By Prakash Karat

The infamy that the Narendra Modi government’s foreign policy has earned in the recent period, is something that cannot be understated. On June 13, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution moved by Spain calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. The resolution accused Israel of using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”. Of the 193 member states, 149 voted for the resolution, 12 opposed while 19 abstained. India did not vote for the resolution, but abstained.

This was the most shameful stance given that the urgency for a ceasefire was glaringly evident in the background of the continuing genocidal war by Israel on Gaza and the weapon of mass starvation inflicted on 2 million people. India’s justification for the abstention vote was lame and deceitful – that “durable peace can only emerge through direct negotiations”. Deceitful because it was Israel which had broken the last ceasefire and imposed a total blockade on all supplies into Gaza. The abstention in the vote was contrary to the stand India had taken six months ago, in December 2024, when a resolution calling for ceasefire in the UN General Assembly was adopted, in which India voted for the resolution. India and Timor-Leste were the only two Asian countries to abstain. All other Asian countries voted for the resolution, even staunch allies of the United States like Japan and South Korea.

The Modi government has been emboldened to come out with a clearer pro-Israeli stance in the wake of President Trump’s full support to Netanyahu’s plan to obliterate the Palestinians. The Trump administration has also indicated that it does not support the two state solution anymore. The slavish attitude of aligning with Trump at all cost has led to the complete abandonment of India’s principled support to the Palestinian cause and siding with the colonialist-genocidal policies of the Israeli regime.

That the foreign policy has been mortgaged to the US-Israeli axis became evident once again when India distanced itself from the statement issued by the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation (SCO), on June 14, which condemned the Israeli military attacks on Iran calling it a violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. The Indian government was quick to announce that it was not consulted while issuing the statement. Even the fact that Iran is a fellow member of the SCO and was subjected to aggression did not weigh with the government. On its part, the Modi government did not criticise or condemn Israel’s military aggression against Iran, a friendly country with whom India has a strategic partnership. This stand can be contrasted with the response of Japan which is a close ally of the United States and a member of the QUAD. The Japanese government strongly condemned the Israeli attack on Iran calling it a flagrant violation of international law and Iran’s sovereignty.

When the United States bombed the three nuclear installations in Iran on June 22, in blatant violation of all international laws and norms, India kept silent. Prime Minister Modi, in a telephone call to the Iranian President expressed concern and called for de-escalation. This was an advice to the victim of aggression, not to take any steps to defend oneself.

In the BRICS Leaders Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Modi in his speech avoided any criticism of the Israeli attack on Iran and the U.S. bombing of its nuclear sites. But the joint statement issued by the Summit roundly condemned the aggression on Iran. Obviously, the ten other member countries of BRICS do not share India’s views on the matter.

The further rightward lurch in foreign policy stems from the eagerness to curry favour with President Trump and to appease his outrageous demands. The Quad Foreign Ministers’ meeting held in Washington on July 1, came out with a sharper focus on China as a security threat and to counter its growing economic clout. India is bent upon ensuring that Trump attends the Quad Leaders’ Summit to be held in Delhi, later this year.

India has also to come to terms with Trump’s demands on the trade and tariff front. Here again, the Modi government is unable to take a firm stand. All indications are that India was prepared to make major concessions to ensure that the interim trade deal is finalised before the July 9 deadline, when the 90 days pause in reciprocal tariffs announced by Trump is due to end. However, the negotiations held so far could not lead to a satisfactory conclusion.

That India’s foreign policy is in shambles has become clear in the post ‘Operation Sindoor’ period. Trump has succeeded in hyphenating India and Pakistan, and presenting the United States as the arbiter in India-Pakistan relations.

At the root of the fiasco lies the Modi regime’s determined pursuit to cement its junior partnership with the United States. A renewed ten year defence framework agreement is to be signed when the Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is to next meet his American counterpart. Already India had committed to buy U.S. military equipment on a large scale during Modi’s visit to Washington in February. The U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, once again in June, expressed unhappiness about India buying weapons from Russia but added significantly that these concerns have been addressed and that “India is starting to move towards buying military equipment from the United States”.

What all this amounts to is a surrender of India’s vital interests, whether it pertains to economic sovereignty, foreign policy or strategic autonomy. (IPA Service)

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By Satyaki Chakraborty

Communist Party of India (CPI) general secretary D. Raja gave a clarion call on Wednesday for the building of principled unity of all communists in India to act as the vanguard of the battle against the Narendra Modi government and the RSS-BJP led Sangh Parivar. Addressing the inaugural session of the 24th congress of the CPI(M) at Madurai, the CPI leader said that the combined Left has to mount a decisive resistance against the corporate communal assault by the Narendra Modi government in the last ten years against the Indian nation, its people and the country’s institutions.

The CPI general secretary’s speech was marked by a sense of urgency of taking united action against the fascist ideology of the RSS and the Sangh Parivar and how this struggle had to be spread in every part of the country. “We must be the voice of the voiceless, the organisers of the organized and hope for the hopeless”, Raja said.

Focusing on the nature of the present crisis in the country, the CPI general secretary said “India today stands at a breaking point. The structural oppressions of class, caste, and patriarchy have become brutal under the BJP-RSS regime, which is nothing but the political tool of the most reactionary sections of the bourgeoisie and landlords.”

India is not merely suffering from bad governance; India is suffocating under a system designed to exploit. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been this shameful. The top 1% of this country now owns more than 40% of the national wealth, while half the population struggles for two meals a day.

According to D. Raja, unemployment is pushing the youth into hopelessness. Agrarian distress is driving farmers to suicide. The public education and health sectors are being systematically destroyed. The working people’s rights — to organize, to dissent, to dream — are under relentless attack. Trade unions are demonized. Universities are turned into RSS laboratories. Journalism is criminalized. The secular-democratic fabric of the Indian republic is being torn apart, thread by thread.

Above all, the RSS-BJP combine is openly targeting the very Constitution of India. It is seeking to dismantle its fundamental pillars — socialism, secularism, federalism, and social justice. Their assault on our Republic is systematic and ideological. RSS as an organisation follows a deeply divisive, communal and fascist ideology. It is inspired from Mussolini and Hitler and follows their organisational principles. BJP is the political arm of the RSS and along with several other organisations, known as the Sangh Parivar. The Sangh Parivar shares the Fascist contempt for democracy and believes in making representative institutions like the Parliament redundant, just as Hitler did. Together, the Sangh Parivar dreams of a theocratic, corporate-ruled India where majoritarianism, caste and capital will dominate without restraint, the CPI leader emphasized.

Raja mentioned “We must lead struggles on the streets, in factories, in villages, in universities — not only against economic exploitation but also against the deep-rooted structures of caste and patriarchy. We must make sure that the slogans of “Jai Bhim,” “Inquilab Zindabad,” and “Lal Salaam” are not mere words but rallying cries for a transformative movement. This is not a choice anymore, comrades — it is our revolutionary duty.”

At the same time, he mentioned “we must also wage a battle for scientific temper, as enshrined in the Constitution. The Communist movement must boldly take up the challenge of using science and technology — including digital tools and AI — in the service of the people. We must fight for universal access to knowledge, technological equity, and against the commodification of science. It was Lenin, after all, who told us, “Communism is Soviet power plus electricity.” Today, it must be Communist strength plus democratized technology.”

The CPI general secretary’s address was also marked by optimism. He said the time is not for hesitation but for action. The situation is grave, but it is also pregnant with possibilities. As Marxists, we understand that the greatest crises can open the greatest opportunities — provided we are ready to lead by example”. Then he went on to add.

“Let us intensify mass struggles. Let us mobilize the workers, peasants, youth, women, Dalits, Adivasis, minorities — all who are oppressed — under the red banner. Let us confront not only the RSS-BJP, but the very system that breeds exploitation, inequality, and injustice.”

The significance of CPI general secretary’s emphasis on principled unity of the communists was taken note of by the assembled delegates and guests as the general secretary of the CPI(ML)-Liberation Dipankar Bhattacharya also addressed the session while Prakash Karat, the former general secretary of the CPI(M) and presently the coordinator of the party after premature death of Sitaram Yechury, was present all through. There are expectation that the Madurai party congress which concludes its session on April 6 will come out with concrete action plan for bringing about that principled unity of the communists in the coming battles to fight the Modi government and the Sangh Parivar. (IPA Service)

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K Raveendran

The scene at the Central Committee meeting of the CPI-M the other day in Delhi ran like this: the committee members are huddled together, pens poised, brows furrowed and looking askance at how and why the sand under the feet of their party got washed away in the Lok Sabha elections in the only remaining backyard of the Marxist party. Mash the Great, the intellectual capitalist of the Kerala party, made his weighty exposition of what exactly happened: ‘We lost because they won’. Fair enough. Only resident psephologist film maker Sreeni could have bettered it.

The committee wasn’t entirely convinced. In a stunning display of bureaucratic acrobatics and obliviousness, the members decided to embark on a soul-searching expedition to unearth the mysteries behind their colossal failure in Kerala. The CPI-M’s post-election analysis is like a tragicomedy – tragic for them, hilarious for the rest of us.

Except for the CC and other manifest forms of party leadership, everyone knew what was coming. Those who couldn’t read the writing on the wall had worn a veil over their eyes that conveniently blocked the reality because it soothed their eyes, and served their materialistic demands. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s famous intemperance, indulgence, abrasiveness, and scant respect for the rule of law couldn’t have produced any other result. There was no rocket science involved.

For the CC, it’s not so much a search for answers as it is an important exercise in political theatrics; the disconnect between leadership posturing and grassroots realities was so glaring only the ardent devotees could have missed it. But despite Vijayan’s stellar track record in rattling cages and making headlines for all the wrong reasons, some within the party seemed shockingly surprised by the election outcome.

The reality is only beginning to sink in now.

The CC move for a deeper study is like dissecting a fish to understand why it’s not climbing trees. If anything needed a study, it is perhaps the extent to which prime minister Narendra Modi’s face on the BJP election posters resembled that of Sreenarayana Guru so as to trick the Sreenarayaneeya vote bank that sustained the Marxist party for so long into voting for BJP. To boot, we have it on the authority of Cherthala’s wholesale dealer of Ezhava votes that there has been such a shift, although he attributes it to the Pinarayi leadership’s -mis-adventurous courtship of the minority communities.

Sitaram Yechury and his committee colleagues had no choice but to nod in sombre agreement with whatever Pinarayi Vijayan said and did before, during and after the election, given that he had such stranglehold over party finances, rendering them little more than glorified interns in his grand political opera, the central theme of which turns out to be filial love. With the central leaders beholden to Pinarayi for their salaries and perks, their relationship was more akin to that between employee and employer rather than leader and follower.

Yechury and company can’t even go on strike against their paymaster, for that is the sole proprietorship of the party’s militant trade union CITU, of which they can’t be expected to be members. That would mean they ditch their glorified titles and apply for ordinary membership of CITU and start from scratch, un unreasonably high sacrifice to make.

I feel particularly distressed at their plight as we have had a somewhat shared past. Yechury, Prakash Karat, Brinda Karat and Maneka Gandhi were my contemporaries in JNU and I had written any number of posters for Karat and Yechury when they contested the JNU election. It is a different matter that it was my passion for poster writing, which continues to be so even today, than an affiliation with their political ideology that landed me in their camp.

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By Prakash Karat

Manipur burning has become emblematic of the divisive politics of the BJP in the North East.  Only four months ago, in February, Narendra Modi had crowed about the success of the BJP in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland elections in the North East. He claimed Christians in the North East are accepting the BJP.

It is seven weeks now since violence erupted in Manipur on May 3.  Armed clashes, killings and arson attacks have ravaged the state. Hundreds of houses, around 200 churches and 17 temples have been burnt. Even the house of a union minister of state in Imphal was not spared.  Despite 35,000 central armed police forces having been deployed in the state along with the army, incidents of attacks by armed Kuki and Meitei groups continue to occur.  The death toll has crossed 100 and there are at least 50,000 displaced people in relief camps.

The home minister, Amit Shah, visited the state on May 29, a full 26 days after violence engulfed the state.  His visit and the measures announced have not stemmed the violence.  The divide between the Meiteis and the Kukis is now complete with extremist elements on both sides exploiting the lawless situation.

Manipur is a sensitive border state, which is notable for its diversity with 36 ethnic and religious communities.  Of these, the three main ones are the Meitei community, which inhabits the Imphal valley, who are followers of the Hinduism or the indigenous Sanamahi religion; and the Kukis and the Nagas, who are predominantly Christian.  Apart from them, there are a number of smaller tribal communities and people from other states.

For decades, Manipur has suffered from the insurgency of armed groups belonging to various ethnic communities. In the past, there have been clashes between the Nagas and Kukis. With the advent of the BJP to the state government in 2017, the RSS and its outfits have been active to consolidate the Meiteis as a Hindu force against the Kukis who are Christians. This has given the Meitei-Kuki conflict the contours of a Hindu-Christian conflict too.

The situation has been aggravated in recent times with the migration of thousands of Chin refugees from Myanmar, who have fled the crackdown by the military which seized power in 2021.  The Chin are of the same ethnic group as the Kukis.  Both in Mizoram and Manipur, these refugees have been welcomed by their ethnic kinsmen and given shelter.  But the government of India has refused to accord them refugee status and declared them as illegal migrants.

The Biren Singh government aggravated the situation by initiating eviction measures in the reserve forests, which affected a large number of Kuki families.  The crackdown on poppy cultivation was also seen as a hostile act against the Kukis.  The RSS-BJP have been encouraging extremist Meitei groups like Arambai Tengol and Meitei Leepun, who have been propagating against the Kukis and branding them as illegal outsiders.

The duplicitous game of the BJP was exposed when it was found that it has been enlisting some of the Kuki armed militant groups to help it during the elections.  In a letter written in June 2019 to the union home minister, Amit Shah, the leader of an armed Kuki group, S S Hokip, who is the chairman of the United Kuki Liberation Front (UKLF) had said that, in 2017, Ram Madhav, the BJP national general secretary, in-charge of the North East and Himanta Biswa Sarma, the Assam chief minister had  approached him for support in the 2017 assembly elections and subsequently in the 2019 parliament elections.  It was clear from the letter, which was submitted as an annexure with an affidavit in an NIA court in Imphal that money was also paid.  The UKLF was one of the organisations which had joined the “suspension of operations” agreement in 2008.

This dubious game of the BJP has exposed it and the Biren Singh government amongst the Meiteis. As far as the Kukis are concerned, they are totally against Biren Singh as they view him as the source of all their problems. All the ten MLAs of the Kuki hill districts who are mostly of the BJP are demanding a separate administration for the Kuki area.

