Successive governments at the Centre are violating a basic tenet of the Constitution, socialism, and running the country on a capitalist agenda as per the dictates of the World Bank, IMF, and multinationals, former Delhi High Court Chief Justice Rajinder Sachar has said.
Inaugurating the national conference of the Socialist Party (India) here on Friday, Mr. Sachar said all politicians were favouring the capitalists at the expense of the poor. The neo-liberal regime was widening the chasm between the rich and the poor nations and was even promoting discrimination within the poor nations. The growth story being boasted of by the Prime Minister was also unfounded. While claiming to register six to seven per cent growth, the rate of unemployment also was growing.
The capitalists in the country were wielding cash worth Rs.5 lakh crore and they were keen on investing it abroad. None had questioned their source income or asked them to invest it in the country. This could have helped the nation to go ahead without foreign direct investment (FDI).
He urged the party workers to emulate socialist veterans like Ram Manohar Lohia and Jaya Prakash Narayan who had proved themselves as mass leaders to fight against the neo-liberal policies.
Veteran leader and former MP P. Viswambharan said that much more than financial instability, the ethical demoralisation confronting the nation was a matter of great concern.
Mahatma Gandhi enriched politics with ethics, but the Central government and even the entire society had become basically unethical. Delhi had become the national capital of rape and India, the international capital of corruption. While staking claims of development, the nation continued to be under-developed, he said.
Mr. Viswambharan reminisced that a socialist meet was being held in the State after a gap of 37 years. Socialists who strayed into the Congress and the BJP could not be billed under that name anymore.
The genuine socialists were those who continued in the Socialist Party (India), he said.
National president Bhai Vaidya presided.
