With only a few weeks for the decisive 2024 General elections, Central Committee of CPI(ML) Liberation has launched a country-wide Jan Sankalp Abhiyan (Mass Pledge Campaign) with an appeal to ‘ We, the People of India.’
The appeal notes that “this year our Republic enters the 75th year of its existence. As we begin the new year, we are aware that we are only a few weeks away from the decisive 2024 elections. Ten years ago Narendra Modi had come to power with the promise of ushering in Achhe Din or better days, bringing back all black money and creating two crore jobs every year. Many Indians gave him a second chance in 2019 when he promised to double farmers' income and ensure a pucca house for every family by 2022. Now ahead of the 2024 elections, when every promise made to the people has turned into a brazen mockery, a cruel insult to the people, the BJP and RSS are busy showcasing the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya as their biggest achievement and seeking your votes yet again in the name of Ram.”
The Ramayana has been close to the hearts of millions of Indians across generations. Ramrajya has often been invoked as a popular Indian metaphor for a reign of truth, justice and universal well-being. Is the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya the gateway to a modern 21st Century Ramrajya premised on divisiveness, hate and violence? Let the dazzling spectacle of the Ram Mandir inauguration not blind us to the reality of the all-round crisis that ten years of Modi government have pushed us into. Let us not ignore the growing signs of daily mockery of the constitutional promises of a modern secular democracy for the world's most populous country.
The appeal further notes that the Modi government is privatising, whether wholesale or bit by bit, everything that should be essentially public - be it public transport, public sector industries, or essential public services like education and health-care. And something like religion, religious faith or sentiment, which is entirely a citizen's private domain has been completely taken over by the government. The Prime Minister of an elected government now behaves like a priest and presents himself as a divinely chosen representative not answerable to the people and their Parliament. This is a complete negation of the very idea of a modern republic that free India had proclaimed itself on 26th January, 1950.
Life for large sections of India's citizens is becoming increasingly insecure. Incidents of Muslims facing lynch mobs and bulldozers have become routine. The poor are facing large scale eviction from cities. Perpetrators of atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis are hardly ever punished even as the incidence of such cases has increased remarkably. Perpetrators of anti-women violence are promoted and protected by the BJP at all levels from IT cells to state Assemblies and Parliament.
We still have the Constitution which came out of our freedom movement and proclaimed India as a sovereign democratic republic with universal adult franchise. Today many in the Modi regime have openly started describing the Constitution drafted under the leadership of Ambedkar as a colonial constitution. Like the laws being rewritten, there is a clamour in the Sangh brigade and Modi camp for a new constitution to turn India's Parliamentary Democracy into a presidential tyranny. We must not forget the age-old RSS design of having Manusmriti, the code of slavery for India's oppressed people and women, as the Constitution of modern India.
The appeal gives a clarion call - Let every vote of ours therefore ensure the defeat of the disastrous Modi regime in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. CPI(ML) has all along championed the cause of broadest opposition unity against the fascist Modi government. As a constituent of the INDIA alliance we will perhaps be contesting very few seats in the coming elections, but we will work everywhere for the victory of our INDIA allies. Let freedom and justice prevail over the forces of corporate loot, communal hate and social slavery.
Ranks and file of CPI(ML) will reach out to the people across the country during the campaign with appeal. On January 26, preamble of the Indian constitution will be read out in events across the country to assert the constitutional principles of equality, fraternity, liberty and justice against the Modi government’s unbridled emergency and tyranny.
[Full text of the appeal is available at cpiml.net (English) and hindi.cpiml.net (Hindi)]
