Editorial

 CPI (ML) Turns Forty
Prepares for Big Strides Forward

This year, along with a number of great occasions like the 60th anniversary of Chinese Revolution, we celebrate on April 22 the 40th anniversary of the foundation of CPI (ML).  At this moment we are in the thick of an intensely fought election battle; once that is over the entire party will plunge into a year-long campaign to celebrate that occasion with great vigour....Full text

Commentary

India needs a Genuine Third Front – Not this Opportunist Alliance

On the eve of Lok Sabha polls, the launch of a ‘Third Front’ spearheaded by the efforts of the CPI-CPI (M) has been announced. The Front, it is claimed, is a non-Congress, non-BJP front committed to ‘alternate policies’. Most of the non-Left Front partners (such as AIADMK, TDP, TRS, JD(S)) have at one point or the other been partners of either NDA or UPA or both. Some parties (such as BJD, BSP) have maintained a cautious pre-poll distance from the Third Front but are being touted as post-poll partners....Full text

Desperate CPI(M) Discovers New Secular ‘Hero’ In Naveen

In what must count as the most sensational development so far in this election season, the BJD seems to have decided to terminate its decade-old partnership with the BJP. Buoyed by its recent electoral success in municipal elections in which it had independently swept the polls over large parts of urban Orissa, the BJD leadership asked the BJP to settle for a reduced number of seats in both Assembly and Parliament elections. A shell-shocked BJP was quick to withdraw from the ruling coalition, and in no time the CPI(M) has stepped in to fill the gap. For the CPI(M), Naveen Patnaik has overnight become the latest icon of the fledgling ‘Third Front’ and a secular hero to boot!.....Full text

CRISIS WATCH

ILO’s Global Employment Trends Report 2009

[Released in January 2009 during the ongoing downturn, the Global Employment Trends Report 2009 as well as the Global Employment Trends for Women Report 2009 (released on the eve of 8 March 2009) reveal disturbing patterns and trends of global (un)employment and the impact of the recession. Below are excerpts from GET 2009 (excerpts from the GE Trends for Women report will appear in the next issue). Not all the captions are quoted from the report – some are chosen by us. Ed/-]

After four consecutive years of decreases, the global unemployment rate increased from 5.7 per cent in 2007 to 6.0 per cent in 2008, rising for men to 5.8 per cent and for women to 6.3 per cent. The ranks of the unemployed increased by 10.7 million people between 2007 and 2008, which is the largest year-on-year increase since 1998. The global number of unemployed in 2008 is estimated at 190 million, out of which 109 million are men and 81 million are women......Full text

ELECTIONS

CPI(ML) Manifesto for 15th Lok Sabha Elections

The 15th Lok Sabha elections have been announced. As the country gets ready to vote for the constitution of a new Lok Sabha, dark clouds of deepening crisis overshadow our entire economy. While the rural economy had long been reeling under an acute agrarian crisis, and soaring prices had been reducing the already limited purchasing power of the masses, now jobs have started vanishing even in the so-called growth sectors and wages are going down to make survival a challenge for ever larger sections of the poor and working people. The government’s pompous rhetoric of rapid economic growth and massive investment inflow has melted into thin air, and the people have been asked to get ready for a long period of recession.....Full text

LIST OF CPI(ML) CANDIDATES

....Full text

CPI(ML) at the Polls: A Preview

In the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections, CPI(ML) is contesting 82 seats in 16 states and three Union Territories. In elections to Orissa and Andhra Pradesh Assemblies, the Party is contesting around 20 seats each. Of the 82 seats identified by the CPI(ML), 22 are reserved for SC/ST candidates. These apart, the Party will also put up dalit and adivasi or tea community candidates in a dozen general seats. Nearly 60 per cent (47 out of 80) of the party candidates will be in the Hindi-speaking states. Bihar, UP and Jharkhand will account for half of the seats being contested by the party....Full text

SPECIAL FEATURE

THE HERITAGE WE UPHOLD

Throughout the 40th anniversary year of Party Foundation (22 April 2009 -- 22 April 2010) Liberation will be publishing excerpts from old party documents, articles, reports etc to give you a feel of those times, those struggles.  In this issue we bring you excerpts from one of the two resolutions (the other one being the ‘Political Resolution’) that the AICCCR adopted unanimously on 22 April 1969.
Resolution on Party Organization

