In this Issue
‘Regime Change' in Jharkhand and the Voice of the People
At last, the BJP finds itself eased out of power in Jharkhand. For the six years the party was in power in Jharkhand, it relentlessly pursued its divisive political agenda to divide the people while mortgaging the resources of the state through shady deals with corporate houses and unleashing brutal state repression to silence the voice of the people. It had managed to save its first government by changing the chief minister and following the February 2005 elections it again secured power by buying and blackmailing independent MLAs. But now the eventual exit of the Arjun Munda government clearly shows that every manipulation has its expiry date and none can prevent the people from having the last laugh and the last word.
With only one MLA in the Jharkhand Assembly, it is the CPI(ML) which had consistently spearheaded the popular democratic opposition in Jharkhand, challenging the BJP rule on every major issue whether on the floor of the Assembly or on the fields and streets of Jharkhand. The BJP-led government responded by going to the extent of engineering the assassination of our leader and legislator Comrade Mahendra Singh and incarceration of several of our leaders and activists in false cases. But this has never been able to deter the CPI(ML) and the people of Jharkhand from carrying forward the movement for democracy, development and dignity.
The change of guards in Jharkhand has however happened primarily through behind-the-scene negotiations and it has thrown up a coalition government that can only be described as a most bizarre version of the UPA. It is a UPA government headed by an independent MLA Madhu Koda whose entire political past has been associated with the RSS. In February 2000 he was elected to the Bihar Assembly on a BJP ticket and served as a minister in Jharkhand under the stewardship of both Babulal Marandi and Arjun Munda. Denied ticket by the BJP in February 2005, he fought and won as an independent MLA but rejoined the Munda government as a cabinet minister. The other ministers who have been sworn in along with Madhu Koda are the very people whose desertion from the Munda government caused its fall. Pulling the strings of this government headed by defectors and deserters will be the Congress while the JMM and RJD will be sharing the ministerial portfolios. It is widely believed that sooner rather than later the Congress will be plotting the fall of this government much the same way it has pulled down governments headed by Chandrashekhar, Deve Gowda and IK Gujral at the centre in the 1990s.
In a display of utter political dishonesty and opportunism, the UPA managers had included the name of the CPI(ML) MLA in the list of 43 pro-UPA MLAs submitted to the Governor. However, the bluff was soon exposed when the Governor asked them to acquire a letter of support from all MLAs. The CPI(ML) had already made it clear that it would have nothing to do with the dubious game the Congress was playing in Jharkhand by propping up a captive government headed by an ‘independent' MLA. Instead of allowing the communal and right-reactionary BJP to monopolise the opposition space, the CPI(ML) would continue to play the role of a vigilant and vibrant Left opposition and hold high the banner of democracy, justice, dignity and development for the oppressed and exploited people of Jharkhand. Forward Bloc, the only other Left party with a presence in the Jharkhand Assembly has however found itself in a tight spot. It has had to expel one of its MLAs for systematic violation of discipline, and it is now reportedly under pressure to let its remaining MLA accept a ministerial berth in the new government. It will also be interesting to watch how the former BJP chief minister Babulal Marandi who had quit the BJP and begun projecting himself as an ‘opposition' leader against the Munda government redefines his role in the changed political context.
At this juncture of ‘transfer of power' from one coalition to another, instead of remaining confined to the floor of the Assembly, the CPI(ML) has decided to go to the people in a big way to highlight the following set of urgent democratic demands: (i) cancellation of all the MOUs signed by the previous government and probe into all corrupt deals, (ii) immediate suspension of notorious SP Dipak Varma and institution of high-level inquiry into allegations of murder, torture and misappropriation of funds, (iii) strict implementation of Chhotanagpur and Santhal Pargana Tenancy Acts and cancellation of all illegal transfers of land away from the tribal people, (iv) adequate rehabilitation measures for all displaced persons, revival of sick and closed public sector units, filling up of all vacancies and increase in the honorarium paid to para-teachers and other contract workers pending regularisation of their jobs, (v) early organisation of panchayat elections and strict implementation of the NREGA, (vi) rehabilitation of families of martyrs of the Jharkhand movement and activists and innocent people killed in police firing since the formation of Jharkhand state, release of all political prisoners and withdrawal of false cases on political leaders and activists. The CPI(ML) appeals to all who sincerely cherish the cause of democracy, development and dignity in Jharkhand to boldly raise the voice of the people at this hour of ‘regime change'.
