In this Issue
Office of Profit, Act of Convenience
The ‘office of profit' controversy is getting curiouser and curiouser. A growing number of MPs and MLAs cutting across states and political affiliations stand accused of occupying a wide range of offices of profit in violation of constitutional stipulations. While all these MPs, MLAs and their parties continue to deny the allegations, the EC has already disqualified one MP and a few have tendered what may perhaps be called anticipatory resignation to escape the embarrassment of being disqualified or even examined by the EC. The resignations have however come only after the UPA government's move to bring an Ordinance to protect the accused MPs got exposed and invited widespread condemnation. Now moves are afoot to amend the existing disqualification law and declare all the controversial offices as being non-profit ones, and that too with retrospective effect so that the accused MPs and MLAs become legally immune from the threat of disqualification!
According to the Prevention of Disqualification Act that has been in force since 1959, MPs and MLAs are debarred from holding government posts that are liable to be treated as offices of profit. This is done with a view to freeing the role of MPs and MLAs as sovereign law-makers from conflicting considerations emanating from such offices of profit. In other words, there should be no mixing of politics and profit! But real life clearly belies such grand assumptions. For most MPs and MLAs of ruling parties, membership of Parliament or State Assemblies is indeed a lucrative office of profit. Witness the growing string of scams involving MPs and MLAs, most notably the recent cash-for-queries scam which led to the dismissal of a dozen MPs and the MPLAD scheme fund scam bringing in its wake temporary suspension of another half a dozen.
The very fact that some 40 MPs are under the scanner for violating this 1959 Act is a telling comment on the irony that while Parliament itself makes such regulatory laws, the lawmakers themselves openly flout them! And when accused or found guilty of such violations, they have the ‘right' to save themselves merely by suitably amending the concerned law with retrospective effect. Contrast this ‘freedom' of lawmakers to the plight of those ordinary citizens who are still being tried and convicted under a draconian law like TADA even more than a decade after the law has otherwise been ‘allowed to lapse'. A very fine example, indeed, of equality of all in the eyes of law!
It is also instructive to note that the MPs in question belong not only to the UPA and NDA camps, but many of them are also from the CPI(M) which has usually been away from such controversies in the past. Indeed, with cabinets being downsized, there is now an added incentive in this era of coalition politics to find suitable non-ministerial offices of profit for more and more MPs and MLAs! The NDA government in Jharkhand which survives tenuously on the basis of the support secured from some half a dozen independent MLAs provides a most glaring example of creation and appropriation of such offices. And now caught red-handed, the same NDA which petitioned the President of India not to sign an Ordinance to save MPs threatened with possible disqualification, thereby precipitating Sonia Gandhi's dramatic resignation, rushed exactly a similar Bill in the Jharkhand Assembly in gross violation of all legislative procedures and norms!
The Congress has tried to put up a show of injured innocence and is now seeking to derive political capital from Sonia Gandhi's resignation. Surely the Congress should have expected the charges against its own MPs including Sonia Gandhi when it insisted on the disqualification of Samajwadi Party MP Jaya Bachchan. Or has the party forgotten the adage that people living in glass houses ought not to throw stones at others! The move to prorogue Parliament in the middle of the budget session and seek an Ordinance to nullify the charges and protect the accused MPs was typical of the Congress tradition of subverting the parliamentary system as has been displayed time and again since the infamous imposition of the Emergency in 1975 to the utterly sectarian and arbitrary use of Governors in most recent periods. And now the latest move to evolve a political consensus on the issue is also loaded with sinister implications.
Democracy demands that the present disqualification law should be applied equally in every case. Instead, attempt is now on to legitimize wholesale violation of the existing law by amending the law itself. It has rightly been suggested that the office of profit clause should cover private offices as well. While government employees are denied their basic political right to join and support political parties of their choice, industrialists and advocates are allowed to join Parliament and simultaneously pursue their twin professions. But the new consensus may well seek to reinforce the business-politics nexus and inject greater American spirit into the Indian parliamentary system.
