People's Democracy

THE Himachal Pradesh unit of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) held its 11th state conference in Kullu from November 30 to December 2, preceded by an intensive one month long campaign. The latter involved 53 street corner meetings, distribution of 12,000 handouts, wall writing, announcements on public address systems and collection of more than Rs one lakh.

On the first day of the conference, a long procession of activists and leaders marched through a three km long route from Ramshila to Dhalpur grounds where it culminated in an impressive rally in the afternoon. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member M K Pandhe, state CITU president Rakesh Singha, state Kisan Sabha president Onkar Shad, Prem Gautam, Sar Chand, Ajeet Rathour, Bhup Singh, Partap Parmar and Anshumala addressed the rally.

The speakers laid thrust on the anti-people economic policies of the BJP-led governments at the centre and in the state. They urged upon the people to build strong democratic resistance against these policies that are aimed at doling out benefits to the MNCs and Indian big business houses while depriving the millions of Indians of their livelihood. This class angle is more sharply defined in the policies followed by the state government that is raising the costs of all the services the state provides, like education, health, drinking water, electricity and public transport. More dangerously, it is privatising the government departments by converting them into self-sustaining societies. The speakers cautioned the rallyists against the twin dangers of imperialism and communalism as well.

After the flag hoisting and homage to martyrs, Pandhe inaugurated the conference in Panchayat Bhawan, Kullu on November 30 evening. The three-member presidium comprised Kashmir Thakur, Satya Gloda and Amar Raghva while Mohar Singh, Rakesh Singha and Kuldeep Singh were elected to the steering committee. The minutes committee was based on Jiteender, Yashpal and Ravinder, and the resolutions committee on D K Singh, Ghanshyam Chauhan, Tikender and Kushal Bhardwaj. The credentials committee had Rahul, Bhupinder and Lakhanpal as members. Kuldeep Singh moved the condolence resolution and two-minute silence was observed to pay homage to the leaders of the people’s movement who passed away since the last conference.

In his inaugural address, Pandhe dealt with the necessity of building a strong and vibrant party in this era of an imperialist US-led unipolar world. At home there are dangers to the country’s unity and integrity, the people’s unity and the working people’s livelihood because of the BJP-led governments at the centre and in the state. He cautioned the conference of the twin dangers of imperialist manoeuvres and communalism and asked to direct mass struggles against these dangers by building up a strong Left and democratic movement in the country.

CPI(M) state committee secretary Mohar Singh placed the draft political and organisational reports on party activities since the last conference. The 32-page report was divided into four parts. Economic and social scenario of the state was delineated in first part. It emphasised that the service sector has grown more rapidly compared to others. In agriculture, the scenario delineated is worrisome as the dependence on agriculture is increasing at an alarming rate but its share in state domestic product is sharply falling. The situation is complicated further by the fact that the size of land holdings is decreasing and leading to more marginalisation of the farmers. Today, 82 per cent of the holdings belong to the small and marginal farmers. The later own just 0.4 hectare of land on an average. Most of the marginal farmers (more than 75 per cent) belong to the scheduled castes and other backward castes. The report also dwelt on the falling sex ratio in the state, especially in the 0-6 years age group, while literacy grew fast and is higher than the national average.

This aspect of the report was further enriched by an analysis of the crisis of unemployment. About 40 per cent of the workforce is either totally unemployed or employed part time. As many as 8,99,000 people out of the total 60 lakh population are on the live registers of employment exchanges. This socio-economic scenario poses serious challenges. The past and present policies have landed the state in a serious financial mess. Whatever progress had been made in education, health and other sectors is now being negated by the recent spate of anti-people policies. The state government is out to sell every public utility and dismantle the PSUs. It is mortgaging the state’s rich economic resource, i e, hydroelectric power generation. This grim scenario is both a challenge and an opportunity for the communist movement in the state.

The second part of the report related to the political situation in the state. Himachal Pradesh has witnessed a Congress vs BJP polarisation for two decades now. But there is tremendous political space left for the third alternative. But it is still quite weak as most of the non-Congress, non-BJP parties exist on paper only.

The CPI(M) is concentrating on independent political actions so as to fill this political vacuum. It was pointed out that though the party has considerable political influence, its organisational weaknesses remain a major cause of worry and a serious handicap in any meaningful realignment of political forces for which objective conditions do provide opportunities. We have to build up strong movements on issues affecting the mass of the people.

The third part of the report related to the activities pursued by the party in the spirit of the 16th party congress to fight against the new economic policies and communalism. It was reported that the student movement was most active against these dangers and the SFI led struggles to fight them. This restored the democratic rights of students that were snatched away by the Congress government back in 1995. The CITU and Kisan Sabha also launched massive actions against the machinations of multinational companies that are active in hydroelectric generation. A correct understanding of building peasant unity and also of workers and youth was developed in these struggles that proved fruitful in sustaining these struggles for months together and offset the severe state repression.

