Amidst the current gruesome war of the state power in India against a section of its own poorest people rebelling under the leadership of the Communist Party of India (CPI) (Maoist), the recent episodes of persecution of Himanshu Kumar (HK hereafter), the avowedly Gandhian activist running Vanvasi Chetna Ashram (VCA), by the Governments of Chhattisgarh and India are poignant as well as curious. The incidents of persecution are too well-known: how his ashram was shut down and bulldozed, how one of his main co-worker, Kopa Kunjam has been arrested, and finally how his attempts at a padayatra and jan-sunwai (people’s hearing) were blocked. (A summary of these can be found in the collection at Sanhati; there are videos too where we find HK himself summarizing these episodes (Video 1, Video 2).
One of the salutary features of these episodes is that HK himself seems to have been changing his political views gradually. So, below we summarize some lessons that appear to stand out from these episodes: especially regarding the understandings of revolutionary Marxism in India on the correct path of emancipating the poor in the country vis-a-vis the understandings of the specific issue-based “people’s movements”. This seems quite important as one perennial complaint against the CPI (Maoist), from Nandigram to Lalgarh, is that they have been regularly `hijacking’ spontaneous people’s movements geared toward some immediate goals to convert these into components of the broader struggle for seizure of political power by the working class and the poor. Below we try to understand whether these incidents with HK provide some justification for the perception and the corresponding revolutionary strategies of CPI (Maoist).
To put succinctly, these episodes seem to raise the questions whether any serious attempt to emancipate the deprived people in India has to, perforce, develop into an explicit class-war against the state and whether sufficient democratic space is currently present in our country for sustaining a serious movement in this regard while remaining within the existing structure of legal polity.
A. What is the nature of the state:
One of the very first lessons of Marxist understanding is that “the state is an organ of class rule, an organ for the oppression of one class by another; it is the creation of “order”, which legalizes and perpetuates this oppression by moderating the conflict between classes” (Lenin: The State and Revolution). The further elaboration by Lenin is very well-known but still worth-remembering:
“In the opinion of the petty-bourgeois politicians, however, order means the reconciliation of classes, and not the oppression of one class by another; to alleviate the conflict means reconciling classes and not depriving the oppressed classes of definite means and methods of struggle to overthrow the oppressors. … the “Kautskyite” distortion of Marxism is far more subtle. “Theoretically”, it is not denied that the state is an organ of class rule, or that class antagonisms are irreconcilable. But what is overlooked or glossed over is this: if the state is the product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms, if it is a power standing above society and “alienating itself more and more from it”, it is clear that the liberation of the oppressed class is impossible not only without a violent revolution, but also without the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class and which is the embodiment of this “alienation”.”
Obviously, CPI (Maoist), following this understanding, specified the class character of the Indian state (rightly or wrongly) and the battle led by them in Chhattisgarh is directed against what they perceive to be the constituents of this state power.
HK avowedly perceived state in a different way. He seems to have understood the Indian government and its constitution to be quite sacrosanct. He repeatedly claimed that his aim was to assist government’s own work in perfectly legal ways (he has elaborated on this in his speech available as a four-part video in as well as in his interview). But it seems that when his apparently tame efforts at some seemingly harmless issue-based movements (like rehabilitating the villagers driven away by Salwa Judum) came into conflict with the class interests of what CPI (Maoist) would call the monopolistic capital and their ally of comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie, the Indian state did not hesitate to brush aside HK, his reconciliatory moralistic rhetorics notwithstanding. This raises the question once again: whether it is possible to continue a serious ‘people’s movement’ on any issue of fundamental importance without making it culminate into a war against the existing state.
B. To mobilize on the basis of what identities:
A person can, and often does, have several identities: nation, colour, class, religion, gender etc. From a Marxist standpoint, class is the most important identity among these. This perception is rooted in the Marxist conception of materialistic foundation of historical development. Thus, from Marxist point of view, one basic political task of the revolutionary left is to organize the oppressed people mainly along class lines.
