Congress Bankruptcy Is Fodder for the BJP
The Uma Bharati episode is yet another example of the historical bankruptcy of the Congress in facing the communal offensive of the RSS and its ilk. Advani is not wrong when he repeatedly reminds us how the Congress had delivered a whole range of issues and opportunities on a platter to the BJP in the 1980s. While it may be too early for the BJP to gleefully bracket the Hubli case with earlier Congress-sponsored blessings like the Shah Bano controversy and the unlocking of the Babri Masjid, there is little doubt that once again the Congress has ceded a major political advantage to the BJP.
In 1993 when the BJP and Uma Bharti first tried to whip up communal frenzy over the issue of hoisting the tricolour on the Hubli Idgah maidan, there were Congress governments both in Karnataka and at the Centre. That was when the BJP had been rendered thoroughly discredited in the wake of the barbaric demolition of the Babri Masjid. The Hubli episode had left a trail of blood with several lives being lost in police firing and communal riots. Yet Uma Bharti was let off most lightly and for the next ten years she was left scot-free even as the Congress continued to rule in Karnataka.
In fact, in July 2002 when the entire country was yet to come to terms with the shock of the state-sponsored genocide in Narendra Modi's Gujarat , the SM Krishna government of Karnataka went to court seeking a blanket withdrawal of all the cases arising from the Hubli incident. The present government of Karnataka was also following the same course till suddenly the Congress leadership decided to tighten the screw following the ‘tainted ministers' controversy and the resignation and arrest of Shibu Soren. And now just a few days after Uma Bharati had been lodged in a ‘jail' of her choice, the court has granted the original Congress plea of withdrawal of all the cases concerning Bharati. So much for the Congress record of combating communalism!
Uma Bharati has thus been allowed to emerge from this incident both a martyr and a victor. And the BJP, which was lying low following the recent poll debacle, has got a fresh lease of life. As chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, Uma Bharati was proving to be a liability for the BJP, but now she has been freed from that slot to play the role of a key national campaigner for the BJP. Also, the BJP, whose entire ideological, political and organizational heritage remains inimical to the legacy of the freedom movement, has now been ironically given a chance to launch a ‘tricolour march'.
The Congress has played a similar flip-flop with regard to the Savarkar issue. And this too has a long history. Among the eight accused in the Gandhi assassination trial only Savarkar was let off by the lower court because of purported lack of sufficient evidence of his role in the conspiracy. This acquittal was however never challenged by the Congress government of that time. And today, to make up for one Manishankar Aiyar comment, Congress leaders at all levels are now busy singing the Savarkar-was-a-great-patriot-and-freedom-fighter tune. Manmohan Singh has already dismissed Manishankar Aiyar's comments as his personal view.
Savarkar may be a legendary icon for the popular mind in Maharashtra , and there is also no doubt that he had started off as a militant patriot. But by the time he turned into an ardent advocate of political Hindutva and even of militarization of Hinduism, he had made an abject surrender before British colonialism. The two phases are clearly demarcated in Savarkar's evolution as an individual, the latter phase developing at the cost of the former, but the BJP would like to present him simultaneously as a great advocate of Hindutva and a great fighter for the country's freedom from the yoke of British colonialism. It is on the basis of this imagined continuity that the BJP now seeks an ideological passport to the history of India 's freedom movement. And on the eve of the elections to Maharashtra Assembly, the Congress is only facilitating the BJP's game plan.
It is not possible for the Congress to rewrite its long history of prevarication on the issue of communalism with a few sensational ‘secular' statements or acts. As the Savarkar and Uma Bharati episodes amply demonstrate, the Congress still remains a prisoner of its history of prevarication. A consistently secular Congress is as much a historical impossibility as a pro-swadeshi BJP.
Padyatra and People's Convention in Bihar
Against TADA, State Repression, Crime & For Relief to Flood and Drought Victims
"TADA Bandi Rihaai Abhiyan " organised a week-long padyatra, a people's march, from 1 to 6 Sep from Kaler to Patna to oppose imposition of TADA, state repression, increasing crime and to demand adequate relief to flood and drought victims in Bihar . This was led by CPI(ML) State Secretary Ramjatan Sharma, leader of the legislative group Ramnaresh Ram, General Secretary of AIALA Rameshwar Prasad, MLA Satyadev Ram and RYA General Secretary Kamlesh Sharma.
