On September 9, 2024, at Jharkhand’s Dhanbad Golf Ground, CPI(ML) and MCC will unite. This unity rally will witness thousands of workers, farmers, students, youth, and women joining hands to remove fascist BJP and save the country from corporate loot. This also the call for the struggle for change in Jharkhand with a massive mobilisation.
The unity rally will be addressed by Comrade Dipankar Bhattacharya, General Secretary of CPIML and chaired by Comrade Anand Mahato, President of MCC.
CPIML Jharkhand state committee in a statement said that the Modi government has woven a web of corporate devastation across the country. After Chhattisgarh and Odisha, it seeks to entrap Jharkhand in its grip. Since the formation of a non BJP government in 2019, the Modi administration has used the Governor’s office to create political crises in Jharkhand. Now, Modi has enlisted anti-farmer Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and hate mongering and corrupt Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to further this agenda. The Chhampai Soren defection case clearly demonstrates that the BJP is willing to go to any lengths to grab power. Despite repeated failed attempts to buy off legislators, the Modi government, with the help of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), and the Governor, managed to imprison the then Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Yet, the BJP has still not succeeded in capturing power in Jharkhand. Modi has gifted two major projects in Jharkhand to Adani. The Godda Power Plant has displaced more than a dozen villages across two blocks, as it requires water from the Ganga and surrounding rivers. The fertile district of Godda is turning into a drought-prone area. The Adani coal mining project is devastating several villages in Barkagaon (Hazaribagh), leading to ongoing resistance against displacement. Adani's eyes are set on Jharkhand's coal, iron ore, and other valuable minerals, which is also why the corporate backed Modi-BJP wants to take control of Jharkhand, transforming it into an area of rampant exploitation.
In every corner—Dhanbad, Bokaro, Hazaribagh, Chatra, Latehar, Dumka, Pakur—coal mines are being handed over to private interests. Modi has repeatedly attacked Jharkhand's federal rights to achieve this. The suffering of the displaced, migrant workers, and unemployed people of Jharkhand is not on the BJP's agenda. Many displaced by mining projects, industries, and dams still lack proper rehabilitation and land ownership. They wander from door to door for caste certificates. The BJP aims to numb Jharkhand's pain with the frenzy of communalism.
From the start, the BJP has been orchestrating Jharkhand's destruction. When Modi came to power in 2014, the double-engine government began auctioning the state's coal, iron, and lignite mines. The Raghubar Das government swiftly began the process of dispossessing public land and handing over natural resources to capitalists under the guise of a land bank. Meanwhile, efforts were made to weaken the CNT-SPT Act and the special tribal courts. Jamabandi and non-agricultural land receipts were banned.
Who hasn't been targeted by the BJP's regime—adivasis, displaced persons, para-teachers, sahiyas, anganwadi workers, cooks, farmers? Who has not faced state violence and bullets? JPPSC exams were stalled. Many poor died in hunger. The wave of mob lynching began. Thousands of adivasis who advocated for the Fifth Schedule faced charges of sedition. Yet, the voice of resistance remained strong, ultimately leading to the downfall of the Raghubar government.
With the formation of the Modi-3 government, the BJP is once again trying to create political crises in Jharkhand. The Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) has been left to perish, with workers not receiving their wages. Public sectors are being sold off. Corporate looting and communal polarisation have pushed the state into prolonged devastation. Jharkhand's unemployment rate stands at 18%—double the national average! We must raise our voices against privatisation, displacement, and unemployment. We must stand against corporate looting.
In the 1980s, the centre of the Jharkhand movement was Northern Chhotanagpur, involving adivasis, mulwasi (native of the land), labourers, and marginalised communities. Working class leader Comrade A.K. Rai strengthened the movement with the power of workers’ struggles. In subsequent decades, economic blockades organised by the people of Jharkhand and the struggles of CPI(ML) fortified the movement for a separate state. Comrade K Gurudas, a prominent leader of MCC was martyred in the fight against the land mafia. After state formation, Comrade Mahendra Singh was martyred fighting against the loot of BJP governments. The working class movement, Jharkhand movement, and people's struggles—represented by the CPI(ML) and MCC —are now uniting against corporate fascism. This unification signals the beginning of a new mass uprising.
