People's Democracy

THE tenth Madhya Pradesh state conference of the CPI(M) formally began on December 22 with the flag hoisting ceremony. Harkishan Singh Surjeet, general secretary of the party unfurled the party flag.

The inaugural session of the party conference began with the homage to former state secretary Shailendra Shaily, peasant leader Vidyaram Razak and many other comrades. Harkishan Singh Surjeet in his opening remarks said that the country is presently facing serious challenges and only the CPI(M) has ideological clarity to meet these challenges and bring about a change in the situation. He added we must remember that the party represents unity of sickle and hammer which inspires us to struggle until we succeed in realising our cherished goal.

M K Pandhe, Polit Bureau member delivered the inaugural address. He said that the US is presently imposing its imperialist designs on the world in the garb of war against terrorism. Its expansionist policies are pushing the world towards a global war. In fact, these activities of the US imperialists are causing anxiety even amongst its own allies. The utterances of George Bush and other American leaders clearly suggest that the USA has arrogated to itself the right to commit aggression against any country. Pandhe expressed anxiety on the loyalty of the Vajpayee government to the USA in the prevailing conditions. He felt shocked that the Indian government has meekly surrendered to the US imperialism. Pandhe added that now it is well established that the US stands at the top among the nations patronising terrorism. He also underlined the role of the CPIM) in the struggle against US imperialism.

Pandhe referred to deepening economic crisis in the economies world over due to globalisation policies. He also explained the disastrous effects of this phenomenon on the Indian society. Pandhe highlighted growing struggles of the people in different countries against these policies. He asserted that so long people do not have clear understanding of these issues, their involvement in this struggle cannot be with total commitment. Finally, Pandhe spoke about growing communalism and the role of Sangh Parivar in spreading the communal hatred. He made an appeal for an active involvement in fight against communalism at the levels of ideas and practice. Referring to these disturbing realities in his address Pandhe also suggested measures to overcome these problems. However, his main stress was on hard work to be done for the growth of the party in quantitative as well as qualitative terms.

Harnarian Upadhyay, a senior party member welcomed the delegates to the inaugural session. In his welcome address he referred to the fighting tradition of Gwalior and hoped that like previous conventions this convention would also turnout to be a historical landmark in the growth of the CPI(M) in Madhya Pradesh. Pramod Pradhan, Shyam Sunder Agarwal, Sandhya Shaily, Gaurishankar Sharma and Narayan Prasad were elected to the presidium to conduct the proceedings of the three day conference.

In a lively address in the concluding session of the conference, Polit Bureau member P Ramchandran said that he has carefully observed the growth of the party and the mass movements in Madhya Pradesh during the last one decade. He reminded the delegates that in the state conference of 1991 which was held in Gwalior Shailendra Shaily was elected as the state secretary and on this occasion two goals were laid down – first, to make the CPI(M)’s presence significant in Madhya Pradesh, and second, to make Madhya Pradesh prominent in the country’s communist movement. Paying glowing tributes to the able leadership provided by Shaily and his comrades and the hard work done by the party workers PRC remarked that a significant advance has been made towards the goals set in the 1991 conference. In the Hindi belt, the party is now best organised in Madhya Pradesh. Publication of Lokjatan in Hindi is definitely a great achievement.

Taking note of tremendous political and organisational unity in the conference, PRC remarked that it is the result of systematic efforts made in the by gone period. Now the CPI(M)’s presence is to be found in all the important districts as well as industries. It is surely a growing party.

PRC considered it a great achievement of the party that it attracted great leaders like Yamuna Prasad Shastri and Sudhir Mukherjee in the past. Had these leaders been alive along with Shaily growth of the party would have been far more rapid. Nonetheless it is a matter of great satisfaction that the party workers brought by these leaders have moulded themselves into party discipline and have learnt to function within the organisational and constitutional framework of the party. Those of the members who have yet to learn how to function within the party discipline would be given some more time but no leniency would be shown in organisational discipline.

For future PRC suggested certain priorities for the party work in Madhya Pradesh. He stressed that multi-dimensional growth of the party should receive overriding priority. He pointed out that the party does not grow automatically from the struggles of trade unions, peasants or women. Socialist consciousness is to be carried to the working class and this task is performed by the communist party alone. After each struggle its relevance is to be judged in terms of growth in the membership of the party. Making his observations on the role of students and youth in the society, PRC said that these sections of the society are the best carriers of revolutionary consciousness. Therefore he opined that the task of making them good communists must be undertaken on a priority basis. Also making reference to certain events in the history of the communist movement, he stressed the role of public meetings in spreading the revolutionary consciousness. In the present context, he thought that public meetings could be used for popularising the policies of the party. PRC also made an appeal to the delegates for starting movement to counteract war hysteria and resist increasing economic burden due to anti-people policies of the government.

