the ‘haircut of creditors’ and if both Courts’ be extended to ‘farming

creditors and debtors agree, they will business’ in India? Loan transactions Dec.
carry on the business. Mr President of will remain in business and in 2018, non-
USA went 3 times to Bankruptcy payment to creditors is nothing new and 2018
Courts to deceive creditors and save it should be solved according to
his own business from complete accepted policies of the modern Volume II, Issue 4
liquidation. (In business, accounts can business.
officially be fabricated worldwide) MANIPUR AGAINST CORPORATE PLUNDER AND
Question from Indian Farmers who 24.10.18
failed to pay their loan! LOOT: INTERVIEW WITH JITEN YUMNAM
The question is raised by rich Endnotes:
farmers of India that when they fail to 1
In million hectares Manipur is a strategically militarised economic zone of an expanding empire of
pay bank loan, the police sent them to 2
In hectares Finance corporates. It is strictly regimented and indirectly ruled by Centrally funded
jail. Why shouldn’t the ‘Bankruptcy local kleptocracts, who function in collusion with elements of Finance imperialism.
Unrestraint extraction of super-profits by external forces causes heavy loss to the
Beyond the horizon is available at indigenous masses and diversion of their nation from linear progress. Corporate
plunder and loot are, however, covered up by deceptive propaganda about the
capitalist growth model as the only ultimate schema to achieve development, equity,
THE READERS BOOK STORE and peace. This deception traps many into perpetual ignorance, oblivion, and
Next to Manipur University Central Library, Manipur University, misadventures. Many are seduced into a fantasy of building development, equity,
Canchipur, India
peace and democracy under this schema.
Such fantasy could not hold on for any Manipur Against Corporate
longer as vexed crisis and unrests are Plunder and Loot: Interview
beyond the horizon exploding. Take the case of India’s Act with Jiten Yumnam 1
East Policy and its impact on Manipur. Northeast India, India China
Economic, Political and Social Views
AEP is a Finance project, that, in Relations and the New
Editor practice, partially materialises temporary Security Dynamics,
Dr. Malem Ningthouja economic relief for some local vested Dr. Biswajit Mohapatra 6
sections. The larger chunk of the relief is Why Many in Assam See the
Editorial Team accumulated by a coterie of socially
Chitaranjan Thoudam, Dr. Malem Ningthouja, National Register of Citizens
parasitic kleptocrats, who shamelessly
Somorendro Khangembam and Tiken Laishram as a Lifeline, Udayon Misra 14
eulogise self-aggrandisement for a tiny
share of the trickled down spoils of the Great Achievements of the
Circulation overall corporate plunder and loot. Many CPP in 50 Years of Waging
Lamnganba Sorokhaibam took for granted a leap towards Revolution,
development by misreading the Jose Maria Sison 22
Views expressed in the articles are those of authors and not necessarily of deceptive face-value of the ongoing Absence of Political Will to Save
the Editorial Team projects such as railways lines, dams, the Indian Economy: A
Published by Nileema Khangembam from Chingmeirong, Maning leikai, near Vodafone
mining, oil drilling, massive infrastructure Case Study...
tower, Imphal East, Manipur 795005, and printed by her at Progressive Printers, A-21, projects, militarisation, administrative Dr. N. Bhattacharya......... 39
Jhilmil Industrial Area, G.T. Road, Delhi- 95. E-mail: editorbeyondthehorizon@gmail.com and commercial buildings, sports
beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon
Rs. 20
university and Finance intrusion. The ongoing ‘development’ projects in people at the centre of the Jiten: One can analyse it in this way.
bitter truth is imperilment in various Manipur. development process. It means, First, there is an armed liberation
forms — the perpetuation of economic Jiten: Yes, Government aggressively development processes, policies or movement to create a sovereign
underdevelopment, ecologicalpursued unsustainable development projects must adhere to universal Manipur. The State invests in
destructions, domination by settlers, processes, diluting and introducing development and human rights militarisation to suppress this
suppression, exploitation,new policies and constructing a series standards. Communities should be movement. A repression law known as
institutionalised terrorism and of projects in the name of development. consulted, involved, and their consent Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958
concealed pogroms, deprivation and This includes a series of extractive should be mandatory for any has been enforced, to empower the
pauperisation, and the overall organic investments, hydropower projects, and ‘development’ processes, affecting State’s repressive forces to function
murder of Manipur, i.e., its history, other massive infrastructure projects. their rights, land, and future. Any with impunity. Second, several projects
current pillars, and future. Precisely, the
These projects have benefited development process, suppressing are extensively taken up for the
propaganda hype surrounding Act East corporate bodies and a section of community rights, voices and space is purpose of capitalist extractions and
Policy, as it is enforced in a militarily
elites. On the contrary, these projects simply arbitrary. There are several exploitation. Many people are badly
occupied territory and policed, to are responsible for large-scale examples. The initiatives to exploration affected by these projects and they are
achieve maximum extraction of super- displacements, environmental and drilling of oil have been done rising up against the projects. In this
profit at the cost of the colonised, could
catastrophe, militarization and arbitrarily, without the consent of the scenario capitalist projects,
not satisfactorily redress the deeply suppression of communities’ peoples, initially by Jubilant Energy, militarisation and repression are
rooted crisis cited above. On the fundamental rights. These projects are and continued by Alpha Geo and reinforcing to one another. The military,
contentious edge, therefore, there are introduced practically in an exclusive, others, in collusion with the State. It para-military, police and other auxiliary
frustrations with the existing growth undemocratic, and are incompatible to involves corruptive and manipulative forces are the handy tools of defending
model, evolution and dissemination of the wishes of communities. The State practice, causing confusion and capitalist project and suppression of
revolutionary hope, democratic and corporate bodies forcefully tensions amongst peoples. On the democratic agitations. The project sites
struggles, and the consequential enforce these projects through other hand, the 105 MW Loktak are fortified and heavily guarded by
vicious cycle of State repression and repressive forces, including the Multipurpose Hydroelectric Project them. They are taking advantage of
mass resistance. In this regard, Beyond military. But I have a different have caused havoc. It had caused large repressive legislation like the Unlawful
the Horizon brings to our readers the understanding. Development, I displacement. More than 80,000 acres Activities Prevention Act, 1967, the
views of Mr. Jiten Yumnam1 to throw believe, should address the needs and of agriculture land are still submerged National Security Act, 1980, and
some lights on the basis of his grass wishes of communities. Communities under water. People are demanding to etcetera. Empowered by all these
root experiences. must be involved in decision making. decommission of the controversial special laws, they indulge in targetting
Their rights must be recognised and Ithai Barrage to reclaim their land. But, mass leaders and activists.
Editor: Greeting to you! respected. Projects must cater to the National Hydroelectric Power
Jiten: Same to you! need of fulfilling environmental Corporation continues to insist on Editor: Your phrase “developmental
sustainability. There should be construction of another 66 MW aggression” sounds very powerful.
Editor: Beyond the Horizon is grateful accountability of all stakeholders. Loktak Downstream Project. The Would you like to elaborate on it?
for this opportunity. There should be a mechanism and project destroys ecology and Jiten: Selfish and greedy agenda of the
Jiten: My gratitude to Beyond the process for justice delivery. diminishes food production. exploiters are manifested in various
Horizon for highlighting the issues and forms of aggression. In other words,
our activism in Manipur Editor: So, you are confident about the Editor: Can you theoretically capitalist (or Finance) corporate
locus standi of your activism! interconnect ‘developmental’ projects, expansionism incorporates
Editor: You are critical about the Jiten: The locus standi is to keep militarisation, and repression? militarisation and repression. It comes,

2 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 3
as mentioned earlier, in the form of
destructive projects. Corporate
elements, in collusion with State, adopt
aggressive tactics to enforce their
projects. The aggressive deregulation
of progressive policies and systematic
destruction of the environment to the
advantage of capitalist forces has been
an absurd reality. For instance, the
North East Hydrocarbon Vision 2030
and the Manpur Hydro Power Policy
2012 envisaged full harnessing of
Manipur’s water and oil resource
without recognizing peoples’ self-
determined rights over their land and
resources. They are least bothered
about promoting ecological balance,
community rights, and equity. They
violate constitutional fundamental
rights and other universal human rights
standards. In short, when the capitalist
growth model, that primarily serves the
interest of finance imperialism are
enforced, devoid of conducive
mechanisms to deliver equity,
transparency, and justice; the process
becomes “developmental aggression.”
Editor: It seems you are unhappy with
Mapithel Dam.
Jiten: Mapithel Dam stands out a
significant edifice of corporate plunder
that was carried out in collusion with
local collaborators. It is a dam created
by means of blocking the Thoubal
River; on the pretext of fulfilling electric
supply, water supply, and irrigation.
People have demanded proper impact
assessments in regards to ecology and
the rights of those who would be
forced located in either upstream and
downstream areas. However, the State
has constructed the dam in a hasty and
arbitrary manner. People rose in protest.
The State suppressed it, and,
subsequently fortified and militarised
the dam site. Politicians, contractors
and construction companies like Ansal
and Progressive Construction Limited,
Coastal Private Limited have benefited
from it. The longstanding delays of
project and cost overruns involved
massive corruption and loot. Overall
consequence is devastation.
Community customary norms and
Indian Forest Rights Act, 2006 were
violated. Affected peoples have not
been adequately compensated and
rehabilitated. Ecological destruction
remains irreparable.
Editor: You seems to be saying that
Finance is global in character. In that
case, is there a Corporate violation of
international human rights norms?
Jiten: First, ICCPR/ ICESR 1966 and
UNDRIP 2007 were created in the spirit
of promoting and defending the
principle of UDHR 1948. The UDHR
principle, in a broader sense, includes
the right to self-determination of
nations (nationalities or indigenous
communities). Second, Manipur
belongs to the indigenous peoples
inhabiting it, and, accordingly their
political, economic and socio-cultural
rights had to be protected and
promoted. They must enjoy the rights
to self-determination over their land,
resources, and the conducive
environment to enjoy free prior and
informed consent making. Manipur,
however, has been in a state military
occupation, under whose protection
corporate plunders are carried out with
impunity. Plunder, in whatever sense
and forms, violates universal
humanitarian principles and norms cited
above. Financial institutions like World
Bank and Asian Development Bank,
abetting corporate expansionism in
Manipur and across India’s North East
have resulted into recorded blatant
violation of not only the laws they have
enacted to safeguard people but also
international human rights norms.
Editor: Don’t you think India’s Act
East Policy can be used as a privilege
to speed up a defensive strategy of the
people?
Jiten: Corporate onslaught or Finance
imperialism is deeply rooted in Manipur.
India’s aggressive push for Act East
Policy is revealed in several
Memorandum of Understandings that
were signed for oil exploration, lying of
oil pipelines, mining, road
constructions. The North East India
Business Summit on 21 st and 22 nd
November 2017 exemplified, that Asian
Development Bank, Japan International
Cooperation Agency, and World Bank
were making an inroad in an
unprecedented scale. Manipur must
raise up if it had to withstand the
challenges. The exploitative agenda of
the corporate bodies embedded in
India’s Act East Policy needs to be
exposed and opposed. It must pursue
struggle; (a) to assert for self-
determination over their land and
resources, (b) to strengthen the
indigenous economy for sustainable
management of land and resources, (c)
to adopt a model of equity in the
economic organisation of the people.
Editor: What holds back the
movement for people’s democracy?
Jiten: The obstacles are manifold: (a)
State repression on democratic
movements and mass leaders; (b) State
divisive policies; (c) sectarianism and
communalism amongst mass
organisations and leadership, and (d)
rapid spread and consolidation of
external market forces at the cost of
indigenous polity, economy, social
fabric and communal harmony. To
overcome these obstacles, there is
need to: (a) understand the overall
context, agenda and strategy of
Finance imperialism; (b) respond at
multiple levels according to the
changing tactics of the State and
market forces; and (c) building strong
mass base solidarity and unity across
communities of Manipur and beyond.
Editor: Let’s hope for development,
peace, and democracy sooner or later!
Jiten: Thank you very much.
End notes:
1
Jiten Yumnam is Secretary of the
Centre for Research and Advocacy
Manipur(CRAM).

