The beginning of the 40th year of the founding of our Party is being celebrated with great enthusiasm by Party comrades in many places in India as well as abroad. The celebrations everywhere have been marked by a spirit of optimism.
On 29th December, a meeting to mark this event was held in Delhi. A bright red banner “Hail the anniversary of the Communist Ghadar Party as it enters its 40th year!” greeted the comrades as they entered the hall.
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Young girls holding aloft red flags marched on to stage, with the song, Ghadar Party Lal Salaam playing in the background. Comrade Lal Singh, General Secretary of the Party, walked on to the stage to a standing ovation. A young comrade presented him a bouquet of 39 red roses to mark the 39 years since the founding of our party.
From the podium, Comrade Lal Singh saluted all the comrades of the Party, both those present in the meeting and others who were marking the anniversary elsewhere in the country and abroad.
The people of our country are going through extremely dangerous times. The present government is one of the most oppressive, anti-people government our people have ever faced. It has unleashed a savage reign of terror on our people.
This thoroughly anti-people government has passed the Citizenship Amendment Act. It has been cruelly implementing the National Register of Citizens, which threatens to deprive tens of lakhs of our people of citizenship rights and send them to detention camps. People in crores have been pouring out on to the streets in protest. Youth are being hounded by the state, for peacefully protesting against this Act. They are being treated as criminals and terrorists, their pictures are being pasted on the doors of houses and arrest warrants issued against them. Parents do not know if their daughters and sons will return home for dinner. Many are forced to go searching for their children from one police station to another. Many people have been killed, many more wounded, hundreds jailed.
Comrade Lal Singh compared the situation with what prevailed in the 1980s in Punjab when parents kept waiting for their children who never returned home; they had been jailed, tortured and killed and their bodies thrown into the canals by the barbaric security forces of the state. He condemned the lying propaganda of the ruling class, which is going all out to vilify the people’s protests. The people are protesting peacefully, but they are being accused of throwing stones and burning buses. This violence is actually being organised by the state. This is a time-tested strategy of the ruling class; it has been happening in our country since decades. The bourgeoisie organises this kind of violence so that they can blame the protestors for the anarchy on the streets, and brand the people as “terrorists”.
There is darkness all around, but this darkness will certainly give way to a new dawn. Our Party has taken up the mission to lead the people out of this darkness into light. The people of our country will certainly unite under one banner and end this terribly oppressive and exploitative rule. The people will become the masters of Hindustan and ensure prosperity and security for all. This is the call of the Ghadaris, this is the solemn commitment of our Party. We Ghadaris will turn our words into deeds.
The words and deeds of those ruling us do not match. The constitution of our country promises many things in one clause, only to be negated in the very next clause. The ruling class keeps repeating the lie that Indian democracy is democracy for all. The reality is the opposite. Decision making power is concentrated in the executive. Every party that comes to power implements the program of the capitalist class headed by the biggest monopolies. Every act of the government is in the service of the capitalist class and against the interests of the broad masses of people. It is the will of a tiny minority of exploiters that is implemented by governments.
Comrade Lal Singh enumerated some of the major anti-people steps of the present government, since it came to power in 2014. Each of these has been accompanied by lies to hide its real aim.
On 11th March 2016, it made the Aadhar card compulsory and created a huge disruption in people’s lives by insisting that Aadhar card is necessary for everything from bank account to rations to pensions, etc.
On 8th Nov 2016 it announced demonetisation overnight without any warning to the people, without any consultation even with its own Party members or others in government and the opposition parties. People were subjected to great hardship, small businesses were destroyed and peasants did not have money to buy seeds and other inputs. People had to stand in line at the banks for hours on end, day-after-day, to get cash for their daily needs.
On 5th August 2019, Article 370 of the Constitution was scrapped without any consultation in Parliament or with the people of Kashmir. It was an unprecedented attack on the Kashmiri people and the struggle for their rights. Thousands of troops were moved in, and stationed at every city and town in the state. Telephone and internet services were shut down, there was total media black-out and curfew was imposed, to prevent any form of protest by the people. Thousands of political activists including leaders of opposition parties were arrested. The government announced the bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories, directly under central rule to break the unity of the people of the state.
On 9th November 2019, the Supreme Court ruled that a Ram temple will be built at the very spot where the Babri Masjid has stood and had been demolished by the BJP and Congress Party, working in collusion in December 1992. The verdict was based on a series of lies promoted by the colonialists and the present Indian state, starting with placing of idols of baby Ram inside the mosque.
