Indian State enumerates “Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas”

July 25, 2008 by 1 Comment

Ravi Kumar

[Government of India (2008, April) Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas, Report of an expert group to Planning commission, Planning Commission, Government of India, New Delhi]

It may seem surprising that the Indian state and its ruling political elite constituted a committee to study the radical left movement in the country. However, beyond this apparent incongruity, it is essentially a stocktaking exercise in order to design the initiatives for undermining class politics and mass upsurge against the free rule of capital unleashed under neoliberalism.

It is no longer a surprise that we have today a ‘powerful’ voice in the country, categorised as ‘democratic’, ‘pro-people’, ‘progressive’, and ‘secular’, but certainly not pro-working class, which has substituted the class based analysis. The report, which is being discussed here in brief, is also an addition to that burgeoning non-class, pro-people, humane capitalism framework of analysis. In this sense, one may read the report not only in terms of a response to radical left politics, but to any political movement which demands an alternative to capitalism.

The Common Minimum Programme of the United Progressive Alliance, when it came to power in the year 2004 made an effort to portray itself as ‘sympathetic’ to the radical left movement when it expressed its concern for the “the growth of extremist violence and other forms of terrorist activity in different states” and stressed that it was “not merely a law-and-order problem, but a far deeper socio-economic issue” (see the Common Minimum Programme of the United progressive Alliance).

But in due course, as the government supported by the dominant Left steered itself through years, a marked change in the approach of the Indian state was seen. Different agents of capital, such as the Prime Minister of India, belonging to the Congress Party, as well as leader of the right wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), started rejecting radical left politics quite unequivocally as the most significant security problem. L.K. Advani of the BJP said in 2006 that the “communist extremism not only endangers India’s national security and our democratic system, but also our precious cultural and spiritual heritage. The rabidly anti-Hindu propaganda of naxalites must be noted in this context”. The Prime Minister, in 2007, was concerned with the threat to spiritual and cultural heritage from communists but categorised the “Left Wing Extremism” as “probably single biggest security challenge to the Indian state. It continues to be so and we cannot rest in peace until we have eliminated this virus”. He appealed for a well-concerted response to this ‘virus’. He asserted, “we need to cripple the hold of naxalite forces with all the means at our command. This requires improved intelligence gathering capabilities, improved policing capabilities, better coordination between the Centre and the States and better coordination between States and most important, better leadership and firmer resolve. Improving policing capabilities requires better police infrastructure, better training facilities, better equipment and resources and dedicated forces”.

In the background of such a vocal and militant stance of the ruling class against the issue of radical left politics the constitution of committee acquires more interest. In the month of April 2008 a group of “experts” comprising of retired bureaucrats, intellectuals, and “activists”, brought together by the Government of India as an “expert group”, submitted a report to the Planning Commission entitled “Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas”. Those who participated are recognised as belonging to the ‘progressive’ fraternity, which possesses a great deal of concern about the issues confronting the Indian masses. And the writers of the report have made at least one significant contribution by suggesting that “…the governments have in practice treated unrest merely as a law and order problem” (p.30) and that it should not be treated as such.

But the report has to deal with this dilemma of being an Expert Group constituted by an oppressive state (which remains silent on the issue of organisation and state patronage to private militias against the left) while ironically the members are also conscious of their ‘progressive tags’. It is from this dilemma the rejection of the political demand of the radical left emerges in the report. It says that “it has to be recognised, however, that no State could agree to a situation of seizure of power through violence when the Constitution provides for change of government through electoral process” (p. 59). Thus, without making an analysis of the politico-ideological basis of the support of such forces the report not only denies such ideologies a legitimate place but also assures the state that there is no alternative to it except that some improvements would make the world a better place. Due to such an orientation the report also fails to reflect on the character of the state as it has been in those areas where the movements are very strong. Its ‘coercive’ form (in Gramscian sense) or the extensive use of the Repressive State Apparatuses (in Althusserian sense) does not figure with prominence.

Rather the report proceeds further with its allegiance to capital, when it writes that “strengthening and reorientation of the law enforcement apparatus is a necessity to ensure justice and peace for the tribal…. The law enforcement machinery in the affected areas would need to be strengthened” and among the many measures they suggest setting up of “additional police stations / outposts in the affected areas; filling up the police vacancies and improving the police-people ratio”; and “sophisticated weapons for the police” (p. 59).

If one looks at the content of the report, it has nothing new to offer in terms of analysis or information. Its ‘sympathetic’ content has already been a part of the public discourse in the country. For instance, it tries to tell us with the help of government statistics and with the help of other works by intellectuals working on Dalits that the condition of Dalits (or Scheduled Castes) and the Scheduled Tribes has been quite dismal. They are poor, socially discriminated and politically powerless. It highlights the issue of displacement due to development projects as well. And the report attributes this to the poor governance among other things. But where is the newness in this, except that it is coming from a Planning Commission report? It is only in this context that the report deserves some amount of commendation.

Reiterating what has already been said by many social scientists the report recognises that “the inequalities between classes, between town and country, and between the upper castes and the underprivileged communities are increasing. That this has potential for tremendous unrest is recognized by all. But somehow policy prescriptions presume otherwise. As the responsibility of the State for providing equal social rights recedes in the sphere of policymaking, we have two worlds of education, two worlds of health, two worlds of transport and two worlds of housing, with a gaping divide in between” (p. 1).

When it comes to talking about the causes of discontent, the report fails to get into the actual reasons or analyses of those causes. By not getting into why inequities become part of a social and economic system, and hence, political as well as cultural systems, the report overall makes an extremely superficial analysis of the situation. Inequity or discrimination that emerges is innate to the order of things in capitalism or where the motivation of the system/capital is towards maximisation of surplus through whatever possible means. Such a system by its very nature would pave way for discontentment of this kind and mobilisation of people in different forms. And that’s why the politico-ideological aim of the movements cannot be rejected flimsily and need to be seen as an intrinsic and indispensable part of the movements. By denying the movements their agency, by stripping them of their political understanding and goals what the report does is that it works towards delegitimising the actual ideological and political aims of an anti-systemic movement.

Nobody disagrees with its arguments such as “the genesis of discontent among Dalits lies in the age-old caste-based social order, which condemns them to a life of deprivation, servility, and indignity” (p.7) or that issues of land and wage are significant determinants which generate frustration and hence motivate people to organise. But it fails to get beyond these obvious reasons and also tends to make generalised and quite isolated conclusions, such as in the context of tribes it says that “apart from poverty and deprivation in general, the causes of the tribal movements are many: the most important among them are absence of self governance, forest policy, excise policy, land related issues, multifaceted forms of exploitation, cultural humiliation and political marginalisation. Land alienation, forced evictions from land, and displacement also added to unrest. Failure to implement protective regulations in Scheduled Areas, absence of credit mechanism leading to dependence on money lenders and consequent loss of land and often even violence by the State functionaries added to the problem” (p. 9). Nobody disagrees with these reasons but there are larger questions which any dialectician would raise such as how far is it possible to remain isolated, insulated, or without any exploitation when the present avatar of capital (i.e., neoliberalism), which determines the development and the character of the system, remains in command of governance. It is not the tragedy of such discourses that they mistakenly do such an analysis forgetting the interrelatedness of things, but it is the ploy of the dominant discourse to further such arguments. And the report quite successfully does so.

At one level, no one doubts its statements that emergence of militant movements “is linked to lack of access to basic resources to sustain livelihood” (p.11). Neither does one discount its argument that “the politics has also been aligned with” the dominant social segment “which constitutes the power structure in rural and urban areas since colonial times. It is this coalition of interests and social background that deeply affect governance at all levels” (p.22). It also rightly argues that “the benefits of this paradigm of development have been disproportionately cornered by the dominant sections at the expense of the poor, who have borne most of the costs” (p.29). But the report pretends innocence when it talks about how the dominant sections of society, i.e., the ruling class, cornered the benefits of the development paradigm. I call it pretentious ‘innocence’ because an analysis of the origins and then the trajectory of development paradigms in India would reveal how, as in other capitalist nations, such paradigms are intrinsically suited to the interests of the ruling classes and capital. The very notion of development is never class neutral, hence the way the benefits of development are “cornered” by certain sections is built-in the very design of the paradigm of development. There is nothing to be shocked about how it operates and what consequences it produces. It is a natural outcome of the rule of capital. The only way out is to oppose it and lay threadbare its dynamics, which the welfarist pangs of the report fails to achieve.

