People's Democratic Front of India (PDFI)

To the Preparatory Committee of the People's Democratic Front of India
Through the Revolutionary Democratic Front
Solidarity Message of ILPS
to the Founding Conference of the PDFI

Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International League of People's Struggle
30 July 2006

On behalf of the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS), I wish to extend warmest and most militant greetings to the more than 150 fighting organizations of the Indian people from various regions of India that are meeting to form the People's Democratic Front of India (PDFI). We wish you utmost success in this founding conference and in the hard struggles ahead.

We are deeply pleased that the founding of the PDFI is a further development of the process that was greatly boosted by the Mumbai Resistance 2004. Mumbai Resistance 2004 was organized parallel to the World Social Forum in order to promote a clear anti-imperialist line in the anti-war and anti-globalization movement. Thanks to the close cooperation between participating organizations of the ILPS and progressive mass organizations in India, Mumbai Resistance 2004 was a resounding success.

India is a big country, with a hard working people and rich natural resources. The imperialists are frenziedly putting their hands on the enormous natural and human resources of India under the auspices of the US-instigated twin policies of neoliberal globalization and war of terror. And they find willing accomplices among the local compradors and landlords who act as junior partners in the oppression and
exploitation of the Indian masses.

The recent decision of the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government to reduce state subsidy on grain under the PDS (Public Distribution System) is a clear example of how the local exploiting classes can easily give in to the demands of the imperialists to open up the economies of the underdeveloped world to the plunder of imperialist multinationals. This will further aggravate the already desperate situation of the Indian masses. According to one report, 350 million Indians go to bed hungry and 10,000 die of hunger every day.

While the imperialists stubbornly insist on subsidizing their agriculture and implement other protectionist measures, they arrogantly dictate on the underdeveloped countries to open up their economies. The latest failure of the so-called Doha Round of the WTO has exposed the hypocrisy of the imperialist powers who want to hold on to their subsidies and protectionism while dictating on others to denationalize and liberalize.

More and more the imperialist project of "free market" globalization is coming to a dead end. More and more the intensified exploitation and oppression that this imperialist globalization is foisting on the world's peoples is generating the determined and intense resistance from the people.

The consolidation of anti-imperialist and democratic forces in India under the banner of the PDFI is a very timely development that will surely give further strength to the struggles of the Indian masses against the imperialists and their local accomplices. We wish you all the success in your aim to develop the PDFI as the "storm centre of people's struggles against unbridled imperialist exploitation of India and the source of building a genuine democratic and self-reliant India."

The ILPS supports the struggle of the Indian people and the people of the world for genuine independence, democracy and social progress. This can only be realized upon the defeat and dismantling of the imperialist system through the peoples' struggle for national and social liberation. The ILPS looks forward to an ever rising level of anti-imperialist and democratic mutual understanding and militant cooperation and coordination with PDFI and all its component organizations. ###