People's Democracy

HARYANA

CPI(M), CPI To Campaign Against Communalism

MEETING on July 17, the coordination committee of the Haryana state units of CPI(M) and CPI strongly criticised the Chautala government for blindly implementing in the state the disastrous policies of the BJP-led central government. After taking stock of the present situation, the meeting said these policies were bringing tremendous hardships to all sections of the people. This is getting reflected in mass protest actions, especially those of the peasantry.

The meeting adopted resolutions on the severe drought situation, downsizing of government departments, power and water shortage, the Qasim Nagar carnage, and the situation arising out of the BJP’s aggressive communal agenda.

The meeting demanded that the state be declared drought affected and emergency measures under a contingency plan taken to meet the situation. It also demanded immediate halt to recovery of agriculture-related loans.

The two parties will hold a state level convention against communalism next month, at Hissar, to counter the BJP’s drive to divide the people on caste and communal lines. They also drew the people’s attention to the consequences arising out of the anti-national policies of surrendering our interests to the United States.

The CPI(M)-CPI coordination committee also demanded an inquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge into the Godhra train carnage in view of the recent conclusions arrived at by forensic experts. It said the forensic findings give a lie to the state and central governments’ propaganda so far, that the Muslims were responsible for the heinous train carnage. It recalled that it was on the basis of this propaganda that more than a thousand Muslims were put to death in cold blood and lakhs forced to flee their hearth and home, to lead a miserable life in camps.

The CPI(M) and CPI expressed serious concern over the caste and khap panchayats assuming illegal powers and issuing edicts to put innocent youth to death. One will note that several innocent boys and girls were ‘sentenced to death’ in the recent past for committing the ‘crime’ of inter-caste or inter-religious marriage. These patently illegal ‘sentences’ were carried out in most brutal manners imaginable. In one case, when a higher caste girl married a lower caste boy and eloped with him, the boy’s sister, who knew nothing about his affair, was dragged out of her house, stripped naked, paraded in the village streets and then gangraped.

Through another resolution, the meeting demanded immediate abolition of the unjustified and exorbitant toll tax being collected from vehicles running over G T Road. The meeting also lambasted the bogus official claims about creation of new job opportunities in the state.

The two parties accused the government and its administration of being totally insensitive to the growing miseries of the people. The law and order machinery stands paralysed; education, health and other services are being deliberately dismantled under the policy of privatisation. The meeting severely criticised the recent move to adversely change the teacher-pupil ratio in school education, saying it is not only against the internationally accepted norms but also aims at declaring thousands of teachers surplus.