We will still say 'comrade' and still greet with 'Lal Salaam': Tapan Sen
We will still say 'comrade', and still greet with 'Lal Salaam'
You will all have seen a news item the media reported prominently. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested people who took part in and protested in the agitation against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) across the state of Assam.
In the charge sheet against those arrested on May 29, the NIA says that one of them uploaded a photograph of Lenin on Facebook, addressed some friends as comrades and greeted them with Lal Salaam.
The report also says the books An Introduction to Socialism and the Communist Manifesto were seized from them,
and the NIA says these are proof that they are Maoists.
The aim behind this move is nothing but to intimidate cadres, front-line activists and the organised trade union movement, especially militant workers in Left-leaning workers' movements.
No one can deny our right to say Lal Salaam and to possess progressive literature such as the Communist Manifesto. None of this is a crime to be tried.
The Modi-led government, the BJP and the NIA may think that they can crush, through such measures, the agitation the working class and trade unions are carrying on against the Modi government's anti-worker, anti-people and anti-national neoliberal agenda. If that is the aim, we must tell them they are mistaken. The BJP government has resorted to such base and condemnable actions while the lockdown is in force. What is reflected here is a frenzied move to impose its neoliberal agenda on workers and other sections of the people by any means, to sell the country itself to big domestic and foreign corporates and landlords, and to push workers into conditions like slavery.
This government must be taught the lesson that the working class will not give in to such intimidation and threats.
As our 16th conference called for, we will oppose this and confront it. We call on all our lower committees, industrial federations and affiliated organisations at every level to challenge this action across the country and organise a big campaign, addressing one another widely as comrade and with Lal Salaam on placards, banners, wall writings and social media.
With greetings,
Tapan Sen
General Secretary