Call for a united force to take on, fight, isolate and defeat BJP-RSS combine

Call for Left unity at CPI(M) congress to fight BJP-RSS authoritarian regime, defend democracy, secularism, and federalism.

A call for ‘Left’ unity was made at Communist Party of India (Marxist) 24th party congress which is underway in Madurai. Leaders from Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, Revolutionary Socialist Party and All India Forward Bloc were present at the inaugural session.

Senior CPI(M) leader Manik Sarkar said that 11 years have elapsed under the Narendra Modi government. It has seen the consolidation of the Hindutva - authoritarian regime which has resulted in subversion of democracy, secularism and federalism. Ordinary people were suffering from unemployment, rising prices, agrarian distress and corruption.

The party congress will discuss uniting all secular and democratic forces to take on, to fight, isolate and defeat the BJP-RSS. It will discuss how to widen and intensify the struggles of the working and labour class, urban and rural poor and champion the rights of the dalits, adivasis, women and minorities, he said.

CPI general secretary D. Raja said that India today stands at a breaking point. Structural oppression of class, caste, and patriarchy have become brutal under the BJP-RSS regime. “India is not merely suffering from bad governance. India is suffocating under a system designed to exploit. The gap between the rich and the poor has never been this shamefully wide. The top 1% of the country now owns more than 40% of the national wealth, while half the population struggles for two meals a day,” he said.

Unemployment is pushing youth into hopelessness. Agrarian distress is driving farmers to suicide. The public education and health sectors are being systematically destroyed. The working people’s rights - to organise, to dissent, to dream - are under relentless attack. Trade unions are demonised. Universities are turned into RSS laboratories. Journalism is criminalised. The secular-democratic fabric of the Indian republic is being torn apart, thread by thread, Mr. Raja said.

Today, the ruling classes, hand in glove with Hindutva forces, seek to revive Manu’s order while parading in the garb of nationalism. Patriarchy, too, is thriving under this regime. The RSS-BJP combine is openly targeting the Constitution. It is seeking to dismantle its fundamental pillars - socialism, secularism, federalism, and social justice. All Communists and Left forces must forge principled unity to mount a decisive resistance against this corporate-communal assault. “We must be the voice of the voiceless, the organisers of the unorganised, the hope of the hopeless”, he said.

CPI (ML) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said that in 2024 India did manage to deliver some powerful blows to the BJP and the NDA. Tamil Nadu once again emphatically rejected the BJP and stopped the NDA from opening its account.