Commemoration

On the occasion of the centenary of Communist Party of China, the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) salutes the revolutionary legacy of the CPC. The heroic Chinese people, under the inspiring leadership of Mao Tsetung and the CPC, accomplished the people's democratic revolution in just twenty eight years after the CPC’s birth, and achieved basic socialist transformation of a backward agrarian society in another seven years.

India’s farmers are several months into a historic sit-in at the gates of Delhi, and a historic countrywide movement demanding repeal of three laws enacted by the Modi regime to serve agri-business corporations at the cost of India’s farming and food security. In the midst of this, have fallen certain memorable dates from the history of agrarian struggles in India.

[As in the case of Chauri Chaura, the “official” centenary celebrations of the Champaran Satyagraha erased and manipulated history to suit ruling class interests. Excerpts from a write-up by historian Mohammad Sajjad in the May 2017 issue of Liberation.]

[At a time when feudal forces seek to project Sahajanand Saraswati as a “Bhumihar” icon representing feudal values, rather than recognising him as a radical peasant leader who leaned left, Liberation reproduces excerpts profiling him from The Flaming Fields of Bihar (the document published by IPF in 1986).]

Kisan Mahapanchayat and Kisan Marches on Swami Sahajananda Saraswati Anniversary in Bihar

On the birth anniversary of great farmers’ leader Swami Sahajananda Saraswati who led the movement against British Company Raj and the zamindari system, a kisan march was organized in Patna on 11 March under the banners of CPIML and All India Kisan Mahasabha.

An India of their dreams, in Bhagat Singh’s words, would mean “the reconstruction of the whole society on the socialist basis”, so as to “end every sort of exploitation and usher humanity into an era of genuine and permanent peace.” (Statement in Lahore High Court) Struggling for such an India means following Bhagat Singh’s ideas .

He says he wants bread and clothes
Not only that, he wants justice too
On top of that he wants genuine freedom too
Hang him

He says he wants regular work
Not only work, he wants the fruits of his work
And then he even wants untrammelled possession of both work and fruits
Hang him

He says he doesn’t want empty speeches
Nor false promises, violent rule
Nor a false democratic throne erected on
The burning breasts of hungry and naked people
Hang him

(Excerpts from a poem written by Sameer Roy in 1968 during the Naxalbari movement – in memory of Rashmoni, a woman of the Hajong tribe who was killed by the police during the Tebhaga movement in 1946–47)

(‘Mukt Hobe Priya Matribhumi’ - The Beloved Motherland Will Be Free was one of the favourite songs of the Naxalbari movement’s revolutionaries, and it best embodies the movement’s spirit of ‘people-first’ patriotism.)