The Plight of Displaced People Worsens

June 10, 2007 by 2 Comments

Press Note:10.06.2007

Fifth Day of Indefinite Hunger Strike
The Plight of Displaced People Worsens : Due to Blatant Flouting of Supreme Court Orders
The Price of Thousands of Lives is Larger than the State’s Fiscal Loss

On the fifth day of the indefinite sit-in of the Omkareshwar and Indira Sagar affected people, thousands of families are still continuing to throng the dharna site. The indefinite hunger-strike of a group of five people comprising of affected persons and activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan as well as the three-day hunger strike in solidarity by 89 people from 30 affected villages continued today. A large number of people from the Maheshwar dam affected regions visited the dharna site too, and expressed their solidarity.

It is to be noted that thousands of displaced people from both the Indira Sagar Project as well as Omkareshwar project are being forced to suffer like destitutes due to the non-compliance of rehabilitation policy and plans. According to the information provided to the High Court by the state government and NHDC, more than 85% of the families displaced from the first five affected villages of the Omkareshwar project – namely Sailani, Bakhatgarh, Gunjari, Paldi and Rampura – have been unable to purchase any land. Same is the case of more than 83% families of the Indira Sagar project. More than 80% of the families who have been unable to buy land are the marginal and small farmers and adivasis, harijans and other poors. It is clear from these figures that displacement has pushed these affected people to the brink of total pauperisation.

The Supreme Court of India, considering displacement as an issue related to the Fundamental Right to Life and taking it under the Article 21 of the Constitution of India, has guaranteed full protection to the displaced people. In the verdicts of the Supreme Court in case of Narmada Bachao Andolan v/s Union of India of the year 2000 and year 2005, and of N D Jayal v/s Union of India regarding Tehri Dam, the apex court clearly ruled that after displacement the life standards of displaced people must be better than before. But the plight of the displaced people from the Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar affected regions clearly shows that these Supreme Court orders have been blatantly flouted. In fact the High Court of MP (Jabalpur Bench) has ordered that the reservoirs of Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams should not be allowed to fill up because the rehabilitation of the displaced persons has not been done according to the rehabilitation policies and plans.

Not only this, the government surveys in the case of both Indira Sagar and Omkareshwar dams have been proven false. In the surveys conducted after the orders of the High Court, thousands of new houses and thousands of acres of extra land has been found to be coming under submergence. Not only have these newly declared affected families not been rehabilitated as yet, but their land acquisition also has not yet taken place. In this scenario, to fill up the dam reservoirs will mean a direct threat to the lives of all these families. The claims of the project authorities that not filling up water in the dam reservoirs is causing fiscal loss to the state government shows the apathy and indifference of the authorities regarding the lives and Right to Life of these thousands of families.

It is due to this insensitivity of the state government and NHDC that over five thousand people have been forced to leave their farming and labour to sit on a dharna in Khandwa. The affected people have expressed their firm resolve that they will return to their villages only when they achieve their just and full rights.

Alok Agrawal
Dharamraj Jain
NARMADA BACHAO ANDOLAN
2, Sai Nagar, Mata Chowk,
Khandwa, Madhya Pradesh.
Phone : 0733-2228418,2270014

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Some random thoughts on political economy

June 2, 2007 by 2 Comments

Deepankar Basu

1. The Indian economy is currently undergoing a boom, a moderately long boom for a less developed economy: “between 1999-2000 and 2006-07, the gross domestic product (GDP) in constant prices increased at an average annual rate of nearly 7 per cent. And for the past three years, the economy has been growing at 8 per cent.” This boom is a profit-led boom, where surging profits of the Indian corporate sector is leading the growth in savings and investment. This seems to be a far cry from the general economic “stagnation” in the “semi-colonies” predicted by the classical theories of imperialism. Of course, this growth is accompanied by growing inequality; capitalists are gaining more than workers and big capitalists are gaining more than the small-sector capitalists. This is a situation which had occured in Argentina, Brazil and Chile (and Mexico and Iran possibly) about four decades earlier and continues to this day; this is what has been called “dependent development”: dependent, to take account of the continued operation of imperialism (through various channels) and development to take account of the non-trivial industrial development (as opposed to the earlier periods of general economic stagnation and no industrial development). Would this (the move from semi-colonial stagnation to dependent development) change the agenda for radical social transformation?

2. A mark of the recent trend in the Indian economy are the new economic kings, the new capitalist moguls whose wealth (in purchasing power parity terms) would equal those of the richest in the First World. Here is a typical example of the rising wealth of the new capitalists. It is important to reiterate that these are capitalists and not feudal lords, and they are (or will, in the near future, be) calling the shots in India. Is it not capitalism, dependent capitalism to be sure, that is the dominant mode of production in the Indian socio-economic formation?

3. One area of the Indian economy which is going to see a lot of turmoil in the coming months is the retail sector. Recall that the retail sector directly employs about 8 percent of the workforce; the indirect employment is probably much larger. Most of the “firms” in this sector are what are called the “mom-and-pop” shops; these are small family-owned and managed businesses, often employing very outdated technology (transportation, storage, etc.). Big corporate entities, both Indian and foreign, have already started entering this market which is estimated to be around $250 billion! Two interesting things can be expected to happen here. One, big corporate entities entering and wiping out the mom-and-pop shops will considerably increase the technological level of the retail sector; it will lead to a huge growth of the productive forces. Two, Indian big capital, represented by Reliance, is going to fight for this huge market against the Walmart-Bharati enterprises combine which is a foreign capital led alliance. Given these two facts, how will the revolutionary forces consistently oppose this development while (a) accepting the primacy of the development of productive forces for social transformation and (b) adhering to their anti-imperialist stance.

4. I want to return to Marx’s famous letter to Vera Zasulich in relation to the question of the socialist revolution in Russia. In the draft letter to Vera Zasulich, Marx had specifically mentioned that the Russian peasant commune could be used for the development of a higher form of social ownership and labour, i.e., socialist labour and that defending and deepening the communes should be an express task of the revolutionary movement of the working class. In the preface to the second edition of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels added a crucial condition for this possibility to materialise.

“The Communist Manifesto had, as its object, the proclamation of the inevitable impending dissolution of modern bourgeois property. But in Russia we find, face-to-face with the rapidly flowering capitalist swindle and bourgeois property, just beginning to develop, more than half the land owned in common by the peasants. Now the question is: can the Russian obshchina, though greatly undermined, yet a form of primeval common ownership of land, pass directly to the higher form of Communist common ownership? Or, on the contrary, must it first pass through the same process of dissolution such as constitutes the historical evolution of the West? The only answer to that possible today is this: If the Russian Revolution becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other, the present Russian common ownership of land may serve as the starting point for a communist development (Source). ”

If we juxtapose this assertion to the debate about the possibility of building socialism in one country then we come up against an inconsistency. Let me elaborate.

It is well-known that the Bolsheviks gave a call for a socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 with the express recognition that the Russian revolution could only be sustained if it “becomes the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that both complement each other”; the Bolsheviks were especially anxious about the outcome of the German revolution. Thus, both the call for the socialist revolution and the movement for the strengthening of the peasant commune (to be used as a springboard for the construction of a higher form of socialized labour) rested on the hope of support from proletarian revolutions in the West. The Bolsheviks gave the call for a socialist revolution but did not give a call for strengthening and deepening the peasant communes. Why?

5. This is a nice picture of the enduring (and possibly growing) strength of the anti-capitalist strand within the anti-globalization struggle.

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Condemn the Arrest of PUCL Activists in Chhattisgarh

May 25, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Jan Hastakshep
May 25, 2007

Jan Hastakshep condemns the arrest of Rajinder Sail the President of the Chattisgarh PUCL. This arrest is allegedly made in connection with Shankar Guha Niyogi’s murder case, on grounds of contempt of court proceedings at Madhya Pradesh. Even though the case pertains to April 2005, the M.P. and Chhattisgarh governments have kept the warrant pending for years and suddenly pulled it out of their pockets to execute it. The fact is that the state was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with Rajender Sail’s activity in the matter of the arrest of Chhattisgarh PUCL General Secretary, Dr Binayak Sen. While it is true he will have to serve the sentence lawfully imposed, yet the abuse of powers is writ large. It is a clear case abuse of law when the police keep final orders pending without executing them and using them only at their convenience.

Dr. Binayak Sen was fighting against violations of human rights and he was very critical of the numerous “encounters” being done in Chhattisgarh, while demanding a proper enquiry into these so called encounters. At the time of issue of this statement to the press, Binayak Sen stands charged for Sedition, conspiracy to wage war and conspiracy to commit other offences. Such post arrest and post FIR confabulations are part of the impunity, governments have granted to the law-enforcing establishment..

It is indeed a lesson for civil liberty and democratic groups to watch the increasing depravity of state institutions and the manner of their functioning which holds all issues of democracy and accountability in utter contempt. This unrelenting attack on civil liberty groups and activists is unprecedented; except during the Emergency, it was never common place to arrest senior and well known civil rights activists.

Jan Hastakshep appeals to all concerned citizens and civil right groups to come out and protest these increasing attacks on Indian democracy and insist for a more accountable administrative functioning. These increasing attacks by the right wing BJP led governments and the creation of state sponsored vigilante groups such as the Salwa Judum are clear indicators of the growing dangerous fascist trends in India. What needs to be kept in mind is that these trends are not any different in Congress or other party ruled states.