4 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 5
 NORTHEAST INDIA, INDIA CHINA RELATIONS endangering the security besides the recognition, political and economic
expected economic boom due to the rights and sometimes for independence,
AND THE NEW SECURITY DYNAMICS pursuit of Act East Policy, as such calls others maintained that the insurgent
for a new security policy, taking into terrorist activities were meant to
Dr. Biswajit Mohapatra
the several compelling dynamics, challenge the writ of the state and its
In the recent years, the security present in the region, which will ensure control over the territory, governance
criminal activities continue unabated
situation in northeast India has been both socio-economic development of system and the ruling elites. This ethnic
due to the fact that insurgents and
described as being the “best” in recent the region besides maintenance of unrest is said to have been present
surrendered militants enjoy tacit
years, with the sharp decline in the sound India China relations. both during the colonial rule as well as
support from the neighbouring
number of insurgency-related in the post-independence era, as the
countries. It has also been reported that
incidents, terrorism as well as ethnic Security Challenges and North East governments built the institutions of
one major power and India’s regional
conflicts in the region. Besides the India: Historical and Contemporary control and consolidated power for
competitor, is in regular contact with
combined effort by the state Dimensions itself.
NE insurgent leaders particularly
government and the central The Northeast region of India During the colonial rule, the colonial
assists them with arms and training
government to tackle the militancy- comprises of eight states – Assam, administration’s arbitrary delimitation
since the 1950s. It is well known that
related disturbances, the launching of Nagaland, Manipur, Arunachal and partitioning of the areas inhabited
India and China share long-standing
India’s “Look East” Policy, now Pradesh, Mizoram, Tripura, and Sikkim. by different tribes and colonial policies
differences over their borders, which
rechristened “Act East” Policy”, is It is also well known as a region that is adopted by the British not only had
remains an outstanding obstacle in the
being said to be a major policy connected to the Indian mainland by a aggravated the feelings of ethnicity but
enhancement of their bilateral relations.
intervention to bring about rapid small corridor, known as the Siliguri also had set off the ethnic conflicts in
The recent standoff between India and
economic development in the region Corridor or Chicken’s Neck and also the region. In the post-independent
China at the Doklam plateau which lies
so as to address the decades-long shares its borders by five countries India, the failure of the state in properly
at a tri-junction between the India,
alienation of the people and their such as Bhutan, Myanmar, accommodating the competing
China, and Bhutan, threatened to get
perceived grievance against the Bangladesh, Nepal, and China. The interests present among the diverse
drawn into a full-scale war, from that of
governments. Given the fact that all region has not only been a witness to ethnic groups, the persistence of low
the biggest military stand-off between
states in the region, have their own a multitude of conflict, which often has levels of development in the region etc.
the two armies in years, since 1962. All
potential and challenges, this Act East threatened the functioning of Indian are believed to have been responsible
these developments were followed by
Policy, can perhaps help in bringing democracy. for an upsurge of ethnic insurgent
warning from Chinese officials,
about an overall change in the existing In the last few decades, most of the movements. The violence involved in
reminding India that it should learn
security and development scenario. states in north-eastern part of India these conflicts not only destabilized
“historic lessons” from its humiliating
But it is also true that the North Eastern have seen difficult times due to ethnic entire region, hampering social and
defeat in the 1962 war that both
states share boundaries with five conflicts, violence, and antagonism economic development and causing
countries fought over their border and
countries in the neighbourhood, with among several tribes. The seemingly unimaginable human suffering, they
Indian Defence Minister Arun Jaitley’s
whom India has friendly and not so intractable tragedy of ethnic conflicts had also served as attractive reasons
strong statement that “India in 2017 is
friendly relations, which nonetheless, leading to high degree of extremist for the external countries to extend
different from India in 1962,” pointing
has tremendous strategic significance activities and multiplicity of extremist their support to the insurgent groups
to its improved military strength. The
for India’s security. In the border areas, groups engaged everyone’s attention. in furtherance of their design to extend
reported warnings about Chinese
the various incidents of killing, While on the one hand, the different the conflicts and prevent India from
expansionism, and the vulnerable
intimidation gun-running, narco, and ethnic insurgent groups claimed that achieving its potentialities of all-round
situations that prevail in the region,
human trafficking and other forms of they are engaged in their fight for economic growth and political stability.
appear to have the tenacity of not only
6 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 7
The bold attempts made by various
governments both at the Union and
State levels to engage the various
ethnic groups through negotiation and
mediation, which have led to setting
up of various Autonomous Councils
under Sixth Schedule (currently there
are ten such Councils) have made way
for a political environment to boost
rapid economic development. The long
protracted rounds of talks with the
NSCN (IM) over the last several years
also has led to the reduction of
violence by the insurgent groups
besides the signing of the Framework
Agreement, though not spelled out in
details, has created a climate of hope
rather than despair. These measures
also can be said to have negated the
various other challenges, such as
terrorism and organized crime, which
were posing grave dangers to the
security of the immediate society and
the country at large.
India’s Look East Policy and North
East Region as the Gateway to South
East Asia
The Look East Policy was launched
by the Govt of India in 1991, for
development of closer ties with the
South East Asian countries, as it
believed that such cooperation would
usher in rapid economic development
of the North Eastern region, which has
shared a history of deeper socio-
economic and cultural ties across the
border. Since the launching of this
policy, though more than twenty-five
years have passed, one is concerned
to see no visible economic development
in the region, even after so much talk
about initiatives being taken for
strengthening connectivity to boost
trade and transport facilities, which will
convert the region into an economic
corridor.
The Look East Policy has also been
suspected of having strategic, political
implications as well at least in the
region besides the stated economic
dimension. Analysts tend to maintain
that this policy, in part, is guided by
India’s some form of strategic rivalry
with China, which is the reason for
bonhomie between India and the
ASEAN countries, since both are wary
of China’s rise in the global strategic
and economic arena.
On the other hand, it is also said
that China has been deeply unnerved
as India and ASEAN have not only
become much closer but also at their
up gradation of relationship into that
of strategic partnership. According to
China, India’s Look East diplomacy is
merely a euphemism for a “contain
China policy”, launched by India at the
behest of the United States, its close
ally, which also has its strategic
interests in the region and also is a
close rival. As a reaction to this, China
launched a new strategic initiative,
which’s known as ‘String of Pearls’, in
the Indian Ocean, aimed to control
India’s growing influence over the
ASEAN countries.
As far as India’s desire for
deepening its ties with the ASEAN
countries, it has always sought to
rationalize it in terms of existing
complementarities in their economic
structure. In 2003, the then Prime
Minister of India, A.B.Vajpayi said,
“The combination of our geographical
proximity, economic complementarities,
and human resources create a huge
potential, which needs to be optimally
exploited.”1 Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, also strongly emphasized in the
Sixth Indian - ASEAN Summit, held in
Singapore, on 21st November 2007 that
“India was determined to take the FTA
process forward because we are
convinced that it’s a win-win situation
for both of us.”2
However despite India’s claim that
India’s Look East Policy, is neither
motivated by any fear of China nor any
intention to become a frontline state
against China in the region and that
India and China can intensify their
economic cooperation as ASEAN has
expressed its willingness to conclude
FTA with China, Japan, South Korea
besides India.
India’s Engagements with ASEAN to
Boost Trade
Over the years India and ASEAN have
signed the ASEAN - India Framework
Agreement on Comprehensive
Economic Cooperation (CECA) on
October 8, 2003 in Bali, Indonesia, for
institutionalization of a framework for
future economic cooperation, with two
important objectives; to boost (i) Trade
in Goods Agreement and (ii) Trade in
Services and Investment Agreement
and as a prelude to the ASEAN-India
Free Trade Area (AIFTA). The
ASEAN– India Free Trade Area
(AIFTA) was signed on August 13,
2009, in Bangkok, Thailand and the free
trade area came into effect on 1 January
2010. Besides the ASEAN-India
Agreement on Investment and Trade
in Services was signed on November
13, 2014, India has also successfully
signed several other agreements, such
as, the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation
(MGC), Regional Comprehensive
Economic Partnership (RCEP), and
various other bilateral agreements that
also aim at strengthening cooperation
at various levels with CLMV Countries
within ASEAN.
It has been pointed out that China
didn’t view favourably India’s setting
up of the FTA between India and the
ASEAN, within a year of its signing
while the India China Free Trade
Agreement, which began in 2008, is
yet to be completed despite China
being India’s largest trading partner
and the conclusion of such FTA
“would result in the biggest free trade
region in the world.” The setting up of
an FTA with ASEAN has been
commented as “attempts by India to
counterbalance the increased Chinese
influence within the association.”3
“would result in the biggest free trade
region in the world.
India’s Rechristening of Look East as
Act East Policy and India China
Strategic Rivalry
In the pursuit of strengthening India-
ASEAN relations and to expedite the

8 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 9
regional integration, it is said that India’s
‘Look East’ Policy has been renewed to
‘Act East ‘Policy in 2014. The objective
of ‘Act East Policy’, inter alia, is to
promote economic cooperation,
cultural ties and develop a strategic
relationship with countries in the Asia-
Pacific region through continuous
engagement at bilateral, regional and
multilateral levels, which would also
provide enhanced connectivity to the
states of India’s North Eastern Region.
The expansion of the area into
broader regions and its intended
overtures to countries in the Asia-
Pacific region, is now being said to be
the reason behind China’s sudden
announcement by the Chinese
President Xi Jinping of The Belt and
the Road project - in 2013
encompassing setting up of numerous
trade and investment hubs in order to
reach out to Eurasia, with two major
policy components such as the New
Silk Road Economic Belt ,by providing
a link via Myanmar to India and the
other component, the Maritime Silk
Road, which is to begin from the south
side of China via the South China Sea,
proceeding towards Indo-China, South-
East Asia and then extending up to
Africa and Europe around the Indian
Ocean has caught everyone unawares.
This “belt and road” initiative,
intended to run through the continents
of Asia, Europe and Africa, connecting
the vibrant East Asia economic circle
at one end and developed European
economic circle at the other, along with
the Eurasia region, in the view of a
section of analysts, does not augur
well for India’s ‘Act East’ policy
initiative and may also halt the
development of the Bangladesh-China-
India-Myanmar corridor, which will
endanger the economic growth and
security of the countries in the region.
Presently China and India are the
fast-growing major economies together
commanding unparalleled international
diplomatic and economic influence on
the world stage. Though the economic
and strategic ties have grown
significantly, yet China faces a great
deal of trust deficit due to its frequent
actions directed against India’s
borders and its ambitious policies as
regard South China Sea besides its
massive trade imbalance with India
over the years and the failure of the
Chinese leadership for a course
correction in the context of their
bilateral relationship.
Within India, there is also
apprehension, that the present
initiative, would strategically help
China, its regional competitor, in the
strengthening of the “String of Pearls”,
the strategic bases encircling India and
hence will be a major geopolitical
challenge to India’s security in its
neighbourhood, which necessitates a
major strategic response by India, if it
was to check China’s territorial
ambitions effectively and prevent any
destabilization of the existing security
in the Asia-Pacific region.
In the context of such fears, when
India and China can be said to be
engaged in a strategic rivalry, China is
said to be uncomfortable with India’s
engagement in any kind of strategic
ventures, such as Act East Policy as a
counterpoint to China’s OBOR
initiative. The India China relations and
the security of the neighbourhood
have come under the cloud of strategic
threats where one saw a new strategic
move, the Doklam Stand-Off, near
India’s borders in the Northeastern
region, attempted by China to gain a
stronghold in the region.
The Doklam Stand Off and India China
Border Disputes
It is well known that Doklam, (or
Donglang in Chinese), is an area of less
than a 100 sq km comprising a plateau
and a valley at the trijunction between
India, Bhutan, and China. It is also
surrounded by the Chumbi Valley of
Tibet, Bhutan’s Ha Valley and Sikkim.
Doklam, as such is of very great
strategic importance due to its
location, very close to the Siliguri
Corridor (Chicken’s Neck), that
connects mainland India with its north-
eastern region. The differences
between China and Bhutan, over
Doklam, remain unresolved, even after
holding several rounds of talks.
The Doklam standoff in 2017
occurred when Indian troops, in
support of their Bhutanese
counterparts, objected to the Chinese
attempts to construct a road in the
area, which is also a vulnerable point
for India. When one looks at the
history of the region, one finds that
Doklam had no significance, despite it
being India-Tibet trade route, since a
lot of this trade used to be conducted
along the Siliguri corridor and Chumbi
Valley or even during the British rule.
However, Doklam shot up to fame,
when it was reported that in the recent
period, China is engaged to increase
its military presence in the Chumbi
Valley, where the Chinese did not enjoy
any militarily advantageous position,
where both Indian and Bhutanese
troops are already stationed on a higher
ground around the Valley. The Chinese
moves in the Doklam region became a
matter of great concern for the Indian
security, as they suspected that, if
Chinese were allowed such access,
they would easily be able to establish
their command over both the Chumbi
Valley and also the Siliguri Corridor.
It has been widely reported that on
June 16, 2017, the Chinese troops had
come with necessary equipment to
build a road southward in Doklam,
towards the Bhutanese Army camp
near the Jampheri Ridge, which is an
integral part of Bhutanese territory. As
China justified its action, maintaining
that the said ridge is the border, a few
hundred Indian troops went to Doklam,
two days later, at the request of Bhutan,
and stopped the construction work.
Later the Bhutanese government
not only vehemently protested China’s
action but also told China that “the
construction of the road inside
Bhutanese territory is a direct violation
of the agreements and affects the
process of demarcating the boundary

