Newsletter no. 23

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BHAGAT SINGH : An Enduring symbol of resistance

On the 13^th December 2023, a group of young men and women plotted to bomb the parliament with smoke bombs. This group of young radicals mimicked the methods of a revolutionary from 94 years ago, one who remains a symbol of resistance and rebellion in India to this day.

The actions of the youth who attacked the parliament that day emulated those of Bhagat Singh, and just like him the group performed this action to protest the ruling class and it’s politics. Bhagat Singh used it to protest the passage of two repressive bills brought before the imperial legislature, while Manoranjan D and Sagar Sharma, the two leaders of this group, used the bomb attack to protest the failure of the parliament to take up issues facing the country, that of inequality, unemployment, and the violence in Manipur.  

Both attacks used non-lethal weapons to ensure minimal to no damage to the people in the parliament. The objective was not to kill but to make a political statement. Bhagat Singh courted arrest together with his comrade Bhatukeshwar Dutt, just as the smoke bomb attack plotters did more recently. With Bhagat Singh under arrest, he could use the court proceedings as propaganda against the British Raj. On this count, the smoke bomb attackers have been considerably less successful.

The similarities only grow more distant as one looked into the two actions more closely. The smoke bomb attackers have since been arrested under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and remain under arrest today. Unlike Bhagat Singh, their actions have not led to a wider uprising, there are no great mobilizations to free them. The investigations conducted on them have failed to find any link between the group and any organization or political party. They discussed and coordinated through online groups and chat groups.

There was no specific agenda, nor any political objectives behind their action, beyond the vague goals of challenging the parliament which had grown more and more distant from the people. Nevertheless, their bravery must be acknowledged, their actions cannot be denied or ignored. It is a testament to the enduring legacy of the revolutionary Bhagat Singh. The bomb attack is equally a testament to how far the capitalists have succeeded in distorting the image of Bhagat Singh, from a Socialist revolutionary, to an aggressive nationalist. At the time when the police arrested the bomb plotters, they sounded nationalist slogans, ‘bharat mata ki jai’ is today perfectly at home with the right wing BJP.

Bhagat Singh’s world:

Bhagat Singh was a product of the material conditions of his time. To understand him, we must understand the context in which he lived.

After the first war of independence in 1857 British rule in the Indian sub-continent changed. The old company based colonialism was done away with in favour of an imperial bureaucracy that ruled India directly from London. India was primed for a new sort of exploitation as world capitalism entered the era of imperialism.

The British Raj saw the rapid expansion of railways, industrial capital, and the deeper penetration of British finance adding to the vice like grip over India. Added to this was finance capital from the USA and the growth of an indigenous Indian capitalist class tied to British finance capital.

India was dragged into the first world war and became a key supplier of manpower and resources for the British war effort. Indian jute, and Indian soldiers helped the entente win the first world war and carried the British Empire into the post war world. While Indian soldiers fought and died in the trenches of Europe, the jungles of Africa and the deserts of Mesopotamia, India’s people suffered through ten million deaths during the influenza outbreak of 1918. The ‘Spanish flu’ as it was known claimed up to a hundred million world wide, the largest death toll in China and India.

The British handling of the influenza pandemic in India included harsh quarantine measures and mistreatment, coupled with negligence or outright racist exclusion. The huge death toll was very much the result of British administration, and this only contributed to radicalizing the populace against British rule.

For many Indians who did participate in the war, it was expected there would be a quid pro quo from the British, that they would take steps towards granting Indian independence or at least some form of autonomy in recognition of the sacrifice of tens of thousands of Indians for an imperialist war. Instead, for many returning Indians, especially in the province of Punjab, they returned to the iron fisted rule of governor O’Dwyer.

Oppressive acts to curb protests in Punjab, called the Rowlatt Act. The growing nationalist upsurge that had gripped the nation came at a time when the world saw the first successful socialist revolution in Russia. The Indian Communist Party was founded in Tashkent when Bhagat Singh was only 13 years old.

The growth of the left wing Ghadar party, which had influence in Punjab, contributed to radicalizing young Bhagat Singh. The two most decisive events that helped radicalize him, was the non-cooperation movement, the first large scale mass mobilization against British rule since the rebellion of 1857 and it’s abrupt disruption by Gandhi and the Congress party following the massacre of policemen at Chauri Chaura village. From this, the Hindustan Republican Association split, along with other radical outfits that challenged the Congress Party.

Bhagat Singh would join them and become it’s most famous revolutionary.

The HSRA :

While Bhagat Singh is remembered, the organization he led and fought for has been forgotten for the most part. The Hindustan Republican Army became the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association in 1928.

The Hindustan Socialist Republican Association started it’s life as the Hindustan Republican Army, in the model of the Irish Republican Army which had recently won independence for Ireland. The armed struggle presented a contrast to the ‘peaceful’ mobilizations started by Gandhi.

The organization founded by Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan, Sachindra Nath Bakshi, Sachindranath Sanyal and Jogesh Chandra Chatterjee in 1922 by splitting the youth group of the Congress party in the light of the abrupt suspension of the Non-Cooperation movement.

Bhagat Singh joined the organization in the late 1920s radicalized by the political developments which had taken place over the decade. By the time he had joined the HSRA, he was already influenced by socialist ideas. No longer was radical republicanism of the old HRA enough, the organization was turned to a militant socialist revolutionary organization. In September of 1928 Bhagat Singh led the union of numerous socialist organizations across Bengal, Punjab and Bihar at Delhi. From this meeting emerged the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association as we know it.

The organization was committed to a socialist revolution in India. The organization rightly identified the oppression of India with the capitalist system and it’s manifestation in the last stage, that of imperialism. The independence of India could not be won without also struggling against the capitalist system. It was the workers and peasants of a united India who would have to lead the revolutionary struggle against British Imperialism.

The HSRA stood in defiance of the Congress and the leadership of Gandhi, against his criticism of violence Bhagwati Charan Vohra of the HSRA wrote the Philosophy of the bomb.

To those attempting to paint Bhagat Singh in saffron colours, whether casting him as a pure nationalist or a Sikh hero, would do well to know of his part in building the HSRA into a Socialist revolutionary organization. In it’s manifesto, the HSRA clearly aimed at the capitalist system and attempted to rouse the masses in struggle against British Imperialism, as an anti-capitalist struggle. To quote from the HSRA manifesto :

Indian is writhing under the yoke of imperialism. Her teeming millions are today a helpless prey to poverty and ignorance. Foreign domination and economic exploitation have unmanned the vast majority of the people who constitute the workers and peasants of India. The position of the Indian proletariat is, today, extremely critical. It has a double danger to face. It has to bear to onslaught of foreign capital on the other. The latter is showing a progressive tendency to joint forces with the former. The leaning of certain politicians in favour of dominion status shows clearly which way the wind blows. Indian capital is preparing to betray the masses into the hands of foreign capitalism and receive as a price of this betrayal, a little share in the government of the country. The hope of the proletariat is, therefore, now centred on socialism which alone can lead to the establishment of complete independence and the removal of all social distinction and privileges.

Bhagat Singh’s ideas :

That Bhagat Singh was a Communist, could not be clearer if one reads his writings. The two of his most famous articles hold some of his endearing ideas. Bhagat Singh’s fame began from the bold bomb attack on the Central Assembly Hall in Delhi, what is less known is what was written in the leaflets he threw on the floor of the assembly.

The text of the leaflet was a clear in it’s condemnation of the repressive bills being discussed before the assembly : “Without repeating the humiliating history of the past ten years of the working of the reforms (Montague-Chelmsford Reforms) and without mentioning the insults hurled at the Indian nation through this House-the so-called Indian Parliament-we want to point out that, while the people expecting some more crumbs of reforms from the Simon Commission, and are ever quarrelling over the distribution of the expected bones, the Government is thrusting upon us new repressive measures like the Public Safety and the Trade Disputes Bill, while reserving the Press Sedition Bill for the next session. The indiscriminate arrests of labour leaders working in the open field clearly indicate whither the wind blows.”