Jan Hastakshep strongly condemns the arrest of both PUCL activists and demands:
1. Immediate release of Mr. Rajender Sail and Mr. Binayak Sen and dropping of all criminal charges against them
2. Strict and swift action be taken against the armed forces and police personnel involved in the brutal murders of innocent citizens in these so called encounters.

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Understanding 1857

May 15, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Irfan Habib

THE Revolt of 1857 had as its opponent what was the largest colonial power of the world. It has, therefore, a notable place in the history of Imperialism, and no study of the Revolt can be separated from that of the emergence and internal mechanics of Imperialism. In a letter (27 October 1890) to Conrad Schmidt, Engels noted that while colonial powers before 1800 aspired to capture sources of imports at the lowest cost, thereafter following the Industrial Revolution, they essentially sought markets for their own industrial manufacturers. In respect to India, Marx (New York Daily Tribune, 11 July 1853) dated the change to 1813, when the Charter Act threw Indian markets open to British manufactures by abolishing the East India Company’s commercial monopoly. The results of this invasion of ‘Free Trade’ for India’s own artisanal manufactures were disastrous. In Capital, I, (ed. Dona Torr, p.461), Marx noted that after 1833, there came about “the wholesale extinction of Indian handloom weavers”, amounting to a “destruction of the human race.” It must be remembered that this new source of misery was in addition to the increasing burden of ‘Tribute’, extracted by Britain through excessive over-taxation of the country. Marx had seen in such Tribute a special source of primitive accumulation for British capital; and this too was, therefore, an inseparable element of the new regime of Free Trade, how much individual Free Traders like Bright may have criticised it.

Not only was ‘Free Trade’ a vehicle for the conquest of external markets by British capitalism, a new impetus was now given to world-wide expansion of British power, so as to impose ‘Free Trade’ on the whole world. ‘Imperialism of Free Trade’ is how this new aggressive stage in British colonialism has been described by British historians, J. Gallagher and R. Robinson in an essay of this title (1953). Marx himself had never believed in the sincerity of the ‘peace cant’ of the British Free Traders (Tribune, 11 July 1853) and spoke specifically of the military means that were adopted for “securing the monopoly of the Indian market to the Manchester Free Traders”. (Tribune, 30 April 1859).

The expansion of British power, both world-wide and within the Indian subcontinent imposed a still further burden on India: Annexations of princely states came one after another: Sind, Punjab, Nagpur, Satara, Jhansi, Awadh, all went into Britain’s grasp between 1844 and 1856. In each state large sections from courtiers to common people lost their means of livelihood. Payment had to be made in blood as well. The Bengal Army became a major instrument that was put to use for fulfilling the sub-continental and global ambitions of British imperialism. The bones of thousands of its Sepoys lay scattered in the fields of Afghanistan, Sind, Punjab, Burma, Crimea and China, and no end to the blood-letting was in sight when the storm burst over the greased cartridges in 1857.

We can thus see in 1857 a critical juncture in the history of emerging Imperialism: the pressures it relentlessly exerted on the largest colony in the world, provoked, finally, an anti-colonial outbreak, unique for its scale in the whole of the nineteenth century. The rebellion pitted against the colonial regime over 120,000 trained professional soldiers from the Bengal Army, the most modern army east of Suez, with tens of thousands of other armed rebels, reinforcing and aiding them. In terms of the area affected, nearly a fourth of the population of British India (some five crores of people) passed under rebel control.

That the Revolt of 1857 had its roots in the pressures exerted on India by the Imperialism of Free Trade can hardly be denied; but the depth and breadth of the upheaval also raises the question of the classes and groups that became involved in it, and of their grievances and aspirations.

In his Discovery of India (1946) Jawaharlal Nehru wrote most feelingly about the slaughter and suffering imposed on the people of India by the British during and after the Revolt; and he compared the ‘racialism’ exhibited by the British to that of Hitler. Yet he simultaneously believed that the uprising was essentially “a feudal outburst, headed by the feudal chiefs and their followers, and aided by the widespread anti-foreign sentiment” (p.324). Nehru repeats this characterisation at the end of his account of the rebellion as well (p.328: “essentially a feudal uprising, though there were some nationalistic elements in it”).

Such characterisation, though perhaps natural with the limited amount of evidence available on 1857 at the time Nehru was writing, needs now to be reconsidered.

In the first place, the perception inexplicably overlooks the role of the Bengal Army sepoys. Coming largely from peasant and small land-owing families, they had been drilled and trained in modern warfare and, often themselves literate, were attuned to the mode of British administration with its committees and councils. They had thus no “feudal” attachments that we can think of. Yet, they remained from the beginning to the end, the firmest single component among the ranks of the Rebels. During the rebellion, they asserted their ‘democratic’ attitude by electing their officers (with, often enough, largely Hindu regiments electing Muslims, and vice versa). They formed ‘councils’ to govern their affairs, and in Delhi established the famous ‘Court of Administration.’ If their officers gave themselves designations, they were those of a modern army; such as “Captains”, “Colonels” and “Generals”!

Another class, which we tend to overlook, is that of the educated in the towns, who were increasingly affected by modern ideas. While it is true that there was nothing comparable to the Bengal Renaissance in the Hindustani-speaking zone, at both Delhi and Agra colleges had been established, imparting modern education. In People’s Democracy (April 23-29), Shireen Moosvi has given an account of weekly newspapers coming out in Delhi during the time it was held by the rebels (May-September 1857). Her account shows clearly that the rebel newspapers addressed themselves to people at large, and were not mere Mughal court bulletins.

Let us take a cursory view of the Delhi Urdu Akhbar (June 21,1857), where under the heading “Seize this Opportunity”, it tells its readers that the English had been depriving India of its wealth, by taking it away to England, and remarks upon how the new rebel administration, as it extended its control over “districts” would open opportunities for men of “education and capacity.” It calls upon the scions of the old aristocracy to leave their ways of idleness and take to various trades and crafts. It especially commends the ironsmiths who were manufacturing “rifles, English guns and Turkish pistols.” Its appeal to Hindus and Muslims to fight the English does, indeed, make use of the slogan of saving both religions from the onslaught of the alien English, but it increasingly shifts to patriotic sentiments, addressing “fellow countrymen” and glorying in the exploits of “the Indian Army” (Fauj-i-Hindustani). Modern methods of propaganda were also employed: a pamphlet containing an appeal to Hindus and Muslims was separately printed to be sold at a quarter Rupee per copy (issues of 5 and 12 July). Interestingly, the paper’s hero consistently is not any of the Mughal princes, but the brusque “republican” sepoy leader, the Commander-in-Chief, “General” Bakht Khan. Clearly, the weekly’s readership consists not just of the dependants of the Mughal court, but also a much larger educated population, which was being invited to support the rebel cause by enticing vistas of what they would gain from an Indian (not necessarily, a mere Royal) regime. The general slaughter by way of retribution carried out by the English in Delhi after its fall in September proved that in English eyes the rebel appeals to the Delhi citizenry for support had not fallen on deaf ears.

Beyond the educated class, there were the artisans whose callings the Delhi Urdu Akhbar in its issue of 21 June had so much commended. These included many who had lost their employment owing to the competition of British manufactures, especially textiles. Firuz Shah, the famous rebel leader, in his Proclamation of August 25, 1857 – which reads surprisingly like a modern political party’s programme – makes a special promise of giving employment to the weavers and other kinds of artisans rendered unemployed by English importations. Such artisans formed another class that turned out to be strongly sympathetic to the rebellion. Syed Ahmad Khan then a British agent, in his contemporary memoir of the Revolt in district Bijnor (Sarkashi-i-zila‘ Bijnor) speaks sneeringly of how the sepoys and professional soldiers of the local rebel leader, Mahmud Khan were reinforced by “cotton-carders and weavers, who had hitherto handled only yarn, and never a sword.”

While we are discussing the outlook of the rebel press at Delhi, it may be mentioned that none of the extant issues of the three weekly newspapers display the slightest sign of Wahabi influence. Iqtidar Alam Khan’s critique of the theory of a large Wahabi role in 1857 is going to be published in a subsequent issue, so more need not be said here about it. The practical absence of theocratic influence on rebel leaders, despite the constant cry of religion in danger is, indeed, remarkable.

As for peasant support for the rebellion this became so immediately apparent that already in his article in the Tribune (16 September 1857), Marx was drawing a comparison between the Indian Revolt and the French Revolution of 1789, on this, very basis. The peasants were hard-pressed by the Mahalwari system of land-tax (a consequence of the British pressure for Tribute), and the Revolt gave them an opportunity to throw off the tax-collector. The late Eric Stokes deserves much gratitude for his detailed studies of peasant participation in the Revolt. To him is owed the telling quotation from the report of Mark Thornhill (15 November 1858), where that official held “the agricultural labouring class”, i.e. peasants, rather than “the large proprietors”, as having been “the most hostile” to the continuance of British rule during the Revolt.

