The Change On fundamental reasons India is no different from other countries of the world.

The common toiling masses in industrially developed, under-developed or undeveloped countries, who are in race for more and more capital formation with market economy as mantra, are facing the same type of problems in their life. These cry for a viable solution. Enemy is common. Solution probably is common. If they can act in concert, solution will be nearer. They can redeem their future. Change they must. Stagnation within the present dispensation will bring disaster to coming generations too. None can invite ruin. Peoples of the world have to awake and awake fast! 1. Course open to humanity Fresh priority needed: The situation requires that India needs a change for the better as the world that needs a social change on fundamentals. So far, industrialisation has been the buzzword for social progress. This mode can only lead to disastrous effects, with few gains to claim. This is history and amply clear to all those who care. Now it is time, one for reaffirmation of family-based or community-based agriculture coupled with animal husbandry and Shilpa as a viable alternative and dependable form for production relations with community command over natural resources, including water, land mines and forests. It must be stated categorically. This proposition challenges the traditional wisdom of past three hundred years, sponsored by interested groups that ascribe pivotal role to capital-based industry and commerce as a development strategy for profit. We feel time has come to ask for priorities of the nations are fixed afresh. It is a myth that industry alone develops productive forces and means of production while agriculture is made synonymous to backwardness. For social stability and harmonious development speed alone is not a deciding factor to choose which industry symbolizes. The whole paradigm has to be rethought and overhauled. The present one has failed to deliver. After achieving independence in India, the new class in power was in a hurry to reap riches and make up for the lost period during British occupation. It made up the loss for itself but left the people high and dry. Nowhere in the world could any country thrive traversing this path of industrialisation and trade merely on its own volition and resources, without expropriation of others. India can be no exception In India, the leaders had promised honey and heaven to the people in 1947 while choosing this path of rapid industrialisation. What the people got in bargain is there for all to experience. For over two thirds of citizens it is no better than hell on earth. The peoples are suffering worst type of deprivation and groaning under the weight of ruthless exploitation and strife. Now the leadership of one country has embarked upon a path to gain access to other countries for expropriation also with blessings from America, of course, forgetting their own sad experiences in slavery. The economy is being given a shift to tide over the inborn difficulties, after consolidating capitalist mode in the first phase of permit-license Raj and duly buttressed by public sector undertakings at public expense. In its search for new pastures outside, the nations are tagged to WTO directions. It is difficult to contest on facts a formulation that industry is no way to develop any nation, if aim is to ameliorate the condition of masses without expropriation and a life in peace without strife. Present mode gives preference to capital accumulation instead of production for consumption with primacy to labour -power. Still the world is no better a place to live in peace at present with human dignity intact. It is not for the first time that question of a viable alternate is raised. Still it is true that credentials of industrial mode are challenged for the first time on sound socio-economic

logic as never before. This logic is not a rehash of what Mahatma Gandhi had said. It has a different basis. Way lies with the will In a recent conversation, one radical communist leader of repute in India commented that power of the state is truly a leviathan and difficult to nibble a scratch on it even with the best of arms with adversaries on behalf of citizens. He admitted that while armed struggle of naxalites proved a futile exercise, he on his part is confused where to start afresh to redeem life again. In fact, this is the crux of the matter today. Yes, to redeem life for common working people, the present octopus-like capitalistimperialist state has either to be over-thrown or made worthless in its present form. For this, where is the necessity for the people to grab state -power themselves to keep and wield it by a new set of rulers to lord over them on their behalf, instead? No, people do not need new tormentors. They need to do away with the whole tribe of tormentors, new or old. In this connection, one more important aspect has to be kept in view. Revolution is a radical rupture with the present and, again, it is a continuous process. It cannot and should not be equated with any particular form, neither confined to one moment for rupture. Any old form cannot be repeated for history. In India, as well in other countries revolutionaries are to devise new methods to start nibbling right now at its roots of this octopus for a radical rupture to occur. Let us recollect that the very basis of this centralised power rests in representative democracy. It has to be given a fatal blow. Instead, focus now has to come on the participative democracy. It is a natural right of citizens to manage their own life in community setting voluntarily. No authority must be given the right to interfere in this self-management of local affairs necessary to carry day-to-day life in the community, including inherent power of dispute resolution. It should now be asserted and asserted powerfully. It will again release the initiative of masses that has been grabbed by hostile and alien forces inimical to them. All power to village council or Gaon Sansad is now the central slogan where face-to-face community must reign supreme for all practical purposes important to them and disperse politico-administrative power. Gaon Sansad or Gaon Ganrajya is a potent slogan today and one fully capable to initiate revolutionary change in the power structure. This noncentralised polity must take the place of and act thus as a counter-blow to the present centralised one. This is the viable alternative even for a socialist stage to checkmate the Principal contradiction of modern day life. This slogan has the potentiality to bring change in balance of forces as well as put back initiative in the hands of the masses at large. Moreover, struggle starts at grass roots level making it impossible to wither away. There is another important aspect that needs consideration. The state is continuing here an unhindered legacy of colonial dictum in Principle of Eminent Domain, claiming first ownership over all natural resources deemed vested in it. The citizens are, thus deprived of their right to live with dignity, extinguishing their natural right over the sources they had reclaimed since centuries with hard labour and untold sacrifices. The right of citizens over these natural resources is prior to the advent of this state agency. The concept inherent in the Principle of Eminent Domain has its origin in colonial exploitation that suited well the new rulers right after independence for neo-colonial objects. Curiously enough no political party, even the most radical among them has raised its little finger on this sordid game so far. This concept needs to be over thrown outright, if citizens right to life with dignity is to be redeemed.

The right of community over these resources and its competence to manage these has to be marked in earnest. Citizens have the natural right to use these resources for sustenance within the ambit of respective face-to-face community. The practice to vest property in the state on behalf of a nation is merely another method to sustain this Principle which is colonial in nature and a bedrock foundation of state domination and domination of a fascist nature that goes against the people. To vest the property right not to the people organised informally in their neighbourhood community, but to their representative institution is a mockery of democracy and not the least better than private property to a corporate. Democracy has to be redeemed to the people to whom it belongs. Nationalisation of resources as well as means of production proved a sore notion that brought doom to socialist conception. It was one of the biggest fiascos of twentieth century and must be discarded forthwith as a wrong concept by all right thinking persons. Community command over these resources is the alternative instead, quite viable to sustain social progress. As is said, theory is not merely past experiences summed up. It is much more. Theory is also a projection for future, while philosophy entails worldview of things. No philosophy and theory can afford to be sterile. Much less that claims to be scientific. Its practice must necessarily be fertile and full of vigour. Still there may be failures with honest efforts. Honest minds too suffer failures. There cannot be chest-beatings over each and every failure in history. However, the case is different with those who seek to make the philosophy and theory as their hand-made. They must sink in dubious practices of questionable rationale if they do. Their place then is in the dustbins of history, sooner or later. None can escape it. Fools too suffer, as obdurate do. Stupid can console himself or herself, while blind-followers hardly have escape routes. Honest elements too suffer many times but for wrong reasons. Few of them have the consolation that they are not dishonest to any one, except that honesty is betrayed many times these days. The movement for social change is a common endeavour and honesty of purpose, as also clear-headed approach to questions of practice has a place of honour in this effort.