[Marxistindia] Central Committee Communique

[news from the cpi(m)]

January 31, 2021
Press Communique
 
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met online
on January 30 & 31, 2021.  It has issued the following statement:
 
Kisan Struggle
 
The Central Committee hailed the continuing massive kisan struggle demanding
the repeal of the retrograde farm laws and the legislation of MSP for all
crops as the legal right of all farmers in the country.  
 
The Central Committee extended its full solidarity and support to this
struggle.
 
The mammoth Republic Day tractor parade saw the participation of many lakhs
of farmers in over a lakh tractors that peacefully moved on the agreed
routes for the parade.  In all states in the country, similar parades and
other actions of solidarity took place in a big manner.
 
The isolated untoward incidents that occurred on the Republic Day cannot
detract the focus from the main demand for the repeal of these laws.  These
incidents, handiwork of agent provocateurs, some with established links to
the BJP, have been denounced by the entire movement and the country.
 
Repression:  Following the same methodology that the RSS-BJP employed to
disrupt massive people's peaceful movements against the CAA etc., armed
goons were sent under the protection of Delhi police to attack the kisans
peacefully sitting in protest along Delhi borders.  However, this enraged
both the kisans and the general people, who came in larger numbers to join
the protests forcing these goons to leave.
 
As has been the practice of the Delhi police under the Union Home Ministry,
the perpetrators of such violent attacks are not prosecuted while the
victims have criminal cases foisted on them.  25 FIRs booking over 30 farmer
leaders, who were engaged in talks with the government, on charges of
rioting, criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder and robbery have been filed.
The Central Committee denounced this repressive action by the BJP government
and Delhi police and demanded that these false cases be withdrawn forthwith.

 
Targetting Journalists: The BJP through its state governments in Uttar
Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka and in Delhi where the police is
under the Union Home Ministry, has intensified attacks against those
journalists who have been reporting truthfully the events connected with the
farmers' protests.  Such efforts to intimidate and terrorise journalists has
been going on for some time  under the BJP administrations in many cases.
But since January 28, FIRs have been filed against nine Indian journalists
on charges of sedition and nine other provisions of law, including promoting
communal disharmony, insulting religious beliefs, assertions prejudicial to
national integration etc etc.  Reputed senior journalists have been slapped
with these charges on the basis of their personal tweets on the social
media.  This is reprehensible and smacks of efforts to browbeat, intimidate
and harass the media. 
 
The Central Committee strongly condemned such actions and demanded that FIRs
be withdrawn immediately.  
 
While condemning this repression, the Central Committee reiterated that
these farm laws must be repealed in the current ongoing budget session of
the Parliament. Subsequently the government must discuss agrarian reforms
with the farmers and all stakeholders and formulate fresh proposals, if any,
for the consideration and deliberation of the Parliament through its
established structures of parliamentary committees.
 
The Central Committee directed Party MPs to work towards the repeal of these
laws in the ongoing budget session of the Parliament.
 
Growing People's Miseries
 
Galloping Unemployment:  A conservative estimate of CMIE shows the loss of
nearly 150 lakh jobs in the organized sector alone. Of these, nearly 100
lakhs are graduates and post-graduates.  This comes on top  of the ruination
of the informal sector and the large-scale loss of livelihoods of crores of
people.
 
Crippling Price Rise:  In the midst of the economic recession and galloping
unemployment, people's miseries are mounting by the crippling price rise of
all essential commodities, particularly petrol, diesel and cooking gas.
Fuel prices continue to be hiked indiscriminately on a regular basis.  India
has the highest rates of taxation on petroleum products in the world.  
 
The Central Committee calls upon all Party units to organize protests
against this.
 
Economic Survey
 
The voluminous Economic Survey robs the relevance of this exercise. The
stark evidence of the colossal government failure in protecting India from
either the pandemic or its devastating economic effects is concealed through
statistical trickery. Preposterously, this disastrous handling is hailed as
`far sighted' policy response that has saved both lifes and livelihoods.
This is a propaganda and spin exercise obfuscating the destructive impact of
government policies on people's livelihood.  
 
In a bizarre manner, the worst GDP contraction in the world of minus 23.9
per cent in the first quarter and a minus 7.5 per cent, on top of this, in
the second quarter, 2020-21, are shown as evidence of a V-shape recovery!
If there is any recovery at all, it is a K-shaped recovery where the rich
get richer and the poor get poorer, as revealed by the latest Oxfam Report,
"The inequality virus".  The richest billionaires in India increased their
wealth by 35 per cent when millions of the poor lost jobs and are suffering
from hunger, malnutrition and depravation during this year.  This is the
reality of `reforms' which is concealed and misrepresented by the Economic
Survey.
 
Forthcoming Budget
 
It is universally recognised that any recovery would be possible only
through massive hikes in governmental expenditures. Any government that is
responsive to the need to ensure economic recovery and improve people's
welfare should massively hike public investments to build our much-need
infrastructure which will generate huge job opportunities. When these youth
start spending their salaries, domestic demand will rise kick-starting the
process of a recovery.
 
That is what the people want but not what this BJP government will do since
it is singularly pre-occupied with mercilessly looting India's national
assets and promoting its crony corporates.
 
23rd Congress of CPI(M)
 
The Central Committee decided to begin the process of the elaborate
inner-Party exercise that begins from Party's basic unit, the branch, and
culminates with the Party Congress.  Branch conferences will begin from the
first week of July 2021 after the forthcoming Assembly elections.  The 23rd
Party Congress that was scheduled to be held in April 2021 had to be
deferred due to the pandemic/lockdowns and the Assembly elections in Kerala,
West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Assam.  The Central Committee aims to convene the
23rd Congress in the first quarter of 2022, preferably by the end of
February.
 
Central Committee Call
 
The Central Committee decided that all units of the Party will observe a
fortnight-long campaign all over the country in the second half of February
2021.  This will be on issues that are destroying India's Constitutional
order and economic foundations through the sharpening of communal
polarization; the loot of national assets; large-scale privatization; price
rise; abolition of labour laws, galloping unemployment etc., while
strengthening solidarity with the ongoing farmers' struggles and exposing
the false propaganda of the RSS/BJP.
 
The Party will mobilise larger sections of the people in struggles and
solidarity actions of the working class, the peasantry and all other
sections of our people.
 
The Central Committee decided that the main focus in the coming period would
be to defeat the BJP in the forthcoming assembly elections, ensure the
return of the CPI(M)-led LDF government in Kerala, work for a Left, secular
democratic alternative in West Bengal, defeat the BJP-AIADMK alliance
ensuring the victory of the DMK-led front and increase Party's influence in
the Assam assembly.  
 
 
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