The most intriguing part of the whole affair is the total silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  He has not spoken a single word about the situation in Manipur nor appealed for peace and restoration of normalcy. Three political delegations, two of them comprising BJP MLAs and the third of opposition parties from Manipur waited in vain in Delhi to meet the prime minister. They only saw him leaving the country for the United States. This complete lack of accountability on the part of the prime minister has infuriated all sections of the people of Manipur.

With the state government in shambles and no clear line of authority established, the first step necessary is a political one, i.e., removal of the Biren Singh government.  Without such a step, there can be no way out of the mess created by the narrow and sectarian politics of the ruling party in the North East.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The BJP-led union government announced the minimum support prices (MSP) for the Kharif Season 2023-24 on June 7, 2023 claiming that “the move is to ensure remunerative prices to growers for their produce and to encourage crop diversification”. The MSP announced is neither fair nor remunerative; it belies the hopes of the farmers and inflicts huge losses in their incomes. Let alone encouraging crop diversification, it discourages farmers from investing in agriculture.

Rather than doubling farmers’ incomes as claimed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, rising input costs coupled with unfair MSP will push large sections of the farmers especially, the small, marginal, middle farmers as well as tenants into indebtedness. The MSP announced yet again for the ninth year in succession betrays the promise of Narendra Modi that MSP will be fixed in accordance with the Swaminathan Commission recommendation of C2+50 per cent, i.e., at least 50 per cent more than the total cost of production.

MSP for paddy has been fixed at Rs 2,183/Qtl, against Rs 2,040/Qtl in the last season, a meagre increase of 7 per cent. MSP of coarse cereals has also been increased by 6.3-7.8 per cent with that of bajra fixed at Rs 2,500/Qtl compared to Rs 2,350/Qtl in 2022-23. For maize, MSP has been raised to Rs 2,090/Qtl against Rs 1,962/Qtl a year ago, an increase of 6.5 per cent. The MSP of tur (arhar or pigeon pea) and urad (black gram) has a meagre increase 6 per cent and 5.3 per cent, an increase of Rs400 to Rs 7,000/Qtl and Rs 350 to Rs 6,950/Qtl. For cotton, there has been an increase of 8.9 per cent, an increase of Rs 540 to Rs 6620/Qtl for medium staple from Rs 6080/Qtl.  MSP of sunflower seed was increased by 5.6 per cent to Rs6760/Qtl, an increase of Rs 60/Qtl. Green gram (moong) MSP was increased by 10.4 per cent over 2022-23, sesamum saw an increase of 10.3 per cent and groundnut an increase of 9 per cent over the last year. The increase is in this range for most crops and since cost projection is based on cost of production estimates from 2019-20 to 2021-22 the MSP fails to compensate for cost increase from 2021-22 to 2023-24.

The BJP government has conveniently shifted goalposts from C2 cost, which measures total cost of cultivation, to A2+FL cost, which does not include rental value of owned land and interest on fixed capital. Moreover, there is a catch even in the prices calculated as per the A2+FL formula. The Commission of Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) under-estimates costs for various states, and uses the all India weighted average of these under-estimated costs to compute the MSP. The CACP document Price Policy for Kharif Crops, The Marketing Season 2023-24 confesses that the estimates of cost of production for paddy by Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and West Bengal are higher than CACP projections. The routine projections done by CACP fail to take into account increasing input costs or factor in the inflation. The Centre did not bother to take even the recommendations of states ruled by the BJP into consideration.

For paddy, the C2 cost projected by the Kerala State Agricultural Department is Rs 2847/Qtl while the CACP projection is only Rs 2338/Qtl. The Punjab state projection of C2 cost for paddy is Rs 2089/Qtl while the CACP projects it as only Rs 1462/Qtl. In most crops, the state projections are much higher than the CACP projections. Knowing fully well that the costs of production are higher in Kerala and the MSP fixed centrally will not meet the costs, the LDF government gives about Rs 800/Qtl bonus for paddy, procuring at Rs 2850/Qtl. The BJP government discourages such initiatives by states claiming that it is market-distorting.

Even if one takes the CACP computation of C2 costs (Rs 1911/Qtl) and applies the C2+50 per cent formula to calculate the MSP of paddy, it should have been Rs 2866/Qtl. The MSP announced is only Rs 2183/Qtl. If the weighted average C2 cost (Rs 2139/Qtl) provided by the State Agricultural Departments is taken into account, C2+50 per cent would have been Rs 3208.5/Qtl. In both cases the MSP announced will be way below and farmers will accrue a loss of Rs 683.5/Qtl and Rs 1025.5/Qtl respectively. A farmer in Andhra Pradesh with a productivity of 6 tonnes/hectare will incur a loss of Rs 41,010/hectare and Rs 61,530/hectare respectively at these costs. This will translate into a loss of anything between Rs 9020 crores to about Rs 13,540 crores per season for farmers of the state (paddy is cultivated in more than 22 lakh hectares in AP).

In case of cotton, the Telangana state C2 projections are Rs 11031/Qtl while the CACP projections are far below at Rs 6264/Qtl that is Rs 4767/Qtl lesser. Even if we take the MSP (Rs 6,620/Qtl) and CACP projection of C2 for cotton (Rs5786/Qtl) the C2+50 price would be Rs 8679/Qtl or a loss of Rs 2059/Qtl. Taking an average production of 15 Qtl/Hectare the losses will be Rs 30,885/hectare. As per the state calculation C2+50 would be Rs 16547/Qtl or Rs 9927/Qtl more than MSP announced. That would mean a loss of Rs 1,48,905/hectare. Given that the state has an acreage of about 19 lakh hectares, the losses at central MSP and state proposed MSP will be ranging from about Rs 5868 crores to Rs 28,291 crores.

One can imagine the huge disincentive to a farmer and the reason why farm suicides are rising in the cotton belt. For arhar/tur, the C2 costs projected by the state of Karnataka is Rs 9588/Qtl while the CACP projection is only Rs 5744/Qtl, that is Rs 3844/Qtl lesser. Inarhar, moong, urad, sunflower, sesamum, nigerseed and cotton, the losses range from around Rs 2000/Qtl to even higher than Rs 3000/Qtl even at the CACP projected C2 rates. Even the MSP fixed is not accruable to farmers in the absence of assured procurement. It is anybody’s guess that the losses suffered by farmers are in thousands of crores. In cotton as well as pulses and oilseeds, faulty trade policy, import at zero duties and so on at the behest of its corporate cronies have further pushed farmers into crisis.

Farmers are first cheated by under-estimating the cost at a level that is much lower than actual ground reality. The farmers in states with higher costs of production are cheated the second time as the weighted average cost will invariably be lower than their actual costs. The third time farmers are cheated since this MSP is mostly notional or on paper as there is no assured procurement in most cases. The procurement as a percentage of total production in 2021-22 was 1.14 per cent for arhar/tur, 5.07 per cent for moong, 0.21 per cent for urad, 2.05 per cent for groundnut and zero per cent for soybean. In 2022-23 according to figures reported as on February 28, 2023 it was zero per cent for arhar/tur, urad and soybean and 6.39 per cent for moong.

Farmers are caught in the pincer of low unfair prices for their produce and ever rising input costs as deregulation has given a free hand to the corporate companies to fix prices without any control by the government. Often the ruse used is that an increase in MSP will increase prices for consumers, but nothing is done to stop profiteering at the expense of farmers and consumers. Undoubtedly, there is a need to increase productivity with better agronomic practices, high yielding varieties and providing quality inputs at affordable, subsidised rates. Dissemination of scientific agronomic practices with strengthened extension services to take scientific developments to farmers is also required.

This, however, is not the priority of Narendra Modi and the BJP government. Inflicting losses on farmers to deliberately push them into indebtedness, pauperise and dispossess them from their land is the direction in which the BJP government is moving. It also serves their purpose of maximising profits and filling the coffers of the corporate companies. The three Farm Acts brought earlier and the amendments to the Electricity Act are all part of the game-plan to squeeze farmers out of cultivation. It is in this context that united struggles to ensure legal guarantee of MSP with assured procurement are relevant and need to be intensified. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Twenty opposition parties had boycotted the inauguration of the new parliament building on May 28 on the grounds that the Modi government had bypassed the President of India, Droupadi Murmu, who is the head of the state as well as and head of parliament and decided that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new parliament. This constitutional impropriety of imposing the head of the executive over parliament was a legitimate reason for the opposition protest.

But what actually unfolded on the inauguration day only reinforced the decision of the opposition to stay away. All of a sudden, the Union Home minister, Amit Shah, announced that a sengol (sceptre) which was handed over by Viceroy Lord Mountbatten to Jawaharlal Nehru to mark the transfer of power would be installed inside the parliament. In the words of Amit Shah, “India’s transfer of power took place through handing over the sengol to Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.” Thus a fictional account of a Hindu religious artifact symbolising the “transfer of power” from the British to the new government, was manufactured.

It was officially stated that Lord Mountbatten had asked Jawaharlal Nehru whether there was any Indian ceremony to symbolise the transfer of power. Nehru then consulted C Rajagopalachari, the veteran Congress leader about it, who in turn checked with religious mutts in Tamil Nadu and advised that a sengol should be made the symbol of transfer of power. It was also briefed that Lord Mountbatten himself had handed over the sengol to Jawaharlal Nehru on the night of 14th August, before the official meeting at the Constituent Assembly.

But what is the actual fact and history of the sengol? There is no record or evidence of Mountbatten having asked Nehru about the symbol to be used for transfer of power. Nor is there any evidence of Rajaji’s role in the matter. In fact, Mountbatten did not hand over the sengol to Nehru. He had gone to Karachi on 13th August evening and returned late at night on the 14th.

The sengol was made at the behest of a Saivite mutt in Tamil Nadu which was then brought to Delhi and handed over to Nehru at his residence on the night of 14th. There was no official function and it was a private initiative. The fact that Nehru accepted it, like many other gifts, and it was eventually placed in the Allahabad museum, shows how Nehru viewed the matter.

Making this bogus claim that “transfer of power” on the night of 14th August by handing over the sengol suits the RSS-BJP narrative of how centuries of slavery were ended by the restoration of a Hindu raj. This “Hinduisation” of the transfer of power is achieved by an a historical sleight of hand, where the so-called actors are assigned manufactured roles. The only constructed version of this sengol episode is by S Gurumurthy, an RSS ideologue, who wrote about this in a Tamil magazine in 2021.

The spectacle of Prime Minister Modi holding the sengol and leading a procession of adeenaams (priests and heads of mutts) to install it behind the Speaker’s chair on the morning of 28th May is part of the symbolism of new India which is a mimicking of Hindu rashtra. It goes against the grain of a secular democratic republic. The sengol is traditionally a sceptre given by the head priest to a newly ordained king to rule righteously. This is totally out of place in a democratic republic where citizens elect their governments. It is also against the secular character of the republic wherein a religious symbol is placed in a prime position in parliament.

May 28 was selected for opening the new parliament building as it was also VD Savarkar’s birth anniversary. This also served to build the narrative of a new India. Savarkar who started as a freedom fighter, abandoned the fight against British rule after he was released from the Andaman Cellular Jail, consequent to his being released after his repeated mercy petitions. He then turned his attention to fight Muslims, the erstwhile rulers, and establishing Hindutva. The BJP rulers endorse his Hindutva and see the establishment of a Hindu rashtra as the culmination of the end of a thousand years of servitude.

The claim of the BJP rulers that the sengol represents dharma (righteousness) was itself badly dented that day when just a few hundred metres from the new parliament building, women wrestlers who had been peacefully protesting were brutally dragged away by the police and arrested.

The symbols of the new India ushered in by Narendra Modi – the construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya, the Central Vista and the new parliament building are all hallmarks of a new authoritarian Hindutva state. History has been distorted and manufactured to suit this new narrative. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The state of press freedom in India has been accurately captured by the World Press Freedom Index.  This year’s index was issued on May 3, which is observed as World Press Freedom Day.  The Reporters without Borders (RSF), which has prepared the World Press Freedom Index has placed India in the 161st rank out of 180 countries. The disturbing fact is, this is eleven ranks below India’s position of 150 in 2022. The index report notes that “The violence against journalists, the politically partisan media and the concentration of media ownership all demonstrate that press freedom is in crisis in ‘the world’s largest democracy’…”.

The single biggest threat to press freedom is State repression and intimidation.  Every year witnesses a progression in the steps being taken by the Modi government to curtail the media and suppress independent media enterprises and journalists.

Last year saw the ban on Media One, a Malayalam news channel, whose license to uplink and downlink was cancelled by the ministry of information and broadcasting, the reason given was national security concerns.  The ban order on the channel was quashed finally with the Supreme Court intervening and cancelling the order.  The other tactic to browbeat the media has been the use of central agencies like the ED and Income Tax to raid media houses that begins a process of harassment.  The BBC news channel offices were searched by the Income Tax department after it telecast a documentary on the Gujarat 2002 riots.  Prior to that, the IT Act Rules were invoked to block the videos of the documentary being circulated through social media platforms.

Journalists are being increasingly booked under various clauses of the criminal procedure code, including sedition, whenever they publish material which is considered inimical to the central or state governments. Journalists have been killed for doing exposes about criminal or mafia activities like Shashikant Warishe in Ratnagiri.  That is why the index defines those in the last 31 in ranking out of 180 as countries where the situation for journalists is “very serious”.  India falls in this category.

The worst case of media suppression and censorship is in Jammu & Kashmir ever since it became a union territory under the central government. After repeated attacks on the local newspapers and online media sites in Kashmir, there is now no scope for independent media. Even the few existing news outlets are under heavy regulation and censorship. This year in March, Irfan Mehraj, a journalist, was arrested by the NIA and charged under various sections of the IPC, including a clause under the UAPA. At present, there are four journalists in jail.  All of them in detention under either the Public Safety Act or the UAPA.

Having dealt with the mainstream newspaper and television channels, the government had turned its attention to the smaller independent news websites and digital media.  Rules were framed under the Information Technology (intermediary guidelines and digital media ethic code) in 2021 which effectively allows the I&B ministry to regulate the news websites and social media, the I&B can order removal of content from the digital media. The government control over news and information flows has been further tightened with a committee under the Press Information Bureau being given the power to fact-check and decide what is fake news regarding any government related matters.

The second major threat to press freedom is the increasing concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few corporates as pointed out by the Press Freedom Index Report. The corporate media, which dominates the print and visual media, have become camp followers of the Modi regime to the extent that they are widely seen as the Godi (lapdog) media.  The televisions channels owned by these corporates, in particular, have become strident propagandists for the Modi government and the Hindutva brand of politics.  Those few who are independent have been subjected to raids and harassment or taken over by Modi’s crony capitalists like Adani who has acquired NDTV.

