A HUGE public meeting was organised by the CPI(M) Jharkhand committee at Tamar on October 13. It was attended by thousands of people which had a large presence of women.

A big motorcycle rally was taken out from Bundu Tall Plaza to Tamar Bazaar where the statue of Birsa Munda was garlanded by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Brinda Karat. Thousands of people from all walks of life with red flags aloft and shouting pro-people slogans marched for three kilometres from Tamar Bazaar under the leadership of Brinda Karat, CPI(M) state secretary Prakash Viplav and CPI(M) leader Suresh Munda and reached Tamar Maidan where the rally was converted into a huge mass meeting.

Addressing the rally, Brinda Karat said, "I feel proud to be on the land of the longest and bloody 'Tamar Rebellion' which lasted from 1782 to 1821, fought by the tribals and others against the British rulers and their puppets". Lashing out at the anti-people policies and activities of the Modi government, she said there is an all-round crisis in the country. High levels of inflation and unemployment have made the lives of common people difficult. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has posted a photo where she is buying vegetables from a local market, while there are no more vegetables seen on the plates of most of the common masses due to their high prices. So is also the case with other edible items. The toiling people are going to work with just rice and salt-chillies. People have reduced their diet by half under distress due to unprecedented inflation. Hunger, malnutrition, anaemia and stunting are rampant in the country that is reflected in the position that India is in, in the latest world hunger index.

She warned the Modi government that by running a campaign of hatred among the communities, it cannot divert the attention of the people from their main issues – inflation, unemployment, attacks on their rights etc. In the name of development, the corporate-communal-government nexus, is looting the lands of the tribals in Jharkhand and evicting them from their habitats. By changing the rules of the Forest Rights Act, and removing the rights of gram sabhas in the acquisition of forest land, the central government has made the way smoother for the corporates to loot the lands of tribals. CPI(M) opposes this move, vehemently.

Speaking on the Jharkhand government, Brinda Karat said that the Party is with the Hemant Soren government in the fight against communalism and on anti-BJP issues, but we are against ignoring the pressing issues of the common masses. The ration cards of 11 lakh people were cancelled by the Raghuvar Das government for want of Aadhaar cards and other reasons; 90 per cent of these people were genuine; they were not ghosts or people who were non-existent, she said. During the last three years tenure of Hemant government, there was neither investigation nor any action taken to reissue the ration cards of these 11 lakh people. On the contrary, this government has cancelled 67,000 more ration cards. We oppose this anti-people action. For the last two months, the people of Jharkhand have not even received the ration.

The online registration of land records by digitisation has caused huge irregularities, which has affected a large number of land owners. Somebody's name is wrong, someone's khata-khesra is wrong, someone's record is altogether missing. They are being harassed in the name of correcting the records and the brokers are minting money. The CPI(M) has demanded setting up of panchayat level camps to fix these errors / irregularities without any further delay. Speaking at the rally, Prakash Viplav placed a resolution on this issue in which he called upon all to engage themselves in flooding the departments with applications for correction of the records with immediate effect. If the government fails to correct the records, a huge demonstration will be organised in Ranchi in times to come, he said. The proposal was unanimously adopted by the people present in the public meeting.

Addressing the gathering, CPI(M) Odisha state committee member and  MLA, Laxman Munda said that today a huge resistance movement is developing across the country against the loot of water, forest, land and minerals in the country by big corporates with the help of central government policies.

CPI(M) Jharkhand state committee member and Tamar assembly in-charge Suresh Munda thanked everyone for attending the huge CPI(M) rally in Tamar after 22 years and called for making the red flag the symbol of mass struggles in Tamar. The meeting was also addressed by state committee member Subhash Munda, local committee secretaries of Bundu, Tamad and Adki local committees, Diwakar Munda, Zahru Munda and Ganesh Munda respectively. The meeting was presided over by Ghashi Ram Singh Munda and conducted by Ranjit Modak.

The official website of the Jharkhand CPI(M) was inaugurated by Brinda Karat at the public meeting.