That large numbers of zamindars, the bulk of Oudh taluqdars and some princely courts threw their lot with the Rebels is, on the other hand, quite undeniable; and Talmiz Khaldun’s suggestion that the 1857 Revolt was developing into “a peasant [and, therefore, anti-feudal] war against indigenous landlordism and foreign-imperialism” was rightly contested by P.C. Joshi in whose centenary volume on 1857 the essay had appeared. Much of the visible rebel leadership came from these elements: the reluctant Bahadur Shah Zafar, Nana Sahib and Tantia Topi, Hazarat Mahal and her entourage, Khan Bahadur Khan of Bareilly, Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi, and Kunwar Singh and Amar Singh of Jagdishpur, all came from what one can conveniently characterise as feudal classes. Most of them had their own grievances, over lost rights or rebuffed claims. But it needs to be borne in mind that resistance and struggle, in which support had more and more widely to be sought from among the common people, could not but force fundamental changes of outlook. One may look, for instance at two proclamations of Birjis Qadr, whom the rebels declared to be the ruler of Awadh. The first was the proclamation of Rebel Rule at Lucknow, printed in Urdu and Hindi side by side, and issued in June 1857. Addressed to the “Zamindars and the Common People of this Country” it blames the English for their attack on the religion of both Hindus and Muslims, on their seizures of land, and on their disregard of the dignity of the higher classes by treating them at par with the meanest! There is no explicit reference to India, in the main text and, quite clearly, the interests of the landed aristocracy are given primacy. Contrast this with the last appeal to the Indian people in reply to Queen Victoria’s Proclamation of November 1858. In this Appeal issued on behalf of Birjis Qadr, India (Hindustan) is in the forefront. The story is briefly narrated of how the British by force and fraud have acquired territory after territory in India from Tipu’s Mysore to Dulip Singh’s Panjab. The rebels are not to believe in Victoria’s honeyed words, but to continue the struggle. Victoria’s Proclamation shows, it asserts, that if British rule continues, Indians would remain mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. The petty matters, such as the loss of hierarchical dignity, are here quietly forgotten.

One must recognize that the overall historical orientation of the 1857 Revolt cannot be established in definitive terms for the simple reason that, because of its ruthless suppression, there is no way of knowing how it would have developed should success have come its way. But some preliminary suggestions can still be made.

Given the crucial role of the Bengal Army sepoys in initiating and carrying the Revolt forward, the Revolt at least drew on one element of the ‘regenerative’ process, that Marx had spoken of, in his seminal articles of 1853 on British rule. The Sepoys did not at all belong to the old world of princes and landlords. Significant also are the early traces of modern ideas and perceptions that we see in rebel journalism of Delhi and certain proclamations of the rebels. The fact that these modern or quasi-modern elements could make common cause with princely courts, zamindars, unemployed artisans and overtaxed peasants was due to a particular combination of circumstances created partly by that transformation of colonialism itself, with a discussion of which this essay had opened. To characterise the revolt as either “feudal” or “bourgeois” would be unhistorical. The time for one was past, the time for the other had not come. Such discussions have their place in attempting any understanding of how 1857 came about. But what cannot be disputed is either the sheer patriotism of so many, whatever class they came from, or their undying defiance in the face of so brutal and ferocious a retribution as the English visited upon them. The memory of the Rebels’ sacrifices in what they believed so ardently to be the cause of their country will remain ever green in our people’s memory — so long, as the royal poet of 1857 said, as “the country of India endures.”

SOURCE: People’s Democracy May 13, 2007

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Some questions about agrarian structure in contemporary India

May 12, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Deepankar Basu

The first thing that probably needs to be clarified in the study of agrarian structure in India (and other parts of the periphery) is to understand agrarian structure as an articulation of various modes of production under which socially necessary labour is being undertaken. The concept of socio-economic formation, as an articulation of various modes of production, but distinct from the concept of mode of production itself might prove useful here. I feel that this is a very important point that is often ignored in much Marxist theorising.

Once we agree to understand agrarian structure as an articulation of various modes of production, several questions immediately arise. One, what are the various modes of production that are articulated in various forms in India today? Capitalist and pre-capitalist modes. That much is clear and widely agreed upon.

The next important question, of course, is this: which is the dominant mode of production in this social formation, in this complex reality formed by the articulation of the capitalist and pre-capitalist modes of production? Which, in other words, is the mode that is dominating the others, shaping the others so as to fulfill it’s own needs of reproduction? Which is the dominant and which is the dominated mode of production? In this regard, the tentative hypothesis that I would like to advance is the following: contemporary Indian reality suggests that the capitalist mode of production is the dominant mode. It is capitalism, decidedly of a dependent variety, that is calling the shots in India today. All vestiges of pre-capitalist modes are articulated to the capitalist mode and are serving its needs in various ways. But it would be a mistake to allow the vestiges of these pre-capitalist modes to define social reality in rural India, its agrarian structure.

The question that will naturally follow is this: how to explain the stagnation in Indian agriculture? How to explain the rising rural distress? This is an extremely important question, but I don’t think it is necessary to take recourse to semi-feudalism to explain rural stagnation and distress. Dependent capitalism, of the type that has developed elsewhere in the periphery of the world capitalist system, is precisely a capitalism which entails stagnation, pauperisation and distress for the majority while a small minority grows at a very high rate. That has happened in Brazil, Argentina, Chile and is now happening in India. This is another tentative hypothesis that I would like to advance.

A very close friend of mine, who has been studying agrarian relations in Punjab for some time now drew my attention to three very important characteristics of rural reality in Punjab. These are: (a) the intrusion of ideological factors like “social pride” into the process of mechanization of agriculture (he informed that the possession of tractors in contemporary Punjab is more a matter of “social pride” of the peasantry than any capitalist incentives arising from production conditions); (b) the existence of a class of middlemen who procure agricultural product from peasants and also function as money-lenders, thereby givng rise to partially interlinked markets; and (c) the widespread use of migrant labour in agriculture.

What are the implications of these three characteristics for our understanding of agrarian structure in contemporary India? I would tend to interpret these three characteristics as the many factors, among others, which reproduce capitalist stagnation; I do not see this as providing evidence of the presence of semi-feudal relations in rural India.

The question that immediately came to mind regarding the first charateristic is this: What is the material basis of the “social pride” that comes from the ownership of tractors? An answer suggests itself almost naturally. The tractor manufacturer would gain enormously from the widespread existence of such “social pride”. Let us recall several campaigns by the local capitalist class (for example the “hamara Bajaj” campaign) where ownership of scooters and motorcycles and four-wheelers and tractors are given other, social meanings (like national pride, etc.)? Could something like that be in operation in Punjab too?

Existence of a large class of middlemen is important but does not really lend support to any semi-feudal thesis. The class of middlemen, to my mind, are representatives of mercantile capital; a class which makes profit by buying cheap and selling dear. It is important to remember that they have come up under the shadows of a partially paternalistic State and the pressure of rich and middle peasants for minimum price policies. Through them mercantile capital is getting accumulated in rural India. The fact that the credit market is partially interlinked to the product market through this class reminds me of the “putting out system” during the early phases of the industrial revolution in England. But, this system, I am told, has made a comeback through various kinds of “contract farming” in other parts of India too. For instance, Pepsi Co, HLL, Procter and Gamble and many other companies often do the same. They provide credit and other inputs to the farmers and the contract is that they will buy the product at pre-arranged prices. So, even though markets are getting interlinked, it is in a context that is very different from those studied in the early 1970’s by Amit Bhaduri and others. In this case, the capitalist character of many of the participants is beyond all reasonable doubt. So, instead of understanding this as an instance of semi-feudal relations of production, it is probably more helpful to see this as the specific manner in which the articulation to dependent capitalism takes place.

The importance of migrant labour, as my friend pointed out, can hardly be denied. But as I have suggested earlier, while it is important to understand the articulation of modes of production, it is equally important to identify the dominant mode? Moreover, the existence and growth of migrant labour, footloose labour according to Jan Breman, also seems to suggest that the various kinds of bonds that tied down labour to a particular plot of land or village or area is loosening. Doesn’t that gradually erode the semi-feudal basis of power in the rural areas?

Another related question that often comes to mind is this: are big and powerful feudal landlords left in India today, other than in small pockets? Does social, economic and cultural power in rural India reside with the class of feudal landlords? I have serious doubts that it does. I think, instead, that the social and economic power of the landlord class has been largely eroded. Rural power now rests in the hands of the middle and rich peasants, not in the hands of landlords. To a minimum that seems to be the case in large parts of India: Punjab, Haryana, Western UP, TN, Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal, Gujrat, Maharashtra. Therefore another question arises immediately: does this define the character of rural India or do the remnants of semi-feudal power in pockets of Bihar, Orissa, Eastern UP, MP, Chattisgarh, Jaharkhand define rural India?

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SEZ: Sense [of belonging] Eroded Zilla: Colony-islands within a nation-state

May 4, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Soumitra Bose

Prologue

SEZ. Special Economic Zone. There is a lot of speciality within this Zone -an area that is especially distinct and yes dis-entangled from the tentacles of the REST. The attitude is Seclusion. Secluded Expropriation Zoo – where human beings will be ushered in day in day out to get expropriated of all the juice and elixir and then let out at the end to get replenished from the Other that is the REST. That human body – the packet, will be filled- up to be juiced out again the next day. Quotidian extracting of human labour processed into Capital generation [do not read formation- it is far more technical and restrictive] SEZ- a perfected machine of Global colonization to churn out ready Capital only through Super-profit.

