IT News
Imphal, July 29
This 24th Party Congress of the CPI is going to be held from 14th to 18th October, 2022 in the city of Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.
CPI Party Congress takes place every three years but due the spread of COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, the party congress was not held.
A Press Communiqué issued at the press conference addressed by D RAJA, General Secretary, CPI said, “Since our last Congress, the BJP which is the political arm of the RSS, has returned to power at the Centre. The last few years have witnessed major assaults on our constitutional parliamentary democracy, discrimination against minorities, encroachments on the rights of SC, ST and women, polarization, privatization and brazen attempts at subverting our Constitution. BJP government has been relentlessly pursuing neo-liberal crony capitalism resulting in unprecedented concentration of wealth with the top 1% of the population. Inequality and unemployment have risen to alarming extent with the mismanagement of COVID-19 pandemic claiming lives and livelihoods of millions”.
The CPI statement said that the 24th congress of the Communist Party of India is taking place at a time when the entire world is going through a serious phase of imperialist assault, deepening systemic crisis of capitalism, growing contradiction among imperialist forces, alignment and realignment among different forces on regional and global scale, local wars, aggression, occupation, intimidation and worsening environmental conditions. The COVID-19 crisis again brought the inherent contradictions of capitalism to the fore and countries with a privatized healthcare system crumbled before the pandemic. Loss of lives, livelihoods, chaotic conditions experienced during the pandemic will have long-term social consequences, for example according to UNESCO, 90 percent children in the world experienced disruption in their education. However, the corporate pharmaceutical lobby took full advantage of this chaotic situation and realized huge amounts of super-profit by waxing fat on people’s misfortune. Nine new billionaires were created by big pharma monopolies which produced the COVID vaccines, instead of the public sector. Our neighborhood is also restive and unstable with economic crises moving towards deep political crises as in Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The menace of religious fanaticism, hyper-nationalism and hatred against minorities and marginalized sections are on the rise.
“India too, is not insulated from the developments on the globe. The COVID-19 pandemic and its mismanagement wreaked havoc in the country. The worst victims were the poorer sections of society who suffered loss of livelihoods and had to walk hundreds of miles due to the ill-considered and summary lockdowns. Peoples’ plight in accessing medicines, oxygen and other essentials laid bare all tall claims of development. Unemployment reached a historic peak of nearly 25% and labor force participation rate fell triggering a devastating chain of events for the economy, which is yet to recover from the pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis proved beyond doubt that the only political force which can give a sustainable and pro-people model of governance is the Left. The policies of the right-wing are based on profit and greed while the Left model is one of selflessly serving the people. In Kerala, the development model was reconstructed to effectively combat the pandemic. Its success was lauded all over the country and it received accolades from many international platforms”, it said.
The statement further said that the process of Liberalization, Privatization, Globalization that was put in motion in the early 1990s has resulted in unprecedented inequality of income and opportunities in the country. This trend was captured in the latest Oxfam Report aptly titled “Inequality Kills” which reported that 100-odd billionaires in India own more wealth than the poorest 55 crore people of the country. Public Sector is the solid bedrock of our economy which enabled the country to become self-sufficient in core sectors after getting freedom from colonial clutches. Historically deprived communities got opportunity and representation through reservation policies in the public sector. Systematic dismantling of the public sector under Modi is the result of ideological reliance on neo-liberalism with strong dosages of cronyism threatening our economic sovereignty and defeating the idea of social justice. Multi-national corporate giants with no social responsibility are plundering our natural resources. Our forests, mines, river and fields are at their disposal to exploit. Massive damage is being done to the environment in the search for profits. Capitalism has widened its net and seeks complete control over our lives. Recently withdrawn Farm Laws serve as a case in point. The Farm Laws intended to offer rural India to corporates on a platter. After capital intensive sectors of manufacturing and services, capitalism is looking forward to dominate agriculture and allied activities in the country. Unemployed and frustrated young men and women of the country are restive. We have seen large scale protests over employment issues. Recently, the government announced the contractual Agnipath Scheme for recruitment in armed forces. This amounts to nothing less than betrayal of promises made to country’s youth.
The renewed mandate BJP got in 2019 has emboldened the BJP-RSS ecosystem to pursue its agenda of Hindu Rashtra much more vigorously. The RSS-BJP are more aggressive now and they have effectively changed our secular parliamentary democracy into an elected autocracy with unprecedented centralization of power and authority. RSS-BJP’s disregard for dialogue and debate is visible in their attempts at undermining institutions, including constitutional ones like the Parliament and judiciary. Immediately after coming to power for a second term, the BJP Government unilaterally revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution gravely affecting J&K in the most undemocratic way. In December 2019, BJP brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 which seeks to completely alter the secular foundations of our republic by granting or refusing citizenship on the basis of religion. Every other day, the RSS-BJP are raising communally charged and polarizing issues. Whether it be Love Jihad or the Hijab controversy, they are losing no opportunity to turn our secular democracy into a theocratic ecosystem full with hatred for minorities. The recent illegal and unconstitutional trend of Bulldozing houses and properties belonging to minorities is a case in point.
