Looking Back on 55 years of the Republic Day
Published in
“PEOPLES
DEMOCRACY”,
January 29, 2006
THE Republic Day 26
January is replete with historic significance. It marked the adoption
of the Constitution of India. The Constitution declared that India
would be a democratic republic. The Constitution has been modelled on
the Constitutions in force in several countries abroad including
Great Britain, USA, and USSR as well as Switzerland. The crux of the
Constitution is the set of principles known as the directive
principles of state policy.
These principles include: adequate
means of livelihood for every citizen and the right to work; an
economic system which does not result in the concentration of wealth;
right to education and provision for free and compulsory education
for children; living wage for workers and equal work for equal pay
for men and women.
As our Party Programme points out, none of
these principles could be implemented thanks to the class-bias of the
bourgeois-landlord system that has prevailed in the country. The gap
between the pious intentions and the actuality of practice, stares us
in the face, 55 years since the adoption of the Constitution.
The
period since independence has been marked by a continuing crisis in
the nation’s economy. India is principally an agrarian country with
a superstructure of industries. After we gained freedom from British
colonial rule, the Indian ruling classes refuse to go in for land
reforms. Concentration of land and rural inequalities continue
unabated. A central legislation on minimum wages in the rural
stretches is yet a far cry.
The policy of liberalisation and
the imperialism-driven globalisation have opened up the economy to
the marauding forays of multi-national corporations. The bureaucracy,
the education system, the media, and the realm of culture are now
subject to the penetration of finance capital.
The advent of
the BJP government at the centre and in some states, saw the
beginning of a new form of anti-people oppression when religious
fundamentalism was patronised officially. Already there was a
concerted attempt by the bourgeoisie and the landlords to distort
secular values as enshrined in the Indian Constitution.
The
Congress is not a communal party but it does make compromises with
religious fundamentalism. The BJP and its ideological patron the RSS
have been engaged in the onerous task of communalising instruments of
the state including the administration, the education system and the
media.
Communal riots became a frequent feature. While we
defend the religious freedom of every religious community, we stand
firm against the intrusion of religion into the realms of the
economy, education, polity, and administration. Caste oppression, and
oppression on the tribal people (the Kalinganagar incident is the
most recent example) has been allowed to continue.
CENTRE-STATE
RELATIONS
The Indian Constitution is a federal instrument.
However, right from its inception, the Indian ruling classes have
been engaged in ensuring that a unitary structure is allowed to
overwhelm the political scenario. This is evident in the realm of
centre-state relations in particular. On our India-wide campaign and
movement for correct centre-state relations, the H S Sarkaria
Commission was set up by Mrs Indira Gandhi. Its recommendations were
not fully satisfactory, but even so its views with regard to
financial relations have not been implemented.
The Union list
is bigger and exudes much more power than the concurrent list and the
State list put together. Over the years, the power and the prestige
of the states have been allowed to get eroded. Such has been the bias
of the succession of union government that the states have suffered
grievously because of lack of administrative and financial
powers.
In the present capitalist set up, Left Front
governance in West Bengal, Kerala and Tripura, with limited powers,
has been travelling along the path of alternative governance. In West
Bengal, the Left Front government has been in office for six
consecutive times. During this period, the succession of Congress-run
and BJP-led union governments have been riding roughshod over the
state’s rights, administrative and financial. We had formulated the
case for providing more power to the states in the document of the
Srinagar conference quite a few years ago.
Discrimination
against the Left Front government had been manifest in the freight
equalisation policy and the licensing system. Planning also favoured
a few states and West Bengal was deliberately ignored, allowing the
state to lose its leading position in the sphere of industrial
production and expansion.
Under the freight equalisation
policy, while the comparative advantage of the location of raw
materials like coal and iron-ore in West Bengal was effectively
nullified, there was no freight equalisation for the raw materials we
needed. Under the licence-permit raj, the Congress governments would
tell potential investors that industrial licence would only be issued
if they chose to invest in states other than West Bengal.
An
example of this frame of mind has been the Haldia Petro Chemical
project. We had to wait for 11 years because of lack of cooperation
of the union government, although we had repeatedly approached the
union government for clearance of the project, clearance which was
never forthcoming.
Then when Rajiv Gandhi became prime
minister, he hurriedly organised a foundation stone laying ceremony
with me for the project, more probably, with an eye to the ensuing
elections. He, of course, lost the elections. There are many such
examples like this. Only after internal and external pressure, the
policy of freight equalisation and of licensing system was ended,
which has been of great help both to West Bengal as well as other
states.