The padyatra was started from Kaler on Sep.1 after Vidyanand Vikal, AIALA Secretary of Bihar and Pradip Kumar, on behalf of more than five hundred padyatris, received red flags from Ramnaresh Ram and Krishnavatar Pandey, President of PUHR, UP. A massive public meeting was also held on the occasion. Krishnavatar Pandey said that judicial verdict on Bhadasi TADA case has clearly exposed the partisan and anti-poor character of the judiciary and that the justice to poor can be done only through people's struggles. Party's Bihar Secretary Ramjatan Sharma said that state repression and crime are the main pillars of the Laloo-Rabri regime which is involved in suppressing whatever is left of democratic rights to the people of Bihar . He termed the occasion as the launching pad for the long and protracted people's struggle for democracy and for the development of Bihar and to oust the dictatorial Laloo regime.
Describing Laloo-Rabri regime as a 'frankenstein' Comrade Ramnaresh Ram said that this regime got strength from the poor people but now it is bent upon finishing them. He said this govt.'s days are numbered as the people of Bihar are now preparing to give it a decisive blow.
The first day of the march was concluded when marchers reached Belsar Lakh village in the evening. 16 poor landless agricultural labourers of this village have been victimised under TADA. Here villagers welcomed and greeted all the marchers who later held a mass meeting after garlanding the statue of martyred CPI(ML) leader Comrade Chittaranjan Mishra.
Padyatris continued their journey throughout the week and camped in the villages on the way during nights where they always received a very enthusiastic welcome with cheers and garlands. They addressed dozens of mass gatherings in villages including those held at Mehandia, Balidad, Baidrabad, Arwal, etc. People in half a dozen villages had erected gates in memory of the martyrs to welcome them. At Arwal thousands of people welcomed the long cavalcade of pedestrians where a welcome gate was erected in the memory of comrades Gorakh, Jamadar and Keshav, martyrs of 1988 Bhadasi police firing. A mass meeting was also held there.
At many villages new groups of marchers joined padyatris during the 150 km. long journey which was concluded on Sep 6 at Patna after covering main centres of Arwal, Kinjar, Jehanabad, Masaurhi and Patna City .
At Patna , on concluding day, all marchers were received by leaders of various Left and democratic parties including socialist leader Surendra Mohan and CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya at around 11 AM before the start of the Mass Convention at Vidyapati Bhavan, which was the concluding event of this week-long campaign.
Addressing the mass convention Comrade Dipankar said that the ire of the people of Bihar will soon spoil all pleasures being enjoyed by the power-blinded Laloo-Rabri government at the cost of lives and dignity of the common people. This regime will have to go if TADA cases imposed on the poor agri. workers, peasants and their leaders are not withdrawn. On Paliganj killings and RJD-PWG nexus, he said that the government is running with the open support of criminals. By merely suspending one lone MLA, Dinanath Yadav, under people's pressure will not be enough. The question is how long will this RJD govt. comprised of dozens of Dinanaths survive? The answer of the the people is topermanently oust this regime from the political scene of Bihar . And this Convention does mean it. He said that ruling class can not put an end to this sorry plight of Bihar and it is the revolutionary struggles by toiling agrarian labourers of Bihar which will pave the way for a new Bihar .
Comrade Dipankar welcomed and thanked leaders of various left and democratic organisations in the Convention saying that only people's struggles have the potential to break the ideological barriers and develop a wider unity.
Surendra Mohan emphasised on the demand to withdraw all TADA-POTA cases in his speech and said that this campaign has explicitly given the message that the struggle against oppressors can never be halted. A veteran Gandhian Razi Ahmed criticized the govt. for violating the constitution, while PUCL Vice President Chittaranjan Singh said that Laloo-Rabri govt. has set new heights of barbarity in the state during its 14 years tenure. Leader of Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz Ali Anwar said that enacting black laws can never stop the forward march of people's movements.
CPI State Secretary Jalaluddin Ansari, CPM State Secretary Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi and Gandhian thinker Shankar Sharan emphasised on the need to forge a much stronger unity among the Left forces and called for intensifying struggle against murders of political activists and repression through black laws.
The Convention was also addressed by Samajwadi Party leader Shankar Prasad Tekriwal, AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, Prof. Bharti S. Kumar, General Secretary of PUCL Bihar Kishori Das, General Secretary AIALA Rameshwar Prasad. The Convention was presided over by Central Committee member of CPI(ML) K. D. Yadav and conducted by Editor of Samkalin Lokyudh Ramji Rai.
