India now enters the 23rd year of 'Independence'. It is now 22 years since Nehru made his "Tryst with Destiny" speech and the Union Jack was hauled down. The Union Jack left an India where 60% of industry is in foreign hands: mostly British and American. It would be a waste of time and space to attempt to unmask the history Imperialism in India here. It is more than self-evident that what took place in 1947 was more a change in form that substance. It is the India of the 60's which should draw our closest attention.
Six firms in India control the non-government controlled industry. Of these, two (the House of Birla and Tata) can be described as monopolies. Birla financed the Indian Independence campaign waged by Congress. Gandhi was shot dead on his lawn (he refused The Birla Empire is so large that firms within it often compete with one another. This empire includes a half share in over half the motor car industry of India. Tatas own steel in the private sector and are now expanding into fertilisers in a big way.
Recently there has been increased criticism of the big industrialists from a very wide section of people. Birla faced with such criticism from Congress joined the other industrialists in a slow shift of financial backing from Congress to Swatantra and Jan Sangh on the far right. Congress has retaliated by calls for an enquiry into the activities of the big industries and by vested criticism of the Birlas.
The point at which the big industrial firms were not prepared to continue support for Congress was reached in Bengal. Here the vast and significant gains made by the Left gave birth to the adoption of new tactics by workers. Managers and owners were imprisoned in their factories until demands were granted, occupations, riots and strikes became as commonplace as the massive political demonstrations in Calcutta. The tactics made life for the industrialists intolerable. They were willing to put up with the Communist Party dominated coalition which ruled Kerala, indeed Birla has recently built the world's largest timber plant there, arrangements with the United Front which runs Bengal but their condition was the control of what they described as "industrial anarchy. Although the United Front can call strikes which even immobilise private cars, although even in municipal elections catastrophic electoral defeats have been suffered by the right, the United Front could not exert decisive pressure to ease the situation for the industrialists or prevent the series of incidents provoked by groups working with peasants in the countryside.
The centre (Congress) exerted strong pressure upon the United Front Government to keep order in Bengal. The could neither resist this pressure nor had the capability of controlling the elements responsible for the militancy in factories or the groups seeking to launch guerrilla warfare in the countryside. The Congress Government then attempted the same tactic that they had used five years before in Kerala. Taking political instability among the coalition for granted they cleaned the decks and prepared to smash the Left in Bengal. Elections were called for in February, a strong right winger appointed as Governor of Bengal and leading industrialists assured that the election would result in an indecisive victory for the Left, which would look unstable enough for the strong armed Governor to call for Presidential rule and the army could then guarantee order.
The electorate ruined the plan by giving the Left a decisive victory at the polls.
So confident was the United Front government that they refused to recognise the new Governor and this "Archaic symbol of British Raj' was replaced by G. Mehta, the ex-High Commissioner to London (a man with a left background in the distant past).
The Right nurtures dreams of a take-over by the Army with support of the extreme right. Changes in the Army hierarchy during the last 12 months have made this more likely. Having lost the opportunity in Bengal this Febilary, the Moraji Desai faction attempted a coup within the Congress framework. Moraji Desai is the man who brought prohibition to India with a vengeance and has not been noted for maintaining scruples in his manoeuvres. He is identified with the extreme right which. they even looked forward to tolerable on this occasion, was willing to enter a coalition with his-faction in Congress to provide a right wing alternative to Indira Gandhi. The latter realised that there exists a general yearning for radical reform in India, forestalled the coup by moving 'left' - she nationalised Indian banks and found the old Congress references to Socialism. The Moscow wing of the Communist Party joined left bourgeois parties in endorsing her reforms as an instalment in a programme acceptable to them. But it is clear that this has only provided a temporary breathing space for Indira Gandhi. Moraji Desai, Chavan and S. K. Patil (the stand the extreme right eagerly awaiting the Right Coup which will bring them to power and allow them to imitate Indonesia in an annihilation of the Left The Americans have huge rupee resources in India thanks to the P.L.480 food 'aid programme and they do not hesitate to use part of the hierarchy in the army look forward to the day when they can become the Colonel Nassers of India. The lessons from Pakistan are eagerly lapped up as proof of the inevitable course of events What these groups refuse to realise is the complete change that has taken place in West Bengal. A change which does not depend on the Communist Party leaderships, a change which is not confined to elites or even Calcutta; but a change which has altered consciousness throughout West Bengal and which carries within it possibilities of revolution in India over the next decade.
No Indonesia can be repeated in India.
However, if it is true that the Left is impregnable in Bengal, it is equally true that there can be no Socialism in ore state in India. The industrialists are attempting to pull out capital from the state. The concessions necessary to halt this process are not in the hands of any political group but in the hands of the proletariat which is not likely to make the desired changes. The Centre exerts intense pressure upon Bengal to curb seditious developments. The United Front Government cannot ignore these pressures, yet would lose its political base if it gave in to them to any obvious extent. The Police suffer this dilemma. They are told to halt guerrilla actions against landowners, yet know that they will not be supported in such actions. In July several hundred uniformed police invaded the Legislative Assembly with a dead colleague. They left under fear of huge demonstration by people against their action. Incidents are reported daily of landowners being killed, police stations being sacked and the activity of groups in the countryside (now split into Guevarist and Maoist factions) which hope to spark off a guerrilla war. As yet their activities are not co-ordinated enough or significant enough in scale to launch such a war, but the activities have been serious enough to provoke the press barons into making hysterical noises and demanding strong action against them. The basis for such action exists in legislation passed during the last two years and in the huge army of 1,200,000 men which India maintains. As has been maintained in this article, obstacles such as high ranking officers reluctant to back the right in any action against the these holdings. A large Constitution have been gently eased out and the hierarchy which is emerging is used to thinking in terms of seizing power. If needed a threat from China can always be played up to justify such action.
There is also great sympathy for Pakistan in its efforts to contain an explosive situation. Troops were allowed to pass over India to East Pakistan at the same time as permission was witheld for Soviet aircraft to transport armaments to Vietnam. Indian press reports were sympathetic to the Pakistan establishment and played down developments. As in the mid-40's, crisis in both India and Pakistan engulfs the political boundaries of the two states The next move is likely to come from the right. The election of a President gives opportunity to strengthen ground for such an action.
But the disillusionment with the corrupt politics of 'Independent' India, added with slow progress in a world moving fast, the increasing proletariat and the urban unemployed make such an action inadequate in warding off the storm which is gathering. You do not buy MP's any more, you buy a Cabinet or two In a recent article in one of the left faction newspapers in Britain, a leading 'theoretician' asked a question about Ceylon: "What can a revolutionary socialist do in a place like Ceylon?" The answer would be the same as in India:
'Make a Socialist Revolution!' DWARF CORRESPONDENT
GHULAM HUSSEIN
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permission to make the house into a museum). Temples are named after him.
India is still bound economically to World Capitalism. The alternatives are clear. Fascist take-over or Socialist Revolution.
CIA stooge in the Indian Cabinet) all hover like vultures while in the shadows