Almond Workers’ Strike into its Fourth Day: Delhi’s Almond Processing Industry Paralysed

December 19, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Abhinav Sinha,
Bigul Mazdoor Dasta

December 19, Delhi. The almond workers’ strike of Karawal Nagar continuing from December 15 intensified with the release of the three arrested leaders of the ‘Badaam Mazdoor Union’ (BMU), Ashish Kumar Singh, Kunal Jain and Prem Prakash Yadav. Earlier, almond contractors and their goons attacked on women workers, their children and Union leaders with rods, sticks and hockeys on the morning of 17th December, injuring two BMU leaders, and several workers seriously. In self-defense, workers started pelting stones at the contractors and goons due to which four henchmen of contractors were injured. Police took some people from both parties into custody and recorded their statements. But Police did not take any action on the contractors and their goons, and on the behest of the contractors lodged an F.I.R. against three BMU leaders under section 107 and section 151. The Police provided medical assistance to the injured goondas of the contractors and freed them, whereas the BMU leaders were put into the lock up of Gokalpuri Police Station without providing them any medical assistance or even first aid. Besides, this whole dispute came under the jurisdiction of Karawal Nagar Police Station, but fearing militant protest and gherao by the almond workers, the Police locked the leaders up in the Gokalpuri Police Station, while telling lies to the workers that the leaders have been taken to GTB Hospital for M.L.C. This makes it clear that the Police was acting on the behalf of the contractors. The contractors have learnt that they do not need to keep paid goons; they have the Police!

In the meanwhile, thousands of workers continued their strike in Karawal Nagar on the fourth day. Due to fourth day of the strike the whole almond processing industry of Karawal Nagar has come to a standstill. Naveen of BMU said that the Union will lodge a complaint in the office of DCP, North-East Delhi as the Karawal Nagar Police has acted in a partisaned way in favour of the contractors; and if the DCP fails to take cognizance of the whole matter and take action against the Police of Karawal Nagar and the goons of the contractors, we will be left with no other option but to move to the court. It is noteworthy that almond workers under the leadership of BMU have been demanding for their labour rights and they are also demanding the Delhi government to give a formal recognition to the almond processing industry of Delhi. Presently, all the almond godown owners are working as contractors without any licence of government recognition. Workers working in these godowns are predominantly women, however, there is no arrangement for sanitation or creche for their children. The workers have to break almonds soaken in acid with their hands, feet and teeth. They do not have any security gear or any kind of security arrangement they often succumb to diseases like tuberculosis, asthma, etc. The children of workers often catch fatal diseases. The BMU has been demanding for better work conditions for these workers. However, the contractors and owners are having their own way with application of force, which they have at their disposal in the form of the support of the Police administration and local leaders of various parties. Yogesh of BMU said that now those days are a thing of past when the workers silently endured all the excesses of the contractors and kept working like slaves. They have organized themselves into a powerful union, BMU and they would not stop on anything short of all their legal rights.

Today released leader and convener of the BMU, Ashish Kumar Singh said that the contractors are scared of the workers’ movement. By winning the Police on their sides and cowardly attacking the unarmed workers, they have proved that they can demonstrate their “courage” only in hoardes and that too on women workers and children. However, the women workers replied tit for tat and proved that they can retaliate to any such cowardly attack in the same coin. Those days are gone when the workers silently used to bear the violence and abuses of the contractors. Workers, on the strength of their unity can make any force bite the dust, including the corrupt Police administration as well as hooligans. It is not without reason that the 15 percent of workers who had not joined the strike due to the fear of contractors, have now joined the strike with full might and they have freezed the profit machinery of the owners and contractors.

Earlier, the released leaders of the Union received warm reception by thousands of workers when they reached the venue of strike in Karawal Nagar.

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Struggle of Delhi’s almond workers living under the yoke of global profit mongers

December 19, 2009 by 1 Comment

Abhinav,
Bigul Mazdoor Dasta

Police shamelessly in the service of employers
Militant Strike of Almond Workers under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union into its third day

December 18, Delhi. Almost 30 thousand workers’ families are working in the almond processing industry of Karawal Nagar area of North-East Delhi. This whole industry is a global industry. These workers toiling in the most primitive conditions process the almonds of overseas companies of the US, Australia and Canada. These companies come to India for the processing of their dry fruits in their quest of cost minimization as labour in India is far cheaper as compared to that in these countries. Khari Bawli of Delhi is the biggest wholesale dry fruits market of Asia. The big businessmen of Khari Bawli bring unprocessed almonds from these countries, get them processed and then send them back. These businessmen get the processing done by entrusting this work on contract basis to small-time contractors based in Karawal Nagar, Sant Nagar-Burari, Narela and Sonia Vihar. These contractors run small processing workshops in these areas. These workshops are working hell for workers and are not licenced by any government agency. These workshops are completely illegal. Each workshop has 20-40 workers, mostly women and often with their children. Working hour might vary from 12 hours in normal season to 16 hours in peak season. On processing one 23 Kg bag of almonds, they are paid Rs. 50. A skilled worker can break at most 2 bags of almonds in one day. Abusing, harassing and sexual exploitation of workers are common.

These workers are on strike for last three days under the leadership of their Union ‘Badaam Mazdoor Union.’ They are demanding that per bag rate should be increased from Rs. 50 to Rs. 80, they should be paid double for working overtime, they should be provided identity card and job card by the contractor, etc. Its noteworthy that all these demands are in accordance with the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Contract Labour Act (Prevention and Abolition) 1971, etc. On the second day of the strike, the contractors with their henchmen attacked a peaceful procession of women workers, who were with their children, led by a few Union workers. This attack wounded two Union workers seriously, while a number of women workers and their children sustained minor injuries. During this attack contractors and their goons used casteist remarks to humiliate dalit Union workers as well as women workers. Dalit workers were their particular targets. In defense, workers started pelting stones at the crowd of the contractors and their goons as a result of which 4 goondas of the contractors sustained injuries. In the meanwhile, the Police arrived at the scene and escorted the four injured goons to hospital and provided them with Medical assistance. On the other hand the injured Union members and labourers were arrested by the Police and taken the Police Station. They did not provide them with medical assistance. A few activists were bleeding seriously, but even that did not move the Police. They were kept there in the same conditions for 5 long hours and the Police intentionally delayed the whole process of recording statements. In the meanwhile, the injured workers and activists kept bleeding. After this whole inhuman behaviour, the Police took the activists from the Police Station and lied to the workers who had gheraoed the Police Station, that they were being taken to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and then they will be taken to the Karkardooma court. However, Police took them to the Gokalpuri Police Station which is away from Karawal Nagar so that the workers cannot reach there and did not tell anyone about it. F.I.R. had been lodged against the Union activists on the statement of the hooligans of the contractors; however, no F.I.R. was lodged against the contractors and their goons on the statements of the workers and Union activists. The arrested people from the side of the contractors were freed immediately. The arrested activists were produced in the Seelamput SDM court today, but due to some technical reasons they were granted bail and were sent to judicial custody by the Special Executive Magistrate Nirmal Kaur. In the meanwhile, strikers in Karawal Nagar vowed to continue their fight till the end and they pledged that they would not give up until their leaders are released and all their demands are met. The whole almond processing industry of Karawal Nagar has come to a standstill as the strike intensified even more after the deceitful arrest of the Union activists and shameful collusion of the Police administration with the godown owners and contractors. Till the evening of December 18, thousands and workers are gathered at the strike venue. Naveen of Badaam Mazdoor Union said that the arrest of the Union activists, rather than demoralizing the workers, has made their resolve to fight till the end even stronger. Now every worker considers it his or her first priority to take this struggle to final victory.

When Union activists and correspondants of ‘Bigul’ workers’ monthly demanded an explanation from the Police administrated as to why no F.I.R. was lodged against the attacker contractors and their henchmen on the statements of the Union activists and workers and why the Police is working on the guidelines of the contractors by taking unilateral and unjustified action against the Union activists, then the senior officers of the Police bluntly said that the Union walahs need to be taught a lesson and the strikers will be disciplined with force. It is clear as daylight the the Police administration is working on the dictates of the contractors and employers. It has been trying to suppress the workers’ movement with all its might and will. It is noteworthy too that all the small time local leaders of Congress, BJP and the RSS have come in open support to the contractors. Ironically, a number of employers and contractors themseves are local leaders of these electoral parties.

