People's Democracy

THE decision of the Taliban rulers in Afghanistan to destroy all pre-Islamic statues and other monuments in the country reflects unadulterated inhuman barbarism. As we go to press, reports indicate that the magnificent standing Buddhas, the tallest being nearly 180 feet high, have been destroyed with the aid of modern weaponry, including anti-aircraft guns.

Afghanistan has had a Muslim population for the last millennium or so. But it has a history that dates back many millennia earlier. Strategically located on the ancient trade routes, modern-day Afghanistan was a centre for cultural and civilisational admixtures. The rich valley of Bamiyan, at the foothills of the Hindukush range, was a famed Buddhist centre with a large number of caves with frescos reportedly more wondrous than our Ajanta and Ellora.

This action has so outraged the world community that it has drawn universal condemnation. Many Islamic countries and organisations have rightly condemned this shameful action as having no religious sanction of Islam. Such destruction cannot erase Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic civilisation. All it does is to show the depths of barbarity to which religious fundamentalism can sink.

Those who resorted to similar actions in India by destroying the Babri Masjid have no right whatsoever, especially moral authority, to condemn the Taliban with any credibility. The hollowness of Mr Vajpayee is striking. While justifying the wanton destruction of the Babri Masjid as a reflection of so-called "national sentiment," Mr Vajpayee cannot with any credibility, moral or otherwise, condemn the Taliban fundamentalists for invoking their version of "national sentiment." Fundamentalism of all varieties is equally inhuman and terroristic. The obnoxiously provocative reactions of the Hindu fundamentalist communal organisations like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal over these incidents in Afghanistan confirm the fact that Islamic fundamentalism and Hindu communalism feed on each other.

The point at issue is not a mere condemnation of the Taliban. The point is to stop this madness in Afghanistan. Mere appeals by world bodies and heads of nations have fallen on deaf ears so far. The Taliban have been a creation of the USA working in tandem with Pakistan. During the Cold War, USA and its CIA actively encouraged fundamentalists to wage war against the Soviet-supported modern regime in Afghanistan. This is confirmed by no less than a person than Mr Selig Harrison, a name also known in India in connection with the CIA’s interest in Assam and North East. He claims that the CIA provided 3 billion dollars for building and arming the fundamentalist groups and accepted Pakistan’s leadership in conducting the operations against the then Afghanistan government. US imperialism and its surrogate Pakistan are directly guilty of inflicting the Taliban on humanity.

Given this, it is incumbent on both the USA and Pakistan to accept the disservice they have done to humanity and to recognise their responsibility in controlling this Frankenstein that is their creation. The Taliban monster must be stopped in its tracks. The power of the people must prevail to ensure that such fundamentalists, of all colours and hues, are shunned and given no respectability and support. That is the only way to eliminate the menace of such madness.

THE struggle against the privatisation of the Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) has not ended with the vote in the Lok Sabha. The entire workforce of over 7,000 has been on an indefinite strike in protest against this privatisation. The Chhattisgarh state government and the chief minister have rightly refused to renew the lease of the tribal lands to the private company. The rights of the tribal population to its land is protected by the Indian constitution. Its alienation to private companies in pursuit of their profits cannot be permitted. All judicial cases against such a move are now pending before the Supreme Court. The Vajpayee government, in indecent hurry to clinch this dubious deal, does not even wait for the judicial process to be over.

The vote in the parliament which bailed out the Vajpayee government essentially reflected the crass opportunism of the NDA allies like TDP and Shiv Sena. Till a day earlier, these parties were crying foul and hurling charges of huge amounts of corruption. Yet, the next day, they meekly surrendered, leaving themselves open to charges of being incorporated as accomplices in the deal. This apart, it is clear that on every contentious issue, whether it is the pursuance of the communal agenda of the BJP or the public loot of national assets, these allies in the NDA have virtually abdicated their independent position and are content to play second fiddle in return for the spoils of office. There is little left to distinguish them from the BJP.

The Vajpayee government’s claim, buttressed shamelessly by the media, that the parliament has sanctioned the sale of BALCO is misleading, to say the least. It needs to be recollected that the parliament, at one time, sanctioned the Bofors deal. In fact, the joint parliamentary committee had even exonerated the then Rajiv Gandhi government. Yet the whole country knows that there was a deal and the criminal/legal proceedings are still continuing. Decisions of unscrupulous numbers in the parliament can never sanction the naked loot of the country’s assets.

Privatisation, per se, is against the interests of our country and its people. The privatisation of BALCO, however, stinks of a massive scam. Even if the Lok Sabha had permitted such a scam, the Indian people, particularly the working class, as we can see at BALCO today, will mount the resistance against such a loot of India.