Draft of the Declaration Placed at the National Convention of Left Parties
At Mavalankar Hall, New Delhi
July 1, 2013
Sixty
six years after independence, the aim of a developed and prosperous
India with equal rights for all citizens seems a distant goal. The
current plight of the country is due to the nature of capitalist
development which favours the rich and harms the poor. The government’s
policies are determined by the narrow interests of the big business,
the rich and the powerful. As a result, vast masses of the people
still live in poverty, victims of hunger and disease, with no education
and health facilities and opportunities to earn a decent livelihood.
India accounts for one-third of the world’s extreme poor. Dalits,
adivasis, women and the minorities continue to be victims of social
oppression. Their social, economic and democratic rights remain
severely curtailed.
The politics of the country is
dominated by money power. Communal and divisive forces have a free run.
More and more young people find no worthwhile employment and face a
bleak future. An independent foreign policy and defence of national
sovereignty is compromised.
Under the rule of the
Congress-led UPA government, people suffer from ever increasing price
rise of essential commodities especially food items; farmers are unable
to earn a decent livelihood and there are widespread suicides by
farmers; land is being increasingly seized by real estate speculators,
mining companies and corporates. According to the latest survey
undertaken by the National Sample Survey Organisation, in the two years
between January 2010 and January 2012, the rate of unemployment rose by
a shocking 10.2 per cent; 45 per cent of the children under five years
of age are malnourished; only 16 per cent of children who enrolled in
class-I managed to reach class-XII; and medicines and health
facilities are going beyond the reach of the common people.
While
the people face these miserable conditions, the UPA government has
allowed the loot of natural resources like land, minerals, gas and
spectrum by the corporates and big business. The neo-liberal regime
under the UPA government has spawned corruption on a large scale, with
no sector being spared from corruption scandals. The UPA government has
been generous in forgoing taxes of the corporates and the rich to the
tune of Rs. 5 lakh crore in the last budget. The government has cut
subsidies for petroleum products and fertilizers. For the rich there is a
bonanza while for the poor there is austerity.
The
priorities of the Congress-led government are to appease foreign finance
capital at the expense of the people. Foreign supermarket chains are
being allowed in retail trade endangering the livelihood of a million
shopkeepers and traders.
There is a regression in social
values with the invasion of market relations and treating women as sex
objects. Women are growingly subject to sexual attacks and violence and
denying them an equal status in society. Dalits continue to face
atrocities, denial of basic rights and exclusion from productive
economic activities. Adivasis face an existential threat due to
displacement from their land and habitats. The socio-economic plight of
the Muslim minorities was brought out in the Sachar Committee Report
but nothing much has been done to redress the situation. Innocent
Muslim youth are often targeted in the name of fighting terrorism.
The
Congress-led government has pursued a foreign policy which seeks to
align India with the United States of America. The latest example
being India’s acquiesance with the rising US-NATO intervention in Syria
and the steady reduction of oil supplies from Iran under US pressure.
The
policies pursued by the UPA government are inherently anti-people and
anti-democratic. The Congress and the UPA have to be opposed and
defeated if alternative policies have to be put in place.
The
BJP represents a more regressive variant of the present regime. The
BJP stands for the communal Hindutva ideology which is married to
unalloyed free market capitalism. Narendra Modi, the leader projected by
the BJP for the next Lok Sabha elections, symbolizes this reactionary
mixture. The Gujarat model touted by Modi symbolizes this path –
pogroms for Muslims and bonanza for the corporates. The praise for Modi
sung by the big corporates cannot conceal the plight of the rural poor
and the adivasis and the poor human development record in Gujarat.
The
BJP which makes much of the corruption of the UPA government is itself
tainted with the worst corruption scandals. Its government in Karnataka
became an extension of the mining mafia which looted thousands of
crores by illegal mining.
The RSS/BJP combine has also
fanned tensions and communal violence in several towns in Uttar Pradesh
in the last two years. It is waiting for the opportune moment to push
the agenda of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and the scrapping of Article 370
of the Constitution with regard to Jammu & Kashmir.
The
BJP is no alternative to the Congress in terms of programme and
policies. It has to be fought and isolated. It is the duty of all
patriotic, secular and democratic forces to ensure that the BJP does not
come back to power.
The politics of the country is being
increasingly dominated by money power and business lobbies. Huge
amounts of money are being pumped into elections polluting the political
system and distorting democracy. This has to be halted. Electoral
reforms to curb money power is an urgent necessity. The basic reform
required is the introduction of a proportional representation with a
partial list system. This will obviate the money and muscle power to a
great extent.
The country requires a more federal
system. The concentration of powers and resources in the hands of the
Centre should be reduced. The rights and powers of the states have to
be enhanced and backward states should be given a special status as far
as devolution of resources are concerned. This requires the
restructuring of Centre-State relations.
Both the
Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA have been beset with contradictions
and have shrunk in size. This has happened since both the major
parties stand for policies and programmes which are not in the
interests of the people but represent the interest of a narrow strata.
What is required today is the rejection of the policies and the
political platform of the Congress and the BJP.
The
country requires an alternative. Such an alternative can emerge only on
the basis of alternative policies. There has to be an alternative
policy platform around which a political alternative can be built.
Alternative
economic policies, defence of secularism and social justice,
strengthening federalism and an independent foreign policy are all
important features of the alternative policy platform.
The
Left parties have set out such an alternative policy platform in the
economic, political and social spheres. The main features of such an
alternative platform are:
1)
Implementation of land reform measures, distribution of surplus land
to the landless, ensuring house sites to each landless household. End to
forcible land acquisition. Remunerative prices for farmers and cheap
credit based on Swaminathan Commission Report.
2)
Stepping up public investment for infrastructure and setting up
manufacturing and other industries for more employment. Nationalisation
of mining and oil resources.
3) Plug
loopholes in taxation measures and ensure collection of legitimate
taxes; regulation of speculative financial flows into the country; stop
the opening up of financial sector. No FDI in retail trade.
4)
Introduction of universal public distribution system with 35 kgs of
foodgrains at a maximum price of Rs. 2 a kg per month for all families.
Food Security law should be passed to ensure this.
5)
Separation of religion and State as the basic principle of secularism
to be embedded in the constitution; firm action to curb communal forces.
6)
Increasing allocations for education and health. Stop privatization of
education and health services. Guarantee implementation of Right to
Education Act.
7) Firm measures to
curb high level corruption; enact Lokpal legislation with independent
powers of investigation. Electoral reforms.
8)
Equal rights for women in all spheres. One-third reservation for women
in Parliament and legislatures; protection of rights of dalits and
extension of reservation for SC/STs in the private sector.
Implementation of Ranganath Mishra Commission on reservation for
minorities. Protection of Fifth and Sixth Schedule rights for adivasis.
9)
Rights of the working classes - enforcement of fair minimum wage and
social security measures. End contractualisation and casualisation of
labour.
10) Adopt an independent foreign policy.
The
Left parties appeal to all democratic parties and mass organisations to
support this alternative political platform. The Left parties will
conduct a political campaign to mobilize support for this platform. Let
us go forward towards building a powerful political alternative.
