PUNJAB
OBSERVING SANKALP DIVAS on the third anniversary of Comrade Vinod Mishra’s demise was a unique occasion in Chandigarh because it was the first activity taken up there under the Party banner. On this occasion, a seminar on “Communal fascist onslaught and challenges before democratic forces” was held at Punjab Pustak Bhawan in the evening of 18 December. While Prof Jagmohan Singh, a civil liberty activist and nephew of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, was the main speaker, Com. Swapan Mukherjee, CC member chaired and state spokesperson of the Party, Com. Maninder Singh Randhawa conducted the seminar. Noted dramatist Gurusharan Singh, ex-editor of Chandigarh based left Punjabi journal Deshsevak Prof. Prem Singh and Party leader Sukhdarshan Natt also addressed the seminar. Representatives of various ML forces and MCPI were also present.
On this day, district-level cadre meetings were held in Mansa and Ludhiana. Punjab is going to polls shortly and the cadre meetings were aimed at gearing up the activists to meet the challenge. The cadre meeting at Ludhiana was addressed by CC member-incharge of Punjab Com. BB Pandey and that of Mansa by Com. Rajvinder Singh Rana, state leading team secretary, Com. Jita Kaur and other members of SLT.
HARYANA
IN HARYANA, a seminar on “Caste, Class and Dalit-Backward Question” was held at Shiv Public School in Karnal. Paying homage to Com. Vinod Mishra, Party state incharge Com. Prem Singh addressed the seminar and said that CPI(ML) has always stood by the cause of workers, agrarian labourers and poor and middle peasantry. It is on the basis of this class line Party has taken up all the issues and maintained its independent identity.
WEST BENGAL
THE THIRD VM death anniversary was observed in Calcutta through a meeting against POTO and POCA in Students Hall, College Street. The speakers including Santosh Rana from PCC CPI(ML), Saifuddin from CPI(ML) ND, Manik Mukherjee from SUCI, Sujaat Batro from APDR and Kartick Pal from CPI(ML) Liberation condemned the POTO and its West Bengal variant POCA [the propose Prevention of Organised Crime Act]. Lambasting the hypocrisy of the CPI(M) in criticising POTO while bringing in a similar draconian legislation in the state, they also took the Buddhadev government to task for empowering the police to even disconnect power supply to consumers to push through power sector reforms and evicting hutment dwellers and hawkers through the use of force.
TAMIL NADU
VINOD MISHRA memorial meetings were held in Coimbatore and Tirunelveli. The meetings condemned war hysteria being whipped up by the Vajpayee government utilising the December 13 incident and its determination to enact the draconian POTO despite all-round opposition to it. The meetings also criticised the decision of the Jayalalitha government to go in for wholesale reforms, its highhanded suppression of the struggles of organised sector workers and its offer to extend issue based support to the Centre in this backdrop. The meetings were addressed by CCMs Balasundaram and Kumarasamy respectively. The Tirunelveli meeting was also addressed by CPI District Secretary MS Thenu and CPI(M) District Executive Member KG Bhaskaran.
ANDHRA PRADESH
AN AGRICULTURAL labourers’ convention of about 400 people was organised at Yeleswaram in East Godavari district on the occasion of third VM death anniversary. Apart from demanding an agricultural labour legislation in Andhra Pradesh, the meeting also discussed certain specific problems of local agricultural labourers working in banana fields and resolved to organise a strike to tackle those problems including the question of equal wages to women labourers. CCMs N.Murthy and Bangar Rao and leader of the ALU Arjun Rao addressed the convention.
TAMIL NADU
ON DECEMBER 7, the Chennai police entered the Law College hostel and brutally beat up the students causing multiple fractures to several of them. This sparked of a wave of protests by students in Madras and other cities in Tamil Nadu against the police and the AIADMK government. The AISA activists in the Law College, who were part of the struggle committee and the Chennai AISA unit played a major role in organising the struggles and solidarity movements. The struggles are being continued demanding dismissal of the guilty police officers.
– Bharati
THE WORKERS of road transport corporations and the civil supply corporation launched vigorous struggles recently defying the hardening attitude of the AIADMK government. AICCTU, which leads the dominant union among civil supplies workers played a prominent role in the joint struggles and solidarity platforms. AICCTU Working President, Comrade Kumarasamy addressed a 10000-strong rally organised by the joint struggle committee and other AICCTU leaders participated in various other joint moves and courted arrest in the course of the struggle. Despite the political realignments in the state, it is not possible for the left to join hands with DMK but the coming together of unions led by the DMK and the Left signifies the emergence of a formidable combination of organised labour mounting a serious challenge to the AIADMK government. Rattled by this development, the AIADMK, which has embarked upon a major reforms drive, rushed to buy peace with the Centre by unilaterally offering issue based support to the Vajpayee government.
– Bhuvana
THE NDA government announced that Coal Mines Nationalisation (Amendment) Bill will be presented in the winter session of Parliament, and the workers responded by organising a nationwide strike on 3-5 December. Withdrawal of the proposed privatisation bill for coal industry was the main issue, and the workers demanded that a single company be formed taking in all the subsidiary units of Coal India Ltd. Moreover, all arrears under National Coal Wage Agreement-6 must be cleared immediately. The government agreed to postpone the presentation of the bill, but dithered on all other issues. So the situation precipitated a strike. Among the five trade unions in the JBCCI, the INTUC washed its hands off the strike. It held that the strike was illegal and even tried to sabotage and break it. It did not participate in the meeting held at Nagpur on 7-8 November. The AICCTU-affiliated CMWU was not called in the meeting but it decided on its own to participate in the strike. The union has its network in ECL, BCCL and CCL. A notice was given to the government on 19 November. On 25 November, the last round of negotiations was over and with its failure, the strike became an inevitability.
The strike that took place on 3-5 December was a grand success. Work in underground and open cast mines and coal washeries came to a total halt, even loading was stopped. Although in the main offices employees registered their attendence, they had to face resistance by the workers here and there. Red flags were put up on the way leading to coalmines, as a symbol of strike. Though a brazen INTUC claimed that the strike was a flop, the management itself admitted that the success rate was 65%. At several places the INTUC leaders tried to resume work with the help of contractors, but this could not hold in the face of workers’ resistance. INTUC leaders were beaten up in a number of places. Besides INTUC, the unions under HMKP led by George Fernandes opposed the strike. In Jharkhand, unions associated with Shibu Soren and Suraj Mandal factions of JMM supported it while the union led by Teklal Mahato’s JMM opposed it, because of their hobnobbing with the BJP Chief Minister. Despite being kept at bay even while the strike steering committee was formed, CMWU participated in the strike with all its strength and vigour.
It is worth noting that workers of the five subsidiaries where the government had promised full payment of arrears by December also participated in the strike with the same vigour as displayed by workers of the rest three loss-making subsidiaries, where workers were to get only 40% of the arrears by December. This fact alone proves the political nature of the strike.