The last section of the report was on organisational achievements as well as on some weaknesses. Party membership grew from 866 in the last conference to 1038, a growth of 20 per cent, despite the fact that the migrating type of membership could not be consolidated. But most of this increase was in Solan, Bilaspur, Mandi and Kullu while a decrease was witnessed in some other districts. Front-wise break-up was as follows: trade union 35, kisan 20, youth 20, students 7.2, women 1.5 and others 4 per cent. Twenty wholetimers are working on different fronts. There are 2 organising committees, 8 local committees and 2 district committees of party in the state.

The draft report critically accepted and analysed the weaknesses including those on ideological level, in branch functioning, failure of many party members to work in a mass organisation, lack of streamlined functioning of sub-committees and fractions, disproportionate growth of mass fronts, and lack of macro and micro level planning to carry out organisational work. Further, a serious weakness on women, kisan and youth fronts was seen, with most serious being the lack of continuous struggles.

The report was enriched by serious and enthusiastic discussion by 48 delegates. Centered on various aspects of the report, the discussion continued almost for two days. The state secretary replied to all the points raised in the discussion. The quality of the discussion is reflected in the fact that most of the points raised and the amendments suggested were accepted.

177 delegates (159 males and 18 females) attended the conference. The structure of the conference, depicted by the credentials committee report, brought out some interesting facts. The delegates were youthful and highly educated. While the delegates were from 21 to 71 years of age and while some had joined the party in the united party days and some others joined barely two years ago, the average age of the delegates suggests that mostly the young comrades represented their district committees or mass fronts. The age-wise break-up was as follows: 21-25 years (11), 26-30 (3), 31-35 (38), 36-40 (43), 41-45 (31), 46-50 (14), 56-60 (8) and 61 and above (6). Vikas Thapa (Shimla, 21 years) was the youngest and Ram Asre (Una, 71 years) was the oldest delegate.

All the delegates were educated: below matric 15, matric 42, graduates 51, post-graduates 53, PhD 7 and technical education 8.

The class background of the delegates suggests the preponderance of poor and middle peasantry. 14 delegates hailed from the working class, 4 from agricultural labourers, 71 poor peasants, 59 middle peasants, 2 rich peasants and 4 from landlord background. On the basis of profession, delegates engaged in service numbered 62, workers 17, agriculturists 35, traders 6, professionals 12, self-employed 11, students 6 and wholetimers 27. According to mass organisations, 42 delegates were from CITU, 26 were employees, Kisan Sabha 40, PSM 29, SFI 6, JMS 7 and DYFI 28.

Of the three senior most comrades, P R Pathania joined the party in 1950, Ram Asre in 1957 and O P Dutta in 1958. Most of the delegates joined the party after 1985, 5 joined before 1975, 15 between 1976 and 1980, 34 between 1981 and 1985, 42 between 1986 and 1990, 34 between 1991 and 1995 and 43 after 1996. Of the delegates, 5 were national leaders, 71 state level leaders, and 46 district level leaders. State committee members numbered 27, district committee members 84 and local committee members 32.

Social composition of the delegates was as follows: 20 delegates belonged to the scheduled castes, 10 to the scheduled tribes, 12 to other backward castes and one to the minority community. For 55 delegates, it was the first state conference they were attending, for 41 it was the second, for 24 third, for 18 fourth, for 16 fifth, for 12 sixth, and for 7 seventh. 4 of the delegates (O P Chauhan, Mohar Singh, Kishori Lal and Kuldeep Singh) had attended all the party conferences.

About the comrades who have experienced state repression, 31 remained in jails for less than 15 days, 50 for 16 to 30 days, 9 for 1 to 3 months, 12 for 3 to 12 months, 3 for 1 to 5 years. 57 delegates are facing less than 5 cases, 10 delegates 11 to 20 cases, 4 delegates 21 to 30 cases, Rakesh Singha is facing more than 30 cases. Kushal Bhardwaj is currently facing maximum number of cases, more than 40.

Income-wise categorisation of the delegates revealed that the monthly income of 36 delegates was below Rs 1000, of 41 it was Rs 1001-2500, of 45 Rs 2501-5000, of 32 Rs 5001-10000, of 13 Rs 10001-15000 and of 3 Rs 15001-20000. The income of one delegate was more than Rs 20000.

The conference passed 12 resolutions on various issues of concern that included commercialisation and communalisation of education, against communalism, on unemployment, on user charges for essential services, on hydroelectric policy, against the agriculture and horticulture policy, against imperialism, on panchayati raj, on health policy, on female foeticide, against the new economic policy and its impact on industrial sector, and on wholetimers fund.

The conference identified future tasks to build a stronger and bigger party. These are: strengthening and maximisation of participation in mass organisations’ activities, targeting branch functioning and giving every member some party building work, vigorous struggles against the anti-people policies, efforts to build the third alternative and independent activities at the same time, to build mass revolutionary party and carry out the ideological work.

The conference elected delegates to the 17th party congress as well a new state committee of 25 members and 4 invitees. Most members of the outgoing committee were retained with a few changes. Mohar Singh was re-elected state committee secretary for the third term. The conference also elected a state control commission with O P Chauhan as chairman, and Ghanshyam Chauhan and Partap Parmar as members.