A Public Meeting on the “Right to Dissent”

November 22, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Janhastakshep, Campaign Against Fascist Designs invite you for a public meeting
on
THE RIGHT TO DISSENT
Date & Time : November 26 at 5 P.M.
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhaya Marg, ITO, New Delhi.
Panelists: Mr. Surendra Mohan (Former M.P.), Mr. Rajendra Sachar (Former Chief Justice Delhi High Court), Mr. Neelabh Mishra (Journalist), Mr. Prashant Bhushan (Advocate Supreme Court), Mr. Manoj Mitta (Journalist), Mr. Jaspal Sidhu (Journalist) and others

On November 16, thousands of people gathered in the village Nanda Ka Pura in the district of Kaushambi in U.P. to pay their respectful homage to Uda Devi, a well known dalit martyr of the 1857 Indian War of Independence. To prevent the assembly the State Administration had imposed preventive measures U/s 144 of Cr. P.C. leading to lathi charge and firing on the people. People there were not deterred even by such repressive measures wherein 30 peoples sustained injuries.

On November 3, when the Sikh community in Punjab was protesting against the anti-Sikh violence of 1984 and against the denial of justice for the victims of that violence, a group of tenant- peasants of village Khanna-Chamiara were subjected to unprovoked and indiscriminate firing. These peasants were protesting against the attempts to vacate the land being cultivated by them for the past 60 to 70 years. The irony is; the entire operation culminating in the killing of two and injuring many peasants, was ordered by the so-called Task Force of S.G.P.C., which was supposed to protect the interest of Sikhs.

The country is witness to widespread popular movements on the issues of displacements of dalits and tribals in the States of West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Orissa. The rulers in different States are resorting to the draconian provisions under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967 (UAPA) for suppressing the voice of dissent. In Chattisgarh mere criticism of the state government invites black laws such as “sedition” to be slammed upon members of the press, intellectuals and civil liberties activists. In West Bengal well know intellectuals such as Aparna Sen and Mahashweta Devi have been threatened under the UAPA.

Recently contempt proceedings have been initiated against Shri Prashant Bhushan, a noted Human Rights activist in the Supreme Court for his reported statement that Hon’ble Mr. Justice S.H.Kapadia should have recused himself from hearing matters relating to the Vedanta Group of Companies since there was an element of conflict of interest.

In his reported statement, Shri Prashant Bhushan had only raised the issue of judicial propriety wherein Hon’ble Mr. Justice S.H. Kapadia had candidly observed in the open court that he was holding shares in the Vedanta/Sterlite Group of Companies; and even after making such observation he proceeded in the hearing and passing orders in the matters involving the said Vedanta/Sterlite Group of Companies. It is the basic postulate in the Rule of Law that no person shall be judge in his own cause and justice should not only be done but seen to be done. The reported observation of Shri Prashant Bhushan was made with a view to bring about transparency in the judicial functioning. The fact that in a subsequent development, Hon’ble Mr. Justice Kapadia has recused himself from hearing matters relating to Vedanta/Sterlite Group of Companies on the self – same ground is also indicative of the prima facie correct view on the part of Shri Prashant Bhushan.

The resort to invoking contempt jurisdiction of the Superior Courts to deal with such situations is nothing but an attempt to gag the fearless voice of human rights activists who are striving to bring forward issues of judicial transparency and accountability to public domain. From being the institution which has been entrusted to protect the citizens constitutionally guaranteed rights, the courts are increasingly becoming willing instruments for further suppression and curtailment of people’s rights and freedom by the state and ruling political powers.

Jan Hastakshep as a part of its constant endeavor to raise basic issues concerning the working masses would request your participation in the meeting to be held on November 26 at 5 P.M. at Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhaya Marg, New Delhi.

Prof. N.K. Bhattacharya
Convener

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“Deadly Labor Wars” in India

November 21, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Even a leading newspaper of global capitalism, Wall Street Journal, recognises that the capitalist India is engaged in deadly class wars. In the following article, it presents its own version of industrial conflicts in India, with special reference to the recent agitation in the automotive industry, especially Pricol (Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu).

Deadly Labor Wars Hinder India’s Rise

PETER WONACOTT

COIMBATORE, India — This ancient city has turned itself in recent years into a manufacturing dynamo emblematic of India’s economic rebirth. But a homicide case playing out in an auto-parts factory here is raising concerns about whether the Indian industrial miracle is hitting a wall of industrial unrest.

Pricol Ltd., which makes instrument panels for the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp., was rocked in late September when workers burst into the office of Roy George, its 46-year-old human-resources boss. Angry over a wage freeze, they carried iron rods, witnesses say, and left Mr. George in a pool of blood. Police arrested 50 union members in connection with his death, their lawyer says. Charges haven’t been filed.

Battle lines are being drawn in labor actions across India. Factory managers, amid the global economic downturn, want to pare labor costs and remove defiant workers. Unions are attempting to stop them, with slowdowns and strikes that have led at times to bloodshed.

The disputes are fueled by the discontent of workers, many of whom say they haven’t partaken of the past decade’s prosperity. Their passions are being whipped up, companies say, by labor leaders who want to add members to their unions and win votes for left-leaning political parties. Adding to the tensions are the country’s decades-old labor codes, which workers and companies alike say require an overhaul.

“We can’t be a capitalist country that has socialist labor laws,” says Jayant Davar, president of the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.

The unrest serves as a reminder that India has far to go before it stands alongside the world’s other economic powerhouses. With its widening middle class and growing base of rural consumers, India has averaged more than 8% growth for the last half-decade. It is seen as a country that can help lead a global economic recovery.

But first, it must show it can ride out booms and slowdowns alike. The country’s manufacturing sector, after growing about 7% annually for the past 16 years, logged 2.4% growth in the 12 months that ended in March. That has pressed manufacturers to make some unpopular cutbacks — spurring labor actions that have slowed production further and suppressed growth.

Strikes at India’s manufacturing and service companies rose 48% in 2008 from the year before, India’s Ministry of Labor says. This year, labor actions have hit manufacturers from Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. to Finland’s Nokia Corp. and Swiss food giant Nestle SA.