It is Marx and yet much Beyond Marx. The generation of Super-profit here does not precede any kind of Profit through normal market mechanism. It is simply an Enclosure where all kinds of non-market and non-exchange mechanisms will have full reign to bring out the wealth that will never bother, care or mind any market anywhere real or virtual and yet would generate profit- this kind of Super-profit is beyond Marx. Marx conceived of Super-profit as Rent. Marx did also conceive of absolute ground rent, even by stretching the connotation of “ground” to any labour producing space, we still cannot relate to Marx with the logic of our SEZ- here we have a space where the “owner” holds the nominal title of land, labour and yes many a times or, why not, most of the times Capital and still the rentee enjoys the occupation and very funnily extracts rent from the renter. Aha! This is colony-logic. You give, you pay, you own in paper and I own in real terms and I enjoy. The Master [read colony master] extracts labour power, transforms it into Capital, repatriates it, throws away the used parts to be replenished by the renter and then makes the renter pay for the whole transformation process. You own, you replenish, you provide, I take out the Capital, you get only one thing – a metric for your books called GDP. What will the renter do with it? None of rentee’s botheration. This is a Secluded Extraction Zone for him- the rentee. Rentee is the Master here- the owner is the slave. In old age colonies the Master invested the armed forces to subjugate and yes was responsible or (ir)responsible for the governance, administration and to a lot extent the up-keep [ or “up-unkeep”] of the space, here they don’t. They are (ir)responsible for nothing, and yet rewarded the profit- just because they chose to come here and increase the book value. Super-profit, Rent or Super-Rent, Marx or beyond Marx SEZ now is the Zeitgeist of what we all are elated to roll the read carpet for – DEVELOPMENT. A third world now is measured by a number and a volume- SEZ!.

How many SEZs will it take to call a nation-Developed?

The answer my friend is getting archived in the documents! The answer is touted in lectures!

Numbers: Arithmetic of SEZz

The government has now paved the way for immediate notification of formal approval for as many as 54 SEZs. Another 29 SEZs just await clearance from the Law Ministry, while 88 applications are now passing through the stage of verification. Then there are 162 SEZs that have already secured in-principle approval and only formalities remain to be completed. And then there are 350 new applications waiting for approval. Add up all these categories and the total is already close to seven hundred! If the average size of an SEZs is assumed to be 2000 hectares or 5000 acres,[Please note the highest stipulated limit for a single SEZ is 5000 acres and there is no bar if a space is subdivided and sub-divided into many named SEZs placed side by side] seven hundred SEZs would occupy around 1.4 million hectares or 14,000 square kilometres! And this is all prime land – agricultural or otherwise – in the vicinity of India’s major urban centres.

A Great Scheme indeed! Please note the (un)text between the lines:

· A SEZ need be as much contiguous as possible
o For the sake of ease and usability of course
· It needs to be near the metros, highways and beside the best navigable roads
· It needs to be prime agricultural spots as
o Previously used up [ or fouled-up-and-now-abandoned] barren spaces are too cumbersome to handle due to litigations and otherwise.

Well, here again the condition and definition includes an assumption and of course a provision- the best of the infrastructure the OTHER or the hapless provider [ read the native country] can provide. Add up the SEZ area and you will find a sixth of West Bengal, more than a third of the Kerala state- a small(!) price indeed to pay for India to scurry up the development ladder.

· Collateral damage (?) –
Another little price to be paid goes along.

· Loss of production (?) –
Oh yes, another minor one – to insignificant to note (sic!)

· Loss of environment and climate (?) –
Grow up! And let us lot spill good breath over serious money matters

· Loss of history, culture, neighbourhood (?) –
Oh! Development is serious and emotion does not have any scope here, let us keep those off for films and novels, that we would enjoy and sell again.

· Loss of livelihood of people (?) –
These poor lazy bums would have died anyway and anyhow, why pamper them and appease them- slaves and peasants are cankerous sores. Let us “civilize” them or “proletarianize” them and make them “responsible” wage earners.

The baggage: what comes along?

SEZs come along with a baggage, or rather packets to make the baggage, of different types, some of exclusions and others inclusions. The attitude of seclusion makes more of exclusions than of inclusions. The inclusions comprise

o Occasional housing for the leaders and officials who would run the show
o In some cases some provisions for these officials to take care of their familial chores like schools and crèches for the kids
o Power house to serve the enclosed zone
o Luxury facilities to be enjoyed by them
o And of course a system to preserve and thrive the corporate culture.

All these of course are only available to a selective few- exclusion here too! The principal Mantra is Exclusion! You exclusion more to thrive here! You reject more than you accept and that is how you belong to the “chosen few”.

Now let us peruse through the exclusions:

o Law of the land:
SEZ will be a space outside the realm of any kind of law of the land. The authority of the SEZ [read the rentee- the occupier] would decide which selected few laws of the land they will comply with and the host others they would not.

o Labour law:
Besides ordinary civil or criminal procedures, labour laws that affect any labour within the country will be summarily suspended. The authority of SEZ will have their own whims, they are even not obliged to lay down their own set of fixed rules or laws, they are free to do anything at any point of time with the labour.

o Labour provisions:
Remunerations and labour provisions and conditions of work do not apply within SEZ. The authorities are free to fix or unfix or even keep variable the minimum wage for the labour and any maximum time they deem fit for the labour to work.

o Labour arbitration:
The employees or the labourers will not necessarily be going through any kind of negotiation in legal formats as within the SEZ law of the land or law of any other country does not apply.
The employees may or may not have any negotiating right or mechanism to talk or deal with the authorities. The authorities will have full freedom in deciding the mores and modes of dealing with the labourers.
And therefore there is no question of a third party arbitration that will in any way be binding upon the authorities.

o Single authority:
While discussing these provisions we must not harbour any illusion that every single SEZ will necessarily have one single regulating or monitoring or managing authority. A SEZ can have multiple enterprises within and each enterprise is absolutely free to decide its mode of operation and modes of acts by themselves without the presence of any third party or intermediary.

The SEZs will as an empirical rule be provided with the maximum RESERVATION and SUBSIDY. The upcoming and “progressive entrepreneurs” will recruit working hands and labourers without any specific guideline to follow and are free to choose anyone they feel like from within the host country and the host society and yet are often very vocal about what they know term as “merit” and doing away with “reservation” but would enjoy all kinds of subsidies and reservations for themselves, let us go through those subsidies that they would enjoy to be provided by the native country:

· Tax Holiday:
The SEZ authorities will be given a long tax holiday, state taxes, state excise and even in some cases even central excise is exempted.

· Free electricity:
The state will provide free electricity or electricity in less than nominal rate for the production system.

· Free water supply:
The state shall provide free water and will allow the authorities to tap as much as free ground water as they feel and wish without any restriction to type or volume.

· Free road infrastructure:
The state or lay down proper road to the facility from the most important metro and other important facility points.

· Free of other regulatory payments:
The state will not impose any taxes that are generally levied on to the enterprises outside the SEZ area.

In addition to these the state or the province will ensure every kind of navigability and support structure so that the work within the SEZ can run with ease and at a growing pace.

The state will be bound to take care of any security concern of the people, mostly the officials of the SEZ, the general “smooth” running of the SEZ and the no disturbance or tough going within or outside the SEZ.

The banks. Financial institutions and service sector institutions nearby the SEZ will be providing service at the speed, time and other service requirements of the SEZ authorities – all these to ensure smooth extraction of profit and repatriation abroad or outside.

Who stands to gain?

The Stakeholders of the SEZ operation will be the owners of the means of production. They will produce and sell at their chosen market at their chosen price in their chosen time. These will then have the full freedom to stash the profits wherever and whenever they can. They will definitely be a chosen few to gain. Another big and privileged and yet subsidized and appeased class of billionaires or at least multi-millionaires will be created. Already India is a country with more than 100 top Asian billionaires where almost a billion or so are below the poverty line. We talk in billions now- both I terms of wealth amassed and in terms of numbers who slip down the wealth ladder – a little every minute.

There is another group of people who will never be within those enclosed spaces and yet will ever be benefited by those spaces. They are the realtors and the realty industry hommies. If there is one single boom in a industry it is the construction industry- the suppliers, the builders, the promoters, the middlemen, the musclemen, the mafias and of course the party apparatchiks who make people comply with the SEZ construction.

Marx talked about primitive accumulation of Enclosed spaces in eighteenth century England where Capitalism got its cheap fodders from for the sake of industrialization. Today the entire other-than-SEZ is such a space. The form is different rather just the opposite. The enclosed space is extracting out everything from the vast un-enclosed space for the present day neo-modern accumulation. The essence is the same the point of incidence has been swapped.

We will have enclosed spaces where production process would use the automation developed for a different nation and a different perspective copied and pasted out of context in this native time and space. The Mantra again is high productivity. But here the definition of productivity is very restrictive. Apparently it shows that output per unit of human labour is important but then it goes on to implement the maximum output with minimum factor input in terms of labour cost, this is buttressed and cheesed up by the minimum amount of variable capital input. These SEZs will deploy a very high and disproportionate organic composition of capital or fixed capital and there it will reap the benefit by fast depreciation of the values of the assets in the books and paying no Capital taxes. The factor investment per unit of variable capital, either in terms of increasing the skill of the labourer and/or the betterment of the working condition and of course connected with the no or minimal pay rise, will be put down to the bare minimum. The profit thus obtained is not the one realized from market restructuring or reorganization but simply by de-skilling of the labour power.

Who falls flat to lose?

All others! Yes that is exactly the description!

