People's Democracy

KERALA NEWSLETTER

LDF To Launch Mass Agitation

Aboo Backer

THE Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala has decided to launch a long drawn out mass agitation against the anti-people policies of the state government. As a first step in this struggle, conventions at the state and district levels will be held before October 31. The state convention will be held at Trichur on October 20.

This agitational programme was chalked out at the LDF state committee meeting which was held at AKG Centre, Thiruvananthapuram. The meeting reviewed the five month old rule of the UDF government headed by Antony and adopted a resolution on this. The resolution stated that the UDF rule has already become a big burden on the people.

The UDF has continued the practices of its earlier tenure in all spheres of governance. It is harming the people in all possible ways, denying democratic rights to the people, indulging in rampant corruption, and resorting to all sorts of anti-people activities, the LDF resolution said. The people who voted the UDF to power are fully dissatisfied with its performance during the last five months.

A number of new taxes imposed, the steep hike in electricity and bus charges -- all in all new burdens amounting to Rs 2000 crore imposed upon the people of Kerala have made them shed whatever illusions they had about the UDF government.

The Antony government has surpassed even the earlier UDF regimes in fleecing the people. The chief minister is always repeating that this bitter concoction will have to be tasted by the people in the future also.

The UDF had alleged during the election campaign that it was due to the LDF policies that the agricultural sector was declining in the state. But the facts are otherwise. The UDF’s policy of collaborating with the BJP led central government is deepening the crisis in agricultural sector. The government has so far not fixed the floor price for copra and rubber. There is no conservation of rubber or copra in any part of the state. The rubber market is in shambles. Today it is sheer anarchy that prevails in the rubber and copra markets.

Inspite of repeated statements by the chief minister that he would like to fully co-operate with the central government there is no response from that side. The state government could not receive a single paisa from the centre to meet the burden resulting from the unprecedented floods in the state. The chief minister makes pilgrimages to the central ministers with heaps of memoranda, but the lords at the centre are not at all kind to him to grant any favour to him or his state. His begging bowls remain empty in pits of his pro-BJP stance on the issue of saffronization of education.

POLICE TERROR UNLEASHED

The UDF government has let loose the police against the people of the state.

Agitated over the unbearable burdens heaped on them, it is only natural that the people take to the path of struggles. This is sought to be crushed using brutal force. Lock-up assaults and tortures have become the rule of the day.

The LDF government had during its tenure exhibited exceptional civic sense with regard to the police attitude towards the people’s agitations. But now the police have become a threat to the people and the UDF is bent upon repeating what it had done in its earlier tenure during 1991-96. A number of persons were killed in the lock-up and many comrades and fighters for the cause of the people were shot dead by the police, the gruesome example among them, being the murder of the five young comrades at Koothuparamba at the instigation of the minister M V Raghavan.

PRIVATISATION   SPREE

The UDF government while on one hand destroying the People’s Plan Programme has embarked on a spree of privatision. Recently it gave NOC for starting more than 250 professional colleges in private sector on self-financing basis, which just means that the management of these institutions will be collecting capitation fee from the students thus making education a business.

It has begun a kind of auctioning of professional colleges through out the state to all vested interests. Even the guidelines prescribed by the Supreme Court are being discarded. The government is converting education into an affluent product which only the wealthy can afford.

The much acclaimed Kerala model was a result of the Mass education programme, of which the professional courses were, of course filled in by students with merit of knowledge and calibre. Now the UDF is trying to convert it into an affair of the wealthy and the rich.

Alongside the UDF has banned recruitment to the public services. This has greatly disappointed the unemployed educated youth of the state. The Planning Board of Kerala has recommended reducing the government posts, which in the long run will dry out the last delta of hope for the unemployed, educated in Kerala. Thus we find that Kerala under the UDF is following the bankrupt anti-people central economic policies.

The UDF government is thwarting the decentralisation of governance, which had a meaningful beginning during the LDF rule. Instead of strengthening the People’s Plan Programme, it is taking away powers from the local bodies. Several new Development Authorities are formed with the sole aim of converting the developmental activities into a political gimmick of the UDF partners.

The government is engaged in a dissolution spree. It has dissolved many institutions started during the LDF rule, of which Kerala Council of Historical Research (KCHR), University Syndicates, Ombudsmen and the District Cooperative banks are to be specifically mentioned. The government employees are being transferred without any scruple. The only criterion followed in the transfer of employees is the will and pleasure of local UDF bosses.

The UDF is very vigilant as far destroying the corruption cases against the UDF leaders including K Karunakaran and T M Jacob is concerned. For this purpose Vigilance Officers, Special Public Prosecutors and their aides are transferred without any qualm of conscience. The UDF is facing severe corruption charges in the project for the Drinking Water which is being executed in collaboration with a Japanese Company.

ABKARI POLICY

The evil face of the government is quite clear in its abkari policy. The UDF had promised the abkari mafia that the toddy shops would be given to them so that they could continue the supply of illicit arrack through the toddy shops. The abkari lobby had helped the UDF very much during the last elections.

The running of the toddy shops by the employees cooperative societies was one of the most meaningful achievements of the LDF rule while the UDF had opposed it. It has now recoiled against them because many within the UDF want the toddy shops to be run by cooperatives. While there are some who want the immediate transfer of these to the abkari mafia. The rhetoric of Antony against liquor and arrack are all proved to be a political gimmick by the recent incoherent steps and statements made by him and his cabinet colleagues.

The UDF has always been a burden on the hapless people of Kerala. The only agenda on which there is unity among the UDF partners is to exploit the people and rob them of their fair living conditions created through decades of struggle and LDF reforms. This is a period in which the people and the state of Kerala are facing a serious crisis.

The LDF state committee resolution hoped that the people would distinguish between their friends and foes. That they would certainly join in great numbers the struggle against the powers that bring misery to their lives.