Masses Protest Violence against Women
NEW DELHI (India), October 5— “I cannot believe how I was demeaned as a female all my life. I am never going to accept that life,” said Sitha. She had come to a march protesting violence against women. It was triggered by a woman Delhi University (DU) student who was raped and police refused to take her report. Then a police officer raped her again.
When this exploded on social media, women’s groups at DU led a march of millions.
“I was silently angry. Today’s march gave me the space to express my disgust. And to spend valuable time with ICWP comrades. They showed me that the root of sexism and sexist behaviour is private property and capitalist class society. I am hopeful that so many women and men have joined hands. We can win many of them to a communist vision because communism will eliminate the material basis of sexism.”
Sitha did not come to the march alone. She brought dozens of women, mostly young, many of them in high school and college. We have never seen such enthusiasm about a march!
We read the ICWP Sexism pamphlet for days and discussed our strategy. We distributed Red Flag every day and talked to our friends and neighbours. It immediately gave us the powerful ideological weapon to channel the anger of the masses into the possibility of a communist future.
All our collectives brought more young comrades than ever before. The presence of the masses electrified our contingent. We danced, cried, sang songs, and raised communist slogans. The march started early in the morning. From the Metro stations to the march, we distributed our QR code to almost everybody. And in the next few days, we got amazing responses.
Zionist Army’s Violence against Women in Gaza
What distinguished our contingent and attracted people to us was our leaflet about the genocide in Gaza. It singled out attacks on women and children by the Zionist army. We suggested that the sharpest attacks on women are in Palestine.
We decided to print this leaflet after much internal discussion. Some comrades believed that in a protest march, the masses are too busy agitating to look at our literature. We were correct, as many people came to us and grabbed our leaflet.
Some women climbed onto a giant statue denouncing racism and the rape and patriarchal culture promoted by the fascist BJP, India’s ruling party. Some women blamed ‘men’ for all the problems in society. After giving speeches, it was time to climb down. This was difficult for many because of the height. As the women struggled to get down, men formed a human pyramid to make it easier. We immediately went into the crowd and got the contact numbers of many men and women.
“Communism Forever!”
The masses’ creativity was on full display. We tried to give a communist twist to many catchy slogans. One of the most popular slogans we improvised with a creative change of words was: “Aurat ho ya mard ho, samyavad hammesh ho” (women or men, communism forever). Now all our comrades are spending hours trying to change popular slogans into ones with communist meaning.
In our meetings before the march, we discussed how to understand the contradiction between the anti-sexist movement and the broader masses. We recognized that the fascist BJP has lost its popular support. This means they will become more violent.
At the same time, the Congress Party will try to fill the vacuum. They will organize mass leaders among Cockroach Janta Party and other reformist organizations. But neither the undirected mass anger we saw today, nor reformist solutions, will satisfy the masses.
This is an unprecedented opportunity to convert these rebellious youth into dedicated communist leaders
.Read The Communist Fight Against Sexism here
Read more communist analysis of sexism here