Workers at a unit of Korea’s Hyundai Motor Co. staged sit-ins in April and July, demanding recognition of an outside union and reinstatement of suspended workers.

In September, workers at a unit of Japan’s Honda Motor Co. tried to prevent a trial of a new assembly line by threatening engineers and executives with shock-absorbers and motorcycle pieces, according to a court documents.

Some confrontations have turned vicious. Last year, the chief executive of Graziano Trasmissioni India Pvt. Ltd., a manufacturing unit of Swiss high-tech group OC Oerlikon Corp., was beaten to death by workers who had been suspended at a plant outside New Delhi.

The impact has been global. A strike that started in late September at Indian supplier Rico Auto Industries Ltd. left Ford Motor Co. without transmission parts, forcing it to halt production temporarily at an Ontario plant that makes Edge sport-utility vehicles and at a Chicago plant that builds Taurus sedans.

The six-week Rico strike spurred GM to idle an SUV-production facility in Delta Township, Mich., for a week and cut one shift for a second week. GM also cut a shift at a transmission factory in Warren, Mich., said a person familiar with the matter.

At Pricol, the standoff that led to Mr. George’s killing continues. The company says its pay is generous for the market. It accuses S. Kumarasami, a labor lawyer who organized the Pricol union, of inciting violence and trying to bring the company to a standstill to advance his broader leftwing political agenda.

Mr. Kumarasami, who wasn’t among those arrested and represents 20 Pricol workers who remain in custody in the matter, says he doesn’t advocate violence. The company risked workers’ lives, he says, by choosing to suppress wages. “Economic violence is also violence,” he says.

An Asian Manchester

Coimbatore, a colonial-era textile hub in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, expanded in recent decades into a manufacturing center for machine parts and small motors. Dubbed the Manchester of South India, its streets are lined with shops that sell pumps, coils and bearings.

manufacturing

Pricol was founded here in the 1970s by Vijay Mohan, the son of a textile-factory owner, as a maker of moped speedometers. Now its seven plants around India export 50 products — from fuel gauges and clocks to cigarette lighters — to some 40 countries.

As its work force grew, so did its problems.

Pricol, like other Indian manufacturers, is guided by two old labor laws. The country’s Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 requires companies to gain government permission before dismissing workers. The Contract Labor Law of 1970, meanwhile, prohibits employers from using temporary workers for long-term jobs. Both aim to encourage companies to protect workers by making them permanent.

Manufacturers have long complained that it can take years to dismiss their permanent employees, leading to bloated work forces and hampering companies’ ability to respond quickly to changing business conditions. Executives and industry groups say relaxing the labor laws would allow companies to hire more workers and would attract more manufacturers to India, ultimately underpinning a rise in wages.

“Some of the hardships faced by labor will be lessened if there is greater demand for workers, as would happen in a more flexible market,” says Cornell University economics professor Kaushik Basu, who was recently appointed chief economist for India’s Ministry of Finance. There are no current efforts to change the laws, officials say.

Union leaders complain that companies are hiring contract workers for longer than the law intends. They say that by using these workers — who are generally paid less and don’t draw company pensions — employers undercut permanent employees’ leverage in wage negotiations.

“Companies are doing well in India, even during a global recession,” says D.L. Sachdev, national secretary for the All India Trade Union Congress, which is backed by the Communist Party of India. “The way they keep their margins safe is to increase the exploitation of the workers.”

Mr. Mohan, now 62 years old, says Pricol tried to do right by workers from the beginning — offering employees one cafeteria instead of separate facilities for workers and executives, and adopting equal wages for male and female workers before most other local manufacturers did so. And for 25 years, Mr. Mohan says, it avoided hiring cheaper contract workers.

“People said I was a bloody fool,” he says. “I was, in fact, an idealist.”

But in 2000, fearful of building a costly permanent work force, Mr. Mohan changed course. Factory contract workers now account for about one-third of the 2,200 people employed at Pricol’s three Coimbatore plants, the company says.

By 2007, Pricol’s sales had nearly tripled from 2000, to 4.81 billion rupees ($104 million).

Workers grew upset that their wages hadn’t seemed to rise along with company sales, says machine operator C. Murali Manoharan. Then a 16-year Pricol veteran, he made about $170 a month at current exchange rates. He says supporting his school-age daughter grew harder as food and education prices rose, and he seethed as executives saved enough from their salaries and bonuses to buy new cars and houses.

“The company’s growth was huge,” Mr. Manoharan says. “But our wages were still low.”

Workers began demanding bigger pay increases. Mr. Mohan resisted, telling workers that raises had already been negotiated by Pricol’s existing unions.

Doused With Kerosene

In early 2007, workers turned to Mr. Kumarasami. The head of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions in Tamil Nadu’s capital, Chennai, Mr. Kumarasami promised Pricol workers he would help secure higher wages for permanent and contract workers alike.

Mr. Kumarasami immediately led a strike at Pricol’s three Coimbatore plants. At one point, striking female factory workers doused themselves with kerosene and threatened to light themselves on fire. Mr. Mohan says the threat was a union stunt to wring concessions from the company, which Mr. Kumarasami denies.

With production slumping, Mr. Mohan replaced the striking contract workers with other contract workers, and braced for a battle with Mr. Kumarasami. “He’d thought we’d buckle in a day,” says Mr. Mohan. Permanent employees returned to work in June, after striking for 100 days.

In July — when Pricol traditionally announced its wage increases — Mr. Mohan said there would be no raises, citing the work stoppages’ impact on production and sales. Soon after, several contract laborers who had been hired during the strike were rounded up by workers and tied to trees outside the factory, say executives and workers.

These disruptions stung. In 2008, as India’s automobile market boomed, Pricol’s sales remained essentially flat. Net profit fell to half of 2007 levels.

In July 2008, Mr. Mohan again said he couldn’t raise wages. The next month, engineers and Pricol executives touring the factory floor were beaten by a group of workers with iron rods, says V. Balaji Chinnappan, a general manager of manufacturing. Several were hospitalized. Mr. Kumarasami said his union discourages violence and blames the flaring tempers on “the intransigence of the management.”

