CPI-Maoist Press Statement on Election Boycotts

This article is a statement on the CPI-Maoists election boycott written by their spokesperson Azad. Many thanks to Ka Frank for making this available.

Parliamentary Democracy is an illusion for the masses!
Revolution is their Reality!
To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter.
–Marx
Once again the great Indian fraud is on—the spectacle of the farce of parliamentary elections. Even apologists of parliamentary democracy in India are quick to call it the most fragmented election ever to be fought. In this make believe world of the so-called largest ‘democracy’, even those who vouch by the system is not ready to say who their friends/foes are in this sham of representation. And this wisdom of the predicament ahead or the predicament of the wisdom of parliamentary ‘democracy’ in 21st century India is best summed up by none other than Lalu Prasad—one of the PMs in waiting—when he wryly observes that “when all of us want to win why contest separately?” If in the pre-poll scenario the running theme is the wisdom of Lalu to avoid multi-corner contests and hence fragmentation of votes, then the circus of musical chair that ensue the post poll scenario is as fluid as the craving needs of an abusive drunkard short of money. Anyone who has more than thirty seats in the next Lok Sabha elections will be a strong contender for the PM’s post in the dog-eat-dog world of Parliamentary politics.

Fully aware of the complete loss of face of a process that has hardly evoked confidence in the average citizen of the ‘republic’ all the parliamentary parties right from Congress, BJP to the parliamentary ‘Marxists’ are harping on the need for every citizen to cast their vote failing which they are set for doom. The electronic and print media are abuzz with a variety of advertisements exhorting every voter the need to utilize a non-existent weapon—their vote. Thousands of crores are being spent by central and state governments, politicians and money bags to instil a sense of urgency and belonging in every voter as if their ‘right’ vote would lift the sinking ship—the Indian republic. Sixty years after the transfer of power by the British to their servile counterparts in the subcontinent it has become inevitable for the comprador Indian ruling classes to conjure up some legitimacy among the masses, every five years, under the smokescreen of elections for their right to loot and plunder.