Delhi – Radical Notes

Labour laws violated in Miranda House College Commonwealth Games construction site

August 19, 2010 by Radical Notes 1 Comment

Alok Kumar, Secretary
Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti

Since the beginning of August, the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti has been mobilizing workers employed in Miranda House College against their exploitation. The trade union has been mobilizing workers since the commencement of construction work at the various Commonwealth Games work sites. It is, in fact, the only trade union of construction workers in the city. Despite the difficulties in mobilizing an unorganized work force like construction workers, the union has constantly made successful interventions. The struggle of workers at Miranda House marked its fifth successful intervention in Commonwealth Games construction sites. The details of the Miranda House struggle follow.

On August 6, 2010 the workers sat on a dharna outside the college, following which they took out a rally around the University campus. The latter was aimed at reaching out to construction workers employed at other work sites in Delhi University. On not receiving a response from the Miranda House authorities on their demands, the workers decided to sit on dharna outside the college office on August 12. They were supported in their struggle by the college students and members of the Miranda House Staff Association such as the Secretary, Ms. Nandini Dutta. The struggle was also supported by women and youth organizations like Centre For Struggling Women (CSW) and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS).

The workers and students/teachers, under the banner of the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti, were protesting the non-payment of wages due to the workers. They were also protesting several other violations of labour laws such as those pertaining to payment for overtime, mandatory weekly rest, etc. The workers at Miranda House had not been paid for the entire one month and four days for which they worked at the college. Furthermore, the rate of payment fixed by the contractor, Ms. Payal was well below the legal minimum wage rate. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the contractor defaulted in paying the workers and continuously violated several labour laws, the principal employer, i.e. the college Principal, Ms. Pratibha Jolly refused to step in and release the workers’ arrears. She, in fact, tried to act as a negotiator between the contractor and the union, something which the union vehemently opposed. Under the pressure applied by the union, on August 4, a small part of the workers’ dues was released with no further surety provided by the college administration to look into the other key demands of the workers. The protest held by workers on August 6, fell on deaf years.

Finally, after waiting till August 12, for a formal response from the Principal, the workers and the union decided to sit in protest, once again, against this high-handed and insensitive behavior on the part of the principal employer. As a backlash the college administration called in the Delhi Police who immediately started intimidating and manhandling the workers and students sitting on protest. Meanwhile, inside the college committee room, the Principal, the contractor, etc. refused to negotiate a written agreement. After much deliberation it was agreed to get the accounts together, for which the union sat down. Exact calculations of the payments due to the workers, and that too at Delhi’s daily minimum wage rate, were made and submitted for negotiation by the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti.

While the negotiation proceeded, students and workers addressed Miranda House students who had congregated. In the discussion that took place it was pointed out by the Union as well as others present that it was shameful the way Miranda House hostellers were evicted from the hostel last moment (i.e. just two weeks before college reopened), followed then by this blatant and heartless exploitation of labourers employed at the hostel renovation site. The assembly of students and workers present was also formally addressed by Sri Narendarji, executive member of Indian Council of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Secretary of Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti. Alok Kumar, Secretary of the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti, in his address, congratulated the workers for their endeavours and stated that the union’s initiative would now be to bring together workers from all the different work sites in the area. He spoke of intensifying the struggle and speculated that if the workers demands were not met by Miranda House Principal and the contractor, then the workers would not hesitate in striking work in the college.

It is clear from this instance that workers are willing to mobilize and use the strength of their organizations to fight back against their brutal exploitation. As members of the construction workers’ organization, we seek support of other democratic and progressive sections in this fight for justice.

Addendum

LIST OF LABOUR LAWS VIOLATED BY CHIEF EMPLOYER i.e., PRINCIPAL OF MIRANDA HOUSE & THE CONTRACTOR, Ms PAYAL

Principal of Miranda House, Ms. Pratibha Jolly, is the principal employer and she is the one who is the key violator of set labour law norms.

• According to section 21 (2) of The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, every principal employer shall nominate a representative duly authorized by him to be present at the time of disbursement of wages by the contractor and it shall be the duty of the representative to certify the amounts paid as wages. In section 21 (3) it is further emphasized that it is the duty of the contractor to ensure the disbursement of wages in the presence of the authorized representative of the principal employer. As delineated in Section 21 (4), in case the contractor fails to make the payment of wages within the prescribed period or make short payment, then the principal employer shall be liable to make payment of wages in full or the unpaid balance due. [See Cominco Benani Zinc ltd. v. Pappachan, 1989 LLR 123 (Kerela).

• The Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996. Section 45 specifies that if the contractor fails to make payment of wages then the employer/principal employer is liable to make all the payments. Also see The Payment of Wages Act, 1936, section 3 (2).

• Section 30 of the Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 prescribes proper norms for maintenance of registers and records. For liability of principal employer in this regard also see Minimum Wages Act, 1948, section 18 (1) and section 21 (1), (2) of The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970

Other Norms violated by both principal employer and contractor:

• Section 28 (1) (b) of The Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 prescribes a day of rest in every period of 7 days with payment for the day of rest.

• Section 28 (1) (c) this Act of states that if work is carried on the day of rest, a worker is to be given the overtime rate specified in section 29.

• Section 29 (1) prescribes that any work above the normal work day should be given twice the ordinary rate of wages.

• The Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Section 17 prescribes that when an employee is employed on piece rate, the amount of wages paid cannot be less than that paid for minimum time rate. Also see Section 3 (2) (d).

• Section 25 prescribes that when a contract or agreement is being made between employer and employee whereby the employee relinquishes or reduces his right to a minimum rate of wages or any privilege or concession accruing to him under this act, then such a contract/agreement shall be null and void, and employees have to be paid according to the legally prescribed minimum wage.

• Section 12 (2), Comments (ii) states clearly that where a person provides labour or service to another for remuneration which is less than the minimum wages, such labour is “forced labour” within the meaning of article 23 of the Constitution and thereby entitles the person to invoke article 32 or article 226 of the Constitution of India.

• Moreover, there was a violation of many other norms mentioned in Building and other Construction Workers Act. There are no provisions made for facilities like crèches, canteen, latrines/urinals, accommodation, drinking water, etc. Prescribed safety and health measures are also being violated.

• The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 in Section 29 (2) prescribes that every principal employer and every contractor has to exhibit notices of particulars like the hours of work, wages, nature of duty, etc.

• According to The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, women workers are liable to be paid equal wages.

• Supreme Court Guidelines (in Vishaka Judgement 1996) prescribe the constitution of anti-sexual harassment complaints committees in every workplace. The construction site in Miranda does not have such a committee in place for the women workers employed.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, India, Labour, Working Class

Toiling for the Commonwealth

August 6, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

Ankit Sharma and Paresh Chandra

In the 19th century, the one time British Prime Minister, and renowned novelist, Benjamin Disraeli, wrote a novel called Sybil: The Two Nations; this was one of the first explorations of the polarisation of wealth and power that capitalism breeds, how inside a single country, coexist the fabled halls of plenty and extreme hunger. Today, in India, one does not even need to compare the metropolis and the margin (the “Maoist afflicted territories”) to comprehend the existence of two such nations – it is to be seen in the Capital itself.

