Obituary: Comrade Dipankar Chakravarthy

On behalf of Central Committee of the CPI(ML) and on my own behalf I express deep sorrow at the passing away of com. Dipankar Chakravarthy, founder editor of the Bengali monthly, Aneek, on 27^th January. I first met com. Dipankar at his Murshidabad house in 1968 when I joined the Farakka Barrage Project and our friendship continued all these years. I had differences with the position taken by Aneek on some of the issues, but it did not break our relation. What was important was that Aneek and through it com. Dipankar firmly supported the communist revolutionaries and played a positive role in keeping the flame of Naxalbari alive even when many of those who were part of the movement in the early period later left it and took opportunist positions. Organizing regular debates on the ideological-political issues concerning the future of Indian revolution, Aneek has played an important role in the healthy development of theoretical struggle within the Naxalbari movement. Presently when the communist revolutionary movement is trying hard to overcome past mistakes and is showing possibilities of new advances, departure of com. Dipankar, who was an ardent friend of it, is a big loss. I extend heartfelt condolences to his family and friends and hope that the Aneek team will continue to publish it in his memory and in support of the communist revolutionary movement.

KN Ramachandran,

General Secretary, CPI(ML)

Violence and non-violence?

Can there be any perfectly non-violent agitation when the state apparatus is becoming more and more violent and suppress every people’s movement brutally? When the police and para-military forces used hundreds of rounds of lathi charges beating the protesters like street dogs, when hundreds of tear gas shells were fired directly against them and when lakhs of litres of water was targeted against them from water-cannons to throw out the tens of thousands of students, youth and women for two days, will not they react if they are living beings? When many gets killed in trampedes during Kumbha Mela and other religious congregations, do the police book them as murders and charge sheet the worshipers for them?

What the government and its criminalised police force is doing in Delhi now is nothing different from what the military and police are doing in J&K and Northeast and later against the Naxalite movement in 1970s and now in the adivasi areas in the name of suppressing the Maoists. It is pure and simple state terror to suppress genuine demands of the people. Was it not justified on the part of students , youth and women to protest against the ghastly gang rape of a girl in Delhi streets? Though it happened on 16^th evening, did the government come forward with any concrete proposals to prevent recurrence of this 1001th attack on women during this year in Delhi alone? The protests had started from 17^th, but the government did not respond. It was then it took massive forms on 22^nd and 23^rd. Still the government did not address the protesters. Instead the union home ministry ordered removal of the protesters by any means. The people were attacked in the most foul ways. It was when the protesters were provoked in most heinous ways including the police men dealing brutally with the girls there were some retaliation. Who was violent? The protesters, or the police who indulged in all vile acts to throw them out from the ‘sacred preserves’ of the ruling elite?

Without bothering to go in to these, the NGOs, a section of the petti-bourgeois intellectuals, a section of media etc have started echoing what the criminalized state machinery is repeating; they say violence should not be there! Was not the attack on the girl on 16^th violence? Are not all these attacks on children, girls and women violence? Was not the order of home ministry to throw out the protesters and the wanton way the police accomplished it violence of the worst sort? After all these violence, do these goodies want that the students, youth and others protesting there to act like inert things? Like the anti-people, anti-national government and its brute machinery, these goodies are also serving their masters, directly or indirectly: the upsurge of the students, youth and their supporters on 22^nd and 23^rd in Delhi streets was great; let us salute them and denounce the brutal state which tried to drown it with lathis, water cannons and tear gas, and now trying to vilify it and to suppress its participants.

New Year, New Challenges!

The year that passes in to history-2012- was a provoking, challenging one. Internationally it witnessed the deepening of the crisis faced by the global finance system. In spite of the efforts by the governments of the imperialist countries to transfer its burden to the toiling masses of their own countries and to the people of the countries under neo-colonial plunder, they could not overcome it or minimize its impact. On the contrary, it is showing signs of further intensification. There are possibilities of more bitter struggles than the Occupy Wall Street which pitted the 99% against the 1% or the street fights in Greece breaking out more militantly. Egypt is still in turmoil as people at large are learning about what is the role of religions today. The street fights in Syria are continuing unabated. The miners in South Africa are continuing the struggle. There is not a single country in the world including China, where the GDP growth level is claimed to be still in two digits, which is free from growing people’s revolts, as price rise, under employment, poverty of the masses, gender- caste- race inequalities and corruption are sky-rocketing. Everywhere people are angry and the New Year is going to witness more bitter revolts and increasing calls for social change.

