[Reader-list] Fwd: [Pragoti] REJOINDER TO THE UTTERLY FALSE VICHAR MANCH RESPONSE

[A. Mani]

Forwarded Message
______________________________________________________
From: roopesh praj <roopesh_p_raj at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, Jan 22, 2013 at 10:09 PM
Subject: [Pragoti] REJOINDER TO THE UTTERLY FALSE VICHAR MANCH RESPONSE
To: "pragoti_readers at yahoogroups.com" <pragoti_readers at yahoogroups.com>




CPI (M) MAHARASHTRA STATE COMMITTEE

REJOINDER TO THE UTTERLY FALSE VICHAR MANCH RESPONSE

It has come to our notice that the so-called Godavari S. Parulekar
Marxwadi Vichar Manch, based in Thane, has issued a statement
responding to the charges levelled against it by the Student’s
Federation of India (SFI) unit of the Jawaharlal Nehru University
(JNU), dated 15th January 2013. The State Committee is forced to
respond to this statement, which – like the Manch itself – reeks of
utter, stark and downright falsehoods. Each of these falsehoods must
be nailed down, so that the truth is known to the students of JNU.

At the outset, it was appalling that a corrupt and morally degenerate
person like Parshuram Chavan was invited for a public meeting in JNU
on the topic ‘Towards a People’s Democratic Alternative’. It is a sad
irony that this comes at a time when we need to build real
progressive, democratic alternatives to neo-liberalism and
communalism, as well as fight against rampant corruption and shocking
violence against women.

The response of the Manch starts with the falsehood that the “Vichar
Manch was formed in the Thane District of Maharashtra on 7th June 2008
by 23 out of the 33 Thane District Committee members of the CPI (M).”
The fact is that there were no more than a dozen District Committee
members out of 33 who joined the Manch. Against most of them, the CPI
(M) Maharashtra State Committee had already taken disciplinary action
on grave charges (see details below).

More important, however, is the fact that of the then total Party
membership in Thane district of 3000-odd, less than 10 per cent, i.e.,
less than 300, had joined the Manch. Over 90 per cent, i.e., more than
2700 Party members, firmly remained with, and continue to remain with,
the CPI (M). Further, many among the 300, who were initially misled
into going with the Manch, soon got disillusioned with the political
opportunism and rank corruption that was indulged in by the Manch
leadership comprising the ‘Gang of Four’ of Messrs Parshuram Chavan,
Suhas Samant, Ramji Vartha and Rajendra Paranjape. The misled comrades
soon came back to the CPI (M).

The Manch has said that “the bulk of our membership base comprises of
tribal people.” The plain truth is that there is just no bulk with the
Manch whatsoever, and there never was. In the state-wide Zilla
Parishad and Panchayat Samiti elections of March 2012, the Manch could
not even save its security deposit in a single seat in Thane district.

The biggest lie in the Manch’s statement, in classic Goebbelsian
style, is the following: “The Manch formation was the culmination of a
bitter inner-party struggle following the land movement of 1991 when
thousands of tribals occupied forest and ceiling surplus land of
landlords in the leadership of the Party. However, sections of the
Party leadership started engaging in nefarious negotiations with the
landlords for personal benefits. This became a cause of continuous
acrimony and discontent within our district. Fed up with this approach
of shielding dubious state leaders, in February 2006, the Thane
District Committee of the CPI (M) passed a unanimous resolution
recommending action against Com. L. B. Dhangar (CPI (M) State
Committee and District Committee Member) for misappropriation of funds
in a trust. This recommendation was not endorsed by the State
Committee. However, after this resolution, a 5-member state level
enquiry committee was finally set up by the reluctant Party
leadership...”

This entire paragraph is nothing but a shameless travesty of the
truth. But this is not at all surprising. In the history of the
Communist movement, renegades like Parshuram Chavan, Rajendra
Paranjape and Ramji Vartha have always been most notorious for making
shameful travesties of the truth. The truth of the matter is as
follows:

Land has been a major issue of struggle in Thane district since the
time of Comrades Godavari and Shamrao Parulekar. As a result of
massive and sustained struggles by the CPI (M) and the All India Kisan
Sabha (AIKS), lakhs of acres of land in Thane district was vested in
the names of the Adivasis who cultivated it. This struggle for land
continued in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s under the leadership of
Comrade Godavari Parulekar and Comrade L. B. Dhangar. Comrade Dhangar
is one of the senior-most and widely respected leaders of the Party
and was its Thane district secretary for a long period till 1988. His
contribution to the growth of the Left movement in the Adivasi regions
of Maharashtra is remarkable. He is today over 85 years old and, in
recognition of his six decade-old service to the Party, is the
Chairman of the CPI (M) State Control Commission.

