CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Press Release
September 21, 2012
Demand immediate roll back of the decision to allow FDI in Retail,
Civil Aviation,
Power & Broadcasting Sectors
Do not let the lackey Indian ruling classes and the running dogs of
imperialists
in the Parliament to sell our country’s sovereignty to the FDI
Giants
The Central government took a Cabinet decision on
September 14 to allow 51% FDI (Foreign Direct Investments) in Multi-Brand Retail
and facilitating more than 51% in Single Brand Retail, 49% in Civil Aviation,
49% in Power Exchanges and 49 to 74% in Broadcasting sector including DTH and in
spite of huge opposition issued a notification on September 20th that
would immediately bring this into effect. Now foreign investors can invest in and
open retail shops in ten states and Union Territories and the other states can
take the decision as to allow it or not. The statutory warning issued in
‘national interests’ on the package says : More FDI in all sectors to come, New
Economic Policies of 1991 were the rehearsals, this is the Grand Opening to the
beginning of the end of our country, Revolting would be injurious to health. Adding salt to injury, the price of diesel per
litre was increased to 5 rupees and the number of subsidized cooking gas
cylinders per family was reduced to a meager six per year.
The opposition parties called for a bandh on September 20 opposing these
decisions but going by their past record of vying with each other for the rapid
implementation of pro-imperialist policies in the states where they had been or
at present in power, one can easily deduce that they are just reenacting the
drama of November 2011 of namesake opposition and this whole bunch of gangsters
going by the name of UPA and opposition parties are one of the same piece.
After these lackeys finish playing their part in this reeking parliamentary
farce, the FDI would make its grand imperial front door entry on to the red
carpet rolled by the comprador Indian ruling classes, crushing crores of small
retail traders and peasants under its iron heels all along its trail to the
nook and corners of the country. Sovereignty is just a small price to pay and
the number of suicides of small retailers and farmers that would dramatically
increase would be the collateral damage that has to be borne to usher in ‘economic
growth’ via FDI.
There is a condition that it is up to the state
governments whether to implement the FDI decision or not, so the Congress led
governments would anyway implement it in their states. While Akali Dal had
unashamedly stated that it is for this decision, even the other parties would
follow suit through the back door as they are also nothing but comprador
parties that had been bending over backwards to fulfill the interests of the
imperialist MNCs in their states till date and in every sphere. Trinamool
Congress announced its decision to withdraw from the UPA-2 with much reluctance
just to save its face and has been indicating that it would give support if the
government makes some concessions in these decisions like bringing back the
price of diesel per litre to three or four rupees, increasing the number of
cooking gas cylinders and may be reducing some percentage of FDI in the
multi-brand retail business. Hillary Clinton had already paid a visit to Mamta
Banerji precisely on the FDI issue last year and one need not be surprised when
she rolls the red carpet to FDI in retail in her state. It is just of matter of
timing keeping in view ‘grave’ concerns such as elections, clinging to power
etc. Mulayam’s statement that he would
not withdraw support to UPA on the FDI issue as his party does not want
the communal forces to go ahead is a white lie. None of these vassals of the
Delhi Sarkar have a backbone or any concern for the nearly 4 to 5 crore small
retailers (and the 15 to 20 crores of people dependent on them) who would lose
their livelihood to the FDI giants. It should be seriously noted that not a
single one of them including the revisionist CPI and CPI (M) are totally rejecting
the decision to bring in FDI or demanding its complete withdrawal which is
proof of their connivance. Their so-called opposition, namesake bandh calls or dharnas are just for more sops for their state which they can
guzzle or to loosen the leashes of the umpteen numbers of corruption and
scandal cases worth crores of rupees that are in the hands of the central
government.
