REJECT RULING CLASS CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL INTERESTS.

REJECT RULING CLASS CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL INTERESTS .

(This article published in 'CLASS STRUGGLE',the magazine of CPI(ML)

Earlier, the British Colonialists had imposed their oppressive rule and retained it by means of force and the policy of division , deceiption against the masses of Indian people. It was quite natural and just for the masses of colonised people to view the revolt against it and for a free and democratic India as a matter of honour.

The Colonial rulers enacted all draconian laws and freely used all sorts of ‘legal’ and illegal methods to suppress the people and perpetuate their rule. They branded all ideas and activities opposed to the colonial rule as illegal, anti-State, seditious and anti-national and what not. The army, police, courts, jails and, for that matter, every wing of the repressive and executive machinery was at their beck and call. The victims of these methods included not only those who believed in the methods of violence, armed revolution and organised struggle, but also those who believed in the non-violent and passive methods. Many revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh and his collegues, were hanged with or even without a farce of trail. The writers, singers and other artists who used their creative talents in the interest of freedom struggle too could not escape the ire of the Colonial rulers.

By its very nature, the British Colonial rule was totally illegal, illegitimate, oppressive and anti-people. But it paraded itself as legitimate and the custodian of the interests of India and Indian people. The Colonial rulers branded and sought to punish the masses of Indian people who opposed their rule as anti-State and anti-national. But the Indian people refused to be cowed down by it. They took such brandings as a mark of great honour.

The Indian ruling classes had stepped into the shoes of British colonialists in 1947. They adopted a Constiution basing on the 1935 British India Act. They inherited all repressive laws and the entire administrative, judicial and repressive systems and methods including those that empower the government to brand an act or view as anti-State, anti-national and illegal. The Indian Constitution has provisions that empower to imprison persons under the DIR, PD Act and other special laws, bring some parts or the entire

Country under the dark rule of internal or external Emergency, suspend the Fundamental Rights, declare vast areas as Disturbed Areas, where virtually an Army or police rule is put into vogue. There are laws that allow the police to impose bans, restrictions and Sec.144 on the movements and actions of the organisations and individuals as part of unleashing the attacks on the genuine democratic activities and struggles of the people. The rulers had added many new laws like TADA and POTA and other State laws. The experience of our people show that these laws always are used against the workers, peasants, adivasis, dalits, women, oppressed nationalities, religious and ethnic minorities whenever they came into the struggles for their justand democratic rights.

When the Colonialists were at the helm of power, the masses of Indian people had no difficulty in questioning their political and moral authority to brand the freedom fighters as anti-State or anti-national and to declare Colonial rule as illegal, illegitimate and anti-people. But after 1947, they are facing some difficulty in challenging the new rulers because they are pursuing the policies of mortgaging the interests of our Country and people to the imperialists under the mask of democratic and independent rule.

Some, who are under the sway of the indian ruling class propaganda about the policy of development, are finding it difficult to challenge the ruling classes as they are unable to go deep into the real nature of the brand of ruling class development policy. But everyone who is genuinely concerned about the true sense of the term must first ponder over what the development actually means. Does the development policy of Indian ruling classes is aimed at and helps our Country to advance independently and on its own legs basing on the natural and human resources available in our Country ? Does it help to raise the economic and cultural level of our people to higher level with assured means of life and livelihood, or are these policies helping a handful of foreign and native big exploiters to recklessly loot the Country’s natural and human resources, earn super profits, destroy our resources, push our Country into worst economic and political dependence and the overwhelming masses of our people into inextri -cable depths of hunger, poverty, joblessnes and insecurity ?

How a Country maintains its relations and resolves the problems with neighbouring Countries is an important aspect of its foreign policy. There occured one war between India and China in 1962 and two wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. These wars had inflicted serious damages and wounds to both Countries. There continued tensions, no war and no peace situation between India and Pakistan for a long time. Endless piling up of new and modern weapons by both in the name of war preparedness, gaining upper hand, deploying armed forces and counter intelligence networks along the borders and maintaining hostilities and mutually suspicious relations among the people of both Countries had imposed

unbearable economic burdens on the people. Why this situation is continuing ? Who are mainly benefitting from the conflict between India and Pakistan ? Is it not true that the same imperialist powers are selling weapons to both sides, earning super profits and thus had developed a vested interest in the conflict between India and Pakistan ? Why the rulers of both Countries are allowing the imperialist powers to poke their dirty noses into the problems between India and Pakistan and why they are unable to resolve the problems among themselves independently and in a peaceful manner ? What conditions and weaknesses are standing in their way ? All these questions are worrying the people and all those who are genuinely concerned about the interests of people and yearn for peaceful and fraternal relations between the two Countries. How long the people of both Countries who are the real and worst victims of wrong policies of the ruling classes of both Countries keep quite without seeking proper answers for these questions ?