The result has been the shrinking space for independent journalism and the absence of investigative journalism which can expose the wrong doings of the powers that be.

This stifling of press freedom is part of the overall attack on democracy and democratic rights by the authoritarian Modi government. A situation has been reached where the government feels confident that it can dictate terms to the mainstream media on what the news should be and how it should be depicted. It is a supreme irony that home minister Amit Shah, whose ministry has done the most damage to press freedom, on World Press Freedom Day greeted journalists for their crucial role in helping democracy thrive in India.

In these dark times for journalism in India, one has to salute the courage of innumerable journalists and media personnel who have stood up to all types of intimidation and pressures to carry on their journalistic work with courage and integrity.  The fight for press freedom has to be part of the overall struggle for defending democracy.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The Karnataka assembly election has a special importance in the present conjuncture.  For the BJP, in its quest for overall political dominance, retaining this southern state is vital for its ambition to spread its influence in other southern states.

With the election campaign at its peak, by all accounts, the BJP is facing rough weather with widespread anti-incumbency and popular discontent over rampant corruption, price rise, unemployment and farmers’ distress.

The BJP had formed the government in July 2019 after toppling the Congress-JD(S) coalition government by organising defections through “Operation Kamala” from the ruling alliance.  Since then, in the past four years, the state has seen two chief ministers and three deputy chief ministers.  BS Yediyurappa had to give way to Basavaraj Bommai in July 2021 as chief minister.  The record of the Bommai government has been singularly inept and riddled with corruption. Bommai, a convert to the BJP from the JD(S), sought to reinforce his position by adopting an aggressive Hindutva communal agenda.

The Bommai regime has seen a naked appeal to majoritarian sentiments with the stringent ban on slaughter of cattle and disruption of the meat trade carried out mainly by Muslims; the state also passed a draconian anti-conversion law directed against Christians; the ban on hijab wearing by students in the plus two stage followed; 4 per cent reservations for Muslims within the OBC category was scrapped; the efforts to vilify Tipu Sultan culminated in the absurd story that he was killed not by the British but by the two mythical Vokkaligas. The way the Karnataka government sought to push the anti-minority agenda looked like it was competing with Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh to top the Hindutva honours list.

However, these efforts to deepen communal polarisation and rally majoritarian sentiment was undermined and overwhelmed by the record of corruption and pro-corporate anti-worker and anti-farmer policies.  The Bommai government became synonymous with 40 per cent commission as bribes.  This was a charge levelled by the State Contractors’ Association that clearance of bills of the various departments and ministries required bribes to be paid at the rate of 40 per cent of the total bill.  The minister, KS Eshwarappa, had to resign after a contractor, Santosh Patil, committed suicide after accusing him of demanding a bribe.  More recently, a BJP MLA and his son were arrested for demanding bribes and the Vigilance Bureau uncovered Rs 8.1 crore in cash from their houses.

This open loot through institutionalised corruption was accompanied by anti-farmer policies.  The land reforms act was amended to allow conversion of land for non-agricultural purposes. The APMC mechanism was weakened to allow for corporate entry in agricultural trade in line with the farm bill passed by the parliament.  Price rise of essential food items and cooking fuels has become the biggest issue for the poorer sections, according to latest surveys. Apart from corruption and price rise, unemployment has also emerged as a major problem.

Knowing fully well that there is a strong anti-incumbency, the BJP central leadership has set the pace for highlighting the Hindutva divisive agenda.  This campaign is led by none other than Amit Shah and Narendra Modi themselves.  Amit Shah has boasted that Muslim reservation would be scrapped if the BJP comes back to power. He has warned that if Congress wins, riots will erupt in Karnataka.  Narendra Modi has sought to depict the Congress leadership as protectors of terrorists and masters of appeasement.  The BJP manifesto has harped on introducing a Uniform Civil Code and a National Register of Citizens. It has talked of regulating local businesses around temples, meaning, prohibiting Muslims from setting up shops in the vicinity of temples.

The election campaign so far shows that the usual tactics and slogans that the BJP had been adopting in recent elections are not showing much results. The call for a ‘double-engine sarkar’ is falling flat given the all-round failure of the state government. The Hindutva card has also its limits, it may galvanise the already committed and in certain communally-polarised areas, but it is not able to attract the broader sections of the discontented populace. The Hindutva appeal seems confined to the coastal districts and parts of the central and Malanad region. There is moreover, the disarray in the BJP’s Lingayat leadership over the distribution of tickets, leading to the exit of some of its prominent leaders.

As against the centralising trend inherent in the ‘double-engine’ slogan, the protection of a regional Kannadiga identity has also emerged in this election.  The double-engine government has led to imposition of Hindi, neglect of Kannada in central competitive exams and the encroachment of Amul into Karnataka with talk of merger of the Karnataka Milk Cooperative Federation with its Gujarat counterpart to the detriment of its popular brand ‘Nandini’.

An increasingly desperate BJP campaign has now fallen back on relying on the Modi appeal. Basavaraj Bommai has begun saying in election rallies that voting for BJP candidates is equivalent to showing your admiration for Narendra Modi.  This appeal to vote for Modi is reminiscent of what happened in Himachal Pradesh assembly elections in February this year. Modi himself had claimed in speeches then that “You need not remember the BJP candidate, only remember the symbol of lotus. Voting for the lotus is like voting for Modi”.  We know what happened in this election – the BJP was defeated and lost its government.

Karnataka is the only southern state where the BJP-RSS combine has acquired a significant political and ideological influence.  A defeat in the assembly polls will be a major setback for the Hindutva forces and will set the pace for the secular and democratic opposition to mount a serious challenge to the BJP in the 2024 Lok Sabha election. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Many of the top wrestlers of the country, including international medal winners, are out protesting at Jantar Mantar in Delhi. They have returned to the spot where they first conducted dharna in January since the government and the sports ministry have not acted on the complaints of sexual harassment made by some women wrestlers against the chief of the Wrestling Federation of India, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, a BJP MP, and some of the coaches.

The sports ministry from the beginning has refused to take the complaints seriously, which is why the wrestlers were forced to sit on dharna in January. The POSH Act states clearly that pending an inquiry, the respondent should be removed from any position of influence which affects the wellbeing of the complainant if she so demands. However the respondent, the BJP MP, continues as the president of the federation.

Following the swell of popular support for the women, the ministry was forced to set up a committee with a mandate of completing the inquiry within a month. However, the report itself was submitted after three months, but the complainants have not received a copy of the report. This again is a violation of the law. It is incumbent to give a copy of any inquiry report to the complainant so that she can appeal to the appellate authority if required. But instead, the ministry has publicly stated that the report points to procedural weaknesses but no sexual harassment.

Then again, before sitting on dharna the women wrestlers had given a written complaint to a police station in New Delhi asking for an FIR to be registered since according to them at least four cases of sexual harassment had taken place in the residence of the said MP under the jurisdiction of the thana, including the case of a minor. The police is duty-bound to register an FIR. However, the Delhi police which is under the home ministry, refused to do so. Once again this is a travesty of the law.

The manner in which the whole affair has been dealt with shows that the government is unwilling to act and is seeking to buy time. The reason is clear – Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh is a six-time MP and an influential member of the ruling party of Gonda and adjoining regions in Uttar Pradesh. He is considered to be a strong man, bahubali, with criminal antecedents and the clout that he wields is useful for the party. The BJP’s attitude to charges of sexual harassment levelled against its leaders and even ministers is one of trying to shield them and avoid action.

At the time when the wrestlers were protesting in January, there was another complaint against the Haryana sports minister, Sandeep Singh, of sexual harassment from the junior woman coach. The chief minister, Manohar Lal Khattar, has refused to drop him from the cabinet and only relieved him of the sports portfolio. Despite a prolonged agitation by sports persons and women’s organisations demanding his removal from the ministry, the BJP has refused to do so.

After launching their protest, seven women wrestlers have gone to the Supreme Court regarding the non-registration of FIR by the police. The court has decided to urgently take up the issue as the bench led by Chief Justice Chandrachud noted that the allegations were serious and issued notice to the police. It seems that if only the court directs them, the police will act.

The pattern of dismissing sexual harassment charges against its leaders and elected representatives and trying to shield them by the BJP is recurring again and again. One has to only recall the notorious Kuldeep Singh Sengar case in Unnao, Uttar Pradesh in 2017. Sengar, a BJP MLA, was accused in the rape of a 17-year old minor girl and initially the state government and police sought to shield him. It was only after the public outcry and High Court’s intervention that the CBI was handed over the case and eventually Sengar was arrested and sentenced.

The Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh matter has followed the same pattern. Chief Minister Adityanath recently boasted that “criminals and anti-socials have become a thing of the past” in UP. He should have added that the exception is criminals belonging to the right community and political affiliations. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

There is much talk about opposition unity these days.  Such talk has gathered momentum after a series of meetings of various leaders of opposition parties.  This comes in the background of the united stand of eighteen opposition parties in parliament during the second half of the budget session, where they all demanded a joint parliamentary committee on the Hindenburg report on the Adani group and also unitedly opposed the ED-CBI targeting of leaders of the opposition.

This united stand was also expressed when Rahul Gandhi was disqualified from the Lok Sabha membership after his conviction and sentencing in a criminal defamation case by a Surat Court.  The arrest and interrogation of various other leaders of opposition parties made many realise that this was an existential struggle to save democracy from an authoritarian regime.

But the way the goal of opposition unity is being proposed and speculated upon by various political commentators and the media shows a lack of clear thinking and some unrealistic expectations.

The most simplistic idea is to gather all the leaders of opposition parties on to the one platform which would then result in an all-India front of opposition parties.  Another fruitless pursuit is the zeroing in on one who could be the face of the opposition at the national level. Another tack is to advocate that the strongest opposition party in a state, whether it be a regional party or a national party, should be allowed to set the terms for an understanding with other parties which would ensure a one-to-one contest against the BJP and its allies.

All these suggestions are far from ground realities and do not take into account the complexities and the diverse character of the opposition parties.

First of all, it should be clear that opposition unity in the form of an alliance or front of all the major opposition parties cannot be forged at the national level.  This erroneous idea stems from a narrow electoral outlook which sees the success of the electoral battle against the BJP as being dependent on ensuring a one-to-one fight in all constituencies. This is plain wishful thinking.

Opposition unity has to be primarily fostered by adopting a joint stand on major national and important political issues – the all-out attack on democracy and subversion of the constitution; the misuse of central agencies to target the opposition; the systematic attack on states’ rights and federalism; and the Hindutva ideology being injected in education and attacks on minorities.

These are vital and basic issues which concern the future of the country and the test of opposition unity is how far they can rally together to oppose Hindutva authoritarianism and to fight for democracy, secularism and federalism.  There are also a number of significant issues where accountability of the prime minister and the government are concerned. The manner in which the Modi government has stonewalled all discussions on the Adani-Hindenburg affair in parliament with Narendra Modi refusing to even mention the name of Adani in his speeches in parliament and the refusal to constitute a joint parliamentary committee brought about widest unity of opposition parties in parliament. This must be carried forward outside parliament too.

Making the prime minister accountable for the phenomenal rise of Adani and answerable to the revelations made by the former governor of Jammu & Kashmir, Satya Pal Malik, about the Pulwama attack are such issues which can unite the opposition.

That all this time, even a meeting of chief ministers of non-BJP state governments to unitedly counter the centre’s assaults on states’ rights and federalism could not be held, indicates the lack of cohesion in the thinking of the opposition parties as a whole.

If the opposition can put forth its alternative stand on all important policy issues and in defence of democracy, secularism and federalism – that will be a substantive step in projecting a united alternative.

This should be supplemented by calls for joint campaigns and protests on people’s issues and the constant assaults on people’s livelihoods. Such calls can be observed by as many parties jointly through joint platforms and actions. In states where this is not possible, concerned parties may observe the calls separately through parallel actions. This is the realistic way to go about matters since some of the parties which may be able to give a call jointly at the national level cannot implement it jointly in some of the states.

It is these steps suggested above which would create the atmosphere for working out electoral tactics at the states level to maximise the pooling of anti-BJP votes.  There are, at present, two states where the widest understanding has been forged to fight the BJP and its alliance – Tamil Nadu and Bihar.

If the opposition parties are able to take a united stand on vital issues of democracy, secularism and federalism and also initiate joint actions on people’s issues, this will enhance the credibility of the entire opposition.  People will begin to see them as an alternative to BJP. When the Lok Sabha elections are held, these united opposition initiatives will help all the opposition parties, even if they are not electorally allied.

That is why it is important that the present efforts at gathering all the opposition parties must move with a clear direction – of uniting on major national issues with a clear-cut alternative, fostering united actions wherever possible and mobilising to fight the BJP in the states by ensuring the maximum pooling of the anti-BJP votes.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The violence and clashes that erupted in various places during Ram Navami observance on March 30 was an event foretold.  Over the years, the Hindutva forces have shaped the Ram Navami processions into an instrument for aggression and attacks on Muslims.  Last year, in 2022, the Ram Navami processions led to widespread attacks and clashes in Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Jharkhand and in Shibpur area of Howrah, West Bengal.

This year too, the Ram Navami festival occurred during the period of Ramzan and provided the backdrop for provocations in areas where Muslims were observing Ramzan and prayers in the mosques.

On March 30 and subsequent days, violence and attacks took place in Jalgaon, Malad and Aurangabad (now named Sambhajinagar) where one person was killed.  Serious violence broke out in Sasaram and Bihar Sharif in Bihar; there were incidents in Haryana and Vadodara in Gujarat.  In West Bengal, violence broke out during the Ram Navami procession in Howrah and later clashes occurred in Rishra in Hooghly district.

Apart from the BJP-ruled states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, the violence associated with Ram Navami processions was concentrated in West Bengal and Bihar.  It is evident that the RSS supported outfits have used the Ram Navami processions in West Bengal to enter in Muslim localities and create provocations outside mosques, playing loud music, shouting incendiary slogans and brandishing swords and other weapons.  As a result, violence erupted in Howrah and Dalkhola where one person was killed and several others injured.

It is surprising that the police and the administration did not take the necessary precautions to prevent the Ram Navami procession in Howrah diverting from its route.  In some places, policemen fled the scene and in some instances, they were seen joining the mob attacks.  The Mamata Banerjee government has to be blamed squarely for not taking firm measures to curb the gameplan of the Hindutva forces.  It is not that they were not forewarned.  Last year too, in Shibpur, Howrah, clashes had erupted.

