The attacks by terrorists with automatic weapons and grenades on hotels and a famous cafe frequented by tourists, as well as on hospitals, have so far killed more than 100 people in India’s commercial capital Mumbai. The attacks are still on-going with terrorists holed up in several locations having taken hostages.
Responsibility for the attacks have been claimed by a group calling itself the Deccan Mujahideen (an area of southern India) though commentators say that the attacks were most likely carried out by a group called the Indian Mujahideen.
Indian police accuse these forces of other bomb attacks in India, including explosions on commuter trains in Mumbai two years ago that killed 187 people and 63 people in the tourist city of Jaipur this year.
Whoever carried out the attacks it is clear they do nothing but strengthen the hand of reactionary forces in India and across the globe. All progressive, working class forces must unreservedly condemn them without equivocation.In no way can such actions, which could and doubtless will be used to stir up hatred between India’s Muslim minority and its Hindu majority, serve any progressive end whatsoever.It is to be hoped that the workers movement, the student and youth movements, will rally to the defence of the Muslim community should Hindu chauvinists threaten or actually attempt to unleash communalist bloodshed in response. The workers movement which should know neither religious nor nationalist prejudices – should take the initiative to prevent this.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh threatened to “take up strongly” the use of neighbours’ territory to launch attacks on India, implying Pakistani or Bangladeshi origins. The outrage of the Indian government is however hypocritical. Its forces have gunned down at least 45 Kashmiri Muslim demonstrators since August.The conditions which allow Islamist terrorists to recruit young fighters from the Muslim community centre on the “war on terrorism” and its predecessors, i.e. the 1991 war on Iraq. Added to this, is the plunder of the Middle East’s oil wealth by western corporations and the total subservience to US imperialism of the Arab and Gulf states.Neither should we forget, the desperation induced by the growing poverty and inequality for most of the population that neoliberal policies brought in the “boom years” in India and many other countries in South Asia. Now India is being hit by huge job losses and factory closures.It is vital that the working class movement launches a powerful counteroffensive against the crisis. If it does so then the attempts, whether from Hindu or Muslim communalists, or from the government itself to whip up ethnic and communal hatred, will fall on deaf ears.Working class unity, the unity of the poor peasants, can cut across all religious, ethnic and national divisions it must be fought for urgently.* No to sectarian terrorism
* No to any pogroms and repression against the Muslim minority by the Indian state forces or Hindu-Chauvinist forces
* No to any war-mongering of the Indian government against neighbour states
* The workers movement, the peasant organisations and all progressive forces in India must rally to defend the Muslim minority against repression and to oppose any war-mongering of the government
The League for the Fifth International, 27 November 2008