The public safety and trades disputes bills were aimed at curbing the rising militancy of Indian workers, whose ranks grew with the wave of industrial development following the First World War. The growth of left wing and radical trade unions among the workers gave cause for alarm to the British Raj.

The attack on the assembly was not merely an act of directionless rebellion, nor a mere nationalist spectacle, it was a carefully planned political action with the aim of protesting the passage of repressive bills which aimed at curbing protests and enforcing imperial rule.

During his time in prison Bhagat Singh wrote many articles and kept track of world events through access to newspapers. One of his key writings was ‘To Young Political Workers of India’ where Bhagat Singh analysed the political developments of his time and the leadership of Gandhi and the Congress with remarkable foresight. The warning to the youth not to fall into the traps of bourgeois demagogues still rings true today. At the same time Bhagat Singh showed remarkable clarity.

No one reading this writing can doubt where Bhagat Singh’s leanings lay. To quote from the article :

I said that, because in my opinion, this time the real revolutionary forces have not been invited into the arena. This is a struggle dependent upon the middle class shopkeepers and a few capitalists. Both these, and particularly the latter, can never dare to risk its property or possessions in any struggle. The real revolutionary armies are in the villages and in factories, the peasantry and the labourers. But our bourgeois leaders do not and cannot dare to tackle them. The sleeping lion once awakened from its slumber shall become irresistible even after the achievement of what our leaders aim at. After his first experience with the Ahmedabad labourers in 1920 Mahatma Gandhi declared: “We must not tamper with the labourers. It is dangerous to make political use of the factory proletariat” (The Times, May 1921). Since then, they never dared to approach them. There remains the peasantry. The Bardoli resolution of 1922 clearly denies the horror the leaders felt when they saw the gigantic peasant class rising to shake off not only the domination of an alien nation but also the yoke of the landlords.”

Bhagat Singh’s fight did not end at removing the British from India but in removing the capitalist system from India as well. Today, that is the fight we are faced with in India and all of South Asia.

Bhagat Singh and the Communist Party :

Much is usually made of Bhagat Singh not joining the Communist Party of India, and typically brought up by centrists and right wingers to counter leftists holding Bhagat Singh as a socialist icon. The manipulation of Bhagat Singh’s image by the bourgeois press is deliberate, to dilute his Socialist past. The truth of why he never joined the Communist Party is never explored. Like much of Bhagat Singh’s life and works, memory of his actions are deliberately made hazy.

The truth is, there is no contradiction between the reality of Bhagat Singh as a communist and Bhagat Singh’s decision not to join the Communist Party. Shortly after the formation of the party, the comintern and the soviet union would find itself in one of the worst periods of the communist movement. The degeneration of the first worker’s state was brought about by the immense weight of imperialist reaction and isolation. The result, was the birth and growth of what we would identify later as Stalinism.

The bureaucratization of the party following the end of the Russian civil war, affected the nascent Indian Communist Party as well. The party was loosely organized in it’s early period, and had to deal with the harsh British Indian police. All this at a time, when the comintern directed a policy of aligning with the progressive national bourgeoisie.

The theory of stagism was taken to it’s logical conclusion in China, where the Chinese Communist Party was directed to align with the bourgeois Kuomintang. The result was the Shanghai massacre. In the aftermath of this disaster the international entered the third period politics where united fronts of any kind with bourgeois parties was shelved in favour of sectarianism. This was the period when Bhagat Singh was building the HSRA by uniting with other socialist organizations.

The Communist Party had by this time build the Kirti Kisan party or the Workers and Peasants party, which worked within the Congress Party. The party which had at best a fuzzy commitment to socialism was aborted by the third period. Thus, at a time when Bhagat Singh was building the foundations of a revolutionary party in India, the Communist Party of India under the counter revolutionary leadership of Stalin and the troika, went from one confused failure to the next.

The party in it’s early phase gave no option to Bhagat Singh who had abandoned the Congress Party and repeatedly called out the leadership of Gandhi. The party in it’s second phase offered no prospect once it turned to sectarianism.

Rather than deny Bhagat Singh his socialist credentials, his distance from the Communist Party only proved him as a principled revolutionary.

Bhagat Singh today :

Bhagat Singh’s image has been diluted and manipulated and presented to us in a manner that he himself might find unrecognizable. Mass media and the bourgeois press, with no small help from the Communist Party and the mainstream bourgeois parties, have converted a revolutionary communist who was a committed atheist, into a hazy nationalist hero whose main contribution begins and ends at the bombing of the Central Assembly Hall in Delhi.

The purpose behind his actions, the ideas behind them, his writings, and his political work, have been largely brushed under the carpet.

The Communist Party which could never win over Bhagat Singh in his lifetime, have tried to appropriate him as one of their own. The Congress Party which Bhagat Singh had condemned and distanced himself from, attempt to dilute his image and place him in a common pantheon of loosely defined ‘freedom fighters’, standing side by side with the likes of reactionary Savarkar. The BJP since their inception have tried hard, and are still trying to appropriate Bhagat Singh into their own pantheon as a ‘violent radical’.

All three efforts reek of dishonesty and opportunism. Had Bhagat Singh been alive today, it is more than likely he would have been labelled a terrorist and put under arrest, under draconian laws which might remind him of the public safety act and the British Raj. India today has dozens of political prisoners who continue to languish behind bars. At such a time, the government of India’s homage to Bhagat Singh cannot be more brazenly hypocritical.

This brings us back to the smoke bomb attack on the parliament in December last year. It would seem as though, in the nearly eight decades of independence the Indian Republic has done everything to make Bhagat Singh’s warning come true. He had written in 1931 in his letter to Young political workers: “But if you say that you will approach the peasants and labourers to enlist their active support, let me tell you that they are not going to be fooled by any sentimental talk. They ask you quite candidly: what are they going to gain by your revolution for which you demand their sacrifices, what difference does it make to them whether Lord Reading is the head of the Indian government or Sir Purshotamdas Thakordas? What difference for a peasant if Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru replaces Lord Irwin! It is useless to appeal to his national sentiment. You can’t “use” him for your purpose; you shall have to mean seriously and to make him understand that the revolution is going to be his and for his good. The revolution of the proletariat and for the proletariat.”

Todays India is the government that Bhagat Singh warned us about, the only difference is, that instead of Sir Purshotamdas Thakordas, it is the government of Adani, Ambani and Tata that manifests in Narendra Modi that oppresses the Indian masses. To fight against this, it is not just the bomb that we must learn from, but his ideas and history of organization and agitation as well.

Newsletter no. 21

We bring to you our 21st newsletter for the month of January.

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May Day Manifesto

From the International Workers’ League (Fourth International)

The working class faces major challenges around the world. Imperialist wars, unemployment and hunger, neoliberal attacks on workers’ rights, health, and education, sexist, racist, LGBTphobic and xenophobic oppression, and environmental destruction.

We call attention to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In addition to the thousands of Palestinians killed or injured in Gaza (mostly women and children) and the destruction of homes, schools, and hospitals, there are pogroms being carried out by the Israeli army and Zionist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank, with hundreds killed and thousands imprisoned.

This genocide is being carried out by the state of Israel with the political and military support of U.S. and European imperialism. Russian imperialism has maintained agreements with Israel, including one that allows it to attack Syrian territory every week without any opposition from Russian military bases in the country.

Chinese imperialism is maintaining all trade and diplomatic agreements with Israel and continues to press for an end to the blockade of maritime traffic in the Red Sea by the Yemeni Houthis, who are the only Arab force showing effective solidarity with the Palestinians.

In the region, the regimes of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia are collaborating directly with U.S. imperialism, just as the Palestinian National Authority under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas has maintained its security cooperation with the state of Israel.

The main forces of the so-called axis of resistance, the Iranian regime and Lebanese Hezbollah, have declared their support for the Palestinians, but their leaders, Ayatollah Khamenei and Hassan Nasrallah, have declared that they will not promote effective military attacks against Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians. They will only respond if their countries, Iran and/or Lebanon, are attacked by Israel, as has already happened. It is necessary to demand that Iran, Lebanon, and the other Arab countries immediately declare war on Israel.