In America, Presidents, Vice-Presidents, Secretaries and key officials all have strong corporate connections, and the government merely presides over a mega business-politics nexus including an enormous strong military-industrial complex. It is quite likely that the office of profit controversy would now be used to seek a similar corporatisation (or Americanisation, if you will) of Indian parliamentary democracy. Beyond the politics of double standards and pseudo-sacrifice, we must be watchful against the designs of this emerging politics of profit.
Bhagat Singh Martyrdom Day
On 75th Anniversary of Martyrdom of Shahid-e-Azam Bhagat Singh programmes were organised in various parts of the country by CPI(ML) and affiliated organisations. In Patna, after the garlanding of the statue of Shahid-e-Azam, a march was organised by AISA and RYA which was attended by Comrades Dipankar Bhattacharya, Ramjatan Sharma, Ramji Rai, Saroj Chaube, Meena Tiwary, Shashi Yadav, Kamlesh Sharma, Abhyuday and hundreds of other participants. A Convention was organised in Patna College by AISA where Dipankar Bhattacharya was the main speaker.
Comrade Dipankar called upon the students, youth, peasants and workers and other enlightened sections of the Indian society to learn from the life and ideals of Bhagat Singh and march ahead on the path of the struggles for the emancipation and real democracy. Bhagat Singh started his political career after the bloodbath of Jalianwala Bagh and Soviet revolution and within ten years his idea of freedom matured to the need for a revolution in India . He put forth first communist programme in India and integrated the idea of revolution with the concrete conditions of India . Bhagat Singh was fully aware of the limitations of Congress brand nationalism and in contrast his concept of nationalism encompasses the front-role of workers and peasants, students and youth, and other toiling masses of the nation. His struggle symbolised the well being and equality of all world over for which he sacrificed everything he had in his life. He will remain our hero forever.
He said that despite the fact that Britishers had left this country in the holds of their own followers, our time is an era of Bhagat Singh. It was the Naxalbari movement that again brought to the fore the ideals of Bhagat Singh. And while he became a symbol of new hope for India during his ten years of political span in freedom movement, now after five full decades he is the symbol of struggles for a new India.
Various programmes were organised in other centres of the country, a Convention was organised by AISA in New Delhi and an anti-imperialist march was held by RYA and AICCTU in Ahmedabad.
Cultural troupe 'Hirawal' ovserved the Silver Jubilee of its Foundation on Bhagat Singh Martyrdom Day in Patna . Poetry recitation, lectures and staging of three plays were held. Comrade Dipankar delivered a lecture on 'Bhagat Singh and our time' on this occasion.
Chandrasekhar's Statue to be Unveiled in Siwan on 31 March
A number of programmes will be organised in Siwan on the 9 th Martyrdom Day of Comrade Chandrasekhar. A youth march will proceed from Bindusar, the native village of Chandrasekhar , to the JP Chowk in Siwan where he embraced martyrdom while addressing a public meeting on 31 March 1997 . This march will be led by his mother Kaushalya Devi.
A statue of Chandrasekhar will be unveiled in Siwan town by CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya. A massive rally will be organised on this occasion which will be participated by a large number of students, youth, intellectuals and cultural activists from different parts of the country.
CPI(ML) Condemns Police Attack on NBA Activists
CPI(ML) has strongly condemned the barbaric police repression on Narmada Bachao Andolan activists in Delhi . Party has demanded action against police persons involved in manhandling of Medha Patkar and other activists and that the Prime Minister must accept the demands of the NBA to fulfill his own promise. Party Polit Bureau member Swadesh Bhattacharya has said in a press release that this type of police repression is a clear indication of the UPA govt.'s treading the path of it predecessor NDA and that it has betrayed the mandate of 2004.