In the earlier years, the RSS-BJP had used Ram Navami processions to create communal tensions and clashes.  The Trinamool Congress began participating or initiating such processions on Ram Navami day rather than countering their communal agenda.  In the current scenario, the TMC also seems to be banking upon cashing in on the fear psychosis that will prevail over the minorities.

Both the BJP and the TMC are complicit in the efforts to create a communal divide as they are interested in perpetuating a binary politics in the state. Especially, at a time when the CPI(M) and the Left Front have been conducting a vigorous campaign against the corrupt regime of the TMC, which has gained traction among the people.

In Bihar, the worst violence was witnessed in Bihar Sharif and Sasaram where mosques, madrasas, houses, vehicles and shops were looted and set on fire.  The most shocking incident was the arson attack on the Madrasa-e-Aziziya, one of the oldest educational institutions which was set on fire and destroyed along with 4,500 books and rare manuscripts.

In Bihar, the Nitish Kumar government seems to have been complacent and not exercised due vigilance and preparedness to tackle the nefarious agenda of the Hindutva forces.   Ever since Nitish Kumar and the JD(U) returned to the Mahagathbandhan, the BJP had been isolated. The current violence on Ram Navami day shows that the RSS-BJP has drawn up a gameplan to create communal polarisation to consolidate its political position.  The recent lynching of a Muslim youth in Saran on the charge of carrying beef was a warning signal.  The state government and administration should have been alert to pre-empt any communal provocations. Unlike in West Bengal, the Mahagathbandhan has been firm in countering the communal ideology and forces and this must be manifested through firm administrative measures by the government.

The role of the centre has been blatantly partisan. Home Minister Amit Shah did not speak to the chief ministers of the two states but to the governors about the communal situation.  This is a signal that the centre expects governors to play a role overriding the elected state governments. Moreover, on a visit to Bihar, Amit Shah declared that if the BJP comes to power in the state, there would be no communal riots.  He also declared that they would hang rioters upside down – a message that rioters are Muslims and would be sternly dealt with.

Religious festivals like Ram Navami, Ganesh Chaturthi and the recently-minted Hanuman Jayanti are all being weaponised to target minorities and create communal violence and polarisation.  The democratic and secular forces and the non-BJP state governments, in particular, should devise a strategy to counter these aggressive communal mobilisations, both politically and administratively.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Heralding a new offensive against the opposition by the Modi government, there has been a spate of activities by the central agencies – particularly, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED).

In the past two weeks, the CBI summoned for questioning Manish Sisodia, deputy chief minister of Delhi, and arrested him. Since then, while he was in jail, he has been arrested again by the ED. The CBI has also questioned RJD leader Rabri Devi, wife of Lalu Prasad Yadav at Patna; this was followed by questioning of Lalu Prasad Yadav in Delhi in the so-called land-for-jobs scam, which is supposed to have occurred more than a decade ago.

The CBI move has been followed up by the ED, which raided the house of Tejashwi Yadav in Delhi and other family members and associates in 24 locations. This is the modus operandi – the CBI files an investigation report and leaning on this, the ED get into the act by invoking the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The PMLA provisions are draconian and give the ED sweeping powers to arrest, search and seize property and keep people in jail with their getting bail extremely difficult.

The Modi government has weaponised the central agencies, particularly the ED, against the opposition. The use of the ED and CBI as instruments is politically motivated. They serve a dual purpose.  On the one hand, it is used to suppress opposition parties by targeting its key leaders who are put away in jail for long periods without any trial or conviction. The process itself becomes the punishment. The other aim is to break an opposition party by winning over selected leaders to join the BJP by the threat of CBI/ED action.

In the current situation, the AAP has been one of the main targets as the BJP has found it difficult to politically defeat it in Delhi. The recent instance was the AAP’s victory in the municipal corporation election in December 2022. Satyendar Jain, health minister in the AAP government, was arrested in May 2022 on money laundering charges and he is still in jail nine months later.  Now the second minister and key AAP leader, Manish Sisodia, has been jailed in the alleged liquor scam and with the ED supplementing the arrest by the CBI, making it more difficult for him to get bail.

The assembly elections in Telangana are due by the end of the year. The BJP is making concerted efforts to achieve a breakthrough in the state.  The ED’s summons to K Kavitha, BRS leader and daughter of chief minister K Chandrashekar Rao, for involvement in the liquor scam in Delhi is a pointer of how the BJP aims to use the central agencies for its electoral purposes.

In the case of Bihar, the revival of an old case against Lalu Prasad Yadav and his family members is directly connected to the political development in the state where the joining of Nitish Kumar and JD(U) in the Mahagatbandhan has isolated the BJP.  The BJP hopes to use the central agencies on the issue of corruption to try and destabilise the alliance.

The other purpose of the use of central agencies has also yielded dividends for the BJP which is to coerce and lure leaders of various opposition parties to defect and join the BJP.  A prime example of this is the present chief minister of Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who, while in the Congress party faced investigation by the CBI in the Saradha scam. After joining the BJP, there were no further proceedings against him.  Similarly, there are the examples of Suvendu Adhikari in West Bengal who switched from the TMC to the BJP and Narayan Rane from Maharashtra.

The downfall of the MVA government in Maharashtra due to the split in the Shiv Sena can also be partly attributed to the systematic work put in by the ED. Shiv Sena MLAs like Pratap Sarnaik, Yamini Jadhav and Bhawana Gawali, MP, and others were incentivised to join the Eknath Shinde group after having cases filed by the ED and attachment of properties.

The glaring and partisan misuse of the central agencies and its one-sided nature has been graphically illustrated by the recent case of corruption in Karnataka.  Here, under the BJP government, the son of a ruling party MLA, Prashanth Madal, was caught red-handed by the vigilance department police for accepting a bribe. Altogether, Rs 6.73 crores was recovered from the office and his residence.  The bribes were taken for favours from the corporation, in which the MLA Madal Virupakshappa was the chairman. Surprisingly, within 24 hours, the MLA was given anticipatory bail by the High Court and no follow-up action has been taken. If it had been an opposition party leader, the CBI and the ED would have got into the act immediately.

As it is, 95 per cent of all the cases filed by the ED against politicians are against opposition leaders and elected representatives. It remains to be found out whether the remaining 5 per cent cases were ever pursued diligently.

The ED has become a unique instrument of the authoritarian regime. The amendments to the PMLA, which were made in 2020, provided for sweeping powers to arrest, search, seize and attach properties. Unfortunately, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar, in July 2022 upheld these amendments, including the provision that the Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), which is equivalent to an FIR, is not to be given mandatorily in every case to the concerned person.

Not satisfied with this, just last week on March 7, a gazette notification by the department of revenue under the ministry of finance was issued, whereby politically exposed persons (PEPs) and NGOs could be brought under the purview of the PMLA.  This would mean that in the case of senior politicians, government, judicial or military officers, the ED can access the financial history of such individuals and organisations. This presages a more wide-ranging targeting and attack on opposition politicians and leaders of non-governmental organisations.

While there is a growing awareness of the threat posed by the misuse of central agencies, some positions taken by certain parties detract from building a strong unity of purpose and action.  When the AAP leader Manish Sisodia was arrested by the CBI, the Congress party, particularly its Delhi unit, not only welcomed the arrest but demanded action be taken against chief minister Kejriwal too.  Further, on the issue of the AAP government having set-up a Feed Back Unit (FBU), Congress leaders wrote to the Lt. Governor that it is not sufficient to give sanction to the CBI to prosecute Sisodia in the FBU case under the Prevention of Corruption Act, but that AAP leaders be prosecuted for sedition and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act be used against them.  The AAP responded by asking why Rahul Gandhi has not been arrested in an open and shut National Herald case even after the registration of an FIR, ten years ago?

Each party is willy-nilly asking the BJP government to use the central agencies against each other. It is natural that parties within the opposition will have conflicting politics and interests and in a democratic set-up, they are free to compete against each other. But faced with the authoritarian-fascistic onslaught of the Modi government, the least that can be expected is that they would rise above their differences to protect democracy and the rights of the opposition. Any other stance is self-defeating.

However, the common threat faced by the entire opposition has brought most of the opposition parties together during the resumption of the budget session of parliament.  Eighteen opposition party MPs attempted to march to the Enforcement Directorate demanding an end to targeting and harassment and to investigate the Adani-Hindenburg issue.  It is good that the parties which have been at cross-purposes like the Congress, AAP and BRS were part of the joint protest.

Along with this united opposition, the Supreme Court should be urgently approached to review the draconian provisions of the PMLA, so that the ED cannot misuse these extra-legal and arbitrary provisions. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The orgy of violence unleashed in Tripura after the assembly election results were announced on March 2 was an act foretold once the BJP got a majority, albeit a narrow one.  As of March 6, around a thousand incidents of attacks and violence by the BJP gangs took place all over the state. These were in the form of physical attacks on CPI(M), Left Front and Congress workers and supporters, ransacking or burning of their houses and demolition of party offices. A particularly vicious form of attack is meant to destroy their means of livelihood like burning down rubber plantations, crops and damaging their e-rickshaws and vehicles to stop them plying.

This is exactly the pattern of violence and terror which began after the last assembly election results in March 2018, when the BJP first came to power. The repression by the ruling party continued throughout the five years with extortions and threats to the families of workers. 25 members and supporters of the CPI(M) were killed in this period. This time, the widespread intensity of attacks seems to stem from the anger and frustration at the BJP seat and vote tally coming down substantially, while despite all the efforts to suppress the opposition, the Left-Congress tie-up got over 35 per cent of the votes.

People outside Tripura may ask why such widespread and intensified attacks on the opposition after the ruling party registered an electoral victory.  This is where the class aspect comes in.  The Communist movement in Tripura, like in West Bengal, was built over decades of class struggles and mass movements.  What is being witnessed in Tripura is a continuing plan of repression and violence aimed at dismantling the CPI(M)’s  organisation and intimidating its mass support.  Before elections or after, this class attack on the Communist and Left movement continues. The aim is to extirpate the Communist movement itself.

That the BJP as the ruling party is behind this violence is evident from how ManikSaha, who has taken the oath as chief minister for the second term on March 8, has reacted to these incidents.  After visiting some of the affected areas, Saha said that, “Opposition party supporters and people with vested interests are inciting violence in different parts of the state”.  So, the CPI(M) and other opposition workers are setting fire to their own houses, shops and offices to defame the BJP!

Another tactic is to blame the CPI(M) and the Left Front of suppressing the opposition during its tenure in government before 2018. Prime Minister Modi himself resorted to this falsehood.  In the rallies he addressed during the election campaign in Tripura and which was echoed by him at the victory celebrations at the BJP headquarters in New Delhi on the evening of March 2, Modi kept on repeating how in earlier days, only one party’s flag would be allowed to fly in Agartala and other places.  Anyone who sought to fly any other party flag would be met with violent retribution. This harping on the autocracy of the CPI(M) as the ruling party totally flies in the face of reality.

For instance, in the 2018 assembly elections, when the Left Front government was in office, the number of BJP flags, banners and hoardings which were strung up all over the state was a surprise to many observers, as the party had never been so strong in the state.  Even earlier, when the Congress was the main opposition in the state, Congress flags would be prominently displayed around Agartala.  Unlike the November 2021 Agartala municipal elections held under BJP rule, which were blatantly rigged with the BJP winning all 51 out of the 51 seats, under Left Front rule, Congress, the main opposition, got a majority in the municipal council in the elections held in December, 1995. Subsequently too, the Congress continued to win a sizeable number of seats in the corporation, apart from polling over 40 per cent in successive assembly elections.

The fact is that BJP rule in the past five years has meant a flagrant denial of the rights of the opposition and a brutal suppression of democracy and democratic rights. One can gauge the nature of the authoritarian-fascistic set-up in Tripura from the fact that none of the 16 CPI(M) MLAs could  move about freely in their constituencies to do the normal activities of an elected representative in these five years.  This included Manik Sarkar, the leader of the opposition also, who, when he insisted on participating in a block level mass deputation in his constituency in September 2021, saw a massive retaliation by BJP goons who attacked CPI(M) offices and houses of its members all over the state, including a brazen attack on the state Party headquarters.

The BJP-RSS combine know very well that an important factor for their depleted electoral success, lies in the fact that for five years continuously, they were able to paralyse and weaken the Party and Left Front organisation through a regime of repression and intimidation. The Left is still a spectre which haunts them as they saw how, after a long period of suppression, Left Front workers sprang to life and worked courageously during the election campaign. The continuation of the violence against the Left and the opposition is an expression of their fears and insecurities.

The CPI(M) and the Left Front face the arduous task of fending off the violence directed against them and continuing to maintain their links with the people.  In this endeavour, they will have the support of all democratic, progressive and secular forces of the country.  (IPA Service)

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

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By Prakash Karat

The recent appointment of six new governors by the president of India has revealed a lot about how the post of governor is viewed and cynically misused by the Modi government.

The appointment of Justice S Abdul Nazeer, who had retired from the Supreme Court just two months ago, as the governor of Andhra Pradesh is an egregious example of how the Modi government distributes this sinecure post. It may be recalled that Justice Nazeer was part of the five-member bench which gave a unanimous verdict in the Ayodhya dispute case in 2019.  As such, this appointment is being widely seen as a quid pro quo.

The Modi government has the dubious record of having appointed Justice P Sathasivam as governor of Kerala in 2014 – the first instance of a retired chief justice of India becoming a governor. This step had drawn widespread criticism from retired judges and jurists who saw in this move a threat to judicial independence.

Four of the other appointees belong to the RSS-BJP pedigree.  They are mostly second rank leaders of the BJP, whose only qualification presumably is their loyalty to the ruling party and the RSS.  How they perform their duties as governor is going to be determined by their fealty to the ruling party.  This is evident in how one of the appointees has expressed slavish gratitude to the ruling party leaders.  CP Radhakrishnan, a former BJP member of parliament from Tamil Nadu, has tweeted his heartfelt thanks not only to the Rashtrapathiji but also to “our beloved most respected honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji and our beloved most respected honourable Home Minister Shri Amit Shahji” on being appointed as the governor of Jharkhand.  Displaying such slavish gratitude upon being rewarded, his behaviour as a governor can also be predicted.

For Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, the choice of governors is from a pool of loyal party functionaries, RSS swayamsewaks and pliable retired bureaucrats and generals. The governors appointed to the non-BJP ruled states in the past few years have shown them to be  agents of the ruling party, or, worse  political henchmen.

These governors have trampled upon constitutional norms and arrogated to themselves the task of supervising and interfering in matters which concern the elected state governments.  A latest example of such an overbearing attitude is the letter sent by the Punjab governor, Banwarilal Purohit to Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann questioning the selection process of principals of schools who were sent abroad for training and other similar decisions of the state government.

