By a young worker in Kerala, South India
The drums of war are beating again across South Asia, but we must remember this truth: no war has ever benefited working people. As the great revolutionary poet Bertolt Brecht warned us: “The war which is coming is not the first one. There were other wars before it. When the last one came to an end there were conquerors and conquered. Among the conquered the common people starved. Among the conquerors the common people starved too.” These words reveal the brutal reality that workers and peasants on all sides suffer equally in war. Ordinary people never want war – it is forced upon us by the capitalist class who profit from our suffering. The weapons manufacturers grow fat selling bombs while our children go hungry. The politicians gain power by dividing brother from brother. The corporate elites laugh as they count their war profits while workers lose their lives. In India and Pakistan today, the ruling classes play dangerous games with nuclear weapons while 800 million South Asians struggle to find their next meal. They want us to hate our neighbors while they steal from us all. Inflation, unemployment, and preventable diseases plague our communities not because of scarcity, but because capitalism creates artificial scarcity for profit.
The solution is clear: we must break the chains of capitalism across South Asia through revolutionary working-class unity. Only by overthrowing the capitalist systems in all our countries can we build a voluntary socialist federation where war profiteering is impossible. A federation where resources are shared according to need, not greed. Where borders don’t divide workers but solidarity unites us. The warmongers would have us believe their lies – that war brings security, that our neighbors are enemies, that capitalism can be reformed. These are deadly illusions. History proves that under capitalism, every period of peace is just preparation for the next war. The Indian and Pakistani ruling classes have brought two billion people to the brink of nuclear annihilation for their own power and profit. Workers of South Asia: our true enemies are not across any border, but in the palaces and boardrooms of our own countries.
The capitalist system that creates poverty creates war. The same system that denies us healthcare and education sends our sons and daughters to die in battle. We must organize, educate, and fight – not for any flag or nation, but for our common class interest. The path forward is revolutionary socialism. Not through elections that change nothing, not through petitions to our oppressors, but through the organized power of workers and peasants united across all artificial borders. When we control the factories and fields, we will have no reason for war. When we share the wealth we create, we will all have enough.
Let Brecht’s words remind us: in every war, it is always the common people who starve.
This time, let us refuse to play their deadly game. Let us build instead the socialist future where war is only a bitter memory. No to imperialist war! Workers of all countries, unite! For a Socialist Federation of South Asia!