· The employees
o In terms of real wage and real negative growth
o In terms of de-skilling
o In terms of share of the production process and to the final product
o In terms of job guarantee and tenure
o In terms of loss of planning power for their future because they would not know what is coming next
o In terms of saving and investment plan anarchy increasing because of this uncertainty.
o In terms of social and cultural life
o In terms of leisure time for every worker

· The state:
o In terms of less and less earning as the years pass by
o In terms of providing real wealth and natural wealth
o In terms of decelerating rate of employment growth as these companies will either create job-less growth or job-loss growth
o In terms of a dwindling base of the consumer economy, as less and less people will have access to proper purchasing power.
o In terms of loss of agricultural produce
o In terms of loss of water resource and replenish-able natural storage resource
o In terms of increasing expenditure to employ more and more security personnel who do not add to any value.
o In terms of mal-distribution of the public utilities and distribution system.
o In terms of growing enmity and acrimony in the society between the miniscule beneficiaries and huge mass of deprived ones.
o In terms of less and less amount of amassing of small savings to provide for further investments.

· The common people:
o In terms of dwindling of available natural resources
o In terms of the real wealth getting siphoned to provide for the SEZ.
o In terms of increasing inflationary pressure in the quotidian prices of commodities.
o In terms of shooting up of prices of service products like medical, educational etc.
o In terms of their collective culture and life-style getting shattered through the demonstrative effect.

· The nation-state or the country:
o In terms of loosing sovereignty
o In terms of broken democracy or body politic
o In terms of social and political unity and cultural identity as these SEZs will be culturally, socially and psychologically islands of the metropolitan west inside the native land.

Infrastructure: To whom you belong?

Infrastructure is for all the people. For the whole nation! It is like the common pool from where different people take their need and use it differently. It is provided publicly, with public cost and maintained by the public authorities on behalf of the public. The income if any from any infrastructure facility is to be ploughed back for the public cause.

Even in terms of capital’s need public investment reduces unit level private investment. With highly developed infrastructure the private enterprises would rush anyway to invest. The huge cost of acquiring new business, that of communication, that of maintenance, that of travel, that of distribution, that of maintaining the supply chain and that of the ease and mobility of the work force are taken care by advanced infrastructure. This cost is huge and if the onus is taken away any investor would rush to reap the profits with only concentrating on the capital and variable cost.

The reason why SEZ needs prime motorable places near to metros is to avail of all the facilities a society can offer and thereby to mitigate the risk of production by fixing he uncertainties. Had the government invested in infrastructure development and subsidized their build up we would have seen a flood of private investors with their new concepts and they would not mind paying the work force a little extra something with a guaranteed job tenure with a steady increment to ward off the inflationary pressure. Our government is doing exactly the opposite. It is the tail that wags the dog here ! The government should have geared up the infrastructure and then let in the investors in the terms laid down by the government and now we see that the government is interested in preparing infrastructure to serve the capitalists by serving under the terms laid down by the capitalists. This is the destiny of mediocrity, of not comprehending the rules of society and even the market and that of economy and the algebra of Capital formation. When you fail to understand the science you drop out and become a mafia. The rule is true in individual real life and in the society or governance as well.

Development: thy name is Displacement: thy soul is eaten.

Every such development brings along Displacement. Displacement from the livelihood, from the history, from the surroundings, from the culture, from the human civilization! It creates a massive roving band of refugees- the people become a permanent refugee. A nation or society does not remain that of the domiciles but turn into one of refugees. They do not belong, they do not owe, they do not own, they drift! Drifting becomes the part and parcel of life in globalization. Oldies lament with “family values”, people lose their social values. Values are never created, as they do not stay to be registered or take root- they drift. Values drift because society drifts; society drifts because people drift collectively. One is not known, as one is never identified. One is not characterised; one is simply a number. A number is dispensable and therefore is not distinguished: a number is simply disposable. When a living and creating thing becomes a number, one becomes substitutable – a Robot. A number is the biggest anathema to creation and to life. A drifter is anti-artiste, he does not produce, if at all there is some thing there is anti-creation, anti-artefact, anti-product that actually annihilates previously produced artefacts. The basic piled up knowledge pool that accumulated to create are eaten up, diminished, and marginalized by anti-artefacts and anti-produces. One such anti-artefact is the weapons of mass destruction, that of mass-delusion, that of mass-deception, that of mass-depression and thereby mass-defection, mass-non-compliance leading to mass-anarchy. Drifters form the bedrock of mass-anarchy, not of any education, nor of any value, nor of any promise, nor of any plan.

Development mobilizes towards incessant mobility. People get mobile, they do not settle, not belong, not love, not share, not sacrifice for any cause or dream, they simply fight to survive, snatch to grow and kill to live for the next moment. It does not DEVELOP; Displacement inhibits Development! Civilization thrived on settlements, on taking roots and on creating histories and societies. Displacement nullifies, annihilates, and decimates all those. A roving band of charmers do charm the kids out of their abodes and invariably leads them to deep sea or hell fire… Our highly “mobile” value system does not promise or assure; it immobilizes any journey, any progress. The nomadic communities did not upgrade or change they remained nomadic, they actually remained in their un-remained state of no progress, no change, no development no paradigm shift. The fallacy of this drifting is the dialectic logic of immobility- the immobility of no change of nothing new- the same old.. same old.. drift and drift and drift your way along achieving nothing to show, to say, to boast, to be proud of, to be remembered. SEZ is the track of doom, of immobility, of dark unchanged hell! One gives birth to lifeless, value less disposable structures and bodies with no memory. Displacement is memocide in its finest and thus SEZ is civilization-cide. If there is any meaning of INQUILAB ZINDABAD, then after the physical demise and immortality of Neruda – it means now Change is the only changing thing, only certainty at the same time and only meaningful phenomenon. SEZ tries to halt this change through its facade of over-change – behind the facade is its nemesis – opposite called death— if INQUILAB ZINDABAD has to stay SEZ goes!…that is the mantra re-established in the centenary of the most famous war cry by Bhagat Singh!!!

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Oppose violence against women in politics

April 26, 2007 by 2 Comments

Anant Maringanti, Viren Lobo, Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Pradeep Narayanan, Vanita Suneja, Cynthia Stephen, Vinod K. Jose & Soma K. Parthasarathy

As horrific tales of sexual violence against women and girls in Nandigram allegedly by CPI(M) cadres and the West Bengal police emerged in the media, we have been asking ourselves the simple question, “Why?” This is not the first time that this question is being asked: why has violence against women in most unspeakable forms become part and parcel of political conflicts? The violence in Nandigram was after all a political contest, essentially between the CPI(M) and local people, many of them former supporters of the CPI(M) itself, who were apprehensive of their lands being taken over by the Government to set up SEZs.

In fact this question arises again and again in the recent history of political violence in India. The Committee against Violence on Women (CAVOW) reported the rape of 8 women from Kandkipura village of Bastar by uniformed police personnel. The provocation for this was the people protesting against forcible land acquisition for industry. The CAVOW fact-finding report highlights many atrocities perpetrated on women by Salwa Judum goons and the state security forces. In Kalinganagar, in the wake of police firing against an unarmed crowd protesting against the forcible take-over of their land for industry, corpses of women with breasts cut off were handed over to their relatives. While mainstream media rarely takes notice of the violence against civilians indulged in by the Indian Army in the North East, the recent outpouring of extreme resentment at the military forces shook both the media and the state as forty Manipuri women –twelve of them naked– stormed the Army headquarters in Imphal, holding signs that read “Indian Army, Rape Us!” Thanglam Manorama’s brutal murder by Army personnel was the source of anger for the protesters. Manorama’s murder is far from being an exceptional case in Manipur where rape, abuse and murder are everyday realities. In their brave protest, Manipuri women shamed the Indian army by parading the very female body that brought humiliation and death to their sisters. With their raw anger and amazing mobilization, these women refused to get knocked down by the ‘rape culture’ that enables the ‘victor’ to demoralize their victim. And about the violence against women in Gujarat in 2002, it was reported, “…The pattern of cruelty suggests three things. One, the woman’s body was a site of almost inexhaustible violence, with infinitely plural and innovative forms of torture. Second, their sexual and reproductive organs were attacked with a special savagery. Third, their children, born and unborn, shared the attacks and were killed before their eyes…”.

The question “Why?” can be asked and answered in varieties of ways using many different frameworks of analysis. What is clear is that these instances of violence against women are occurring in the context of an aggressive expansive thrust of Indian capitalism, seeking hegemonic status in the global arena. Nandigram is clearly tied to the aspirations of investors like the Salim group of Indonesia and the CPI(M)’s vision of industrialisation through national and trans-national capital. Kalinganagar and Dantewada (Bastar) are similarly the product of a political clash between the same vision of industrialisation and resistance to it. The violence in Gujarat happened at a time when the State Government was aggressively marketing it as an attractive destination for global investments. The North-East has been afire due to the conflicts between the oppressed sub-nationalities of that region and the dominant nationalities of peninsular India, who now see it as a hub for investment and trade.

While these are the most egregious examples of violence against women in political conflicts, there are also other forms of violence against women, which are widespread and invisible. Familial violence or domestic violence includes, for example, the violence of traditional practices and foeticide, infanticide, forced/early marriage, forced sex-work, wife battering, and violence against widows. Violence at the community level includes caste-based violence, body mutilation, honour-killings, abduction, rape and other forms of sexual violence, sexual harassment and workplace violence, and trafficking. The beating, rape and mutilation of sexual organs of women of a dalit family at Khairlanji in full view of the public is a recent example. All forms of gender-based violence against women and also children (girls and boys) violate their human rights and are political, involving power and patriarchal domination. The common thread in these diverse forms of violence is social and gender-based domination which makes violence against women acceptable in familial and community contexts.