This is not the first time that the Police has worked on the behalf of the contractors. A year ago, in August 2008, when the workers had organized a strike for their legal rights, then the Police had arrested Ashish Kumar, the convener of Badaam Mazdoor Union, in an arbitrary fashion. However, at that time almost a thousand workers laid siege to the Police Station and freed Ashish. But this time, the Police acted more cleverly and lied to the workers that they had lodged a F.I.R. against the contractors and their goons and they were taking the three Union leaders for M.L.C. to Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital and then both the parties will be produced the the court. However, they were taken to a far away Police Station of Gokalpuri and were locked in the lock up there. Its crystal clear that the Police has acted conspiratorially to safeguard the interests of the contractors. Reportedly, lakhs of rupees were transacted in bribing the Police in the Police Station. One can understand that the Police must have charged their share for the bizarre inconvenient exercises that they had to do to acquit the culprits! The employers had hoped that the locking up of top Union leaders for one day will break the strength and endurance of the workers and the strike will be sabotaged. However, all their estimates and hopes went haywire as the strike emerged to be even stronger. Workers elected their new interim leadership democratically and the movement marched ahead. Presently, thousands of workers are on the roads of Karawal Nagar and the whole scene is of a working class carnival.

It is noteworthy that these workers have been demanding for their legal rights. These include the workers’ rights to which they are entitled under the Minimum Wages Act, Contract Labour Act, Trade Union Act, etc. For this purpose, the Union activists have visited the Office of the Deputy Labour Commissioner of the zone a number of times, but every visit proved its own futility. The whole labour commissionary plays in the hands of the employers and contractors. They are not willing to enforce any labour law and there is a whole network of mutual loyalties and obligations is working to ensure that the workers are kept like slaves and instumentum vocale.

One particular thing to note about this movement is the massive participation of women workers, who constitute the majority of the total worker population in the almond processing industry. These workers are resolved to take this struggle to the ultimate limits.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: , , ,

Towards explicating the sexual moment in class struggle

December 19, 2009 by Leave a Comment

An Introduction to Alexandra Kollontai on Sexual and Women’s Question

Satyabrata

This is intended to be an introduction to Alexandra Kollontai’s works on the sexual and women’s question where these two interrelated aspects have, taken together and in their separateness, been analysed from a working-class perspective. Kollontai was a member of the workers’ opposition in the erstwhile Soviet Union. Most of her works in this compilation were written at a time when ideological struggles raged like a typhoon within the working-class movement in the aftermath of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Justice can, therefore, be done to them only if they are read in a critical and revolutionary fashion by refounding them in the current context and conjuncture, thereby reclaiming their originary impulse. Marx has spoken, in the Manifesto of the Communist Party as also elsewhere, of a community of women. To that extent, the sexual and women’s questions deserve a Marxian spirit of enquiry rather than adventurism.

Marxists have made the eleventh and last thesis of Marx’s ‘Theses on Feuerbach‘ – “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it” – famous by transforming it into a shibboleth. The thesis has become, for many working-class activists on the ground, a justificatory dogma to carry on with their business-as-usual activism of ‘changing the world’ while shunning all serious and necessary endeavour of critical and self-reflexive inquiry. In that context, it would perhaps be pertinent to countenance Marx’s second thesis from the same work: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth[emphasis mine] i.e., the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality and non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.”

Mao Zedong expressed this idea of Marx in a simpler and more matter-of-fact manner when he proclaimed that “To investigate a problem is to solve it”. The works that have been constitutive of this article shall, therefore, serve their purpose only if they enable investigation and interpretation of the women and sexual questions as they currently exist in relation to class struggle, than if her formulations are dogmatically accepted. That would, among other things, simultaneously change the forms in which Kollontai grasped and posed those questions leading to a non-metaphysical, non-voluntaristic and materialist intervention on those questions.

(1)

In chapter six of Nalini Jameela’s  Autobiography of a Sex Worker, the author has attempted to theorise certain aspects of sexuality in relation to and from her socio-occupational position. Her defence of prostitution, clearly an attempt to resist the condemnation of her occupation from within the framework of bourgeois morality, ultimately remains trapped within the totality of the capitalist system which is constitutive of that bourgeois morality too. To that extent, her theorisation can be said to be embodying a petty-bourgeois tendency. For, the occupational defence of prostitution by Jameela fails to take into account the fact that the existence of prostitution as a social and ideological phenomenon is inimical to her interests as a member of the working class.

The bourgeois ideal of sexual relations would, needless to say, have no place in the order of things that revolutionary working class politics envisages. If anything, such relations would have to be decimated and superseded by such politics. The working class should, therefore, be critical of such relations as their idealisation by it would rob its members of their class orientation and compel them as a class to deviate from their supreme mission. To begin at the beginning we would, however, need to grasp sexuality as a human essence, even as we seek to comprehend its manifestation through different historically given forms of sexual relations, in order to understand the two in their dialectical articulation and interplay. I attempt to do that by choosing to define sexuality by refracting it through the psychoanalytic conceptual prism of Eros, and subsequently show how this Eros is realised in bourgeois social formations through its formal manifestations among working class members of those formations. I would, in the same movement, also attempt to show how those formal manifestations, which are nothing but by-products of the Eros, play the role of capitalist ideological state apparatus (see the note below) both in a structural and functional sense.

Eros:

The concept of ‘love’ is different from ‘Eros’. Eros can be said to be that part of the libidinal instinct that has undergone minimum repression due to cultural, psychological and social barriers of the mind. Freud’s work (my conclusions are primarily derived from my reading of Repression (1915), The Libido Theory (1923) andNegation (1925)) prove that love is less original, instinctually, than Eros; as in forms of love (other than Eros) a large part of the original instinct gets repressed and what remains is only a fraction of the original libidinal instinct. This repression is primarily due to cultural, psychological and social barriers. The psychological barrier is manifest by the cultural barrier, which in turn is manifest by the social. Society has as its base the economy and hence it will not be fallacious to state that repression is chiefly due to economic barriers. The economic sub-structure, therefore, decides the degree and direction of the libido’s repression. The Eros of the present society has also much of its original libidinal instinct repressed due to the persistence of its particular economy. The economic sub-structure of a society can then be said to have shaped the form Eros takes in it. The Eros of Shakespeare’s Romeo, for instance, is one that is famous because of its idealisation by capitalist modernity. (Though according to many, this was not the best portrayal of love by the playwright.) That Romeo is one of the most celebrated characters of popular literature is precisely due to the valorisation of this bourgeois Eros of which Shakespeare made him into an embodiment and symbol. Capitalist modernity idealises Romeo’s Eros because it expresses a property prejudice that is typical of the bourgeois social and ideological formation. An example from the First Scene of Act I of Romeo and Juliet itself is evidence of such prejudice.

Benevolio: What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

Romeo: Not having that which having makes them short.

Benevolio: In love?

Romeo: Out-

Benevolio: Of love?

Romeo: Out of her favor where I am in love.

Here Romeo’s grief is not that he is out of love but that his Eros is not satisfied, which could only be satisfied by ownership of the object of Eros.

This (private) ownership is a bourgeois prejudice and the striving for such ownership in sexual relations is not only idealised but also institutionally safeguarded by the structure of marriage in bourgeois society. Psychoanalysts are correct when they say there is a resistance offered by the object of Eros to the subject, but they are correct only insofar as things are within the bourgeois framework of thought. Eros existed in different forms under different socio-economic systems. Frederick Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State is one work from where such examples can be cited. During and after the November Revolution, Alexandra Kollontai did some seminal work on how Eros would be within a social formation constitutive of a socialist mode of production. Her work Make Way for Winged Eros was an attempt to theorise a form of Eros free from the property prejudice typical to capitalist modernity. She attempted to conceptualise a society where the resistance offered by the object of Eros is eliminated even as her analysis simultaneously transforms the object of Eros into subject. Her dialectical analysis of Eros can be said to be one of the earliest attempts to theorise a healthy sexual norm for society. Her concept of ‘winged Eros’ is necessarily an important contribution to the less-inquired-into aspects of the psychology of the working class.

