The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-30
The Base of British Rule Shaking
in India
in India

to the treatment of prisoners on trial for in
surrection.
Imperial Economy.
The British form of exploitation has run the
whole course of capitalist colonial policy. In
the beginning it saw India as great CONNER
cial field and a chance for outright loot. NOW
certain native manufacturers are encouraged,
as place to invest British capital, as market
for British machinery factories, and to exploit
the low priced Indian labor power Inevitably,
some competition with British industry begins
to develop (textiles) but the policy of the
empire is to build native bourgeois class that
only feeds British profits, and fights the native
proetariat
Conditions of the proletariat are horrible.
The barracks system prevails in Calcutta, and
other cities, with standard OF living not al
ways above starvation. Nevertheless terrific
taxation mortgages at high interest, wrecklng
of the ancient native irrigation systems in some
parts, and tax farming continually drives the
peasantry out of the country frying pan into
the factory fire.
Henchmen of Empire.
On the side of Britain then are the large
native landowners the "zemindar" class (taX
farmers and usurers), the upper caste OF Him
dus the parasitic Mohammedan religious lead
ers, the christian group, the bourgeoisie Though
it has some quarrels of its own and part OF 1t
will make a gesture against British rule) and
of course the whole machinery of the British
administration, including most of the student
and professional class with a section of these
following the native bourgeois in harmless
gesture against the empire).
Gandhi, in this situation, plays somewhat the
role of Music in the American labor movement.
His function is to make the harmless gestures
that will satisfy the bourgeois and students,
and to draw into this channel, like lightning
rod, real revolutionary forces that arise among
the brutally exploited peasantry and proleta-
riat.
Within recent weeks the revolutionary forces
have short circuited and left Gandhi at least
temporarily to one side In the mass resistance
to police attack and in the offensive, even, in
Bombay yesterday, the proletariat fought
pitched battles with the police. The nationalist
movement is getting all tangled up with the
strikes of both Mohammedan and Hindu work.
ers for immediate economic gains. The Indian
labor unions have their takers, but the left
wing recently got control Of this All-India
Trade Union Congress and the takers are try
ing to form dual organization.
Masses Uniting.
Whereas it is the policy of both British gov
eminent officials and native bourgeois without
regard 10 the rellSl0n OF the owner TO use
Mohamrhedans as scabs on Hindus, and vice
versa, Tuesday in Bombay, in utter defiance
of their religious leaders, the masses united in
an attack on the British barracks. Recently
armed bands, showing a knowledge of real
military strategy, have raded British arsenals
and seized weapons. Recently too, Indian police
in Bombay have refused to move against salt
raiders, and in Peshawar, native troops refused
to fire on the crowd The Sikhs have become
very unreliable to the British.
Need Leadership.
The basis of British rule is seriously weak
ened whether the British "Labor" Party can
carry out its boast that "order will be kept"
lie. that the movement will be washed out in
blood, or not.
In the heat of real struggle, much illusion,
religious, Gandhist, bourgeois nationalist, is
burned away The Indian events of 1880 may
very likely turn into midas 1905, it is not i'm
possible that they will become Inda's 1917.
The masses suffer most of all from lack of
Communist leadership, but even this is being
remedied. Communist influence is so strong
in certain portions that the Labor" Party
ministry is soemnly warned Of it in parlia-
mentary discussion in London, and there is
already Marxist paper in India, "The Indian
Worker"