[Reader-list] Kashmiri-intifada

[A. Mani]

See http://www.marxist.com/kashmiri-intifada.htm


The site is of course completely Trotskyist, but the article should be
of some interest.

Excerpt
"Time and again the masses of Kashmir, and specially the youth, have
been crushed by state repression but the movement keeps on erupting.
However, the present movement is in the hands of a different and a new
generation (which was raised in the violent period) and instead of
emotional slogans and metaphysical ideologies it is based on the firm
realities of deprivation with clear economic and social demands. The
rulers of India cannot therefore label it as being sponsored by
Pakistan or Islamic fundamentalism.
.........

The character of the movement shows that there is growing
radicalisation in Kashmiri society and particularly among the youth,
and the distrust in religious and so called nationalist parties is
proof that this radicalisation is clearly going towards the left. The
CPI(M) which has some basis in Kashmir if not vast support, but it
needs to provide a clear programme of revolutionary socialism that
would inevitably connect with the aspirations of this movement and
transform the whole dimension of the conflict in Kashmir on both sides
of the ‘line of control’. If the central leadership of CPI(M) instead
of following the policy of bourgeois Indian nationalism and the
so-called “national democratic revolution” based on the two-stage
theory, were to adopt a clear Leninist class policy on the national
question by providing solutions to all the problems, including that of
national liberation, linked to a socialist revolution and unite the
struggle in Kashmir with the class struggle of the Indian proletariat,
the state would face a formidable challenge that it would not be able
to confront and would be forced to withdraw its armed forces and end
these brutalities. Such a victory would open up the floodgates of a
revolutionary upheaval throughout the South Asian subcontinent. The
compromising policies of the left parties’ central leadership have
crippled the CPIM in Kashmir and it has thus failed to gain the
support among the youth which it could easily have won.

..............

This will also have a revolutionary impact in Pakistani Occupied
Kashmir where the Marxist forces are already growing and gaining
popular support. The JKNSF has gained a mass basis amongst the youth
on a revolutionary programme and with the slogan, “Freedom is our aim,
Socialism is our destiny”.


However, a socialist revolution in Kashmir cannot remain confined to
its borders; in fact it is very difficult to carry out a socialist
revolution within Kashmir alone without the class solidarity and
active participation of the working masses of Pakistan and India and
even if a revolution were to be victorious it could not be sustained
for long the capitalist imperialist states of India and Pakistan
remain intact. But the situation is changing not only in Kashmir;
there are new revolutionary storms that impend across the horizon,
across the whole of the subcontinent. The conditions for social
upheaval and militant class struggle are being created everywhere."





Best

A. Mani





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A. Mani
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http://www.logicamani.co.cc