Eros is a gift inherent in man’s nature. An understanding of this nature is the basic premise on which science develops in order to better the condition of the masses. There are several hurdles to be overcome by the working class in scientifically conceptualising a form of Eros that sublimates its repressive and, at times, coercive manifestations in the class struggle. The ruling classes here also come with their hypocritical solutions. On one hand, they preach chastity or brahmacharya with the help of religion, whose hegemony the working class accepts in its quest for some salve to alleviate the pain it suffers due to the oppression of the ruling class. On the other, they conjure up fantasies such as ‘free’ sexual relations and legalised prostitution and so on to create an unhealthy atmosphere among the working class. The working class has fallen victim to the ideological coercion of the capitalist system. At a time when unemployment, poverty and exploitation are to be fought by the working class, it is stuck in the confusion of bourgeois pigeonholes in the sexual moment. Capitalism offers pigeonholes to create sectarianism within the working class on this issue – chastity for the reactionary conservative, institutionalised marriage for the establishmentarian and a hypocritical ‘free’ love for the progressive elements among the embourgeoised working class. In any case, the working class is of help to the bourgeoisie. Individual members of the working class are bound to think within the framework of the bourgeois system right from the time when Eros starts surfacing in their minds.

Embourgeoisment of Eros:

The bourgeois ideologists, through the media, art and literature, have several times preached a form of Eros that is nothing but sexuality. Freud’s discoveries have been misrepresented and misused by the bourgeois propagandists to reduce something that could create compassion and camaraderie among the opposite sexes of the working class with which it could carry forward its struggle for liberation to a shameless use-and-throw relation based on sex that has given rise to antagonisms among the sexes. Male and female chauvinism are a result of economic inequality and in capitalist modernity, these antagonisms are successfully directed against each other to keep the bourgeoisie safe. Kollontai has critiqued such antagonisms, though in the concrete forms they appeared then, in her Social Basis of Women’s Question. The following statement of Rosa Luxemburg’s best captures Kollontai’s premise in this work: “For the property owning bourgeois woman, her home is her world; for the proletarian woman the whole world is her home.” Kollontai’s work in question expands the horizons of feminism to link it to class struggle.

(2)

At the same time, bourgeois ‘free’ love has reduced the woman to being a commodity of satisfying the distorted Eros of man and vice-versa. And then there is, of course, the property prejudice for the commodity and striving for private ownership of that commodity. This often results in aggression among the sexes, as this particular commodity is a living commodity and, more importantly, a human being. The bourgeoisie has taken full advantage of serious Freudian discoveries regarding the Eros. It has used the electronic media fully to divert the working class’s struggle for the liberation of mankind. Movies, songs, music, and so on are all being used as a means to confine the thoughts of the proletariat of this sexually suppressed society within the boundaries of the libido. The so-called romantic heroism of the movies is nothing but hooliganism of the sexually repressed masses coloured and replicated on screen. This ‘heroism’ is again reflected in the ideology of today’s working class. As Brecht said, “Art is not only a mirror that reflects reality but also a hammer with which to shape it.” Capitalist modernity is hammering into the working classes, at a time of economic and social crises, libidinal ego, which has, to an extent, robbed the working class of its more important and fundamental ideology with which it could triumph over all hurdles. It has stolen away from the masses, using Eros, the scientific outlook, that is the supreme weapon in the hands of the working class in its perilous journey towards freedom. The working class is confined to and confused by the several forms of Eros presented by capitalism. A scientific enquiry as to what form of Eros could be suitable for the masses is very much ideologically necessary for facilitating class struggle. Or else, Eros shall continue to act as an ideological state apparatus for the bourgeoisie. Kollontai had made such scientific inquiry and her works provide a deep insight into Eros and shall hopefully contribute to the shaping of something that shall stop Eros from acting as an ideological state apparatus.

Bourgeois Marriage:

Marxists have done much work on institutionalised marital relations from the perspective of reproduction of labour-power. The genetico-evolutionary psychological process that leads to the institutionalisation of relationship between the sexes is to be studied. Right from the time when Eros starts concretising in the mind, it is infused with bourgeois ideology that dilutes it so as to bring forth into consciousness its main economic motto – ownership of private property. The ‘Eros’ thus formed is full of property prejudice in that one’s ‘Eros’ can only be satisfied when one owns privately, the object of Eros, whether for a short time or for one’s entire life. Love, libido and imagination of Eros of the person is, therefore, ideologically centralised in and around the private ownership of the individual in which Eros manifests. This embourgeoisment of Eros has taken place at a particular historical epoch and exists today. Engels’ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the Statecan be referred to in order to figure out how this transition took place.

Here Eros (as it exists in the form today) acts as the ideological state apparatus, which furthers the cause of the state into the family. These act as the organs of the ruling class, to contain the working masses within horizons set by them that hamper class struggle. The form that Eros has taken today is bound to change in the process of evolution, either for worse under capitalist degradation or for better through the unfolding of the working class struggle.

What we see now, however, is its degradation, thanks to the operation of the bourgeois ideology. From arranged marriages – where sheer commodification of (wo)man takes place – to love marriages – where marriage overshadows love making rejuvenation of human relationships impossible. It is only the working class that can free itself and the larger society from the chains, both in this sphere and the rest. Kollontai in herTheses on Communist Morality in Sphere of Marital Relationship offers certain criticisms of the dominant bourgeois marriage that can be helpful for the working class to overcome one among the many, but an important, hurdle that capitalism has placed in its path of liberation.

Bourgeois family:

The bourgeois family is the most acceptable institutionalised form sexual relations among denizens of bourgeois social formation, which includes individual members of the working class too, takes. This form serves the purpose of capitalism as a means of reproducing labour-power and as an ideological state apparatus for reproducing the condition and relation of production. Althusser in his essay ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ explains how the ‘school’ has replaced the ‘Church’ and the “School- Family couple constitutes the dominant part in the reproduction of the relations of production of a mode of production threatened in its existence by the world class struggle”. He has laid his emphasis primarily on the school. It is necessary to add that the bourgeois family plays an equally important role in reproducing the relation of production and it is embourgeoised Eros that gives rise to this family.

Apart from this purely economic function of the family acting as a hurdle in class struggle, the bourgeois family has other hazardous effects on the worker. The instincts suffer repression when Eros in institutionalised by marriage into the family, and libidinal instincts outside the boundaries of marriage and bourgeois family meet their fate in being repressed. The question, therefore, is what form sexual relations shall take once they supersede the various institutional forms of marriage in the process of unfolding of the working-class struggle. Post Soviet revolution, Kollontai, who was an active part of it, wrote Communism and the Family. It is necessary to study this work from three perspectives:

1. From the perspective of the individual worker. In which one has to take into account psychology.

2. From the perspective of the working class. In which one has to take into account the class struggle that shall lead to dictatorship of the working class and its liberation. Here, the role of the family as an ideological state apparatus has to be understood more specifically.

3. From the perspective of culture, where, at this point of time, how the structure of the bourgeois family can be transformed through an ideological struggle, which can, for the moment, be like a breeze and not a typhoon.

It is necessary to come back to the repression of instincts in marital family in order to expand our horizon of study into another ‘evil’, which is a by-product of the Eros, marriage and family, and which has evolved in the course of evolution of each of the above three and into which capitalist exploitation has consequently entered. Prostitution.

Prostitution:

Prostitution can be said to be the selling of sex by masses of unemployed women who find their employment in concretising their expenditure of labour as sex so as to meet the needs of sexually repressed individuals. The cause of repression of individuals in the bourgeois society has been, to a considerable extent, cited above. Individuals, both married and unmarried whose Eros is not satisfied when they travel along the bourgeois path of satisfying Eros attempt to buy Eros. The centralisation of Eros around the private ownership of the subject of Eros primarily gives rise to such repression. There exists a dialectical relation between the repressed individuals and prostitution, in that each exists because of the other. The structure of bourgeois family has to be changed for prostitution to wither away and the embourgeoisment of Eros has to be stopped if the family is to wither away. And, in the final analysis, the bourgeois system has to be overthrown if embourgeoisment of Eros is to be eradicated. The root of prostitution lies in the bourgeois economic system. One might question the presence of prostitution is earlier historical epochs, where the bourgeois system of exploitation did not exist. In those times, the form and manifestation of prostitution were also different. That prostitution is a function of the economy prevailing in a society is no myth. In India, Kautilya in his Arthashastra made prostitution taxable (Arthashastra [2.27.27]). This historico-empirically substantiates the assertion that prostitution is a part of the prevailing economy. One standard, liberal-bourgeois argument in defence of prostitution is, if prostitution is made legal, the number of rapes will reduce!But will sexual repression and its effects vanish!? The instinctual impulses of rape shall rather implode or explode elsewhere creating an unhealthy environment.