10 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 11
between our two countries.” The
Ministry of External Affairs, Govt of
India, issued a statement on June 30,
maintaining that “Such construction
would represent a significant change
of status quo with serious security
implications for India.” As a reaction
to this, the Chinese government
accused India of trespassing into its
territory, and in the first week of
August, it said: “India has no right to
interfere in or impede the boundary
talks between China and Bhutan.” The
Doklam became another point of
conflict between the two besides the
disputed border issue.
As far as India and China border
disputes are concerned, India and
China have had one of the world’s
longest disputed borders and areas
that include 37,000 sq km of
uninhabited Aksai Chin and Arunachal
Pradesh with 1.4 million residents and
over 84,000 sq km. However, despite
several rounds of negotiations between
the Special Representatives, the
dispute still remains without a
solution. Due to the above reasons
and increased mistrust between them,
both the countries are engaged in the
conventional military build-ups along
their borders and emphasizing on
modernising their armies too.
It has been recently reported that
“China has worked through the winter
to bypass India’s aggressive blockade
at Doklam, making a new road that can
give its troops access to the southern
part of the plateau – a move that has
serious strategic implications for New
12 beyond the horizon
Delhi” 4 “Unlike the June standoff,
where Indian troops had to climb down
about 100 meters from their posts to
block construction, the new Chinese
alignment is deep into Bhutanese
territory and over 4 km away from the
Indian border, leaving narrow choices
for an intervention.” 5 It was also
reported that “China has permanently
occupied North Doklam, constructing
new posts, helipads, and fortifications,
even as the standoff continued.” 6
According to Manoj Joshi,
distinguished fellow at the Observer
Research Institute (ORF), significant
resources would be needed to counter
this new approach by the Chinese.7
Recently India’s ambassador to
China Gautam Bambawale told Hong
Kong-based daily South China
Morning Post, “The Chinese military
changed the status quo in the Doklam
area and therefore India reacted to it.
Ours was a reaction to the change in
the status quo by the Chinese military,
“8 He also said,” the un-demarcated
border between India and China is “the
most serious problem between the two
countries” and they need to redefine
the boundary soon”. 9 He also
downplayed the reports of India joining
the bloc of the US, Japan and Australia
an emerging bloc called Quad, to
counter China.10 India is also opposed
to CPEC.
One can see the rivalry has the
potential to aggravate the tensions in
the region besides being an obstacle in
the success of India’s Act East Policy.
Though the government has often faced
December 2018
criticism in the way in which it has been 7
Op cite, 4
8
looking at the Northeast as an issue of China’s attempt to change the status
territorial security rather than quo may lead to another Doklam:
development per se, yet the fear of a Indian envoy, available in https://
growing Chinese influence, in its economictimes.indiatimes.com/
neighbourhood remains an important news/defence/chinas-attempt-to-
concern. Further increasing cross- change-status-quo- may-lead-to-
border terrorism (Myanmar, another-doklam-Indian-envoy/
articleshow/63442416.cms
Bangladesh) in the region are some of 9
Ibid.
the factors cited as reasons for limiting 10
Ibid.
India in its attempt to open the region.
Endnotes:
* The Author is Associate Professor of
Politics and International Relations,
Department of Political Science,
North Eastern Hill University, beyond the
Shillong
1
Prime Minister A B Vajpai’s interview horizon
reported in Financial Times,
October 9th, 2003
2
Online Partner
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s
speech at Sixth Indian-ASEAN
Summit Meeting held in
Singapore,21st November 2007
3
Bötscher Johanna, A Neorealist
Assessment of India S Look East
Policy, Published by GRIN
Verlag,2011,pp70
4
China quietly & cleverly finds a new
route to S. Doklam, 7 months after
India stopped it, available in https:/
/theprint.in/security/china-quietly-
finds-new-route-to-s-doklam-7-
months- after-India-stopped-it/
43070/ visit
5
Ibid.
6
New trouble for India: China occupies
North Doklam, available in https:// Kangla Online
theprint.in/security/new-trouble- at
for-india-as-china-fully-occupies-
www.kanglaonline.com
doklam/29561/
December 2018 beyond the horizon 13
 WHY MANY IN ASSAM SEE THE NATIONAL
REGISTER OF CITIZENS AS A LIFELINE
In order to understand what’s
happening today, we need to revisit
some of the major events from 1920 to
1950 that helped shape the state’s
post-independence history.
Quite often, people from other
parts of the country appear a bit
puzzled at the emotional response of
the Assamese people to the question
of identity and demographic change.
This is often seen as an expression of
an insular mindset, or even as a sign
of xenophobia.
In order to understand and
appreciate as to why many in Assam
see the National Register of Citizens
as the ‘ayush rekha’ or lifeline of the
Assamese people, there is a need to
revisit some of the major events from
1920 to 1950 that centred around
immigration, land and identity –
moments which helped shape Assam’s
post-Independence history.
A changing socio-cultural profile
During the first two decades of the
twentieth century, the British colonial
state encouraged large numbers of
Bengali Muslim peasants from the
overpopulated districts of eastern
Bengal, where land had reached the
limits of cultivation, to migrate and
settle in the uncultivated stretches of
the Brahmaputra Valley.
Udayon Misra
Soon, however, immigrants started
encroaching on land cultivated by the
indigenes and there arose the
possibility of social tension. Therefore,
as early as 1920, a Line System was
adopted as an administrative measure
by the British colonialists in the
districts of Kamrup and Nowgong with
the stated aim of protecting the lands
of the autochthons from Bengali
Muslim immigrants.
After the 1921 census report
referred to the large-scale migration
into Assam of Muslim peasants from
East Bengal and a resolution was
moved in the legislative council in 1925,
colonial officials met in Shillong to
discuss amendments to the Assam
Land and Revenue Regulations of 1886
so as to protect the transfer of land
cultivated by the indigenous Assamese
peasants to immigrants.
Not only did this move fail, but
the opposite happened when in 1928
the British administrators put into
effect the ‘Colonisation Scheme’ which
opened up large areas of the Nowgong
district and the Barpeta and Mangaldoi
subdivisions for settlement by
immigrants.
While releasing the 1931 census
figures, the then census commissioner
S.C. Mullan stated that the nature and
dimension of the immigration were
bound to radically alter the socio-
cultural profile of the region and affect
the future of the Assamese people as a
whole.
Commenting on this, social
historian Amalendu Guha says:
“During the six years preceding
1936, as many as 59 grazing, forest and
village reserves had been thrown open
in Nowgong under the Colonisation
Scheme for settling the immigrants. Out
of the district’s total occupied area of
5,41,160 acres – sown and fallow – in
1936, 2,04,078 acres or 37.7% were
under immigrants’ occupation, as
against 62.3% cent still in the hands of
indigenous people… The land-hungry
Muslim immigrants, segregated and
pitted against all odds, never
appreciated the Assamese point of
view… They wanted the Line System
to go. If only it would concede them
the right to a new home, they would
even follow the Congress flag”.
Guha is here referring only to the
district of Nowgong, which is now
called Nagaon. The pattern had already
occurred in Goalpara and Barpeta
districts and was soon to be repeated
in the Darrang district. With several of
the plains tribes still accustomed to
shifting cultivation, government
reserves, grazing reserves and village
community land were a part of their life
pattern. These lands were integral to
their ethos of living and they did not
consider them only from the point of
view of crops and revenue. These two
very different approaches to land and
life were bound to clash, with the
indigenous Assamese and the plains
tribals increasingly viewing the
immigrant occupation of land as a
threat to their identity and culture.
Polarisation
When Syed Mohammad Saadulla took
over as the prime minister of Assam in
1937 with the backing of the Muslim
League, steps were initiated to speed
up the flow of Muslim immigrants into
Assam. Almost simultaneously, the
Muslim League leaders of Assam
stepped up the demand for the
abolition of the Line System. As
Assamese concerns grew at this
persistent demand, the government
appointed a Line System Enquiry
Committee under the chairmanship of
F.W. Hockenhull which submitted its
report in favour of continuing the Line
System while suggesting strong
measures to prevent alienation of tribal
land. It also disfavoured settlement of
land with the post-1938 immigrants.
The short-lived Congress
coalition ministry (September 19, 1938
–November 16, 1939) headed by
Gopinath Bardoloi tried to undo some
of the harm done to indigenous land
interests by endorsing the Hockenhull
Committee’s report and trying to put a
stop to the settlement of land by post-
1938 immigrants.
But the Bardoloi government had
to resign following the Congress
Working Committee’s decision to
withdraw from all state governments.
Following this, Saadulla again formed

14 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 15
a government for the third time with
the support of the Muslim League
(November 17, 1939 – December 25,
1941).
The immigration issue got swiftly
politically polarised once the Muslim
League adopted the Lahore Resolution
of 1940 which called for a separate
homeland for India’s Muslims. Within
a year, the Saadulla ministry adopted
the controversial Land Development
Scheme which de-reserved the
Professional Grazing Reserves (PGRs)
in the districts of Kamrup, Darrang and
Nowgong and opened them up for
settlement by immigrants while
restrictions on land occupation by
post-1938 immigrants were done away
with for all practical purposes. It was
during this period that tribal reserves
were further opened up.
Thus, in just one year (1940-41),
the Saadulla government settled
Bengali Muslim immigrants on 1,50,000
bighas of land in the Brahmaputra
Valley. Though Saadulla joined the
Muslim League in 1937, throughout his
political career he tried to chart out an
independent course by keeping in
check the more radical elements of the
Muslim League led by Maulana
Bhasani. Although he regularly briefed
both Mohammad Ali Jinnah and
Liaquat Ali Khan about his efforts to
increase the Muslim population of
Assam and of his loyalty to the politics
of the League, yet, at one particular
point even he berated the immigrant
lobby for creating a Palestine-like
situation in Assam by literally pushing
out the indigenous people from their
lands.
Nonetheless, it was the third
Saadulla ministry that further opened
up the floodgates of immigration and
occupation of land. Meanwhile, in
March 1942, the Saadulla ministry fell
and Governor’s Rule was declared and
one of the first acts of the governor was
to scrap Saadulla’s Land Development
Scheme. But Saadulla came back to
power within a few months and the
fourth Saadulla ministry (August 25,
1942 – March 23, 1945) revived the land
development scheme and initiated the
Grow More Food Programme ostensibly
aimed at helping the war economy but
actually meant to further open up the
grazing reserves and wastelands in the
districts of Nowgong, Darrang and
Kamrup for settlement by immigrant
Muslim peasants.
Interestingly, around this time, the
Bengal legislative council carried a
resolution (July 16, 1943) calling upon
the Government of India to take
immediate steps to do away with all
restrictions in Assam on the land-
hungry immigrant cultivators from
Bengal. As the Muslim League stepped
up its demand for the total abolition of
the Line System and also called for
Syed Saadulla’s resignation, the latter
bypassed the League, reached out for
non-League support and convened an
all-party conference on land which
couldn’t reach any conclusions.
However, the government went
ahead with a Government Resolution
on land which, while talking of
providing land to the landless
Assamese and protecting the PGRs
from further occupation, was actually
intended to speedily settle all the post-
1938 immigrants. The Muslim League
strongly opposed this because the Line
System was still on, while the Congress
had its own reservations because it felt
that too much power had been vested
on the local officials who could favour
the immigrants. In March 1945, the
Assam assembly debated at length the
issue of immigration and land
occupation, with the house vertically
divided between the Congress and the
League. The issue of alienation of tribal
land got special focus and Bardoloi
opposed the government’s land policy
as ‘anti-tribal’ and ‘anti-Assamese’.
Finally, Saadulla resigned and
reconstituted his ministry with outside
support from the Congress which
resulted in the Tripartite Agreement to
prevent further alienation of land
belonging to the indigenous people
and encroachment in the reserves.
But towards the end of 1945, the
Congress withdrew its support for the
Saadulla ministry for failing to
implement the Tripartite Agreement and
Gopinath Bardoloi headed the new
government after the Congress victory
at the polls (January 1946 – August 14,
1946).
Immediately after assuming office,
the Bardoloi government took
measures to evict the encroachers from
the PGRs and other government land.
Reacting to this, the Muslim League
drew up plans for ‘direct action’ and
‘civil disobedience’ on the land
question. Meanwhile, the Cabinet
Mission Plan was announced and the
land and immigration issue became a
part of the Muslim League strategy to
make Assam a part of the Eastern Zone
of the proposed Pakistan. Though the
Assam Provincial Muslim League
launched its ‘civil disobedience
movement’ and the League leader
Bhasani called for the forceful
occupation of government land by
immigrants, the movement failed to
take off, especially after the dropping
of the Cabinet Mission proposals and
the transfer of Sylhet to Pakistan
through a referendum.
The question of citizenship
Independence and Partition saw
a huge influx of Bengali Hindu refugees
into Assam, official figures released in
1951 put the number at some 3 lakh
and by 1961, the figure crossed 6.5
lakh. Another 4.5 lakh entered Assam
in 1968. Along with this, immigration
of Bengali Muslims from East Pakistan
continued and in May 1949, chief
minister Gopinath Bardoloi wrote to
prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru for the
introduction of a Permit System in view
of large-scale immigration of Bengali
Muslims (estimated then at some 5
lakhs) into Assam.
With India and Pakistan becoming
separate sovereign states, immigration
from East Pakistan now was no longer
a movement of people, state-
sponsored or otherwise, from one part
of the country to another. It now

