After the Killing of Burhan Wani: Long Live the Kashmiri Intifada!
Organize the Workers’ and Popular Struggle to End the Indian Occupation! For a Free, United and Red Kashmir!
Statement of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Revolutionary Workers Organization (Pakistani Section of the RCIT), 21.07.2016, www.thecommunists.net
1. The “extra-judicial” killing of 22-year-old Burhan Muzaffar Wani, a popular commander of the petty-bourgeois nationalist and Islamist Hizbul Mujahideen, by Indian occupation forces has provoked a massive surge of popular resistance by the Kashmiri people. In the mass protests which followed Wani’s death, Indian repression forces killed at least 34 demonstrators.
2. This brutal repression is only the latest highlight of the ongoing oppression of the Kashmiri people by the Indian state. The Indian state has stationed about 750,000 soldiers and police forces in Kashmir which has a population of only 8 million. This means that there is about one Indian soldier for every ten Kashmiris! Since the beginning of the popular uprising in 1988, nearly 100,000 Kashmiri Muslims have been killed by Indian security forces. In addition, nearly 10,000 women have been gang raped by marauding bands of Indian soldiers.
3. The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Revolutionary Workers Organization (RWO) express their unconditional solidarity with the liberation struggle of the heroic Kashmiri people who have been fighting for independence for more than six decades. As socialists, we give no political support to the Kashmiri nationalist and Islamist organizations. Similarly, we oppose any attempts by the Pakistani army and ISI to manipulate the Kashmiri liberation struggle for their own benefit in the long-term conflict with the Indian state. However, all this does not obviate the fullest support which the international workers’ movement owes to the struggle of the Kashmiri workers, peasants and poor to get rid of the Indian occupation. The Kashmiri people have demonstrated repeatedly that they are only part of the Indian state against their will. As socialists we fully support their right of national self-determination.
4. At the same time we also support the right of national self-determination for the Kashmiri people living within the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir. We call for the withdrawal of all Pakistani forces from Kashmir.
5. The RCIT and its Pakistani section call the Kashmiri workers, poor and youth to organize for a perspective of mass struggle against the occupation. While we defend the heroic guerilla fighters against the Indian repression forces, we consider their strategy as wrong and self-defeating. We call for the building of action committees in the work places and neighborhoods to organize the popular masses. For a general strike against the Indian occupation!
6. We fully support the struggle of the Kashmiri people for independence. We defend the right to return to their homes of all Kashmiris driven out by the Indian security forces. We support the perspective of a united Kashmir which brings together the divided country currently hold by the Indian, Pakistani and Chinese state. Such a free and independent Kashmir should be a country controlled by the workers and peasants and not by a small clique of capitalists and land owners. This is why the RCIT and its Pakistani section are fighting for an independent socialist Kashmir, i.e. a free, united and red Kashmir!
7. We combine this perspective with the slogan of a revolutionary constituent assembly elected and controlled by all Kashmiri people which should determine the future character of the country. In such an assembly socialists would argue for the perspective of a workers and peasants republic. They would also raise the perspective of a socialist federation of South Asia.
Support the Intifada of the Kashmir people against the Indian occupation forces!
For the immediate and total withdrawal of all Indian forces from Kashmir!
For the release of all the political prisoners of the Kashmir struggle
For the right of national self-determination for the people of Kashmir! For a free, united and red Kashmir!
We refer readers to our fundamental statement on the oppression of the Kashmiri people and the perspectives of liberation struggle:
RWO: Pakistan: Prospects for revolutionary class struggle (2102), http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/pakistan-action-program/
Resolution on the Kashmir Question (2010), http://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/asia/kashmir-resolution/