Comrade Saumen Basu, Member, Central Committee and West Bengal State Secretary, SUCI(C), announced in a press conference held in Kolkata on 2 June, 2017, that the party has given call of a 12 hour General Strike and Hartal throughout the state on 17 July in demand for immediate reintroduction of pass-fail system right from class I. Elaborating further, he said 37 year back the then CPI (M) government had abolished English and pass-fail system from primary level. In 2009, the then Congress-led central government in the name of ensuring right to education extended elimination of pass-fail system upto class VIII. Based on that, the present TMC government of the state enforced this no detention upto class VIII in 2011.
Our Party right from the beginning had launched sustained powerful save education movement both at state as well as national level against this brazenly anti-people education policy. A galaxy of luminaries, educationists and intellectuals as well as education-loving people not only supported this just movement but came out on the street to protest the pernicious move of the government. On 3 February, 1998, our Party had given call for a General Strike and Hartal in the state to press for these legitimate demands. It was a runaway success indicating massive support of the people behind the demand. Under pressure of the movement that continued for 19 long years, the erstwhile CPI (M) government was forced to reintroduce English at primary level. But the demand for restoring pass-fail system pending which there is a mockery of education and future of the children is on the precipice of doom, is not yet realized. We know that education-loving people, teachers and guardians can no more afford to allow this ruinous policy to persist. So, as part of the ongoing escalated movement, we are calling upon people to make the strike on 17 July a complete success and compel the government to yield to the demand for reintroduction of pass-fail system from class I.
Recent notification to impose virtual ban on cow slaughter : Underlying design and implication
The toiling Indian people groaning under yoke of ruthless capitalist oppression with every sphere of life becoming more and more nightmarish with every passing day are astonished to find that the BJP-led government instead of giving them rudimentary relief from growing misery, penury and destitution have become frenziedly hyper-active over cow vigilantism. Shamelessly the BJP ministers are declaring that protecting cows and not rescuing suffering humanity is their top priority. Making that as a plea, top-notch RSS-BJP leaders have been provocatively spewing venom against the Muslim minorities over beef eating. When people are deprived of elementary healthcare, a fleet of ambulances has been provided to transport sick cattle to veterinary hospitals. Even aadhar card made mandatory for Indian people as ‘authentic identity of citizenship’ is extended to cows also sending out a weird message that human beings and cows rank pari passu. To the frenzied champions of so-called Hindutva, a Muslim who consumes beef is portrayed as a butcher while the animal cow is conferred status of not just humanity but godliness. With this inversion, the cow becomes a person while a Muslim becomes a non-person. “A single drop of cow blood falling on earth pains Hindus”, said a BJP minister of Gujarat bringing out clearly the communal undertone of brimming concern for cows. As a sequel to all these, incidents of persecuting, torturing even ghastly killings of Muslim minority people have been rising menacingly. In order to launch a proxy war against Muslims, the Hindutva brigade have now floated self-styled arms-brandishing gau rakhshak (cow protector) groups as watchdogs and licensed to do anything to whomever they consider violators of cow vigilantism. These mushrooming gau rakhshak groups say they “feel empowered” because of the BJP governments at the Centre and in different states. Hence, the police-administration everywhere is found to be not just passive but indulgent onlooker to their dastardly attacks on and lynching of the targeted communities. Planted bigotry as well as organized violence, and not some misguided ‘sacred’ zeal, is the subtext that ties all the attacks together. Alongside, the monopoly-controlled media, the government’s propaganda machinery and some motivated Hindutva protagonists have released an orchestrated high-pitch campaign to instil in public mind “how the cow has always been holy and revered by the Hindus.” More intense has been this campaign, more frequent and diabolic have been the attacks on the Muslims over allegations of trafficking and slaughtering cows as well as eating beef. Not just Muslims. Even the downtrodden dalit populace who profess Hinduism but somehow earn their bread by undertaking so-called lower-end jobs including transporting and disposing of dead cows, taking out the skin of dead cattle, etc., are not spared. Often they are also attacked and lynched in public for this by the so called cow vigilantes
