People's Democracy

HISTORY is a march of the people, not of Geist or an Absolute Idea, as Hegel would have put it. It is a march of incidents and events, of people's activities and struggles. All marches do not constitute history. Some try to pause history as it is and where it is, because they are not ready for any change, or even to reverse history for the sake of the exploiters and expropriators of the world.  But there are marches that create history. 

In 1929, Gandhiji led a march to the beaches of Dandi, the Dandi March to assert the right to make salt. In 1936, Comrade A K Gopalan led a march to Madras journeying a distance of more than 1200 kms. History knows it as the "Starvation March". The marchers were telling the rulers that the people would no longer tolerate starvation. The march aroused the people. Thirty-three years ago Comrade A V Kunhambu headed the famous ‘Kerala Padayatra’.

Gandhiji murdered by the Sanghparivar ultimately paid the price on January 30. A K G was placed in prison time and again. Kunhambu was a veteran fighter who grew up in the mould of Comrade A K G. 

The successors to the heritage of Gandhiji, AKG and AV today are the workers of the Left movement of the country, led by the CPI(M). They have imbibed the great traditions of struggle, and values of the national movement. Hence the two marches in Kerala in January, were organised by the CPI(M). The marches had a triple purpose to acquaint the Party with the problems of the people, face to face, in a closer way and to explain why these problems arose and how they were related to the policies of the central government which spoke in one voice but acted in exactly the opposite manner; and to expose the lies and false propaganda against the Kerala Left Democratic government’s attempts to defend the people and protect their livelihood.

There are a thousand and one tongues to the anti-party forces in the land. These tongues are venomous and virulent. They assume the language of democracy, while actually spreading the venom of fascism, communalism and anti-communism. They take up many guises such as the guise of nationalism, socialism and democracy. It is this venom spread by the anti-people forces, that has to be fought. These forces have sworn, just as they had done earlier, that they would pull down the LDF government.

Kerala now has the longest-serving communist chief minister – something the anti-people forces cannot tolerate. They would like to pull him down; take Kerala back to the notorious UDF governance when rampant corruption was the keyword. A chief minister intervening on behalf of the palmolin lobby, a minister collecting his share of commission for selling electricity to unscrupulous private firms at a cheaper price, at a time the State was facing severe power crisis, to cite only two examples.

Thus the Party had to speak to the people in what way the central government, under the communal BJP is breaking the backbone of our economy and people by its anti-people globalization measures – a knowledge they have acquired on their backs, but cannot explain. They know well the consequences of the anti-peasant policies, but must now link them with specific measures of the central government - doing away with even the safety measures permitted by the W T O, the many concessions to the G-7 imperialist and their lackeys in India, allowing the latter to interfere in the internal affairs of the country, dictate terms to our rulers in the evolution of the national policies, and control our national politics with the very independent existence of our nation threatened by this globalization process.

The marchers spoke to the people of the achievements of the LDF government during the last five years - the great strides made by Kerala under the People's Plan Programme for the 5 Year Plan. Hailed by other chief ministers, the President of India in his presidential address on Independence Day, described it as a model for the whole nation. Many third world countries have hailed the idea and sent their delegates to Kerala to study the modus operandi of the People's Plan.
Secondly the progress towards self-sufficiency in power supply, with Kerala being the only south Indian state which does not have load- shedding and power-cuts. Thirdly, the growth of agriculture and industry in the last five years, decentralisation in the field of education, the appointment of more than one lakh young men and women by the Kerala Public Service Commission in various departments in this period, apart from the postings made through the Employment Exchanges and other agencies; the control and regulation of price by the starting of the Neethi stores and expansion of the Maveli stores, to the surprise of governments of the other states which are passing through a highly troubled price situation; and sharing with the people their concern on the decrease of the prices of indigenous products like rubber, coconut, and pepper, while the central government was patronizing the import of even chutney and coconut milk.

On the political front it was necessary to expose how the central BJP-led government is patronizing the communal forces allowing Sangh Parivar to make use of religion, religious institutions and religious festivals like Kumbhmela for capturing power, attacks on the minorities – Christian and Muslim in several parts of the country. They pay little attention to the Constitution; mooting the idea of changing it to accomplish their aim of establishing a Hindu Rashtra. They have little regard for secularism, which has been the binding force of the Indian society for centuries; scant respect for history and culture, and are now trying to rewrite history combining both mythology and faith. They do not contribute to the truthful idea that our nationhood is the result of decades of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial struggles. For them religion is a stepping-stone to power. The people know, that Kerala is the only state in India, which has spent the last five years without any communal incidents. This glowing legacy of the people of Kerala, has to be maintained.

