End Caste and Anti-Muslim Violence here ♦ Fight for Communist Egalitarianism here ♦
NEW DELHI (India), November 2— Students at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) defied police to protest the government-organized anti-Muslim violence in Tripura. Stopped from marching by police and paramilitary forces, they continued to shout slogans denouncing the pogrom, the Hindutva politics behind it, and the police coverup. Much more next issue.
From Seven New Comrades to Seven Billion
INDIA, November 13— “When will it all end? I feel like we should all mobilize them and save them from certain death.”
Gita, a member of a new communist garment collective in Bengaluru, was talking about the scores of vandalized shops, mosques burned, and Muslim workers dragged out of their burning huts in the northeast state of Tripura for four days and nights. It was a massive, sustained, pre-planned and state-sponsored pogrom led by the fascist ruling party BJP, its army and police, and covered up by the media.
“Tripura is burning. We have no news from my relatives there,” said Sajan, Gita’s neighbor. Sajan has been reading Red Flag (in the Kannada language) that Gita brings to her, with the help of another friend. They speak Kannada but find it hard to read. They say that every article talks about the communist solution to poverty and unemployment. We must end this caste violence with communism, they were unanimous. They came to the ICWP meeting to find how we can end this horror.
The meeting included garment workers and two comrades from Chennai and one in Delhi who participated by phone call. The Delhi comrade had seen similar pogroms there two years ago. He said that the BJP fascists have become very ruthless and violent.
“It is not a sign of strength,” he said. “Their system that they are defending, capitalism, offers nothing to the working class. When they have nothing to offer, they create hatred between Hindus and Muslims.”
The Chennai comrades related how they worked in an auto parts assembly plant but have had no work for over a year. The Covid pandemic was brutal, as almost 40% of the workforce was unemployed.
“In our neighborhood in Chennai, BJP is trying very hard to convince the workers that Muslims are producing more children and very soon Hindus will not have jobs. They also say that the Chinese workers are stealing their jobs,” they reported.
The Delhi comrade told of a major uprising in Lakhimpur in Uttar Pradesh where farmworkers and other farmers are fighting the fascist BJP. Our party reached out to many farmworkers who saw no solution in the bosses taking over corporate farming. We grew through this struggle and won new communist leaders to ICWP. They are influencing and advancing communism to others in their villages.
Capitalism: Work Until It Kills You
The party leader in Bengaluru said she was very encouraged to see new people coming to these meetings. “When we talk about lack of employment to our coworkers, everyone wants to hear what we say,” she reported. “We say that wage slavery must be abolished to create a society without brutal police, fascist gangs, and communalism. People agree and they are fed up with the wages that don’t support them.”
She said a woman in her 50’s died working in a garment factory. She had worked there for three decades making expensive shirts for a European manufacturer. She must have made thousands of shirts. When she died, her neighbors had to borrow a Sari for her funeral.
“This is how life is for every worker. You work until you die. Now you die before you find work.” 500,000,000 people worldwide are unemployed, semi-employed, and constantly in search of a job. These working-class people are constantly on the move to other countries or other parts of the same country. They face violence by police, border patrol, and fascist/religious gangs.
“We can put an end to these barbaric conditions”, comrade Gita said. “Organizing seven billion people to communism seems impossible to many people I know. That is why people take a shortcut approach. They believe some political party will find a solution to their problem.”
From Seven New Comrades to Seven Billion
The garment worker leader summarized: “To win seven billion people to communism, we have to win seven to communism now. We have to build communist relationships for a life of struggle for the eradication of our class enemy. These unbreakable trust and relationships develop out of class struggle.
“Look at our comrades in Delhi. They have not won thousands, but they have a few who are showing the way to many more. The old communist party in India was formed by five comrades who traveled to Tashkent in the Soviet Union in 1926. Ten years later, the communists were leading tens of thousands of mine, railway and dock workers. We can do better. Unlike the old communists, we are going to fight for communism that will guarantee wage slavery is eradicated forever.”
We concluded by trying to chart our path by identifying specific workers that we will try to get to come to our next meeting. Most importantly, each comrade is thinking about building communist relationships with people around us.
The Only Way: Fight for Communist Egalitarianism
Corona itself is not a villain. The true villain is our capitalist system and a lifelong fascist government. Corona has exposed the terrible face of the system that confronts us and the filthy insensitivity of the government.
The dirt of this system and the horrific failure of this government have taken the lives of millions of people and have shattered families.
I am one of those who lost her loving father, and there is also a mother who has lost her young activist and revolutionary son.
But I am not the only one who lost family members. There are millions of people. What to do? Should I keep crying in a corner of the house, or wipe the tears of others?
I have accepted another way.
The other way is to fight and smash the system of capitalism and its endless brutality. The other way is to build communism by organizing a society that will never let the system of profit to take root.
The other way is to fight now, today and tomorrow to build the masses prepared to rise for the call of communist egalitarianism so we can all prosper as the human race.
We offer the other way and the only way: Read Red Flag, organize and mobilize the masses for the International Communist Workers’ Party.
-Comrade in India
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