CPI(M) Organises Jyoti Basu Centenary Lecture

New Delhi, 30^th July - THE Communist Party of India (Marxist) organised a lecture by noted economist Prof. Prabhat Patnaik on "Capitalism, Inequality and Globalisation" in New Delhi's Constitution Club on July 30, as part of the Jyoti Basu birth centenary celebrations.

In his short welcome address, CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat said Jyoti Basu symbolised the working class movement in India and its achievements. He said Basu, who was first elected to the Bengal Provincial Assembly in 1946 from the Railway Workers constituency, was an outstanding leader of the Communist movement in India.

Giving the Jyoti Basu centenary lecture, in the light of French economist Thomas Piketty's empirical book Capital in the Twenty-First Century which has attracted much international attention, Patnaik said "inequality has a tendency to increase under capitalism", and it is intimately linked to the process of globalisation.

Patnaik argues, though Piketty's hypothesis that inequality is set to rise in the coming year is agreeable, his theoretical basis -- the "neo-classical" paradigm -- within which his argument is set is a largely discredited one; and even within this paradigm his specific position is based on assumptions which are highly untenable.

The theoretical basis of Piketty is "wrong" having "dangerous political implications", he says.

The "neo-classical" paradigm, Patnaik said, blames trade union activities for persistent unemployment and advocates for "labour market flexibility". He says it is a pity that Piketty, despite his concern with wealth inequality, adopts this theory that only serves the agenda of corporate capital. He said the votaries of capitalism want to stamp out trade unions through "free hire and fire", which the BJP government in Rajasthan is at present trying to introduce.

Patnaik says mobility of capital in the present age of globalisation and large-scale privatisation have contributed to the weakening of trade unions. In support of his claim, he says while, in the USA, 33 percent of workforce in the public sector is unionised, it is only seven percent in the private sector.

He says the expansion of big capital across the world and, on the contrary, restriction of workers' movements to a particular country have further weakened the effectiveness of trade unions.

Patnaik says while world wealth and income inequalities are all set to rise sharply in the coming years as Piketty prognosticates, but, he argues, these are for reasons which are exact opposite of what the French economist believes.

He argues that the rise in income and wealth inequalities could not be attributed to, as Piketty has done in his Capital, the slowing down of world population growth leading to tightness in world labour markets, but for precisely the opposite reason – namely that there will be no tightness in world labour markets and no diminution in world labour reserves.

The programme was well attended. Veteran CPI leader A B Bardhan was among others who attended the lecture.

Convention at COIMBATORE Remembers Comrade Jyoti Basu

By M Girija

People's Democracy, November 24, 2013

COMMEMORATING the birth centenary of Comrade Jyoti Basu, a great communist leader, the Coimbatore district committee of the CPI(M) organised a convention on November 18, with the party’s general secretary, Prakash Karat, delivering the main address. While celebrating the birth centenary of Comrade Jyoti Basu, Karat said, we should draw lessons from the life and work of this great revolutionary. India has seen many communist leaders who made great contributions and sacrifices. But Comrade Jyoti Basu was one of the few leaders who stand tall among them. He spent 70 years in the communist movement. He joined the Communist Party in 1940 and passed into history in 2010. In these seven decades of communist life, this great leader made very significant and pioneering contributions. He returned from London as a barrister but began to work as a trade union functionary among the railway workers in Bengal, becoming the secretary of the railway workers’ union of Bengal. Though he was the chief minister of West Bengal for about three decades, he had his association with the trade union movement intact, and remained a leader of the CITU till the end.

JYOTI BASU IN LEGISLATURE

The second major contribution of Comrade Basu was in legislative sphere. He got elected to the Bengal Assembly in 1946, before independence, from the railway workers’ constituency. From 1946 to 2010, except for a period of five years following the rigged elections in West Bengal in 1972, he remained a member of the West Bengal assembly, and showed how a communist should function in a legislature. While he was a leader of the opposition, he led many struggles and echoed the voices of struggling workers and others inside the assembly. In all the major struggles, Comrade Basu made it a point to personally lead them, both within and outside the legislature. Once he stayed inside the premises of the assembly for three days lest the police should arrest him, in case he came out, for leading the teachers’ struggle.

