People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)


Vol. XXVIII

No. 13

March 28, 2004

   ‘Send More Communist MPs To 

Effectively Fight Fascism’

 

THE results of the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections shall decide whether the country shall find itself under a Fascist régime.  Thus, the elections that are fast approaching are not merely about the issue of roti, kapda, aur makaan, but they are also about the people making sure that fascism shall never be able to raise its ugly head in this country: democracy must be safeguarded by the masses by voting out the BJP and its running mates from office. 

 

The state secretary of the Bengal unit of the CPI(M), Anil Biswas, spoke these words.  Biswas was addressing a meeting of Party workers at Maheshtala in south 24 Parganas.

 

Anil Biswas explained in considerable detail the backdrop and milieu of the present Lok Sabha polls.  He said that there was going on a process of communalisation of every tier and branch of the administration even as religious fundamentalism was assiduously spread across the society itself by the BJP along with its mentors in the RSS.  

 

No less than 400-odd communal riots have taken place during the BJP rule at the centre.  Communalism is slowly poisoning the ambience of the judiciary, the armed forces, education, and culture.  The BJP appears to be bent on smashing up, politically as well as economically, the democratic structure of the country.

 

In this background, said Anil Biswas, the issue was more about the continuing existence of democracy in India than about which kind of an alliance would assume office after the votes were counted.  The fancy that the BJP leadership has for Hitler and for his ways of strengthening certain parts of the socio-economic infrastructure of the nation, was a warning served to the nation itself, said the CPI(M) Polit Bureau member.

 

Biswas exhorted upon the big gathering to say: “We communists can never allow, in any circumstances, the evil forces of fascism to be set up in this country.”  Moreover, it is the communists and the Left, Biswas declared, who had the strength as well as the courage of conviction to fight fascism and to defeat it in a comprehensive manner. 

 

Thus, the future depends much on the enhancement of the strength of the Left and the communists in the Lok Sabha, and that is why the nation looked to Bengal to send out more such members of parliament by making them victorious in the coming parliamentary elections.

 

Anil Biswas also dwelt on the pro-people and pro-poor position of the Bengal Left Front government and he pointed out how through a sustained effort at carrying out pro-people developmental work and by remaining deep amidst the masses, the coalition government was able to stay in office for 27 years.  From 1977 onwards, each election, said Anil Biswas, “has seen the Bengal Left Front government garner more and even more popular support.” 

 

However, Bengal was not an island and the ills that plagued the country under BJP dispensation would not spare this state, said the CPI(M) leader who added to say that “once the BJP is re-elected to office, there would be little doubt as to its targeting the Left Front governments of Bengal and Tripura.” 

 

The NDA must never be allowed to come back to office, and “as far the present nature of the national political scenario is concerned,” said Biswas, “there could be little doubt that the BJP and its lackeys are surely losing ground as its policies start to have adverse effects on larger sections of the populace.”  Biswas said that it was emergent to ensure that only such a secular-democratic government was put in place after the polls, which would remain dependent on the Left and the communists.  Only then could the attacks being waged on the people be fought successfully back.  CPI(M) leaders Santimoy Bhattacharya, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, and Shamik Lahiri, too, addressed the meeting.