Marxism and the National Question - the Case of Kashmir

On August 5, 2019, the government of India, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of Hindu Nationalist BJP put Kashmir in a security lockdown and then moved in the Lok Sabha (“Peoples Assembly” – i.e. the Parliament, to revoke Articles 370 and 35A, which granted political autonomy to the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir and barred outsiders to purchase property in the state respectively. The upper house, known as Rajya Sabha (“States Assembly” - where representatives are elected from each state of India) ratified the new law. Mr. Modi’s Party has clear majority in the Parliament but not in the Rajya Sabha.

Kashmir has been a dispute between India and Pakistan ever since British colony of India was split into two sovereign politically independent countries on August 15-16, 1947. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, all three initiated by Pakistan, the first one of which in 1947-48 ended in a truce brokered by the UN, and which divided Kashmir ‘temporarily” between the two countries . The latest move of India has angered Pakistan, while India considers it as an internal matter.

Raj Sahai will present a historical outline and his analysis based on ‘Marxism and the National and Colonial Question’ developed by Joseph Stalin that helped successfully integrate the oppressed nationalities under the Tsarist rule in the socialist state of the USSR as partners and which success helped develop the backward nations and in turn also the USSR very rapidly and which helped vanquish the German invaders in 1945.

Raj Sahai has been associated with ICSS for the past 13 years and is a student of Marx’s ‘Capital’ as well as anti-war activist starting with the Vietnam War in 1968 to more recent wars imposed on small countries by developed Capitalist countries.