The genetico-evolutionary study of prostitution in accordance with the economy and family ties that existed in each historical epoch shall clear all doubts regarding the relation of prostitution as a part and manifestation of the economy. Today, however, prostitution has emerged as an independent trade. Here sex work is the concrete form of labour that creates value in women and is sold. Women have been reduced to a commodity elsewhere but the climax of commodification is prostitution where the woman ceases to be a human being and serves only as a commodity whose value is determined by the degree to which it can satisfy the libido of its purchaser.

Capitalist appropriation and exploitation have entered into this trade also and studying the functional and status hierarchy that exists in the brothels bear that out. It is at this point that prostitution needs to be critiqued, targeting its specificity as a form of alienated labour in capitalism and not as a moral question of non-marital sex. Be it sex-work or any other form, work under capitalism is itself a means of exploitation, every worker under this mode is exploited, so is the sex worker. In Marx’s letter to Friedrich Bolte, Marx writes “sectarianism and working class movement increase in inverse proportion”. A form of sectarianism has developed among a large section of the working class because of the concrete form the work of the prostitute.

For the worker other than the sex-worker, sex work is ‘unethical’ and hence the sex-worker is condemned. On the part of the sex worker, she is someone who is denounced by the rest of the working class and hence her struggle is against other workers who suffer the vices of the same form of exploitation. This is one of the main manifestations of embourgeoisment of Eros in class struggle. The Eros, the family and prostitution in bourgeois society forms a vicious circle that together constitutes and acts as a strong ideological state apparatus for reproducing the conditions and relations of production.

Critique of Nalini Jameela’s Chapter six of Autobiography of a Sex-worker:

Jameela’s theorisation can be said to be based on a defense of capitalism. Initially in this chapter, she says ‘sex work and sexual exploitation are two different things’. That is true only insofar as one abstracts sexuality from sex work. But under capitalism work itself is exploitation in that surplus labour is exploited from the worker in the brothels as well as outside. As for Jameela, she is not in the lower stratum of any brothel but rather sells sex independently and hence her class position is not that of a worker but is an expression of a petty-bourgeois tendency. Something that is clearly reflected in her theorisation.

She defends selling of sex, comparing it to selling of any other commodity – education, entertainment and so on – not analysing or going against the process of commodification and commercialisation of each. Her fight is to legalise commodification and commercialisation of sex as other spheres have been commodified. She has, probably, not experienced the adversity such commodification and commercialisation regularly visit on the masses, and has not given a thought to the kind of adversity the commodification and commercialisation of sex has brought and would further bring in society. For this thought of her and for people sharing her position and yet sincerely want the liberation of working class in general and women in particular, Kollontai’s Sexual relations and Class Struggle can be the starting point of enquiry. A working-class critique of Jameela’s stand on prostitution can be extracted from Kollontai’s explanation of the adversity of prostitution in herProstitution and Ways of Fighting It. One point, which Jameela over emphasises in her theorisation, is that prostitutes are free from family ties, ‘they do not have to cook for their husbands’, etc. She forgets that in doing so, the prostitute does not liberate herself, economically or sexually. Instead, she reduces herself to the status of a tool to be played with and discarded.

Conclusion

Nothing is as small as it seems to be. Any aspect whose study is neglected falls victim to the ideology of the dominating class, having adverse effects on class struggle. A rereading of Kollontai’s writings shall, hopefully, throw some light on one of the questions that has been regarded as small, particularly by the Indian working-class movement, and hence has led it to side with the ruling class on the aspect of sexuality in its struggle for liberation.


Note:

The concept of Ideological State Apparatuses is an addition to the Marxist classical theory of State and was given by Louis Althusser in his essay ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses’ (1969-1970). According to Althusser, the ideological state apparatuses function relatively autonomous of the base. Whereas the repressive state apparatuses (police, army, etc) function chiefly by violence, the ideological state apparatuses (church, family, school, political parties, etc) function primarily through ideology (secondarily and occasionally by violence) and serve the same function as the State. Quoting Althusser,

“1. All State Apparatuses function both by repression and ideology, with the difference that the (repressive) State apparatus function massively and predominantly by repression, whereas the Ideological State Apparatuses function massively and predominantly by ideology.

2. Whereas the (repressive) State Apparatus constitutes an organised whole whose different parts are centralised beneath a commanding unity, that of the politics of class struggle applied by the political representatives of the ruling classes in possession of State power, the Ideological State Apparatuses are multiple, distinct, ‘relatively autonomous’ and capable of providing an objective field to contradictions which express, in forms which may be limited or extreme, the effects of clashes between the capitalist class struggle and the proletarian class struggle, as well as their subordinate forms.

3. Whereas the unity of the (Repressive) State Apparatus is secured by its unified and centralised organisation under the leadership of the representatives of the classes in power executing politics of class struggle of the classes in power, the unity of the different Ideological State Apparatuses is secured, usually in contradictory forms, by the ruling ideology, the ideology of the ruling class.”

Filed Under: COMMENTARIES

New-Democratic Party on the Presidential Election in Sri Lanka

December 18, 2009 by 3 Comments

New-Democratic Party (Sri Lanka)

The Central Committee of the New-Democratic Party unanimously resolved that the people should not vote for any candidate contesting the forthcoming Presidential Election but spoil their ballot papers, and thereby carry forward a mass movement of protest to reject and eliminate the dictatorial presidential system with executive powers; and by doing so the entire people, especially the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil people, should express their disgust and opposition to the system of personal dictatorial presidential rule that has been in place for thirty-one years.

The Central Committee of the New-Democratic Party unanimously adopted the above resolution, after debating the stand of the Party on the Presidential Election. In a detailed statement on the above resolution, S.K. Senthivel, General Secretary of the Party, further added:

During the past 31 years the country and the people have at various levels have with pain and sorrow experienced economic crises, political repression, injustice and devastation. The presidential system with executive powers has been principal among factors that caused the three decades long chauvinist capitalist war and the struggles carried out among the Tamil people. The one who initiated the war was J.R. Jayawardane, the first executive president. Thirty years on, the one who celebrated victory after ending the war in a flood of Tamil blood is President Mahinda Rajapakse. At the same time, the one who carried forward the cruel war in the battlefield is Army General Sarath Fonseka.

President Rajapakse and General Fonseka jointly carried forward the final war. Although the two are today opposing each other in the Presidential Election, both are incapable of fulfilling the basic aspirations of the working people of the country and of the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil people. Both uphold chauvinistic positions that are unwilling to find a sincere solution to the national question. For the people to choose one as the better candidate and vote for him will not only be a politically unwise act but also one amounting to their blighting themselves.

The New-Democratic Party poses the question to the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil people as to how they could vote for either of these two main candidates contesting on behalf of two chauvinistic parties. To vote for the other parties will not only be meaningless but also deflect the opposition of the people to the executive presidential system and indirectly support the main candidates.

The statement further added that, if a joint candidate had been put up collectively by the Tamil, Muslim and Hill Country Tamil parties and the parties of the left against the candidates of the two chauvinistic capitalist parties and a situation created in which neither candidate secured 50% of the votes, it would have led to a constitutional crisis relating to the presidential system and forced a need to amend the constitution. Besides, it would have led to the building up of political awakening among the people and mass political power.

The minority nationality parties that are seeking to elect one of the main candidates with no consideration for the above prospect are committing an act of betrayal for the sake of securing their posts and positions and their pursuit of selfish parliamentary politics. This is a continuation of the past politics of ruling class dominance. In the 30-year war, around two hundred and fifty thousand Tamil people have been killed. Property worth tens of billions has been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and in the end three hundred thousand people have ended up as refugees behind barbed wire fences. The sorrow of the destruction and despair of the final stages of the war have not gone away.

Under these conditions, how can people vote for the executive presidential system that is responsible for the cruel war and the problems of daily livelihood and the two candidates who caused the destruction? Likewise, the system of government that took the lives of nearly a hundred and fifty thousand Sinhalese people plunged in a pool of blood was exactly the same dictatorial presidential system. Hence, it is fantasy to expect that anyone coming to power will for the sake of election pledges willingly abandon this presidential system and its brutal powers to being democracy for the people.

Thus, there is an opportunity before the people to express their disgust and opposition to the presidential system and the main candidates; and the proper way to do it is to reject the electoral process by spoiling the ballot papers. The call of the New Democratic Party to the people is that they could through such rejection carry forward alternative politics by demonstrating their political strength and taking the path of mass struggle.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: ,

Photos: Rally against war on people

December 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Photos by Bhumika Chauhan and Abhijeet Phartiyal

Click on the photo to watch the slideshow

 

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Video: The barefoot doctors of rural China

December 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

This 1975 documentary film highlights work of Chinese barefoot doctors in rural China.