Within the country the UPA government has launched more neo-liberal onslaughts through further dilution of the public distribution system through so-called cash payments of the subsidies, manipulation of a parliamentary majority to impose 51% FDI in retail and other vital sectors. Its policies are giving rise to more scams and it is protecting the scamsters, devastating the life of the masses further. In spite of the dog-fights in the parliament, in implementing these anti-people policies the different political parties leading the central and state governments are competing with each other.

During this year the bankruptcy of the bourgeois parliamentary system existing in the country was further exposed. While the government and opposition got engaged in shouting duels, the attacks on the people went on intensifying unabated. The masses were devastated further while the elite class became richer. Prices of all essential commodities and charges of essential services soared high. Corruption became more rampant. As more people are forced to migrate to the urban areas due to impoverization of rural life and displacement for neo-liberal projects, the administration intensified attacks on the slums to uproot them, without providing any alternative housing. The communal and caste forces increased their divisive and reactionary work in the service of the ruling system. The women, dalits, adivasis, minorities and other oppressed sections came under increasing onslaughts. As a result,  all the socio-economic, political contradictions have further sharpened. People are coming out on the streets increasingly, challenging the ruling system. Delhi witnessed the storming of the elite ruling class centers by the students, youth and women. In Ahmedabad people rallied with red flags challenging the communal fascists and calling for a people’s alternative. All these expressions of people’s anger and calls for revolutionary changes are bound to intensify  in the New Year.

So it is going to be New Year which poses New Challenges. A powerful countrywide people’s alternative capable of mobilizing the angry masses and people’s movements and to lead them towards a radical social change is the need of the hour. Building such a people’s alternative against all imperialist onslaughts and against the ruling system is the urgent task before the revolutionary and democratic forces. The tamashas in the parliament and in state assemblies expose how anti-people, anti-national and utterly opportunist are the ruling class, regional, communal, cast based and pseudo left parties whether in power or in opposition. The task before the revolutionary left is to expose all these opportunist forces, to mobilize the masses based on anti-imperialist revolutionary ideological, political line, to strengthen the people’s alternative capable of overthrowing the ruling system through mighty people’s uprising, and to advance towards people’s democracy and socialism.

The experience at international and national level shows that, after the severe setbacks suffered by the international communist movement and the fall of the socialist models projected in Soviet Union, China and in other former socialist countries, such an alternative cannot inspire the left masses if it focuses only on quantitative aspects, only on the number of people getting mobilized. Such an alternative, while trying to bring together all genuine left and democratic forces, should focus on a qualitative leap to transcend past mistakes and limitations and to reach new theoretical clarity. It should develop the Marxist-Leninist understanding according to the present conditions and become capable of re-instilling confidence among the working class and oppressed masses regarding the possibility of capture of political power and achieving socialist transformation with an advanced perspective. Let us pledge to take up this challenge, and advance along this path in the New Year. Let us make it a year of mightier and more advanced revolutionary offensives.

CPI (ML) and Nine Decades of the Communist Movement in India.