At a more fundamental level, the report seems ill-equipped to even examine the land relations in rural India that have conditioned the nature of rural struggles (including the element of violence). Sitting in the high towers of the state sponsored machinery and seeing the issues and the politics of people through administrative eyes, the bureaucrats and state-aligned intellectuals cannot go beyond perceiving resistances as effects of some laxity in social engineering. They can only lament for the “excesses” and call for playing by the rules. In statements like the following they demonstrate their ignorance of the political economic dynamics of rural society and ensuing conflicts, which could never be bound within the legal administrative framework imposed by the Indian state –

“Equity and law require that all lands of the owners having less than ceiling should be handed back to the owners subject to prevailing laws. Excesses of the Naxalites in this regard are not only unjustified but deserve utmost censure” (p.46).

Let’s look at a scenario in the violence affected Central Bihar’s Arwal district, where the “marginal/small farmers” (characterised by the size of landholdings rather than by land relations) from the Bhumihar caste were among the most vocal members of the militia of the landed, i.e., Ranvir Sena. In such a situation, how does one address the issue of class-ification and hence, drawing of the battle lines. It is not a question of whether the report is right or wrong in making such appeals but it is about the caution that one needs to exercise when analysing movements, which base themselves on class terms and call for radical political transformation.

The report paints a different picture of movements which are overtly political and which demand a change of political power as the only way of weeding out poverty, discrimination and exploitation. It seeks to deny them their actual aims and deprive them of their political orientation. Not only this but what it does is to make suggestions which can minimise the political influence of the radical left in the country through cosmetic humanisation of capitalism. Hence, one need not be surprised when the writers of the report say that “it is evident from the report that, excluding ideological goal of capturing State power through violence, the basic programmes of the Extremists relate to elimination of poverty, deprivation and alienation of the poor and the landless (p. 70). The understanding of class and the role of state as the agent of capital, intrinsic to the left movement (with different shades of debate around the mode of production), has been ignored and hence, capitalism as the enemy escapes our attention as responsible for large scale displacement, deprivation, exploitation and deaths. Inbuilt in this whole exercise is an effort to delegitimise politics of the left as a whole. Like any other safety valve mechanism, it is ultimately an attempt of capitalism in moulding, manipulating and destroying praxis of resistance.

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On the way back from Dhinkia

June 16, 2008 by 1 Comment

Anti-POSCO struggle – Some Questions

Shahina

“If you are living in a state which is rich in mineral wealth, you will have but a fragile democracy”. Desperately commented an activist fighting against the proposed iron ore project by POSCO in Orissa.While having tea together on the way back from Dhinkia, he abysmally expressed no hope for a change in the way by which democracy has been functioning. At the same time, adding to my embarrassment he categorically ruled out the possibility of the POSCO project getting materialised. He says the chances are very low and he attributes several reasons for the same. He is not only an activist belonging to PPSS (POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti) but also a local leader of the Communist Party of India (CPI), the party which has taken a significant role in the upsurge against POSCO.

On the way back from Dhinkia, the hot bed of anti-POSCO struggle in Orissa, I repeated the same question to all the people I met there from different strands of life. I wished to know how far they believed that the project would really be materialised. The answer was not in affirmative. Neither the cream of activists who are involved in the struggle nor the NGOs who support the movement believe that the project has reached the threshold and the stage is well set for a mass scale displacement of tribes as it has been claimed throughout the struggle. Obviously the question is then why somebody is keeping the villagers of Dhinkia, Nuagaon and Gadakunjanga constantly sleepless, vigilant, alert and even armed against the foe who is sometimes visible and at other times invisible. I find the phenomena complex and abstruse in which the whole civil society initiatives including political parties and NGOs who support the struggle are playing a part of their own. There might be people who think that the time is not ripe to raise critic against a historic struggle which is on its way bloodied yet ahead. Never ever being a cynic, I believe no struggle, people’s movement or any kind of political resistance could be taken for granted. Hence there is no harm in debating over the political undercurrents of the anti-POSCO movement in Orissa.

A brief account on what had happened in the past in the phase of the struggle against POSCO, the Korean Steal giant is indeed necessary to understand what the current situation is there in the affected villages. Let me take a hairpin deviation from the questions or apprehensions raised above to the recent past of the historic struggle led by the people of Jagatsinghpur district.

The anti-POSCO struggle was triggered soon after the notorious MoU had been signed between the Govt of Orissa and the Korean steal company POSCO three years back in 2005. The people in the three Panchayats of Erasama block in Jagatsinghpur district, where 6000 acres of land is proposed to be acquired for the project, organised under the banner of POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, an umbrella organisation which is predominantly led by CPI. Abhay Sahoo the chairman of PPSS is the state secretariat member of the party. Nobody could evade appreciating CPI for its organisational investment to energise a movement which is a genuine uprising of the people against a multinational project which may take away their land and livelihood. Since the struggle started, there had been a number of bloody attacks over PPSS activists by goons employed by the company as well as police who were playing an explicitly partisan role throughout the scene. In November 2007 the camp set up by the PPSS activists was set ablaze. There were constant efforts to manhandle the activists, intimidate and thus destabilize the movement. The Naveen Patnaik Government more or less used the state machinery to throw the people away from the proposed land irrespective of all the prevailing laws which speaks in favour of the people. The government was in a hurry to move ahead even before getting the environmental clearance for the project. Anyhow the movement against POSCO, learning lessons from Kalinganagar, successfully grabbed national attention which resulted in the large scale intervention by human right activists and organisations all over. On 1st April, which is the foundation day of Orissa called Utkal Divas in Oriya, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti organised a massive rally against the project which was blocked by the police. A great number of men, women and children broke the barricade and reached Balitutha the venue of the public meeting conducted thereafter. Over 2000 people participated in the rally which was a powerful expression of their determination and will against the proposed project for mining.

We, a group of six women from Delhi coming from different strands of social life sharing the common thought of upholding the politics of resistance against the spate of development without a human face, reached Dhinkia on the eve of Utkal Divas. The driver of the cab by which we managed to reach the place was detained and badly beaten up by the police next day alleging that he transported a group of Maoists who gave arms training to the villagers! We spent a whole night with the villagers and shared the agony and sense of loss in their lives. Next day we walked with hundreds of people who were marching in the rally, shouting slogans against the political project of washing out the indigenous people, marginalising the poor and displacing farmers for the corporate desires of a powerful ruling class.

On the way to Balitutha, the venue of the public meeting, we were interrogated by a journalist who introduced himself as the correspondent of Samaj, one of the leading Oriya newspapers. I revealed my identity as a journalist (an identity which I never tried to hide!) and introduced others. The story which was carried next day in Samaj was similar to the pretext used by police to torture our taxi driver – that a group of women maoist leaders camped in Dhinkia and gave arms training to the villagers! It added that the whole scene of the rally reflected the presence of Maoists who maintain the flavour of militancy in their each and every move! Being a journalist from Kerala, it was of course not an eye opener but a sharp reminder for me on how Maoists are born. Alleging Maoist presence is the easiest way to make cracks in a struggle if it is essentially against the state.