16 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 17
involved the question of citizenship,
especially after the passport rules were
put into effect from October 1950.
The same year also saw the first
major communal riots in lower Assam
forcing over a lakh of Muslims to leave
the state. However, a majority of these
displaced people returned to Assam
following the Nehru-Liaquat Pact.
Illegal immigration took on such
overtones that parliament debated the
issue at length in February 1950 and
passed the Immigrants (Expulsion from
Assam) Act.
But this and the later PIP scheme
did little to effectively check the flow
of illegal migrants from East Pakistan.
Official records refer to thousands of
illegal immigrants having been
“deported” from Assam over the years.
In the absence of any repatriation treaty
with East Pakistan, illegal immigrants
were just “pushed back”, only to return
through some other route. The same
situation prevails today when one talks
of the Assam Accord which refers to
‘detection’, ‘deletion’ and ‘deportation’
of illegal Bangladeshis.
But the question of deportation
seems simply impossible since India
does not have any such treaty with
Bangladesh nor does it intend to have
one in the near future. Constraints of
space do not allow me to go into the
details of the different census reports
which have shown the progressive
increase in the population of Muslims
as against the decline in the Hindu
population of Assam. Many have
contested the view that this increase
18 beyond the horizon
has been due to illegal infiltration from
Bangladesh and have attributed it to
other factors.
The apex court’s role
Leaving the debate for some other
time, I would just like to refer here to
the Supreme Court judgements which
throw light on the seriousness of the
problem of illegal immigration and
demographic change. That the
Supreme Court decided to monitor the
process of updating the NRC (the first
NRC having been prepared in Assam
in 1952 based on the 1951 electoral
rolls) was not a sudden development.
It was the culmination of several
judgements of the apex court relating
to the problem of illegal immigration
into Assam.
First, let us take up the judgement
of the Supreme Court given in July 2005
when it struck down the contentious
Illegal Migrants (Determination by
Tribunals) Act, 1983. This Act had made
the detection of illegal migrants next
to impossible by putting the onus of
proving someone as an illegal
immigrant on any Indian citizen
residing within three kilometres of the
residence of the person against whom
the allegation has been made. While
striking down the IMDT Act as ultra
vires of the Constitution of India, the
Supreme Court stated that it had
“created the biggest hurdle and (was)
the main impediment or barrier for the
identification and deportation of illegal
migrants”.
A three-judge bench comprising
December 2018
Chief Justice R.C. Lahoti, Justice G.P.
Mathur and Justice P.K.
Balasubramanyan, which struck down
the IMDT Act as unconstitutional,
observed: “The presence of such a
large number of illegal migrants from
Bangladesh, which runs into millions,
is, in fact, an aggression on the State
of Assam and has also contributed
significantly in causing serious
internal disturbances in the shape of
insurgency of alarming proportions.”
The court, in its 114-page
judgment, noted that this “aggression”
had made the life of the people of
Assam “wholly insecure and the panic
generated thereby had created fear
psychosis.” The Bench pointed out
that the IMDT Act and Rules had been
so made that innumerable and
insurmountable difficulties were
created in identification and
deportation of illegal migrants and that
though enquiries were initiated in
3,10,759 cases under the IMDT Act,
only 10,015 persons were declared
illegal migrants and only 1,481 illegal
migrants were physically expelled up
to April 30, 2000. It stated that on the
contrary in West Bengal, where the
Foreigners Act was applicable, 4, 89,046
persons were deported between 1983
and November 1998, which was a lesser
period.
Significantly, the Bench noted that
“the IMDT Act and the Rules clearly
negate the constitutional mandate
contained in Article 355 of the
constitution, where a duty has been
cast upon the Union of India to protect
December 2018 beyond the horizon
every State against external aggression
and internal disturbance. The IMDT
Act, which contravenes Article 355 of
the constitution is, therefore, wholly
unconstitutional and must be struck
down”.
Following this, the Supreme Court
gave another observation made on
December 17, 2014, on the writ petition
filed by the Asom Sanmilita
Mahasangha and two other
organisations. It began by saying: “A
prophet is without honour in his own
country. Substitute ‘citizen’ for
‘prophet’ and you will get the gist of
the various writ petitions filed under
Article 32 of the Constitution of India
assailing Section 6A of the Citizenship
Act” and then continued: “On 14th.
July, 2004 in response to an unstarred
question pertaining to deportation of
illegal Bangladeshi migrants, The
Minister of State, Home Affairs,
submitted a statement in Parliament
indicating therein that the estimated
number of illegal Bangladeshi
immigrants into India as on 31st
December 2001 was 1.20 crores, out of
which 50 lakhs were in Assam”.
The court also stated that “the
petitioners in the various writ petitions
represent the entire people – the tribal
and non-tribal population of the state
of Assam”. Thus, the presence of a
large body of illegal migrants from
Bangladesh has been stressed upon
by the apex court of the country from
time to time. Moreover, before finally
taking upon itself to monitor the
process of updating the NRC in Assam,
19
the apex court had passed several
judgments relating to the NRC and the
issue of illegal immigration into the
state.
Security and belonging
Now that the final draft of the
NRC has been published and over
forty lakh people have been left out,
plenty of questions have naturally
been raised about the future status of
these people, especially because it is
bound to involve major humanitarian
issues.
However, it is a positive sign that
the state has been totally free of any
violent incidents since the publication
of the NRC. One major reason for this
state of calm is that an overwhelmingly
large section of pre-1971 people who
have long been considered as illegal
migrants or ‘Bangladeshis” have made
it to the NRC. This has given them a
sense of security which they had
lacked all these years. The
involvement of the Supreme Court
seems to have lent a sort of sanctity
to the entire process and initial
apprehensions among linguistic and
religious minorities after the first draft
was published in January 2017 which
had left out almost half of the state’s
population, seem to have been largely
dispelled after the figures of the final
draft were made public.
That the Supreme Court has been
closely monitoring every stage of the
NRC process became evident when on
August 7, 2018, it severely
reprimanded the NRC coordinator
Prateek Hajela and the registrar general
and census commissioner Sailesh for
exceeding their brief in speaking to the
media. The bench of Justice Ranjan
Gogoi and Justice Rohinton Fali
Nariman warned them that as far as the
NRC was concerned, they were officers
of the court and couldn’t make
statements regarding the NRC process.
Hajela had reportedly told the
media that any valid document would
be considered for the final NRC. While
cautioning both, Justice Ranjan Gogoi
read out from an earlier order of his
which clearly stated that “…what has
been published is only the complete
Draft NRC which naturally being a draft
cannot be the basis of any action by
any authority”.
Although it is quite certain that a
substantial number of those left out of
the final draft will be included after the
claims and objections are considered,
yet the debate seems to have shifted in
Assam to the large number of
indigenous people who seem to have
been left out, with some sources putting
the figure between six to ten lakh.
It is true that large numbers of the
indigenous people did not even apply
for inclusion in the NRC, many thinking
that this was an exercise primarily aimed
at detecting foreign nationals. Once the
Standard Operating Procedures
submitted to the Supreme Court by the
Centre are accepted and the court takes
into consideration the views of all the
stakeholders that it has named – which
include minority linguistic and religious
organisations, apart from bodies
representing the majority Assamese
ethnic organisations – the overall
picture will become somewhat clear. Till
then, apprehensions and fears are
bound to persist. Nonetheless, till all
this finally takes shape, and that is
bound to take up considerable time,
those who have been left out of the
final draft need not be seen as stateless
or shorn of citizenship.
While the speculation regarding
the religious and linguistic break-up of
those that have been left out continues,
the Assamese ethnic organisations
seem to have realised that although
NRC may have highlighted the issue of
illegal immigration for the rest of the
country, yet it is likely to be of little
help for the indigenes to secure their
land rights which have been severely
compromised.
Hence, the focus is gradually
shifting from the NRC to the issue of
constitutional safeguards for the
Assamese people as stated in Clause 6
of the Assam Accord. Demands are now
surfacing for stringent measures,
including eviction, to protect
indigenous land and the tribal belts and
blocks, in line with the
recommendations of the Hari Shankar
Brahma Committee Report on the status
of land held by the indigenous people.
The committee, headed by the former
Chief Election Commissioner, which
highlighted the grave situation of the
landless indigenes of the state,
submitted its findings in December last
year. Thus the issue of land and identity
and the demand for eviction of
encroachers from tribal and
indigenous land is bound to occupy a
central place in the months to come.
There is a reference to the
measures that have been adopted
towards safeguarding land and
resources of the ethnic people in some
of the northeastern states bordering
Assam. But most of these states are
governed by Inner Line Permits which
severely restricts people from outside
these states to settle permanently in
these regions. Manipur and
Meghalaya which do not have Inner
Line restrictions have passed their own
laws to protect the indigenous land.
On the contrary, Assam’s position
is quite unenviable because all these
years the question of constitutional
safeguards for the Assamese people
has been stuck over the failure to
arrive at an acceptable definition of
who actually is an indigenous
Assamese. The Asom Sahitya Sabha,
the state’s prime Assamese literary
organisation has , after much dilly-
dallying, declared that ‘all Indian
citizens who live in Assam and speak
the Assamese language as the mother
tongue or, either as their second or
third language, irrespective of their
origin, ethnicity, caste or religion, are
an inseparable part of the greater
Assamese society and hence, are
Assamese’.
On the other hand, the speaker of
the Assam assembly had, in March
2015, put forward the definition of
Assamese as provided in the 1951
census that stated that anyone

20 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 21
speaking Assamese or tribal dialects
and Bengali in Cachar, could be called
Assamese. None of these definitions
has been acceptable to the different
ethnic organisations and the impasse
over an acceptable definition
continues.
Meanwhile, with the parameters of
Assamese nationality having expanded
over the years to include all those
initially Bengali speaking Muslims who
have been returning Assamese as their
mother tongue through the different
censuses, the question remains as to
whether they too would naturally come
GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CPP IN 50
YEARS OF WAGING REVOLUTION
Author´s Note: As founding chairman
of the Communist Party of the
Philippines, I have been asked by
academic, journalist and activist
friends and many other people to
evaluate the CPP in the last 50 years
and describe its current situation and
prospects. All of them are anticipating
the fast-approaching golden
anniversary of the CPP. I write this
article on the basis of my previous
experience and on the basis of publicly
available documents.
The Communist Party of the
Philippines (CPP) was founded on
December 26, 1968 as the revolutionary
party of the Filipino proletariat and
people under the guidance of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism (MLM) in order to
22 beyond the horizon
within the definition of ‘Assamese’
when it comes to constitutional
safeguards relating to land,
representation and culture. Now that a
great many of them have been enlisted
as genuine citizens in the NRC, their
demand to be seen and accepted as
Assamese is bound to be
strengthened.
Note: The Author is Former National
Fellow, IIAS, Shimla and author of
Periphery Strikes Back (IIAS) and
Burden of History: Assam and the
Partition, (OUP-IIAS).
Jose Maria Sison
continue the unfinished revolution
started by the Katipunan in 1896 and
to fight for national liberation and
democracy against US imperialism and
the local reactionary classes of big
compradors, landlords and bureaucrat
capitalists.
Since then, the CPP has scored
great ideological, political and
organizational achievements. These are
inspired by all previous revolutionary
struggles of the Filipino people and
surpass the achievements of the
Katipunan against Spanish colonialism
and the Communist Party of the
Philippine Islands and the Merger Party
of the Communist and Socialist Parties
(MPCSP) in the periods of the US
colonial regime, the Japanese fascist
December 2018
occupation and the neo-colonial regime
of local reactionary classes servile to
US imperialism.
In applying the revolutionary
theory of the proletariat to the concrete
conditions and practice of the
Philippine revolution, the CPP has
generated so many volumes of
documents and by-lined works that
constitute a major contribution to the
treasury of said theory and have
correctly and successfully spread and
raised revolutionary consciousness of
all aspects of Philippine society and in
all fields of revolutionary work:
economic, political, military and
cultural.
The CPP has systematically
strengthened itself ideologically,
politically and organizationally. It
arose with only a few scores of cadres
and members from the revolutionary
mass movement of the 1960s. It has
become nationwide and has become
even more deeply rooted among the
toiling masses of workers and
peasants. It continues to draw strength
from the revolutionary mass movement.
It has grown into tens of thousands of
cadres and members who have been
tested and tempered in revolutionary
armed struggle and other forms of
struggle.
The CPP leads the New People´s
Army (NPA), which was founded on
March 29, 1969, in the second district
of Tarlac. Now, this army operates in
more than 110 guerrilla fronts covering
substantial parts of 73 out of the 81
Philippine provinces in 17 regions
December 2018 beyond the horizon
outside of the national capital region.
It is assisted by the people´s militia and
self-defense units of mass
organizations. It follows the strategic
line of protracted people´s war, carries
out agrarian revolution and guarantees
the building and functioning of the
people´s democratic government.
The CPP leads the national united
front whose most consolidated
embodiment is the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines (NDFP)
founded on April 24, 1974. The national
united front relies mainly on the
revolutionary basic alliance of the
working class and the peasantry, wins
over the middle strata of the
bourgeoisie and takes advantage of the
conflicts among the reactionaries in
order to isolate and defeat the enemy,
which is the worst reactionary clique.
The united front is effective in
reaching and rallying the people in their
millions. It has demonstrated that it can
overthrow the fascist dictatorship of
Marcos in 1986 and the corrupt regime
of Estrada in 2001. It is necessary to
defeat one reactionary clique after
another and thus increase the strength
of the revolutionary movement for
overthrowing the entire semi-colonial
and semifeudal ruling system,
accomplishing the people´s democratic
revolution and laying the basis for the
socialist revolution.
1. Ideological Achievements of the CPP
The CPP has a comprehensive and
profound understanding of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism. It has published the
23
classical works of Marx, Engels, Lenin
Stalin and Mao Zedong as well as its
basic documents and the works of its
leading cadres on the basic principles
of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory in
various fields. By adopting this
revolutionary theory of the proletariat
as the theoretical guide, the CPP has
integrated it with the history and
concrete circumstances of the Filipino
people and proletariat.
The CPP has traced the major
strands of Philippine history:
communalism and patriarchal slavery
in the pre-colonial period, feudalism
under Spanish colonialism, semi-
feudalism under US colonialism and the
semi-colonial and semi-feudal society
since after the 1946 US grant of
nominal independence to the
Philippines. Based on the analysis of
Philippine history and concrete
circumstances, the CPP has defined the
character of Philippine society, the
general political line of struggle, motive
forces, adversaries, stages and future
of the Philippine revolution.
The CPP has put forward the
general line of people´s democratic
revolution, with a socialist perspective
against the semi-colonial and semi-
feudal conditions. This is a revolution
led by the proletariat and no longer by
the bourgeoisie in keeping with the
global era of modern imperialism and
the proletarian revolution. Under the
leadership of the proletariat, with the
CPP as the vanguard party, the Filipino
people can proceed from the basic
completion of the new democratic
revolution (the overthrow of the semi-
colonial and semifeudal ruling system)
to the start of a socialist revolution.
The CPP has applied Marxism-
Leninism to define the new democratic
and socialist stages of the Philippine
revolution. It has also applied Maoism
to combat modern revisionism and
guarantee a future of consolidating
socialism and preventing the
restoration of capitalism. For some
years, from 1963 onwards, the founders
of the CPP were enlightened by the
Marxist-Leninist line against modern
revisionism centred in the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union and the
revisionist character of the MPCSP.
In breaking out of the MPCSP, they
launched the First Great Rectification
Movement in 1966. This criticized and
rectified the subjectivist and the ¨Left¨
and Right opportunist errors from 1942
to 1966, the year when a scion of the
Lava family imposed his revisionist line
and grabbed leadership in the MPCSP.
The proletarian leaders who developed
from the workers and youth mass
organizations pursued the rectification
movement and cleared the way for the
foundation of the Communist Party of
the Philippines from 1966 to 1968.
The CPP has established, clarified
and developed the principles and
policies for winning the new democratic
revolution with a socialist perspective
by wielding the three major weapons of
the Filipino people: the revolutionary
party of the proletariat, the people´s war
and the united front policy. It has
practised criticism and self-criticism of
errors and shortcomings in the course
of assessing and evaluating current
work. It has therefore always improved
the mode and style of work and thus
have achieved better results.
The CPP has waged rectification
movements to overcome major errors
in ideology, politics and organization.
It successfully waged the Second Great
Rectification Movement from 1992 to
1998 as an education movement in
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to criticize
and repudiate major subjectivist and
“Left” and Right opportunist errors in
the period of 1981 to 1992.
It debunked the subjectivist notion
that the Marcos fascist dictatorship
had made the Philippine economy
industrial capitalist. This subjectivist
error gave rise to Right and ¨Left¨
opportunist errors. The Right
opportunists advocated a united front
without the leadership of the
revolutionary proletariat and
kowtowing to the anti-Marcos
reactionaries, The “Left” opportunists
rejected Mao´s strategic line of
protracted people´s war and promoted
adventurism and the premature
regularization of the NPA at the expense
of mass work.
Currently, the CPP is subjecting to
criticism and rectification among others
the phenomenon of conservatism,
which overly stresses mass work,
unwittingly favours the style of roving
rebel bands and neglects the need to
intensify guerrilla tactical offensives in
order to annihilate the enemy forces
and seize the weapons from them and
to bring about the full development of
the strategic defensive and reach the
strategic stalemate in the people´s war.
The CPP has educated tens of
thousands of Party cadres and
members in the theory and practice of
MLM by providing them with three
levels of Party study courses: basic,
intermediate and advanced. These
cadres are the ever growing hard core
of the revolutionary mass movement,
institutions of various kinds and
specialized fields of work. Party
education is meant to enlighten and
inspire the Party cadres and members
among the toiling masses of workers
and peasants as well as among the
middle social strata of the bourgeoisie.
The basic Party course provides
Party cadres and members with a
knowledge of Philippine history, the
basic problems of the Filipino people
and the people´s democratic
revolution; the intermediate Party
course on building the Party, the
people´s army and the united front with
a comparative knowledge of
successful revolutions led by the
proletariat; and the advanced Party
course with a comprehensive
knowledge of materialist philosophy,
political economy, scientific socialism,
the strategy and tactics of proletarian
revolution and the international
communist movement.
The CPP has contributed greatly
to the world treasury of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism by issuing
ideological and political documents
and by-lined works written by CPP

