ON two consecutive days, August 13 and 14, DMK, a ruling coalition partner, forced both the houses to adjourn for the day, over the alleged police excess on August 12 during a DMK rally in Chennai. They were demanding dismissal of the Jayalalitha ministry in Tamil Nadu. The opposition sharply accused that this collapse of parliament proceedings for two days on a state subject was a ploy of the combine ruling the centre. Since the NDA ministry’s formation at the centre, it has been allowing its members to raise such issues in parliament as are in the state list.

The much-awaited Lokpal Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on August 14. The bill provides for an inquiry into allegations of corruption against public functionaries and the matters connected therewith, through the office of the Lokpal. The bill had had a tortuous history; 33 years have lapsed since it first made it appearance in 1968. The insistence by opposition parties, by the Left in particular, that the prime minister’s post be brought in the ambit of the bill, was one of the bones of contention. In the present bill, the prime minister enjoys exemption from probe on matters related to national security and public order. No exemption has been provided to ministers and MPs.

On August 16, the government faced in Lok Sabha an onslaught from the opposition during a discussion on saffronisation of education. The debate unmasked the BJP’s real face.

Initiating the debate, the CPI(M)’s Somnath Chatterjee said that never before had such diabolical attempts been made in this country to strike at the country’s ethos, its culture and tradition, as are being made under the present dispensation. The greatest menace India is facing since this government came to power, is the Sangh Parivar’s continuous attempt to poison young, impressionable minds with communalism. The anti-people and divisive policies of the BJP and RSS are being implemented with the help of the non-BJP NDA partners. Chatterjee made an appeal to the NDA’s otherwise secular partners to ponder how the BJP is misusing their support for matters other than governance, how the country’s future is being mortgaged to the forces of divisiveness and backwardness, affecting the unity and integrity of this country as well as the great liberal tradition we nurtured over millennia.

The secular character of education in this country, which has been nurtured over the years and assiduously maintained, is now being replaced by a communal system of education that naturally is obscurantist and regressive. The BJP-RSS goals are very clear. No educational or cultural institution is today free from their assault. Many institutions have been converted into instruments for implementing the Sangh Parivar’s communal agenda.

Chatterjee said the Sangh Parivar is now targeting history to implement its communal agenda. That is why secular historians are being targeted. Some 22 cash-starved universities are being offered liberal funds for introducing courses in astrology and rituals. Leading mathematicians and scientists of our country are opposed to it and have appealed for a stop to this fraud on our children.

Also, without calling any conference of education ministers, without any consideration by the Central Advisory Board of Education and without any discussion in parliament, in consultative and standing committees, the government suddenly released the National Curriculum Framework prepared by the NCERT. The document is nothing but a calculated attack on our cultural diversity, a blueprint for lowering the quality of education and for giving it a narrow, sectarian and obscurantist orientation. The curriculum’s emphasis on nothing but spreading Hindutva, dividing the nation on the basis of religion and venomously indoctrinating the receptive minds of school-going children. This will spell a disaster for the country. Chatterjee warned that the move would be opposed tooth and nail, inside as well as outside the parliament.

In Lok Sabha, the CPI(M)’s Basudeb Acharya and Varkala Radhakrishnan strongly opposed the introduction of Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2001. They said the bill’s introduction was beyond the legislative competence of the house. The IRD Act was enacted last year and thereby the insurance sector was opened for the private sector’s participation. Now, through an amendment, the government is planning to engage brokers in the insurance sector. Referring to the stock market scam and the role played by brokers, these CPI(M) members warned that the same thing would happen in the insurance sector if brokers were engaged in the name of intermediaries.

The CPI(M)’s Dipankar Mukherjee and Biplab Dasgupta participated in the Rajya Sabha discussion on economic slowdown and deteriorating financial condition in the country. Mukherjee said when the economic "reforms" were initiated in 1991 it was said that there would be an increase in our share in world trade, in productivity of domestic industry, creation of new assets and opening of new industries. We were promised that there would be poverty eradication, employment generation, technology transfer, capital inflow, and what not. Now there must be a factual analysis of where we stand after a decade.

What is really most alarming is the slackening demand. Diesel consumption has come down for the first time. This shows less diesel use in agriculture, industry and transport. Demand is continuously shrinking in most of the sectors. This shows there is an economic slowdown. As for the export-import position, India’s share in world trade has not increased during these ten years. About a hundred mini steel plants have closed down, in spite of the bailout packages given in 1999. Industries are reeling under sickness. The number of non-SSI sick units has doubled in the last ten years.

In the course of his intervention, Mukherjee touched upon several issues like land reforms, infrastructure, savings rate and investment, disinvestment of profit making undertakings, etc, and said the government is destroying the very institutions that are required to push the economy forward.

Biplab Dasgupta said the GDP growth rate has gone down to 5.2 per cent, the lowest in the last three years because of lack of resource mobilisation by all sectors. The growth rate in construction sector has declined to 5.5 per cent from a high of 8.1 per cent last year. In electricity, gas and water supply sectors, it is now 4.7 per cent compared to 5.2 per cent last year. Thus the performance of industrial sector has been very poor. This recession is due to globalisation. Then, there are scams of one sort or another, like the US-64 scam and others. The result is that the middle class has suffered.

In Lok Sabha, moving his private member’s resolution on August 17, the CPI(M)’s Sunil Khan asked for a review of the decision to withdraw the Quantitative Restrictions (QRs). He sharply accused the developed countries of trying to loot the developing countries through the WTO. As India’s industrial development is lagging behind and our infrastructure development is much less compared with other counties, Indian industry is bound to face difficulties in a world of uneven competition. The WTO agreement on agriculture covers three broad areas of agricultural trade --- market access, domestic support and export subsidies. Under the WTO pressure, India withdrew the QRs without having any trade surplus, much before the due date. The agreement on agriculture allowed only 25 countries to provide export subsidy to their agricultural products. This is adversely affecting the competitiveness of agricultural products from the developing countries. Because of cheaper imports, foreign goods are flooding our market and Indians are losing. This is adversely affecting our industries as well. So, in order to save our agriculture and industries, Khan said India has to unite with other developing countries and bring pressure for a review of the WTO agreement. He concluded with an appeal to the members to support his resolution.

Speaking in support of the resolution, Varkala Radhakrishnan, CPI(M), drew attention to the fast deteriorating condition of Kerala’s coconut and rubber growers because of unrestricted imports. Our coffee and tea industries are also facing a crisis. He urged that we must consider all these aspects in our national interest, and the commerce minister must see that the WTO agreement is revised in Doha meet in favour of the developing countries.