From refusing to read out parts of the governor’s address to the state legislature, summoning senior officers and giving directions to them, public criticism of the political positions of the ruling party of the state and refusal to give assent to pending legislations – BJP-appointed governors are constantly misusing the ornamental post of governor.

All the non-BJP run state governments must come together to demand an end to the unconstitutional acts of the governors which are encouraged and abetted by the central government.  Public campaigns should be launched in these states to mobilise the people to defend the federal principle and to check the arbitrary actions of governors.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The union budget for 2023-24 is to be presented before parliament on February 1, 2023 at a time when both the Indian as well as world economies face a grim situation. Notwithstanding the tall claims of the Modi government, India’s economy is yet to recover from the crippling effects of the Covid pandemic and the disastrous way in which it was handled by the government of India.

Since the time the last budget was presented, the global economic context has also worsened with the outbreak of the military conflict in Ukraine and the sanctions imposed by western powers. India has to, however, be prepared for not merely a temporary world recession, but the possibility of a prolonged world capitalist crisis as the neoliberal ‘globalisation’ of the last few decades comes undone under the weight of its own contradictions. India’s economic development has also reflected these contradictions – with an agrarian crisis, wage stagnation and a growing problem of unemployment accompanying even phases of high growth, leading to intensive exploitation of even the employed working class and a vast increase in inequality. That the momentum of capitalist development based on these conditions was losing steam because of demand problems that the same conditions gave rise to, was visible even before the Covid pandemic struck.

India’s real per capita national income in 2022-23, as per the first advance estimates, is going to be barely 2.4 per cent higher than the pre-pandemic 2019-20 level – lower than even what an underlying trend growth rate of just 1 per cent per annum would have resulted in. This same period has also seen a sharp rise in inflation rates, so that over three quarters of the increase in nominal GDP between 2019-20 and 2022-23 is accounted for by increases in prices rather than in actual output. The industrial sector reflects the crisis in the most extreme fashion, with manufacturing estimated to grow by just 1.6 per cent in 2022-23 over the previous year.

The class biased approach of the Modi government has also ensured that the ‘recovery’ has been extremely uneven. The proof of this is that revenues from corporate and income taxes have increased much more than the increase in nominal GDP between 2019-20 and 2022-23. The only way this can happen in a situation where rates of taxation have not been increased is if the share of corporate profits and high incomes in the total national income increases. By implication, given the overall stagnation in income, India’s working people have lost out. Through increased unemployment and lower wages, their earnings are on an average lower today than they were in 2019-20.

In addition to the ham handed lock-down, which in the end did not even prevent lakhs of Indians from dying of Covid, the Modi government has contributed to the crisis by ruthlessly pursuing a policy of curbing public expenditure. The trends in revenues and expenditures till November 2022 indicate that revenues from central taxes as a percentage of GDP in 2022-23 will be higher than in 2019-20. Further, the central government share in these will also be considerably greater because of a reduction in the states’ share in revenues from central taxes. Yet, central government expenditure as a percentage of GDP will be lower than in 2019-20 if the present trend continues for the remaining part of the financial year. Moreover, despite getting additional revenues from direct taxes, the previous increases in oil taxes have not been fully reversed as yet.

Thus, the Modi government’s fiscal policy has strengthened rather than counteracted the trend of increasing inequality, and failed to stimulate an economy facing a depressed demand situation. This blindness to economic realities was visible even earlier, but the persistence with it even in the face of a catastrophic human tragedy related to the pandemic and its economic effects has a particularly savage element to it. This has been accompanied by other measures like further privatisation of public assets and the national asset monetisation programme, the abortive attempt at introducing new farm laws, and allowing greater foreign investment in sectors like defence and insurance – all in the name of building an ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’. These are all also symptoms of the Modi government’s blind commitment to being nothing more than an instrument for fostering the accumulation and centralisation of wealth by a few big capitalists, for which its communal politics serve as a cloak.

With prolonged disruption in the global economy being likely, India’s economic future depends on genuine atmanirbharta. Instead of trying to compete in a global economy and squeezing out profits by condemning the working masses to a state of perpetual poverty, their potential to provide a large domestic market has to be exploited for a more autonomous trajectory of development. For this, it is imperative that taxation and public expenditure be used to tilt distribution in their favour, improve incomes of farmers, trigger expansion of demand that generates employment, and enables them to attain improved health and educational outcomes. In the coming session of parliament, the Left is committed to fight for a union budget that reflects such priorities, and contest the myth that the government is constrained by lack of resources. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Union law minister, Kiren Rijiju is at it again. He has written to the chief justice of India, D Y Chandrachud, suggesting that a new “search and evaluation committee” be set up which will include a government nominee for making recommendations to the supreme court and high court collegiums for appointment of judges.

This signals another step forward in the Modi government’s plan to assert the role of the executive in the appointment of judges and to undo the judicial primacy established through the Second Judges Case in 1993.  There are no search and evaluation committees at present and the process of selecting names is done through the collegium system.

After the Supreme Court struck down the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act in 2015, the Modi government has been seeking ways to bypass this verdict. The only constitutional way of overcoming the supreme court verdict would have been for parliament to pass appropriate legislation for setting out an appointment process which would stand up to the scrutiny of the court.  So far, the government has not done so. Instead, a concerted attempt is being made to undermine the independence of the judiciary by devious means.

The last few months saw a barrage of statements by the law minister, criticising the collegium system of appointing judges as alien to the constitution and asserting that the “spirit of the constitution” points to the right of the government to appoint judges. He was aided and abetted by the newly-elected vice president of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, who recently went to the extent of questioning the “basic structure doctrine” set out by the Supreme Court in the Kesavananda Bharati case and declared that parliament is supreme and can amend the constitution in whatever manner it thinks fit.

Dhankhar, who occupies a constitutional position, has set out clearly the authoritarian intent of a majoritarian government – the judiciary cannot be independent of the executive.

It is reported that the government had written similar letters in the past seeking a representative of the government in a joint search committee formed and supervised by the chief justice of India. The difference in Rijiju’s letter is that it seeks similar committees for the high courts too, to guide the collegiums at the high court level.  All this is being done on the pretext of a new ‘memorandum of procedure’ which was to be finalised as per the decision of the Supreme Court in the NJAC case in 2015.

One of the pressure tactics adopted by the government has been to not clear the recommendations for appointment of judges and chief justices of the high courts.  At the beginning of the year, there were 104 recommendations made by the collegium of high courts.  The Supreme Court, on January 6, took strong exception to this unjustified delay in the appointment of judges.  The attorney general assured the court that within the next three days, 44 names of judges would be cleared for the appointment, but only nine names have been cleared so far. The Supreme Court bench led by Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul asserted that the collegium system is the “law of the land” which must be followed.

The Supreme Court has so far shown no inclination to give in to the executive’s obstructionist tactics and rebuffed all such moves.  Kiren Rijiju’s latest letter should meet the same fate.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

India abstained on a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 31, 2022 that asked International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories. The resolution was passed with 87 countries supporting and 26 opposing.  India abstained along with 52 other countries.

The resolution talks of the legal consequences of Israeli occupation, settlement and annexation, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem and from Israel’s adoption of related discriminatory legislations and measures.

By not voting for this resolution, India has signalled that it is resiling from its long-held position of firm support to the Palestinian cause and for a two state solution.

Israel has been in occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza ever since the 1967 war.  Since then, despite several United Nations resolutions calling for an end to the occupation, Israel has been steadily allowing Jewish settlements in the West Bank and demolishing Palestinian-inhabited areas in East Jerusalem and changing its demographic character.

The Israeli plan has always been to annex the whole of Jerusalem and the West Bank by driving away the Palestinians living in these areas or by forcing them to live in apartheid conditions as non-citizens of the Israeli State. The open annexation of East Jerusalem through land grabs has changed the status quo of that city. Jerusalem was declared to be the “eternal capital” of Israel.  Successive Israeli governments have facilitated the settlement of half a million Jewish settlers on Palestinian lands in the West Bank.

The nearly two million Palestinian people in the Gaza strip live in prison-like conditions and they are subjected to constant aerial bombardment and blockades.  The wall built criss-crossing the West Bank with Palestinian enclaves has instituted an apartheid system.  In the last two years, the Israeli state is moving towards the annexation of the West Bank.

The new government installed with Benjamin Netanyahu as the prime minister is the most far-right coalition government set-up so far with racist Jewish nationalist parties and ultra-orthodox religious groups.  The agreement of the coalition parties states that “advance and develop settlements in all parts of Israel, including Judea and Samaria” (the biblical names for the West Bank). The agreement also promises to annex the West Bank “while choosing the time and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel”.

The brutal colonial rule has involved grabbing of Palestinian lands and olive groves for setting up Jewish settlements, the demolition of Palestinian houses by bulldozers and arrests of anyone who resists these repressive measures. More and more, any form of protest or resistance is met by shootings by the Israeli armed forces. According to the United Nations, Israeli forces killed at least 171 Palestinians in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2022, including more than 30 children – one of the worst years in this regard.  At least 9,000 others were injured.

The new far-right government will go all-out to suppress the Palestinians in the West Bank as one of the coalition parties, the Religious Zionist Party, comprises mainly West Bank settlers.  The minister for national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who belongs to the extremist Jewish Power Party is notorious for his hate speech against Palestinians and Arabs. His ministry oversees the Israel border police in the West Bank which also polices the Palestinian inhabitants.

The UN General Assembly resolution, therefore, comes at an appropriate time when the new Israeli extremist government is poised to step up its aggressive actions in the occupied territories.

India, in the past, has not supported resolutions in the UN Human Rights Council and the UN General Assembly, which called for external enquiry into internal human right issues in any country or when it concerns the International Criminal Court which India has not acceded to.  But this plea cannot be taken to justify its abstention on the current resolution.  First of all, the ICJ, which India recognises, is being asked to look into the matter which does not concern the internal affairs of a sovereign country, but of an occupied territory. India still maintains that the West Bank and East Jerusalem are occupied territories. Moreover, the ICJ had given an advisory opinion at the instance of the UN General Assembly in 2004 about the legal consequences of the construction of a wall in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The reason for India’s backtracking on the issue is its giving precedence to strategic ties with Israel and hence soft-pedaling the Palestinian cause. The Modi government’s increased proximity to Israel is well-known.  Netanyahu, when he was the prime minister previously, was close to Modi and they are ideological soul-mates. The RSS-BJP are admirers of the Zionist hostility to the Palestinians and Arabs. As per the United States plan, India has joined the I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE, United States) forum in West Asia.

The Netanyahu government took office the day before the UN General Assembly resolution was adopted. India’s abstention can be seen as a goodwill gesture to the Netanyahu government.

The Palestinian people have undergone the travails of displacement and colonial occupation for well over seven decades.  Millions of them have lived as refugees outside Palestine ever since the Israelis expelled them from their homeland in 1948 and subjugated them under military occupation. India, from the time of our independence struggle, has been in full sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinian people. But now the blinkered Hindutva view of the BJP rulers is leading India to side with the oppressors of these valiant people.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

A look back at the year 2022, which is ending this Saturday, shows that it has been a year in which the Indian economy struggled to come out of the deep trough it was plunged into in the years 2020 and 2021.  Rising inflation, growing unemployment, industrial stagnation and ever-widening inequalities in income and wealth were the visible features.

Towards the end of the year, the figure of unemployed reached over five crore and for most of the year, retail inflation was above 7 per cent.  This was accompanied by stagnation in industrial growth with the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) in October 2022 being 4 per cent less than the previous October.

The Modi government’s drive for privatisation of public sector units continued with a major step being the IPO for the Life Insurance Corporation which diluted the government’s stake in the giant insurance company. The government also brought to parliament a bill to privatise electricity distribution in the country which will cripple the state-run distribution companies.  The write-offs of bank loans for big corporates continued with Rs 10.01 lakh crore being written off.

It is these policies of the government which have resulted in the deepening of inequalities.  The top one per cent of the population owned 40.6 per cent of the total wealth of the country in 2021, as compared to 32 per cent in 2000.  A graphic example of this obscene concentration of wealth is that Gautam Adani emerged in 2022 as the third richest person in the world and the most richest person in Asia with a net worth of $ 133 billion.

It was also a year which saw the relentless drive of the Hindutva forces to reshape the Indian State and polity.  The prime minister himself presided over renovation of temple premises like the Kashi Vishwanath corridor and various other religious ceremonies.  The efforts to consolidate the pan-Hindu consciousness resulted in the continuing “othering” of Muslims. There were constant efforts to target the minorities during religious festivals like Ram Navami and the newly-manufactured Hanuman Jayanthi processions.  Any protests by Muslims against these attacks led to their being arrested and their houses being demolished as in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

The 75th anniversary of India’s independence was utilised to project the idea of a `New India’ which is nothing but the idea of a Hindu majoritarian State.  There was talk of freedom from “centuries of foreign attacks” and liberation from the “colonial mindset”.  What it meant is liberation from centuries of Muslim rule and the colonial mindset does not pertain to the period of British rule, but goes back to Muslim rule.

Apart from the de-secularisation of the State, the year saw a stepping up of the attacks on federalism and rights of states.  Governors of non-BJP ruled states were utilised brazenly to interfere in matters falling within the ambit of the state governments.  The post of chancellor of state universities was used to appoint chosen people as vice chancellors and to interfere in the affairs of state-run universities.  The centre devised new means to deprive the states of their due share of resources of their right to borrow funds.

After having tamed the Election Commission and other institutions, the last two months in the year saw concerted attacks on the higher judiciary by none less than the law minister himself.  The stand of the Supreme Court in protecting personal liberties and rights of citizens irked the authoritarian rulers who continue to trample upon the civil liberties and democratic rights of anyone who express public dissent or spoke out against Hindutva politics.

The year saw elections to seven state assemblies – Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur, Goa, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.  The BJP won five out of the seven state assemblies, though they lost in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. It was also defeated in the Delhi municipal corporation election.  What the Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat elections portend is a warning.  Despite popular discontent with rising prices, unemployment, agrarian distress and poverty, the deep communal polarisation and a pan-Hindu consolidation helps the BJP to overcome all these problems electorally.

This underlines the necessity to combine the struggles in defence of the livelihood of the people, fight against privatisation and anti-working class, anti-farmer policies with a popular and concerted campaign against the Hindutva ideology.

The year saw growing resistance of the working class and other sections of the working people.  The two-day general strike called by the central trade unions on March 28-29 was a big success drawing in more workers and employees in the strike action.  The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) is continuing its struggle for a legal guarantee for minimum support price based on the Swaminathan Commission formula of C2+50 per cent.  After the disruption of the pandemic years, students and teachers are prepared for a protracted struggle against the New Education Policy and other onslaughts on education.

