system that had been set up by the British to serve their interests. The Nehru government had to immediately contend with two expectations: i) the expectations of the people that education should be provided free to all their sons and daughters and ii) the expectations of big capital to turn the education system into a tool for providing skilled manpower for their factories and offices so that their business will expand.  

In true social democratic style, the government of the ruling classes included in the Constitution a directive principle that "The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they complete the age of 14 years".  In the initial years, not only was the share of education in the five year plans relatively higher, the share of elementary education in total education expenditure was also higher. In the First Plan, 56% of the total plan expenditure on education was allocated to elementary education. 

As the bourgeoisie consolidated itself, it had less and less use for the socialist mask. From the second five year plan, it shifted educational investments towards higher education at the cost of elementary education, while at the same time giving education lesser and lesser importance in planned investment, as noted earlier. This also coincided with the shift in public investments from the agriculture sector to the industrial sector. 

The share of elementary education came down from 56% in the first five year plan to 30% in the fourth plan while that of higher education went up from 9% to 25%. However, a reversal happened after that. The growth of the educated unemployed, the mismatches in the labour market and the social unrest of the late 60s and 70s forced the government to pay more attention to elementary education and consequently the relative expenditure on higher education was reduced. The share of total education expenditure on elementary education went up from 30% in the fourth plan to 47% in the eighth plan and that of higher education fell from 25% to 8% in the same period. 

Today, the Indian ruling classes are under tremendous domestic and international pressure to provide increased funds for primary and secondary education. It has become untenable for the bourgeoisie to be rated at the bottom in literacy, while staking claims to be admitted to the nuclear club, the security council and so on. Its strategy is to shift its spending to elementary education and leave technical and higher education to the private sector. The World Bank thesis that higher education is a 'non-merit' good and hence needs no public subsidies is being pushed vigorously by the Indian ruling classes. Privatisation of education is being offered as a solution to major educational problems.  
 

Everything goes to show that over the last several years, the thrust of state policy has been to move further away from the people's dreams of state-supported higher education of good quality at affordable cost for their children who graduate from school.  The existing university system, which itself was far from fulfilling this goal, has been deliberately allowed to fall into crisis and decay.  Even prestigious universities in the big cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta, and so on, are showing the effects.  Students from working class and even middle class families are unable to afford the college fees, which in many cases have been hiked by 200% or 300% at one go. Teachers are demoralised by the very low salaries which are responsible for the clear decline in their standard of living.  Colleges have too few classrooms or laboratories, libraries have too few books and journals, hostel and transport facilities are woefully inadequate, and everywhere buildings and campuses are a picture of disrepair and neglect.  The policies followed by successive governments, of different political parties, have brought higher education to this pass. 

What this means is that, firstly, fewer students from families with lower incomes are able to afford higher education.  Secondly, it means that even those who do manage to get into colleges, eventually leave it with degrees that mean little in real terms. 

Does this mean that the children of the rich, of the IAS bureaucrats, of the ministers and top brass of the armed forces, etc, will also not get good quality higher education?  No, not by any means!  Most of them are eventually sent to American and other universities abroad, and are therefore hardly affected by the crisis in higher education at home.  As for those among them who seek higher education within India, there are enough elite colleges and institutions here which will welcome them with open arms, and which exclude students of lower socio-economic status by charging outrageous fees and imposing all kinds of conditions for entrance. 
 
A system of higher education which discriminates against the youth from the working class and middle class in this manner has no future.  It will necessarily lead to the widening of the gap between the rich and the poor.  Full government support for higher education is a must if it is to be available for all, and not just for a privileged few.  The Government justifies its withdrawal of support for higher education on the totally hollow pretext that more should be spent on primary education.  But by what logic does support for higher education have to be cut in order to pay for primary education?  The state must provide adequately for both primary and higher education, and the funds for it can be diverted from other sectors of government expenditure which go to benefit only the parasitical bourgeoisie. 

Every year lakhs of young people anxiously throng colleges and universities across the country hoping for admission.  Their dreams and those of their parents are that they will get a good education and a job after it.  The tragedy is that fewer and fewer among them will get a decent job at the end of it.  This is the fault of the economic system, not of their seeking higher education per se.  But a big propaganda is done that what students need is "job-oriented" training.  In this way, the Government is discouraging youth from aspiring for higher education and is washing its hands of its responsibility for seeing that there are sufficient and appropriate jobs for educated youth. So what happens in real life is that students are being fleeced twice - first, by a college or university education that is sub-standard; and secondly, by privately-run rackets known as "tutorials", "polytechnics", "vocational courses", etc, which take ten times the fees and make all kinds of tall promises about preparing them for jobs. 

The British colonialists set up a university system in this country with the very pragmatic interest of training some Indians to fill only the subordinate positions in the administration, etc. The present-day ruling classes have retained this narrow objective and outlook. But the Indian working class cannot look on higher education that way.  A broad-based higher education system is the hallmark of a progressive and cultured society. It is necessary for the goals of emancipating society from all forms of backwardness and for raising the consciousness and cultural level of the people, and it must be made available to the children of the working class and people without discrimination, to those who have a real stake in the progress and emancipation of society. Education for all must be made the goal of state policy, and a state which cannot provide it has no right to continue. 
 
 

One of the laws of capitalism is that the rich grow richer at one pole while the poor grow poorer at the other. This law is operating with a vengeance in India, if one looks at the conditions of the working class. The absolute gap between the rich and the poor is increasing, which means that relative to the rich the poor are growing poorer. But this is only one part of the story. In absolute terms too, the conditions of the  working class is deteriorating, i.e. the standard of living of workers is deteriorating in comparison with their own standard of living a few years back! 

Annual earnings of workers in manufacturing industries 
(Rs.) 

Source: Labour Bureau, Shimla 
 

Consumer price index of industrial workers 
(1960=100) 

   1988-89   802 
   1989-90   853 
   1990-91   951 
   1991-92  1080 
   1992-93  1183 

Source: Labour Bureau, Shimla 
 

Amongst the working class of town and country, the workers in the manufacturing sector are considered to be amongst the relatively "better off" workers. The table below gives the official figures which reveal to some extent the deteriorating absolute conditions of these workers. The actual deterioration is far more, since the Consumer Price Index is always weighted against giving a true picture of the prices. 

In the period 1989 to 1992, the consumer price index of industrial workers increased by 47.5%. During the same period, workers wages increased by only 25.5% proving that there has been a further deterioration in their standard of living. 

This data reveals that workers wages have actually fallen during this period, meaning that they have been further impoverished. Taking 1988-89 as the base year, workers wages at constant prices (i.e., at inflation adjusted prices) are shown in the graph.