People's Democracy

KERALA

‘Defeat This Attack On The Party’

CPI(M) State Secretariat Call

Following is the full text of the statement issued by the CPI(M) Kerala state secretariat on January 11, 2004. The secretariat met on January 10-11 in Thiruvananthapuram.

FOR the last few months, a section of the media has been running a malicious campaign with the intention of defaming the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its eminent cadres. The discredited and dwindling  ‘Save CPI(M) Forum’ and its virulent elements have been pulling strings in this defamation campaign. The modus operandi is to try to isolate a few leaders and attack them with lies and malice. The sole purpose of those involved in this campaign is to paint a picture of the Party being divided and confused on ideological questions.

This malicious campaign is also aimed at creating confusion in the minds of the vast masses following the Party. Maybe, one or two cadre have been victims to deviation from the path of Party line and policy, but those who are indulging in the slander campaign magnify this negligible problem with the sole purpose of creating confusion. The Party has the faculty and capacity to comprehend and correct any type of deviation. In this, the Party does not require any assistance from the anti-Party media. Nobody should harbour any illusion that the Party agenda could be set through media campaign. The Party secretariat calls upon all Party members and committees and Party sympathizers to come out and make an all out effort to defeat this nefarious and malicious campaign.

Acting as the inheritor of the spent force, ‘Save CPI(M) Forum’, the magazine, Padam, had become a mouthpiece of anti-Marxists of all types from September 2000. It claims that it is a publication of the progressive art and cultural activists. But right from its inception, it has taken up the dirty job of attacking the Party and maligning its policies.  That is why this publication is the darling of all anti-communists.  In order to validate its own stance, Padam states that the CPI(M) has declined in its ideological standards, and that is why it is interfering to save the Party. In the present circumstances, they claim, this is unavoidable.   The “great saviours” try to “protect” the Party by attacking it. Is it not an irony?  They are trying to “protect” the Party by unleashing an unheard of defamation campaign against the Party leadership, which, not even the worst enemies of the Party had done so far. The Party, however, finds that this is leading them to their own destruction.

The bourgeoisie media have always given undue importance to opinions and complaints against the Party when they emanated from those who claim to stand by the Party. The Padam, too, gets the same coverage, rather patronage. The ulterior motive of Padam becomes clear when it demands the removal of Harkishen Singh Surjeet as the general secretary of the Party. It launches a heinous attack on the leadership of the Party, including the general secretary. It resorts to the same means which the ‘Save CPI(M) Forum’ resorted to in their attempt to defame and ridicule the Party. 

Each issue of Padam came out with a rejection of the Party positions on various political issues. The first issue itself was a criticism of the ideology of a broader cultural front formulated at the initiative of Comrade E M S Namboodiripad in the Perumbavoor document of the ‘Purogamana Kala Sahithya Sangham’. It has also been continuously opposing the Party’s stand on education, particularly on new education policy, views on self-financing institutions, and the Plus Two education. 

The Padam had the audacity to present alternatives to Party’s assessment on local body and assembly elections.  It attempted to attack the Party politically and organisationally on the failure in these elections. It resorts to any means to oppose the Party. Terming the CPI(M) as a middle class party, it opined that the Party has given up the People’s Democratic Revolution and accepted the parliamentary system. They do not recognise the tactical approaches the Party takes in elections. In short, the Padam pursues a path of condemning Party leaders, and ridiculing Party policies. 

THE CPI(M) rejects the criticism by Padam regarding People’s Plan programme with the contempt it deserves. The People’s Plan was implemented after thorough discussions within the Party.  It was Comrade EMS who presented the subject before the state committee of the Party for discussion.  Again, it was Comrade EMS who reported the decision in the regional meetings of the Party cadre.  This was followed by the publication and distribution of a policy document on the issue.  The People’s Plan was discussed and reviewed in two state conferences of the Party as well as in a Party Congress.  Is it not senseless to say that a policy, which was discussed with such intensity and care, was conspiratorially imposed by vested interests? The Party categorically states that no foreign agency had any role whatsoever in the formulation of the People’s Plan programme. It was a result of long drawn out struggles and campaigns carried out by the Party since 1957 for decentralisation of power. The dialogues and discourses in the International Congress held in 1994 at Thiruvananthapuram, and the resulting discussions within the Party also helped in this outcome.  The many developmental experiments in different parts of Kerala also helped in this. But today a new section has emerged claiming the paternity of People’s Plan.  This is totally baseless.

