People's Democracy

18TH MAHARASHTRA STATE CONFERENCE OF CPI(M) AT SOLAPUR

Call To Enhance Party’s Independent Activity,

Strength And Influence

Statewide Mass Rally In Mumbai On April 4  

 Ashok Dhawale

INAUGURAL SESSION AND PUBLIC MEETING

“ON the international plane, our Party has been in the forefront of the growing worldwide resistance against the US military occupation of Iraq on the one hand, and against the devastating assaults of imperialist globalisation on the other. The desperate search of finance capital for super-profits is leading to a drive to economically recolonise third world countries by attacking their sovereignty. We shall further broaden and intensify the anti-imperialist dimension of our activity in the days ahead and for this, we shall enlist the support of all sections of the democratic and patriotic people of our country.

“On the national plane, we have succeeded in achieving the political objectives that we had set out in the 17th Party Congress. The communal and anti-people BJP-led regime, which we had characterised as the most reactionary government in independent India, has been thrown out of power by the people. A secular government led by the Congress has been installed, but it is dependent for its majority on the support of the Left. The strength of the CPI(M) and the Left in parliament has considerably increased, enabling them to play a greater role in national affairs. But within the UPA government, there is a section that wants to dispense with the common minimum programme and continue with the discredited path of neo-liberal reforms. The CPI(M) and the Left are resolutely fighting this trend and will continue to do so in the interests of the common people.

“While continuing to exert pressure on the central government for implementing the pro-people assurances in the CMP, our Party must lay the greatest stress on unleashing mass movements of the people on their burning issues. This must be accompanied by constant projection of our political line and ideological positions amongst the people and by planned efforts to build up our Party and mass organisations. We must also remember that class exploitation in the Indian context has two aspects – economic and social – and both aspects must be fought together. I am sure that your state conference will discuss all these questions in the light of the concrete situation in your state, and will reorient the work of the Party to increase its strength and influence manifold in the years to come.”

It was with these words that CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury inaugurated the 18th Maharashtra state conference of the CPI(M) at Solapur on March 9, 2005. Along with Sitaram Yechury, two other members of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau – S Ramachandran Pillai and E Balanandan –  guided the state conference for all three days till March 11.

The working class city of Solapur in South Maharashtra, which has had a militant anti-imperialist tradition since the freedom struggle, was host to a CPI(M) state conference for the first time. It is on the strength of its working class base in the city that the Party regained the MLA seat here for the third time after a tough battle in the last assembly elections in 2004.  The conference venue and hall were named after two prominent former leaders of the Party state committee, both of whom were also former MLAs - Vithalrao Naik and Satyendra More. Solapur city in general, and the conference venue in particular, had been attractively decorated in red to greet the state conference.

The conference began on March 9 with the flag-hoisting by E Balanandan, followed by floral tributes to martyrs. In his welcome speech, reception committee chairman and CPI(M) state committee member Ravindra Mokashi outlined the glorious traditions of Solapur city and traced the growth of the communist movement there. PWP leader Ganpatrao Deshmukh, MLA, and CPI leader R G Mhetras greeted the conference.

CPI(M) state secretary Prabhakar Sanzgiri, who presided over the inaugural session, welcomed the defeat of the Shiv Sena-BJP communal combine in the assembly elections held in the state six months ago. But although secular forces like the Congress and NCP have come to power, they have been dynamiting their own pre-election manifesto pledges. Nearly one lakh hutments in Mumbai were ruthlessly demolished jointly by the INC-NCP-led state government and the SS-BJP-led municipal corporation, without making any provision for rehabilitation whatsoever.

The government, said Sanzgiri, has decided to trifurcate the Maharashtra State Electricity Board, as a prelude to its eventual privatisation. Dubious moves are on to revive the Enron power plant at Dabhol after scuttling the judicial inquiry into the notorious Enron deal. Lakhs of cotton farmers have not been given their dues for the cotton that they have sold to the government under the monopoly cotton scheme. The public distribution system in the state is in shambles and malnutrition deaths are on the rise, especially in the tribal belts. No relief has been given to workers thrown on the streets as a result of the closure of thousands of factories. No legal protection is available to lakhs of workers in the unorganised sector. The long-standing question of vesting forest land in the names of the adivasis cultivating it for generations remains unresolved. The commercialisation of education is proceeding with a vengeance and so also is the privatisation of health.

