India

India: drone attacks on civilians

An online statement condemns drone attacks by the Indian state on its own civilian population. Full statement with explanatory note and link to add your / your organisation's name here . Excerpts as printed in Solidarity 669 below. Indigenous (Adivasi) people in Bijapur district of Bastar, in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, have been traumatised by yet another aerial bomb attack from the security forces which have been using drones to carry out these operations. Although the Indian Air Force is not officially deployed for combat in Chhattisgarh, the repeated use of aerial bombardment on...

Solidarity, not saviour complex (part 1)

Part two of this article is here In the last few months, I’ve encountered a slew of campist leftists, mostly from the West, on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and other issues. The majority of them are purposefully equating the Ukrainian resistance to Nazism by emphasising the minority of right-wing nationalist elements in the Ukrainian resistance, acting as useful idiots for Putin and his Russia’s colonial war. Despite many Ukrainian socialists and anarchists speaking out about their needs for weapons and aid, and Russian soldiers whispering about the war crimes committed by the Russian military...

Drive out all the Rashmikant Joshis!

Rashmikant Joshi (left), Keith Vaz (centre) and friends Immediately upon being told he would not be allowed to restand as a Labour councillor, former Leicester lord mayor Rashmikant Joshi defected to the Tories . Through whatever mix of ideology and opportunism, Joshi is a supporter of the Hindu right in India. When the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won re-election in 2019, he spoke at a Leicester event to celebrate , in front of a life-size cut-out of Narendra Modi. Joshi is one of 19 Labour councillors – just over 40% of the total – told they will not be allowed to restand. More here . It...

Solidarity, not saviour complex

Some leftists are equating the Ukrainian resistance to Nazism by emphasising the minority of right-wing nationalist elements in the Ukrainian resistance, acting as useful idiots for Putin and his Russia's colonial war.

Indian parliament expels opposition leader

India’s descent towards fascism continues. Rahul Gandhi, the most prominent figure in the country’s liberal opposition party, Congress, has been expelled from the Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) and sentenced to prison for calling far-right prime minister Narendra Modi a thief. During the 2019 general election Gandhi asked why “all thieves have Modi as [their] common surname”. Last week a court sentenced him to two years (he is free on bail for now after appealing); then the Hindu-nationalist-dominated parliament stripped him off his seat and his right to stand in the next election...

Sunak’s fortune, India’s right-wing media and the Leicester clashes

Rishi Sunak’s connections with right-wing Hindu nationalists are not as glaring as, for instance, those of Priti Patel or Harrow East MP Bob Blackman. Yet his marriage has given him substantial links not only into India’s capitalist class, and its political establishment, but also its Hindu nationalist political networks. These connections are relevant to the upsurge of Hindu nationalist activism in the UK, including recent events in Leicester. The Sunak-Murty family fortune Sunak’s household wealth, making him the first UK prime minister richer than its monarch, is of course a matter of alarm...

Students rally to India solidarity

Perhaps 170 people attended India Labour Solidarity’s showing of the first half of BBC documentary India: The Modi Question at SOAS university in London last month. For the second half on 7 March, 70 came despite very bad weather. There was a lively discussion — over three hours! — including around an issue also raised at the first showing: how much the Modi regime represents a clear break from what existed in India before 2014, and how much a deepening and development. The documentary, which indicts the Hindu-nationalist regime and exposes Narendra Modi’s responsibility for anti-Muslim...

150 at Modi film showing

Over 150 people attended a showing of “India: The Modi Question” at SOAS university in London on 7 February, organised by the India Labour Solidarity Campaign ( ILS ). The BBC documentary — about Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 massacres of Muslims in Gujarat — has been banned in India, and students in particular have suffered repression for trying to watch it. The SOAS event was an opportunity to watch the programme (its first hour-long instalment) together and discuss the issues, while demonstrating solidarity with comrades in India. As well as ILS, the meeting heard from Aakashi Bhatt...

Women's Fightback: Police beatings and child marriage in India

Hundreds of women are protesting in the north-eastern Indian state of Assam after their male relatives were arrested as part of a crackdown on child marriage. State police have arrested more than 2,400 people since Friday. Arrests were of husbands of alleged child brides as well as those who officiated, largely clerics. Opposition leaders have called the drive a "farce", alleging it disproportionately targets Muslims. As many as 650 million women in the world today were married as children. About a third of them were married before the age of 15. In India, which is the country with the most...

India’s richest man crashes. Support India’s workers!

Adani and Modi Until last month India’s Gautam Adani was the richest man in Asia; last year he briefly displaced Jeff Bezos as the second richest on earth. In the last fortnight, he has lost almost half his $120 billion personal wealth, and his corporations about double that. Just as India’s far-right regime responded to last month’s BBC documentary reminding the world of Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat pogroms by claiming an imperialistic assault on India’s sovereignty , the Adani Group called the release of the damaging information driving its turmoil “a calculated attack on India...

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