PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-15950
.
Against UPAs Surrender Before US Diktats ! .
For Sovereignty, Education and Employment!! .
.
We dont wish to suffer by inviting a black evil to replace the white evil. Indian workers must come forward overthrowing imperialists as well as their Indian agents who wish to perpetuate the same economic system rooted in exploitation..-Bhagat Singh, Draft Revolutionary Programme, 1931 .
White Evil to Black Evil .
March 23, 1931 marked the hanging of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, and his comrades Sukhdev and Rajguru, by the colonial British. In March 2006, 75 years after Bhagat Singhs martyrdom, George Bush, who presides not only over the US but also over the colonial occupation of Iraq and the imperialist exploitation of virtually every corner of the world, was welcomed to India by our own rulers. This visit was a stark reminder of how black evil collaborates with white evil in todays world and todays India. The US, inheritors of the British imperialist legacy, have invaded and occupied Iraq today; the UPA Government today is ready to support the US in building a false case against Iran, as a prelude to attacking it. The stranglehold of US-sponsored institutions like the IMF-WB-WTO extends over almost every sphere of our lives in India. And now, the US Ambassador has even gone to the extent of openly dictating Indias foreign policy! .
From British Raj to Bush Raj .
As we look around us today, we see Jallianwala Bagh repeated by police with the Honda Workers in Gurgaon. Hunger and starvation reaching the same levels that they did under the British. The deep communal wounds left by the British on our polity continue to bleed periodically. The British forced Indian farmers to produce indigo rather than grain, and created terrible peasant distress; today, once again, our farmers are advised by agencies like Mc Kinsey to grow spices rather than food-grains; their traditional right over seeds will be usurped by Monsantos; they are driven to suicide by debt and desperation. And we now have a Prime Minister who visits Britain to declare that the British Raj was an instance of Good Governance, and who is desperate to get modern day US imperialism to extend its Good Governance to India! .
.
Bhagat Singhs Legacy .
All sections of Indias ruling class compete to claim Bhagat Singh as their own. The pro-US UPA Government of Manmohan Singh is likely to pay a lavish and ritualised homage to Bhagat Singh, while the RSS-BJP has always tried to claim Bhagat Singh as a Hindutva hero. Why this urgent need to co-opt Bhagat Singh, to appropriate and distort Bhagat Singhs legacy? The fact is that Bhagat Singh is still the most enduring symbol of youths burning aspiration for freedom and social change. Those who are selling out Indias freedom to imperialists, who need to define patriotism as war-mongering and communalism rather than as anti-imperialism, are desperate to tame and domesticate Bhagat Singhs legacy in order to smother that fire of radicalism within youth. .
Of Anti-Imperialist Nationalism, .
.
Not Communalism .
Today, as we approach Bhagat Singhs Birth Centenary year in 2007, the RSS has declared its intention of celebrating the Birth Centenary of Sangh ideologue Guru Golwalkar. At the same time, the RSS-BJP is also attempting to co-opt Bhagat Singh for its communal fascist plank: Advanis Riot Rath after the Banaras Blasts ends its yatra on 23 March. Can Golwalkar ever be reconciled with Bhagat Singh? When Bhagat Singh and his comrades were sacrificing their lives to resist British imperialism, Golwalkar was declaring that martyrs were selfish, and that defining nationalism as anti-Britishism had been disastrous for the country. The India of Bhagat Singhs dream was an India free from the exploitation of man by man. Bhagat Singh was himself an atheist; disturbed by the frenzy fanned up by communal elements, he called for a complete separation of religion from politics, and declared that only a secular society could be the basis for a modern and free India. The India of Golwalkars dream, on the other hand, was one in which the Muslims and Christians were foreign races who must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less .
.
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2006 ID-15950
.
Against UPAs Surrender Before US Diktats ! .
For Sovereignty, Education and Employment!! .
.
We dont wish to suffer by inviting a black evil to replace the white evil. Indian workers must come forward overthrowing imperialists as well as their Indian agents who wish to perpetuate the same economic system rooted in exploitation..-Bhagat Singh, Draft Revolutionary Programme, 1931 .
White Evil to Black Evil .
March 23, 1931 marked the hanging of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, and his comrades Sukhdev and Rajguru, by the colonial British. In March 2006, 75 years after Bhagat Singhs martyrdom, George Bush, who presides not only over the US but also over the colonial occupation of Iraq and the imperialist exploitation of virtually every corner of the world, was welcomed to India by our own rulers. This visit was a stark reminder of how black evil collaborates with white evil in todays world and todays India. The US, inheritors of the British imperialist legacy, have invaded and occupied Iraq today; the UPA Government today is ready to support the US in building a false case against Iran, as a prelude to attacking it. The stranglehold of US-sponsored institutions like the IMF-WB-WTO extends over almost every sphere of our lives in India. And now, the US Ambassador has even gone to the extent of openly dictating Indias foreign policy! .
From British Raj to Bush Raj .
As we look around us today, we see Jallianwala Bagh repeated by police with the Honda Workers in Gurgaon. Hunger and starvation reaching the same levels that they did under the British. The deep communal wounds left by the British on our polity continue to bleed periodically. The British forced Indian farmers to produce indigo rather than grain, and created terrible peasant distress; today, once again, our farmers are advised by agencies like Mc Kinsey to grow spices rather than food-grains; their traditional right over seeds will be usurped by Monsantos; they are driven to suicide by debt and desperation. And we now have a Prime Minister who visits Britain to declare that the British Raj was an instance of Good Governance, and who is desperate to get modern day US imperialism to extend its Good Governance to India! .
.
Bhagat Singhs Legacy .
All sections of Indias ruling class compete to claim Bhagat Singh as their own. The pro-US UPA Government of Manmohan Singh is likely to pay a lavish and ritualised homage to Bhagat Singh, while the RSS-BJP has always tried to claim Bhagat Singh as a Hindutva hero. Why this urgent need to co-opt Bhagat Singh, to appropriate and distort Bhagat Singhs legacy? The fact is that Bhagat Singh is still the most enduring symbol of youths burning aspiration for freedom and social change. Those who are selling out Indias freedom to imperialists, who need to define patriotism as war-mongering and communalism rather than as anti-imperialism, are desperate to tame and domesticate Bhagat Singhs legacy in order to smother that fire of radicalism within youth. .
Of Anti-Imperialist Nationalism, .
.
Not Communalism .
Today, as we approach Bhagat Singhs Birth Centenary year in 2007, the RSS has declared its intention of celebrating the Birth Centenary of Sangh ideologue Guru Golwalkar. At the same time, the RSS-BJP is also attempting to co-opt Bhagat Singh for its communal fascist plank: Advanis Riot Rath after the Banaras Blasts ends its yatra on 23 March. Can Golwalkar ever be reconciled with Bhagat Singh? When Bhagat Singh and his comrades were sacrificing their lives to resist British imperialism, Golwalkar was declaring that martyrs were selfish, and that defining nationalism as anti-Britishism had been disastrous for the country. The India of Bhagat Singhs dream was an India free from the exploitation of man by man. Bhagat Singh was himself an atheist; disturbed by the frenzy fanned up by communal elements, he called for a complete separation of religion from politics, and declared that only a secular society could be the basis for a modern and free India. The India of Golwalkars dream, on the other hand, was one in which the Muslims and Christians were foreign races who must lose their separate existence to merge in the Hindu race, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu Nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less .
.
.