[Below we carry excerpts from the General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya’s speech at Party’s West Bengal State Conference held at Kolkata on 10-12 December, 2004]
Some comrades have raised the question of PW/Maoist activities. You see, in certain regions which are most backward but where an organised communist movement does not exist – such as the forest areas in Purulia, Bankura and Midnapore districts of West Bengal and in Andhra Pradesh – the anguish and desperation of the people do sometimes express itself through the activities of these outfits. But in regions where a revolutionary communist party has strong bases, as in Nadia district here and in many parts of Bihar and Jharkhand, the situation is completely different. There the anarchists play into the hands of the state and other vested interests, which utilise them for subverting the organised peasant movement and as a pretext for launching repression. In fact, the only role of these so-called Maoists in our strongholds in Bihar, Jharkhand and parts of Orissa is to kill our comrades. So we must not romanticise them or waste our time debating over their activities in forest areas. Rather we should reflect on how to combat them politically in areas where they have emerged – or may emerge – as our contenders, as in some pockets of Nadia. It would not be correct to say that the PW/Maoists have already become agents of the CPI (M) or have exposed their true face. So we should conduct a systematic exposure campaign for educating the sections vulnerable to anarchist propaganda, such as the intelligentsia, students and youth and the exploited peasantry.
The relation between the peasant association and the agricultural labour association has figured prominently in your discussion. Take the AIALA first. While agrarian workers constitute its main or basic force, it also covers other sections of rural workers and the rural poor. Here the main thing is not the measure of poverty but the relations of production: the dependence on wage labour. In the particular context of West Bengal, AIALA has an added political significance. Here the ruling CPI (M) has consistently denied the independent existence and assertion of agrarian labour. With a view to preserving its rural base and the domination of its opportunist, class-collaborationist politics, it has always sought to merge this distinct class force in an amorphous ‘peasant unity’. Curiously, the decision to float a separate organisation for agricultural labour was taken on the soil of West Bengal – in the Midnapore conference of the All India Kisan Sabha – but that decision was implemented all over India save West Bengal. The reason is clear: here the situation will go out of CPI(M)’s control if the rural proletariat is encouraged to assert itself. Right from the Karanda (a village in Burdwan district where, in 1993, the CPI (M) organised a massacre of agrarian workers who had crossed over to us – Ed.) days we have seen again and again that whenever the rural poor feel socially insulted or oppressed as a class, as dalits or as adivasis, they express their anger against the babus of CPI(M). And in its turn the ruling party does take recourse to terror tactics whenever necessary. In this context, we must build up the AIALA with great care.
As for the peasant association, it cannot be developed just on issues like rising prices of diesel, fertilisers etc or growing imperialist penetration in Indian agriculture. If we just try to unite rich peasants and a section of middle peasants on these issues, the peasant association will be nothing more than an academic exercise. And such an association will not be in a position to work unitedly with our agricultural labour association, for the orientations and priorities of the two organisations will not be compatible at all. Therefore, the main base of our peasant association should continue to be poor and middle peasants. Of course, in the particular context of the current agrarian crisis the association may find it necessary to conduct joint activities on certain issues with a section of rich peasants, or to conduct propaganda campaigns among the latter. On the whole, we should build up the agrarian labour association and the peasant association side by side, but our standpoint must be that of the rural proletariat. It is from this class stand that we must develop a broad peasant movement.
Another notable point is that issues relating to sharecroppers – those of eviction and right of ownership for example – are once again forcing their way into the political discourse of West Bengal. The State government has come up with a World Bank-sponsored scheme of helping sharecroppers buy up the lands they till. Now, some comrades say this proves the validity of our demand of transferring land ownership to the sharecropper. But I don’t see it that way. Rather, the move is comparable to handing over a sick industrial unit to a workers’ cooperative. Usually a sick unit is taken over by the government, and it is transferred to a cooperative only when the government fails to run it profitably. So long as agriculture looked like a gold mine, the government never thought of handing over land to sharecropper. Today when the gloss is gone, when a good many people are willing to be freed from land ownership, when on the other hand a number of firms are eyeing West Bengal for corporate and contract farming, only then do we hear all this talk of transferring land ownership, on an experimental basis, to a section of sharecroppers with adequate monetary compensation. The whole thing many eventually turn out to be a step towards transfer of land to the corporate sector via the sharecropper who may not be able, thanks to the absence of necessary State support, to retain the land.
