On this May Day, the International Day of Working Class Solidarity,
CITU
Warmly greets the workers and all toiling people in the world, who have been fighting to protect and to regain their hard won rights and benefits under severe attacks by the big capitalists and their agents in governance
Welcomes the increasing urge for unionisation among the working class worldwide, particularly the young workers and the surge in global working class struggles including in the USA, the bastion of capitalism
On this May Day
CITU notes the commendable way the socialist countries – China, Vietnam, Cuba, North Korea and Laos, which are committed to the welfare of their people and have strong public health infrastructure – addressed the pandemic and protected the lives and livelihoods of their people. In stark contrast, millions of people lost their lives to the pandemic in advanced capitalist countries including the USA, where corporate profits are the governments’ priority, and public health infrastructure is nominal, despite having the scientific and technological wherewithal to deal with the pandemic. It was mostly the workers and the poor, who could not access private health care, who died
Not only that. Governments in several capitalist countries, including in our country India, have utilised the pandemic to mount attacks on the lives and livelihood of the toiling people and on the hard won rights of the working class including their right to organisation and collective actions, by amending the labour laws and various other restrictive/repressive measures and prohibitory means. They have tried to push through the neoliberal policies to enable amassing of wealth by the few big corporates. As a result, working conditions have deteriorated. Wages have come down. Inequalities have widened hugely during this period. Poverty and hunger have increased globally. During the same time, in total contrast, socialist China has achieved total eradication of poverty ahead of the targeted year of 2030.
The Covid pandemic has glaringly exposed the difference between the people centric socialist system and the profit centric capitalist system.
On this May Day, CITU greets the people of the socialist countries and stands with them in their fight to protect the socialist system in their countries. It stands with the people of Palestine fighting for their Mother Land and against the inhuman Israeli attacks killing innocent and unarmed people including women and children, with the support of the USA
On this May Day
CITU strongly denounces the imperialist wars and military interventions in different parts of the world, triggered by the USA and other imperialist countries, to gain control over the oil, gas, mineral and other natural resources, over maritime routes for transporting goods and establish US hegemony. Despite its declining economic power, USA is using its political influence and military might to retain, rather further expand its global hegemony. It continues to interfere in different countries to displace democratically elected and pro people governments and establish its stooges and right wing governments that kowtow to its diktats. In this direction, USA is making expansionist and hegemonic bid to establish imperialist blocks under its leadership. It has been consistently seeking to cultivate and provoke a situation of conflicts including armed conflicts in different parts of the world through economic, political and even militarist manipulation. The war with Ukraine as the theatre is the most recent manifestation of such barbarous imperialist designs.
CITU expresses its happiness that increasing numbers of people are joining the struggles against neoliberalism and US imperialist interventions in many countries, particularly in Latin America. The working class has been playing an active role in these struggles, which in several countries, have resulted in progressive and pro people governments coming to power. CITU hopes that these governments will abandon the discredited neoliberal policies and implement policies that place people’s interests and welfare in the forefront, mobilising people’s support to ward off threats from international finance and imperialist forces. Heightening anti-imperialist consciousness among the working class is integral to united struggles against neoliberal exploitative order and in defence of its rights and livelihood. On this May Day, CITU reiterates its resolve to further heighten and deepen such consciousness.
On this May Day
CITU congratulates the working class of India for the magnificent country wide general strike on March 28-29 this year, overcoming innumerable difficulties including State repression, victimisation by the employers, authoritarian interventions by the government through UAPA, ESMA, EDSA etc and prohibitory interventions by judiciary etc. It is highly significant that the joint trade union movement has not only raised the demands of the workers, but of all sections of the toiling people including the peasants, agricultural workers and the common people. The strike was also to oppose the destructive policies of the Modi led BJP government to undermine and debilitate the manufacturing capability of our country and its self reliance while at the same misleading the people with the dubious slogan of ‘Atmanirbharta’. The Modi government is handing over our natural resources, land, mineral resources, water bodies, forests, infrastructural systems and assets and the public sector built with people’s money – the entire wealth of our country – to its corporate cronies, domestic and foreign. Privatisation, the National Monetisation Pipeline and Land Monetisation Corporation are all meant for this transfer of public wealth into private hands.
CITU salutes the crores of workers who joined the strike that was held with the clarion call to ‘Save the Nation and Save the People’. The strike received tremendous support of the common people and its impact was seen in the rural areas in several states as well.
CITU expresses its gratitude to the millions of peasants, agricultural workers, women, youth, students, and all sections of progressive people who have extended solidarity and supported the strike in various ways including through physical participation in the protest demonstrations, rail and road blockades etc
CITU notes with appreciation and enthusiasm the growing united actions of the workers, peasants and agricultural workers, the basic classes producing the wealth of our society. It asserts the need to further deepen and strengthen this unity and take it up to the grassroots level – up to the villages and mohallas. CITU commits itself to take initiative to develop powerful joint struggles of the workers, peasants and agricultural workers on their common demands, which it believes will bolster such unity and also help in strengthening democratic movement of the toiling people.
