People's Democracy

B Prasant

BIG rally of women at the Shahid Minar Maidan, early on February 3 afternoon, denounced the spate of efforts being made by the Trinamul Congress-BJP combine to destabilise the political situation in Bengal as the assembly election approaches.

The rally, held under the aegis of the Bengal unit of All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA), also asked the BJP-led union government to ensure reservation for women in parliament and state legislatures and to make available social and economic security to the women, of the backward sections in particular.

An assemblage of massive proportions, the rally appeared to have run out of space quite early in the day as the Shahid Minar Maidan was manifestly inadequate to accommodate the meeting.

Women came from all over South Bengal. The presence of a large contingent of AIDWA workers from the Garbeta-Keshpur-Pingla region of Midnapore, in particular, ensured that the Trinamul’s tryst with violence would not deter the mass of the people from taking an active part in political activities, in and out of the region and the district.

The rally focussed on a demands charter of the Bengal AIDWA. They included the demand for ensuring the presence of women in every decision making body; for putting a stop to violence against women; for putting into action a meaningful programme of redistributive land reforms at the national level; for an early passage of the agricultural workers bill and the workers' security legislation in parliament.

Other demands in the charter included those for bringing down the prices of essential items, for activating the public distribution system countrywide, for preserving the Indian constitution’s secular character, for maintenance of communal harmony, and for putting a stop to jeopardising the country's economy.

In her important address, AIDWA general secretary Brinda Karat focussed on the anti-people nature of the BJP-led union government as also on the duplicity of the BJP's electoral partners.

Speaking in Hindi and Bengali to the huge delight of the women at the rally, Brinda Karat highlighted how the country’s economy was being ruined by the BJP regime. Kisans all over India are made to suffer from a drastic fall in the prices of agricultural commodities.

At the same time, taking full advantage of the huge subsidies the EU and the US provide to their farmers, the MNCs are losing no time in dumping agricultural commodities in our country. Indian kisans are witnessing how the BJP-run NDA government would not hesitate a bit before ordering willful wastage of the bumper agricultural harvest.

Like the agrarian sector, small industries sector too, that employ lakhs of women, were being gradually sabotaged by allowing big business houses to organise acts of interloping.

The BJP version of Indianness, said Brinda Karat, was to suffocate the minorities into submission and disown the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious strains that make India pluralistic.

Brinda Karat also castigated the patent duplicity of the partners in the NDA alliance. She pointed out how, like the maladroit actor in a road show who yells out his real name when confronted by the villain, Ms Mamata Banerjee and persons of her ilk would speak of reservation for Muslims but would hasten to sing the communal tune once confronted by Vajpayee and his men.

The speaker condemned the conspiracy being hatched against the West Bengal Left Front government which has, over the decades, not only worked for the welfare and coordinated development of the poor, but has also put in its best efforts to ensure that women are not regarded as anything but the equal of their menfolk in every sphere of social and economic activities.

To do away with the conspiracy in an effective manner, concluded Brinda Karat, the immediate task before the people of the state is to ensure a massive defeat for the Trinamul Congress, the BJP, the Pradesh Congress and their allies in the coming assembly elections.

On this occasion, the AIDWA leadership felicitated the CPI(M) leader and former Bengal chief minister, Jyoti Basu, on his long innings at the helm of the state’s Left Front government.

Addressing the rally, Basu said the BJP-led alliance government in Delhi had lost confidence in the nation and was a willing partner of international organisations like the WTO, IMF and World Bank. It was eager to bring in foreign corporate capital and allow the state sector to attenuate and wither away. Import duties are being removed recklessly from such commodities as bindi and murhi (humble puffed rice). These and other household items represent precisely the areas of manufacturing where thousand of women are employed. At the end of it all, it is these women who will lose their earnings and suffer.

Recalling the long road towards allowing the mass of the people to assert their self-esteem, Basu said that in this arduous task the role of the Left Front and the CPI(M), working within the constraints of a bourgeois-landlord dominated framework, can never be ignored.

Dwelling on the importance of struggle in establishing women's rights in the fullest measure, Basu said the task of creating a society where no exploitation exists means that the tasks leading upto it must be achieved successfully. In this important endeavour, concluded Basu, the role of mass organisations like the AIDWA is never in any way less important than the role of a political party.

Other speakers at the rally included veteran freedon fighter Captain Laxmi Sehgal, Kanak Mukherjee, and Rekha Goswami (secretary of the Bengal unit of AIDWA). The rally was presided over by AIDWA leader Shyamali Gupta.