THE LOKSABHA ELECTION AND THE LEFT
-- Tapan Sen
The
General Elections for the 16th Lok Sabha is going to be held in the
background of a crisis in the economy and the society as a fallout of the hot
pursuit of the neoliberal policies by the successive governments at the centre,
particularly those led by both Congress and BJP.
In
the run up to the electioneering, both the Congress led UPA and BJP led NDA who
appear to be main contender of power at the centre, have been asserting their
commitment to the same neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization and
globalization, despite their pernicious impact on the life and livelihood of
the mass of the people. The Corporate run media is also batting for the same
model of neoliberalism with the dubious intent of influencing the peoples’
choice to be restricted to these two options.
Among
other political forces, beyond these two formations, the Left parties remain to
be the only consistent and firm opponent to the anti-people and anti-self-reliant
neoliberal policies from the very beginning. And the Left parties opposed with
vehemence those policies, not merely in Parliament and legislatures, but in
actions as well, through numerous countrywide agitations and strikes involving
several crores of people. Even the state governments run by Left parties,
despite all limitations under the present uni-federal structure took several
important pro-people steps on relief and rights for the common people which
demarcate from and militate against the neoliberal policies. The trade union
movement in the country irrespective of political affiliations also came together
on the street in holding militant agitations and strikes both at the national
level and sectoral level/factory-gates/workplaces in opposition to the grievous
fall out of those policies on their lives and livelihood. In organizing
opposition and agitations jointly by the trade unions, Left forces took the
leading initiative.
Warnings and Exposure by the Left
From
the day one, the Left parties worked diligently among the people to expose the
anti-people and anti-self-reliant character of the neoliberal policy regime,
authored, piloted and sought to be imposed on the developing countries
including India by the imperialist-backed international financial agencies. It did
forecast that these policies would neither benefit the mass of the toiling
people nor the country in the least, rather would make her dependent on the
international finance capital enmeshed in the world’s capitalist majors,
impinging and intruding upon her sovereignty, not merely on economic matters
but also on political and foreign policy issues.
Through
last three decades’ pursuit of the same neoliberal policy regime, every aspect
of the Left’s forecast on the impact of neoliberalism on the people and on
country’s economy stands totally vindicated. The poverty got widened and
deepened among the mass of the people, and wealth amassed by handful of the
rich and big-business class multiplied multiple times, giving rise to the most
obscene inequality on the one hand and bringing about severe squeeze on the
purchasing power of the people on the other. As a consequence, contraction of
the domestic market and the resultant gloom and decline in employment
generating investment and growth rate is making the situation further worse for
the people. People from all walks of life were made to
suffer severely owing to the neoliberal policy-induced drive of drastic cut in
public investment/expenditure in health, education, social welfare etc and
subsidies on food, fuel and fertilisers. On the other hand, huge pilferage by
the big-business and corporates from the national exchequer was being allowed
through huge tax concession every year as well as non-payment of tax falling
due after all those concessions, through privatization of national assets at
depressed prices, and through various instruments of contracts and corruptions.
And in this process, resources and wealth created by working people are being
transferred to handful of big-business/corporate entities, both foreign and
domestic while mass of the populace find themselves worse off in every passing
day. Neoliberal policies acted as instruments of looting the people and
national resources for private gains and also for the gains of those in
governance who facilitate this process of loot.
The
votaries of neoliberalism with the support of corporate-run media have been
trying to manufacture consensus among the political forces on this neoliberal
direction of the economic policies. But, the consistent struggles by the Left
and the working class movement against the same policies and their fall out on
the people through numerous agitations and strikes etc involving several crores
of people have been able to develop a different kind consensus of opposition
among the mass of the common people against various facets of neoliberal
policies like privatization, on land-related matters, PPP in public services,
suppression of wages and trade union rights, contractorisation, FDI in retail
trade etc. And this got reflected in vacillation among other non-Left political
forces also who are otherwise not vocally opposed to neoliberal policies. Such vacillations got reflected in debate in
Parliament where almost all the political parties including many allies of UPA
spoke against FDI in retail trade, PFRDA Bill and many other issues.
Building Awareness and Consensus
against Neoliberal Policies and Politics
This
consensus being developed among the working people for fighting against the
anti-people neoliberal regime of loot and plunder on people and the country
through consistent struggles have to be carried forward. This struggle has to
be heightened for reversal of this anti-people regime and to put in place the
alternative people centric policies which would ensure growth with distributive
equity and that alone can make the growth sustainable. And this alternative
inevitably coincides with the Left’s visions on development. Only the Left
forces can provide for such alternative since it is the Left which consistently
fought against every aspects of neoliberalism from the very beginning. The
working class movement, therefore must carry the message to the working people
at grass root level to defeat both the Congress and BJP led combines decisively
and support the Left parties wherever they are in the fray and in other places
those candidates who commit to fight against the policies of deregulation,
privatization and globalization and also against communalism. We have to make people at the grass root
level vocal and assertive against the policies and politics of neoliberalism
and that is the biggest task before the working class in the forthcoming
electoral battle.
