Left on revitalisation path: Yechury lists 5 issues the party is flagging

Last week, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told The Hindu that “for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Left is its principal enemy.” He said the BJP was scared of the Left. This comes when the Left is in power in only Tripura and Kerala, and currently in the throes of a decline in its legislative strength, both at the Centre and in states. Since the Communist Party of India (Marxist) elected Sitaram Yechury as its head (general secretary), in April 2015, the party has kept itself in the background, while its unseen hand has been a catalyst to forge unity of the secular left against the Narendra Modi government’s policies and actions, particularly in the social sphere. In an interaction with Archis Mohan, CPI (M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury talks about five distinct issues the Left is flagging:

1. Intolerance

One of the first efforts to highlight the ‘Sangh Parivar’s divisive politics, Yechury says, was in the aftermath of the murder of rationalist M M Kalburgi in Dharwad, Karnataka, in August 2015 and the increasing attacks on minorities, including a mob lynching Mohammad Akhlaq, a tailor in Dadri, Uttar Pradesh, in September 2015.

Several intellectuals, writers and filmmakers returned their earlier awards from the government in protest. The CPI (M), and other Left parties ensured that they were not in the vanguard of the protest. Ashok Vajpeyi, Nayantara Sehgal and Uday Prakash were some of the leading names to return their awards.

2. Atrocities on Dalits

By mid-2016, as attacks on Dalits increased in some states, six organisations came together to hold a Dalit Swabhiman Sangharsh rally at Parliament Street in Delhi in September 2016. Prakash Ambedkar inaugurated the rally, addressed by Radhika Vemula, Jignesh Mevani, Bezwada Wilson, Paul Diwakar, Vimal Thorat and other Dalit activists, as also Left leaders Yechury and Sudhakar Reddy. Speakers demanded deterrent action be taken against gau rakshaks, the cow vigilantes groups.

3. Issues of peasants

To protest the Modi government’s efforts at amending the 2013 land acquisition law, several farmers’ organisations launched a struggle under the banner of ‘Bhoomi Adhikar Andolan’ or movement for land rights. At its Central Committee meeting in June 2015, the CPI (M) asked all its units to extend support. On the issue of land rights, former Lok Sabha member Hannan Mollah has also led the outreach of his party to the Narmada Bachao Andolan and National Alliance of People’s Movements. These organisations have carried out rallies on the land issue in several parts of the country in the past two years.

4. Education Policy

The Left has also brought together students and youth organisations, as well as intellectuals, to protest “saffronisation” under the ‘Save Education’ banner. Currently, the platform consists of 11 organisations. Under the auspices of ‘Mumbai Collective’ and ‘Hyderabad Collective’, protests and seminars have been organised in these cities to raise voices on this and to protect constitutional freedoms, Yechury says. The effort is to plan a larger nationwide protest in the months to come.

5. Left & civil society unity

Yechury says there are efforts to bring together leftist and democratic civil society, as well as mass organisations, to raise ‘people’s demands’ – joblessness, agrarian distress, farmer suicides, price rise, etc. The process is underway and 110 organisations are involved. The plan is to hold a nationwide convention to highlight the failures of the Modi government to keep its promises on providing jobs, reducing agrarian distress and “expose” its efforts to “sabotage” the rural jobs scheme.