People's Democracy

PEOPLE’S Democracy wishes its readers a `Happy New Year’.

As we leave the year 2005 behind as history and move ahead into 2006 to create history, we need to draw up a balancesheet, if not of everything, of at least the most important trends, in order to consolidate the gains made in the outgoing year.

2005 has been a year which saw the consolidation of the political process that began with the defeat of the RSS/BJP-led communal forces in the general elections 2004. Not only has the UPA government survived but it has consolidated. On the contrary, the communal forces have seen a degree of disarray with the RSS/BJP plunging into one of its deepest crisis. Elections 2004 demolished not only the BJP slogans of `India shining’ and `feel good’ factor, it also showed the total hollowness of its slogans on which it rose to power – its claim to eradicate bhook (hunger), bhay (fear) and bhrashtachar (corruption). 2005 has completely demolished its pretensions to be ‘a party with a difference’. Its chehra (face), charitra (character) and chintan (ideology) have, indeed, shown themselves to be different – of the worst kind. The series of scams that have caught its leaders on camera accepting bribe and in scandalous compromising positions; its ideological flip-flops including Advani’s remark on Jinnah; and their conduct in the parliament on various issues like action on those MPs found guilty of corruption and reservations for SC/STs have thrown them up not as a cohesive political organisation but as a motley collection of power-seeking unscrupulous elements.

The depths of political immorality of the RSS/BJP reaching its nadir, however, must not lull the secular forces and the country into believing that they no longer pose a serious challenge for the future of modern India. The discovery of a mass graveyard in Panchamahal district in Gujarat of the victims of the 2002 State-sponsored communal carnage is yet another reminder of what the communal fascist forces are capable of. The RSS’s assertion that it shall not tolerate any dilution of its ideological content (read: pursuit of the fascistic `Hindu Rashtra’ agenda) is a clear signal that it shall seek to foment communal hatred and sharpen communal polarisation in order to regain its lost political space. This is the challenge that the country will have to meet in 2006. Looking ahead towards 2006 means to prepare ourselves to meet this challenge effectively in order to consolidate the progress of the secular democratic modern Indian republic.

2005 had also set in motion a political process which seeks to shift the focus of the economic reforms of liberalisation in the country. Crucially dependent upon the Left for its survival, the UPA government had agreed to many proposals that no bourgeois-landlord government would agree under normal circumstances. 2005 saw the struggle between those of the Left and others who seek to implement the pro-people provisions of the Common Minimum Programme and those who seek to sabotage these. There have been some successes on this score. In order to shift the focus of economic reforms from being solely pre-occupied with corporate profits towards improving people’s welfare, the Left had successfully pressurised the UPA government to enact a rural employment guarantee. This Act has now come on to the Statute Books. Though the beginning has been modest, it is nevertheless significant as this is for the first time since independence that any bourgeois-landlord government has ever committed itself to provide a legal guarantee for employment. The challenge in 2006 is to ensure that this is properly implemented and the pressure to expand the scheme to all over India; to cover all unemployed; and to increase the number of days of guaranteed employment grows from the current 100 to 180.

Likewise, there have been some successes in protecting the public sector from being privatised. The government after a prolonged attrition with the Left finally announced that it shall not proceed with the privatisation or the disinvestment in the public sector navaratnas. It was, in fact, forced to rescind a cabinet decision to divest 10 per cent of the shares in BHEL. However, the coming year will see many more struggles on this score with the proposals for the privatisation of the airports and other areas continuing to remain in the pipeline.

There have been some successes in other spheres as well. Various Bills have been introduced in the parliament that aim to protect the rights of various sections of our people like tribals etc. The Right to Information Act has been adopted. However, much more needs to be done even to implement fully the commitments made in the Common Minimum Programme. Drawing up the balancesheet shows that while consolidating the gains made in 2005, 2006 must see the intensification of the popular pressure that must be mounted in order to implement policies that aim to improve the people’s welfare further.

One disconcerting feature of 2005 has been the proclivity of the UPA government to succumb to US pressures especially in the fields of defence cooperation and foreign policy. By highlighting these issues, the Left has been able, to some extent, prevent a total pro-US slide in our foreign policy. But this danger lurks ahead alarmingly. 2006 must see the popular pressures on this score are mounted to protect the independent nature of India’s foreign policy as well as our country’s sovereignty.

An important challenge that needs to be met in 2006 is to urgently improve the quality of life of our rural masses. The agrarian distress that was accentuated by the BJP-led NDA rule continued to take its toll in 2005 as well. Distress suicides and starvation deaths continued to occur reflecting widespread distress in rural India. 2006 must seek to arrest this in order to begin the process of reversal through mounting popular pressures on the government to significantly increase investments in agriculture and to adopt policies that will protect the Indian farmer from the WTO assaults under globalisation.

2006 will also see elections to the state assemblies of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Assam, Kerala and West Bengal. For the CPI(M)-led Left Front, these assembly elections in West Bengal and Kerala assume utmost significance. The consolidation of the political process that has taken place in the country also means the strengthening of the Left in order to ensure that the interests of both the country and the people are further protected. The record of the West Bengal’s Left Front government for the last 29 years will be put to test before the electorate. In Kerala, the people already appear to be looking for a respite from the Congress-led UDF rule. The LDF must consolidate its efforts. There will be, naturally, many political forces that will actively work for the defeat of the CPI(M) and the Left in these elections. All reactionary forces have often combined to ensure that the CPI(M) and the Left do not succeed to grow. 2006 will be the time-keeper to these mighty electoral battles that shall take place. The experience of the last one and a half years has shown that it is because of the strength of the CPI(M) and the Left that many pro-people policies are being implemented and many retrograde policies prevented. 2006 must ensure that this strength grows further.

We invite our readers to join us and the Indian people in these struggles in 2006 that would shape the contours of modern India in the future.