|
For the third time in fourteen years, the charioteer of the Sangh Parivar would be hitting the roads again. No sooner had the Election Commission shot down the request for allowing Advani the use of an exclusive IAF aircraft for electioneering, the campaign managers of the BJP were ready with the blueprint of yet another mega chariot show. With the model code of conduct finally stopping the ‘India Shining’ blitzkrieg in the print and electronic media, the burden of propagating the Vajpayee ‘vision’ seems to rest once again on the good old charioteer of the Parivar.
Many BJP watchers have started describing this latest project of Advani as a major exercise in ‘reinventing’ the party. It is also said that the yatra is aimed at positioning Advani as the BJP’s new Vajpayee. After all, it is Advani who has now begun to deflate the NDA’s feel-good balloon by talking about the lack of feel good factor among farmers and even describing the Gujarat genocide as a black spot on NDA’s shining India!
Let us take a closer look at the three yatras and this so-called reinvention of the BJP and repositioning of Advani. The original 1990 yatra and the Ram Janambhoomi campaign had established the BJP as the party of militant Hindutva. The BJP’s parliamentary strength jumped into the critical 100-plus level and geographically too, the party began to acquire an all-India appearance. With the Janata Dal disintegrating, the BJP emerged as the main non-Congress party.
In 1997 Advani embarked on his second yatra which was called the ‘Swarn Jayanti Yatra’. In the name of ‘honouring’ India’s freedom fighters, the BJP not only tried to defuse the most potent charge of its not having played any role in the freedom movement but it also started rehabilitating its own ideological ancestors like Savarkar as freedom fighters, or shall we say ‘freedom fighters with a difference’. The two elections that followed, in 1998 and 1999, saw the BJP emerge as the main ruling party heading an ever-expanding coalition.
The BJP’s old and new-found admirers and endorsers tell us that this tryst with power has brought about a miracle. It has tamed and transformed the BJP. It is no longer the old BJP whining only about Ayodhya and Kashmir, it is now very much a brand new BJP which has moved on beyond Ayodhya and even Gujarat, is bold enough to befriend Pakistan and determined to herald a new era of ‘development’ and ‘good governance’. The present yatra, we are told, is not about raking up conflicts rooted in the past but about chasing a grand dream into the foreseeable future. The truth is the masks called the NDA and its Ayodhya-free agenda have already been ripped off. The BJP desperately needs some new ones.
Till recently the BJP was desperate to market itself as a party with a difference. Now that more and more people have started identifying and diagnosing the difference, the BJP is busy denying it and projecting itself as just a ‘responsible’ rightwing party, maybe a bit like the Blairite ‘New’ Labour, if not like the Reagan-Bush Republicans themselves! But then are not more and more Americans drawing a parallel between Bush and Hitler? Does not every unbridled rightwing agenda lead to a fascistic war on the people?
In their drive to grab power, fascists resort to all kinds of lies and spread every possible illusion. Hitler’s way to power was paved systematically with disinformation. The BJP used the state power in UP and the bankruptcy and impotence of the then Congress government at the Centre to pull down the Babri Masjid and engineer a bloody trail of riots that brought alive the memories of Partition. It then shed some crocodile tears of ‘regret’ and formed two successive coalition governments at the Centre only to orchestrate a genocide in Gujarat. In Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharti usurped power by flaunting the bijli-sadak-paani agenda and now the Hindutva steamroller is already working overtime.
Power has never tamed fascists. Unrestricted state power is the ultimate fuel that fascism needs to torch an entire people and their land and rights and culture. Adavni’s yatra seeks that fuel to set the country afire.
The only way to tame fascists is to overpower and overthrow them. And the strength to do that lies with the people. The time to invoke and apply that strength starts now.
P.S.: The EC has refused to interfere with Advani’s chariot show. If the need arises the people must and revolutionary communists must do all they can to organise people’s resistance to teach a fitting lesson to the fascists.
5 March2004: The CPI(ML) Central Committee has released the first list of 45 Party candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections. The Party has decided to contest nearly 70 seats in 16 States (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura) and two Union Territories (Pondicherry, Andaman and Nicobar Islands). The Party will also put up candidates in elections to State Assemblies in Karnataka (4 seats), Andhra Pradesh (10 seats) and Orissa (10 seats).
