Dialogue on the CPI(M)

This is a Q+A between me and another poster on a forum about the Indian Maoists. I think it is some of my better geopolitically oriented writing, so I'm reposting it here for (snicker) posterity. It has been minimally edited for narrative flow and to preserve anonymity.

Originally Posted by X

in the past you've come across portraying this possibility in South Asia as a good thing (i.e. Communists gaining strength, possibly power, and the U.S. retreating rather than building up good relations).

I think it is undeniable that, at least in the case of Nepal, the people's war is laudable. The king and royal family expropriated the countries wealth to a huge extent (all of the country's airlines closed when he traveled, for example). The idea of a contemporary nation still holding to the doctrine of the King's two Bodies strains the imagination, but as a point of fact this was the case until (almost literally) last Thursday.

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Is is, and why? It sounds like something that would derail the upward trajectory of the place. (Unless that is the good thing? )

India's development is indeed rapid, but hardly even. This is the main concern of CPI(M) and one I find hard to dismiss. The multinational corporations that CPI(M) initially reacted against have a firm track record of buying up tribally owned land, shunting the inhabitants off to concentration camps (let's not mince words here) and permanently destroying their livelihoods. Salwa Judum and other government-sponsored death squads retaliate brutally against any natives who wish to preserve their lands and ways of life. High caste landowners (as I'm sure you're aware, the abolition of the caste system is more nominal than real in the hinterlands) are free to hire private security forces to kill, torture and rape those who oppose their interests (and their families). It is, of course, possible that conditions under the CPI(M) would be even worse, but given their level of popular support (they have persisted for over 30 years now - most of the time depending on local populations for everything) and given the parallel developments in Nepal (where the CPN(M) won an overwhelming electoral majority after having governed large parts of the country in parallel with the Nepalese government - going to show that it is not simply a case of choosing the devil you don't know over the one you do), I believe that the CPI(M) has the interests of India's dispossessed more clearly in mind than the government, and that they are competent to act on this concern from a position of power.

EDIT: I think this is worth a lengthy quote, to demonstrate both how royally screwed up resource allocation is in rural India and the extent to which the rural areas are being bled dry to serve the booming megalopolises. It's like Chinatown with a billion victims.

http://www.navdanya.org/earthdcracy/...itz-letter.htm

The 24x7 scheme being funded by the World Bank for two South Delhi zones is also a privatization scheme since the contract is to be awarded to global corporations like Vivendi, Suez, Saur.

The Statement by Michael Carter, Country Director of the World Bank in India, made at the peak of the debate on World bank driven privatisation in Delhi has stated that the World Bank funds, will be used to “award management contracts to professional operators” in two zones of Delhi. The implication is that the water workers and the engineers of the Delhi Jal Board are not “professional”. There is also the implication that the other zones in Delhi can be denied reliable water supply, as all financial and management focus is limited to two zones. This is a recipe of water apartheid, not improving urban water supply. The free water provided to the poor is being stopped by stopping water provisioning through public taps and tankers to slums. While referring to the poor in the 24x7 schemes, the Bank is hiding the fact that even the poor will have to pay for water. If supplying water to two zones with 14 lakh population will cost $ 250 million, then on the World Bank model, Delhi’s 13 million will need $ 2.5 billion. This is a recipe for financial non-sustainability and permanent indebtedness. When the World Bank’s past lending has left our rivers and ground water aquifers dry, the tacky consumerist slogan of 24x7 can only bring water twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, to privileged enclaves by diverting it from other users – the rural and urban poor. 24x7 projects are in effect 24x7 drying up of our rivers, 24x7 denial of water to the economically underprivileged, politically marginalized communities; 24x7 guaranteed super profits for MNC’s.

Originally Posted by X

What I was really interested in is if you think Communism is the way to go for India. Would it raise the standard of living the way it did in China?

Put simply, I don't know. We'll know a lot more when we see how the CPN(M) does in power. If you're interested, i posted a long interview with Prachanda in the SP (under a thread about nepalese maoists). What I do believe is that it is imperative, almost categorically so, to put an end to the unmitigated rapine that India's rural poor are suffering under the IMF/multinational/GOI (government of India) death pact. When subsistence farmers are being deprived of their groundwater for the sake of Coca Cola and Pepsico bottling plants, one simply has no time to carefully consider a series of alternatives. I support the CPI(M) in their people's war, while reserving the right to withdraw my support in the future.

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There are a lot of differences between India and China. The average IQ among the poor is much lower in India.

This may be true, but we should be careful. China's rural population is basically inaccessible to psychometricians. The (quite high) national IQ is based, AFAICT, entirely on surveys of urban-dwellers.

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My concern is that Communism might render it somewhere halfway between China and Zimbabwe, and possibly a failed state. Yes, capitalism and free markets are going to make the rich richer, however a portion of that trickles down. This is something we can be fairly certain of.

My concern is that the combined and uneven development of India's urban and rural areas (especially if the 24/7 scheme is implemented) will lead to an exacerbation of the already critical overburdening of India's urban centers and, ultimately, economic disaster. Furthermore, I would be willing to bet that this would happen well before any possible benefits of IMF led development could reach India's rural communities. More likely, everyone will move to the cities and the subcontinent will burn from the inside out.