After economic liberalisation, the focus on women is increasingly as a cheap labour force. Despite apparently positive indicators of progress, particularly in education and paid employment, little has changed in the position of women. Studies suggest that while there is an increase in low-wage employment and self-employment, gender discrimination is being reinforced. While micro-credit is a necessary but altogether insufficient condition to address poverty, evidence suggests that the burden of its access, utilisation, and repayment fall entirely on the shoulders of women. Notions of `family honour’ are being re-worked such that women must bear the brunt of family survival strategies through credit and increased workload, while financial players reap the benefits of reduced transaction costs. Even more worrying are the increasingly reported instances of sexual harassment and assault at workplaces where women are essentially unorganised. In this context, the liberating and empowering effect of the workplace has only partially materialised.

Without losing sight of its intrinsic links with all forms of gender-based violence, we would like to focus attention on the violence against women indulged in by State agencies and political actors. All politics, regardless of ideology, is ostensibly about making a better world. Political activity draws upon the thoughts and aspirations of the people for a better life. Violence against women can never be countenanced by the political imagination as a means to a noble end. Yet such violence persists because of the patriarchal view of women as chattel, as `territory’ to be conquered, as `honour’ to be saved or violated. This is closely tied to the practice of male control of women’s sexuality and reproduction. In general, the cultural construction of masculinity and femininity reify women’s roles in reproducing community and nation, and men’s roles in their defence.

What seems to emerge clearly from the examples we have cited is that whether it is politics of the Right or of the Left, of the hegemonic or of oppressed groups, of neoliberalism or of the resistance, certain essentialist notions of masculine and feminine with their roots in patriarchy seem to regularly result in sexual violence against women as a `legitimate’ form of conflict. As neoliberal economies take root, whether in the form of industrialisation in Bengal or irrigation projects in Andhra Pradesh or in the form of urban renewal missions, we fear that gross physical violence against women will only increase and escape the conventional institutional solutions available to us. As persons who believe in and participate in progressive politics, this is a matter of grave concern to us. We believe that this clandestine indulgence towards violence against women is intolerable. We therefore call upon fellow citizens to declare that there is no place in politics for this assault on the bodies and minds of women. This is a precondition for achieving any vision for a better world.

Anant Maringanti, Research Scholar, University of Minnesota
Viren Lobo, Development Professional, Udaipur
Rajesh Ramakrishnan, Researcher and Consultant, New Delhi
Pradeep Narayanan, Development Researcher, New Delhi
Vanita Suneja, Development Professional, Faridabad
Cynthia Stephen, Independent Researcher, Bangalore
Vinod K. Jose, Foreign Correspondent-India, Radio Pacifica Network
Soma K. Parthasarathy, Researcher and Consultant, New Delhi

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Reservation, Merit and Social Justice

April 1, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Sukla Sen

The desirability and efficacy of affirmative actions in the form of caste-based reservations, in (higher) educational institutions, and by implications at various other levels including job opportunities, has again been pushed to the fore of our social discourse jostling with many other burning issues of the day for due space and attention by the recent Supreme Court stay order on a Central government decision in this regard.

On the first reading, the purported hesitations of the two-judge bench of the Court to allow the government to make and implement social policies with huge implications based on plainly antiquated data, in the event those available from the 1931 census, makes a hell lot of sense. But on a closer reading, when we find that even more important social measures – viz. reservations in government jobs, are for long in practice based on essentially the same/similar set of data, which anyway in the present case go well beyond the 1931 census and include inter alia various sample surveys carried out from time to time; one can hardly be blamed if it is considered just a nasty stalling tactic by the concerned judges putting their somewhat tyrannical powers and privileges to maximum use.

So far as the government of India is concerned, two moves are underway for a while. One, extend reservation to the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) even in the portals of higher education including the “institutes of excellence”. While this is partly a new initiative, it is partly also to offset the earlier Supreme Court verdict drastically curtailing the scope for such caste-based reservations, by doing away with the same in the private institutions, and upholding/promoting money-power based reservations – just not implicitly, but also explicitly by validating management/NRI quota. There was also another move, now somewhat subdued, to extend job reservations to the organised private sectors.

So far as the reservation in the field of education is concerned, South Indian states are already having systems in place, which are far more radical than the one now proposed by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. Interestingly the virulent student agitations led almost exclusively by the medical students against the government move had failed to cause any significant impact in the southern states, except in the then Bangalore.

The aim of the agitation, even if it appears to lie beyond the realm of feasibility, is just not to scuttle the new move granting the OBCs special quota in the domain of higher, or tertiary, education but to reverse and scrap the present system as well catering principally to the SCs and STs. The agitating (upper caste) students must also be having the contemplated job reservation in the private sectors on their minds.

The anti-reservationists in the main put forward the argument of ‘merit’ over ‘equity’. They also challenge that reservation promotes equity. Now in so far as the ‘merit’ argument is concerned, the anti-reservationists are evidently on a sticky wicket. These self-styled champions of ‘merit’ have nothing to say against various quotas, in the (mainly private) educational institutions, explicitly linked to payment of (much) larger than usual amount of money – in terms of capitation fess, higher tuition fees etc. (There is no murmur against the continually rising cost of education at all levels. In fact, it is even welcomed as a system which would help filtering out the ‘non-meritorious’. Money, in this case, is considered coterminous with ‘merit’.) That ‘reservation’ goes against the very logic of the ‘market’, presupposing and calling for direct State intervention in determination of access to and allocation of resources in an era when “market fundamentalism” is the fad of the day, must have had its impact just not on our media and the so-called “elite” drumbeating on the side of the aggrieved upper-caste students, but the judges in question as well. The fact that acquiring of ‘merit’, to be established through various competitive exams, also calls for expensive tutorials – not excluding purchase of question papers etc., apart from education in premier institutes entailing heavy expenses is simply brushed aside. Likewise, the highly non-level playing field that a student from the disadvantaged and discriminated against castes, or communities, is compelled to face in terms of highly asymmetrical distribution of accumulated cultural capital, apart from economic conditions etc., is hardly ever acknowledged.

The affirmative actions, on the other hand, apart from promoting social equity and integration, actively facilitate enlarging the social base/pool of the ‘meritorious’ by providing opportunities to come up in life to the members of those disadvantaged and traditionally marginalised ‘majorities’, at the lower/lowest rungs of the social ladder, who’d have been otherwise excluded. Hence the affirmative actions, quite contrary to the shrill claims made, actually help to raise the level of the ‘merit’ of the society taken as a whole.

But the question how, or rather to what extent, reservations actualise its intended objectives and whether it effectively preempts, by acting as palliatives with high emotional pulls, other positive measures, arguably far more fundamental, imperative for radical restructuring of the social hierarchy and democratisation of all spheres of life, of course, is a much trickier one and calls for a far closer and dispassionate look into the whole set of related issues. But this is hardly possible in an atmosphere charged with irrational and hypocritical hypes where the narrow self-interest of a rather thin slice of the incumbent elite is tried to be blatantly and aggressively sold and foisted upon the rest of the society in the name of ‘merit’ and all that.

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‘Why do We oppose Reservations…?’

March 29, 2007 by 2 Comments

Rahul Varman

[Today (March 29), the Supreme Court of India “stayed the implementation of the 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes in elite educational institutions like IITs and IIMs for 2007-08…. A Bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice L.S. Panda … said the State is empowered to enact affirmative action to help the backward classes, but it should not be unduly adverse to those who are left out. The Bench further said “reservation cannot be permanent and appear to perpetrate backwardness. If the seats in the central educational institutions were increased without reservation it would have gone to the general category.” Indicting the Government for enacting such a law, the Bench said “nowhere in the world Castes queue to be branded as backward. Nowhere is there a competition to become backward. With this Act, the subject of the equality is unduly put under strain.” On the contention of the Centre that it had taken the 1931 census as basis for fixing 27% quota for OBCs, the bench said what may have been the data in 1931 census cannot be a determinative factor now. The concept of creamy layer is not prima-facie relevant as contented by the Centre. “The Bench further said there is no explanation as to why there is no firm data for determining backwardness.” As a result unequals are treated as equals”. – The Hindu. In the interest of debates on this issue of caste reservations which has crucially determined the tenor of Indian politics, Radical Notes will be publishing a series of articles and reactions on the issue, in the context of the judgement. We are reproducing here an article by a faculty member of one of the elite institutions where the SC has stayed the implementation of 27% backward caste reservations, India Institute of Technology (Kanpur). The article was written and circulated during the last year’s anti-reservation agitation. – Editors]

I teach at one of the IITs, and off late my students, colleagues, friends and relatives have been sending me mails, organising meetings, writing petitions, initiating e-tirades, etc. against the recent MHRD announcement and generally taking it for granted that I’ll join them in their protests. Each time they are taken by surprise when I decline their offer, try to mumble something as to why I do not agree with them, or sometimes simply keep quiet if I have the advantage of an impersonal medium like the email. But increasingly it has been hard to shrug the whole issue away – every time I open my mail box, or as I walk along the corridor, and even as I bid farewell to my students of the outgoing batch, the sentiment against reservations seem to be thick in the air intermixed with the feeling of unease when one does not make the ‘right’ noises. And therefore I’ll try to articulate at some length as to why I disagree with the ‘anti-reservationists’, (the issue is too complicated for a mere agree/ disagree vote); in spite of having little sympathy with MHRD and their ‘motivated’ methods.