Our people want the relations with other Countries must be based on the principles of equality, fraternity, mutual help and peace. They neither want India to behave like a big brother towards neighbouring Countries, nor maintain a subservient relationship with an imperialist or big power. They consider it as their responsibility and right to criticise and rectify any other kind of behaviour on the part of Indian rulers.

But the Indian ruling classes, parties and the regimes representing them are not prepared to respect this right of our people. They think that the questions like ‘national interest, patriotism, national integrity, war and peace and relations with other Countries ‘—the matters concerning the foreign policy - are totally and exclusively matters of their own concern and domain. They think that the people cannot sit in judgement of correctness or otherwise of the policies of rulers and their only job is to extend an unqualified support to the policies and actions of the rulers. They also think that any criticism that crosses the framework of extending basic support to the rulers amounts to going against the national interest and taking a soft or lenient attitude towards the enemy.

In the context of 1962 and 1965 wars, the Communist leaders, cadres and democrats were put behind bars under the DIR or PDA. There were no specific charges against them. The rulers only acted on the basis of intelligence reports which alleged that such and such parties or such and such persons are suspected to be pro-China or anti-war and their remaining free may pose a threat to national security and peace.

It has become quite normal for the rulers as well as the media controlled by them to blow up the idea of nationalism and patriotism into chauvinism before and during war times and subjecting the organisations and individuals, who were found or suspected not falling in their line, to various types of pressures, suspicions and threats. More particularly, the questioning the policies and actions of the ruling classes at the time of wars is viewed as a big crime and an anti-national act. Chauvinism, emotions and hate are sought to be incited against them in a deliberate attempt to silence them and use the repressive course against them. The religious minorities are pushed into most humiliating and help-less conditions in situations like this.

In the year 1970-71, Yahya Khan led Pakistan Govt. had unleashed a reign of terror against the people in the eastern part of Pakistan because it found the emergence of an elected govt. there utterly intolerable.

Quite justifiably, the people rose in resistance against it. It was also just for the democratic forces of any Country to extend their political and moral support and solidarity to the democratic struggle of east Pakistan people. However, the Indian ruling classes had gone further. They created the ground for a civil war by creating a liberation army, providing the wherewithel and training to fight the Pakistan Army. At one stage, the Indian Army had directly stepped into the scene, entered into war with Pakistan and played a decisive role in defeating Pakistan and in the creation of Bangla Desh.

India’s involvement in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka and Nepal had gone much beyond the nature of maintaining normal relations with other Countries and attracted criticism in the concerned Countries as well as the world as an act of intervention and show of a big brotherly attitude.

Here the question is : Is it correct for the rulers of a Country to interfere in the internal affairs of anothet Country ? Can a Country take the side of a struggle that may come up in a part of another Country and go to the extent of guiding it in military action for a division of that Country ? For some, any attempt by an Indian citizen to criticise the big brotherly, interventionist or expansionist tendencies and actions of the

Indian ruling classes is ‘un-Indian’, ‘un-national’ and ‘unpatriotic’. If this is to be accepted as a standard difinition of patriotism, the right to independence, sovereignity and territorial integrity of small and weak Countries would be under constant and perenial danger. The ideas and arguments of this kind only make it clear to what depths of vulgarity the Indian ruling classes have degenerated the idea and practice of nationalism and patriotism.

There was a time when the Indian ruling classes were uttering the words like ‘anti-colonialism’, ‘anti- imperialism’ and ‘independent ‘ foreign policy. But they reduced these claims into empty words and moved fast on the road of subservience to imperialism. When a situation of two super powers –US and SU- had emerged in the world, they were showing a leaning towards one or other super power, while, at the same time, being subservient to imperialism as a whole. In the subsequent period, they went on tuning up their foreign policy to suit the US strategy for world hegemony. India becoming a part of US led US, Japan and Australia alliance came as a significant development in this process. The change of regime from UPA to BJP led NDA has further accelerated this process. India’s collaboration with US in the job of protecting the right of free navigation in the Indian Ocean and Asia-Pacific region and its opposition to China, which is considered as a potential road bloc in the way of US attempts to establish its domination over the seas and the region, are only a part of the moves to put the aims of this alliance into practice. The Indian rulers are tuning up and co-ordinating their economic, political, defence, trade and intelligence policies and actions to meet these needs. This policy is wrought with dangerous and far reaching consequences for India. By this policy, the Indian rulers had only placed themselves in such a shameless position where they must support or remain silent towards the acts of intervention, threat, invasion and armed occupation indulged in by the US in various parts of the world.

