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Convention of Chandrashekhar Smriti Andolan

We shall not rest until the killers are punished!

any eager to write-off the unprecedented waves of protest across the country at the assassination of Com.Chandrashekhar as an initial fizz that would die down, were proved wrong when even 5 months after the incident more than 1000 students and a host of left-democratic intellectuals gathered in Delhi with undiminished zeal to carry on with the struggle to bring justice to his assassination.

Chandrashekhar Smriti Andolan, the forum which evolved out of the series of nationwide protests after Chandrashekhar’s death involving students and a broad spectrum of left and democratic intellectuals from all over the country, held a national convention in Delhi on August 31. This followed a series of successful conventions in Udaipur, Chennai, Guwahati, Mumbai, Patna and many other places.

Chandrashekhar’s killing brought into sharp focus the growing criminalisation of politics and even today his killing haunts the democratic conscience in the country. Accordingly, the seminar’s topic for discussion was ‘Criminal Takeover of Political Space and Chandrashekhar’s Martyrdom in the 50th Year of Independence’.

Among the first to speak was Chandrashekhar’s mother Kaushalya Devi whose extraordinary courage and strength continues to be a source of inspiration. In her short speech she called upon the young participants in the seminar to fulfill the task Chandrashekhar had set out to accomplish.

Speaking on the occasion, CPI(ML) General Secretary, Vinod Mishra, while referring to the topic of the seminar, said that as was known that politics is a concentrated expression of economics, the roots of the present situation of criminalisation of politics were also to be found in the economic situation around us. For the past few years non-economic processes like scams, extortions, commissions etc., for amassing wealth, have accentuated and this has had its effect on the ruling class politics in India. Unless and until this economic root is attacked mere legislation of laws like the recent EC guideline barring persons proved guilty by a court of law from contesting elections, will prove useless. Instead, he added, such a guideline once implemented would only go against people’s leaders of revolutionary parties like ours. Posing the question how one is to define crime, he clarified that in real life while most of the local level leaders of the revolutionary movement in Bihar are warranted and implicated in false cases while known criminals of ruling class parties always manage to get bail from the lower courts and their court cases run for years without them getting convicted and hence they would pass through the EC’s dragnet.

The gathering of the left-democratic intelligentsia was as broad as seen in the initial days of protest five months back. Participants had come from as far as Chennai and Mumbai. Among the prominent intellectuals and activists who attended were Sunderlal Bahuguna, Swami Agnivesh, Kamal Mitra Chenoy, Arvind N. Das, Nikhil Wagle, Anuradha Chenoy, Achin Vanaik, Rajindar Sachchar, Geeta Mukherji, Amit Sengupta and Vishnu Khare. CPI(ML) Politburo member, Nagbhushan Patnaik said that while in the joint special session of parliament, members waxed eloquent over their resolve to curb criminalisation, till date they had taken no action against the notorious Shahbuddin.

A contingent of progressive Muslim students from Aligarh Muslim University also participated in the seminar. The speaker representing the group recalled how Chandrashekhar while extending his solidarity with students had himself come over to Aligarh at the height of a student agitation against the persecution of students by university authorities.

Among the resolutions that were passed, it was decided to observe 31 March, Chandu’s martyrdom day, every year as National Youth Day. In the one week period from 23 March, Bhagat Singh’s martyrdom day, to 31 March next year CSA will hold Chandrashekhar memorial lectures in all states and on 31 a massive all-India public meeting will be held at Siwan.

The next day, i.e. on 1 September, a 6-member delegation met the Lok Sabha Speaker and submitted thousands of signatures collected from all over the country demanding the termination of Shahbuddin’s membership from the house.

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