A concerted anti-Communist and anti-Left offensive has been launched by the ruling classes in the country in general, and West Bengal and Kerala in particular, and this needed to be fought back, The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said on Monday.
“West Bengal and Kerala represent a political movement towards [the] socialist alternative, and both the governments were an outcome of it. The defence of these two States is not of the governments, but the political movement and to define the direction of India's future,” CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury said at a press conference here after the extended Central Committee meeting adopted a resolution specific to these States.
The resolution noted that the Assembly elections in the two States, due in May next year, would be a major battle between the forces representing the interests of workers, social justice, secularism and the country's sovereignty and the forces that represent the interests of big capitalists, landlords, the rich and the vested interests that sought a strategic alliance with imperialism and used communalism, ultra-Left anarchy and divisive politics to achieve their objectives.
People of the country needed deliverance from the groaning burdens being cast upon them by neo-liberal economic polices. There was a need to strengthen the country's secular democratic foundations. An alternative policy trajectory, allowing the country to realise its potential being denied by neo-liberalism and communalism, was also required.
Mr. Yechury said the CPI(M) would redouble its effort to fight back the concerted anti-Communist and anti-Left offensive. He called upon all progressive sections to join the battle and ensure the success of the Left Front in West Bengal and the Left Democratic Front in Kerala.
The resolution said that though they functioned under the limitations of the Constitution, the West Bengal and Kerala governments took steps to reduce poverty and improve the standards of living. It cited a World Bank report holding up West Bengal as the best in the country in poverty reduction. The two governments, backed by powerful Communist-led popular movements, were championing the rights of people. They ensured that the livelihood standards were not gravely eroded by the pursuit of neo-liberal policies by the Union government.
The resolution said:
“This consistent anti-imperialism positions and the interests of the Indian people and the country taken by the CPI(M) continues to expose the Indian ruling classes, who seek a strategic partnership with imperialism.
“The pro-people measures taken by the Left-led governments…also expose the exploitative character of the Indian ruling classes by demonstrating that even within the existing system, greater relief can be provided to people.
“From a combination of all these factors, the Indian ruling classes have mounted a concerted offensive against the CPI(M), in its strongest bastions, in order to weaken the resistance to their unbridled loot through the neo-liberal economic trajectory.”
To defeat West Bengal's Left Front in the May 2011 Assembly elections, an alliance of all reactionary forces, led by the Trinamool Congress, was sought to be forged and all rightwing forces, including the communal and fundamentalist elements, foreign-funded NGOs and corporate media have joined the Maoist-backed Trinamool in this effort, it said.
The resolution noted that success of these forces sought to completely negate the advance made by the democratic movement and paved the way for restoration of the earlier forms of exploitative order.
In Kerala, the Congress-led UDF was trying to consolidate all communal and caste forces around it. “Sections of the church are openly interfering in political affairs by conducting an anti-Communist campaign. Muslim and Hindu extremist forces are bracing themselves to disturb communal harmony in order to create political polarisation,” it said.
