The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on November 10, 2015.

MEDIA reports that the first two days of the forthcoming winter session of parliament, ie, November 26 and 27, 2015, would be devoted to observe the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar.  The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) calls upon the central government to use these two days for carrying on the unfinished agenda and vision of Dr Ambedkar on the issue of social justice. 

The government must, in these two days, come prepared with legislative business at least on the following:

1)         Enacting a law for extending the current constitutional provision of reservations to the private sector.

2)         The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Bill 2015 is pending before the Rajya Sabha after being adopted by the Lok Sabha. This should be legislated during these two days.

3)         Enact laws providing statutory status to the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Sub-Plan. The fund allocations should be based on the enumerated population of SCs/STs.

Though this is not a special session, as the CPI(M) demanded, these two days must be utilised for ensuring that the attention of the entire country is focused on this shameful scourge of Indian society – inequality on the basis of birth and descent – and on the urgent need to take comprehensive and strong measures to eliminate it.

This is the least that the Indian parliament can do to carry forward Dr Ambedkar’s vision. This is the best way to observe this anniversary.