The Voice of Indira (1975)

From the May 1975 issue of the Socialist Standard

India is a pretty grim place for the vast majority of its millions. It is good to note that they — at least some of them — retain a wry sense of humour. Which they demonstrate by using the above punning title for the radio station “Voice of India” and thereby show they know only too well that Mrs. Ghandi, with her Congress buddies, exercises a pervasive influence on the affairs of the sub-continent.

Her second name is as confusing as her first. She is not related to the Mahatma, “the naked fakir” as he was called in the days of the British Raj. He conducted the “Civil Disobedience” campaigns which helped to establish the movement which eventually brought the joys of independence to India. But when the goal was achieved and the British got out after the war (they couldn’t get out fast enough. The great diamond of the British crown was by then a hopeless burden, and Attlee’s government got out so fast that they almost made sure that there would be the most appalling massacres of Sikhs, Moslems, etc. to celebrate the coming of “freedom”), when this took place, Ghandi himself did not take over the reins. He was by then thoroughly disillusioned himself, and was shortly to be murdered. The boss of the show was then and up to his death (natural causes, this time), Pandit Nehru, Ghandi’s lieutenant, a wealthy darling of the British left and father of Indira, who in the fullness of time, inherited his wealth and power. And, of course, his impudent nerve in calling himself a socialist.

When we see how slowly the majority of workers the world over learn the facts of capitalist life and the need to end the system and establish a worldwide classless society in its place, we can take comfort in the fact that there must be magic in the very name of Socialism. Even if it is used up to now only to cloak the hideous reality of capitalism, there are many rulers who realize that the time has come to pay lip-service. (It’s true that the other side of the coin is that many workers, seeing what passes for Socialism or Communism, must shy away from the very idea. You can’t win ’em all.) One thing sure, is that many countries which masquerade as Socialist seem to prove their point by the most naked repression of the working class. A few years ago, when the Polish dockers in Danzig and Stettin were faced with sharp rises in prices of necessary commodities and decided that they simply had to go on strike, they were mown down by Communist tanks. More recently, when the workers of Cairo, realizing that after they had performed their deeds of heroism in the teeth of the wicked Israelis they were still living at the bottom of the social pyramid, decided to demonstrate in the streets, their guardian of Egyptian “socialism” President Sadat followed suit, sent the troops in and flung hundreds of workers in gaol. And Indira Ghandi shows that she is of the same vicious stuff. Despite the alleged gentleness of the Indian nature, and despite the fact that she had learnt her “socialism” and her "democracy” from her leftist father who in turn had learned it at Harrow — no starving peasant he — when the railwaymen found that the pressures were too great and the prices too high (it’s the same the whole world over) and decided to strike, Madam Prime Minister lost no time in using troops to flatten the strikers and bang those who fancied standing out into prison.

It should be noted that Mrs. Ghandi took this step in a country which is nominally a democracy and where freedoms including the right to strike are supposed to be taken for granted. In proper police states, there is no such pretence. The place for strikers is not the picket lines but the gaol or the cemetery. So after a long campaign for the glories of Ghandi’s Swaraj (home rule), and after much sacrifice in achieving it, the Indian workers, like so many others who have not appreciated the socialist warning about the trap that is nationalism, find that their own beloved native rulers treat them as badly as the hated imperialists (or even worse).

But perhaps the way the masses are now treated in India by their rulers can be best illustrated in all its horror by a matter concerned with cricket. A certain love of this game is one of the legacies which the British left behind them. When Test matches are played there are enormous crowds and thousands watching TV in shop windows, though it may well be that most of the millions in the villages, eking out subsistence, neither know nor care about cricket. But a worker in a dreadful town like Calcutta will find the prospect of a day watching a game played by white-flannelled players on green grass the equivalent of a package fortnight in Majorca. It is also relevant to mention that in the latest Test team there was only one player (and he the son of a groundsman) who was a normal worker. The rest were upper-class university types who could afford to belong to clubs and pay for clothes, bats etc.