Background

The Political Resolution has already made it amply clear how at each critical stage of our national liberation struggle the leadership of the Party consciously betrayed the revolutionary cause by dragging the Party into the morass of right opportunism and left sectarianism. We have seen how the Party leadership betrayed the great armed struggle of the Telengana peasantry, the struggle of the people in the Native States, the great Tebhaga and Bakasht peasant struggles in North India, the great mutiny of the R.I.N. ratings and other sections of the armed forces. We have seen how the Party leadership recoiled in dread at the sight of the great anti-imperialist and anti-feudal upsurge that engulfed the whole of India in the post-war years...Full text

REPORTS

Reports from Karnataka

Gangavati, Koppal : Rasta Roko for Irrigation Water

On 21 February, more than 300 small and marginal peasants along with agricultural labours marched and staged a Rasta Roko at Gangavati. The Rasta Roko was led by J.Bharadwaj, SLT member of the party and state president of AIALA. Hundreds of peasants claimed that water is their right and releasing water from dam should not be stopped until April 20 as it would affect the paddy crop. They also demanded 10 tmc of water to be released from Bhadra reservoir to left bank canal of the Tungabhadra. CPI(ML) took up the issue as it would affect the peasants of four taluks, Gangavati, Sindhanur, Manvi and Raichur of Northern Karnataka. The traffic in the highway was disrupted for more than three hours because of Rasta Roko organized by the party....Full text

JNU Students Defy Crackdown 

The JNU Students’ Union has been leading a protracted struggle for the past few months against a slew of measures by the JNU Administration to commercialise JNU spaces and services. Five students were rusticated in the course of the movement -  JNUSU President Sandeep Singh for two years, and Vice President Shephalika Shekhar and Joint Secretary Mobeen Alam, as well as two other senior activists for a year each. On March 19, the rustications were eventually withdrawn – a major victory for the students’ movement....Full text

INTERNATIONAL

Global Crisis Brings Global Protests in its Wake
All over the world, there is anger at the economic recession imposed by corporate greed and US imperialism – and it is erupting in new ways every day.

•Iceland: Iceland's government was forced to step down on January 26 following months of protests against politicians and central bankers. Crowds on the streets, including thousands of women and even children, banged pots and pans to tell their government to quit....Full text

Holbrooke stalks South Asia

Jawed Naqvi

With mediaeval Sheikhdoms as the US role models for a moderate Muslim states, none gets a prize for guessing the precise nature of the assignment given to Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Whatever else he does on his new beat, ushering liberal democracy in the land of the jirgas, or the greatly discussed objective of  sending the girl child to school, is not the priority that the American people and with them the rest of the world are being made to believe to be the purpose of the assignment. So what is Holbrooke’s mission?...Full text

REVIEW

Questioning ‘Quack Remedies’ for Terrorism

(The campaign led by Jamia teachers for judicial enquiry into the Batla House ‘encounter’ has effectively brought anti-terror operations by police under a question mark. An effect of the public campaign has been the Delhi HC declaration that the Government has no right to flout NHRC guidelines that demand a magisterial enquiry into every encounter. Senior journalist Sukumar Muralidharan reviews ‘Encounter’ at Batla House – Unanswered Questions,’ a report by the Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Group. – Ed/-)     

Terrorism” represents the vanishing point of reason, a spectre that is easily enough invoked to ensure unquestioning public acquiescence in the actions of the security agencies. With a few exceptions, altogether too sporadic, the media has been part of this stratagem, a willing accomplice in fostering a mood of public fear and anxiety, where questions are suppressed and critical commentary actively persecuted...Full text

COVER

Long March from Naxalbari: Most Memorable Moments

May 1967: Spring thunder of Naxalbari.

May 1968: All India Coordination Committee of Communist Revolutionaries formed.  Srikakulam struggle starts from November.

May 1970: First Party Congress secretly held in Kolkata.

August 1971: Comrade Saroj Dutt murdered, followed by Kashipur-Baranagar massacre in Kolkata....Full text