Sanzgiri then said that it was against this background that caste and communal appeals are being made to mobilise the people, to prevent them from getting organised around their real issues. A case in point is the large convention recently held to start a new religion called the “Shiv Dharma”, which is an effort to consolidate the already powerful Maratha caste. As was only to be expected, while attacking Brahminism, no effort was made in this convention to identify the other class enemies of the people. The need, therefore, is to combine the struggle against both class exploitation and caste oppression.

The inaugural session then concluded after the vote of thanks proposed by CPI(M) state committee member and Solapur district secretary Narsayya Adam, who is also the thrice elected MLA from the city constituency.  

On the evening of March 9 was the mass rally and public meeting, which was attended by several thousands of people, a large chunk of which was beedi women workers and other workers from the unorganised sector. The public meeting was addressed by all three Polit Bureau members of the Party – E Balanandan, S Ramachandran Pillai and Sitaram Yechury. They effectively dwelt upon the political challenges before the country and explained the stand of the Party. The meeting was presided over by Narsayya Adam and the introductory speech was made by Ravindra Mokashi. The proceedings of the entire state conference, particularly the inaugural session and the mass rally, were excellently covered by all sections of the print and electronic media.

The delegate session began on March 9 afternoon by electing a presidium comprising Dr Vithal More, P B Chavan, K K Pawar, Allabaksh Patel and Prabha Ghangare. The other committees elected were: Steering committee – state secretariat; Resolutions committee – Krishna Khopkar, Kumar Shiralkar, Ajit Abhyankar; Credentials committee – Hemkant Samant (convenor), Mariam Dhawale, Yashwant Zade; Minutes committee – Vijay Gabhane, Prakash Choudhary, Arun Latkar, Ajay Burande, Laxman Gaikwad.

The condolence resolution paying homage to martyrs, to departed leaders and activists of the Party and to progressive personalities in the literary and cultural fields was moved by Dr Ashok Dhawale and was adopted by observing two minutes silence.

All the 399 conference delegates and observers from 30 districts were given four conference documents by the state committee: Political Report, Organisational Report, Annexures to Organisational Report (comprising charts giving the districtwise organisational picture of the Party) and Reports of Mass Fronts. They were also provided with three booklets, which were Marathi translations of three important recent central committee resolutions, viz. Approach to Mass Organisations; Review of Work on the Trade Union Front and Immediate Tasks; and Review of Work on the Kisan and Agricultural Labour Fronts and Future Tasks. A fourth booklet, which comprises the central committee resolution On Rectification Campaign, will also be published soon. 

POL-ORG REPORT AND RESOLUTIONS

CPI(M) state secretary Prabhakar Sanzgiri placed the political-organisational report before the conference. After touching upon the international and national situation, the political report analyses the situation in Maharashtra in three sections: Review of Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections; Conditions of the People; and Future Political Tasks.

During the period since the last state conference, building upon the united struggles of the Left and secular forces against the Enron deal and on burning peasant issues, an effort was made to set up a Left Front comprising the CPI(M), CPI and PWP. A statewide cadre camp of these Left parties and a large public meeting were held in June 2003 at Alibag in Raigad district, for which the chief guest was CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. A policy statement of the Left Front, identifying the BJP-SS communal combine as the main enemy and also criticising the policies of the INC-NCP, was adopted. Statewide demonstrations on peoples’ issues were organised by the Left Front on August 9, 2003, in which over a lakh people took part.

However, at the time of the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections, the PWP adopted a line of equidistance from both the SS-BJP and the INC-NCP. A similar line was adopted by other parties like the SP, BBM and JD(S). The SP and BBM (led by Prakash Ambedkar) put up an inordinate number of candidates for the Lok Sabha, in complete disregard of their real strength. Consequently, the front of Left and secular parties lost its credibility and could not win any seat. The PWP also lost its single sitting parliamentary seat. Learning from this experience, the CPI(M) and CPI broke away from this front in the assembly elections. The PWP strength in the new Vidhan Sabha was reduced from five to two, the BBM from three to one, and the SP and JD(S) from two each to nil.

