People's Democracy

A SECOND independence struggle to defend our hard won freedom from the imperialist machinations of globalisation needs to be launched felt the veteran freedom fighter and Captain in the Indian National Army (INA) Captain Lakshmi Sehgal.

She gave this call while inaugurating the national seminar on the "World of EMS", at Ganga Auditorium, Kottakkal in Malappuram district on June 13, 2001 on the occasion of 92^nd birth anniversary of comrade EMS Namboodiripad. Padmasree Dr P K Varier presided over the seminar.

Saying that globalization is the new tactic adopted by imperialism to destroy national independence everywhere, she said it is high time that a vigorous struggle to defend our freedom is launched by galvanising people into a new independence struggle. If we forget this duty, the hard-won independence will be in peril, Lakshmi Sehgal warned the people of the country.

The present struggle will not be a face-to-face struggle as we had waged against the British imperialism of the yonder days. At that time we were aware of the enemy straight; we were also aware of the ways and tactics of the enemy. Today things are different. The enemy has chosen different paths to penetrate into the country. We must be able to convince the people of this danger. The globalization forces do not adopt and operate the same methods and tactics in all places and regions. In India they adopt one method while in Latin America or elsewhere they resort to a further different method. In India they try to establish their hegemony by utilizing the centrifugal tendencies with the help of the caste-communal forces. Captain Lakshmi Sehgal said that she believed the LDF in Kerala was defeated due to this imperialist design.

Our country is in a very dangerous situation. In the national level we see that our national government is surrendering gradually to the imperialist forces. Their hegemony and paramountcy are being established in all spheres of human life in India. It is not easy to defeat them and defend the liberty and sovereignty of the nation. But the lessons the fighters like EMS have rendered us will help us in this struggle.

Dr P K Varier said that the memories of EMS help us to respond to the challenges of the new century. EMS gave us the message and energy to stand united and remain as a nation in spite of the fact that India has a number of nationalities.

The tactics of world capitalism is to non-politicalise everything and globalize it for the use and sake of the global imperialism, said the well-known thinker Professor M N Vijayan in the seminar while he was speaking on "People’s culture - a substitute". Our desires and wills are robbed from us. Instead of these, we are given a set of new desires and wills, which the capitalism wants us to cherish. Thus the space for national feeling is becoming very thin. There may be in the immediate future no national Post Office and no national Railways. This is exactly what globalization is meant for. The trade union of the fascistic parivar itself has come out openly that our prime minister, who is a spokesman of the fascist nationalism, is himself controlled by foreign lobbies. National defense and war and all other sentiments and security for the nation have become tradable things in India. Whatever is referred to as national decisions are not actually national. They are the decisions of the unipolar hegemonic powers that emerged after the end of the cold war. World capitalism makes the whole world a playground for them by their globalization tactics. There is no rule in a game and any game is right, according to them. Tourism is a result of this decision. We foster it to increase the revenues. But the tourist has no national limitation. Capitalism also has no national limitations. In the present state of affairs, nationalism is only a hindrance before the jobseekers in the gulf countries. Capitalism produces ideas for us and these ideas have no national limits. They are beyond frontiers.

Thus Information Technology has become a tragedy for us because they, the capitalists decide what we should see, hear and know. Media become the guides of world capitalism in a similar way that some human guides control the tourists. In these circumstances, we must be able to recapture the life that has been robbed from us by the others, that has been subjected to the intellectual torture by the others. K Damodaran and V T Bhattathiripad wrote and staged plays not for contributing to the theatre and aesthetics, but to improve human life. In this art and culture should be a source of awakening to the modern Indian.

Dr K N Panikkar, the Vice-Chancellor of Sreesankaracharya University of Sanskrit, who addressed the seminar said that the consolidation of the caste-communal forces would cause serious consequences to the existence of the nation. He was speaking on " Caste, religion and electoral politics". In the beginning of this century the caste-religious forces inaugurated the democratic process by a social reform urge. But today they are degenerated into mere caste conglomerations. During the last decade casteism and religious obscurantism have grown enormously in Kerala throwing a real challenge to the forces of democracy. Elections should be the reflections of the social power and democratic sense. Today the social awareness of Kerala reflects an unwarranted sense of compromises. This, of course, maligns the political atmosphere. There is a drain of values in politics. This has destroyed the transparency and purity of modern society. The cultural and political relations of human beings are being ruined to rump and the demonic power of the hegemonic individuals being established. A section of intellectuals, of course, pseudo in all respects, tend to create an impression that communalism and secularism are synonymous. These intellectuals help the reinstatement of a new type of tyranny in the country. Dr Panikkar said that the People’s Plan Programme created a great democratic leap in the country. It captured 'the power to plan for the people' from the hands of the rich and gave it to the people.

P Govinda Pillai said that secularism would not survive if language, culture and rights were not treated equally. He presented a paper on "Minority, Majority Communalism in Election Politics" in the seminar. A situation has arisen in the country in which minorityism also contributes to cultural degeneration. Terrorism and sectarianism has become part and parcel of minority politics. This is not conducive to minority welfare. However this phenomenon is spreading in all parts of the world. This leads to wars and crimes. This is being perpetrated by certain vested interests the world over. One of the fundamental causes for the growth of sectarianism is the concept of democracy that each section holds. The question of minority-majority communalism is an old question, as old as Christianity, even earlier than that. In fact the question should be related to the attainment of equality to all. It originated in this sense also. But the present gives an alarming picture. In the name of religion, whether majority or minority, obscurantism and revivalism of fanaticism have grown everywhere. . This has led to the glorification of human gods who rewards the believers and followers in terms of material benefits. Superstitions follow suit. The pseudo sciences like astrology have attained greater acceptability everywhere including Britain. Religious fundamentalism is fast growing. Talibanisation of different sorts have become the order of the day. Talibanism is nothing but Hitlerism minus a sophisticated military force. Everywhere the political hegemony rests with the majority communalism. The rights of minorities, however, have a meaning. If they are not granted, democracy would not have any meaning.

The CPI(M) central committee member M A Baby said that the left movement in the country should be able to assimilate the changes occurring in the different spheres of life. On the basis of these changes the Left should be able to reform and transform their mode of work and standpoints. Any hesitation in this respect would lead to setbacks in building up the Left movement. The Left in Kerala should, without any delay, comprehend the novel tendencies emanating from the new circumstances and transform them accordingly. The questions of ecology and the problems of women in the modern society should be immediately taken up by the Left movement. The Left should take up the dalit problems if these problems are to be genuinely solved. The dalits have been gradually sidetracked by the bourgeois "liberators and emancipators". Cultural activism is very important in the liberation of man. When political activity is honest and truthful, it becomes a cultural activity. It tends to possess certain values. A grave weakness of present politics is that it lacks in cultural content.

A Vijaya Raghavan MP, E M Sreedharan and Cherian Phillip attended the seminar among others.