In any case, what is important for us today is that all the issues concerning sharecroppers are once again coming to the fore in the current context of a typical agrarian transition of sorts. If we can organise the sharecroppers and a section of middle peasants on the peasant organisation platform while mobilising the entire rural poor under the AIALA banner, perhaps we will be able run both organisations properly. Such a combination alone can help us carve out a niche for ourselves in Bengal politics. Yes, we need both the organisations, for in our country the completely free agrarian labour – the rural proletariat in the ideal sense – is not very numerous, which is why we continue to talk in terms of agrarian revolution, the democratic revolution.
(Compiled by Arindam Sen)
The Tamil Nadu Democratic Construction Labour Union affiliated to the AICCTU has taken several initiatives recently. The Construction Labour Welfare Board (CLWB) has got funds to the tune of Rs.90 crore.
In ten years, out of nearly 6 lakh registered labourers, only 39,357 have benefited from the relief given by the Board. The cess collected towards the welfare fund by the Board from every builder from the construction cost is only 30 paise for every Rs.100 whereas it should be Rs.2 per Rs.100 as per the Central Act. Now the Central Government is allocating Rs.1 per Rs.100 cost for all its construction activities in Tamil Nadu. It is also prepared to remit this amount to the CLWB, but the Tamil Nadu government is not receiving it, since it would force the TN government to raise the cess levy from 30 paise to Rs.1 per Rs.100. We have demanded that the state government should start collecting Rs.1 immediately and Rs.2 as per the Central Act at the earliest.
In September and October 2004, we organised a campaign in Chennai, Kanchi, Thiruvallur, Cuddalore, Pudukkottai, Salem, Dharmapuri, Dindugal, Madurai and Ramanathapuram, demanding Rs.1500 pension for every construction labourer. This campaign culminated with a gherao of the CLWB on November 25, 2004, in which some 350 construction labourers including 70 women participated. On January 9, a cadre meeting of our construction labour union was held in Chennai. About 25 cadres from all over the state participated in it. They decided that 1000 construction labourers would offer free labour for 5 to 10 days to build houses for the tsunami-affected.
It was decided to organise a signature campaign for 100 days from January 17 onwards, collecting 1 lakh signatures demanding pension for construction labourers. A rally of 1000 labourers would be organised in April to handover these signatures to the government. Simultaneously a membership campaign would also be conducted to raise the Union membership to 15000.
— SK
Crime in Siwan is a national byword – and it is well known that the RJD MP Shahabuddin is the kingpin of crime there. According to the Bihar Government, Special Task Force (STF) and CRPF troops have been deployed in Siwan to curb criminal activity. But in reality, these forces along with the police and district Administration have been used to crush the people’s resistance led by the CPI(ML).
Naimuddin Mukhiya of the CPI(ML) has been a popular leader with a mass following amongst minorities, and a reputation for fearlessly speaking out against Shahabuddin. Recently, he has had false charges - of murder, conspiracy and planting dynamite – slapped on him. In jail, he was assaulted by Shahabuddin’s goons. On 14 December, police raided his home and looted money and whatever jewellery they could lay hands on. On 20 December, when women held a protest against this repression, they were brutally beaten up by the police and the STF. These troops arrived in nine vehicles, beat the women with lathis and rifle butts and looted their homes. Five of the women were jailed on false charges, and several others were heavily injured.
On 27 December, AIPWA held a dharna at Patna against police brutality, which was addressed by CPI(ML) and AIPWA leaders. Some of the victims – Ramvati Devi, Jiyachchi Devi and others spoke at the dharna and shared their experiences.
Clearly, the intensified repression is a systematic terror tactic towards the impending Assembly polls. Equally clearly, the District Administration of Siwan is a puppet of Shahabuddin. All this poses a question mark to the EC’s promise of free and fair polls in Siwan.