Of the three Lok Sabha seats contested by the CPI(M), it polled over 1,18,000 votes in the Dahanu (ST) seat in Thane district and over 1,13,000 votes in the Malegaon (ST) seat in Nashik district. The report admitted that fighting the third Wardha seat had been a mistake. In the assembly elections, the CPI(M) won the three seats of Surgana (ST) in Nashik district, Jawhar (ST) in Thane district and Solapur city south in Solapur district. This marked an increase of one seat over last time. In all these three seats, of which the first two have been sitting CPI(M) seats for the last 27 years and the third won twice earlier, the INC-NCP had not put up their official candidates, but rebel candidates of these parties in Jawhar and Solapur polled over 25,000 votes each. The Party had contested 16 assembly seats, and in the remaining 13 seats its performance was not satisfactory. The report self-critically admitted that fewer seats should have been contested.

One positive experience related in the report is about the united front forged by the Party in Thane district with the Kunabi Sena. The Kunabi Sena is basically a caste organisation, but for the last two years, the CPI(M) and the Kunabi Sena have come together in struggles on class issues like land, water, employment and development. This resulted in an electoral alliance in both the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections, which was beneficial to both and led to a considerable increase in votes. Now efforts are being made to expand this mutual co-operation on the land question and other issues to the Ratnagiri district in Konkan, where the CPI(M) has had no presence for the last several decades.

During the last three years, the Party has independently led two major struggles in Maharashtra. The first was the statewide land satyagraha in October 2002, in which nearly 1,50,000 people from 20 districts courted arrest, forcing the state government to promulgate a government resolution (GR) laying down the procedure for vesting forest land in the names of the cultivating peasants, most of them adivasis. However, the implementation of this GR has been tardy and another struggle is on the cards. The second was the struggle on the question of ration (PDS) and water, in which over 75,000 people from 21 districts held large demonstrations at district and tehsil centres in February 2005. Now, as the next step, a statewide mass rally of the Party on the burning issues of ration, water, electricity, land, employment etc. will be held in Mumbai on April 4, 2005. Apart from this, all the mass organisations have led struggles on various issues.

The political report, after taking account of the miserable conditions of various sections of the working people as a result of state government policies, then relates the retrograde measures of the new state government over the last six months (see Sanzgiri’s speech in the inaugural session above). Taking this into account, the state committee has decided that, while it will be vigilant to see that the SS-BJP communal combine does not stage a comeback, the Party’s support to the new state government will be issue-based.

Finally, considering the political opportunism and organisational disarray in the ranks of the Left and secular forces, the report sets out the clear direction that, while making efforts to regroup these forces, the central emphasis of the Party and mass organisations must henceforth be on enhancing their own independent activity, strength and influence.

Maharashtra is one of the five priority states selected by the CPI(M) central committee for special attention. The organisational report takes stock of various aspects of the Party organisation under various sections, such as Party Membership, Mass Organisations, Quality of Cadres, Party Rectification, Cultural Work, State-level Functioning, Financial Position and so on. A special section in the report is devoted to a self-critical review of the experience of formulation and implementation of the One-Year Plan for Party Development. The implementation has some positive features that must be strengthened and some negative features that must be removed. The report concludes with specific political and organisational tasks for the future.

The following table from the organisational report will give a rough idea of the membership of the Party and mass organisations in Maharashtra during the last one decade from 1995 (15th state conference) to 2005 (18th state conference). 

As many as 68 delegates took part in the discussion on the political-organisational report during the whole of the second day of the conference on March 10. Generally, the nature of the discussion was good and healthy and the delegates enriched the report with their experiences, suggestions and criticisms. After the state secretary’s reply, where he clarified and explained many of the points raised, the political-organisational report was unanimously adopted amidst enthusiastic cheers and slogans.

The conference also adopted 14 different resolutions as follows: 1) Join the struggle against imperialist terrorism, 2) Change the anti-people economic policy of globalisation, 3) Eradicate the scourge of communalism and vanquish the communal forces, 4) Adopt a comprehensive policy for closed mills and factories and accept the demands of the working class, 5) Implement a comprehensive social security scheme for unorganised workers, 6) Make radical changes in the conditions of peasants and agricultural workers, 7) Immediately clear the dues of the cotton farmers and make the monopoly cotton procurement scheme permanent, 8) Launch a struggle for a democratic water policy, 9) Stop the trifurcation and privatisation of the state electricity board and put an end to load-shedding, 10) Launch a broad-based struggle to save education for the people, 11) Make the  right to housing a fundamental right; stop demolishing hutments without rehabilitation, 12) Raise a powerful social movement to reverse the declining sex ratio, 13) Conduct a struggle for progressive cultural values. The 14th and last resolution giving a call to make a great success of the April 4 statewide Party rally in Mumbai was moved by Dr D L Karad and was seconded by Suryaji Salunkhe, both state secretariat members.