The rally, breaking the barricade, shouting slogans and taking the oath to resist up to the last breath was immensely inspiring. I was deeply disturbed by the imminent catastrophe shadowing over their lives. Hence I talked to many people who were playing a leading role in the struggle as well as those who came from outside in support of the struggle. I got more and more perplexed to see their stake in the issue. None of them really think that the project would materialise in the immediate future. The reasons are many. The hardest obstacle in the way of the project is the recently notified forest rights act. It is not hard to find that the project in its present form is a blatant violation of the scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (Recognition of Forest rights Act 2006). It is not amenable to my reason to think that any Government would take a suicidal step to go ahead with the project irrespective of the fierce reaction from the public especially when the general election is approaching. It was said by some ‘highly placed sources’ that the Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik is not even willing to have a face-to-face meet with the POSCO officials. As far as he is concerned, the game is over at least for the time being because the mood for assembly election has already been set. It is alleged that the political leadership, the bureaucracy and even the judiciary are playing harmoniously well to bargain with the multinationals which are fascinated by the immensely rich natural wealth of the state. ‘Nobody is loosing the game’ a CPI leader and PPSS activist remarks, ‘all those who were playing in the field as well as sitting in the gallery have gained maximum monetary benefits’. He adds that, in fact the ruling front is happy to see the struggle gaining momentum, because the more the struggle is strengthened, the more they could bargain with the POSCO people! It is alleged that not only the ruling BJP-BJD front but even the leadership of Congress, which has a rather weak position in the current political scene, could not be absolved for the complicity of being a part of the biggest corruption story in the history of Orissa.

Now the focus and priority have shifted from the bargaining game to the forthcoming assembly election for which they have already started the game of winning hearts. Whatever may be the reason, I am happy that no more police actions will be there in Orissa at least for the time being. The April 1st rally itself was a clear indication of the changing attitude of the Government. The Government has strictly instructed the police not to get provoked even at the worst.

It is quite obvious that POSCO has already spent crores of rupees to grease the palm of the political and bureaucratic bosses. But you are blatantly wrong if you jump into the conclusion that POSCO is the looser in this game. POSCO has already started bargaining with Brazil which categorically denied any chance of selling its mineral wealth for an amount which is lower than the current market rate. POSCO won the game in coercing Brazil to bring down the price. The MoU signed is a powerful weapon for the company by which they could successfully conquer the market.

CPI will be regarded for being with the people in their struggles for survival. Even when bearing the brunt of the UPA rule, the party stands out by making its stake clear in such issues. But is this enough to absolve the party for being an accomplice in the game of using any kind of people’s interests for its own political gains? The answer is a big blatant NO. The ground reality is that all those who have a major role in leading the anti-POSCO struggle know well that the project is not an immediate threat. The NGOs in and out of Orissa also are not exempted from this.

I left Bhubaneswar the day after, leaving the question unanswered. Is it very necessary to keep the innocent poor villagers sleepless, alert even armed as if they have to go into a war at any point of time? They are struggling hard to make both ends meet. Don’t they have the right to sleep peacefully without the scaring boot steps? Will it be ‘politically incorrect’ to advocate for their right to take a breathing space before plunging into bloodier battles?

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Ban on People’s March: An Affront to the Right to Free Expression

April 15, 2008 by Leave a Comment

Gilbert Sebastian

On 19 December 2007, P. Govindan Kutty, the editor of Peoples’ March, an English magazine sympathetic to the Maoist movement was picked up by the Kerala police under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Govindan Kutty was on a long hunger strike in the jail and was released on bail on 24 February 2008. However, the government’s real intention was seen through in the act of imposing a ban on the Peoples March through an order of the District Magistrate of Ernakulam by the time he was released.

Similarly, Prafulla Jha, president of PUCL in Chhattisgarh; Pittala Srisailam, editor of online television Musi TV and co-convener of Telangana Journalists Forum (TJF); and Lachit Bordoloi, secretary general of the human rights organisation, Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS) and freelance journalist from Assam were arrested in the months of December 2007 and January 2008. All of them were journalists/human rights activists. Except Bordoloi, with alleged sympathies to the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), the other three were supposed to be sympathetic to the Maoist movement. These arrests may be seen in conjunction with the statement on 20 December 2007 by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that “Leftwing extremism is probably the single biggest security challenge to the Indian State” and his vow to ‘eliminate this “virus”’. (See a report on these arrests, dated 22 March 2008 in Tehelka magazine). As someone had insightfully pointed out, it is the paradox of Indian democracy that criminals and mass murderers are lodged in parliament and assemblies while those who stand with the people are hunted out and put behind bars (Srinivas Chava).

Are we to believe that Peoples March was banned mainly to cover up the gross atrocities such as of a State-sponsored militia like the Salwa Judum in Chhattisgarh? Peoples March has been a rare source of information on the violence and mayhem unleashed by the ‘Salwa Judum’, the Indian State’s dirty war against its own people which according to an independent estimate has resulted in 548 murders, 99 rapes and 3000 incidents of burning houses. (Read, Shubranshu Choudhary 2007: “The state’s purification hunt”, Himal Southasian, vol. 20, no. 12, December, pp. 40-42). People’s March has been an extraordinary publication, the voice of the most important stream of Indian revolution, in its own words. As Prof. Manoranjan Mohanty puts it, “Democratic space for discussion on people’s struggles must be defended.”

The ban is a clear violation of Article 19a, the right to freedom of expression, a fundamental right. Where is the legitimacy of a ‘liberal’ State that does not adhere to the Constitution it swears by? In fact, the ideas in Peoples March are not communal, casteist, or creating any other undesirable division among sections of the population that a ban was warranted against it. (And in this respect, Peoples March has been unlike many other publications in India that are still not banned.) The ideas in Peoples March have been based on the universalistic notions of class struggle. Does it now sound like a joke that the preamble of the Indian Constitution itself says that India is a “sovereign socialist secular democratic republic”?

The ban order of the DM of Ernakulam charges that the ideas in Peoples March bring about “contempt and create disaffection against the Government of India”. Since the neo-liberal State in India is ostensibly anti-people, it is no wonder if this be the case. Espousing the cause of the peoples of Kashmir and the north-east of the country is seen as “hosting anti national contents” (the cited ground on which the web pages of People’s March were blocked earlier). Shouldn’t the government better realise that by banning the expression of certain ideas, they do not cease to be so long as the material bases for these ideas continue to be? That the mainstream media organisations in the country have been rather quiet on these arrests and the subsequent ban on People’s March, exposes their illiberal attitude and complicity. Addressing student dissenters, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself had cited Voltaire in a speech by him in JNU on 14 Nov. 2005: “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.” Where are liberal supporters of Voltaire now?

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‘Relevance’, ‘Mobility’ and ‘Upgradation’:It’s Market All the Way in the Higher Education Policy Making*

December 12, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Ravi Kumar**

Policies and programmes are not constituted outside the governing principles of the system, which in today’s case is mindless urge for profit seeking. For instance, it cannot be denied how committedly the Indian state pursues the agenda of private capital. The ‘social sector’ is the most grievously hurt victim of this onslaught. The recent debates and policies in favour of privatisation of higher education and the emphasis of the Planning Commission or the United Progressive Alliance Chairperson (the ruling alliance) on the need to encourage participation of private sector in education are some of the most recent and vital contexts within which any decision of the state in education needs to be read.

While reading the context what also becomes necessary is the need to unravel the farcical employment of certain concepts such as ‘social justice’ by the state. It has been amply clarified by the Government of India statistics itself that over 70% of Indians live on Rs.20 or below per day. This reflects in a certain sense the condition of the Indian masses and the debate on justice needs to consider this as a constituting variable of its understanding. Hence, the government would argue that precisely because of such profound marginalisation, apart from those based on caste, etc., that ‘schemes’ to uplift the downtrodden masses are required. But then, and quite ironically, it also pursues a relentless agenda of privatisation, which inevitably converts education into a commodity as any other in the market and creates a situation of exclusivity for some and denial for millions. The social justice remains only rhetoric. Then, the big question remains whether the majority of Indians can purchase this commodity of education? Answer will be negative. Therefore, if social justice means making education accessible to all or if it means equipping everyone to compete in market then it has to be seen as something contesting marketisation of education.