The struggle to end the genocide In Gaza and for a free Palestine from the river to the sea necessarily requires the end of the state of Israel. The so-called two-state solution, i.e. a Palestinian mini-state alongside Israel, will legitimize the policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people and perpetuate its racist and colonialist policies. We defend a secular and democratic Palestine, from the river to the sea, where the Palestinian people will be able to live in freedom with all those who accept to live in peace with the Palestinians.

The liberation of Palestine will be achieved through a new intifada in all its territories, through a new wave of Arab revolutions to overthrow their dictatorial regimes, and through the international solidarity of the working class and youth all over the world, including the important participation of anti-Zionist Jews.

We want to express our support for the youth demonstrations in the U.S., which have opened the possibility of reviving the great mobilizations against the Vietnam War in the past, which helped defeat U.S. imperialism. Youth mobilizations are already taking place in France, Spain, Canada, and Australia. It is an encouragement for the youth all over the world to play a similar role on the side of the Palestinian resistance.

In this sense, we are calling on the working class and youth of the Arab countries in particular to organize themselves independently of their regimes to promote solidarity with the Palestinians, as is the case in Jordan through large mobilizations in front of the Israeli embassy.

Russian imperialism has criticized the role of U.S. imperialism in the Israeli genocide in Palestine. But in addition to maintaining its agreements with Israel, it has invaded Ukraine to impose its economic and political interests. We want to express our support to the Ukrainian workers’ resistance in the national liberation war against the invasion and occupation of Russian imperialism.

We encourage the fight against Russian imperialism without implying any support to the neo-liberal Zelensky government or to NATO or hypocritical Western imperialism.

The gigantic mobilization of the students and teachers in Argentina against the far-right government of Milei shows a way forward for mass confrontations against the far-right governments all over the world that apply harsh plans against workers and youth. It is important to remember that the governments of class conciliation, such as those of Lula, Boric, and Petro, are also applying neoliberal plans against the masses. At the moment, federal public employees are on strike against Lula’s fiscal adjustment.

It is essential to unite workers’ struggles with all struggles against oppression against women, black people, LGBTQ people, and indigenous people. There are signs of growing barbarity in oppressions around the world, but resistance to them is also growing significantly.

Capitalism threatens humanity by destroying not only the living conditions of workers and youth, but also the environment. Global warming exceeded 1.5 degrees earlier this year, the highest in history, surpassing the limits announced by the environmental defense institutes. This shows the hypocrisy of the imperialist governments around the world in “global agreements” that change nothing and only try to show a way out for the environment from within capitalism. This will not happen. Only a socialist revolution can save the workers from hunger and misery. Only a socialist revolution can save the planet from ecological barbarism.

We are sure that every victory of the Palestinian and Ukrainian resistance and of the workers’ and democratic struggles around the world will open the way to the end of capitalism and to the construction of socialist countries based on workers’ democracy, without any resemblance to the capitalist dictatorships that exist in Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

Long live May Day!

Victory to the Palestinian and Ukrainian Resistance!

Workers of all countries, unite!

Newsletter no. 24 for April

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Which way for Bangladesh ?

Which way for Bangladesh ?

On the 7^th of January, Bangladesh went to the polls. The election had a predictable outcome, despite months of protests, and ongoing agitation by the garment workers, the boycott by the main opposition party the BNP, meant it would be an open race for the ruling Awami League, which won a resounding victory in an election which saw extensive rigging, the mass incarceration of opposition party leaders, and rampant intimidation of activists all over the country.

The Awami League has entered it’s 4^th term in power, the first being in 1996 to 2001. The party that led Bangladesh to it’s independence now rules the country with an iron fist, it’s leaders now control wide sections of the economy, it’s cadre force operate like brutish thugs, it presides over a country which has been effectively transformed into a massive sweatshop for fast fashion. Between the tyranny of the police, the ruling party, and the bosses, it’s people have as much freedom as can be expected in a sweatshop exploiting women and children for profit.

Behind the veneer of economic growth, and fluff pieces peddled about the future of Bangladesh’s economy, lies the true picture of despair and exploitation. The contradictions in the country have burst out into the streets with the agitation of the garment workers, the long strike which continues now with women workers braving the police to march in the streets of Dhaka. The pandemic and following economic crisis threw hundreds of thousands into unemployment as companies in the West cancelled orders, and factories had to shut down. The burden of the crisis as always is shifted to the tired shoulders of the workers. The millions employed in Bangladesh’s garment industry hold up the economy of the country, as well as millions of Bangladesh’s working class who are exploited as migrant labour outside their homeland.

It has been 52 years since Bangladesh became an independent country, after a bloody war of independence. In those 52 years capitalist Bangladesh transitioned from a ‘basket case’ perennially ravaged by cyclones, destabilized by military coups and crippled by the continuing impact of partition boundaries, to a semi-colony, dependent on satisfying the demands of trans-national corporations, and dependent on very inequal trade with it’s larger neighbour and hegemon, India. Bangladesh’s chains of servitude remain even if their form has changed.

It is important to understand how Bangladesh came to this point, and what lay ahead. It is important to understand what the Awami League is, and who or what it represents to fight it. The question forces us to investigate the history of Bangladesh from the British Raj to the liberation war.

The history of British Bengal :

Bengal was the richest region of South Asia under the Mughals. It was the largest agricultural producer of the empire, the center of it’s silk textile industry, and a center of bullion trade with China. These factors helped make Bengal the richest region of the Mughal Empire, which at it’s peak held a quarter of the world’s GDP and stood as the richest nation in the world. Much of the textile economy and trade was in the hands of muslims of Bengal, which contributed to the community’s relative prosperity. The decline of Bengal began with the decline of the Mughal Empire itself, and later invasions by the Maratha Empire in the middle of the 18^th century. These invasions helped create conditions by which the British would subsequently extend it’s power over Bengal, following the battle of Plassey in 1757.

The effects of British rule were catastrophic for the traditional industry of Bengal. Dhaka which was the economic center of Bengal, saw a massive fall in it’s population as the East India Company took measures to alter the economy of Bengal towards agricultural and raw materials export from industry.

The famous textile industry of Bengal was destroyed, and Dhaka was ruined, agriculture was massively disrupted which contributed to the famine in 1760, which saw nearly a third of Bengal’s population dying. Revolts broke out from among the peasantry and religious sects, as the first anti-colonial uprisings. However, these failed to uproot British rule, or substantially alter the systems implemented by them. Eventually, this drain of wealth from Bengal had the effect of impoverishing Bengal’s muslim population, while on the other hand, the British built up Calcutta and a small Hindu Bengali elite as comprador intermediaries for their rule, with upper caste hindus dominating new professions and bureaucratic positions within Company Rule. The beginning of discontent can be found here, where muslims continued to fall behind, and a section of upper caste wealthy hindus carved out a privileged niche for themselves.

The British promulgated permanent settlement act and changes to the zamindari system, had entrenched these new social relations in the region, which festered resentment at the local level. In other parts of India, the decisive shift in the social and cultural fabric was brought about as a result of the sepoy rebellion, and the subsequent destruction of traditional social and political structures. Whatever remained of Indian muslim’s standing and position in Northern India was wrecked, Delhi which had been the cultural capital of India and a center of Indo-Islamic culture, was utterly destroyed. The new India that the British would go on to create had at it’s corner stone a policy of divide and rule, made to ensure that Hindu-muslim unity would never arise and become a serious force to threaten British rule, as had happened in the 1857 rebellion. To this effect, the British supported the emerging elite of Dhaka who fed off discontent among the muslim peasantry and agrarian classes, to create a movement based on muslim identity. This would find expression in the Muslim League.

