A SERIES of programmes were organised across Tripura to mark the 75th anniversary of India’s Independence and 80 years of the Quit India Movement, at the call of the CPI(M) state committee. The DYFI also organised a host of programmes separately on the occasions. These programmes included rallies, processions, hall meetings, human chains and blood donation camps. On August 15, the national flag was hoisted in all Party and mass organisation offices.

PREAMBLE READ OUT

In Agartala, there was a long human chain and the participants took the oath to protect the essence of the Constitution by reading out the Preamble, administered by nonagenarian party leader Salil Debbarma. The participants chanted slogans protesting against the blatant assaults on secularism, democratic and fundamental rights, federalism, etc. 

Similar human chains were organised in many places, including some rural areas in the state. Prior to the independence day, in most of the subdivisions, there were hall meetings where state Party leaders explained the perspective of the 75th anniversary of independence. They highlighted the glorious role and invaluable sacrifices the communists made in the freedom movement. It was the communists in the Congress party who first raised the demand for full-fledged independence in the Ahmedabad session of the Congress in 1921. Cells and gallows in jails in various parts of the country, including the cellular jail in Andaman, are witnesses to the sacrifice of the communists in the freedom movement.  

The propagators of regressive Manusmriti cannot accept cultural and religious plurality, and tolerance to people of other religions, and thus they raise the slogan of ‘Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan’, negating the very essence of the Constitution, they said. The secular fabric and fundamental and democratic rights enshrined in the Constitution are in peril. Even after 75 years of independence the core demands for food, work, habitation, health, education, etc., still remain unfulfilled. On the contrary, the giant corporates are flourishing at the cost of the toils of countless workers.

At the same time, the speakers also exposed the deceitful role of the then RSS which practically served the British to lengthen the colonial role by stabbing the freedom movement in the back. The RSS, the parent organisation of the ruling BJP, is now trying to create a nationwide fanfare with the tricolour, but it did not hoist the national flag at its office until 2014. The RSS opposed the tricolour as the national flag saying it was inauspicious to the Hindus.

Towns and villages of the state were flooded with lakhs of banners, posters, hoardings and placards, etc. with the images of state ministers and MLAs along with that of prime minister, Narendra Modi. Ironically, not a single image of any of the martyrs of the freedom movement found any place in any of the campaign materials. The shameful self-projection of the leaders of the ruling party devoid of legendary freedom fighters and martyrs cutting across religion, caste and creed has in reality converted this national occasion into a political event for the ruling party. 

NE STUDENTS JATHA

As part of an all-India programme with the motto of ‘Save Education, Save Constitution and Save India’, the North East Students Jatha was inaugurated in Agartala by Manik Sarkar. A large number of students from six districts of the state gathered here on August 12. Apart from state SFI-TSU leaders, Mayukh Biswas and Srijan Bhattacharjee, general secretary and joint secretary of SFI respectively, were present at the rally and delivered speeches rousing the students. Sangita Das, member SFI central secretariat, was also present on the inaugural occasion in Agartala. 

On August 13, another militant student rally was held in Kumarghat defying the prohibitory orders of the higher police authority. The permission for the student rally was issued and subsequently withdrawn without assigning any reason. The rostrum raised by the students for the rally was removed by the police just the evening before the rally. In the morning the government deployed a huge contingent of police to prevent the students from joining the rally. BJP miscreants tried to prevent the students by blocking roads with national flags. This undemocratic behaviour of the police and the ruling party roused the zeal of the students. Undaunted students of Unakoti, North Tripura and Dhalai districts heroically marched along the roads of Kumarghat town and held the rally in a school nearby. Here also Srijan Bhattacharjee and Sangita Das addressed the rally. The speakers lashed out at the government’s education policy which was formulated to commercialise education and to deprive the poorer section of the students of even primary education. State student leaders highlighted the state’s education system which is on the verge of collapse.