In this Issue
The All India Left Coordination : Towards Realignment of Left Forces and Radicalisation of the Left Movement
Dipankar Bhattacharya
Four fighting organizations of the Left – CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM(Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala) – formed an All-India Left Coordination through a joint Convention held in New Delhi on August 11, 2010. The Convention adopted a Delhi Declaration with a 12-point agenda which will serve as a guideline for coordinated action and intervention by the four organizations in the coming days. In its Declaration, the AILC rejected both class collaboration/parliamentary cretinism and Left adventurism/anarcho-militarism and resolved to strengthen the Left movement by all means while exploring opportunities for broader Left unity and cooperation with democratic forces. As its first all-India action, the AILC called for observing August 20 as a National Day of Solidarity with the People of Kashmir and Protest against State Repression.
The AILC was certainly not formed overnight, it was the upshot of years of mutual cooperation and shared quest for a united platform to radicalize and rejuvenate the Left movement in the country. The CPI(ML)(Liberation) and LNP(L) have a history of working together for nearly two decades. Ever since the CPI(M) split in Punjab in the wake of the Thiruvananthapuram plenum in 2000 leading to the formation of CPM Punjab, CPI(ML) and CPM Punjab have had close ties of cooperation. The LCC (Kerala) of course came into existence only recently, but it was preceded by years of ideological struggle inside the CPI(M) and ever since it started taking shape as an independent organization, it evinced keen interest in becoming part of an all-India process of realignment and radicalization of the Left.
This united move surely marks a first step towards fulfilling a long-felt need. For much of the last three decades, the CPI(M) and CPI had virtually monopolized the Left space in the dominant media and naturally also in the layman’s perception. The CPI had a bigger presence than the CPI(M) in the Hindi belt while the CPI(M) dominated the show in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Over the last few years, the CPI has been reduced to a pale shadow of its past in the Hindi belt and now increasingly the CPI(M) too is facing a similar situation in West Bengal and Kerala. This marks both an opportunity and challenge for all sincere and radical forces of the Left to step up their role and dispel all notions of a ‘terminal crisis’ and ‘irrelevance’ of the Left in India. The AILC has its role cut out in this context.
The other significant feature regarding AILC is that it is not yet another proverbial case of ‘birds of the same feather flocking together’. Neither is it an attempt at unity of ML forces nor is it a case of erstwhile CPI(M) forces reuniting among themselves. Rather it is a case of historically diverse and also to an extent geographically separated streams of the Left seeking a common all-India ground in today’s critical situation. A closer look at the constituents of the AILC will bring out this important aspect.
Here is, for example, LNP(L) of Maharashtra which had branched out of the CPI in the 1940s questioning the CPI’s 1942 line, played an active and important role in subsequent years in many worker/peasant/general democratic movements in Maharashtra right from the Sanyukta Maharashtra Movement to the historic textile strike of the 1980s, and moved away again in the late 1980s from the parent Lal Nishan Party’s increasingly pro-Congress reformist stance to reiterate its Leninist moorings. This is what paved the way for close cooperation between the LNP(L) and the CPI(ML)(Liberation).
The CPI(ML) too has evolved in two different directions – while CPI(ML)(Liberation) has emerged as an all-India revolutionary communist party rooted in militant mass struggles, the PWG of Andhra Pradesh has moved away from the CPI(ML) stream to acquire a ‘Maoist’ identity by merging with the Maoist Communist Centre. As far as the CPI(M) is concerned, in the later years of 1970s, it had benefited considerably from the first phase of the CPI(ML) movement – the CPI(ML) base in many areas had returned to the CPI(M) and in states like West Bengal and Kerala, it was the CPI(M) which succeeded in appropriating much of the impact of the CPI(ML)-led struggles and the people’s desire for democracy following the dark years of semi-fascist terror of the Congress.
Yet the CPI(M) promoted a hostile attitude to the CPI(ML) and tried to suppress every voice of ideological dissent within the party as a sign of ‘Naxalism’. The CPI(ML) on the other hand always stressed Left unity on the basis of independent assertion, and today, Left forces coming out of the CPI(M) find a warm welcome from the CPI(ML) precisely on this common ground.
