18TH CPI(M) CONGRESS MANDATE

Break The Impasse, Expand To Newer Areas

 Harkishan Singh Surjeet

AS I said in the April 3 issue of this paper, “to a communist party, a congress is not a show, an empty exercise or a ritual to be performed every few years. It is rather a serious business in which the whole party takes part in one way or another…. It critically reviews the work done, the successes achieved and the failures encountered since the preceding congress, and chalks out a tactical line along with political and organisational tasks for the next three odd years.”

And it is no exaggeration to say that the latest Party congress of the CPI(M), the 18th in the series, has fulfilled this task in a creditable manner.

CENTRE OF ATTENTION

IT was for the first time that the CPI(M) held a Party congress in the Hindi belt where it is comparatively weak, and this was somewhat a cause of apprehension for a number of our well-wishers and supporters who genuinely worried whether we would be able to organise the Party congress satisfactorily. And that too in the centre of the region, where everything would be under the watch of the media and the people at large! 

Yet, as it finally turned out, everything not only went on smoothly but created a lot of enthusiasm among the cadres and supporters who came out in large numbers to contribute towards the success of the Party congress. The decision to hold the Party congress in Delhi received a huge amount of publicity, while the preparations for the congress elicited considerable monetary and manpower contributions. There was appreciable mobilisation of cadres for the event and overall involvement of the people in the whole process. All this signified the prestige the Party has among the common people, not only in our strong states but even in areas where we are weak.

The collection of Rs 50 lakh for meeting the Party congress expenses was only one of the indicators of the love the people have for the Party. A good number of artistes donated their paintings for sale, as a way of mobilising finance for the congress. At the same time, other states also chipped in. Punjab, to take one instance, supplied rice and some other items for the whole duration of the congress. Large amounts of help in various forms came from West Bengal and some other states.

During the run-up to the Party congress, people came forward to help in various ways. Drama and art groups from several states staged their shows at 15 venues to generate awareness about the event. The series of seminars in Hindi and English evoked large-scale participation from the intelligentsia in the national capital. In sum, even before it actually took place, the Party congress remained at the centre of the people’s attention in the nation’s capital and in the country in general.

IMPORTANCE OF 18TH CONGRESS

THE importance of the 18th CPI(M) congress was not only that it was held in the Hindi belt for the first time. Its importance also lay in the fact that it was meeting at a very crucial juncture in India’s contemporary history. As I said in my last article, the congress was going to take place “at a time when the Party, and the Left as a whole, is playing a crucial role at the national level, despite its continued weakness in the country” as a whole. At the same time, this is also the time “when the communal forces have been ousted from power but have the potential of a comeback, and when the non-left secular forces are yet to grasp the communal threat in full.”  

It was thus that, in the tricky national situation of today, the 18th Party congress was seized with the task of devising “suitable tactics to negotiate the situation, so that the ruling alliance is not able to ride roughshod over the people’s interests, nor is the BJP able to take advantage of the discontent.” This fact, in itself, was enough to underline the importance of the 18th CPI(M) congress at the present juncture, which also explains why the Party cadres and others all over the country mobilised their strength to the utmost possible extent. And this was the strength on which basis the Party congress was able to fulfil its task successfully and creditably.

ISSUES UNDER CONSIDERATION

AS it was expected to do, the Party congress took a detailed note of the current international and national situation, and reviewed the Party’s political interventions and the status of its organisation. And to this task elected delegates from all over the country brought valuable inputs on the basis of their living, day to day experiences at the grassroots level. The level of these delegates’ and observers’ interventions did bring forth the high level of their political consciousness and also the depth of their commitment to the cause of transformation of society in the interest of the common, toiling mass of the country. At the same time, the way the discussion took place and its general tenor highlighted how the Party functions according to the principles of democratic centralism.

The discussion also underlined the urgency the CPI(M) cadres all over India attach to the task of carefully and deftly handling the present situation in the country. This feeling of urgency was fully reflected from the proceedings of the Party congress that stressed the need of going beyond the BJP led and Congress led formations, and work for the formation of a third alternative, even while supporting the present UPA dispensation at the centre vis-à-vis the BJP. At the same time, the discussion emphasised that considerable growth in the independent strength of the CPI(M), and of the Left, is essential to ensure the viability as well as sustainability of the third alternative that we visualise.

