1. All India Convention Next Step in Our Struggle for Human, Democratic and National Rights
Inaugural Session

2. Summing Up and Planning Ahead
Speaker’s Notes:
This presentation is a summary and forward looking report
Drawing lessons from the experience of the work of LRS and others
It is an explanation of why this Convention, and what we hope to achieve
It includes proposals for the immediate future

3. Structure of Presentation
Rationale and Aim of Convention
Convergence of People’s Struggles
LRS and the Struggle to Affirm the Rights of the People
Pressure on the people to give up independent politics
LRS and the Program for Empowerment of the People
Proposed initiatives for immediate future
Notes:
We begin with why this Convention
Then look at the lessons of past experience, from standpoint of the present
Then we look at the question of political unity around a common aim and program. What is the aim and what is the program?
What kind of organisations must we build and how?
And in conclusion, some proposed key initiatives in the months and year ahead

4. Rationale underlying this Convention
Period since Third All-India Convention of LRS in January 2003 has witnessed a rising tide of struggles:
against imperialism, fascism and war
against state terrorism, racism and state organised communal genocides
against economic policies of globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation
against the onslaught on the sovereignty of peoples and nations
against the criminalisation of politics by parties of vested interests
against the onslaught on human rights 
There is a felt need for a unifying platform, alternative program and mechanisms for different currents to unite on a political basis into one movement

5. Aim of Convention
To involve all activists in the movement in the process of taking stock, summing up and collectively deciding the next steps
To raise to a higher level the work of preparing conditions for Lok Raj
Notes:
This Convention is being called to fulfill an objective need felt today
The common platform will grow stronger as more and more within the movement bring forward the lessons from their experiences
We must leave behind and reject all kinds of sectarianism, because sectarianism only serves the enemy
Lok Raj Sangathan wants to involve all the activists in taking stock and planning for future action

6. Convergence of People’s Struggles
Numerous currents are converging around one central question – the question of how people can become the rulers and set the course for society.
The currents include:
Workers opposing privatisation and anti-labour legal reform
Farmers and peasants opposing trade liberalisation and demanding security of livelihood
Women raising their voices demanding their rightful place in the legislative bodies, protesting against war, state terror and domestic violence
Youth demanding that society must provide for their all-sided development

7. Convergence of People’s Struggles … (contd.)
The currents include:
Victims of communal violence and army terror demanding that the guilty be punished
Tribal people displaced and ruined by so-called development projects demanding their rights
Those to be displaced and ruined demanding a halt to the proposed project
Oppressed nations and peoples in the Northeast, Kashmir and other parts of the country demanding an end to army rule and repeal of black laws
Peace loving peoples striving to forge unity between India and Pakistan

8. Lok Raj Sangathan in Action
Main thrust of the work has been to:
Provide political support to those who are resisting attacks on their rights
Expose the inadequacy of parliamentary democracy and its representative process
Establish the necessity for a modern democracy where power is vested in the people, who delegate only part of it to those they elect to legislative bodies
Establish the principle that the executive is subordinate to the legislative body, which in turn is subordinate to the electorate, and the judiciary must be elected
Build organs of struggle at the local, national and all-India levels, which would eventually become the organs of a new political power
Notes:
LRS has worked in close connection with the resistance struggles, to integrate them with the struggle to renew democracy so as to empower the people

9. Principles upheld by Lok Raj Sangathan
Rights belong to human beings by virtue of being human
Rights are inviolable, they can neither be given nor taken away
Rights have to be recognised and guaranteed by the State
Notes:
Lok Raj Sangathan has consistently defended the rights of peoples without making any exceptions or accepting any excuses for their violation
LRS wages this struggle on the basis of the modern definition of rights, which is that rights belong to human beings by virtue of being human. State is duty bound to protect ...

