Jan Sanskriti Manch National Conference
Jan Sanskriti Manch held its national conference at Raipur, Chhattisgarh on 8-9 October 2022. The conference venue, premises, auditorium and stage were dedicated to Muktibodh, Com Brijbihari Pandey, Ramnihal Gunjan, Mangalesh Dabral and Habib Tanveer.
The conference began with a resistance march. The participants marched from Ashirwad Bhawan to the statue of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh while garlanding the statue of Dr. Ambedkar. In a brief statement, President of Jan Sanskriti Manch, Prof. Rajendra Kumar called for solidarity against the current riling dispensation, for the defence of the Constitution and for the fight for democracy.
Well-known Gandhian and human rights activist Himanshu Kumar was the chief guest of the conference. He remembered Gandhiji and said that he used to call the model of English development as the satanic model. According to this model of development whoever has more, he is developed. To accumulate more the capitalists are busy plundering water-forest-land and all resources with the help of governments. He said that the Government of India has started a complete war against the people for the loot of these resources and India's democracy has completely turned into a military system. Sharing his personal experience, he said that under the leadership of tribes, we have fought this fascist regime without any fear. He said that our job is to join the fight of the people fighting against the fascist rule.
While addressing the conference, noted author and activist Bhanwar Meghvanshi said that democratic values are being eroded in our country. He said that this fascist regime will have to be defeated not only on the political front but also on the cultural front. To defeat fascism, he called for a broad common front of small resistance battles. He said that there is a need to counter Hindutva with Bandhutva (fraternity).
Documentary filmmaker Meghnad, who came from Jharkhand, said that the virtues of democracy should be learned from the people. He said that consensus and pluralism is very important for democracy. The opinion of the majority is not a democracy. He said that these values are being attacked by the fascist forces. They want to remove these values from our constitution. He said that to fight fascism, the values of consent and plurality have to be taken from village to village, family and home.
Navkiran Natt, a youth activist and a member of the editorial board of Trolley Times, said that the farmers' movement has developed a way to fight this government. Underlining the many cultural experiments done in the peasant movement, she described the fight on the culture front as very important.
Representatives of fraternal organizations also participated in the conference. Aanchal Baba read the message of Hiralal Rajasthani on behalf of Dalit Writers Association. Ranendra on behalf of Progressive Writers Association and Nasir Ahmed Sikandar on behalf of the Janvadi Lekhak Sangh gave the message for the conference and called for the unity of all the fighting forces against fascism in India.
With the resolve to unite the cultural forces of the country against fascism, National Conference concluded on 9 October. On the last day of the conference, the delegates elected a 141-member National Council and a 37-member Executive Council. Renowned Hindi critic Ravi Bhushan was elected as the new president of Jan Sanskriti Manch. Journalist and cultural Activist Manoj Kumar Singh was re-elected as the General Secretary. Renowned poets Laltu, Madan Kashyap, senior short story writer Shivamurti, Gujarat litterateur Bharat Mehta, famous painter Ashok Bhowmik, famous theatre artist Zahoor Alam and Ramji Rai elected as vice-presidents.
Apart from these office bearers elected National Executive members of Jan Sanskriti Manch are Sanjay Joshi, Pranay Krishna, Kaushal Kishore, Jitendra Kumar, Ashutosh Kumar, Santosh Jha, Samta Rai, Anil Anshuman, Deepak Sinha, Surendra Prasad Suman, Mrityunjay, Durga Singh, Ramnaresh Ram, DP Soni, Sudhir Suman, Xavier Kujur, Balabhadra, Anupam Singh, Himanshu Pandya, Uma Raag, Raman Ram, Kailash Vanvasi, Premshankar Singh, Anand Bahadur, Siyaram Sharma, Awadhesh Tripathi and Deepak Singh.
In the organizational session on the second day of the conference, the report of the Secretary-General, the reports of the states and bodies were discussed and passed by the delegates.
In the cultural session, famous poets Devi Prasad Mishra, Laltu, Pankaj Chaturvedi, Zahoor Alam, Dev Shukla, Balabhadra, Anand Bahadur, Ghanshyam Tripathi, Kamleshwar Sahu, Rajesh Kamal, Anupam Singh, Mukul Saral, Priyadarshan Malviya, Shambhu Badal, Vasuki Prasad Unmat, Vinod Singh recited poetry. In the same season, Rangnayak of Begusarai The Left Theater staged a play based on Bhishma Sahni's story Amritsar Aa Gaya Hai. The play was directed by Deepak Sinha. The single character on stage was brought to life by Vijay Krishna. The conference concluded with a scintillating performance by The Indian Roller Band from Raipur.
