From resistance
march ahead towards revolutionary change!
Issued on
29th December 2012
Sisters!
Comrades!
The courageous girl who had been bravely battling for
life for the past 14 days breathed her last on 29th December. The
spontaneous anger of people, especially youth, burst on streets once this
incident came to light. Thousands of people have expressed their anger by
gathering and uniting at Jantar Mantar and India Gate in Delhi. Undoubtedly,
this anger had been cumulating in our heads for a long time now. What this
incident did was to spill out the already over brimming cup of our patience and
consequently most of us took to streets. The Sheela Dikshit government in Delhi
as well as the Union government has now assumed a defensive stance. Throughout
the country, the demand for death penalty for rape is being put forth. However,
the truth is that the rapists easily get away in 74 percent rape cases.
Therefore, in the first place, it must be ensured that at the very least, the
rapists are convicted as well as punished. And secondly, the issue of
punishment comes later; the most pertinent question is to understand as to why
incidents of rape are increasing by the day and what forces are responsible for
this trend?
Since 16th December, right from the
government to all opposition electoral parties have shed crocodile tears over
the incident. However, these are the same parties who gave tickets to 286 men
charged with crimes against women in the last Lok Sabha elections. BJP leader
Sushma Swaraj had already declared the victim of this heinous act as a 'living
corpse' even before she died! But just yesterday, a girl was raped in a BJP
MLA’s office in Balaghat, Madhya Pradesh. Every electoral party can pride itself
in having criminals charged with rape, corruption, murder and so on. However,
now members of these same criminal electoral parties are discussing amongst
themselves about strengthening the provisions of law against rape, installation
of CCTV cameras in public transport, or tightening of security as the only
solutions for this problem. Clearly, to expect any safety, justice or equality
from them in the first place itself would be foolishness. However what needs to
be thought over is whether rape or for that matter any other anti-women crime is
merely a law and order or safety problem? Why do crimes against women happen in
such large numbers at all? Definitely, for a heinous crime like rape, the
punishment should be extremely strict and harsh. Especially In this case, the
guilty should be immediately as well as strictly punished by setting up a fast
track court. Conviction rates in anti-women crimes are very low already.
Therefore, in all such cases, fast track courts must be set up and perpetrators
be punished swiftly and strictly. This is because, in such crimes the psyche of
easily getting away is always playing at the back of the perpetrators' minds.
However, even after repeated calls for death penalty for rapes in wake of the
16th December episode, have the incidents of rapes come to a halt? On the
contrary, incidents of rapes have been reported almost daily from different
parts of the country repeatedly since then.
Friends, in our opinion there are three major reasons
responsible for the ever-increasing rise in the crimes against women. Post 1990,
as a consequence of the new economic policies of liberalisation-privatisation, a
neo-rich class completely immersed in the culture of “Eat-Drink-Enjoy” has come
into existence. This new class believes that it can do anything and everything
with the power of money. This same small class, blinded by money, harbours the
mentality of consuming the 'commodity' called woman whose commodification has
already been effected by the decadent capitalist culture. To a large extent,
this new class is responsible for crimes against women. On the other hand, a
lumpen degenerate petty class, too, has come into existence which has crossed all limits of the capitalist
dehumanization, as is evident from the barbarity of the 16th December
incident. The third reason has been present for a long time and that is the
patriarchical mentality which permeates every single bit of our society. It
considers women as an object to be had and an instrument to procreate children
(that is to say, sons!), and thus, reinforces the anti-women psychology every
second.
Friends, today, it won’t be enough to vent out our
anger, hatred or frustration. Along with asking for women’s safety, safe public
transport system with CCTV & GPS system in buses on an urgent basis, we will
have to understand that this problem would not be completely resolved through
patchwork. Along with these demands for immediate reforms, we must start the
long battle for uprooting the entire social-political-economic structure that
has turned human beings into commodities; where for the profit of a few, this
exploitative system does not even hesitate to sell out in the markets, flesh of
common toiling masses, women, children, dalits, and tribals; and where children
and women are sacrificed on the altar of the lust of the neo-rich class. If you
are asking for anything less than this, then believe us, you won’t get anything.
Therefore, we will have to offer a revolutionary alternative to this plundering
system which is essentially anti-women, anti-worker, repressive and
exploitative. However, this alternative cannot be achieved through any electoral
party (not even if it calls itself a party of 'Aam Aadmi'!) but a new
revolutionary organization and a revolutionary movement. To build such a system,
we will have to gear ourselves from today itself. Only protests won’t help. A
revolutionary ideology and a revolutionary organization are needed to march
ahead towards revolution! And to understand such an ideology and build such a
revolutionary alternative, youth, especially young women will have to come
forward because women are victims of dual slavery: of capitalism and of
patriarchy!
However, until such a system is built, we cannot sit
idle. We will have to fight for our rights in our day-to-day lives; struggle for
immediate reforms; take to streets to reclaim our dignity and rights! But
sisters and comrades! For this too we will have to unite in organizations,
otherwise this immediate upsurge will subside once our anger gets expressed and
nothing will change. Therefore, throw the electoral politics into the
garbage-bin! However, do not be prejudiced towards politics itself. As opposed
to electoral politics, build your own alternative of revolutionary politics. We
hereby call upon all our sisters and comrades to come forward to build a
revolutionary alternative and revolutionary organization. Come, lets give a
direction to our protests. Come, lets not merely vent out our anger and
frustration, rather, choke this entire exploitative, anti-worker, anti-women,
anti-Dalit, misanthropic system itself, through our unity and organization;
come, lets move ahead towards building a new socio-economic and political
system!
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