Splits developed in Mr. Kumarasami’s union. Machinist Mr. Manoharan, then serving as a union leader, said he began to believe a labor settlement wasn’t possible with Mr. Kumarasami in the picture. Toward the end of 2008, he says, he started meeting privately with Pricol executives to explore a settlement.

Soon, he recalls, came a telephone call from another worker, who told him: “Join with management and I will beat you.”

In March 2009, two men on motorcycles he couldn’t identify came to his house and thrashed him with iron rods, breaking his hand. In May, he says, another Pricol worker slashed him from behind with a machete as he waited at a bus station, leaving him unable lift his arm.

“That union achieved nothing,” says Mr. Manoharan, who is paid by Pricol though his limp arm has kept him off the job.

Such feelings led some Pricol managers to believe they could work around Mr. Kumarasami. One executive who spearheaded this approach was human-resources manager Mr. George, a native of the southern Kerala state educated at one of India’s top management universities.

Hired into a volatile situation in March 2009, the new HR boss tried to bond with workers, executives say, particularly those who had protested wage freezes with work slowdowns, including cardplaying or sleeping during their shifts. He asked to hear grievances and maintained an open-door policy. Attempting to cool tensions among co-workers, the balding father of two organized “bring your kids to work” days.

In the summer, citing flat sales and a rare net loss stemming from the unrest, Mr. Mohan declined to raise pay.

On Saturday, Sept. 19, Pricol handed dismissal notices to more than 40 workers that Mr. Mohan calls “militant” union members.

Pricol calls the dismissals legal and says it warned workers verbally and in writing. Mr. Kumarasami maintains the dismissals are “illegal” and says he is challenging them through the government’s Labor Bureau.

Shattering Glass

The next Monday during lunch break, Pricol’s Soundarya Rammurthi says she heard shattering glass and screams. The 30-year-old human-resources executive says she saw two workers with iron rods and “burning eyes” heading into Mr. George’s office. She fled the building and called security guards.

Pricol executives say two video cameras — one that would show people entering the building, another near Mr. George’s office — were intentionally disabled. A third camera recorded about eight workers fleeing the human-resources building, says Mr. Chinnappan.

Mr. Kumarasami declined to comment about the 20 workers still detained in the matter before charges have been filed. He calls Mr. George “an unfortunate victim,” but accuses Pricol of using the murder to destroy his union. He says more than 1,200 Pricol workers remain members.

Mr. Mohan says he’s ready to make peace. He has enlisted outside mediators and agreed to their suggestion to unfreeze factory wages. Mr. Kumarasami said this has helped create “a mood to consult” with management on labor issues.

Pricol’s output has rebounded. Between shifts, workers amble around a cordoned-off murder site. In Mr. George’s vacant office, gashes remain in the walls.

“I don’t say that everything is hunky-dory,” says Mr. Mohan. “There’s an artificial calm.”

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A Hindu Version of the UAW: Labor Strife in India

November 21, 2009 by 2 Comments

David Macaray

Despite the economic gains India has made over the last thirty years, it’s important to note that its story, while impressive, is no glittering fairy tale. Although the country has made extraordinary progress, the notion that India is anywhere close to establishing even a fledgling “middle-class” is wildly farfetched. The reality of India is that poverty and misery continue to haunt the sub-continent.

The reality is that 400 million Indians are illiterate, that universal rural electrification (promised to be in place by 1990) is still out of reach, that infant mortality rates and child malnutrition are alarming problems, and that non-union factory workers are still being exploited. Indeed, as more international pressure is brought to bear on Indian companies, more liberties are being taken with the industrial work force.

As for union workers, the case can be made that—cultural differences aside—India’s labor unions are almost identical in temperament and outlook to what American unions were 100 years ago. The Indian economy is robust, companies are expanding, manufacturing jobs are plentiful, and entrepreneurial confidence is sky high—just as it was in the U.S. a century ago. And just as it was in America a century ago, Indian unions are learning that, prosperity and rosy predictions notwithstanding, they have to fight and claw for every last nickel.

On November 5, a 45-day strike by 3,000 workers at Rico Automotive Industries in Haryana, a state in northern India, adjacent to Punjab (where I once lived), was called off by the AITUC (All-India Trade Union Congress). A settlement between Rico, AITUC and the Haryana state government was reached just hours before thousands of workers at other plants in what is called the “Gurgaon-Manesar corridor” were expected to hit the bricks in a sympathy strike in support of Rico workers.

With the sprawling Gurgaon-Manesar corridor representing the heart of the country’s immense and rapidly growing automobile and motorcycle manufacturing sector, Haryana state has become the locus of union activism. Given their prodigious numbers, economic leverage and willingness to take on management, workers in the G-M corridor have the potential to become India’s UAW (United Auto Workers).

The planned sympathy strike was a healthy sign of union solidarity—again very reminiscent of what used to happen in the U.S. prior to passage, in 1947, of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, outlawed jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes and secondary boycotts.

Another healthy sign was the October 23 demonstration, where nearly 100,000 workers at 60-odd manufacturing plants in the G-M corridor walked off their jobs in a one-day protest of the murder of a Rico striker, a 25 year old man allegedly killed by company assassins. One-hundred thousand workers walking off their jobs! What an astounding show of solidarity!

Of course, as happens in contract negotiations, there were varying opinions and theories as to how effective the strike was. While Rico management and the Congress Party-led state government of Haryana boasted that they had not acceded to any “unreasonable” union demands, AITUC leadership depicted the strike as a success and the final offer as a victory for the union.

While many strikers were pleased to be able to return to work, others were disappointed their union hadn’t held out for more. Among the issues not settled to their satisfaction were: a significant GWI (general wage increase), amnesty for miscreant strikers, further restrictions on the use of outside contractors, and a unit clarification of AITUC’s status as bargaining representative.

But “satisfactory” or not, the efficacy of a 45-day strike should not be minimized. Give the union credit for pulling it off. Forty-five days is a formidable strike, a respectable strike—whether it takes place in Haryana, India or Detroit, Michigan. In truth, shutdowns that last longer than two months risk evolving into mini-sieges; and sieges, no matter how “valid,” tend to warp everyone’s perspective.

