People's Democracy

FOR the first time, the state capital Mumbai played host to the 17th Maharashtra state conference of the CPI(M), which was held from December 26-28, 2001 in the eastern suburb of Bhandup. 336 delegates and observers hailing from 29 districts of the state attended the conference, the highlight of which was an impressive rally on its opening day. The conference and rally were attended and addressed by two Politbureau members of the CPI(M) – Sitaram Yechury and S Ramachandran Pillai.

The conference venue was named after CPI(M) state secretariat member, CITU leader and former MLA K L Malabade; the conference hall after state committee member and AIKS leader Narendra Malusare; the conference dais after state committee member and CITU leader B P Kashyap; the public meeting dais after state committee member, AIKS leader and former MP Ramchandra Ghangare; and the delegates residential premises after central committee member and CITU-AIDWA leader Vimal Ranadive – all these five remarkable comrades having passed away during the four years since the last state party conference at Aurangabad in December 1997.

The conference began on December 26 morning with the flag-hoisting by veteran CPI(M) leader and freedom fighter Vithalrao Naik, followed by floral tributes to martyrs. A five-member presidium comprising J P Gavit, Suman Sanzgiri, Allabaksh Patel, Satyendra More and V V Asai was elected to conduct the conference proceedings. Reception Committee chairman Madan Naik, in a rousing welcome address, traced the glorious anti-imperialist and progressive traditions of Mumbai city.

Inaugurating the conference, Sitaram Yechury said, "After the September 11 terrorist attacks, US imperialism is redoubling its efforts to impose its hegemony over the world. The real purpose of the war that it has unleashed in Afghanistan is to gain control over the massive oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. It is the first time since the Second World War that all three major imperialist centers – USA, Europe and Japan – have been engulfed together in such a deep economic crisis. Their predictable response to it has been to shift the burden of this crisis to the developing countries of the third world and bring these countries even more firmly under the heel of neo-colonial exploitation. The policies of imperialist globalisation and the outcome of the WTO Doha conference make this crystal clear."

At such a time, said Yechury, "the need of the hour is a central government that will strongly resist and counter such imperialist machinations. But let alone resisting, the BJP-led central government is abjectly surrendering before imperialism in every sphere. Through its economic policies, it is making the life of the people unbearable. Through its communal conspiracies and its jingoism, it is threatening national unity. Its stinking corruption scandals, now extending even to the purchase of coffins for the Kargil war martyrs, are unprecedented in the country’s history. To throw out such a regime is the urgent political task of all patriotic people in India today."

After elaborating on the above themes, Yechury concluded by saying, "In such a situation, the responsibility on our party and on the Left has increased manifold. However much we struggle on economic and social issues, no real change is possible unless the working class, the peasantry and other toiling sections get prepared for a decisive political struggle. Hence there is urgent need for the unity of all Left, democratic and secular forces. Such a unity is being forged in the form of the Lok Morcha for the coming crucial elections in Uttar Pradesh. But if radical political change is to be achieved, the Left forces must wield decisive influence in such a combination. Such an alternative has been forged through intense and sustained struggle in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura. Maharashtra has a glorious heritage of progressive traditions. I hope that you will be successful in forging an alternative political force in your state as well."

After the inauguration, the conference paid homage to departed leaders of the party and the Left movement and also to progressive figures in the fields of art, literature and culture. The conference was then greeted by Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) general secretary N D Patil and by CPI state secretary Govind Pansare, both of whom dwelt upon various aspects of the political challenges confronting the state and the country and pledged to strengthen Left unity to meet these challenges.

CPI(M) state secretary Prabhakar Sanzgiri, while analysing the political situation in the state, underlined the need to forge Left unity and to form a third alternative through people’s struggles and principled positions. The inaugural session then concluded with the vote of thanks proposed by CPI(M) Mumbai committee secretary and state secretariat member Mahendra Singh.