24 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 25
leading organs and cadres for
declaring the position of the Party on
theoretical and practical issues, for
building and developing the Party, the
people´ army and the united front, for
criticizing and rectifying errors and
shortcomings and for analysing and
opposing imperialism and reaction in
the Philippines and abroad. Many of
such works have attained the level of
texts for theoretical or doctrinal study.
On a national and global scale, the
CPP has been outstanding in being
steadfast against modern revisionism,
reformism and opportunism and in
upholding the socialist and communist
future of mankind. It has contributed
to the analysis of modern revisionism
up to the full restoration of capitalism
in former socialist countries and the
collapse of the Soviet Union in the
years of 1989 to 1991. The written
stand of the CPP for socialism against
modern revisionism is an avidly studied
and cherished text in the international
communist movement.
The CPP has analysed and
opposed the ideological offensives
against Marxism-Leninism-Maoism
and the monstrosities of the US-
instigated neoliberal economic policy
and the neoconservative policy of full-
spectrum intervention and aggression.
These have accelerated the strategic
decline of the US since this superpower
appeared to have won the Cold War in
1991 upon the collapse of the Soviet
Union. The US has undermined its
position as the sole superpower and is
sliding from the peak of its global
power. It is still a major capitalist power
and is desperately and vainly trying to
maintain overall hegemony in a
multipolar world.
The CPP has defined the current
world situation as one still in the era of
modern imperialism and proletarian
revolution and in a period of intensified
inter-imperialist contradictions, social
disorder and wars of aggression in
transition to a world of resurgent
proletarian revolution and national
liberation movements since the full
restoration of capitalism in the Soviet
Union, China and Eastern Europe.
The documents and articles of the
CPP central leadership on Philippine
and international issues are highly
respected domestically and
internationally because they are the
products of the growing revolutionary
movement in the Philippines which has
overcome the most brutal onslaughts
by US imperialism and local reaction
and which has successfully waged an
ideological struggle against
imperialism, revisionism and reaction.
Such a struggle has been in pursuit of
revolutionary change in the Philippines
and in the spirit of proletarian
internationalism and anti-imperialist
solidarity among peoples.
2. Political Achievements of the CPP
The CPP has correctly described
Philippine society as semi-colonial and
semi-feudal and formulated the program
for a people´s democratic revolution
with a socialist perspective in the era
of modern imperialism and proletarian
revolution. The leading class of the
revolution is the working class. It relies
mainly on its basic alliance with the
peasantry, wins over the urban petty
bourgeoisie and further wins over the
middle bourgeoisie in order to isolate
and defeat the ruling classes of big
comprador bourgeoisie, landlord class
and bureaucrat capitalists subservient
to US imperialism
The CPP has built itself as a strong
revolutionary party of the proletariat by
successfully implementing the general
line of people’s democratic revolution
through protracted people´s war. It has
become nationwide and is deeply rooted
among the toiling masses of workers
and peasants. And it has built the
people´s army and the national united
front in order to wield them as weapons
of the revolution and the people. Thus,
it has aroused, organized and mobilized
the people in their millions to form a
strong revolutionary mass movement
of workers, peasants, national
minorities, youth, women,
professionals, cultural workers and
other sectors in all regions of the
country.
The CPP has built and led the New
People´s Army (NPA). This is the
strongest people´s army built since the
defeat of the Philippine revolutionary
army by US imperialism in 1902 and since
the backbone of the Hukbong
Mapagpalaya ng Bayan was broken in
1952. The current armed strength of the
NPA in terms of high-powered rifles is
bigger than the 5,600 recorded in the
1985 Plenum of the CPP Central
Committee.
This is contrary to the claim of the
enemy that the NPA had 25,000 in the
mid-1980s and that it has only 2000 to
4000 now. And yet the tyrant Duterte
and his military minions claim to have
caused the surrender and death of more
than 7000 Red commanders and
fighters, victimizing the civilian
population and privately collecting
reward money for the purpose.
The NPA is the main weapon of the
people for defeating the enemy and
winning the revolution. Without it, the
people have nothing. It carries out
three integral tasks: revolutionary
armed struggle, agrarian revolution and
mass base building. It carries out a war
of fluid movement and avails of the
tactics of concentration, dispersal and
shifting as circumstances require. It
follows the strategy of protracted
people´s war, with three probable
strategic stages: defensive, stalemate
and counter-offensive. It carries out a
The NPA applies the principle of
centralized ideological and political
leadership and decentralized
operations, which is very appropriate
to the archipelagic character of the
Philippines even as the Party central
leadership issues operational
guidelines for the national, regional
and lower levels to implement.
Currently, the NPA is victoriously
carrying out extensive and intensive
guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever
widening and deepening mass base in
order to advance from the strategic
defensive to the strategic stalemate.

26 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 27
 The NPA has an effective national
operational command, with several
departments (political, personnel
training, intelligence, logistics,
ordnance, medical and technical) and
with lower levels of command down to
the basic level. It has thousands of
Red fighters who are disciplined and
have high fighting morale. They have
undergone political-military training at
various levels, armed with high-
powered rifles, tempered in the armed
struggle and have various capabilities
in the service of the people.
They are a force for fighting,
politico-military training, propaganda
and agitation, mass organizing,
production, medical care, cultural work,
environmental protection and disaster
relief. But they relinquish non-military
functions to the local organs of
political power and mass organizations
in order to be able to wage tactical
offensives and open new guerrilla
zones.
The NPA is assisted by tens of
thousands of men and women in the
people´s militia and hundreds of
thousands in self-defence units of the
mass organizations. It operates in more
than 110 guerrillas fronts which occupy
substantial parts of 17 regions and 73
out of the 81 Philippine provinces. It is
increasingly capable of annihilating
units of the military, police and
paramilitary forces of the ruling system
in order to increase the strength of its
fighting units and to weaken and
dismantle the enemy forces.
US imperialism and its puppets
have unleashed all kinds of military
onslaughts, excluding an outright US
war of aggression but including the 14-
year fascist dictatorship of the US-
Marcos ruling clique and the US-
instigated strategic operational plans
from the Marcos fascist regime through
the pseudo-democratic regimes of
Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Macapagal-
Arroyo and Aquino II regime to the
current Duterte regime, all propped up
and armed by US imperialism.
The Marcos fascist regime could not
destroy the NPA when this was still
small and weak but unwittingly
succeeded in generating the conditions
for people´s war even more fertile.
Marcos the despot became known as
best recruiter and supply officer
because through his oppressive and
exploitative policies and acts he
unwittingly incited the people to join
the NPA and because he sent his armed
minions to attack the NPA, they ended
up being ambushed and yielding their
arms and supplies to the NPA. Thus,
the NPA grew in strength and
succeeded in contributing significantly
to the weakening and fall of the fascist
regime. It continues to contribute
significantly to the weakening of the
entire ruling system.
The highest praise that has been
accorded to the NPA comes unwittingly
from the rulers of the reactionary system
who have always considered the NPA
as the No. 1 security threat to their
counterrevolutionary state. But in
another categorical way, the neo-
colonial republic of the Philippines has
recognized the NDFP as the
representative of the CPP, NPA and
other revolutionary forces and people
and has found it necessary to engage
the NDFP in peace negotiations.
In developing the alliance of the
working class with the peasantry in the
anti-feudal united front, the CPP has
correctly taken the line of relying mainly
on the poor peasants, winning over the
middle peasants, and neutralizing the
rich peasants in order to isolate and
destroy the power of the landlord class.
The CPP and NPA have taken the key
role in carrying out agrarian revolution
as the main content of the democratic
revolution.
Depending on the circumstances,
they have carried out the minimum and
maximum land reform programs. The
minimum program involves rent
reduction, elimination of usury, setting
of fair farm-gate prices and promotion
of agricultural production and side-line
occupation through independent
households and rudimentary
cooperation. The maximum program
involves the confiscation of land from
the landlords and land grabbers and
free land distribution and agricultural
cooperation in stages.
While encouraging and giving due
course to the peasant movement for
land reform, the CPP leads the NPA to
guarantee that the landlord class and
the reactionary state cannot frustrate
the land reform; to defeat the despotic
landlords and distribute the land to the
tenants; and to dismantle the
landholdings grabbed by the corporate
and bureaucratic plantation owners
and effect the restitution of the land
to the indigenous peoples and poor
settlers. The NPA has also the duty to
enforce the laws of the people’s
government, especially on enterprises
that lessen the area available for land
reform and that damaged agriculture
and the environment.
Because of the people´s army and
the advance of the people´s war, the
CPP has been able to build the local
organs of political power nationwide,
from the barangay level upwards. At
the barangay level, the barangay
organizing committees are appointed
and then eventually the barangay
revolutionary committees are elected.
The local organs of political power
constitute the people´s democratic
government of workers and peasants
in opposition to the reactionary
government of big compradors,
landlords and bureaucrat capitalists.
They are composed of the
representatives of the Party cadres,
the masses and technically capable
persons. They oversee and supervise
mass organizing, public education,
production, finance, self-defence,
health and sanitation, cultural affairs,
environmental protection, disaster
relief and rehabilitation and the
settlement of disputes. They are in
charge of the people´s militia and the
people´s court at the pertinent level.
Two conflicting governments exist
in the Philippines. The reactionaries
are talking nonsense whenever they
say that the revolutionaries have not