The communist movement started in India in 1920s inspired by the victory of the great October Revolution in Russia and formation of Soviet Union under the leadership of Lenin. During the next two decades the CPI organized the working class and peasantry in many parts of the then colonial India. It led many heroic struggles of the working class and led many anti-feudal movements with “land to the tiller slogan”. But it failed to apply the strategic line of the People’s democratic Revolution put forward by the Communist International in the concrete conditions of India. It failed to establish the leadership of the working class in the independence struggle and in effect surrendered it to the Congress and Muslim League, the parties of the big capitalists and landlords  which were compromising  with the British colonialists. As a result, when the people’s upsurge against British colonialists was intensifying during the post-Second World War period, they could communally divide the country to India and Pakistan and transfer power to these comprador parties in 1947. After the transfer of power, the CPI leadership in its 1948 party congress denounced the right deviation of the past decades. But it adopted a left sectarian line of armed uprising without any preparation which was soon crushed by the Congress government. Though a Party Program and tactical line conforming to the post-1947 period was adopted in the 1951 Conference, it was soon abandoned. Under the influence of the revisionist line which had come in to dominance in the 20^th Congress of the Soviet Communist party under the leadership of Krushchov, the CPI leadership soon degenerated to revisionist path and adopted class collaborationist line. This led to the first split in the party in 1964 and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) came in to existence. Though its leadership claimed to reject the rightist line of the CPI, it refused to support the ideological struggle then waged against the revisionist line of the Soviet leadership under the leadership of Mao and the CPC. It also failed to make a concrete analysis of the changes taking place in the country after transfer of power, took a centrist line, refused to evaluate the comprador character of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie leading the state and soon degenerated to neo-revisionist positions by the time of the 1967 general elections.

By struggling against the revisionist CPI and neo-revisionist CPI(M), the communist revolutionaries, upholding  Marxism-Leninism- Mao Tsetung Thought as their guiding ideology, led the Naxalbari Uprising in W.Bengal in 1967 with “land to the tiller” slogan, which was suppressed by the state forces of the then CPI(M) led government in the state and the Congress government at centre. Uniting the Communist Revolutionary forces in the country the All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries was formed in 1968.  Major sections of them took initiative to found the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969 under the leadership of com. Charu Mazumdar. It adopted its Program, Constitution and tactical line at the first or Eighth Congress in Calcutta ( Kolkata) in 1970.

Though the formation of CPI (ML) was a significant step forward, it mechanically upheld the left adventurist line which had come in to dominance in the CPC by the time of its Ninth Party Congress in 1969. According to this ‘Chinese path’ adopted by the Party, refusing to make a concrete analysis of the changes which were taking place after the transfer of power under the influence of imperialist camp led by US imperialism, India was evaluated as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal country like pre-revolutionary China with area wise seizure of political power and protracted people’s war as the path of revolution. Armed struggle was adopted as the only form of struggle and the Leninist Bolshevik concept of building party surrounded by class and mass organizations was abandoned. ‘Annihilation of class enemies’ was adopted to facilitate the armed struggle. Soon, ever intensifying external suppression by the state forces and internal dissensions led to severe setbacks to the movement including the elimination of its leadership and thousands of its cadres, imprisonment of tens of thousands of its activists and supporters and its disintegration to many groups by 1972. Even those who remained outside CPI (ML) had no alternative approach to put forward, and they also faced the same fate.

Though many of these groups talked of rectifying the sectarian line and adopted ‘mass line’ and utilization of all forms of struggle including the electoral forms of struggle, almost all these groups still adhered to characterization of Indian state and society as ‘semi-colonial, semi-feudal’ and path of revolution as people’s war, the Chinese line, refusing to recognize the vast changes that has taken place in the country under new forms of exploitation under the imperialist forces, their various agencies and MNCs through the comprador Indian state. One of the trends among them, the CPI(ML) People’s War, CPI(ML) Party Unity and Maoist Communist centre, who were still adhering to the 1970 line of armed struggle as the only form of struggle, have merged in 2004 to form the CPI(Maoist).

Another trend, even while upholding the 1970 line in name and, unlike others still upholding the present Chinese leadership as socialist, with the CPI(ML) Liberation as the major force among them, is veering round to the line of forming a ‘grand left alliance’ with CPI, CPI(M) like forces. A third trend, with the CPI(ML) New Democracy in the lead, in form upholds the 1970 line but is advocating the ‘resistance struggle’ as an interim phase of armed struggle, while accepting mass line and utilization of all forms of struggle. There are a number of small groups working at state or district levels which uphold the 1970 line in form along with mass line, but do not put forward any form of armed struggle or other forms of struggles in to practice. Their number and strength is getting reduced every day.