The beginnings of the movement would find its roots in the first partition of Bengal in 1905, ostensibly for the better administration of the province (which at the time included modern day states of Bihar and Orissa), into an Eastern and Western half. The Eastern half of Bengal would have a muslim majority and it’s capital at Dhaka, while the Western half would have a Hindu majority with it’s capital at Calcutta. This had an immediate reaction from the Hindu elite who had been at the forefront of a growing national movement in the country. The movement against the partition of Bengal saw the rise of nationalist organizations like the Anushilan Samity and Jugantar Dal, who used tactics of terror and boycott of foreign goods under the slogan of ‘swadeshi’ to rally opinion against the partition. The movement succeeded in annulling the partition of Bengal into East and West, but Bihar and Orissa were separated from the Bengal province. The movement also saw the first major division between Hindu and Muslim Bengali populations over the question of partition. This was in fact the beginning of what would culminate in the partition of India itself. The roots of the Pakistan movement lies here in the division of Bengal.

Over the next four decades, the movement for muslim representation and identity grew in strength, alongside the Indian independence movement, eventually coming to a position where it could challenge the mainstream of the Congress party. The Muslim League would emerge as the primary representative of indian muslims while the Congress would corner the majority support of Hindus. In this however, the muslims of the sub-continent were not unanimous, as opinion remained divided as seen by the 1946 elections to the constituent assembly. The Muslim League did not win Sindh, or the North West Frontier Provinces, and had a split verdict in the Punjab. Only in Bengal did the Muslim League manage to win a decisive mandate. The political conditions were put in place for the partition riots to happen, and they began with the great Calcutta killings in 1946. This reactionary outburst of violence would put a final nail in the coffin of an emerging revolutionary upsurge in India in the aftermath of world war 2, the red fort trials and the naval mutiny. The communal killings diverted collective social energy away from class struggle to inter-communal conflict. The bourgeois leaderships of the Muslim League, centered in Bombay, Dhaka and Lahore, and that of the Congress Party, based off mostly Hindu capitalist houses based in Calcutta, Bombay and North India’s landed elite, had led the country to one of the bloodiest episodes in the twentieth century Indian history.

Pakistan would be created from the muslim majority provinces of British India, while the Republic of India would be created from the Hindu majority provinces. However, even in this geo-politics and economic interests would distort the boundaries, ensuring some muslim majority regions fell into India and Hindu or Buddhist regions falling to Pakistan. The fate of North Eastern India with it’s distinct culture and religious fabric would also be affected, and most of the region except for the Chittagong hill tracts and Sylhet, falling to india. The new Pakistan was born crippled, and moth eaten, with an Eastern and Western half separated by 1600 miles of Indian territory. Furthermore, while India had the most industrialized regions, Pakistan had only Karachi, Lahore and Dhaka to build itself with, all three of which lost out because of partition, and the subsequent population transfers. The only winner in this equation was arguably the capitalists of Bombay, who had no equal competitor left, save for Calcutta, which was already reeling under the negative effects of World War 2, the Bengal famine, and now the partition.

As terrible as this chapter was, worse lay in wait for the people of Bengal, as the inequities of Pakistan’s births would determine the future course of it’s politics.

Contradictions at the core of Pakistan :

It was soon apparent that the promise of social and economic advancement that had won over the majority of muslim peasantry in Bengal, would not be fulfilled within the framework of Pakistan. Firstly, because the state itself was born impoverished, and the subsequent few years would make it clear that within South Asia, india would emerge as the regional hegemon, forcing the new ruling class of Pakistan to scramble to secure it’s survival. In this, it had to face two enemies, first the overwhelming external enemy in the form of India and secondly, it’s internal class enemy. Political and economic power in Pakistan was concentrated in the hands of land owning elite in Punjab, and the new muslim bourgeoisie centered around Lahore, and Karachi. Aside from this, was the economic center of Dhaka, and the emerging Bengali muslim bourgeoisie, who wished to be seen as equal to their west Pakistani counterparts.

These groups had in common, a desire to consolidate power and ensure the working class and peasantry remained under their domination. The abolition of the zamindari system in East Pakistan was a very correct and progressive step, and was replicated on the Indian side of the border, all within the decade of the fifties, but this did not serve to ultimately free the peasantry from exploitation, rather it simply changed the exploiters, from the old Hindu elite who benefited from British rule to the new elite who exploited the peasantry and working class of Bengal. For East Pakistan, these new exploiters were based in West Pakistan. Under these circumstances, the Pakistani bourgeoisie was compelled by historical fate towards adopting militarism to secure itself. The nascent democracy of Pakistan was doomed to dictatorship, within a few years of it’s birth.

At the same time a rising Bengali muslim middle class grew more politically. This phenomenon went hand in hand with the re-emergence of Dhaka as an economic centre. For them, partition was a victory which secured economic sovereignty, against the hegemony of the Calcutta based Bengali Hindu elite. However, it soon became clear that they could not meet it’s aspirations within Pakistan. Their support for the Muslim League waned as the language movement began, soon the Muslim League Split with it’s Bengali wing splitting to become the Awami League. Since the beginning, their bourgeois and petty bourgeois character was clear, with their leadership firmly leaning towards right and centrist economic policies. The working class was never at the centre of their idea, and any leaning towards socialism the party had was an opportunistic reaction to the popularity of the movement at the time, and the power of the organized working class and peasantry in struggle.

Over the course of the so-called miracle decade under Ayub Khan’s dictatorship, when Pakistan tilted heavily towards market economics and the USA, the exploitation and inequality between East and West Pakistan only increased. The one unit scheme of the newly amended constitution in 1956 was meant to foster unity between the two wings of Pakistan, but only served to further alienate them from one another, and saw a sustained drain of wealth from East Pakistan into the pockets of the West Pakistan based industrial and land owning elite. The truth of the miracle decade of Pakistan was that it was funded by the exploitation of East Pakistan, which was at once a provider of cheap raw material as well as a captive market for finished goods produced from West Pakistan factories.

There was no alternative for the Pakistani capitalists but to exploit the East in this manner. The imposition of urdu but one expression of the weak Pakistani bourgeoisie seeking to consolidate power and curb any possible secessionist sentiment among Bengalis. While India’s capitalists had the vast market provided by a largely intact peninsular India, the Gangetic plains, and most of the Eastern India, their counterparts in Pakistan only had East Bengal and Punjab, both of which were sections of a larger state from which they were cut off. The material pressure was inescapable. However, the more the Pakistani bourgeoisie exploited their half of Bengal, the more it angered it’s people and pushed it towards independence.

Thus the seeds of secession were sown, and this was an inescapable result of the character of the Pakistani state. The fundamental contradiction which drove the creation of Pakistan remained unanswered in the new state of Pakistan.

The struggle for independence

The specific question of the status of the Bengali language was settled after acknowledging it as an official language in 1956. However, Pakistan’s nascent democracy would not survive long beyond this, as the dictator General Ayub Khan would come to power by a military coup in 1958, setting into motion the supremacy of the military in Pakistani political affairs which still haunts it till today.

Under the new regime, the democratic aspirations of the Bengali people were trampled further. Discrimination was systematized and economic inequality between Pakistan and Bangladesh deepened. A colonial relationship was established between the two wings, where West Pakistan would reap the benefits of industry, and Bangladesh would be used to supply cheap raw materials, most critically jute and rice.

The bias in the state planning was reflected in the disparity in the government spending between the two wings. East Pakistan received a third of the total government spending between 1950 and 1970. This resulted in worse infrastructure, worse government facilities, and impoverishment, which only facilitated the drain of wealth from East Bengal to Sindh and Punjab. This was despite East Bengal earning the greater share of Pakistan’s overall export earnings, but two thirds of the benefits of this export earning was earned by West Pakistan. At the same time, East Pakistan was used as a captive market for West Pakistan, benefiting from exports to East Pakistan, while also exploiting it.

The inequality of trade relation between East and West reflected in some ways the colonial relation that Bengal had with the British under the East India Company. The destruction of local industry was accompanied by a drain of wealth from Bengal. Sermons of Muslim brotherhood, appeared to be hollow for most of the people of East Pakistan.

