ifestos give way to mass violence India is in danger of being trapped in the continuing downward spiral of murderous communal violence and political instablity. In a country of 850 million folk, questions of nationality, religion and caste are inevitably entwined with political and economic questions, reports OLIVER NEW.
The Indian bourgeoisie has in recent years been trying with some success to break into and develop overseas markets. It has done so in collaboration with foreign capital, and its attempts to become the regional policeman -especially in Sri Lanka - have by and large met with imperialist approval.
However the development of national Hindu chauvinism has tied in with these projects, and although an insistence on secularism and democracy is necessary for stability, in recent years politicians have started to play the communal card more frequently and more blatantly.
The rise of the anti-Muslim Bharatiya Janata Party - BJP — as a major national force highlights the threat of growing reaction, but just as serious are the concessions made to communalism by ostensibly secular local and national parties and politicians. Equally serious are the tensions between Delhi and many Indian states which have been gathering momentum during the last few years, partly because of uneven economic development. Class and caste conflict have been developed and coloured by these problems, to help create an increasingly volatile mixture.
Recent events have led to thousands of people being slaughtered in riots which raise uneasy memories of partition in 1947. It is the underdog communities such as the Muslims or the Harijans ('untouchables") who are the usual victims. During a single week in December the traditionally tolerant university town of Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh saw 90 murdered and hundreds more treated for knife and axe wounds or bums arising from arson. AlSOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 30. February 1991
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Gandhi and Singh: neither have room for manoeuvre most a hundred died in Hyderabad in Andhra Pradesh.
According to Indiamail, although this old city had suffered from disturbances in the past, they were "never on the scale they are today, never so organised in the murders, never so gruesome, with women and children mown down or cut to pieces."
Gujarat, Rajasthan, Bihar and other states have all suffered from the tide of violence. On top of this, struggles for autonomy in Kashmir, Pun