Again, as a classic and unequivocal illustration of this point, Lenin’s writing in the context of Jewish workers in Russia can be put forward:
“The great slogan “Workers of all countries, unite!”, which was proclaimed for the first time more than half a century ago, has now become more than the slogan of just the Social-Democratic parties of the different countries. This slogan is being increasingly embodied both in the unification of the tactics of international Social-Democracy and in the building of organisational unity among the proletarians of the various nationalities…
The Bund’s mistake is a result of its basically untenable nationalist views; the result of its groundless claim to be the sole, monopolistic representative of the Jewish proletariat, from which the federalist principle of organisation necessarily derives; the result of its Long-standing policy of keeping aloof and separate from the Party. We are convinced that this mistake must be rectified and that it will be rectified as the movement continues togrow. We consider ourselves ideologically at one with the Jewish Social-Democratic proletariat. After the Second Congress our Central Committee pursued a non-nationalist policy; it took pains that such committees should be set up (Polesye, North-Western) as would unite all the local workers, Jewish as well as non-Jewish, into a single whole”. (To the Jewish Workers)
HK seems initially to have perceived the adivasis of Chhattisgarh having a pristine identity of their own. He still invokes this idea:
“There are three types of poor – (i) those who survive on your riches – the balloonseller, the domestic servant, construction workers; (ii) those who feel they are unworthy of being rich; they feel they are low caste, uneducated; they can never be rich; and (iii) those like the adivasis who were living happily in the forests till you invaded their land to make yourself richer.” (Economic and Political Weekly, Nov 21, 2009, p.12)
However, the CPI (Maoist) would characterize current phase of the struggle in backward Chhattisgarh in class terms. International monopolistic capital and their ally of comprador bureaucratic bourgeoisie are grabbing the means of production and this specific method of accumulating capital is determined by the pre-capitalist production relations existing in Chhattisgarh: non-anonymous hegemony of a dominant class that imposes unfreedom on productive activities (including surplus appropriation) of the broad masses of people (see also, Tugge: “Two Paths of Development”, People’s March, December 2007).
The curious thing is that HK himself is coming round to a similar perception! (see his speech). He is explicitly going beyond any tribal identity: he is now talking about the 20% of people in India expropriating the remaining 80% and using the coercive state apparatus to hold the expropriated in check. So, from this, the question again arises whether any serious `people’s movement’ in India can do without a conscious scaffolding of class-based mobilization.
C. How meaningful are the existing Indian democratic institutions:
It is quite well-known that CPI (Maoist) considers the existing structure of democratic institutions in India as a sham which is quite in conformity with their goal of bringing about the New Democratic Revolution, ostensibly to usher in true `people’s democracy’. From such an understanding emerges their strategy of boycotting parliamentary elections, one component of the democratic institutions. This strategy has been disputed a lot and earned them a good deal of criticisms.
In contrast, HK tried to use these existing democratic institutions, MPs, ministers, judiciary… so far as possible for his efforts. His mode of movement was also entirely what is understood to be democratic mass movement. But he attained almost no palpable success. Finally he has had to leave Chhattisgarh convinced that the existing democratic institutions there are merely a sham.
Again, this makes us remember that Lenin is quoted famously by all the parliamentary left parties in India in justifying their primary attachment to electioneering:
“it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before – the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”.” (Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder).
Perhaps the unsuccessful but sincere efforts of HK serve the same purpose–participating in these institutions to the fullest possible extent to expose their limitations. These experiences of HK, curiously, seem to prove the point claimed by CPI (Maoist)! I hope I am wrong. This should also make the `people’s movements’ in India trying to work within the present set-up to improve this set up from within think more about the fruitfulness of their efforts.
Condemn Assaults on Democracy
Condemn State Repression on Democratic Mass Movements Against Injustice
The leaders of mass movements and democratic political organizations condemned today the shocking incident of undemocratic arrest and possible torture of veteran Marxist leader Com Gananath Patra by the State police in Bhubaneswar on 27 January 2010. Com Gananath Patra has been in the forefront of the anti-displacement struggles throughout the state. He is one person who was able to articulate the issues related to rapid industrialization quite well and could share this with masses in a convincing manner. Be it Baliapal or Kalinganagar or Narayanpatna he supported the struggles without any hesitation and as a true revolutionary always wanted to be with the victims of injustice. He supported Nachika Linga and the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh when he realized that these liberated bonded laborers were fighting against the liquor Mafia, land grabbers and tried to get justice for the victimized tribals.
Since, Com Gananath Patra stood firmly behind the victims of industrialization and forcible land grabbing the State wanted to silence his voice. Several false cases have been filed against him including that of murder and attempt to murder at time when he was nowhere close to any area where such “ crimes” have taken place. It has been impossible for the state to deal with Maoists but the state is targeting peaceful and democratic mass movements who have been raising issues of genuine concerns to tribals and the oppressed communities throughout the state. The media need to be cautious about the motives of the state who is promoting the interests of the capital only at the cost of its own people. Certain discredited police officers of the past are unnecessarily getting media space to spread confusion about the protest movements and their sympathizers. The state, instead of the listening to the voice of the oppressed millions is now trying to finish the democratic struggles for justice everywhere as it anticipates these movements to be a threat to the mindless mining and industrialization agenda the political leadership is pursuing today with the support of the opposition for their own self interests. Be it Laxman Chaudhury or Gananath Patra if any one speaks out truth and fights for justice he/she will be silenced.
The police have arrested Com Patra just to warn the people who are trying to be with the oppressed common men to defend their rights when the government of the day is trying to finish them off and hand over their rich resources to profit making corporations who in turn will help build the fortune of future generations of the ruling politicians and the ruling elites of the state.