All of these factors would come to a head when the Bhola cyclone struck in 1970 and caused the deaths of up to 300,000 in East Pakistan. It was one of the most destructive natural disasters in the history of Bengal and the deadliest tropical cyclone in recorded history. The response of the Pakistani state was abysmal. Most foreign assistance that Pakistan received was diverted to the West, while the East was left to languish with only 20% of foreign assistance. The neglect with which the Pakistani state approached the disaster exacerbated the deaths, and added to the increasing discontent within East Pakistan.

The year 1969 in Pakistani history is significant, and was part of a wider period of radicalization throughout South Asia. The year 1967 saw the emergence of the Naxalite movement in India and 1966 saw the peak of workers militancy in india with a large nation wide strike wave. In East Pakistan, students, workers and peasants combined to protest against the Ayub Khan military dictatorship. It culminated in his resignation, but martial law remained in Pakistan. It was under these conditions that the 1970 general elections took place.

Though Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto attempted to broker peace and proposed a coalition government, this would prove futile, and talks broke down. The course was set for a clash. The Awami League demanded for the immediate lifting of martial law, and transfer of power. The military responded with a brutal crackdown which was code named operation searchlight.

The crackdown was conducted by General Tikka Khan who was assigned the post of Governor General of East Pakistan. Under his administration, the Pakistani army rounded up intellectuals, students and dissidents, and had them summarily executed. The massacres conducted under Operation searchlight was reported by American diplomat Archer Kent blood, and sent the infamous blood telegram in which he spoke of the killings in detail, expressing his dissent to President Nixon. This got him recalled from his post, as the Nixon administration was openly supportive of Pakistan, and intended to use them as a diplomatic bridge to reach out to China. Pakistan continued it’s genocide of Bengalis, while the US turned a blind eye. The United States continued to support Pakistan militarily throughout this period, by supplying arms and giving aid.

The operation would seem a success on the surface, as the Pakistan army swiftly occupied most cities of Bangladesh, and seemed to have scattered the nascent rebellion, however their control would remain an illusion in the face of a determined guerrilla campaign.

Forces involved in the independence war :

Though the Awami league was the most visible and the largest political party in support of independence, it was not the only force on the side of Bangladeshi independence. It must be remembered, that the uprising in 1969, the nationwide strike in opposition to the forming of the new government, was a culmination of a developing class struggle which started soon after the establishment of Pakistan in 1947. The peasant uprising in Nachole in 1951, the Santhal rebellion, and the Tebhaga movement expressed the resentment of the peasantry of East Bengal, and these were led by leftist organizations and leaders.

Within the parliamentary sphere, Maulana Abdul Bhasani was a major force, and a popular peasant leader who would form the National Awami Party, a left wing party inspired by Maoism. The Communist Party of East Pakistan (later the Communist Party of Bangladesh) under the leadership of Moni Singh had a popular support among the peasantry and the working class. One must also mention Siraj Sikder, who was the first guerrilla leader to raise the flag of independence and secure a liberated zone against the Pakistan army, who was inspired by Maoist thought, and built the East Bengal Proletarian Party (Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party) and fought a successful guerrilla campaign from the Southern districts of Khulna and Sundarban regions.

It is important to note here, that many of these leaders were inspired by the peasant centric Maoist movement as well as the Maoist movement in neighbouring West Bengal, even though Maoist China, aligned with Pakistan. The peasant centrism and limited reformist perspectives of these leaders would be a major cause for their failure, and left the leadership of the struggle almost entirely in the hands of the Awami League, who had free reign. Likewise, the uncritical support extended by the Indian Communist Parties towards the India backed leadership in Mujibar Rahman’s Awami League, would lead to the weakening of all left wing forces in Bangladesh, and eventually lead to the dictatorial Baksal regime under Mujib, and then the coup by Zia Ur Rahman, and a vicious cycle of dictatorships and slide towards imperialist exploitation.

India’s role in this regard cannot be understated, nor the impact of the cold war on this conflict. The Cold war set the conditions under which the Bengali liberation war would be fought, with the United States on the side of Pakistan, and the Soviet Union on the side of India. At a time when it seemed like South and South East Asia was on the cusp of revolution, the United States was intensifying it’s reactionary imperialist war on Vietnam, bombing Cambodia, North Vietnam and Laos into the stone age, and sponsoring dictators like Suharto in Indonesia to massacre communists and their sympathizers by the hundreds of thousands. In Pakistan, they backed Yahya Khan, and his butchers. The Pakistani establishment was desperate to hold on to East Pakistan as their colony, and continue the lucrative exploitation of it’s resources and markets.

While the reactionary partnership of Pakistan and the United States was forged in the mutual antipathy to communism, the Indian capitalist class, backed by Soviet Stalinism made their own plans to undermine the revolutionary developments in Bangladesh. If Yahya Khan was the tool of US imperialism, Sheik Mujib and the Awami League was the chief tool of the Indian capitalist class, and the Congress Party.

As much as the Awami league may have hated Communists, no matter how cynical and scornful it may have been to the working class and peasantry, the only way it could fight a war of independence for Bangladesh against the US funded and supplied military machinery of Pakistan, was by rallying the peasantry and working class to it’s side. It could not do so, without inviting socialists and communists into the army of liberation, the Mukti Bahini.

For most of the war, the Indian army remained in the background, training and supplying the insurgent guerrilla movement which used bases in bordering Indian states to conduct strikes deep behind enemy lines. Local insurgent armies and militias also played a part in the guerrilla campaign. In the period up to the outbreak of hostilities between India and Pakistan, it was the Mukti bahini that was doing the bulk of fighting, with the Indian army providing training, logistical support and intervention. The Communist Party based in India supported the refugees, while their counterparts in the Communist Party in Bangladesh, took up arms together with the Mukti Bahini. In both instances, the two respective Communist parties operated under their respective bourgeois leaderships, at no point was there any effort to build an independent front for the revolutionary overthrow of Pakistani rule.

To counter the guerrilla army, the Pakistanis resorted to a combination of scorched earth, massacres, and supporting local reactionary islamist militias known as razakars. While many of these were recruited from among the Bihari population of East Bengal, most were recruited from among local Bengali collaborators, who still believed in the false ideal of Pakistan. They had support among sections of the rural populations, the petty bourgeois, and bengali military officers within the Pakistan army. The islamists were the same forces who had supported partition and had rallied the bengali muslim peasantry against Hindu landlords, in the liberation war they joined the Pakistan army in enacting it’s genocidal suppression of the bengali people.

The Pakistan army typically focussed their brutality on Hindus of Bangladesh, with whole communities being destroyed in punitive campaigns. However, Bengali muslims were not spared either. Rape, mass murder and torture were the key instruments of the army and it’s collaborating militias. However this brutal campaign of rape and murder could not stop the struggle of the Bengali people, and nor was it enough to prevent the Indian military juggernaut from supporting the mukti bahini. When hostilities began with India with an attack on India’s western border, the Pakistan army in the East was trapped, with roads and railways cut off, and surrounded from the sea by India.

By December of 1971 the Pakistan army had collapsed, having lost a quarter of their entire army, two thirds of their navy and half of their air force. It was forced to recognize the independence of Bangladesh.

After independence :

Bangladesh had won their independence after a bloody struggle which claimed the lives of at least 3,00,000 people, upper estimates take the death toll of the genocide to 3 million. The new nation came under the rule of the Awami League, who would soon prove to be unfit for the task.

Bangladesh started off worse than either India or Pakistan did at the time of their independence, it had the worst of both worlds, the carnage and destruction suffered by Burma, and the inequity of British drawn borders. The context of the cold war meant that Bangladesh had also unwittingly made an enemy of the United States, which at the time remained a steadfast ally of Pakistan.

The United States refused to recognize Bangladesh, and to make matters worse, blocked wheat imports from Cuba. The destruction of critical infrastructure over the course of the war, and from Cyclone Bola earlier in 1970, had left the economy in a fragile state. To this, was added the sudden return of 9 million of the 10 million refugees who had to flee Bangladesh to escape Pakistan’s genocide.

