People's Democracy

THE CPI(M)’s West Bengal unit held its state conference was held at Promode Dasgupta Bhavan in downtown Kolkata, in a venue named after late communist revolutionary and former CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Benoy Chowdhuri. The conference hall and the dais were named after the departed secretary of the CPI(M)’s Bengal unit, Sailen Dasgupta.

 
Attending the conference were 531 delegates, 132 observers and 15 honorary delegates. These delegates represented 19 district committees, 282 zonal committees, 1483 local committees, and 22,995 branch units of the CPI(M) in the state. With a growth of 5.89 per cent over the past three years, party membership in Bengal stands at 2,47,118.

The national-level leaders present at the conference included CPI(M) general secretary H S Surjeet as well as Polit Bureau members Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and S R Pillai.

OPENING SESSION

The country’s independence is in jeopardy under the BJP-led NDA government and the latter’s economic policy spells complete disaster for the nation. So said CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet while inaugurating the conference on February 22.

On this occasion, Surjeet also dwelt on the current international and national situation, and traced the history of the inner-party struggle that led to the formation of the CPI(M) in 1964, at the 7th congress in the same city. The role played by Bengal in the party’s growth since then is known to all, he added.

Describing the BJP-led union government as a seat of misrule, the CPI(M) leader also expressed the apprehension that its role on the Ayodhya issue may jeopardise our national unity.

The task at hand, Surjeet pointed out, is to wage an all-out struggle against the BJP-led government. He had no doubt in his mind that the Left, democratic and secular forces would play a decisive role in this regard.

Earlier, Surjeet hoisted the red flag and led a long line of delegates in laying wreaths at the martyrs column. The conference then elected a presidium that comprised Jyoti Basu, Mohd Amin, Prasanta Sur, Kanti Biswas, Arati Dasgupta and Rupchand Murmu. The credentials committee consisted of Chittabrata Majumdar, Kali Ghosh, and Rekha Goswami. The conference then condoled the death of certain CPI(M) leaders and other well-known figures. Anil Biswas placed the secretary’s report in the afternoon session.

CAMPAIGNS & ORGANISATION

The task of building up a communist party is a continuous process, asking for conscious effort at every level. This was stated by CPI(M) state secretary Anil Biswas while placing the political-organisational report at the conference. (See next page.)

Focussing on various campaigns and movements organised over the past three years, the report said some of these were outcomes of planned efforts and others were instantaneous reactions to important developments.  Several statewide programmes were held on the issue of the anti-people policies of the BJP-led government. Programmes were also organised against the terror tactics of the Trinamul Congress, Pradesh Congress and BJP.

In the battles for the Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha and civic bodies, the party and Left Front won handsomely in face of an unholy nexus of the Congress, Trinamul Congress and BJP, and despite the media’s ire all the way.

Turning to the organisational matters, the report noted that despite a continuous rise in party membership of late, the rate of growth (2.67 per cent at the time of membership renewal in 2001) is not satisfactory. There is also the problem of uneven growth across the 19 districts of Bengal.  

Table 1 gives the social and class break-up of the party membership till the time of renewal in 2001.

The report mentioned several tasks for the days ahead. These include:

1) Taking the core content of Marxism-Leninism as well the resolutions adopted at the state conference and the coming party congress to the people.

2) Explaining to the masses the dangers of imperialism, terrorism and fundamentalism.

3) Organising movements against the anti-people policies of the BJP and its cohorts.

4) Building up resistance against the saffronisation of education.

5) Strengthening the movement for peace and against war, with special emphasis on avoiding all forms of ultra-nationalism.

6) Highlighting the demand for a restructuring of centre-state relationship.

7) Foiling the conspiracies being hatched against the Left Front government locally, nationally and internationally.

8) Improving the functioning of the Left Front government in the present circumstances.

9) Maintaining the mass character of mass organisations.

10) Adhering to the principles of democratic centralism; shunning factionalism and personal loyalties.

11) Enhancing the readership of the daily Ganashakti, the weeklies People’s Democracy and Lok Lahar, the quarterly Marxist, as well as of other party publications like the Deshhitaisee, Swadhinta, Nandan, and Marxbadi Path.

12) Sharpening awareness about science and technology.

13) Strengthening the literacy movement.

14) Focussing anew on the achievements of the Left Front government.

15) Strengthening the Left Front and its government.

Following Biswas’s placement of the report, a lively discussion followed whereby the delegates further enriched the report. 

CPI(M) Central Committee member and Bengal industries minister Nirupam Sen placed an important document before the conference during the second session. Entitled the Left Front Government And Our Tasks, the document was enthusiastically discussed by the delegates and the general guidelines enumerated in it received wide support.

