BV Kakkilaya Centenary at Mangaluru
Inauguration by Com. Amarjeet Kaur, at 10.00am on Saturday, Aug 10, 2019

The BV Kakkilaya Centenary Programme was inaugurated by Com. Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of AITUC, by releasing the second revised edition of Com. BV Kakkilaya’s autobiography titled Bareyada Dinachariya Mareyada Putagalu (Unforgettable Pages from Unwritten Diary).

In her inaugural address, titled ‘Role of the Working Class Movement in India’s Freedom Struggle and Nation Building’, Com. Amarjeet Kaur narrated the origins of AISF, AITUC, CPI and IPTA and explained their valiant role in the freedom struggle. She stated that the Communists under these mass organisations not only fought against the British colonialism, but also against the oppression on and exploitation of the peasants and workers, organizing mass struggles that played a stellar role in the freedom struggle. Such struggles, and the strength of the Communists as the principal opposition in the first years of India’s parliamentary democracy, she pointed out, pressurized the then governments to formulate policies that were secular, liberal, democratic and pro-people. She also pointed out that the RSS, which was also founded in the same year, 1925, as the CPI, not only ditched the freedom struggle, but worked for polarizing the people and spreading communal hatred, abetting the division of the country into two, culmination in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, and that the same forces are now continuing and building their divisive and fascist agenda posing grave danger to our nation. She added that the condition of the working class in the country has become pathetic since 2014 due to the policies of the Central government. She lamented that the laws aimed at protecting the interests of the working class, enacted owing to the struggles of the working class, are now seeing ineffective implementation. Stating that 95% of the working force of the nation is in the unorganised sector, she said most of the jobs in government and public sector undertakings are  on contract basis, creating a situation wherein these workers do not get even a 1/3rd of the  pay which government employees get. While in the pre-independence days the people and workers came together forgetting all the ideological differences to fight for the freedom, after independence there started several central trade unions and because of which the workers were scattered to some extent, said Com. Kaur, and recounted the stellar role played by Com Gurudas Das Dasgupta in bringing unity among all the central trade unions and independent unions to fiught together for the common causes of the workers. She reminded that the present Government is trying to dilute the hard earned rights of the workers and such moves are being fought valiantly.