The new government promulgated a secular and socialist constitution, in the mould of the Indian constitution. The ‘socialism’ of the Awami league of course, was simply a cover for state capitalism, managed in the most corrupt and inefficient manner by a party that would prove itself to be most corrupt and dictatorial in it’s own right.

Over the next three years, Sheik Mujib would consolidate power, and establish the basis of a one party state over Bangladesh. In this period, the CPB remained in support of him, honouring the age old Stalinist tradition of surrendering to the ‘progressive national bourgeoisie’. The party remained steadfast in their alliance with the Awami League even as the Mukti Bahini irregulars massacred thousands of Biharis in reprisal killings for the genocide. The CPB did not leave the side of the Awami League, even as famine loomed.

It is not an exaggeration to say, that the Stalinists of Bangladesh enabled the Awami League, through it’s decisive support both during the liberation war and in the crucial formative years of Bangladesh’s independence. Sheik Mujib inherited a country without any possibility of capitalist development solely on the basis of private enterprise, state capitalism was an inevitable necessity. To spin this as socialism is but a standard ploy of most bourgeoisies of former colonial countries. The system in Bangladesh was doomed to fail, along with its fragile bourgeois democracy.

Revolutionary developments after independence :

Among the few independent left leadership that did emerge in Bangladesh, the most popular by far was that of Siraj Sikdar, who built the Proletarian party of East Bengal on the basis of Maoism. Following the strategy of protracted guerrilla struggle, he had built a base in Barisal in Southern Bangladesh, and conducted his own guerrilla campaign in coordination with the Mukti Bahini. After independence, he had a force to conduct his war against the newly independent Bangladesh state.

In June of 1971, while the liberation war was still going on, Siraj Sikder had launched the Proletarian Party of East Bengal. After independence, he built the National Liberation Front of East Bengal by uniting 11 mass organizations of workers and peasants. His next struggle would begin against the independent capitalist state under the rule of the Awami League in January of 1973. An armed struggle was initiated throughout the country, but failed to materialize into a larger uprising against the Awami League. It did however, give Sheik Mujib and the Awami League basis to centralize power around him and the party.

The weight of the crisis following the devastation of war, the international isolation, and allegedly, the mass smuggling of food grains into India, all contributed to famine breaking out in March of 1974, less than three years into independence. While official government estimates claim only 30,000 died, unofficial estimates reach to over a million. The famine was widespread, with rural workers and the landless being worst affected. The disaffection this caused against Mujib and the Awami League, had turned an almost deified figure into a villain, overnight.

The insurgency initiated by Siraj Sikdar’s forces petered out, with emergency declared, the nascent armed forces of Bangladesh proved more than equal to the task of clamping down on the ill organized uprising, the protracted struggle died before it could go anywhere. Maoism once more, led to a dead end along with any real hope of a socialist Bangladesh. The consequences of this disaster would play out over the next decades.

While Siraj Sikdar’s movement ended, the influence of Maoists or Maoist inspired leftists within the government, and in particular within the army, did not end. Sheik Mujib centralized power following the emergency, and the formation of a National Unity government, given the acronym BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League – Workers and Peasants People League of Bangladesh). The Baksal regime was formalized in February of 1975.

The imposition of this dictatorship only proved the fragile nature of the new bourgeois regime, by August 15^th 1975 the new one party styled unity government would be attacked by a reactionary cabal of army officers who sought to put their own candidate in the position of the President, overthrowing Sheik Mujib. The coup and assassination would see Sheik Mujib and most of his family massacred. The new coup regime would then suffer a mutiny of it’s own, where a leftist colonel Abu Taher, would organize a coup to place General Zia ur Rahman, a right winger, in command of the army.

The good General would reciprocate by having Colonel Abu Taher jailed and executed, in order to restore order in the army. The events of 1975 to 1976 threw Bangladesh into a spiral of instability, it had lost 2 presidents in short order, in two very disorganized coups. The military had now taken up the mantle of leading the fledgling new bourgeois state, with many of it’s existing troubles still unresolved.

The disastrous first decade of independence, saw the failure of the Awami League, and the nascent bourgeois of Bangladesh to build a functional capitalist state, always perched at the edge of crisis, and threatened at all times by the spectre of revolution. India invested heavily in the formation of the new state, building it’s military over the course of the liberation war, and now that military had imploded. The Awami League was not built by India, but it was fostered and nurtured by India since the point of it’s exile by the Pakistani state. It had all the hallmarks of the corruption and ineptitude of the Muslim League of Pakistan. Ultimately, the threat from the working class and peasantry is what pushed the Bangladeshi bourgeoisie towards authoritarian rule, when the Awami League and it’s socialist rhetoric failed, the army intervened.

Bangladesh switched from one form of bonapartism to another, this would remain till 1991, when it returned to a very dysfunctional bourgeois democracy, only to revert back to military rule, before finally settling into the one party rule of the Awami League, a caricatured version of BAKSAL.

From army rule to ‘democracy’ :

The Awami League entered a crisis after the dissolution of BAKSAL, as did it’s allies the Communist Party of Bangladesh, and the National Awami Party. The Bangladeshi bourgeoisie had matured to the point it could demand its own separate state, organize a military and government structure, but not enough that it could hold or manage that independently.

All efforts to build an independent state fell flat on their face, and could not but end this way. Bangladesh, which was already weakened by a good two centuries of exploitation at the hands of the British was crippled further by partition which saw industrial West Bengal severed from agrarian and commercial East Bengal, and finally destroyed by the genocidal policies of the Pakistani state.

Regular environmental disasters like cyclones and floods did their part to further damage Bangladesh, and leave it in ruins. The Bangladeshi bourgeoisie was dependent from the outset, with India practically controlling its military apparatus and guaranteeing the existence of it’s independence struggle. Any revolutionary working class alternative to this inept bourgeoisie was made impossible by the liquidation of the CPB and the National Awami Party to the Awami League, a policy that remained until the end of BAKSAL, and one which continues in another form into the present day with most mainstream left parties supporting the Awami League.

India’s dominance over Bangladesh’s trade is a harsh reality which remains today, and is a legacy of partition borders which Bangladesh inherited. The headwaters of the Ganga and Brahmaputra both lay in Indian territory, and India surrounds Bangladesh on three sides, with only the small border with Myanmar being Bangladesh’s alternative.

Ziaur Rahman attempted to move Bangladesh away from Indian hegemony, along with every bit of socialistic rhetoric and the state capitalist system that the Awami League built. The islamization of the Bangladeshi state began in earnest under his dictatorship. The Jamat i Islami, a party that had collaborated with Pakistan during the genocide, was restored and readmitted to mainstream politics, the islamic kalma was inserted into the Bangladeshi constitution, secularism and comitment to socialism was removed. He reoriented Bangladesh’s foreign policy away from India and the Soviet Union and towards Saudi Arabia, the USA, and Pakistan, in return for recognition, trade deals and aid.

General Zia effectively ruled for 5 years from 1976 to 1981 after which he died in a plane crash under suspicious circumstances. It was enough time to strip the country of a secular constitution, and begin the process which would culminate in the adoption of Islam as state religion. India backed General Ershad would finish the job making Islam a state religion in the Bangladeshi constitution.

After losing hundreds of thousands of lives in a struggle against Pakistan, the new state reverted back to choosing religion as it’s basis. A distinct ‘bangladeshi’ nationalism was promulgated by General Zia as opposed to ‘Bengali’ nationalism which was the basis of the Awami League’s politics. Today both these ideas represent the two dominant bourgeois ideologies in Bangladesh. However, we must distinguish the origins of the two.

Bengali nationalism was rooted in the struggle against the national oppression by the Pakistani state, while Bangladeshi nationalism was a reactionary imposition by a right wing military dictator who reversed many of the progressive gains of independence. While Bangladesh still retained it’s sovereign existence, it remained in a limbo where it could only choose which capitalist power could exploit it. The choice was between India or the West. In reality, Bangladesh is exploited by both and can only play one off against the other to survive.

