THE Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) began its three day session at Pragati Nagar in Hyderabad from January 19-21. On behalf of the Polit Bureau, General Secretary Prakash Karat placed the Draft Review Report on the Political Tactical Line, in the morning session. The meeting also adopted a resolution against the ordinance promulgated by the Modi government amending the Land Acquisition Act, which the Central Committee characterised as “utterly anti-farmer and anti- rural poor in its substance” (see box).

On the second day of its session on January 20, the Central Committee has issued the following statement:

Review Report Adopted

The Central Committee meeting on the second day adopted the Draft Review Report on the Political Tactical Line after a discussion. The Review Report deals with the past experience of the Political-Tactical Line and its implementation with a view to strengthening and expanding the Party’s influence and advancing the struggle for a Left and democratic front.

Draft Political Resolution

The Central Committee has adopted the Draft Political Resolution for the 21st Congress of the Party. The Draft was presented by the General Secretary Prakash Karat in the evening session on January 19.

After the discussions were completed, the Draft Resolution was adopted on January 21.

The Draft Resolution states that with the assumption of power by the Bharatiya Janata Party at the centre, the stage is set for a rightwing offensive comprising  an aggressive pursuit of neo-liberal policies and a full scale attempt by the RSS-led Hindutva forces to advance their communal agenda. Such a situation presages the threat of growing authoritarianism. The Draft Resolution sets out the course of action that the Party must undertake to fight this twin offensive.

Current Issues

The Central Committee condemned the steps to curtail the MNREGA, the cut in expenditure in the health and education budgets.

The Central Committee sharply criticised the Modi government for increasing the excise duty four times and thereby preventing the passing on to the people the benefits of the steep fall in international oil prices.

The Central Committee adopted a resolution against the Ordinance on the Land Acquisition Act which called for a broad based struggle against this attack on farmers’ rights.

The Central Committee also strongly opposed the activities of the Hindutva brigade all over the country. This multipronged effort to advance the Hindutva agenda involves such disruptive activities such as “reconversion”, targeting of minorities and threats to artists and writers like the persecution of Perumal Murugan in Tamilnadu. The Central Committee appealed to all democratic and secular forces to unitedly oppose these communal activities which threaten the secular-democratic foundations of the republic.

Protest Obama Visit

The Central Committee called upon all its Party units to join the Left parties call to protest against the visit of President Obama on January 24.

Resolution against Ordinance

On Land Acquisition Act

THE Central Committee of the CPI(M) condemns the Black Ordinance amending the Land Act of 2013, brought by the Modi government and calls for the widest mobilisations of the kisans and rural poor to force its reversal.

The Modi government has shown its contempt for parliament and democratic norms by adopting the ordinance route in its eagerness to satiate the demands of the corporates and the FDI.

 The ordinance is both authoritarian in its method and utterly anti-farmer and anti-rural poor in its substance.

The ordinance brings in a new chapter 3A into the Principal Act of 2013. This addition expands the definition of public purpose by including five new sectors, almost every project from irrigation to power and through another amendment to private hospitals and private educational institutions and exempts them from the necessity of getting consent from farmers whose land is being acquired. It does not differentiate between government and public sector projects from those in the private sector. Thus in effect it is even worse than the 1894 Act.

The ordinance also exempts all these projects from the necessity of a social impact assessment (SIA). SIA is an important process for an impartial assessment of how much land is actually required for a project, how many families are going to be affected, whether or not there is any alternative less-displacing land available and so on. It is known that corporates take over much more land than the actual project requires and also fudge figures of those affected. The ordinance also removes any limit on the time that the land can be held by the company which has acquired it, if it has not set up the project. The 2013 Act had kept five years as the limit after which the land would have to be returned.

 The ordinance permits easy acquisition of multi-cropped land by excluding a large number of projects from the entire Chapter 3 of the Act of 2013 which deals with this subject. This will undoubtedly bring not only distress to farmers who enjoy a good income when land is well irrigated and supports multi-cropping but will also have a negative impact on food security.

The ordinance is thus totally against the interests of farmers. The CPI(M) had been critical of the earlier Act of 2013 for being inadequate in its protection of farmers and other project affected sections. But this ordinance eliminates even the protections which were included in the Act after the struggle of farmers, their democratic organisations and the Left parties.

 CPI(M) units all over India have already started the struggle and campaign against this Black ordinance. The Central Committee calls for a broad based united struggle of all the political forces and mass organisations opposed to this onslaught on farmers’ rights.