Indian elections news reports...
. India's new parliament is dominated by the Hindu right wing Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP), which won 25% of the popular vote, taking 185 seats in the 545 seat Lok Sabha (Parliament).
The meteoric rise of these Hindu communalists and their fascist allies is vivid proof of the ignominious fall of the Congress (I) party which has dominated the country since independence from Britain in 1947.
Congress was undone by the Hawala scandal, which demonstrated that Congress (I) leader Narisimha Rao's government was not significantly less corrupt than the country's endemic norm. A more diffuse popular discontent among the poor and lower middle class resulted from the New Economic Policy implemented by Congress (I) Finance Minster Manmohan Singh in 1991. This radical new policy opened India's protected economy to trans-national plunderers, and news reports... challenged the middle classes* "patriotic consumerism".
Electoral pressure forced the BJP to tone down its virulent attacks on Muslims, and provocative campaigns to "reclaim" the sites of Hindu temples in Muslim areas in the North of the country (100 million Indians, 11% of the population, are Muslim). Even so, they were unable to form a parliamentary majority, and attention has now passed to the possibility of a "third front" of all the secular parties except Congress (I); from the bourgeois populist Janatha Dal through regional and lower cast/dalit parties to the country's two mass Communist parties.
This will not be easy. It has proved impossible to sustain a bourgeois centrist alternative to Congress (I) for longer than one term in office. India's dominant party has a well-oiled electoral machinery, national presence, and considerable financial assets. Obituary writers beware!
The only cement in the potential news reports... "third front" is political pragmatism, and a common antipathy to Congress (1) and the BJP extremists. The Communist Parties' main interest is in protecting their bastions in the states of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Elsewhere, they are all too often content to be junior partners to "secular democratic forces, which include a proportion of crooks, charlatans, landlords and other scoundrels.
[JD, KG] May Day police attack
May Day marchers in Colombo, were attacked and teargassed by police who dispersed demonstrators, seriously injuring several of them.
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Two days before, all demonstrations (though not "rallies") had been banned by the police citing unexplained "security considerations".
The Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP, Sri Lankan section of the Fourth International) defied the ban, together with comrades from Diyasa, Samajawadi Janatha Party and the (Maoist) Lanka Communist Party.
Slogans included "Defeat World Bank-dicated policies!" and "Stop the racist war!" Marchers carried a coffin symbolising the death of democracy, less than two years into the Peoples Alliance government of Chandrika Kumaratunga. The NSSP was drawing attention to the steady erosion of the promises to respect human rights and democratic liberties that had won the ruling coalition popular support against the previous regime
What the marchers hadn't realised was that they were going to be the latest casualties in the Government's increasing authoritarianism and use of Emergency powers. Numerous eyewitness accounts report that without any provocation or prior notice, hundreds of police baton charged and teargassed worker, breaking up the coffin and assaulting the marchers
Over 150 workers were badly beaten, including Trade Union Leaders Saranapala Palihena and Municipal Councillor Brito Fernando. Ten workers needed surgical intervention at Columbo General Hospital. More than ten others recieved out-patient treatment, including one broken arm
Meanwhile hundreds more who had assembled at De Mel Park (the rally point) waiting for the marchers were teargassed by police. The crowd included children having their lunch while
Despite this brutality, the Government failed to stop the demonstration. Over 500 workers marched and fought their way up to Dawson street, while a crowd lead by Comrades Dr Wickramabahu Karunarathne and Dr Sunil Ratnapriya completed with the rally.
The May Day demonstrations of the goverming Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) and a section of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) were free of police thuggery. These events were, of course, just as "illegal" as the NSSP's.
The NSSP was targeted because its slogans, "Stop The War Against Tamils" and "No To Privatisation" embarass those in power. And because the party is a militant pole of attraction for workers and youth disenchanted by the current
K. Govindan and Linus Jayatilaka
Write or fax the President of Sri Lanka, H.E. Chandrika Kumaratunga, Presidential Secretariat, Colombo 01, Sri Lanka, fax (941) 333 703 1) To protest and condemn this May Day outrage, 2) to demand an independent and accountable inquiry into the events, 3) to demand compensation to injured workers. Please send a copy to the NSSP fax (+941) 334 822. N.O.W. March
Over 40,000 people of all colors and ages marched in San Francisco on April 14 to protest the right-wing assault against the poor, people of color, women, gays and lesbians.
A key purpose of the march was to create momentum for the defeat of the antiaffirmative action initiative that will be on the November ballot in California. This mobilisation is of national importance, since opponents of affirmative action in other states are trying to place similar proposals on their own ballots. There are also efforts to weaken or eliminate affirmative action through the federal courts, in the U.S. Congress and in the state legislatures. To say nothing of the policies of President Clinton.
About 600 civil rights, labor and community organizations supported the April 14 demonstration, in an unprecedented show of multi-racial unity. Speakers included the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers, and Patricia Ireland, President of the demonstration's main sponsor, the National Organization for Women (N.O.W.)
Ann Menasche Factory "death traps"
A recent survey by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions revealed that in recent years, over 90,000 people every year have died as a result of industrial, traffic and fire accidents. Industrial hazards in coal mines, construction, metallurgy, chemical fertiliser industry, tuel and mechanics have not decreased. There have been serious gas explosions in Guizhou and other provinces. So few enterprises respect the State Council regulation that enterprises should apply 10-20% of their technological renewal fund to improvement of labour conditions that it has been removed from the accounting system.
Industrial hazards are an even bigger problem. In the last decade, polluting industries have become subject to stricter control in the West. Many have moved into China.
