CPI(M) kick-starts centenary celebrations with call to resist communal forces

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury addressing a large gathering of left party activists to mark the centenary celebrations of the Communist Party in India, at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on October 17.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) kick-started the centenary celebrations of the formation of Communist Party in India (formed in Tashkent on October 17, 1920), with a renewed call to resist the onslaught of divisive communal forces in the country. It has announced that it will build a popular people’s movement on issues relating to safeguard of the Indian Constitution, protection of individual liberty, mass lynching, and the economic ruination and the consequent misery of the common people.

Speaking on the occasion to a massive gathering at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata on October 17, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury stressed the need for the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad” to be the rallying cry against communal forces. “The slogan was coined by the freedom fighter and Urdu poet Maulana Hasrat Mohani…. The slogan, later immortalised by Bhagat Singh and thousands of communist martyrs, has remained the lode star for communists,” he said. Polit Bureau members Surjya Kanta Mishra, Biman Bose and Mohammed Salim, and the eminent academic Chaman Lal also spoke on the occasion.

Addressing a press conference today, Sitaram Yechury said the country was facing a right-wing political offensive that could only be countered by a Left-wing response. The battle line, he said, was between Hindutva nationalism and Indian nationalism. “We shall take up the challenge and seek the support of all the people, of political parties as well as non-political parties to come forward and save India. Otherwise we are on the precipice of a complete collapse,” he said.

He pointed out that there was a major fall in the growth of real income in both rural and urban areas. In rural India it had dropped from 30 per cent last year to 25 per cent, and in urban India it had come down from 16.2 per cent to 7.3 per cent. “Rs.2.15 lakh crore has been given as tax concession to the rich corporates, while the reason for the economic recession today is the lack of purchasing power in the hands of the people,” said Yechury. He alleged that every single institution under the Constitution was under assault, including Parliament itself. The need of the day, according to him, was not the coming together of political parties to take on the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) at the Centre but the formation of a “mass platform”.