20th Congress

 

The 20^th Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) demands that all sections of the toiling people, particularly the vulnerable sections, be brought under the cover of social security. The Central government should allocate adequate financial resources to ensure universal social security.

 

Social security benefits like pension, provident fund, free access to medical facilities etc. are hard won rights of the working class secured through decades of struggle in the twentieth century. These gains are now being reversed through privatisation of pension funds, provident funds and cuts in subsidies and welfare benefits.

 

The 20^th Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses it strong opposition to the mineral mining policies being followed by the Central Government which have led to the loot and plunder of the country’s natural resources. Instead of holding the mineral wealth in Public Trust for the long term benefit of the country and her people, the Government has misused its absolute and arbitrary powers to provide huge profits and windfall gains to private mining companies, global and national, while exploiting and dispossessing the masses dependent on these lands.

 

 

The 20^th Party Congress of the CPI(M) notes with concern that the 1980 Planning Commission guidelines for allocation of budgetary resources for the development of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in proportion to their population, has remained only on paper. Whereas the allocations for STs should be at least 8.2 per cent of the budgetary allocation for the central plan and the allocations for SCs should be at least 16.2 per cent, in this budget as previous ones also, the allocations are roughly half of what it should be.

 

The 20^th  Party Congress of the CPI(M) expresses its strong opposition to the present policies of reverse land reform, that is, the dispossession of the peasantry from their land, and the efforts to facilitate corporate takeover of land, including fertile agricultural land. This is reflected in the Approach document of the 12^th Five Year Plan which encourages reverse leasing for consolidation of the landholdings and encourages corporate farming. In many States land ceiling laws have been changed to permit this.

 

There is extreme concentration of ownership of agricultural holdings in India As the NSSO report on landholdings shows, just 3.5 per cent of landowners own 37.72 per cent of the land.

 

The 20^th Congress of the CPI(M) expresses its deep concern and strongly protests, against the increasing contractorisation of workers in various sectors of the economy which has resulted in a manifold increase in the exploitation of workers, by keeping wage costs down and denying workers their minimum rights.

 

Shamefully, it is the Central and many State Governments in pursuit of neo-liberal policies which have taken the lead in imposing contractorisation of the workforce.

The 20^th Congress of the CPI(M) protests against the deliberate delay on the part of the Central Government to initiate steps for the implementation of the Ranganath Mishra Commission report. While there are several positive recommendations for the advance of the status of minorities, this Party Congress draws attention  specifically to two of the recommendations.

 

The first is for reservation of jobs for Muslims on grounds of the social and economic backwardness of the vast majority of the community. It has recommended 10% of reservation in jobs and education for backward sections of the Muslim minority and 5% for  other minorities.

The 20^th Congress of CPI (M) considers the recent manipulations of the Planning Commission of the poverty estimates are deliberate efforts to underestimate the level of poverty in the country. It has chosen Rs. 22.40 per day for an adult in rural areas and Rs. 28.65 per day for an adult in urban areas, in 2009-10 as the poverty line. Anyone spending more than that is being categorized as non-poor. These are extraordinarily low amounts and no Indian can fulfill even a part of his/her basic daily requirements with these amounts. Rather than poverty lines, they should be called destitute lines.

 

 

 

This 20^th Congress of the CPI(M) condemns Israel’s continuing occupation of Palestinian territories in complete violation of international law and many United Nations resolutions.  The brutal siege of Gaza, arbitrary arrests and the detention of thousands of Palestinians in West Bank and Israel without trials, targeted assassinations etc. show Israel’s total contempt for international law. The Zionist government has been fully backed and supported by the US government in all its illegal actions.

 

May 1, 2012 marks the birth centenary of the revolutionary Communist leader, Comrade Putchalapalli Sundarayya. P. Sundarayya is one of the major figures of the Indian Communist movement who was drawn into the social reform movement and the freedom struggle at a young age.

 

Attracted to the Communist Party through Comrade Amir Hyder Khan, Sundarayya played a key role in building the Communist movement in south India during the 1930s.

 

Comrade Sundarayya established the first union of agricultural workers. He was the Secretary of the Andhra Communist Party Committee which was formed in 1934.

 

The 20th Congress of the CPI (M) salutes the centenary of the Ghadar Party that was founded on April 5, 1913 in San Francisco. The Ghadar Party played a glorious role in organizing struggles like the Komagata Maru voyage for the equal rights of immigrants of all countries and mobilizing powerful militant resistance to imperialism with a brave symbolic action of a voyage to liberate their motherland, India. This Party Congress recalls with pride and salutes the memory of the 200 martyrs who were killed and 35 who were sent to the Andaman Cellular jail for life. Their fearless example raised hopes of overcoming imperialism at its most savage. The movement extended from Vancouver in Canada to San Francisco, Tokyo and the villages of Punjab.