As noted in the Delhi Declaration, the AILC marks only a modest beginning. As of now, it is just a platform of coordination with a shared approach and understanding on most urgent issues of the day. But as representatives of all the four organizations remarked in the convention, it is a modest first step, which nurtured properly, may well grow into an important long march; a small beginning hinting at great possibilities of realignment and radicalization of the Indian Left. Let us carry it forward in this desired direction.
Delhi Declaration
All India Left Coordination
(Adopted at All-India Left Convention sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, and held at Constitution Club, New Delhi on 11 August 2010)
Recent years have been witness to an aggressive US imperialism pushing the world into renewed war and occupation as well as an unprecedented financial crisis. In the name of globalisation, imperialism has intensified attempts to appropriate and exploit the natural and human resources of the developing world, but while accentuating exploitation and disparities, globalisation has also led to intensification of all the inherent contradictions of global capitalism and new waves of popular anti-imperialist resistance the world over.
The Indian ruling classes have adopted a strategy of integrating India into this US-led imperialist order on economic as well as strategic plane. Reckless implementation of pro-imperialist, pro-corporate policies – coupled with the pro-landlord agrarian strategy being pursued since Independence – by the Indian ruling classes has pushed the country into alarming depths of an all-round crisis marked by relentless rise in prices, chronic mass hunger, widespread unemployment and rampant corruption. Even as tens of millions of the country’s poorest people reel under starvation, the debt-trap-turned death-trap continues to claim the lives of crisis-ridden peasants in their hundreds and thousands. Amidst systematic loot and siphoning of the country’s wealth and precious resources, the working people are being relentlessly exploited, displaced and dispossessed in the name of ‘development’.
The recent farcical verdict on the world’s biggest industrial genocide which happened a quarter century ago in Bhopal has unmasked a most reprehensible and thoroughly corrupt nexus among state power and corporate power undermining every principle of justice and human and national dignity. Meanwhile, the growing incidence of oppression of dalits and women and the shocking spectacle of ‘honour killings’ in the National Capital Region and its surroundings point to an ugly social reality beneath the gloss of glamourised and globalised development.
While the Indian people are seeking answers to these maladies and alternatives to these disastrous anti-people policies and the corrupt and criminalized political culture, the ruling classes and their parties, whether in power or in opposition, are making a clamour for greater liberalization to give more concessions to capital and a harder state to unleash more repression and restrictions on the people.
Against this backdrop, four fighting organizations of the Left, viz., CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM Punjab, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra, and Left Coordination Committee, Kerala, have resolved to come together and form an All-India Left Coordination with a view to strengthening the Left movement in the country.
While pursuing the goal of a countrywide Left resurgence, the AILC will focus on the following key areas of a democratic agenda:
(i) Resisting the whole gamut of neo-liberal pro-corporate pro-imperialist policies being followed almost without exception by all governments at the Centre and in the states, and fighting for an immediate halt to the ongoing spree of disinvestment/privatization measures and for curbing penetration of FDI in key sectors of our national economy and other sectors of strategic/national importance,
(ii) Opposing Indo-US strategic partnership and growing subordination of Indian foreign policy to the global hegemony of imperialist forces, US imperialism in particular; promoting friendly relations, especially people-to-people ties, with neighbouring countries, and uniting with the struggles of the peoples of the world against globalisation, war and imperialist machinations,
(iii) Fighting for an alternative path of self-reliant and people-centred development as against the present imperialist-dictated, corporate-driven and big capital-led ‘profit-centred development’ resulting in relentless rise in prices, growing hunger and unemployment, sharp regional and social inequalities, landgrab, displacement, resources-grab/deprivation and serious environmental degradation – an alternative that would promote relatively more egalitarian and employment-intensive and less energy-, resources- and capital-intensive path of development,
(iv) Fighting for a comprehensive policy regime ensuring fundamental rights to food, shelter, education, healthcare, basic amenities, work and social security for all,
(v) Fighting against every facet of agrarian crisis, for adequate protection of Indian agriculture from the adverse WTO diktats, for scrapping of SEZ Act 2005 and Land Acquisition Act, 1894, for thorough-going implementation of land reforms and promotion of small peasant-centred agricultural development,