In the last decade the name of Delhi has become synonymous with “development”; fancy flyovers, expressways, wide roads, metro services, etc. symbolise the form of development that Delhi aspires toward – development that will make Delhi a “world class city” of the new millennium. And all this at the cost of neglecting completely, the fulfillment even of basic necessities of life for many living in and around Delhi. At present, it would seem on glancing at mainstream newspapers, that the development of a city is to be measured in terms of the number of shopping malls it has, or the number of millionaires, or the width of roads and so on – in short, everything which relates to the richer section of society. A supplement of one India’s leading dailies declares Delhi to be the city of the 21st century, moving ahead of other Indian cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. This declaration, ostensibly, is based on the one hand upon Delhi’s new born pride, the Metro, and on the other on the city’s status as the “melting-pot” of all Indian cultures (possibly because the industrial zones rising around Delhi attract workers from all over the country). Not a paragraph to bring out the conditions under which these workers live or labour.

With majority of the population, the labouring and languishing poor altogether out of contention, India indeed seems to be shining. Even if the class that actually reaps the benefits of such development comprises 10 per cent of the nation’s population, the number is still in excess of a 100 million. It is easy to stay within this constituency, represent and celebrate its interests, and still call oneself the representative (government, or daily) of a nation. Of course, there are times when even large sections of the richer nation inside India, the so-called middle classes are affected for the worse, by policy or development plans. But such is the inertia of their past comforts, and such is the influence of the state, that they are able to while away times of duress dreaming of riches to come. All their responses are programmed by the state, in forms the state can control, and in the final instance they are comfortable even in this relative discomfort, and they do not feel pressed to speak up.

Coming to the immediate, we find that all of Delhi’s resources are being invested to prepare for the staging of the Commonwealth Games; all of the city’s development plans are spread around this event. Several new roads are being built, new stadiums are coming up, a concrete “village” big enough to house the people of many slums has been constructed for the athletes. A city facing one of the biggest water shortages in all its history is going to fill up massive swimming pools. For three years in a row college grounds have been made unavailable to students, putting an end to a lot of sports activity (evidently this is how the CWG is going to encourage sports). Thousands of students, who can barely afford the subsidised hostel rates, have been thrown out of their hostels, forced to find accommodation in expensive areas around the university. The Chief Minister has come out in the media declaring that the people of Delhi will have to pay for these Games in the form of increased taxes, rise in the prices of public transport, and so on (supposedly, all people in Delhi are rich enough to pay this tiny price for the sake of the nation’s and the city’s glory). However the main thrust of the current piece is to spare a glance at that side of Delhi which is altogether ignored by all, including the media.

Large numbers of migrant labourers have shifted base to Delhi because of the work become available due to the large scale infrastructural development leading up to the Games. This huge influx of migrant labourers , in addition to the ones already living in slums and worker localities around the city, has led to greater competition amongst them, on which private contractors hired by the government are thriving. These private contractors are able to control wages and working conditions, obviously to the disadvantage of workers. Workers at CWG sites earn anything from Rs.200 to Rs.700 for eight hours of work in a day depending upon level of skill, much more, it can be argued than the minimum wage fixed by the government. Using this data the mainstream media is often found trying to prove that the government is generating employment for these workers as well as helping them earn a livelihood. Often, it is added, that the workers are also being provided with a place to live, in temporary settlements near construction sites. But, as is always true in such cases, a different order of truth altogether ignored by the media exists behind this façade. These workers have no job security, hired on a day, fired on the other. In fact, most of them are hired on a daily or weekly basis. If hired for longer durations they face irregularities of payment. They do not have the freedom, as a result to work elsewhere during this period, or to leave this work, for the fear of having to forfeit wages earned. Sometimes workers are paid not according to the duration of work, but quantity of it – this much pay for this much work (for instance, this is usually the case for road construction workers). In this case the work day extends upto ten hours or more; this, one can understand, is the cost of the alacrity needed to finish the project in time for the Games.

Owing to irregularities of the kind mentioned above, workers are forced to shift their families close to the work-site where their wives too enter the labour market, hoping to find greater financial security for the family. Female workers get paid amounts much lower than what men earn for the same work. Where the fixed minimum wage is Rs.203, female workers are usually paid as little as Rs.130 for eight hours of work. When the supply of workers increases this drops down to Rs100 or less. Furthermore, mothers have no choice but to keep their children close by while they work; a more hazardous environment to bring up a child is hard to imagine, because immediate danger of hurt is compounded with assured health trouble in later life. Children already nearing adolescence actually work alongside their mothers; a little more in the family’s pocket.

Why should all the members of a family work when one member is already earning more than the fixed minimum wages? Clearly, the life that a single man’s wage affords is not quite so good. The minimum wage allows a worker to reproduce his labour power and is by no means suitable remuneration for the work he does; to be able to do even a little more than merely exist (even if that something is as seemingly inconsequential as owning a transistor) more than a single person’s wage is needed. So the whole family sets to work, at jobs that hardly pay anything even as they break their backs. Whether they work or not is not a choice, is clear enough to see, but even choosing the work they do is not an option – do what you get.

With increased migration and the fall in wages caused by the resultant increase in competition living condition of workers have also suffered. As the wages fall well below the minimum required for their subsistence the workers are forced to live in temporary settlements near work sites, settlements hardly suited to be inhabited by human beings. The differentiation between skilled and un-skilled labourers seems to continue in these settlements, where un-skilled workers are made to stay pretty much anywhere (tents beneath flyovers, or on the roadside, or next to metro-pillars and so on). Skilled workers are at least able to afford a place in some sort of slums or worker localities, or are provided with tin shelters near construction sites. Of course this relative privilege hardly amounts to anything; 4 to 5 skilled workers stay in tin rooms hardly 6 feet across. Often these temporary tents or rooms serve as living quarters for the entire family; proximity to the worksite definitely adds to health problems that workers and their families face.

There is no direct supply of water to these localities, forcing the workers to use water stored in unclean cans which used for construction purposes; the problem is even greater for the quarters which are not that close to any big site, as they are forced to buy water form tankers. Furthermore, these settlements are not legal and once the work is complete the workers are forced to evacuate.

Workers cannot afford to waste any part of their wages on daily commuting; another reason that forces them to leave close to worksites is their shift timings (for instance the workers constructing roads stay in tents near the site because they are required to work all through the night stopping in the early hours of the morning). These conditions negate the possibility of any “family life,” a middle-class term altogether alien to the lives of these workers. Even if the family stays together, everybody works: the man, the woman, and the children, giving them no chance to spend any time together, let alone “quality time.” A set of people involved in the construction of the structures that will allow India to “proclaim itself on the world-stage” as a rising “super-power” and a “quasi-developed-country” are reduced to a status little higher than the tools they use.

Photos by Ankit Sharma

Filed Under: COMMENTARIES Tagged With: Commonwealth Games, Delhi, Photographs, workers, Working Class

Misery is Relative / Comparison of Minimum Wages in Delhi and London

July 20, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

GurgaonWorkersNews no.28 (July 2010)

The following text is devalued with increasing speed: the global crisis and subsequent struggles shake the global wage scale. In June 2010 the Indian government ‘free-floated’ the petrol and diesel prices, fueling the already double-digit inflation. In the UK the government increased the VAT by 20 per cent and cut wage-subsidising benefits. The collapsing Euro inflates the Rupee. The struggles in China and Bangladesh put pressure on wages in the global low-income zones. We will see whether class struggle and crisis will re-shape the global wage-division, old concepts like ‘workers’ aristocracy’ and most of the concepts of ‘integrated’ working-classes ‘in the imperialist nations’ will help little to understand. We need global proletarian debates.