10. LRS and the Affirmation of Rights
LRS champions the affirmation of the
Right to livelihood – as universal, justiciable and inviolable
Right to conscience – i.e., right of every individual to his or her values and beliefs
Sovereignty of nations as a matter of principle
Duty of the State to punish the guilty
Right of nations and peoples to self-determination, which requires a voluntary union of nations and peoples to replace the present day colonialist Indian Union
Right of every adult to elect and be elected, to recall and to initiate legislation, which requires overhauling the existing party dominated political process
Notes:
LRS has defended the collective rights of the people over public property, opposing privatisation by insisting that the Government has no right to sell what belongs to the people
LRS has defended the right of the tillers to secure livelihood guaranteed by the State
LRS has defended the right of India and every state in the world to determine its own economic policy, without outside interference of any kind
LRS spearheaded the campaign to prevent Indian troops being sent to Iraq
LRS has built public opinion and political unity against the Indo-US strategic alliance

11. Pressure on People’s Struggles
Pressure to subordinate the struggle against communal violence to the aims of the Congress Party to win against the BJP, in the name of choosing ‘lesser evil’
Pressure to abandon principles at the time of every election
Pressure on people’s organisations and struggle committees to abandon their independent political aims
Notes:
LRS consciously decided not to support the campaign of the Congress Party in the Gujarat elections following the communal carnage of Instead, LRS stuck to the demand to punish the guilty
In the context of elections, LRS has resisted the pressure to give up principled positions and to become the tail of a ‘secular’ parliamentary alliance, sharing a common program with the Congress Party

12. Joint Declaration of Struggle in July 2004
One of the major achievements of LRS was to spearhead a united action on the eve of the maiden Budget of the UPA Government headed by Manmohan Singh
Large number of people’s organisations issued a Joint Declaration that they will not give up but in fact step up their struggle against the anti-social economic reform program and the imperialist course of India
Notes:
In the Lok Sabha Elections of 2004, the President of LRS issued an important appeal to people all over India to form Constituency Committees, to select and elect candidates, to create their own charter of demands for whose implementation they would fight for.
This was in direct rebuttal of the prevailing pressure on the movement to line up behind the Congress Party

13. Program for Empowerment of the People
To halt the disastrous anti-social course being followed by the rulers of India, it is necessary for the people to Act Now .
The dangerous program of developing India as a big imperial power must be halted by uniting around the Alternative Program
The aim of the alternative program is to vest Supreme Decision Making Power in the hands of the people.
Notes:
People must have a say in the decisions that affect their lives
People need power in order to transform India according to their needs.
We need to take measures to end the monopoly of parties financed by a wealthy minority
We need measures to expand the space for people to participate in politics
Our aim is to establish a system where people will be the rulers, while parties will work to keep the people in power.

14. Building People’s Committees at all levels
Build samitis at the local, national and all-India level, to assert people’s demands
Rich experience already exists – including in Mumbai, Thane, Pune, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Manipur and elsewhere
Building Lok Raj Sangathan is a central component of the task of building the foundations of the future people’s power
Notes:
People’s organizations are coming to the conclusion that representative democracy gives them no space to exercise their will or to influence policy decisions
New mechanisms are needed for people to affirm their rights and fulfill their claims

15. Main Thrusts of Future Work
Taking forward the struggle to punish the guilty
Fighting for changes in the political process towards people’s power
Constitutional guarantee for the right to livelihood
For lasting peace and friendship in South Asia
Building samitis at local, national and all-India levels
Notes:
Summing up the work done so far, and looking at the political situation in the country and internationally at this time, we propose that the main thrust of LRS work in the near future be focused on the 5 key themes shown here (explain them)

16. Sequence of Proposed New Initiatives
The following initiatives are proposed in the immediate future
Campaign to Ensure that the Guilty are Punished – starting in October 2005
Campaign for Renewal of Democracy for People’s Power – starting in October 2005
Manifestations of South Asian unity for lasting peace – starting in 2006, which is the 150th Anniversary year of the Great Ghadar of 1857

17. Thank you!