 |
CPI(ML)'s All India Cadre Convention Concludes in Bardhaman
The two-day All India Cadre Convention organised at Vinod Mishra Hall (Town Hall) in Burdhman of West Bengal concluded on 13 September, 2006 with a resolve to “do everything to expand and strengthen the party organisation and to march forward to victory against opportunism, pragmatism and spontaneity in the sphere of Party-building”. The Party's Central Committee had decided in its last meeting held at Mansa in July to hold a special cadre convention to increase emphasis on the task of Party-building. Preparations started immediately after that meet and some preliminary targets were set for various committees and departments. A questionnaire was also sent to all the districts to collect information regarding various organisational matters.
The Convention began at 10 AM on 12 September with the hoisting of the Party flag by Comrade Ramnaresh Ram followed by floral tributes and a two minutes silence in the memory of the martyrs. The Convention was attended by 485 participants, including 63 women, from 19 states as well as from central organs, various central departments, headquarters, and from among students and youth. This was conducted by a presidium comprising of Comrades Swadesh Bhattacharya, DP Buxi, Kartik Pal, N Murthy, S Balasundaram , Amar, Jayant Rongpi, Krishna Adhikary with Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya as its Chairperson. The proceedings started with the inaugural speech by Comrade Dipankar and the presentation of an approach paper for discussion by Comrade Swadesh Bhattacharya. Comrade DP Buxi presented the summary of the answers to the questionnaire sent by the 98 committees/departments. This was followed by lively discussions by the participants in which they shared experiences on various aspects of party building in their respective areas/ sectors. The discussion was conducted under three heads, viz. (i) Party membership and Party structures; (ii) Party literature and Party education; and (iii) Party's role in panchayats and other local level institutions of self-governance. In all, 85 comrades spoke in the Convention where they shared their experiences and ideas on these topics. Participants from specific sectors like Railways, government employees, coal, health, transport, and tea gardens, etc. also described their experiences of party building. Comrades also discussed the very important question of recruiting more members from among women, youth and students and workers.
Comrade Dipankar said in his concluding speech that the reports presented by the participants clearly indicate that it is quite possible to achieve the targets set for the 8 th Party Congress. It is quite encouraging that after the Mansa Central Committee meet more than 11,000 new members have been recruited and if we continue this recruitment drive till 18 December then we can expand our membership base by 50 percent and if we can guarantee the conversion of all the candidate members into full members then we will go to the next Party Congress with a membership base of more than one lakh. He also called upon to increase the target of inducting women members to 20,000 and said that we must continue and speed up the current momentum generated during the last campaign. He said that the question of women's liberation is a very important political question, as important and basic as the question of communism itself. Caste repression can be abolished during the democratic revolution, but the women's question will continue till communism. Moreover, we will also confront newer dimensions on this question in future, he added, and reminded that the Party's 6 th Congress has rightly attacked not only the oppressive patriarchy but also what we termed the benevolent patriarchy. It is absolutely necessary for a communist party to see the question of women's liberation as an inherent component of the struggle for social transformation. We must put due emphasis on inducting new women members, developing them into cadres and incorporate them in committees, and this way we will be building a more balanced party. The whole party must pay special attention to this question and of course our women's organisation should lay special emphasis in this regard.
The Convention also discussed the question of increasing the number and role of organised/unionised workers in the Party with a great deal of seriousness and urgency. Comrade Dipankar reminded the Convention that our organisation among the workers in Durgapur played a central role during the early years of Party reorganisation. And our organisation among the workers of Dhanbad, Bokaro Steel Plant and Jamshedpur played a key role all through the 1970s and 1980s in strengthening the Party and sustaining its multifarious activities. Now when apparently we are paying more attention to trade union work, even vanguard working class comrades have begun seeing themselves only as another wing of the Party and even there is a feeling that the Party of the working class is not paying enough attention to the issues of the working class. True, objective changes in the industrial scene have affected some of our trade unions and given rise to pessimism and passivity among some sections. But we must not loose sight of the fact that new opportunities are coming our way. Now widespread struggles of contract and unorganised workers are coming to the fore. The party of the working class must lead those struggles. This will open new avenues of party building among the working class.
He hailed the ongoing process of organisation building among the employees through initiatives from above and called upon to intensify these efforts. He also emphasised the need for more intense mass work on student – youth front and called for a direct and widespread propaganda of Marxist ideology among students and youth.