The army rule remained in place for another decade, ending in 1991 with the first elections. The great irony of this elections was that the inheritors of the two previous dictatorships, now fought for the restitution of democracy. On the one hand was the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, led by General Zia’s widow Khaleda Zia, and on the other hand was the daughter of Sheik Mujibar Rahman, Sheik Hasina Wajed. The two united against the dictatorship of General Ershad, but as soon as the dictatorship was undone, became enemies.

The 1991 elections were won by BNP in alliance with a coalition of right wing parties, while the 1996 elections were won by the Awami League with a coalition of left wing parties, in 2001 the BNP won again with a coalition of right wing parties. That term ended in 2006 when an unelected caretaker government took power, and remained until the end of 2008. The elections in December 2008 brought the Awami League back in power in 2009, and it has remained in power ever since. This macabre game of musical chairs caused chaos, riots, and spread corruption throughout the country. Between a reactionary Islamist petty bourgeois, and a bonapartist centrist bourgeois party that has all but turned Bangladesh into a one party state.

After the Ershad dictatorship, the military had lost most legitimacy as a political force, and remained in the background, influencing politics, but unable to control, unlike Pakistan or Myanmar. The army mutiny in 2009 all but ended the political power of the military, and opened a new chapter of class struggle in Bangladesh. The opening of the 21^st century saw the rise of neo-liberal policies, which slowly and surely turned Bangladesh into one of the leading sweatshops of the world for fast fashion companies. While billions are made by clothing brands worldwide, the workers of Bangladesh are subjected to the most brutal exploitation.

As the Awami League rule enters it’s 15^th rule, discontent is rising. Once again, the two main bourgeois political forces are in open contest, the reactionary islamist and the centrist ostensibly secular one. The conflict is life threatening for the Hindus of Bangladesh, who are facing the prospect of further marginalization, and perhaps even extermination. India has always had a say in the politics of Bangladesh, and now it has a direct economic interest in Bangladesh with rising Indian foreign investments, and ever greater trade dominance. With a reactionary Hindu party in power, India works behind the scenes to ensure the Awami League keeps winning the elections.

Conclusion :

The modern history of Bangladesh has witnessed a continuum of class struggle, from the fight of the peasantry against the zamindari system fostered by the British, the fight against British rule, the campaign for Pakistan, the recognition of the Bengali language, to independence, to the restoration of bourgeois democracy, and finally the ongoing struggle of the garment workers, youth and peasants against the Awami League regime.

The perspective of Permanent revolution tells us, that in the age of imperialism the bourgeoisie no longer has progressive character. The tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution thus fall on the shoulders of the working class. In Bangladesh, it is the alliance of workers and peasants that must fulfil the tasks of the bourgeois democratic revolution, as part of the socialist revolution.

The history of the liberation war and the struggles that preceded it, show who can lead the revolution in Bangladesh. The language movement, the tebhaga movement, the liberation war itself, was led by the youth, the peasantry and the working class. The Awami League and the ambitious but incipient Bengali muslim bourgeois and petty bourgeois, who eventually became the bourgeoisie of Bangladesh, have only shown ineptitude, corruption and cynicism.

Their leadership has transformed Bangladesh into a dependent sweatshop for multinationals, and trapped it in a dependency with India. Rather than challenge the colonial boundaries and become a beacon for revolution across South Asia, the potential and power of the working class of South Asia and the world, the bourgeois leadership of Bangladesh did everything in it’s power to undermine them. In this, the Stalinists played the role of willing pawns. The Maoists vacillated between collaborating with the Awami League, or leading them into political dead ends with doctrine that yielded nothing besides more death.

Bangladesh is once again at the crossroads where the unresolved questions of the bourgeois democratic revolution impose themselves before the people. In this time, the working class yearn for revolutionary leadership. Here lies our main task, to build a party and a programme that can finally deliver the socialist revolution. Bengal was the birthplace of the Indian national movement, it was and is a bastion of working class radicalism even today, and it can become the leader of a South Asian revolution.

The revolution in Bangladesh will be fought on three foundational programmes :

1. NATIONALIZATION OF LAND
2. NATIONALIZATION OF THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS OF THE ECONOMY
3. A SECULAR DEMOCRATIC STATE

The fulfilment of these must be the cornerstone of a revolutionary programme.

Newsletter no. 22

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Newsletter no. 20

We bring to you, our final newsletter for 2023 and the 20th newsletter of New Wave.

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Newsletter no. 19

We bring to you our 19th monthly edition newsletter for November 2023

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STATEMENT ON THE GAZA WAR 2023

7^th October 2023 will go down in history as the day when the people of Gaza broke out of their prison. Challenging the blockade of Israel from land, air and sea, Palestinians broke through the border fence using bulldozers and tractors, for the first time in 16 years, the walls of the open air prison that is Gaza came down, and Palestinians could enter the land of their ancestors freely. This freedom was short lived, but the war it started remains.

Hamas, a radical islamic organization, the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, was the orchestrator of this violent rebellion. A surprise attack was launched in the early hours of 7^th October, when hundreds of rockets were fired on South Israeli settlements and cities. This was combined with an audacious assault by thousands of Hamas fighters attacking by air, land and sea. The attack surprised the Israeli defense forces completely. Hamas overwhelmed the weakly defended towns and cooperative farms called Kibbutzes, which were swiftly occupied. By the end of the day, they had reached within 6 kilometers of the border of the West Bank. The assault was given the name ‘Al Aqsa flood’ , which suggests the scope and ultimate aim of the Hamas, reaching Jerusalem.

This advance was accompanied by violent deaths of Israeli settlers along the South, wherever Hamas went, civilians killed. While estimates are hard to ascertain, Israel claims ‘at least’ 1400 lives lost, and over 3000 injured, with 292 of these losses being military losses.

The assault could not last in the face of an overwhelming military response by Israel which pushed Hamas back within the borders of Gaza over the next three days, claiming to have killed at least 1500 Hamas fighters.

The assault shocked Israel, both in swiftness and scope. It was no less shocking that the uprising of Indian sepoys in 1857, who within months had seized control of nearly the entire Gangetic plains, and broke the back of the largest and most powerful Empire on Earth, the British Empire. The similarities don’t end there, as what followed was press coverage from mainstream bourgeois press, which seemed right out of the days of the mutiny, painting a one sided picture of violence committed by ‘barbarians’ against ‘civilized’ people.

As horrific as Hamas’ actions were, what followed from the Israeli side was nothing short of genocidal. Responding to the assault by Hamas, the Israeli armed forces struck with overwhelming power. Air strikes were conducted, concentrated along the Gaza strip. In one week, Israel dropped more bombs than the US and it’s allies dropped in a year of fighting in Afghanistan, in an area a third the size of the national capital region of Delhi.

Israel lost about 1400 from the Hamas attack, the retribution has caused over 3500 Palestinian civilian lives, and an unknown number of military deaths. The imbalance between the colonized and colonizer could not be clearer.

NO FALSE EQUIVALENCE

Even considering the reactionary leadership of Hamas in the latest Palestinian war of independence, there can be no false equivalence between the colonizing force that is Israel, and the colonized people that is the Palestinians.

From it’s very inception, the zionist project was a settler colonial project formulated by a section of European jews. It was projected as a means of salvation for jews, a people that have suffered historical persecution throughout Europe. However, the only means of achieving this would mean the forcible displacement and victimization of Palestinian Arabs, who had been residing in the region of Palestine for hundreds of years up to the point of Israel’s foundation.

The existence of Israel today, was guaranteed by the British occupation and colonization of the region, who then embarked upon a policy of divide and rule, drawing on lessons learnt from the success of such policy in India when Bengal was partitioned, and eventually when India itself was partitioned. The partition plan for Israel was deliberately designed by the British to inflame tensions between Arab and jewish populations, the latter bolstered by immigration from Europe, from jews who were victimized by the holocaust and lost their livelihoods.