The document detailed the complexity of the situation in which the Left Front government has to work. It noted the disastrous effects of the policy of liberalisation and privatisation being assiduously followed by the BJP-led union government. Drawing attention to the kind of dysfunction in which the national economy is made to flounder, the document pointed out how the BJP government’s policies serve to sabotage the state sector, and have done irreparable harm to the people.

In the backdrop of joblessness, high prices, rampant privatisation and foreign capital’s incursion even in the core sectors, the Bengal’s Left Front government found its industrial base rapidly eroding due to fresh and fierce competition.

The not-inconsiderable rate of industrial growth (an average of 7.34 per cent as against the national rate of less than 6.5 per cent) notwithstanding, the state had to face competition from other states in the search for capital.

The huge loan the state government had to incur (as the bulk of central assistance is treated as loans and not grants) inconvenienced it in several ways. Apart from raising resources on its own, the Left Front government had to cope with the losses incurred because of natural disasters like floods, for which even the token central assistance came too late. It had also to live with the fact that, with the Fifth Pay Commission recommendations in operation, the non-plan expenditure has shot up alarmingly.

One way out of the imbroglio could be to hike the rate of sales tax. But this could entail an adverse effect on the people’s purchasing power. The mobilisation of loans from the market meant a staggering amount of interest that would soon begin to torment the government.

Even the strong agrarian base of the state was no longer safe from the predatory attacks of the market economy. The continuous, alarming fall in the prices of agricultural commodities spelled disaster for the peasants despite the high rate of production. The slow but alarming growth of a class of rich peasants, as capital penetrated agriculture, has created additional worries for the government.

It was in view of such hard realities in Bengal that the state CPI(M) put forward a package of measures that, when implemented, would provide the state’s economy a welcome boost. They were divided into those concerning the rural and those concerned with urban areas, and were aimed at complementing the ongoing developmental work in the state.

For the rural areas, the aim is to further strengthen the agrarian economy. The immediate aim is to have popular participation in economic reconstruction. The specific tasks include: to provide compulsory education and health for all children; to provide potable water and electricity in all villages; to change the crop pattern and introduce the concept of appropriate fertilisers and micronutrients; to diversify the rural economy into fodder farming, animal husbandry, pisciculture and horticulture. 

CLASS  OUTLOOK

A rigorous class outlook and norms of democratic functioning will have to be introduced in the three-tier panchayat system to implement these measures. 75 per cent of agricultural land must be brought under irrigation. A minimum of 270 man-days must be created in the rural areas.

In towns and cities, the ward committees must be made the nodal agencies for the creation of active self-help and self-employment groups and for liasing with small entrepreneurs who may make investments in the urban sector. To attract capital, the urban infrastructure must be reinvigorated.

The state sector industrial units must become self-reliant. With this aim in view, they must either be completely revamped and modernised or allowed to exercise the option of setting up a joint sector unit. Job security of their workers and employees must be ensured.

Encouragement must be given to entrepreneurs to set up educational institutions without government assistance, and according to the existing rules and regulations. In essential and emergency services, contractual and part-time workers/employees may be employed. 

Transparency, efficiency, honesty, speed and accountability shall mark the functioning of a better and improved Left Front government, the document stressed. 

The document also contains a schedule of the CPI(M)’s demands from the union government. These included: (1) To enhance the state’s share of tax collections from 29 to at least 33 per cent. (2) To levy the consignment tax. (3) To hand back to the state the items of goods on which it can fix sales taxes as per the Indian constitution. (4) To ensure that the loan component provided to the state government on different heads to be converted to grants as far as possible. (5) To increase the credit-deposit ratio of the banks. (6) To release adequate amounts of funds for coping with embankment repair work. (7) To increase the central assistance for all items affecting the nation, like river erosion, megacity projects, national highways, dredging of rivers. (8) To increase the supply of articles of common consumption in the public distribution system. (9) To desist from imposing IMF-WTO conditions on the state government. (10) To transfer the "residual" subjects to the state.  

Following more than 11 hours of discussion in which 102 delegates took part, the conference unanimously adopted the report. The document Left Front Government And Our Tasks was also adopted, with only one delegate dissenting.

In the course of their intervention, the delegates raised several important issues. These included: party’s struggles and movements; the momentum of the drive to ensure an enhancement in the wages of agricultural workers; the fight against revisionism and other deviations; the ongoing rectification campaign; coordinated growth of the movements launched by the CITU and AIKS; the danger posed by extremist and Left sectarian outfits, especially in the northern and western part of Bengal and the resistance that is being built up; the ongoing growth of the literacy, mass health, science (Jan Vigyan) and the pioneer (Kishore Bahini) movements; the menace of religious fundamentalism and the way the party units are tackling it; and the impact of the union government’s policies on the daily life of the people.

