People's Democracy

AIDWA general secretary Sudha Sundararaman, addressing a big rally at Bantra in Howrah on December 4 said that the organisation would build up a movement, strong and coordinated, countrywide against gender discrimination and against the widening network of crime against women. Sudha also addressed the Bengal AIDWA’s council meeting held at Digha in Midnapore east.

Sudha said that in several states, as statistics released recently bore out, the sex ratio has continued to go against women even in developed regions. Young women are being brought in from the less developed regions of the country and sold into a life of the netherworld with impunity.

Inter-state gangs, organised and armed, patronised by the ruling classes, would participate in the network of smuggling of women. The AIDWA will launch a strong nationwide campaign and a struggle against all these developments, declared the AIDWA leader.

The AIDWA, assured Sudha, was also active in other sectors of pro-people especially pro-poor initiatives. She said that of late, a terrible crisis of supply of kerosene and cooking gas had afflicted the common people and the women had suffered the most, as was always the case.

The crisis has become increasingly more acute as the weeks and months have rolled by because of a very lop-sided and prodigiously inefficient system pf public distribution.

Sudha squarely blamed the ’dual pricing system’ followed by the UPA government as complicating the problem of public distribution. The issue has been created out of the decision to have two sets of prices for the APL (above-the-poverty-line) and the BPL (below-the poverty-line) people.

The AIDWA is of the firm view that should the dual pricing system be done away with, and a proper public distribution system devised and put in place, the plethora of frustrating problems associated with distribution of articles of common consumption could get tackled.

The AIDWA, Sudha said, had already met the union petroleum minister and had submitted the charter of demands in this matter. The AIDWA had also centrally demonstrated before the Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi on the issue of irregular distribution of kerosene in the ration shops around the country. The AIDWA had called for the setting up of a monitoring committee and a vigilance committee in this regard.

Talking to the media later, S Sudha elaborated on the nationwide programmes of the AIDWA. She said that the AIDWA would become vocal on the issues concerning resistance against domestic violence and against sexual persecution and violation. The AIDWA will always stand by the side of the persecuted.

The AIDWA is also engaged in building up a nationwide movement on such issues as health, education, and livelihood. The AIDWA would continue to be active on behalf of the unorganised women workers.

On the latter issue, the AIDWA has already met the prime minister t pressurise the UPA government into putting in place the declaration of intent as codified in the Common Minimum Programme (CMP).

Sudha expressed her anger at the way the passage of the women’s reservation bill was being delayed. She accused the UPA government of going back on its word in this regard. More than one-and-a-half years have passed by since the UPA government took office. AIDWA has called for the passage of the bill intact in the current winter session of the parliament.

Elsewhere, addressing the women’s rally at Bantra, S Sudha pointed out that the UPA government was always taking recourse to diversionary measures to stay off the course towards the passage of the women’s reservation bill in the parliament.

The AIDWA leader was sharply critical of the UPA government for its adaptation and reworking of a series of anti-people, especially anti-poor measures since it had come to office. She pointed to how the price rise of common commodities affected the women in a severe manner.

Shyamali Gupta, all-India leader of the AIDWA said that the discrimination against women continued to be a brutal fact in the society that one lived in today. Gupta said that the destruction of the female foetus was the herald of the death warrant declared against women. A wide movement countrywide needed to be continued against the discrimination that women faced, declared Shyamali Gupta.

AIDWA leaders Sabitri Majumdar and Jayanti Goswami, too, addressed the mass rally, the theme of which was patterned around five issues, and these were:

• Abrogation of the Indo-USA defence pact

• Further development of the successes of the Bengal Left Front government

• Strengthening of the public distribution system

• One-third reservation for women, and Equal pay for equal work