The following ‘relative’ comparison of Delhi and London minimum wages and their respective purchasing power would be a rather tedious endeavor if seen as a purely statistical enterprise or poverty competition. It would result in the usual ‘statistical findings’, e.g. that if you are inclined to become a well-groomed truck-driver with a passion for cheap daily newspapers and road-side cups of tea you should move to Delhi; whereas for any other reasons you should make it to or stay in London – if you can – because you will earn roughly four and a half times as much in terms of purchasing power. If you were a textile company manager looking for low wage zones your perspective might be a little more blunt. You would compare the absolute wage difference between a potential minimum wage worker in London’s East End (around 1,200 GBP per month) and those of a worker in Delhi’s Okhla industrial zone (around 76 GBP per month). The fact that in absolute terms the London wages are about sixteen times higher will make investment decisions a fair bit easier.

We compare the workers’ wages to consumer goods and services. This in itself will tell us little about the actual social position we find ourselves in once we depend on this wage and have to sell our labour power for it. How does our wage compare to the income of people in the city around us? Will we feel ‘excluded’ from wider social life and life-styles? How does the wage compare to the general ‘productive social wealth’, the material power to set in motion bodies and minds for profitable purposes or mass destruction? We compare wages which are set by two different states, wages which are defined as ‘minimum’ in terms of the local, moral, historic minimum level of reproduction for a worker. One local context is the capital of an ‘ex-colony’, the capital of a developing country, the regional centre of an emerging global industrial cluster. The other local context is the capital of an ‘ex-empire’, the centre of historical Industrial Revolution, with 250 years of industrial working class history. The centre of world finance, real estate bubbles and a declining manufacturing base. This also means that Delhi area is dominated by a work-force which – in general sense – knows how many acres of wheat you can reap in a certain amount of time or how many shirts or metal parts a worker can produce per day. Productive workers from mainly rural backgrounds have a rough notion how their productivity relates to wages they receive and prices they have to pay. London is characterised by mainly ‘unproductive labour’: a cleaner might know how much money their company charge the client, they know about exploitation on an immediate level, but less on a social scale.

Workers’ wages and their consumption level tell us something about the ‘stage of capitalist development’, if we agree that one of the characteristic outcomes of industrial working class struggle is that after the class wars of mining, railway building and machine and weapon manufacturing workers a following generation of workers is able to buy ‘industrial goods’ in form of long-lived consumption goods like radios, fridges or washing machines. We also have to mention the ‘sources’ of our consumer products. In Delhi we refer to the most common trade-form for basic food items, vegetables or durable consumer goods: small traders. The prices in London are based on prices of large super-market chains for daily goods and internet price comparisons for durables – because this is how proletarians shop in general. We leave it to a different research to find out whether the demise of small traders and the consequent drop of general wage level due to increased competition will be compensated by ‘cheaper’ large-scale and ‘more direct’ trading.

When we compare London-Delhi wages relative to food items, the London wages are about five to six times higher, if we compare them in relation to the mentioned ‘durable consumer articles’, London wages are fifteen times higher. The astonishing fact is the relative ‘expensiveness’ of agricultural goods’ in India, compared to ‘basic manufactured items’: While I can buy five times as much rice of my London minimum wage, I can ‘only’ buy three times as many shirts or shoes. This is only partly due to higher relative petrol prices in India, which form a decent chunk of food prices. Apart from room rents – which are a peculiar issue – it is personal services such as cooked food or hair cuts where a minimum wage in Delhi can command as much personal service labour as the wage in London. This tells something about the low levels of service proletarian wages in the Indian metropolis! Out of good attitude we put ‘global goods’ into the equation, e.g. Nescafe, Mc Chicken, Nokia mobile phones or IPods. We can see that the ‘wage division’ widens when it comes to these ‘global goods’ – which doesn’t mean that the Delhi young proletarian would not have access to the ‘use value’ of these goods. Let’s not argue about the use value of a McChicken, but of Chinese Fake-Brand MP3-Players or Handy-Cams. Apart from the ‘old school’ consumer durables like fans, gas-cookers and bicycles, the modern proletarian in Delhi owns a mobile phone with gadgets. We suggest the thorough article on Sanhati: “Do 600 Million Cellphones Make India a Rich Country”

But let’s stick to the basics: the level of minimum wage as means of reproduction for a worker. Behind this phrase a political field of question opens up. In London the nominal/direct wage does not cover reproduction, in the sense that in case of illness, unemployment, old age the state has to guarantee an additional part of income. The London minimum wage is hardly a ‘family wage’: the state has to top up in terms of child benefits etc. In Delhi these ‘welfare provisions’ only exist on paper, in 90 per cent of cases workers won’t get unemployment or pension money, neither health care. For most workers in Delhi the minimum wage has to cover parts of these future or ‘accidental’ costs. In a purely economical sense we would have to add these monetary benefits or service costs to the London minimum wage. On the other hand a London worker is very likely to be ‘fully proletarianised’ in the sense that s/he hasn’t got a ‘second home’ in a village and no access to – however small – a piece of land and wider family network which could act as a basic security net. We can argue whether it is not the other way around – that the urban wage has to finance the maintenance of the small piece of land and the rural family members. Fact is that many workers in Delhi industrial areas try to save money – first of all on rent – in order to be able to ‘save money for the home’. Ideally a ‘single worker’ – who is either unmarried or whose family lives in the vilage’ will try to save half of his or her monthly wage. The most common life perspective – or illusion – is that the urban industrial wage work is a temporary stage and that there is a future as semi-peasant / shop-keeper etc. in the village.

When it comes to rent and living arrangements the ‘village’ plays a role. In London only ‘migrants’ would stay five people to a room, no separate kitchen – which is the norm in Delhi, not only for families, but also for unrelated young workers. In this way they can drop the rent share of their total wage to under 10 per cent. In London you might rent a room in a shared flat, giving you access to a kitchen and a toilet, which will cost you around 50 per cent of your wage. In the relative wage comparison we took all three different scenarios into account: comparing the most common set-up; comparing ‘a single worker’ to ‘a single room’ according to the respective local ‘workers’ housing standards’; comparing ‘a single worker’ to ‘a single room’ according to London housing standards. The main obvious result is that compared to other ‘goods’ rent in London is relatively high and the main reason for why the relative wage levels are ‘only’ four to five times higher. Who would have thought?! At this point the quantitative state of mind leaves us clueless: Is it expression of a higher living standard to live in a London Stratford bed-sit, while your two-weeks dead neighbour starts to send his whiffs through the mortar?

