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Thanks to Advani, we now know where he got his feel good inspiration from. No he did not get the idea from any farmer or worker or student. The other day in Ahmedabad, Advani was candid enough to admit that he got the brainwave from the world of advertisement, from a Raymond Suiting ad to be precise! Advani truly stands for ad-vani, the message of advertisement. And if one Raymond ad can make an Advani feel good, cannot a million such ads also infect the masses with the ‘feel good’ virus? Hence you have the glossy ‘India Shining’ images chasing and mocking at you wherever you go.
But the point is not just where Advani got his ‘feel good’ idea from, but also the funds that are being pumped into the campaign. The new CEC has been right in expressing concern over the growing misuse of taxpayers’ money by poll-bound governments. The BJP has set new records in the game of fleecing the people to subsidise the government’s poll campaign. And the audacity with which the BJP is playing this game can be seen from the fact that the Prime Minister himself has rejected the CEC’s call for observance of the model of conduct by parties in power. With the government spending billions of rupees for the India Shining ad campaign, the civil aviation minister must be grudging the meanness of the people who made such a hue and cry over the paltry sum of Rs. 2.5 lakh that he wanted the Airport Authority of India to spend to fund his Goan holidays!
Meanwhile, the government has stretched the feel-good campaign into the realm of reservation. The income ceiling for identifying the ‘creamy layer’ for reservation purposes has been increased overnight from Rs. 1,00,000 to Rs. 2,50,000. In other words, the benefits of OBC reservation would henceforth be cornered almost exclusively by a minority belonging to the income bracket of Rs. 1,00,000-2,50,000. From taxation to reservation, the entire gamut of government policies is now geared to an unabashed pampering of the nouveau riche crowd.
But the RSS has warned the BJP to beware the pitfalls that may spoil the feel good party. Beneath the veneer of the arrogant euphoria of ‘India Shining’ and ‘Mission 2004’, the BJP cannot but be aware of the shaky ground under its feet. Frantic attempts are therefore already underway to refurbish the trademark issues that have delivered good dividends in the past. If Pramod Mahajan has burnt his fingers in trying to set the vote market afire with the so-called ‘foreign origin’ fuel, Vajpayee and Advani have started remixing the good old temple tune. The two leaders selected two key sites on the Sangh’s political map – Ayodhya and Ahmedabad – to seek a renewed mandate to complete the unfinished job of temple construction.
In Madhya Pradesh Uma Bharti is of course already working overtime to use every bit of her new found power to implement the Sangh’s pet agenda of minority-bashing and cultural policing. Conversion and cow-slaughter have already been banned. In fact, she has gone to the extent of banning fish, eggs and other poultry products in some pilgrimage centres in the state. The minister for culture in Uma’s cabinet, who happens to be a nephew of the BJP’s poet Prime Minister, is busy renaming the state’s cultural academies. And socio-cultural magazines critical of the Sangh’s ideology are being banned in the name of preserving communal harmony.
Every fascist campaign in history has rested on the twin props of violence and fraudulence. In the BJP’s scheme of things, the recipe accordingly revolves around a mix of crude muscle-flexing and cynical manipulation of myths garnished with coats of feel-good gloss.
The Polit Bureau met in Delhi on February 2-3 and took stock of the latest political situation and the Party’s preparations for the impending election battle. The meeting began by paying homage to veteran Comrade Prabodh Bhattacharya who breathed his last in Kolkata on 8 January 2004. He was 95. He had inaugurated the Fourth Congress of the party and had published the 'Reports from the Flaming Fields of Bihar' while the Party was still underground.
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The Polit Bureau has called upon the entire party to make all-out preparations for the impending electoral battle on war-footing. The BJP is desperate for early elections and the Party must remain prepared for polls as early as late March. Several states including Andhra, Orissa and Karnataka are already set to have simultaneous Assembly polls while the possibilities are still being discussed about a few other states. All care must be taken to fulfil all necessary formalities regarding electoral roll, I card and other necessary documents and latest requirements regarding nomination.
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The greatest emphasis must be laid on galvanising our own organisation and unleashing the full initiative and potential of our own forces in order to conduct a vigorous election campaign. Struggles on all fronts tend to become particularly sharp and intense during election times. While taking all care to avoid getting embroiled in unnecessary conflicts we must remain prepared to counter every enemy attack and utilise every opportunity in areas of intense class struggles.
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With the CPI(M) and CPI entering into almost cent per cent seat adjustments with the Congress and its allies in all states outside West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, chances of having any adjustment with them in any state are extremely remote. The RSP and Forward Bloc have expressed their reservations regarding this policy, but in the given situation there are little chances of any practical electoral cooperation with these parties either. In certain states like Andhra, Assam, Punjab etc. it may be possible to have some primary arrangement of electoral cooperation with some other Left organisations and ML groups.
