Subinoy Moulik
A MEETING in memory of late Comrades Madan Ghosh and Mridul De, both former members of CPI(M) Central Committee and state secretariat, was held at Pramod Dasgupta Bhavan in Kolkata on May 10.
At the beginning of the meeting floral tributes were paid to the portraits of Comrades Madan Ghosh and Mridul De by CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury, senior leader of CPI(M) Biman Basu, state secretary of the Party Mohammad Salim, Polit Bureau members Surya Mishra and Ramchandra Dom, Soma Ghosh, wife of Comrade Madan Ghosh, Swapna De, wife of Comrade Mridul De, CPI state secretary Swapan Banerjee, RSP general secretary Manoj Bhattacharya, Forward Bloc Bangla Committee secretary Naren Chatterjee along with leaders of CPI(M) and representatives from other affiliates of the Left Front. Biman Basu presided over the meeting. After the garlanding, condolence resolutions were raised in memory of Comrades Mridul De and Madan Ghosh.
Sitaram Yechury, addressing the meeting, has called for a three-pronged fight to oust the Modi government and to stop the RSS-BJP's fascist “Hindu Rashtra” project. He said that the RSS wants to turn India into a fascist Hindutva state by 2025, their centenary year. To save the country's secular democracy, BJP must be removed from the government. For that, the opposition needs to be united in a three-pronged fight from the national level to the state level, he said.
What will be the nature of this three-pronged fight to remove the BJP? Yechury explained that, first, at the national level, all the Left and secular anti-BJP forces will organise a synchronised and united campaign which shall be taken to every state. United political campaigns have been held in Delhi by all opposition parties united to fight against assaults on secularism, attacks on democratic institutions, misuse of central agencies, etc., but that is not enough. This political campaign should be taken to the state capitals in the different states. Secondly, the opposition must unite to intensify the struggle in states against attacks on people, such as unemployment, inflation, poverty etc. Thirdly, the BJP needs to be defeated with a specific strategy according to the specific situation of each state before the elections. This strategy has to be decided according to the specific situation of each state. There must be state-specific discussions on alliances or seat adjustments to defeat the BJP. It is not necessary to form any uniform anti-BJP alliance everywhere. For example, in Kerala, the BJP does not have a single seat in the assembly as the Congress is fighting against the Left Democratic Front. Again, in Tamil Nadu, the anti- BJP forces have united under the leadership of the DMK, while in Bihar there is a grand coalition of the opposition, which includes the Congress and the Left along with the JDU, RJD. Again, the anti-Trinamool and anti-BJP votes should be united in West Bengal. This is what we want to do in the panchayat elections of the state. Before the Lok Sabha elections, this is our line of action. Wherever elections are held – in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh – this is how BJP should be defeated and the country freed from the communal danger.
BIG LOSS
Recalling the many years of his association and close relationship with Madan Ghosh and Mridul De, Yechury said that they both dedicated their lives to the cause of scientific socialism. They joined the movement when Bengal was passing through critical and turbulent times. Mridul De was born in Chittagong, a far eastern district of undivided Bengal. Madan Ghosh started to pursue active politics under the banner of the undivided Communist Party of India. Both of them joined the Party in the 1960s. Those were the days when memories of partition were not quite far behind.
Today efforts are on to create a similar atmosphere in our country. The RSS goal today is to complete the conversion of secular democratic India into that of “Hindutva Rashtra” by 2025, that is, the centenary year of the Sangh. That is why they are in a big hurry to gain electoral legitimacy. Faced with the accusation in the parliament of favouring the Adani Group, Prime Minister Modi had said he had the “patronage and shield” of 140 crore people. But the fact remains that out of the total votes that were polled in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, just over 22 crores have gone to the BJP, which is far below 50 per cent.
The BJP/RSS is trying to subjugate all institutions. The judiciary is under tremendous pressure. There are increasing executive interferences in judicial appointments. The election commission is not being allowed to function neutrally. Undermining each of these pillars of India's democracy and finally undermining the constitution is the part of the same plan. In this battle against communal forces, the contributions of both Comrades Madan Ghosh and Mridul De were immense. Comrade Mridul contributed voluntarily to the Party’s international department. At a time when far-reaching changes were happening in the East European socialist countries and in the Soviet Union, he presented his analysis cogently.
EXEMPLARY LIVES
Md Salim said Comrades Madan Ghosh and Mridul De were vocal against the politics of division among people in the name of religion and caste. We lost two bright comrades in just a few days. Learning from their lives, we must continue our struggle to defeat fascism, the enemy of humanity. We have seen the fatal outcome of divisive politics in Jammu and Kashmir; we are seeing it in Manipur. So we have to challenge that politics in the heart of Bengal, Salim said.
Surya Mishra quoted from Nikolai Ostrovsky's novel How the Steel was Tempered, the passage where Ostrovsky wrote: “Man’s dearest possession is life. It is given to him but once and he must live it so as to feel no torturing regrets for wasted years, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he might say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world – the fight for the liberation of mankind.” Comrade Mridul De and Comrade Madan Ghosh have lived their lives of struggle with this feeling, he said.
Biman Basu said that Comrade Madan Ghosh and Comrade Mridul De had shown exemplary commitment to Party discipline and had worked throughout their lives towards the goal of ending class exploitation.
