[The following is the program issued by the Communist League, Indian section of the Fourth International, for the parliamentary elections that begin on March 16. Communist League candidate Thakor Shah is contesting a seat from Baroda, in the state of Gujarat (see accompanying box).J
Indian voters would once again exercise their democratic right in March 1977, for the sixth Lok Sabha election. The election has come after the 18 months of emergency, during which the working class was subjected to brutal repression. Hence the forthcoming election is a crucial event for the Indian polity in general and the working class and toiling masses in particular. We the Trotskyists of the Communist League, the Indian section of the Fourth International, view this election as a main battle of two bourgeois parties to sidetrack the consciousness and movement of the working class and the toiling masses.
We had already pointed out various factors that accounted for an ever. increasing trend to authoritarianism in the Indian polity. This was consolidated by the unprecedented brutal suppression of the railway workers strike of May 1974.
We had also stressed that the severe economic crisis confronting the Indian bourgeoisie must be regarded as the crucial reason for the imposition of the State of Emergency on June 26, 1975. However, it failed to achieve its main so-called objective, ie., to revive the economic growth with price stability. Rising prices, unemployment, lockouts, closures, layoffs, sickness of industries, and demand recesin several basic industries have sion multiplied. For the regime there was absolutely no excuse left to explain these symptoms of deepening structural economic crisis of Indian capitalism.
Anti-working-class measures of the emergency, especially the amended Black Bonus Act, impelled the working class at the nerve centre of Indian capitalism- Bombay-to form factory-mill committees, and they launched a struggle bypassing the bureaucratic traditional trade-union leadership. The working-class struggles took various other forms at several industrial cities. We salute them for their fearless struggles despite the unprecedented odds.
The Emergency was increasingly becoming counter-productive politically. Relaxation of the Emergency and the holding of elections at this stage could as well channelise the evergrowing discontent and disenchantment of the working class and toiling poor masses.
The bourgeois regime seeks to legitimize the institutionalisation of the antidemocratic gains such as the Press Objectionable Matters Act, anti-national activities and organisations in the 42nd Constitutional Amendment Act, etc., of the Emergency through the elections.
Elections are being held when the Emergency has not been completely withdrawn, hundreds of trade-union and political activists are not yet freed, and curbs on political and trade-union activities by repressive laws still continue.
All the bourgeois parties like the Congress, the Janata party, the Congress for Democracy party, etc., as well as Stalinists like the Communist party and the Communist party (Marxist), pose democracy versus dictatorship as the central issue of this election. But this is posed in abstract and non-class terms as if parliamentary democracy exists in a vacuum above the socio-economic forces based on class exploitation and class distinction. All three bourgeois parties try to woo the downtrodden Indian masses by giving slogans, lavish and vague promises. It may be recalled here that the Congress party in its 1971 election manifesto promised workers' participation in management. It has repeated the same promise, after having ruled for six year, in its 1977 manifesto. The Janata party and the CFD also promise the same. But the Indian workers and toilers know from their experiences that under the misleading slogans of workers'
participation in management, the workers are further exploited with heavy work-loads "to produce more." The scheme of workers' participation in management was not at all aimed to allow workers' say in production, management of administration, in making decisions about prices and profit-sharing. It is only a strategy to lure a few trade-union leaders to serve the interests of the employers. We firmly believe that workers'
participation in management in the real sense of the term cannot be materialised unless the means of production are socially owned and administered through workers' democratic control, ie. workers' self-management.
Let workers, employers, oppressed middle class, landless labourers, and poor peasants realise that all three bourgeois parties will join hands to suppress their movements and their rightful demands against the exploiters after the election, in the name of law and order and saving democracy. Anti-working-class measures will increase rather than decrease under any bourgeois party. It may be the Congress, the CFD or the Janata party.
The Janata party claims to fight for democracy against the dictatorship of the Congress. But democracy lies in taking decisions by people in management, production, and profit in their factories, mills, mines, and farms. This is not possible unless the exploitative capitalist system is eradicated. JP [Jaya Prakash Narayan] does not want to do this. The Janata party in its election manifesto, unlike the Congress, the CPI and the CPI (M), promises to delete the right to private property as the Fundamental Right and to include the right to work as the Fundamental Right. But the right to private property will still remain as a legal right if the Janata party wins. It is not a complete abolition of private property in the means of production and distribution. Moreover it is proposed more as a measure to take the wind out of the sails of the ruling Congress, which charges the Janata party as reactionary.
In these circumstances independent proletarian politics continues to be the need of the hour. Unfortunately, major tendencies in the Indian working-class movement such as the two Stalinist parties, the CPI, and CPI (M), and the centrist RSP [Revolutionary Socialist party] have deplorably failed to recognise the need of pursuing independent workingclass politics based on revolutionary Marxism. They have opportunistically practised class collaboration with bourgeois parties. In this election, for example, the Stalinist CPI has at large aligned with the Congress, while the Stalinist CPI (M) has resolved to reach electoral adjustments with the Janata party.
