The Party Central Committee met at Siliguri (in Darjeeling
district of West Bengal) from 28 to 31 May. The important points of the deliberations
of the CC are as follows:
1. The Iraq War and its Aftermath
Having toppled the Saddam Hussein regime through a brutal
war of aggression, the Anglo-American forces are now busy consolidating their
grip on Iraq. After completely bypassing the UN during the war, the US and the
UK came back to the UN to seek its approval for their role in post-Saddam Iraq
and they have succeeded in securing a unanimous resolution supported by 14 members
of the Security Council with the fifteenth member, Syria, abstaining from the
vote. This surely marks a retreat on the part of France, Russia and China, the
permanent members who had earlier opposed the war in varying degrees, but differences
and frictions continue among the world’s major powers with regard to the
future of Iraq and as to how best to secure their own stakes in post-Saddam
Iraq and West Asia as a whole.
The occupying powers, however, have still not succeeded
in putting up a semblance of a new Iraqi regime. Hundreds of Iraqi people have
already been killed in the course of the US-led bloody occupation. Even though
there is no organised centre of Iraqi resistance, various sections of the Iraqi
society are offering strong, if sporadic, opposition to the foreign occupation
forces. The US has had to respond to this situation by replacing its military
administrator Jay Garner with the civilian face of Paul Bremmer. Ironically,
Bremmer has begun his innings by issuing a shoot-at-sight order against so-called
Iraqi ‘looters’.
We join the people of Iraq and the global voice of peace, freedom and justice
to demand an immediate end to the US-led foreign occupation of Iraq and complete
restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty and the right of the Iraqi people to
run their own country and determine their own future. The Government of India
is reportedly getting ready to send Indian troops to Iraq as part of a US-led
multinational stabilisation force. We must strongly oppose any such move for
it will place our country in a role of a US collaborator, pit us against the
national aspirations of the people of Iraq and intensify our isolation from
the Arab nations in particular and the developing world in general. Such a move
will also construe a blatant violation of the anti-war resolution passed in
Indian Parliament under pressure from the Indian people. In this context, the
CC also took strong exception to the recent advocacy of a US-Israel-India axis
by representatives of the NDA government.
In the wake of the Iraq war, Washington has stepped up its offensive in the whole of West Asia. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia have all been put on notice to comply with American dictates. A thoroughly unjust and coercive peace is being sought to be imposed on the people of Palestine even as Israel continues to wage its barbaric war of occupation. Beyond West Asia, countries like Cuba and North Korea too find themselves faced with heightened American pressure and an ever growing threat of American intervention. Washington has also started manufacturing a new series of ‘smarter’ nuclear bombs, the so-called mini nukes. The worldwide anti-war campaign must therefore intensify its resistance to the American imperialist design to establish its complete and absolute hegemony and impose a unipolar world order. Despite the recent rapprochement between the Franco-German and Anglo-American axes, it has not been possible for the European rulers to insulate the G-8 summit in France from powerful anti-American and anti-imperialist protests.
2. Normalisation of Indo-Pak Ties
We welcome the emerging atmosphere of normalisation of
Indo-Pak ties and steps taken towards restoration of full-scale diplomatic relations
between the two neighbours. The steps announced so far, especially on the part
of India, have however been very limited and essentially of a symbolic nature.
Moreover, even these limited measures conform more to the requirements of the
so-called American roadmap for South Asia than to the popular desire for peace
and friendship in both India and Pakistan. We stand for accelerated efforts
towards complete normalcy between the two countries based on bilateral dialogue
and complete rejection of American interference.
We also reject Vajpayee’s description of the present attempt as the last attempt. The present phase is preceded by the biggest Indian military mobilisation which had witnessed the deployment of nearly half a million Indian troops all along the India-Pakistan border. This had however proved completely counterproductive and a huge drain on the Indian exchequer. Any genuine Indian peace inititaive must be based on a clear admission of the failure of the Vajpayee government’s policy of ‘coercive diplomacy’, a euphemism for a militarist strategy.
3. National Situation and Our Tasks
(a) The CC noted with satisfaction the widespread response evoked by the 21
May call for an all-India strike in many parts of the country. The central and
state governments however continue to push through the anti-people policies
of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation despite certain pre-poll
gestures of slowing down and rolling back some measures here and there. The
recent decision to further reduce the PF interest rate and the refusal of the
Vajpayee government to enact a separate legislation for agricultural labourers
are two more cases in point. The agrarian crisis too shows no sign of abating
and the severe drought prevailing in many parts of the country has generated
famine-like conditions. In these circumstances, we must intensify our efforts
for building a powerful movement of the working class including unorganised
and agricultural workers, the poor and middle peasantry, and the unemployed
youth and students. The initiative unleashed in the course of the Feb. 26 Parliament
March and May 21 all-India general strike must be intensified by ensuring still
bigger mobilisation of the concerned sections of the affected people.
(b) The CC also drew the attention of the entire Party to the task of countering the BJP’s sustained and systamatic communal offensive centring around issues like trishul distribution, Ayodhya, religious conversion etc. The unfortunate and unwarranted decision of the Allahabad High Court asking the ASI to dig up the disputed land in Ayodhya has already set a dangerous precedent. Even though the digging has not yielded any definitive evidence of a temple predating the Babri mosque, the NDA government has already changed the official version submitted before the Liberhan Commission tracing the origin of the dispute back to 1528 when the Masjid was built instead of 1948 when the idol of Ram was surreptitiously smuggled in. Despite some symbolic acts like the arrest of Togadia by the Gehlot government of Rajasthan or the detention of another VHP leader by the Madhya Pradesh Government in connection with the Bhojshala agitation, the general stand adopted by Congress-led state governments remains one of appeasing the Sangh Parivar. This is emboldening the BJP and other RSS affiliates to step up their sinister communal campaign as a strategy for the November Assembly elections.
(c) The CC also took note of the BJP’s dangerous
divisive moves in the North East like the proposed scrapping of the IMDT Act
in Assam and the (now deferred) proposal to grant hill tribe status to Bodos
residing in Karbi Anglong and NC Hills districts of Assam. Instead of addressing
the key issues of Assam like an honest implementation of the Assam Accord and
creation of an Autonomous State under Article 244A of the Indian Constitution,
the NDA government has adopted a selective approach to further its devious divide-and-rule
design. The BJP’s dangerous and sectarian moves had earlier led to a serious
turmoil in Manipur and now serious clashes have broken out between Dimasas and
Hmars in NC Hills and Cachhar districts of Assam. We must boldly oppose the
BJP’s divisive moves emboldened by the complicity of the Congress government
and the Congress-led Autonomous Councils of Karbi Anglong and NC Hills and uphold
the banner of people’s harmony and united struggle for realisation of
the collective democratic aspirations of the broad masses of the people.