People's Democracy

BIHAR

 

No Development Possible Without Land Reforms

 

Rampari

 

IN the recent past, CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat addressed a number of mass meetings as part of the party’s election campaign in Bihar. These included the meetings in support of Amit Sarkar (son of martyred Comrade Ajit Sarkar) in Purnea; in support of Abul Kalam Azad in Kishanganj; for Devendra Prasad Yadav in Runni Saidpur (district Sitamarhi); Shyam Bharati in Bahadurpur (Darbhanga) and Ms Sangeeta Bharati in Kusheshwar.

 

It is notable that ongoing elections to the Bihar assembly are to take place in six phases. While four of these phases ended on October 21, 24, 28 and November 1, the remaining two phases are to take place on November 9 and 20. CPI(M) state secretary Vijaykant Thakur and state secretariat members Arun Kumar Mishra and Rampari also addressed the CPI(M) election meetings in the state.

 

During these meetings, Ms Brinda Karat sought to drive home the point that all the bourgeois landlord parties seek the people’s votes in name of the state’s development but in fact their candidates pursue the development of their own kith and kin once they get elected. Many of them have raised their private armies of goons and lathaits, to terrorise their critics. They remain hidden from the people for five years but come out at the election time and begin to shout --- just as frogs start croaking in the rainy season. Between two elections, these politicians work in favour of big landlords and capitalists whose money power and muscle power help them win the elections. But the CPI(M) is a different kind of party and its candidates struggle day and night for getting pro-people schemes sanctioned or properly implemented, for ensuring that the poor get their due necessities of ration, land and other requirements fulfilled. Atrocities against the poor are perpetrated in a feudal society in the name of caste and religion as well. Every attempt is made to suppress the people’s voice here. The matter of fact is that all the bourgeois landlord parties are at one in this regard, even though they come to the people with different flags. So the presence of CPI(M) candidates in the state assembly is needed so that the common people’s voice is heard there.   

 

Referring to the contrast between Bihar and the neighbouring West Bengal, the CPI(M) leader said the Red Flag has distributed more than 12 lakh acres of land among the poor as well as recorded the names of and provided security to the tenants in West Bengal. But the landless and land-poor people did not get any piece of land in Bihar during the Congress rule for 40 years, Lalu Prasad Yadav’s rule for 15 years and Nitish Kumar’s rule for five years. The result is that the poor of Bihar migrate to Delhi, Punjab, Assam and other places in search of livelihood, where too they face atrocities and police batons. In Bihar, the Nitish government constituted a land commission under D Bandopadhyaya, and the latter suggested that there is in the state 22 lakh acres of surplus land which may be distributed among the landless and land-poor, but the state government went back upon its word. In fact, every landless family could get one acre of land for cultivation here and every homeless family could get 10 decimals of homestead land, but under the pressure of the feudal landlords the Nitish government desisted from implementing the commission’s recommendations.

 

In her meetings, the CPI(M) leader also criticised the chief minister, Nitish Kumar, who poses himself as a clean man but has accommodated all the party-hoppers in his bandwagon. Nor did he desist from fielding some well-known criminals in these elections.

 

In Bihar, cadres of the CPI(M) and other Left parties had to shed their blood during the land struggles. They are being put behind the bars; even today they are implicated in dozens of false cases. It is therefore necessary that candidates of the Left reach the state assembly so that they are able to forcefully raise the land question there. This is imperative as Bihar cannot develop without radical land reforms.

 

Today, price rise and starvation are the biggest issue in the state. Food articles have become much costlier. The poor are getting poorer. India has a record of poverty among 87 countries. Babies suffer malnutrition from birth itself. Women are anaemic because they do not get proper and nutritious diet. The central government’s godowns are overspilling with 60 million tonnes of foodgrains and rats are having a field day there, but the poor mothers and children are starving to death. But the Bihar government, with the BJP as a partner, did not raise the issue of price rise in the assembly. On the other hand, not only the Left led governments of West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura raised such issues; the Left parties too organised struggles to defend the people’s life and interests. The issue of price rise and some other issues have clearly brought out how the bourgeois landlord parties are following the same set of policies and that they are different in name only.     

 

Ms Brinda Karat said the Congress general secretary, Rahul Gandhi, uses specs of different lenses in different states. While he is able to see that poverty does exist in Bihar, he sees no poverty existing in Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and other states where the Congress is in power --- even if people are starving to death or committing suicide there. In Delhi, the Congress government killed the employment of thousands of workers during the Commonwealth games. 

 

Migration from Bihar has progressively increased because of recurrent floods, droughts and increasing prices of agricultural inputs. It has left numerous women, children and the aged behind. Women are now responsible for running their households. But either they have no work or they are very poorly paid. However, the CPI(M) leader said, the state government has failed to seriously implement the employment guarantee scheme. The APL-BPL division has only worsened the plight of the poor. Widespread corruption mars all the welfare schemes, depriving the poor of their benefits. On the other hand, in Kerala where the CPI(M) leads the government, rice, wheat, sugar, kerosene oil, mustard oil, salt and other daily necessities are available at subsidised prices and in required quantities. There is no corruption in Kerala. Ms Karat said the people of Bihar need to follow the example of Kerala and elect all the candidates of the Left alliance, so that they raise the people’s voice there.

 

During the election campaign, it was found that the caste factor is still very much active in Bihar. At the same time, candidates of the bourgeois landlord parties are also distributing wine, blankets and other things to entice the voters. Otherwise too, they are spending far beyond the stipulated expenditure limit. Yet, uncertainty prevails and one cannot say which alliance will be able to form the next government.

 

In the state, for the first time, the CPI(M), CPI and CPI(ML) have joined the fray as an alliance. This has left a positive impact upon the people, particularly in areas where land struggles have taken place. The poor and the landless are much enthused in Purnea, Runni Saidpur, Kusheshwar and Bahadurpur etc. The CPI(M) and the Left are quite hopeful about increasing their presence in the state assembly.