When he became the chief minister of West Bengal in 1977, we saw how he carried forward the land reforms there. After being a part of continuous struggles when he was the deputy chief minister in United Front government earlier, he told the peasants and Kisan Sabha members to go and occupy the lands the landlords were holding illegally. Through this combination of outside struggles and legislative action, Jyoti Basu showed the way as to how communists could utilise such avenues. Between 1967 and 1969, when he was the home minister of West Bengal, he told the police would not interfere with any strike conducted by workers, nor it would be used to stop the peasants from occupying the surplus lands in landlords’ illegal possession. His lasting legacy as the chief minister of Left Front government is of the land reforms that were implemented in Bengal, when 11 lakh acres of surplus land were taken over and distributed among the landless farmers and 1.5 crore tenants got security of tenure by registration.

Karat further said: “History will also remember him as a leader who was most consistent in the defence of secularism. Everyone knows that after the assassination of Smt Indira Gandhi in 1984, Sikhs were killed in thousands in the whole of North India. But Comrade Basu did not allow a single attack on the Sikh community in Calcutta or West Bengal. Similarly, in the 1990s, when communal forces began the movement for Ram temple in Ayodhya and communal riots broke out all over the country after Advani’s rathyatra, Jyoti Basu said not a single person would be allowed to be attacked in West Bengal, and that he was ready to invite the army if necessary.” Comrade Basu was not only a communist leader; he was a symbol of the Left, democratic and secular forces in our country. That is why today, when we are observing his birth centenary, we must pledge to continue to uphold the values, principles, politics and ideologies which he represented, Karat added.  

Speaking on the current politics, Karat said today in our country we have a government which is following policies that are causing great sufferings and distress to the people of the country. In this context, he touched upon issues like the excruciating and unabated price rise, especially in case of food items and other essentials; favours being meted out to the big capitalists and foreign multinationals; agrarian crisis and the farmers’ sufferings, rising unemployment etc, with education, housing, healthcare etc all going beyond the reach of the common man. Unless we are able to reverse these harmful neo-liberal and anti-people policies being pursued by the UPA government, there can be no real relief and no real development and progress for the people of our country. “That is why the CPI(M) and other Left parties have put forth alternative policies,” Karat added. 

In the context of the Lok Sabha elections which are nearing, Karat also attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party which claims to be an alternative to the UPA and the Congress, while Narendra Modi is going around the country posing as if he is already the prime minister elect of the country. But, Karat said, the BJP is not a whit different from the Congress in terms of policies, and that we have seen in practice, e.g. in the BJP’s support to the UPA government on the issue of banking laws, privatisation of the pension funds etc.

Karat further said if the BJP today, under the leadership of Narendra Modi, is claiming to be better than the Congress, it is better in only one way --- Narendra Modi is a more ardent and vigorous supporter of the big business houses of our country. They talk about the Gujarat model of development for the country. But what does the Gujarat model mean?  Under Modi, all the big business houses – from Ambanis to the Tatas, Essars, Adanis –have been given huge concessions, free land, free electricity, tax exemptions and other concessions so that they could make super profits. This is the model of development which Narendra Modi wants to implement in the whole country. Another aspect of the Gujarat model, which Modi and BJP do not talk about, is how they organised attacks on and carried out the most heinous pogrom against the Muslim minorities in Gujarat in 2002, under the auspices of the Gujarat government. 

The CPI(M) leader also pointed out that even though the Congress and the BJP both say they would lead the government after the Lok Sabha elections, they have, taken together, not been able to get 50 percent of the votes in the last two Lok Sabha elections. As for the non-Congress, non-BJP parties, they command substantial support among the people and are successfully running many state governments. So we are confident that in the coming days the people will reject the UPA for its wrong policies and massive corruption and also the BJP for its equally corrupt practices in the states it is ruling and its communal politics. What is required is people’s mobilisation and struggle to demand alternative policies that are different from those of the Congress and the BJP. In this context, Karat also referred to the recent Delhi convention of 14 non-Congress secular parties and its significance.

Referring again to Comrade Jyoti Basu as an architect of land reforms in West Bengal, Karat said more and more people are losing their land today. According to the latest census figures of 2011, in the last ten years 35 percent of peasants have become agricultural workers, which means 35 percent more people have lost their land. That is why we say we have to still implement the land reforms and distribute lakhs of hectares of surplus land among the landless people and give housesites to lakhs of families. These are some of the alternative policies required in the country today.