On this May Day
CITU reiterates its determination to continue its efforts with renewed energy to heighten joint struggles of workers to defeat the neoliberal policies to the level of defiance and resistance. It will strengthen the struggle for alternative pro worker and pro people policies. This strike, as the many earlier general and sectoral strikes, has taught us that the workers, irrespective of their many difficulties and hardships, are ready to fight, are ready to make sacrifices, if they are approached and reached; if the issues and demands are explained to them; if they are made aware of the link between their day to day issues and the policies of the government. On this May Day, CITU calls upon all its cadres, members and activists to take this task with due urgency and seriousness and prepare the working class for more powerful united struggles.
On this May Day
CITU pledges to protect with all its might the unity of our people under attack by the Hindutva ideology, a political project of the RSS and its various wings including the BJP, which utilises religious faith and beliefs of the Hindus to polarise society for their electoral gains. CITU reminds the people of our country that ‘Hindutva’ as defined by its proponent Savarkar himself is a political project and has nothing to do with the Hindu religion. CITU strongly condemns the attempts by the RSS and its various outfits to polarise society on the basis of religion, caste, region, language, etc. Every occasion, every festival of people of any faith, Hindu, Muslim, Christian etc, is being utilised to create tensions and riotous situation between different communities and spread animosity. Occasions are being created to achieve this heinous objective, as in the issues of hijab, halal meat, azan, space for Muslim traders to set up shops near temples, serving or eating meat on occasions like Ram navami etc.
Muslims and dalits are being attacked and killed by the cow vigilante groups under the pretext of gauraksha. Conscious efforts are being made with the active involvement of the BJP and RSS leaders to normalise, rather legitimise discrimination against women, dalits etc and define their places in society today, as per the manusmriti. Violence on women, rape and murder of children, attacks and murders on couples opting for inter caste marriages, particularly involving dalit boys, have increased.
CITU strongly opposes the consistent attempts by the Modi led BJP government to destroy the secular foundation of our Republic to fulfil the RSS project of establishing a ‘Hindu Rashtra’ guided by the manusmriti, in place of our Constitution adopted by We, the People. The CAA passed by the Modi government despite strong opposition, introduces religion as a criterion for citizenship and makes the Muslim minorities second class citizens in their own country, the country in which they were born and brought up.
On this May Day
CITU reiterates its strong condemnation at the BJP government’s attempts to suppress voices of dissent and opposition to its policies by unscrupulous and unlawful means including by using not only draconian laws like UAPA, NSA etc but all the different wings
of the State machinery and its administration. Intellectuals, journalists, human rights activists, trade union and other activists opposing government policies are being jailed without bail. Media, both visual and electronic is sought to be kept under tight leash. While godi media is promoted, independent minded journalists reporting facts are harassed. Democratic rights are under severe attack so much so that India under Modi’s rule is now termed as ‘electoral autocracy’, no more a liberal democracy.
Elections, with the huge spending of money by the ruling party BJP collected from its corporate donors, are made into a mockery. BJP has reportedly received overwhelmingly large portion of the donations through the opaque electoral bonds. It is clear that the big corporates prefer the BJP for its willingness and ability to fully utilise its power in government to serve their interests.
CITU asserts that such support to and promotion of right wing forces like the BJP in our country, by the capitalist class is its response to the systemic crisis of capitalism, to prevent rise of the Left, which fights for alternative pro people policies gaining from people’s anger against the neoliberal policies. It is meant to marginalise the Left. Right wing forces are not opposed to neoliberalism but utilise people’s anger against neoliberalism and seek to divert this anger against the ‘other’ – belonging to a different religion, or caste, or region, or gender or language, and thus divide people, disrupt their unity and weaken united struggles. They are ready to suppress popular struggles and any opposition through authoritarian and fascistic measures and use of force.
On this May Day,
CITU calls upon the working class of our country to understand this comprehensive onslaught by the capitalist classes facing systemic crisis from which they are not in a position to come out without mounting attacks and pouring burdens on the people. They cannot safeguard their profits and their wealth without suppressing people’s struggles with the help of right wing authoritarian governments, which deploy poisonous communal divisive machinations on society. The working class has to forge its counter attacks with this comprehensive understanding about the bankruptcy of the capitalist system
On this May Day
That marks the beginning of the centenary year of the first May Day celebration in our country when Comrade M Singaravelu hoisted the red flag in 1923 in the then Madras.
Let us pledge to strengthen our unity, the unity of the entire working class, the unity with the peasantry, the unity with all sections of toiling people and progressive sections of society, by defeating the machinations of the divisive forces
Let us vow to intensify united struggles on our sectoral demands, on our common demands and against neoliberalism, the root cause of the present miseries of the toiling people across the world
Let us declare that we will take united struggles to a higher level to expose the failures of the capitalist system and its inability to satisfy the basic needs of the workers and all toiling people who produce global wealth, which today exists in adequate measures to meet all basic needs of the people – food, health, education, housing etc, but is cornered by a handful of the super rich
Let us prepare for the fight for alternative pro people policies
Long Live May Day
Long Live Working Class Solidarity
Long Live Worker Peasant Alliance
Long Live Socialism
Down With Capitalism
