Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist)
The Socialist Unity Centre of India or SUCI, previously called the 'Socialist Unity Centre of India and "Socialist Unity Centre" is a communist party in India. The party was founded by Shibdas Ghosh, Nihar Mukherjee and others in 1948.
Ideology
SUCI is a communist party in India, and follows a Marxist-Leninist ideological line formulated by Shibdas Ghosh. The party rejects political ideas such as glasnost and perestroika as revisionist, and claims to uphold the original intent of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and the thoughts of Ghosh.SUCI holds that India is a capitalist country with monopoly capitalism and imperialist trends. In line with that analysis, the party works toward a socialist revolution, rather than a people's democratic revolution, a national democratic revolution or a new democratic revolution.
SUCI leadership emphasises the qualitative upliftment of party cadres, workers of mass-organisations and supporters, by both theoretical study of Marxism-Leninism-Shibdas Ghosh Thought and the practical application of such knowledge in the day-to-day life of party workers. In various publications of the party, SUCI upholds the proletarian cultural standard, which, according to the leadership, should be achieved by the cadres, before they can lead the masses in the Socialist Revolution.
The 1st SUCI Party Congress was held in Kolkata in 1988. The 2nd party congress was held from 11–17 November 2009 in Ramlila Maidan, New Delhi attended by thousands of participants from 22 states and observers from several foreign countries. The current political line of the party was formulated in the 2nd party congress. The party's name was changed from Socialist Unity Centre of India to Socialist Unity Centre of India at the second party congress.
Parliamentary politics
From its inception, SUCI took part in parliamentary elections and was part of the United Front governments in West Bengal in 1967–1969 and 1969–1970 together with CPI and others. The party had a Member of Parliament in the 4th Lok Sabha from Jaynagar. The SUCI had presence in the legislative assemblies of Assam, Bihar and Orissa at various times. In the 2004 Lok Sabha elections SUCI launched 56 candidates, 30 of them from West Bengal. In the 2009 Lok Sabha elections SUCI declared 40 candidates from 12 states.As of 2009, Tarun Mondol, representing Jaynagar in West Bengal, was party's sole and last MP. After 2014 Loksabha and 2016 Bidhansabha Elections, it has no MP or MLA from India.
Current situation
SUCI members live in communes wherein they lead a simple life style. Day-to-day upkeep of the commune and the well being of the children of party members living in the communes are taken care by the shared efforts of party members. Major income of the party is from box collection in the streets and house to house collection; members who are employed hand in their salaries to the party. The party contests elections with the money collected through this transparent fund raising method.The stronghold of the party is in the South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, in areas such as Jaynagar Majilpur where it controls certain municipalities.
SUCI is actively involved in the ongoing anti-Special Economic Zone movements in India. The most notable of these movements that the party is active in are:
- The Singur movement against the SEZ for the Tata Group's car factory.
- The Nandigram movement against the SEZ for the Salim Group's chemical hub. SUCI is one of the main backers of the Bhumi Uchhed Pratirodh Committee.
- The Moolampally land evictees agitation for an appropriate rehabilitation package. The general convener of the Moolampally agitation is Francis Kalathunkal, the local secretary of SUCI.
- The party is also actively involved in the agitation of landless in Chengara called Chengara Samaram in popular media.
- The anti-Posco movement in Orissa.
The party won the Jaynagar constituency in the 2009 general elections with a majority of 53,676 votes.
, Founder General Secretary of SUCI
on 3 March 2010
Campaigns
The Gherao principle was introduced as a formal mode of protest in the trade union sector by Subodh Banarjee, who was a central committee member of SUCI and the PWD and Labor Minister in the 1967 and 1969 United Front Governments in West Bengal, respectively.One of the major campaigns of the party in West Bengal has been its agitations against the educational policy of the Left Front state government. The decision of the Left Front government to remove the English language from primary education sparked a mass movement led by the SUCI for the reinstatement of English.
Below is a chronological list of campaigns organised by the SUCI in West Bengal:
- 1953: Tram fare protest movement was organised by the SUCI.
- 1954: In 1954, the SUCI organised the teachers’ movement.
- 1956: Banga bihar sanjukti birodhi andolan.
- 1958: Students’ movement was organised by the party.
- 1959: The SUCI organised food movement.