Rather than cast the strike as a life-or-death proposition, a prudent union (like AITUC) will stay out for a “meaningful” period of time, but no longer. Work stoppages are supposed to be tactical moves, not exercises in martyrdom. When it’s time to go back to work, you lick your wounds and go back to work….and live to fight another day. Also, it’s not as if there wasn’t sufficient drama before the Rico strike was called off. Besides the one-day walkout in October, and the planned sympathy strike, on November 4, the day before the strike ended, Gurudas Dasgupta, the General–Secretary of AITUC, was arrested by Haryana state police as he was set to address striking workers. His speech was to be the centerpiece of a fiery pep rally.

Although Dasgupta remained in custody for only a few hours (upon being released he was forced to leave the G-M corridor), his arrest is indicative of the volatility of the Haryana labor scene. Again, what happened with the Rico Automotive people evoked memories of what used to happen right here in the U.S. during organized labor’s remarkable ascendancy.

Yet, despite the vitality of the Indian labor movement there are ominous clouds on the horizon. While America’s early 20th century unions were able to take their cow to market—battling with management, politicians, special interests, goon squads, traitors, their own “weak sisters”—in the relative seclusion of an autonomous U.S. economy, the Indians have no such luxury.

India is already a world player. Companies in Asia, the U.S., Europe and Australia all have vested interests in what happens in India, and, accordingly, will apply enormous pressure to protect those interests. Haryana’s vital G-M corridor is regularly tracked by Wall Street; India’s AITUC is on the computer screens of security companies around the world; and just as Harry Bridges was harassed by U.S. feds during the 1930s and ‘40s, Gurudas Dasgupta is clearly already in the Congress Party’s crosshairs.

Not to paint too grim a picture, but it’s only a matter of time before joint government-corporate interests seek to neutralize India’s unions. The stakes are simply too high. To international corporations relying on Indian output, the notion of a burgeoning, indigenous labor movement being allowed to freely test its strength is simply too dangerous.

These joint interests will get the dirty job done through bribes and political maneuvers. Although it took government-corporate collusion many decades to finally tame America’s unions, with globalization having accelerated the process, these noble Indian unions could be reduced to puppet-status within a few years. And that would be tragic.

—–
David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright, is a former union rep and author of “It’s Never Been Easy: Essays on Modern Labor” (available at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc.) He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net

Courtesy: Counterpunch

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Revolutionary movement and the “spirit of generalisation”

November 20, 2009 by 3 Comments

Pratyush Chandra

“There are no miracles in nature or history, but every abrupt turn in history, and this applies to every revolution, presents such a wealth of content, unfolds such unexpected and specific combinations of forms of struggle and alignment of forces of the contestants, that to the lay mind there is much that must appear miraculous”. V.I. Lenin

Can there be a Maoist movement or for that matter, a Marxist movement? We have been using the phrase “Communist Movement” for a long time, but what does it signify? What is the utility of these phrases in the context of today’s people’s and working class struggle? In my view, these terms at best can help us identify particular ideological streams in that struggle. But to present them as “movements” themselves demonstrate a “sectist” tendency to extol or deprecate particular ideological currents within the larger people’s movement, separating them from class practices in which they are grounded.

I

There can be a Maoist current that represents a particular tenor emerging from a particular location within the working class politics. So are many other kinds of isms and the so-called “movements” – they represent diverse levels of consciousness (which include its absence too) within the working class movement.

Until and unless we locate these “ideological” currents in larger class processes or struggle, their critique will falter into futile exegetics of particular historical events or documents related to them. For example, much has been talked about Maoism in terms of what Maoists have done, or what Mao said, or what happened to the Maoist “movements” in China, Cambodia and Peru. In this critique, what is missed out is the very ground that they hold – the working masses who identified with these practices and who gave new meaning to Mao’s words. By locating Maoisms in class struggle, we provide scope for their critique too – of their programmes and their particular practices.

II

Karl Marx, during the First International, talked about “the spirit of generalisation and revolutionary passion” that constituted revolutionary subjectivity which could actualise the possibilities inherent in the objective conditions. He visualised the role of a party or organisation, which was for Marx at that time the International Workingmen’s Association itself, in incubating this spirit. As Henri Lefebvre once said, the task of the revolutionary political party is to recognise the spontaneity and revolutionary instinct of the working masses and unite them with the theoretical knowledge of larger processes elaborated by intellectuals organically grounded in the working class praxis.(1) The spirit of generalisation is based on self-emancipatory practices of the working class (at all levels). It is nothing more, nor less, than recognising and vocalising the evolving revolutionary class logic through and within diverse practices grounded in various spatio-temporal locations.

The problem occurs when instead of parties being founded and refounded in this conscious process of generalisation, their institutional logic overpowers and stunts this spirit – i.e., the forms that the working class movement takes at particular space-times are frozen and “extrapolated”. Thus in place of generalisation, over-generalisation of a particular class practice takes place, leading to sectism.

However, the critique of this over-generalisation cannot be done by externalising and then rubbishing these particular class practices as simply ideological problems or deviations. In fact, this so-called ‘critical’ current too is nothing but a representation of sectarianism. By naming movements in terms of ideologies articulated in particular locations of class struggle, rather than visualising those ideologies as simply symptomatic of those locations, we homogenise and externalise those locations, thus once again distorting the spirit of generalisation. Interestingly, unlike what various brands of Marxists do nowadays (leave aside the upcoming breed of civil society intermediaries, forget them “for they know not what they do”), Marx’s assessment of the Paris Commune as a revolutionary working class upsurge was not based on the counting of number of Marxists in that struggle. Lenin notes that before the Paris uprising, Marx warned the French workers that “insurrection would be an act of desperate folly”, but when it was unavoidable,

“Did he use it …to “take a dig” at his enemies, the Proudhonists and Blanquists who were leading the Commune? Did he begin to scold like a school mistress, and say: “I told you so, I warned you; this is what comes of your romanticism, your revolutionary ravings?” Did he preach to the Communards… the sermon of the smug philistine: “You should not have taken up arms?” No… And he has words of the highest praise for the “heroic” Paris workers led by the Proudhonists and Blanquists.”

