CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury addressed a joint meeting of the Association of Indian Communists (AIC) and Indian Workers’ Association (IWA) in Leicester, the UK, on December 18. In his opening remarks, Yechury covered a whole range of international political developments, with emphasis on the prevailing situation in India and Britain. The right wing shift in international politics, with the outcome of EU referendum, the election of Donald Trump as the US president and the resurgence of the right in France, is the result of these forces channelising and capitalising on the anger and discontent experienced by the working class since the global crisis of 2008. Today, there is greater polarisation between the rich and the poor.
The BJP-led Modi government has made India a junior partner of the USA. In India today, Modi is proud to claim that there are 100 billionaires. They collectively control over 50 percent of India’s GDP. Contrast this with the 800 million suffering Indians having to survive on less than 20 rupees a day, he said.
The demonetisation introduced with the four stated objectives of eradicating black market, stopping the circulation of counterfeit money, ending corruption and cutting off the supply of funds to terrorist groups have failed on all accounts. Ninety per cent of black money, which according to Modi’s own statements was kept in offshore tax havens, has now been deposited in banks. Black has been turned into white money and the counterfeit currency made legal. With the introduction of new notes of Rs 2,000, the rate of corruption has doubled and as for cutting the flow of funds to terrorism, that stays unchanged with electronic transfers. The only winners will be the foreign finance houses, controlling and regulating plastic money and charging a perpetual commission along the way.
Yechury hailed the magnificent victory by the LDF in Kerala in the last Assembly election. He expressed his concern with the BJP opening its account by winning a seat in the state. There has been post-election increase in violent murders of CPI(M) cadres in Kerala by the RSS and the escalation in terror campaigns in West Bengal, particularly in rural areas.
The opening remarks were followed by three hours of interaction. Yechury concluded the session with an update on the construction of Harkishan Singh Surjeet Bhavan in New Delhi. The Association of Indian Communists has made an appeal to all its members to donate generously towards the building of a permanent legacy in the name of Comrade Surjeet.
The people of Leicester and its surrounding cities came together on December 18 to celebrate the birth anniversary of Harkishan Singh Surjeet and pay homage to Fidel Castro. The evening programme organised by the Indian Workers’ Association in recognition of the close relationship of Comrade Surjeet with the organisation since 1950’s. At the event, Yechury delivered the keynote address. He drew parallels between struggles and exemplary roles of Comrade Fidel Castro and Harkishan Singh Surjeet. Though thousands of miles apart, unable to speak each other’s language, Fidel and Surjeet were bonded through their common ideology, he said. Each able to provide a practical expression to their firm belief that there can be no successful revolution, without the active participation by the masses. They understood, developed a strategy and tactics based on the basic tenant of Lenin’s theory of “concrete analysis of concrete conditions is the living essence of dialectics”.
Perhaps the best illustration of this solidarity across the oceans was most evident, when Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union was suffocating under the US economic blockade. The Party under the leadership of Surjeet decided to rally support in collecting wheat grain from the farmers in Punjab.
The general secretary of the Communist Party of Britain, Rob Griffiths, called for the need for the organisations to work together to advance the socialist alternative programme for a Britain outside the EU. Joginder Kaur, the national general secretary of the IWA-GB, conducted the election for the local branch of IWA in Leicester and Mohinder Farma was elected as president, Avtar Sadiq as vice president and treasurer and Dyal Bagri as the branch secretary.
