[The following resolution was recently adopted by the Communist League, Indian section of the Fourth International.]
The June 26, 1975, Declaration of Emergency throughout India and the consequent suspension of democratic rights and civil liberties constitute a throttling of normal bourgeois-democratic rule in India.
Though even in normal times it was considerably restricted, bourgeois democracy had functioned in India for almost three decades. It had enabled the toiling people to engage in varied political activities such as unionization, strikes and struggles, holding of demonstrations and publication of their own literature legally, and to gain access to accurate information in the press. Such activities, understandably, would not have been possible to the same extent under a military or civilian dictatorship. The institutionalization of democratic rights in India had been achieved by the Indian people during their long struggle for independence from Britain. It thus signified a precious conquest won by the masses after hard-fought struggles.
Indira Gandhi's coup, carried out within the legal constitutional framework, swept away all these gains. Even if there will be some relaxation here and there or even if ultimately the present emergency is lifted, it is now crystal clear that there will be no return to pre-June 26, 1975, bourgeoisdemocratic rule in India. In this sense, the political physiognomy of pre-June 26, 1975, bourgeois-democratic rule has been completely altered beyond any recognition.
From a broad historical standpoint and also from the viewpoint of the development of the class struggle in India, the Gandhi regime's suppression of democratic rights marks a decisive watershed in the political history of India. Momentarily it has dealt a veritable deathblow to the current class struggles of the working class. It has decisively tilted the class correlation of forces in favor of the bourgeoisie and against the workers. And since June 26, 1975, the class correlation of forces has continued to operate against the workingclass struggles.
For the protagonists of bourgeois democracy all the world over, Indian bourgeois democracy was a means to be extolled as a capitalist showcase- The largest democracy in the world." This showcase was contrasted to so-called totalitarian China. The Gandhi coup demolished this theme. Suppression of bourgeois-democratic institutions and rights in India on June 26, 1975, provided one more proof, if there ever needed to be one, of the general trend that has become more and more pronounced since the advent of the 20th Century: the growing incompatibility of capitalism and democracy on a world scale.
Revolutionary Marxists in India had already pointed out various factors that accounted for an ever increasing trend to authoritarianism in Indian polity. This trend was considerably reinforced after the brutal suppression of the railway strike in May 1974. Nevertheless we have to provide an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic crisis which compelled the Indian bourgeoisie to adopt this course. Only on the basis of such an analysis can the party orient itself on the question of its immediate future short-term tasks.
In the last analysis, the severe economic crisis confronting the Indian bourgeoisie must be regarded as the main reason prompting the ruling class to opt for imposition of the State of Emergency in June 1975.
This crisis was most potently described as "the gravest crisis of the Indian economy since Independence."
Since 1965, the growth rates of industrial output, industrial investment, and employment were consistently low. The underutilization of productive capacity had assumed crucial significance in several key industries. The Annual Report on Currency and Finance of the Reserve Bank of India for 1974 listed inflation as the main characteristic of the economic crisis. It warned about recession by citing the slackening demand for iron and steel, construction materials, machinery, transport equipment, cotton textiles, and durable consumer goods.
The unemployment situation was becoming grim.
The food problem was increasingly becoming more and more acute in its price, distribution, and procurement aspects.
This economic crisis was structural in character.
The Indian bourgeoisie and its spokes. nen were quite clearly aware of the gravity and the magnitude of this crisis. A December 6, 1974, Economic Times editorial was representative of this awareness when it warned: "Whoever analyses the state of economy today will find some of lese ugiv teatures posing a grave trea
› the countrv's economic stability Suc crisis conditions, if continued too long, would provide ideal stamping ground to political adventurists."
The Indian bourgeoisie's policy was to rely more and more on the private sector to tide over the crisis both on the agrarian as well as the industrial front. At the same time, it attempted to pass the burden of this unbearable economic crisis onto the shoulders of the masses. The partial wage freeze was part of this strategy.
Meanwhile, impelled by the intolerable conditions of their living, above all inflation, the masses had begun to rise. Throughout 1974 and the first quarter of 1975 mass discontent was seething. In 1974, mass struggles on a gigantic scale beyond the established political and bounds were launched in several states, most notably Gujarat and Bihar. Nineteen seventy-four also witnessed a decisive class confrontation between the ruling class and the working class in the May railway strike, which resulted in a grave defeat for the latter due to a divided and weak union leadership and the firm determination of the bourgeoisie.
Thus while mass struggles were developing, they were, nevertheless, sporadic and uncoordinated. Except in the railway strike, the working class did not participate in these struggles as a class. The Stalinist parties and left-centrist formacions failed to provide a genuine class orientation or leadership for these growing mass upheavals. Consequently the leadership fell more and more into the hands of right parties headed personally by Jayaprakash Narayan, who tried to extend the base of the Bihar opposition movement to the other states, with the aim of building a viable political bloc capable of opposing
, the Congress party at the federal level.