What about the ability of workers in Delhi and London not only to be a categorial part of global working class formation, but to take part in it in a physical and communicative way. We can compare costs for flights Delhi-London and costs for an hour spent on the internet and we can see that a flight belongs to the ‘fridge/washing machine’-category out of reach for most Delhi workers, while the internet is closer to home. Here again, we reach other forms of exclusion. Even if a worker in Delhi would be able to save money for the flight, that does not mean that s/he will get a visa. Even if a worker in Delhi can surf on the net, the fact that the Hindi sites are still rather insular compared to the ‘global electronic village’ of the the English speaking Indian upper-class is not an ‘economical’ problem. Which does not mean that the worker in Delhi would not have the means for ‘political mass-expressions’, see prices for printing a small newspaper or for sending it by post. On a similar relative price level range the products of ‘knowledge circulation cum mental domestication’ such as daily newspapers or cinema. In terms of access to career paths to leave the minimum wage misery it looks rather bleak for proletarians on both sides of the globe. A truck driving license might be within reach, but won’t solve the initial problem. The worker in Delhi would have to save around 833 years in order to afford the two years fees for a MBA (management degree), while the worker in London might make it in 20 years. Great.

How do these wages relate to themselves in the historical dimension, does the gap close or widen over time? Difficult question. We can assume that since it’s introduction in 1997 the relative minimum wage in the UK fell – which was 3.60 GBP at the time. But did it increase in Delhi? Minimum wage in Delhi 1990 was around 900 Rs. The early 1990s were turbulent times in terms of inflation, up to 18 per cent annual consumer price increase in 1994 to 1996. If we assume an average annual inflation of around 8 per cent for 1990 to 2010 period, the wage of 900 Rs would have had to increase to 4,177 Rs by 2010 to compensate. Here the fundaments of statistics become drift-sand. Since 1990 the share of temporary and casual jobs, the amount of jobs through contractors increased rapidly, while more and more permanent workers lost their jobs. May be the minimum wage has increased in real terms, the general conditions of industrial workers in Delhi have hardly improved. In what kind of ‘working class position’ would a London minimum wage be situated in Delhi? If we take a common commodity basket (rent, food, clothes, transport, consumer goods – according to average share of total wage), we come to a medium wage ratio of 4.5 times higher wages in London. This would mean that the ‘equivalent’ to the London wage in terms of purchasing power would be around 23,400 Rs per month in Delhi. What kind of wage workers in Delhi would earn this kind of wage – which would place them into widely hailed ‘emerging Indian middle-class’? Some call centre workers earn that kind of money. Permanent workers in the automobile industry earn this much, partly more. We can see that major wage differences run within the industrial areas of Delhi as much as within the global working class. We can also see that the ‘wage question’ is everything but an ‘economical question’, but – in the end – a question of social-historical power, of class power. Let’s stop calculating!

But whoever wants to know how we calculated things: We could see a rather shaky exchange rate between Rupee and British Pound during 2009 – 2010. At the end of November 2009 the rate was 1 GBP / 78 Rs. Since then the British Pound steadily declined in value – or rather, the Rupee got appreciated. On 3rd of May 2010 the rate was 1 GBP / 68 Rs. For the total wage calculation we take the minimum wage for industrial helpers in Delhi May 2010 of 5,200 Rs per month based on an 8-hours day and a 6-days working week. We have to emphasise that only a fraction of workers actually get this wage, most workers earn less or have to work considerably longer hours for it. We base the London hourly minimum wage of 5,80 Pounds on the same monthly working times.

Monthly Minimum Wage Delhi: 5,200 Rs / 76.5 GBP
Monthly Minimum Wage London: 81,600 Rs / 1,200 GBP
Exchange Rate 3rd of May 2010: 68 Rs / 1 GBP

Item [Kilo Rice]: Price Rs in Delhi [22 Rs] / Price GBP in London [1.10] – Amount of Items I can buy with monthly wage in Delhi [236] / London [1091] (London Wage this times higher/lower than Delhi Wage [4.6])

Food

Kilo Rice: 22 Rs / 1.10 GBP – 236 / 1091 (4.6)
Kilo Wheat Flour: 14 Rs / 0.3 GBP – 371 / 4,000 (10.7)
Kilo Potatoes: 10 Rs / 0.5 GBP – 520 / 2400 (4.6)
Kilo Pasta: 35 Rs / 0.8 GBP – 149 / 1,500 (10)
Kilo Red Lentils: 48 Rs / 1.2 GBP – 108 / 1,000 (9.2)
Kilo Chickpeas: 80 Rs / 1.3 GBP – 65 / 923 (14.2)
Kilo Sugar: 35 Rs / 1 GBP – 148 / 1,200 (8.1)
Kilo Carrots: 20 Rs / 0.85 GBP – 260 / 1412 (5.4)
Kilo Apples: 40 Rs / 1 GBP – 130 / 1200 (9.2)
Kilo Milk: 26 Rs / 0.75 GBP – 200 / 1600 (8)
Kilo Joghurt: 45 Rs / 2 GBP – 115 / 600 (5.2)
Liter Bottled Water: 12 Rs / 0.7 GBP – 433 / 1714 (4)

McChicken: 52 Rs / 1 GBP – 100 / 1200 (12)
Nescafe 50g: 63 Rs / 1.5 GBP – 86 / 800 (9.3)
0.5 Liter Bottle Coke: 20 Rs / 0.6 GBP – 260 / 2,000 (7.7)
Bottle Beer: 50 Rs / 1.3 GBP – 104 / 923 (8.9)
10 Cigarettes 30 Rs / 3 GBP – 173 / 400 (2.3)

Consumer Goods

Shirt: 150 Rs / 15 GBP – 35 / 80 (2.9)
Shoes: 250 Rs / 20 GBP – 21 / 60 (2.9)
Plastic Bucket: 60 Rs / 3 GBP – 86 / 400 (4.6)
Block Soap: 13 Rs / 0.6 GBP – 400 / 2000 (5)
Second-Hand Bicycle: 500 Rs / 30 GBP – 10 / 40 (4)
Nokia Mobile Phone: 1,500 Rs / 25 GBP – 3.5 / 48 (13.7)
Cheap Television: 5,000 Rs / 30 GBP – 1 / 40 (40)
Flat-Screen Television: 10,000 Rs / 110 GBP – 0.52 / 11 (21.1)
Fridge: 8,500 Rs / 100 GBP – 0.6 / 12 (20)
Washing Machine: 7,000 Rs / 120 GBP – 0.7 / 10 (14.3)
Dell Laptop Inspiron 14: 31,400 Rs / 500 GBP – 0.16 / 2.4 (15)
IPod Classic 80GB: 12,000 Rs / 179 GBP – 0.43 / 6.7 (15.9)
125cc Honda Motorbike Stunner CBF: 57,000 Rs / 2,300 GBP – 0.091 / 0.5 (5.5)
Basic Ford Fiesta 1.6: 650,000 Rs / 12,000 GBP – 0.008 / 0.1 (12.5)

Personal Service

Fresh Squeezed Fruit Juice: 20 Rs / 1.8 GBP – 260 / 666 (2.5)
Tea in Cafe: 4 Rs / 0,8 GBP – 1,300 / 1,500 (1.2)
Basic Meal: 20 Rs / 3 GBP – 260 / 400 (1.5)
Haircut: 20 Rs / 8 GBP – 260 / 150 (0.6)