On the role in panchayat institutions, he said that we should raise the popular issues like employment guarantee, BPL Cards and curtailing the food-grain quota under the PDS, and our elected representatives should enter into direct confrontation with the state on these issues. This will check the process of deviation among the elected panachayat representatives.
In the end he said that the task of party building is a creative and constructive work which must incorporate i) development of class and mass struggles; ii) political initiatives; iii) serious ideological work; and iv) a properly built organisational system. These components should be developed in unison and this convention has certainly helped in further evolving a comprehensive approach in this direction.
The Convention was concluded with the singing of the Internationale .
CPI(ML) General Secretary Leads Protest March in Singur
CPI(ML) organised a protest march in support of the struggling peasants in Singur of Hooghly district on Sept. 14. Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya led the marchers from Kumarkundoo to Singur and addressed a public meeting in Gopalnagar. The march was organised to oppose the West Bengal Govt.'s attempts to acquire 1000 acres of land for a car manufacturing unit of TATA. The opposition to this land acquisition is gaining momentum as thousands of poor peasants will be affected. The WB Govt. has planned to acquire 3000 acres of land, affecting peasants on many villages of Singur block. A high level team of CPI(ML) led by Comrade Dipankar visited the affected villages and interacted with the people. Other members of the delegation were Comrades Kartik Pal, Partho Ghosh, Prabhat Kumar, Rajaram Singh, Satyadev Ram, Chaitali Sen and Abhijit Mazumdar. Around 1000 protesters participated in the march.
Widespread resentment was evident among the peasantry who expressed their firm resolve to not vacate their agricultural lands for TATAs. This belt possesses very fertile land with upto 4 crops in a year and the proposed project will render more than 10,000 peasant families homeless. Peasants in these villages have decided not to celebrate Durga Puja this year, as a mark of protest.
Addressing the assembled peasants including a large number of women, Comrade Dipankar congratulated the people for their heroic struggle and said that Singur had shown that even a small and determined force of the people could defeat a corporate power like the Tatas backed by an apparently all powerful state government. Promising CPI(ML)'s all-out support to the Singur struggle he said it would inspire not only the working people of West Bengal in combating a so-called left government gone astray but also the people all over the country who are faced with the threat of eviction.
Agrarian Workers Gherao Block Offices in Bihar to Demand Job Cards and Employment under the NREGS
The work in hundreds of blocks in Bihar has come to a halt due to militant gherao of the offices which have failed so far to distribute job cards to the agricultural labourers under the NREGA. The CPI(ML) and AIALA have started a 'Dera Dalo - Ghera Dalo' at block headquarters in Bihar to press for the demand of distribution of job cards and allocation of work under the NREGS as well as to include names of all agrarian workers and rural poor in the BPL lists. While this gherao of recalcitrant administration in blocks still continues, at some places the administration has been forced to distribute job cards under the pressure of the movement. The administration in Bihar has not yet started even the job cards distribution process in some of the districts despite repeated requests and many ultimatums. Then it was decided to further intensify the movement, and if the Nitish Kumar Govt. still fails to meet this demand AIALA will go for even more militant protests and force the state govt. to distribute job cards.
The block headquarters were gheraoed and work completely suspended since 17 Sept. in Sahar, Tarari, Sandesh, Agiaon, Udwantnagar, Jagdishpur and Piro in Bhojpur district; Dehri, Akorhigola and Kargahar in Rohtas; Dumraon, Bhrahmpur and Keshath in Buxor; Bhabhua, Kudra, Ramgarh, Bhagwanpur and Rampur in Kaimur, and these gherao will continue till job cards are provided to all the agricultural workers.
Similar protests are being held in Kako, Madanganj, Makhdumpur, Ghoshi, Hulasganj, and Ratni blocks of Jahanabad; Arwal, Kaler and Karpi blocks in Arwal; Daudnagar and Dev blocks in Aurangabad; Islampur, Rahui and Hilsa blocks of Nalanda; and Meskaur, Sirdalla, Warsaliganj and Pakribarama of Nawada district. President of Bihar unit of AIALA Pawan Sharma has said that the 'Dera Dalo - Ghera Dalo' will also be started at rest of the block headquarters of these districts within two days if administration still fails to start the distribution of job cards. He told that the continuous and round the clock gherao of Mairwa, Darauli, Nautan, Goreayakothi and Ander blocks in Siwan district for many days by thousands of agrarian workers has forced the administration to start job cards distribution and photography of applicants. Gherao has also been started at Gudhni and Raghunathpur blocks of this district. Rural poor in thousands have also encircled the block offices in Bhore and Vijayipur of Gopalganj blocks.
