Resolution on Present Situation in Kashmir

Resolution adopted in the meeting of  'the new wave' Delhi Section, held on 31.10.2010:

While the comparative economic backwardness of Kashmir and extreme exploitation of its natural and human resources by the big bourgeois has set out the ground for a political explosion long back in time, it is the political weakness of the working class that has prevented the situation from becoming a triggering shot for a social revolution.

With this ready backdrop of objective conditions, there emerges now the present unrest in Kashmir, albeit under the dominance and agenda of local bourgeois. Capitalist globalisation has created ground for this by allowing immense opportunities for the local bourgeois of backward, small, distant, peripheral regions in the world to connect itself directly to the global capitalism, bypassing the central rule and authority of the big bourgeois.


Needless to say, that the whole situation arises out of the operation of mechanics of Imperialism: cut throat rivalry among bourgeois states (India and Pakistan), their cravings to destroy each other, and the ‘Asian game’ played by big powers of U.S. Europe and China in this region and finally the possibility of carving out of small statelets, directly tagged to world capitalism.


The local bourgeois, aided by rival nation states and imperialist powers, and finding a readymade lever to power in the legitimate anger of the working and toiling masses against the exploitative and repressive rule of the big bourgeois, thus arises zealously to take to power, independent of the rule of big bourgeois in New Delhi. The local bourgeois creates an illusion as if its own rule would liberate the people of such exploitation, while raising the banner of secession (Azadi), from the rule and domination of big bourgeois. To advance its limited and sectarian ends against the big bourgeois and further to disperse the forces of working class and toilers, to prevent them from taking to leadership, the local bourgeois gives the movement a religious and communal edge, forging a false divide among workers and toilers of different communities.


The aim of the local bourgeois is not to liberate Kashmir from the clutches of capitalist exploitation, but to integrate it further into the system of world capitalism, offering Kashmir as a platform for cheap labour and natural resources, albeit directly, to the agencies of global capitalism, bypassing the rule of big bourgeois. This serves only the purpose of local bourgeois and no interests of either workers or the other toiling people in Kashmir. The whole agenda of local bourgeois is only to replace the political rule and authority of big bourgeois in Kashmir with that of its own, while maintaining and further perpetuating the exploitative system of capitalism.


We find that the anger and protest of the people in Kashmir, in the face of exploitation and repression unleashed by the government and armed forces of the big bourgeois, is very legitimate. However, caution has to be added against the attempts of the local bourgeois, and its agencies like Hurriyat Conference, Jamait-e-Islami etc. to advance its own vested interests in the garb of ‘Azadi’, and to impose their own limited agenda upon the legitimate protest movement of Kashmiri people.


We oppose the narrow and reactionary demand of ‘secession’ of the local bourgeois and warn the working class that its interests are best served not in fragmenting the national or multi-national bourgeois states, but in capturing power at the heart of these states, overturning the rule of bourgeois. This historic mission can only be achieved, with great unity of the working class across the boundaries of caste, community, religion and nation.


While the central government, led by big bourgeois, finds the only means to tackle this situation in more and more repression against the revolting people, the petty-bourgeois left - Stalinist CPI-CPM maintain silence on the issue, and Maoists unconditionally support this venture of ‘Azadi’ as advanced by local bourgeois.


We, as a party of revolutionary proletariat, while declaring ourselves in favour of the ‘right to self-determination’ of Kashmiri people ‘even upto secession’; at the same time oppose the petty bourgeois demand of secession (Azadi), and its attempts to create a divide among the workers and toilers on communal lines, tooth and nail. We thus warn the working class against following the lead of local bourgeois and its agenda of ‘Azadi’ in Kashmir, but to set up its own agenda of social revolution, of ‘wiping off the capitalism from the face of the earth’ and establishment of its own class rule.


We demand, first and foremost, that all black laws and the deployment of armed forces in Kashmir and elsewhere, be immediately and unconditionally withdrawn and call upon the working class to enforce this demand by organising itself and other sections of the population behind it. We call upon the working class in Kashmir, to unite across the false communal, religious, regional and national divides and integrate with other sections of workers in India and the world, not in order to carve out ‘independent statelets’ under the leadership of local bourgeois, but to take the power at centre and usher into a world social revolution under the leadership of the international working class.


- 31.10.2010