28 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 29
accomplished anything in 50 years by
not being able to seize the presidential
palace in Manila. They are even more
absurd when they try to deny the
existence and belligerent status of the
people´s democratic government and
dismiss it as a mere non-state actor.
In fact, this government, duly
constituted by the workers and
peasants, is growing and advancing
wave upon wave until it shall be able to
overthrow every level of the reactionary
government. At certain levels and in
many areas in the Philippines, the
reactionary government cannot
function without its enlightened local
officials obtaining the permission or
cooperation of the revolutionary
government.
As it now stands, the people´s
democratic government has millions of
people under its governance and
influence. It is mindful of the class line
in the national united front and in the
anti-feudal united front in being able to
govern the revolutionary mass
organizations and the broad masses of
the people. The policy of the united
front guides the people’s war as well as
the various forms of legal struggle in
the urban areas in order to promote the
armed revolution and attract the
support of the people in their millions.
The CPP has built the united front
as a weapon of the people for armed as
well as for legal struggle. The united
front is embodied in the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines as
the largest and most consolidated
united front organization. The NDFP
consists of 18 allied organizations
bound together by patriotic and
progressive principles and policies.
And it has the flexibility to become the
base for an even broader united front
that takes advantage of the
contradictions among the reactionaries
in order to isolate and defeat the
current enemy, which is the most
reactionary clique in the country.
Under the direction of the CPP, the
broad united front has twice succeeded
in overthrowing the reactionary regime.
First, it succeeded in fighting,
undermining and overthrowing the
Marcos fascist dictatorship from 1972
to 1986 and in ousting the corrupt
Estrada regime in 2001. Even without
as yet deploying units of the people
army in the cities aside from armed city
partisans, the broad masses of the
people rose up to show their hatred for
the ruling clique and subsequently, the
reactionary armed forces refused to
follow orders to attack the people but
decided to withdraw support from the
hated ruler.
To score its political achievements,
the CPP learned well from the periodic
and timely summing up of experience
and learn from positive as well as
negative lessons. It has followed the
general line of people´s democratic
revolution and the strategy and tactics
of protracted people´s war.
Accomplishments and exemplary
models of achievement have been
recognized to inspire further successes
in revolutionary work and struggle.
Major and minor errors and
shortcomings have been criticized and
rectified in the normal course of
criticism and self-criticism.
A rectification movement of longer
duration and with the appropriate
degree of intensity has been carried
out to confront major errors of Right
and ¨Left” opportunism that are long
persistent and threaten the very life of
the entire Party or a major part of it.
The CPP has learned from the First
Rectification Movement which
criticized and repudiated the Right
opportunism of Vicente Lava from 1942
to 1946, the ¨Left¨ opportunism of Jose
Lava from 1948 to 1950 and the Right
opportunism of Jesus Lava from 1950
onwards.
The Second Great Rectification
Movement criticized, repudiated and
rectified the Right opportunist error of
taking out the leadership of the
communist party and the working class
from the national united front
supposedly to attract more people and
make the united front the main weapon
of the struggle; and several trends of
¨Left¨ opportunism, the most damaging
of which overstressed the
verticalization of the NPA at the
expense of horizontal deployment of
the NPA for mass work and which
upon failure resulted in blaming those
tagged as deep penetration agents as
causing the failure and subjecting them
to punishment without due process.
As a whole, the CPP has learned
well from the Second Great
Rectification Movement by
developing the balance between armed
struggle and mass work and the centre
of gravity in a relatively concentrated
force (e.g., command platoon of a
company or the command squad of a
platoon) and the relatively dispersed
force for mass work (two-thirds of a
formation deployed on a wider scale).
The line for the NPA is to wage
intensive and extensive guerrilla
warfare on the basis of an ever
widening and deepening mass base.
But the erroneous currents of
conservatism and roving rebel bands,
which neglect the waging of guerrilla
tactical offensives by overemphasizing
mass work by armed propaganda
teams, has afflicted some regions for
extended periods, especially in Luzon
and the Visayas.
Even mass work is prejudiced and
ultimately disappears when squads or
armed propaganda units think and act
like roving rebel bands because the
Party leadership and NPA command do
not plan and launch tactical offensives
to take initiative in people´s war and
do not increase the armed strength of
the people´s army. Without a centre of
gravity and being deployed in an
overextended way, the squads and
armed propaganda teams can easily be
put into a purely defensive and losing
position by the enemy forces. It is fine
that conservatism and roving rebel
band mode are being criticized and
rectified.
The CPP has excelled in leading the
armed revolution that is among the
longest running, strongest, and
continuously growing armed

30 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 31
revolutions for national liberation,
democracy and socialism in the world.
This armed revolution has proven
correct Mao´s theory and practice of
people´s war as well as the
development of this theory and
practice by the CPP leadership in
accordance with the specific
characteristics of the Philippines in
terms of social and physical terrain,
with the peasant population as the
most numerous class in the
mountainous archipelago.
What makes the Philippine
revolution most outstanding currently
is that it has overcome a long-running
fascist dictatorship and a long series
of strategic operational campaign plans
of US-lining pseudo-democratic
regimes to destroy it. The
revolutionary forces and people have
become strong precisely by fighting
all the series of strategic operational
plans that have been undertaken by
the US with the collaboration of the
Filipino puppet regimes. They have
also combated and prevented all
attempts of modern revisionism,
reformism and opportunism to
undermine and weaken the armed
revolution.
The line of development and
advance for the people´s war is from
the strategic defensive to the strategic
stalemate and ultimately to the
strategic counteroffensive for
accomplishing total victory. The ruling
system is in chronic crisis, keeps on
rotting and making the ground ever
more fertile for people´s war. Under the
leadership of the CPP, the NPA must
annihilate more and more of the enemy
forces in order to strengthen itself,
demoralize the enemy as a whole and
raise the fighting morale of the people
and cause the disintegration of the
reactionary and its armed forces.
Because of the success of the
people’s war in the Philippines, the CPP
enjoys high prestige in the world and
is proactive in spreading information
about the Philippine revolution in order
to inspire other peoples and to seek
international solidarity and support.
The millions of Filipinos who have
sought jobs abroad are a major target
of mass work to support the
revolutionary movement in the
motherland and also serve as a wide
base for the CPP´s international political
work. The CPP is active in
strengthening the revolutionary core in
the mass formations and movements of
overseas Filipinos and also in
international organizations of
communist and workers´ parties and
international solidarity organizations
among the people.
The Philippine revolution led by the
CPP has served as a torchbearer of the
world proletarian revolution and the
movements for national liberation,
democracy and socialism in various
countries in the current period of
intensified contradictions among the
imperialist powers, wars of aggression
and escalating oppression and
exploitation in all imperialist-dominated
countries. The CPP is playing an
outstanding role in leading a revolution
in the period of transition to the
worldwide resurgence of revolutionary
movements of the proletariat and
people. Only by fighting and defeating
imperialism and all reaction can the
people of the world advance towards
socialism and the communist future,
3. Organizational Achievements of the
CPP
The CPP has succeeded in leading the
Philippine revolution because it has
built itself as a solid organization. At
every stage in this development, it has
followed the principle of democratic
centralism under the guidance of
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and the
general line of people´s democratic
revolution through protracted people´s
war. This is centralized leadership on
the basis of democracy.
The entire Party follows its Central
Committee and lower organs follow the
higher leading organ. But at every level
of decision-making, democratic
processes are followed, with the
leading organ taking into account the
reports and recommendations of lower
organs and with the majority prevailing
over the minority by voting. Those in
the minority have the right to reserve
their opinion but must follow the
majority vote as a matter of discipline.
Such a decision may be vindicated,
modified or entirely changed on the
basis of further revolutionary practice.
The CPP could be established in
1968 because it was preceded by the
development of a resolute and militant
mass movement, which started among
the workers and youth in the period of
1959 to 1962 even if the proletarian
revolutionary cadres had to join first
the MPCSP from 1962 to 1966.
When the proletarian revolutionary
cadres from the youth movement and
the labour and peasant movement
joined up in 1962 onwards, they were
able to form in quick succession the
proletarian revolutionary organization
within Lapiang Manggagawa
(Workers´ Party), Malayang Samahan
ng mga Magsasaka (Free Peasant
Association) and the Kabataang
Makabayan.
As a comprehensive mass
organization of the youth devoted to
the new democratic revolution and to
the leadership of the working class,
the Kabataang Makabayan was able
to expand its organization nationwide
from 1964 onwards and was also able
to stimulate the formation of other
types of organizations of various
classes and sectors.
The KM had for members the
young men and women from the
working class, peasantry, students,
young professionals and other sectors
of society. It facilitated the national
spread of the CPP because its core of
proletarian revolutionary cadres
educated an ever increasing number
of mass activists both on the national
democratic revolution and on the
theory and practice of Marxism-
Leninism-Maoism.
The KM availed of its cooperation
with Lapiang Manggagawa and its
trade unions in order to recruit

32 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 33
members from the working class and
initiate the building of new
revolutionary trade unions in the
national capital region and nationwide.
Likewise, it availed of the cooperation
of MASAKA in Central Luzon and
Southern Tagalog regions to recruit KM
members from the ranks of the young
peasants but it proceeded to form
peasant associations in other regions.
By the time that its Founding
Congress was held, with scores of Party
cadres and members represented by
twelve delegates, the CPP could rely on
a nationwide mass base and start to
strike deeper roots among the toiling
masses of workers and peasants. At the
same time, it had gained national
prominence as having a significant mass
following among the educated youth,
including students, young teachers and
other professionals.
In the entire second half of the
1960s, the KM spearheaded the mass
movement on national issues as well as
on international issues, especially the
US war of aggression against Vietnam.
After the CPP was founded in 1968, it
could exercise effective leadership in
the mass movement immediately. Thus
it directed the upsurge of the open mass
movement in 1969, the First Quarter
Storm of 1970 and the further protest
mass movement up to September 21,
1972, when Marcos proclaimed martial
law and imposed fascist dictatorship on
the people.
Since its founding, the CPP has
exerted efforts to recruit its members
from the various types of mass
organizations and create Party groups
within them at every level. It also
formed Party organizations within
factories, institutions and in urban and
rural communities. When the CPP
founded the NPA, it constituted this
under the absolute leadership of the
CPP through the Central Committee,
Political Bureau and Military
Commission. At the same time, it built
the Party organization within the NPA
at every level.
The CPP is now in a position to
increase its membership from tens of
thousands to hundreds of thousands
in keeping with its increasing
responsibilities. It has successfully
built itself in all 18 regions of the
Philippines and has also created
regional operational commands of the
NPA in 17 regions. It has encouraged
the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines and all its 18 allied
organizations to build themselves as
underground revolutionary mass
organizations. These are different from
the legal mass organizations of
BAYAN and other legal national
democratic alliances.
At various stages in the
organizational development of the CPP,
various regional party organizations
have gained national prominence
because of the conspicuous strength
of the revolutionary masses and the
victorious NPA tactical offensives
under CPP leadership. Central Luzon,
particularly Tarlac, stood out in 1969
onwards; Cagayan Valley, particularly
Isabela from 1971 onwards; Southern
Luzon, Southern Tagalog and Bicol
provinces from 1972 onwards, Western
Visayas, particularly Panay and Negros
islands from 1973 onwards; Ilocos-
Montañosa-Pangasinan region,
particularly Ifugao from 1974 onwards;
and Eastern Visayas, particularly
Samar, and Mindanao from 1975
onwards.
The various regional Party
committees can sum up their respective
historical experiences to show how the
Party, NPA and the united front began
and expanded in their respective areas
and nationwide. They can narrate their
relations with the Party Central
Committee and the experience of
having inter-regional commissions and
cooperation to relieve or lessen the
burden of the Central Committee in
dealing with regional committees.
The CPP central leadership has
made sure that stronger regional Party
organizations serve as a base for
assisting weaker regional Party
organizations in terms of education,
training, competent cadres and
commanders and resources. It has
always tried its best to give direction
to any part of the revolutionary
movement under concentrated enemy
attack to solve its own problems and
to urge other regional Party
organizations to intensify their own
offensives in order to relieve the
comrades under attack in other regions
and to make the enemy pay dearly for
its attacks in other regions.
The CPP has been alert to and has
overcome the occurrences of
bureaucratism, sectarianism and ultra-
democracy. Centralized leadership and
the hierarchy of leading organs are
respected but the CPP criticizes and
repudiates the imposition of sheer
authority without a basis in facts and
reasoning laid out through the
democratic process. The CPP also
eschews sectarianism, which is merely
in the interest of the entirety or part of
the Party, without due consideration
of the legitimate interests of other
political forces and the broad masses
of the people. The CPP shuns ultra-
democracy, liberalism and anarchy
because these break the unity and
discipline needed to strengthen the
ranks of the revolution and confront
the enemy,
Despite its great organizational
achievements, the CPP can improve its
work and style of work. Prolonged and
delayed meetings have adverse
consequences and detract attention
from the prompt solution of problems.
When a higher level of leadership
engages in prolonged and delayed
meetings, lower levels tend to follow
the style and thus so much time for
revolutionary work is lost. The most
thoroughgoing meetings, with the best
of possible conclusions and
documents, can also be ineffective if
the leading organ concerned does not
issue the needed urgent directives on
the basis of current circumstances and
developments between such meetings.
The CPP is organizationally strong
because it builds on its previous
strength and seriously examines its

