People's Democracy

  A Memorable Anniversary

Prakash Karat

June 27, 2005 marks the 40th year of publication of People’s Democracy.  This anniversary is an important landmark in the life of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). For four decades, the People’s Democracy, as a weekly paper of the Central Committee, has served to elucidate the Party’s line and explain its stand on all major international and national issues.

The People’s Democracy has sought to fulfil Lenin’s idea of a Party paper as a central propagandist, agitator and organiser.

The People’s Democracy was begun in the difficult conditions facing the Party in 1965 soon after the 7th Congress of the Party.  When the first Central Committee meeting was held in Trichur, Kerala, most of the leadership was arrested and imprisoned. It was  eight months after the Party Congress that People’s Democracy began publishing from Kolkata with Jyoti Basu as the first Editor.

The People’s Democracy became the sole forum to unify the Party’s ranks around the programmatic and tactical line of the Party. It had to take on the offensive of the Congress government which had branded the “Left Communists” as organising an armed struggle against the State. The People’s Democracy had also to take on the bourgeois media which conducted a blistering campaign against the Party. Since then, through every phase of the Party’s life and activities, the People’s Democracy has been playing a role expected of a Communist paper.

When the Party was under severe attack during the semi-fascist terror instituted by the Congress regime  in West Bengal in the years 1971 to 1977, the People’s Democracy played a consistent and effective role in exposing the anti-Communist pogroms and the attacks on democratic rights. 

During the days of the emergency between 1975 to 1977, the paper braved censorship and kept publishing and rallying the forces against the emergency regime and countering the mistaken stand  of a  section of the Left that the emergency was a blow against right reaction. 

After the expansion of the Party and its organisation, the CPI(M) now runs six dailies and nearly a dozen  weeklies and fortnightlies in the states. No other political party in India runs so many dailies and weeklies.  But only the People’s Democracy remains the authoritative  paper of the Central Committee.  The Central weekly in Hindi, Lok Lahar, began publishing in 1979. 

Since the communal offensive began in the late eighties, People’s Democracy sought to elaborate and highlight the Party’s understanding of the reactionary nature of the BJP-RSS combine.  When they succeeded in coming to office in 1998, the People’s Democracy stepped up the exposure of its divisive communal platform, its pro-rich economic policies and its servile pro-US foreign policy.  The Party’s successful exposure of BJP rule was aided  by the People’s Democracy’s  relentless campaign. 

No other political weekly has so consistently taken up the critique of the policies of liberalisation under the impact of imperialist globalisation as People’s Democracy.  Its weekly column on economic notes has been incisive in exposing the fallacies of neo-liberal policies of successive governments. 

While observing the anniversary of the paper, we have to recall the tremendous contribution made by Com. Ramdass in the  starting and in the running of the paper.  While from the Polit Bureau, Jyoti Basu, E M S Namboodiripad, B T Ranadive and M Basavapunnaiah made important contributions as Editors, it was Ramdass, who was the working editor. He brought out the paper, week after week, in all circumstances from 1965 till his death in 1985 while serving as a member of the Central Committee.

While People’s Democracy and its editorial staff had done their work admirably over the years, we should not be satisfied.  The range of Party activities, movements and the struggles conducted are not properly reflected in the paper.  Much of these activities and struggles get reported in the state-run dailies and weeklies. But this is not enough. As a centralised Party, the experience of implementing the Party line and the struggles conducted based on this line must find reflection in the columns of the paper. This is one aspect of the improvement which is required to be made.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary, we must pledge to further strengthen the People’s Democracy. Every Party member must be made conscious of the importance of the Party paper and all the cadres who can read English must be motivated to buy and read People’s Democracy.