Talking of the contours of a policy alternative, Karat included in it a minimum wage of Rs 10,000 per month for unskilled workers, more government spending on education and health, and taxing the rich for adequate resource mobilisation, among other things. It is through struggles on these issues that a political alternative to the Congress and the BJP would emerge, he added.

Concluding, Prakash Karat expressed confidence that the efforts of the CPI(M) and other Left parties would find a reflection in the coming Lok Sabha elections, and the non-Congress, non-BJP forces would get substantial electoral support.

CPI(M)’s Tamilnadu state secretary G Ramakrishnan and its Central Committee member A Soundararajan, MLA, also addressed the convention. Both of them recalled the memories of Comrade Jyoti Basu.  

The convention was presided over by U K Vellingiri and inaugurated by V Ramamurthi, secretary of the CPI(M)’s Coimbatore district committee. S Krishnamurthi welcomed the participants and Kesavamani proposed the vote of thanks.  

Earlier, a sum of Rs 10,08,500 was handed over to Prakash Karat by the Coimbatore district committee as the second instalment of the election fund donated by the people.

Calls for Defending Democracy

Jyoti Basu’s Centenary Observance

Kolkata, 8^th July:  THE birth centenary of Comrade Jyoti Basu began on July 8 with a call to defend the ideology he represented and tirelessly worked for.

The CPI(M) state committee organised a public meeting in Mahajati Sadan in Kolkata which was addressed by Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M) Biman Basu, state secretary and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Polit Bureau member of the CPI(M). Leaders of the Left Front and other Left parties were present in the meeting. Thousands of people gathered to attend and had to listen to speakers standing outside on the road.

Speakers recalled the contributions of Jyoti Basu in the Left movement and in Indian politics.

The question of democracy, for which Jyoti Basu fought a long battle, came to the forefront.  Prakash Karat said, ‘’West Bengal blazed a new trail in democratic decentralisation under the leadership of Basu through panchayati raj which was institutionalised much before the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Constitution. The spirit of democracy and the great experiment of democratic decentralisation which developed and flourished under Basu is now under severe and vicious attack.  We are in the midst of a panchayat election that was sought to be scuttled and sabotaged by the powers that today are ruling West Bengal. The people, the Left Front and the democratic forces in the state will defend the legacy of Basu, who made the greatest contribution to the deepening of democracy in the country. They will fight back all these anti-democratic onslaughts that have been launched over the past two years in the state.”

“If you look back at the career of Basu, there is no other leader, irrespective of political party who has shown such a capacity, vision and determination to show that India remains and will be a democratic, federal and secular country,” Karat pointed out.

Describing Basu as a leader who knew how to work in parliamentary arena, Karat said he showed how a Communist Party should integrate work in the parliamentary forum with the movement outside.

“The birth centenary of Basu should not be just an occasion for us to commemorate and pay tribute to his glorious life,” he said. It would be more meaningful to utilise the year-long observance of the leader’s birth centenary to spread the ideas he stood for, Karat suggested.

 “Whether it is a question of defence of democracy, defence of secularism or defence of working people, all contributing to a social transformation that will make India a more equitable and just society, this is what Basu stood for,” Karat said.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee recalled the early life of Jyoti Basu and said that after returning from abroad, he decided that the path of India’s liberation lied in liberation of the working class. Basu joined in the working class movement and worked among the dock and railway workers. Throughout his life, the ideology of working class was his ideological commitment.

Bhattacharjee said, Jyoti Basu brought the question of workers and peasants to the centrestage even within the legislature. His speeches within state assembly in support of peasants’ and workers’ struggles were historic.

Bhattacharjee recalled how steadfastly Basu defended secularism and thwarted any attempts by communal forces when the Left Front government was in office. He said, ‘’We are faced with a new danger again. On the one hand, it is Congress with neoliberal policies and on the other hand, BJP with neoliberal policies plus Narendra Modi”.  He added, the doors of this state have been opened to the BJP and Modi. This is frightening.

Bhattacharjee pointed out that the panchayats, which empowered the poor are under serious threat. He called upon the people and the Left activists to work hard to keep the panchayats in the hands of the poor.

Biman Basu, presiding over the meeting, outlined the struggling life of Jyoti Basu and how he built working class organisations despite heavy odds. He also reflected upon Jyoti Basu’s contribution to the cause of federalism in the country. It was Jyoti Basu who raised the demand of more powers to the states and brought the agenda to the centrestage of Indian politics.

