First Published: People’s Canada Daily News Release, September 23, 1971
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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Vancouver (PCDN) August 17, 1971. The INDIAN WORKERS MOVEMENT, an association of the workers from India resident in Canada held a revolutionary conference in Vancouver from August, 13th to 15th. Over seventy Indian workers attended the conference. Several resolutions against racial discrimination, in support of the armed agrarian revolution in India, and in soliderity with the other national liberation struggles, were passed. The conference elected its Central Committee, and the National Secretary of the Central Committee, that they may carry through the programme of mobilising the Indian. workers against racial discrimination in Canada, and in support of the armed agrarian revolution in India. It was agreed to continue the publication of HIND MAZDOOR, the monthly organ in Punjabi of the INDIAN WORKERS MOVEMENT, and an attempt will be made to publish it in English, Hindi and Bengali.
The INDIAN WORKERS MOVEMENT is led by the Hindustani Ghadar Party and fully supports the CANADIAN WORKERS MOVEMENT and the COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA (MARXIST-LENINIST). Also attending the conference as observers were representatives of the INDIAN PROGRESSIVE STUDY GROUP, another organization of the Indians led by the Hindustani Ghadar Party which is mainly comprised of university students, professors and small businessmen. The atmosphere of the conference was revolutionary and the public sessions ended with the reading of revolutionary poems and the shouting of revolutionary slogans.
Comrade Bains addressed the private sessions. He delivered three main speeches: The Revolutionary significance of the conference; the Present International actuation and its effect on the internal situations of Canada and India; and the Necessity of upholding the revolutionary banner of Naxalbari.
Comrade Bains discussed at length the revolutionary significance of the conference. He pointed out that it was the first conference of the Indian workers, in which so many Indian workers have rallied under the revolutionary banner, since the time of the old Ghadar Party days.
The Indian workers have a long and courageous history of fighting racial discrimination in Canada and supporting.the anti-colonial revolution in India, he said. He stressed that it is this history which forms the firm position his people hold in history and inspires them with great pride to carry the struggle through to the end.
He exposed in detail the anti-Indian activities of certain Indian businessmen, lawyers and life-insurance and travel agents who have deliberately taken it upon themselves to assist the Canadian government in perpetuating racial discrimination against the Indian people. Not only do they work closely with the Canadian Government to attack the Indian people, but they also volunteer information against the progressive people and have altogether become the Government’s willing tools. These willing tools of racial discrimination and repression are nothing new as these toadies and touts existed at the time of the old Ghadar Party and a number of them were severely punished by history for their anti-Indian and anti-progressive activities. Racial discrimination against the people of India resident in Canada has always been naked and deliberate and the Canadian authorities are continuing this hostile attitude towards the people of India to date. While the Canadian working class and people have found close friends and allies in the Indian people who are struggling against racial discrimination in Canada and against neo-colonial rule in India, the Government of Canada. has always treated them in as unfriendly a manner as possible.
Comrade Bains dwelt on the recent history of the Indian people in Canada, especially in Vancouver, and pointed out the cockiness and arrogance with which the Canadian officials and their Indian lackeys have always treated the Indian people. About the Indian businessmen, lawyers, insurance and travel agents he specifically emphasized that not only do they first live by exploiting the Indian people, but then they undertake to do the most vicious propaganda against them. They call them ’stupid’ and ’ignorant’, slandering them in the worst possible ways. This small parasitic minority has found friends amongst the ’wisemen’ – those revisionists who have been beating their breasts in the name of revolution but who for years have been opposing revolution, in practice. Together they have constantly done propaganda against the progressive people. They have spread lies and slanders against those who are mobilising people to stand up against racial discrimination and repression. During the sixties this alliance was openly doing propaganda that if you are a communist, you will be thrown out of Canada, and the same shameless toadies talk about “democracy in Canada.”. Once the Indian people were no longer cowed down by their “threats” of deportation, they began applying social pressure and increased their slanders. They even organise goon-squad attacks against the revolutionary people as has happened several times in the Sikh Temples of Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto. They openly threaten people with physical assaults. Some years ago, they even used to boast that no Indian would ever become a communist – an indulgence in wishful thinking correctly reserved for fools such as these.
The fact of this conference is a total repudiation of the traitor activities of a small minority of toadies and shows that the Indian people will never give up their revolutionary path. The fact that seventy workers proudly came up to organise the Indian Workers Movement is a slap on the face of those who went around yelling themselves hoarse, saying that the Indians would not denounce the toady road and take up the revolutionary road.
This conference is only a beginning, and it is an excellent beginning. The coming months and years will bring more and more people to the struggle of the Indian peoplle which will completely merge with that of the Canadian working class and its historic role of defeating U.S. imperialism and building socialism. While today it is the great beginning for all Indian people, it is also the beginning of the end for the toadies. From now on the Indian toadies will become increasingly isolated as we are going to continue their exposure in broad daylight. We will show the Indian people what these traitors are and how they have been opposing our just cause to settle down in Canada and participate in productive labour, without racial discrimination and repression and without exploitation of man by man, said Comrade Bains.
At the end Comrade Bains summarised the main points of the discussion, by pointing out that the struggle against racial discrimination in Canada and for armed agrarian revolution in India is by no means over. It has just begun. He pointed out that the revolutionary tradition of the Indian people will continue to unfold and that the end of the toadies is near. Communists and other democratic people will not be cowed down by the flimsy and fascist threats of these sell-outs and the time has come to build genuine fighting organisations that genuinely belong to the people.
Comrade Bains explained that “We will take revenge against all those who are attacking the people but we will do so after long, patient and sustained work. We are not in a hurry. We have lots of time. It is only the reactionaries who have no time and they have to panic. We will not allow the rise of adventurists in our midst – for they are most happy to take “action” while at the same time they are against long and protracted st^sggles.” He explained that the Indian people are not against anyone who is concerned with his business, his law practice, his insurance salesmanship or travel agency that anyone wants to do his own business, but that what the Indian people are against are those who have taken it upon themselves to organise goon-squads against revolutionaries. The large majority of the Indian people are good, he said, and this includes the businessmen – it is only a very small minority who want to win ’favours and ’promote themselves’ at the expense of the Indian people. Comrade Bains. Comrade Bains answered several questions about practical work and said, “We will tirelessly go to our people, create public opinion against toadyism and explain to them the criminal activities of the toadies. The people will certainly side with us and look after the toadies as was and always has been the case in previous history.”