This trend of development in the foreign policy of Indian ruling classes is a crude negation of anti- colonial, anti-imperialist, anti- Fascist and peace ethos and historic traditions of protracted and heroic battles waged by our people to break the shackles of imperialism and set our Country on the road of independence, peace and progress. Our people’s sympathy, solidarity and bondage always remain with the oppressed nations and people of the world who are still weighed down by the imperialist plunder and oppression or who are facing the threats, bullying and invasions by the imperialist powers in general and US in particular. Our people and all the freedom and peace loving forces must declare from the top of their voice : We would not allow this subservience to imperialism. India’s rightful place is among the people and Countries who are fighting against the imperialist policies of plunder, oppression, domination and war in the world. We would fight for it.

A handful of big imperialist powers, including US and Russia are exercising a monopoly over the weapons in the present world. They possess most modern and destructive weapons capable of destroying the entire world. Yet they are prohibiting other Countries from producing, possessing and using certain types of weapons even for their own defence. They are subjecting the supposed violators of their dictats by varous forms of punishments like economic sanctions as the US and other imperialist powers had done in the case of Iran and North Korea. They are waging the wars of invasion and armed occupation like in the case of Iraq. On one side, they are funding, arming and using countless terrorist groups and, on the other side, are resorting to attacks, invasions and armed occupations in the name of so called war against terrorism.

In essence, the big imperialist powers here are only making it clear to the world that they would not allow anyone to challenge their monopoly over the weapons. The Indian ruling classes are silent spectators or supporters of all these acts of high handedness on the part of big powers. It is a matter of shame for our people and immencely harmful to the interests of independence, peace and security of all small and weak Countries in the world.

There is every possibility for the US imperialists, who have roped India into their strategic alliance, using their ever growing and strong hold on the Indian economy, resources, politics, military, intelligence and foreign policy affairs in the service of their drive for hegemonism. There is every possibility for the masses of Indian people being turned into a cannon fodder without their knowledge, consent and concern in their contentions for world hegemony.

Several areas in India have witnessed many small or big terrorist attacks at different times. Mumbai serial blasts, the attack on Mumbai Taj Mahal hotel and the attempt to attack on the Parliament are only a few instances of them. The questions like ,who are the real engineers of these terrorist attacks ? Who are the executioners ? What are their aims ? , no doubt, need proper answers. But we can say that these actions deserve all out condemnation. At the same time, we must also say that the actions resorted to by the Indian rulers in the name of preventing, countering the terrorist attacks had only intensified the repression on the people and spread an atmosphere of fear among the people instead of putting an end to the acts of terrorism.

We are also witnessing a section of people belonging to one religion being subjected to various forms of humiliation and sufferings as suspected or alleged terrorists or their supportes. There are instances where the innocent persons suspected or alleged as terrorists or their supporters ended their lives in fake encounters, languished in jails for years during never ending trails, faced convictions because they could not arrange proper legal defence or some were acquitted only after losin a better part of their life and experienced economic ruinations. There are instances where the appeals by the innocent accused persons before the authorities, police and courts that they were wrongly and unjustifiably implicated in the cases were paid a deaf ear. There are also instances where the appeals by the families of the convicted persons, democratic and human rights organisations to the President of India and authorities for Amnesty in death sentences were bluntly rejected.

It is the consistent allegation or propaganda on the part of Indian rulers that several terrorist attacks in kashmir and other parts of India are engineered or propped up by Pakistan. Pakistan government too, ocasionally, comes up with allegations against the Indian government that its intelligence agencies are engaged in conspiracies and attempts to organise revolt inside Pakistan and it has enough evidence in its possession. These allegations and counter allegations do not go to the point of striving to end the problem.

The relations between the rulers of both Countries, at times, appear to be in a worst state of tensions, mutual distrust and on the brink of war. But, suddenly and drametically, they find themselves chanting about the need of confidence building, fraternal relations and peaceful resolution of problems through dialogue. I n Kashmir (as well as North –Eastern States) the Indian Army rules several parts by special powers under the AFSPA. Thousands of youth, branded or identified as terrorists had died in the hands of security forces. There are instances where the people moved in thousands in protest actions asserting that the arrested or killed persons are not terrorists and demanding the release of arrested persons or handing over of the dead bodies. A protest movement of parents and human rights organisations is still going on in Kashmir to know the fate of more than 7000 ‘disappeared’ persons and for the identification of persons buried in 8000 unmarked graves. The role of Indian govt. in the creation of Bhindranwale in Punjab and the phenomenon of terr-orist groups at one time in Sri Lanka is known to all.