The Convention passed five resolutions demanding withdrawal of TADA cases and release of all TADA detainees, CBI inquiry into the Paliganj killing incident in which one of the accused was arrested from the MLA flat of Dinanath Yadav, a high level inquiry into the abduction of Roshan Kumar and murder of his father and grandfather in Aurangabad district, and arrest and punishment to police officers responsible for firing and killings of flood victims in Darbhanga, Vaishali and Samastipur districts. The Convention also demanded to halt the fast increasing crime and stern action against police-criminal-politician nexus and resolved to intensify the struggle on this issue. The Convention also demanded to declare famine in whole of Bihar and condemned the criminal negligence of the government in this regard.
Suicides and Starvation Deaths Continue,
Why is the Parliament Silent ?
Peasants Demonstrate in Delhi
Hundreds of peasants under the banner of Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (AIKSS) held a demonstration in Delhi on 3 Sep in protest against acute agrarian crisis, which has engulfed the entire country and resulted into growing incidence of peasants suicides and starvation deaths of the rural poor, suppression of peasant leaders and cadres under lapsed black laws like TADA and Bihar's Paliganj killings of peasant leaders.
Peasants and their representatives from Punjab , Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar , Orissa, Haryana, Andhra and Tamilnadu participated in the demonstration at Parliament Street in Delhi . Peasants also sat on a day-long dharna.
The protest-demonstration was led by CPI(ML) M.L.A. and national convener of AIKSS Rajaram Singh, CPI(ML) M.L.A. from Bihar Arun Singh, Ex- M.L.A. and popular peasant leaders of Siwan and Bhojpur Amarnath Yadav and Chandradeep Singh, Uttar Pradesh peasant leader Ishwari Prasad Kushwaha, Mahendra Choudhary and Phool Chand Dhewa from Rajasthan, Rajwinder Rana from Punjab, Vinod Rawat from MP, Prem Singh Gehlawat from Haryana, Harinath from Andhra Pradesh, Sugandan from Tamilnadu and B.B.Rao from Orissa.
Addressing the demonstrators, the peasant leaders said, "suicides and starvation deaths continue but our Parliament is silent. The everyday economic concerns of the peasantry cannot be left at the mercy of a mute Parliament and we will have to take it to the streets in a big way. Parliaments can be adjourned and silenced but people's movements brook no adjournments". They strongly condemned the unholy alliance of the Congress and the BJP in passing of anti-peasant-anti-worker budget of 2004 without any debate in Parliament, "only a hundred days back people had given a clear mandate against the disastrous economic policies of the NDA government. But the Congress-led UPA government is also pursuing the same policies. This is nothing but only a betrayal of the people's mandate" they said.
The demonstration demanded to convene a special session of parliament on agrarian crisis and farmers' plight, a white paper on the growing incidence of peasants' suicides and starvation deaths of the rural poor, waiver of all pending loans of the peasants and reversal of the WTO-dictated agriculture policy.
Withdrawal of TADA charges imposed on many agricultural labourers and their leaders in Jehanabad-Arwal region of Bihar was also demanded. The peasant leaders demanded from the central and the Bihar governments to institute a CBI inquiry into the Paliganj killings.
Later, a delegation of leaders met the Union Home Minister and submitted a memorandum asking for withdrawal of all TADA charges and ordering of a CBI inquiry into Paliganj killings. A memorandum on these demands was also submitted to the Chairman, National Human Rights Commission, while a separate memorandum on various agrarian issues was handed over to the Union Agriculture Minister.
AICCTU's Jail Bharo:
Thousands of Workers Courted Arrest
Responding to the call of All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU) thousands of workers courted arrest on 2 Sep in protest of the UPA govt.'s anti-worker-pro-corporate-pro-MNCs budget. This protest action took place in several major cities and industrial centres including Delhi , Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai, Guwahati, Tinsukia, Ranchi , Dhanbad, Patna , Lucknow and Jaipur.
In Delhi , around two hundred workers led by AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, National Secretary N.M. Thomas, Delhi State Secretary Santosh Rai and R.A.P. Singh courted arrest at Parliament Street police station. Before courting arrest a protest meeting was organised at Jantar Mantar.
Addressing the workers, speakers at the meeting said, "it is unprecedented in the history of Parliament that finance Bill was passed without any discussion, thanks to the alliance forged between ruling party Congress and the largest opposition party BJP over the disastrous, anti-people economic policies". They said "Even as the Congress and the BJP are hand- in- gloves on economic issues, for public consumption, they are shadow- boxing on the issue of secularism. Emboldened by smooth passage of Finance Bill, the govt. has come out with a Foreign Trade policy which intends to turn India into a dumping ground of rejected foreign goods and technology and at the same time, in the name of increasing exports, to develop special economic zones devoid of all labour laws."
