People's Democracy

IN all, 652 delegates and observers were elected to the CPI(M)’s 17th Tamil Nadu state conference; of them, one observer and one delegate could not make it to the conference. Of the rest 650, 624 were delegates and the rest were observers. Women delegates and observers numbered 74.

Of the total 650 delegates and observers, 460 were below 50 years of age. Of them, 18 were in the 18-25 age group; Arunadevi from Thanjavur was the youngest among them. Those above 60 years of age numbered 46; K Ramani, who incidentally was the chairman of the reception committee, was 86 years old and the oldest among the delegates.

Among the delegates, 11 had attended more than 15 state conferences of the party while 96 had attended 6 to 14 conferences. The rest had attended less than 6 conferences; among them, 237 were attending a state conference for the first time.

The distribution of the delegates and observers according to their class background was as below. As many as 448 came from the basic classes: working class -- 231, agricultural workers -- 69 and poor peasants -- 148. The other biggest contingents were from the middle classes (117) and from middle peasants (70). The rest were from other sections.

Most of the delegates/observers had joined the party during the 26 years from 1964 to 1990. They numbered 528. A good chunk of these comrades (351) had joined between the years 1965 and 1980. Those who had joined the party before the year 1964 numbered 78 and those who had joined after 1990 were 44. K Ramani was the senior most of the delegates; he joined the party in 1935.

As many as 420 delegates were wholetimers and the rest were part-timers.

No less than 427 delegates/observers had experienced jail life; many had experienced it for 15 days to 6 months. N Sankariah was in various jails for more than 8 years, right from the days of the freedom struggle. K Ramani had the longest underground life (4 years), followed by N Sankariah (3 years and 6 months).

Only 13 of the delegates/observers were illiterate. Of those educated, 211 were graduates and the rest were technical diploma-holders. A majority of those attending the conference (452) were district committee members. State committee members numbered 70 and local committee members 64. The rest of them were from various other units of the party.

The front-wise break-up was as follows: SFI -- 110, DYFI -- 165, Kisan Sabha -- 80, trade unions -- 181, AIDWA – 41, and others -- 73.

The party has overall a youthful composition in Tamil Nadu. Of the 87,000 party members in the state, 57 per cent are below 40 years of age and most of them came to the party after the year 1990. The party does have a good composition as a majority of its members are from the basic classes. It is a matter of pride that 30 per cent of the members are from Dalit sections. Another encouraging feature of the CPI(M) in Tamil Nadu is that women form 9.6 per cent of the total membership and had a representation of about 12 per cent at the conference. All these facts indicate that the party is growing all round and the coming years are likely to see it growing from strength to strength to become a formidable force. This was what Polit Bureau member P Ramachandran underlined when he greeted the conference on the second day. (INN)