Dear friends,

As you are all keenly aware, November 1, 2004 marks 20 years of the terrible holocaust against the people of the Sikh faith.

In these last twenty years, the Indian people have been the victims of repeated acts of communal massacres – be it Maliana and Bhiwandi, the communal massacres that followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, or the Gujarat genocide of 2002.

We must not forget that India was partitioned in August 1947 preceded and followed by the biggest communal holocaust in the history of humankind. The states that were created after Britain left India in 1947 are all inheritors of the British colonial Indian state and the political parties that rule these countries are products of the colonial Indian state.

In all acts of communal genocide, in November 1984 as well as Gujarat, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the massacres that followed it, the central role of the Indian state in the organising of these massacres has been established beyond a shadow of doubt.

It has also been noted that the communalisation of the polity and the organising of communal genocide has served those in power in disrupting the unity of the toilers and tillers and paralysing them in the face of the offensive of the ruling class. The communal holocaust of 1947 and the partition of the country was the biggest attack on the struggle of the Indian peoples for independence accompanied by social transformations. The 1984 holocaust against Sikhs served to launch the anti-working class modernisation
program of the Indian ruling class. The demolition of the Babri Masjid accompanied the First Generation Reforms of the Narasimha Rao Government. The Gujarat genocide was accompanied by the Second Generation Reforms of the Vajpayee government. With the powers that be committed to continuing on the anti-worker, anti-peasant and anti-national course of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation, it can only be expected that the Indian state will organise even more dastardly massacres of the toiling and oppressed people in future.

Therefore, when we mark the 20th anniversary of the terrible holocaust against people of the Sikh faith, we at the same time will need to address the following issues.

• When the history of India since colonial times till today is one of the state deliberately dividing the polity along communal lines and organising communal massacres to crush the toiling peoples, is it not treachery on the part of those forces who portray the Indian state and the Indian ruling class as “secular”, blame the toilers and tillers for being communal, and spread the notion that only the BJP is communal and keeping the BJP out of power will ensure protection for people from communal violence?
• What needs to be done to make the toilers and tillers of India conscious that the bourgeoisie wields the weapon of communalism and communal violence to attack their struggle against the anti-social offensive?
• How can the toilers and tillers of India ensure that communalism and state organised communal violence will be put to an end once and for all in India?