February 2009

It is now more than twentyfive years since Ajoy left us. It would not be an exaggeration to say that no one has been able to fill the void created by his absence. It is difficult to say whether he could have succeeded in preventing the party split in 1964. But I have no doubt that he would have very greatly minimised the harm caused by the split.
A proper biography of Ajoy Ghosh needs to be written. Here I can only highlight what I consider his key contribution to the party and the (…)

The Communist Party of India has been nourished on the sacrifices and advanced by the wisdom of many thousands of the finest representatives of our great people. They truly are the best of the best which the edging forward of our country to freedom and to socialism have produced. And among the tallest of these noble souls was Ajoy Kumar Ghosh, the General Secretary of our party from 1951 till the day of his death on January 13, 1962.
Ajoy Ghosh was born on February 20, 1909 in a (…)

From Ajoy Ghosh’s Speeches
The Congress has been and is an extremely important factor in the political life of our country. This is not surprising in view of the role it played in leading the struggle for national freedom and in taking measures to consolidate independence under Nehru’s leadership. The influence of the Congress, though less than it was in the days of the freedom struggle, is vast and extensive. It extends to all classes—including big sections of the working class. It (…)

We welcome this Conference. We are deeply thankful for the opportunity that has been given to us to put forward our point of view. We hope that our deliberations will be successful.
I agree, sir, when you say that we need not get panicky. But I would stress that complacency too would be unwarranted.
In the recent period, there has been a pronounced growth of forces that make for national disintegration. The ugly events that occurred in Assam, Jabalpur and other places were (…)

COMMUNICATION
The national headquarters of the Communist Party of India is named after Ajoy Ghosh, an outstanding communist ideologue, who was born on February 22, 1909, according to S.G. Sardesai who played the key role in the conversion of Ghosh from an armed freedom-fighter to a Marxist revolutionary. But the CPI considers his date of birth as February 20, 1909. As the General Secretary of the undivided CPI he foiled the bid to split the party at its Sixth Party Congress (Vijaywada, (…)

Few politicians seem to understand that history does not really repeat itself. The current preoccupation of the leaders of different Opposition parties bears this out.
The chieftains of these parties are today engaged in a strenuous exercise in the hope of repeating their miracle of 1977 when they were forced by the Emergency to gang up and form the Janata Party that eventually ousted Indira Gandhi from power. If we look at the personalities involved in the present round of (…)

COMMUNICATION
Many voices of sanity should be raised in favour of Justice Rajindar Sachar’s dignified rebuke of the Chief of the Indian Army, General Deepak Kapur. He decidedly far exceeded his jurisdiction to declare that “we have kept all our options open, if diplomatic and economic options fail, war is the last resort”.
The nation should have felt deeply alarmed and anguished at an unexpected statement by the Army Chief, particularly having regard for the fate of Pakistan next (…)

As we go to press we have come to know that Pakistanis Minister for Internal Affairs has officially admitted that some part of the conspiracy behind the terror attack in Mumbai last November was hatched in Pakistan and the Pakistan Government has filed FIRs charging the perpetrators of the crime and its organisers with acts violating specific provisions of Pakistan’s laws. One could argue that these steps have come quite late in the day. Even if that is the case (and one could reasonably (…)

In the midst of all the gloatings by a section of the media about the ‘success’ of the ‘aggressive foreign policy’ of India in the wake of the 11/26 terrorist attack in Mumbai, there is uneasy news for New Delhi as the Taliban is tightening its grip on a large part of Pakistan and has, in fact, taken over the Swat Valley which is five hours away from Islamabad. Although India is now looking towards America for help in her fight against the Pakistan-sponsored terror attacks and Barack Obama, (…)

Massive, brutal and deliberate attack on the Palestinian Gaza Strip by the occupying power —Israel—for complete 23 days (December 27, 2008-January 18, 2009) has caused large scale destruction of their life, dignity, liberty, property, security, health and prosperity. They have been suffering from perpetual holocaust for the main reason of being consistent in their legitimate demand for an end to their colonisation by Israel and to create a viable independent Palestinian state in 22.5 per (…)