The Jammu Kashmir People's Students' Federation and the All-Pakistan Progressive Youth Alliance jointly held a public meeting in Rawlakot on 4 April to commemorate the Death Anniversary of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was assassinated by Martial Law Dictator General Zia ul Haq.

With the economy in a shambles and with a crumbling infrastructure, Pakistani society is unravelling into an unprecedented abyss of devastation. Education and health are the most important sectors of the social infrastructure that are vital in the socio-economic development of society. With the exception of the 1973-74 budget when the Pakistan People’s Party came to power on the back of the revolutionary upheaval of 1968-69 that had developed an enormous pressure from below for radical reforms, health and education have been the most neglected sectors by the country’s ruling elite.

Management is using the yellow “pocket” union to attack dismissed workers in Rahim Yar Khan. On 5 April nearly 150 goons of the pocket union, which is also the CBA, attacked the sit in organized by the dismissed workers with iron rods and hockey and cricket bats.

Unilever in Pakistan is continuously taking anti-worker measures and ignoring the law in order to increase its exploitation of the workers increase its rate of profit as much as possible. Court orders and decisions are being crushed under the boots while national and international labour laws are being violated openly. The workers who produced the net profit of 46.6% this year for the multinational are now being squeezed more and more.

For the last 65 years, the attempt of Pakistan’s ruling class to impose numerous anniversary celebrations aimed at instilling nationhood has failed to resonate with society below. The media-hyped cricket hysteria, the patriotism orchestrated by the state and the distorted history in the school syllabus, whose objective is to foment national pride amongst the deprived and destitute masses has abysmally failed. Their suffering and agony does not leave much room for them to celebrate.

Along with the other miseries of the system and society, the curse of the oppression of women not only continues unabated but has worsened with the aggravation of the socio-economic crisis. It is rather ironic that around International Women’s Day, the incidents of violence against women, honour killings and other brutalities like acid-throwing and rape have intensified.

"For a revolution to take place it is not enough for the exploited and oppressed masses to realise the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution to take place it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the ’lower classes’ do not want to live in the old way and the ’upper classes’ cannot carry on in the old way that the revolution can triumph” (Lenin, ‘Left-Wing’ Communism, an Infantile Disorder).

The recent atrocities in Afghanistan have once again thrown the Afghan war into the headlines. The latest murders in Kandahar province, where 16 innocent Afghans, including nine children, were shot dead by a rampaging US staff sergeant, have further added to the turmoil and agony of the region. It has served to intensify the mass opposition to foreign occupation, which while promising “democracy”, has drought catastrophe in its wake.

The massacre of sixteen civilians, including children, by a 38-year old US sergeant, reportedly taking part in a “village stabilisation” operation in Kandahar, Afghanistan, exposes the real nature of this so-called “good war”. As with other imperialist wars, this is a blatant aggression for profit and plunder on the part of the imperialist elites.

In Pakistan today millions of people feel the pain of hunger and suffer from diseases for which they receive no treatment. Under capitalism medicine, like everything else, is used for exploitation, not for treatment. In a Socialist Pakistan no man or woman will die of preventable disease. No child will go to bed hungry. There will be medicine for everybody.

“The relationship between the ruling classes and the state is never a straightforward one. It depends on the financial potency of the elite and their capacity to advance the means of production and develop society.”

After being coerced for decades in communal frenzy, sectarian violence, regional conflicts, caste prejudices, religious bigotry, nationalist chauvinism, regional antagonisms, democratic deception and cricket hysteria by the ruling classes and their harlot media, the Indian proletariat is awakening to the new epoch that is dawning across the planet. The 24-hour general strike that took place on 28^th February is a turning point in the social and political evolution of present day India.

The Taliban are not a homogenous whole and the Islamic parties have no fundamental ideological differences with imperialism. The conflicts erupt when competing groups of these zealots are sponsored by imperialism.

Yet another excruciating wound inflicted. Insult heaped upon the injuries of the brutalised masses. It is the further exacerbation of the misery of the impoverished souls of this tragic land. The people already suffering from the ethos of this bestial capitalism in terminal decay are groaning with the pain of these policies of ‘reforms’.

“Ever since the national liberation movement in Balochistan abandoned socialism from its programme, it became an easy prey for the imperialist vultures. They can now play with the sentiments of national exploitation and oppression of the people only to utilise them for their own imperialist designs.”