People's Democracy

THE three-day call for mass picketing and court arrest from September 25-27, 2001, given by the CPI(M) central committee against the BJP-led Vajpayee regime around the central slogan of "Scrap these policies or Quit", galvanised the entire party and received excellent mass response from the people in Maharashtra. Most of the actions took place on September 27, to coincide with the birth anniversary of immortal martyr Bhagat Singh.

According to preliminary reports received by the state party centre, over 30,000 people in several centres spread over 27 districts of Maharashtra participated in militant mass actions like picketing, rasta roko and rail roko. A large bulk of these actually courted arrest. Most of these mass actions received widespread media publicity.

These actions were preceded by an intensive campaign in which hundreds of meetings were held, thousands of posters put up and tens of thousands of handbills distributed. Alongwith the posters, the CPI(M) state committee had also published 10,000 copies of a booklet comprising all the four write-ups prepared by the Polit Bureau against the disastrous economic policies, stinking corruption scandals, dangerous communal manouvres and servile surrender to American imperialism, all of which have become the notorious hallmarks of the Vajpayee regime.

The campaign also took account of the condemnable terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the equally condemnable war-mongering of US imperialism and the shameless support given by the BJP-led central government to this war drive.

In the state capital Mumbai, nearly 700 people gathered outside the Grant Road railway station to march to the Raj Bhavan to submit a memorandum to the governor demanding the resignation of the Vajpayee government. Surprisingly, the police of the INC-NCP-led Democratic Front state government refused permission for the march. Hundreds of demonstrators then broke through the police cordon, there was a scuffle with the police which was met with a lathi charge, after which all the demonstrators were arrested and whisked away in police vans. This mass protest attracted the attention of thousands of passers-by .

Among the districts, the largest mobilisation of over 11,000 was achieved in Thane district, where militant jail bharo and rasta roko actions took place at over 20 centres in 10 tehsils. This was followed by large rasta roko and jail bharo actions of over 3000 people each in Nasik and Chandrapur districts, where the actions were concentrated in the respective district centres. In Beed district, over 2000 people courted arrest in five tehsil centres, while in Kolhapur district, over 1200 people took part in seven centres.

In eye-catching actions in Parbhani district, over 1000 people held simultaneous rail roko actions in the three centres of Selu, Manwat and Parbhani. All the demonstrators were arrested. Another rail roko action took place in Latur, which incidentally is the constituency of the state chief minister.

Big jail bharo actions of around 1000 people each took place in Solapur, Nanded, Amravati and Yavatmal districts. The actions in Pune, Wardha and Raigad districts mobilised around 500 people each.

Smaller actions took place in Aurangabad, Nagpur, Buldana, Jalna, Sangli, Satara and Ahmednagar districts. At the time of filing this report, the details of the stir had yet to be received from Hingoli, Nandurbar, Jalgaon and Gondia districts, in all of which actions did take place.

The Party leadership at all levels personally led the agitation at various places. Among those who courted arrest were CPI(M) state secretary and central committee member Prabhakar Sanzgiri, central committee members Ahilya Rangnekar and Ashok Dhawale, almost all state committee members and district secretaries as well as the entire district and tehsil-level party leadership.