(vi) Launching struggles for the nationalisation of wholesale trade of foodgrains and for creation and strengthening of a Universal Public Distribution System (PDS) for essential commodities of daily use as well as for subsidised agricultural inputs and automatic inclusion of all agricultural and other rural workers, small peasants, artisans, unorganised and contract workers in the BPL category,
(vii) Resisting the growing state-led assault on democracy, fighting for a democratic political solution of the long-standing problems of Kashmir, North-East and the Maoist insurgency, for scrapping of draconian laws like Armed Forces Special Powers Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, disbanding of Salwa Judum, and halt to Operation Green Hunt and anti-minority witch-hunt in the name of combating terrorism,
(viii) Resisting communal violence, and caste and gender oppression and fighting for minority rights and affirmative action for development of deprived sections within minority communities, and the rights and dignity of dalits, adivasis, women and all marginalized sections,
(ix) Fighting for labour rights for all sections of workers, especially the right to living wages, job security, universal health and social insurance, trade union rights including mandatory recognition through secret ballot and democratization of the workplace/industrial relations, adequate protection for migrant workers and unorganized workers including agricultural labour, and against contractualisation, outsourcing, hire-and-fire, and indiscriminate privatisation which are hallmarks of the neoliberal offensive;
(x) Promoting the women’s movement against patriarchy and oppression, to struggle for gender equality, justice, and women’s dignity, as well as equal rights and opportunities in society as well as in the workplace; resisting violence both within and outside the home; challenging obscurantist practices that demean women; resisting all attempts to curb women’s freedom in the name of upholding tradition or culture; demanding speedy legislation against sexual harassment in workplaces, ‘honour’ killings and sexual violence, as well as for 33% reservation in Assemblies and Parliament.
(xi) Promoting the student-youth movement to secure ‘right to education and employment’, demand a Common School System to ensure schooling of high quality for all, and resist commercialization and pro-imperialist restructuring of education and denial of democratic rights to the student community,
(xii) Promoting people’s cultural awakening against the corporate cultural invasion that denigrates women and working people, the feudal culture of ‘honour killing’ and various retrograde social and cultural practices that seek legitimacy in the name of tradition, fighting for democratization of social, professional and inter-personal life and supporting the progressive democratic aspirations of the intelligentsia.
The AILC will strive to build a countrywide movement over these issues while also fighting for the resolution of various pressing local problems.
The AILC rejects all kinds of fundamentalism, terrorism and national/sub-national chauvinism and upholds the values of democracy, secularism and social progress in every sphere of national life
Within the Left movement, AILC will fight against the trend of class collaboration and rightward drift and degeneration while rejecting the line of Left adventurism/anarcho-militarism.
To advance the Left-democratic agenda and strengthen the Left and democratic movement, the AILC will work consistently for broader Left unity and seek cooperation with various democratic forces including individual activists.
The formation of the AILC marks only a modest beginning and we appeal to all activists and well-wishers of the Left and democratic movement to join and help us in this endeavour.
All India Left Convention Held at New Delhi
A day-long All India Left Convention was held on 11 August 2010 at Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, New Delhi, jointly sponsored by CPI(ML)(Liberation), CPM(Punjab), Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) of Maharashtra and Left Coordination Committee (Kerala). With more than three hundred activists from across the country attending the Convention, the Speaker’s Hall was packed to capacity.
The convention was chaired by a four-member presidium comprising Comrades Ramji Rai, Bodh Singh Ghuman, K S Hariharan, and Bhalchandra Kerkar. The secretaries of the four parties - Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, Secretary, CPM Punjab, Comrade Bhimrao Bansode, Secretary, Lal Nishan Party (Leninist) Maharashtra and Comrade M R Murali, Secretary, Left Coordination Committee Kerala, and CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya – were also present on the dais.
Inaugurating the Convention on behalf of the four parties, CPI(ML) General Secretary Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya welcomed the gathered activists and leaders, and also briefly introduced each of the four parties. Outlining the ruling class assaults on people’s rights and democracy, and the range of people’s resistance movements, he said that real forces of the Left were naturally committed to championing these movements. The Convention aimed at addressing these issues and advancing these struggles by launching an All India Left Coordination to forge a closer unity and coordination among these movemental left forces. As a broad guideline for this coordination and unity, he said, the four parties had prepared a ‘Delhi Declaration’ to be discussed and adopted by the Convention.