During the winter India were playing a touring side from the West Indies. And at the same time large areas of the country were suffering from famine so that thousands were literally starving. This latter problem was up for debate in the Lokh Sabbah when something happened. The MPs in a body refused to consider the debate until they had got their allocation of Test match tickets (this is one of the perks with the job). One MP was quoted as saying: “We come for Test match tickets and you offer us famine.” The sheer brutality of this attitude is probably unparalleled anywhere as a public utterance. Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake” is nothing at all — and she never even said it. But these MPs are elected ostensibly to look after the interests of the masses whom they allegedly represent. And the salaries that these heirs of Ghandi draw are incredible in any circumstances but utterly unbelievable in the context of peasants having an income of less than £100 a year to keep their families (some as little as £20 a year). The MPs draw £20,000 a year — plus Test match tickets. Imagination boggles at what Indira must get. Not that she needs the money. She’s all right, Pandit.

This is the pattern in all the countries where the glories of Independence have been won. The grab-all tactics of the Kenyan socialist Kenyatta and his family ought to be a scandal — but it is commonplace throughout black Africa. And as in India, the masses of workers who were duped into the struggle for nationalism, are rewarded with the merest pittance while their native rulers wax fat. Possibly with the issue of nationalism out of the way, the workers will begin to see a little light and think about the real issue, which is their class position in society.

L. E. Weidberg

Letter from India: Conflict with Pakistan (1981)

From the April 1981 issue of the Socialist Standard

If recent official statements are to be believed, and if one is to accept at face value the sensationalist Indian press headlines, Pakistan and India could soon be involved in another bloody war.

Mrs. Indira “Vasectomies All Round” Gandhi, in a recent speech, warned against the military build-up by certain neighbouring countries and called for preparations to meet any external or domestic challenge. The main (unnamed) neighbour she referred to was clearly Pakistan, a fact made plain when she said: “It is also in the air that they are preparing an atom bomb” (Times of India, 9/1/81). In “peaceful” contrast, Mrs. Gandhi hypocritically explained, while addressing a large crowd at Sanswara, India’s use of atomic energy was for “peaceful” ends. It is, in fact, common knowledge that India has atomic weaponry.

In December of last year Mrs. Gandhi spoke of the possibility of General Zia-ul-Haq, the Pakistani President attempting “to divert the attention of the people” of Pakistan with military conflict with India (Times of India 20/12/80). This accusation contains more than an element of truth, as General Zia is overlord of a ravaged economy producing much discontent and is also under pressure to liberalise his harsh regime. These domestic uncertainties, coupled with the Soviet armed occupation in neighbouring Afghanistan, have made Zia look for external scapegoats, and no other countries fit this role better than India, Pakistan’s old rival, and the imperialistic Soviet Union.

Unable to muster the same popular support of his predecessor Bhutto, General Zia has tried to safeguard and strengthen his position by increasing Pakistan’s military potential in terms of both manpower and armaments. Additionally, Zia has recently been able to turn parts of his army into a profit-making concern by hiring out divisions to the Saudi Arabian ruling class at a high price.

Both China and America have greatly aided Zia with armaments and money in his military build-up programme. And it is no accident that when the Indian government went arms shopping recently in America, the latter tied such strings to the deal as to oblige the Indians to withdraw from the negotiations. The American government had no serious intention of selling arms to India; the reason for this is their foreign policy of wooing the Chinese and Pakistanis onto their siIte against the Soviet Union. It thus looks likely that military sales to India from Russia will increase, thereby drawing Ghandi more and more into the Russian sphere of influence.

Ghandi’s inference that Zia is trying to export his domestic problems can equally be applied to herself. For it is no coincidence that she has made these references to Pakistan’s threat at a time when she herself, like Zia, is trying unsuccessfully to manage an unstable economy which has produced waves of worker and peasant protest against her ruling Janata Party. In old-style Gandhi fashion, she is meeting these hostile responses with greater government powers of detention while increasing India’s military weaponry. Both Gandhi and Zia are preparing to deal harshly with potential domestic or foreign threats to the respective ruling classes they represent.