There was also a sustained campaign against West
Bengal that propogated that no work gets to be done here because of
‘labour troubles.’ This myth we had to counter not only here in
India but also abroad. In the mid-1980s there was an RBI report
wherein it was clearly stated that only 3-4 per cent of factory
closures were due to the workers’ actions like strike’ and, in
fact, the vast majority of the closures were due to the outlook and
policy of the management.
A
PRO-PEOPLE GOVERNMENT
In
West Bengal under Left Front governance, a pro-people, especially
pro-poor outlook, has permeated policies. Democracy has flourished
and we have recognised even government employees’ right to strike,
although emphasised that strike should be used as the weapon of last
resort. We have called upon all workers to take an active interest in
production and productivity.
Communal harmony has long been a
part of the glorious heritage of this state. The rights of people
belonging to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and the dalits
have been well secured.
While a great conundrum of economic
progress was chalked up in the country as a whole, we in West Bengal
have managed to achieved outstanding figures in agricultural
production, social forestry, pisciculture, and horticulture, topping
all-India figures.
Fast progress has also been noted in the
sphere of industries. Back in 1994 the Left Front government, on the
floor of the Assembly enunciated its industrial policy on the demand
of the Chambers of Commerce. Industrialisation is being pursued on
with especial emphasis on the ‘sunrise industries’ of information
technology, food processing, and electronics, generating a high level
of employment, especially in downstream units. Attempts are being
made to revive sick industries both in the joint sector and in the
private sector.
We recall how several years ago, we had
approached the then prime minister Mrs Indira Gandhi for investment
in electronics in West Bengal. She set up a committee, and for a one
full year the committee did nothing. Then she informed me that her
officers had told her not to invest in West Bengal since it was a
border state, and decided instead to invest in an electronics complex
in north India. We told her that the security threat was from
Pakistan and not Bangladesh, but she would not listen. We acted on
our own and at present there is a flourishing electronics complex at
Salt Lake.
ACHIEVEMENTS
To give a few examples of our
achievements, the very first Left Front government not only initiated
land reforms, but made education free up to the Higher Secondary
level. Later 50 engineering colleges were set up from the three
existing ones. The sixth Left Front government is determined to
achieve a position of primacy in industry nationwide, based on the
agricultural advancement already made.
However, we brook no
complacency anywhere. We tell the people what we have achieved and
what we have not. A great deal of work has been done, but plenty more
is left which the seventh Left Front government, we are sure, will
tackle as soon as it assumes office.
Politically, we have
triumphed in elections at all levels, from the Panchayat and the
Municipalities to the assembly and the Lok Sabha in West Bengal. We
have no doubt that the people who reside trust in us, will again
rally to make the Left Front win the assembly polls later this year,
for the seventh time in succession. People create history, and as we
always say, they have created history here in West Bengal. We deeply
respect the heightened political consciousness of the people.
NEW
POLITICAL SITUATION
There is a new political situation
prevailing in the country at the present moment. Following the defeat
of the anti-people and communal BJP-led forces of right reaction, a
Congress-led UPA government took office with outside support from the
Left. We chose to lend outside support to the Congress-led
government, because we wanted to keep the evil BJP out of
office.
However, our support is not unconditional. We are not
quite satisfied with all the policies of the Congress-led UPA
government and there are some policy matters that we do take
exception to. We hope that the two committees the Left and the
Congress committees, will sit down and sort matters out for the sake
of the nation and the mass of the people. We have reserved the right
to organise and build up struggles and movements on important issues
in the interest of the people. We call upon the Union government to
implement the Common Minimum Programme.
I would like to end
this article on a rather personal note. I remember how many decades
back, during the pre-independence years, every year there would be a
great procession in London to Trafalgar Square and a meeting held
there on 26 January, calling for independence. The London Majlis, an
association of Indian students, of which I was the general secretary,
organised the rally every year. Ignoring the bitter cold of London in
January large numbers would congregate and participate in the march
and the meeting, such was the enthusiasm.
STRENGTHEN
THE PARTY
AND THE MASS ORGANISATIONS
Looking back on the decades of
independent India, I do believe that much remains to be done
especially for the interests of the mass of the people. The
strengthening of the Left parties and the mass organisations
throughout India is essential for the task of advancing to our
goals.
SOURCE: PEOPLES
DEMOCRACY, January 29, 2006,