CPI(ML) Demands Immediate and Unconditional Release of Madhav Nepal
CPI(ML) demands immediate and unconditional release of Madhav Nepal , General Secretary of CPN(UML) in Nepal . Comrade Madhav Nepal who had already been put under house arrest for last two months, was arrested on 23 March and sent to an armed police camp in Kekani, Nuwakot district. Earlier police snatched communication and electronic appliances from his house on 22 March. They seized his computer, fax machine, and telephone sets falsely accusing him of "spreading false informations about the present regime which may pose danger to the Kingdom's sovereignty, integrity, peace and security.'
CPI(ML) strongly condemns this patently undemocratic and barbaric act of the royal regime and expresses fullest solidarity with the resurgent popular movement of the Nepalese people for a democratic Republic.
CPI(ML), through a letter sent to the Prime Minister, warns the UPA govt. in Delhi against any collusion with the Monarchy in suppressing the democratic movement of Nepalese people.
Panchayat Elections in Bihar
Build a Broader Class Unity of the Poor
We have a mixed experience of the last five years of Panchayat functioning. While the panchayat institutions were turned into centres of loot and corruption by new as well as old feudal-neo-rich-kulak and criminal-mafia forces in Bihar , many popular agitations erupted against this plunder of funds meant for the poor. There are many examples when the corrupt panchayat representatives and administration were taught appropriate lessons thanks to the broader unity of the rural poor.
As the elections process has already been started, there are some new dimensions added this time. The reservations for women has been raised to 50 percent and MBCs are given 20 percent reservation in panchayats. These are certainly welcome steps, but we at the same time have to be more vigilant to ensure that this benefit really goes to most deserving poor people and not grabbed by the dominant nexus involved in the plunder of public funds meant for development. This opportunity for women's assertion must not be allowed to be imprisoned within four walls of the home where male head of the family practically runs the affairs of the panchayat in place of the elected women representative. The panchayat elections must be turned into the political battle for forging broader class unity and social-social political assertion of the poor. Ruling class is trying to make these elections apolitical and they weaken the class unity of the poor. More the elections are fought in and apolitical atmosphere, more the conflicts between castes, communities and individuals will be brought to the fore to subvert the toiling people's assertion. Let us demolish all sectarian trends and call upon the poor to capture the panchayat institutions.
The AIALA Bihar State Council has taken a decision to participate in these elections with the above resolve with full vigour to highlight the problems of rural masses and to forge a broader unity with the organisations of agricultural labourers and rural poor in general.
Unorganised Sector Workers' Rally in Delhi
AICCTU's Delhi unit organised a rally of unorganised sector workers on March 27 to highlight the problems of this largest section of urban working class as well as to warn the government in Delhi and in centre against continuing the policies of liberalisation causing immense hardships to the crores of workers. The main demands put forth through this rally are to bring all sections of construction workers under the ambit of construction workers board, guarantying the payment of minimum of agreed wages and other perks to workers in unorganised sector, to fix minimum wages at Rs. 6000 per month, inclusion of names of workers in voter list and issuing them ration cards or multipurpose cards, to cover all unorganised sector workers under BPL scheme, to increase quota of ration and eradicate corruption in public distribution system, to create welfare boards in all districts to ensure social security, to constitute a Board for security sector workers, to ensure housing and regularisation of workforce in Jamia University, Indraprasth Gas Ltd. and those under DTC Kilometer scheme. Delhi is witnessing a severe fallout of the privatisation as services such as electricity, transport, education, health, housing, etc. are being handed over to the private sector and government is running away from its responsibility towards citizens.
The rally was led by AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee, CPI(ML) Delhi State Secretary Rajendra Pratholi, and Delhi Incharge of AICCTU's unorganised sector wing VKS Gautam. The speakers in the rally asserted that for the last few years Delhi has been bearing the brunt of the fallout of the policies of liberalisation and globalisation and lakhs of workers in unorganised sector are worst hit. This section of populace is being forced to a status of fourth class citizens in their own country. UPA in the centre and Congress govt. in Delhi received a mandate against the anti-worker policies of the NDA government and if effective legislations for social security, employment guarantee, etc. are not enacted and all labour laws are not implemented, these governments must be prepared to face the anger of the working people. A memorandum was also sent to the Chief Minister of Delhi with these demands.