One of the important issues for a countrywide struggle will be the Electricity (Amendment) Bill which, if adopted, will prove disastrous for the common people who consume electricity, including farmers and for the lakhs of workers and engineers in the power sector.

2023 will be the crucial year before the 2024 Lok Sabha election. It should be a year in which all the Left, democratic and secular forces pool their resources to fight the people’s battles and unitedly counter the political and ideological offensive of the Hindutva-corporate regime.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The Narendra  Modi government has stepped up its attack on the Supreme Court.  In the past few weeks, the union law minister, Kiren Rijiju, has been making a series of statements, both outside and inside parliament, criticising the collegium system of appointing judges as alien to the constitution and asserting that the ‘spirit’ of the constitution says it is the government’s right to appoint judges.

The vice president of India, Jagdeep Dhankhar, while presiding over the first session as chairman of the Rajya Sabha, also launched an attack on the Supreme Court judgment which invalidated the National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, 2014 as an attack on parliamentary sovereignty.  It is evident from the remarks of these two persons, who hold official positions that the signal for the attack has come from the highest quarters.

Not satisfied with the remarks against the collegium, Rijiju has gone further in making veiled threats to the higher judiciary. He declared in parliament that “Unless the procedure of appointment of judges changes, the issue of high judicial vacancies will keep cropping up”.  The implication is clear – the government will continue to hold up and block appointment of judges to the High Courts and the Supreme Court suggested by the collegium until the judiciary becomes compliant with the wishes of the government as to who should be appointed as judges.

The law minister has even gone to the extent of lecturing the Supreme Court that it should not be entertaining bail applications and “frivolous” PILs and waste its time.  The loquacious minister has more ominously issued a direction, “We have to also ask the judiciary to ensure that the deserving people are given justice and those causing unnecessary burden are taken care of, so that they do not cause disturbances while the court is functioning or the court is discharging its duties”.

The message is clear:  The Supreme Court should not be taking up cases concerning the individual liberty of citizens, or, matters where the executive is held to account for its misdeeds by a pesky petitioner.

Chief Justice Chandrachud, gave a firm counter to this gratuitous advice by stating that no case is too small for the court and asserted that “If we do not act in matters of personal liberty and grant relief, then what are we doing here?”  During the short tenure of Chief Justice UU Lalit and uptil now, the Supreme Court has been more attentive to bail pleas of those who have been in jail for long periods of time and whose bail applications were rejected by the lower courts.  It was during the tenure of UU Lalit as CJI that Teesta Setalvad got interim bail and Siddique Kappan, who was in jail for two years under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, was granted bail.  Subsequently, against the vigorous objections of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Supreme Court ordered house arrest for Gautam Navlakha and dismissed the NIA’s challenge to the grant of bail for Anand Teltumbde by the Mumbai High Court.

It is this record of the Supreme Court in protecting personal liberty and civil rights that has aroused the ire of the authoritarian government.

Already the government has succeeded in getting some pliant judges to the Supreme Court.  In recent times, we have seen Justice Arun Mishra (now retired) and Justice MR Shah publicly praising Prime Minister Narendra Modi.  But the government finds the collegium system not amenable to its aim to fully pack the higher judiciary with ‘committed’ judges. Hence, the current attack on the collegium system must be seen as part of the design to capture the higher judiciary.

The ruling BJP circles are talking of the need for another legislation to set-up a Judicial Appointments Commission. By this, it wants to devise a system of appointments in which the executive will have the dominant say. This will be the surest way to get a higher judiciary suborned to the government.  The way the Election Commission has been rendered toothless by appointment of commissioners handpicked by the government should be a warning.

Democratic opinion, including the Left, have been advocating for long the setting up of a broad based National Judicial Commission which works in a transparent manner with clearly-defined rules regarding the selection and appointment of judges.  Such a commission in which both the higher judiciary and the executive are represented will also have distinguished jurists and other representatives of independent bodies.  The executive cannot have a dominant say.

The National Judicial Appointments Commission Act, which was passed by parliament in 2014 under the Modi government, was flawed and did not adequately firewall against executive control.

At present, the context has changed with the Modi government out to undermine judicial independence. Any effort to substitute the collegium system with a Judicial Appointments Commission in which the government has dominance must be opposed.  The collegium system, in the meantime, needs to be improved with a transparent and accountable system in selecting candidates for judgeship.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

What has happened in the Government New Law College in Indore and some other places is a disturbing pointer as to how the deep communalisation and polarisation in society is now affecting the educational system.

The worst incident has taken place in the Government New Law College, Indore  in what can only be called as a communal cleansing of Muslims in the teaching faculty.  The RSS affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) unit in the college began protesting against the alleged “religious fundamentalist thought being promoted by four Muslim teachers of the college”. They also questioned the “high number of Muslim” faculty members in the college.  Actually, out of the 28 teachers, only four are Muslims.

In a memorandum submitted by the president of the ABVP unit, the Muslim teachers were charged with “promoting Muslim and Islamic culture inside the campus”. They were accused of promoting “love jihad” with the absurd claim that these teachers took female students to restaurants and pubs.

The principal of the college, Prof Inamur Rahman, who also happens to be a Muslim, responded by taking off the four Muslim teachers and two others against whom also complaints were made, from their teaching duties for five days and asked for an enquiry by a retired district judge.

Not satisfied with this action, the ABVP students hurled new charges.  They accused the principal of keeping a book, Collective Violence and Criminal Justice System, written by one Dr Farhat Khan in the college library.  They claimed that the book contained remarks against the RSS and the Hindu community. Though the principal clarified that this book was acquired by the library in 2014, well before he took up the principalship in 2019, the protestors targeted him and continued their protests forcing him to ultimately resign.

It is significant that the complaints and the agitation by the ABVP students were supported by the state home minister, Narottam Mishra, who directed the police to take action.  The local police have filed cases against the principal, another teacher Mirza Mojij and the author and publisher of the book under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including sections 153A (promoting enmity against two groups) and 295A (making deliberate and malicious act intended to outrage the religious feeling of a group).

The police are looking for the author Dr Farhat Khan to arrest him and the other three, including the former principal may follow since the district court has refused to grant them anticipatory bail.

Thus, within a few days, all the Muslim teachers, including the principal, have been effectively removed from their positions in the faculty and this has been accomplished with the tacit approval of the state government.  Based on the complaints raised by the ABVP unit, a seven-member committee has been constituted by the directorate of higher education to probe into the allegations of religious extremism and similar charges.

There have been other instances in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh of minority teachers being targeted. A Muslim principal of a school in Vidisha, Shaina Firdous, was removed in October this year after Bajrang Dal members made various allegations against her.  In another Christian missionary school in Guna district, two teachers – Justin and Jasmina Khatoon – were booked under sections of the IPC on some alleged complaint by a student.

Bigotry against Muslim students or teachers has surfaced in other states too.  Recently, a Muslim student in the Manipal Institute of Technology in Karnataka was singled out and mocked at by the teacher for having a “Kasab-like name”.  In a government college in Barmer, Rajasthan, a teacher in a class rounded on the sole Muslim girl student and hurled vicious anti-Muslim remarks at her.  No action has been taken against the concerned teacher despite the student making a complaint.

One of the goals of the Modi government through the New Education Policy is to bring in communalisation of the educational system under the guise of a value-based education drawing upon India’s ancient knowledge systems.  But a fall out of this saffronisation drive is the targeting of minority Muslim teachers and students.  That this is officially sponsored in BJP-ruled states is clear from how girl students wearing hijab have been prohibited from entering government-run inter-colleges in Karnataka and Muslim teachers in a government-run law college debarred from teaching and being booked under criminal charges in Madhya Pradesh.  The reduction of Muslims into second class citizens is being reflected in the public educational system too.

India assuming the presidentship of G20 in 2023 is being officially observed with the slogan of ‘One Earth, One Family, One Future’. Prime Minister Modi has pompously remarked that “India stands for promoting harmony within the human family” while within the country everything is being done to divide the Indian family on sectarian and communal lines.

The government has announced a series of meetings and events connected with the G20 to be held in various cities in all parts of the country. One of the G20 events is to be held in Indore.  This is the Indore where Munavar Faruqui, a stand-up comedian, was arrested before a performance because of a complaint by a Hindutva outfit that his shows offend the religious sensibilities of Hindus.  This is the same Indore where last year a bangle seller, Taslim Ali, was badly beaten up for selling his wares in a Hindu locality.  He was arrested and spent 107 days in jail.  This is the city now where respected legal scholars and teachers are being hounded because they are Muslims.

The true face of the Hindutva regime and the hypocritical declamation of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam will be exposed when the G20 event takes place in Indore. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The BJP campaign for the Gujarat assembly election gives an insight as to how Gujarat became the laboratory for the Hindutva forces and how the corporate-communal axis was forged that became known later as the Gujarat model.

Some of Amit Shah’s assertions in his election speeches have been startling for many outside Gujarat, but they reflect how the RSS-BJP have succeeded in inverting the reality and building a false narrative.  According to Shah, the communal pogrom against Muslims in 2002 was actually an instance of “rioters” being “taught a lesson”. They were put down firmly by Narendra Modi who was the chief minister then.  Since then, `permanent peace’ has been established in Gujarat.  Peace of the graveyard as far as the Muslims are concerned.

Shah also accused the previous Congress governments (before 1995) of being soft on communal rioters.  Thus, the biggest pogrom against minorities after independence is now depicted as the firm suppression of rioters who are all presumably Muslims.

It is this sort of warped thinking which has led to the rapists and murderers of Bilkis Bano and her family members to be released from prison by granting remission of their life sentences.  According to the Gujarat government, it was Amit Shah’s home ministry that approved the remission.

The other refrain in the BJP campaign, which was voiced by Modi himself, is that the opposition parties support anti-national or anti-Gujarat forces.  Modi has attacked Congress and other smaller parties for viewing terrorism through the prism of vote banks and appeasement.  So the defence of secularism and the rights of minorities translates into being soft on terrorism and therefore, anti-national.

It is such a bigoted outlook that led to the arrest and jailing of Teesta Setalvad and former DGP, R B Sreekumar, for taking the judicial route to seek justice for the victims of the pogroms.  The current campaign echoes what has been the approach during the entire tenure of Modi as the chief minister – a continuous effort to conflate Pakistan and terrorism with the minorities and accusing the secular parties of minority appeasement and hence complicity with terror.  All those who question this narrative are branded anti-national and anti-Gujarat.

The growth story in Gujarat has been distinctive for the emergence of the corporate-communal regime.  The entire corporate sector and capitalist class rallied firmly behind Modi and the BJP.  The advancement of the industry has been marked by the huge concentration of assets and wealth in the hands of big business and mercantile houses, while the urban and rural workers are paid some of the lowest wages in the country.  The contrast between the high levels of growth of the state’s gross domestic product and the low level of social indicators is stark.

The discontent among the poorer sections and socially oppressed groups due to price rise, unemployment, and lack of educational and health facilities has surfaced during the election campaign.  But as before, the deep-rooted communal polarisation which exists, is sought to be utilised to blunt such anger.

The target of the communal campaign – the Muslims – are themselves living in ghettoized and wretched conditions.  In the cities, there is a visible divide wherein the Muslim localities are in deplorable conditions deprived of basic civic facilities.  The BJP is confident that its mix of toxic Hindutva propaganda and promises of more benefits to labharthis (beneficiaries) should be enough to get its way with the electorate.

There is nothing to check the poisonous communal propaganda. It has become normalised because of the failure of the election commission to intervene and act against repeated violations of the model code of conduct in previous assembly elections and the Lok Sabha elections of 2019 when Narendra Modi and Amit Shah were the culprits.

Regarding this election campaign in Gujarat, a retired senior civil servant, E A S Sarma, had written to the election commission to take action against Amit Shah for his speeches violating the model code of conduct and invoking the provisions of the Indian Penal Code. There was no response from the EC. After all, in the new dispensation, it is the union home minister who sets down the law in such matters. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The United Nations’ call to observe November 25 as an International Day for “Elimination of Violence against Women” has got wide media coverage after the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, presented a chilling fact sheet that across the world every 11 minutes a woman or a girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member. He called violence against women and girls as the most pervasive human rights violation in the world.

Domestic violence is an undeclared war against women which has taken more victims through the years than any conventional war. So- called developed countries, that are the epicentres of capitalism, hold the worst record according to country-wise data available on the UN website.

In India the situation is grave. On an average, every day the National Crime Bureau 2021 reports that 86 women are raped and whose cases are registered. Every hour there are 49 offences committed against women registered under the IPC, every day on an average 18 women lost their lives in dowry related domestic violence— 6,589 dowry deaths registered in a single year. The National Family Health Survey- 5 shows that one third of all women surveyed, said they had faced domestic or sexual violence.

These are statistics which should make any country hang its head in shame. But in India there has not been a single word from the government. Some people have described this as a pandemic— in fact violence against women has become endemic in our social systems. Dalit women face the worst kind of violence inflicted by aggressive casteist practices.

One of the causes is that perpetrators of violence have an immunity granted to them by a casteist and patriarchal system due to which 75 per cent of perpetrators of violence against women remain unpunished. This low rate of conviction is directly a result of biased investigations by the police, long delays in the court system and social pressures on the survivors of violence to compromise.

Cultures that normalise domestic violence have got new life under the present regime with the promotion of notions of the ideal woman as one who adjusts to violence by her husband or his relatives as part of the way a good woman behaves. The refusal of the government to recognise marital rape as a criminal offence on grounds that it would be disruptive of the family,  is a reflection of that mentality. This manuwadi culture is a big barrier to democratise family relations and to protect women’s equality.

Even more dangerous is the communalisation of every rape case depending on the religious affiliation of the victim and the accused. In The Bilkis Bano case the affidavit of the Gujarat government in the petition opposing the release of the gang rapists and killers, specifically mentions that before their release sanction was given by the union home ministry. In other words, home minister Amit Shah is directly involved in the release of these killers and rapists in a most heinous crime based on their religion, their political affiliation. It is no coincidence that it is when Muslims are the accused that the ruling party and its sangh cohorts, remember the need for justice for women.

