People's Democracy

ALL SET FOR EIGHTH ALL INDIA CONFERENCE OF DYFI

Strengthen India’s Future – Invest In Youth

Subir Banerjee

THE eighth all-India conference of Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) will be held at Vellore Shaheed Nagar, Chennai from May 7 to 11. In the “1857 Shaheed Manch”, around a thousand delegates from all over the country, including over 50 delegates from fraternal organisations from 15 countries and the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), will attend the conference.

The focus of the deliberations will be on the gravity of the present situation in the country arising out of growing attacks on the youth by the UPA government and chalking out a programme of action to resist them unitedly to protect the interests of the youth and the common people.

‘Strengthen India’s Future – Invest in Youth’ is the slogan for the conference. The reception committee with the famous journalist N Ram as the chairman and S Kannan as secretary has informed that preparations for the historic conclave are in full swing. The conference will be inaugurated by the renowned film director Bharat Mamuti. A massive rally will be held on the inaugural day at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Ground at which West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will be the main speaker. Former student-youth leader, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and MP, Sitaram Yechury will also address.

The reception committee has further divided its work into a number of sub-committees. The committee has already launched a door-to-door campaign to collect funds. Extensive wall writing campaigns have been conducted by the sub-committes. The DYFI centre has got conference announcement posters in Hindi and English printed and distributed to all states to almost all state committees, which have also printed and distributed regional language posters.

Every state committee is organising one-day cultural and sports competition with at least one event of cultural activity and one from sports within April. Almost all state conferences or conventions have been held. 

An exhibition of important political organisational activities (1980-2006) is also being put up at the conference venue. The conference is being held after three years and six months since the last conference at Amritsar in November 2003.

The period since the Amritsar meeting has witnessed significant changes and developments on the international and national scene. These events show the continuing imperialist offensive on one hand and the increasing manifestations of resistance to their economic and political onslaughts throughout the world on the other. In India also, the period has seen many struggles, agitations and activities with repression increasing along with retrograde Government policies.

Throughout the period, the organisation strove to mobilise the youth to defend their rights, in particular, and of the general masses in general. It had to face severe attacks, both ideological and physical, from the ruling classes and their goons, government machinery and from the divisive and communal forces. Despite this the organisation has marched forward with mass campaigns, struggles conducted independently and unitedly with other youth and mass organisations.

The Chennai conference will evaluate all these past activities in order to formulate future tasks in the context of concrete reality of the times.