BERLIN e© ROME e WASHINGTON e CAIRO e = ea =, INTERVIEW WITH DARSHAN SINGH India must speed up factory, farm output By BERT WHYTE India’ : ing nee Population is increas- ree and a half percent but growth of the S only three percent Thus, year by year, “Remp}o: er j Ployment grows and -hung- Ncreases, Pargtshan Singh, a Communist Seq] fader in Punjab, discus- bong “wa’s problem for three Tribun When he called at the to In © Office on his way back day dia after a two-month holi- anada, hada is Darshan’s second Years. a he lived here for 11 tetumnin, 4 young man, before Was th § to India in 1947. That the Nye, Year his book, Rise of Totonin. Asia, was published in for a — a book remarkable Beg cp Phetic vision of the Daca, -28es that were taking M the Far East. a abo Shan Was reluctant to talk pin; self — he wanted to be the situation in India — Bun €n I pressed him on the ee that hundreds of his terest Mm Canada would be in- count € gave me skeleton the sn, 0% his activities during 5 Past 18 years. Wag jj, Mother had died while I lather Ing in Canada, but my tumea “2S Still alive when I re- I947,, °° Punjab province in Under ... Said. “The party was five as and for close to tage “TS I did ‘underground’ Shifted "Nion work, then was and yy, ® organizational work Ommunist Party sec- Punjab ¢ Jullumber district in « OF a decade. the 1957 I was a candidate for ahd Doll M national elections, | mise €d 156,000 votes. Still 009 <4 election by about 80,- Votes. Mis , & Posts Was elected to various beat N the CPI and in 1964 "al con, tember of the natio- Dion ll. I went to the Soviet the ena Ye treatment toward a Unc i Warg 04s, and now I’m home- bound, s e 1959, ‘: I married in India, in Wo ane have a fine family, lst si S of 11 and 8, and a boy Munis, MY wife is a Com- NOuph Bie surely that’s Ut Words rst, I persisted, a few Coast . your trip to the West P Where wt old stamping ground Mematioycu helped build the Metical Woodworkers of *Othect and also were closely the y With the activities of a 0-strong Shiks. Puver pr laughed. “The Van- a TOvince turned me into Man’ secretary mov- «aes -C. on a Red mis- ikh se ually I spoke at six ~ *Ples in Vancouver, Vic- DARSHAN SINGH toria, Lake Cowichan, Paldi and Pt. Alberni, and appeared on a TV program, \ “I found that the Sikhs have a grievance, all right. Canada’s immigration law treats them as second-class citizens. According to the Indian Welfare Associa- tion in B.C., the annual quota is 300 Indian immigrants; but of these 150 are chosen from rela- tives of Sikhs already living in Canada. They feel such relatives Top: These Soviet an and N. Rataya, wor Soviet foreman and In ventilator body at a mining equipment plant Durgapur, Bihar. should not be included in the quota for new immigrants. They. also feel that the quota is the result of a federal policy based on color and an anti-Asian at- titude. “The Sikhs on the West Coast helped to build Canada. Most of them work in the lumber in- dustry, a few are farmers, and some .are small businessmen. They came from a _ country which is a member of the Com- monwealth. They should have the right to bring into Canada their close relatives when Ottawa is seeking 100,000 European immigrants, there should be no quota on immigra- tion from India.” In India industrial and agri- cultural output must be stepped ' up to keep pace with population growth, said Darshan. Industry has increased two and a half times since 1947 and agriculture by 50 per cent. The Soviet Union is giving aid, building steel plants and machine tools plants. Rumania is helping build six oil refineries. “But the task we face is huge,” said Darshan. “In agri- culture, though Congress abol- ished statutory landlordism, 20 percent of the landed families still own about 70 percent of the land. d Indian metallurgists, V. Rogozhnikov k together at the Bhilai steel plant. Bottom: dian assistant engineer D. R. Roy check up a built with Soviet aid in without © any restrictions — and at a time - HAVANA e TOKYO ee BUENOS AIRES “The Communist Party of India is striving to build g broad, national democratic front of all forces interested in completing the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revolution.” : “The peasants, in order to produce more food, need light machinery and the use of heavi- er machinery on a cooperative basis. . ‘ “The Communist Party of In- dia is striving. to build a broad, national democratic front of all forces interested in completing the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist revolution. The aim of this front -would be to consolidate inde- pendence, strengthen the policy of non-alignment, eliminate foreign capital, accelerate the pace of economic development (and expand the public sector), introduce agrarian reforms (‘land to the tiller” and the breaking of land monopoly). “This would result in the democratization of the entire’ social and political life of the country. To carry out such a program, of course, requires the early release of all political pri- soners.” This point led to a discussion with Darshan about the Kerala elections, the split in the Com- munist Party, the position of Prime Minister Shastri and Con- gress, the India-China border dispute, Pakistan’s attack in the Rann of Kutch, President John- son’s postponement of the Shas- tri visit, and other subjects. Space prevents doing justice to Darshan’s analysis of these key evénts. Summarized, he made these points: @ When Chinese troops cros- sed the Indian border in 1962 the friendly feeling most Indians held toward China was shatter- ed. The Right Wing in India be- came bolder; the Left was split. e Following the death of Nehru, the Right made a bid for power, with Morarji Desai as their key man. The Left was able to halt this drive, and even- tually Shastri, a centrist, was elected. Under pressure, he gra- vitated to the Right, but did not abandon the Nehru policy of non-alignment and independent economic development. ® When the Communist Party of India split about 107,000 re- mained in the CPI and 41,000 August 20, 1965—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 3 - joined the breakaway party. The CPI backed the 81-Party declar- ation; the breakaway party lean- ed toward the Peking line. The CPI condemned China’s border actions; the breakaway party re- fused to condemn China but paid lip service to India’s right to defend its borders. The CPI campaigns for a broad front of all democratic and progressive forces to defeat the main enemy, India’s Right-wing, pro-imperial- ist, pro-feudal forces; the break- away party says the main job is to defeat the Congress, and cooperates with any party, even reactionary ones, who oppose the Congress. @ Main strength of the break- away Communist party is in ~Kerala; in the recent elections they won 41 seats to the CPl’s 3. But a united front, proposed by the CPI and rejected by the breakaway party, could have won about 80 seats. In a pre- viots election a united CPI won 46 percent of the popular vote; this time both parties together won only 36 percent. The CPI actively campaigns for the re- lease of Communists in the breakaway group who were ar- rested and jailed by the govern- ment. There is limited coopera- tion between the two parties on the demand of the people for food; civil liberties and the re- lease of prisoners; and elimina- tion of president-rule in Kerala. @ When President Johnson “postponed” Shastri’s visit to Washington because of India’s failure to shift further to the right and support America’s ag- gression in Vietnam, the Indian people took it as a national in- sult.-Shastri promptly cancelled his proposed visit and his pres- tige rose. His trip to the Soviet Union resulted in substantial aid to India’s fourth Five-Year-Plan. _ @ Pakistan’s attack in Kutch encouraged the Right in India . to demand a “strong man” at the helm of state. But Shastri took a firm position, a cease-fire was arranged, and his prestige again rose.