So no one need be carried away by the claims and propaganda of Indian ruling classes. In reality, they are using ‘terrorism’ as a double edged weapon. They create and use it as and where it serves their interests and purposes. They are using the talk abou the fight against terrorism as a smokescreen to wage and intensify unbridled attacks on the rights and genuine struggles of the people and as a tool to divert the people from their real issues. They are also using it to divert the attention of people from the crises and failures of the ruling classes which are an inescapable consequence of their own anti-people policies. It has become a habit for the Indian ruling classes to deny the right of our people to question their definitions, conclusions and actions on ‘terrorism’ and brand such questioning as pro-terroris and a punishable act.

This cannot be accepted. The Indian ruling classes have no right to play with the lives of our people. BJP and its Sangh Parivar are doing everything to dismantle the fact that India is a Country of different nationalities, tribes, ethnic groups with their own languages, cultures, religious beliefs, life styles and food habits and impose their own code of dress, food habits, culture and life styles as dictated by their concept of Hindutva. They are warning those who are refusing or considered to be opposed to fall in their line. We have seen how the Hindu communal forces have attacked and murdered a good number of rationalist, democratic, progressive intellectuals and social activistsin the last two years. Brutal killing of Dabolkar, Pansare in Maharashtra, Kulburgi in Karnataka and Rohit Vemula’s forced suicide are only a part of them.

Many others were subjected to all types of insults, humiliations, threats, mental tortures and coersions by the Sangh Parivar forces while the BJP govt. looked other side and extended moral support to these acts. We have seen the fascist trend of intolerance towards differing views and the attempts to silence them by violent means. All this was done in a planned way. This nasty drama was scripted, directed by the Head quarters of Sangh Parivar. The Hindu communal forces and the govt. leaders are playing their roles in perfect coordination. In this, some would not oper their mouths, many would blow up their longues with no rule or rythm; some would indulge in threats and violent attacks; some preach about dharma shastras, moral princples, values, ptriotism and nationalism; some talk about Constitution, law and civilised behaviour.

But, unfortunately for the Sangh Parivar and most welcome for the people the these acts had encountered and are encountering powerful opposition and protest, wider in scale, from the intellectuals, democrats,rationalists, progressive and secular forces and people.

The Indian ruling classes have reduced the words nationalism and patriotism into an empty shell devoid of their content to suit their needs.

The Indian ruling classes describe the hailing the Country as great, supporting their chauvinist, expansionist ambitions and activities towards neighbouring Countries, subservient policies and relations towards the imperialist powers, upholding the wars waged by the ruling classes and dieing for the cause of ruling classes as patriotism and nationalism.

The Indian ruling classes present India as a single nation and the acts of denial, suppression of the rights and struggles of nationalities as the acts aimed at protecting the national interests, the unity and integrity of our Country.

All those who are really concerned about the interests of our Country and people must realise that in modern times imperialism is the greatest road block on the road of a free and all round development of Countries like India. Imperialism is a fountain head of all evils, reactionism and decadence.Therefore, any idea or talk of nationalism and national interests which refuses to or fails to see this reality is empty and deceptive. The interests of our Country and people can be protected and advanced only by a firm, consistent and thorough going struggle by our people to remove this imperialist road block in India as well as at the world level.

We must respect the fact that India is a Country of different nationalities with their own diverse and specific features and their own historical courses of development. A real and lasting unity among the people of various nationalities can be forged, cemented and sustained only in the course of common struggle of various nationalities against imperialism and for democracy and by ensuring proper conditions and democratic atmosphere for the exercise of their national and democratic rights and not by denying and suppressing them; not by discriminating one nationality from other; not by creating a condition of inequality between them and not by setting one nationality against the other which remains a disastrous policy of Indian ruling classes.

All attempts to make India a Hindu Rashtra are disastrous and divisive. This idea must be fought in every sphere- ideological, political, cultural, social and practical – thoroughly and to the end. Scientific, rational, progressive, democratic and secular ideas, forces and achievements of our Country in the field of philosophy, science, literature, history, art, culture, technology and other fields are most precious wealth inherited by our people from our past generations. This wealth must be proudly owned , protected like our eye balls from the attacks of reactionary, retrogressive and obscurantist forces which are determined to turn back the wheel of history and take our achievements. We must take our achievements to new heights.

Let the people take the future of our Country into their own hands.

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