This was exemplified by the recent and highly condemnable statement of the Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, in reference to the Shraddha Walkar case. He said that you need to vote for Modi, “a strong man, “ to prevent Aftabs in every city.” That the horrific crime of murdering and dismembering the body of Shraddha was perpetrated by her Muslim partner, is used for the most vicious communal propaganda and claims of love jihad.  Around the time this terrible crime was detected in Delhi, in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh, a young woman was killed and cut into six parts by her ex-boyfriend.  Another woman in Sitapur district was killed by her husband and her body hacked into pieces and dumped in a field. Not a single word was uttered by the BJP leaders in both these cases as the accused and the victims belonged to the Hindu community. When dalit girls are raped or killed by upper caste men, not a word is said. This communalisation of violence against women in India is a highly dangerous weapon which will further subvert the judicial process and rendering of justice.

It is clear that capitalism and its social structures have supported and helped patriarchal notions and practices to grow across the world, based on a social and cultural system which promotes the subordinate status of women to exploit cheap female labour. It is on this fundamental basis that women across the capitalist world face discrimination and violence, some more than others. In India, the misogyny and patriarchal values that prevail are being reinforced by the open advocacy of manusmriti and caste hierarchies by the right-wing Hindutva forces. This in turn strengthens the forces in the minority communities who enforce further subordination of women.

The struggle to defend the rights of women guaranteed in the constitution and to enforce the laws against violence on women must be waged with renewed vigour. The Left and democratic forces must make this an important part of their ongoing platform of action. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Some of the recent positions and steps taken by the Election Commission (EC) of India do no credit to its well-earned reputation of being an impartial arbiter and supervisor of free and fair elections, a role vested in it by the Indian Constitution.

In the last few years, particularly after the Modi government came back to power for a second term, the EC is seen increasingly to acquiesce to the wishes of the government and has even resiled from some of the independent positions it had earlier adopted.

Some recent instances highlight this unfortunate trend. The EC had taken a position before the Supreme Court on the issue of poll promises and whether freebies can be promised at the time of election, that it does not fall under its purview. It had stated that any attempt to intervene in this matter which concerns political parties and voters would be an “overreach of powers”.

Having taken this unexceptionable position in April this year, the EC changed its stance subsequently after Prime Minister Modi railed against ‘revdi’ culture in July and blamed the opposition for offering freebies to the people.  In October, the EC informed political parties that it is planning to amend the model code of conduct and introduce a proforma for disclosure of the details of poll promises and their financial implications.

Moreover, the parties would have to show how they were going to raise additional resources for fulfilling the promises in the context of the budgetary and fiscal situation of the government.  Such an interference in political parties’ commitments to the people is an effort to circumscribe the policy of a political party within the prevailing wisdom of fiscal rectitude and the EC has no business in evaluating such poll promises.  By taking this step, contrary to its own position in the Supreme Court a few months ago, the EC has opened itself to the charge of fulfilling the prime minister’s diktat.

The EC had categorically come out against the scheme of electoral bonds when it was first mooted by the government.  It expressed serious reservations about the opaque system and how such anonymous funding would affect the conduct of free and fair polls.  This was stated in 2018.  Since then, the EC has not pursued the matter vigorously whenever the matter has come up in the Supreme Court which is hearing petitions against electoral bonds.

Instead of being seriously engaged in figuring out how to stop the flow of anonymous funds into elections, the EC is more concerned about how to track the small donations which are received by political parties.  At present, the law provides for parties to declare the source of donation for amounts above Rs 20,000.  The EC has written to the law minister in September to amend the law, so that donations of above Rs 2,000 are declared.  The EC wants to clampdown on anonymous donations below Rs 2,000, but it is ironical that the Commission does not seem overly concerned about the crores of rupees that are being donated anonymously through the electoral bonds. After the 22nd tranche of electoral bonds, which was issued in October this year, a total of Rs 10,791 crores has come through this anonymous route, the bulk of it to the ruling party.

The electoral bonds are issued four times a year – in January, April, July and October – from the 1st to the 10th of the month.  But, after the last tranche in October this year, the Modi government has amended the rules to have another extra issue on November 8 for a period of fifteen days.  This amendment to the rules is clearly meant for the Gujarat elections which are to be held in the first week of December.  The BJP, obviously, hopes to mop up a huge amount of funds from the corporates and shady businessmen who are ever ready to oblige the ruling party.

Without scrapping the electoral bond scheme, there can be no level playing field for elections and no check on the use of unaccounted money for election purposes. However, the EC is content in making small donations of Rs 2,000 and above accountable.

The EC is also setting new standards in the conduct of the Gujarat assembly elections.  First of all, the announcement of the Gujarat elections was delayed much after the announcement of the Himachal Pradesh assembly polls.  Everybody has seen how these extra days were utilised by the prime minister to inaugurate or open a series of projects and schemes in Gujarat.

The other unusual step taken is the EC signing MoUs with over a thousand corporate houses in Gujarat to monitor “electoral participation of their workforce” and publish the names of those who do not vote on their websites or notice boards.  This comes dangerously close to voting by coercion. The managements of companies are now being entrusted with the responsibility to ensure that their workers cast their votes.  The next step would be to advise workers how to vote.

The Election Commission is too precious and vital a body for our democracy.  Its independence and integrity cannot be allowed to be eroded by an authoritarian government. It is time for reforms in the Election Commission.  To begin with, the selection of Election Commissioners must be done by a committee, which includes the Chief Justice of India and the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. Right now it is solely in the hands of the executive. Secondly, after retirement, a commissioner should be barred from taking up any official position or nomination by a political party to become a member of parliament or legislature.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has, by a split verdict of 3 to 2 upheld the validity of the 103rd constitutional amendment which provided reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) from within the general category. The CPI(M) had supported this constitutional amendment in parliament in January 2019.

This amendment was to enable reservation of upto a maximum of 10 per cent for EWS in the general category, i.e., those sections who do not fall in the backward classes and Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe categories.

The CPI(M) had raised the demand for provision of some  quantum of reservation for the poor belonging to the general category at the time of the implementation of the Mandal Commission for OBC reservation in 1990.

While the CPI(M) fully supported 27 per cent reservation for OBCs, it advocated some quota on the basis of economic criteria for the poorer sections among the general category. The Party felt that such a provision would soften the sharp polarisation which took place with the anti-reservation agitation.  Having a class approach, the Party had also wanted an economic criteria within the OBC quota, so that the really deserving from these sections could avail of the quota.  This was later accepted by the Supreme Court in the form of “creamy layer”.

While upholding reservation for “socially and educationally” backward castes, which is based on centuries of an oppressive caste order, the CPI(M) is also concerned with uniting the working people and poor of all castes and communities. This is the way the existing exploitative socio-economic system can be fought. It is to forge the unity of the poorer sections of all castes and to overcome the divisions that the CPI(M) advocated providing some quantum of reservation for the poorer sections within the general category.  Obviously, this cannot affect the percentage of existing quota of OBCs, SCs and STs. The EWS quota has to be carved out of the general category.

The Party had, however, criticised the criteria set by the Modi government through an office memorandum to define who is an EWS.  For the central government quota in jobs and education, the EWS meant a family who is having an income of less than Rs 8 lakh per year, provided they do not own more than five acres of agricultural land, or, above 1,000 square feet of residential area or a residential plot of 100 square yards in a notified municipality. This means that people who are not poor could avail of the EWS quota.  The limit for income tax exemption is Rs 2.5 lakh per annum.  Above this, one has to pay income tax.  Similarly, owing five acres of agricultural land does not make one poor.

Thus, the purpose of the EWS reservation gets defeated by keeping its ceiling and limits high and wide enough.  The Supreme Court is yet to go into this issue as there are petitions challenging this office memorandum.

The application of the EWS quota is left to the states for state level jobs and education. The LDF government in Kerala set up a commission to decide on the criteria for EWS and extent of the quota.  The Justice Sasidharan Nair Commission recommended that those with a family income of below Rs 4 lakh and who do not hold more than 2.5 acres of agricultural land should be eligible for EWS reservation.

The Kerala cabinet approved these recommendations in 2020 and 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education is being implemented in Kerala now. The criteria adopted for defining EWS addresses the poorer sections within the general quota.

The central government should immediately revise the criteria for defining the EWS if the benefit of quota is to really go to the economically deprived.  (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

Kerala is witnessing the spectacle of a governor who is out of control. One day he is demanding the resignation of all the vice chancellors of Kerala universities and on another day he “withdraws pleasure” from a minister in the government and asks the chief minister to remove him from the cabinet.

Utilizing a Supreme Court verdict which struck down the appointment of the vice chancellor of the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, acting as the chancellor, demanded that the vice chancellors of nine state universities resign from their positions by 11.30 am on October 25.  The letter demanding this was sent on October 24.

Eight vice chancellors refused to resign and went to the High Court against the move by the governor. The ninth VC was the one removed by the Supreme Court verdict. Just before their petition was to be heard in court, the governor backtracked and sent a show cause notice to the vice chancellors to respond by November 3 as to why they should not be removed from their posts due to irregularities in the process of appointment. Subsequently, the governor has sent a similar show cause notice to two more vice chancellors.

This latest action by the governor comes in the wake of a series of egregious moves in the recent past.  Earlier, the governor had questioned the reappointment of the vice chancellor of Kannur University after having signed his appointment order. This appointment, which was challenged, was upheld by the Kerala High Court.

More recently, the governor has been waging a battle against the Kerala University vice chancellor and the senate.  He sought to bypass the provisions of the Act regarding the nature of the search committee to select a person for the post of vice chancellor which was falling vacant.  When the senate resisted such illegal methods, fifteen members of the senate were arbitrarily removed from the membership of the senate.

In the current move against the vice chancellors, it must be noted that all of them were appointed vice chancellors by the governor in his capacity as chancellor of these universities. Under the statutes governing these universities, the chancellor cannot remove a person from the post of vice chancellor of his own accord.  For instance, the statutes of these universities provide that a vice chancellor can be proceeded against for financial misappropriation or misbehaviour. An enquiry has to be conducted by a judge of the High Court into such charges. Therefore, the threat of dismissal of vice chancellors by the governor is illegal and violates the statutes.

The Supreme Court verdict on the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University was regarding the specific appointment made at that university and the alleged violation of procedures in that case.  The governor’s move to make this verdict applicable to the appointment of vice chancellors of other universities is without any legal basis.  The statutes of some of the universities provides for a nominee of the state government in the search committee, apart from the UGC nominee and the university nominee.  This is the pattern followed in some other states too like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.  The governor’s stand that there should not be a nominee of the state government in the selection committee is untenable.

What exactly is the motive behind Governor Khan’s actions?  He argues that he is taking steps to protect the autonomy of the universities and to prevent the nominees of the ruling party being made vice chancellors. This is only a camouflage for intervening in the state universities to advance the agenda of the RSS and the BJP.

The misuse of the post of chancellor by Governor Khan is not an isolated issue. In many opposition-ruled states, the governors have been interfering in the affairs of state universities and creating hurdles in the appointment of vice chancellors and key personnel.  The latest instance of this is in Punjab.  The governor, Banwarilal Purohit, had rejected the appointment of a noted cardiologist as the vice chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences. After that, the governor has asked the chief minister to remove the vice chancellor of Punjab Agricultural University terming his appointment as “illegal”.

It is in order to stop the arbitrary interference by governors in state universities that new laws or amendments to existing laws concerning state universities have been adopted by the state assemblies of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala. In Kerala, the assembly passed the University Laws (Amendment) Bill on September 1, this year.  The amendment has increased the strength of the selection committee to select nominees for vice chancellor to five from the existing three. But the governor has not given assent to the bill, nor has he returned the bill with any query or objections.

When faced with criticism about his obstructionist role, Governor Khan threatened to withdraw his “pleasure” from any minister who dares to criticise him.  He has now announced that he has “withdrawn pleasure” from the finance minister, K N Balagopal, and asked the chief minister to remove him from the cabinet. Thus, he has begun to exercise powers that he does not possess under the constitution.

The remedy to governors’ interference in the appointment of vice chancellors is to stop the practice of making governors as chancellors of universities.  This was the recommendation of the M M Punchhi Commission on centre-state relations appointed by the UPA government.  The commission had recommended ending the convention of appointing governors as chancellors of universities.

The struggle against the governor interfering in higher educational institutions in Kerala is important.  What the governor is doing is part of the centralised drive to impose the RSS agenda for higher education in the country.  The arbitrary measures of the governor will be fought legally and politically.  The Left Democratic Front in Kerala has called for a people’s march to Raj Bhawan on November 15 on this matter and a campaign is underway to expose the manoeuvres to undermine the secular-democratic character of the higher education system in Kerala. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

The Jammu and Kashmir administration is taking steps which seek to obliterate the historical legacy and identity of the Kashmiri people while promoting measures which will heighten the communal divide between Jammu and the Valley.

July 13 has been traditionally observed as Martyrs Day in Kashmir to commemorate the memory of 22 people who were killed in firing by the Maharaja’s police in 1931 while protesting against the feudal monarchy.

For the second consecutive year there was no official commemoration of the event. In 2020, the union territory administration withdrew state patronage to Martyrs Day when usually a wreath was laid at the graves of the martyrs by the head of the state government. It is also no longer a government holiday. The gates of the martyrs’ graveyard were locked and barricaded. This disavowal of a historical date which has resonance for the people of Kashmir is another attempt to disempower the people of the Valley.

Following this, the administration has announced that the birthday of the former Maharaja Hari Singh on September 23 would be observed as a public holiday. This followed a request from various organisations in Jammu. The Maharaja symbolised autocratic feudal rule under British patronage of the system of princely states. The National Conference, with its leader Sheikh Abdullah had led the peoples’ movement against feudal rule and against British suzerainty – a continuation of the struggle which saw the martyrdom of 22 people in 1931.

While the Maharaja’s birthday has been declared a public holiday, Sheikh Abdullah’s birthday observance has been discontinued since December 2019. The Maharaja’s role at the time of independent was a dubious one. As per the Mount Batten Award, Princely States could choose which of the two independent states to join- India or Pakistan. The Maharaja, who had unleashed severe repression against the popular movement led by the National Conference for an end to monarchy and for democratic rule, wanted Jammu and Kashmir to remain an independent state and not join either of the two new dominions. This is a fact admitted by the Maharaja in the letter to Mountbatten on October 26, 1947. He wrote the letter enclosing the instrument of accession to India after Pakistan sent armed ‘tribal invaders’ to annex Kashmir.

It is the resistance put up by the people led by the National Conference, while the Maharaja fled from Srinagar to Jammu that helped the Indian Army, when it was dispatched, to drive out the invading forces.

The Maharaja at the time when he was contemplating independence was fully backed by the RSS and later by the Praja Parishad which was run by RSS cadres. They had endorsed his stance for independence and later after the accession, separation of Jammu from Kashmir. It is this Maharaja, an erstwhile ally of the British, who is being honoured with a state holiday while those who struggled against the monarchy and fought for democracy are being de-recognised. In honouring the Maharaja, the fact that he was a Hindu who ruled over a majority of Muslim subjects seems to be a crucial factor.