III

The ideological externalisation of various political experiences of the working class is one of the most detrimental tendencies in its movement that thwarts the possibility of the emergence of revolutionary subjectivity in India today. It is not that this externalisation is done only by the critics, but more so by the admirers of the tendencies that dominate particular political experiences. Both do that by reducing the experiences’ particularity to either locational or ideological exclusivity. By relegating solidarity efforts to symbolic association with and external troubleshooting for the struggle going on ‘elsewhere’, the sympathisers too shirk the responsibility of politicising their own everyday life, and thus of generalising the movement.

At a critical juncture like today’s, despite a dramatic rise in local unrests throughout India, the ruling classes and the Indian state seem to be overconfident and increasingly becoming unilateral and authoritarian. It is only by constantly stereotyping the unrest, that they can delegitimize and pre-empt the efforts of revolutionary generalisation, for which the sectarian externalising / competitive tendencies within the movement itself have provided readymade vocabularies and agencies.

Now, the sense of being dispossessed is rampant among the rural poor, those who are ready to take up arms. Whatever be their identity, they come mostly under the class of allotment-holding workers, a term that Kautsky and Lenin used to characterise the majority of the so-called “peasantry” – land in whose possession is just for reproduction of their own labour-power. Hence, rural struggles today, including against land acquisition and those led by the Maoists, are not merely against threats to their livelihood but to life itself – to the very sphere of their reproduction.

Today, rural and urban workers are increasingly getting organised, becoming conscious and militant. Under neoliberalism, their footlooseness (beyond the urban/rural divide and other identitarian boundaries) is progressively making them realise the socialised nature of their labour, while encountering capital as social power in every facet of their lives.

These are the “objective conditions” in which various “forms of struggle” are evolving. What we need today is the urge to move beyond existentialist boundaries, of local and particular experiences, relocating them as diverse moments in the same struggle against capital. There must be a conscious realisation of “the spirit of generalisation” that can recognise the underlying unity between these forms and moments, and strategise on its revolutionary potential.

Reference:
(1) Henri Lefebvre (1969), The Explosion: Marxism and the French Upheaval, Monthly Review Press (Reprinted by Aakar Books, 2009), p.38-39

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War against the Maoists: But who are they and what do they want?

November 19, 2009 by 8 Comments

Rita Khanna

The Indian government is launching a full-scale war against the Maoist rebels and the people led by them in different parts of the country. The initial battles, without any formal announcement, have already started. For this purpose, they intend to deploy about 75,000 security personnel in parts of Central and Eastern India, including Chhattisgarh, Orissa and Jharkhand. The government will organize its regular air-force in addition to paramilitary and specially trained COBRA forces. The air-force has begun to extend its logistic support. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P. Chidambaram have declared the Maoist rebels to be ‘the biggest internal security threat’ to India and a hindrance to ‘development’. The mainstream media seem to have taken them at their face value. Their publications and television programmes seem to be building a war-hysteria against the Maoist rebels regardless of the fact that this attack by the government will be directed against some of the most deprived of the Indian people. Indeed this is turning into a war of the state against its own people!

While paying lip service at times to the notion that the current people’s insurgency led by the Maoist rebels has its root in decades of vicious exploitation of the poor, especially the dalits and tribals, the blare of government propaganda tries to convince us that the Maoist rebels are dangerous, blood-thirsty terrorists determined to establish their areas of influence. The Government is preaching that the Maoists can go to any extent to maintain their influence in these areas – by either preventing the government from undertaking development activities or using the power of their guns, killing disobedient individuals. Their ideology is to terrorise the common people, wrest power from the democratically elected governments and destroy the entire fabric of the society. The government and the media want us to believe that the only people, apart from a few romantic misguided intellectuals, who willingly support Maoists are the poor, ignorant, uneducated, uninformed tribal people. They seem to claim that no sensible, intelligent person living in a society like ours would support them voluntarily. But is this a true picture?

Could it be that the Maoist rebels are supporting and organizing the poor, exploited people to fight oppression, to establish a more egalitarian society where the wealth of our growing economy will be spread among all, not merely among a very small minority? Could it be that in the name of suppressing the Maoists, the state is going all out to break the backbone of these poor peoples’ fight? Could it be that the government is planning to wage a war, in our name, against our own sisters and brothers to help line the pockets of the rich?

In this hour of crisis, we must ask those questions that the government seeks to suppress.

What do we really know about the Maoist rebels, their ideology, their plans and programs? Why does the government need to go to war against its own people and inside its own territory? Are the Maoists really blocking development? Who are these Maoists anyway and what do they want?

Let us take one question at a time.

Who are these Maoists?

The Maoists are revolutionaries mainly consisting of the extremely poor people including a large number of dalits and tribals. They come mainly from the toiling masses of India and they are trying to organize the vast population of such masses of this country. They seek to arm and train them so that these masses can resist the onslaught of the rich. In this effort they go beyond the idea that mass movements should focus on some specific issues like increase of wages, better health care, more honesty of public servants and so forth. The view of the Maoist rebels is that the poor and exploited people must first and foremost establish their own democratic political power and their own state power in various places. This is because without controlling state power, the poor and the exploited can at most hope for only limited improvements in their living conditions, i.e., so long as it does not inconvenience the rich who usually control the state power. So, the Maoists mobilize the poor to fight against the existing state, even armed fight if possible, as they consider the existing state to be a set of agents acting for the big multinational corporations, rich landlords and the wealthy in general. The fight is an extremely challenging and unequal one as the rich are aided by the government bureaucrats, the police and even the military. Also, contrary to what the Government and the mainstream media are propagating, the Maoist rebels are actually completely opposed to individual killings, they openly denigrate such stray terrorism-like acts. What they have been attempting to build up is a mass movement, even armed, to take on the violence of the ruling classes and its representative state machinery.