The main conflict point between Pakistan and India is, as with many inter-state conflicts, a border issue. In this case, the fertile and mineral-enriched northwest Indian state of Kashmir is the disputed region. In 1965, the political representatives from the ruling classes of India and Pakistan eagerly sent in their armed forces to butcher one another over the ownership of this region. The Indian ruling class won; the workers of India and Pakistan lost. To depict the Indo-Pakistan war of 1965-6 as a religious one, as was done at the time, is totally incorrect. It was not a case of Hindu India versus Moslem Pakistan, but purely one of the Indian versus the Pakistan ruling class, with the exploited classes of these two countries doing their masters’ filthy work for them.

Indo-Pakistan relations have tended towards frequent breakdowns during the last 30 years and on each occasion the Kashmir question has been a central issue. It is indicative of Zia’s desires to see this region incorporated into Pakistan that even the name “Pakistan” —“P” Punjab, “A” Afghan, “K”Kashmir, “I” Indus, “Stan” Baluchistan—serves as a continual reminder of the Kashmir question. In fact, there is not even a clearly-defined Kashmir border between India and Pakistan, as it appears differently on Indian and Pakistani maps.

Kashmir, and its capital city Srinigar, was once a summer escape from the heat of the plains for the Moghul Emperors who overran much of India, bringing with them their Islamic religion and introducing the caste system. While much of India resisted Islam, the Kashmiris more readily adopted the Moslem faith and even now Kashmir, like Pakistan, is predominantly Moslem. Now many Kashmiris do not consider themselves Indians and indeed there is a growing Islamic-based independence movement, which must please General Zia although it is not clear if this small, but developing political movement identifies with him. In fact, it seems more a case of regionally-minded Kashmiris wanting to set up their “own” state, apart from India and Pakistan—an aim similar to the confused thinking of the Basque separatists of Spain.

China has recently intervened in the. Kashmir dispute and called on India and Pakistan to settle their differences and face what is called “The Soviet Threat” in South Asia (New China News Agency, 15/1/81). The announcement attempted to quell Gandhi’s fears by stating that the Pakistani military build-up, much aided by China, is not directed against India. In other words, it is directed against the Red Army in Afghanistan.

However, despite all the Sino-Pakistani reassurances to the Indian government, the Kashmir problem will not go away. And as long as Kashmir remains a source of dispute (which will be just as long as capitalism remains to engender such antagonisms) Indo-Pakistani relations will remain tense, with possible eruptions into war, as in 1965. But assuming that General Zia and his governmental associates can collectively muster together three or four brain cells, they might then realise that in terms of population, land mass, GNP, industrial and military production and even size of armed forces, India dwarfs Pakistan.

Of more importance than the choice of war or peace by Zia or Gandhi is the decision by the exploited classes of these two nations, that is, those who fill the armies’ ranks, as to whether they wish to be used as cannon fodder in their masters’ dispute.

RSB

Pakistani Punch-Up (1972)

 

From the January 1972 issue of the Socialist Standard

The violence which is an integral element of world capitalism has erupted yet again. In the Indian subcontinent the inevitable armed conflict between the two enemies has not been prevented by the United Nations, the international peace-keeping body.

Once again we see how capitalism cannot develop an effective means of preventing violence, whether on a local or international level. Only Utopians could expect the League of Nations, the United Nations, the Warsaw Pact or the Commonwealth to work wonders. Violence is a necessary part of capitalism.

To get down to cases: Just now we described the Indo-Pakistan armed conflict as “inevitable”. There are several reasons for this — some complex, some simple, some ancient and others more immediate.

