Let us build and strengthen the Lok Raj Samitis as organs
of people’s power!

The Delhi Regional Convention of the Lok Raj Sangathan was held on August 26, 2007. A three member presidium headed by the All India Convenor Prakash Rao, conducted the proceedings of the Convention. Members and supporters of LRS hailing from a wide cross-section of society participated in the convention. They summed up the work carried out by LRS in Delhi and took steps to organize for meeting the challenges in the coming period.

Inaugurating the Convention, Prakash Rao elaborated over the struggle to build the Lok Raj Sangathan as an organization, the mechanism, through which the people of India can exercise political power. He traced some key milestones in the building of the Lok Raj Sangathan, from the historic rally in February 1993 at the Feroze Shah Kotla Maidan wherein the pledge was taken to rally the Indian people to end their marginalization from political power, till the present. At a well attended Convention organized in the Constitution Club in Delhi in April 1993, the Preparatory Committee for Peoples Empowerment was formed. This Committee carried out sustained work to elaborate the content of the political system and process in place in India, whom it vests power in, and how it marginalizes the majority of Indian people from power. It also began to elaborate the alternative system and process of direct democracy through which it will be ensured that power will vest in the people. This elaboration was done in full public view, through numerous conferences and seminars all over India, and involving a wide cross section of people. Among the important milestones in this work were the three day Conference on Building the Future held in New Delhi in August 1997 and the historic Convention in Pune University in 1998 wherein the decision was taken to build the organization through which the people of India could exercise power — the organization which we know as Lok Raj Sangathan. Further on, Prakash Rao went through the numerous landmarks in the struggle to build the LRS in the past nine years, in Delhi, as well as all over the country. In this regard he affirmed the importance of the Delhi Regional Convention as a great step forward in the struggle for peoples empowerment.

Important resolutions that had been adopted by the All India Council of LRS in recent months were read out. These included a resolution against the Indo-US strategic alliance, a demand that all major international treaties and strategic alliances be subjected to public referendums and parliamentary ratification, a resolution against custodial torture, a demand that the government should implement the recommendations of Justice Srikrishna Commission and punish the guilty in the Mumbai riots of 1992-93, a resolution opposing fake encounter killings and several others. Referring to the political crisis of the system of representative democracy which is in place in our country and which marginalises the masses from political power, it was pointed out that the LRS All India Council had called for uniting the people around a platform that makes the people the decision makers on all questions that affect our society.

A report of the work of LRS in Delhi was presented by the secretary of the outgoing Delhi Regional Council. This report vividly portrayed the efforts of LRS to build and strengthen the Lok Raj Samitis in various slums and residential colonies to defend the rights of the people. It elaborated on the role of LRS in building the Jan Pratinidhi Manch, challenging the existing political process by demanding that candidates for elections at various levels of governance should be selected by the people from amongst themselves and should be accountable to the people and subject to recall if they betray the interests of the people. The initiative by LRS to popularise the lessons of 1857 through its participation in the campaign ‘Ghadar Jari hai . . .’ was also discussed. The work of LRS in building the united front of all sections of the disempowered people, its active participation in the struggles of workers in various sectors including the unorganized sector, against SEZs, against sealing of small commercial establishments and demolition of slums, against attacks on the livelihood of traders, small shopkeepers and vendors by the entry of big corporates into the wholesale and retail market, against the attack on people in the name of “war against terror” and against all forms of state terror, the frontal role of LRS in agitations in Delhi in support of the struggles of the oppressed people in different parts of the country including Kashmir and the northeast, its bold public stand against US imperialism, British imperialism and other imperialist powers and for peace in South Asia, its wide membership including people from all sections of the society, from all regions, communities and nationalities of our country, its principled, non-sectarian manner of working with all organisations and individuals fighting in defence of the people’s interests and for the empowerment of the people, regardless of their political or any other affiliation – these were some of the important features of the work of LRS in Delhi which were brought out by the report.

Members came forward to enrich the report with their own experiences. With confidence and enthusiasm, they brought out how LRS has been a unifying factor in the many diverse streams of the people’s movement, posing upfront the need for Constitutional guarantees and enforcing mechanisms to realize the rights of all sections of the oppressed people. The need to expand the work of LRS to newer areas and among newer sections, including women and youth, were posed as some of the challenges ahead. It was pointed out that the challenge was to move ahead from building sangharsh samitis, which are an inevitable product of the people’s struggle, to building Lok Raj Samitis, which will be the organs of people’s power, i.e. Lok Raj. The report was unanimously passed.

This was followed by the election of the new Delhi Regional Council for 2007-09 period.

An enthusiastic rendition of songs by youth, arousing people to take to the path of struggle for our rights, brought the Convention proceedings to a close.