On March 17th 2013, hundreds of women and men gathered at AmbedkarMaidan, Worli BDD Chawls, Mumbai to celebrate International Women’s Day. The meeting was organsied by Lok Raj Sangathan, PurogamiMahila Sangathan and Kamgar Ekta Committee.
On March 17th 2013, hundreds of women and men gathered at AmbedkarMaidan, Worli BDD Chawls, Mumbai to celebrate International Women’s Day. The meeting was organsied by Lok Raj Sangathan, PurogamiMahila Sangathan and Kamgar Ekta Committee.
Apart from representatives of the LRS, PMS and KEC, representatives of the Communist Ghadar Party, All India Voltas Employees Federation, and Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) were on the dais. The program opened with militant songs by the youth of Hind Naujawan Ekta Sabha.
The opening speech was given by Kusum of Lok Raj Sangathan. Dealing with the question of violence against women, she focused on the absolute necessity on an immediate basis for people to get organized into collectives to defend themselves. This was also corroborated by the experience of the people of Worli who found that it was only by collective struggles that they had managed to improve the quality of their rations.
The representative of Communist Ghadar Party traced the history of the International Women’s Day and said it was the Communist women at the beginning of the last century who led the struggle for the emancipation of women and which led to the declaration of March 8th as International Women’s day. She said all the events were showing clearly that so long as capitalism exists, the emancipation of women is not possible. The entire state machinery, its police, armed forces, judiciary and bureaucracy are used to ensure the accelerated growth in wealth of a minority of big capitalists, while at the same time crushing the majority of working men and women. She called on the working people, women and men, to join the movement for the renewal of Indian society by dismantling this capitalist system.
The representative of PurogamiMahila Sangathan questioned what kind of democracy is this wherein a woman is raped every 20 minutes. The very forces that are supposed to protect the dignity of women are themselves guilty of committing the most heinous crimes against women. She called on the women to strengthen their unity and along with their menfolk struggle for an end to this man-eating system.
Com Mathew, representative of Kamgar Ekta Committee, said that is necessary for the working class to unite and develop its independent agenda and it would have to include in this agenda, the question of the emancipation of women, the question of the rights of nationalities which was being trampled upon, the question of the problems of the farmers, youth, dalits and religious minorities.
The program was interspersed with lively cultural presentations from the residents of the area. A very nice folk dance was put up by young women who had come all the way from far off Badlapur.