Replying to the discussion on the document on LF government, Bengal chief minister and CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Buddhadeb Bhattacharya made it clear that the document did not represent any deviation from basic line of the CPI(M) and that at no stage could there be even the slightest of dilution in the party’s goal of achieving the people’s democratic revolution. In fact, the document reinforced the notion that class struggle would continue to motivate the Left Front and its government. Nor would there be any compromise on the hard-earned rights of the workers.

Clarifying that militancy in the trade union movement is a positive concept, Bhattacharya said militancy means struggle, including the workers’ right to strike as a final weapon. Militancy does not mean irresponsible behaviour and inchoate violence.

Saying that the Left Front has to tread an uncharted path, Bhattacharya pointed out that with political, administrative, fiscal and financial attacks forthcoming on the state from the BJP-led régime up in Delhi, the Left Front government had to rethink new tactics to provide relief to the people. These tactics comprised a drive to increase employment and an effort to make the state investment-friendly while seeking to decrease the loan component by enhancing the state’s income. In no circumstances, assured Bhattacharya, will the Left Front’s basic people-oriented stance be compromised.

Bhattacharya told the delegates that the concept of an improved Left Front government is not an electoral rhetoric. It involves better Party functioning, wider mass movement, and rise in the people’s political consciousness.

Replying to the discussion on the report, Anil Biswas took note of the fact that beyond expressing a critical spirit of support, the delegates had sought to further enrich its contents. Clarifying some of the point raised in the discussion, he stressed the importance of maintaining party unity at every level and to educate and re-educate oneself about the party’s ideology.

Biswas spoke about the need to communicate to the people the nature of the crisis that has been foisted on the nation by the BJP government in Delhi and how this crisis is affecting our lives and livelihood. He added, "Assaults from enemies like the Trinamul Congress, Pradesh Congress, BJP, and from various sectarian and extremist outfits must not be underplayed." For, that would merely weaken our resolve to counter their depredations.

During its sessions the conference adopted resolutions on several burning issues of the day. These included an ideological struggle for socialism; against terrorism and imperialist war; the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies; the effects of WTO conditionalities on agriculture; disinvestment, downsizing, unemployment and price-rise; revival of sick and closed industrial units; conspiracies against the LF government; food security and public distribution system; mass health and literacy campaign; employment generation and self-help schemes; panchayat elections; distortion of history and saffronisation of education; support to the government employees strike in Kerala; inclusion of Santhali language in schedule VIII of the constitution; and the cooperative movement in the state.

The conference ended on a high note on February 25 evening. Addressing the concluding open session, veteran communist leader and former Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu asked the delegates to remember that "the communists represent a beacon of hope in the present circumstances of crisis and uncertainty on the national plane." 

"The future," said Basu, "belongs to us, for we communists are made of special stuff, and we have nothing but the people’s interests in mind."

Recalling the importance of party unity at every level, Basu said it is a vibrant inner-party democracy that motivates the CPI(M) and that it is on the basis of democratic centralism that the party has forged ahead.

Focussing on political uncertainty the wake of the BJP’s poll debacle in four states, Basu said the present circumstances "provide the Left in general and the communists in particular an opportunity to make a bid for the mass of the people who are misled into voting for such political parties as the BJP and the Congress."

The conference elected an 85-member state committee that in turn elected Anil Biswas as its secretary. The conference also elected a five-member state control commission and a 75-strong delegation for the coming party congress. Narayan Dutta was elected editor of the Bengali daily Ganashakti and Avik Dutta the assistant editor.

CREDENTIALS REPORT

The report of the credentials committee, headed by Chittabrata Majumdar, was unanimously adopted, as were the accounts placed by Nirupam Sen.

The age-wise break-up of the 532 delegates and 132 observers shows that there were 13 delegates between the ages 31 and 40, 114 between 41 and 50, 206 between 51 and 60, 138 between 61 and 70, and 53 above 70.  The oldest delegate was state committee member, Sudhansu Dasgupta who is over 90 and has been a party member since December 1936. The youngest delegate was Pranab Chaudhuri (33) of Maldah.

The class origins of the delegates are given in Table 2.

Of the delegates, there were 10 Central Committee members, 64 state committee members, 403 district committee members, 7 zonal committee members, and 2 local committee members.

The front-wise break-up of the delegates can be seen from Table 3.

There were 18 members of parliament, 25 of assembly, 23 ministers, 21 municipality/corporation office-bearers, 21 Zilla Parishad members, and 6 Panchayat Samity members.

Table 4 gives the break-up of the party life of the delegates.

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

        

Table 4