The 'Dera Dalo - Ghera Dalo' which was continuing since 16 Sept. at Dhanarua and Masaurhi blocks in Patna district was lifted on 19 Sept. after the local administration agreed to complete the distribution of job cards within a fortnight, while the gherao of block office at Punpun was started on Sept. 19 and at Paliganj and Maner on Sept. 21.
In North Bihar, the Tajpur, Khanpur and Pusa blocks in Samastipur; Bahadurpur, Biraul, Ghanshyampur, Jale, Benipatti and Gauragorang of Darbhanga; Bochahan of Muzaffarpur; Turkaulia of East Champaran; and Betia, Bairia, Sikta, Gaunaha, Mainatand and Narkatiaganj in West Champaran were also witnessing round the clock gherao for last few days.
So far, more than 170 block headquarters have been gheraoed involving lakhs of people under the banner of CPI(ML) and AIALA in Bihar . The protests will continue till the demands are met. The AIALA is also raising the demand to abolish piece-rate system in NREGA, 50% food-grain component in the wages, and six-hour working day for women workers besides other demands during these protests.
Meanwhile, a meet was organised of leading activists working on the agricultural labour front in East Bihar , which is considered to be the most backward region in the state, on 16 Sept. This was addressed by Bihar State Secretary Ramjatan Sharma and AIALA General Secretary Dhirendra Jha. It was decided in the meet to intensify struggles for land and the jobs and against the dominant feudal mafia forces which are ruling the roost in this region. This campaign will culminate in a massive rally in October which will be held in the memory of martyred Comrade Bharat Bhushan Yadav.
ACTIVITIES Brutal Repression in Sitapur
Agricultural workers were brutally lathicharged by police on Sept. 8 when they were peacefully registering their protest before the SDM office in Sidhauli of Sitapur district. Worse still, the employees of SDM office, many gram pradhans and lumpen elements were also deployed to attack the AIALA and CPI(ML) leaders.
The main reason behind this administrative brutality was the continuing protests and ongoing hunger strike by CPI(ML) leader Dr. Brij Bihari, who is also an important functionary of People's Union for Human Rights (PUHR), demanding an end to the rampant corruption in the implementation of NREGA. Hundreds of people used to visit the spot to express their solidarity. When the administration did not pay any heed to the agitators' demands, hundreds of agricultural workers started the gherao of the office to press for their urgent demands. However, the administration opted for the brutal repression and that too, involving the employees and feudal goons. Police arrested three leading comrades including Dr. Brij Bihari and Rakesh Singh, National Executive member of AIALA, and and also framed false cases against Comrade Sunila and many others.
CPI(ML) State Secretary Akhilendra Pratap Singh has termed it an assault of democracy and that this incident has once again exposed the anti-people character of Mulayam Singh Govt. He has said that the people's movement can not be suppressed by the state repression, rather it will further intensify. CPI(ML) has demanded immediate release of party leaders, a high-level inquiry of the incident of lathicharge and action against the concerned officials.
Biaar Conference in Jamalpur
In Jamalpur block of Mirzapur, CPI(ML) and Biaar Adhikar Struggle Committee organised a Biaar Adhikar Conference on August 28 to highlight the problems of the Biaar community in Uttar Pradesh. The Conference demanded to give ST status to Mushar, Biaar, Rajbhar and Kols, separate reservation quota for most backward castes (MBCs) like Bind, Mallah, Vishwakarma, etc. and castes like Gond, Kharvar, etc who were brought in ST category should be allowed to contest from SC seats until proper delimitation is completed. CPI(ML) has been agitating on these demands, exposing the betrayal of SP-BSP as well as of Congress and BJP.
Protest in Karnal
CPI(ML) unit in Karnal, Haryana, organised a protest demonstration of agricultural workers on Sept. 16 to demand possession over the lands which were allotted to landless poor long back in 1984. In spite of being given pattas hundreds of rural poor were deprived of their right over the land by the nexus of powerful landlord lobby and the administration. The demonstration was led by Party's Haryana incharge Prem Singh Gahlawat. A memorandum was also handed over to the DC who gave an assurance to look into the matter.
|
