If the independence struggle had any economic promise, its planks undoubtedly were: agrarian reforms, industrialisation and guaranteed livelihood for the working people. In the first two decades after independence the state did carry out a loose implementation of zamindari abolition in lieu of hefty compensation followed by a package of land ceiling and tenancy legislations. This was accompanied by an active pursuit of a kind of state-capitalist policy to facilitate the growth of an Indian capitalist class which would however never sever its umbilical cord with imperialism. But today even those limited land reforms are being reversed and the industries are being handed over on a platter to the Indian monopolies and foreign multinationals. And a secure livelihood still remains the basic dream for millions of toiling Indians, the dream that often lies buried in unreported starvation deaths and 'successful' suicide bids.

As for secularism and democracy, the two much-touted comerstones of our Constitution, where the chariot that began its journey in the midst of wholesale communal killings and systematic anti-communist state repression has reached today in its golden jubilee year is there for the whole world to see. Toppling of the first-ever communist-led government in Kerala in the 50s, detention of a vendible war on the CPI(ML) movement in the wake of the Naxalbari uprising, nineteen months of unmitigated terror under the banner of Internal Emergency, the November 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in the capital, demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya under state protection and the subsequent spree of anti-Muslim communal killings are some of the milestones we can and must never forget.

Finally, whatever has happened to the banner of nationalism and the goal of making India claim her pride of place in the comity of nations? In the hands of our ruling classes nationalism or “national unity and integrity”, to use its official catchphrase, has long been reduced to a slogan to be invoked only when India goes to war with Pakistan or China – we did that four times in five decades – or with her own people in the North-East, Kashmir or Punjab. The land of nearly one billion people and thousands of years of rich history has been reduced to a virtual non-entity in the international arena.

The farce is now being made complete with the Sangh Parivar trying to steal the worm-out mantle of nationalism from a beleaguered Congress. It is no secret that the saffron brigade's only role in the freedom movement was to render loyal service to the Indian capitalists and landlords and to the imperialist gameplan of divide-and-rule by organising communal riots and at times working as downright agents and informers of British imperialism.

And if at all there was a moral core in the Gandhian fabric of national awakening, how mercilessly has it been torn asunder by the hundreds of scams that seem to be the only flowers blossoming these days in the paradise of Indian democracy!

It is against this backdrop of bourgeois betrayal and bankruptcy that the working class will have to step in and assert itself. It is evident that despite the heroic role and matchless sacrifice of the working people, the leadership of the independence movement remained in the hands of the conservative coalition of capitalists and landlords and in the name of independence it actually struck a deal with imperialism. This course of national movement now seems to have reached its logical dead-end. Yesterday's patriotic pretenders have today turned into outright betrayers and traitors.

The need of the hour is obviously to cry a halt and reverse this course. And it clearly calls for asserting working class leadership and establishing the supremacy of an altogether different social coalition with the worker-peasant alliance at its core. What India needs today is a Second War of Independence, a second war in which the working class and its genuine allies will march at the forefront of the nation with the red flag crimson with the blood of our great heroes and martyrs. Let the glorious legacy of the Indian people's great fight for freedom inspire us in this direction. Let us draw our lessons from the achievements as well as failures of our predecessors and rise to the occasion. Inquilab Zindabad!