The situation is particularly serious in the Special Economic Zones (SEZ). According to the newspaper Ming Pao, Jan 18-19, 1996, triphenylmethanepolluted air puts 230,000 women wor-
kers directly at risk in shoe factories in Putian, Quanzhou, Shishi and Jinjiang, (Fujian Province).and is a latent threat to the lives of several million residents of these districts. Most shoe factories refuse to install even basic cleansing facilities which would cost only RMB 560,000 Yuan (around US$67,000). The Taiwanese Factory Owners Association has even threatened to re-move their factories if they were forced to install such facilities.
Fire hazards remain a serious threat to workers' lives, since most factories have their workplace, workers' dormitory and storehouse in the same building The 1993 fire in the Zhili Toy Factory in Shenzhen, when 87 workers burnt to death, is notorious. But what about those who have died in similar incidents since? The 61 workers who died in a fire in the Gaofu Textile Factory in Fuzhou ? Or the 93 who died in a fire in Yushan Textile Factory in Zhuhai? Or the 22 deaths in a fire in a rural workshop in Shunde Township in Guangdong Province? * Source: October Review Austrian Fl discussion with 'Militant'
Over 4,000 people participated in Vienna's May Day march this year. The most striking thing about the March was the common contingent of Socialist Alternative (SOAL, Austrian section of the Fourth International), the Vorwärts (Forward!) Socialist Offensive (SOV), which is part of the Committee for a Worker's International, the international tendency around Britain's Militant Labour, and the preparatory committee for the Austrian section of the Turkish ODP party (see IV #275)
At the beginning of this month, SOV (formerly called simply Vorwärts) formally abandoned its entryist work in the social democratic party (SPO), arguing that the creation of "a left wing" in such parties was no longer possible. So far, discussion within the group seems to be concentrated on tactical questions, rather than a re-evaluation of the nature and role of social democracy.
SOV and SOAL have a similar analysis of the situation in Europe, but a different appreciation of the various struggles of the working class. SOV argues that the recent, unexpected resistance to the bourgeois offensive against the public sector indicates a polarisation of society, and a possibility for the growth of revolutionary organisations. SOAL warns against excessive optimism in a situation where even the most radical struggles have an essentially defensive character. Growing frustration among trade union members does not necessarily indicate the development of revolutionary class consciousness. * IMF: Resist or Perish.
1,200 trade union delegates and left activists participated in an "All Workers Conference" on the negative effects of IMF-WB-WTO and government policies on working people in Mauritius on 26-27 April 1996.
The confrence was jointly organised by all the country's trade union federations. "A proud, historic event," said Mauritius Labour Congress President Lutchmaun Roy, who called world bank policies a sword of Damocles over the heads of Mauritius' workers.
According to Rajni Lallah of the Ledikasyon pu Travayer association, "the current government won all the seats in the December 1995 parliamentary elections, and they thought they had a mandate for a full neo-liberal programme. This conference represents the first platform of resistance to the coming offensive."
The conference was inspired by recent European initiatives like the "Other Voices of the Planet" counter-summits in Brussels and Madrid. The keynote address was given by Michel Chossudovsky of the Campaign to Abolish Third World Debt (COCAD). COCAD, together with the Amsterdambased IIRE institute, also provided copies of their recent publication "IMF, WB, WTO: The Free Market Fiasco, to Conference notes Revolution Betrayed, 60 years on A conference organised in Moscow on Nov. 22-24, 1996 by the International Committee for the Study of L. Trotsky's legacy, to mark the 60th anniversary of the publication of Revolution Betrayed Themes include • The book's significance for the development of Marxist thought. • The nature of the USSR, its development and its demise • Socialist theory and practice in the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers' movement • Post-totalitarian society. • Trotsky's biography. Those wishing to participate should send an application and a synopsis of their proposed contribution (up to 5 pages) by 1st Sepember to <mvogt@igc.apc.org>, or to Professor Mikhail Voeykov, Room 620, The Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulitsa Krasikova 27, 117218, Moscow, Russia, © 332 4525
News Reports enable delegates to continue their education and organising work on these themes.
Union militants from Seychelles, Madagascar and Comoros also attended. Organisers hope the conference will stimulate interest in regional activities challenging the IMF-WB-WTO. *
[JD, RL] PK Naimar 1930-1996
He always started the conversation with: Anything new?"', in the hope that somewhere, somehow, there might be a 'break-through'. So many others either succumbed to the prevailing liberal panaceas or joined the growing crowd of cynics.
PK Nambiar was not what might be called a subdued individual. PK, when aroused, was a tough, in-the-trenches fighter for what he believed. He was a revolutionary Marxist, polemicist, inyour-face Trotskyist, man-about-town, gourmet chef with proletarian resources, devoted parent and husband, lover of life, and a true believer in the betterment of all working people. He was a constant, unmovable force for the left, an inspiring individual, sometimes sectarian, oftentimes right and oftentimes wrong.
Emigrating to Canada from the political and cultural sophistication of the scene in Bombay, PK found himself deposited in Brandon, Manitoba, a backward, semi-rural, right-wing, Christian, socially conservative and racist farm community on the Canadian prairies. Imagine the shock to his
Yet out of that Kulak community, because of the good work done by PK, came a whole cadre of young revolutionists dedicated to the cause of the world revolution. Yes, comrades, PK Nambiar was the nightmare that conservative parents have when they think about the future of their children. A true despoiler of youth, the red menace, the yellow peril all rolled into one clever, charming and effective human being and social revolutionist. Is Alex Acheson
A lifelong supporter of the Fourth International, Alex was active in Spain, and fought in Malta and Egypt. After • WWIl he joined the Labour Party and the National Union of Teachers. He continued to inspire class struggle in Leicester until his death at the age of 84. [PW]
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