The world’s powers largely sided with Israel, including the USSR led by Stalin ! The Arab nations in the neighbourhood, which had all themselves been colonized by the British or under British imperialist hegemony, now found a vital part of their homeland given over to a settler colonialist project of zionism. With weapons from around the world, including the USSR, the Zionists had won the war against a coalition of newly independent Arab nations, themselves having weak militaries, and impoverished from years of colonialism, and imperialist exploitation. What followed is known by Arabs as the nakba, ‘catastrophe’.

The zionist state engaged in a brutal act of ethnic cleansing which killed thousands of Palestinian in terror campaigns and massacres, and forced 750,000 Palestinians out of land conquered by Israel. Just 7 years into Israel’s existence, the second aspect of the zionist state was revealed, when they aligned with France and Britain, to invade Egypt in 1956, against Egypt’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal.

Israel was founded on lies of becoming a paradise and safe haven for jews, but all it has promised is pain violence and war, all inevitable consequences of a settler zionist project that it is. It has been built with the blood of a colonized people, and nurtured by imperialist powers, Britain before and the US today, to oppress and destroy the aspirations of the Arab people in the levant and middle east, to ensure imperialist hegemony in the region. A militaristic apartheid israel helps the US and UK maintain hegemony over the wider middle east, and crucially Egypt. It has been crucial in ensuring the defeat of secular Arab nationalism, and defeating the anti-imperialist aspirations of the nation, and the wider levant. It continues to play that role today as it bombs Lebanon and Syria.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian people, first under the leadership of the PLO, and now under the leadership of Hamas, have only been fighting for their land, unjustly given away by a colonial power (Britain), to a settler colonialist enterprise that was Zionism. It was the PLO’s failure, culminating in the camp david accords, that allowed unquestioned Israeli and American hegemony over the middle east and eastern mediterranean, that ultimately fueled the rise of Hamas.

It is now known, that the right wing of Israeli polity, the most virulent and violent zionists in the country, hated the peace process, and despised the PLO. For them, a reactionary islamist organization like Hamas served them politically. Benjamin Netanyahu who presently leads Israel, and his party the Likud, aided the rise of Hamas and undermined the PLO and Fatah led Palestinian Administration. The existence of a reactionary islamist force leading Gaza while the Palestinian Authority controlled part of the West Bank, served the Zionist state perfectly. They kept the Palestinian people divided, and used Hamas as an excuse to pursue an aggressive policy of settlement and displacement.

Israel undermined and terrorized Palestinians of the West bank, a territory it has kept under occupation since the 1967 six day war, and kept Gaza (which had  been occupied militarily between 1967 and 1982, and kept under administration till 2005) under a state of siege since 2007.

Gaza is surrounded on two sides by Israel, on the West by the sea, and to the South by Egypt, who has since helped Israel keep Gaza blockaded. Israel controlled the waters around Gaza, control the people’s movements, the water supply and resources for it’s power plants, and it’s air space. It was not for no reason that gaza has been compared with a prison !

For 16 years the Palestinians in Gaza had been kept under a blockade, put behind a massive wall, and kept on the verge of starvation. All the while zionist settlers occupied lands in the West bank displacing thousands of Palestinians, terrorize them regularly. It was in this context that Hamas, a reactionary islamist organization, launched it’s attack on Israel.

These attacks had all the fury and rage of a colonized people revolting against systemic oppression, and it was bloody. Indians would know because we have experienced this, when the sepoys revolted in 1857, led albeit by a reactionary clique of deposed monarchs, like the enfeebled Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar II , or the warrior Queen Laxmi Bai fighting to restore her throne. Despite this leadership, Marx had rightly identified the sepoy rebellion as a war of independence, despite the divergent aims of it’s leaderships and their reactionary backgrounds. The rebellion, much like the current Palestinian rebellion, was accompanied by brutal massacres of British civilians, particularly the relatives of officers.

As it was then, today also, the bourgeois press of the imperialist world, especially American and British news media, indulged exaggerating “the crimes” of the oppressed and covering or downplaying the crimes of the aggressor. The “fake news” of forty beheaded babies, a claim made without any evidence or substantiation, fed into the psyche of revenge and dehumanization of the Palestinian people, while giving moral cover to Israel’s crimes, which has indiscriminately bombed Gaza, and imposed a total siege on Gaza, cutting off water, electricity and essential resources. The people of Gaza are being made to pay for Hamas’ actions, much like the innocents killed by the thousands in Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur by the British, were made to pay for the sepoys.

Two million Gazans today are trapped by Israel. They are suffering from hunger, pain, and terror bombings, reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s aerial blitz. This is our century’s equivalent of British terror campaigns during the sepoy rebellion, where they bombed entire villages out of existence, in those days Marx stood on the right side of history, on the side of the Indians. We must stand on the side of the Palestinians and unconditionally so !

There can be no false equivalence between the colonizer Israel, and the colonized Palestine, in this war of independence.

SOLIDARITY IS KEY !

The Hamas attack and the bloody Israeli retribution has galvanized the Arab people and the wider muslim world and beyond. Palestine and all the armed forces representing their struggle cannot hope to fight Israel evenly, they cannot compare to Israel’s arsenal and resources, bankrolled by the United States, assisted by the British and American navies which have been rushed to the Eastern Mediterranean as a ‘deterrent’ force. The best weapon that the Palestinian people have today, is the solidarity of the workers of the world, especially the workers of Arab countries.

Today, thousands are rallying on the streets off Baghdad, Cairo, Beirut, Bahrain, Amman, every major city of the middle East. There are rallies in Turkey, across North Africa, and South Asia. London had one of the largest protests in solidarity with Palestine, there are protests in Washington DC blocking the gates of the white house. If Israel can’t conduct the ground offensive against Gaza today, and if they are being forced to hold back and show restraint, it is because of this solidarity. None of the corrupt bourgeois leaders of the Arab countries, being stooges of world imperialism that they are, can last for five minutes should they not stand with Palestine today.

The Iranian clergy who rule the country know well, the price of failing this litmus test of anti-imperialist struggles. They have seen their people mobilized for struggle and they know well enough what they will do should they fail. Tehran will be in flames, and it will be the workers of Iran that will throw it’s reactionary ruling clique out.

The question of Palestine is one of the key democratic struggles of the middle east. For the last 80 years, the Arab bourgeoisie has proven their historical impotence in failing to achieve independence from imperialism, this failure showed itself in the defeats it suffered against Israel, first in the 1948 war, then the six day war of 1967, and the Yom Kippur war of 1973. They have proven the theory of permanent revolution in the negative, proving that the bourgeoisie is incapable of fulfilling the bourgeois democratic tasks posed before it. That task now falls upon the shoulders of the workers of the middle east and north africa.

The latest Gaza war has energized the masses of the region, after suffering defeats and disappointments in the failures of the revolutions in Middle East and North Africa.

STAND WITH PALESTINE ! FOR ONE STATE OF PALESTINE !

It must be stated clearly, when we stand with Israel, we do not stand with anti-semitism, or islamism. We are as opposed to Israel, as we are to the ruthless reactionary monarchies of the gulf, or the theocratic nightmare of Iran. We stand with the working class, and the working class of Palestine is being tormented by Israel in the pursuit of the zionist settler colonialist agenda.

The brutality of the Gaza war, and the nakba before it, shows the core agenda of Israel, is not ‘self defense’ or mere survival, but the eradication of the Palestinian people. The biggest obstacle that stands in their way is the working class in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. We support their right to self-determination, we support their right to exist.

A single united Secular Socialist Palestine is what we aspire to, as part of a unified federation of Socialist Arab states. The first step to achieving this, is the overthrow of the Zionist state of Israel. To get this, we must unify in struggle across the world and march in solidarity.

UNCONDITIONAL SUPPORT TO THE PALESTINIAN STRUGGLE !

DEFEND GAZA !

END THE WAR CRIMES !

DOWN WITH ISRAEL !

LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY !