JOIN MARTYRS’ RALLY AND CONVENTION ON 29-30TH DEC IN PATNA ON 12TH MARTYRDOM DAY OF THE REVOLUTIONARY WORKING-CLASS LEADER, COMRADE SUNIL PAL
December 27, 2021COMRADES!
Every year, on the martyrdom day of Comrade Sunil Pal which falls on the 29th of December, we organize a rally and meeting commemorating all the martyrs of our party and the historic sacrifices that they made. Comrade Pal, who worked in the Bardhaman-Asansol Shilpanchal Industrial Region, had been involved in creating a militant and revolutionary labour movement right from his college days. Soon he emerged as the famous militant trade union leader of Bengal.
Within few years of entering into his college life in Durgapur (Paschim Bardhaman Distt., WB), he had soon decided to become a professional revolutionary. He was fourth among his five brothers and three sisters and lived his childhood days in his village at Kendra which was once considered the den of Naxalite movement. His family was of poor-lower middle peasant status. It was towards the end of seventies and beginning of eighties when he threw himself in the revolutionary movement. He never looked back since then.
In those times, white terror of the CPM-led Left Front government was all pervasive in Bengal. The Communist revolutionaries were often their target. Comrade Sunil Pal, too, faced fatal attacks several times under this regime while organising coal and other workers. On one occasion, he was even thrown on a heap of coal on the presumption that he had died after an attack. Our union offices and comrades were too often attacked with explosives and in such sequence of events many of our frontline working-class activists (like Baleshwar Bhuiyan, Gour Gadi, Mahadev Aankudia and others) were martyred. Only some years before Comrade Pal’s martyrdom, his elder brother Ganesh Pal, also a revolutionary activist and leader, was martyred by CPM goons.
Finally, the conspiracy to kill Comrade Pal also turned out to be successful on 29th December 2009, when he was of 51 years. Twelve years ago, half a dozen hired goons, who had been called from outside Bengal, barged into the newly built IFTU Central Office in Haripur in the twilight of evening (while a premeditated power cut was done in that entire area) armed with automatic sten guns. Dozens of bullets were ruthlessly fired into his body resulting in his immediate death. Top CPM and prime local leaders were involved in plotting and execution of the attack. Undoubtedly, their intention was to destroy our organization, but as everyone is aware, in the very next election, the Left Front itself was voted out of power by the people of Bengal while our party remains admired and active and continues to thrive in the hearts of people.
Today, the TMC goons not only wage attacks on the rights of the working class but also simultaneously pressurize our individual party leaders to leave the party. It also unabashedly conducts conspiratorial attacks. But even then, presently in the most crucial and dire conditions where the entire political space of Bengal has been seized and divided by the semi-fascist TMC and the fascist BJP among themselves, we continue to maintain and carry forward the tradition of revolutionary struggle.
Comrades!For ten years since his martyrdom, uptil 2019, we organised and observed Comrade Pal’s Memorial Day at Haripur (Raniganj), the place of his martyrdom. However in the year 2020, the Party’s Central Committee decided to organize it in other states in a different format. It is under this format that we observed it in Patna last year. It is now for the second time that Patna will host this occasion and organise a Rally and hold a Public Mass Meeting on 29th Dec as well as a Central Convention on 30th Dec on the most burning topic of nationwide significance that will culminate in the passing of a Resolution or Paper on the given subject. The topic this year is also related, like the previous year, to Farmers’ Movement i.e. “Repeal of Farm Laws, MSP Guarantee Law, and the Question of Emancipation of Farmers.” We shall be presenting the Approach Paper on this subject and send it to our fraternal delegates in advance. We will also naturally like it to be passed towards the end after incorporating the suggestions made during the Convention. The format is a little changed as compared to even the past year when we held the rally and convention on the same day. Last year, the Convention’s topic was “Working Class and the Emancipation of Farmers” and the Approach paper on it (attached with this invitation) was passed by the delegates present.
Comrades! The pro-corporate three Farm Laws have been rolled back and from this perspective, the historic Farmers’ Movement has definitely registered a great victory over the fascist government. It has shown that the people, and not the Parliament, are supreme and any institution or law matters only until the ”people” accepts it. This is the essence and core of true and consistent democracy (which is, however, not possible to be realised under capitalism) that has been re-established by the Farmers Movement while making sacrifices of more than 700 precious peasant lives. The Farmers’ Movement has once again and convincingly shown that if the people rise to revolt, then none, not even the most dreaded dictators, can stand in front of them. The slogan that “people taught a lesson to Hitler, and they will teach the same lesson to Modi”, which resonates among the anti-fascist masses, was truly realised by the Farmers’ Movement on the ground in the most convincing manner i.e. in a manner that truly brought forth an unprecedented infusion of confidence and enthusiasm in the entire struggling masses of the country. It is also absolutely true that the Movement emerged as the single largest, most powerful, acceptable and successful front against the fascists. In its first phase itself, it not only dusted off the arrogant fascist government, but also completely crushed Modi’s arrogance!
But friends, matters do not end here. History will not stop here. This is not its last court. After the withdrawal of Farm Laws, there remain other core demands and questions (the most important of which is the demand for legal guarantee on MSP), upon which the Samyukta Kisan Morcha has definitely hesitated to take further steps (at least for the time being), if not backtracked. The underlying concrete reasons behind this will have to be discussed. This Convention is geared towards providing a platform for inviting serious debate and discussion over the issue under question. While our Approach Paper will be laying down in detail what has been stated above, we shall be incorporating the suggestions from all quarters after analysing them with an open mind.
Friends! We will also be seriously pondering over in what sense and manner the demand for legal guarantee of MSP is important or not important. Similarly, we shall also go into serious examination of the historical significance and limit of this victory over the Farm Laws, especially in the backdrop of an ever-increasing monopolisation by the corporate (big) capital. As a matter of fact, the farmers’ organizations themselves have claimed that they do not trust either the government or the State over fulfillment of their already won demands and have said that they would come again for rebuilding up Morchas in Delhi, if needed. In short, even in the eyes of the farmers, the movement is not yet over. It is then sufficiently clear that there is a strong possibility of the Farmers’ Movement again surging forward in near future. Therefore, rigorous discussions and debates over its future roadmap naturally become urgent and necessary. On 15th January 2022, the Samyukta Kisan Morcha is also going to hold a meeting in order to take stock of the new situations (between itself and Modi government) which would emerge in the meantime and to make further strategies to that effect. This in itself is a picture of the potential situation we have been talking about so far, which is indicative of the fact the Farmers’ Movement will keep occupying an important place among major political issues existing in the country.
Comrades, today the question before us is: While it is true that the Farmers’ Movement has infused courage within the working class and has taught it in many ways, does the working class also have something precious to teach the Farmers’ Movement? We hope it must be adequately addressed. Hence, comrades, come and participate in the debate and comradely intensify the political-ideological debate with scientific rigour and adequate enthusiasm aimed at establishing a strong and truly Leninist worker-peasant revolutionary alliance in the context of the concrete conditions as existing in our country.
With revolutionary regards,
PRC, CPI (ML) | IFTU (Sarwahara)
(Contact: 9434577334, 9199748982, 9582265711)
Released jointly by Comrade Kanhai Baranwal, Central Committee Member from IFTU(S) Central Office, Haripur, (Raniganj, Paschim Bardhaman, W. Bengal).