Courtesy: YouTube

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Stop war against an alternative model of development

December 17, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Stop War Against the People
What the State Wants to Destroy is the Alternate Development Model
An Appeal to Thinkers, Intellectuals, Artistes, and Writers

Satnam & Buta Singh
Forum Against War on People (Punjab)
Dear Friends,

The Indian state has amassed troops in central India on an unprecedented scale, to swoop down on the people. It is the latest of the wars launched by the Indian State against the people living in this country. The government says that it has to move against these areas as Maoists hold sway over it and it is not under the control of central or state authority.

In fact the natives of these jungles have been living there for thousands of years and have protected these forests as they ensure life to them and is their only source of livelihood for survival. These tribals are the most poor and wretched in our land. Popularly called adivasis, they are the oldest inhabitants of our country, still living in an ancient age. For thousands of years they have lived an archaic life. In all these years, no one has been able to subjugate them. The British Empire tried to do this in 1910 but their marauding armies were repulsed and forced to beat a retreat. The resistance of the tribal people against the British forces was led by the great warrior Gundadhur. This is popularly known as the Bhoomkal Baghawat. Earlier, they had fought the British under the leadership of Birsa Munda in the famous Munda Rebellion in the nineteenth century.

Since then, no regime has dared to attack and attempt to subjugate them, whether they were the British or the post-British rulers sitting at Delhi. They have remained a free people all along, with their own culture, customs and a unique way of life. The central and state governments have been exploiting their forests and mineral and metal resources at an unbridled pace but have never done anything to provide them with basic requirements like drinking water, education, medical facilities etc. The loot of their resources has been enormous, to the tune of billions of rupees every year, with all the money going to the industrialists, bureaucrats, politicians, contractors and the police. All this was going on smoothly, till the the tribals awakened to their rampant exploitation and inhuman oppression and took to the path of resistance. This resistance has been characteristic of their traditions and in accordance with their nature as an independent people. Their struggle is to put an end to this onslaught which has made their life, hell like. That is why they identified with the ideology of revolutionary Marxism which promises a world free of loot, exploitation and oppression. That is why they found common cause with the revolutionary Maoist rebels, who want to put a stop to every kind of exploitation and tyranny and build an egalitarian, humane society, free of any kind of discrimination.

Of course, as is well known by now, they are living on lands which are blessed with the richest minerals, metals and other natural resources like iron, coal, bauxite, manganese, gold, diamonds, uranium etc. The Indian state has never considered that tribals have a right to their land and jungles, and have constantly tried to usurp them in various ways. The State wants to further intensify this exploitation now, and has invited the foreign imperialist companies and Indian big industrial houses and their collaborations, to set up new projects on these lands. The Indian government has signed Memorandums of Understanding to the tune of lakhs of crores of rupees with the foreign and Indian industrial houses for this purpose. The contents of these MOU’s are secret and confidential and people have no access to them! The current offensive of the Indian state is to wrest back these areas from the control of these people and hand it over to these Companies. All this is being done in the name of development. But this development in fact is in no way the development of the material conditions of the life of the tribals and the people living around these areas. This is amply demonstrated in the earlier projects like Bailladilla, Balco, Bokaro, Bhilai, Jaduguda and numerous others.

Quite recently we have seen the people of Nandigram, Singur, Kashipur, Kalinga Nagar, Lalgarh, Pullavaram, Tehri and Narmada Project areas resisting the setting up of car factories, dams, huge mining pit centers, SEZ’s and other projects which have nothing to do with the development and well-being of the masses of ordinary toiling and poor in these areas or in the country elsewhere. It is meant to enrich the already handful of rich, who live a parasitic life, or to fill the coffers of foreign imperialist capitalists whose only religion is to loot, plunder and exploit. The people here have struggled and fought against the state for their rights over their lands and against the capitalist sharks on whose bidding the government acts.

The government has deployed lakhs of armed forces to destroy the resistance of the people, especially at places where it is strong and formidable and hampers the capitalists from acquiring resource rich lands. When government says it wants to take back the areas controlled by Maoists, in fact, it wants to smash the resistance of the people and snatch their lands to offer these to the mining giants, industrialists and super rich businessmen. Maoism is nothing but the rebellion of the people against injustice, notwithstanding whether the government calls them terrorists or whatever. Millions of people in these regions identify themselves with the cause of the Maoists and when millions become a movement for a just cause, they can’t be called terrorists.

The state admits that there are 223 districts out of a total of 600 where Maoists are active. This means that there are 223 districts where the people espouse this ideology and want an end to exploitation. That lakhs are support this resistance or are up in arms. That it has become a people’s movement. And what of the people in the remaining districts? Are there not workers, peasants, students, employees, petty shopkeepers and toiling masses who have no stake in this system, want a change for the better, and have the same dreams? If the 223 are up against injustice and the rest have the same aspirations then the state loses the right to use the invective of terrorism.

What the Indian state wants to destroy is not just the Maoists, but the aspirations of millions upon millions in this country, the dreams of every oppressed Indian.

It is using the media and all the propaganda machinery available, to denigrate and destroy this. To destroy the resistance of the down-trodden, their movement for change, which is the only thing that can bring them real happiness, in this wretched land of ours called Hindustan. This land, of the hungry. Of the exploited. Of the peasant who commits suicide. Of the youth facing a bleak future. Of the worker who is being laid off and kicked out of the factories. Of the employees of the organized sector who are losing all the rights gained over the years when their jobs are being contractualised. Of the government employees who have been booted out with a few crumbs in the name of VRS or Golden Handshake. Of the petty shop keepers and traders, whose enterprises are being gobbled up by the malls and the SEZs. This is the land crying for justice.

If Maoists are branded by the Prime Minister as the biggest internal threat to the country, then the rulers must think about what they have given to the people in the last 62 years of independence. Why have things come to such a pass? They have been ruling and organizing society and have utterly failed in the six long decades that they have been at the helm. The present state of affairs is their doing. Not that of the Maoists. Their development strategies have backfired and that can’t be blamed on the resisting people and the Maoists. The Maoists have come into the picture only recently, but what has the state been doing about the promises it made to the people at the time of independence? Where has the promise of a Tryst with Destiny vanished? The promise sworn by Jawaharlal Nehru from the ramparts of Lal Quila on the midnight of 14-15 August 1947? People are not to be blamed for that promise not being kept, nor are the Maoists.

So now, Operation Green Hunt is not being executed just because the government wants to wipe out the Maoists in an all out war, in the name of fighting terrorism. It is their attempt to annihilate the yearning of the people, their struggles, their resistance, their resolve for a better life, whether they are led by the Maoists or not. And when the tribal heartland refuses to cow down before such an attack, it deserves admiration. The state intends to bring in the might of the Air Force against its own people. This is the result of the 60 years of misrule and the anti-people policies, they have been imposing. The people have never given them a mandate to carry out these policies. Over these years they have only opposed these policies through petitions, protests, strikes, sit-ins, struggles, resistance and also through hunger strikes and work to rule agitations. And god knows how many times the so-called people’s democratic state has fired on the protesters. How many times they have killed people. How many millions they have cane-charged and how many millions they have put into jails, not to speak of the thousands of custodial deaths and mass scale encounter killings. They never stopped the repression. All these decades, rather than listen to the grievances of the people, this state, which swears by the non-violence of MK Gandhi, has been resorting to never-ending violence. Like a mafia. Yet, the resistance continued and revolts grew.

And now it has created the borders within, against its own countrymen.

The current attack on the poor in central India is nothing but an enhanced and more deadly version of the same state violence that has continued since 1947. It is meant to break the fight back of the people there, the fight of the poorest of the poor, of the tribal peasants, and workers working in the mines. It is meant to tell others everywhere in the country, not to stand up for their rights, not to oppose the policies of the state though they go against the interests of the people and the country.

The centre of resistance is being encircled not just to break it, but also to destroy the new things which the people have created during the course of their struggles and which they have toiled hard to build. The government has started a vilification campaign against those who refuse to budge, who refuse to kowtow and who refuse to be further misled by the never ending empty promises of development and progress. They know that this development is not for them. For a government which has discarded the ideal of a welfare state can’t genuinely embark on a thing which it has abandoned at the behest of imperialist capital, the World Bank and the WTO.

The people under attack have built their own local government, the Jantana Sarkar, at various levels, taking their future into their own hands, for a real tryst with destiny.