Another aspect of this context is the absence of democratisation. Dialogue is one of the vital constituents of democracy and it can be identified at two levels – horizontal as well as vertical. Despite all rhetoric of participation and decentralisation, the way things happen in India it can be identified only with vertical dialogue. The Government one day feels that the curriculum should be revised, so it begins a process, which involves the ‘intellectuals’ concentrated in and around the power centre. The school curriculum as well as higher education curriculum is transformed in the similar manner. In the name of dialogue, seminars in various cities are organised and thereby a ‘consensus’ is reached. Would these ‘dialogues’ would have same responses if debated across over 500 DIETs (District Institute of Educational Training) or across as many Village/Block Education Committees (VEC, BEC)? It still remains something that the ‘intellectual-administrators’ need to work upon. Such a process would have not only generated a horizontal dialogue but also a process of ‘conscientisation’ on some of the most vital issues including religious sectarianism. The horizontal dialogue would have allowed withering of notions such as someone from the metropolitan centre of Delhi is necessarily better equipped to understand the educational deprivation of Dalits in a Bihar village through the active participation of the local VEC or BEC members on these issues. It is about ending hierarchies, including the thoughts of those who are intentionally kept out of policy making and implementation. But we tend to avoid debates and critical gestures made at our thoughts and actions because it does not serve ‘our purpose’. If the common man is included in these dialogic processes s/he may start questioning the schools trying to introduce courses on BPO trainings or universities having courses on ‘stock’ or ‘tourism’ or why fundamental research is relegated to second plane. One needs to build upon these contexts if one wants to truly grasp the recent development in higher education.

The recent decision of UGC (See “To bring in Uniformity, UPA orders university curriculum upgrade”, The Indian Express, December 6, 2007) to bring ‘uniformity’ in education not only raises serious pedagogical issues but also has ramifications for the liberal ethos of higher education. These ramifications will be primarily in form of curtailing the creative potential of teachers and students, mechanising the process of teaching-learning as well as, ultimately, making the system subservient to the needs of the market.

Traditionally universities have represented a kind of dichotomy. While they have worked within the framework of state, they have also been centres of dissent and rebellion. Whether it was the students’ movement of 1968, the students’ upheaval of 1970s in India, or later on many issues, universities have time and again demonstrated their vibrant democratic ethos. The recent decision of the Government demolishes this foundational ethos of higher education. It is already playing pranks with the Indian population by putting forth rhetorics of social justice along with large scale privatisation of higher education, thereby taking education out of reach of most of Indians.

By not consulting the higher education institutions on such an issue the Government has persisted with its practice of top-down mechanism in policy making and implementation. Such a practice diminishes possibilities of dialogue, which can be one of the true instruments against undemocratic socio-political tendencies. Rather such instances become precedences to institutionalise sectarianism in education system.

The initial reports indicate towards the danger of making courses subservient to market in name of linking the life inside and outside the college. However, the danger, as indicated by recent trends in school education, is that in the name of making courses ‘relevant’ and ‘professional’ they are modified or deleted to suit the needs of market. The element of critical inquiry, identifying, for instance, the relationship between such courses and the interests of capital also constitute an aim of higher education. Are we going to emphasise on such as aspects as well in our revision of courses? Secondly, are we not deliberately fostering a hierarchisation of courses in this process on basis of certain criteria such as its job prospects etc.? The creative potential of the student as well as the teacher takes a backseat in these exercises.

Every region has a distinct socio-economic and cultural ethos which demands specific curriculum and pedagogy. Will a student coming out of a private schooling system or from the metropolis require similar curriculum and pedagogic methods as a student of a village government school from a backward region to get integrated with the global economy? Perhaps, no. Such initiatives and the people attached with them need to rethink and reflect on the aims of higher education. And, lastly, how they reconcile the requirements of the private capital with the aims of higher education to infuse a sense of criticality and creativity will remain a major challenge.

**Teaches sociology at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
*This is an expanded version of a response published in The Economic Times, 12th December 2007

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Unresilient Bhopal -The Tale of a Town Deceived by the State

December 9, 2007 by 2 Comments

Shahina

23 Years have passed since the world’s worst industrial disaster occurred in this North Indian city on the night of December 3, 1984. Bhopal continues to experience the trauma of that mishap with a chemical waste dump in the Union Carbide factory compound over a couple of decades ago contaminating air and water in the city. The debate and dispute over who should bear the cost of cleaning up the area, which runs into millions of dollars, still goes on.

Half-a-million people were exposed to the lethal gas, more than 22,000 have died to date and 150,000 continue to be chronically ill. The criminal trial against the 13 accused, including the fugitive Warren Anderson, the then Chairman of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC), is still in progress in the lower court. A great number of judicial proceedings regarding issues such as the removal of the hazardous chemical waste, claim for adequate compensation and aid for medical treatment are moving at snail’s pace in the judicial magistrate court, Bhopal. The unending agony is passing on from generations to generations. Anyone who revisits the whole disaster and its aftermath is apt to lose her faith in the very system of democracy.

Shajahan-e-Park in the heart of the city has never remained deserted on a Saturday since 1989, the year in which Bhopal Gas Peedith Mahila Udyog Sanghatan, the organization gas of victims, had been formed. BGPMUS is the largest organization in Bhopal fighting for the cause of the victims. Around 25,000 people who live in the premises of the factory belong to the organization. Every Saturday, hundreds of victims gather at Shajahan-e-Park and share their grievance.

Most of them have something new to speak about as they are still exposed to the noxious chemical waste. This meeting has been going on for over a couple of decades regularly as an expression of the political will and perseverance they uphold. Not many examples can be cited from the history of independent India for such an unyielding struggle for justice. It is an amazing rare kind of fire that these people have harbored within them for decades.

Dow Chemicals, another American multinational company which took over Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) in 2000, has virtually declared that they are beyond the rule of law in India, refusing to bear any responsibility for what had happened in Bhopal and expressing their unwillingness to clean up the area. There are reports that Dow Chemicals has agreed to remedy the situation partly. However, they have obtained a stay order from any such liability. And, as long as the stay order remains in force, there is very little meaning in being ‘generous to bear the cost partly’.

The people living in the affected areas, including J P Nagar, are struggling through abject poverty and ill health. Most of the people we met are still suffering from more than one disease, the names of which they are unable even to spell out. In most cases, the doctors have consistently refused to certify that they are suffering from the ongoing contamination of air and water around the chemical waste dump in the factory. As a result, they are denied of all kinds of aid by the Government. The journey through the streets of J P Nagar, the area worst hit by the gas leak, leaves a deep scar in one’s mind.

Sixty five-year-old year old Jameelabi, bed ridden for years, has received neither adequate compensation nor any aid of treatment. Her weak skinny body carries 36 diseases, according to a relative’s account. But the doctor has certified none of them as being the result of pollution. Her family is unable to even specify what they are and the scientific names. Jameelabi’s husband and daughter-in-law were killed in the gas leak and what she got in return was a paltry sum of Rs. 50,000. The active leadership role in the struggle for justice helped Mohammed Hafees to overcome the agony of the grim fate of his wife Aliyabi. The severe mental shock she had on the day resulted in a nervous break down from which she has not recovered. Frequently, she would lose her presence of mind, yell and try to run away from her home. Hafeesbhai, who led us to J P Nagar colony, is an active worker of BGPMUS. In each and every house around the factory, a martyr lives reminding you how a state deceived its people through gross denial of justice.

The chemical dump, consisting of 5,000 tonnes of toxic chemical waste including Alpha Naphthol and other kinds of pesticides, came into being when the Government ordered an inspection of the factory. The inspection revealed that 5,000 tones of toxic chemical waste had been stored at a warehouse in the factory. That was in 1994, a decade after the disaster! The Madhya Pradesh State Pollution Control Board (MPSPCB) appointed a committee to prepare a report on how to remove the waste in a scientific manner. The Committee visited the site in May 1995 and recommended the shifting of the hazardous wastes to a safer site within the factory premises. The Committee also stressed the need for exploratory studies to evaluate various treatment and disposal alternatives. Meanwhile, the MPSPCB also approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Bhopal, for permission to shift the tarry residues to a safer place within the factory premises as suggested by the committee. The Court asked the CBI to review the matter. The CBI then approached the Ministry of Environment and Forests for their view. The Ministry constituted another Expert Committee which later observed that any attempt to shift the chemical remains may lead to massive environmental damages. The committee found that drums and bags which carried the waste were badly damaged and that the possibility of breaking of the bags could not be ruled out which might result in the spillage of the hazardous waste. They also observed that the residues after melting were spreading on the floor and outside the shed as well.