Housing

Monthly Room Rent (three to a room): 400 Rs / 400 Rs – 13 / 3 (0.23)
Monthly Room Rent (working class room): 1,100 Rs / 400 GBP – 4.7 / 3 (0.64)
Monthly Room Rent (same standard): 5,000 Rs / 400 GBP – 1.04 / 3 (2.88)
Monthly Electricity Bill: 40 Rs / 30 GBP – 130 / 40 (0.3)

Transport

Innercity Bus Journey: 15 Rs / 1.2 GBP – 347 / 1,000 (2.9)
500 km Train Journey: 200 Rs / 60 GBP – 26 / 20 (0.77)
Flight Delhi-London AirIndia: 20,000 Rs / 310 GBP – 0.26 / 3.9 (15)
1 Week Thailand (Mallorca) incl. Flight: 15,000 Rs / 180 GBP – 0.35 / 6.6 (18.8)
Liter Petrol: 48 Rs / 1.2 GBP – 108 / 1,000 (9.3)

Knowledge Circulation

Daily Newspaper: 4 Rs / 1 GBP – 1,300 / 1,200 (0.77)
National Letter Stamp: 5 Rs / 0.41 GBP – 1040 / 2927 (2.8)
Soft-Back Book (Penguin): 200 Rs / 9 GBP – 26 / 133 (5.1)
Cinema: 50 Rs / 7 GBP – 104 / 171 (1.6)
Hour Internet: 15 Rs / 1 GBP – 347 / 1,200 (3.6)
Print of 7000 Copies 4 Pages A4: 4,000 Rs / 400 GBP – 1.3 / 3 (2.3)

Career

Truck Driving License: 1,600 Rs / 1,400 GBP – 3.25 / 0.86 (0.26)
MBA Two Years Fees: 1,000,000 Rs / 49,900 GBP – 0.0052 / 0.024 (4.6)
Three Years Apprenticeship Mechanic: 187,200 Rs (three years no income) / free

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Economic Notes, Economy, India, Labour, Working Class

Commonwealth Games in Delhi: Down with eviction of students from College Hostels!

July 6, 2010 by Radical Notes 1 Comment

Down with eviction of students from College Hostels!
Onwards to students self-activity!!

The current administration of Delhi University has attempted to reshape the University through a series of sinister agendas – be it the introduction of semester system, the European Studies Programme or the biometric identification system. All of them have shared one thing in common: the thwarting of democratic debate on proposals for change, and the routine violation of regulatory protocols.

The latest episode has been the eviction of students (2,000 students according to reports) from a number of hostels in Delhi University in order to make them available for the Commonwealth Games. Hostels are being renovated and beautified for the officials and visitors of the Games, while students are scrambling around for their own accommodation. The students, like the 40,000 families on the Yamuna bank, are now among the many that have been displaced in the name of national glory. What comes into question is the fact that the University has agreed to avail of 20 crores of rupees from the Commonwealth Games project without taking any cognisance of how and where such resources are generated. It has thus become an accomplice in the larger process of reckless corporatisation that the whole city is undergoing in the bid of becoming a “global city”.

This has left students at the mercy of private accommodation, with its unregulated rents and precarious guarantees. Rents are rising in anticipation of the increased demand for PGs and flats, forcing many existing residents to move out and making accommodation unaffordable for incoming residents as well. The University has made no attempt to devise a mechanism to control or subsidise rents. The inflated prices that students pay are in effect the costs they bear for the cosmetic surgery DU is undergoing, and by extension, the hidden burden they carry for the Commonwealth Games. Some newspaper reports even indicate that hostel fees may increase after the hostels have been “upgraded”. Moreover, the lack of a viable and safe alternative has compelled many girls seeking admission in DU to rethink their decision. The University has also failed to consider living conditions around campus, especially from a gender-sensitive perspective. We can only begin to imagine what it must be like for those with physical disabilities to navigate around dug-up roads, unmarked holes and hazardous construction material.

The students are told that their eviction is “for their own good”. It is “for them” that the authorities are “improving student infrastructure”, making “world-class” hostels. Where was this concern for well-being when the college authorities took the decision to evict students? Not once was there any dialogue with students about this “upgradation”, or about the best and most suitable way to go about it. Instead, the whole decision-making process was shrouded in mystery, leading to utter chaos and confusion: while Hansraj made its hostel residents sign a bond last year declaring they had no objection to being evicted between July and October 2010, Miranda House students have still not been officially informed about the eviction!

We cannot allow the University to get away with such deliberate and avoidable irresponsibility. We make the following demands from the University:

• We demand the provision of alternate accommodation for evicted students.
• This accommodation should be at par with the hostels, both in terms of prices as well as qualitative conditions such as basic amenities and safety.
• We also demand, as conscientious members of a larger community, that this provision not be met at the cost of another section of society.

On our part, let us work towards creating another space, a commune perhaps, an imaginative and practical alternative that is self-governed by members of the university community, a cooperative living space that meets its own needs and conducts itself in a responsible and democratic fashion.

If you are angered by what you see around you in the University, and indeed, in the city, if you want to speak out against the shrinking of democratic space and are ready to reclaim what is rightfully yours, please come and join us!

THIS IS OUR UNIVERSITY! LET’S SPEAK OUT!!

University Community for Democracy

Contact: cwgresistance@gmail.com * Malay 9871924612 * Naina 9313356046 * Praveen 9911078111

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Education, India, Students

GurgaonWorkersNews: Newsletter 26

June 7, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

GurgaonWorkersNews – Newsletter 26 (May 2010)

Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young middle class people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; on the outskirts of Gurgaon, Asia’s biggest Special Economic Zone is in the making. The following newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this miserable boom region. If you want to know more about working and struggling in Gurgaon, if you want more info about or even contribute to this project, please do so via:

http://www.gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com
gurgaon_workers_news@yahoo.co.uk

In the May 2010 issue you can find:

1) Proletarian Experiences –
Daily life stories and reports from a workers’ perspective

*** Three Communists in Gurgaon –
The industrial development and proletarian unrest in Gurgaon did not remain unnoticed. We talked to three communists who decided to focus their political activity on the vast landscape of working class formation. The comrades are part of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist left, belonging to three different political organisations.

*** Service?! What the hell! / Reports from Service Proletarians, Street Labour Markets and Factory Workers in Gurgaon –
Some voices of security guards and drivers, metal and textile workers. Some voices from workers looking for a job at corner labour markets, harassed by the police and other thugs.

2) Collective Action –
Reports on proletarian struggles in the area

*** Inflationary Proletarian Struggles –
While opposition parties arrange token protests against the price hikes, workers on the ground battle for higher wages. In March 2010 Delhi government announced 33 per cent increase of minimum wages, but this hike hardly ever reaches shop-floor reality. In the aftermaths of the minimum wage increase we observe various spontaneous proletarian actions in Gurgaon and Okhla industrial areas. The combination of an interlinked (automobile) industry and organisational efforts like Faridabad Majdoor Talmel can become future lines of coordination and generalisation of the unrest.

*** Update on Struggles of Permanent Automobile Workers at Sanden Vikas and Exide –
The first-tier supplying industry of the automobile industry is heating up under the double pressure of increasing demand of the assembly plants on one side and the more confident claims of the workforce on the other. The recent struggles at Denso, Sanden Vikas and Exide express the difficult position of a young permanent work-force: they appeal to the classical union form of struggle hoping to secure an increasingly precarious position. These classical forms detach them from the wider casual and temporary workforce and therefore from the true ‘material’ power-base.