Attacks on the Left
At
the same time, the severe and heinous all round attacks being faced by the Left
parties from the right wing forces in their stronger areas have to be
understood and combated resolutely by involving mass of the people in a big way. A peoples’ resistance against the assault on
Left has to be developed. Because the assault on the Left is in real sense the
attack on peoples’ right to live with dignity.
During the last couple of years, Left forces have come
under constant attack through various ways not only in West Bengal but also in
Kerala, Tripura and in many other states in the country. The form of attacks
varies from place to place depending on the local situation. In West Bengal it
is in the form of brutal physical attacks after the regime change in 2011; in
Kerala it is mainly in the form of unprecedented malicious campaign against the
Left forces in collaboration with corporate run media to confuse and also
create disruption. Even in Tripura, despite there being no regime change, the
atmosphere of West Bengal was and is being sought to be recreated which is
being successfully resisted by the
people. In Telengana, the major Left party opposing in principle the
bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh are being targeted for attack with chauvinistic
slogans. Malicious and misinformation
campaigns are unleashed against the Left all over the country. In this context,
Such multi pronged and multidimensional attacks are bound to intensify further as
the date of poll comes nearer.
The attacks on the trade union and democratic rights
assumed a new dimension in West Bengal. Immediately after the last assembly
elections and the formation of the TMC government, violent physical attacks
were unleashed on the trade unions, particularly on CITU and other mass
organisations of peasants, students, youth and women by the armed TMC hoodlums.
Left supporters are being forced to desert their houses in villages and towns
in many parts of the state. The police
remained silent spectators in most of the cases. Trade union offices are being
set on fire and ransacked, Left supporters are being physically attacked, women
including the anganwadi employees are molested and tortured, houses set in fire
and many of our comrades have been killed. In many areas, contract workers
owing allegiance to CITU unions were thrown out of employment and new set of
workers are engaged at reduced wages in connivance with the contractors. An
atmosphere of terror is sought to be created to maim the Left opposition and
democratic movement. Such a situation bears ominous portent for democracy and
indicates the fascistic design to suppress the class and mass organisations in
this strong Left bastion. It is aimed at weakening and marginalising any
opposition to the anti people measures in the same neoliberal direction being
unleashed by the TMC led government in the state.
The strategy of the ruling clique led by TMC in West
Bengal is no different in character from that of the corporate serving ruling
class in other states. The difference is in degree and content of atrociousness
and criminality in view of the Left’s stronger base in the state. That is why
the attack has taken the character of physical violence aimed at elimination of
the Left. That is also featured by total intolerance to any dissent against the
state government on the one hand and letting loose the gangs of criminals and
goons to reign on the human habitats on the other. And therefore, attacks are
no more limited to Left alone, it engulfed the common peoples’ life in entirety.
The alarming rise of crime, indiscriminate rape in broad-day light and killing
of the victim, violence against women, attack on educational and cultural
institutions has made the state occupy almost a top slot in those respects
among all the states in the country. Such an anarchic situation reveals the
lumpensation of politics and governance in the midst of crisis ridden economy
and the society. And in such a situation, in the face of fast disillusionment
and isolation from peace-loving people, the ruling clique led by TMC is banking
upon their project of forging and manufacturing consent and/or support forcibly
by rigging the election through violence. In most of the school committees’ or
college governing body’s elections, in the election in large cooperative
societies etc in the state, violence has been resorted to by TMC bandwagons to
capture those committees and governing bodies. The most recent incidents are
that out of 222 colleges, only in 36 colleges the students’ organisations other
that the TMC sponsored one could file their nomination for union elections,
that too partially. More than 30
activists and supporters of the left parties were murdered in the run up to the
recently held Panchayet elections in the state and in most of the places a
large section of electorates could not cast their vote. And after all these,
Left candidates elected in the Panchayet elections are being threatened and
tortured either to tender resignation or to join TMC by those hoodlums. And now
in the run up to the election campaign for Lok Sabha, in many places in the
state, violent attacks on the offices of the Left parties and their village
level campaigns have already started becoming as almost an every-day
incident.