- Generally speaking, our election campaign will be directed primarily against the BJP and NDA and their fascist designs and anti-people pro-imperialist policies. But while targeting the BJP we must pay adequate attention to the political and economic context – the neo-liberal policies of reckless globalisation and blind marketisation, growing subservience to US imperialism, rampant corruption and criminalisation, growing state repression and systematic undermining of democratic institutions and norms and utter capitulation and opportunism on the part of the Congress – in which the BJP has gained strength and emerged as the ruling party. Articulation of an alternative people’s agenda for social transformation and strengthening and consolidation of the people’s voice and capacity to intervene must be the focal point of our campaign.
- The exposure of the BJP and NDA rule must not be confined only to issues of communal violence and Hindutva. Puncturing the feel-good balloon is of paramount importance and to do this we must pay due attention to the most glariang manifestations of crisis and the most vulnerable points and weak spots of the ruling classes. Unemeployment, agrarian crisis, industrial closure, growing regional disparity, vanishing public amenities, denial of basic services and social security and mobility to the toiling masses and lower middle classes must form the core of our economic exposure campaign.
- The immediate plans, programmes and priorities of all Party committees, Party organs and mass organisations must be formulated and implemented in keeping with the political requirements of the Party for the electoral battle. All our energies, resources and initiatives must be harnessed in this direction.
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The CPI(ML) has strongly condemned the Madhya Pradesh Government’s move of banning and seizing copies of progressive Hindi magazines Samayantar and Udbhavna, terming it as a fascist assault on the freedom of expression. In a press statement CPI(ML) has said that Uma Bharti had won elections by posing as an advocate of ‘development’, but her real fascist agenda now stands exposed. Not so long ago, the Sangh Parivar in MP had attacked eminent playwright Habib Tanvir’s play ‘Ponga Pandit’; now that the BJP is in power, such assaults have become ‘official’. The BJP is using its government to try to muzzle all the voices that dissent against its fascist policies. Modi-style, Uma Bharti has sought to justify the fresh attacks on Christians in Jhabua as a ‘reaction’ to conversions.
Both Samayantar and Udbhavna are respected for their anti-communal, democratic content; it is ironic that the communal fascist BJP is trying to ban them by branding them as a threat to communal harmony.
The CPI(ML) Polit Bureau which concluded its meeting recentrly called for a decisive blow to the enemies of democracy in the coming Lok Sabha polls.
This is the true fascist style of preparing for the elections. Comrade Rajkumar Yadav, a popular leader and CPI(ML) District Secretary in Giridih has been picked up from the Party office, where he was addressing a meeting, on Feb 7 after framing him under serious criminal charges by the police. He poses an unnerving challenge before the local MLA, muscleman and State Industry Minister Ravindra Rai and his party the BJP in the district. Comrade Rajkumar has been put behind bars many times earlier at the behest of the BJP leaders in the region. One more senior leader of the CPI(ML) V N Singh is also in jail for many months. CPI(ML) MLA in Jharkhand Mahendra Prasad Singh is facing arrest warrants along with a number of Party leaders and activists.
As the elections come closer, BJP's tactics of repressing democratic movements and arresting leaders to contain political challenge has become more prominent. But the democratic aspirations of the people and struggle for a democratic India are increasing day by day and becoming more intense with every repressive measure adopted by the rulers. Earlier, this was proved after the brutal firing on innocent protestors in Markachho, where the govt. had to face the ire of the people.
Rajkumar Yadav was arrested this time for daring to oppose a revenue official who asked bribes from an unemployed youth. Instead of taking any action, local administration came in support of that official helping him in giving this incident a caste-colour which went to the extent of an organised attack by the Surendra Rai, brother of the MLA, and his gang over a party activist Shakti Paswan, a physically challenged person, and his brutal beating. When people mounted pressure to arrest Surendra Rai and his gang, Rajkumar Yadav was arrested instead, in a vain attempt to contain people's resentment. This incident exposes the reality of criminal-corrupt politician-bureaucracy nexus becoming so deep-rooted in BJP rule in the state that a little opposition to corruption led to violent counterattacks from the ruling establishment. Moreover, elections are due so the ruling BJP tries to curb all kinds of opposition using state repression, as this nexus becomes the backbone of election machinery for the ruling party.
FIR has been lodged against the brother of the Minister for kidnapping and attempted murder, but he roams freely while CPI(ML) leaders are now facing arrest warrants.
People in the district organised protests against this incident at various places. And protests are continuing. Although the administration has imposed prohibitory orders, the Party has called for a 'Self-respect Rally' in Rajdhanwar on Feb 11 and protest dharnas at all district headquarters in the state on Feb 13.
Movement of the CPI(ML) is spreading in Jharkhand with every oppressive measure taken up by the BJP govt. Frustration is evident among the ruling parties, particularly the BJP, as the CPI(ML) continues its tirade against the upper-caste-feudal forces and their anti-people nexus with criminals, corrupt politicians and bureaucracy. The BJP is using state machinary to serve its vested interests and Ashok Giri, an infamous police official who murdered Comrade Laldhan Mahto, has been reinstated in Bagodar thana to mount organised attacks on the CPI(ML). Recent spate of arrest warrants is in fact is done by this person to appease his mentors and promoters in the high places. But he is facing people's anger this time also.
