Call of 28 July Evokes Enthusiastic Response from Party Ranks
As decided by the Central Committee, most states held cadre meetings or conventions between July 28 and August 10. The July 28 CC call served as the basic approach paper for all these conventions, which generally involved members of state committees/leading teams as well as district committees/leading teams. In Bihar block committee members were also included.
According to reports reaching the Party headquarters, the call has generally been taken quite positively. The problems identified in the call and the emphasis laid on implementation of the Party line in all spheres of our work and on improving the content and style of our work have been widely felt to be quite urgent. A few comrades in different places failed to appreciate what is fundamental and universal in the call, and tended to read it only in the context of Bihar, and there too only in terms of areas where we run panchayats. After detailed discussion, however, they are now able to grasp the essence of the call and join their colleagues in carrying it out.
The State Cadre Convention at Bihar was held on July 28 at Patna. Addressing the Convention, Comrade Dipankar stressed that the essence of the CC’s Call was to implement it by way of self introspection, not by looking for weaknesses in others. The Call must be carried to every committee and everyone in the Party in its true essence.
The Bihar State Committee has formulated a 10-point guideline in keeping with the spirit of the July 28 call: (i) uphold the revolutionary communist attitude of respect for the people and deal strongly with any incident of violation of this basic norm, (ii) encourage self-reliance and independent initiative of lower-level committees, instead of dependence on leaders or calls from above (iii) ensure regular committee meetings and the habit of sending reports to higher committees, ending absenteeism, (iv) district secretaries and all leading comrades to hold at least five village meetings every month, (v) put a stop to the culture of making criticisms outside party structures, draw a firm line of demarcation between right and wrong, friends and enemies, (vi) guarantee democratic, transparent management of all public resources (land, pond, etc.) controlled by the Party, (vii) uphold the principle of reliance on the people; houses of panchayat functionaries, contractors, dealers etc. not to be used as Party shelters or meeting places, (viii) no person who works as a contractor, dealer, sales/insurance agent or NGO activist to be on any Party committee or secretary of any Party branch, (ix) make panchayats centres of struggles; our representatives must be leaders of struggles, not ‘givers’ of bounty – and must therefore accept the supervision of the people (x) MLAs and mukhias to present quarterly work reports at people’s assemblies and all beneficiaries of panchayat schemes must be chosen mandatorily through meetings of ‘gramsabhas’.
For the month of August the plan in Bihar is to take the call right down to every branch while also mobilising the masses in struggles on basic and burning issues. We must increasingly make a habit of combining these two aspects (inner-Party mobilisation as well as agitational mobilisation). This was done in July when many district committees successfully combined the process of investigation into the causes of the electoral setback and various long-standing witnesses in our work, with the task of organising a state-level march to Assembly demanding implementation of the recommendations of the Land Reforms Commission.
In Lucknow and Guwahati, State cadre conventions of UP and Assam/Karbi Anglong were held on 9 August. At Koderma in Jharkhand, Party’s Cadre Convention was held on 1st August. More than 350 activists of the Party participated in the Convention. The Convention deliberated on taking the struggles to newer heights. A district cadre convention was also held at Dhanbad on 11 August.
District cadres meet was organized at Harapanahalli and July 28 call was discussed extensively, detailed plans made for organisational expansion and political initiatives of party and mass organisations, especially for AIALA-AICCTU campaigns, consolidation of work among women, and a start for work among women. Similar plans were also taken for other districts of Karnataka, including Davangere and Bellary.
At Pattamundei in Orissa, Party State Committee member Radha Kanta Sethi addressed hundreds of activists. Party State Secretary Kshitish Biswal addressed the 300 activists at Nagbhushan Bhavan on the eve of Shaheed Diwas.
Sankalp Sabhas (pledge meetings) were held in Assam, Andamans, Andhra Pradesh, UP, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Gujarat Chhattishgarh, Jharkhand, TN, Tripura, Delhi, Punjab, WB, Pondicherry, MP, Rajasthan, and Rewari in Haryana. At Mumbai, a Cadre meeting was held at the Party Office.
The conventions and sankalp sabhas in other states also adopted their own sets of immediate tasks and work-plans to translate the call into practice. CCMs everywhere are taking the lead in this respect.