Following the inaugural address, the ‘Delhi Declaration’ was read out – in English by Comrade Harkanwal Singh of the CPM Punjab and in Hindi by Comrade Ramji Rai of CPI(ML) Liberation. More than a dozen leaders and activists placed their views on the various issues, challenges and perspective outlined by the Declaration.
Addressing the Convention, AISA General Secretary Ravi Rai said that if peasants’ land was being grabbed for corporate loot, similarly students’ education too was a victim of corporate loot, and the students’ movement would resist the assaults on democratic rights – not just in campuses but in the whole of society. Comrade Kumarankutty of the LCC Kerala drew a shocking portrait of the Kerala CPI(M)'s growing forays into business and the blurring of the line of demarcation between communist politics and bourgeois commerce.
CPM Punjab leader Comrade Harkanwal Singh highlighted the need for an assertion of the revolutionary Left agenda at a time when the official Left had jettisoned that agenda. LNP(L) leader Comrade Uday Bhat spoke of the working class movement in Mumbai and Maharashtra, especially the revival of textile workers’ struggles against the corporate grab of mill land. Comrade V Shankar of the CPI(ML) expressed the hope that the emerging unity of fighting Left forces would facilitate the independent assertion of the revolutionary Left over the capitulationist politics of parliamentary opportunists.
CPM Punjab leader Comrade Raghvir Singh spoke about farmers’ resistance to imperialist agricultural policies imposed in the name of WTO. Comrade Uddhav Shinde and Comrade Raju Bauke of the LNP(L) spoke of the acute agrarian crisis in Maharashtra and other parts of the country where farmers were committing suicide. Comrade Inderjeet Singh Grewal (leader of the CPM Punjab’s trade union organisation, the CTU) spoke of the struggles against power privatisation in Punjab, and called for struggles to be intensified against the repressive anti-people and pro-imperialist policies of the Governments at Centre and States.
Comrade Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary of AIPWA, spoke about the assaults on women’s rights and freedoms in the name of ‘honour’, and also of how women were bearing the brunt of state repression in the ‘Operation Green Hunt’ areas. Comrade Malleswar Rao of the CPI(ML) spoke about the recent police firing in Sompeta, Andhra Pradesh, and the struggles against land grab and loot of mineral resources in Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.
After the detailed discussion, the Convention adopted the Delhi Declaration enthusiastically. Comrade Swapan Mukherjee of the CPI(ML) presented a series of resolutions which were also adopted by the house. The Convention adopted a resolution condemning the brutal repression and bloodshed of civilians in Kashmir, demanding a democratic political solution to the Kashmir issue and calling for a ‘National Day of Solidarity with the Kashmiri People’ to be observed all over the country on August 20, 2010. Other resolutions included one against the UPA Government's utter failure and callous attitude towards price rise, a demand for a probe into the corruption at the Commonwealth Games, and another demanding scrapping of the Nuclear Liability Bill. Another resolution adopted extended full support to the Central Trade Unions’ call for a General Strike on 7 September 2010. Comrade Swapan Mukherjee also outlined the plans for the AILC to hold Conventions at several state capitals and other centres, and also to send solidarity/fact-finding teams to various centres of people’s resistance.
The Convention culminated with the address by top leaders of the four parties. Comrade Mangat Ram Pasla, General Secretary, CPM Punjab said that the Left Coordination marked a small beginning, but one that was destined to grow big in the coming days. He said the four organisations were aware of their mutual differences but were determined to unite on the basis of the essential points of agreement. He called upon comrades to implement the Delhi Declaration with the commitment and courage that Bhagat Singh epitomised. LNP(L) Secretary Comrade Bhimrao Bansode gave a brief account of the historical evolution of the LNP(L) and said it had been overly preoccupied with trade union struggles but was determined to play a more active political role. Comrade Unnithan, leader of the LCC Kerala, presented a speech on behalf of his party, observing the degeneration of the official Left, and calling upon the Left Coordination to take up the banner of the heroic struggles of Punnapra Vayalar and Kayyur and the sacrifice of hundreds of communists – a banner that was being abandoned by the revisionist leadership of the CPI(M) today.