The committee estimated that a huge sum of money would be needed to clean up the area. In the wake of the report, the Government of India filed a plea in the High Court of Madhya Pradesh demanding that Dow Chemicals be instructed to bear the expenses of the cleaning process. The Central government also demanded an amount of 100 million dollars as advance payment for the same. Admitting the plea, the Court issued notice to Dow Chemical. But they successfully managed to get stay order which literally rendered them free from the responsibility of cleaning up the area till date. The court proceedings are still on in the usual slow pace, reminding one how apt the dictum of justice delayed being justice denied is.

The toxic legacy of Bhopal leaves a permanent black mark in the history of CBI also. The investigation by CBI, which lost its way somewhere in the middle of the process, has never been invigorated. The CBI approached the Government of India for permission to carry out a comparative study of the safeguards by UCC in its institute in Virginia and the Bhopal plant as well. But the appeal along with the order for further enquiry was buried for ever under the infamous settlement order of the Supreme Court of India in 1989. Ironically the settlement order came a few hours after the Government of India had received clearance from the US Government to carry out the study.

In 1992, the CJM Court, Bhopal issued an order to the Government of India instructing it to take necessary steps for the extradition of Warren Anderson who has been declared a fugitive by the lower court. It was a victory for the victims’ organizations which had fought for years demanding the extradition of Warren Anderson. The Government, instead of carrying out its Constitutional responsibility to obey the apex court order, left the file untouched for years. Only after a decade in 2003 did the Government forward a plea to the US Government for the extradition of Warren Anderson, a year after the Government of India was informed by The US Government that extradition is not possible. The Government, which is always lenient to the west, has never expressed the courage to review the matter. In fact the Government was forced to initiate steps for extradition due to the pressure mounted by the victims’ organizations and the severe criticism from the Assurance Committee of Parliament. The committee tabled its report in December 2002 blaming the Government for the criminal negligence in the matter. Previous to this report by the committee, the C B I had moved a plea in Supreme Court seeking reduction of the charges against Anderson. It was perhaps the most shameful instance of the CBI appearing for a criminal who had cheated Indian judiciary for years! Soon after a series of dramas enacted for extradition, the file was closed for ever.

The fight by the people of Bhopal is still on. The victims’ organizations are handling a number of cases in different courts seeking compensation, adequate medical care, removal of the hazardous chemical waste, proper punishment for the accused and so on. Day by Day the air, water, soil and vegetables around are being contaminated by the spillage of lethal chemical remains from the factory. A study has revealed that even human breast milk is contaminated. The study conducted by ‘Srishti , a Delhi based non governmental organization and People’s Science Institute marks that human breast milk sample collected from the area showed higher concentration of volatile organic compounds and Benzene hexa chloride. Both the organizations in the wake of their study observe that the presence of carcinogenic toxics, which are bio concentrated in the milk, poses serious threat to the health of an entire new generation. A survey carried out by CRS (Centre for Rehabilitation Studies) in 2003, shows that the morbidity rate in affected areas is quiet high compared to that of in the unaffected areas. According to their survey, the morbidity rate in the gas-affected areas was 19.71 per cent of the population. Prevalence of respiratory diseases also was very high in the gas hit Ares. It is estimated that at least about 150,000 gas-victims in Bhopal are continuing to suffer from various gas-related ailments even twenty three years after the disaster.

They are on the path of struggle for justice. No judgements, no retrogressive policies could turn them away. Every Saturday they gather at Shajahan-e-Park, irrespective of caste and religion. They console each other, share their grievances and update themselves regarding the dangers lurking around to shatter their struggle. When we left from Shajahan-e-Park, waves of slogans from the people followed us.

“LADENGE, HUM JEETENGE…
LOOTNE VAALE JAAYENGE…
NAYA JAMANA AYEGA…”

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Some important trends in the Indian Economy

July 7, 2007 by 2 Comments

Deepankar Basu

In an article in the Business Standard a couple of months ago, economic commentator T N Ninan pointed to some of the important emerging trends in the Indian economy, what he called the “mega trends”. In his words, these trends deserve to be called “mega trends” because they “cannot easily be reversed, have large ripple effects, and … therefore will define the future”. While these “mega trends” are important for throwing up interesting empirical regularities, these can be equally well, if not better, understood within a Marxist paradigm, a paradigm built on looking at reality from the perspective of labour. Adopting the perspective of labour is important for another reason: it allows us to see the incompleteness, the one-sidedness of bourgeois economic analysis. It is only by complementing Ninan’s “mega trends” with some important but neglected trends that are often invisible to bourgeois economists (which I merely point to at the end) that we can get a better understanding of the evolution of Indian economy and society.

The first trend – “acquiring of scale” in Ninan’s words – refers to the growing “concentration and centralization” of Indian capital, a process that inevitably accompanies the development of capitalism. The growth of concentration and centralization is leading to the much talked about growth of “self-confidence” of Indian capital, buttressed no doubt with incursions into foreign territories. As Ninan points out, Indian capital was acquiring “three overseas companies a week, through 2006.”

The second trend – “spread of connectivity and awareness” according to Ninan – refers to the technological development accompanying the growth of capitalism; Ninan limits himself to the technological developments in the communications sector but it can easily be extended to other sectors of the economy too. But there are several important reasons to focus on the transportations and communications sector. First, an increasing efficiency of communications and transportations is essential for a smooth and efficient completion of the numerous “circuits of capital”; the increasing volume of surplus value being generated in the economy needs well functioning circuits of capital to be realized into profit. Second, technological development of the communications technology, especially information technology, is important for the establishment of the networks through which finance capital exerts its influence over the economy. Third, and related to the earlier, is the necessity of swift and reliable communications to support all the processes that facilitates the “concentration and centralization of capital”.

The third trend – “the growth of the middle class” in Ninan’s analysis – if put into proper perspective, refers to two things: (1) the increasing inequality that inevitably comes along with the growth of capitalism, and (2) the changing nature of the Indian working class. What Ninan refers to as the “middle class” is really the fraction of the Indian working class (though it does not want to see itself as part of the working class) that acquires high wage employment in the “leading” sectors of the economy by acquiring skills useful for capital.

The fourth trend – what Ninan calls the “growing problems of growth” – refers to the serious environmental problems created by a regime dominated by the logic of capital accumulation. As the problem of global warming caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere has come into focus, it has become clear that cosmetic changes and technological solutions will not be enough to deal with the whole range of environmental problems under capitalism. What will be required is a wholesale, radical socio-economic transformation, in other words, a transition to socialism. It will become increasingly important for radical political forces representing the interests of capital to come to grips with this issue in India and other underdeveloped economies undergoing rapid (dependent) capitalist development.

The fifth trend – “India’s growing openness to the world” according to Ninan – refers to the growing penetration of the Indian economy by imperialist capital; being supplemented by the growing “export of capital” from India to foreign economies, the two together points to the growing “interpenetration” of imperialist and Indian capital and the incorporation of the Indian capitalist class into the global ruling bloc. The penetration of imperialist capital underlies the oft-forgotten “dependent” nature of the capitalist development in India, a capitalism which cannot, almost axiomatically, benefit the majority of the population.

The sixth trend – what Ninan sees as “the continuing dominance of youth” – refers to the demographic backdrop of capital accumulation in India. The fact that a large proportion of the population will be part of the workforce (if they manage to get employed at all!) will mean that huge reserves of labour will be readily available for capital to exploit and extract surplus value. It will be a long time before these reserves dry up and increasing wages start eating into the profit rates, a process that seems to have already started in China.

