No subject

aesthetic, from art to activism, the festival was full
of the spirit of cultural resistance against the
policy of special economic zones (SEZs), imperialist
globalization and the bankruptcy of the politics of
the ruling class. The cultural performance began with
a rousing mass-song presented by the cultural team of
West Bengal. Noted musician and folk singer Loknath
Goswami presented Assamese folk-songs which really
charmed the audience. The colour and vigour of
Rangbhoomi of Begusarai, the tribal tune presented by
Prerna from Jharkhand, the nimbleness and gracefully
athletic leaps of the Chau dance performance by Sengel
from Jharkhand, the agrarian mourning song rendered by
Chandrakanta Terang of Karbi Anglong – all upheld the
cultural identity of peasant life and struggle and
added a dimension to the conference. Young men and
women artists from Assam presented a traditional Bihu
dance. The elegance and authenticity of their
performance were loved by the audience. The dramatic
performance staged by the central team of Andhra
Pradesh (Jan Sansritik Manch) mesmerized people with
its dynamic form and rebellious content. The dance,
theatric action, music, and sense of rhythm - every
aspect of performance contributed to narrativise the
story of the rise of the people against oppression and
exploitation. Yuvaniti from Bhojpur, which had spent
several weeks before the 8th Congress campaigning in
the villages of Bhojpur, also participated in the
festival. Revolutionary songs of a variety of moods by
Hirawal (Patna) and Dasta (Varanasi) were greatly
appreciated by the audience.
     
Noted young theatre personalities of Bengal Kausik
Sen, Manish Mitra and Arpita Ghosh who took the lead
role in recent civil society movement against
Nandigram massacre and Left front government’s
anti-peasant land grab policy in the state came to
express their solidarity. Addressing the people Sen
said, “We, the cultural workers of West Bengal are
fighting the SEZ and capitalist development policies
of the state government. And all over the country
people are fighting the same issues. Let us try to tie
up all these struggles in a single thread. A broader
level of coordination among culture-politics-academia
is required to consolidate ourselves.” He concluded,
“We must learn a lot from the people’s cultural
movements.” Mitra and Ghosh paid their tribute to the
revolutionary masses of the country who are protesting
against the ruthless anti-people policies. Ghosh also
recited a Bengali poem there.

A film ‘Development at Gunpoint’ made by Promod Gupta
of Media Solidarity Group was shown. The film depicted
the resistance the people of Nandigram against the
brutal aggression of the police and CPI (M) cadres in
January and February 2007. Supriyo, Barun and Sumita
introduced the Media Solidarity Group as an
organization of young filmmakers which aims to make
films on people’s resistance all over the South Asian
region and they expressed their solidarity with the
revolutionary mass gathered there.

On the second and final day of the conference,
collected works of eminent Marxist poet late Kamalesh
Sen published by Nabanno and Paschimbanga
Ganasanskriti Parisad was released by noted poet
Nabarun Bhattacharya. Poet Sabyasachi Dev and veteran
theatre personality Bibhas Chakraborty were also
present there. Paying his tribute Bhattacharya says
that the life and work of a poet like Kamalesh Sen is
always an inspiration to the young writers who leave
the beaten track of institutional culture and choose
the path of people’s culture. The book release event
was followed by mass-songs sung by Choler Pathe group
of Budge Budge and Bally, West Bengal (WB) and
mime-ballet presented by the troop from Thakurnagar,
WB. 

‘Mokaam’, a group which composes and sings new Bengali
modern and folk songs sang two Bengali songs and
Abhijit Basu, promising folk singer sang three songs.
The final attractions of the cultural conference were
a dance performed by the troupe from Karbi Anglong,
Assam and a satire ‘Duniya Roz Badalti Hai’ (World
Changes Everyday) staged by Hirawal which in a most
popular way exposes the pro-imperialist and
anti-people character of NDA and UPA governments. The
cultural festival ended with high spirits, announcing
the hope of new revolutionary interventions in
people’s culture in the near future.  

CPI (ML) Congress

Tapasi We Have Not Forgotten You
We Never Will

- Liberation, January, 2008.

They came from all corners of the country, they came
with a warm message of solidarity. At a time when
Mamta Banerjee's Trinamul Congress is engaged in cheap
and stale theatrics in the name of continuation of the
Singur movement, nearly hundred women delegates
attending the Eighth Congress of CPI (ML) in Kolkata
marched to Singur on 17 December to pay homage to
Tapasi Malik on the eve of the first anniversary (18
December) of her martyrdom. Led by Party and All India
Progressive Women’s Organization (AIPWA) leaders
Kumudini Pati, Srilata Swaminathan, Mina Tiwari, Saroj
Chaube, Krishna Adhikari and others, a militant
procession reached Bajemelia village winding its way
through ricefields and village lanes and raising
slogans. The procession was attractively decorated
with banners, placards etc. A memorial meeting was
organised near the Ujjal Sangh club. Two minutes
silence was observed and floral wreaths placed at
Tapasi's photograph. Speaking on the occasion, AIPWA
general secretary Kumudini Pati and West Bengal state
secretary Chaitali Sen pledged to continue the
movement till the killers were brought to book and the
policy of eviction of peasants in the name of
industrialisation was revoked. The meeting was also
addressed by Tapasi's father Manoranjan Malik while
her mother took part in conducting the meeting.

