The all-India Conference of the Inquilabi Communist Sangathan, Indian section of the Fourth International, meeting at Vadodara February 10-12, expressed grief and solidarity with the victims of the terrible earthquake, which struck the people of Bhuj, Ahmedabad, and many other parts of Gujarat.
The work of the Conference was cut short because comrades were busy with rellef work. The conference issued this statement.
The ordinary people of Gujarat and the rest of the country have sportancousiy rallied round the afflicted people their hour agony. From the moment people heard the news they •They had no faith in the government, which sat on the news for several bours, in Day parade to pass "undisImis same approach has since marked the function. ing of both state and central goverments Because the government did not co-ordinate properly, many local initiatives have been extremely the disaster, the chaos con. linues, for the sovernment has still to organise and coordinate. From the beginning, government of Gujarat bas tried to minimise the scale of actual number of the dead.
While people on their own ing relief, government ministers and VIPs have beer wasting and money costly trips their image while doing nothing concrete. De facto the governments aare abarcaica incit respon sibility in a number of ways. They have appealed to com›anies to adopt villages. They nave made a similar appeal to Non Governmental Oranisations (NGOs).
It firms and NGOs are to adopt villages and rehabilitate the villagers, what is the role of the Gujarat government supposed to be?.
Perhaps the time has come take voluntary redundancy, to down sized. for truly this is onc organisation which is doing nothing, and whose deparLUIS would be tinancially good for the country.
B ut the ggyernment is trying to project an image for itself, by talking about tae neea lo form disaster management committee etc. only by hoping that the public memory is short.
Similar promises were earthquakes - including one a few short months ago - but nothing happened.
Inment is inethetet. This has been made amply clear by the mass media. to its own inability to cope is to try to privatise the work of We oppose the proposal to hand over rehabilitation to indusaney are donors, and they are not Many of the companies are interested in such relief work an image which they can subsequently utilise when 1ssucs ukc industai pollution, anti-worker activities. or other economic charges are brought against them.
If these companies misuse the villages or the territories in the name of rehabilitation, then too they cannot be brought under control, since dury, but a voluntary act We do not consider NGOs in the same way as we look at business, but we oppose the move to hand over villaees to This would absolve the government of all responsibility. All the work of relief and rehabilitation should be tees consisting of governrepresentatives people directly affected by the al dasser and communities, and representatives of people involved the extreme right wing party in relief work. BJP) and its affiliates.
We demand that action be common people, who taken against those promot- see RSS activists bringing ers who had built houses ille. gally, or had violated the others refuse to do so, this housebuilding rules, which may appear a harsh accusascale of the tragedy. Yet we make this statement oppose the vith full understanding. The RSS wants to show how com. mitted to "serving the peos plan to raise ple" it is. a huge sum of disciplined cadres money through a surcharge who will do what their leadon the income tax we do this for thice rea- dead. But are they truly sons. First, such a move is humanitarian? of funding the rehabilitation building exercise. The RSS on working class people.
regret for those who died as a sums result of the mass riots durmoney owed by big business ing navant's Kala Tatra, 0r in unpaid taxes. The govern• after the destruction of the ment should declare that Babri Masjid. T RSS have their taxes should be either expressed pay up immediately or have anything but joy properties taken over in this hour of disaster in the Muslims interests of the people. Christians. Today, also, their Secondly, we oppose the image building exercise plan mobilise funds secks to conceal a grim real"Whenever they have domi.
there is no transparency in how the government utilises this money. support and patronage they Kinds could casily have all the advantages, they be diverted to the nuclear pro- Hindus and non-Hindus, gramme between caste Hindus and unpopular and anti-people aims of the We condemn the mixing up government.
Finally, we oppose the call with the RSS machinery. If for income surcharge the RSS wants to carry out a because as of now, the gov casteist ernment is not even sure of relief policy, it should do so the extent of the disaster. the figures it is mentioning without government supare sheer guesswork. port.
The sovernment is con- It was a great surprise, that cerned about how much all so-called experts absomoney industry is losing, or lutely ignored the human how Western #actors in tois trascoy, It may Railways will lose, but it has be true that carthquakes canfigures for how much not be predicted.
people will lose consesince they. bave been ren- quences of such disasters are dered effectively jobless.
has the government The lack of a proper housannounced any plan to pay ing policy, of a proper longpropic al toch usual disaster management rate of carning till economic policy, or of a proper and social life is restored to tral policy can all belelt. Wel normalley demand a serious, scientific Class conflict, com- and transparent munal and anti-Dalit over the country. have not Appeal died with the dead of Bhui. while any torn clothing and kind of Please send donations to food will do for the working working class aid for those anected by the Guarat Dalits, upper middle class carthquake to: people with cars are getting Ernest Mandel Memorial priority for relief. Fund, c/o PO Box 1109 Especially sinister is the London N4 2UU role of the Rashtriya Swayam Money wist Sevak Sangh (RSS: a communa. organisation linked to