The Maoist movement was born in India in the late 1960s, after a radical section of political workers broke away mainly from the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM) because they felt the CPIM and other such parties like CPI, RSP, etc. had discredited themselves with their opportunist politics of placating and compromising with the rich. The movement has a long history of development. The present party, CPI (Maoist), came into being in 2004 by the merger of a number of fraternal organizations.

Is development in India arrested because the Maoist rebels are blocking it?

What is the state of the people of India at present? With its current high rate of growth, this is also a country of abject poverty and extreme inequality. Home to 24 billionaires (second largest in Asia according to Forbes), India can also boast of 230 million people who go to bed on a half empty stomach (Source: World Hunger Report).

A country whose economy grows at 9% cannot feed its own population – at least 50% of the people live below the official poverty line and 47% of children below the age of three are underweight [World Bank report; Undernourished children: A call for reform and action]. In this so called ‘hub of knowledge economy’, only 11% of the total population can afford higher education and 50% of the students drop out before class eight to start living as casual labourers (Source: Education Statistics, Ministry of Human Resource Development). This is true of most of India not just the areas where Maoist influence and control is high. Then how can we say that development in India is being blocked by Maoists?

Maoists do not oppose `development’ at all, they only oppose the `pro-rich development’ at the expense of destitution or often total destruction of the poor. For example, in Dandakaranya region of Chhattisgarh they oppose setting up of helipads but there, the poor themselves, led by the Maoist rebels, have built irrigation tanks and wells for help in agriculture something the Indian government did not bother to do. The Indian government routinely blames the Maoist rebels that they blow up schools! But what the Government tries to suppress is that these blown-up school buildings were actually being used or requisitioned to become camps for security personnel!

And what changes do they want? Why do they want these changes?

(1) Overhauling the entire structure of oppression instead of piecemeal reforms

In addition to all the woes described above, India is also a country, where thousands of Muslims can be butchered in broad daylight by fascist Hindu forces (the most widespread and gruesome such pogrom in recent times happened in Gujarat in 2002), while the ministers and police look the other way. And these features are not stray results of the misdeeds of a few villains. The existing socio-political system in India has a built-in mechanism which ensures that the common masses would be oppressed by a rich and powerful few. Widespread systemic violence is required and is routinely applied by the Indian state so that common people remain disciplined and do not revolt in the face of oppression.

(2) Land to the tillers and destruction of the landlord class

About 60% of the Indian population is still dependent on agriculture. However the primary input, land, is predominantly concentrated in the hands of a few landlords and big farmers. Close to 60 percent of rural households are effectively landless [NSS report]. The elite in the villages, by their collusion with the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats have blocked any meaningful land reforms. In the last four decades the proportion of households with little or no land (landless and marginal farmer households) has increased steadily from 66% to 80%. On the other hand the top ten percent rural households own more land now than in 1951 (Source: NSS report).The Maoist revolutionaries want to change this to ensure equitable distribution of land. They do not deter from collective armed fight of the landless and poor peasants and the poor rural labourers against the existing state power for achieving this goal.

(3) Freedom from moneylenders and traders

Indebtedness in rural India has been increasing by leaps and bounds especially in the recent decades. Public rural banks are closing down due to relaxation of government regulation. Therefore, instead of securing credits from public institutional sources, rural folk are now being forced to approach the village money lenders (who are often big landlords or rich farmers as well) on a larger and larger scale. Unscrupulous traders are adding to the misery of the poor peasants. They sell spurious inputs to small and marginal peasants at exorbitant prices. They also make huge profits by buying their harvest at throwaway prices and selling them in urban areas at a premium. Not-so-well-off peasants, in this no-win situation, of course end up needing substantial credit. Private moneylenders and various for-profit financial companies take advantage of this situation by extracting enormous sums from peasants. Interest rate could be as high as 5% per month. The BBC News reported that more than 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 under the pressure of such indebtedness. The Maoist rebels want to change this.

(4) End of caste system and eradication of untouchability

It is well known that the caste system is still thriving in India. Economically it keeps the overwhelming majority of the people in dire poverty and politically it suppresses their fundamental democratic rights. Often the lower castes are robbed of their human dignity. They are even denied access to public facilities like some sources of drinking water, schools etc. An expert group of the planning commission reports that in 70% villages lower caste people cannot enter places of worship and in more than 50% villages they don’t have access to common water sources (Expert committee report to the Planning Commission).

According to an NCDHR report, on average, 27 atrocities (including murder, abduction and rape) against dalits take place every day. The well-off landed sections in the villages still come mainly from the upper castes. They use brahminical ideology to try to keep all other sections of the population under domination. The same is true for usurers, merchants, hoarders, quarry owners, contractors–all mainly come from the upper castes. In short, the upper castes are still very much in command in all aspects of rural life. Often with their own private army of goondas they run a parallel raj. The Maoists want to break this stranglehold of the upper castes and ensure equal rights for dalits and adivasis.

(5) Freedom from exploitation by foreign multinationals and its local partners

Since 1991, foreign capital in alliance with big capitalists like Reliance, Tata and state bureaucrats, has penetrated vast sectors of the Indian economy. Every sphere of our life, starting from road construction, electricity generation, communication networks to food retail, health and education are under direct control of this coterie. In the name of ‘development’ thousands of acres of land are being transferred to big business and multinationals. For example, in Bastar, Chattisgarh, in the name of Bodh Ghat dam, tens of thousands of Adivasis are being forcibly evicted from their “jal-jangal-zameen” (water-forest-land). In Niyamgiri, Orissa the land which is the abode of several Dongria tribes has been handed over to the multinational Vedanta group which will completely destroy the livelihood of these tribes affecting more than 20,000 people. The state government and the mainstream opposition parties of the state are actively supporting such activities. The Maoists, over the years, have been resisting such plunder.

(6) Ensuring people’s democratic rights

It is well known that elections are often a sham in India. The parliament, as we have seen several times, is a bazaar where the rich and the super-rich can buy the MPs. According to ADR (Association of Democratic Reform), the average asset of an MP has gone up to 5.12 crore in 2009 from Rs 1.8 crore in 2004. In our democracy the erstwhile rajas and maharajas, like Scindias, are still proliferating and controlling the local economy and polity at many places. And we also know the state of judicial system in our country. Salman Khans and Sanjeev Nandas can kill by running cars over common people and still they can escape the law for very long, perhaps forever. B.N. Kirpal, the judge, who arbitrarily ordered that Indian rivers be interlinked, ignoring the resulting ecological and human calamity, joined the environmental board of Coca-Cola after he retired. The Maoists want to establish people’s court where poor people can get true justice. In fact, such courts run in many places where the Maoist movement is strong.