The Party evolved a perspective, entirely different from that of the World Bank, on the decentralisation of power. In fact, the present criticism is nothing new.  Comrade EMS had replied to these criticisms through his regular question and answer dialogues in Party publications and through his articles. The Padam & Co. has not raised anything new except for indulging in mudslinging. 

It must be noted that the People’s Plan is not against the concept of class or class struggle.  As Comrade EMS had opined, the Party is engaged in class struggle, utilising even the limited possibilities of bourgeois democracy. Therefore, the expansion of the decentralisation is, in fact, conducive to the expansion of the struggles the Party undertakes.  The Party Programme provides the local bodies a very important role in the People’s Democratic State structure. 

The Party rejects the argument that the People’s Plan strengthened apoliticisation. The local bodies are governed by people’s representatives elected on political basis.  Broad people’s front on people’s needs and development issues do not mean that politics are ignored.

They also argue against the formation of the committees, which include both the government and the opposition representatives, to implement the People’s Plan. The committees comprising the beneficiaries of a developmental programme take up the work in every region. These committees do not represent any political party. There are numerous examples and experiences of how developmental projects could be successfully implemented through such committees. People participated in these developmental programmes with great zeal and enthusiasm. So, the criticism that there is no presence of the Opposition in the People’s Plan is malicious. The critics have been lowering the importance of voluntary work in society. Emphasis on voluntary work is nothing new as far as the Party is concerned.  Even during the 1957 government, the party had made use of voluntary work successfully.

The critics are bent on blacking out the achievements of People’s Plan.  Even the documents published by the UDF government admit that the People’s Plan had many achievements.  Above all, it is the People’s Plan that made the dream of decentralisation of power a reality.  The Twelfth Finance Commission indicated that Kerala would get a more attractive allocation on the basis of these achievements.  It is against such a successful programme that the critics have now raised a challenge and attack.

Some try to fish in the troubled waters asking why the Left Democratic Front lost the assembly elections in spite of such a successful, beneficent programme.  The Party has examined the reasons for the failure in the elections and published a document on it. The unprecedented caste-communal alliance forged by the UDF, the crisis in the agricultural sector due to the globalisation measures of the central government, the financial crisis of the state government etc. have been evaluated as the causes for loosing in the polls.  But, the scandalmongers are interested in maligning the People’s Plan as the main cause and the only cause for the failure in the elections.

No one claims that the People’s Plan was flawless. The Party documents have clearly evaluated the weaknesses in the movement.  The Party has a clear and firm perspective with regard to the People’s Plan – to pursue with the programme, correcting defects at every step. The Party is committed to decentralisation of power.  But the Party is opposed to the polemical positions that all social progress could be attained through the People’s Plan or that no progress can be attained through it. These two extreme arguments should be countered with equal force. Both the arguments are deviations. Great vigilance is required to counter and defeat such deviations. At the same time it should not be forgotten that the People’s Plan is not a panacea for all the ills of the society. While it is not an elixir, it has manifold advantages. It helps increase the production and productivity of agriculture and small-scale industries; it helps retain the achievements in the field of education and health and increase their quality; it helps in decentralised planning and people’s participation in planning and implementation, which would improve the people’s lot. 

Another controversy relates to foreign funding to the People’s Plan. For the development of Kerala, it may be necessary to utilise foreign capital and foreign assistance. But while doing so, we should be doubly vigilant about the conditionalities and strings attached. If any of those are inimical to the people’s and nation’s interest, they should be rejected outrightly. We should not forget the fact the People’s Plan was run and implemented through allocation of more than Rs 4000 crores from Plan funds.

Another controversy centres round the project, KAFDEC, which was implemented from July 1999 with assistance from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The Swiss government contributed a sum of Rs 10.5 crore. This amount was taken through KILA (Kerala Institute of Local Administration) of Thrissur. The project was aimed at increasing the faculty strength of KILA, whereby it could take up the full responsibility of all training programmes of the local bodies; KILA had to be developed into a full-fledged institution in this regard.  On the basis of this, a few try to criticise that the People’s Plan was a foreign-funded phenomenon. This criticism is unfounded and baseless.