Let me begin with an incident which occurred when I had just joined IITK way back in 1994. We were staying in the guest house then and some census officials knocked on our door one afternoon to make enquiries for filling up a questionnaire. On being asked about my caste my wife expressed her unawareness. When a brief consultation with each other trying to ‘categorise’ my surname did not yield any answer, the main person resolved the issue in an ingenious way. After confirming that I was a faculty member, he told his associate in quiet confidence, “likh do, Brahman honge”. The point that I want to stress here is that it is not suddenly that either Mr. Arjun Singh today, or 16 years earlier Mr. B P Mandal, suddenly injected the caste divisions into our society (or, for that matter, in the elite educational institutes) as is being alleged by those against the reservations. The caste divide very much exists everywhere in our society and especially so in any of these elite institutes; my claim would be borne out by the names on the doors along the corridors in the faculty corridors or during the roll call in any of the class rooms. Only thing is that those who are on the right side of the divide can choose to ignore it. This will also be borne out by various kinds of statistics if we bother to look at them.

Some say that instead of caste we should talk about the economic deprivation and by bringing caste reservations we’ll only bring in more divisiveness. I do not understand this argument; it is like saying that we should not address the gender oppression as an issue primarily concerning women, as men also have been sometimes oppressed; or that racial discrimination is not about the blacks and Hispanics in the US, as whites also are sometimes on the receiving end. Further, as if acknowledgement of this form of discrimination(s), instead of being a logical step towards affirmative action, would actually promote them. Coming back to reservations in the present context, it is true that a lot of men and upper castes are also oppressed, but here we are talking about a specific systemic historical subjugation of a massive magnitude, at present perhaps involving more than half a billion people. Reservations may not be answer to this problem but the issue cannot be addressed by bringing in every other kind of discrimination also while attempting to address this issue. Caste problem can be solved only by addressing caste issues; similarly if there are other discriminations that exist in the society (and of course they do) they need to be identified and addressed too, not substituting one form of redressal for the other. Further if the social and economic equity spreads it will not harden the caste identity but loosen it as I’ll argue further through the experience of the southern states later.

Of course the most important argument of those protesting is that it is against the ‘merit’, that it is going to keep the ‘meritorious’ students out and bring in lesser students due to reservations, which in turn will ‘lower’ the standards and destroy the excellence of such institutes, which has been so assiduously and precariously cultivated as a part of the post colonial nation building project. Now this argument is at various levels and we can examine various parts of it one by one.

The first part of the above argument is that reservations will bring students who lack merit and hence will lower the standards of the elite institutions; hence they should be kept away from such reservations. The point is that what does this merit really mean? In any exam where lakhs appear and only thousands get selected, it is not that rest are ‘bad’ but only that there are very limited opportunities. But does it mean that if we go down in the performance list of the exams, others are incapable of undergoing the training and we as an institution are incapable of teaching them in whatever it takes to make them a good professional? Remember we are talking of half a billion people when we say ‘backwards’. Can’t we find handful out of them who have the ‘capability’ to undergo the required training? To me the argument does not sound very different from the ancient times where by their birth a large number were excluded from learning Sanskrit or entering the temples. It is very much like Dronacharya refusing admission to Eklavya. Moreover, we do not seem to even recognise the odds that the children from disadvantaged face; my friend who is from a village 100 kms from Kanpur tells me that his village has just one school where hundreds study across classes with one 18 year old teacher for all the classes put together! And the point is that, even in this school, dalit children are not even allowed to drink from the public pot kept for the rest of the children. In contrast, is it merit when we see that overwhelming majority of those who clear the JEE and CAT are able to do so, only after spending huge resources, money and time, as will be borne out from the newspapers inserts everyday and hoardings at every corner in vast urban parts of the country? What this shows is the singular lack of opportunities and the desperation of educated youth to find a berth in the elite institutions that will catapult them into a different social and economic orbit. Now the point is that these berths are being reserved in one way so far, the question is are we ready to alter that process?

If something sets the elite institutions apart it is the enormous resources that they attract, both human as well as material. And I do not see what stops such individuals who enter even after reservations from becoming good professionals given proper nurturing and resources. As far as failing of students in such institutes is concerned we’ll find that students of all categories make such a list as the overwhelming reason for that is either lack of motivation and/ or the social context and not the lack of ability. Many students after clearing JEE, CAT, etc. lose the motivation to do well – they stop going to classes and studying and look for other expressions in life and simply feel alienated with the academics. The second reason is that many students simply find it hard to adjust to a westernised – elite culture of these institutions, especially those who come from rural or small town background. Since they are not able to find the right kind of supporting network of friends and peers they are not able to perform as a lot of learning in such institutions is collective. Many of the reserved category students have to further bear the stigma of coming through ‘quota’, of not being good enough and hence they get into a shell and are more likely to find themselves alienated, which finally reflects on their performance. If this is so, then what is required is more supporting systems within institutions and not stopping them at the gates.

As a teacher I have also seen cases where within a semester or two some of the so called ‘poor students’ are completely transformed. They have been able to adjust to the requirements of the system and flourish, may be with the help of a supporting friend, or a patient teacher, or through an activity where they could express themselves, or a combination of the above. Moreover if these institutes are not only abut learning inside the class as we never tire telling the fresh students, but about becoming a complete professional as so many alumni will vouch for, and transforming a teenager into a professional who is in touch with her surroundings, then of course this diversity can do wonders to the overall learning inside and outside the class rooms. I have learnt so much from those of my students who are different from my protected middle class upbringing – a village in eastern UP, a small town in Bihar, a construction site in Kerala, and so on. Though I understand nothing about the medical education, but I am sure if a student can bring his experience of a Chattisgarh village, it can contribute hugely to the real education in the class.

One can at this point ask a further question, is merit all about passing exams? After all, are the exams a means or an end? If the exams are means to look for ability to make better engineers, doctors and managers, then can there be better methods to look for such ability? After all in my first engineering class I was told that a good engineer is the one who can produce the best out of the least resources and similarly, management is supposed to find one’s way in an uncertain situation – or allocate scarce resources in the most optimal way possible. If that is so, whatever I have seen of our deprived masses (of which overwhelming majority belongs to the backward, dalit castes or adivasis), they have the astonishing capacity to make something productive from almost next to nothing! For the last few years I have been studying small industry clusters, like Moradabad brass, Varanasi silk and Kanpur leather. Put together (all the clusters in the country), they are exporting more than the IT sector and their cumulative employment will be several times of the whole of IT industry. In all these clusters they operate with miniscule resources – small investment, no electricity, forget about air-conditioning, non existent roads, lack of water, and little formal education. These clusters are primarily constituted of these so called backward/ dalit castes and are truly a tribute to the genius that our society is. But in spite of centuries of excellence these communities have hardly produced any formal ‘engineers’, ‘doctors’ and ‘managers’, and conversely these elite institutions have not developed any linkages with such industries and their people.

This brings me to a further question, what do ‘meritorious’ students from these institutions do when they pass out? I recall what Srilata Swaminathan, the noted activist, had said at the beginning of her talk at IIMA in the early 1990s (I at the time was a student there), “I am told that this is the cream of the country, and what do you do, sell soaps and toothpastes (ITC, HLL, etc. were the most coveted recruiters those days)?”. There was hushed silence in a room full of students and faculty. I remember in the mid-90s my sense of disbelief, when I was the placement coordinator for my department, the HR manager of one of the big three Indian IT companies told me, “as long as somebody can recognise a keyboard we take him” in response to my query about what they sought in a potential employee. Remember this company over the years has employed thousands of IIT-IIM engineers – managers. As a child I remember the famous surgeon in my home town, who would first cut up a patient and then renegotiate the price with the relatives, before proceeding with the surgery! Or everywhere around me I find ‘meritorious’ doctors employed in public hospitals, drawing comfortable salaries and doing roaring private practice! You are not even required to turn up in the village health centre even once if you have a rural posting. If the majority of our people usually have to do with the village quack, they would not mind a ‘slightly less meritorious doctor’ coming to take care of them, instead of finding solace in the fact that super-specialised doctors are ensuring that the elite of our country have no wrinkles, and such like grave ailments. I recall when some students from IITK, almost all of them belonging to the North from UP to MP to Orissa, went to participate in post Tsunami relief work in Tamil Nadu. After they came back the overwhelming feeling was this difference from the North that “things are different over there and they work!” My relatives and acquaintances prefer to go down south when they are seriously unwell and not to Delhi or Lucknow. Remember this is the same place which has implemented the ‘quota’ much before Mandal and much beyond it too. I hear of far less caste strife in Tamil Nadu than in UP where caste based reservations have been implemented for such a long time – it does not seem to have furthered the caste based identities in South into a full fledged war like Bihar and UP. Point is ‘merit’ is not about stopping somebody at the gates or throwing them out of these seats of learning, but in creating robust institutions which can cultivate and nurture the talent with all the complexities of a vast and disparate society that we are.