It is not, as Ninan asserts, that these “mega trends” will “define” the future in a mechanical sense; it is rather the case that these trends will define the framework within which the class struggle will unfold. For it is the class struggle which will ultimately “define” the future of India. But even in the sense of defining the framework of class struggle, Ninan’s characterization is inadequate because it leaves out labour from the picture, other than in a marginal sense. How will India’s working class evolve over the next few years or decades? What are the trends, working silently but decisively, that can be observed in the evolution of the Indian working class? To even attempt to pose this question adequately, one will have to look at the agricultural sector of the Indian economy and all the forms of labour associated (directly or indirectly) with it. Ninan, quite remarkably, has nothing to say about the sector of the economy which continues to employ (directly or indirectly) the majority of the working people in India!

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Nandigram: Peasants Resistance against Land Grab

July 3, 2007 by 1 Comment

Ish Mishra

Machiavelli’s living role model for his Prince, Cardinal Caesar Borgias who subsequently manipulated his ascendance to the papacy of the Roman Church as Alexander VI, “did nothing but deceive the people and found enough opportunities to do so and did it magnificently”. If Machiavelli had to choose a model for his Prince in the contemporary Indian politics, where conquests are not decided by the war of sword but of numbers, he would face a great difficulty, due to abundance of modern Indian Borgias, nevertheless Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would be a serious contender. The West Bengal Government declared that in the process of “developing the state, the interest of agriculture shall not be compromised and that no land acquisition shall be implemented without the consent of the peasants and the local communities” and next day the chief minister, Mr. Bhattacharjee unleashes the rein of terror on the peasants by ordering Police firing in collusion with the CPI(M) patronized goons, as has been purported by the preliminary CBI inquiry. The philosopher of the European Renaissance had advised the successful Prince to kill quickly and reward gradually. If the political economy of Left Front Government, particularly after the take over by the “Marxist” Nadir – Budhadeb Bhattacharjee is any indicator, the CPI(M) seems to have heeded Machiavellian advices more earnestly than the Renaissance absolutist monarchies did.

The heinous act of killing, wounding and maiming innocent farmers, artisans and agricultural laborers – a crime against humanity – reminds the stories of the gory acts of medieval sadist despots. The Nandigram, that has become a common noun from proper noun due to the brutal repression of the heroic resistance by the farmers of the area against the expropriation of their agricultural land for creating “foreign territories” – the SEZs. It once again witnessed death of 14, protesters and injury to hundreds in police firing aided and abetted by CPI(M)’s lumpen brigade on the14th March 2007 on the orders of the Marxist Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, committed to the “development of West Bengal at any cost”. However, the peasants’ resolve not to be displaced at any cost forced the postmodern Nadirs to step back from their declaration of creating the SEZ for Salim group at any cost. The CPI (M) supremo Prakash Karat has gone all the way out to defend Singur “take over” for the Tata’s “pro-people” car factory and Nandigram atrocities and killings in the name of establishing governance as they don’t want to allow West Bengal into becoming a “Chhattisgarh”! A party refusing to part away with the prefix-Communist from their name despite acting as agents of corporate houses is using the “law-and-order” argument more dubiously than any social democratic party. This is being met by pervasive protest and condemnation, even by its allies and sympathetic intellectuals including the veteran Economist Ashok Mitra. Now Prakash Karat had declared that there would be no land acquisition for SEZ in Nandigram area. This wisdom needed so much of bloodshed and terror. Apart from the loss of lives and causing irreversible harm to the interest of the working people politically and economically, its ideological bankruptcy has made the other imperialist parties and rightwing lumpen elements into heroes. Prakash Karat to counter Advani, reminded of the state engineered Gujarat pogrom by Narendra Modi government in order to defend the repression at Singur and Nandigram. Well Modi and Bhattacharjee, despite opposite ideological declarations and pretensions bear many similarities. Prakash Karat defends the West Bengal Chief Minister as “elected by the people” in the same language as the Hindutva lumpen brigade defends Modi. Both of them take pride in “developing” their respective states with the same formulae as the Corporate led imperialist globalizations seeks to develop the “under-developed” and “developing” countries of the world.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee announced that there would be no forced acquisition in Nandigram and sent the police to kill the people resisting the land grab. One stark similarity between Kalinganagar and Nandigram is that at both the places people are firmly refusing to be displaced and the agitators were shot dead in a targeted manner. The one difference, which has gone unnoticed, is that Naveen Patnaik shed crocodile tears by announcing a judicial enquiry where as the West Bengal’s self claimed leftist chief minister and the CPI(M)’s leaders went out of way to defend the Police action in the name of law and order. The CPI(M) led left front government, despite opposition by some of the constituent parties of the front, had expressed its determination to go ahead with the plan of creating the SEZs at any cost, and has been forced to make a hasty retreat.

CPI(M) ideologues aided and abetted by its propaganda brigade are justifying the governmental decision in the name of the law and order, using Marxist and Leninist jargons, creating the confusion of the contexts by juxtaposing of 19th century England and early 20th century Russia over 21st century India. Probably for such Marxists of his time Marx had pejoratively said that “thank God! I am not a Marxist”. History never repeats itself. As a philosopher of the Greek antiquity had rightly said that every thing in the world is in continuous state of change and flux and that the only constant is the change itself. History does not repeat itself, it only echoes. The creation of “foreign territories” within the country under the SEZ Act 2005 echoes the creation of fortified enclaves in the costal regions by various – French, Dutch and English East India Companies – in the costal regions of the country. It appears that history has taken a full circle. But much water has flown down the Bay of Bengal. Capitalism and innately linked imperialism has made multiple advances since then. Imperialism in its latest avatar of globalization has become so ubiquitous that now there is no need of any Lord Clive, all the Sujauddaulas have turned into Mir Zafars.

European Renaissance was not the “rebirth” of classical antiquity. “Rebirth” is a myth. It was not the rebirth but the reconstruction of the society with the nostalgic memory of the classical antiquity, according to the needs of the new social forces that had matured in the womb of decaying feudalism. It announced the emergence of a new era which witnessed the emergence of a new species of hero – the hero of finance struggling to get money making included in the circle of virtues, even if on the periphery. This new hero proved to be very smart. In less than 150 years time it became the hero and moved from periphery to centre. The17th century ideologue of this new hero, John Locke declared in unambiguous and categorical terms, “governance is a serious matter; it can be entrusted with only those who have already proved their worth by amassing sufficient wealth.” Their demand for freedom and equality was interpreted as universal equality and liberty and which eventually led to universal franchise and territorial-national universal citizenship and establishment of representative democracies, dictatorship of proletariat and their reversal into capitalism. There have been many insightful presentations and discussions and shall be more on the changing nature of citizenship and its theorization based on the changing nature of the economic base structure and its political superstructure. SEZ is the cheapest and sure-shot technique of the latest stage of the imperialist capitalism leading to the erosions of citizenship rights of people working in and outside these “foreign territories”, which in essence are “Special Exploitation Zone” and its long term possible implications. Also the details of fiscal and revenue implications are beyond the scope of this presentation and constitute the subject matter of separate discussions. The country-wide intensification and radicalization of the resistance against the land grab campaign by the state and corporate nexus for industrialization/SEZ/real estate provides a ray of hope for the anti-imperialist struggles all over the world over and Nandigram has created a precedent by forcing the government to rollback.

Indian parliamentary parties have gone many steps ahead of their colonial predecessors in using the draconian colonial Land Acquisition Act 1894, in the sense that even they did not acquire the agricultural land for private capitalists in the name of “public utility”. But preceded by Kamalnath and Chidambaram, Man Mohan Singh also reiterated his government’s firm determination to go ahead with the SEZ plans at any cost. Seeing his sense of history with gratitude to colonialism for “civilizing” India into a “nation” as revealed by him while being awarded with an honorary doctorate at Oxford University’s University and his World Bank affinity, it is not unexpected. This has provided an opportunity to CPI (M) leaders to shift the blames and devise new methods of the expropriation of agricultural land for national/transnational corporate houses. The Nandigram has taken an initiative and shown the way. There have been reports of peasants’ resistance against SEZ from all the corners. Only future will tell how long and to what extent the peasants struggling for the right to land and livelihood can hold against the formidable nexus of Indian state and the imperialist capital.