34 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 35
organizational errors and shortcomings
which it is ever determined to criticize
and rectify. The current strength of the
CPP in the tens of thousands can move
up to the level of hundreds of
thousands. These are needed to
respond to the growing demand for
Party cadres for various types of work
in the revolutionary struggle. The
previous stock of Party cadres and
members is the base for the expansion
of the Party in consonance with the
accelerated advance of the revolution.
There is nothing arcane or too
complicated for leading Party organs
and specific units to plan and carry
out the expansion of the Party
membership. The field for recruitment
is the mass movement. A mass activist
becomes a Party candidate-member by
accepting the Party Constitution and
Program and becomes a full Party
member by the time he or she finishes
the basic Party course of education.
The Party has competent and
conscientious political instructors.
Study materials are in print and audio-
visual forms that are available to people
with various levels of prior formal
education. Education and mass w2ork
ensure the high quality and durability
of Party membership.
The ideological and political
education and work of all Party
members and candidate-members can
be accelerated and amplified. More
Party educators can be trained and put
to work in coordination with the
accelerated recruitment of Party
candidate members from the mass
movement. The Party can take full
advantage of the available technology
to produce educational materials that
are printed and audiovisual.
As early as 1969, the CPP central
leadership authorized the formation of
the US Committee to build the CPP and
mass organizations among Filipinos in
the US. By 1971 the delegation of the
Central Committee of the CPP was based
in Beijing in order to relate to the Central
Committee of the Chinese Communist
Party and to connect with proletarian
revolutionary parties and national
liberation movements on a world scale.
In 1976 the CPP supported the
establishment of NDFP offices in
Europe and the Asia-Pacific in order to
organize the overseas contract workers
and resource centres as well as form
solidarity organizations with the host
people.
The CPP and NDFP have been
successful in their international work.
They have been instrumental in forming
organizations of migrant Filipino
workers, resource centres on the
Philippines and solidarity organizations
with the host peoples in many
countries. They have initiated as well
as joined anti-imperialist and
democratic struggles abroad in defence
of the rights and welfare of Filipinos
and other peoples.
The CPP has a wide range of bilateral
relations with other Communist and
workers´ parties. These range from
comradely relations with Marxist-
Leninist parties to friendly relations
with anti-imperialist and democratic
parties, organizations and movements.
The CPP assumed a key role in the
building of international communist
organizations, such as the International
Conference of Marxist-Leninist Parties
and Organizations from 1992 onwards
and the Brussels Communist Seminar.
It has also participated in multilateral
conferences and seminars organized by
other fraternal parties and
revolutionary movements in various
countries.
To the extent possible, the CPP has
engaged in practical cooperation with
other revolutionary parties in order to
exchange experiences and views and
engage in mutual support and
assistance. It has received comrades
and friends from abroad who desire to
learn first hand the activities of the
Philippine revolutionary movement. It
has also dispatched CPP
representatives and delegations to
exchange experiences with and learn
from fraternal parties, organizations and
movements on their own home-
grounds.
4. Purpose of Celebration Amidst the
People´s War and Crisis of the Ruling
System
The Communist Party of the Philippines
can proudly celebrate its great
achievements in the last 50 years. The
celebration can take many forms:
accelerated recruitment and
development of new Party members,
vigorous mass work and intensified
tactical offensives, mass meetings,
seminars and forums, book publications
of archival and timely materials, films
on the history and current status of
the Party nationwide and in the
regions, stage plays and musicals, art
exhibits and so on.
The purpose of celebrating the
50th anniversary of the CPP is to take
stock of the great achievements of the
Party, to honour the entire Party, the
revolutionary heroes and martyrs, the
Party cadres and members, the Red
commanders and fighters, the mass
activists and the people, especially the
toiling masses of workers and
peasants.
Most importantly, the purpose is
to inspire the entire Party, the people´s
army, all other revolutionary forces
and the people to frustrate and defeat
current attempts of the enemy to
destroy the revolutionary movement
and to win greater victories towards
the total victory of the people´s
democratic revolution.
The US-Duterte regime is seeking
to scapegoat the CPP, NPA and the
revolutionary mass movement of the
people in order to establish a full-
blown fascist dictatorship. It is using
the most brutal and deceptive tactics
in the vain attempt to destroy the
revolutionary forces. These tactics
used by Oplan Kapayapaan are akin
to those used in Oplan Tokhang and
Double Barrel.
The barangay officials are coerced
to list down suspected revolutionaries
in the communities supposedly to
make them participate in fake
surrenders and to receive payments.

36 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 37
The list also serves as a death list
because military officers get the higher
payment for those killed in fake
encounters. Like the police in the war
on drugs, military officers are turned
into butchers and corrupted more than
ever before.
The Party, the people´s army and
other revolutionary forces exist and
operate on a national scale and in-depth
through clandestinely and countryside
basing. The enemy forces do not have
the precise knowledge and capability
to attack and destroy the revolutionary
forces all at once even under martial law
and fascist dictatorship. They are liable
to rob, abduct, torture and murder many
people as they are already doing on an
expanded scale.
The people´s army can launch
tactical offensives against the
increasingly more vulnerable points of
the enemy forces whenever these are
overstretched and spread thinly in
campaigns of suppression. The enemy
armed forces do not have enough armed
strength to concentrate on and destroy
the Party and the people´s army in any
region, without those in other regions
launching offensives to relieve their
comrades in the region under attack.
Whenever one or several guerrilla
fronts are the focus of concentrated
enemy attacks, they are capable of
winning battles of counter-encirclement
and the other guerrilla fronts of the
same region can intensify their tactical
offensives. When the NPA forces in
certain regions are under enemy attack,
those in other regions can intensify
38 beyond the horizon
their own offensives and win battles.
As of the latest report, 75 of the
total 98 manoeuvre battalions of the
reactionary armed forces are
concentrated in Mindanao under
conditions of martial law. Forty-four
battalions are deployed against the
NPA areas and 31 against Bangsamoro
groups. Meanwhile, the guerrilla fronts
in Luzon and the Visayas have even
better opportunities for launching and
winning offensives against the
overstretched 21 manoeuvre battalions
that are deployed against them.
As it has been able to do repeatedly,
the NPA can take advantage of gaps in
the enemy encirclement operations and
conduct counter-encirclement
operations and annihilate the
vulnerable parts of the enemy forces
in Mindanao. The Party and the NPA
can use the basic tactics of guerrilla
warfare as well as more complex tactics
against both the military and police
forces of the enemy.
The Party has a strong basis for the
confidence in winning greater victories
in the battlefield. The more the US-
Duterte regime deploys and
overstretches its military, police and
paramilitary forces against the NPA the
more will it make these forces available
for NPA tactical offensives and provide
opportunities for the NPA to seize
weapons and other supplies from these
forces.
The combination of wastage of
public funds for military equipment and
operations, corruption among the
officers, unbridled human rights
December 2018
violations and the soaring prices of
basic commodities and services are
goading more people to join the
people´s army and help to hasten the
advance of the people´s war for
nationwide liberation and democracy
against the US-Duterte regime.
The crisis of the semi-colonial and
semifeudal ruling system and the world
capitalist system is rapidly worsening.
It is escalating the conditions of
people´s oppression and exploitation
and at the same time driving the
revolutionary forces and the people to
wage revolution. On the basis of the
ideological, political and organizational
strength that it has already attained,
the Party can make bigger strides
forward and win greater victories.
So long as the oppression and
exploitation of the Filipino people by
ABSENCE OF POLITICAL WILL TO SAVE THE
INDIAN ECONOMY
A Case Study of Indian Finance Management
The National Democratic Alliance II
(NDA II) led by the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) formed the government in
Delhi in mid-2014. After subsequent
state elections, the NDA captured
power in 21 states and only 8 states
remained with opposition parties. Mr
Narendra Modi as Prime Minister of
India gradually started unfolding his
government’s economic agenda.
In 2016 the NDA government
December 2018 beyond the horizon
US imperialism and the local exploiting
classes persist, the Communist Party
of the Philippines has fertile ground for
leading and waging the people´s
democratic revolution. As the
oppression and exploitation escalate
under the US-Duterte regime, the CPP
and the Filipino proletariat and people
can win ever greater victories in the
revolutionary struggle and realize a
new Philippines that is truly
independent, democratic, prosperous,
socially just and progressive in an all-
round way.
August 23, 2018
Note: The author is the Founding
Chairman of the Communist Party
of the Philippines
Dr. N. Bhattacharya
announced two controversial
economic policies:
a) Demonetisation from midnight of
8th November 2016 and
b) Goods and Service Tax Act (GST
Act) from July 2017.
A review of the implementation
process of these two policies gives an
idea of how his Government functioned
during these 4 years.
39
I and painful waits. The elaborate and
a) Demonetisation comfortable seating arrangements that
The entire country was in a Deepavali are made in the election meetings of Mr
induced festive mood until the 1st week Modi was forgotten when
of November 2016 and on 8 th of ‘demonetisation’ policy was
November night, the people were announced. Each customer of every
instructed by the Prime Minister that bank pays cent-per cent running
‘Demonetisation’ of certain types of expenditures of the banks. Banks are
currency notes would take effect at there for these customers and they pay
midnight. It was said that all cash for it. It is their right to get all the
transactions with demonetised facilities while doing banking
currency would officially stop by transactions. Banking regulators
midnight. The press reported a treated these customers as condemned
constant stream of massive illegal beggars because they were compelled
transactions until the early morning of to come and change the notes declared
9th November and there was none to illegal by their own government. These
stop that. They rather claim that dark individuals were humiliated and
deeds are always better done in dark! harassed by compelling them to stand
The banking system of the entire in infinite queues for unlimited hours
country was brought to a halt by such in waiting. Total anarchy prevailed in
unplanned and avoidable ATM booths throughout the country
‘demonetisation’ policies. Everyone, with ‘NO CASH’ tagged on the doors.
poor and rich, old and young were Bank employees were paid ‘overtime
punished for having cash at home of wage’ for working for unlimited hours
certain denominations of banned for this unbearable work burden
currency. If Government did some sincerely and faithfully and this work
planning without leaking out the continued even after the official
project some unfortunate deaths of demonetisation transactions were over.
people waiting peacefully in long However, the extra wage paid for extra
queues in front of bank offices could time work was taken back by the bank
be easily avoided! management, as reported in the press!
The Reserve Bank India (RBI) The entire economy of our country with
being the custodian of the banking 1.3 billion people was subject to untold
system of this vast country sufferings without any apology to the
surprisingly never bothered to make nation for such awful economic
the demonetisation process more policies guided by a dictatorial mindset.
civilised even though it was affecting It has now been disclosed (after
millions of people coming from all more than 20 months) that a lot of co-
social groups. Even minimum comforts operative banks (especially in Gujarat
were not made available in the long and Maharashtra) received huge
40 beyond the horizon December 2018
amounts of demonetised currency as
deposits and these were shown as non-
taxable agricultural income of the
depositors. Well known politicians of
these states were heading these
cooperative banks for it is these affluent
citizens that benefit from these tax
rebates. There is no report by the RBI
whether any enquiry was made on these
deposits or not. Similarly, Zero Balance
Jan Dhan accounts were opened
sometime prior to demonetisation
scheme to help financially weaker
sections and a lot of these accounts
were reported to be overflowing with
huge deposits of cash during the
demonetisation process! No disclosure
has yet been made to the public
regarding whose money was deposited
in these accounts. The net result is that
despite maximum near-criminal torture
of ordinary bank customers throughout
the country and for nearly two months,
more or less all the ‘demonetised notes’
issued by the RBI were returned
(around 93 per cent) and the
government’s attempt to unearth a
‘huge quantity of black money’
miserably failed! The RBI failed to point
out the names of those who were found
to be defaulters in the demonetisation
process. If the information on black
money was correct, ‘fake and illegal
currency’ collection should have been
much more than 7 to 10 per cent.
The government will be well
advised not to repeat such adventures
without proper preparation even if it
were warranted. After all the citizens
deserve a decent treatment at the hands
December 2018 beyond the horizon
of the bureaucracy they pay for.
b) Goods and Service Tax 2017
When every sector of the Indian
economy was suffering from the
disastrous effect of demonetisation,
the Goods and Services Tax Act (GST
Act) was implemented from 1st July
2017. It is a new indirect tax which
replaces all state and central taxes on
goods and services produced in the
country. The objective of this tax was
to rationalise indirect taxation in the
country and unify the tariff regime so
as to strengthen the national market.
The idea was also to widen the tax
network so as to bring the unorganised
and informal sector within the ambit of
the tax net. However, it was so
shoddily planned and implemented
and its procedures so complicated and
tedious that small and medium
business units were compelled to close
down. Both employers and lakhs of
their employees returned back to their
homes shortly after its implementation.
Initially, it was torturing even to well
organised traditional business units.
Except for the corporate houses, the
rest suffered losses and many closed
their units. Its working was
bewildering requiring experts to handle
them and it was time-consuming. This
adversely impacted small firms
employing only family labour. After 12-
15 months of its introduction, both
traders and consumers are unhappy
with the new indirect taxation system.
Its complexity and administrative
procedures are changing very fast and
41
it is very difficult to adjust to them. The
small-scale business community are not
habituated to such modern techniques.
Both central and state governments are
unhappy as actual tax collection is much
below the projected figures. What is
peculiar is that petroleum products for
some reason have been kept out of the
GST. That has proved a bonanza for
both centre and states when the
imported price of petroleum products
went up. Naturally, the excise collection
by the centre is going up as it is based
on the cost of petroleum products.
Pollution level in Delhi will thus be
reduced drastically in the near future in
the absence of private vehicles on road!
Foreign trade is also affected by the
confusions created by the introduction
of the GST.
II
Foreign Trade of India
a) Imports of Petroleum products and
Iran oil
The value of the US $ is moving higher
and higher because the US Federal
Reserve is increasing the rate of interest
and there is a mad rush to liquidate
foreign direct investments (FDI) in India
and invest back in USA Bonds. At the
same time, the prices of petroleum
products are increasing in the
international market due to the
‘sanction policy’ of USA on Iran oil from
November 2018. Already hedging
insurance on forwarding contract on
Iran oil has stopped. The trade war
between the USA and China has
reduced exports from India. Stress on
US Dollar supply has devalued the
Indian Rupee and it is moving up and
up with every hike in petrol price. Both
petrol per litre in the Indian Rupee and
Rupee per US Dollar may reach a figure
of 100 in the near future. Inflation is
seen all around but the Monetary
Policy Committee of the RBI refused to
take any measure in its bimonthly
meeting held in October 2018. The
current account deficit is also against
the interest of India, hovering around
3 per cent against 2 per cent during
this time last year. Dollar deposits with
the RBI may temporarily work as a
buffer, but not for long. The Forex
reserve dropped by $ 5.14 billion in the
seven days ending on 12.10.18. On
13.4.2018 the foreign exchange reserve
of India was $ 426.08 billion and it
reached $ 394.46 billion on 12.10.18 a
decline of $ 31.62 billion in around 6
months. The USA, as a superpower
orders India to stop the import of petrol
from Iran. There is no suggestion,
however, whether the USA will
compensate India by increasing
imports from India so that India can
pay for the increased oil bill. USA is
self-sufficient in petroleum and can
pressurise OPEC to increase the
production of petroleum but its own
interest will suffer. The USA pretends
to fight with China on the foreign trade
issue, but these rich countries have no
permanent enemies, nor any permanent
friends. They bother only for their own
narrow selfish interest. Let us wait and
see how the NDA Government reacts!
b) Tax heavens and accumulation of
country’s foreign exchange in foreign
banks
It is now an accepted policy to carry
on export and import trade through tax
heavens. An Indian company, imports
coal, for example, from Indonesia and
those ships with coal from Indonesian
ports come directly to India, but the
papers submitted to Indian authorities
are prepared not in importing countries
but in tax havens like Mauritius or
Dubai. India pays a larger quantity of
Foreign Exchange for the import of coal
and on export from India receives the
lesser foreign exchange. Everyone
knows it but these traders are friends
of our politicians. Almost all the power
generating companies are in the red and
they demand relief both ways, writing
off outstanding bank loans and
increasing tariffs on consumers.
Politicians are collaborating with these
corrupt businessmen. They don’t want
to send these businessmen to
bankruptcy courts! The country wastes
a huge quantity of scarce foreign
exchange for such manipulative foreign
trade business which is carried on for
decades.
Table I Agricultural Holdings in India
Year 2010-2011
Farming area1 159.59
Number of operational
holdings (x106) 138
Avg. size of operational holding2 1.15
Table 1 Land holding pattern in Indian agriculture
III
Unorganised Rural sector of India
a) Agriculture
The 2011 census reports that around
69 per cent of Indians are living in Rural
India and their main occupation is
farming. Any discussion on the Indian
economy in 2018 must include the state
of affairs in rural India. Recently a large
number of well to do farmers from some
north Indian States like Punjab,
Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh, etc.
reached Delhi on cars, tractors, bikes,
etc. Thousands reached the Delhi
Border but the Central Government
refused to allow them to enter Delhi.
The Bharatiya Kisan Union of North
India led by Mr Mahendra Singh Tikait
30 years back created complete
nervousness in Indian Bureaucracy
and the state had to accept all their
demands. Many in the present Central
Government were supporting the Kisan
Union movement 30 years back, now
they are in receiving end! Frequently
farmers from various states are coming
to Delhi with their charter of demands.
It means people living in rural areas of
the country feel neglected and ignored
both by the states and the Centre.
2015-2016 Result
157.14 Declined
146 Increased
1.08 Declined