After the revocation of the internal emergency rule of Congress during 1975-77  period, a large number of communist revolutionary forces were released from jails. By this time after the death of Mao the capitalist roaders had seized power in China also. The imperialist forces beset with a new wave of crisis of the global finance capital system had launched the imperialist globalization and neo-liberal policies at international level. Within the country a new wave of agrarian struggles led by the newly emerging rich peasant-agricultural bourgeois class were taking place. All these developments called for a new analysis and evaluation of the concrete conditions internationally and in the country. A section of the CPI (ML) forces mainly from UP region initiated an evaluation of these changes which took them to the conclusion that the mode of production has become capitalist and India had become a capitalist country with the stage of revolution as socialist. In the interpretation and elaboration of this line soon differences surfaced among them, which led to a number of splits within these Communist League of India groups. They do not recognize the intensifying plunder of the imperialist agencies in the country and of the character of the ruling class which is basically comprador. None of these groups have so far succeeded to make any significant advance in political organizational fields.

In the post-emergency situation as explained above, the Central Reorganization Committee- CPI(ML), formed in 1979 with the merger of the CPI(ML) group in Kerala and a group from  AP, initiated an evaluation that during the post-Second World War period the imperialists have transformed the colonial phase of plunder to neo-colonial phase in order to confront the challenges posed by the growing strength of the communist forces and to overcome the crisis faced by the imperialist finance capital system. Instead of utilizing the feudal forces as the social prop for imposing their domination as they were doing during the colonial phase, in the neo-colonial phase the agrarian sector was transformed with the entry of finance capital, market forces and technological inputs.  Failure to recognize this transformation of imperialist camp under its new leader, US imperialism, including its ‘de-colonization’ policy led the socialist forces to grave mistakes. The Soviet party evaluated that as imperialist system has weakened, peaceful co-existence and peaceful competition with them and peaceful transition to socialism was possible. The 9^th Congress of the CPC evaluated that as imperialism was facing total collapse, worldwide victory of socialist forces was possible with a last putsch. Both these evaluations led to serious setbacks to the ICM. On the contrary, imperialism had adopted more heinous and sinister neo-colonial form of plunder and world domination in order to intensify its hegemony. Based on this analysis, the CRC evaluated Indian state and society as neo-colonial, where capitalism is developing from above under imperialist domination. The ruling system has become more comprador and the all major social contradictions including the new one between capital and nature are intensifying. It also evaluated that in this phase of imperialist globalization the international character of revolution has increased calling for speeding up the unity of the Marxist- Leninist forces. Through a process of intense ideological struggle, the CRC-CPI(ML), later changed to CPI(ML) Red Flag and now CPI(ML), with Red Star as its central organ, has propagated this line and in its Ninth party Congress held in 2011 it has adopted new Party Program, Constitution and Path of Revolution rejecting the programmatic and path positions put forward by the 8^th Congress of 1970. It has spread the Party organization at all India level and organized class/ mass organizations and various movements to intensify the mobilization of the working class and other left masses for seizure of political power through a countrywide mass upsurge. The CPI (ML) has succeeded to unite with fraternal forces and has found the International Coordination of the Revolutionary Parties and Organizations (ICOR), and to spread the international activities in different fields. It has built a Democratic People’s Forum uniting the revolutionary left and democratic forces as the People’s Alternative to the ruling reactionary system at all India level.

This brief narration explains which are the different trends of the Communist forces in the country and their orientation. Only by struggling against and defeating the wrong lines the correct line can be established and the revolutionary movement can be carried forward.

DPF Organizes Ahmedabad rally on 7th Novemeber with the slogans: OUST Narendra Modi, Strengthen People’s Alternative.

Democratic People’s Forum (DPF)

c-141, Nagar, New Delhi-110059, Ph no 011 25332343

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DPF Organizes Ahmedabad rally on 7^th Novemeber with the slogans:

OUST Narendra Modi, Strengthen People’s Alternative.

