Pakistan

As we reported earlier this month, the Marxists in the Jammu Kashmir National Students' Federation were attempting to build a united front of all student organizations in Kashmir. We publish this report from the founding meeting of the Jammu Kashmir Revolutionary Youth Alliance, which has launched a united struggle of all progressive and left-wing student organizations against the state, which has utterly failed in its handling of the earthquake.

We publish this report on the recent "War against Privatisation" conference organised by the Pakistan Trade Union Defence Campaign, which was held this past weekend in Karachi. The Musharraf regime hoped that the privatisation of Pakistan Steel would go unnoticed amidst the trauma and misery caused by the earthquake in Kashmir in October.  The PTUDC brought together some 400 delegates representing workers and trade unions from around the country to organise the struggle against the selling off of Karachi Steel.

We have received this report from the PTUDC in Kashmir. The report details the relief operation in the three main centres of Kashmir, as well as providing some information about a new student federation that is being organized to help in the relief work. Unfortunately the comrades have been unable to recover the goods of the Fifth Solidarity Caravan, and the goods of the Sixth Caravan are also being held up at the border. It seems that the state is actively sabotaging our campaign! We must put pressure on the state to release the relief goods!

In this last chapter, Lal Khan looks at the future for Kashmir and the subcontinent. Bourgeois diplomacy has failed the people of Kashmir, and capitalism and fundamentalism have created disaster after disaster and offer no way out. The liberation of Kashmir and the completion of a successful revolution can only be achieved and sustained with the revolutionary overthrow of the present regimes in India and Pakistan and the establishment of a socialist federation of the subcontinent.

The regime in Pakistan is indeed a callous one. Not only did it show little concern for the hundreds of thousands hit by the quake in Kashmir and Northern Pakistan, now it wants to exploit this moment of bewilderment among the masses to speed up the process of privatization, starting with the Karachi Steel Mills. The PTUDC is mobilizing, starting with a conference of union and workers delegates this Saturday in Karachi.

We are publishing this update on the PTUDC’s Fifth Revolutionary Solidarity Caravan. The relief goods are being held by the Pakistani army and we have not yet been able to get them back. We are hoping that this situation will be resolved sometime next week. In the meantime, PTUDC supporters in India are organizing another caravan which should arrive in Pakistan next week. From there it will proceed to Kashmir.

In the first part of this chapter Lal Khan looks at the role played by religion and fundamentalism in the subcontinent. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Kashmir was introduced by both the Pakistani and the Indian states to divide and weaken the movement of workers and students. In the second part he looks at the national question in Kashmir, and the position of the Marxists in relation to the struggle for national liberation in Kashmir.

Many generous donations have been made to the Pakistan Earthquake Appeal that we launched immediately after the disaster hit. Thanks to these donations several camps have been set up and thousands of people have been treated and sheltered. Now the Fifth caravan has been hit by an unnatural disaster, the hands of the thieving Pakistani state! Please protest at this scandalous behaviour!

Many generous donations have been made to the Pakistan Earthquake Appeal that we launched immediately after the disaster hit. Thanks to these donations several camps have been set up and thousands of people have been treated and sheltered. Now the Fifth caravan has been hit by an unnatural disaster, the hands of the thieving Pakistani state! Please protest at this scandalous behaviour!

Lal Khan looks at the division of Kashmir as a result of the partition of the subcontinent. The resources of Kashmir have been ruthlessly exploited for the benefit of India and Pakistan. Kashmir has long been in the throes of turmoil, instability, and deprivation, and the people of Kashmir have long looked for a solution to the situation, and an end to the misery and oppression.

Lal Khan looks at the history of post-partition Kashmir and role played in this tragic history by the Indian and Pakistani ruling classes. He also analyses the roots of the wars and the insurgency that have plagued Kashmir since partition.

The partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan, apart from being a reactionary political act, caused one of the biggest bloodbaths in history. The memory of partition is still painful for those wounded by it. The liberation of Kashmir will not come from UN resolutions or the charity of the imperialist masters. It will come through the revolutionary struggle of the Kashmiri masses, which they have carried on with such courage and bravery for so long.

The PTUDC’s fourth revolutionary solidarity caravan entered Pakistan through the Wagah checkpoint from India on November 6. There were four large trucks on this caravan carrying relief goods including 522 large tents, 4000 blankets, 300 quilts, 500 bamboos, flour, tea, sugar and other basic necessities. This is the second caravan to arrive from India in support of the PTUDC’s relief campaign.

More than half a century after the partition of India and the end of direct British rule, Kashmir is still a festering wound. The resolution of this conflict seems to be as far away as ever. Three and a half wars and several decades of official and “track two” diplomacy have failed to resolve this traumatic issue in the Indian subcontinent.