Responding to the call by Left parties to observe 19 December 2019 as national people’s protest day against CAB and NRC, a Bihar Bandh will be organized on that day. 19 December is also the martyrdom anniversary of Ramprasad Bismil, Ashfaqulla Khan and Roshan Singh, the great freedom fighters who sang the fearless ‘Sarfaroshi ki Tamanna ab Hamare Dil mein Hai’. It was on this day that they were hanged by the British at Gorakhpur, Faizabad and Naini Jail (Allahabad) respectively. In view of the historical importance of this day, Left parties have appealed to the RJD also to hold the Bihar Bandh on 19 December instead of 21 December.
Earlier, the CPI, CPM, CPIML, AIFB and RSP held a joint meeting on 13 December to discuss the 19 December Bandh and how to make it a resounding success. Left leaders said in a Press Conference that CAB and NRC are totally against the fundamental principles of the Constitution and violate the values of the freedom struggle. Protests against them are being held across the country today in the North East and other States. Unfortunately the protesters are facing brutal military repression. Curfew has been clamped on the North East and many people have died in Assam. The Modi-Shah duo has pushed the entire country into a blazing fire. The Left parties demand an immediate end to the military repression.
The imposition of NRC in Assam by the BJP created an atmosphere of fear and terror especially in the poor, deprived and minority communities. Today the entire country is witnessing the consequences. The NRC excluded 19, 60,000 people from citizenship out of whom about 13 lakhs are from poor Hindu communities. Those stripped of citizenship are being held and tortured in detention camps. So far 29 innocent citizens from 6 month old infants to aged persons have died in detention camps, but instead of learning a lesson from this, the government is now inflicting NRC on the entire country and has passed the religious discrimination based CAB whose victims will largely be the common people and the poor and deprived sections from all communities. We must defeat this conspiracy to strip crores of citizens from citizenship. Citizenship is the basis of all our rights. It is very welcome that protests against this draconian and illegal Act are spreading across the country.
The Bihar Bandh will also raise the issues of increasing violence against women, the recent brutal lathi charge on students protesting against the gang rape of a student in BN College Patna, the demand to implement the Verma Commission recommendations, and the eviction of lakhs of dalits and poor in the name of the Jal Jeevan Hariyali Scheme.
Present at the Press Conference were Dhirendra Jha and Rajaram (CPIML), Satyanarayan Singh (CPI), Arun Mishra and Ganesh Shankar Singh (CPM), Amrika Mahto (AIFB), and Virendra Thakur (RSP).