The Party has renominated Dr. Jayanta Rongpi, the sitting CPI(ML) MP from Autonomous District constituency in Assam. Party MLAs from Obra and Karakat also figure in this list as candidates for Aurangabad and Bikramganj seats in Bihar. Also among the candidates are seven prominent trade union leaders working among both organised and unorganised workers including AICCTU National Working President S Kumarswamy (Chennai North, Tamil Nadu), National General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee (Dhanbad, Jharkhand), National Secretary Subhas Sen (Dibrugarh, Assam) and NKP Nair (Andaman). Secretaries of the Party State units in Assam and Andhra Pradesh are also in the fray from Tezpur and Kakinada constituencies respectively.
The first list includes ten seats from Bihar and the Party is shortly expected to announce another ten seats from the state. The party’s nominee for the Siwan Lok Sabha constituency is once again Amarnath Yadav, the popular Party leader who had finished a close second to the notorious RJD MP Shahabuddin in the 1999 elections. From Samastipur, the Party’s nominee is Prof. Surendra Prasad, a well known veteran Left intellectual in the region. From Purnea in East Bihar, the Party has given nomination to Madhavi Sarkar, former CPI(M) MLA from Purnea and widow of popular CPI(M) leader Ajit Sarkar who was assassinated in 1998. It may be noted that she recently dissociated herself from the CPI(M) and joined the CPI(ML).
The first list of 45 seats and candidates as released on March 5
Assam
1. Dibrugarh: Subhas Sen
2. Tezpur: Rubul Sarmah
3. Autonomous District (ST): Dr. Jayanta Rongpi
Tripura
1. Tripura East (ST): Churaimani Jamatiya
West Bengal
1. Jalpaiguri : Shankar Das
2. Raiganj: Ajit Das
3. Krishnanagar: Biman Biswas
4. Katwa: Salil Dutta
5. Asansol: Atanu Chakraborty
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
1. NKP Nair
Tamil Nadu
1. Chennai North: S Kumraswamy
2. Mayiladuturai: N Gunasekaran
3. Thiruchengodu: P Govindaraj
Kerala
1. Palakkad: M Velayudhan
Karnataka
1. Bellary: G Ramappa
Andhra Pradesh
1. Kakinada: NVVSN Murthy
Orissa
1. Koraput(ST) : Meghnath Sabaro
Jharkhand
1. Dumka(ST): Surun Soren
2. Palamu(SC): Ravindra Ram
3. Chatra: Birju Ram
4. Giridih: Ibnul Hasan Basru
5. Dhanbad: Swapan Mukherjee
Punjab
1. Bhatinda (SC): Bhagwant Singh
Rajasthan
1. Jhunjhunu: Mahendra Chaudhry
2. Salumber(ST): Puranmal Mal
Uttar Pradesh
1. Pilibhit: Krishna Adhikari
2. Kheri: Ram Daras
3. Mishrikh (SC): Suneela
4. Jalaun(SC): Kanshi Ram
5. Saidpur: Rajendra Vanvasi
6. Ghazipur: Ishwari Prasad Kushwaha
7. Chandauli: Tilakdhari Bind
8. Robertsganj: Ashok Kol
9. Balia: Shriram Chaudhry
10. Salempur: Rajesh Sahni
Bihar
1. Bagaha(SC): Nandji Ram
2. Siwan: Amarnath Yadav
3. Gopalganj: Ramnaresh Ram
4. Samastipur: Prof. Surendra Prasad
5. Purnea: Madhavi Sarkar
6. Aurangabad: Rajaram Singh
7. Bikramganj: Arun Singh
8. Sasaram (SC): Dukhi Ram
9. Barh: Mithilesh Yadav
10. Patna: Vidyanand Vikal
|
 |
CPI(ML) activists in Dildarnagar of Ghazipur district were attacked by feudals when they were conducting a mass contact campaign among poor adivasis on March 4. Nearly a dozen comrades have been injured in the incident including Santosh Maurya and Amar Dev Banvasi.