However, by the mid-1990s, the new Thane district Party leadership led
by the above ‘Gang of Four’ consolidated its hold over the Party in
Thane. It is this leadership that, in its own words, “started engaging
in nefarious negotiations with the landlords for personal benefits”,
which became “a cause of continuous acrimony and discontent.” As a
result, very serious written complaints against them came to the Party
state committee from Adivasi comrades. A five-member enquiry committee
was appointed by the state committee.

Concrete proof came to the enquiry committee in the form of a letter
written on the letterhead of the Party’s Thane district committee,
signed by the then district secretary Suhas Samant (later expelled and
now a Manch leader), to the local Dahanu police station in favour of a
rich landlord and against a poor Adivasi Party member who rightly
owned his land. After this letter was written to the police station,
the landlord forcibly uprooted the standing crop in the Adivasi
peasant’s field and tried to capture his land. However, local comrades
under the leadership of Comrade Dhangar resisted and foiled this
attempt. As a result, the land is still in the occupation of the
Adivasi peasant. During the enquiry, further proof came of the
involvement of this ‘Gang of Four’ in shady land deals with landlords.
None of them could give any credible explanation regarding their
connivance with the landlord class against the poor Adivasi peasants.

Similarly, more complaints began to come in about the ‘Gang of Four’
striking corrupt deals with factory-owners against the interests of
the working class in Thane district. The enquiry committee came to the
conclusion that these complaints were also true. Needless to say, the
deals struck by these leaders with landlords and factory-owners were
not without their ‘price’!

It was precisely because Comrade Dhangar consistently opposed these
class collaborationist acts of the ‘Gang of Four’ that they tried to
implicate him on false charges. However, the enquiry held by the Party
state committee on the Trust issue completely absolved Comrade Dhangar
of all the charges.

One of the major reasons why Ramji Vartha, ex-MLA, was expelled from
the CPI (M) was because it was proved that he was hand-in-glove with
the local ration food grains black-marketeer and had siphoned off
thousands of quintals of grains meant for the Adivasi labourers
working under the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS). After an intense
struggle by the CPI (M) and AIDWA, which Ramji Vartha opposed in his
capacity as an MLA, the Tehsildar of Talasari was suspended and
thousands of quintals of grains were distributed to poor Adivasis.

The Manch goes further in its string of lies when it says, “Meanwhile,
instead of correcting their wrong practices, 4 members of the
Maharashtra State Secretariat became part of a foreign funded trust
for a ‘1 V 1 C’ (one village, one computer) scheme. As per the CPI (M)
party’s guidelines, members of the CPI (M) cannot become part of the
activities of foreign funded NGOs and can become part of other NGOs
only after taking consent of their respective committees and approval
of the higher committee. A complaint was sent to the same effect to
the Party General Secretary against top state leaders, including the
Maharashtra State Secretary.”

The facts of the matter are as follows: One Village One Computer
(1V1C) was a programme organized to take computer training to remote
villages in Maharashtra.  This programme was funded by the
‘Maharashtra Foundation’, which consists of Maharashtrian people
settled in the USA. The Maharashtra Foundation helps many such social
causes in Maharashtra, and the annual awards that it gives in the
fields of Marathi literature and culture have acquired a great deal of
prestige in the State.

All the information pertaining to the 1V1C trust, its funding and its
programmes were clearly placed before and were approved by the CPI (M)
state secretariat. But when the above complaints came, the CPI (M)
state committee itself took the decision that they should be
thoroughly enquired into by the Party’s Polit Bureau (PB). This was
done in 2006 and the PB gave its opinion in writing. The PB held that
since the Maharashtra Foundation was an organization of Maharashtrian
Indians settled in the USA, the funds that it gave the 1V1C could not
be termed as foreign funding. The PB also asked the CPI (M) state
committee to set up a monitoring committee to go into the 1V1C.

This was done and the monitoring committee, comprising three CPI (M)
state secretariat members who had no connection whatsoever with the
1V1C project, after thoroughly going through all the accounts and
other documents of the 1V1C, gave a clean chit to the project. The PB
opinion and the monitoring committee report came before the CPI (M)
state committee in 2006 and 2010 respectively and the state committee
gave its approval.

