This year Aspects journal, a publication of the Research Unit for Political Economy completes 35 years. of publication. Its publication has been a landmark or path breaking development in the annals of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist revolutionary analysis of political economy. It has most methodically and illustratively, dissected and chronicled the developments in the Indian economy since the advent of globalisation and liberalisation and most intensively explored all the factors that shaped it and revolved around it., with remarkable consistency for 35 years. In transition of different phases, it did just what the doctor ordered.
It is a handbook for any Marxist or Maoist cadre or sympathiser; with it’s most lucid and simple language. progress. It must be recommended for anyone who wishes to critically explore political economy.
Let alone India in the last 50 years it was very rare to know of any economics journal which as comprehensively or concretely dissected all the spheres of Indian political economy. ,from a Maoist angle or perspective.Aspects was a fitting rebuttal to the social media patronised by the Rich barons who glorified India’s economic progress Aspects made a most coherent and dialectical diagnosis of the political economy at the deepest core with remarkable consistency for 35 years.
The inaugural issues of Aspects explored and projected a logical narrative of the superficial nature of the liberalisation and repercussion of globalisation. It navigated and dissected its adverse effects on unemployment, bargaining power of working class and Unions, giving licence for retrenchment, intensifying contract labour system. Concentrating power in the hands of the wealthy, escalating price rise and giving a blow to welfare. Most commendable how they dug out every important detail substantiated with statistical data. No economic journal in India as lucidly or analytically investigate the Indian economy from the point of view of the exploited start of a society. It charted out how the political agenda of all the ruling class parties blessed the Industrialist and landlord class. No Economic journal as accurately and logically exposed to the public eye the glaring aspects camouflaged by the media .Most comprehensively it exposed the lies of ‘India Shining’ and how at the very base it functioned as a semi-colony The journal’s central theme was based on and showcased that the economy should be the concern of ordinary people, as it is they who work it with the quality of their lives, their joys and tragedies, determined by the way the economy functions.
Aspects of India’s Economy explored the reasons for the economy’s bankruptcy s, examining whether a change of policy can rejuvenate the economy, or whether the flows of the surplus (given the structure of the economy) are such that it will remain paralysed whichever policy is put on paper. It’s research is testament that only a reconstitution of the production relations in the economy can channelise the surplus flows into productive activity needed to resurrect this economy. Aspects of India’s Economy addressed ordinary people.
Even if has adopted a Marxist-Leninist methodology in a mode of analysis, it has been highly admired even by non -Marxists.
It is always embedded in my memories the extent to which, Marxist Leninist -Maoist cadre, progressive intellectuals and activists praised Aspects to the sky, crediting it as path breaking step in research of Indian Political economy. Late Suniti Kumar Ghosh, late Professor GN Saibaba and Late Dipankar Chakraborty and now N Venugopal spoke volumes about Aspects as well as current leader of Democratic Front of India, Arjun Prasad Singh. Hundreds of readers have remarked that it is journal of high merit, with no economic journal soaring such inexorable heights in research of political economy in the country.. I can’t forget how the journal sold like hotcakes in mass programmes and meeting sin Mumbai in the 1990’s.
In recent years, its articles have grown longer, despite of intentions to the contrary. The issues, which could once be slipped into one’s pocket, have sometimes bulged into book-length volumes.
Still regretful that it has not reached out extensively to the common man with the neo fascist political and economic agenda riding on a wave. The absence of an organised Communist revolutionary and democratic movement obstructed the blossoming of a journal like Aspects into cultivating mass character. Vice versa it is unfortunate that such an outstanding journal could not sow the seeds for rallying a genuine people’s revolutionary mass movement.
Significant Issues of Aspects
Aspects completes 35 years made most comprehensive reviews of India’s recent complicity with Donald Trump, Impact of Adani Group and International capital, Covid 19 and importance of Aspects.
Crisis of Predation exposed how Covid was exploited by the rulers to subjugate the workers and farmers to isolation, and placed the oppressed masses to the mercy of the ruling classes, literally fleecing them. It chronicled how through COVID-19, India’s rulers imposed the world’s most ruthless lockdown on an already depressed economy, giving a mortal blow to the majority of India’s billion-plus population., resulting in unemployment and hardship., soaring heights unscaled.
Digitalisation in India dissected in 3 issues investigated India’s high-speed drive towards digitalisation. On Artificial Intelligence it explored how the present rulers have put into operation to materialise it’s agenda of corporate rule, cause heavy retrenchment etc. On Artificial Intelligence it explored how the present rulers have put into operation to materialise it’s agenda of corporate rule, cause heavy retrenchment etc.
The Attack on India’s peasantry explored how the peasant movement in the relatively developed regions did not spring up all of a sudden, but a creation of a long-festering agrarian crisis, much before the recent Farm Acts. That crisis was fermented by the pattern of agriculture after the Green Revolution, and intensified under the post-1991 neoliberal reshaping of India’s economy. It summarised why the farmers deserved the Minimum support price and why it was imperative to take the struggle to the border.
‘Real State of India’s Economy.’ showcased ‘India Shining’ campaign was a pure illusion creating no significant transformation in the actual condition of the people and their productive future.
India’s Working class and It’s prospects most illustratively and comprehensively navigates he specific features of the Indian working class, showcasing Marxist theory; the conditions that cemented bondage and migration of workers from Odisha to the brick kilns of Telangana; the conditions of brick kiln labour in Maharashtra; the Kanpur leather industry and its workers; the conditions of garment workers in Delhi and Bengaluru triggering mass unrest there; the effects of contractualisation and informalisation in organised sector manufacturing, and the scope for struggle in this situation; and experiences of organising workers in Chhattisgarh.
The Political Economy of India and Democratic Rights elaborated that in order to analyse the situation of democratic rights in our country, as well as in order to build the democratic rights movement, it is it is imperative to gain insight into the political economy of our country. It investigated the material basis upon which people's consciousness about democratic rights develops which in turn helps us orient our building of the democratic rights movement.
Globalization without Global demand Privatisation the God that failed unfurls at the very roots the vagaries of the wave of globalisation, the adverse effects of privatisation., robbing people of genuine economic power.
The New Great Depression and India explored how after the crash of US Stock exchange in 2008, GDP growth crashed, and paralysed the manufacturing sector; the best-known Indian firms made losses and cancelling planned investments; the sharemarket has crashed; foreign acquisitions strangled many corporate firms. It was a testament is that this is not merely a financial crisis but, more fundamentally, a crisis generated the capitalist system itself. It summarised how the centre of the crisis are contradictions which characterise the capitalist accumulation process. It detected how the root of the crisis was found in the contradiction between US imperialism and the people of the Third World.
Remembering Socialist China is a collection of articles by scholars commemorating the Chinese revolution, on it’s 65th anniversary. It concentrated on refuting the lies and slanders of the Western media by projecting the path breaking strides after the revolution, particularly during the period of the Cultural Revolution. Innumerable books have been written on that period by scholars from around the world which were worth restoring to in order to be better enlightened of that experience. Our intention is not to duplicate those efforts. The aim of this special issue was to showcase the voices of China’s ordinary people that, could not be heard.
Behind the Invasion of Iraq , was an outstanding publication on the War in Iraq, which most lucidly examined the objective of USA towards gaining complete monopoly of oil resources, diverting it’s population from economic issues and with saving it’s war-ravaged economy. Most scientifically it navigated the historical roots and crystallization and the complicity of USA with Israel and all imperialist countries to rob the third world of resources.
Harsh Thakor is a freelance journalist who for a considerable period of time was in touch with RUPEj joining the Marxist Leninist-Maoist Movement in 1990.
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