(7) Self-determination for the nationalities

The Indian government ruthlessly suppresses national aspirations of a number of people. These people and their land became part of India by accident – because the British raj annexed their homeland or a despotic king wanted their land to be a part of India. Lakhs of Indian troops have been deployed in Kashmir and north-eastern states to curb such struggles of the people in these states for their national self-determination. Since 1958, AFSPA has been imposed in north-eastern states, which allows armed forces to conduct search and seizure without warrant, to arrest without warrant, to destroy any house without any verification and to shoot to kill with full impunity. In Kashmir, there is 1 military personnel for every 15 civilian. Cold blooded murders, like those of Thangjam Manorama Devi, Chungkham Sanjit, Neelofar and Asiya Jan, are carried out frequently in the name of ‘countering terrorism’. The Maoist rebels seek to establish freedom of self determination for all nationalities.

So, to sum up, the new society the Maoists want to establish will have the following components:

Land to the poor and landless. Later on cooperative farming is to be established on voluntary basis.

Forest to the tribal people.

End of rule of the rich and the upper caste in villages and uprooting of caste system. Uproot all discriminations based on gender and religion.

Seizure of the ill gotten wealth and assets of multinational corporations and their local Indian partners.

Self determination for the nationalities, political autonomy for the tribes.

Establish a state by the poor, for the poor where the present day exploiters would be expropriated.

Participation of people in day to day administrative work and decision making. Democracy at the true grassroot level with people having the power to recall its democratic representatives.

In summary: ensuring that all types of freedom, rights and democracy for all sections of toiling masses.

What have the Maoists-led people’s struggles achieved so far?

Information in this section is taken, purposely, from the expert group report to the planning commission, which is available on the web.

Contrary to what the media try to portray, the government’s own report says that the movement led by the Maoist rebels cannot be seen as simply blowing up of police stations and killing individual people. It encompasses mass organization. Mass participation in militant protest has always been a characteristic of such mobilisation.

Although the Maoists by their own admission are engaged in a long term people’s struggle against the oppression by the present India state, their movement has already achieved some short term successes in improving the condition of the poor people.

Maoist movement in India was built around the demand of ‘land to the tillers’. Numerous struggles, led by the Maoists, have been fought all over the country especially in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, to free land from the big landholding families. In many such cases landlords have been driven away from the villages and their land has been put in the possession of the landless poor. But the police and paramilitary do not allow the poor to cultivate such lands. In Bihar, landless Musahars, the lowest among the Dalits have struggled and have taken possession of fallow Government land. This has had the support of Maoists.

Under the leadership of the Maoists the adivasis have reclaimed forest land on an extensive scale in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, Orissa and Jharkhand. The adivasis displaced by irrigation projects in Orissa had to migrate to the forests of Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh in large numbers. The forest department officials harassed and evicted them on a regular basis. The movement led by the Maoists put an end to this.

In rural India the Minimum Wages Act remains an act on paper only. In the forest areas of Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Jharkhand, non-payment of the legal wages was a major source of exploitation of adivasi labourer. Maoists-led struggles have put an effective end to it. These struggles have secured increases in the rate of payment for picking tendu leaves (used for rolling beedies), washing clothes, making pots, tending cattle, repairing implements etc. The exploitation previously had been so severe that as a result of the sustained movement led by Maoists the pay rates of tendu leaves collection have over the years increased by fifty times.

The movement has given confidence to the oppressed to assert their rights and demand respect and dignity from the dominant castes and classes. The everyday humiliation and sexual exploitation of labouring women of dalit and tribal communities by upper caste men has been successfully fought. Forced labour, begari, by which the toiling castes had to provide obligatory service for free to the upper castes was also put an end to in many parts of the country.

In rural India, disputes are commonly taken to the rich and powerful of the village (who are generally the landlords) and caste panchayats, where the dispensation of justice is in favour of the rich and powerful. The Maoist movement has provided a mechanism, usually described as the ‘People’s Court’ whereby these disputes are resolved in the interests of the wronged party.

Why then, does the government need to go to war against its own people led by these rebels instead of hailing them as true patriots?

There is a simple answer. Chattisgarh, Orissa are rich in mineral wealth that can be sold to the highest multinational bidder. The only obstacle standing between the corrupt politicians and ALL THIS MONEY are the poor, disenfranchised tribal people (and the Maoists leading them). So, this war. This is not something new in India or for that matter in other parts of the world. Mobutu’s corrupt regime selling off the Belgian Congo piece by piece to the US, Belgium and other countries comes to mind. In the sixty years of independence from direct colonial rule, the Indian state has been doing the same. It has systematically impoverished the overwhelming majority to serve the interest of a powerful few and their foreign friends.

The impending war to evict the tribal people from their villages, in the pretext of eliminating the Maoists, will be fought at the behest of big corporations, who want to control and plunder our resources such as mineral, water and forest. It is high time that we recognize this pattern of waging war which will be fought by the poor on both sides, but will benefit only the big capitalists and their cheerleaders in the government.

Note: This is meant to be a simple and brief exposition of the goals and strategies of the Maoist movement in India for people who may not have much awareness about it and are confused by the propaganda in the mainstream media. This does not go into the arcane debates about mode of production in India, the debates among communist revolutionaries over strategy and tactics etc. This aims at people who, for example, are perplexed why the Maoists, instead of trying to ensure safe drinking water like an NGO, rather, often resort to violent activities against the Government. We have deliberately kept references to a minimum in the body of the text. For an interested reader, the webpage: bannedthought.net contains an enormous wealth of information about the Maoist rebels, including their own documents.