But in spite of the PB opinion on the matter, which was clearly
conveyed in writing and placed in the state committee in 2006, the
handful that later formed the Manch ran a nasty campaign to malign the
Party leadership – a campaign that they still continue today as seen
in their statement! They stooped to such levels of factionalism that
they began organising an unprecedented signature campaign against the
CPI (M) state committee decisions. No Communist Party worth its name
could have tolerated this deliberate violation of discipline and
therefore, the handful that was indulging in it was expelled from the
Party in 2007.

The Manch has categorically denied the charge of misconduct against
women that has been made against Parshuram Chavan. The CPI (M) state
committee has in its possession several letters and documents, as well
as the proceedings of the enquiry committee, which would go to prove
without any doubt whatsoever the charges against Parshuram Chavan of
misbehavior with women. One of the women Party members with whom
Parshuram Chavan had misbehaved got married and did not want to pursue
her complaint as she was worried that it would create problems in her
marital life. It was to respect her wishes that the Party did not
pursue the matter to its logical conclusion. But the CPI (M) stands
firm as a rock on this charge against Parshuram Chavan.

The Manch says, “It was propagated that we will join hands with the
BJP, Shiv Sena, NCP and so on. But after 5 years we have continued to
defend our movement in our district...We are not willing to join hands
with any communal or bourgeois Party. We will continue in this path.”

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the Manch spokesmen protest too much! It is
known to the whole world, and has been published in black and white in
the newspapers of the day, that in the 2009 Lok Sabha election in the
Palghar (ST) constituency of Thane district, when Comrade Lahanu Kom
was the candidate of the CPI (M), the Manch openly supported Baliram
Jadhav, the candidate of Hitendra Thakur’s ‘Bahujan Vikas Aghadi’.
This Party is notorious as the Party of the land mafia, which has gone
to the extent of murdering Adivasis simply because they refused to
part with their land! And it is with such a Party that the Manch
openly allied with! Needless to say, the leaders extracted their
‘price’!

In the 2009 Vidhan Sabha elections held six months later, in the
Dahanu (ST) seat where sitting MLA of the CPI (M) Comrade Rajaram
Ozare was the candidate, Ramji Vartha of the Manch filed his
nomination papers and then suddenly withdrew after a secret
‘understanding’ with the NCP candidate. In the election, the Manch
openly supported the NCP against the CPI (M). But the CPI (M) won this
seat for the eighth consecutive time since the 1978 assembly polls by
scoring over 62,000 votes against all odds, by a winning margin of
over 16,000 votes!

In the Vikramgad (ST) seat, the Manch put up a candidate against the
CPI (M). However, its candidate lost his security deposit, while the
CPI (M) got over 15,000 votes! So far as the 2012 Zilla Parishad and
Panchayat Samiti elections are concerned, the less said the better!

Finally, the Manch says, “On 23rd May 2009, a young tribal comrade of
our Manch, Anil Shingade, was brutally murdered by CPI (M) goons. 6
CPI (M) activists were arrested for the murder and 3 have been
convicted.” For the death of a poor Adivasi named Anil Shingade, some
CPI (M) comrades were falsely implicated in this case by Ramji Vartha
by bribing the police and conspiring with the Party’s political
opponents. They were implicated because they were active in the CPI
(M) and refused to join the anti-Party Manch. They are now released on
bail and the CPI (M) will fight this case till the end and prove the
utter falseness of the charges.

To sum up, the students of JNU need to know that the leaders of the
so-called Manch were expelled from the CPI (M) for amassing enormous
wealth at the expense of the poor Adivasis, usurping lakhs of rupees
from Party and trade union funds and indulging in immoral, corrupt and
anti-Party activities. All proper Party procedures were followed in
these expulsions. The CPI (M) State Control Commission unanimously
rejected their appeals. The CPI (M) PB and the Central Committee
unanimously ratified these disciplinary actions.

All honest and militant comrades in Thane district are united as one
behind the CPI (M) state committee and the Thane district committee to
foil the disruptive activities of the Manch and consign these
renegades to the dustbin of history. The CPI (M) is committed to
uphold the glorious legacy of Comrades Shamrao and Godavari Parulekar
in Thane district.

The Manch’s pathetic statement is a vain attempt to mislead the
students of JNU with utter falsehoods. We are sure that just as the
Adivasis of Thane district rejected this corrupt and degenerate
outfit, the students of JNU will also reject them lock, stock and
barrel - along with their equally opportunistic sponsors!

CPI (M) MAHARASHTRA STATE COMMITTEE

Regards,
Roopesh

_________________________________________________________________________


Best

A. Mani



A. Mani
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