The attitude of the BJP rulers to Hari Singh who sided with the British and wanted J&K to be an independent state is in stark contrast in its attitude to Nizam of Hyderabad. The BJP observed ‘liberation day’ on September 17 in Telangana hailing the Army intervention which ousted the Nizam who also had refused to accede to India and toyed with idea of remaining independent. The difference in approach is determined by the religion of the ruler. The first was a Hindu and the second a Muslim – both toadies of the British.

The attitude of the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha to the princely states at the time of independence is revealing. They were staunch supporters of the Hindu princes and rulers. They were opposed to the people’s movement in the princely states which fought against autocracy and against British rule. They prioritised the interests of the feudal rulers over the interests of the independent State of India.  In fact, V D Savarkar sent a telegram of support to the declaration of independence by the Maharaja of Travancore. He supported the ‘courageous determination to declare independence of our Hindu state of Travancore’ citing the decision of the Muslim ruler of Hyderabad to proclaim its independence. It is this pro-feudal, pro-imperialist outlook that still prevails among the BJP rulers.

The suppression of the historically significant dates and the symbols of the Kashmir people’s struggle against autocracy and for democracy is part of the overall plan of disenfranchise and politically marginalise the Valley population.  Aspects of this was seen in the way the delimitation of seats of the assembly has been undertaken and the changes made in domicile status.

The old RSS plan to trifurcate the united J&K is back in action in a modified form. All this is sowing the seeds for a wider conflict and deeper troubles in the coming days. (IPA Service)

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By Prakash Karat

On the last day of his tenure as chief justice on August 26, Justice Ramana referred the pleas on political parties promising freebies to a three-judge bench to be decided by the new chief justice of India.  The Supreme Court, getting into the freebies issue, is an example of misplaced priorities and entering into an area which is not the business of the higher judiciary.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi stoked the issue of freebies when he derided the ‘revdi’ culture and blamed the opposition for it in a public meeting in July.  A public interest litigation petition was filed by a Delhi BJP leader calling for a review of an earlier Supreme Court judgment which had ruled out bringing promises by a political party before elections within the purview of a corrupt practice under Section 123 of the Representation of the People Act.

The Supreme Court promptly took up the hearing of the petition by a bench headed by Chief Justice Ramana.  The court heard arguments by the petitioner and counter arguments. In the process, it brought to the fore the confused and muddled thinking on the issue of political parties making promises to the people during election time.

This was also reflected in some of the remarks made by Justice Ramana in the course of the hearings.  On the one hand, Justice Ramana stated that freebies should not be confused with genuine welfare measures. He also stated that what welfare schemes are to be initiated is the prerogative of the political parties and the executive.  On the other, Justice Ramana spoke about “irrational freebies” without clarifying what the criteria is for defining irrational freebies.

At one stage, the bench talked of setting up of an expert committee to go into the matter, but then paused the decision after hearing about the problems and complexities that would face such a committee.

The hypocritical intent behind Narendra Modi raising the freebie issue is clear.  It is targeted at the various welfare schemes and direct cash transfers being made by various state governments.  While the prime minister considers all the central schemes as genuine welfare measures, similar welfare schemes undertaken by the opposition state governments are to be condemned as freebies.  Under the PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, Rs 6,000 is transferred every year to farmers owning land.  This is not a freebie but similar schemes implemented by the Telangana, Andhra Pradesh or Odisha governments would be branded as freebies. The prime minister wants to monopolise all welfare schemes under the auspices of the centre and expects the state governments only to implement these schemes and the beneficiaries thereof should be indebted to the centre.

The prime minister, obviously, does not consider tax cuts and loan waivers for the corporates or subsidies for the rich, as freebies. As the DMK in its written submission to the court pointed out, during the first three years of the Modi government (2014-17), Rs 72,000 crore loans of the Adani group had been written off and in the past five years (2017-22), public sector banks had written off loans worth Rs 7.27 lakh crore. It goes on to ask: “Are these not freebies for corporates?  What is the justification for wanting to prevent welfare measures like food, education and travel subsidies for the poor and downtrodden but continuing to give large tax breaks for corporates?”

The neo-liberal nostrum that subsidies for food, fertilizer, electricity and such like are all wasteful of public resources and are freebies, is the prevailing wisdom.  Instead of transfers to the working people, there should be transfers to big capitalists to promote growth.

Another angle of attack on “freebies” is that it is fiscally irresponsible. Such a view is also reflected in the order of the Ramana-led bench of the Supreme Court referring the matter for further consideration by a three-member bench, where it is stated: “The worries raised by the petitioner that under the guise of welfare, fiscal responsibility is dispensed with, must also be considered”.

A deliberate attempt is also being made to confuse the welfare measures promised in the election manifesto of a party with the corrupt practice during elections of distributing cash to voters, free saris or other consumer goods.  It is the latter which should be put down stringently.

There is no need whatsoever for the Supreme Court to deliberate upon and decide whether election promises made by political parties are freebies or not. This issue pertains purely to the realm of the political. In a democracy, political parties are free to set out their platform and promises in the election manifesto. It is for the people to judge them, accept or reject them. It is the prerogative of a political party which wins the election to implement the promises it has made to the people with regard to welfare measures.

The attack on the so-called freebies is actually an attack on the right to food, education, health and all other public goods which contribute to the welfare of the people and which the State has a responsibility to provide for.  (IPA Service)

Courtesy: People’s Democracy

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By Ashis Biswas

For the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bengal, the theme song could well be akla chalo re: Ironically, as the weakest opposition party in West Bengal, the BJP alone is not contemplating any alliance, with only a few months left before the 2016 Assembly polls.

Among other parties, the usually derided, much weakened Congress has emerged as the prime choice as an alliance partner both for the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) and the CPI(M). Interestingly, the Left camp remains divided over the question of political alignments. For instance, the CPI a firm ally of the Congress during the seventies, has put its foot down to any linkage with it, as have smaller parties like the SUCI or the CPI(M-L). The CPI’s logic: it points to its own remarkable decline over the years, which it sees as a consequence of its earlier reliance on the Congress.

Where the BJP is concerned, there are several reasons why it is not as market-able as it was post 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The TMC cannot approach it obviously for fear of losing its minority support. For the Left, any contact with the BJP is anathema, despite their coming together on the question of defeating the Rajiv Gandhi-led Congress in 1989. As if this was not bad enough, the BJP is weak and demoralised. It cannot find a suitable state leader in Bengal, not to speak of the big setback it suffered in Bihar.

The tussle between the TMC and the CPI(M) over an understanding/adjustment with the Congress is becoming keener by the day. The initial soundings came from the CPI(M) leader, former Minister Gautam Deb. He hinted at an alliance with like-minded secular democratic parties, admitting that the Left on its own could not defeat the TMC as of now.

He was promptly contradicted by the CPI(M)’s Central leadership, without much apparent conviction. Now the party General Secretary Mr Sitaram Yechury, reputedly more flexible and approachable than his predecessor Mr Prakash Karat in political negotiations, has indicated that certain issues/decisions could well be left to the party’s state units to be addressed at the local level.

Mr. Yechury’s clarification became necessary as the Congress remains the CPI(M)’s main adversary both in Kerala and Tripura .He was addressing the committed cadres, who had fought the Congress bitterly over the years, more than making a general statement.

A CPI(M)-Congress combo could certainly make life difficult for the ruling TMC. For all the erosion, the Left has suffered under the TMC rule, under intense pressure from the musclemen at all levels of activity, with help from a blatantly partisan police and administration, its vote share has stabilised at around 22 per cent at the moment.

Observers feel it is somewhat more, because no election has been fair in Bengal since May 2011, when the TMC unseated the LF. Since then, whether in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections or the municipal polls , the by -elections to the LS or State Assembly, TMC muscle power has ruled the day, with Election Commissioners or the police hardly intervening.

So in any fairly fought election, the Left vote could certainly exceed 25 per cent or more, especially in view of the recent agitational programmes conducted by the CPI(M). These have evoked good response, alarming the TMC. The latter first reacted by attacking CPI(M) processions which are being organised at the grassroot level. However, wisdom prevailed later, seeing that such attacks brought the TMC much negative publicity. Together with the Congress’s steady 8/10 per cent share of the votes, the LF/Congress combo can certainly count on winning at least 35 per cent of the total vote, perhaps somewhat more.

The BJP’s present vote share is currently down to around 10/11 per cent from around 17 per cent it won in the 2014 LS polls. But then recent elections have not been fair. So any corresponding increase in the BJP’s share of votes could well see it edging close to its 2014 levels. Even if it wins around 14/15 per cent only, which may not bring it too many seats in the 294 strong Assembly, the combined vote share by the opposition — the BJP, the CPI(M) and the LF, could well touch or exceed 50 per cent of the aggregate.

It may appear that the TMC would still be sitting pretty if it wins close 50 per cent of the aggregate votes on its own, which is potentially possible. But then other factors have to be reckoned with in 2016. Unlike in 2011, the Muslim vote would certainly be divided between the supporters of the TMC and the followers of Mr. Abdur Rezzak Mollah’s new party. Votes normally won by the SUC, the CPI(M-L)and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, all of which went to the TMC in 2011, would go against it this time. So would the larger percentage of votes in the urban/suburban areas, where there is considerable disillusionment with the TMC.

Then, there is the major problem of dissidence within the TMC. Despite repeated warnings and threats, TMC Chief Mamata Banerjee has singularly failed to instill any discipline within her own party ranks and followers, during the last four years. Already, over 100 TMC supporters and followers have been killed in intra-party feuds, fighting over commissions to be earned from running protection rackets for investors, businessmen and contractors. Nothing short of a miracle can stop such dissidents from not putting up their own’ dummy’ candidates or sabotaging their TMC rivals if they feel their side has been sidelined in the matter of winning a party ticket!

However on the credit side, there is a near unanimous feeling that in view of the good rural development and related work in the south Bengal districts, where most of the seats are, the TMC will certainly remain several steps ahead of its rivals.

To sum up, it is easy to conclude as of now that the TMC should end up as the leading party both in terms of seats won and the percentage of votes, in 2016. TMC leaders in private conversations mention the possibility of winning between 160 to over 200 seats on their own.

It is far too early to be certain about such assessments. Much would also depend on how the CBI probe into the Sarada chit fund is conducted in the weeks ahead. There is considerable panic among the TMC leaders about this. And the surest indication that TMC leaders do not really believe that they would achieve a single majority as in 2011, lies in their party’s barely concealed efforts to work out an alliance with the Congress and Ms Banerjee’s vigorous hobnobbing with Congress President Sonia Gandhi. (IPA Service)

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The history of communism in India is one of strategic miscalculations at the national level as a result of blinkered tactical manoeuvres in the states. The outcome is that while  the comrades have remained a marginal force at the centre, their main ideological adversary, viz. the BJP, has made major gains.

Arguably, the roots of this fallout lie in the initial premise of their politics of seeing the Congress as the main enemy from the yeh azadi jhooti hai days of the immediate post-independence period. Since the Congress was by far the most formidable opponent in the decades after 1947, the anti-Congress line was understandable.

But this tactic was followed even after the Congress began to decline because the latter was the only opponent of the communists in the three states where the Left had any influence, viz. Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura.

However, while pursuing this policy, the communists chose to ignore what effect this single-minded, knee-jerk opposition to the Congress at the state level may have at the centre where another party, which did not have any presence in Kerala, West Bengal and Tripura, may raise its head.

The tussle in the CPI(M) between the two topmost leaders, general secretary Prakash Karat and politburo member Sitaram Yechury, relates to this tactical mistake which overlooked the big picture. While Karat’s anti-Congress policies are being blamed for facilitating the BJP’s rise, Yechury is apparently using this opportunity to run down his hardline party colleague who is said to want to keep Yechury out of the general secretary’s post and install a camp follower instead.

Yechury’s case has been strengthened by the fact that the CPI(M) under Karat has faltered on two counts. One is the party’s inability to form a so-called Left and democratic alternative to the Congress, and the other is the CPI(M)’s decline from 16 Lok Sabha seats in 2009 to nine in 2014. To add to Karat’s woes, the CPI(M) lost its three-decade-old stronghold in West Bengal to its arch-enemy, Mamata Banerjee, in 2011.

What is more, the travails of the CPI(M) as well as of the Left in general suggest that there is little hope in the near future of their recovery when the BJP’s pro-market outlook has given a boost to right-wing forces as never before in Indian politics.

Yet, in the 1960s, the communists apparently thought that in the event of the Congress’s decline, they will take its place. Indeed, this was the hope which M. Basavapunniah, a senior CPI(M) leader, expressed when he said that “we will not feel happy if this party (the Congress) goes down without the emergence of a viable democratic alternative”. Continuing, he said that “our concern for the Congress is because it affects our future. We want to take over a united and not a fragmented India”.

Nearly half a century later, the fond dream of the commissars of taking over the country will not only be seen as delusional, but also laughable because of the wide gulf between hope and reality. In presuming that the Congress’s decline will be automatically followed by the rise of the Left, the latter do not seem to have paid any attention to the possibility of a third alternative making its presence felt.

This tunnel vision is strange considering that another senior CPI(M) leader,  Promode Dasgupta, once said in a private conversation that “scratch a Hindu and he is RSS”. This was in the 1970s when few took the Jan Sangh – the BJP’s earlier avatar – seriously. But, at least one perceptive leader had seen its potential.

But, myopia was not the only flaw of the communists. What was even more damaging were the debilitating splits which they suffered with the undivided Communist Party breaking up in 1964 into CPI and CPI(M) and then the Naxalites breaking away from the CPI(M) in 1969.

Moreover, the reason for the1969 split was no less hurtful because the Naxalites represented the pro-Chinese faction of the CPI(M) – their slogan, China’s chairman is our chairman exemplified their outlook – which hardened the belief that the communists were essentially anti-national which had first gained credence during their ambivalence towards the 1962 border conflict with China.

Arguably, the Congress would have continued to fare well in the two states but for the Emergency. But, its defeat in 1977 helped the CPI(M) to return to power. However, notwithstanding the presence at the helm of a widely respected personality like Jyoti Basu, the CPI(M)’s cadre raj alienated the people in West Bengal to such an extent that now there is little possibility of the party regaining power in the state.

Instead, it is the BJP which is gaining ground, raising its share of vote from 6 per cent in 2009 to 16.8 per cent this year. The turn of events would have been unthinkable in, say, 2010 when the CPI(M) was in power and the BJP was nowhere in sight. (IPA Service)

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