HVK Archives: CPI(M) to clarify on links with Sahmat
CPI(M) to clarify on links with Sahmat - The Hindu
Posted By Ashok V Chowgule (ashokvc@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in)
12 January 1997
Title : CPI(M) to clarify on links with Sahmat
Author :
Publication : The Hindu
Date : January 12, 1997
The controversy over the activities of the Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust
(Sahmat) has galvanised the CPI(M) into action and it is likely to clarify
soon on its. links with an organisation that is widely, though mistakenly,
identified with the party.
The CPI(M) has taken seriously the criticism that its ambiguous attitude
towards Sahmat, neither owning it nor distancing itself from it, has confused
party members some of whom are actively associated with it.
The confusion reached a head a few weeks ago when some full-time CPI(M)
members publicity attacked Sahmat as an organisation of "opportunists".
Sahmat reacted strongly and demanded that the CPI(M) clarify its position to
put an end to the confusion which threatened to divide the party itself
between "pro" and "anti-Sahmat" factions.
The CPI(M) general secretary, Mr Harkishan Singh Surjeet, quickly dissociated
the party from the attack on Sahmat contained in a Hindi magazine "Udbhavna"
edited by a full-time party member Mr Ajay Kumar. In an article, Mr Kumar,
described Sahmat as a "BJP puppet in the making" and alleged that it was
using communalism as a "bogey" to promote itself.
The magazine carried two more articles, extremely critical of Sahmat and some
of its activities, especially its decision last year to help the Delhi police
organise a "mushaira" against communalism.
Earlier. some leading members of the Delhi unit of the CPI(M) left the party
protesting against its leader Mr Jogendra Sharma's "hostile" attitude towards
Sahmat.
They included the late Safdar Hashmi's brother and sister. Ironically even as
individual CPI (M) activists have been sniping at Sahmat, it is from the
CPI(M)'s premises in the Vithalbhai Patel House here, that the organisation
operates.
The CPI(M) leadership maintains that Sahmat was never conceived of as a
cultural wing of the party and the fact that some party members were involved
with did not mean that it was a "party outfit." The party did agree with its
broad objective to fight communalism and attacks on freedom of expression,
but it did not always approve of its methods.
It was particularly upset when Sahmat took money from the then Narasimha Rao
government for a cultural programme in Ayodhya after the demolition of the
Babri masjid.
"We thought that immediately after the incident it was not appropriate to
accept funds from a Government which had not been able to defend the mosque
and had so completely alienated the secular opinion", said a CPI(M) leader.
Sahmat's view. shared by its friends in the CPI(M), is that there is no such
thing as "government money." "It is public money - it is your money, it is my
money and if we don't take it for a good cause someone else will take it for
some other purpose", explained a CPI(M) activist associated with Sahmat.
With the battle lines between pro and anti-Sahmat comrades more clearly drawn
than ever before, the party, leadership has decided to clinch the issue.
"We are studying the issue and will come out with a comprehensive approach",
said a highly-placed CPI(M) source.
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