Resolution

 

The 20th Party Congress of the CPI (M) notes that while urbanization in many states has picked up in the recent period in our country, the Central Government is imposing a regime of urban reform reflecting the policies of the World Bank. The basic thrust of these policies is to meet the requirements of the neo-rich, the corporate and foreign investors. Considering that the process of urbanization in a country like India also reflects distress migration to the cities of the rural population, these policies have a very negative impact on the vast mass of the urban poor.

 

 

The 20^th Congress of the CPI (M) expresses deep concern at the failure of the Indian state to ensure adequate employment opportunities for the masses in rural and urban areas. The most recent data point to a grim future for millions of young men and women if the present policies are to continue. It also shows that the much proclaimed growth story of the Indian economy is a jobless and jobloss growth.

 

According to the National Sample Survey data for 2009-10, there is a sharp decrease in employment growth in India, from an annual rate of around 2.7 per cent during 2000-2005 to only 0.8 per cent during 2005-2010. Growth in nonagricultural employment fell from 4.65 per cent per year to 2.53 per cent, even at a time when annual GDP growth was above 8 per cent, during the latter period.

 

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 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.

 

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.

 

The 20^th Congress of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses its deep concern and anguish at the continued violation of the rights of persons with disabilities.

 

The recent incidents where disabled passengers were deboarded or humiliated is a case in point. Everyday thousands of disabled citizens face varying degrees of difficulties, harassment, humiliation when in public spaces because of the lack of facilities, insensitivity and stigma.