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh’s Assault on the Idea of India is continuing with great vigor and state patronage. Our constitution has a well-defined structure for center-state relations. Constitution makers provided for a federal structure keeping in mind the diversity and aspirations of our people situated in various states of India but RSS as an organization is antagonistic to this diversity. Their idea of Hindi, Hindu, Hindusthan is monolithic and seeks to flatten out the cultural, linguistic and regional diversity of our country. The RSS is systematically attacking the minorities all over the country and now using state power to discriminate against them. The ideological fountainhead of the BJP, the RSS is a Brahmanical Manuvaadi organization which believes in Chaturvarna, the four-fold division of the society and in hierarchy between people. Consequently, attacks on Dalits and institutional discrimination have reached new heights after the RSS dispensation coming to power. Lackluster implementation of the Vth Schedule of the Constitution and the PESA Act remain serious issues infringing on the entitlements of the tribal population. Demand of conducting a caste census is gaining pace but the BJP is adamant on not including caste as a criterion fueling unrest among backward castes. Gender stereotypes are being further reinforced as part of the revivalist turn under RSS. Crimes and violence against women are affair as usual under the current dispensation, so much so, that many instances of BJP leaders violating women and the state machinery backing them have come to light.
Our economy is in shambles due to the aggressive imposition of neo-liberal policies on various sectors of the economy. The agricultural sector employs nearly half of the workforce in the country making it the most crucial sector for the livelihoods of the majority of our workers and our food security. Area under cultivation is becoming more and more fragmented affecting productivity and increasing costs. Faulty policies relating to fertilizers, exports and increased unemployment is putting strain on rural sector. Under the mining sector, incessant privatization and inefficient policy making resulted in the whole country witnessing coal shortages and consequent power cuts impairing civilian life and production both. Government’s understanding of the manufacturing sector is not reflective of the reality as a major chunk of our manufacturers is small-scale. These small-scale units faced the major brunt of demonetization, GST and summary lockdowns affecting their productivity and operations. Under services, nation-wide lockdown imposed on a four hours’ notice halted sectors like transport, hotel, retail trade, entertainment etc. completely. However, other non-physical contact-based sectors like finance, real estate & professional services have also registered a decline. the BJP promised to create 2 crore jobs per year but crores of people lost their jobs in the pandemic years. The retreat of the Public Sector and advances made by the private sector are already ringing death bells for secure and inclusive employment structure in India. In this context, to bring back people in the agenda instead of serving the corporates, the CPI proposes an Alternative Economic Program consisting of realigning macroeconomic priorities, eradication of poverty, overhauling the structure of the economy, generating employment and focusing on the social sector.
It should be underlined that Indian society is divided not just between classes with mutually antagonistic interest, we also have the caste structure which is resilient, stubborn & hierarchical and no revolutionary strategy can be formulated neglecting this hierarchical nature of Indian society which progressively diminishes equality of opportunity. Spread of new information technology again brought significant change in the composition of working class. More recently, the COVID-19 pandemic also brought changes in the nature of work. Patriarchy and consequent misogyny are major issues that are subordinating half of our population. We have to tackle the issues of class, caste and patriarchy to move forward for social emancipation and defeat the RSS-BJP comprehensively.
The COVID-19 crisis has shaken our society and we saw how our health infrastructure imploded before it due to overwhelming reliance on the private sector. Gap in education in the pandemic years, digital divide and increasing privatization of education is making education a distant dream for many. The instance of landlessness is increasing with precarious living standards prevalent in most of rural India. Landlessness and migration have complicated the very important question of housing and the crisis of unemployment is deepening before us. India’s ranking in the Global Hunger Index has seen a continuous downfall under Modi. Thus, it is imperative that the CPI establish public health, public education, land, housing, employment and food security as the fundamental demands of our agenda.
Following from this discussion, the agenda of the CPI and the opposition should be radically different from what the RSS is trying to achieve economically and socially. A left-of-center position is needed to cement the unity against the RSS-BJP. The Left will have to take initiative in forging this unity. We should be aiming at building a broadest unity of political parties, mass and class organizations and social movements in defense of our constitution and to intensify our united struggle against the decisive and poisonous policies of RSS and BJP. The CPI is clear about the role of the Left in defending the fundamental interests of the nation and its people. With this clarity of vision, the CPI has raised the banner of Left unity. The CPI believes that the unification of the Communist movement in India on a principled basis is the demand of the time for building a strong and independent pillar of the Left in Indian polity.