In the interest of democracy and human rights, the CPI(ML) has demanded the immediate removal of the DM, SP and SDPO of Siwan, and action to be initiated against them; transfer of Shahabuddin from Siwan jail to some other jail; withdrawal of all false charges against CPI(ML) leaders; return of all the money and property looted from Comrade Naimuddin’s house, and punishment for the police authorities who robbed and assaulted the women.
The Bihar Government’s proud boast is that ‘no one can die of hunger here’; one need not go far to call its bluff – if hunger stalks the very constituency of the Bihar Food Supplies Minister Bagi Kumar Verma, one can imagine the fate of the rest of the State. In Chhariyari village, just 2 km away from Verma’s own village Aman Bigha, 50-year-old Jhapsi Manjhi died of hunger. She lived with her daughter-in-law and son Fekan Manjhi, who is a TB patient and their 6 children.
In Makdumpur, paddy crops were destroyed due to drought and even the Rabi crops could not be sowed. Chhariyari village is famine-stricken. Jhapsi and her daughter-in-law, Shanti could not get work in the fields or the brick kilns and had nothing to eat for a week – at the end of which Jhapsi died. It was the neighbours who had kept the children alive.
On 20 December, AIPWA along with Shanti gheraoed the DM and demanded relief for the family as well as for the entire village. On 22 December, a team of Party leaders visited the village and found out that Fekan was on the verge of death while there had been hunger deaths in 15 other families - these families cooked only once in 3-4 days. The agricultural labourers of Jehanabad district have also been affected by famine.
Besides Chhariyari, there are other villages under the impact of famine in Makdumpur – Bela, Bara, Makpa, Sadhugram, Akbarpur and several other villages. But the administration is trotting out the tired old excuse that Jhapsi died of ‘illness’.
On 23 December, effigies of Verma were burnt and protest meetings organised in Makdumpur, Jehanabad, Ghosi and Kako. On 25 December, a successful Makdumpur Bandh was organised. On 27 December, a militant protest was organised against the DM, in which thousands participated. A list of villages under famine was submitted to the DM and DDC on 7 January.
A Central Education camp of CPI(ML) was held on 22-26 December at Nagbhushan Bhavan, Bhubvaneshwar. The camp was inaugurated by the CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, who warned that Marxism has often been used against revolutionary struggles, and called for a systematic study of Marxist classics as a guide for revolutionary praxis.
84 activists from various states - Delhi, Punjab, Uttaranchal, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, Andamans, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala participated in the camp. At the camp, activists attended sessions on Leninist texts : ‘What Is To Be Done’, presented by Comrade Shankar, ‘One Step Forward, Two Steps Back’, presented by Comrade DP Bakshi and ‘Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution’, presented by Comrade Kavita. Comrade Arindam Sen took a class on ‘Lenin’s Approach to Parliamentary Struggles’ and Lenin’s text : ‘Left Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder’ was discussed by Comrade Lal Bahadur Singh. Classes on ‘State and Revolution’ and ‘Imperialism : The Highest Stage of Capitalism’, were taken by Comrade Shankar Mitra and Comrade BB Pandey respectively.
Lively discussions on our political practice and theoretical issues, based on Leninist classics, have marked the education camp.
The camp concluded on 26 December with a Plenary Session.
The District of Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan came to a virtual halt on January 3 as the bandh called by the joint struggle committee against imposition of toll tax on the national highway between Sikar and Loharu, a distance of about 122 km where at least six toll posts have been created, was a massive success. Not even a single vehicle plied in the district and all business establishments remained closed. This is an old road, constructed from the public money long ago, but was handed over to the HPCL under a BOT (build-operate-transfer) agreement. This company reportedly invested Rs. 49 crores only on repairs and is now amassing huge sums from this busy road, which is an important segment for the intra-district traffic for the local people.
CPI(ML) and its affiliated mass organisations are playing an important role in this movement which is being run by a joint committee representing various organisations of motor owners, traders, autorickshaw drivers, and other parties. The success of this bandh has forced the state PWD Minister to come to negotiations. Now a massive rally on the issue is being planned soon to further pressurise the govt. While people are already paying at least three types of taxes, viz., special road tax, road tax and diesel tax, handing over of an already built highway segment to a private operator to amass huge amounts in toll taxes clearly indicate the anti-people orientation of economic liberalisation. q