This was the overall feeling with which the Party congress identified land, employment (with emphasis on rural employment) and public distribution system as the major issues for launching a sustained all-India movement in order to break the impasse and pave the way for the Party’s expansion. This is not to say that other issues are not important; in fact, Party units in various parts of the country will be taking up numerous other, general as well as partial issues of relevance to their areas. Further, while the Party units have been waging struggles on all these issues in their respective areas, these have been mostly sporadic in nature. But the need today is to have a well coordinated agitation of an all-India character, and for this purpose the Party congress has authorised the new central committee to outline the contours and direction of such an agitation on the above three major issues.

Communalism, caste discrimination and caste oppression, oppression of the tribal people in numerous ways, atrocities against women and other weaker sections, the hold of feudal and pre-feudal ideas and practices in large parts of the country, and several other issues of the kind --- these are the obnoxious realities that we can ignore only at our peril.

At the same time, the ongoing process of liberalisation and globalisation has heightened the misery of our agricultural population and given rise to a veritable crisis in the countryside. This is evident from the suicides tens of thousands of peasants have committed in Andhra Pradesh and other states in the last five years.  And, needless to say, as the bulk of our people live in the countryside, this agrarian crisis is bound to take a heavy toll from the whole of our economy. Nay, from the very outset, the CPI(M) has been clear about the importance of rural regeneration for the overall national regeneration and that is why we stressed the need of an agrarian revolution as the axis of the people’s democratic revolution that we visualise. 

ON TO GREATER VICTORIES

THE 18th congress of the CPI(M) has only reaffirmed this understanding of the Party. Hence its stress on the questions of land, employment and public distribution system for forging a sustained and well coordinated movement at all-India level.

It would not be out of place to mention here that the Party has played a big role in organising peasant struggles in various parts of the country. The Tebhaga struggle in Bengal, the bakasht struggle in Bihar, the Punnapra-Vayalar struggle in today’s Kerala, struggles in the then United Provinces and Surma valley etc, the Warli adivasi revolt in the Bombay presidency, and above all the glorious peasant armed struggle in Telangana, were important landmarks in the history of the Party. Moreover, they marked the phase of the “Great Upsurge” after the end of the second world war. This upsurge, and along with it the popular feelings regarding the INA trial and then the naval revolt, made the British think whether they would at all be able to hold India any longer. Later, the Party led a struggle against the so-called “betterment levy” in Punjab, which a central committee resolution at that time described as the most important peasant struggle after Telangana. In the middle part of the 1960s, the Party led the heroic “food struggle” in Bengal. 

All these struggles were what took the Party to increasingly greater heights, and now the 18th Party congress has correctly stressed the need of similar struggles in order to strengthen the Party vis-à-vis the ruling classes and overcome the vacillations of our allies and potential allies. This is absolutely essential to forge a third alternative and then a Left and democratic alliance in order to eventually move forward to the people’s democratic revolution and socialism.

HERE IS MY PLEDGE !

I CANNOT conclude this piece without adding a personal note here. In view of my advanced age and the attendant problems, I had requested the central committee of the Party to relieve me from the responsibilities that I have been discharging for the last half a century, first as a Polit Bureau member since 1953 and then as the general secretary since 1992. And this included the task of leading from the front the anti-betterment levy struggle in Punjab, which I referred to above.

However, my offer to step down did not mean that I visualised any sanyas from Party life and political life; my point was only that somebody else should come forward to shoulder this responsibility. As for myself, I said in clear-cut terms that I would continue to contribute to the struggle in whatever way I can.

And now the central committee of the Party has, so to say, half met my request. While Comrade Prakash Karat has taken up the mantle as the new general secretary, I was mandated to continue in the Polit Bureau.

Now that the Party congress is over and the Party is about to launch a mighty all-India movement in order to break its present organisational impasse and expand to newer areas, I do give my pledge that I would continue to contribute my mite to the cause of the toiling people. In the past, I have been actively associated with the peasant movement and worked with stalwarts of this movement like Swami Sahajanand Saraswati, N G Ranga, Indulal Yajnik and others. I have first-hand experience of the misery that has been and still is the lot of Indian peasantry, and this is what made me accept the necessity of an agrarian revolution as the sine qua non of India’s regeneration. This is what makes a person a life-long fighter, and this is what makes me give the pledge that I would remain a fighter till I breath my last.