Except for the deliberate atrocities perpetrated by the RSS-BJP elements, the state was without any untoward incidents of law and order failure during the last five years. Checked in time was the hooch tragedy which the people learnt was a deliberate and conscious bid to tarnish the image of the LDF government in the light of the coming Assembly elections. The culprits of the hooch massacre have been booked and brought to trial. The opposition UDF and the BJP have joined hands together to make every non-issue an opportunity to attack the LDF government. All this was explained to the people. Their views ascertained, their sentiments comprehended.

With this purpose in view, the two marches were decided upon by the state committee in the state, one from the south and the other from the north of the state. The first was led by M A Baby, Member, CPI(M), central committee and second by Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, member, state secretariat. Chief minister E K Nayanar, inaugurated the southern march on January 8, 2001 and Pinarayi Vijayan, state committee secretary, inaugurated the northern march from Kasargod on January 10. Various leaders from the Party and parliamentary and assembly legislators participated throughout in the marches. Besides them, thousands of comrades followed them from centre to centre.

The southern march traversed a distance of 530 kms, covering eight districts from Thiruvananthapuram to Thrissur. During the entire journey more than a thousand uniformed men and women accompained the yatra, the northern march covered six districts in the northern belt of Kerala. However there were only the two main marches. They had been preceded by one hundred and forty marches across the constituencies, led by legislators or prominent party leaders from the respective constituencies.

The inaugural ceremonies of the marches themselves turned out to be historical events; unforeseen crowds representing various sections of the people assembled at the reception centres to express their sentiments - impoverished rubber and coconut cultivators; ration dealers reduced to poverty in a period when the central government is trying to throw excess grains into the warehouses; the small scale producers of readymade wares; ordinary banana and potato chips-makers who have now to compete with the multi-nationals for their existence, agricultural labour; the IT specialists and software programmers now thrown at the mercy of the monopolies and multinationals; youth under the threat of permanent unemployment, minorities constantly intimidated by the communal fascist forces that long to capture power by creating an atmosphere of fear; tribals presently assured a share of land in the tribal areas by the enactments of the LDF government, different categories of men and women in whose favour a number of welfare schemes have been formulated and implemented by the LDF government, and many many other sections of society. They related their sorrows and dreams of new Kerala to the party leaders who spent a lot of time with them. The beneficiaries of the People's Plan Programme assembled in large numbers since they knew that but for this programme they could not have dreamt of what they now have, what their region has achieved. The remotest regions now have electricity; there are schemes to provide drinking water to all people in the coming five years, and schemes to provide houses to all homeless families in the next five years. Women came in large numbers, because it is in the kitchen that the worst and hard effects of globalization and anti-people policies initiated by the Congress Party and perpetuated by the BJP-led government are felt. Intellectuals and students also came in large numbers.

Although the marches were organized by the CPI(M), many others assembled to greet the marches eg K C Joseph MLA of the Kerala Congress. Even under the heat of the scorching midday sun, meetings of tens of thousands of people were held. The most inspiring aspect of the yatra was the positive response of people belonging to other sections of society. For example, in Balaramapuram near Thiruvananthapuram, the constituency-level Congress (I) committee president greeted the yatra and presented flowers to the yatra leader through his son; in Paripparally (Kollam district) Jamait leaders joined others in garlanding the jatha leader; and at various other places, INTUC and Mahila Congress leaders, a Parish priest and relatives of martyrs. Leaflets worth Rs 1.8 lakh were sold.

