CPIM Disowns Mayawati Tag, Turnaround Once Again
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 33
Palash Biswas
The CPI(M) has said it does not look at in terms of projecting an individual for the prime minister's post, an indication that it was not keen on seeing BSP chief Mayawati in the top post.CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday made it clear that BSP chief Mayawati was not his party's choice as PM candidate. He firmly ruled out any post-poll alliance with the UPA.CPM leader stood defiant. He said there is no question of a post-poll tie up with the UPA. He also said that he will support the UNPA in fighting issues like price rise, inflation and the nuclear deal, but will not consider it as a third front. Communist Party of India General Secretary Prakash Karat on Thursday refused any possibility of any party alliance with the United Progressive Alliance even after general elections due next year.
Whether or not the UPA wins the trust vote on July 22, the CPM feels the government's collapse is only a matter of time.
What a Turnaround!With the Left failing to stop the government from going to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the government winning the trust vote, many Congress leaders had not ruled out an alliance with the Left in the upcoming general elections. And I tell you, the opportunist Marxists may repeat History anytime.
A clever leader like Amar Singh , the master of Horse Trading, landed in Kolkat just yesterday and addressed a press conference with Fire Brand Brahman Leader Ms Mamata. Amar Singh fielded Mamamta against Mayawati. Though a tough bargainer like Amara did not miss to mention that his hear only lies with Sister Mamata but the Mind still remains with the Left!
It is a clear indication of dangers ahead for the Left, a steep decay in High caste vote bank. While the Left is no more that sure about SC, OBC and Muslim Votes in Kearla and Bengal. Tripura has a different demography and the Tripura Marxists have enough causes for enthusiasm for Mayawati!
Only on 25th July, late after midnight I was talking face to face the Marxist Minister in Tripura. The Poet politician, Anil Sarkar claimed that it was a masterstroke and we must welcome the latest Party Line . I explained how I never believed that CPIM could hold this line very longer. I never expected the Marxist turnaround so soon. Anilda has been insisting that Dalit Liberation is only possible with a Marxist line on Ambedkar and Rabindra Nath Tagore. Thus, he runs all the missions on Ambedkar`s name. now, he has launched a Matribhasha Mission campaign all along the North East on a Tagore line of Nationality!
I told,` The Ruling Brahaminical Hegemony in West Bengal and Kerala would never allow Prakash Karat to sustain the tag Mayawati'. Which he disowned so soon!
I asked Anilda,`In West Bengal, fort one percent OBCs have only a single cabinet minister. SC leader Kanti Biswas has been ousted. Upen Kisku ousted. Dinesh Dakua ousted. Narayan Biswas ousted. A duffer Brahman Surya Kant Mishra holds on despite severe failure in Health sector. Kanti Biswas may not be held responsible for the failures in Education. Marxist education policy always has been faulty which always promoted discriminatory education policy with Private Investment, Now education is an affair of purchasing capacity. Marxists never demanded Common Education! Then, a competent minister like Bilasi Bala Sahis was shifted in the district.'
Anilda defended the party and said, ` Kanti Biswas was ousted as the SC society and leadership launched a sustained campaign against him!'
Then, I argued, ` How do you justify the Brahmin front? Three percent micro minority Brahmins have 64 MLAs and 16 cabinet ministers!"
Speaking on the alliances prior to the trust vote in Lok Sabha on July 22, 2008, Karat said, "Mayawati left alliance with the UPA before the Left parties withdrew support to the UPA. Now, we go by what the parties say. They have come out against the nuclear deal and said they would work against the UPA government. It is only after we withdrew support, we said we would contact all the secular parties who are opposed to the nuclear deal and who can stand in vote against the UPA government. As part of that process, I met Mayawati, Deve Gowda, Ajit Singh, leaders of TDP and the UNPA, and then came to a common understanding."
"He (CPI General Secretary A B Bardhan) was asked, do you think she can become PM. He said, Yes why not. That is his way of saying that he has no objection to any particular leader becoming PM. We don't look at in terms of projecting an individual," CPI(M) General Secretary Prakash Karat clarified in Thiruvananthapuram.
Asked if he was saying that Mayawati would not be projected as Prime Minister, he told Malayalam channel "Kairali TV" he said he was not ready to say anything as "it is too premature".
"In this country there have been PMs who people never expected could become prime ministers. And there have been prime ministers who people could not think of as PM turned out to be good prime ministerial material. So why this debate. It is not a meaningful debate," he said.
Anil Sarkar called me every hour during his stay in New Delhi until 28th evening while he informed me that he was leaving for Delhi. Anilda tried his best to convince us, the subaltern Intelligentsia that Karat and Brinda with Sitaram Yechury are very serious on Dalit liberation and we must support this stance. We must support Mayawati as projected Prime Minister Face of the Left!
