People's Democracy

Comrade Surjeet Memorial Hall

Inaugurated in Leicester

Harsev Bains 

PRAKASH Karat, CPI(M) general secretary, inaugurated  a newly extended hall in the office of the Association of Indian Communists (AIC) in Leicester, UK, on November 28,  2011. The hall has been named after veteran Party leader, late Comrade Harkishan Singh Surjeet, as a tribute to his legacy and more particularly in recognition of his over six decades of being the inspiration for the Indian communists living abroad.

Addressing the delegates and members of the AIC gathered on this ocasion in a general body meeting, Karat welcomed the expansion, both in numbers and influence, of the Association of Indian Communists in Britain. The general body meeting of the AIC provided a glimpse of the resurging confidence on the CPI(M). The acting secretary of AIC, Harsev Bains, announced the formation of new units of the Party in Britain. The new recruits were mainly from Kerala and South Indian states living in Britain and Ireland.

Karat in his speech explained about the preparations under way for holding the 20th Congress of the Party in Kozxhikode, in Kerala in April next year.  The draft resolutions for the political tactical line for the next three years and major ideological challenges are now being discussed and finalised by the Polit Bureau and the central committee, which would then be released for wider discussion at all levels before placing them at the Congress, he said.

Detailing the global capitalist crisis in US and the Euro Zone countries, Karat said that this crisis is now having an impact on the Indian economy. The slowdown in growth in India, rising prices and high inflation are hitting the ordinary man in the country.  The true character of imperialism is further exposed in the way regime changes are being imposed on sovereign countries, negating all democratic norms The sense of triumphalism after the collapse of the Soviet Union suggesting that socialism was finished and Marxism had lost its relevance has all but disappeared today in the wake of the severe crisis gripping the capitalist world. Karat said this underlines and affirms our earlier assertion the only alternative was and is socialism.

Turning to the national situation in India, Karat highlighted how over 350 of Party cadre have been systematically and brutally murdered by the anti-communist combine in West Bengal. The Trinamool Congress and ‘Maoists’ in joint collaboration and coordination targeted areas where the CPI(M) was strongest, moving in and out from the adjoining jungles to cause terror and murder. Since the state assembly elections, another 45 members of the Party have been killed taking the toll of Left Front workers killed since 2009 Lok Sabha polls to over 450.

“Our offices have been captured and occupied preventing the work of the Party in functioning and discharging our responsibilities. 40,000 families have been made homeless, driven out of their villages and being denied entry to their own homes. This wave of unabated terror being spearheaded by the TMC has affected lakhs of people”, he said. Terming this as an attack on the CPI(M) as a Party, Karat explained that  the most pressing and important task for the Party after the assembly elections has been to protect itself and its cadre and  raise a wider movement to mobilise the people in the defence of democracy and democratic rights in West Bengal. He told about the solidarity campaign conducted across the country by the Party in support of our Bengal unit and the people of West Bengal.  He told that the response to this campaign has been overwhelming, with the Party unit in Kerala raising Rs 3.8 crore in just two days from the people as solidarity fund for West Bengal.

Karat reassured the delegates that “all those who think that we have been eliminated from West Bengal are sadly mistaken.” He outlined the steps and the process the Party has adopted by working among the people to rebuild the organisation in the areas where the anti-communist combine tried to eliminate it. The situation in Kerala where the Left Front was edged out of power by the most slender of margins underlines the confidence and the positive upbeat mood of the party. “Together we will work hard and move forward”, so saying he concluded his address.

The people of West Bengal, presently under attack by the TMC-led anti-communist combine, are not alone. The AIC will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with the democratic people of West Bengal as we have done in the past in exposing the semi-fascist terror of the dark days of the emergency and challenging the Left extremism.