The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) met in New Delhi on September 26 & 27, 2015. It has issued the following statement on September 27, 2015.

PLENUM ON

ORGANISATION

The Polit Bureau discussed the broad outlines of the contents of the Report and the Resolution for the Organisational Plenum to be held from December 27-31, 2015 at Kolkata.

The replies to the detailed questionnaire by the Party Centre to the state committees have been received and the documents for the plenum will be prepared incorporating these as well. The Polit Bureau will meet on October 28-29 and the Party Central Committee from November 13-16 to finalise the documents for the Plenum.

RSS-BJP STAND

ON RESERVATIONS

The Polit Bureau condemned the repeated assertions by the RSS chief against the current reservations for SCs, STs and OBCs that are in force according to constitutional directives. The RSS chief has now stressed for a need for a review of reservation quotas to decide which categories require such reservations and for how long. He called for the appointment of an independent commission to decide on this matter. He repeated this assertion in response to a nationwide outcry against this statement which is widely and correctly seen as an effort to dismantle reservations and hence undermine whatever little the country is achieving in terms of establishing social justice.

The BJP in the meanwhile is trying to project itself as a champion of the OBCs in the Bihar elections and has cobbled up a coalition of some representatives of the marginalized and the socially oppressed sections of our society.

However, as the BJP has repeatedly in the recent past reconfirmed its role as the political arm of the RSS, is bound to carry out the RSS diktats on this issue.

There seems to be a not so clever attempt at social engineering in the run up to the Bihar assembly elections. The RSS stand seeks to consolidate the upper caste support while the BJP electoral alliances and projections seeks to appeal to the SC, ST and backward sections. Such a diabolic “division of labour” strategy will surely be rebuffed by the people.

The Polit Bureau is confident that the people of Bihar will see through this nefarious game and hand a resounding defeat to the RSS/BJP in the Bihar assembly elections.

SHARPENING COMMUNAL

OFFENSIVE

The Polit Bureau noted with grave concern the growing reports of attempts to sharpen communal polarisation all across the country particularly in Bihar in the run up to the assembly elections. Growing reports of sharpening communal tensions are pouring in from various parts of northern India.

Simultaneously, this BJP government’s efforts to rewrite history and position RSS personnel in all leading bodies of educational research are proceeding with a renewed offensive. History is being rewritten. The Delhi Universityhad hosted a meet of the so-called academicians who have declared that the Vedic Age is now 6000 years earlier than what has been established through a rigorous scientific study. This is a perfidious exercise to establish that the Aryans originated in India and they alone are the original inhabitants.

Clearly this BJP government is proceeding with a frenzied hurry to replace Indian history with Hindu mythology and rich Indian philosophy with Hindu theology.

The Polit Bureau called upon all the units of the CPI(M) to organize a nationwide campaign against this communal offensive. The CPI(M) appeals to secular forces and elements in the country who cherish our inherited legacy of a syncretic civilisational ethos to come forward and unitedly thwart these designs.

GROWING BURDENS

ON THE PEOPLE

The Polit Bureau noted with concern the relentless mounting of economic burdens on the people. Price rise continues to torment with now the staple protein nutrition of our people – dals – costing at rates which are beyond the capacity of the common people, including many middle class families.

All the economic policies and slogans announced with great fanfare by this BJP government and PM Modi have not brought any revival of economic growth in the country. On the contrary, notwithstanding the manipulation of official statistics, an industrial turnaround is not visible. Consequently unemployment is rapidly growing.

The agrarian distress continues to deepen. The deficient rainfall this year has only compounded the misery of our farmers, consequently growing despair in rural India. Peasants suicides continue to be reported from areas hitherto thought to have risen above the agrarian crisis.

In this background even the meager relief that the vast mass of our people were receiving through central schemes like the MNREGA is being drastically reduced. Adequate financial allocations are not being released by the Central government for the schemes. Beneficiaries of the rural employment programme are now being driven to despair and incidents of suicides among them are also being reported. Even the scanty public distribution system is being dismantled. This is accelerating rural misery in our country.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) calls upon all its units across the country to organize protest movements against the current policies of the Central Government and the respective state governments which are compounding people’s economic miseries. Depending on the local conditions and focusing on the most burning issues before the people there CPI(M) units must build and strengthen popular mobilizations against the policies of this BJP central government.

NEW NEPAL 

CONSTITUTION

 CPI(M) welcomes the adoption of the federal democratic secular Constitution by an overwhelming majority of the Constituent Assembly of Nepal. Nepal has now been declared a Republic.

India and Nepal have historically shared very close good neighbourly relations. The CPI(M) has always maintained that all decisions regarding Nepal’s political structures are matters that are sovereign to the people of Nepal. In this light the CPI(M) heartily congratulates the people and its major political leadership on this long due historic adoption of the Nepal Constitution. This is the culmination of a long and arduous struggle by the people of Nepal for democracy, secularism and federalism in their country. For a decade after the overthrow of the monarchy the people of Nepal were debating on this Constitution and have now finally adopted it. The CPI(M) wishes them all success.

The CPI(M) notes with dismay the most unfortunate position that this government under PM Modi has taken with regard to this historic democratic advance of Nepal. The RSS/BJP are dismayed that Nepal has rejected the demands to declare itself as a “Hindu Rashtra”. The CPI(M) calls upon the Central Government to ensure that the country to country and people to people relations between India and Nepal must strengthen without any obstacles being erected in this process.

PM MODI FURTHER SUCCUMBS TO

US IMPERIALIST PRESSURES

PM Modi currently on a visit to the USA appears to have further compromised India’s position on climate change succumbing to US pressures. The USA abandoning the principle established during the last two decades of global negotiations on climate change that upheld the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility”, underlining the fact that the developed countries having contributed the most to environmentally destructive carbon emissions will take greater responsibility in reducing them, has now announced unilaterally voluntary targets of cuts in carbon emissions.  Instead of resisting such pressures, PM Modi, it is reported, seems to have committed India to similar declaration of voluntary targets which are now called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). Further, PM Modi seems to have abandoned the insistence on the western industrialized countries fulfilling their obligations under the treaties of these negotiations to making available financial resources to the developing countries to move towards expensive “greener technologies” and facilitating the transfer of such technologies without the obligations of Intellectual Patent obligations.

Such succumbing to US pressures by PM Modi will have a serious impact denying the vast majority of Indian people energy resources essential for socio-economic development and poverty reduction apart from providing energy to meet the urgent needs of sanitation and hygiene.

The Polit Bureau of the CPI(M) strongly condemns this succumbing of the BJP government to US imperialist pressures even on this score.

…………….

Attention was drawn to an interview of Somnath Chatterjee in the Economic Times of September 15, 2015. The CPI(M) rejects the views expressed therein regarding CPI(M)’s relations with the Congress, joining Central governments, CPI(M)’s Party leadership etc. These are matters that have been thoroughly discussed and decided upon by successive Party Congresses.