To decide once every few years which members of
the ruling class is to repress and crush the people through parliament--this is
the real essence of bourgeois parliamentarism, not only in parliamentary-
constitutional monarchies, but also in the most democratic republics - Lenin
The new government which
came to power with the rhetoric of achhe din has started revealing
within no time, whose good days have come. The new face of the ruling classes,
within less than two months of assuming power at the centre, has gone on an all-out
multi-pronged attack assaults on the toiling masses of this country; or the
attack on muslim community as evident from the brutal murder of Mohsin Sheikh and the rampage in
Pune by the fascist goons of Hindu Rashtra Sena, or the attack on muslim
religious establishments right after the election result in many parts of
Gujarat and Karnataka; reinforcing with adding additional fire power the
ongoing assault on the most oppressed masses codenamed Operation Greenhunt by
sending 10,000 additional paramilitary to Chattisgarh; following it up with the
clearing up of big investment projects worth thousands of crores held up for
decades because of valiant people’s resistance. The latest in the scheme of
the anti-people moves taken by the new government is the increase in the railway
charges with 14.2 percent hike in all classes and 6.5 percent in freight
charges.
The
continuing targeted attacks, murder, arson and loot of Muslim lives and
households: The recent attacks on muslim places are not
aberrations but the continuation of the ongoing process of communal profiling,
which hunting and assaults. Throughout the election campaign the
likes of Togadia, Giriraj Singh, Amit Shah kept on with their vile declaration
of Hindutva. A murderer like Amit Shah – the architect of fake encounters of
Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin, Tulsiram Prajapati – was let loose by the judiciary
and unleashed upon UP to “deliver” for Modi by engineering “riots” and
effecting communal polarization across the state in Muzaffarnagar, Faizabad,
Bareli, Meerut, and so on by killing hundreds and displacing lakhs of Muslims.
Playing on the majoritarian Hindu sentiment, he had declared “The elections in
Uttar Pradesh, especially in western Uttar Pradesh, [are] an election for
honor, for seeking revenge...and for teaching a lesson.” And right after the
day of election results, this quest for ‘badla’ was evident in the attacks on
mosques and madarsas, violence and arson by various hindutva organisations in
various regions from Karnataka to Gujarat under different pretexts. And then
Mohsin Sheikh was murdered by the members of a Hindutva organisation, for supposedly making ‘offensive’, ‘objectionable’ and
‘derogatory’ post about Chhtrapati Shivaji and Bal Thackeray on social
media. It was clear that Mohsin had nothing to do with the facebook post and
that the only reason for him being the target to be beaten to death was the
skullcap and the beard he sported. After the killing of Mohsin, his
murderers circulated a celebratory message that said, ‘Pahli wicket padli’ (The
first wicket has fallen). And to justify the same, an appendage to this
exchange of message was the comment from the BJP MP that ‘some amount of
repercussions were natural’ to the “painful” post on Facebook. Further
violence and terror was spread by these fascist henchmen and a number of muslim
shops, homes, mosques and madrasas were damaged across Pune.
In Mangalore Rashtriya
Hindu Andolan, a Hindutva outfit has called for the morning Muslim call to
prayer (Adhan) to be banned across the country. This communal profiling and
targeting is not only by some fringe groups but by the whole state machinery
with a fascist figure head at the helm.
Clearance
for mining projects and additional forces to crush people’s resistance against
the same: The proactiveness in clearing the seven big
investment projects worth 21 thousand crore rupees, only shows the desperation of
this government to bail out the crisis ridden imperialist order while paying
back the corporation who had invested crores to bring him to power. All
these are projects which were held up for years due to denial of environment,
forest and other clearances and largely because of people’s resistance against
the same. This includes a 235 kilometre long railway line between Dallirajhra and Jagdalpur in Bastar district of
Chattisgarh to extract iron ore riches from Chhattisgarh's Rowghat area which
was first proposed in 1983 but had not been cleared due to forest clearance. The
other Projects include Hospet-Chitradurga Highway held up due to environment
clearance, NDMC iron ore plant , A Rs 5,600-crore 1,050 MW power project in
Odisha, being developed by KVK Nilachal Power, hydropower project in Sikkim, a
Rs 9,000 crore power project in Chhattisgarh developed by RKM Powergen, ,1256 crore project by Essar Power in Gujarat's
Hazira. All these projects are going to exacerbate the corporate loot of
natural resources of the country by Multi National companies. But the present government
which is indebted to the same corporate for funding its election campaign
predictably plunged into clearing these pent up projects to facilitate further
corporate plunder.
On one hand various projects
are being cleared and on the other more fire power is given to the security
forces in the mineral rich areas of Chhattisgarh in the form of additional
choppers, over 20 more central battalions, more Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)
s, deployment of central paramilitary along the inter-state borders. The previous government which was equally hell
bent on letting the corporate plunder the natural and mineral resources, had launched
the Operation Green Hunt to ruthlessly obliterate the resistance of the people
against such plunder. All across central and eastern India almost a lakh
para-military forces were deployed along with special task forces and vigilante
gangs for the last five years to crush the revolutionary movement of the people
which had emerged as the most formidable challenge and opposition to the
otherwise unabated corporate plunder. The new stooge of the imperialists i.e.
the new government under Modi has expectedly and very adeptly picked up from
where the previous one left and has intensified this brutal war.
Steep
rise in the railway fare and freight charges: The most recent of
its anti people policy is the hike in railway charges which is freight charges by 6.5% and fare by 14.2%. Most hit
by this hike will be the daily commuters travelling with Monthly Season Ticket
(MST) cost of which has nearly doubled on almost all routes, it will result in
price rise of nearly all essential commodities causing additional burden on the
toiling masses which are reeling under unprecedented inflation. It was the same
BJP which came to power attacking the Congress on the issue of inflation and price
rise, and on assuming power it is continuing the same old anti people policies
of the congress with added belligerence.
The new government has
decisively demonstrated its anti-people and fascist character within absolutely
no time. All its pre-election rhetoric has fallen flat and the tightening grip
of its communal fascist regime, corporate loot and plunder and anti-people
policies of price hike is revealing its expected character every day. One can after
all expect no change from this inherently oppressive and undemocratic
parliamentary system where one stooge of the imperialist and feudal forces
routinely replace the other, only to strengthen the onslaughts on the oppressed
masses. We have seen this farce repeated over and over again, for the last more
than 6 decades. It is only through a united and decisive battle of all the
oppressed masses for transforming this inherently unequal, violent social order
that we can establish a real and new democracy of equality and justice.