What increase in job opportunities due to entry of FDI
is the professional liar PM talking about while the World of Work 2011 report
is projecting a bleak future for employment prospects and a global survey of
150 countries is stating that socio-economic insecurity has heightened across
the world? The entire record of retail giants like Wal-Mart or a Tesco all over
the world including US shows that they had reaped massive unemployment and
underemployment wherever they were sowed. A single Wal-Mart store could crush
13,000 small retail stores and take away 4,000 jobs. Behind every job generated
there would be at least be 20 lost jobs. Count the number of persons in a
family who depend on the income of a single job in a backward country like
India and the picture that would emerge is not rosy as the PM projects but
bloody. And most of the few jobs that they generate are non-guaranteed, low-paid,
back-breaking insecure temporary sweatshop jobs and violate all the hard-won
labor rights and laws. The heads of every government in Europe and other
imperialist countries including US are holding their heads as to how to tackle
the problem of unemployment and the ensuing and intensifying protests against
their economic policies and all the MNC vultures that are perching in India now
were born and brought up in these countries. How are they going to shower jobs
on us when they failed miserably in their own countries to create jobs? Does
the PM, the ‘Art of Lying’ Guru, think we have forgotten how Obama who came
with his entourage to India to sign business deals went back to US touting how
he got more jobs for US citizens? Why is he globetrotting for jobs for his citizens
when he has MNC giants like Wal-Marts, Tescos, Carrefours and Metros in his own
country that could shower jobs? Why doesn’t the PM first ask his bosses in US
to stop the crashing of their monopoly giants one after another in spite of any
number of bailouts before trying to ‘bring us out of our difficult times’ by bringing
in similar monopoly giants?
The PM saying that it would help the farmers in making
profits by doing away with the middlemen is a cruel joke. The retail giants
would not only dictate what is to be produced, which seeds are be sown, which
pesticides and fertilizers are to be used – in a word every aspect of
production, but would also drastically reduce the profit margin of the farmers once
they gain the upper hand in the market. They would force the farmers to produce
a single variety that would not only hit hard the livelihood of the farmers who
would now be forced to buy everything at exorbitant prices in the market but
would also make the lands barren not to mention the enormous harm to the ecology.
The final result would be that the small and middle farmers would not be able
to meet the demands of these giants with agriculture increasingly becoming a
loss making prospect. They would be forced to sell their lands to corporate
farming and becoming paupers. All this would exacerbate the already looming
large agrarian crisis in our country leading to more suicides and unrest among
the farmers. Even the condition that these outlets should buy 30% local
products is a big sham as there is no single mechanism in our country that
would monitor the buying and selling done by these shops. Kickbacks would
prevent the formation such mechanisms in future or the overarching WTO would
take care of the violation or the creation of exceptions to the rule.
But yes, the PM is right on one count. This would do
away with the lakhs of small and big middlemen who have been a part of the huge
complex chain between the producer and the consumer making a living or even
been making some profits. Whether we call them middlemen or something else
innumerable persons are needed in the intricate process of taking the product to the consumer. The
question is who would take their place and who would now be pocketing their
‘lost profits’? Certainly not the farmers. Not even the consumers as the prices
of commodities would skyrocket once the FDI giants gain the market not to
mention the fact that from now on what and all they should consume (eat, drink,
wear, see, hear et all) would be decided by the MNCs. (It is a given fact that
even now the prices in these outlets are no less anywhere in the world). It
would be the Big Middlemen in the Parliament and state assemblies who are
behaving like impatient traders in hurry to sell our country for peanuts to the
MNCs and pocket the kickbacks. The biggest profits inside the country would go
to the CBB who had already tied and would be tying their capital to the MNCs in
retail trade and other private enterprises. With the whole world going the
monopoly way wouldn’t it be better if the business of middlemen also gets
monopolized by these Dons and the pickpockets and petty thieves are done away?
After all, India is on its way to becoming a Super Power courtesy US.