R E P O R T S
RYA State Conference in Jharkhand
Second Jharkhand State Conference was held on 23 March, on Bhagat Singh's Martyrdom Day, in Hazaribagh. On this occasion a Youth March was organised in the city with the slogan 'Provide Jobs'. Inaugurating the Conference Comrade Subhendu Sen, CPI(ML) State Secretary, called upon the youth to march along the path of martyrdom shown by Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh for the reconstruction of Jharkhand. CPI(ML) MLA in Jharkhand Vinod Singh said that the state government is not only neglecting the youth but also betraying the aspirations of the workers and peasants. He alleged that the Assembly, instead of encouraging healthy pro-people debates, only putting the seal of approval on various government decisions. Rajkumar Yadav, RYA State President, said that NDA MLAs despite holding offices of profit, contested in the elections making a mockery of the Constitution. He demanded dismissal of all such MLAs. The Conference elected a 31-member State Council and a 15-member Executive. Rajkumar Yadav was re-elected as State President and Nepal Vishwakarma as State Secretary.
CPI(ML) in Assembly Elections
In the forthcoming Assembly elections in five states, CPI(ML) will field 26 candidates in West Bengal , 16 in Assam , 10 in Tamil Nadu, 4 in Pondicherry and one in Kerala.
Five CPI(ML) Activists Arrested
Five CPI(ML) leaders were arrested while they were filing nomination papers for the panchayat elections in Darbhanga district of Bihar. Hari Paswan, Vishnu Dev Yadav, Ganesh Mahato, Zamaluddin and Rajesh Paswan were arrested on Mar 13, the last day of nomination for the second phase. Many of them are sitting panchayat representatives and are arrested on the basis of false cases registered against them during various mass struggles. The Party has condemned these arrests terming them a deliberate ploy by the political opponents, mainly from the ruling party.
Workers' March in Jaipur
Thousands of construction workers including large number of women took out a 'March to Assembly' on March 10 in Jaipur. A month long propaganda and membership campaign was launched which culminated into this march. The main issue raised was immediate implementation of Central Act as well as the issues of housing, sanitation, police harassment, non-payment of wages, accidents at workplace, etc. The impressive and militant march compelled the State Labour Minister to meet the delegation, who promised to take up the issues in a time-bound manner. AIALA National Executive member Phoolchand Dheba presided over the meeting and AIPWA President Srilata Swaminathan, CPI(ML) Rajasthan State Secretary Mahendra Singh, leader of the construction workers in Rajasthan Harkesh Bugalia and AICCTU General Secretary Swapan Mukherjee addressed the meeting which was held in front of the Vidhan Sabha.
Demo on Women's Day
Hundreds of women organised a march on International Women's Day in Muzaffarpur and and sent a memorandum to the Chief Minister of Bihar demanding arrest of the rapist of Brahmpura case, employment to the needy women, equal wages, provision for holding DM and SP responsible for the incidents of atrocities against women and to declare holiday on International Women's Day. The passage of women's reservation bill in Parliament was also demanded in the rally.
Strong Political Movement is Needed to Subvert the Current Agrarian Crisis
The current agrarian crisis is a direct fallout of government's agrarian policy and it is necessary that the movements of industrial and agricultural workers and exploited strata of peasantry - led by a political force determined to carry out the unfinished task of the land reforms, coordinate technological development with rural poor at priority, state takeover of monopoly houses including foreign ones, and greater control of state over export and imports in favour of peasantry and agrarian labour - must pressurise the government to bring an overall change in its policies. These were the views expressed by Comrades Bhagwant Singh Samaon and Kamal of Mazdoor Mukti Morcha and Jaspal Khokhar and Manpal Pali of Radical People's Forum from Punjab , while narrating their experiences of peasant and agricultural workers movement in a symposium organised in Delhi under the auspices of Jawaharlal Nehru Centre and Indian Academy of Social Sciences. A number of noted experts and academicians addressed this symposium representing diverse views.
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