Comrade Lal Singh exposed the false propaganda of the bourgeoisie and its apologists that the Supreme Court is an “independent” body from which people can expect justice when they face attacks from the government. The judiciary is as much an integral part of the Indian state, as the executive and parliament. The judiciary merely gives a legal cloak to the thoroughly anti-people decisions of the government.
The capitalist class headed by the capitalist monopolies controls all arms of the state. That is why governments may change, but nothing really changes for the people as the ruling class remains the same. The ruling class and its parties keep repeating the lie that this or that party in government can change the conditions of the people. We cannot expect the parties of the ruling class to tell the truth to the people.
What is tragic is that many parties in the communist movement also hide the truth about the system from the people. These parties create illusions about the Indian state, its constitution, and the system of democracy through which the ruling class exercises its dictatorship over the workers and peasants. They call upon the people to save the existing Constitution and the existing “democracy”. Workers and peasants must ask them – Does this constitution and democracy really serve the people? The answer is very clear to us. They do not. On the contrary, they serve to legitimise the exploitative and oppressive rule of the ruling class over our people.
Our Party must step up the work to expose the real nature of this system, and the lies about the Constitution. We cannot create any illusions about this system. We are working with the aim of establishing a new state with a new constitution in which the working class and toiling peasantry will be the rulers. We have to work for the unity of all communists around this aim.
Today, the masses of people are very angry with the CAA and the NRC and are calling for their repeal. People are militantly coming out in protest, braving the heavy state repression. This is a fitting answer to the government which is lying that it has the people’s support. Comrade Lal Singh hailed the women students of Jamia Millia University who had lit the spark that is spreading the fire of revolt all over the country against the government and its anti-people policies. He expressed his conviction that as the struggle of our people against the attack on their rights intensifies, people will begin to understand the truth behind this “democracy” and the Constitution. They will fight for a new system in which decision making power will be in the hands of the people. They will reject the existing state and its Constitution and fight for a new state with a new Constitution that will actually guarantee prosperity and security for all.
Comrade Lal Singh explained that the Indian state’s attack on Muslims is completely in line with the Anglo-American imperialist strategy of attacking Muslims worldwide, as “terrorists”, “fundamentalists” etc. The Anglo American imperialists are promoting the theory of “clash of civilisations”, according to which the main struggle in the world is between people of the Christian and Muslim faiths. They are deliberately painting people of the Muslim faith as terrorists, monsters, etc. Their aim is to smash the unity of the people. The imperialists and the ruling class of our country want to hide that the real struggle raging in society is between the exploiters headed by the bourgeoisie and the exploited and oppressed headed by the working class. They are terrified of the revolution and communism.
Our Party was founded 39 years ago to bring an end to this anti-people exploitative and oppressive system capitalist. Our party is organising the working class and all oppressed to put an end to the rule of the bourgeoisie. A few decades ago, the slogan “Lal Quila pe lal nishaan, maang raha hai Hindustan” used to reverberate in cities and villages all across the country. Comrade Lal Singh expressed his confidence that the day is not far off when it will once again reverberate in every town and village of our country, as we step up our work and make the people conscious of the path to their liberation, the path to genuine democracy and socialism.
Comrade Lal Singh’s inspiring speech was welcomed with prolonged applause by all present. It was followed by stirring interventions of many comrades who spoke of their experience with the Party in all the years since they joined its ranks. They hailed its steadfast loyalty to the working class and its vision of ending the rule of the exploiters through revolution. They hailed its stand and actions based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism. Militating in the ranks of the Party, they had learnt the essence of what it is to be a human being, a communist, several of the young comrades said. They expressed their gratitude to the Party and saluted its firm conviction in the ultimate victory of the proletarian revolution, through all these 39 years.
The interventions were followed by a rousing cultural program presented by the children and youth of the Party. Folk dances reflecting the diverse culture of our people were enthusiastically performed by the children. The youth presented songs, dances and poetry, portraying the fighting spirit and deep revolutionary traditions of our people, our yearning for liberation from all slavery and bondage.
The anniversary celebrations that ushered in the 40th year of our party culminated with the singing of the Internationale. Slogans like “Hindustan ki Communist Ghadar Party Zindabad”, Lal Quile par lal nishan, Maang raha hai Hindustan”, “Glory to Marxism-Leninism” and “Inquilab Zindabad” rent the air. The spirit of optimism, the firm faith in the party and its line, and the determination to pour all ones energies to fulfilling the tasks in the coming period, were visible on the bright faces of every comrade.