People's Democracy

RUN-UP TO THE 22ND STATE CONFERENCE

Bengal CPI(M) Calls For A Massive

Political-Ideological Campaign Statewide

B Prasant

THE Bengal unit of CPI(M) has recently resolved in the wake of the latest meetings of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau and central committee to undertake a wide-ranging and statewide political-ideological drive, involving every Party unit.  The principal theme of the movement would be the political situation and the political-ideological way of proving equal to the challenges before the CPI(M).

The state conference of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M) will be held over January 13 and 17, 2008, at the historic and the declared-heritage building of the Mahajati Sadan in downtown Kolkata. In the run-up to the state conference, conferences have been held of 28,000 branches, 2,000 local committees, 330 zonal committees, and 17 district committees - two more district conferences will be held later this month.

At each functioning tier of the Leninist structure of the Party, based on democratic centralism, and inner-Party democracy, thoroughgoing political-organisational discussions have been held by the concerned comrades, issues thrashed out in greatest of details, and then new leaderships elected.

The question does not concern democracy per se in isolation.  In the task of imbuing political consciousness into and organising the mass of the people, and leading them to the tasks ahead, it is imperative that the CPI(M), the biggest and strongest formation of Left forces, must itself follow the twin processes of inner-party democracy and democratic centralism rigorously. 

The pledge is to strengthen the Party organisation as a part of a continuous process, as also to improve likewise the level of political-ideological consciousness, and at the same time to carry through as a method integral to the development of the Party, the rectification campaign through criticism-self-criticism.

HIGHLIGHT THE DANGERS

The political-ideological campaign across Bengal will adequately highlight the political dangers that affect the national scenario and concern the situation in the state.  The forces of US imperialism and their running mates have mounted a fresh and violent attack on the independence and sovereignty of the nations across the world, and this does not spare India. 

The independent foreign policy of India has been adversely touched and the CPI(M) has repeatedly warned the Singh government in Delhi about this.  What is strange is that the UPA government has shown the kind of eagerness to submit itself to US designs designed to harm the nation’s sovereignty with an eagerness that is reminiscent of the Vajpayee-Advani régime. The anti-imperialist movement, the Bengal unit is of firm opinion, must be seriously stepped up, widening its base and bringing more and more of the mass of  the people into its mainstream, in the days and months to come. 

ECONOMIC CRISIS

The campaign shall highlight how the policy of the Congress-led UPA government has been ruinous of every aspect of the finance and economy. The unprecedented price rise has been accompanied by a series of mishaps and dysfunctions in agriculture, in industry, and in the service sector.  Social sectors are under constant assault and women are persecuted. 

Unemployment is moving up and fast in a spiral of fatuosity.  Kisans and khet mazdoors, industrial workers and those in the informal sector, organised and unorganised, are all, all of them, without exception, groaning under the present conditions in which they find themselves constrained to toil.  The campaign would draw attention of the people to the large numbers of suicides among kisans across the country.

MENACE OF FUNDAMENTALISM

The mass of the people have become restless and deeply angry at the conditions they have to face as part of their daily grind for livelihood. Taking advantage of the environment that ranges from apathy to rage are forces of fundamentalism, religious and communal. 

Notwithstanding the fact that the Sangh Parivaar has been ejected out of the driving seat in Delhi with the ignominious defeat of the BJP-led NDA combination of right reaction, the forces of majoritarian fundamentalism are ready to strike at the democratic-minded people, expectedly separating out the CPI(M) and the Left as the prime targets.  Nandigram and Singur have shown how the BJP and the Trinamul Congress are eager and willing to join hands with Left adventurist forces to try to embarrass the CPI(M) and the Bengal Left Front government.

At the same time, the recent period has witnessed the ceaseless efforts of the minority fundamentalist outfits that like their majoritarian counterparts are ready to disrupt the process of religious harmony and communal amity, two hallmarks of life in Bengal.  Forces of violence and anarchy are active in Bengal to disharmonise development and stability.  The conscious populace of Bengal themselves must come forward in ever larger numbers to foil these reactionary attempts and disruption.

DEVELOPMENT AND ITS DETRACTORS

The Bengal Left Front government, the campaign would emphasise, has been engaged in providing the people and especially the poor and the downtrodden with an alternative policy of development. Putting people’s interest first, the state LF government has strengthened Bengal’s massive agricultural resources and have gone ahead to build industries on the base of an economy that has grown considerably over the past three decades. 

Slanders and lies have been resorted to, in order to stem and stall the progress of developmental work, especially in rural and semi-urban areas, the campaign would stress.  Anti-communist and counter-democratic forces of every description, suitably aided and betted by the corporate media houses and their patrons, have formed an inchoate bloc to fight the communists and the LF government.  The role of the Bengal opposition and of some individuals, scores of whom are in positions of status and respect, reeks of crass anti-communism and anti-development.  They would send back the state to the Stone Age if they could, and then cry ‘foul!’ letting loose the scum and the lumpen on the masses as they had done at Singur and Nandigram. 

Dozens of CPI(M) workers have been martyred in the struggle to defend democracy, to maintain normalcy, and to foster economic growth in the interest of the masses.  The CPI(M) has continued to struggle undaunted to uphold the pledge of making Bengal safe for the people, keeping development apace, helping the democratic environment to go on flourishing, and enhancing the consciousness of the masses.

As we approach the 22nd state conference of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), the campaign has taken off in the urban and rural areas in the form of marches, rallies, conventions, group meetings, street-corner addresses, factory gate assemblages, haat meetings in the villages, smaller baithak sabhas everywhere, and a generally intense, house-to-house, person-to-person, mass contact, communicating to the people the imperatives that they face and the challenge that they must accept in order to live with their heads held high.   The open rally of the state conference of the Bengal CPI(M) would certainly be one of the largest in recent years, assured state secretary Biman Basu.