The FM Chidambaram, obviously called back into the job
by his US masters to ‘efficiently’ and ‘obediently’ implement such ‘economic
reforms’, had expressed confidence that he would get 30,000 crores of rupees
from disinvestment and check the fiscal deficit that has been cited by the PM
as the monster that has to be tackled by bringing in FDI. Why just 30,000
crores? Let us think BIG. How about disinvesting the Scam Industry that has
become the most profitable Public Sector making billions of rupees in the
professional hands of our honorable ministers or even just canceling the IPL
season once? Ok, we Indians are not ambitious, how about disinvesting just the
2G scam (Rs. 1,75,000 crores) or a slightly bigger and recent coal block
allotment scam (Rs. 2 lakh crores)? How
about bringing back not even the entire but at least a quarter of the 80 lakh
crores of rupees that are stashed away in foreign banks (according to one
estimate) or seizing the profits of mining kings like the Gali brothers and
Jaganmohan Reddy not permanently but for just one year so that ‘as PM of this great
country’ Mr. Singh can provide health, education, housing and jobs and avoid
the forceful feeding of FDI poison that he wants us to swallow for this sake? How
about asking the CBB families like Jindals and Mittals to restrict usage of
cooking gas cylinders from one cylinder a day to one cylinder a month at least
for two years to overcome the present ‘cylinder crisis’ or putting a ban on
spending crores of rupees unproductively on building demoniac eye sores like
the Antilla and diverting such funds to constructing warehouses, cold storage
facilities etc which the PM is saying we can construct only with FDI panacea?
The PM is saying that bringing in FDI is needed to
come out of the difficult times our economy is facing and that it would serve ‘national
interests’ by making India an attractive destination for foreign investments.
Where is the need for FDI when our beloved country India has some of the
richest natural resources in the world and its human resources are not only
second largest in the world but also one with vast potential? There would be no
fiscal deficit or any difficult times (economic crisis) if only these resources
are freed from the clutches and exploitation of the big landlords, the
comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie (CBB) and their imperialist masters and the
people of this country are allowed to utilize them for the country’s
development.
The need of the hour is not
disinvestment but divestment of the powers of the gangsters in the Parliament
(who are actually ‘illegally’ in power as they do not even have a quarter of
the electorate’s mandate and do not have any moral right or credentials to
decide the fate of crores of our people) representing the Indian ruling classes
to make decisions that impact in the most pernicious manner the lives and
livelihoods of the more than hundred and ten crore population of our country
the overwhelming majority of whom are workers, poor peasants, urban toilers and
middle classes.
It is the imperialists who
need our country’s rich resources to come out of the financial crisis that has
engulfed them since 2008 and not us who need foreign investments to overcome
difficult times.
Our difficult times are due
to the exploitation of big land lords, CBB and the placing the sovereignty of
our country by these ruling classes at the feet of the imperialists allowing
them to loot us lock, stock and barrel and not due to our country not being an
attractive destination for FDI.
Beloved
people of India! Democrats and Patriots!
Out rightly reject and expose the upside down
arguments put forward by the Sonia-Manmohan-Pranab-Chidambaram-Ahluwalia-Rangarajan
clique to bring in FDI. Demand the immediate roll back of the decision to allow
FDI into Retail and other sectors. Expose the sham and namesake opposition of the
opposition parties most of who have long been engaged in back door parleys to
implement this decision in their states. The decision to bring in FDI in retail
is not some routine decision but could turn out to be the single biggest
neo-liberal economic decision of the government that would negatively impact
the lives of majority of people in our country. Allowing this would rapidly
pave the way for rapidly turning our country which is already facing neck-deep
neo-colonial exploitation, plunder and control into a slave country. Not a
single aspect our lives or any sector would be left untouched by this decision
as every aspect in our life is increasingly getting linked with the market. Realize
the dangers this decision is posing to our country and us and fight it back
tooth and nail. Let the true patriots rise to preserve the sovereignty of our
country from the greedy hands of the imperialist looting monsters.
(Abhay)
Spokesperson,
Central Committee, CPI (Maoist)
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