- 1967: Another food movement was led by the party.
- 1979: The SUCI organised a movement against various decisions taken by the Government of India.
- 1980: The SUCI organised Bhasha andolan against the Government of West Bengal which continues till now.
- 1983: A movement was led by the party against bus fare hike.
- 1988: First Party Congress in Kolkata
- 1990: Another movement was organised by the SUCI against the Government of West Bengal for bus fare hike and a Bangla bandh in September to protest against the death of Madhai Halder, a party supporter killed in police firing at the Esplanade on 31 August 1990. This was the first bandh.
- 1991: A protest was led by the organisation against electricity price hike.
- 1991: The SUCI organised a movement against the state education policy.
- 1998: Bangla bandh on 3 February in order to bring back English at the primary education. This was the second bandh.
- 2000: The SUCI organised a protest movement demanding English as a compulsory subject at primary education.
- 2002: A protest was organised against the decision of the Government of West Bengal to increase hospital fee and the increase in electricity charges by the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation and West Bengal State Electricity Board. This was the third bandh.
- 2006-ongoing: The Anti SEZ movements in Singur and Nandigram.
- 2008: 21 12 April-hour statewide shutdown in West Bengal jointly called by the Trinamool Congress and SUCI.
Leadership
is the current leader of the party. He was elected as the General Secretary of the party by the central committee on 4 March 2010.After Shibdas Ghosh's death in 1976, Nihar Mukherjee, a co-founder of SUCI, became the General Secretary. Mukherjee died of cardiac arrest on 18 February 2010 at Kolkata.
The central committee members of the party are:
- Provash Ghosh
- Manik Mukherjee
- Asit Bhattacharyya
- Ranjit Dhar
- Yakub Pailan
- Debprasad Sarkar
- Kalyan Chowdhury Expired
- C.K Lukose
- K. Radhakrishna
- Gopal Kundu
- Soumen Bose
- Satyawan
- Sankar Saha
- Chhaya Mukherji
Secretaries of the State Committees of the party are:
- Assam: Chandralekha Das
- Bihar: Shiv Shankar
- Haryana: Satyawan
- Karnataka: K. Uma
- Kerala: V Venugopal
- Madhya Pradesh: Pratap Samal
- Orissa: Durjati Das
- Uttar Pradesh: V.N. Singh
- West Bengal: Chandidas Bhattacharya
- Delhi: Pran Kumar Sharma
- Andhra Pradesh: B.S.Amarnath
- Tamil Nadu: Rengasamy
- Telangana: Ch.Murahari
- Gujarat: Dwarika Nath Rath
- Rajasthan:
- Punjab: Aminder Pal Singh
- Jharkhand: Robin Samajpati
- Tripura: Arun Bhowmik
- Dr. Tarun Mandal: Jaynagar, West Bengal
- Dr. Tarun Kanti Naskar : Jaynagar, West Bengal
Former Legislators of SUCI(C)
- Subodh Banarjee: PWD Minister 1967 United Front Government, Labour Minister 1969 United Front Government
- Protiva Mukherjee: PWD Minister 1969 United Front Government
- Chita Rai: Jaynagar, West Bengal
- Subodh Banarjee: Kultali, Jaynagar constituencies, West Bengal – First MLA of SUCI
- Probodh Purkait: Kultali constituency, West Bengal
- Renupada Halder: Mathurapur constituency, West Bengal
- Rabin Mondal: Patharpratima constituency, West Bengal
- Hari Pado Bouri: Raghunathpur constituency, West Bengal
- Protiva Mukherjee: Suri constituency, West Bengal
- Bazle Ahmad: Murari constituency, West Bengal
- Sambhunath Naik: Jashipur constituency, Orissa
- Nalini Ranjan Singh:Kanti:Muzaffarpur, Bihar
Mass organisations
- All India United Trade Union Centre
- All India Democratic Students Organisation
- All India Democratic Youth Organisation
- All India Mahila Sanskritik Sanghathan
- All India Krishak Khet Majdoor Sangathan
Publications
The state committees of the party publishes:
- Ganadabi
- Unity
- Ganamukti
- Karmika Drushtikona
- Pattali Chinthanai
- Sarbahara Kranti
- Sarvahara Dristhikon
- Socialist Viplavam
- Morcha
Criticism