1. The north eastern region of India is surrounded by foreign countries, about 98 percent of the boundary having been bordered internationally. Thus the region appears almost detached from the mainland of the country, at the same time having no mutual contact with neighbouring countries. Inside the region, the states are separated from one another by hill tracks resulting in the own-styled growth of the states in respect of food habits, races and languages, economy, employment, culture etc. So the people of these states generally bear identities specific to the concerned states. The positive aspect is that a sense of self respect and self dependence is prominent in them. The negative aspect of this situation is that the centre’s indifference and callous attitude with some exception have made the land fertile for reactionary and divisive forces, the situation in Tripura having been different on account of democratic ideas initiated by the great Jana-Siksha movement since 1945. What will be the speciality of CPI(M)’s role in building up organisations in north-eastern states other than Tripura?

Matilal Sarkar, Agartala

You are right in describing the uniqueness and specificity of the peoples of the states in the North East region. While there are many common features about the North East region as a whole, there are important differences about the way the peoples and communities have developed in the different states of the North East.

This uniqueness and the diversity of its tribal and ethnic community poses special problems for the development of the CPI(M) and the Left movement in the region. The present Assam state, Tripura and Manipur are the only two states which had a link with the democratic movements which developed before independence. That is why, apart from Tripura where the Communist movement developed a strong base in the years after independence, there has been more scope for the CPI(M) and the Left movement to develop in Assam.

However, the situation in the North East developed in such a way where identity based tribal and ethnic groupings became predominant. Coupled with the discrimination and neglect by successive central governments, the discontent and alienation of the people has been utilised by extremist and separatist groups who prey on ethnic and tribal differences.

This has affected Assam too. It also has affected Manipur where various tribal and non-tribal groups have set up their armed wings which are extorting money and challenging the writ of the administration.

In states like Nagaland and Mizoram, the prevailing religious cultural hegemony is also hostile to the spread of communist ideology.

Unlike Assam, the absence of a working class in many of the North Eastern states seriously impedes the development of a working class movement.

All these difficulties and peculiarities have to be taken into account when we talk of building a Left movement in the region.

The key to developing the Left movement depends on the building of the Party and the mass movements in Assam, which in turn will have an impact on the other North Eastern states. Special attention has to be paid to the development of the Party and the mass movements in Manipur, given the history of the Communist Party there in the anti-imperialist struggle. In the other states, efforts to develop mass organisations and mass movements should be the precursor for a Left movement to develop.

Q: Prakash Karat (Marxist, Jan-March 2016, On the programme of the CPI) correctly asserts that the bourgeoisie of the newly independent countries are incapable of carrying forward the democratic revolution. This remark is in connection to the role of the working class in leading the thoroughgoing completion of the basic tasks of the democratic revolution as discussed in para 7.1 & 7.2 in the Party Programme. But one wonders as to how to explain the phenomenon of restoring democracy (bourgeois) by the Indian bourgeois alternative platform against the imposition of Emergency by another section, particularly when it appears to be against what Comrade Stalin contemplated.

T Bhattacharya, Kolkata

It is necessary to be clear about what we mean by the completion of the democratic revolution. The Party programme you have referred to in this connection, talks about the anti-feudal, anti-imperialist tasks which should have been completed by the new ruling classes which took over independent India. But given the nature of this ruling class being a bourgeois-landlord alliance and the fact that the bourgeoisie is unwilling to take up the unfinished task of the democratic revolution fearing a threat to its class rule in an era where socialism already has come into existence, the Party programme envisages that this is a task which can be completed only by a democratic movement headed by the working class. This entails for instance the elimination of semi-feudal relations in the countryside through radical land reforms and its vestiges in the social, cultural and political spheres. If we understand the completion of the democratic revolution in this deeper sense, then it cannot be reduced to, or confused with the restoration of democratic rights or bourgeois democracy which was infringed upon by the Emergency.

In fact the limitations of the political form of bourgeois democracy in India ie, parliamentary democracy is itself an outcome of the failure to have a thorough going completion of the basic tasks of the democratic revolution.