India: While People Pay for Recession; Elite Play in Luxury

-Rajesh Tyagi; April 2, 2009

Last week newspapers reported suicide of a girl in New Delhi, who after acquiring an MBA degree from England had returned to India. The girl, youngest of four siblings in the family, was desperate for a job, which she could not find for several months, due to employment crunch and was thus forced to commit suicide in depression. This is not a stray incident, rather one among so many, arising out of such desperation into which working people are being pushed by ever deepening recession. Unable to bail out capitalism from this downturn of its economy, the elite governments in all capitalist nation-states are striving hard to bail out the capitalists. One after the other, bail-out packages are being generously distributed by these governments to the owners of capital. At the cost of public exchequer, the governments are making arrangements of luxuries for multi-millionaires.

Not only the rich, but their politicians and bureaucrats are also playing in luxuries. At a time when desperation among common people has already gone so high, and no way-out seems to be in the sight, the elites are engaged in their play with public money. On Monday, an airship ‘Air Force One’ has been included in the Indian Air Force. This airship, a custom made airplane has been purchased at a cost of 245 Crore rupees. This is meant for air-travel of VVIPs. The corporate media, run with the money of riches, blacks out such news in a calculated way, as these news open the eyes of people. The President of US, already has such a airplane to travel. This Plane is fitted with all imaginable luxuries and is told to be immune even against a nuclear attack.

The capitalists, who continued to make heaps of money with them in exclusion of common people during boom of world economy, now in the time of crisis, have been allowed a free access to public money at the disposal of their governments, while working people are being made to pay for and bear the brunt of this crisis. Crisis for them has become a pretext to loot the money in public exchequer.

Needless to say that open loot of public money, is in addition to the huge wealth which already has been siphoned off by them to illegal investments in black economy and to foreign banks. According to the recent annual report issued by the Government of Switzerland, India is the ‘number one’ country, to have deposits of about 75 Lakh Crore in Swiss banks. This amount is 12 times to aggregate foreign credit standing against India, and mere interest of this amount would be equal to total annual budget of India. Russia is at number two, Britain at three, Ukraine at four and China at five. The government of Switzerland, has informed on its own that it is ready to disclose the details of these accounts, if the concerned government requests so, but none of the governments has made any such request.

The impending general elections in India, show it beyond doubt that the leaders of different political parties, contesting for Lok Sabha, unexceptionally come from propertied classes and the future government, with any composition would thus be a government of the rich and elite of India. The young Rahul Gandhi, has declared his assets for 2.25 Crore Rupees, in the declaration made to Election Officer, which of course is estimated on entered purchase value of properties, which as everyone knows are highly understated. The Stalinists of left front, after being kicked out of the UPA, have joined the bandwagon of ‘third front’, with other opportunist pro-rich parties, which would continue the same policies and would betray all election promises and the aspirations of the people, if they come to grab the reigns of power.

Working people, however, hardly have any choice in their hands. Thanks to the political policies of Stalinists and Maoists, the working class, disorganised and disoriented, is not in a position to pose even a noticeable challenge to the unbridled policies of capitalism. Apart from all other things, the elections have brought forward the powerlessness of the working class and the treachery being played upon it by Stalinist leadership of CPI-CPM, to the fore. The Stalinists and Maoists both, are sowing the illusions in working class of a ‘democratic revolution’ with a section of ‘progressive’ capitalists, being won over in support thereof. Since times immemorable they are awaiting the golden moment when the non-existent ‘progressive capitalists’ would spring-up from nowhere, to complete their cherished dream of a real democratic power. According to them, working class is too weak to take power and establish its dictatorship through a proletarian-socialist revolution in India. According to their Menshevik arithmetic, India, being a backward agrarian country, is not mature for a proletarian overturn, which may establish dictatorship of working class. It is through this false rhetoric, that they have misled the working class for about three quarters of a century and have prevented it from acting against the capitalists, to seize power out of their hands.

There is no doubt, that remaining in force of the pernicious influence of Stalinism and Maoism for about a century, the working class movement has faced complete destruction under their hand. At a time when capitalism is in the grip of a worst crisis of its life, it has a soothing satisfaction that the movement of working class itself is in crisis. The crisis of the working class movement, at present, however, is the crisis of its leadership, which unfortunately still remains in the hands of Stalinists and Maoists.

There can hardly be any talk of a fight against capitalism, without waging a fight, first, against the Stalinists and Maoists, the selfsame Menshevik visionaries of a ‘democratic revolution’ in collaboration with ‘progressive capitalists’.