I explained how it was impossible and what have been the reactions in High caste vote Bank in west Bengal. He was not convinced. Neither he believed that CPIM would not be able to manage damage control after the ouster of the veteran most Marxist Brahmin leader Somnath Chatterjee.
Anilda is never without hope and trying his best to mobilise the subaltern camp in favour of CPIM official line in North India! he called me from Agartala daily and continued the discussion!
On 26th evening, I was debating with some Marxist Senior comrades in Mohan Singh Palace Coffee house. The Marxist comrades defended the party line and claimed that the communists in India, never deviated from Ideology!
Ideology my Foot!
They declared that Somnath was to be expelled!
Pankaj Bisht supported, ` Ideology as well as discipline demanded his ouster!"
I agreed. I never defend the Marxist Brahmins as I know their Faces realty real!
I was away in New Delhi and Kolkata TV telecasted the documentary film on Marichjhanpi on 24th evening. In january 1979, Dalit Refugees were massacred in the Sundervana Island which was never a part of the forest and the Bonafied Indian citizens rehabiliated in different parts of Dandkarany were lured to come in West Bengal to form a favourable vote bank for the Marxists still alluding! Jyoti Basu himself talked to the refugee leaders of all the five refugee camps in MP. The marxist ministers Ram Chatterjee and Kiran Moy Nanda mobilised the massive immigration. Minister Subhash Chakrabarty offered CPIM Umbrella just before the action began. Comrade Buddhadev Bhattacharya as the Police minister monitored the Gestapo action of Blockade and Massacre!
The Marichjhanpi film was to be screened in JNU by Delhi friends and was withheld. It could not be screened.
The document presents all the documents and witnesses and the missing links of the forgotten massacre. a promo was posted on nandigarmunited. blogspot.com, indiainteracts.com and You Tube! It was a online petition demanding Justice!
kolakata High Caste hatred is documented quite Human in Bangla Ntionality and literary disguise. Tara shankar and Sharat Chandra, Sunil Gango, Ateen Bando and Debesh Roy are best examples.It swallowed the Marichjhanpi episode.
Sunil Gango reported the event for Anandbazar at the time and supported the refugees as he was not a communist then. He refused to say anything for the documentary.
Mahasheta Di has to be present in Panel discussion today while the film is being telecasted once again. cable links and electricity supply were snapped in many parts of the state during first screening. Mahasheta di never wrote on refugees and Dalits.
I have a very intimate relationship with didi. She wrote an exclusive write up on my novel AMERICA SE SAVDHAN in Dainik Hindustan and taged me with Legendary Jharkhand Leader AK Roy. She is very affectionate. I was also included in Bhasha Bandhan editorial which I could not bear for the differences on Social realism related to Manusmriti!But most of us learnt everything about Nationality Movement from Mahasheweta Di. She dealt very well the History of indigenous Insurrectons in India. she described the Nandigram insurrection as Dalit Movement.
Ratan Basu Majumdar argued during the earlier private screening of the film on editorial stage that the Intelligentsia Kolkata has to be supporting the demand for Justice!I dismissed the idea as the Kolkata Intelligentsia remained quite detached all these Thirty years.
Ratan da exclaimed,`They might have not known'.
Should I believe this?
Mahashweta Di did all the documentation of Insurrections, Naxalbari and Tebhaga. Could she be so ignorant? She wrote about me in details , on my primary schooling, GIC and Nainital as well as Dhanbad. My friends would never know the details. i did not tell her. but she wrote.
How she did not write anything on refugees and dalits?
Simply because of Hegemony psyche which is inflected in Bengali Brahmin led Indian communist movement from the beginning. The communists may not bear a Dalit face for the Next prime Minister projection.
I failed to convince Anil Sarkar.
My friends in Bengal as well as in new Delhi and countrywide explain Somnath episode as historical Blunder once again.
yes, it was a blunder. I agree.
But it was never a blunder expelling the Brahmin don from the party. The party committed the Historical Blunder while it accepted the post of Speaker and remained in Hamlet Dilemma of TO BE or NOT To Be . It wasted the most vocal Parliamentarian and had to field a novice, Md salim to speak for the party during Trust vote. Adwani easily subverted the Nuclear deal with his rotten Hindutva. My Marxist friends may not digest this argument!
Then, what happened to Hyderabad agenda?
What was all about the Cow belt Escalation strategy?
Anilda and Biman bose have been always involved. i do not talk to any Marxist leaders nowadays but I have discussed all these issues with all Marxist SC, OBC and St leaders so many times and questioned the justification of CPIM launched Dalit and Refugee movement!
Now, you see the developments!
Robin Chakrabarti, a scientist and Tasham organiser informed me in phone that the audience reacted violently as they saw the Marichjhanpi film!
