On National and International Situation

cooperation and united struggle. With the CPI(M) pushed into an oppositional role in West Bengal and also in national politics, the prospect of issue-based broader Left unity has improved objectively. But signs of the CPI(M)’s renewed tactical proximity to the Congress, especially in the wake of the recent Congress-TMC split-up, and the CPI(M)/CPI record of privileging unity with bourgeois parties over Left unity remain major hindrances.

24. While almost all bourgeois parties and their governments exhibit a veritable policy consensus, it is encouraging to see popular protests gather momentum on a whole range of issues. Some recent agitations, like the resistance of adivasis against land acquisition for POSCO in Odisha or Nagari in Jharkhand, protests against Jaitapur and Kudankulam nuclear plants, against Paramakudi police firing in Tamil Nadu which killed 7 dalit labourers, the acquittal of the perpetrators of Bathani Tola massacre in Bihar and the massacre of Dalits at Dharmapuri, rapes of Dalit women in Haryana, and struggles of Maruti workers in Gurgaon have stirred the democratic opinion across the country. Organising and strengthening the range of such struggles by all means is a task of crucial importance at the present juncture. Movement for human rights and citizen activism on various issues is a growing trend and while demarcating ourselves from the narrow and avowedly apolitical or anti-political framework of many NGOS espousing such causes we must have no hesitation in welcoming and supporting various democratic concerns and citizen campaigns.

25. Unresolved statehood demands too continue to give rise to powerful popular agitations. The struggle for Telangana has witnessed massive participation of students and youths. Faced with a popular upsurge the UPA government had promised to accept the demand only to go back on the commitment. The report submitted by the five-member Justice Srikrishna committee on the Telangana statehood issue has also kept all options open. Two other statehood demands have been lying unresolved for years in the hills of West Bengal and Assam. The tripartite accord replacing the erstwhile Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council by the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration has failed to satisfy the Gorkha people and the demand for a Gorkhaland state to resolve the identity crisis of the Gorkha people remains very much alive. We support the CPRM, which broke away from the CPI(M) in the 1990s over the issue of Gorkhaland and is now a constituent of the AILC, in its attempts to keep the red flag flying in the Darjeeling hills in the midst of the movement for a separate Gorkhaland state.

26. The hill districts of Assam – Karbi Anglong and NC Hills, now renamed as Dima Hasao – have also been home to a protracted people’s movement demanding the creation of an Autonomous State as promised under Article 244 A of the Constitution of India. With successive governments refusing to heed the voice of the democratic movement, the peaceful movement gave way to armed insurgency and the demand for a separate state under Article 3 gained in strength. The government has responded by signing separate tripartite accords with two rival factions of DHD in Dima Hasao and with UPDS in Karbi Anglong. These accords have however proved to be utterly inadequate and deceptive and the situation on the ground has not improved at all. The aspirations for democracy and development of the people remain unfulfilled and the movement continues for an Autonomous State or a separate Hill State. While strengthening its independent and comprehensive political role, the CPI(ML) is ready to cooperate with other forces of the statehood or autonomy movement in the interest of harmony and democracy in the region and rights and welfare of the people.

27. Statehood demands in Vidarbha and Bundelkhand also have
a long history and considerable popular support. While rejecting
the thesis of small states invoked usually in the name of better governance, we support the cause of federal restructuring including formation of new states to fulfil longstanding popular demands. The formation of a second states reorganisation commission can be the best way of resolving these demands in a time-bound and holistic

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