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is in power for ten years and has already launched the election campaign for December elections  with an eye on  hatric victory  which will strengthen him  to compete for prime minister ship after next Lok Sabha elections. His campaigners are marketing him as a ‘steel man’ in the mould of Vallabhai Patel, a ‘Vikas man’ who has led the state forward in the path of ‘globalized development’and a ‘clean man’. When many cooruption chagres are haunting him. In his inaugural election speech he tried to compare himself even to Vivekananda. Pumping huge funds, communalizing the voters and projecting false visions of a prosperous Gujarat the BJP band wagon is working overtime for his victory.

But even his main detractors like former BJP leader and chief minister, Keshubhai Patel and the Congress from the ruling class camp are challenging his claims. His conscious attempt to belittle and conceal the 2002 pogrom  and its horrific impact on the society as a whole and Muslim minority in particular are challenged even by the Congress which still wear a secular façade. In the name of development he has made the state the most open area in the country for imposing  neo-liberal policies. Almost all the corporate houses in the country and MNCs are provided maximum facilities to loot the natural resources and labour. Making Gujarat maximum ‘investor friendly’ means giving maximum subsidies and tax concessions. It also means making the labour department one to serve the employers. Even private ports are opened as SEZs. In the agricultural sector  finance capital, market forces and corporate forces with ‘forward trading’ like speculative facilities are given free reign. Privatization-liberalization are made supreme in every sectors, including education, healthcare, drinking water etc.

Though Narendra Modi is vocal against price rise, corruption, opening retail to FDI etc, he and his party fully upholds the neo-liberal policies which have led to this situation. He is a votary of contract system like Congress. If BJP with or without Modi as prime minister comes to power at Delhi, as proved during 1998-2004, it will further speed up the UPA policies. Apart from that, in place of Congress policy of appeasing all communal and caste forces, it will further speed up Hindutva fanaticism and caste divisions. It will cut down even whatever remnants of welfare policies are surviving.The disastrous policies of BJP/Congress has led to scores of farmers suicide as well as several attacks on dalits.  Narendra Modi’s victory in the elections will only lead to further intensification of subservience to imperialist dictated policies and communalization. So it is the prime task of all left, democratic and secular forces to tirelessly work for removing Modi from power, to defeat him in the state elections so that his dream of prime ministership is shattered.

While ‘Oust Narendra Modi’ slogan should reverberate all over the state and in the country, what can be the alternative is a serious challenge before the people. This is all the more important as Congress, BJP dissidents and other contesting ruling class parties are pursuing the very same policies of Modi wherever they are in power. Even while opposing the genocide of Muslims in 2002 and the communal hatred created following it, none of them have a firm secular approach. In this situation, in spite of the fact that the left forces are weaker in the state, when the anger of the people against Naarendra Modi government in the state and against the neo-liberal policies and their horrific consequences at all  India level are mounting day by day, it is the responsibility of the left, democratic and secular forces to work hard for uniting their forces and to strengthen the people]s alternative with a basically alternative approach to development  The DPF beliefs that left democratic forces are the only alternative force that can save India from the clutches of Imperialism ,Hunger and Poverty. The Left forces alone can combat the intrusion of FDI,FII in all sectors.

It is to put forward this basic approach with the slogans: Oust Narendra Modi, Strengthen People’s Alternative’, the Democratic People’s Forum is organizing  massive people’s awareness rally on 7^th Novemeber at Anmedabad, with popular forces from all all over the country joining hands with the left forces in the state The DPF constituent in the state, New Socialist Movement, will field few candidates and DPF shall mobilize a vigorous campaign during the elections to state assembly with these slogans. We appeal to all secular, democratic and left forces to join hands in this campaign for strengthening a people’s alternative to the ruling class alternatives.

