The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday attacked the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government for pursuing policies that “exclude” a vast majority of people from access to food, education, jobs and social security and growth of a few.
Setting the tone at the extended Central Committee meeting that began here, party general secretary Prakash Karat said the four-day session will take stock of the political situation in the country and chalk out the political line to help the party tackle the current situation and meet the various challenges.
Without naming Sonia Gandhi and top party leaders, he charged the Congress leadership and the government with speaking hypocritically about “inclusive growth” when the policies it pursues “are designed to exclude the vast majority.”
“India presents a shameful spectacle of having the world's largest number of hungry and malnourished people and the government granaries have foodstock which is allowed to rot,” he said. “We have been demanding food security for citizens of India but what the government ensures is food security for rats of India.”
Targeting the economic policies of the Manmohan Singh gvernment, he said the inequalities in income and growth had grown sharper.
“India now has the dubious distinction of having some of the richest people along with a substantial number of the poorest people in the world.”
Disputing GDP growth rate as a reliable index of progress, he said the neo-liberal policies led to primitive accumulation and the enormous growth of the capital and assets in the hands of a narrow strata. These policies were designed to help big businesses make super profits.
The other features of the policies included low growth in agriculture sector, which employed half of the country's workforce; reversal of land reforms, promotion of corporatisation in the sector and withdrawal of State support for peasantry; push to open foreign direct investment in banking and insurance; and increased attacks on the working class.
“The agenda for all these anti-people policies is being propelled by the Indo-U.S. CEO Forum. What the chieftains of big business in the U.S. and India propose, the Manmohan Singh government accepts and implements,” Mr. Karat said.
Besides affecting the economic sphere, the neo-liberal policies led to every institution of the State and every pore of society getting “polluted and corrupted'' with nexus between big business and politics coming out in the open.
Public policy making was suborned to serve the interests of the rich and powerful strata. The IPL, telecom scam, the Commonwealth Games and mining scam of Bellary brothers were cases in the point.
“Corruption through the siphoning off of the public funds preys on the common people who find their rations and other entitlements vanishing into pockets of a corrupt and greedy nexus of bureaucrats-politicians-contractors. The corporate media has become the cheer leader for neo-liberal policies,” he said.
While the draft political resolution accuses the BJP of not only practising communal politics but also advocating neo-liberal policies, in his speech Mr. Karat focused on BJP-run State governments in Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh of targeting the minorities and seeking to deprive them of their rights as citizens.
The situation in Jammu and Kashmir came in for special mention.
Mr. Karat said the protests brought out the intensity of alienation of the young people against the Indian State.
Asking the Central government to immediately initiate the process of dialogue with all sections in the valley, he said a solution could be found only if there was recognition that the problem could not be resolved though conventional means.
“The people of Kashmir have to be assured that their identity and special status is expressed through a new political framework in which maximum autonomy is the bedrock''