Heroic struggle of the peasants of Nandigram and Kalinganagar have challenged and foiled the neo-imperialist strategies of land expropriation by the state-corporate-judiciary nexus and forced a debate upon non-devastating models of development by laying their lives. “Their martyrdom shall not go in vain and let us salute the martyrs of Nandigram and Kalinganagar and resolve to condemn the brutalities of Budhadeb Bhattacharjee and Navin Patnaik governments in no uncertain terms”, said an activist of the Kalinganagar movement. “These local battles would strengthen the international forces seeking human emancipation and an end to exploitation of human by man”.

(A modified version of the article was published in Red Star April 2007)

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Nandigram to Beijing via Moscow

June 27, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Pothik Ghosh

There was a time when the spectre of communism haunted private property, but times have changed. The spectre of private property haunts communism now. Even as the ‘communist’ government of West Bengal resorted to state terrorism in Nandigram to acquire land from unwilling villagers to jump-start industrialisation for ‘development’, Communist China passed a law that would make right to private property legally enforceable for the first time since the 1949 revolution. The legislation, which is meant to give people a stake in their assets and protect them from a capricious party bureaucracy that has used the proxy of state ownership to dispossess many of them, seems to be a markedly different response to development than that of their CPI(M) comrades in Bengal.

There are, of course, obvious limits to how far the common citizens of China can go with the law. Given the infamous unaccountability of the Chinese state, it’s most likely to be used by its avaricious political elite to legalise its ownership over assets acquired, in the name of the state and public good, by expropriating individual citizens.

Therefore, in terms of the final solution, the responses of the communists of China and West Bengal to the question of ownership have turned out to be not so different after all. The two cases are, however, not strictly comparable. For one, while post-revolutionary China has always been a one-party state, the Left Front has come to power in West Bengal and held on to it by participating in the Indian system of multi-party electoral democracy.

For another, LF-ruled West Bengal has always recognised the legally established form of mixed ownership of property in India. Yet, the vengeance with which the Indian state has often used the principle of eminent domain to dispossess traditional socio-economic communities in order to acquire land for ‘development’ and ‘public good’ emphasises its institutional affinity for the ideology and rhetoric of state socialism. It would, therefore, make perfect sense to historically examine the ‘socialist’ discourse on ownership of property.

State ownership cannot truly socialise property because of the way the state structurally is: an alien authority dispensing governance to a passive population. Public ownership of property is thus the ownership of bureaucracies, and ensembles of vested interests. Such institutionalised diminution of public participation by the modern state holds true even in a representative electoral system like India’s.

On the other hand, legally enforceable right to private property, even if it were to exist as a fundamental right, would not lead to a participatory democracy. The dangers that the new Chinese law poses, bears that out. Even as the disintegration of stratified pre-capitalist communities has always led to legalised private property and capitalism, such breakdown has not always yielded by itself even functional democracy.

The link between private property and democracy is much more tenuous than commonly accepted. While the 19th century Prussian model of Junker capitalism – where landlords and companies expropriated the peasantry from above and legalised property so acquired as their own – will certainly not yield democracy; the 19th century US way, where private property was established through the emergence of small-to-medium independent farmers from below, is a case of capitalistic ownership coinciding with the formal democratic project.

It was not without reason that Russian social democrats Plekhanov and Lenin championed the latter, rejected the former (enforced by liberals like Stolypin in Russia), and yet managed to distinguish themselves from the Populists and Narodniks, who opposed Stolypin’s reforms because it destroyed the traditional peasant community. Clearly then, asset redistribution programme was not merely an end in itself for the social democrats. It was of even greater consequence to them precisely because it engendered the possibility of an alternative conception of political power than that embodied by the modern state.

Lenin and his fellow-travellers’ quest, at least till the October Revolution of 1917, was as much socialisation of economic assets as an alternative political structure that was more democratic than any. The reason they envisaged the two together was because they understood the individual’s freedom from the community both as his freedom from the oppressive bonds of the community and from its protection. Their vision was to reconcile the question of individual liberty (rights) with that of communitarian protection (social entitlements). The social democrats knew that only universal empowerment would arm people with the capacity to both facilitate and participate in modern development.

The unfortunate part of the story is that as the movement progressed, the search for an alternative political structure became subordinate to the nature of ownership of property. This was largely because the Bolshevik Revolution, just like other similar Left-led movements that occurred later elsewhere, was forced by the exigencies of modern politics to concentrate on dealing with the might of the pre-revolutionary state and emphasised the seizure of state power as its cardinal goal. As a result, it was rendered incapable of imagining configurations of power outside the framework of the modern state.

The horrors of collectivisation of agriculture in the erstwhile USSR of 1920s must be ascribed to this derailment of political imagination. The alternative cannot, however, be a utopian community of subsistence farmers. Land and capital will have to be consolidated to make both agriculture and the larger socio-economic order more productive and viable. Chinese historian Qin Hui’s is opposed to both the ‘Leftists’, who favour state ownership; and ‘liberalisers’, who are all for privatisation.

In an interview to the New Left Review, the communist dissident has accurately likened the former to Russian Populists and the latter to Stolypin-style liberals. The opposition between the two, as is evident in China and, to a lesser extent, India, is false. They actually complement and fulfil each other. The real issue then is that of finding an alternative political culture and institutional structure, which will drive development through democratic management of the commons.

A modified version of the article was published in The Economic Times

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NBA Press Release on Khandwa

June 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Narmada Bachao Andolan
2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk, Khandwa, M.P.
Phone : 094259 -28007, 094253 – 94606
E-mail : nobigdam@bsnl.in

URGENT APPEAL FOR SUPPORT
16th June 2007

Dear friends,

Today is the 13th day of the indefinite dharna at Khandwa of the people of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams on the Narmada river. It is also the 11th day of the indefinite fast of five representatives of the struggle who have been on fast since the 6th of June 2007.

The dharna began on the 4th of June, 2007 with a resounding rally of over 12,000 oustees of the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams in the town of Khandwa followed by a gherao of the NHDC (Narmada Hydro-Development Corporation) which is building the dam. Since then 5000 oustees have been sitting on dharna in Khandwa with the resolve that they would go back to their villages only when their demands are met.

The villagers have taken complete financial and logistical responsibility for the program, and the atmosphere is heady. Food for 5000 people is being cooked and served twice a day with the condiments and grain and dal brought by each individual villager and premises given to us by the local Gurdwara. There is a great deal of song and dance and sharing of experiences. Desks for filing complaints and counseling are also being run. Such has been the dire nature of the R&R process in the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams, that more than 11,000 complaints have been prepared and filed with the NHDC in the last 13 days.

Dharna and Fast to continue until all demands are met

The activists sitting on indefinite fast are Krishnabai, Dalit woman from Village Bichola Mal, District Harda, ISP submergence, Surajbai, Dalit woman from Village Bichola Mal, District Harda, ISP submergence, Ashok Sharma, Village Gogalgaon, Omkareshwar dam submergence, Bhagwanbhai Sardar Sarovar submergence, senior activist of the NBA, and Chittaroopa Palit, activist of the Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Today is the 11th day of their fast. Their spirits and their resolve to take the struggle to victory is very high. Naturally, however, their health is declining and weakness has come in. Particularly Krishnabai, a frail 32 kgs. is in great pain and is continuously vomiting.

Our demands

Our main demands in the Indira Sagar area are that

(1) Agricultural land should be provided to the villagers who are facing fresh submergence in the thousands of acres of land now found in the surveys.

(2) All adult sons and adult unmarried daughters of cultivators should be provided land or SRG as directed by the High Court in the Order dated 8.09.2007 and which the State Government is refusing to comply with.

(3) Landless families should be provided 5 acres land in the draw-down of the Indira Sagar reservoir, along with irrigation facilities.

(4) Employment guarantee schemes should be provided in every R&R site such as New Harsud, Kalapatha, Bangarda where people are undergoing starvation.

