The Gorakhpur units of CPI (ML) and AIARLA jointly organized a Jan Sammelan ‘Naye Bharat ke Vaaste, Bhagat Singh-Ambedkar ke Raaste’ on 3 April 2016 at Ambedkar Park in Langdi Gulriha village under the Bhagat Singh-Ambedkar Sandesh Yatra campaign. Speakers addressing the function called for an enhanced struggle to realize the India of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar’s dreams.
Inaugurating the conference, National Secretary of Jan Sanskriti Manch Manoj Kumar Singh said that today the RSS and BJP are claiming to teach ‘nationalism’ to the inheritors of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar, whereas the truth is that the RSS had nothing to do with the freedom struggle and never struggled for the rights and issues of dalits, workers, farmers and women in independent India. He pointed out that RSS-BJP had done nothing except to cause divisiveness among the people of the country and strengthen the caste system. Describing the freedom struggle in detail, he said that Bhagat Singh and Baba Saheb had nurtured a vision of ending inequality at every level in the country and establishing a society free from oppression, and spent their entire lives working for the fulfillment of this vision. Today it is up to us to take their struggle forward and achieve the India of their dreams.
Former President of Gorakhpur Journalists’ Press Club Ashok Choudhury spoke about the prevailing conditions in education, health, agriculture and labour and said that a conspiracy is on today to deprive the country’s poor youth of education. Apart from education, budgetary cuts are also being made in health and other social security projects, resulting in dire distress for the poor. He cautioned the people about the RSS-BJP’s attempt to co-opt the country’s icons as their own.
Advocate Shyam Milan spoke of the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula and said that the youth of the country would not let Rohith’s martyrdom go in vain and would give a befitting reply to the Modi government which supports Brahminism. CPI(ML) district Secretary Rajesh Sahani spoke in detail about the aim of this campaign by the Party, and said that the Modi government in its 2 years in power had attacked farmers, workers, intellectuals and youth, and now it has launched a murderous attack on freedom, in the name of ‘nationalism’. Even programmes organized on Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar are being attacked because they are afraid of the ideas and thoughts of these two icons. These attacks are being strongly protested and we must strengthen these protests further. Presiding over the meeting, Com. Shriram spoke about the attacks on dalits in and around Gorakhpur and called upon dalits and the poor to join the CPI (ML)’s struggle against these attacks. The conference was also addressed by Com. Ajay Bharti, Ramanand, Manorama, Vinod Paswan, and others. AIARLA district Secretary Vinod Bharadwaj conducted the proceedings.
