WB: Foundation Stone Laid for Jyoti Basu Centre for Social Studies and Research
Subinoy Moulik
JANUARY 17 was the 15th death anniversary of Jyoti Basu, the towering person of the post-independence Indian communist movement. On this day, along with laying the foundation stone of Jyoti Basu Centre for Social Studies and Research (JBCSSR) building, a seminar was organised at the construction site in Jyoti Basu Nagar, in the New Town. The topic of the seminar was “The Challenge to Safeguard Our Secular Democratic Republic”. CPI (M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and Party state secretary Md Salim took part in the discussion. Biman Basu, chairman of JBCSSR, presided over the proceedings. Bihar deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav paid tributes to the memory of Comrade Jyoti Basu in a video message. After the seminar, Sitaram Yechury laid the foundation stone of the building.
The role of communists in building a secular democratic India, the contribution of mass leader Jyoti Basu and the relevance of his teachings in the present times came up again and again in the speeches of the speakers and the messages sent by chief minister of Bihar, Nitish Kumar, chief minister of Kerala, Pinarayi Vijayan, Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, distinguished economists Prabhat Patnaik and Amiya Bagchi, and eminent journalist P Sainath.
Speaking in the Seminar, Sitaram Yechury warned that the ruling BJP is destroying the country's secular democratic constitution to further the agenda which the RSS failed to achieve at the time of independence. He said that just as Jinnah and the Muslim League wanted an Islamic state of Pakistan at the time of independence, the RSS wanted to make India a Hindu state. They did not succeed because of our national leaders. Today, sitting in the government of the country, BJP is trying to do just that by breaking the secular democratic character of India. At this crucial juncture, in order to save India, the RSS-led BJP must be removed from the state power and from the central government.
Yechury said Jyoti Basu struggled throughout his life to strengthen India's secular democratic character and to make the country move towards socialism. “Is our country moving in that direction?” he rhetorically asked the audience. Md. Salim said that one of the characteristics of the present times is the frequent change of party and political beliefs by politicians. Jyoti Basu never changed his ideological direction. Jyoti Basu has taught us how to stand firm in people’s struggle despite false cases and physical attacks.
In his speech, Sitaram Yechury explained why that struggle to remain steadfast in the ideals of secular democracy is extremely important in today's India. He said that today's crisis has originated from the failed efforts of the RSS at the time of independence. The RSS advocated its fascistic vision of a rabidly intolerant “Hindu Rashtra” while the Muslim League sought the partition of the country to establish an Islamic republic. This resulted in the influx of refugees into partitioned Punjab and Bengal. But the RSS failed to make India a Hindu Rashtra because of Nehru’s firmness and Gandhiji's resolute position in this regard along with the struggle of the communists. That is why the RSS is so angry with these leaders. We should also remember that the climate of hatred created by the RSS in the name of building this Hindu Rashtra resulted in the dastardly assassination of Gandhiji.
Referring to the dangerous state of India today, Yechury said, the ruling BJP is breaking all the four pillars of the constitution to fulfill its elusive goal of seventy-five years, to turn India into a staunch Hindutva state. Every single fundamental pillar of the constitution -- secular democracy, federalism, social justice and economic sovereignty -- are under severe assault today. Construction of Ram Mandir is not a religious but a political project for them, a part of their grand plan. That is why they say, the real freedom will come at the opening of the Ram Mandir on January 22.
Explaining the essence of secular democracy in simple words, Yechury said that it means India is a country of believers of all religions. Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Jains and atheists like us all have the right to define their own god or our supreme goal. We communists respect people's right to religious belief and fight to protect it. But the state or the government must not have any religion. This is why I declined the invitation to the inauguration ceremony of Ram Mandir, he said.
Shortly after the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992, BJP leader and chief minister of Uttar Pradesh at the time of the demolition, Kalyan Singh, addressing a public meeting in Kolkata on February 2, 1993, said, “I can tell you, my dear friends, that such a great devastation could not have been accomplished in five hours without the inspiration of god. Even if we had engaged a labour contractor for this, it would have taken at least a month and a half to do the work and clear the debris.” The then chief minister of Bengal Jyoti Basu took the recorded copy of that speech from the police and submitted it to the Liberhan Commission investigating the demolition of the Babri Masjid. For this act, he used to call the BJP a barbaric party. The Jyoti Basu-led West Bengal government maintained strict peace and order during riots across the country after the demolition of the mosque, with Muslims all over the country finding West Bengal the safest state.
COVER-UP
Md Salim alleged that by spreading frenzy regarding the Ram temple in Ayodhya, BJP was trying to drag religion into the centre of the country's politics. He said, the constitution is being replaced by Manu Smriti. All this is being done to hide the misery of public life which the Modi government has failed to alleviate over the decade.
Referring to this cover-up, Yechury said while Modi is promoting ‘Vibrant India’, investment in the country's economy has decreased by 46 per cent. Foreign investment decreased by 25 billion dollars in one year. Inflation and unemployment are at their peak. To hide these, love jihad, 'gau raksha', bulldozer politics are being done. If one criticises the government, they will be jailed under the UAPA. By taking away the rights of the workers, destroying the self-reliance of the country, capitalism that enables profiteering of crony capitalists is being established. Utilising the office of the governors, the BJP central government is seeking to destabilise democratically elected non-BJP state governments. Such efforts are damaging the federal content of the Indian Constitution. ED and CBI are being grossly misused and turned into tools to force political defections. While targeted opposition parties are being harassed the real culprits are being let off scot-free.
In this political background, JBCSSR will play a big role in meeting the need for objective information based on social research to strengthen the mass struggle in Bengal, said Md Salim. He said in the meeting, we do not outsource the work of finding the direction of our movement to any hired agency. For this purpose we will build a research centre named after Jyoti Basu. The construction work shall be carried out step by step. Buildings, library, guest houses etc will be constructed; thinkers will be carrying out socio- economic research. Funds for all these shall come from donations collected from people.
By destroying parliamentary democracy with majoritarianism, the prime minister is being made the all-powerful head of state in the country, and then perhaps there will be an attempt to find god in him. Denying the diversity and compositeness of Indian culture, they are trying to impose uniformity in the country. Actually it is impossible to produce such a condition of uniformity because of the enormous diversity in Indian culture. People must be united to strengthen the fight for equality.
On this occasion JBCSSR general secretary Rabin Deb expressed his gratitude to all those who donated money and helped in various ways to build this centre named after Jyoti Basu. He said that three and a half crore rupees have been collected from common people in the last few years. We appeal to all for further help. The trust was formed in November 2010 to build this centre. But with the coming of the new government, after overcoming many hurdles, the allotted 5 acres of land was finally obtained in 2019.
JBCSSR will contribute to the advancement of research in socio-economic, political and environmental studies. At the beginning of the meeting, the leaders declared responsibility towards the environment and planted trees. CPI(M) Polit Bureau members Surya Mishra, Ramachandra Dom, Party leaders Srideep Bhattacharya, Avas Roychowdhury, Gautam Deb, Rekha Goswami, Sujan Chakraborty, Shamik Lahiri, Sumit Dey, Anju Kar, Vikas Bhattacharya MP and others were present. Many dignitaries, including former chief secretary, government of West Bengal Amit Kiran Deb and Sarit Bandyopadhyay, who served as Jyoti Bose's press secretary when he was chief minister, were also present on the occasion. Leaders of the parties of the Left Alliance were also present. Renowned singers Kazi Kamal Nasser, Riya Dey, Rahul, Diganta and Bharatiya Gananyatya Sangha performed at the beginning of the meeting.