The programme of the Communist League is premised around the central axis of absolutely independent working-class politics in India. The Indian working class and the toiling poor masses must be completely liberated from the ideological and political spell and influence of the bourgeoisie and its reformist tendencies in the working-class movement. Such politics must have the perspective of mobilising and uniting the working class, toiling, and poor masses against all the exploiting classes, their parties, and their system, around democratic and transitional demands for establishing a workers' and poor peasants' government, as well as for workers' democracy. Such a workers' democracy presupposes various workingclass parties. It may include petty bourgeois and even bourgeois parties provided they accept the framework of workers'-poor they accept the tramework of workers-poor peasants'
government backed by the oppressed middle class.
This cannot be achieved until the entire present bourgeois state apparatus and social structure are completely challenged, defeated, and destroyed. It is to be replaced by a workers' state by a militant mass and class struggle of the majority of the exploited and under-privileged masses, led by the working class and its party.
This can be achieved only by making a socialist revolution in India under the leadership of the Indian proletariat through proletarian methods of struggle and independent and militant class and mass mobilizations.
In such a strategic perspective, elections are one of the arenas for conducting class struggle where the masses could be educated on all these aspects through proletarian methods of propaganda and participation.
It is with this revolutionary-Marxist perspective that we are participating in this election with the following programme.
Political
1. Lift the Emergency.
2. Release all political prisoners and detenues, including Naxalites.
3. Remove the ban on all political parties and organisations including the extreme left Naxalites and the extremeright RSS [National Protection Union, a paramilitary group affiliated with the Hindu-chauvinist Jan Sangh], as they should be dealt with politically.
4. No constitution can automatically be socialist merely by using the term "social. ism" in its preamble. The Indian constitution is a bourgeois constitution framed by the bourgeoisie and feudal class through limited franchise.
A socialist constitution can only be framed by the representatives of the Indian working masses, both urban and rural, whose allies will be the students, intellectuals, and various oppressed middle classes.
We therefore demand the convening of a Constitution Assembly of representatives elected on the basis of adult franchise through the constituencies delimited on the basis of professions-such as textile labourers, engineering workers, banking employees, landless labourers, rank and file of military and police establishments, teachers of primary, secondary, and higher education, etc.
We however emphasise that a socialist constitution is only possible after the socialist revolution led by the majority of the working classes and exploited masses whose allies will be students, intellectuals, and the oppressed middle classes.
Meanwhile we demand:
a. Scrap all draconian measures like the MISA (Maintenance of Internal Security
Thakor Shah-Trotskyist
THAKOR SHAH
Thakor Shah is the candidate of the
Communist League, Indian section of the Fourth International, in the general elections scheduled to begin March 16.
He is running for a seat in the Lok
Sabha (lower house of Parliament) from
Baroda, Gujarat.
Shah, the son of a Baroda textile worker, was born in 1927. While still in
Act], the DIR (Defence of India Rules], the Press Objectionable Matters Act, etc.
b. Scrap the 42nd Amendment Act.
c. Scrap Emergency provisions from the constitution of India.
d. Abolition of private property not only as a Fundamental Right but also as a legal right in production, distribution, and exchange.
e. Right to work and education as a Fundamental Right.
f. Right of recall of elected representatives of the people from village panchayat [council] to parliament.
g. Right to strike as the Fundamental Right of the working masses.
Basic Necessities
We firmly believe that the prices of the basic necessities of life should not be left to the vagaries of private profiteers. We therefore demand:
1. Basic necessities of life such as food, oil, milk, cloth, etc., should be distributed
Candidate for Parliament high school, he participated in the 1942 "Quit India Movement" against British imperialism and was detained four times during that period.
In 1946 he joined the Congress Seva Dal, an organization linked to the Congress party, and became one of its active organizers in Gujarat. He organized youth from various states through the Delhi office of the All-India Congress Committee and served as an area organizer of the Congress party in southern India for a while. He was also a delegate to the Gujarat State Congress Committee.
After the 1969 split in the Congress party, he became disillusioned with both Gandhi's Congress party and the Organisation Congress of Morarji Desai. Even while he was still a member of the Congress party, he criticized its procapitalist policies publicly through his Gujarati weekly Prajasattak (Republic).
In 1973 he came into contact with the Communist League. During the mass upsurge in Gujarat the following year, he participated in joint activities with the Communist League and with various mass organizations in the streets and slums and at the factory gates of Baroda. As a result of this experience, he joined the Communist League and converted his journal, Prajasattak, into an organ of the toilers and youth.
For the past three years, Shah has been in charge of the labour activities of the Communist League. He is also a member of the league's Central Committee.
through public distribution centres under consumers' control.
2. Prices should be fixed and should be the same throughout India.
3. All families residing in both rural and urban areas should get their requirements of the same quality and in equal quantity.
