CPIM General Secretary Com. Prakash Karat Laid the foundation stone for the E. Balanandan Research Foundation centre at Kalamassery on Friday.
“Big business is the fountainhead of corruption in high places in India, Unless the neo-liberal economic policies which favoured big business were not reversed, corruption in high places could not be eliminated, He said.
He contended that the neo-liberal economic policies had led to the unholy nexus between big business, ruling politicians and bureaucrats. This nexus had spawned massive corruption all over. The economic policies made the way for big business to make unjustifiably large profits and hence the corporates paid huge bribes to ministers and bureaucrats.\
Referring to Union Law Minister Salman Khurshid's statement that if the top businessmen were put in jail it would hit foreign investment in India, Mr. Karat said the Union Government itself was defending corrupt businessmen.
Hazare's campaign
He said that his party supported Anna Hazare's campaign for an effective Lokpal law which should be enacted by Parliament. But he regretted that Team Anna had failed to understand that it was the neo-liberal economic policies that spawned corruption and that without changing the economic policies corruption could not be eliminated.
Mr. Karat wanted all the 122 spectrum licences issued through illegal means be cancelled.
Referring to the spreading economic recession in Europe, Mr. Karat said it was caused not by workers but by greedy capitalism. Workers and trade union movements were trying to fight off recession and also putting up a defence against governments that tried to cut jobs and curtail wages.
In the U.S., trade unions were now supporting the ‘Occupy Wall Street' movement that was spreading to dozens of cities. The workers' organisations were thus proving their relevance.
Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan said E. Balanandan was a great communist revolutionary who had through his revolutionary struggles risen to become the all-India president of CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Unions). The current CITU national president A.K. Padmanabhan, state president K. N. Raveendranath and State secretary M.M. Lawrence spoke.