Let us have a look in brief, at what the people have built through their Development Committees in the villages in Dandakarnya, and what the State wants to destroy. It will give us a glimpse of what the Maoists hold as a vision for the progress and development of our country – development which is indigenously and self reliantly built, one which is people oriented and is constructed in the course of the people’s democratic participation, and one which cares for this land and its resources. Such development which will free us from the stranglehold of imperialist capital and its dictates. A course of action which can only be executed by the truly patriotic.

* The biggest reform undertaken is that of land. They have distributed lakhs of acres of land among every peasant household. And no one is allowed to keep more land than one can till. Thus doing away with unnecessary hiring of labour in agriculture. Even the Patels who used to oppress people and fleece them through unpaid labour have been allowed to retain land they can manage with their family’s labour. No non-tribals are allowed to own land there.

* Women are also given property rights over land.

* They have developed agriculture from the primitive form of shifting every one or two years, to systematic settled farming. They were taught to sow, weed and harvest the crops. They cultivate both their own private lands as well as co-operative fields for community use. The development of agriculture is being done without using chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

* They have introduced a wide range of vegetables like carrot, radish, brinjal, bitter gourd, okra, tomato etc., which the tribals of remote areas had never seen or tasted.

* They have planted orchards of bananas, citrus fruits, mangoes, guavas etc.

* They have built dams, ponds, and water channels for breeding fish and for the purpose of irrigation. All this has been done through collective labour and the produce is distributed free to every household.

* They have dug wells for safe drinking water.

The industrial projects have destroyed underground water resources, and streams have been polluted to such an extent, that the fish and water life have died as also the vegetation around it. Many fruit trees have stopped flowering around these water resources.

* They have set up rice mills in a number of villages. These mills have freed women from the daily pounding of paddy for extracting grain. Many of these mills have been destroyed by Salwa Judum which was launched by the government, which talks so much about development in these areas.

* They have built a health care system which reaches every tribal peasant in every village. Each village has a Medicine Unit which has been trained to identify diseases and distribute medicines to the villagers. The health of the tribals rates only second in priority to the fight against exploitation and oppression.

* The women participate equally in these developmental activities. Special attention is paid to the issue of patriarchy and that is why they come forward equally to defend their rights and lands.

* They run schools.

The schools built by the government are completely non-functional and are usually used by the police and paramilitary forces when they raid villages. That is one reason the people pull down these pucca structures which have become symbols of repression.

* They have published books and magazines in the Gondi language. As a result, it is for the first time that this language has found a place in the written world. Songs, articles and anecdotes written by the Gond people are published in the magazines brought out by the movement. These are the initial steps to develop this ancient language which has been neglected, just as the people have been. Though there is no existing script in Gondi, they use devnagri script.

* The remunerative prices for Tendu leaf collection and wages for the cutting of bamboo and timber is fixed by the Maoist movement taking into consideration the interests of the tribals.

* Trade in the movement area goes on without hindrance. The traders are not allowed to cheat the tribals in haat bazaars. The movement announces remunerative prices for the jungle produce and paddy which the traders agree to. The presence of guerrillas ensures fair trade practices. On the other hand, the traders feel happy that there is no danger of theft or robberies in the movement controlled areas and they can move about there, freely.

* They have their own justice system. People’s Courts are held to settle various disputes among the people, as well as with the oppressors.

* Theft, robbery, cheatings, murders for property and personal gains have vanished.

* Sexual harassment and rape by the forest department, the contractors and the police has become a thing of the past. Now the women walk freely in the jungle whether it is day or night.

* Democratic functioning has been introduced at the village level onwards. The Gram Rajya Committees (now called Revolutionary Peoples Committees) function at the head of various committees like Development Committees which look after agriculture, fish farming, education, village development, Medicine Units etc.

* The women and children have their own organizations in almost every village. The tribal peasants have their separate organization, with units in every village.

* Almost every village has units of People’s Militia which take up the responsibility of defense of the village.

* Cultural organizations thrive in these jungles as the tribals have great affinity for cultural activities. These organizations propagate through songs, dances, plays and other art forms, on all the issues whether local, national or international.

* The movement has been able to prevent starvation deaths in its areas.

Salwa Judum – the Privatization of State Violence

Salwa Judum was a terror campaign launched by the government, where the police recruited tribal youth at Rs.1500 per month as Special Police Officers (SPOs). The SPOs were given arms and let loose on the villagers in the movement areas. They burned, killed, raped and forced people to flee their homes, with the help of paramilitary forces and specially trained Naga Battalions standing guard.

Salwa Judum restricted and destroyed trade in these areas by closing down the haat bazaars and trying to demolish their economy to force the tribals into submission. From 2005-07, this went on for two years They destroyed standing and harvested crops, burned or poisoned the grain and other jungle produce kept by the tribals for exchange in the haat bazaars to procure other essentials of life. Even all this could not force the tribals to submit. Rather than surrender, they lived on bamboo seeds.

The bloody campaign of Salwa Judum killed hundreds of tribals, burned hundreds of villages, raped hundreds of women, forcing about 50,000 tribals to live in enclosures called relief camps, set up by the police, which the tribals ultimately fled. This campaign forced about 30,000 people to flee their villages for other provinces. Lakhs of people were forced to leave their homes and to roam in the interiors of the jungles. In fact the government tried to destroy their whole economy and sources of livelihood even threatening to poison open water sources in the forests.

But the resistance continued. It could not be broken.

And Now

Bitter with its failure to make the people yield to them, the government has now embarked upon Operation Green Hunt, a military campaign with nearly one lakh personnel. Under various pretexts, the Indian Air Force is weighing its wings to swoop down on the forests, in spite of promises to the contrary by the Prime Minister.

We have been told that Maoists are the biggest internal threat to the country. Who are these Maoists? They are just the people themselves who have taken to the path of resistance, to struggle against the various Indian governments, who one after the other, do not allow them a life of dignity or one of peace. The state is attacking its own people threatening to wipe them out, if they don’t vacate the lands they have lived on for centuries. And we know about the term collateral damage – the killing of the civilian population in a war. Salwa Judum killed the people without a declared war, now they intend to kill on a much huger scale. They want to break the back of resistance by killing people. They want to hand over the resource rich lands of the tribals to the greedy foreign capitalist lords. They want to destroy the alternate development what the people have created with their enormous toil and persistent struggles.

Let us think. Let us awake. Let us spread the word. Let us awaken the people everywhere else. Let us raise our voice against injustice. Let us tell the government that it must stop this war against its own people and instead listen to them, respect their aspirations and attend to their demands.

This is an unjust war which the government has declared on its own people. It must stop.