*** Waterwars, Energy Crunch and Revolting Villages –
Groundwater levels in Gurgaon drop dramatically, gobbled up by industry and upper-middle class life-style. Water and energy flows are diverted away from workers’ and peasants’ spheres. We document some struggles of ‘villagers’ against the lack of resources and oil-pipe-line projects crossing their fields.

3) According to Plan –
General information on the development of the region or on certain company policies

*** The Social Tsunami Impact / Snap-Shots against Capital-Class-Crisis –
This is an attempt to introduce a regular update on general tendencies of crisis development in Indian – motivated by Greek shock-waves, naked shorts and potential spillovers. Apart from short glimpses on the macro-level of things we focus on general trends in agriculture and automobile sector: the current demise of the past and the toxicity of the future.

4) About the Project –
Updates on Gurgaon Workers News

*** Glossary –
Updated version of the Glossary: things that you always wanted to know, but could never be bothered to google. Now even in alphabetical order.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Haryana, India, Labour, Working Class

Public Meeting: Indian State’s War on People and the Assault on Democratic Voices (April 24)

April 21, 2010 by Radical Notes 1 Comment

FORUM AGAINST WAR ON PEOPLE

Public Meeting
Indian State’s War on People and the Assault on Democratic Voices

3PM-8PM, 24TH APRIL 2010
Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay MARG, ITO, DELHI

SPEAKERS: Randhir Singh, Justice Rajender Sachar, PK Vijayan, Madan Kashyap, Sumit Chakravorty, Neelabh, B D Sharma, S A R Geelani, Aparna, Kabir Suman, Darshanpal, Arundhati Roy, Ravinder Goel, Karen Gabriel, N Venuh(NPMHR), S R Sankaran(to be confirmed), Kalpana Mehta, Rajkishore, Varavara Rao, G N Saibaba, Mrigank, Ish Mishra, Radhika Menon, Shivmangal Sidhantkar and others

Operation Green Hunt is an unprecedented military offensive on the people: Indian government has been at war with the people of Kashmir and the North East for decades. In the name of ‘national security and integrity’ and ‘national interest’, the government has been trying to crush the democratic aspirations of these oppressed nationalities with state terror. Through Operation Green Hunt, the government has brought its war on people to the heart of India. If the total number of government forces presently engaged in this Operation is taken in its entirety (including the paramilitary forces and the state police) it comes close to a quarter of a million (2.5 lakh). This is more than double the US forces presently deployed in the occupation of Iraq —approximately 1.2 lakh— and bigger than the armies of Australia, Netherlands and South Africa put together. The war preparations alone speak volumes about the real intentions of the government. Air Force helicopters equipped with guns are used against the adivasis, airstrips are constructed in Raipur and Jagdalpur, tens of Jungle-Warfare schools are established to train the forces in special operations, new barracks and bases to station armed forces are prepared all over the war zone, and public buildings such as schools, panchayat houses and health centres are converted to camps for the Security Forces and torture chambers. In the name of fighting Naxalites/Maoists, new armed forces such as the CoBRA, Jharkhand Jaguar, C-60, etc are raised with public money to unleash terror on the adivasis. With a heinous intent, special emphasis is given by the government to recruit adivasi youths into government forces and state-sponsored vigilante gangs to instigate a bloody internecine war. To top it all, army commanders are deputed to oversee the war operations while the US is providing ‘advisors’, military intelligence, satellite surveillance and overall ‘tactical guidance’.

The hidden objective behind this unprecedented military offensive is to crush all forms of people’s struggles and revolutionary movements so as to clear the way for the giant multinational companies, with whom hundreds of MoUs have been signed by the government. Till September 2009, MoUs worth of Rs.6,69,338 crores have been signed in the adivasi regions of these states (which is 14 percent of the total pledged private investment in the entire country). Arcelor Mittal alone is planning to invest $24 billion for the production of iron-ore in the mineral-rich regions of Jharkhand and Orissa. Likewise, the financial worth of the unexplored bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is estimated to exceed $4 trillion. The powerful foreign and Indian corporations are lying in wait for the government clears the land of the adivasis and smash their resistance, so that they can move into the land with earth-diggers and empty the land out of its minerals. The stage has been set to undertake what has been termed by a Government-appointed committee as the “biggest land-grab after Columbus”. The target this time is not the indigenous inhabitants of North America, but the adivasis of central and eastern India.

The ongoing War on People leaves a trail of devastation and death: In the wake of this war imposed by the government on our own people the death-count in mounting. In a region where 40 people are said to be killed every week on an average (Outlook, 22 February 2010), what the corporate media has missed or has deliberately overlooked is the sheer number of adivasis who died in the hand of the government’s armed forces. Whereas the government has claimed success in killing around 170 ‘Maoists’/‘Naxalites’ during the joint operations under Operation Green Hunt till now, whereas the media quoted the Maoists saying that none of the killed were the members of their organisation. There are reasons to believe that a great part of the dead were unarmed and defenceless villagers killed in cold blood by the joint forces in fake encounters. The killing of adivasis in Gompad, Singanmadugu, Tetemadugu, Dogpadu, Palachelim, Palad, Kachalaram and scores of other villages in Chhattisgarh seems to have followed such a pattern.

An attack on democratic voices: By these acts of fascist repression, the government has made it very clear that the Naxalite movement is not the only target of its war operations. Any movement, organisation or individual that fights for people’s demands and against government policies, is to be branded as a part of the Naxalite/Maoist movement and suppressed by the government through Operation Green Hunt. Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of the journal People’s March in Bengali and owner of Radical Publications was arrested. He died in police custody on 2nd February 2010 even before his trial began due to police torture. He has become the first martyr to fall under the draconian UAPA. Lalmohan Tudu, president of People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in Lalgarh was picked up from his house and shot dead by the paramilitary forces on 23rd February, 2010. On 20th November 2009, Wadeka Singana, the president of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS), Narayanpatna in Orissa along with another activist was shot dead by the police during a rally to protest against the atrocities committed on women by the government’s armed forces. Two of the CPI(ML) leaders Ganapati Patro and Tapan Malik have been arrested on numerous trumped up charges. In Kalinganagar 28 platoons of special police were used to attempt to forcibly acquire land for a road in service of Tatas. When the Bisthapan Birodhi Janmanch Sukinda led adivasis protested, police firing on 30th March 2010 led to bullet injuries to 16 tribal people. Repression is intensifying in the anti-land acquisition movements of Niyamgiri and Jagatsinghpur and against movements under Lok Sangram Manch in Rayagada of Orissa.

The Vanavasi Chetna Ashram of Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian social activist working in Dantewada for the past 18 years among the adivasis and fighting against the atrocities of Salwa Judum, was razed to the ground on 17th May 2009. In three eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh no mass activity is allowed by declaring these districts as ‘Naxal-infested.’ Two PUCL activists, Sheema and Vishwa Vijay were arrested in Utter Pradesh. Hundreds of leaders of farmers’ organisations in Punjab were arrested to prevent their democratic right to protest against state killings of farmers and other leaders. Thousands have been imprisoned in jails all over the country and tortured for allegedly being Naxalite/Maoist ‘sympathizers’. People’s organisations like PUCL, IAPL, PUDR, RDF, PDFI, CRPP, APDR, DSU, etc. and their activists have been falsely implicated by the government. This is an attempt to unleash state terror in order to curtail our democratic rights and to silence all voices of dissent against this genocidal Hunt of the Adivasis. A climate of undeclared emergency now prevails in the country in the wake of this war on people and the assault on democratic space by the Indian State.

