DELHI, INDIA, May 18 –We are in the ninth week of food distribution to the migrants. It started as an attempt by a handful of comrades to provide food to the hungry masses. It has resulted in four well-organized collectives of the International Communist Workers’ Party, each with at least 8 comrades.
Along with providing food and necessities, we are discussing and spreading the idea that the profit system of capitalism is the basis of hunger, disease, and endless wage slavery. We can only free ourselves if we recognize that this sick capitalist system needs to be violently overthrown by communist revolution.
“I make Rs 500 (less than $7 or 120 Rands) a day,” said a construction worker. “I send Rs 200 to my family in the village. Now I have no work. We are all starving. Hunger will kill us before corona does.” This is the story of 50 million migrant workers.
Many of them have made arduous journeys on foot, trying to reach home. Some are trekking over 1600 kms (1000 miles). Trying to avoid police roadblocks, they take treacherous detours by way of rivers, deep ravines, and dangerous railroad tracks. For many of them, home is too far.
Almost everyone we meet has lost any hope that this merciless system can be improved or that it has anything left to offer them. The workers and volunteers we meet are angry. Workers are fed up with the false promises and long lines of government-run ration centres. They get beaten up by police, and at the end they get handouts that barely feed their families.
We are now openly talking about the possibility of organizing the masses to take over huge godowns (warehouses) which are overflowing with grains, vegetables, and poultry. Delhi has about 2000 massive godowns and 4 million migrant and industrial workers. India has 150 million migrant workers.
How can we organize the masses to successfully occupy godowns?
We need to win the masses to communist principles of distributing food and other things according to need. This will also require many to join ICWP. It means being in different collectives just like our collectives that are efficiently organizing the food distribution. These collectives will struggle to spread our communist ideas as well as struggle against individualism, racism, and sexism that capitalism pushes.
As the pandemic surges and takes more victims, tens of thousands of volunteers in India are involved in food distribution, cooking, cleaning, housing, providing health care etc. Migrants walking long distances get food and shelter from sympathetic villagers along the way. Volunteers and workers alike are open to communism. Some aspects of communist principles of sharing and helping each other in need are keeping them alive.
Capitalist bosses and their politicians have different plans.
Fascist Modi, who leads the aspirations of the dominant Indian capitalists, gave his fourth major speech about the pandemic. It was a page taken from Adolf Hitler.
Modi announced an economic package to bolster India’s economy by spearheading the sharpest attacks on the working class. For three years, every law related to safeguarding workers will be suspended. It gives large corporations unfettered access to land, uprooting the local population.
Modi’s fascist party BJP is pushing ultra-nationalism. Infrastructure and defense-related industries will get free loans. The corporations that get them will be required to use 100% Indian resources.
To crush any opposition, the government is jailing workers and students who resist fascism in prisons known to have Covid 19 cases.
Indian capitalists see an opportunity. US imperialism was too dependent on the Chinese supply chain for industrial production. Indian bosses hope they will relocate to India and have selected Chennai and Bengaluru as the relocation cities. They want to attract US capital by offering it low-wage production centers. In other words, they are preparing for more attacks on the workers.
Our comrades in both of these cities are discussing how this contradiction is affecting their work and opportunities it gives us to advance communism.
For our next meeting, we decided to examine our work in the auto and garment industries. Comrades from Delhi will share their experience of recruiting. Our entire organization has to work more aggressively because every day the choice between fascism and communism is becoming clearer.
In India, 50 million internal migrants, displaced by COVID-19, are trying to get home. These siblings are among many who are helping to feed them without accepting any pay.
“I make Rs 500 (less than $7 or 120 Rands) a day,” said a construction worker. “I send Rs 200 to my family in the village. Now I have no work. We are all starving. Hunger will kill us before corona does.” This is the story of 50 million migrant workers.
Many of them have made arduous journeys on foot, trying to reach home. Some are trekking over 1600 kms (1000 miles). Trying to avoid police roadblocks, they take treacherous detours by way of rivers, deep ravines, and dangerous railroad tracks. For many of them, home is too far.
Almost everyone we meet has lost any hope that this merciless system can be improved or that it has anything left to offer them. The workers and volunteers we meet are angry. Workers are fed up with the false promises and long lines of government-run ration centres. They get beaten up by police, and at the end they get handouts that barely feed their families.
We are now openly talking about the possibility of organizing the masses to take over huge godowns (warehouses) which are overflowing with grains, vegetables, and poultry. Delhi has about 2000 massive godowns and 4 million migrant and industrial workers. India has 150 million migrant workers.
How can we organize the masses to successfully occupy godowns?
We need to win the masses to communist principles of distributing food and other things according to need. This will also require many to join ICWP. It means being in different collectives just like our collectives that are efficiently organizing the food distribution. These collectives will struggle to spread our communist ideas as well as struggle against individualism, racism, and sexism that capitalism pushes.
As the pandemic surges and takes more victims, tens of thousands of volunteers in India are involved in food distribution, cooking, cleaning, housing, providing health care etc. Migrants walking long distances get food and shelter from sympathetic villagers along the way. Volunteers and workers alike are open to communism. Some aspects of communist principles of sharing and helping each other in need are keeping them alive.
Capitalist bosses and their politicians have different plans.
Fascist Modi, who leads the aspirations of the dominant Indian capitalists, gave his fourth major speech about the pandemic. It was a page taken from Adolf Hitler.
Modi announced an economic package to bolster India’s economy by spearheading the sharpest attacks on the working class. For three years, every law related to safeguarding workers will be suspended. It gives large corporations unfettered access to land, uprooting the local population.
Modi’s fascist party BJP is pushing ultra-nationalism. Infrastructure and defense-related industries will get free loans. The corporations that get them will be required to use 100% Indian resources.
To crush any opposition, the government is jailing workers and students who resist fascism in prisons known to have Covid 19 cases.
Indian capitalists see an opportunity. US imperialism was too dependent on the Chinese supply chain for industrial production. Indian bosses hope they will relocate to India and have selected Chennai and Bengaluru as the relocation cities. They want to attract US capital by offering it low-wage production centers. In other words, they are preparing for more attacks on the workers.
Our comrades in both of these cities are discussing how this contradiction is affecting their work and opportunities it gives us to advance communism.
For our next meeting, we decided to examine our work in the auto and garment industries. Comrades from Delhi will share their experience of recruiting. Our entire organization has to work more aggressively because every day the choice between fascism and communism is becoming clearer.
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