Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites. They may be purely British Capitalist or mixed British and Indian or even purely Indian. They may be carrying on their insidious exploitation through mixed or even on purely Indian bureaucratic apparatus.
– Bhagat Singh
It has been 76 years since the British and their standing army left India however it is quite questionable whether the imperialist influence has ever stopped and whether the country has been completely autonomous.
The British who ruled India directly under its crown for over 200 years, built its own system in the already exploitative society of India. They used feudal relations such as the Zamindari system in establishing control over the country. The crony landlord class as well as the trading class constituted by the upper caste Hindus collaborated with the British and undertook the treacherous task of establishing British rule in India. Fast forward to 2023, the same treacherous classes are facilitating imperialists to control India.
The workers in the cities are slogging for more than 12 hours a day, multiple days a week. Major industrial areas in India do not see implementation of any labour laws. The contract system has become the norm where workers working on the same factory floor for decades are termed as casual workers and denied rights. Peasants in the countryside are facing relentless oppression by the landlord class. Denied basic land ownership, they are forced to be dependent on the landlords, who pay them meagre wages.
The recent World Hunger Index showed that out of 121 countries India fared 108 in the ranking. The people of India are subjected to cattle-like living without any social or economic security.
International Financial Institutions and Neocolonialism
International financial institutions like International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are used to lend “financial assistance” to “developing nations” and in turn these institutions place conditions like changing their economic policies to favour imperialist plunder, causing the “developing countries” e.g., India to get into a vicious debt cycle and lose its sovereignty. Puppet governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America implement these imperialist policies deceiving their people. The policy shifts of Liberalisation, Privatisation, and Globalisation which destroyed public sectors and collapsed Government schools and Hospitals in India can be attributed to this phenomenon.
The Indian big bourgeoisie and the puppet governments are acting as agents of imperialists and facilitating plunder of natural resources and super profits created in india. The forests have been allowed to be encroached by corporates like Vedanta and Hindalco, evicting the indigenous people from their jal-jangal- jameen.
Ruling Parties
The two main parties in India today have been in a crony relationship with the British in the past. These parties consist of the Landlord class and are funded heavily by the corporates thus serving their interests. The Indian National Congress was a party advocating for reformism under British rule. It is the same party which imposed the Emergency to crush people’s movement and in 1991 brought about the neoliberal reforms. The ideological backbone of the Bharatiya Janata Party i.e. the RSS facilitated British’s divide-and-rule policy. Its leaders such as Savarkar played a pivotal role in dividing the working class of India, thus helping the British maintain its order. The contemporary BJP government can still be seen promoting communal disharmony to divide the people so that they may be deflected from real issues such as land issue and workers’ right thus facilitating the plunder. India is still seen following colonial laws, where sedition laws in Indian penal code, 1860 is still used to curtail voices raised against the government.
Indian State Machinery
The Indian state which represents the interests of the comprador classes has brought in various anti-people laws such as National Education Policy, Farms Laws, four modified labour codes to intensify the oppression on the people of India. These impeiralist interests are imposed through iron will by the utilization of Indian state machinery. A fascist onslaught is carried out by the state where dissent is curbed. Armed forces are deployed upon the people in Kashmir, northeastern states, and central India. Any dissent to the status-quo is suppressed by invoking colonial sedition law and UAPA. Political prisoners such as CAA – NRC protestors, Bhima Koregaon case etc. are left languishing in jails for years without trial. Ranking of Freedom of press has slipped to 161 out of 180 countries.People of India are suppressed socially, politically and economically.
When such is the scenario our people are facing, every patriotic and democratic minds of the country should ask if they really are free? Is ‘Poorna Swaraj’ (Total Independence) already achieved or yet to? It is the existing economic structure that is the root cause of oppression in such ex-colonies and emancipation of these countries would not be possible until the puppet governments are smashed by the respective people. It is only through breaking the hands of the neo-colonialists that India can achieve its independence, the hands being the treacherous class of Indian big bourgeoisie who are facilitating foreign plunder and the landlord class who are maintaining feudal relations. A relentless struggle has to be carried forward by the toiling masses of India to break these shackles and achieve its long awaited independence.
Inquilab Zindabad!
