People's Democracy

 SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN IN TAMILNADU

Lakhs of People Rally at Five Regional Centres

A A Nainar

PEOPLE give vent to their anger in many forms. Mass mobilisation, to demonstrate the disapproval and express the anguish, is the most powerful and time-tested form the CPI(M) has been adopting to channelise the people’s anger. In the wake of the unprecedented and vicious attacks slapped on the common man, the Central Committee’s resolution did give the lead to the people to tell the governments of the day to stop these attacks.

The CPI(M) had called for conducting a fortnight long campaign from August 16 to 31 to condemn the NDA government for its rabid communal agenda and anti-people economic policies. The policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation have not only not brought any common good as promised, but heaped untold miseries on the common people and jeopardised their livelihood. Job reduction, subsidy cuts, withdrawal of state from the social sectors, dismantling of the public distribution system, and privatisation of everything has been so structured as to suit the needs of international finance capital and its domestic cousins.

The policy of the Tamilnadu state government is even more atrocious. What the centre fears to do and wants to do only after a few years, the Jayalalitha government does it today. The misuse of POTA, the statutory ban on religious conversions, wholesale privatisation of public sector undertakings and the anti-worker ESMA and TESMA, etc, are the recent anti-democratic, authoritarian and anti-people measures adopted by the state government. Permission is being denied to almost all public demonstrations and the police has registered first information reports against opposition leaders in the state for the ‘sin’ of supporting the government employees’ agitation.

Under these circumstances, during the CPI(M) state committee meeting held at Coimbatore in June, it was elaborately planned to conduct the August campaign, culminating in rallies at five regional centres. Preparatory to that, multifarious forms of campaign had taken place in almost all the districts. Rightly called a “Campaign to Defend the Nation,” it took off earnestly in all the districts on the day of the nation’s independence. On August 15, CPI(M) state secretary N Varadarajan kicked off the campaign hoisting the national flag and the party flag at the state headquarters building known as P Ramamurthy Ninaivagam.

District level jeep jathas, street corner meetings, public meetings, padayatras, house to house notice distribution, cultural nights and all conceivable forms were employed to reach out to the masses. About three lakh pamphlets were distributed enlisting the demands of the people. The CPI(M) state secretariat members, state committee members and all district level leaders participated in the frontline of this campaign, which inspired the cadres. Well attended regional level rallies were conducted in Coimbatore (August 26), Thiruvarur (August 27), Dindigul (August 28) and Hosur (August 29) where the policies of the central and state governments came in for sharp criticism. The vernacular press gave wide publicity to these rallies and reported the speeches made by CPI(M) leaders.

In the state capital Chennai, apart from the fortnight long campaign, the valedictory meeting took place on September 3 evening in the Mint Junction area. Both the district committees here had made preparations to make the meeting very colourful by displaying banners, festoons, placards, etc, indicating that the end of the campaign is only the beginning of a serious effort by the forces of democracy against the order of the day. North District secretary K Krishnan chaired the meeting. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Prakash Karat was the main speaker. Central Committee member N Sankaraiah, state secretary N Varadarajan, state secretariat members V Meenakshi Sundaram, A K Padmanabhan and A Soundararajan, and state committee members Jansirani, Thirunavukkarasu and S K Mahendran, MLA, also addressed the meeting.

The meeting started with a cultural programme by “Puthugai Boopaalam.” CPI(M) district secretaries in the nearby districts, namely Dhanasekaran (Cuddalore), Anandan (Villupuram), D Krishnaraj (Kancheepuram), Veerabadran (Thiruvannamalai), P Sundararajan (Thiruvallore) and T R Purushothaman (Vellore) were also present in strength to make the programme a success. South District secretary T Nandagopal proposed the vote of thanks.

Attended by more than 10,000 people of the capital city, it was one of the very successful meetings and provided a grand finale to the CPI(M) campaign conducted during the preceding fortnight throughout the state.