THE All India People’s Forum (AIPF) organized a symposium at the IMA Hall in Patna on 5 September 2018 on ‘The Struggle against Fascism and the Question of an Alternate Politics’. Addressing the symposium CPI (ML) General Secretary Com. Dipankar Bhattacharya said that a new political understanding is needed to defeat the BJP. Of the student leaders who were at the forefront of the 1974 movement, half of them have actually joined hands with the BJP now. The character and range of today’s dictatorship is totally different, and we have to think afresh how to defeat them in the 2019 elections. We saw in 2015 that an alliance was formed against the BJP and won the Assembly elections. But what happened after that? Nitish Kumar broke the alliance and let in the BJP through the back door. It became clear on that very day that opportunistic alliances cannot harm the BJP. We need political forces that fight effectively against the BJP to push them back. It is the forces who fight under the red flag who are the most vigorous champions of the anti-BJP campaign, and it is they who are the prime targets of Sanghi violence. We feel the need for a new equation today. A new and substantial unity against the BJP is required. If the Left and the RJD can unite, it will be something new in Bihar politics. But such a unity cannot be one-sided. For a respectable unity to be forged, the other side also must be equally serious.
Com. Dipankar said that it is only by following the path of Bhagat Singh and Ambedkar that we can protect our country’s democracy. The Constitution is the weapon by which we can defeat fascist forces.
Addressing the symposium Prem Kumar Mani said that the Modi Emergency is more dangerous than the Indira Emergency even though it is an undeclared Emergency. Economist DM Diwakar said that the country’s economy has been destroyed by this government; demonetization, GST and corporate sponsored scams are the biggest scams of the century.
The symposium, held on the first martyrdom anniversary of Gauri Lankesh, began with tributes to the slain writer and demands for the immediate arrest of her killers. The symposium concluded with a protest march to demand the immediate release of the human rights activists witch-hunted and arrested on fabricated charges under the recent ‘urban Naxal’ campaign started by fascist forces.
The symposium was presided over by Insaf Manch leader Comrade Rajaram and conducted by AIPF Convener Com. Santosh Sahar. All India Kisan Mahasabha General Secretary Com. Rajaram Singh, writer Sumant Sharan, CPI (ML) State Secretary Com. Kunal, ISCUS Convener Ashok Kumar, poet Ranjeev Verma, MLAs comrades Mahboob Alam and Sudama Prasad, educationist Ghalib, Advocate Vijay Kumar Singh, theatre artiste Vineet Kumar, AICCTU State Secretary Com. RN Thakur and many others were present at the symposium organized in this phase of attempts to build a unity against the BJP and was much talked about by the people.