In the delegate session the same afternoon, Prabhakar Sanzgiri placed the political-organisational report. All the delegates had been provided with a set of five main documents -- Political Report, Organisational Report, Appendices to Organisational Report comprising charts giving district-wise details, Mass fronts reports and Conference Resolutions.

While placing the political report, Sanzgiri outlined its gist. During the last party state conference, it was the Shiv Sena-BJP communal combine that was in power. It was thrown out by the people in the October 1999 assembly elections, despite the vertical split in the Congress and the formation of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). But since no combination got a majority, left and secular parties supported the INC-NCP combine to keep the communal forces out of power. Other parties joined the cabinet; the CPI(M) supported the government from outside. Along with the other parties, we became a constituent of the co-ordination committee of the Democratic Front (DF). On the two cardinal issues of opposition to globalisation and defence of secularism, we took clear-cut positions and conducted independent and united struggles. On issues like the Enron imbroglio, reactionary changes in labour laws and import liberalisation of agricultural products, the Left and secular parties led a massive united statewide struggle in 2001. A 50,000-strong rally was held in Mumbai on April 7. The Maharashtra Bandh of April 25 was a resounding success. Even trade union organisations ideologically opposed to us had to support the bandh call. The state government was forced to order a judicial inquiry into the Enron deal.

But, apart from this one exception, the performance of the DF state government has been disappointing; on many occasions it has clearly been anti-people. Increase in power tariffs, water and irrigation charges, house rents, health services and ration food grains, commercialisation of education and appointment of teachers on a contract basis, increasing closure of factories and declaring them sick leading to massive unemployment, freezing of DA and denial of bonus to government employees, the crisis facing the cotton-growing peasantry, the plight of sugarcane cutters - these are some of the glaring examples of the results of DF government policies over the last two years. The life imprisonment sentence passed on CITU leader Dr. D L Karad and his nine other worker comrades on the basis of a spurious case prepared by the police, was the last straw.

Even on the question of implementation of the Srikrishna Commission Report, there has been inaction. The communal forces ignited the Malegaon riots and spread communal poison to the adjoining rural areas. Thus the DF regime has failed even in its primary aim of checking the communal forces. In fact, the policies of this regime have helped to strengthen the communal forces, as was seen in the recently held statewide municipal council elections. The above spate of anti-people decisions were taken and implemented, completely ignoring and bypassing the DF co-ordination committee and negating the 51-point DF common minimum programme.

Of course, considering the basic class character of both the Congress factions, there is nothing very surprising about all this. In a particular political situation, for the first time our party had to take the decision to support a Congress state government from outside to keep the communal forces at bay. Now this regime has completed two years in office and we have seen its performance. Hence, from our class angle, and in the interest of the working people, we are now left with no choice but to withdraw support to this government and take our positions strictly on an issue-to-issue basis. We are also withdrawing from the DF co-ordination committee. At the same time, we shall remain vigilant to see that the communal forces will not get a chance to return to power.

If a third front is to be forged through struggles to counter both the SS-BJP and the INC-NCP, it is necessary that the other Left and secular parties also take the same political line. We have told them so several times, we have also submitted a note on the above lines. We hope that they will take a positive approach and will join us in the arena of struggle against the attacks that are being launched on the people.

While placing the organisational report, Sanzgiri took stock of the profile of party membership, the state of mass organisations, the quality of party members, ideological work, political education, party journals, cultural work, the importance of party rectification, strengthening party state centre functioning, party finances and other related organisational aspects. In order to be able to face the coming political challenges, he stressed that it was necessary to greatly strengthen and streamline all the above aspects of

the party organisation.

The chart given elsewhere in this page will provide some idea of the changing profile of the party and the mass organisations in Maharashtra during the four years since the last state conference :

The combined membership of all the mass organisations increased from 3,34,866 in 1996-97 to 3,83,739 in 2000-01 i.e. up by 14.6 per cent.

The whole of the second day of the conference, December 27, was taken up by a lively and enlightening discussion on the political-organisational report, the discussion being interspersed only by some of the conference resolutions. A total of 77 delegates, including 12 women, took part in the discussion that lasted for over seven hours. The delegates further enriched the report with their suggestions and criticisms.