Offensive
against People
It would be wrong to consider or comprehend such
violence and brutalities against the Left as mere sporadic acts of revenge by the party in power. In many
districts, tenant peasants are forced to leave their land and land reforms
implemented during the Left regime are sought to be reversed. The former
landlords and jotedars are trying to gain control on lands by evicting the
tenant peasants with the help of TMC led administration. Peasants are being
deprived of even the minimum support
price and remunerative prices for their produce as the state government is
seeking to procure rice through the rice mill owners or other private agencies
who are usurping government funds by compelling the farmers to make distress
sales. While trade unions are being
attacked and terrorised, the employers’ class, in the private sector in
particular, have become more aggressive in suppressing the rights of the trade
unions and workers. The head of the state government did mince no words expressing
her total intolerance to right to strike and also called upon to “finish” the
oldest and largest organisation of the state govt employees, the State
Coordination Committee. The pro-people democratic changes in the economy and in
various social, educational, cultural and coorperative institutions brought
about by Left-ruled Govt, which led to economic, political and social empowerment
of the common people at the grass-root in the process of land reform, operation
barga, panchayati raj with the financial and administrative empowerment of
elected panchayats, expansion of trade union rights etc, are under attack in
West Bengal today. These benefits and rights to the people are sought to be
reversed to favour the handful of rich landlords and employers’ class by the
TMC led right wing regime. The physical attacks on the Left forces, trade
unions, kisan sabha and other class and mass organisations are designed for eliminating
resistance against such right wing reversals.
In the background of
the deepening crisis of the neoliberal order, totally vindicating the Left’s
assertion about its inhuman as well as destructive face, it is but natural that
Left politics will be the prime target of the right wing pro-imperialist
forces, the protagonists of neoliberalism. The Left politics not only offer a
viable alternative to the destructive neoliberal order but also possess the
potential to build up resistance and fight it back to decisive defeat. That is
precisely the reason for such all round attack and conspiracies being
engineered by the pro imperialist forces and their cohorts against the Left,
particularly in their stronger bastions. The corporate media and all the
agencies of the neoliberal camp are utilised for this malicious misinformation
campaign to discredit and eliminate the Left, while at the same time pampering
the divisive and extremist forces, sometimes using ultra left slogans.
Therefore at this present
juncture, when the country is going for general elections, in the background of
severe resentment among the mass of the people from all walks of lives, the
neoliberal policies is to be put on the dock and the people should be made to
question the very purpose and efficacy of these anti-people policies while
deciding on their verdict. This can only be done effectively by the Left
because of its principled and irrefutable position on this policy regime.
That is why the Left
is under all round attack by the enemies of the people as well as enemies of
the nation. And in its stronger areas, the attack is more virulent, atrocious
and violent designed to eliminate the Left.
But in real sense, it
is not merely an attack on the Left, it is on the entire people and the nation as
such. Only Left is fighting resolutely for reversal of the pro-imperialist
neoliberal order and for people-centric democratic secular alternative.
Alternatively, continuance of this neoliberal order without any hurdles will
mean faster pace of pauperisation of mass of the people, change of control over
our natural and national resources hence of the economy in favour of foreign
corporate interests with domestic players as junior partner. This is bound to
recur crisis and slow-down with the increasing burden to be borne by the mass
of the populace. This will weaken and kill our self reliance and intrude upon
our sovereignty.
Only the Left can
mount effective hurdles against the pursuit of such disastrous policies as it
has been doing during last three decades, the influence of which had gone much
beyond the periphery of the Left broadening the prospect of militant resistance
against the same.
Secondly, the Left
work through the process of empowering people with knowledge, consciousness and
confidence to assert themselves. Even the focus of administration of the
Left-run governments always has been to consistently empower people at the
grass root and create confidence in them to assert and lead and that
empowerment at the grass root continues to be the main source of strength for
the Left. The attack on Left in West Bengal in particular and also in other
places is meticulously designed for disempowerment of people and destruction of
the process of democratisation of society and the institutions relating to
that.
Defend the Rights of the People, Defend Democracy
To combat such
attack, people are to be made to understand that only Left is not under attack,
attack is being engineered on the entire people, on every individual through
the ongoing violent machination for manufacturing consent and manipulating
support destroying the democratic process and institutions. It is the right of
every individual citizen of the state, men and women alike to live and opine
freely with dignity, which is under attack. It is the right of every woman to
remain protected from beastly attacks and also the right to lodge complaint on
such attack with dignity and receptivity from the concerned authority, the
right to get justice with compassion, which is under barabarous assault. It is
the right of every contract worker not to get evicted from employment, it is
right of every farmer and tenant-farmer to work on his land without being
extorted heavily by the local political goons, it is also their right to get
the right price for their produce without paying gratification which is under
onslaught. It is the right to respectability and autonomy for every
educational, cultural and social institutions which is being outraged every day
and so on.
And the task of the
trade union movement and the working class in general is to carry that message
and realisation to people through an organised widespread person to person,
house to house approach in every habitat, every factory gate, in every
workplace and relate to their own experience. That will definitely generate
confidence among all to defend their democratic rights to express and opine and
also to defend the democratic process from the machination of the ongoing
lumpen-raj backed by vested interests.
Let us pledge to
undertake the task with all seriousness in the forthcoming political battle. We
will overcome.
20th March
2014
No comments:
Post a Comment