On March 6, 1974, in New Delhi, a massive demonstration called by a conglomeration of several rightist parties and reformist socialist parties and left-centrist formations was the first significant step in this direction.
The Charter of Demands presented to the Parliament March 6 by this demonstration included: a minimum wage for all; controlled prices of basic necessities; full employment; land reforms; full political and trade-union rights for workers in commercial and industrial enterprises in the public sector; an end to corrupt electoral practices; lowering of the voting age to eighteen years; educational reform; an end to draconian repressive laws.
The rightist parties tried to blunt the radical thrust of these demands by presenting them in Gandhian terminology.
By then, corruption had also become the central theme of the agitation by these parties both in and outside the Parliament.
The participation by rightist parties on a large scale in these spontaneously developing mass struggles provided a pretext to Gandhi, the Ruling Congress party, and its fellow travellers like the CPI [Communist party of India] (pro-Moscow) to brand these movements as "reactionary" in an attempt to divert attention from the regime's policies.
There were two most important aspects of these mass struggles. First of all, their mass character due to unbearable economic conditions. Secondly, their spontaneous character.
These struggles, especially in Gujarat and Bihar, were not the brainchildren of any particular party. In default of the Stalinist parties, the right and reformist parties appropriated these struggles. And in the process they were compelled to raise these demands in a demagogical manner, talk of "total revolution," etc., at the risk of losing their political influence over these movements.
In themselves, these demands were either economic or democratic in character, affecting workers, peasants, and the petty bourgeoisie.
While Jayaprakash Narayan and the political parties spearheading these struggles did receive some support from a section of the Indian bourgeoisie, the Indian bourgeoisie, as a class, in the main, continued to support the Ruling Congress and Gandhi, who had considerably regained its confidence after her handling of the railway strike and the wage freeze. The Indian bourgeoisie, in its majority, was not sure whether Narayan and his allies from the right and the left would be able to contain the potentially explosive danger that such demands and such struggles posed. Because even if raised by thoroughly reactionary leadership and organizations, such demands, in the thenprevailing and socio-economic climate, had a dynamic of their own to inspire the masses in other parts of India to imitate Gujarat and Bihar. The verdict in the June 1975 elections in Gujarat' and the tension over the Allahabad verdict in Gandhi's election case? were sufficient pointers to even those vacillating strata of the Indian bourgeoisie which were supporting Narayan and these parties.
On the economic front, by June 1975 the economy was nearing a precipice. The prebudget economic survey for 1974-75, which the regime had presented to the Parlia ment in late February 1975, had described 1975 as the year of the most "unprecedented economic challenge since Independence" and discounted any possibility of "dramatic changes in the short run."
Prices had climbed to an all-time high.
in
Gujarat, the number of seats held by the Ruling Congress party fell from 140 to 75, while a bloc of three right-wing parties won 87 of the 182 seats. A five-party front of non-Communist opposition parties formed a government in the state.—IP
The purchasing power of hard-pressed steadily being eroded, consumers was leading to a growing decline in demand for a wide range of goods.
The credibility of the Gandhi regime both on the political and the economic level was rapidly evaporating. The situation demanded drastic action on a political level.
Gandhi's swift but firm and stunning action on June 26 clinched the issue. The bourgeoisie as a whole rallied round her. The events, since then, have not belied their faith in her.
The imposition of the emergency has temporarily checked the economic crisis. Prices were stabilized to a certain extent. Raids, searches, demonstrative curbing of smuggling, and the arrests of some economic and social offenders have reduced to a certain extent speculative activities of certain strata of the bourgeoisie in land and in the building industry.
But the major achievement of the emergency from the class point of view is that it clamped the lid on working-class struggles. As early as September 16, 1975, the editorial of the Economic Times noted with satisfaction that the climate for production had improved with the restoration of "industrial peace." The Union Labor Minister, Mr. Reddy, was quite justified in his recently made claim that the climate of industrial relations has "changed beyond recognition." There has been a steep fall in mandays lost in both public- and privatesector enterprises in the last few months. Nineteen seventy-four registered the peak of industrial unrest, a loss of 40.25 million mandays, a nearly 100% rise over 1973. In 1975 it came down to 19.24 million mandays, and between July 1975 and January 1976 the loss of mandays was only 5.4 million, as compared to the loss of 18.1 million mandays during the seven-month period preceding the declaration of emergency. The number of mandays lost was higher in the private sector than in the public sector.
Working-class struggles have almost come to a standstill. A complete industrial truce has been promised and practised by the leadership of the major trade unions. The emergency measures have greatly slashed over-time payments to employees and cut the minimum bonus of the workers in the organized sector from 8.33% to 4% In fact, the test for accreditation of trade unions is whether or not they resort to agitational methods for redressal of their grievances. The Indian Labor Conference and the tripartite machinery have been dismantled. These measures obviously have their impact on the creation of surplus value and on the valorization of capital.