CPI(M)  also announced a year-long programme on the occasion of the birth centenary of Jyoti Basu. ''A wider programme cannot be chalked out initially as panchayat election is round the corner and also considering the fact that people will be busy in campaigns and polls,'' Biman Basu said. He said the Party would project the life and activities of Jyoti Basu through seminars, posters, documentaries and an effort for political education.

On July 8, red flags were hoisted in all parts of the state. In some districts, processions with Jyoti Basu’s portrait were organised. In many areas, blood donation camps were organised.

Respects were showered on Jyoti Basu in state assembly too. Leaders of different political parties paid rich tributes to Basu, particularly recalling his democratic way of functioning both as the opposition leader and chief minister and how he used to treat criticisms respectfully.

But the longest serving chief minister's centenary celebrations were surprisingly missing from the Writers' Buildings, where the present government has been observing birth anniversaries of luminaries throughout the year.

People's Democracy,

July 14, 2013

Democracy under vicious attack in Bengal, says Karat

KOLKATA: The spirit of democracy and the great experiment of democratic decentralisation through the panchayati raj system is “under a severe and vicious attack” in West Bengal, general secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Prakash Karat said here on Monday.

“We are in the midst of a panchayat election, an election that was sought to be scuttled and sabotaged by the powers that today are ruling West Bengal,” he said at a memorial meeting to mark the launch of the birth centenary celebrations of the former Chief Minister and veteran Communist leader Jyoti Basu.

The people, the Left Front and all the democratic forces in the State will defend the legacy of Basu, who made the “greatest contribution to the deepening of democracy in the country… They will fight back all these anti-democratic onslaughts that have been launched over the past two years in the State,” Mr. Karat said.

West Bengal blazed a new trail in democratic decentralisation under the leadership of Basu through a panchayati raj syststem institutionalised much before the 73 and 74 amendments of the Constitution, he said.

“If you look back at the career of Basu, there is no other leader… irrespective of political party who has shown such a capacity, vision and determination to show that Indian remains and will be a democratic, federal and secular country,” he pointed out.

Describing Basu as a leader who knew how to work in Parliamentary fora, Mr. Karat said he showed how a Communist Party should integrate work in the Parliamentary forum with the rest of the country.

“The birth centenary of Basu should not be just an occasion for us to commemorate and pay tribute to his glorious life,” he said. It would be more meaningful to utilise year-long observance of the leader’s birth centenary to spread the ideas he stood for, he suggested.

Prakash Karat pays homage to the former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu 

on his birth centenary anniversary in Kolkata on Monday.

“Whether it is a question of defence of democracy, defence of secularism, defence of working people all contributing to a social transformation that will make India a more equitable and just society, this is what comrade Basu stood for,” Mr. Karat said.

He added that there would be a centenary campaign by the party to spread the leader’s message to the people.

Democracy under vicious attack in Bengal, says Karat - The Hindu

A Glorious Life and Example

By Prakash Karat

THE birth centenary of an outstanding Communist leader like Jyoti Basu should be an occasion to make an appraisal of the significant contributions made through the life and work of the leader and to draw up a balance sheet of the lessons and achievements of his political career.  It must then be used to educate the new generation of Communists and progressives, so that it helps them in their ongoing endeavour for a social transformation.

Jyoti Basu became a legend as a Communist leader  in his life time. No other leader of the Communist movement was known and respected by the people all over the country as much as Jyoti Basu. How did this come about?

Jyoti Basu’s name was synonymous with all the major currents of Left politics and the basic class movements.  Throughout his life as a Communist, he was associated with the working class movement.  After he came back from Britain, he joined the Communist Party and straight away began work in the railway workers trade union. Till his last years, he remained a leader of the CITU.

He became a symbol of the peasant movement when he utilised the United Front government of 1967-70 to unleash the land struggles and when he, as chief minister of the Left Front government, undertook the extreme land reform measures.  So his political activity involved both the  worker and peasant movements.

One of the distinctive contributions of Jyoti Basu was the way he integrated work  in the legislature with the people's movements  and workers struggles outside.  Jyoti Basu was elected to the Bengal legislature from a railway constituency in 1946 before independence.  From then onwards, for more than five decades, he effectively utilised his presence in the legislature for developing and strengthening the Party's influence and movements outside. When the Tebhaga movement of the peasantry began in 1947, Jyoti Basu extensively toured the districts where the movement was taking place for a first hand report and raised the issue effectively in the assembly.