After the meeting the procession moved again and went
up to the walled construction site of Tata factory.
Policemen guarding the wall were persuaded to allow
entry and the processionists accompanied by
mediapersons went inside to reach the spot where the
hapless teenager had been raped and burnt to death.
Flowers were offered and slogans raised demanding
punishment to the killers, resignation of the Chief
Minister of West Bengal, and repeal of the SEZ Act.
Local people including the secretary of the Ujjal
Sangh club participated in the programme with great
enthusiasm. Describing her impressions of her visit,
Medha Thatte, leader of the Lal Nishan Party
(Leninist) from Maharashtra said that the villagers
accounts of how the CPI (M) tried to slander Tapasi
and her whole family after her rape and killing
brought the Khairlanji killings to mind. She said that
in Tapasi’s mother’s eyes, the pain of the past year
since the loss of her daughter could be seen. 

CPI (ML) Congress

Amar Gram, Tomar Gram, Nandigram! 

- Liberation, January, 2008.

A team comprising leaders of the Communist Party of
Nepal (UML), Comrade Abdus Salam, Politburo member of
the Workers’ Party of Bangladesh, Comrades Suba Singh
and Kanwalpreet Pannu from Punjab, as well as Lal
Nishan Party (Leninist) Convenor Comrade Bhimrao
Bansod among others visited Nandigram on December 17.
What they found there was a far cry from the claims of
‘normalcy’ and ‘peace’. Comrade Bansod said the people
continued to live in terror of further retaliation by
the CPI (M). He said that villagers who spoke to them
said there was no Maoist presence in the area. He said
that just as Congress backstabbing of the workers’
movement paved the way for the Shiv Sena in
Maharashrta, the CPI (M)’s policies were weakening the
Left and making room for the right wing forces – and
in this context only bold initiatives by the genuine
left forces like CPI (ML) could save the Left movement
in West Bengal. He described the visit to the home of
Biswajit Maity, one of those killed by the CPI (M)
cadre in January last year. He said Biswajit’s family
had been closely associated with the communist
movement since the Tebhaga movement days.

Interview

Saiful Huq
Workers Party of Bangladesh

- Liberation, January, 2008.

[Comrade Saiful Huq, General Secretary of the Workers
Party of Bangladesh, attended the entire Congress
along with a delegation comprising Nasiruddin Ahmed
Nasu (Politburo [PB] Member), Abdus Salam (PB Member),
Bahnishikha Jamali (Central Committee Member), and
Nazrul Islam, a journalist and Party member. Members
of this delegation also joined teams that visited
Singur and Nandigram on 17 December. Below Comrade
Saiful discusses his Party’s work and the concerns of
the Left movement in Bangladesh. Interview was
conducted by Kavita Krishnan (KK).] 

KK: Can you tell our readers something about your
party and its orientations? 
SH: The Workers’ Party spilt following serious debates
in June 2004. We formed a different party because the
other faction of the Workers’ Party was bent on an
electoral alliance with the Awami League and had
degenerated. For the last two years our slogan has
been ‘Rebuild the Party, Rebuild the Communist
Movement’ – ideologically, politically, and
organisationally. We are heading for our 8th Congress
quite soon in 2008. Since 12 September 2007 we have
been part of a Left-democratic alliance, an 11-party
front of which the Workers’ Party and the Socialist
Party of Bangladesh are major constituents. Some of
our mass fronts are Bangladesh Agricultural Labour
Union (BALU), our peasants’ organisation Viplavi
Krishak Sanhati, and our women’s front Shramjibi Nari
Moitreyi, also student and cultural fronts. We are yet
to have a national Trade Union body, though we do have
trade union work amongst garment workers and in the
informal sector. Our party organ is the People’s
Democracy. 

KK: How do you visualise the Left’s role in the
democratic movement in Bangladesh? 
SH: There is immense potential for the Left in
Bangladesh, as is shown by the kind of recent
movements among working people there. In 2004-05,
there was a peasants’ struggle reminiscent of the
Tebhaga days at Kaushal, demanding electricity supply.
22 people were martyred in this movement. The Phulbani
movement against a coal mining MNC Asia Energy too was
a militant movement launched by thousands of peasants
and adivasis. Eventually the Government had to
compromise and the MNC was forced to withdraw its
plans of open cast mining in that region. There have
constantly been small revolts among garment workers,
as also among peasants – so there are many sparks in
Bangladesh that have the potential to turn into a
revolutionary conflagration. 