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When the state declares war on the people

November 16, 2009 by Leave a Comment

In 2009, the Indian Government launched a major anti-Maoist offensive in forest areas Operation Green Hunt. Fact-finding investigations have uncovered the atrocities security forces are committing in these areas, but now those very findings are being questioned.

This 10-minute preview contains interviews with victims and their testimony about what is happening in Chhattisgarh. The clear intention of the State – to wipe out all resistance through terror in the name of fighting the Maoists – is demonstrated in this film. – Note on YOUTUBE

Part I

Part II

Courtesy: SPRINGTHUNDERFILMS at YOUTUBE

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Video: Dharna for Proper Implementation of Forest Rights Act

November 14, 2009 by 1 Comment

A dharna organised by Campaign for Survival and Dignity and Adivasi Vikas Manch at Jantar Mantar, Delhi on Nov 3 2009.

Want to know what the protests were about? Click here: Forests Under Siege.

Thousands joined protests across India against the Central and State governments to place Forests Under Siege. A dharna took place in Delhi on the 3rd and a rally on the 4th, with participants from MP, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. Dharnas and rallies also took place in Bhopal, Udaipur, Raipur and Bhubaneshwar on the 3rd. More than 5,000 people participated.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister informed State governments at the Tribal Ministry’s “review meeting” that “systematic exploitation of tribals must end.” In that case, why is his government intensifying this exploitation? The mockery of democracy and the rule of law continues.

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Nov 3 Protest Video (IV): Pothik Ghosh

November 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment
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Nov 3 Protest Video (III): Banjyotsna

November 14, 2009 by Leave a Comment
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“But a hungry man is dangerous”

November 13, 2009 by Leave a Comment

During the Great Depression, the administrators of Pennsylvania learnt their lessons in managing the unemployed and impoverished workers:

the wisest strategy would be “to urge [them] to shun our large cities and towns, go into the country and work raking gardens, building fences or any other work which they are capable to do…. This may seem drastic, but a hungry man is dangerous.”

Growing militancy among workers in India is definitely a cause of concern for capitalists, who already seem to know that it is the same Hungry Man’s awakening (see the following report).

India Food Strike, Fatal Riots Hobble Push to Export Car-Parts

By Vipin V. Nair and Subramaniam Sharma

Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) — Prem Kumar’s demand for higher pay and better food at the cafeteria at the auto-parts factory where he works near New Delhi forced General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. to shut three plants on the other side of the world.

The strike Kumar led at Rico Auto Industries Ltd., coming after managers were beaten to death in labor disputes at two other partmakers, may derail an Indian government goal to boost components exports about sevenfold to $25 billion by 2015. One global automaker already is reviewing plans to source as much as $3 billion in parts from India and may instead buy half from China, said Vikas Sehgal, a Chicago-based partner at Booz & Co. He declined to name the company, which is his client.

“People are suddenly looking at India with an eye of suspicion and concern,” he said. “When a single company’s strike jeopardizes the global value chain, the country suffers in the long run.”

GM, Ford and other automakers have increased their parts procurement from India and other emerging markets to lower costs. India’s overseas sales of components grew 10-fold in the past decade to $3.6 billion in the year ended March 2008, according to the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.

Labor costs in India are a tenth of what companies pay in the U.S., and raw material costs are lower by 11 percent, said Puneet Gupta, an analyst at CSM Worldwide Inc., an industry consultant. That’s prompted Hyundai Motor Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. to open plants in India to export cars.

“India’s biggest advantage is cost, especially labor costs,” said Koji Endo, managing director of Advanced Research Japan, a Tokyo-based equity research company. “Good quality parts can be made cheaply.”

45-Day Strike

Labor unrest may undermine that advantage. The 45-day strike at Rico, which ended Nov. 6, caused GM to shutter a factory in Delta Township, Michigan. Ford closed plants in Chicago and in Oakville, Ontario, in Canada.

Each factory was idled for one week because the Rico strike disrupted supplies of transmission components to plants that build vehicles such as Ford Tauruses, Lincoln MKXs and Buick Enclaves.

“Such strikes put a question mark on India,” Gupta said. “If the government doesn’t act and the problems continue, in the long run, companies may shift their locations to elsewhere, like Thailand.”

Ford, GM

Ford continues to see India as a key part of the global supply chain, said Todd Nissen, a company spokesman in Dearborn, Michigan. GM also has no immediate plans to stop using Indian parts.

“As a global purchasing group, we need to manage through supply issues no matter where they occur to keep vehicle production as close to schedule as possible,” said Alan Adler, a GM spokesman in Detroit.

Rico Auto’s customers haven’t terminated contracts because of the strike, said Chief Executive Officer Arvind Kapur. The company is working on a plan to ensure that future incidents don’t affect operations, he said.

In September, a human resources official at Pricol Ltd., a supplier to Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., was killed by workers protesting against the management, said Chief Operating Officer K. Udhaya Kumar. He didn’t elaborate.

Last year, the managing director of Graziano Trasmissioni India Ltd. was beaten to death after a group of sacked employees turned violent, police said.

“The meltdown dynamics in a competitive environment not only create survival pressures on the managements but also induce an acute sense of insecurity and uncertainty in the minds of the wage-earning employed,” said Jerome Joseph, who teaches industrial relations at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Rising Strikes

More than 1.5 million workers were involved in 250 strikes at Indian factories in 2008, compared with about 1 million workers involved in 255 strikes in 2003, according to Rajesh Thakur, a director at the government’s Labour Bureau.

Also, overall wages rose 0.8 percent, compared with 4.4 percent growth in productivity between 1990 and 2006, according to a 2008 report by the International Labour Organization. China’s wage growth in the same period was 9.9 percent, beating a productivity gain of 9 percent, it said.

Between 2006 and 2007, food prices rose by 9 percent in India, hurting purchasing power, according to ILO.

Rico’s CEO Kapur said a new hire costs the company about 6,000 rupees ($130) a month. Kumar, the union leader, said the company favors hiring temporary workers, who can be easily fired and take home about 4,000 rupees a month. That compares with full-time employees, who can earn about 11,000 rupees, he added.

“How can they secure themselves, educate their children and feed their families on such meager wages?” Kumar said. “It’s the rule of the jungle.”

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