As we go to press, the prices of milk in Delhi have been doubled. By the time we reach our readers, in all likelihood, the prices of kerosene and cooking gas will be substantially hiked. Coming as this does on top of the whopping 40 percent hike in diesel prices, these price hikes will impose a fair nigh intolerable burden on the vast majority of our billion-strong population.

While the real incomes of the people are being eroded through such price hikes, the unemployment situation is worsening in the country. For years now no fresh recruitment has taken place in the railways and other departments of the government. The policy of privatisation of the public sector is forcing lakhs of once employed people into the ranks of the unemployed.

The situation facing rural India is equally grim. The agricultural growth rate is on the decline, and foodgrain production may actually fall this year. The license to freely import agricultural commodities, a decision taken by this Vajpayee government three years ahead of the WTO deadline, will bring disaster and bankruptcy to millions of our farmers and peasants. Following the suicides by cotton farmers last year come similar reports from sugarcane farmers this year. In large tracts of Uttar Pradesh, sugarcane farmers have been unable to sell their produce because sugar mills have closed with the import of cheap sugar from abroad.

While the people are bracing themselves for bitter struggles ahead against these economic policies, the Vajpayee government is unleashing a vicious attack against the republican character and content of Independent India. It has with contemptible disregard gone ahead and appointed a committee to review the Indian Constitution. The Vajpayee government refused to even discuss the issue in the Parliament. One need not go far to seek the motive. For years now the RSS has been vociferous in its opposition to the Indian Constitution. It seeks to change it in order to facilitate the imposition of its vision of a rabidly intolerant 'Hindu Rashtra'.

At the same time, under the patronage of the Vajpayee government, the saffron brigade is unleashing its diabolic drive at saffronising the administration, while spreading deeper its communal poison. The decision of the governments of UP, Gujarat and Himachal to permit RSS activists to join government service is but the prelude and first step in this drive. The fascistic attacks against the shooting of the film Water once again confirm the real agenda. Through such actions a clear message is being sent to the minorities that their rights and justice guaranteed by the Indian Constitution are no longer sacrosanct.

Similarly the brazen manner in which the ICHR has withdrawn the publication of two volumes of the 'Towards Freedom' project, comissioned by the ICHR, under the general editorship of no less a world-renowned and recognised historian as Professor S.Gopal, and written by equally acclaimed historians, is one with this drive, this time in the realm of re-writing , doctoring Indian history to suit the political project of the communal forces, and bring it into line with a "Hindutva Rashtra"'.

While such a sinister design to undermine the secular democratic foundations of modern India is under way, the Vajpayee government is at the same time shamelessly surrendering to US imperialism. The clandestine talks that it continues to conduct with the US administration, the de facto acceptance of US mediation on the Kashmir dispute and the military co-operation with the USA are some of the features that constitute the total sell-out by the Vajpayee government. Clearly this Vajpayee government has no qualms in surrendering India's sovereignty and self-respect to the USA in pursuit of its aim to replace Pakistan as the US surrogate in the region.