People's Democracy

40 YEARS AGO

Another Step Forward In The "Turn Towards Village" Campaign

ALL roads led to Madhyamgram on May 22. Workers from Naihati, Bhatpara, Barrackpore and Panihati trekked six miles from the nearest railway station. Peasants came from the northernmost Bongaon, from distant Thakurnagar, Habra, Deganga, Bilkanda, Rajarhat as also from nearby Barasat. Artists and singers came all the way in procession from Dum Dum and Baranagore. They came at the call to the 24 Parganas District Committee of the CPI(M) to come and stand by the people of the countryside.

Processions after processions converged in the meeting-place at Basunagar in Madhyamgram, some twelve miles from Calcutta, and were lost in no time in the 10,000-strong gathering. The singers who sang "Lal Salam, Vietnam, Lal Salam," the elderly widow in spotless white with spectacles, the battle-scarred peasant from Rajarhat, the toothless teacher of Barasat, the grim worker of Texmaco --- all blended into the mass of seething humanity. It was a spectacle for one to see and perceive.

The meeting that followed was presided over by Shantimoy Ghosh, vice-president of the 24 Parganas Kisan Sabha and a member of the secretariat of the 24 Paraganas District Committee of the CPI(M). Nripen Chakrabarti, the Communist leader of Tripura who attended the rally just after his release from detention, Ganesh Ghosh, Gopal Bose and Harekrishna Konar spoke at the meeting. Among the resolutions adopted at the meeting were the ones demanding immediate withdrawal of the US from Vietnam, change in the agricultural policy of the government of India, and initiative for immediate peaceful settlement of the India-China border dispute.  

--- People's Democracy, May 29, 1966