Massive Chetawani rally in Ludhiana

A massive Chetawani rally (Warning Rally) was held on 28 November at Ludhiana at the call of the CPI, CPM Punjab, CPI(ML) Liberation and CPI(M).  The massive gathering of peasants and workers warned the Akali-BJP Badal government to scrap the draconian ‘Prevention Of damage to Public And Private Property Bill 2014’ law, and accede to a 14 point Demand Charter. The rally was addressed by CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat, veteran CPI(M) leader A B Bardhan, CPM Punjab Secretary Mangat Ram Pasla and CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya besides various other Left leaders. CPI(ML) PB Member Swapan Mukherjee was also present on the stage.

Addressing the rally, Comrade Prakash Karat underlined that the Modi Government had ushered in ‘acche din’ only for Ambanis and Adanis, while the Government was accelerating the offensive on the poor people. He hailed the Left assertion in Punjab as marking a new beginning. Comrade Bardhan called for a powerful Left assertion against the Akali-BJP Government of Punjab. Comrade Pasla spoke of the inspiring legacy of Bhagat Singh, and tasked the Left with carrying forward this legacy. He said the battles of the people could only be fought with the independent assertion of the red flag – and the huge response to the Left parties’ rally showed the potential for this.

Among the demands raised by the Rally were Rs 3000 as old age/widow pension; strengthening the Public Distribution System; Rs 15000 as minimum wage; and steps to curb the illegal activities of drug mafia and sand, gravel, transport and cable mafias.

Below is the text of the CPI(ML) Liberation General Secretary’s speech at the Chetawani Rally:

Red salute to all of you for coming here in such large numbers and demonstrating the growing unity of the Left with such great power and spirit. All of us present here are worried about the thirty-nine Indian workers lying trapped in Iraq. The government at the Centre is keeping mum about their actual conditions. We call upon the government to ensure their speedy and safe return to India.

Narendra Modi and his party had promised to bring back black money from foreign banks in 100 days. Every Indian had been promised 3 lakh rupees on account of repatriated black money. Now six months later, the whole issue has been sealed in an envelope and Modi now says he does not know how much black money is there in foreign banks. We are here to hold the govt accountable on its promise of repatriation of black money.

While the issue of black money is being sought to be given a quiet burial, black laws are being invoked on every pretext in the name of tough governance. Even as the state has armed itself to the teeth with draconian laws ranging from the AFSPA to UAPA, the Akali-BJP govt of Punjab seeks to truncate and deny the democratic right to assemble and agitate in the name of protection of public property. We have assembled here in this ‘chetavani rally’ to reject the autocratic fiats of the Akali-BJP govt and assert our democratic rights.

The new government is turning out to be India’s most brazenly pro-corporate government. Mukesh Ambani, who described the Congress as ‘apni dukaan’ as we know from the Radia tapes, literally pats Modi on his back even as Modi takes Gautam Adani to Australia to secure his coal venture in Australia funded by $ 1 bn loan from India’s premier public sector bank SBI. The Planning Commission has already been dumped, the coal sector is being opened up for private commercial mining, and FDI is being worshipped as the biggest god while prices continue to rise through the roof.

Meanwhile whatever limited legislations were there to protect peasants and workers, and land, livelihood and environment, are being systematically subverted to give a totally free hand to big Indian corporates and foreign MNCs to grab our resources, loot our money and exploit our labour. We must expand and strengthen the unity of workers and peasants and job-seeking young people and fight tooth and nail against this economic onslaught and save our resources and rights from the clutches of the Ambanis and Adanis and their government.

It is not just the economy and our hard won democratic rights which are under attack, the Sangh brigade is working overtime to impose its communal, patriarchal, sectarian and obscurantist agenda in the spheres of education, culture and mass media. This all-out attack on our resources and rights, on the history and harmony of the people, is being camouflaged as good governance and better days. This devious, disastrous design must be defeated.

We know Punjab did not buy into this hype during the Lok Sabha elections. Punjab did not grant majority to the Akali-BJP combine. Punjab refused to elect the man who as India’s finance minister is now busy spearheading the corporate raid on our resources while defending black money like our previous governments. Breaking the bipolar domination of the Akal-BJP combine and the Congress, Punjab expressed the quest of the people for a democratic alternative, giving the fledgling Aam Aadmi Party the dramatic windfall gain of as many as four seats. It is now for the Left ranks, for the heirs of Kartar Singh Sarabha and Bhagat Singh, to carry forward this quest beyond the faltering steps and retreating politics of the AAP to the clarity and bold assertion of the radical democratic aspirations and agenda of the people.

Time was when the ruling classes had proclaimed the victory of green revolution in Punjab. But the fable of agrarian prosperity soon gave way to the labyrinth of terror as Punjab was subjected to the terror spiral unleashed by the Khalistanis and the KPS Gills. When the terror spiral slowed down and came to a halt, the world found Punjab in a state of crisis, with the agrarian poor reeling under the combined burden of accumulated debt and acute social oppression. The burden has been rendered heavier by the near-epidemic proportions assumed by the hazards of cancer and drugs.

The united and determined struggle being waged by the labourers and small farmers of Punjab is the way to free Punjab from the clutches of agrarian crisis and heightened corporate plunder. Hand in hand with the agrarian struggles we have the assertion of the  workers and employees, of the youth and women. Let the united strength of the Left in Punjab take this struggle to a new height and inspire the resurgence of the fighting Left through the length and breadth of India.

Long live revolution.

Glory to Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh and all other great martyrs of Punjab.

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