In 1953, he became the secretary of the Provincial Committee of the CPI and continued in this post till 1961.  During these eight years, big movements took place such as the food movement of 1959 in which 80 people were killed in police firing and lathicharges.  Jyoti Basu, as secretary of the Party, was in the forefront of this movement while relentlessly raising the demands of the people on food inside the assembly.

Earlier, when the school teachers' strike took place in February 1954, many leaders of the school teachers association and the Party were arrested.  There was a warrant for the arrest of Jyoti Basu and the police kept a vigil outside the assembly on the opening day of the session to arrest him.  Jyoti Basu managed to enter the assembly and stayed for around a week inside the premises  where the police could not  enter.  He was able to raise the issue of the teachers strike inside the assembly and came out to attend the teachers rally and got arrested.  Here was a striking example of how Jyoti Basu, as a legislator, utilised the assembly to champion the cause of the working people.

Jyoti Basu was a man of great personal courage.  In July 1969, when he was the home minister, a mob of policeman invaded the assembly building, having been instigated to do so after a policeman was killed in a clash.  They smashed up furniture inside the assembly and entered Jyoti Basu's room. Jyoti Basu calmly faced the rampaging policemen and firmly told them to stop such behaviour.  Taken aback by his composure,  the policemen quietly left his room.

It was Jyoti Basu who showed how Communist participation in the state government should be utilised to strengthen the democratic movement.  During the two stints of the United Front government between 1967-1970, as the home minister, he did not allow the police to intervene in the struggles of the workers and the peasants.  During the land struggle which swept West Bengal, Jyoti Basu declared that  the government would not obstruct the peasants who were identifying the benami lands and taking them over. It is this experience which helped the CPI(M) to formulate its approach and tactics while working in the state governments.

The biggest contribution of Jyoti Basu came with the formation of the Left Front government in 1977, of which he became the chief minister.  The remarkable record of the Left Front government for over three decades owes a lot to  Jyoti Basu's leadership  of the government for an unbroken 23 years. It was under his stewardship that the road map for land reforms was chalked out and implemented.  These path-breaking reforms led to 1.1 million acres of land being  distributed to 2.5 million landless and marginal farmers and 1.53 million bargadars (sharecroppers) being registered and provided  security of tenure.

Side by side with the land reforms, the three-tier panchayat system revitalised by decentralisation of powers was instituted.  Much before the 73rd  and 74th  constitutional amendments, West Bengal showed the way in democratising the panchayat system.

An achievement which is taken for granted today is the establishment of a secular atmosphere in the state.  Bengal, before independence, witnessed the rise of communal politics and partition saw large-scale communal violence. But the advance of the Left movement and the establishment of the Left Front government laid the basis for a major transformation.  Jyoti Basu symbolised the firm adherence to secularism not only in West Bengal but the entire country.  All minorities felt protected and lived free from communal attacks.  The whole country praised the firm stand of Jyoti Basu which prevented any attack on the Sikh minority in West Bengal after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Semi-fascist terror was unleashed in West Bengal during the 1970s. More than 1200 comrades were killed during this period and thousands were forced to leave their homes.  Repression by the class enemies have to be faced by the Communist movement at various times. How successfully such repression and violence is faced determines the future of the movement.  Under the leadership of Jyoti Basu and Promode Dasgupta, the Party withstood this severe attack and did not get isolated from the people.  Today, when the Party and the Left Front is again facing severe attacks in West Bengal, the example of Jyoti Basu’s mature leadership at such a juncture should be a guiding light.

For seven decades, Jyoti Basu as a Communist saw various ups and downs in the international Communist movement.  But his commitment to Marxism never wavered.  Till the end he believed that socialism is the only alternative for humanity.

In the practice and development of the Communist movement in India, Jyoti Basu played a key role in many aspects. On how Communists should work  in legislatures; in implementing land reforms; in decentralising power through the panchayati raj system; in defending secularism and democracy.  Few leaders in independent India can claim to have  contributed to defending the rights of the working people,  deepening democracy and strengthening the secular principle as much as Jyoti Basu has done.

The year long birth centenary celebrations should commemorate this glorious life and work.