The attackers are the henchmen of the local MLA and the Minister Om Prakash Singh who intend to forcibly occupy a piece of land inhabited by adivasis. Moreover, feudal goons were also enraged for the struggle launched by the Party against the illegal brokerage by goons in a local cattle fare. One Brahmdev Kushwaha, who owns the cattle fare tried to attack Comrade Santosh Maurya in the morning of Mar 4, but the goons were forced to flee as local people including a large number of women put up a stiff resistance. Later people reported the incident to the police which did not take any action. Police remained mute even when the armed goons came back in the afternoon and held an organised attack on the basti, destroyed many hutments and belongings in poor households and nearly a dozen people including women were seriously injured in the attack. The police station is only 500 meters away from the place of the incident. Police helped the attackers by holding up all injured in the thana till evening and not filing an FIR under SC/ST Act despite repeated requests.
Last week Party leader Ashok Kol was seriously injured alongwith many other comrades in Sonbhadra district in an attack. Such attacks on Party activists are increasing in UP thanks to the political protection being provided to reactionary kulak-feudal-mafia forces by the ruling elites. These incidents have also been reported to National Human Rights Commission and Party has decided to intensify struggle on a much wider scale. A protest dharna was also held in Ghazipur against these attacks on March 10.
|
|
Krishna district committee of All India Agricultural Labour Association conducted a Padyatra campaign from Feb 28 to Mar 3. The campaign, meant to highlight the specific issues of agricultural labourers, covered nearly 15 villages during the week. This was concluded in a district level convention on March 6 at Chatrai. The policies being adopted by parties like TDP and BJP were vehemently criticized in the convention. Comrades N. Murty, D. Harinath, P. Satyanarayana and T. Aruna addressed the convention which was presided over by Com. Janardhan.
During the Padyatra, a contingent of 50 AIALA activists led by Com. Janardhan, Pulla Rao and Venkateswara Rao covered almost all villages of Chatrai mandal. This was flagged off by CPI(ML) District Secretary D. Harinath. A number of street corner meetings were held to create awareness among the masses exposing the reactionary TDP-BJP alliance as well as the impotency of Congress and raised the demands of agricultural labour.
|
|
Bank and administrative officials went to seize the property of poor peasants and agri. labourers had to retreat after a militant gherao in Bijusar and Doradas villages in Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan on Feb 20. Angry villagers led by CPI(ML) leader Phoolchand Dheba gheraoed officials' jeeps and asked them to go back. Prior to this tehsil officials pasted seizure warrants on many houses in these two villages for loans that were taken as long back as more than a decade for small sums in the name of purchasing cattle and goats. Despite the known fact that these cash starved poor villagers are unable to repay such amounts in lean season, bank officials refused to wait till the crops are harvested.
CPI(ML) has been demanding a waiver of loans for all rural poor and agri. workers for a long time. When situation became panicky after officials openly pasted warrants over the walls, Party activists decided to oppose this move by the govt. and went in to stop concerned officials. Now, it has been decided to hold a dharna at tehsil office till this seizure campaign is put on hold and all loans given to poor are waived.
The Rajasthan Gramin Mazdoor Sangthan (rural labourers' organisation) also held a mass meeting at district collectorate on Feb 13 in Jhunjhunu which was attended by hundreds of agri. labourers.
AIPWA organised a nationwide campaign from Feb 12, the tenth anniversary of its foundation, to March 8, the Women's Day to highlight the sorry plight of women in today's India vis-a-vis BJP's 'India Shining'.
Delhi unit of AIPWA organised a protest against rising crimes on women and police atrocities in Mangolpuri, while a convention was held in NOIDA. The women's wing of Central Government Health Services Employees' Union held a mass meeting in front of Health Ministry on Women's Day. This was addressed by AIPWA General Secretary Kumudini Pati and Sunita. In Mansa (Punjab), a cadre meet was held on the day which was addressed by Comrade Jeeta Kaur.
AIPWA activists burnt effigies of Mulayam Singh Yadav in many districts of UP on Women's Day condemning anti-women attitude and the tacit support being provided by his govt. to the many high profile perpetrators of crime against women like Ex-minister Amar Mani Tripathy and many others. AIPWA leaders also addressed a convention on plight of women organised in Lucknow jointly with AIDWA and NFIW.
In Rajasthan, AIPWA organised a 'holika dahan' of evils like dowry, female foeticide, etc. and anti-women policies on March 6, on the day of Holi, in Ajmer and Udaipur. Cadre meets were held on March 8 in these two districts. Programmes were also held in Assam, West Bengal and Bihar at many places.