The Home Minister, who has been campaigning desperately to mobilise support for this US-dictated war on the poorest of the poor, has even gone to the extent of denying the existence of Operation Green Hunt! Similarly, he continues to utter the rhetoric of ‘Talks’ while refusing to take a single step towards creating a conducive atmosphere for any negotiation to take place. Such, lies, hypocrisy and double-talk by Chidambaram with the support of the Arnab Goswamis, Rajdeep Sardesais and his other wily allies in the corporate media, has not been able to hide the truth of this war. Even the Supreme Court of India, while hearing a petition on the ‘disappearance’ of 12 adivasis from Gompad village of Dantewada district during Green Hunt, castigated the government’s offensive. The court observed, “Some of the reports appearing in the media are disturbing. Over two lakh people have been displaced in this fight… Where will they go? What will they grow?” (IBN Live, 17 February 2010).

The resistance to the government’s war on people is growing: The millions of adivasis under direct attack from the state’s offensive are using all means to defend themselves and their jal-jangal-jameen. The democratic and progressive sections of the country have also come out against the government’s war on the people in the last few months. Individuals and organisations within India and abroad have in one voice condemned the government’s genocidal war. Hundreds of protest rallys, dharnas and demonstrations are being organised in different parts of the country and outside. Peasants, workers, employees, intellectuals, artists, writers, civil rights activists, students etc. have registered their strong protest against the government, and demanded an immediate halt to the Operation Green Hunt. The need of the hour therefore is to unite and build the broadest possible solidarity among the people against this war and intensify the resistance. Only an unceasing wave of mass resistance can stop government’s assault on struggles against sale of the country and plunder of resources and suppression of democratic struggles.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Events, India, State Repression

In memory of Pyla Vasudeva Rao, a leader of the Srikakulam Armed Struggle

April 18, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS)
Delhi Committee

A memorial meeting for Com. Pyla Vasudeva Rao
Date: April 20 2010 (Tuesday), Time: 5:30 PM o
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg (near ITO)

Veteran communist revolutionary of India and one of the foremost leaders of the glorious Srikakulam Armed Struggle Pyla Vasudeva Rao breathed his last at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2010 after fighting cancer. He was 78 years old at the time of his death; of these he had party life of 58 years of which the last 42 years were spent in underground.

Born in 1932 in Rittapadu village of Srikakulam dist, Com. Pyla joined the united Communist Party in 1953 when a party unit was formed in his village. Taking up a teacher’s job on the Party’s instruction, many of his students joined the revolutionary communist movement. He became a professional revolutionary in 1962 and also a member of the district committee of the party.

In response to the clarion call of the Great Naxalbari Peasant Armed Struggle, the Srikakulam Girijan Armed Peasant Struggle started on 25thNovember 1968 and on the decision of the party, Com. PV went underground. As a member of the Srikakulam leadership, Com. Pyla became part of the CPI(ML). He participated in the 1970 CPI(ML) Party Congress (first after Naxalbari). In Srikakulam movement he worked alongside Comrades Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Vempatapu Satyam, Adibhatta Kailasam, Subbarao Panigrahi and others.

Between 1969-70 many important leaders of Srikakulam leaders were martyred and the movement suffered huge losses and setbacks. CPI(ML) PC was reorganized of which Com. Pyla became the secretary. Opposing the line of individual annihilation, Com. Pyla resigned as PC secretary and joined with other Srikakulam comrades to revive CC led by S.N. Singh. Since then he was a member of the Central Committee of the Party. In 1974, APRCP led by Com. CP Reddy merged with the CPI(ML) led by Com. SN Singh and Srikakulam movement became part of the state movement. Com. Pyla was elected state committee secretary in 1976 when Com. P. Ramanarasaiah was killed in a fake encounter.

He was re-elected to the CC in the 1980 Special Congress. For long the Party in AP was identified with his name.

Com. Pyla consistently practiced and supported the revolutionary mass line and struggled against rightism and revisionism. He was an ardent votary of an armed agrarian revolution and of building areas of sustained resistance. His death comes at the time when the peasants of India are rising in many parts against the decadent rule of the ruling classes, against landlord oppression and forcible displacement. Srikakulam Armed Struggle continues to inspire the revolutionaries and struggling people of the country. Srikakulam Armed Struggle which reached the highest point in terms of resistance and people’s participation among all the struggles inspired by Naxalbari continues to serve as a beacon light for the present revolutionary movement. Com. Pyla as one of the leaders of that movement continues to live in the memory of the revolutionaries and the struggling people of the country.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Events, India, Obituary, Press Release

Press Release on the JNU incident

April 14, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

Campaign against War on People

On 9th April, 2010, ‘JNU Forum against War on People’ organised a cultural programme titled ‘A Cultural Evening of Protest against Operation Green Hunt’ at Godavari Dhaba in JNU to oppose the sate-military offensive on tribals of Eastern and Central India. The programme included, as its pamphlet clearly states, a play called ‘Sadak’ written by Habib Tanvir, screening of documentary and songs, poetry, performances by students from JNU, Jamia and Delhi University. As soon as the programme started, a group of miscreants led by ABVP and NSUI leaders tried to disrupt the event by shouting slogans and abusing the organisers. Apprehending an attack on the performers, students present in the audience formed a human chain around the stage. However, the ABVP and NSUI hooligans broke this human chain forcefully, physically assaulting and injuring students, to clear their way to the stage. They disconnected the electricity, destroyed audio-visual equipments, vandalised the dais and beat-up anyone, who dared to come on their way. Number of students were injured in this attack and had to be taken to AIIMS for medical help. While ABVP-NSUI-YFE goons went on the rampage, the chief security officer of JNU, who was present at the spot, remained a mute spectator. The next day, when students were protesting against this incident, once again some ABVP-NSUI-YFE miscreants started pelting stones at the protesters and tore down the posters of ‘JNU Forum against War on People’.

In Delhi University we have seen similar attacks by fascist forces on students’ events as well. Two months ago, a mobile book store by ‘Janchetna’ was attacked by ABVP hooligans, where they tore books and damaged the van before students came out in numbers in protection of their own space. It is evident from these incidents that the fascist forces are afraid of any kind of pro people programme. They want to rob our democratic spaces by force. They want to silence any voice, which raises question on people’s misery, state repression and dismantling of democracy.

The JNU administration, instead of taking steps against these lumpens, is trying to propagate all sorts of misinformation about the incident. First, the administration raised the issue of prior permission for holding a meeting, knowing fully well that the cultural programme was hold at a ‘dhaba’ and there is no provision for and precedence of administrative permission for such events. We have experienced similar selective administrative harassment in Delhi University as well. It has become a standard practice of the university administration not to clamp down on the perpetrators of such incident. Instead these incidents have been used as an excuse to snatch away the remaining limited democratic space through official-legal measures. JNU administration has gone a step farther on this occasion by joining the ABVP-BJP-NSUI- YFE chorus of branding the event as an ‘anti-national’ protest. It is perhaps a cruel joke (and indeed a fascist strategy) that the architects of Operation Green Hunt, which has resulted in loss of life and livelihoods of millions of people, are claiming to be ‘patriots’ today!