CONCLUDING SESSION   

In the concluding session on March 11, credentials committee convenor Hemkant Samant placed the report, some of the highlights of which were as follows: Out of the 399 delegates and observers, 40 were women. 208 were less than 45 years of age. There were 56 graduates and 63 post-graduates. 85 delegates were Party and mass organisation whole-timers. By class origin, 55 were from the working class, 68 from agricultural workers, 140 from the poor peasantry, 59 from the middle peasantry, 3 from the rich peasantry and 61 from the middle class. By social composition, 128 were adivasis, 35 were dalits and 26 were from the Muslim and Christian minority communities. 97 were working on the trade union front, 139 on the kisan front, 41 on the agricultural workers front, 49 on the youth front, 34 on the women’s front, 6 on the student front and 20 on other fronts. There were 3 sitting MLAs, 1 zilla parishad president, 9 zilla parishad members, 9 panchayat samiti members, 4 municipal councillors, 16 sarpanches, 28 gram panchayat members, 1 agricultural produce market committee chairman, 36 co-operative society members or office-bearers and 1 trustee of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust.

The state conference then elected a 50-member new state committee, a 3-member state control commission and 15 delegates and 2 observers to the 18th Party Congress. The state control commission elected V G Padmanabhan as its chairman. In the first  meeting of the new state committee, Prabhakar Sanzgiri, who had led the Party with distinction as the state secretary for a period of 19 years, conveyed his decision to retire from this post due to reasons of age and health. The state committee, accepting his decision, adopted a resolution placing on record the significant contributions he had made during his tenure as state secretary. The new state committee, after a brief discussion, unanimously elected Dr Ashok Dhawale as the new state secretary of the Party. It was decided to elect the new state secretariat after the 18th Party Congress. All these decisions were reported to the conference by Sitaram Yechury and were welcomed by the delegates.

E Balanandan then released a copy of the informative and attractive conference souvenir that was published by the reception committee. He also felicitated 91-year old veteran Party leader Gangadhar Appa Burande, a freedom fighter, former member of the state secretariat, former MP and one of the founders of the Party in the Marathwada region.

In his concluding speech, Sitaram Yechury said that Maharashtra has tremendous potential for growth of the Party, and it is in recognition of this fact that the central committee has identified Maharashtra as one of the five priority states in the country. In the light of the healthy discussion and rousing enthusiasm seen in this conference, the new leadership must redouble its initiative to ensure that this potential for growth is realised. For achieving this objective, ideologically strengthening the Party ranks, unleashing big mass struggles, streamlining the Party organisation, strengthening collective functioning and Party unity, increasing our political intervention and projecting an alternative set of policies to those being pursued by the ruling classes is of the essence.

After the vote of thanks by Allabaksh Patel and the concluding remarks on behalf of the presidium by Dr Vithal More, on behalf of the new state committee Dr Ashok Dhawale assured the Party’s central leadership that the new state committee, the delegates to this conference and the entire Party would work collectively to increase its strength and influence in Maharashtra in the days to come.

The new state secretary also proposed the vote of thanks to the reception committee, the CPI(M) Solapur district committee, all the mass organisations in Solapur and the conference volunteers who had put in tremendous efforts to ensure the success of this state conference. On the second night, the delegates were treated to an inspiring cultural programme titled “Woh Subah Kabhi To Aayegi”, which was a rendering of the songs and ghazals of the renowned and progressive Urdu shahir Sahir Ludhianvi, presented by artiste Ali Hasan and group of Pune. A Safdar Hashmi Street Theatre competition, a seminar on “Challenges before the Working Class Movement” and lectures by experts on “The Relevance of Information Technology for the People” had also been organised in Solapur prior to the conference.

The 18th state conference of the CPI(M) then concluded with a spirited rendering of the Internationale, amidst resounding cheers and revolutionary slogans.