KK: What is the situation of the pro-democracy
movement in Bangladesh now?
SH: Now there is an interim government with direct
army control. During Emergency, politics is banned,
and is only partly permitted in Dhaka. The degenerated
Left is part of a 14-party alliance with the Awami
League. Both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia are in
jail. The ‘National Security Council’ of the Army is
pushing a ‘reform’ agenda, attempting to secure
legitimacy by targeting the corrupt and inefficient
governments and setting up an ‘anti-corruption
commission’. The state in Bangladesh is faced with a
crisis of legitimacy, and the Army is in a bid to
secure a sustainable system for the ruling class.
However, the Army’s attempts to set up a new political
party with breakaways from the BNP and Awami League
have not found many takers. The Army is pushing a
neo-liberal economic agenda of the IMF-WB,
liberalising the insurance sector and introducing
private management in Chittagong port. Massive price
hikes have resulted and now it appears that the
military regime is seeking a safe exit route and is
exploring an arrangement with the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Awami League. With the
BNP and Awami League thoroughly exposed, and with the
students’ protests expressing the democratic
aspirations of people, there is clearly space for a
revolutionary Left movement united with democratic
forces on a broad anti-imperialist and pro-democracy
plank. 

KK: How do you view the threat of imperialism in the
sub-continent? 
SH: US imperialism is intervening directly in
Bangladesh. There have been agreements between Bangla
Government and the USA which are not transparent. We
are also extremely concerned about the closeness of
India with USA, and the US plan to make India play the
big brotherly hegemonistic role of watchman over
Bangladesh. This naturally causes a strong anti-India
sentiment in Bangladesh.

Interview

Sue Bolton
Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), Australia

- Liberation, January, 2008.

[The Assistant National Secretary of the Democratic
Socialist Perspective (DSP), Australia, Sue Bolton,
attended the Party Congress right from 10-18 December.
Comrade Sue did not just remain confined to the seats
of the Congress Hall; she sought out comrades of the
working class and peasant fronts and interviewed them;
with the DTC workers of Delhi she shared her own
experiences of being a bus driver and organizing
transport workers; tirelessly interacting with a range
of delegates she seemed quite at home and it was
difficult to remember that she was a guest! In the
following conversation, Sue Bolton discusses the
challenges facing the Left movement in Australia.
Interview was conducted by Kavita Krishnan (KK).] 

KK: Did working class issues play any role in the
Howard Government’s defeat? In working class
struggles, what has been the role of the Labour Party
that is now in power? 
SB: The Labour Party was most unwilling to launch
protests against anti-worker laws introduced by the
Howard Government in 2005, saying that if they did so,
Labour would be alienated. DSP as well as the
Socialist Alliance along with some Labour members
built pressure for mass protests and strikes, and got
mass protests off the ground in two states (Victoria
and Western Australia) in mid-June 2005, including one
historic strike. For the first time in a long time,
Labour was no longer in control of all the speaking
platforms, and our line was ‘Don’t just wait for
elections, we need militant actions.’ We were also
able to some extent break the Labour Party’s monopoly
on information. Even where Labour did control speaking
platforms, we succeeded in getting strikes and
protests off the ground. Howard wouldn’t have been
kicked out without those strikes; the anti-workers
laws were a main issue in the elections. Labour
Governments in the past have had a history of
pacifying working class militancy; in the days to
come, workers’ issues will remain a key issue which
the Labour Government cannot duck. 

KK: How do young people in Australia today respond to
radical student groups like Resistance?    
SB: Times are more challenging for the student
movement now than in the 90s. The class composition of
campuses and of the student movement has changed.
Working class students and poorer students always had
to work part-time, but now they are forced to work
20-30 hours a week, and so they have less time for
ideas and political activism. The impact of
post-modernist identity politics has also helped to
destroy political movements on campus. Partly as a
consequence, left student groups now often tend not to
have a mass character and tend to become somewhat
cliquish Left clubs instead. 

KK: I heard about ‘voluntary student-unionism’ being
introduced in Australian universities – what kind of
impact does that have on the student movement? 
SB: I was speaking to the Jawaharlal Nehru University
(JNU) Union President and he described how all
students on admission pay a fee that makes them all
automatically members of the Student Union (SU). That
was the case in Australia till a while ago. But the
Howard Government had introduced ‘voluntary
student-unionism’, which means that the payment of the
SU membership fee is made voluntary. The aim was
clearly to depoliticise students and make it more
difficult for student groups to organise. Also, the SU
fees not only funded the unions but also student
services. Now the incumbent Labour Government is
saying that the fees can go to the Student Unions as
long as they are not spent on political activity. This
means that Unions will soon run out of money. It may
be that this move will discourage student bureaucrats
who entered Unions mainly to control the funds, but
there is no doubt that the move will weaken the
student movement. But Resistance comrades are still
active; in particular Resistance organised some
successful walkouts in many cities in protest against
Bush’s visit to Australia. 
                 
KK: What has been your experience of attending our
Kolkata Congress? 
SB: What has struck me strongly is the wide range of
struggles that your party is leading. For me, this
reemphasises that ideology alone cannot do, we’ve got
to be intimately connected to class struggles. It’s
been a reminder that international solidarity is no
doubt important but being rooted in one’s own class
struggle is even more crucial. 

CPI (ML) Congress 

Solidarity Messages

- Liberation, January, 2008.

[Excerpts of selected solidarity messages sent on the
occasion of the 8th Congress of the CPI (ML)]