Worldwide, universities have traditionally been a crucial space for freedom of expression, the exploration of ideas and critical debate. They have always been, and should always be, sites where even the strongest critique of the state can be – in fact, must and should be – made possible. This is an essential character, not just of the university as an institution, but of the democratic principles of the society it exists in. The JNU incident, once again, reveals the systematic way in which the democratic spaces are taken away by a nexus of fascist goons and the university administration.

We, ‘Campaign against War on People’, a community of students and teachers of Delhi University, unequivocally condemn ABVP-NSUI-YFE for the attack. We also condemn the JNU administration for their vicious propaganda campaign and for failing to take steps against the miscreants. We demand the following measures be taken immediately

1) Disciplinary actions must be taken against these goons, who are destroying the democratic fabric of our universities.

2) JNU administration must apologise for their misinformation campaign.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, India, Press Release, State Repression, Students

Event: Occupied! Workers’ Factory Occupations North and South

April 12, 2010 by Radical Notes Leave a Comment

Film Screening and Debate

Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010
Time: 1:30pm – 5:30pm
Location: Indian Social Institute (ISI) 10, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi (India)

We will screen two short documentaries about workers’ occupation of Visteon car parts factory in London in April 2009 and the occupation of Hero Honda plant near Gurgaon in May 2008. Marco, who has been involved in the Visteon occupation, will share his experience. We want to debate about the potentials and difficulties of workers’ struggles in Delhi’s industrial belt and about what kind of practice a revolutionary left can develop in support.

Enfield, England
“Visteon Occupation – they fight for us all” (20min)

After the crisis blow of autumn 2008 the global car industry started an attack on its work-force. The Ford subsidiary Visteon decided to shut down three plants in the UK – the workers responded by spontaneous occupation. The documentary shows the self-activity of workers and the role of state and unions. We will have the possibility to discuss with a comrade who was actively involved in the occupation.

More about Visteon Struggle

Gurgaon, India

“Interview with Hero Honda Workers” (20min)

In the last years there have been several ‘wild’ occupations of factories in Gurgaon. The occupations were organised mainly by workers hired through contractors and they remained largely unknown to the wider public: five days occupation at Hero Honda and Delphi in Gurgaon in 2006, at Medikit and Honda HMSI in 2007, at Hero Honda in Dharuhera in 2008. These struggles ask us – a revolutionary left – about our potentials of practical support. Comrades of Faridabad Majdoor Talmel will present some ideas.

More about Hero Honda and other struggles in Gurgaon

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Events, Films, India, Labour, Working Class

Interim Observations and Recommendations of the IPT Jury, 11th April 2010

April 11, 2010 by Radical Notes 1 Comment

Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt: Interim Observations of the Jury, 11th April 2010

The jury heard the testimonies of a large number of witnesses over three days from the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa as well as some expert witnesses on land acquisition, mining and human rights violations of Operation Green Hunt. The immediate observations of the Jury are as follows:

Tribal communities represent a substantial and important proportion of Indian population and heritage. Not even ten countries in the world have more people than we have tribals in India. Not only are they crucial components of the country’s human biodiversity, which is greater than in the rest of the world put together, but they are also an important source of social, political and economic wisdom that would be currently relevant and can give India an edge. In addition, they understand the language of Nature better than anyone else, and have been the most successful custodian of our environment, including forests. There is also a great deal to learn from them in areas as diverse as art, culture, resource management, waste management, medicine and metallurgy. They have been also far more humane and committed to universally accepted values than our urban society.

It is clear that the country has been witnessing gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, which have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The 5th Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appear to have been totally apathetic to their plight.

The development model which has been adopted and which is sharply embodied in the new economic policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization, have led in recent years to a huge drive by the state to transfer resources, particularly land and forests which are critical for the livelihood and the survival of the tribal people, to corporations for exploitation of mineral resources, SEZs and other industries most of which have been enormously destructive to the environment. These industries have critically polluted water bodies, land, trees, plants, and have had a devastating impact on the health and livelihoods of the people. The consultation with the Gram Sabhas required by the PESA Act has been rendered a farce as has the process of Environment Impact Assessment of these industries. This has resulted in leaving the tribals in a state of acute malnutrition and hunger which has pushed them to the very brink of survival. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment. It is also a glaring example of corruption – financial, intellectual and moral – sponsored and/or abetted by the State, that characterizes today’s India, cutting across all party lines.

Peaceful resistance movements of tribal communities against their forced displacement and the corporate grab of their resources is being sought to be violently crushed by the use of police and security forces and State and corporate funded and armed militias. The state violence has been accentuated by Operation Green Hunt in which a huge number of paramilitary forces are being used mostly on the tribals. The militarization of the State has reached a level where schools are occupied by security forces.

Even peaceful activists opposing these violent actions of the State against the tribals are being targeted by the State and victimized. This has led to a total alienation of the people from the State as well as their loss of faith in the government and the security forces. The Government – both at the Centre and in the States – must realize that it’s above-mentioned actions, combined with total apathy, could very well be sowing the seeds of a violent revolution demanding justice and rule of law that would engulf the entire country. We should not forget the French, Russian and American history, leave aside our own.

Recommendations:

1. Stop Operation Green Hunt and start a dialogue with the local people.

2. Immediately stop all compulsary acquisition of agricultural or forest land and the forced displacement of the tribal people.

3. Declare the details of all MOUs, industrial and infrastructural projects proposed in these areas and freeze all MOUs and leases for non-agricultural use of such land, which the Home Minister has proposed.

4. Rehabilitate and reinstate the tribals forcibly displaced back to their land and forests.

5. Stop all environmentally destructive industries as well as those on land acquired without the consent of the Gram Sabhas in these areas.

6. Withdraw the paramilitary and police forces from schools and health centres which must be effectuated with adequate teachers and infrastructure.

7. Stop victimizing dissenters and those who question the actions of the State.

8. Replace the model of development which is exploitative, environmentally destructive, iniquitous and not suitable for the country by a completely different model which is participatory, gives importance to agriculture and the rural sector, and respects equity and the environment.

9. It must be ensured that all development, especially use of land and natural resources, is with the consent and participation of the Tribal communities as guaranteed by the Constitution. Credible Citizen’s Commissions must be constituted to monitor and ensure this.

10. Constitute an Empowered Citizen’s Commission to investigate and recommend action against persons responsible for human rights violations of the tribal communities. This Commission must also be empowered to ensure that tribals actually receive the benefit of whatever government schemes exist for them.

The Independent People’s Tribunal took place from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This was organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country. The people’s jury, comprising of Hon’ble Justice P. B. Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, and Dr. K.S. Subramanian heard testimonies from the affected people, social activists and experts from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal.

For more information, please contact: Sherebanu 9953466107; Purnima 9711178868

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: Delhi, Displacement, Events, India, Press Release, State Repression