As against these anti-working-class and antidemocratic measures-such as promulgation of Three Ordinances on December 5, 1975, to prevent publication of "objectionable matters," etc.; prolongation of the tenure of the present parliament by a year, etc.—the Gandhi regime had already offered a New Deal to the bourgeoisie to induce it to revive the sagging economy.
• This deal centred round: (1) relaxa on of the conditions for issuing bonu shares; (2) stepping up of construction activity; (3) augmentation of urban transport; (4) diversification of controlled cloth distribution schemes to clear accumulated stocks.
2. The 1976-77 budgetary proposals of the Gandhi regime have further continued this trend. The Economic Times estimate of budget concessions calculated that the corporate sector will benefit to the tune of Rs. 96 crores [960 million rupees] a year from the various concessions and modifications in these budgetary proposals.
3. The direct tax rate of 77% has been lowered to 66%.
4. Personal income tax and wealth tax have been lowered at all levels.
5. A scheme of investment allowances has also been introduced to save industries from obsolescence.
6. On April 14, the regime announced a considerably liberalized import policy under which eighty-eight items have been taken off the list and procedures have been streamlined. The Economic Times survey of reactions to this policy showed that the entire bourgeoisie and trade and commercial circles have hailed this policy.
7. A voluntary disclosure scheme for tax evaders.
The results have not been long in coming. The Economic Times Research Bureau study of the top 101 industrial giants in the private sector that suffered from sluggishness in 1972-73 showed that they had improved their performance in 1974-75. Their total assets went up substantially by 21.1% in 1974-75, against 11.4% in 1973-74 and 7.7% in 1972-73. This list includes forty public-sector undertakings. The rest belong to the private sector. Nine new entrants have been included in this study which were not there in previous similar studies. The combined gross profits of these giants in 1974-75 recorded a substantial rise of 43.7%—Rs.615.2 crores [6.152 billion rupees]. Net profits registered a spectacular increase of 41.4%. Because of restrictions on dividend payments, the retained profits of these giants show a record rise of 90.0% in 1974-75.
The politico-economic implications of the emergency are very clear. They are certainly anti-working-class in nature. These measures have been directed against the working class in favor of the bourgeoisie.
Hence there is hardly anything surprising in the findings of a Commonwealth Intercharge Study Group which recently visited India. This group remarked that the emergency was widely welcomed by the business community. The report said that the business community agreed that the emergency had four effects: (1) an end to industrial unrest and a new sense of discipline instilled into labor; (2) a new sense of urgency in government departments; (3) a new determination to implement policies and projects; (4) a decline in corruption.
Hence revolutionary Marxists cannot support the emergency nor its aftermath on the ground that it fought right reaction. Such an approach overlooks its antiworking-class implications and involves a superficial analysis viewing the emergency as the result of a conflict between two wings of the bourgeoisie. In addition, such an approach merely tends to provide a left cover for the classically antidemocratic and anti-working-class thrust of the bourgeois regime in India. Hence the party condemns the emergency and all consequent antidemocratic and anti-workingclass measures.
We also cannot support the 20-point programme.? Here the stand taken by our party Central Committee at its last meeting was, to say the least, unprincipled. We cannot adopt a positive attitude to mea sures like workers participation in managements of private and public-sector undertakings. We are for workers control of industries. On this question the position adopted by the last Central Committee meeting was politically disorienting.
The 20-point programme is nothing more than a rehash of earlier Congress party programmes. Even if implemented, it is unlikely to broaden the base of capitalist economic development. In any case, the 20- point programme cannot be viewed in isolation. Promulgated as a by-product of Gandhi's antidemocratic thrust, as a part of her overall pseudo-socialist demagogy, this programme essentially provided a left cover for her crucial curbing of the democratic rights of the people and shift towards the right. The party cannot support piecemeal some of the "progressive" items of the 20-point programme critically. In its pedagogic work the party must explain to the masses the real nature and the overall context of this programme, and expose its class limitations.
Despite our political standpoint and our political exposure of the 20-point programme as a demagogic cover, when the masses are propelled by their conditions to take the path of struggle, we will be with them. We will try to mobilize them independently for the granting of these demands. Even if these items of the 20-point programme are implemented due to mass pressure, which is very unlikely, we shall urge the masses to press for more concessions. In the process, we shall be able to convince the masses to rely on their own strength, on their own independent street mobilizations, and not to place any political confidence in this regime for the implementation of the 20-point programme.
has considerably
The emergency changed the political landscape of India.