Let’s put the creamy layer argument also in perspective now. Point is that such elite education which has so many barriers – expensive and time consuming coaching, expensive education, elite culture, etc. is under the present order going to be a preserve only of a select few. All we are saying is whether it is going to be the preserve of a few higher castes or some of the other castes can also find an entry. Even if it is backward IAS’s daughter, so be it, finally many others are also IAS’s wards, so how does it make a difference? As has been rightly said by the critiques, it’s a populist measure for the votes. etc. But so is every single policy of the govt. and so it will be in a ‘vote bank democracy’ – either for the votes directly, or for generating resources for the next election. When an Ambani or an Enron is granted abominable concessions, why don’t we come on streets and say, “it is for money for the next elections.”

The difficulty perhaps is that we are only against certain kinds of reservation. When an Ambani becomes a CEO, when a Gandhi becomes a minister, we do not say it is against merit, when a professor whose son is not able to qualify JEE, is still able to send her child abroad for higher studies, we do not say it is reservation, when only Valmikis do all the cleaning work at IITK we do not say it is reservation, the point that we need to ponder is that why is it that we are only against certain kind of reservation and for certain kind of merit?

Finally for those of us who think that the present reservation exercise is ornamental and they would like to do something more basic and lasting, I recommend a reading of the Mandal report – they will find that the report goes to some length to capture the socio-economic indicators in understanding and classifying ‘backwards’. Moreover reservation is a small part of their recommendation which includes things like special coaching for the disadvantaged to basic issues like land reforms. The difficulty is that in all these years, only the naxalite movement seem to have taken up some of the radical suggestions of the Mandal Commission! Meanwhile I have a question for those whose problem is the hasty implementation, that “how can we implement MHRD’s recommendations so suddenly?” After all, the report has been available for debate, discussion, modification and implementation for all these 16 years! Why is it that we have suddenly woken up to bother about primary – secondary education as well as the economic upliftment of the masses, only when the government has started acting in its own bumbling ways? As far as I know, no academic body or business institutions like CII has debated these issues and no committees have been setup to examine the Mandal report all this while. Finally, history is catching up in its own imperfect ways. We need to ponder whether these institutions are meant only for supplying cheap labour for the American corporations. If they have to be more than that, the time has come for us to be self critical and look beyond the knee jerk response to the present quagmire.

The author is Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial & Management Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

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James Petras’ critique of “progressive regimes”

March 26, 2007 by Leave a Comment

Pratyush Chandra

James Petras has been criticised for his “ultra-leftism”. Petras doesn’t need my defence, if any at all. But since some comrades have raised concerns about ultra-leftism of the leftist critique of the sarkari left in India, I thought it pertinent to use my defence of Petras as a personal exercise in understanding this ultraleftophobia gripping these genuine comrades.

In criticising Petras, what is generally put forward is a list of few statements that he made while critiquing some of the progressive regimes in Latin America, which were ‘apparently’ proven wrong. His oft-quoted statement is about Chavez in his post-2004 referendum note, where he indicated at “the internal contradictions of the political process in Venezuela”, while simultaneously asserting that Chavez’s support “was based on class/race divisions”. Petras showed the flipside of the contradictions – while considering Chavez’s referendum win as a defeat of imperialism, he asserted,

“But a defeat of imperialism does not necessarily mean or lead to a revolutionary transformation, as post-Chavez post-election appeals to Washington and big business demonstrate…The euphoria of the left prevents them from observing the pendulum shifts in Chavez discourse and the heterodox social welfare–neo-liberal economic politics he has consistently practiced.”

He also stated that referendum results showed “that elections can be won despite mass media opposition if previous mass struggle and organization created mass social consciousness.” Differentiating Chavez from other national-populist leaders in Latin America, Petras said,

“In effect there is a bloc of neo-liberal regimes arrayed against Chavez’s anti-imperialist policies and mass social movements. To the extent that Chavez continues his independent foreign policy his principle allies are the mass social movements and Cuba.”

In his apparently pessimistic assessments about Lula, post-referendum Venezuela and now about Morales, Petras’ main focus has always been to critique the euphoric assessment of these regimes and put forward a political economic perspective of the developments. Retrospectively, one might assert that his pessimism with regard to Venezuela was not well-founded, but the fact that something did not happen is not a sufficient critique of the prognostication of what could have happened.

Petras’ pessimistic judgement and his optimistic ground engagement with various revolutionary movements in Latin America and throughout the world are two sides of the same “radical” coin – “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. His optimism allows him to see revolutionary potential within a particular situation, while his pessimism forces him to deconstruct the situation into various tendencies, class forces, class balance etc that may enhance or scuttle the realisation of that potential. For him as for other Marxists, history is not linear – at any given moment of time, there are various tendencies, countertendencies and social variables operating that synthetically determine the future – there is no single cause, and there is no single effect. Isn’t it a normal Marxist exercise – to identify this synthetic dynamics, while indicating possible “futures”? Isn’t it better to see the danger, which eventually may or may not realise into any mishap, and guard oneself against it, rather than not seeing any, and lead oneself willingly and with all enthusiasm to a dead-end? Another scholar-activist involved in Latin American transformation who never tires to talk about ‘contradictions along the path’ is Michael Lebowitz, when others are rolling drunkenly in optimist euphoria:

“The problem of the Venezuelan revolution is from within. It’s whether it will be deformed by people around Chavez.”

Lebowitz and Petras differ in their discursive tenor because of the differences in the loci of their political engagement, but they come from the great tradition of Marxists who have utilised Marxism to understand the day-to-day developments in global class struggle, without slipping into journalistic tinkering with appearances.

It would have been a different matter, if Petras had stopped short of presenting the revolutionary direction and started talking like radical fatalists and sectists. For them it is enough whether a leader or organisation has decried Stalin or not, whether s/he reads Trotsky or not, how many times s/he utters the word “imperialism” etc. For some of these people, allegiances to a particular sect, ideology is enough – a bible in one hand, and cross in another, drives away all counter-revolutionary devils around. What else are these convictions, if not “cabinets of fossils”! On the other hand, “metropolitan” leftists – Western (including many Non-Resident Third Worldists (NRTs)), Eastern, Southern…- who suffer from the guilt of unable to do anything concrete at the place of their being, celebrate every tokenism that fits into their utopia of progress, justice, democracy… In good faith (with a tinge of self-hatred and superiority complex), they think it’s their duty to “patronise” the Other, in most of their forms, of course only if these fit into their educated (non)sense.

Petras’ understanding of the Bolivian and Brazilian developments is from the point of view of the self-organisation and assertion of the working classes – urban and rural. The issue for Petras, even in his past assessment of Chavez, has been whether the political-parliamentary impact of the movements (accommodation of sections of their leadership in state formation) is enhancing and channelling the class capacity of the working class or it is simply institutionalising these movements and transforming them into representative lobbies, reducing class struggle to clashes of interest groups. The peculiarity of the new situations in Latin America, which also underlines their contradictions, to some extent derives from the statist component. The fact that the progressive governments are being constituted within the frame of bourgeois democracy poses new challenges for the popular movements and their relationship with the State. This situation makes it all the more urgent to recognise that, “We now have a state [which is not even formally workers-peasants state, like the Soviet] under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state” (Lenin), while simultaneously heading towards a fundamental transformation of the state’s character. In this scenario, it becomes a primary task of the intellectuals organically linked to the working class to be extra vigilant and identify the various contradictions and tendencies affecting its movements, while delineating the possible directions that these movements can take in a perpetual ideological class struggle within. Petras in his critiques does exactly this.

Reading Petras in West Bengal

Petras in his recent article on Morales enumerates the implications of development strategies that “progressive” governments follow to “stabilize the economy, overcome the ‘crisis’, reconstruct the productive structure”, instead of recognising the fact that they are empowered “because of the crisis of the economic system” and their task should be “to change the economic structures in order to consolidate power while the capitalist class is still discredited, disorganized and in crisis.” Interestingly what is happening in West Bengal today is precisely this, where the Left Front government is indulging in reconstruction of the productive structure the way the Indian ruling class wants. However, definitely the internalisation of the hegemonic bourgeois needs within the Left Front (LF) is completer because of its 30 years rule in comparison to the newly elected governments in Latin America. Further, the Indian LF’s political cost for not following the neoliberal policies could have been far less, as it could have lost power in a fragment of the Indian state, where it does not have any sovereignty, while gaining political leverage throughout the country.

According to Petras, the stabilization strategy “allows the capitalist class time to regroup and recover from their political defeat, discredit and disarray”, while the working class is left on the receiving end to suffer the “costs of reconstruction and crisis management”. Also, “[b]y holding back on social spending and imposing restraints on labor demands and mobilization, the regime allows the capitalists to recover their rates of profit and to consolidate their class hegemony” Clearly, the left front’s repression of the trade union and peasant self-organisation especially since the 1990s have consolidated the capitalist class hegemony – material and ideological, while demobilising the exploited classes.

The industrialisation policies of the West Bengal government have weakened its popular social base”, strengthening “the recovery of its class opponents”, and thus are creating “major obstacles to any subsequent effort at structural change”. Its “policy revives a powerful economic power configuration within the political institutional structure which precludes any future changes. It is impossible to engage in serious structural changes once the popular classes have been demobilized, the capitalist class has overcome its crisis and the new political class is integrated into consolidated economic system. Stabilization strategy does not temporarily postpone change; it structurally precludes it for the future”.

Further, to think that if a progressive “regime ‘adapts’ to the regrouped capitalist class” it can be stabilised is just an illusion, “because the capitalist class prefers its own political leaders and instruments and rejects any party or movement whose mass base can still exercise pressure.” Aren’t these some basic lessons that we must learn – in Bolivia, West Bengal and everywhere?

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