(5) Thousands of houses that have been deliberately and illegally been left out of the acquisition process after surveys preceding Section 4 Notification and after in many cases the service of notices under Section 9 of the Land Acquisition Act should be included and compensation and R&R entitlements provided.

(6) Every R&R site should be leveled or where people have already spent thousands of rupees to build plinths in the undulating wastes of the R&R sites, compensation should be paid for the plinth filling.

For Omkareshwar, the demands are

(1) Agricultural land for the cultivators,

(2) land for the adult sons and unmarried adult daughters of the cultivators, as per the R&R Plan of 1993 for the Omkareshwar Project

(3) Land for the landless families as per the condition of the environmental clearance.

(4) Better facilities including sufficient potable water in the R&R sites.

Callousness of the state and the lack of response

Since the beginning of the dharna, the people have been facing the callousness of the State government who have till today not bothered to address the grave concerns of the people or initiate any serious negotiations. On the contrary in the last few days, they have been trying to bring the dharna to a halt. Two days ago, the water supply was stopped for 17 hours. Finally, only when the women blocked the streets, the authorities were forced to resume the water supply. The refusal of the state to respond to the popular struggle is extremely troubling but the people are determined that they will compel the state to accept their demands through democratic struggle.

High Court stipulates land for land

On the 18th of May 2007, in the case of the Omkareshwar dam, the Madhya Pradesh High Court had passed an Order directing that the gates of the dam should not be closed until all the villagers are rehabilitated with agricultural land as per the 1993 R&R Plan of the Project and only after giving them 6 months breathing time after the completion of R&R.

Supreme Court permits dam filling

However the State of Madhya Pradesh and NHDC filed Special Leave Petitions and on the 11th of June, the decision of the High Court was stayed by the Supreme Court without going into the merits of the matter. The State Government and the NHDC stated on affidavit that of the 30 villages affected by the Omkareshwar dam, 25 villages would not be affected by the rise in level up to 189 meters, and the other 5 villages are already vacated.

However, the Supreme Court declined to pass any order on the land question and sent it back to the High Court while disposing off the SLPs. The matter begins in the High Court from the 18th of June, 2007. After the SC decision, the dam gates were closed on the 13th of June. The waters have reached crest level 184 meters in the last two days already and are rising further.

Repression in Omkareshwar villages after SC Order, resistance by people

It may be noted that the in their affidavits in the High Court and Supreme Court, the State Government and the NHDC stated that of the 30 villages, only 5 villages are in the submergence at 189 meters and the other 25 villages will not be affected at 189 meters. Moreover, they also stated that even from these 5 villages, in Gunjari where 22 houses were denied compensation after having been given Section 9 notices not once but twice, would not be affected at 189 meters and its back-waters.

However immediately after the SC order, the State government started severing electricity and water in several villages like Ekhand and Gogalgaon by removing transformers. The villagers are resisting the disconnection of facilities fiercely in the villages. At the same time, on the 13th the people on dharna ghearoed the Khandwa Collectorate and demanded restoration of facilities and removal of police. As a result, the transformers have been re-connected. The villagers have now stated that since it has been said that they will not be affected at 189 meters, no officials should enter their villages.

Gunjari satyagraha begins against illegal submergence

Meanwhile, the 22 houses of Gunjari and several more houses of Bakhatgarh and Sailani and 115 families of Jiroth hamlet of Village Kelwa are likely to be submerged in the next one or two days – Gunjari probably in the next few hours. In the face of the complete denial of their entitlements and the false affidavits of the State and Project authorities, the people of Gunjari have taken a decision to face the waters but not move. The people of the other villages have decided to join them in their satyagraha.

Appeal for support

As you can see, events are unfolding very quickly. Meanwhile the dharna and the indefinite fast continues and is taking its toll on the fasters. You are aware that both Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams are complete and are on the verge of full reservoir filling which will cause full submergence, are only stopped by the stay on the full filling of both these dams because of non-fulfillment of R&R, due to legal intervention by the NBA.

To ensure that this program of struggle against the tyranny and impunity of the NHDC and the State government and the fulfillment of the legal and just rights of the oustees, we need your help and support. We request you to:

1. Come to Khandwa to extend your support to struggling oustees.

2. Write to Chief Minister and Governor of Madhya Pradesh asking them to fulfill the demands of oustees.

Shri Balram Jakhar,
Governor
Madhya Pradesh
Raj Bhawan
Bhopal
Phone: (0755) 4223436/4080300
Fax : (0755) 4080112

Shri Shivraj Singh Chowhan
Chief Minister,
Madhya Pradesh,
Vallabh Bhawan,
Bhopal
Phone: (0755) 2441033/2442231
Fax : (0755) 2441781/2540501

3. Organise support progammes at your places.

We hope, as always, your will extend your full support to ensure the rights of thousands of struggling oustees.

In solidarity ,
Bhagwan Mukati, Alok Agarwal, Chittaroopa Palit, Krishnabai

Note:
* Khandwa is on main Mumbai-Itarsi rail route
* Khandwa is 3 hours by road from Indore

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: ,

Clerics booed off by believers!

June 16, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Soumitra Bose

What happened on June 12, 2007 was the most seminal event in the long drawn struggle of the producing forces against religious politics in India.

Shahi Imam of Delhi – the supreme Sunni cleric adjudged in the north of India and in almost all of India among the Sunni Muslims visited Nandigram. This man had maverick and chequered history of jumping boats and turning coats in politics, yet for some reason he is the most revered “institution” among the Muslims. When all faces of the ruling Left front was lost, the “champions of secularism and the poor people and the minorities” – CPM accosted the Imam to make an official visit in Nandigram. The Imam “carried” the “good will and wishes” of the Chief Minister – the infamous Buddha Bhattacharya. He came, were greeted by the local CPM, was chaperoned by the police and ventured into Nandigram to say that the protestors need to back off and the Left front is sincere and harbours all good wishes. He asked for the audience in the local mosque. The mosque was pre-occupied by the notorious Muslim sub-group of the local CPM leadership. The general people were few who frequent the said mosque almost everyday for Namaz/Salat. The moment Imam opened his mouth the local population protested his remarks. The CPM goons openly threatened the people in front of the police and the Imam looked away and kept on ranting his praises to the government. That was un-bearable. The Namazis boycotted the speech- they yelled, ‘if the Imam has to get into politics, why is he not coming as a political leader and why is he coming as an Imam?’ The local believers- the Momens shouted at him that the people of Nandigram has struck a wonderful relation with people of all religions and accused the Imam of trying to play communalism. They questioned the authority of the Imam to use religion for this purpose. Protests gathered storm and the police declined to take up the responsibility of security. The people swelled up and Lo and behold! The body language of the local Muslims and the leadership- the main trio Abu Sufian, Abu Taher, Abdus Samad of the Bhumi Ucched protirodh committee who till yesterday always donned the Islami cap even on battlefronts removed the cap from the head and challenged the Imam. The first sign of dis-illusion. The entire Muslim strong population rose with one voice against any usage of religion in politics.

For the first time the entire Muslim population collectively turned down the Imam’s authority. For the first time the Momens shooed and booed their Imam out! For the very first time the Muslim population shouted that the Imam is meddling communalism! For the very first time the Hindu right reactionary party said that “Imam is trying to divide the Hindu-Muslim unity”! For the very first time Jamiat e ulema e Hind – the Tablighi Jamat , run by the Ulemas rejected any intrusion by their Imam. For the very first time the most fundamentalist Jamat-e-Islam accused Imam of un-authorized activity. For the very first time the “smaller” Imams of entire West Bengal came out openly against the Shahi Imam! Nandigram teaches us people’s unity, people’s struggle. Nandigram teaches us that class struggle is far more strong than any religious underplay. Nandigram teaches us the way people will behave tomorrow. This is not a lesson for West Bengal, but for the whole of Indian sub-continent. Religious equations are always a part of the game plan of imperialists, but united and collective struggle effaces all these ploys. Nandigram teaches us how to be a Bengali, an Indian, an Asian, a citizen of the world.

Filed Under: DIARIES Tagged With: , ,
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