I told,` People do react on Visual media. Be it Devdas, Rang de Basanti, Shole or AAp Hamare Hain Kaun or Nach Le! I am interested in results. What happened next? Did anyone demand to hang Basu? Did the Kolkata Intelligentsia cried for justice after thirty long years!'
Robinda answered,` People are very repenting!'
`So what? you people escaped at that time! Now you are just expressing sentiment and doing nothing! It is a crime! At least, you may demonstrate on Rani Rasmoni Sarani, Metro Channel, before Alimuddin street or Indira Bhavan! Safemost option is a Citizens` convention at least!'
Thus,the brahminical hegemony never breaks!
And anil da expects some space for democratic subaltern movement with his Dalit Agenda!
And his Hero falls miserably!
On the issue of Third Alternative, Karat said hopefully they would be able to present some third force in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
"Be very clear. I didn't use the word Third Alternative. I have not not talked about the Third Alternative. I have not not talked about the Third Alternative....Our party's understanding of the Third Alternative is not some combination to fight elections. The Third Alternative has to be in terms of policies and programmes," he said.
To a question on supporting Congress after the elections for forming a government, Karat said "we are going to call the defeat of BJP and the Congress. And after that if we support the Congress, I don't know, I think people accuse us of opportunism. So why do you think that there can be only either a BJP-led government or a Congress-led government."
Karat said even when the Left supported the government they knew the Congress was wedded to liberalisation policies. But the Left could check privatisation in some sectors while it could not not tolerate serious deviation from the common minimum programme on an issue like the strategic alliance with the US.
To a question whether it was a mistake to have supported the Congress, he said "we made a mistake in believing the commitment of the top leadership of the country including the prime minister. We have to see whether we can put faith in the Congress leadership again."
On the charge that the CPI(M) had once dubbed the BSP as a casteist formation, Karat said all parties except the Left had played the caste card.
"But the assertion of dalit forces is a democratic and an awakening aspect which we must recognise."
Asked why he had always refrained from making critical comments against Congress President Sonia Gandhi, he said they had always criticised the Congress leadership as well as the prime minister.
"Prime Minister, of course is running the government. Leadership cannot be reduced to one individual and is collective."
Karat Thursday indicated it was a mistake to have trusted the Congress leadership and said that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh does not "understand how the Communist party functions". Apparently regretting the legislative support the CPI-M-led Left parties extended to the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, Karat declared that there would not be any ties with the Congress in future.
In an interview telecast on Malayalam channel Kairali TV, Karat said both the Congress leadership and the prime minister had assured the Left that they would not go ahead with the India-US civil nuclear deal even if they were allowed to carry forward negotiations on an India specific safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Because they said they will talk and come back… if you object we will not proceed further. Now when the prime minister, the Congress president (Sonia Gandhi) and the Congress leadership give such an assurance, we thought yes, let them go, talk and come back. They are bringing this to the (UPA-Left nuclear) committee. When we object in the committee, they will not proceed. This is the assurance they gave us in November."
He added that the meeting in which the assurance was given was also attended by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
Asked if the CPI-M had overestimated the trustworthiness of the Congress party he said: "It seems like that."
Reacting to Manmohan Singh's remarks that the CPI-M general secretary has "miscalculated" the developments, Karat said: "The bourgeois party leaders look at their (party) practices in which the leader decides everything. They do not understand how the Communist party functions."
He said emphatically that the Left would continue to combat the government in parliament.
"We are not parties like the DMK, RJD or the NCP. They are part of the UPA along with the Congress party. We cannot have any understanding or alliance with the Congress party… we are in no way bound to support the Congress-led coalition. We will work with all the non-Congress secular parties - the non Congress secular parties who are today not with the BJP or the Congress."
The CPI-M led Left parties - that withdrew support to the Manmohan Singh government over the India-US civil nuclear deal - have not yet taken a decision on who they would support as a prime ministerial candidate of the non-BJP, non-Congress front, he added.
"We have not decided yet," Karat said when asked if Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was their candidate for the top post.
Karat said the Left would enter into an electoral alliance, though he did not want it to be named the 'third front'.
"I never talked about third alternative. Our party's understanding of the third alternative is not some combination to fight elections. The third alternative should be in terms of policies and programmes. We don't consider the UNPA as the third alternative. We told them that this is the alternative we were thinking about."
On joining hands with Mayawati, a move that had been widely criticised, he said: "Mayawati left the alliance with the UPA before the Left parties withdrew support to it. She had come out of the nuclear deal before we even talked to her. Now, we go by what the parties say. They have come out against the nuclear deal, and said they would work against the UPA government. It is only after we withdrew support that we said we would contact all the secular parties opposed to the nuclear deal and who can stand against the UPA government. As part of that process, I met Mayawati, Deve Gowda, Ajit Singh, leaders of TDP and the UNPA, and then came to a common understanding."
Predicting that the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, which won the July 22 trust vote in the Lok Sabha, would face "many roadblocks" in parliament, Karat said the Left would continue to combat the government in both houses.