The popular-frontist orientations of all types of Stalinist parties in India have disoriented the struggling masses in India. None have the perspective of mobilizing the Indian masses against the bourgeoisie or organizing politically independent working-class struggles. The CPI (pro- Moscow) has gone the furthest in providing left cover for Gandhi's suppression of democratic rights.
Left-centrist formations have also failed to provide an independent working-class political orientation.
Rightist parties like Congress (O), Jan Sangh,' and BLD (Bhartiya Lok Dal)s have been more or less routed by Gandhi. As a result, the Ruling Congress party has once more become the main political party of the Indian bourgeoisie.
The utter inability of the opposition parties to expose and explain the Gandhi regime's "progressive" facade renders considerable assistance to her regime in perpetuating confusion and thereby obstructing the organization of a workingresponse to her regime's anticlass working-class thrust. The political developments prior to and since June 26, 1975, have exposed the class limitations of bourgeois opposition politics.
In fact, in an underdeveloped capitalist country like India, bourgeois opposition parties cannot transcend the class limitations of a parliamentary polity whose rules are set by the bourgeoisie. Even Stalinist parties and left-centrist formations have been caught in the mire of the popularfrontist, class-collaborationist politics of the Indian bourgeois parliamentary polity. The emergency and its continuance have increasingly rendered parliamentarism and parliamentary institutions politically obsolescent, in the present context. While reckoning with this fact, revolutionary Marxists have nevertheless an obligation to make use of such institutions as tribunes for revolutionary agitation and propaganda.
Though Gandhi's coup is very broadbased and she has still been able to keep the military at bay, the forced suppression of class tensions through a constitutional dictatorship which is not strictly bonapartist will only make the future social upheavals more powerful and on a broader scale than hitherto.
progranene cit econance and democratil
In these circumstances, a transitional demands assumes great significance for building a sizeable nucleus of Trotskyist cadres of the party in India.
4. A reactionary, Hindu communalist party.—IP
This programme must be premised around the central axis of an imperative need for absolutely independent workingclass politics in India. This need to provide a revolutionary-Marxist alternative leadership of the working class cannot be fulfilled by the formation of a "Janata Morcha"6 or a "Lok Paksh" or any other brand essentially involving class collaboration with any of the wings of the bourgeoisie or its parties on a lasting basis. No. The need of the hour is to liberate completely the Indian working class from the political spell and influence of the bourgeoisie and its reformist agents in the working-class movements.
The Indian working class has been considerably debilitated politically, disoriented and atomized by the consistent and persistent betrayals of the traditional working-class or left parties. It is therefore essential to pose the task of an audacious united-front policy to defend the working class against the onslaught of the bourgeoisie. All the transitional demands must aim at forging real united-front organs of the toilers in actual class struggles.
Democratic demands must centre around: (1) lifting of the emergency; (2) restoration of bourgeois-democratic rights; (3) release of all political prisoners; (4) lifting of the ban on all political parties; (5) repeal of all draconian laws; (6) repeal of press censorship or precensorship.
The economic demands must have the central axis of protecting and preserving the gains of past working-class struggles and extending them. More especially they must include: (1) full trade-union rights for all central trade unions irrespective of whether they support or oppose the emergency, including representation at all levels of negotiations and bargaining, etc.; (2) repeal of the wage freeze; (3) repeal of the bonus cut; (4) promulgation and strict enforcement of suitable legislation to ban all types of layoffs, retrenchments, and closures; (5) reopening of all such closed establishments or units and reinstatement of retrenched or laid-off workers; (6) formation of factory committees to fight for these demands.
In the immediate period ahead, such demands assume immediate importance in the party's pedagogic and propaganda work, and in orienting cadres in the task of building a Trotskyist party in India.
Notes
1. In the June 13, 1975, state elections
2. On June 11, 1975, a court in Gandhi's hometown of Allahabad declared her election to Parliament invalid, and found her guilty of corrupt practices in the 1971 election campaign. The judge's decision prohibited her from running in any election for six years. Had her appeal been unsuccessful, she would have had to resign her office. In November 1975, the Supreme Court reversed the decision in light of retroactive amendments to the election law, passed after the State of Emergency was declared.—IP
3. Gandhi demagogically announced a twentypoint economic program shortly after the declaration of the State of Emergency in order to give her dictatorial coup a "progressive" cover. The program included promises that surplus land would be distributed, bonded labor would be abolished, income tax reforms would be sought, and efforts would be made to bring down prices.—IP
5. People's party of India, a right-wing party. Its formal launching on August 29, 1974, represented a merger of seven parties.-IP
6. Janata Morcha (People's Front) was a coalition of parties in the state government of Gujarat, including several right-wing opposition parties and the Socialist party. The coalition opposed the imposition of the State of Emergency, and organized demonstrations against the loss of democratic rights. This coalition collapsed following a loss of a state assembly vote, and many of its leaders were arrested when Gandhi imposed direct presidential rule over Gujarat.-IP