India: People’s Brigade 2021
On February 28 the historic Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata, India hosted the massive People’s Brigade. The alliance formed by five major parties of the Left Front – including CPI(M) (Communist Party of India, Marxist), CPI (Communist Party of India), AIFB (All India Forward Bloc), RSP (Revolutionary Socialist Party), and RCPI ( Revolutionary Communist Party of India) – formed a coalition with the Indian National Congress and the Indian Secular Front and called for a major rally before the imminent West Bengal State Assembly election.
A million people from all walks of life came to the Brigade Parade Ground to show their support for the Left Front. Red flags and banners covered entire streets as people from all over the state of West Bengal flooded the grounds. Children, youth, middle-aged and the elderly sang slogans of protest. Representation from all communities were seen at the brigade with members of the LGBTQ, Muslims, Dalit-Bahujans, the indigenous as well as the disabled.
The Left Front groups are campaigning against the Trinamool Congress, the incumbent neo-liberal government that has been in power for ten years, and the Bharatiya Janata Party which sees West Bengal as an opportunity for the taking.
The leaders at the rally pointed out in their ten years in power the Trinamool Congress has failed on their promises.
The BJP, with its divisive politics to alienate the Muslims, Dalit-Bahujans and the so-called lower castes, have created nightmarish living conditions in their respective ruling states and broadly throughout India. The emergence and presence of the BJP in West Bengal would wreak havoc and disenfranchise millions in the state and hence the Left Front vowed to establish a government based on secularism. The Left Front viewed the policies of the BJP as entirely anti-people. The Left Front says no segment of society other than the ruling capitalist class have benefitted from the BJP being in power in the country.
The Left Front viewed this brigade as an immense success ahead of the upcoming Bengal elections.