People's Democracy

Yechury addressing a meeting organised by Communist Party of Pakistan in Karachi

A TWO-member delegation of the Party led by the Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury and visited Karachi, Pakistan from December 23 to 26 to join the birth centenary celebrations of Comrade Sajjad Zaheer, the first general secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan at the invitation of the Communist Party of Pakistan. Comrade Sajjad Zaheer’s birth centenary is being celebrated both in India and Pakistan by the Left intelligentsia and the Communist Parties. Rajendra Prasad of People’s Democracy was the other member of the delegation.

In Karachi, on December 23, a two day seminar was inaugurated which was organised by a broad based committee of Leftist litterateurs and activists. A large contingent of writers and others had gone to the seminar from India which included Raj Babbar MP, A K Hangal actor and Comrade Sajjad Zaheer’s daughter Noor Zaheer. Addressing the seminar in the inaugural session, Sitaram Yechury underlined the significance of the role that Comrade Sajjad Zaheer played in the building of the Left literary movement in India were he was the first general secretary of the Progressive Writers Association and was responsible in convincing the great Urdu/Hindi writer Munshi Premchand to preside over the first session of the PWA in 1936.

Yechury on his first visit to Pakistan was also carrying forward the task of building fraternal relations between the Left and democratic forces in India and Pakistan – a task which was initiated with the visit of Comrade H K S Surjeet to Pakistan in February 2004. Yechury hailing the ever growing people-to-people relations between the two countries said that people of his generation have grown with the reality of partition and therefore the time now is to look towards the future and build a strong democratic movement in the two countries which is the only guarantee of the good neighbourly relations.

On December 24, a lunch was hosted for Yechury by the Muslim League (Nawaz Sharief) where the Sindhi leaders of that Party explained the political situation in Pakistan and the repression that their party leadership was facing. Yechury gave details of the role of the Left and the CPI(M) in the present political situation. Responding to the League leaders, he pointed out that the failure of democratic governance was the root cause of the growth of authoritarianism in Pakistan. In the afternoon the citizens of Karachi hosted a civic reception for the visiting delegation from India and Bangladesh. The reception attracted a large number of Left-leaning members of the intelligentsia who had become inactive with the weakening of the Communist Party in Pakistan. It is hoped now that these fraternal visits in the present situation would galvanise a number of them.

On December 25 morning, a meeting of the seven confederations of trade unions was organised to listen to the leaders of the communist parties of India and Bangladesh and the Workers Party of Bangladesh. The meeting mourned the death of two of the tallest trade union leaders of Pakistan, S P Lodhi and Ali Amjad. Addressing the huge gathering of trade union leaders and activists, Sitaram Yechury emphasised the need of trade union unity for building a Left and democratic movement. Referring to the general ideological confusion that is being created by terming Marxism as outdated, he pointed out that Marx’s relevance lies in the scientific discovery of the source of surplus value in the capitalist system. In the capitalist system the worker produces surplus value in the process of work i.e. he produces more than what is required for his maintenance, which is appropriated by the owner of the means of production and this constitutes the basis of exploitation. Therefore if exploitation is to be ended, capitalism has to be overthrown. Changes that have come about since Marx’s time do not negate this basic scientific discovery. To term Marxism as outdated is the ploy to create ideological confusion and paralysis. The leaders from Bangladesh, Mujanidul Islam Salim, general secretary of the Communist Party of Bangladesh and Rasheed Khan Menon, president of Workers Party of Bangladesh repeatedly asserted that their struggle for liberation was not against the people of Pakistan but against its military regime. Both the leaders from Bangladesh, as also the trade union leaders from Pakistan, expressed the sentiment that the trade union movement in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh should work out mechanism to express solidarity with each other. Responding to the call by a senior trade union leader from Pakistan that the Indian Left movement should guide the trade union movement in the sub-continent as an elder brother, Yechury asserted that there is no question of Indian communist movement acting as an elder brother since the communist movement in India treats the other movements as equal. Speaking on the occasion A K Hangal recalled his trade union activities in Karachi in 1949 because of which he was to leave Pakistan, and he was returning now for the first time. Hangal also exhorted the trade union movement in general and the Left movement in particular to ensure greater participation of women in their activities.

On December 25, a meeting was organised by the Communist Party of Pakistan at the Press Club to observe the birth centenary of Comrade Sajjad Zaheer. Situated in the heart of the town, with red flags fluttering all around the venue, the lawns of the Press Club were filled with an enthusiastic gathering to pay homage to Comrade Sajjad Zaheer and listen to the communist leaders from the sub-continent. The meeting was remarkable since neither the creeping cold nor the break down in the electric supply dampened the enthusiasm of the audience. Speaking on the occasion, Sitaram Yechury elaborated on the role of Left in India in ensuring that working class rights are protected, mass of the people, particularly in rural areas, are given relief and communal forces are kept at bay. He also delineated the role of the Left parties in keeping in check the chauvinistic role of communal parties in India and positive role in promoting people-to-people relations between India and Pakistan. Fully reciprocating the sentiment of greater coordination among the parties of the sub-continent, Yechury promised further discussion on the subject in the future among the parties.

Imdad Qazi, general secretary of the Communist Party of Pakistan while thanking the delegations from India and Bangladesh explained in detail the political perspective of the Communist Party of Pakistan. Strongly criticising the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf, he said that the democracy in Pakistan was a sham and the military regime was pursing a policy of divide and rule among various provinces of Pakistan. Criticising the proposal to build Kalabagh dam in Punjab, which is being opposed by all the other provinces, Qazi maintained that the military regime is using the ploy of the dam to divert attention from the brutal repression it has unleashed in Balochistan. He called upon the Left intelligentsia to actively support the activities of the Communist Party of Pakistan to a strong democratic movement in the sub-continent.

The People’s Party of Pakistan hosted two dinner interactions with the visiting delegations. The leadership of the People’s Party was keen to work closely with communists to restore democracy in Pakistan.