He pointed out that the government did not have a majority in the upper house and would face troubles in the Lok Sabha - where the Left has 59 MPs - when it came to the passage of financial bills.
"We would like to use (such occasions) effectively to combat the government," he told the channel.
Chautala's INLD rejects Mayawati as PM candidate
JAIPUR: Showing signs of differences within the UNPA on the issue of leadership of Mayawati, the INLD has ruled out the BSP chief as its prime ministerial candidate.
"No to the proposal of her as PM," INLD general secretary Ajay Chautala told reporters here yesterday on a question whether INLD could join hands with BSP and project Mayawati as the future prime minister.
Chautala, however was not adverse to forge a pre-poll alliance with BSP during elections in the states.
INLD was contemplating pre-poll alliance with any of the UNPA members and would field over 100 candidates in the polls, he said.
Hindustan Times, India - 30 Jul 2008
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"The UNPA will emerge as a 'third force' in the country and attempts were being made to evolve the alliance in the four states -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Delhi, going to polls later this year" Chautala said.
He also said Rajasthan should have a farmer as its next Chief Minister.
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Activism and Dalit politics
Dr Lenin Raghuvanshi, the convener of PVCHR, raised his voice for the upliftment of Dalit community. His views were on caste based exploitation, discrimination and social change that took shape while he worked with child labourers and bonded labourers.
CJ: Bhagat , 5 hours ago Views:52 Comments:0
DR LENIN Raghuvanshi is an icon in Uttar Pradesh among the Dalit community and the victims of caste based discrimination, torture and other types of exploitations. Lenin is convener of Peoples Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR). PVCHR was founded in 1996, with the objective of making child labour free villages. Lenin learned by working from the beginning that, structure of village in India is the ring of exploitation. His views on caste based exploitation, discrimination and social change took shape while he worked with child labourers and bonded labourers. He realised that caste, not class, was at work.
By the end of 1996, Lenin was championing the rights of lower-caste people. Early experiences taught him that confrontation was dangerous and not the most effective method. Increasingly, Lenin recognised caste in all kinds of social conflict and envisioned a movement that could break the closed, feudal hierarchies of conservative slums and villages by building up local institutions and supporting them with a high profile and active human rights network.
Instead of tampering with the symptoms, caste needed to be tackled by both its horns. On the one hand, he created a democratised structure for the voiceless to enable them access to the constitutional guarantees of modern India and on the other, his innovative advocacy forced the state'to sensitise its mechanisms to deliver social justice in a manner where justice is not only done, but perceived to be done.
Ensuring implementation of policy into practice regarding this, Lenin has initiated Jan Mitra Gaon, or the people-friendly village. These villages have durable local institutions that work to promote basic human rights in the face of continuous discrimination. Lenin has adopted three villages and one slum initially, which include reactivating defunct primary schools, eliminating bonded labour, promoting girls to get education. The approach of the organisation is two-fold: To have a strong grassroots organisation to work for democratic rights of those in marginalised communities and second, to create the structure and dynamics to receive the assistance of national and international institutions.
Lenin's work marks a shift in the Indian human rights movement, which has been reluctant to address injustices in the name of caste as a fundamental human rights issue. He is one of only a handful of activists to declare that such discrimination goes against democratic principles by promoting inequality. By working from Varanasi in UP–one of the most traditional, conservative, and segregated regions in India–Lenin demonstrates his resolve.
With meagre resources, but rich with confidence and conviction, Lenin in a short period of time has managed to amplify the voice of the marginalised in national and international forums through "Peoples SAARC", rehabilitation and resettlement of weavers of Varanasi; Benaras Convention; UP Assembly election watch; prevention of torture; voice against hunger and many such activities. Recognition by the international community of Dr Lenin's work is indeed the recognition for the millions whose hopes and aspirations rest on his slender shoulders.
| Be ready for coalitions, Mayawati tells BSP
27 Jul, 2008, 2035 hrs IST, IANS LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati Sunday told party MPs and ministers about the importance and usefulness of coalition governments, party sources said.
Mayawati said the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) should be ready to accept a pre-poll alliance taking into account the fast changing scenario in national politics, the sources added.
The chief minister also called upon party activists to convince Muslims about the correctness of BSP's stand over the India-US nuclear deal.
"We need to inform Muslims that by opposing the nuclear deal, we supported them and protected their rights," a party leader said.
Mayawati also directed district coordinators of BSP to bring active members of their respective regions to the party's national convention to be organised here Aug 9.
The BSP played a key role in the opposition's attempts to vote out Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's Congress-led government in a trust vote over the nuclear deal. The government won the motion.
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She may be a former schoolteacher from a poor untouchable family but Kumari Mayawati, India's Dalit queen and prime minister-in-waiting, wants people to ... |
