Linked with World Social Forum, Delhi – 9-13 November 2006, and with Draft Minutes of the IWC Meeting New Delhi.
He says: For me struggle is philosophical and practical. When two opposites interact there is always struggle. For me, struggle is an instrument through which a new thing, at a high level of development, is evolved. For example, in a society, we are struggling to exploit nature. There is a struggle between human beings and nature. In a society there is struggle between different classes also. Out of this struggle new concepts, and new formations come. I think struggle is an essential part of nature. It is an essential part of society also. »
Darshan Pal – India
He says also: For me, the WSF is not the forum for struggles. They are for discussion and debate — they say so themselves. We think that maybe such forums are needed, but never in the history of man, in the history of society, did change or development occur without action, without decision. Uninformed people benefit from discussion.
Some people, for example the farmers of India, do not know what the WTO is, what globalisation is. They are suffering from these policies. Sometimes they fight against these policies also. But they’re ignorant about the link between themselves and globalisation or WTO regimes. With discussion they can understand these things. And once they understand these things, they can struggle at a much higher level. But the WSF does not consist of ignorant people. If it would have come out of spontaneity, out of ignorance, there would be no problem. But we think the NGOs, the very social democratic parties that are funding and patronising this WSF, are the status quo. They know enough. They maintain that there should be no qualitative change in this world, only negotiations or reforms. (Read more on Al-Ahram).
Excerpt: … According to Dr. Darshan Pal, vice-president of the Revolutionary Democratic Front of India (one of the leading front organizations fighting for democratic rights), « Blockage of websites of papers and magazines like People’s March, by branding them as organs hosting anti-national contents, is nothing but a means of suppressing the voice of the Indian people against imperialism, state brutalities against the common people, in the name of Naxalites or terrorists, on issues of national and religious minorities, on issues of the repression of women, on issues of oppressed castes, etc. » (Read the whole article on Ohmy News).
Excerpt of an Interview … on ‘Voices of Mumbai’: So you’re against slow change? – Darshan Pal: Specifically in India, if you take the tribal areas, Dalit areas, where the NGO network has made itself felt in a big way, we see that these NGOs, in the name of education, in the name of health, in the name of development, are making reforms only at a very low level. The masses become disillusioned. They see small change as the only possible change. What I feel today is that the miseries of Dalits, workers, peasants, is basically a function of the system. Globalisation is an attack at a much higher level. The new world order is control at a much higher level. And if we see the background of these concepts, we see that they are correlated with the crisis of this system also. WSF organisations (being NGOs, on the one hand, but also parties) have had a hand in implementing or refining these policies. They say that globalisation can be humanised. I don’t believe them.
Why? – Darshan Pal: Because globalisation is essentially an intensive attack of capital on the Third World, and the people of their countries (First World also, Second World also). If you want to fight globalisation you have to fight the system of monopoly capital. How can you humanise that capitalism? Capitalism is based on exploitation, discrimination and oppression. You can’t give a human face to exploitation. Clearly monopoly capital is not going to fold without a struggle, yet the world is awash with the discourse of the war on terror, where forcible struggle is significantly delegitimised. How do you feel about this? Pal: When people who are struggling against their enemies — the enemy may be a landlord, a capitalist, the system, or an oppressor — they start first with a very mild struggle. If they get what they need with mild struggle they have no need to resort to other forms. It’s human nature. If I get the things with little or small input, I will rest at that. In a society, a class or a section of people, a nation, or a country, or an individual, is forced into harsher forms of struggle by the system itself. They ask for something and they don’t get it. They demand it; they don’t get it. Then they snatch it.
So forcible struggle can be legitimate? – Darshan Pal: When no other alternative remains. So the resort to armed struggle is less an expression of fanaticism as an indication of the closure of the system? Pal: Human beings go to that extent only when they are compelled. For example, the Iraqi people: what is the alternative in front of the Iraqi people? They can’t pray for freedom. For the Palestinian people, pushed out of their own land? Sometimes these repressed, exploited people, when they can’t fight for their lives in the framework of law or constitutions, adopt unconstitutional ways, of which armed struggle is one way. The crisis started in the late 1980s, when there came offensives in all fields — economic, cultural, political, military — under the name of the new world order. After 11 September the situation changed more radically, though even before this the American leadership was in no mood for dissent. They will not tolerate it now, even if dissent is at a minimal level. But never in history did power go unchallenged: people challenge it. People challenged colonialism, and many more will challenge the neo-colonial kinds of oppression we now suffer. That is why the people all over the world have shown sympathy with the Iraqi people. An era has started now. All over the world people are coming out against the oppressive, discriminatory and exploitative system. The depressive era of the 1980s and early 1990s has gone. The people are coming out of that sleep. (Read the whole on Al-Ahram).
Excerpt: … According to Darshan Pal, one of the conveners of the 51-member executive committee: « the PDFI will wage a struggle to create a genuinely democratic space in our suffocating caste/class society. Real democratic social relations are yet to be established in our country. » (Read the whole article on Ohmy News).
Excerpt: … According to Darshan Pal, one of the conveners of the 51-member executive committee: “the PDFI will wage a struggle to create a genuinely democratic space in our suffocating caste/class society. Real democratic social relations are yet to be established in our country.” He further explained that: “Unless an anti-imperialist and patriotic movement addresses itself closely to the questions of patriarchy, caste, nationality, and ethnic/tribal and religious minorities in our society, it cannot hold out the promise of affording equal rights and opportunities to all sections of the people.” (See the whole article on parisar).
Excerpt: … Member of the committee and the activist of Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF) Dr. Darshan Pal, addressing a press conference here said that the central government which had launched Salwa Judum (literally means collective hunting ) in June last year, had devastating results on the tribals. It had destroyed 3,000 villages and forcibly displaced over 50,000 tribals in the name of re-settlement. The activists of the movement, he said, had brutally and mercilessly killed 250 people, gang raped 100 women ( many of them then killed), destroyed 3,000 houses. He alleged that the movement was launched at the behest of imperial (read US) and capitalist (read TATA, Zindal group etc) forces which had eyed on the rich mineral and forest wealth of Chattisgarh especially its districts like Bastar and Dantewada, which are extremely rich in mineral and forest produce including high grade Iron ore, Limestone, Dolomite, Diamonds, Bauxite, and a host of precious forest produce. He said that before the launch of Salwa Judum movement, the CM of the State Mr. Raman Singh went to USA and signed many secret agreements including the one with Texas Power Corporation, a US power company. The Central Government outdid its predecessor, the BJP, by signing Rs. 17,000 crore worth deals with various MNCs and Mining Mafia to set up industries in Chattisgarh. (Read the whole article on Khojhyderabad.com).
Read the article on freeIndiaMedia.com.
« it is an open-ended process for all those people’s organizations and individuals who join this platform to enrich it with their struggles and ideas for the fresh construction of a new egalitarian social order. » According to Darshan Pal, one of the conveners of the 51-member executive committee: « the PDFI will wage a struggle to create a genuinely democratic space in our suffocating caste/class society. Real democratic social relations are yet to be established in our country. » He further explained that: « Unless an anti-imperialist and patriotic movement addresses itself closely to the questions of patriarchy, caste, nationality, and ethnic/tribal and religious minorities in our society, it cannot hold out the promise of affording equal rights and opportunities to all sections of thepeople. » (See ‘ From $250 to $2.1 billion just by supplying people‘).
Read also the article ‘the fight to save India‘.
links:
Internet Voices Stifled in India;
cmi;