Signed (up to November 24th) by:
1. Gursharan Singh, Dramatist-Activist, Punjab
2. Prof. Bawa Singh, Guru Sar Sudhar College, Sudhar, Ludhiana
3. Jaswant Kailvi, Ghazalgo, Writer, Ferozepur
4. Baru Satwarg, Novelist-Activist, Rampuraphul, Bathinda
5. Dr. Baldev Singh, Deptt. of Economics, Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Khalsa College, Delhi
6. Jaspal Singh Sidhu, Veteran Journalist (Presently Media Consultant with Punjabi University, Patiala)
7. Samual John, Director Peoples’ Theatre, Lehra Gaga, Sangrur
8. Jatinder Mauhar, Film Director, Mohali
9. Megh Raj Mitter (Shiromani Lekhak), Barnala, Punjab
10. Dr. Mohan Tyagi, Poet, B.N. Khalsa Senior Sec. School, Patiala
11. Master Des Raj Chhajli, Lok Kala Manch Chhajli, Lehra Gaga, Sangrur
12. Jagdish Papra, Writer, Lehra Gaga, Sangrur
13. Narinder Nath Sharma, Advocate, Patiala
14. Dr. Tejwant Mann, Literary Critic, Sangrur
15. Prof, Harbhajan Singh, Writer, USA
16. Yadwinder Kurfew, TV Journalist, Delhi
17. Harbans Heon, Writer, Banga, Nawanshahr
18. Ajmer Sidhu, Writer, Nawanshahr
19. Gurmit Juj, Poet, Singer, Krantikari Sabhayachar Kendar, Punjab
20. Balbir Chohla, Activist-Journalist, Taran Taran
21. Prof. Bhupinder Singh (retd), Sociology, Punjabi University, Patiala
22. Satnam, Writer-Freelance Journalist, Patiala
23. Buta Singh, Publisher, Baba Bujha Singh Prakashan, Banga, Nawanshahr
24. Jasdeep, Software Engineer, Delhi
25. Harpreet Rathore, TV Journalist, Delhi
26. Veer Singh, Research Scholar, JNU
27. Narbhinder, Activist-Writer, Sirsa
28. Karam Barsat, Columnist, Sangrur
29. Sukirat, Journalist-Writer, Jalandhar
30. Makhan Singh Namol, Advocate, Sangrur
31. Davinderpal, TV Journalist, Delhi
32. Partap Virk, TV Journalist, Delhi
33. Dr. Bhim Inder Singh, Lecturer, Punjabi University, Patiala
34. Jasvir Deep, Journalist and Social Activist, Nawanshahr
35. Paramjit Dehal, Poet & Literary Activist, Nawanshehar
36. Prof. Jagmohan Singh, Democratic Rights Activist, Ludhiana
37. Dr. Gurjant Singh, Punjabi University, Patiala.
38. Iqbal Kaur Udaasi, Progressive Singer-Activist, Barnala
39. Balvir Parwana, Editor Sunday Magazine, Nawa Zamana, Jalandhar
40. Jugraj Dhaula, Poet-Singer, Barnala
41. Dr. Ajit Pal, Writer-Activist, Bathinda
42. Rajinder Rahi, Writer, Barnala
43. Bhupinder Waraich, State President, Democratic Teachers’ Front, Punjab
44. Didar Shetra, Poet, Nawanshahr
45. Baldev Balli, Poet, Nawanshahr
46. Jagsir Jeeda, Lyricist-Singer, Giderbaha, Bathinda
47. Hakem Singh Noor, Poet-Activist, Barnala
48. Charanjeet Singh Teja, Freelance Journalist, Amritsar
49. Attarjit, Short Story Writer, Bathinda
50. Rajeev Lohatbaddi, Advocate, Patiala
51. Harvinder Deewana, Chetna Kala Kender, Barnala
52. Balwinder Kotbhara, Writer-Journalist, Bathinda
53. B.R.P. Bhaskar, Journalist, Thiruvananthapuram
54. S.S. Azaad, Writer, Mansa
55. Sadhu Binning, Writer, Vancouver, BC, Canada
56. Hiren Gandhi, Ahmedabad
57. Vijay Bombeli, Feature writer, Hoshiarpur
58. Paramjeet Singh Khatra, Advocate, Nawan Shehar
59. Daljeet Singh, Advocate, Nawan Shehar
60. Baldev Singh, Advocate, District Courts Patiala
61. Paramjit Kahma, Doaba Sahit Ate Sabhiachar Sabha, Jejon (Hoshiarpur)
62. Dr. Ramesh Bali, Nawanshehar, Activist
63. Puneet Sehgal, programme executive, DoorDarshan, Jalandhar
64. Harkesh Chaudhry & Other Artists, Lok Kala Manch, Mandi MulanPur, (Ldh)
65. Prof. Ajmer Singh Aulakh. Dramatist, Mansa
66. Dr. Maninder Kang, Writer, Jalandhar
67. Charanjit Bhullar, Journalist, Bathinda
68. Dr. Anand Teltumbde, Human Rights Activist and wirter, Mumbai
69. Dr. Puneet, Patiala
70. Taskeen, Critic, Kapurthala
71. Chanda Asani, social researcher and activist, Mumbai
72. Sanjay Joshi, convener, THE GROUP, film group of Jan Sanskriti Manch
73. Alok Kaushik, Photographer, Delhi
74. Nisha Biswas, Kolkata
75. Ravinder Goel, Associate Professor, Delhi University
76. Saroop Dhruv, Poet, Ahmedabad
77. Shamsul Islam & Neelima Sharma (Nishant Natya Manch), Delhi
78. Manu Kant, Journalist, Online Media, Chandigarh
79. Dr. Pyare Mohan Sharma, Retd. Professor, Medical College, Patiala
80. N K Jeet, Advocate, Bathinda
81. Mejar Singh, Senior Journalist, Jalandhar
82. Ram Sarup Ankhi, Punjabi Novelist, Barnala
83. Manmohan Bawa, Sharomani Punjabi writer, New Delhi
84. Dr. Krantipal, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh
85. Balwinder Singh Barnala, Tarksheel Society Punjab, Barnala
86. Jasvir Singh Rana, Punjabi Writer, Amargarh (Distt. Sangrur)
87. Neel Kamal, Journalist, Barnala
88. Narain Dutt, President, Inqulabi Kender Punjab, Barnala

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For detail of update list, please see: http://www.forumpunjab.wordpress.com
Contact: Satnam: 98727-13759, grmtsing@gmail.com
Buta Singh: 94634-74342, atoozed@gmail.com

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Press Release: Women activists not allowed to enter Dantewada

December 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression

On 12-13 December, 2009, about 120 people from numerous women’s and democratic organisations representing 10 states participated in the Campaign against Sexual Violence and State Repression meeting held at Raipur, Chhattisgarh. On 13th evening a representative group of 39 members set out from Raipur to Dantewada to extend support and solidarity to the adivasi women who had filed complaints before the NHRC and also filed private complaints of rape and sexual assault and are pursuing these valiantly.

The groups set out in 4 vehicles at around 10 p.m. The team was stopped at Charama Police Station, Kanker, at around 12.30 p.m. by D.S.P. Neg and his juniors; personal details were recorded while the drivers were whisked away separately inside the thana. Team members were forbidden to accompany the drivers and threats of ‘goli mar denge’ were repeatedly called out to us. Under the guise of interrogation the drivers were threatened with grave danger if they proceeded with us. Police confiscated one of our vehicles and forbid one driver from driving on allegations of improper documentation. The police finally allowed 3 vehicles to proceed to Makdi tola, the next junction, to procure a replacement vehicle for further journey. This entire episode lasted for about 2 hours.

After a twenty minute journey, the team was again stopped at Makdi on the grounds that the documents acceptable at Charama were now improper. Meanwhile our drivers succumbed to fear of further police action and refused to drive us further; we had also been followed by police in plain clothes. Around 3 a.m. the team somehow managed to board two buses going to Jagdalpur. These two buses were again stopped for passenger identification- first at Keshkal and then at Farusgaon; individual details noted were again noted each time and the halts were prolonged.

After a drive of 2 hours, the 2 buses were again stopped at Kondagaon police station; personal details were noted yet again. The passengers and driver were informed by policeman Awdhesh Jha that the buses would be allowed to proceed on condition that they offloaded the 39 passengers who had boarded at Makdi. Around 6 a.m., we were forced to disembark and wait at Kondagaon police station for the S.P. Khan M. Khan. DSP Vishwaranjan, when contacted by one of our team members, claimed lack of knowledge of our detention and promised to respond after finding the reason. Not only did he not call back but he did not take our further calls. S.P Khan, after he finally arrived at about 8 a.m., claimed that we’d been offloaded for our own protection. He also informed us that 4-5000 people were blocking the roads at Korenar and Dantewada in anticipation of our arrival. On further probing he claimed that we were free to leave and he would facilitate our travel to Dantewada with private vehicles.

We decided, however, to take public transport to Jagdalpur from the Kondagaon bus stand, primarily to consult with SP at Jagdalpur to assess the situation before further travel. Not surprisingly, the bus drivers at this bus-stand refused to take us; they claimed that they had been warned by the police. By this time the atmosphere was getting increasingly intimidating and oppressive as lots of motorcycles with youth cruised in front of us. Two trucks full of armed security personnel unloaded in front of us.

By this time many of our members had begun the process of contacting friends across the country and media both from Kondagaon and from Jagdalpur began arriving at the Kondagaon bus-stand. The team now began interacting with members of the public and press. We answered their queries and experienced no hostility; some of the local press narrated that the police were all-powerful in each locality and were instrumental in the suppression of free speech.

Given that we were unable to proceed to Jagdalpur, at around 10.30 we decided to return to Raipur by bus. This time though, our bus was met at Kanker bus stand by 10-15 men who initially blocked the entrance with placards, shouted anti-naxal slogans to intimidate us, and our co-passengers. As the bus left the bus-stand it was brought to a halt in the middle of the market; we again had men at the windows shouting at us. A man claiming to be a Haribhoomi journalist deflated a tyre; while it was being replaced two men boarded and shot us on camera at close quarters. We proceeded towards Raipur at about 11.45 a.m.

What we witnessed today has convinced us that all the reports of rampant violence, especially against women and their families could well be true. The state appears to be trying to hide the heinous crimes committed in this region by not letting independent teams enter the region and by the way it has tried to curb people’s efforts to reach there. It is disturbing to imagine what would be the situation inside the zone for women and for people’s movements and organisations.