Most people point to the partitioning of India at the time of Independence — nearly 25 years ago — as a significant point in history. The demand of the Muslims for their own state resulted in India losing five Muslim-majority areas to Pakistan. These areas were: North-West Frontier Province, Sind, Baluchistan and half of the Punjab in the west, and in the east the Eastern half of Bengal. The new state of Pakistan was thus a split personality: its capital, its business and military centres were developed in the West wing while the East wing, more populous and economically more promising, was treated as a colony.

During the sixties, under Ayub Khan’s corrupt dictatorship, Bengali demands for autonomy grew more emphatic, backed by civil and industrial unrest. Ayub’s successor, Yahya Khan, tried to placate these forces but finally, last March, resorted to military methods.

We may ask: why was he so determined to retain East Pakistan at such appalling cost? The reason is the usual sordid one of capitalist economics. East Pakistan had a profitable export trade, mainly in jute and tea, and the West wing needed foreign currency badly, both for maintenance of the Army and for development of new industries; and besides East Pakistan provided a captive market for West Pakistan’s growing industry.

That is what Pakistan stands to lose by this war. Against this loss, Yahya Khan would be fairly happy if he could grab Kashmir. This beautiful and fairly prosperous state, bordering West Pakistan, is a Muslim- majority area but was ceded to India by its Hindu ruler and has ever since been a bone of contention.

As for India, Mrs. Gandhi has her own reasons for war: if one counts the refugees, she has more than ten million reasons. Since Partition, India is naturally in a competitive position as against Pakistan. To take only two examples: their textile exports compete for foreign markets and so do their jute exports. At the time of Partition, West Bengal had more than 100 jute mills, which were separated at a stroke from the better jute producing areas of East Bengal. The mills had to be run down, as the small West Bengal crop of low-grade jute could not keep them going profitably.

For this reason — and others not connected with Partition — West Bengal is now in serious economic trouble. There is an extremely high rate of unemployment, and political and industrial unrest have led to indiscriminate murders and terrorism, with gangs of goondas roaming the city slums and terrorising the villages (If all this does not fit your stereotype of peaceable, poetic Bengali people, just remember that two Bengali words we all know are "thug” and “cosh”, and that in 1947 the bloodbath of Partition was worst in the Punjab and Bengal.)

Mrs. Gandhi has every reason to swim with the tide of Bengali nationalism and, posing as an altruistic benefactor, rescue Bangla Desh from the tyranny of the Pak Army. In doing so she will divert attention from her domestic difficulties and outflank the left wing parties. The majority party of West Bengal supports Moscow, so it will have to endorse her action. She may also have her eye on East Bengal’s potential as a cheap food-growing area, as a captive market for Indian manufactures and as a help in restoring West Bengali jute mills.

Finally we see a cynical line-up of angels backing this war — a war which is bringing starvation, disease and destitution to tens of millions of helpless men, women and children; which destroys the crops, the homes and the land they depend on; which has already pauperised 10 million refugees and is daily killing scores of others.

This war is hacked by so-called Communists in the Kremlin, supporting the same Mrs. Gandhi who refuses to allow their comrade Jyoti Basu to hold office in West Bengal. In backing India, the Russians are opposing, not only “imperialist” America, not only the corrupt, religion-based authoritarian regime of Pakistan, but also their own comrades in Peking. What an Unholy Alliance is this new Holy Trinity: Pakistan, America — and Peking! And what a piece of blatant humbug is Russia’s support for India and the “right of self-determination” for Bangla Desh!

None of these principalities and powers, these international Al Capones, has any concern for ordinary people. Famine, cholera, typhus and acres of refugee camps are a price they are only too happy to see others pay, as they fight it out, by proxy, in the plains of Bengal and the Punjab or the mountains of Kashmir.

This war, like other capitalist adventures, is one from which the working class can hope for no gain and which they should denounce from all angles. War, after all, is only the method by which the capitalist class redistributes its loot. When wealth is socially owned, this will be seen as the strangest and most self-destructive exercise possible.

Charmian Skelton