Letter from Indian Trotskyist

(Letters)

We received the following letter from a longtime supporter of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) on September 26.

Dear comrades,

The article on India published in WV, No. 962, 30 July, 2010 is highly impressive and informative. I wish to clarify certain points in the article only.

CPI(M) [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] split from CPI in 1964, three years before the Naxalite split from the CPI(M). As a matter of fact, the CPI was divided into two cliques from almost its beginning. As early as 1928, two men S.V. Despande and B.T. Ranadive joined the Bombay group of the party. Despande became a follower of S.A. Dange and B.T. Ranadive acted at the behest of G.D. Adhikari. Even while in Mearut jail, the clique fight had assumed such a proportion that Dange was expelled from the party. Later Ranadive became the leader of his own clique while Adhikari shifted to the clique of Dange who had been readmitted later. So the clique fight continued. However some excuse was needed to precipitate a split and it was provided by two things, namely, Moscow-Peking dispute following Khrushchev’s revelations at the 20th Congress of the CPSU [Communist Party of the Soviet Union] and Indo-China border war in 1962. However, there was no essential ideological difference between the two as anyone who reads the post-split documents of the CPI and CPI(M) will realize.

Regarding anti-Indian, anti-Hindi hysteria in Nepal supported by the Maoists, I hasten to add that while we do not and cannot support such hysteria, it is rooted in big-brotherly attitude of the Indian bourgeoisie displayed time and again by its government. It goes back to 1950 when India signed the Gandak Treaty to build a dam in Nepal on a river India shares with Nepal. I am not well informed about its contents but there was a feeling in Nepal that the treaty benefitted India at the expense of Nepal. Moreover, time and again, Indian government has supported monarchy and other reactionary forces and came to their rescue whenever they were threatened by the peasant revolts in Nepal.

Parallel to anti-India hysteria in Nepal is the anti-Nepali hysteria in India, particularly in West Bengal. Poverty and absence of any opportunities of employment, medical care and decent education drove people of Nepal to neighboring lands. End of the British rule in India deprived Gorkhas of the chances of getting enlisted in the British Army. However, an agreement between India and Nepal signed in 1950 permitted free movement and trade between the two countries. So a number of Hindi speaking people settled in Nepal while people from Nepal got settled in Darjeeling (in West Bengal) and in the kingdom of Sikkim and became a majority in both areas in course of time. Political impact of this development was not felt immediately. But it came to be felt by 1975. The kingdom of Sikkim was annexed by India in 1975 as the Nepali speaking persons (who had become a majority reducing the original Lepcha people to a minority) voted for accession to India in a plebiscite conducted under the supervision of Indian army. Sikkim is a constituent state of Indian Union since then and monarchy is abolished. Frightened by the phenomenon, the kingdom of Bhutan tightened its laws about entry of foreigners and their employment and prohibited their permanent stay in Bhutan. Not only that, it expelled a lot of Nepali speaking people from Bhutan as illegal immigrants who moved to India and Nepal. These people now accommodated in refugee camps in India are called Bhupalis.

In Darjeeling too the Lepchas were the original inhabitants but as the Nepalis became a majority, they started an aggressive movement for a separate state of Gorkhaland by 1980. The ruling CPI(M) like other parties subscribing to Bengali chauvinism calls the demand as unconstitutional and separatist which is absurd, particularly after the creation of the states of Chattisgarh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand—states created by carving out certain parts of the states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively. The demand of Gorkhaland led to sudden appearance of new outfits like JANACHETANA (people’s consciousness), JANA JAGARAN (people’s awakening), and BANGLA O’ BANGABHASA BACHAO SAMITI (save Bengal and Bengali language) who brand the Nepalis in Darjeeling and adjacent areas as illegal immigrants and demand the cancellation of the Indo-Nepal Agreement of 1950. In turn the Nepalis call the Bengalis illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Thus an inter ethnic tension and anti-Nepali hysteria prevails in North Bengal at present.

A further complication has arisen from the fact that leaders of the Nepali speaking parties demand inclusion of areas like Tarai and Duars (sub Himalayan tracts) in Gorkhaland where the population is mixed and the Nepali speaking people do not constitute a majority. The tribal population has reacted against it by forming an organization called Adivasi Vikash Parishad (Tribal’s Development Council). It is also challenging Bengali chauvinism by demanding Hindi medium schools and colleges, a long felt need in the region. None of the parties claiming to be left has proved capable of facing these challenges as their approach is narrow minded and determined by electoral considerations, not on principles.

Trotskyist movement in India was destroyed by impatience of leadership and get rich quick tactics. The parties they entered into were well experienced in entryism. They (the Stalinists and Social Democrats) had worked for not less than fourteen years in the Congress and recruited their cadres there and they were not going to permit the entrants freedom to work as a group inside their parties. The Indian Trotskyists ruined their base hopelessly as they allowed their trade unionists to enter rival organization which meant surrendering all they had gained to their class enemies beyond hope of recovery. They repeated the mistake again when RWP [Revolutionary Workers Party] merged with RCPI [Revolutionary Communist Party of India]. So at the risk of sounding dogmatic, I dare say patience and “no entryism” are going to be the first two guiding principles of Trotskyist movement in India. More later.

Revolutionary greetings,
Fraternally,
Upendranath Roy
West Bengal, India