The recent situation in Narayanpatna in bordering Orissa has also been similar where a fact-finding team of 10 women from across the country investigating allegations of molestation were bullied, intimated and roughed-up; their vehicle’s glass was broken and the driver was rounded up by the police at the behest of local liquor mafia, landlords and mining companies.

We hold the state responsible for our diminishing democratic spaces and demand an independent inquiry into this matter.

We further demand that people’s organisations have free and safe entry into these militarized areas for independent inquiry.

The Campaign is not deterred by the state’s efforts to subsume and threaten democratic rights groups and activists reporting state atrocities against women with the label of “naxalite” and “naxalite-supporters” and “undertaking anti-government activities”. Unquestioned, the state’s use of sexual violence as a method of repression would remain uncovered and increase. If justice is to be served, we – individuals, organisations and various sectors of civil society including the media- should join hands in protesting against state repression.

Women against Sexual violence and State Repression as currently represented by: AIPWA, AISA (Delhi), Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan, Chhatisgarh Mukti Morcha (Chhatisgarh), CAVOW, Dalit Stree Shakti (Andhra Pradesh), HRLN (Madhya Pradesh), Human Rights Alert (Manipur), IRMA (Manipur), IWID, Jagrit Adivasi Dalit Sangathan (Madhya Pradesh), Kashipur Solidarity (Delhi), Madhya Pradesh Mahila Manch (Madhya Pradesh), Nari Mukti Sanstha (Delhi), Navsarjan (Gujarat), NBA (Madhya Pradesh), Pratidhwani (Delhi), PUCL (Karnataka), Saheli (Delhi), Sahmet (Madhya Pradesh), Samajwadi Jan Parishad (Madhya Pradesh), Sangini (Madhya Pradesh), Vanangana (Uttar Pradesh), Vidyarthi Yuvjan Sabha, Women’s Right Resource Center (Madhya Pradesh), Yuva Samvaad (Madhya Pradesh), Stree Adhikar Sanghatan (Uttar Pradesh), and individuals.

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Accumulation, Development and Exclusion: China, India, and Global Capitalism

December 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

The experiences of the global south have revealed that the growth-driven modernization projects have left in their wake a trail of marginalization, dispossession, disempowerment, and the displacement of segments of the population. How is a growth process that leads to exclusion legitimized and how are the citizen/subjects governed through organized practices? How do the excluded population reproduce the economic and social conditions of their existence? How can the process of development through accumulation-oriented growth be critically evaluated? And, what are the prospects, if any, of alternative forms of development beyond accumulation? A panel discussion examines these issues in the context of two of the fastest growing economies in the world—China and India. The panel is part of a project to examine the theme development beyond accumulation from a Third World perspective.

Participants: Partha Chatterjee, professor of political science at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and professor of anthropology at Columbia University, New York. His works include Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World (1986), The Nation and its Fragments (1993), A Princely Impostor? The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal (2003), and The Politics of the Governed (2004).

Duncan Foley, Leo Model Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research. His works include Understanding Capital: Marx’s Economic Theory (1986), Unholy Trinity: Labor, Capital, and Land in the New Economy (2002), and Adams Fallacy: A Guide to Economic Theology (2006).

David Harvey, distinguished professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Among his many books are The Limits to Capital (1982; new edition 2007), The Condition of Postmodernity (1989), The New Imperialism (2003), A Brief History of Neoliberalism (2005), Spaces of Global Capitalism (2006), and Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom (2009).

William Milberg, professor of Economics, New School for Social Research, will chair the session. He has authored The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought (1996, with Robert Heilbroner), The Making of Economic Society (2006, with Robert Heilbroner), and edited The Megacorp and Macrodynamics (1992), and Labor and the Globalization of Production (2004).

This event is hosted jointly by the Department of Economics, The New School for Social Research, and the India China Institute (ICI) of The New School, and is organized under the broad rubric of the theme of Prosperity and Inequality of the India China Institute. New School faculty member and ICI Fellow Lopamudra Banerjee is organizing the event.

This panel is part of a larger initiative by a working group of economists to examine the theme Development Beyond Accumulation from a Third World perspective. The theoretical and empirical studies carried out by the group are informed by the contemporary development experiences in China and India.

Courtesy: The New School, New York City

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No news from Narayanpatna

December 15, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Satyabrata

“The fact is people have lost the fear of the law because they feel they can get away with anything. My job is to take hard police action against the Naxals. The fear of the law is to be ingrained in the people.”

This is how one of the leading police officers in Chhattisgarh defined his task. All of us understand what constitutes the mechanism of ingraining the fear so that it becomes part of the people’s collective unconscious for a long time to come. It has been practiced in Kashmir, in the Northeast, in Chhattisgarh among many other places, and now in Orissa.

The State has dealt with the Narayanpatna movement in Orissa too in a most brutal, yet tactful, manner so that the possibilities inherent in it are not realized, and its brutal suppression becomes a reminder lesson for others on what constitutes the legitimate within the evolving political economy in India.

As “a single spark can start a prairie fire”, the state apparatuses are not just busy beating the “spark” down, they are, in fact, trying to hide it or corrupt the vision of the beholders, so that the spark does not seem to be a spark. Even liberal fact finding teams are not allowed to enter the Narayanpatna block of Koraput. The bitter experience of the all-women fact finding team that consisted of prominent civil rights activists from all over India is only symbolic of how brutal the State can become when the question is of safeguarding the interests of capital and its agencies.

It would not be fallacious to say that the situation in Narayanpatna is a clear manifestation of the fascist conjuncture of capitalist development in India. We find a remarkable complementarity between the three wings of the Indian state and its coercive and consensual/ideological apparatuses in maintaining the rhyme and reason of political economic developments. The synergy among various levels of political and bureaucratic institutions and between the state’s repressive components (the local police, the cobra battalions, and civilian stormtroopers like salwa judum in Chhattisgarh) and the Fourth Estate of the hegemonic forces is unprecedented. Anybody who has attempted to organize press conferences in Raipur (the capital of Chhattisgarh) to highlight incidences of state repression is witness to mafia media men shouting at the organisers. All these form the fascio (a bundle of sticks or rods) by which the Indian state rules.

Today, we see entry into Narayanpatna virtually impossible. The police, local exploiters and the private militiamen whom the women’s fact finding team confronted on the 9th of December guard the very entrance of the area. To complement this, the local and to an extent the national media has been playing its role most sincerely projecting the movement as an expression of uncivilized violence, while remaining unabashedly antipathetic to the cause and scope of the movement. When fact finding teams have attempted to unravel the truth, what has happened is in front of our eyes. Hence, we have no news from inside Narayanpatna, except a few statements of the police present there – regarding how many are held or killed etc.

The height of brutality that must be going on in Narayanpatna can only be imagined from what treatment a women’s fact finding team received in the hands of ‘the armed bodies of men’ even after taking the requisite permission from the local authorities to enter the area. Abused and beaten came back a team of civil dignitaries with sincere intentions of finding the ‘neutral’ truth.

The media reports that Nachika Linga, leader of CMAS, who is now in the most wanted list of the government is under the shelter of the ‘Maoists’. It is necessary here to pontificate at the apathy of the media towards any move that has been taken in Bhubaneswar (the capital of Orissa) to empathise with the Narayanpatna movement. About 100 people from various organizations on the 10th of December silently demonstrated in the city’s Master Canteen Square against the issuing of the order to arrest Nachika Linga. This was something that could have been sublime to the media but what instead caught the media’s eyes is the probable alliance of Nachika with the ‘Maoists’. (However, if at all Nachika Linga is protected by the Maoists today, this is more a comment on India’s rule of law and those who see possibilities within it – it proves that the ‘democratic’ voices having faith in the present system are not able to protect people’s self-rule efforts).

Today, the State has militarized the democratic movement of the tribals and landless. To tackle the movement of the landless and the near-landless inside Narayanpatna, there is an already existing State sponsored militia. It is important to clarify that this is a well thought out strategy of the state, by which it demarcates the “limits of legitimation” for any popular collective action. And the state understands that the people have crossed those limits in Narayanpatna.

So war zones are being defined and the “national” media is fast becoming a “nationalist” media – a propaganda machinery to fight the influence of “aggressors”. However, this time, the aggression is from within – the “cattle class” which was bred to be slaughtered threatens the “nation” of the first class. The media in India today gives expressions to the anxieties of the first class, packaging its hallucinations as facts and news reports.

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