THE
MEANING OF THE COW-SLAUGHTER DEMONSTRATIONS
By Kailas Chandra
Bombay
More than 500,000 people, led by reactionary sadhus [holy men] and Hindu communalists, staged a violent demonstration in New Delhi last November 7 to demand enactment of legislation banning cow slaughter in India. The demonstrators attacked government buildings, ransacked houses of some prominent Congress leaders, including the home of Congress President Kamaraj and burned up motor cars parked in the streets. Seven persons were killed and scores were injured as the police fired at the crowds. The army had to be called in.
This was the first time that communal reaction was able to divert popular discontent with the Congress government in such a massive way over an obscurantist issue like cow Slaughter. What is more, it provoked a serious governmental crisis.
Home Minister Nanda, charged with failure to maintain law and order, resigned from the cabinet and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had to reshuffle her cabinet. Nanda was replaced by Defence Minister Chavan. Swaran Singh was shifted from the Foreign Affairs ministry to Defencé and Chagla went from Education to Foreign Affairs. The shifts do not indicate any changes in policy...
The government took into custody a few ultrarightist leaders along with some sadhus and heads of Hindu "Mutts" [temples] but released them later.
The pro-Moscow Communist party leader S.A.Dange, who is shrewd enough to under-—stand the implications of the New Delhi demonstrations, described them as a "dress rehearsal for counterrevolution" by "extreme reactionary forces under the cover of the sadhus."
But, blinded by the Stalinist concept of an alliance with the "national bourgeoisie," Dange wants to fight these "extreme reactionary forces," not by building an independent revolutionary leadership of the proletariat bidding for power, but by seeking collaboration with "progressive" bourgeois leaders like Kamaraj! Dange still thinks that the target of the attack mounted by the ultrarightists was the "liberal bourgeoisie" and not the proletariat.
But a bourgeois leader like Nanda, who was made the scapegoat for the crimes of the Congress government, seemed to have a better understanding of the present. alignment of class forces despite his confused ideas about so-called "Gandhian Socialisn."
In a statement issued soon after his resignation, Nanda asserted that the "vested interests" found him inconvenient in the position he held and succeeded in getting rid of him. He then made the following significant observations: "The country needs a nonviolent revolution -- a deep moral, economic and political change. The dreams of the people for a better life and a fair deal to the common man await fulfillment. They can be realised only by a speedier advance towards the establishment of a socialist society based on democratic values."
What Nanda, a bourgeois ideologue, cannot understand is that a "revolution" involving "a deep moral, economic and political change" can take place only if the proletariat at the head of the oppressed masses liquidates the present capitalist system and establishes a new order based on social ownership of the means of production. —
The present crisis of the Indian society, both moral, economic and political, is the outcome of the failure of the bourgeois rulers to solve any of the basic problems. To what extent a social revolution of this kind will be "nonviolent" will, of course, depend on the relationship of forces and the willingness or not of the bourgeoisie to surrender power without a fight.
The tragedy of the present situation is that while the masses lack a revolution-— ary leadership capable of guilding them to their objective, the "extreme reactionary" forces are mobilising to exploit the present confusion among the masses. ;
In fact, forces of revivalism, regional chauvinism and communalism are again raising their heads as the anticapitalist struggles of the workers and peasants recede into the background.
The anticow~slaughter demonstrations in New Delhi and other state capitals show clearly how the forces of obscurantism and revivalism can exploit the growing popular
frustration to serve their reactionary objectives. The fact that the anticow-slaughter campaign receives such popular response is in itself a strong indictment of the revolutionary and left movement in the country -- its failure to mobilise the masses on a nationwide basis for struggle against the bourgeois state.
. In states like Maharashtra and Andhra, the forces of regionalism are being roused in pursuit of sectarian aims, unfortunately with the connivance of the so-called left forces. The creation. of a body like the. "Shiv Sena" (named after the sixteenth-century’ Maratha ruler) ostensibly to improve job opportunities for Marathi-speaking people in ° Bombay -- with a chauvinist slogan, "Bombay for Maharashtrians" -- is yet another move to disrupt the unity of the working class in India's major city. ; . :
The bourgeois rulers and a section of the Congress leadership in Maharashtra are enthusiastically supporting the "Shiv Sena" and financing its activities. Unfortunately, the left parties -- the two Communist parties, the Samyukta Socialist Party, the Peasants and Workers Party, etc. -- have also indirectly contributed to the proliferation of regional chauvinism in Maharashtra through their preoccupation with interstate border disputes. . :
In Andhra, for example, a big mass movement was organised by the Congress and the "left" opposition parties to demand that a steel plant be set up in Vishakapatanam instead of Sale in Tamilnad. When basic problems of the people await a solution at the hands of the bourgeois state, it is indeed tragic that the working-class parties (both of the. two Communist parties) should help the regional bourgeois interests. Some Communist party members have resigned from parliament over this issue. The same can be said about the agitation in Kerala for a shipyard in Cochin. ;
_ When the working-class parties give up their basic strategy of class struggle and resort to opportunist tactics, forming alliances with this or that sector of the bourgeoisie, they inevitably sink into the quagmire of bourgeois nationalism or regional chauvinism. The traditional left parties in India today are engaged in the futile exercise of building opportunistic electoral coalitions in different states when what is required is readying the masses for a determined struggle against the present decaying capitalist order. The left-sponsored electoral fronts in Kerala, West Bengal and other states and the violent controversies among the left. parties over the allocation of seats, in the absence of a definite revolutionary political perspective have caused only confusion among the masses, who are not able to distinguish between the bourgeois Congress and the reactionary right-wing parties on the one hand and the traditional left and - Marxist parties on the other.
This has brought about a dangerous political disorientation among the masses. By sponsoring mass agitation on issues like cow slaughter, the bourgeois reaction is cleverly exploiting the present confusion in order to disrupt the unity of the working-class movement..Efforts are also being made by the bourgeoisie to foment conflicts between different regional groups and to create communal tension. When the revolutionary forces fail to assert themselves in a positive direction, reaction invariably tries to seize the initiative. oo, ot