A convention was held in Vijaynagar taluka of Savarkantha in Gujarat on Feb 22. Tribals in this area are facing a threat of eviction from their traditional forest lands. Besides the main issue of rights over the forests and land, the Party has also raised issues like timely payment to the daily wage workers and regularisation of their jobs, corruption in the forest deptt., etc. The convention, inaugurated by Comrade Ranjan Ganguly, CPI(ML) Incharge of Gujarat, condemned the anti-adivasi and anti-dalit policies of the communal fascist govt. of Narendra Modi and decided to launch a popular movement against the unconstitutional evictions of tribals from the fifth schedule forest areas.
|
|
The Permanent Resident (Disqualification) Bill 2004 denying property rights to Kashmiri women marrying outside the state is a brazenly discriminatory and retrograde piece of legislation. The autonomy of Kashmir can not be protected by curtailing the democratic rights of Kashmiri women. CPI(ML), therefore, calls upon the govt. of Jammu And Kashmir to withdraw this ill-advised and hastily adopted Bill forthwith.
The Party appeals to the people of India to see through the BJP's double game on this issue. The BJP which spearheaded the most barbaric anti-women violence in Gujarat and continues to support all kinds of anti-women forces and acts all-over the country has no right to wax eloquent on the rights of Kashmiri women.
LK Advani's belated description of Gujarat 2002 as a blot on the NDA rule is thoroughly insincere and dishonest. This is yet another weapon of mass deception deployed by the Sangh Parivar with a view to misleading the electorate in the ensuing elections. But this vote catching tactic can not cut any ice with the people of India who hold Advani guilty for masterminding the Sangh's fascist onslaughts and particularly for condoning the perpetrators of the genocide in Gujarat.
|
|
Leading American Marxist economist and co-founder of “Monthly Review”, Paul Sweezy breathed his last at the age of 93 on February 27, 2004. The son of a vice president of the First National Bank of New York (predecessor to Citibank), Sweezy authored 'The Theory Of Capitalist Development' (1942) and many other works of socialist theory. Its value, and the rest of his journalistic and scholarly contribution, to be found in more than 100 articles and 20 books, was confirmed in mainstream circles when the Wall Street Journal described him as the “dean of radical economists”. John Kenneth Galbraith called him the “most noted American Marxist scholar” of the second half of the 20th century.
In 1932, he went on to the London School of Economics. At the LSE, in those shattering early years of the great depression, Sweezy went through a political and intellectual transformation provoked by the rise of Hitler and ongoing student agitations.
Sweezy returned to Harvard in 1933 where he took a doctorate, wrote an acclaimed dissertation on the coal cartel during the English industrial revolution (1938), became an instructor in the economics department, began work on The Theory Of Capitalist Development, and helped found the Harvard Teachers Union.
In 1948, Sweezy and Leo Huberman worked in Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party presidential campaign. In 1949, in the teeth of the mounting cold war, a time when the House Un-American Activities Committee was in action and incipient McCarthyism was gathering momentum, they launched Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine.
Despite the worsening political climate, MR, as it become known, went on to become one of the most influential radical forums. In 1954, Sweezy himself was ensnared in the McCarthyite maelstrom. Convicted for refusing to turn over notes for a lecture he had given at the University of New Hampshire, he received a jail sentence for “contempt”, later overturned by the US Supreme Court. That decision, in 1957, was one of several that led to the gradual end of the anti-left witch hunts.
In 1960, in the wake of the revolution that brought Castro to power, Sweezy and Huberman travelled to Cuba to study developments in education, nationalisation of industry, and land reform. Increasingly, Sweezy turned his attention to economic, political, and environmental issues in the third world. In 1971, he wrote that “the principal (capitalist) contradiction ... is not within the developed part but between the developed and undeveloped parts”, an argument that found an enthusiastic audience among many of those opposing US imperial projects in Vietnam and elsewhere. In the 1970s and 80s Sweezy lectured in Japan, India, Europe and the Americas.
- Excerpts courtesy: The Guardian
|
" WORLDWIDE ANTI-WAR
PROTEST DAY
"
on
ON MARCH 20, 2004!
|
|
- END THE OCCUPATION !
|
|
- CALL BACK TROOPS FROM IRAQ !
|
|
- MONEY FOR JOBS, HEALTH CARE AND SCHOOLS,
NOT FOR PROFITS & WAR!
|
|
|