THE criticism against the Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad has to be separately examined. The Party has no doubt that the Parishad has done a great deal towards developing a scientific sense and awareness among the people.  A science movement could contribute much in the fight against the feudal values and globalisation.  The Parishad has contributed greatly in organising a national movement of scientists and science. It could, to a great extent, oppose the obscurantism and communalism of the so-called Swadeshi Sasthra movement.  While the Party commends this healthy stance of the Parishad, it has certain reservations regarding the approach of that organisation towards certain issues, and especially regarding the outlook of certain Parishad workers.

The Party is aware that the Parishad is an organisation in which sympathizers and activists of many other parties also work. At the same time it is the duty of the members of our Party who work in the Parishad to uphold the Party viewpoint on various issues.   In this task, some comrades have committed very serious mistakes. The stance adopted by Dr  M P Parameswaran proves this. 

To the charge that Parishad receives foreign money for its work, it is up to the Parishad to explain their position. Likewise there is an allegation that the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), a famous economics study centre in the country, received foreign money for its work. It is up to the CDS to explain its position. 

Dr M P Parameswaran has had an important role in Party education and publication wings, as also in the all India science movement.  But recently there has been serious deviation in his outlook and perspective. His viewpoints and outlook on national and international developments are quite contrary to the Party’s positions on these issues. His standpoint on Revolution is founded on a stance disregarding class politics and basing on a non-political attitude. He not only holds such opinions, but also publicly professes them. This is a serious violation of the Party discipline.  The Party has asked him for an explanation in this regard. 

There is an attempt to propagate that the Party is suffering from groupism.  Some even go to the extent that Surjeet and some others in the Polit Bureau are social democrats.  A few comrades in the state secretariat also are targeted for such attack. The Party Programme and the Ideological Resolution are the fundamental documents of the Party, which were democratically discussed at various levels.  There is no difference whatsoever on these within the Party.

Unbridled lies and canards are spread against the person of Pinarayi Vijayan, Polit Bureau member and state secretary of the Party. A section of the media even went to the extent of tarnishing his image. The Padam magazine has made venomous allegations against S Ramachandran Pillai, Polit Bureau member and M A Baby, central committee member. The Party rejects all these allegations with the contempt they deserve.

The media, including Padam magazine spread most heinous canards against Dr Thomas Isaac. They even alleged that he is a CIA agent. His connection with the CDS, his contacts with scholars in the academic circles, his position in the committee for implementation of the People’s Plan, and his developmental works as an MLA in his legislative constituency have all been subjected to severe criticism.  But the Party rejects these allegations as hollow and baseless.

The wicked forces are aware that the most effective way to weaken and harm the communist movement is to defame and insult the leadership of the Party.  That is why they are resorting to such tactics.  They have to be identified and isolated.

Most of these critics claiming to criticise the Party on ideological grounds do not actually know what ideology and Party policy are.  We may advise them to understand what People’s Democratic Front means. Their criticism so far has proved only their ignorance of the Party policy. The controversy for the last few months surrounded the articles appearing in Padam magazine. The media made great hue and cry on the basis of this.  This controversy does not deserve any consideration prima facie. These lies and scandals are intrinsic to the commercial interests of the media. They also reflect the desire to conceal and camouflage the unscrupulous mortgaging of our state to the ADB and the consequent protests on the part of the people.  They also want to hide the gravity of the cleavage within the Congress party, and to achieve this people’s attention needs to be diverted. In order to pave the way for the easy conquest of the state by ADB and further strengthen the globalisation process, the Party opposing it and its leaders have to be tarnished.  This is slander of the worst order.  It is amusing to see chronic anti-communist newspapers setting out to rescue the Party from policy deviations. Those who are committed to the Party will soon realize this, and react accordingly.

The Party reminds the critics that this Party was able to expand its mass base traversing many a vicissitude.  It had to fight Left and Right deviations; it had to confront the propaganda machinery of the bourgeois–landlord classes. 

The Party secretariat calls upon all party members, party friends and relatives and party sympathizers to come out and make an all out effort to defeat this desperate and false campaign.