42 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 43
 Certain important information has
been revealed by the recently
published Agricultural Census data of
2015-16 by Government of India.
The above figures clearly indicate
the nature of the sickness of Indian
Agriculture. The farming area has gone
down due to urbanisation, road
building etc. At the same time, the
number of land holdings has gone up
resulting in the reduction of the
average size of holdings to 1.08
hectares from 1.15 hectares. Thus the
operational holding size is gradually
becoming more and more
uneconomical. There was a time when
the demand was for the ‘land to the
tillers’, it now appears that unless the
land holding size is economical, it is
difficult to earn a living. Though Co-
operative farming is not liked here, in
many states small and marginal farmers
have to pull their holdings together to
carry on cultivation with modern
scientific mechanical techniques. The
Report further explains the following
as in 2015-16:
a) 86.21 % of holdings were small
and marginal holdings (0 to 2 hectares)
and their share in operational holdings
was 47.34 %
b) Average Size of small and
marginal holdings was just 0.6 hectares
and it was mainly in UP and Bihar
c) Semi and medium holdings (2 to
10 hectares) —13.22% of holdings and
its share in operational area was 43.
62%
d) Large holdings (Size 10 hectares
and above) only 0.57 per cent of
44 beyond the horizon
holdings but the share in operational
area was 9.04 per cent of the total area.
Based on the current Agricultural
census data 2015-16, it is evident that
landholding is uneconomical and even
the rich cultivators of India are
relatively poorer than their counterparts
in urban areas. That suggests that in
India agriculture alone cannot sustain
a family and it has to be supplemented
by other professional jobs for rural
households. Moreover, to support
many other occupations viz. industry,
trade and professional etc. there are
many organisations; for people
engaged in agriculture, there is hardly
any scope for a supplementary job.
Even timely supply of water in the fields
cannot be assured without organised
irrigation channels maintained by small
and marginal farmers jointly.
While discussing cultivation in
India an investigation is made about
‘Tribals’ still living in forests of India
who account for around 9 per cent of
the Indian population. Though tribals
are still living in the forests of India,
modern industry has virtually taken
over their ancestral land, forest and
livelihood. They are gradually being
displaced by miners and industrialists.
Though there is a law called the ‘Forest
Rights Act’, passed by the Parliament
in 2006, it is only in the statute books.
Recently the Maharashtra Government
showed some initiative and made some
land allotments on paper. However, the
bureaucracy, as usual, is issuing new
orders just to harass them. Tribals are
humans in the rule book but they are
December 2018
treated like animals by the bureaucracy. experienced during the last 5 years is
Some human rights organisations are simply condemnable. One after
working hard in courts of the country another, the criminals of Indian Trade,
for giving tribals their due share as per Industry and Cricket cheated the
the laws of the country, but vested Indian Banks and they were allowed
interests are putting these ‘human right by authorities to leave the country and
activists’ behind bars. The Government honourably settle in foreign countries.
has enough laws in the statute books These banks are now declared sick and
to punish these activists and they are Government is trying to arrange ‘first
treated as ‘URBAN NAXALS’. aid’ for some of these banks. The Life
Insurance Corporation (LIC), a public
IV sector insurance company is being
a) The Banks are in the red and the misused to help these sick banks. The
criminals who looted them are safe Government ordered the LIC to
abroad purchase majority shares of IDBI bank.
Indian public sector banks never The three banks, Bank of Baroda,
functioned under the strict control of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank were
the banking regulator, the Reserve Bank ordered to merge. It is hoped that after
of India. Politicians played a very dirty the merger of the subsidiary banks with
role to make these banks sick. The result the parent bank, the State Bank of
India will be economically sound. Table II will explain the economic health of
some of these banks in India for the three years starting from 2015 to 2017.
Table II Advances, NPAs and Operating Profits of Selected Banks
Table 2: Sickness of public sector banks
Source: (INDIAN BANKS ASSOCIATION, MUMBAI) (Figures in 000 crores)
Table II represents the nature of management is the responsibility of the
commercial bank management in India. Government and the RBI is not allowed
In India, the supervision of bank to meddle. Let us see how the Public
December 2018 beyond the horizon 45
Accounts Committee of Parliament
under Prof. Murli Manohar Joshi
analyses the management issue of
Public Sector Banks. An analysis of the
above Table II shows:
1. Non-performing Assets of all the
four banks or bad loans kept on
increasing during the three year period.
2 Except for Punjab National Bank,
the other three banks reduced their
advances. The Punjab National Bank
increased its advances by another Rs
40,000 crores at the end of three years.
Many well-known bank looters cheated
this bank.
3. Regarding the declared profit of
sick banks, ‘no comment’. Window
dressing is no exception!
Defaulters of banks were allowed to
migrate and purchase citizenship rights
in foreign countries. These people are
well known in the business world, they
never bothered to repay their bank loan
in India and now they are happy in their
foreign destinations. Banks under
public and private ownership are
‘shedding crocodile’s tear ’as if they
are very honest. Even family members
managing a private bank cheated that
particular bank. Its law firm has refused
to take up the case. One defaulter of
these banks is a member of the Rajya
Sabha supported by both the political
parties. He collected huge loans, met
his friends in the Indian Parliament and
left for England. Now the Government
is spending additional funds in foreign
countries to bring him back. The
cheater complains in court that Indian
Prisons are dirty! He should be kept in
his palace in England. In the same
manner, some criminals involved in iron
ore smuggling and punished by courts
were openly supporting candidates in
the recent Karnataka election. Money
was flowing like water. The law
enforcing authorities were blind and
dumb.
India has started the western
world’s ‘bankruptcy’ proceedings, and
as per press reports the gap between
the market value of assets mortgaged
and loan sanctioned is not according
to normal commercial practices. There
was a mutual understanding (definitely
with proper quid pro quo) between the
lender and the borrower. In one private
sector bank ‘the game of loan sanction
and to transfer it to NPA appeared to
be a nursery level sweet story’. The
entire planning was done among family
members and a close friend. It is a
matter of chance that these ‘worms’ of
modern business have come in the
open in devastating precision. These
‘habitual criminals’ have close dealings
with politicians of both past and
present.
b) Dark shadows of Lehman Brothers
of 2008 in India in 2018
In 2008, the world economy felt the
shock of an economic earthquake after
the Lehman Brothers, the largest
economic financier in the USA decided
to close down business. Indians
working around the globe felt the pain
of total devastation. In 2018, however,
the world economy lead by rich
countries looks in better health than
in 2008. The Indian financial industry,
especially banking industry is
behaving as if it is waiting to enter a
‘gas chamber’. Loan advanced by
banks in crores remains unpaid and
many of our rich friends, the defaulting
debtors of the banks have left India
with all honour and are living in peace
as respected citizens of their newly
adopted countries where citizenship is
traded as a commodity. In the list of
sick banks, we may include almost all
the banks in the public sector located
throughout the country. There was no
preparation by the Government to meet
the ‘growing financial crisis due to the
overflowing ‘bad debt of the financial
institutions of India’.
Indian Banks are virtually sick for
a long time and they should be properly
‘Capitalised’. What stops the
authorities from capitalising them as
per requirement?
V the Bankruptcy Tribunal and to let them
Infrastructure Leasing and Financial
Services
This financial organisation (NBFC)
started its journey in 1987 and in 2018
it has stopped paying its creditors in
millions. Recently after the press in
India started discussing the economic
viability of this organisation, the
worms are overflowing all around. The
latest one is the dream city called ‘Gift
City’ in Gujarat started by present
Prime Minister in 2005. It was supposed
to be an International Financial Centre
in India. Now it is in the law courts and
people are charging IL&FS of ‘financial
mismanagement’.
Infrastructure Leasing and
Financial Services (IL&FS) started its
journey in 1987 and its main capital was
contributed by the Central Bank of
India, HDFC, UTI and LIC. It has two
small foreign stakeholders, one in
Dubai and other in Japan. Its main
business was to provide finance to
construct infrastructural projects. 1n
2015 the outstanding loan of IL&FS was
around Rest 680 billion and it reached
Rs. 995.5 billion in 2018. Out of all
financial institutions in 2018, only LIC
is expected to help with temporary
relief. The rest have closed their doors.
Recently the Government of India
changed the management board and
the new board is busy to find out ways
and means to revive this sick
organisation. It is regularly defaulting
on its liability to pay outstanding loan
and interest. Under normal
circumstances, it should be referred to
decide how these organisations meet
their obligations. A lot of skeletons may
come out of the Almirahs of this once
very rich organisation certified by all
credit agency groups.
This discussion on the role of
Finance in a country of 1.3 billion
people will remain incomplete if one
very insignificant item is not
mentioned. We have started hair cutting
saloons in India for so-called bankrupt
companies who want to remain in
business but cannot pay due liabilities.
These ‘Bankruptcy Tribunals’ decide

46 beyond the horizon December 2018 December 2018 beyond the horizon 47