U P RBAN ERSPECTIVE CPI ( ) MAOIST FOREIGNLANGUAGESPRESS-UTRECHT FOREIGNLANGUAGESPRESS-UTRECHT Collection"ColorfulClassics"#14(English) AcollectiondirectedbyChristopheKistler [email protected] Utrecht,2018 1stprinting(EU):100copies This book is under license Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International(CCBY-SA4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ CONTENTS PAGE 1. Introduction 5 2. Urban India 9 3. Policy and Guidelines 26 4. Review of our Understanding and 127 Practice 5. Immediate Tasks 144 1. INTRODUCTION The Strategy and Tactics document adopted at the Ninth Congress of 2001 explains the importance of urban work within the strategy of Indian Revolution inthefollowingmanner: "Workintheurbanareashasaspecialimportanceinour revolutionary work... in our revolution, which follows thelineofprotractedpeople'swar,theliberationofurban areas, will be possible only in the last stage of the revolution. However, this does not mean that there is no need to concentrate on the building of urban revolutionary movement from the beginning. From the beginning we will have to concentrate on the organization of the working class, which being the leadership of our revolution has to directly participate and lead the agrarian revolution and the people's war and on building a revolutionary workers movement. Moreover, on the basis of revolutionary workers movement we will be able to mobilize millions of urban oppressed masses and build struggles against imperialism and feudalism, struggles in support of the agrarian revolutionandstrugglesfordemocraticrights.Wewillbe abletocreatethesubjectiveforcesandconditionsrequired for building a countrywide, broad, anti-imperialist, anti- feudal united front during this course only. The urban movement is one of the main sources, which provides 5 cadres and leadership having various types of capabilities essential for the people's war and for the establishment of liberated areas… We should not forget the dialectical relationship between the development of the urban movement and the development of the people's war. In the absence of a strong revolutionary urban movement, thepeople'swarwillfacedifficulties. However,weshouldnotbelittletheimportanceofthefact that the urban areas are the strong centers of the enemy. Building up of a strong urban revolutionary movement means that our Party should build a struggle network capable of waging struggle consistently, by sustaining itself until the protracted people's war reaches the stage of strategic offensive. With this long term perspective, we shoulddevelopasecretparty,anunitedfrontandpeople's armed elements; intensify the class struggle in the urban areas and mobilize the support of millions of urban massesforthepeople'swar."[Pages69-70,S&T]. However, there have been serious shortcomings and mistakes in our understanding and practice over the last thirty years. The Political and Organizational Review of the Ninth Congress thus reviewed as follows, "The importance of urban work in the ongoing people's war in the country is well-recognized by our Party and is elaborated in our Strategy-Tactics document. Howeverwehavebeenextremelydeficientinperspective, 6 policy and methods of work. We have only made piecemeal changes from time to time, to the policy, contained in the document "Our Work in Urban Areas" brought out by APSC in 1973. We have yet to develop a comprehensive and long-term approach, which takes into account the changing developing trends in urbanization, aswellasthepoliciesoftheenemytoisolateandcrushus in the urban areas. This has led to frequent ups and downs in our urban work in most areas and serious loss ofcadresintheareasofrepression."[Page141,POR] Thus the Congress decided on "A time-bound programmeforpreparingpolicyandguidelinesforurban work, particularly working class work. This should include a review of our understanding and practice with regard to revolutionary trade unions, mini-guerilla squads,selfdefencesquads,andworkers’magazineamong other things. This should be followed by a campaign to reorganize our work according to the guidelines." [Page 149,POR] The present document is part of the attempt to implement the above Congress decision. Part 2 gives a brief picture of urban India, presenting the trends in urbanization and the changes in class composition, particularly since the policies of liberalization. Part 3 is the main section which lays out the policy and guidelines for work - our strategic approach and 7 objectives, forms of organization and forms of struggle, the party, united front and military tasks, propaganda, tech mechanism, and planning. Part 4 reviews the main shortcomings in our understanding andpracticeofthepast30years.Part5identifiessome immediatetasks. Besides this a separate document, 'Guidelines for Our Work in the Working Class', explains details with regardtoworkingclasswork. 8 2. URBAN INDIA According to the census of 2001, 27.8% of India's populationnowlivesinthetownsandcities.Thetotal urban population is 28.5 crores, which is larger than the total population of the world's third most populated country - USA. Most of this urban population is situated in large cities. Almost two thirds stay in cities with a population of over one lakh, and 10.8 crores (i.e. 38%) are in 35 metropolitan centres with a population of over 10 lakhs. Three of the world's twenty mega-cities, with a population of overonecroreeach,arefromIndia. The centre of the economy has also moved away from the rural areas. In 1950-51 56% of production came from agriculture, but today less than 25% comes from agriculture.Todaymostofthecountry'sproductionis from the industries and services sectors, which are mainly based in the towns and cities. The urban share in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is thus now over60%. India's urban population size, proportion, and economic weight today are much higher than what was there in China at the time of the revolution. China, then had only about 10% of its production coming from industry and only 11% of the people 9 staying in the urban areas. This would mean that India's urban areas would have to play a relatively more important role in the revolution, than the cities playedduringtheChineserevolution. This however does not mean any change in our basic strategy, which is based on the uneven economic and political development and the semi feudal, semi- colonial character of Indian society. Current international experience too shows various semi- colonial countries with large proportions in urban areassuccessfullyadvancingthepeople'swarbasingon rural armed struggle. Though our urban population is large and constantly growing, its proportion is still much lower than the percentage of most other semi- colonial countries with movements seriously engaged in armed agrarian revolution. Thus Philippines have 59%, Peru has 73%, and Turkey has 75% urban population. Only Nepal has a lower 12% urban population, though the rate of growth of its urban populationisalmostdoublethatofIndia. 2.1 Urbanization Pattern Since 1947, four major metropolitan cities, which served as regional capitals under the British, have dominated the process of urbanization in the country. These were Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai, 10