Strongly criticizing the budget, speakers said that despite opposition by left trade unions and parties, this first budget of UPA govt. has turned out to be a betrayal of interests of workers and employees on the one hand and bonanza to the foreign investors and big corporate houses, on the other. While the budget has completely ignored the major issues of working class like making adequate budgetary allocations for extending social security for the workers of unorganised sector and agricultural labourers and enactment of legislations for them. The priorities of the UPA govt. have been exposed by their very first budget: instead of meeting the demand of working people to restore the EPF interest rate to 12%, the govt. has further slashed it to 8.5%, and at the same time chosen to grant concession to share brokers on Securities Transaction Tax to the tune of 6300 crore rupees.
West Bengal : Nearly a thousand workers led by CPI(ML) Polit Bureau member D.P. Buxi and AICCTU national Secretary Basudev Bose courted arrest in Kolkata.
Assam : Five hundred workers led by Subhash Sen courted arrest in Guwahati. Workers of Power Workers' Union also joined the strike.
Maharashtra : More than two hundred workers joined in a mass meeting which was addressed among others by AICCTU National secretary Uday Bhatt.
Bihar : Hundreds of workers and employees led by AICCTU Secretary R.N. Thakur courted arrest in Patna .
More than two hundred people led by Surendra Singh were arrested in Muzaffarpur.
Tamilnadu : More than two hundred workers led by AICCTU Working President S. Kumarsamy courted arrest in Chennai. Court arrest and protest dharnas were also organised at Tirunelvelli, Kanchivaram, Pudukottai, Thiruvallur, Sirkazi and Thiruchengode.
Jharkhand : More than five hundred workers led by AICCTU Vice-President Tarun Sarkar courted arrest in Ranchi . Nearly three hundred workers courted arrest at Dhanbad.
Rajasthan : Two hundred people led by AICCTU Vice-President Srilata Swaminathan courted arrest at Jaipur. A dharna was also organised at Jhunjhunu.
Uttar Pradesh : More than a hundred people including employees of Municipal Corporation held a protest demonstration and courted arrest at Allahabad . A protest march led by AICCTU State Secretary Dinkar Kapur was taken out in Kanpur . A protest dharna was held at Lucknow . A dharna was also held at Varanasi .
Nearly five hundred people participated in a demonstration at Robertsganj in Sonebhadra district which was led by UP Khet Mazdoor Sabha leader Ramnarayan Gond.
Kisan Sabha Conference in Bhojpur
The third Bhojpur district conference of Kisan Sabha was held at Agiaon block in Bhojpur district on 29 August. More than 500 peasants participated in the open session which was inaugurated by CPI(ML) MLA and Convenor of Akhil Bhartiya Kisan Sangharsh Samiti Rajaram Singh. He called upon the people to intensify struggle against acute agrarian crisis.
The open session was also addressed by former CPI(ML) MLA and Kisan Sabha district convenor Chandradeep Singh and Buxur district leader of Kisan Sabha Alakh Narayan Choudhary. The delegate session started on the same day. A 19 member district committee was elected with Chandradeep Singh as District president and Bhagirathi Yadav as Secretary.
The conference demanded that the government must immediately implement food for work programme on a war-footing and declare Bihar as a 'famine-affected region. '
Distribution of Relief to Flood Victims
CPI(ML) organised a relief camp on 31 August at Darbhanga party office to distribute relief material collected from the masses as well as from the contributions made by all Party MLAs in Bihar of their one month's salary. This amount was used to purchase clothing and rice which were distributed among 244 villagers of Khutwara, Kharthua, Garhia Musahari, Katasa, Bharhmpura and Rasulpur in the district. Most of the recipients were poor and helpless women and dalits.
Besides, AIPWA also collected and distributed relief materials and money to the victims in the district.
AIALA Protest
AIALA unit of Udham Singh Nagar held a demonstration and gherao of block headquarter on Sep 2 to demand BPL cards to all agri. workers as well as to protest the anomalies in the making of BPL lists. It was demanded to include all agricultural workers in BPL list and to publicly display these lists to curb the corrupt practices.
The dharna was also attended by a large number of women agri. labourers and members of various 'self help groups' constituted under much hyped Swarn Jayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana .
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