The relationship between Canadian and Indian mining outfits is a complex and bi-directional one, with the Indian state actively encouraging Canadian corporations to invest in mineral extraction and enter into joint-venture operations in partnership with Indian companies. They laud the profitability of such investments (due mainly to the abundant resources that exist in the country’s interior as well as the low wages that can be paid to the workers and the lax regulations to which companies are subjected) and praise Canadian mining corporations as the “gurus of mining.” In order to sweeten the pot, the Indian state displayed its full integration into the imperialist system by allowing 100% Foreign Direct Investment in mining operations —effectively allowing Canadian corporations to plunder without restriction the resources that ought rightly to belong to the Indian people.

Opportunities exist, particularly in Orissa and Chhattisgarh —states, incidentally, which are among the highest in Naxalite activity— for the ruling classes of both India and Canada to secure a solid return on investment by mining a vast array of metals and minerals —but particularly Iron and Bauxite— and make themselves filthy rich in the process.

This happens mainly on the backs of the tribal Adivasi people who live in the areas targeted for exploitation and who are subjected to displacement, degradation of land and destruction of their way of life. Needless to say, it is these downtrodden people who have heroically fought back against this mistreatment and who serve as the base for the Naxalites in the Peoples’ War.

Obviously, this poses a threat to the profits so precious to the ruling class and so they will stop at nothing to defeat this revolutionary movement. Whether slandering the Naxalite struggle or supporting the brutal Indian state it opposes, the imperialist bourgeoisie will do what it can, when it can, to establish a secure haven for its investments. Therefore, the most important form of support we can give the Naxalites and the Adivasi people is through our movement to overthrow the imperialist Canadian state and expropriate the property of Canada’s imperialist corporations —in short, to build the communist revolution here.