Convener DPF

Join the valiant struggle to build a People’s Alternative to the corrupt and barbarous ruling system; Help to strengthen the CPI(ML) by generously contributing to the Party Central Fund

Dear comrades and friends,

We are living in a turbulent period. During the post Second World War period, the US-led imperialist system and its compradors and lackeys launched a mighty neo-colonial offensive across the world and succeeded in inflicting severe setbacks on the once powerful international communist movement and socialist countries which had seemed capable of overthrowing the imperialist system during the 1950s. Especially after the 1970s, neo-liberal policies were imposed to overcome stagflation which was intensifying the crisis confronted by the imperialist system, and all the achievements of the working class and other toiling and oppressed masses gained through more than two centuries of bitter class struggle were lost. All welfare policies introduced as a by-product of class struggle were taken away, the contract system replaced permanent jobs and speculative finance capital and market forces ruled supreme. Imperialist cultural values and consumerism went on bulldozing all socialist consciousness with a vengeance. Religion, casteism, racism and parochialism were increasingly utilised as effective tools to bind people to decadent values, to divide them and to make them impotent.

What we are witnessing in our country is not in any way different from the international scenario. Under crony capitalism and mafia raj imposed under neo-colonial plunder, price rise, corruption, unemployment, under employment and commercialization of all fields are devastating people’s life and ecology. While the UPA government stands condemned for numerous mega-scams, the BJP is stalling Parliament session in sham protest, having proved itself equally corrupt during its NDA rule and now in states ruled by it. While BJP, Shiv Sena, Muslim League-like parties flourish parading naked communal politics, Congress and others talk about secularism but pursue appeasement of all religious, casteist and sectarian forces. All use money and muscle power, religion, caste, parochialism etc. as part of vote-bank politics. Even the long years of CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in Bengal, Kerala and Tripura have proved that the CPI(M) and its Front partners are not basically different from the ruling class parties when in power. All these parties presently represented are sharing the very same neo-liberal policies and all have polarized against the interests of people. As a result, though governments change, there is no change in their policies. The very same ruling system continues, becoming more anti-people and barbarous day by day. Though the Maoists claim to be working for overthrowing the ruling system, in effect they have degenerated to the extent of pursuing mercenary and terrorist activities. Their anarchist actions have become an alibi for the ruling system to snatch away whatever democratic rights still exist, and to fascicise the system. In the same way the isolated terrorist actions of militants influenced by religious fundamentalism and the insurgents in Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast are utilized to impose virtual military rule in vast areas, to retain AFSPA like black laws and to terrorize the minorities and the oppressed masses.

Thus the neo-colonial plunder and the so-called development policy which devastate people’s life and nature are being fanatically pursued by the central and state governments. The ruling system has become fascistic, anti-people and absolutely corrupt. Whichever party or alliance comes to power, this situation does not change; rather it becomes more reactionary. What is required is a people’s alternative which will democratize the system, establish people’s power at all levels, ensure all basic rights like food, housing, healthcare, education and employment to all, and pursue a people-oriented, sustainable development policy. The past and present performances of the parties ranging from Congress and BJP to the CPI(M)-led Left Front have proved that none of them can or will do the above, but will rather do just the opposite. In spite of some cosmetic differences, the Congress-led UPA, the BJP- led NDA and the proposed amorphous third alternative by CPI(M) and other opportunist parties are nothing but different variations of ruling class alternatives.

But contrary to the early 1990s when the Soviet Union had just disintegrated and the imperialists and their lackeys were declaring ‘end of history’ and ‘end of socialism’, the global situation has undergone significant positive changes. From the beginning of this century, while the global imperialist finance system is facing ever-intensifying and repeated crises, the toiling masses and oppressed people are on the move, waging upsurges in Latin America, persistent strike actions in the imperialist countries, Arab Uprising-like gigantic movements in North Africa and West Asia, and numerous revolutionary advances as in Nepal, Greece and elsewhere including India. Though the imperialists, especially US imperialists and their lackeys of all hues, are challenged everywhere, they are succeeding in diverting the movements from the revolutionary path and suppressing them in the absence of revolutionary vanguard forces to lead them forward. That is, while the objective situation is becoming favorable for yet another upswing of revolution, the subjective forces are still weak and unable to utilize the excellent revolutionary fervour at the global level.

The situation in our country is also the same. It is at this critical juncture that the Party Programme and Path of People’s Democratic Revolution adopted by the Ninth Congress of the CPI(ML) at Bhubaneswar in November, 2011, have shown the revolutionary way forward to the working class and the oppressed masses and peoples. Only by strengthening the Party’s activities at all levels can the dreams of our valiant martyrs be realized and the country advance to People’s Democracy and Socialism.