The concluding speaker at the Convention, Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, said that the Convention and the Coordination just launched represented a ray of hope for unity of the Indian Left movement. “Just as communists part ways at some turning points,” he said, “they can also unite at other junctures.” He said “Naxalbari was very much a product of the revolutionary tradition of the Indian communist movement - it was an attempt to resurrect Telangana when the ruling classes faced their gravest crisis after 1947 and Charu Mazumdar always described the CPI(ML) as the same Communist Party that produced the heroic martyrs of Kayuur and Telangana, Tebhaga and Punnapra-Vayalar. Today as circumstances around us are changing radically, we need to take a bold and forward-looking step towards realignment of all sincere, struggle-oriented and mass-based Left forces and rejuvenation of the Left movement to meet the challenges of the day.”
OBSERVE 20 AUGUST AS NATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY WITH KASHMIRI PEOPLE!
STOP THE MASSACRES IN KASHMIR!
FIND A DEMOCRATIC POLITICAL SOLUTION TO THE KASHMIR ISSUE!
In solidarity with the democratic aspirations of the Kashmiri people, we demand that the UPA Government:
• Ensure peace, dignity and democracy for the people of Kashmir!
• Scrap AFSPA - Lift the military shadow from civilian life in Kashmir!
• Ensure a Credible Democratic Political Solution to the Long-Standing Issue of Kashmir!
Friends,
In Kashmir, in the recent past, scores of young people have lost their lives in firing by security forces on street protests. Reports suggest that more than 50 people have lost their lives in this manner in the past two months. Why is Kashmir on the boil? What sparked off the massive street protests that Kashmir has been witnessing?
Of course, Kashmir has a long and shameful history of broken political promises and scuttling of democracy by Indian rulers. But this time around, it was no historical grievance that caused the upsurge of Kashmiri protestors. Instead, the protests began with demonstrations against the cold-blooded killing of three civilians at Macchil by security forces in a fake encounter.
On 11 June 2010 security forces opened fire and tear gas shelling on one such demonstration by unarmed civilians – and a tear gas canister caused the death of Kashmiri schoolboy Tufail Ahmad Mattoo. In protest against the killing of this boy, people came out in very large numbers in protest – but security forces fired on each protest, and the death toll of protestors rose daily.
Since then the street protests – with the visible participation of women and youth – have gained momentum with every instance of killing of people, especially children and teenagers, due to tear-gassing or firing by security forces.
Anywhere in the country, the killing of a child would spark off angry protests. When Kashmiri people do so, why are they branded as terrorists and anti-national miscreants and met with further firing and repression? Have they no democratic right to protest against excesses by security forces?
In Kashmir, what is most shameful is the Government of India’s attempt to suggest that the protests of thousands of people are all orchestrated by militants or anti-nationals. The attempt to deny the legitimacy or authenticity of the Kashmiris’ outrage and protests, and the stubborn continuation of a policy of repression of mass demonstrations, are only rubbing salt into the wounds of alienation and anger of Kashmiri masses. Draconian laws like Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act – AFSPA – are providing impunity to security forces who commit crimes like fake encounters and killing of civilians and yet get away scot-free.
After two months of silence as Kashmir burned, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh finally spoke. But, instead of acknowledging that crimes had been committed by security forces and that the Kashmir protests were genuine expressions of mass anger at injustice and repression, the PM merely promised various economic packages and on the key political question, has said that "autonomy can be considered if there is a consensus."
It is clear that in Kashmir, economic packages cannot assuage the sense of alienation, and are no substitute for justice. It is only if justice is done in cases of fake encounters and such human rights violations, draconian laws like AFSPA scrapped, and the military shadow lifted from civilian life in the Valley can some measure of trust be built. As for the political question, we recall that former Prime Minister Narasimha Rao had after all said "the sky is the limit" as far as autonomy for Kashmir is concerned. PM Manmohan Singh, rather than politicking on the question of autonomy by imposing consensus as a ‘conditionality,’ should come up with a credible political proposal of maximum autonomy – and initiate dialogue with all concerned sections including, above all, the people of Kashmir.
In solidarity with the democratic aspirations of the Kashmiri people, we demand that the UPA Government:
• Ensure peace, dignity and democracy for the people of Kashmir!
• Scrap AFSPA - Lift the military shadow from civilian life in Kashmir!
• Ensure a Credible Democratic Political Solution to the Long-Standing Issue of Kashmir!
All India Left Coordination
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