4. There should be no change in the prices of essential commodities for the coming ten years.
5. The distribution shops should be so arranged that the customers are not put to harassment for their purchases of basic requirements.
Education
All educational institutions from primary to university should be under social ownership and the standard of education should be the same throughout India.
The curriculum and the administration should be under the control and supervision of parents, teachers, and staff at the primary and secondary level. At the university level it should be under the control and supervision of the students, teachers and the staff.
The target of 100 percent education should be achieved in five years.
Housing
The standard residential area should be provided to all families, having all facilities such as sanitation, light, fuel, etc., on the basis of the number of members of the family. The target should be achieved in 10 years. The surplus space possessed by a family having more than the standard area should be taken over by the workers and peasants government and should be placed under the control and supervision of the families for distribution to those families who have less than the standard area.
Medical Services
All medical services should be socialised and should be under the control and supervision of the citizens of the area. No private practice should be permitted.
Medical facilities should be planned and arranged so that all citizens of rural and urban areas get the same treatment and facilities without any delay.
The goal of the medical services should be the prevention of disease rather than only to cure.
Unemployment
Unemployment cannot be removed unless the means of production, distribution, and exchange are socially owned under the workers', technicians', employees, and customers' control.
The objective of production and distribution should be aimed at catering to the needs of the people and not profit-making. Investment should be planned so as to provide 100 percent employment.
Working-Class and Trade-Union Rights duction, transport, and communication without compensation under workers' control.
1. Effective legislation and its implementation against layoffs, lockouts, and closures.
2. Reopening of sick mills under workers' control, to be financed by the state.
3. Opening of the books of accounts, including secret dealings, of the employers before the workers.
4. Right of workers to elect representatives of their choice in trade unions, other working-class councils, and committees through secret ballot.
5. Abolition of apex body and present discriminatory system of trade-union representation at the national level for bargaining and negotiations.
6. Restoration of minimum bonus of 8.33 percent as a "deferred wage."
7. Repeal of wage freeze and compulsory deposit scheme.
8. Nationalisation of all means of pro-
9. Guaranteed minimum wage, without giving up its present facilities, to agricultural and landless labourers through their own elected committees.
10. Speedy implementation of land reforms through and under the control of democratically elected poor peasants' committees.
Foreign Policy
The foreign policy of the workers' and poor peasants' government would be based on revolutionary proletarian internationa-
More Loans on the Wav more Loans on we way lism. Material support to all the struggles of oppressed nationalities and oppressed nations for independence; to the proletarian struggles for socialism in all imperialist countries and to the struggles for political revolution of the working masses of the bureaucratised workers' states against their bureaucratic misrule in order to usher in socialist democracy in Russia, China, Eastern Europe, etc.
Vote for the Communist League:
For a Workers' and Poor Peasants' Government in India!
For a socialist Revolution in India under the leadership of the Indian working class!
Soares Receives High Marks in Washington
Spair
MARIO SOARES -
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Testimony before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee February 25 made clear that the Carter administration is preparing to play a bigger and more open role in Portugal.
The U.S. Treasury Department has already advanced $300 million in shortterm credits to the Portuguese government. The Carter administration is now propos ing an additional $30 million in military aid, and it has taken the lead in organizing a consortium of imperialist powers to raise $1.5 billion in medium-term loans. The loans would be made available at a relatively low rate of interest to bolster the government of Prime Minister Mário Soares.
Frank C. Carlucci, the American ambassador to Portugal, and Richard N. Cooper, Carter's nominee for under secretary of state for economic affairs, were among those testifying before the subcommittee.
Cooper took note of the economic problems caused by the loss of Portugal's African colonies, the worldwide economic downturn, and the flight of capital following the overthrow of the Salazarist dictatorship. According to Cooper:
Portugal is adopting politically difficult but necessary recovery measures. Prime Minister Soares himself told his Socialist Party congress last fall that without economic stabilization there can be no democracy. Acting on this premise Portugal has:
• enacted laws to restore private sector confidence;
• imposed tax surcharges and prior deposit arrangements on imports to save foreign exchange;
• increased prices charged for government services such as transportation and power;
• announced a limit of 15% on all private and public sector wage increases in 1977, a level well below the rate of inflation; and
• passed a 1977 budget which, by cutting real public expenditures and raising taxes, reduces the budget deficit by 20% in real terms compared with 1976.
Having made this progress report, Cooper warned the senators that "if substantial foreign loans do not materialize, the Portuguese Government will be faced with the extremely difficult task of trying to impose suddenly an even more severe austerity program, risking public protest, growing influence and agitation by the extreme left, and possible loss of publie support for democratic institutions."
Carlucci, when asked about the impact of high inflation and unemployment, replied that the Soares regime is "sufficiently stable to move ahead with what I would call a phased economic program," with emphasis on increasing worker productivity.
"No austerity program is pleasant," he added. "Obviously there is going to be a certain amount of reaction, perhaps some unrest."