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District units of the Party have started preparations for the coming Lok Sabha Elections in Bihar. District level cadre coventions were held in Bhojpur and Jehanabad on Feb 7 and 9 respectively where hundreds of leaders and cadres in these districts actively participated and discussed the reports placed by the Block Secretaries in the disticts. The enthusiasm visible among the participants was an indication enough of the challenge accepted by the Party in this electoral battle-ground which is nothing but the continuation of our day to day struggles and resistances.
Party General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya addressed these conventions and called upon the Party ranks to toil hard to expose the 'feel good' clapperclawing election stunt of BJP and give it a deserving feel-bad in the coming elections. When majority in the country is facing the brunt of severe agrarian crisis, industrial shut-downs and large scale unemployment leading to increased resentment, it is time to mount a concerted attack on fascists and imperialist lackeys simultaneously exposing the oppotunism of centrist bourgeois political formations. He also attacked Bihar's RJD govt. and said that Laloo's regime can not last any longer by undermining the stark realities of Bihari society and protecting the feudal-kulak-criminal-mafia-bureaucracy nexus.
Similar cadre conventions will also be organised in other districts in the state.
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Bihar's model of Laloo-Justice was witnessed once again in a village in Nawada district when criminals led by RJD's District President Kaushal Yadav and Block President Ramanand Yadav attacked the dalit basti in village Meskaur and burnt more than hundred households to ashes on Feb 5. Goons fired indiscriminately during the attack leading to dozens seriously injured including elders, women and children. And police remained mute spectator, in fact, it connived with the criminals, during the incident.
Such acts of maintaining reign of terror by the all pervasive criminal-politician-police nexus in Bihar are not very uncommon. These are to suppress the rising political aspirations of dalits and poor in the state. But more and more people are standing up and joining the movement and struggles led by the CPI(ML).
Dalit agricultural labourers were allotted land pattas way back in 1987 in the village but possession over the land remained a distant dream till CPI(ML) and Bihar Pradesh Khet Mazdoor Sabha launched a land seizure movement and rehabilitated all 105 patta-holders on their own lands on December 10 last year. Till then it was occupied by the powerful feudals of the village who get support from the RJD leaders.
Criminals burnt down all straw-huts in this attack built by the dalit villagers and threatened them to desist from their own lands. Though the district administration was made aware of the expected attack well in advance before the incident, the former preferred to remain silent favouring feudals while the local thana police mutely watched whole attack without taking any action.
CPI(ML) and BPKMS has demanded of the administration to immediate rehabilitation and compensation to all families and treatment of all injured, stern action against CO and thana incharge, and arrest of all members of Kaushal Yadav-Ramanand Yadav gang. Party has decided to widen and intensify the struggle till all families will get occupation on their own lands.
AISA unit in Delhi held a two-day state level cadre convention in on Jan 31. The Convention dealt with four topics viz. 'State and Religion', Debates among the Left' , Students-Youth movement in Delhi', and 'New Economic Policy'. The first topic was addressed by CPI(ML) CC member and Editor of Liberation Brij Bihari Pandey, second and third topics by Delhi Party Secretary Rajendra Pratholi, while the last one was addressed by Tapas Ranjan Saha.
The student and youth comrades from Delhi University, JNU and Aligarh Muslim University participated in the convention.
CPI(ML) held a rally against increasing police repression and fascist offensive on Feb 8 in Allahabad. Rally was participated mainly by a number of people from poor and toiling sections of the society including a large number of sanitary workers. Speakers in the rally said that fascist forces' onslaught can only be stopped by strengthening people's struggles simultaneously defeating the opportunist policies of parties like SP and BSP. They protested increase in police atrocities on poorer sections and protection being given to the land-mafia which is forcibly evicting poor masses from their households.
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Party unit in the Delhi Transport Corporation concluded its fourth Sector Conference on Feb 5 with the call to intensify movement against privatisation of this important sector and to defeat the policies of liberalisation and globalisation.
Conference also highlighted the need to increase initiatives in day to day affairs at local/depot levels and called upon to make the forthcoming February 24th All India General Strike a success.
Comrade Paletu Sah, a local activist in Naubatpur block of Patna, was killed by the goons belonging to the People's War Group on Feb 5. He was shot dead while sitting in his shop in village Bara. Party unit in Patna has condemned this heinous crime and reiterated the resolve to continue the struggle against anarchism relentlessly
More than 80 party activits and supporters, including more than twenty women, were arrested in Lalkuan while gheraoing local thana to demand the release of Kisan Sabha and AISA leaders arrested earlier during a movement against Coperative Dairy Federation, Lalkuan and sent to Haldwani jail on Feb 10.
The movement against the Coperative Dairy Federation, Lalkuan continues on a 12-points charter of demands and a fast unto death is being held at Lalkuan. Earlier, in a bid to suppress the movement police arrested Party's Uttaranchal Leading Team member and Convenor of Terai-Bhabar Kisan Sabha Bahadur Singh Jangi and AISA State President Indresh Maikhury along with two other leaders on concocted charges.
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