[From the Political-Organisational Report of the Sixth Party Congress.]

Our Party enjoys a lot of credibility in the hill districts of Karbi Anglong and North Cachhar in Assam and new streams of youth continue to enlist in the Party and ASDC’s movement for autonomy which is free from chauvinism, unites a host of national minority groups under a single umbrella in an otherwise disintegrating Assamese society, and is inspired by high ideals of communism and has great potential to change the face of the North-east.

But we must understand that bringing the Party to the forefront does not mean only a change of banner. The Party’s role cannot be restricted to merely supervising council affairs and directing the autonomy movement. Rather, the Party must consciously concentrate on breaking through the confinement of the autonomy movement by focussing on the issues of the poor peasantry in the arena of land reforms. Only then can an independent Party base and staunch communist cadres be built up.

Being in power in the district councils for many years has created a lot of complications there. An easy-going lifestyle, nexus of bureaucrats-contractors-businessmen around executive members and MDCs, the Party and ASDC becoming appendages of the District Council, detachment from masses and the mass movements, factional infighting etc. are a few of these. Although we won the elections with a thumping majority still the moral authority of the organisation has gone down in public eyes. The present predicament of ASDC and the District Council raises the essential theoretical question of usurpation of leadership of nationality movement by the petty bourgeoisie and its gradual cooption within the bourgeois-landlord system.