Although comrade Shailendra Shaily was not physically present in the tenth state conference of the CPI(M), his contribution was felt all the time. On December 22, a calender containing the picture of Shaily was released by Harkishan Singh Surjeet in a public meeting held in Gwalior. This calender was published by Lokjatan. While releasing the calender Surjeet remarked that in Shaily’s death not only Madhya Pradesh but the democratic movement of the entire country has suffered an irreparable loss. On this occasion besides many others CPI(M) Polit Bureau member P Ramchandran, National general secretary of the CITU Dr M K Pandhe, CPI(M) state secretary Bahadur Singh Dhakad, editor of Lokjatan Jaswinder Singh and Sandhya Shaily were present.

Influence of Shaily’s vision was most discernible in speeches delivered by the leaders, views expressed by the delegates, political and organisational report presented in the conference and the decisions taken. Shaily’s remembrance reflected his vision of basic structure, action plan and possibilities of the Left movement rather than agony of his physical absence. It is noteworthy that membership of the party was just 987 in undivided Madhya Pradesh in 1991, the year in which Shaily had become the state secretary. Since then in just one decade the membership rose to 2270 in the reorganised state of Madhya Pradesh.

The delegates session followed the public meeting and the inaugural session on December 22. Bahadur Singh Dhakad, the state secretary presented the political and organisational report in the delegates session. While presenting this report Dhakad referred to problems faced by the people of Madhya Pradesh since the creation of Chhattisgarh, anti-people policies pursued by the central and the state governments during the last four years, and the class contradictions prevailing in the state. He also gave his assessment of practical experiences of the party.

The political and organisational report elaborately dealt with the issues related to party organisation, building of mass organisations and the problems faced in carrying out these tasks. It also presented a critical assessment of the working of various committees, ideological activities, party news papers and literature, and the failures in the implementation of priorities on various mass fronts.

For two days that is on December 23 and 24, the report was thoroughly discussed by the delegates. Out of 145 delegates, 47 participated in the discussion. There was a consensus on the priorities and it was agreed that the growth of the party in different regions was only in accordance with the effectiveness of the implementation of the tasks. The delegates felt that the strengthening of the party, struggles of the rural proletariat and unorganised workers and expansion of mass organisations would lead to growth of the party. Narrating their experiences the delegates suggested that all efforts are to be made to improve the working of the organisation and raise the consciousness of the members. These efforts would enable party workers to become better communists. Concluding the debate on the report, the state secretary Dhakad remarked that the growth of the party must receive the overriding priority. This task he thought would require improvement in the quality of membership, greater branch activity, and effective leadership of the party in the struggles of the people in the state.

The conference rejected the demand for the creation of smaller states. It passed in all 15 resolutions dealing with issues such as communalism, casteism, social oppression, tribal problems, oppression of women, globalisation, land reforms, agricultural crisis, plight of the rural poor, water and power crisis, natural calamities, education, unemployment, workers in the unorganised sectors, repression, increasing crimes and deteriorating law and order situation.

The composition of delegates reflected growth of the party in recent years. Out of 145 delegates, 57 were elected as delegates for the first time. 126 delegates had joined the party after 1977 and 28 had become party members after the last party conference. Only 4 delegates had joined the party before 1964 and 11 delegates had become party members between 1964 and 1977.

Agewise 62 delegates were below 50 years and of these 41 were less than 35 years old. In terms of class background 53 delegates belonged to the working class, 4 were agricultural workers, 25 were poor peasants, 25 belonged to the middle peasantry and 35 to middle class. 53 delegates were party whole timers and one third had gone to jail for their involvement in mass movements. From the scrutiny of the credential forms it was revealed that 11 delegates had admitted that in one way or the other they were involved in some obscurantist activities.

The new 28 members committee was elected unanimously. 5 members of the earlier committee were relieved of their responsibilities due to health and other reasons. Bahadur Singh Dhakad was re-elected as the state secretary. 9 member state secretariat including Bahadur Singh Dhakad, Badal Saroj, Pramod Pradhan, Jaswinder Singh, Sandhya Shaily, Premlal Mishra, Ram Narayan Kurariya, Ashok Tiwari and Ram Vilas Goswami was elected unanimously. Besides these secretariat members Banshi Dhar Azad, Shyam Sunder Agarwal, Jagannath Bhartiya, Kailash Limbodia, Gauri Shanker Sharma, Dr Ram Prasad Pathak, Tanulal Mandalvar, Dinesh Singh, Dr Vishnu Sharma, Girijesh Sengar, A T Padmanabhan, Anjana Kurariya, Ganesh Maraiya, Prem Narain Mahor, Sanjay Nigam, Ram Babu Jatav, Naranyan Prasad and Arun Pandey constituted the state committee. One membership has been kept vacant. For the 17^th Party Congress 5 delegates and 3 alternative delegates were elected in the conference.

The conference ended with a revolutionary song rendered by Nina Sharma. Gwalior town hosted state conference for the third time and the party workers made it a grand success by making all the necessary preparations for the conference. On this occasion street plays, book exhibition and such other activities added to the success of the conference.