India: Communist mass action against sexism here ♦ Communism will uproot sexism here ♦
India: Bringing Communism to Mass Struggle Against Sexism
NEW DELHI (India), May 7—Comrades here, energized by the successful clandestine distribution of communist literature in the May Day march, plunged into a massive and growing struggle against sexism.
Women wrestlers are leading open demonstrations against Brij Bhushan Singh, the powerful president of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) and also an elected Member of Parliament (MP) representing the fascist BJP. The athletes have accused him of years-long sexual harassment, mental torture, physical violence and sexually molesting underage girls. Even in the fascist BJP-controlled state, Brij Bhushan has been charged with forty crimes, including murder.
The women Olympic medallists, fed up with Brij Singh’s aggressive sexual behavior, complained to Modi at a prestigious award ceremony. Modi had welcomed them as “our daughters,” but , they complained to Modi, but instead of acting against Brij Singh, he informed his Sports Minister who reports to Brij Singh. Brij Singh threatened, on live TV, to physically harm them.
The athletes went public in New Delhi. They declared they are fighting for the 99.9% of women who face sexual abuse, discrimination, molestation, dowry debt, and rape all their lives.
Indian law mandates police to file a First Information Report (FIR) in cases of sexual harassment. They resisted filing FIR for weeks, until India’s highest court directed them. One FIR was filed by an underage girl covered by a special law called Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POSCO). POSCO requires police to arrest the offending individual within 24 hours under penalty of arrest. Again, Brij Singh with his fascist connection was protected by the police, not arrested.
The demonstrations that started with a dozen athletes are now spreading across India. ICWP members are everywhere with the masses. Huge numbers of women are telling their stories of sexual harassment. Thousands of students and farmworkers are pouring into Delhi daily in spite of the police barricades on the freeways leading to Delhi. People are evading police tactics and barriers and reaching the site of the demonstration.
“I was with a large group of people on the night of May 5th,” said Monisha, who is new to ICWP., “It was raining so the demonstrators were trying to camp on metal cots,” she continued. “All of a sudden, we see drunk and aggressive police abusing women. I got dragged by my hair. I was furious as hell. Some male comrades tried to protect me. It was dark because the police had cut off the electricity and water supply. I heard screams and saw blood. In the end, several people were hurt.
“But you could not contain the hatred of the police and the entire political system,” Monisha concluded. “The next day, there were reports of massive support.”
The next day, Monisha and three other ICWP comrades were distributing literature to people coming to the march. An agitated young man in his 20’s said he was in Delhi for his final exam for the Law degree. He attended a for-profit educational institute controlled by Brij Singh. His notes, which are required to pass the exam, for the final test. In the notes, which are required to pass the exam, say that a person with POSCO must be arrested within 24 hours. He said thousands of people like him pay over 150,000 Rs. ($2000) and go into debt for this law degree. He defiantly tore up his notes saying, “Their law is a cruel joke.” We became very good friends with these students and are talking about our Party.
People in Delhi still remember the Shaheen Baugh protest against Islamophobia (2019-2020) and the farmers’ protest (2020-2021). Overnight, the Sikh community started a langar, providing free food, and accommodation to the thousands. Today’s struggle against sexism is becoming such upheaval. IT exposes the instability of capitalist rule and the potential for communist revolution as ICWP comrades continue to organize for it.
Sexism affects every aspect of workers’ lives. It is one of the many tools the rulers use to divide us and keep their oppressive profit system alive.
The capitalist-controlled newspapers are not covering the Delhi protests. Right-wing news channels are gaslighting the women athletes and trying to put them on trial. While men as well as women support the protests, the male-dominated Indian Premier League of Cricket in India has nothing to say.
But more women and men are seeing an absolute need to fight for communism, as the rulers’ system has no solutions. We are printing the Hindi edition of our pamphlet, The Communist Fight Against Sexism with the outlook of recruiting more members and contributing to the development of the ICWP line.
We can only smash sexism with communist revolution.
Communist Classless Society Will Uproot Sexism
Prehistory shows that sexism is not human nature. We know from anthropology that in pre-class society, men and women were equals. While there was division of responsibilities, men and women had the same status and respect.
How did that change? What historians call the “neolithic revolution” about ten thousand years ago ended this period of pre-class communism. Private property in cattle and agriculture created the conditions for class society and, simultaneously, sexism.
Today, class society means capitalist wage slavery.
Sexist ideas rob the working class of women’s leadership. They seriously damage the unity of our class. We must mobilize the masses for communism to create the material basis for ending sexism.
In communism, there will not be wages, money, nor private property. There will be no bosses to profit from the division of the working class by sexism.
Instead of the capitalist market determining what gets produced and who gets to use it, the working class, led by the party, will create deeply collective social relations to make those decisions.
We will struggle, as they did in the Soviet Union, to transform everyday life. “Housework” assigned to women in isolated households will become the collective responsibility of all, regardless of gender.
But this will not be automatic. After communist revolution, ending sexism will require conscious and protracted political struggle against the ideas and habits inherited from class society. That struggle begins now.
We and our friends must see, in the practice of our party today, that open and honest criticism and self-criticism will make it possible to defeat sexism.
Read the ICWP Pamphlet :
The Communist Fight Against Sexism here
Read More Materials on Sexism here
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