The northern march under Kodiyeri Balakrishnan went a troubled route. Covering a distance of over 450 kilometers, from Kasargode to Thrissur, it traveresed the highways of Kannur and Thalassery where the RSS-BJP hooligans in company with Congress-Antony men created trouble for the people at large, and the Party comrades in particular. On the 11 and 12, it travelled in Kasargode district, the land of the Kayyur and Cheemeni Martyrs, where the receptions given to the marchers were unprecedented, way beyond the expectations of the Party. Thrikkaripur  and then Payannur, the historic centre of the Salt Satyagraha and the great political stronghold of Comrade Subrahmania Shenoy became virtually an ocean of red hailing this historic march. The people were remembering the days of the Kerala padayatra under the leadership of Comrade A V Kunhambu, the great leader of the historic struggle of Karivellur. On the 14 the march concluded at Taliparamba, where the extremist elements of the IUML in collaboration with the NDF, had assassinated Comrade Krishnan, and sowed havoc in the area to provoke the Party cadre. Muslims in large numbers assembled in the area to welcome the march because the Party had stood as an unbreakable bulwark against the Sangh Parivar communal harassment against the minorities. Christians also came in bulk to hail the comrades for the same reason. Kannur and Thalassery gave the march an unprecedented reception. In the recent local bodies elections, the CPI(M) and the lcoal IUML had reached an understanding. Incensed by this the IUML extremists in collaboration with the NDF had started attacking party workers and had shot dead Comrade Santhosh Nadapuram, in collaboration with the RSS.

The receptions accorded to the march in the wake of these incidents proved beyond doubt that the people, especially the minorities had not in accepted the lies venomously propagated by the anti-communist media. All attempts of the IUML Chandrika daily and BJP Janmabhumi daily in union with Malayala Manroma and the electronic media to tarnish the image of the Party and its secular credentials had failed. The receptions in Kozhikode district, at Vatakara, Koyilandy and Kozhikode, proved this beyond doubt. It travelled into the heartland of Ernad, said to be the citadel of the IUML.

The first day of the march in Ernad was concluded at Kondotty where the great martyr Comrade Kunhali was born.  It reminded the people there that a section of their leaders are now in the company of the minority baiters, the RSS and BJP and warned them to beware of the forces that were trying to equate Gandhiji and Godse. It exposed how minority and majority communalists were coalescing to pull down the people's LDF ministry,  and called upon them to identify themselves with the martyrs of the yonder days, the days of the great peasant rebellion, which was misrepresented as communal by anti-Muslim historians. It passed through the tiny village of Elamkulam where Comrade EMS was born, and spent five days in Palakkad district. The small town of Vadakkenchery in the district accorded the march a very special welcome with a parade of men and women clad in red and white in their thousands displaying their fork arts and accompanied by elephants and folk arts. It was festival for them, because the march was espousing their cause.

The two marches met in Thrissur on the January 30, Martyr Day, where a big rally was held. The day was also marked by the observance of the Manava Samgamam by the Kerala State committee of the DYFI. Thousands of people assembled in the city - the tile workers of Kodakara and many other workers from different industries, the artists of the district joined the rally with their own forms of art by which they meant to protect the indigenous culture, presenting tableaux and other visual art forms in sharp criticism of the liberalization, privatization and globalization economic policy, and the fascist communal policy of the central government. Harkishan Singh Surjeet, the general secretary of the Party, inaugurated the rally declaring that the people and peasants would not permit the Vajpayee government to go on without assuring fair and legitimate prices for the indigenous products. The peasant movement would go forward with the various struggles it had initiated against the import policy of the government. He called upon the people of Kerala to continue their great tradition against the present anti-people, right reactionary central government also. Other speakers included E K Nayanar, V S Achuthanandan, Pinarayi Vijayan, M A Baby and Kodiyeri Balakrishnan.

To counter the impact of these marches, the opposition UDF decided to hold a vehicular march under the leadership of A K Antony from the February 1. It turned out an assemblage of not only a quarrelling mob, but also an assemblage of anti-people, corrupt politicians, most of whom are charge sheeted by the judiciary, and some of whom have been punished by the judiciary.

One of the main planks upon which the Party marchers were campaigning was the absence of communal riots in Kerala during the last five years. The minorities know the Party and, surely, the minority leaders know the Party. The presence of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Christians at the reception centres of the party marches both in the north and south of Kerala, have created panic and consternation in the enemy camps, which are now going to any extent to malign the Party, to pull the LDF from power.

The task ahead is difficult, and the days ahead will be full of struggles and sacrifices. The communal forces will spare no-one if he stands alone. So let all democrats and secularists unite. Together we will prosper, divided we will perish.