Struggling against all obstacles, including the right opportunist and anarchist deviations still haunting the movement, and uncompromisingly fighting against the neo-liberal policies, the CPI(ML) has succeeded in building party organization in almost all states and in leading many all-India campaigns against the central and state governments over the last decade. Along with strengthening class and mass organizations in all fields, it is consistently struggling against the neo-liberal policies and their consequences. While organizing land struggles with the slogan “land to the tiller”, it is fighting against displacement in the name of development, the new counter-revolutionary offensive in the agrarian sector leading to suicides and pauperization of millions of the peasantry and for rights of the slum dwellers and all homeless people. It has taken the initiative in launching a caste annihilation movement and is active in the anti-nuclear plant movement, in the struggles against ecological destruction, in the struggles against militarization and AFSPA and all other black laws. It is waging a consistent struggle against neo-colonization, against the hegemony of IMF-World Bank-WTO and MNCs, and commercialization of all fields etc. The massive rally planned under the banner of Democratic People’s Forum (DPF) on November 7^th in Ahmedabad is part of its consistent struggle against communalization and for secular values. It is working hard to build and strengthen DPF at all-India level and such forums at state levels as People’s Alternative to the ruling system. Extending these activities at all-India level to the international level, upholding the spirit of proletarian internationalism, the CPI (ML) could play a leading role in building the International Coordination of Revolutionary Parties (ICOR) which has already taken a number of international initiatives. Through a number of publications it is consistently propagating its views among the masses.

All these activities require huge funds for which the Party entirely relies on the toiling masses and friends.  The Party and class/mass organizations develop all-round activities by regularly collecting district level and state level funds every year, besides collections for day to day functioning, from the masses. Besides, every year, a central fund is collected for the central functioning of the Party, which is developing day by day. This year also our Party comrades will approach you for fund collection both within the country and also everywhere else the comrades and friends from the country are working, like the Gulf region. The Central Committee of the CPI (ML) appeals to all of you to generously contribute to the Party Central Fund collected from 1^st October to 30^th November. Please hand over your contributions to the activists of the Party who approach you with this appeal. If no such comrades are near the area where you are working, please send your contribution directly to the Party centre (account no. 2007 1010 16469 of K.N.Ramachandran, Uttam Nagar Branch, New Delhi, of Canara Bank (IFSC Code CNRB 0002379). Please visit our website: www:cpiml.in and facebook of the undersigned as well as of CPI(ML).

It is a critical period when we have to intensify our activities in all fields challenging the imperialists and their lackeys ruling the country. Please contribute generously and strengthen the CPI (ML) to carry forward the revolutionary tasks.

K.N.Ramachandran, General Secretary, CPI (ML), Dated 30^th September, 2012.

While President and Prime Minister Fiddles, India Burns.

After 20 years of neo-liberal raj when the inequality, corruption, price rise, under employment, criminalization, communalization, caste-gender based atrocities and cultural degeneration have reached unheard of levels, and they are going to multiply as the global imperialist crisis is increasingly sweeping across all fields with both production and export declining while inflation intensifies, when Assam is still burning and India is alienated from all neighbouring countries, what was stated by the president in his 14th night speech and the prime minister from Red Fort on 15th morning amounts to nothing but fiddling, while the country is burning. If prime minister is silent or nothing much to assure about  actions against  corruption, price rise,intensifying stagflation and the Assam riots, it shows the compound guilt of this government which has dragged the people to unprecedented miseries.

This shows the extent of malice within the system which cannot be remedied without the major operation of overthrowing it to be replaced by people's democracy with socialist goals. It calls for replacing present imperialist dictated development policies which pauperize masses and devastate the country, with people oriented sustainable development which ensures the all basic needs of the people to start with and which ensures non-antagonistic relation between nature and human beings.

This can be created only through a second independence struggle. On this day when the union jack was brought down 65 years ago, let us pledge to bring a people's raj.