“Indian democracy is under siege from various reactionary forces. It is only the worker-peasant alliance that can lift this siege. The CPI(M) will leave no stone unturned in its endeavour to strengthen this class unity, and hence it calls upon all sections of the toiling masses to join hands with it”, said Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary, CPI(M), addressing a public meeting in a jam-packed auditorium at Kolhapur in Maharashtra on August 28, 2016.
Yechury was speaking on the topic “Indian Democracy Trapped in a Chakravyuha”  as part of the Party’s campaign in response to the Central Committee’s call to generously contribute funds in support of the comrades of West Bengal who are fighting savage repression of the TMC state government and its goons.
One Million Rupees to Bengal Solidarity Fund  
The CPI(M) Maharashtra State Committee had collected a million rupees and this was handed over to Yechury by state secretary and central committee member Narasayya Adam Master and central secretariat member Dr Ashok Dhawale. State secretariat member M H Shaikh and state committee member Dr Subhash Jadhav also addressed the meeting, which was presided over by Dr Uday Narkar, Kolhapur district secretary and state committee member of the Party.
As per the state committee decision, almost every single district in Maharashtra with a Party presence contributed its mite to the Bengal Solidarity Fund. The five districts that made the largest collections of over one lakh rupees each were as follows: 1. Kolhapur – Rs 1,75,000; 2. Mumbai – Rs 1,71,457; 3. Thane-Palghar – Rs 1,15,000; 4. Solapur – Rs 1,11,111; 5. Nashik – Rs 1,11,000. These were followed by Nagpur – Rs 50,000, Amravati – Rs 25,000 and Raigad – Rs 25,000.
Earlier, CPI(M) West Bengal State Committee member and former MP, Shamik Lahiri, addressed two other well-attended public meetings organised by the Party in Amravati and Mumbai on August 11-12, where he explained the Bengal scene.  
 A Chaturmukhi Government
In his characteristic penchant for apt coinage, Yechury described the Modi-led BJP government as Chaturmukhi, possessing four faces – Loot of public wealth for private profit; rabid communalism and casteism; growing authoritarianism; and compromise with imperialism. Our struggle is to protect the Constitution and our country from the onslaught of this four-faced monster, he exhorted the gathering.
He dealt at length with the way the central government is promoting corporate profit, national and international, at the cost of people’s welfare. He showed how the Government’s claim of 7.2 % growth rate was hollow and how in point of fact the economy was stagnant and decelerating in some cases. To substantiate this, he pointed out that the industrial growth during the April-May-June period was a paltry 0.6 % and manufacturing growth rate was actually – 0.7 %. The service sector too was not showing any signs of coming out of its sluggishness. Growth rate in agriculture, on the other hand, had stagnated at 2 %. Where are the crores of jobs that Mr. Modi promised on the eve of the general elections, he asked.
Agricultural Prices and Peasant Distress
Similarly, Mr. Modi had promised that, if put in power, his government would pay remunerative prices in agriculture as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission. The reality is that after two and a half years of the Modi dispensation, peasant suicides have jumped by a whopping 26%. This is nothing but the result of peasant indebtedness. He explained the Central Government’s bankruptcy by citing the example of Tur Dal. MSP given to Indian farmer for Tur Dal was Rs. 50.50 a kilo. The Government imported the dal for the price of Rs 152 a kilo and sold to Indian consumers for Rs. 200 a kilo, thus filling the coffers of international capital at the expense of both the Indian farmer and consumer!  With such policies the government is pushing farmers to suicide, he charged.
He also brought out the discrepancy between the ways peasant toilers and corporate looters were treated. A peasant’s land is confiscated for non-payment of the loan of Rs 9000 and a corporate bank defaulter, defrauding a nationalised bank for Rs 9000 crore, is allowed to fly away, that too with prior intimation.
Unpaid Loans by Billionaires
This esteemed gentleman is not an exception, said Yechury. A number of his ilk have amassed more than Rs 8.50 lakh crores through unpaid loans of the nationalised banks. Many of these are members of the Dollar Billionaires Club of India. India ranks third after USA and China with its 153 dollar billionaires. These 153 billionaires own wealth more than half of the GDP of the country, he told an awestruck audience. Inequality becomes all the more glaring in the face of 90 % of the families in the country earning less than Rs 10,000 a month, he said.
Explaining how the September 2 nationwide general strike called by the major central trade unions is chiefly to stop this corporate-led loot of the country’s resources under the neoliberal regime, Yechury went on to further discuss the other sides of this siege around the working populace of the country.
Other Sides of the Siege
One side is that of communalism and casteism. Citing a few examples how the government itself is inciting communal hatred, he raised some very pointed questions: You talk of cleaning India, but who is forced to clean the toilets? Do protect the cow if you wish, but in doing so, what is the need of killing human beings? He alerted the gathering to the danger contained in the garb of nationalism that tries to conceal communal and caste hatred under it.
The third aspect of this siege, according to Yechury, is the authoritarian tendencies of the ruling dispensation. This tendency was seen in the instances of intervention in the affairs of Arunachal and Uttarakhand. We saw the unprecedented event of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court chastising the PM for ignoring the problems arising out of non-appointments of High Court judges. It is the BJP central government that is clearly encouraging and turning a blind eye to the TMC’s repression on the Left in Bengal.
The Kashmir imbroglio is a result of Mr. Modi’s intransigence towards the democratic demands of the people of Kashmir. The valley has witnessed curfew for 60 days, which is unprecedented in our political memory.  70 people died, about 8000 were injured and innumerable were the victims of brutal pellet injuries, losing vital organs like eyes. The prime importance is to save the lives of young men and women, whether common Kashmiris or armed personnel, in which the BJP Government at the centre and the BJP-PDP coalition government in the state have failed miserably.
You cannot achieve anything except arousing hawkish sentiments, by pointing a finger at Baluchistan, he cautioned. Of course there are human rights violations in Baluchistan and Pakistan keeps on fishing in the troubled waters of Kashmir. But who is allowing the situation to come to this pass? he asked. “Vultures pounce only on carcasses”, he said. The need is to see that no more carcasses fall in Kashmir, he exhorted.
And the last aspect of this siege is presented by the Government’s abject desire to become a junior partner of American imperialism in the latter’s designs of global domination. Unless these four aspects are defeated, the siege around Indian democracy cannot be decisively lifted, he argued.
Breaking the Siege
There is only one force that can break this siege, this chakravyuha. Alluding to this incident in the epic Mahabharata, he said there was no way out that was suggested in the epic. But another epic contains a suggestive answer. In a yagya ritual a horse is allowed to roam and the land covered by that roaming horse was brought under the king’s rule. Ram let such a horse loose to covet new lands and then the horse was stopped by his own sons, the twin brothers Lav and Kush. “In modern times the horse of profit for the corporate looters and of communalism is let loose by the Modi regime and only the twin brothers - workers and peasants - have the power to halt its march”, Yechury said to thunderous applause.
The BJP people say, ‘Jai Sri Ram’. I say, ‘Lal Salam’, he said in a lighter vein. “Now the progressive movement is raising together the slogans ‘Jai Bhim’ and ‘Lal Salam’. Let us continue giving these slogans until one day they merge into one and become ‘Inquilab Zindabad’! It was this slogan that the gathering picked up to conclude this meeting with great enthusiasm.