While speaking on the political report, almost all the delegates supported the line taken by the state committee with regard to the DF regime, supplementing this with their own experiences of the growing misery of the people. At the same time, they also launched concerted attacks on the BJP-led central government and also on the SS-BJP conspiracies in the state. They stressed the need to forge a third front in state politics and for this, they also underlined the necessity of increasing the independent strength and influence of the CPI(M) manifold.

While speaking on the organisational report, delegates spoke freely and frankly on the basis of the principle of criticism and self-criticism. While urging that there should be major improvements in various aspects of the party organisation, they also pinpointed the weaknesses, deviations and wrong tendencies within the party at various levels and the need to firmly combat them. Generally, the discussion on the organisational report was healthy – it showed both the awareness of the need for party rectification and the importance of maintaining party unity.

The conference also adopted several important resolutions that dealt with major political, economic and social issues, thus setting the direction for future struggles and campaigns.

On December 28, which was the last day of the conference, after the secretary’s reply to the discussion, wherein he clarified several points, the delegates unanimously adopted the political-organisational report amidst cheers and slogans. The conference elected a 49-member new state committee which in turn unanimously re-elected Prabhakar Sanzgiri as its secretary. Of the 49 members, 9 have been elected to the state committee for the first time. The new state secretariat will be elected after the 17th Party Congress in March. The conference then elected 12 delegates and 4 alternates to the 17th Party Congress. It also elected a 3-member state control commission, which elected V V Asai as its chairman.

Convenor of the credentials committee Chandrakant Yadav placed the credentials report, some of the highlights of which were as follows:

Of the 336 delegates and observers from 29 districts, 34 were women, i.e. 10 per cent.

Class origin: Working class – 50, Agricultural workers – 58, Poor peasants – 123, Middle peasants – 47, Rich peasants – 4, Middle class – 54.

Year of joining party: Before 1947 – 5, 1947-64 – 16, 1965-76 – 45, 1977-90 – 180, 1991-2000 – 80, After 2000 – 10.

Presently working in: CITU and other trade unions – 103, AIKS – 123, AIAWU – 25, DYFI – 41, AIDWA – 22, SFI – 12, Others – 10.

There were 114 whole-timers and 137 of the delegates had jail experience of varying periods. 84 delegates held elected positions in various bodies. 285 were subscribers to party papers.

In his concluding speech, Sitaram Yechury congratulated the delegates for the many positive aspects of the conference, clarified certain political-organisational issues and expressed the confidence that the Party would surge ahead in Maharashtra in the years to come.

After the vote of thanks by secretary of the Reception Committee Hemkant Samant, the state conference concluded with the singing of the Internationale.

To conclude, a few words about the hectic preparations in Bhandup area and in Mumbai city that went to make this conference a great success. A week-long "Parivartan Yatra" was organised by the party throughout Mumbai to propagate the message of the conference and the political stand of the CPI(M). It held several good meetings in various parts of the city. An important part of this Yatra was the revolutionary songs presented by poet Sanjay Jadhav and his cultural troupe from Ichalkaranji.

Two enlightening lectures were organised in the city as a prelude to the conference – the first by Professor Prabhat Patnaik on "The Failure of Globalisation and the Need for an Alternative Economic Strategy" and the second by Prabhakar Sanzgiri on " Charvaka to Marx – The Changing Historical Context of Indian Culture". Both the lectures elicited good response from the people.

In Bhandup itself, two very successful programmes were held by the party – one was a "Kavi Sammelan" in which several democratic and progressive poets recited their poetry before a packed audience; and the second was a volleyball tournament in which leading teams from the city participated to enthusiastic mass response.

Needless to say, hundreds of activists of the party and mass organisations laboured day and night to decorate the area surrounding the conference with red banners, red placards, red flags, red bunting and red gates – turning the entire area into a veritable sea of red during the duration of this memorable state conference of the party.