People's Democracy

THE CPI(M) national campaign against the Vajpayee government's disastrous policies evoked tremendous response in the state of Kerala with around two lakh people courting arrest on September 26. This struggle added a new, glowing chapter in the history of the struggles the people of Kerala have waged so far against the anti-people governments.

People in their thousands, including a large number of women, participated in the siege of selected central government offices in every part of the state. The people declared that the anti-people policies of the governments, both at the centre and the state would be resisted by the people of Kerala.

Their opposition to the Vajpayee government's policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation was made abundantly clear as also against its shameless servility to American imperialism.

CPI(M) Kerala state committee secretary Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the picketing at the Central Income Tax office in Kozhikode city. The district witnessed such picketings in thirteen other centres.

In his brief address inaugurating the struggle, Pinarayi Vijayan brought out the difficulties suffered by the people due to the central policies. He said the only way out is to fight these anti-people policies. He urged the people of the state beyond all political and religious considerations to join the struggle against these disastrous policies. The picketing was attended by thousands of volunteers including CPI(M) member of parliament A K Premajam and others.

T K Ramakrishnan, Party central committee member, launched the picketing at Kottayam Head Post Office. Another CC member P K Sreemathy participated in the struggle at Kannur. The LDF convener Paloli Muhammed Kutty addressed the volunteers who participated in the strike at Malappuram Head Post Office.

The industrial capital of the state, Ernakulam witnessed one of the most widespread struggles with an unprecendented participation in recent times. In 16 centres the people laid siege to the central government offices. There were 14 centres of picketing in Malappuram and Kannur districts. Quilon had 12 struggle centres while in Wynad district, the home of Kerala Adivasis and tribals, the struggle was staged in six centres.

Besides district headquarters many other the people picketed central offices at the important centers of the state.

Throughout September 25 and 26, Bengal witnessed a series of statewide protest demonstrations in all the districts both in urban and rural areas. Several big rallies held at district headquarters marked the two days. Thousands of people came out on the streets to lambast the BJP-led union government for its anti-people and anti-national policies.

As part of the week-long programme held in the district of North 24 Parganas, big assemblages listened to CPI (M) leaders highlighting the manner in which the BJP-led union government was bent on compromising the nation’s sovereignty at the feet of US imperialism. They also pointed out how the BJP-led government was continuing unabashedly with its anti-people economic policy and how it was trying to stoke religious fundamentalism.

Rallies were held at Barasat, Dunlop crossing, Basirhat, Bidhannagar, Dum Dum, Barrackpore, Kanchrapara, Madhyamgram, Naihati, Khardah, Hasnabad, Habra, Gaighata, and Rajarhat.

A large jatha was taken out on September 26 in north Dinajpore from Sonarpur to Fategarh. Rallies were held at Islampore, Raigunj, and Kaliagunj.

In the district of 24 Parganas, rallies were held at Basanti, Gosaba, Pathar Pratima, Sonarpur, and Jadavpur.

Salboni, Sabang, Kespur, and Pingla in Midnapore, and Hura, and Bandowan in Purulia district witnessed both rallies and processions.

In Hooghly, a large demonstration was held at Chinsurah. Demonstrations and rallies were also organized in the districts of Howrah and Nadia.

In Tripura massive sit-in demonstrations were held in 44 centres as part of the national campaign call given by the central committee of the party. Thousands of people participated in these actions on September 25.

For full four hours from mid-day onwards, various central government offices reverberated with slogans against the NDA government’s anti-people policies and its ominous eagerness to involve India in an imperialist war.

CPI(M) leaders participated in each of these demonstrations and gave stirring speeches detailing how Vajpayee government's policies are ruining the nation.

Kaman Chomohani, the commercial hub in the state capital Agartala was agog with the hectic activity. A spirited demonstration was held in front of Doordarshan Bhavan located here. This was addressed among others by the Party polit bureau member and state chief minister Manik Sarkar and Party central committee member and state secretary Baidyanath Majumdar.

Huge sections of the working classes including women, hailing from several areas of Agartala and its suburbs participated in this demonstration.

In his address Manik Sarkar said that while on the one hand the central government was blatantly denying the requisite assistance to Tripura in its grim fight against terrorism, on the other it was exhibiting a shameful display of over-eagerness for participating in America's unjust war mongering, under the garb of "combating terrorism".

He made a fervent call to widen the platform of mass movement so as to effectively combat the Vajpayee government's disastrous policies.

More than 3000 activists of CPI(M) courted arrest in Amritsar district after picketing at the office of General Manager, Post and Telegraph. Prior to this a huge rally was held at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Park. The demonstrators marched through Mall Bazar, Kalra Jaimal Bagh raising slogans against communalism, demanding scraping of Fund-Bank economic policies, reversal of the pro-imperialist policies and for weeding out corruption.

Addressing the gathering CPI(M) central committee member Pasla demanded that US should desist from providing military and material help to extremists in J&K, Punjab and other parts of the country.

Several other leaders belonging to the Party and mass organisations addressed the gathering.

In Orissa the nationwide court arrest programme took place in twenty out of thirty districts from September 25 to 27. Around twelve thousand people courted arrest in 39 centres while picketing the central government offices, obstructing the movement of trains and holding rasta rokos on national highways.

The campaign movement found enthusiastic response in the state.

As a run-up to this action, many village level, street corner meetings were held in the state and 1.15 lakh leaflets distributed. Over 3000 copies of each of the four pamplets exposing the NDA government were sold.

More than ten thousand people courted arrest while laying seige to central government offices in Madhya Pradesh. CPI(M) state secretary Bahadur Singh Dhakad addressed the meetings at Indore and Jabalpur.

Badal Saroj, member of the Party’s state secretariat led the Jathas in Murena, Bhind and Gwalior while state secretariat member Pramod Pradhan led the gherao of the post office in Guna. They all courted arrest along with Party workers and people.

The central government offices in Ratlam, Neemach, Ujjain, Nagda, Sidhi, Satna, Balaghat, Shahdol, Narsinghpur, Chhindwara and Betul were also gheraoed by the people.

On September 27, in response to the central committee call, gherao of the offices of the central government and court arrest took place in Rajasthan. Prior to the court arrest rallies were organised across the state in which thousands of party workers and sympathisers participated.

In the state capital, Jaipur, hundreds of people held a rally which terminated at the central government’s telecommunication office. At this office the rally was tranformed into a gherao meeting which was addressed by the state secretariat member Vasudev. Hundreds of women workers actively participated in the gherao and courted arrest along with other Party workers and sympathisers.