DANGEITES BACK SHASTRI GOVERNMENT
By S.R.Singh
- New Delhi
The pro-Moscow Communist party of India has openly identified itself with the Shastri government in the "patriotic war" against Pakistan. The general line of the party headed by S.A.Dange is to condemn the "Pakistani aggression on India" while pledging "full support to the measures to defend the country."
According to the Dangeites, the Anglo-American imperialists are behind Pakistan. The party has also "condemned the Chinese support for Pakistan." (According to reports in the Indian press, Peking has backed Karachi'ts border claims in the Rann of Kutch, )
While the pro-Moscow Communist party, the Samyukta Socialist party [SSP], the Praja Socialist party [PSP] and other petty-bourgeois parties are going so far as to demand an all-out war against Pakistan, the pro-Chinese Communist party has refused to commit itself on the Indo~Pakistan border dispute, E.M.S.Namboodiripad, one of the party's leaders, recently refused to sign a joint state-~ ment submitted by all the other parties calling for a public meeting in Trivandrum to condemn the "Pakistani aggression."
Trade-union leaders belonging to the pro-Moscow Communist party appeared on the same platform at a mass rally in Bombay May 23 with leaders of the Congress party, the Jan Sangh, the PSP and SSP to urge the industrial workers to donate a day's pay for a memorial fund to be built in honour of the late Nehru.
While the propaganda of some of these "left" parties can hardly be distinguished from the communal parties like the Jan Sangh and the Hindu Mahasabha in their war hysteria against Pakistan, others have taken advantage of this situation to don the mantle of an opposition, Thus "Sarvodaya" leaders like Jaya Prakash Narayan, who claim to stand above the classes, have been able to strengthen their prestige by protesting the Shastri government's questionable manoeuvres in the border disputes with both China and Pakistan.
_ FIGHT FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES IN INDIA
Bombay
In face of the Shastri government's policy of repression -against the left forces in India in the name of a "national emer~ gency," a country-wide campaign is being organised in defence of civil liberties of the people. Regional conferences to demand the release of the political prisoners have been held in different states.
A major civil-liberties convention is scheduled to be held in Bombay on June 12-13 under the presidentship of N.C.Chatterjee, M.P., who heads the All India Civil Liberties Union. An all-party preparatory committee has been set up to organise the convention. P.K.Atre, a leading Marathi literary figure and editor of the daily Maratha, is serving as chairman of the committee, and S.B.Kolpe, a Marxist journalist, is secretary.
The committee includes prominent lawyers, journalists, trade unionists and leaders of political parties including both the pro- Moscow and pro-Peking wings of the Communist party, the Samyukta Socialist party, the Praja Socialist party, the Revolutionary Socialist party, and the Trotskyist group.
A symposium on "Problems of Civil Liberties in India" has been scheduled for June 11. Speakers invited to participate include Indulal Yagnik, M.P., leader of the Mahagujarat Janata Parishad; S.M.Joshi, president of the Samyukta Socialist party; Bhupesh Gupta, M.P., leader of the rightist Communist party; Jyoti Basu, a prominent figure in the leftist Communist party and leader of the Opposition in the West Bengal Legislative Assembly; and Dr.A.R.Desai, a Marxist professor at the Bombay University. , ,
Resolutions to be discussed at the convention will urge among other things that the "national emergency" be scrapped along with the so-called "Defence of India Rules." Demands will be raised for the release of political prisoners now under detention without trial, for unrestricted freedom of movement of citizens within the country and abroad, etc.
The Bombay convention will be a prelude to an all-