We express deep concern for Com Patra’s health which is in a bad condition. We are afraid the insane police force will not take his helth condition seriusly and sympatheticlly.
All the mass movements will meet at Bhubaneswar in a convention to expose the state’s corporate friendly and anti-people agenda on 10th February 2010. They have appealed the people of the state to understand the grim future they are being forced to face and to react before it becomes too late.
Prafulla Samantara, Lok Shakti Abhiyan, Radhakant Sethy, CPI ML Liberation, Bhala Chandra, CPI ML New Democracy, Sivaram, CPI ML, Prashant Paikray, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti
Yesterday Com Gananath Patra was arrested in Bhubaneswar. Following is a news report:
Bhubaneswar: Prominent Left leader and adviser of Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), Narayanpatna, Gananath Patra was today arrested here on the charge of instigating violence in tribal-dominated Koraput district.
Patra, was arrested from city’s Vivekananda Marg, the police said adding that CMAS was engaged in several violent activities in Koraput district.
“He has been accused of murder, attempt to murder and rioting. Several cases were registered against him in Bandhugaon police station,” Superintendent of Police Koraput Anup Sahu said.
While CMAS president Nachika Linga had gone into hiding after the police crackdown on his house at Narayanpatna, Patra was found here.
Linga was suspected to be taking shelter in jungle with Maoists, the police said.
Earlier, Patra had led a agitation of CMAS here in the state capital during the assembly session.
Last week, India’s “wall street journal”, Mint, brought out an interesting editorial entitled, “Proletariat, a misleading idea“ (posted on December 29). In the editorial of a business newspaper meant for stockmarketeers and businessmen, what else do you expect on a conceptual matter? First it will trivialise the concept, mostly because of the authors’ ignorance, but sometimes for conscious propaganda too.
In the editorial a historical snapshot of the usage of the term, “proletariat”, is presented – underdog (during the industrial revolution), obsolete (due to Western welfarism), buried (after the cold war), renewal (during the recent “upswing in industrial unrest”). Ultimately, the argument is simple that the workers’ problems must not be posed as matters of class struggle (“conflict between managements and labour”), rather they should be left entirely to free market “competition between firms” with full freedom to hire and fire, which will eventually resolve everything. And also don’t talk about “rights” because they politicise the workplace, obstructing a free competition between firms. Don’t talk of unionisation – let the bosses continue to scramble freely for golden pie in market growth, and you wait open mouthed for flying crumbs to fall. That’s the message.
This message is understandable, but I was still surprised why such an urgency to call “proletariat, a misleading idea” – does it really need an editorial to be devoted upon? Casually, I continued browsing Mint’s website for other pieces on labour matters, and I found out the reason. There was an elaborate report on the labour unrest in the auto industry which was posted the previous day (December 28): “The rise of the new proletariat“. It provides a decent backgrounder (decent in comparison to other news reports on labour issues) on the recent industrial unrest in India. In fact, Maitreyee Handique’s (the reporter) has been sensitively presenting the labour side of industrial relations in India. She quotes a Trade Union leader in this particular report:
“Today, my boys are educated. They know how to use computers. They are not going to (sit by) and watch exploitation”.
So these “boys” constitute the “new proletariat”!
Further,
So what’s different about this wave of trade union activity? Timing. It comes as the world is emerging from a financial crisis that marks an inflection point in its industrial development. As the world’s fastest-growing economy after China—and one that sailed through the economic crisis relatively unscathed—India is poised to become one of the powerhouses that pulls everybody else out of the trough.
Take India’s automobile sector—it’s helping to define the future of the global car industry by churning out the low-priced models that are propelling growth as markets elsewhere lose steam. It’s also one of the key fronts on which workers are fighting companies, which explains why the stakes are so high.
And more,
In other nations, such as Malaysia, contract workers are actually paid more because they don’t have job security, said C.S. Venkataratnam, director at the International Management Institute in New Delhi.
“Here (in India), the typical argument is that workers are not qualified,” he said. “In India, we do not pay premium, but discounted wages, for quality.”
Workers say lopsided numbers at many companies – a small regular workforce dwarfed by a larger group of contract hires that’s being constantly retrenched and replenished – render it impossible to register demands and make management responsive.
However, the reporter is determined not to take sides and end the report with an employer’s view:
Kapur said the trouble at the factory was “politically motivated by outside influences”, without elaborating. He accused the unions of trying to create an atmosphere in which industry wouldn’t be able to survive, saying that this had already happened in the two states where the communists are holding power.
“Kolkata and Kerala don’t have industries, and now it’s starting in Gurgaon,” Kapur said.
Despite this balancing between the perspectives of labour and capital in the report, it seems the title “The Rise of the New Proletariat” was quite chilling for the business community, and the very next day the editors, who sensed this, felt the need to target the very two issues that the above report brought out:
“the disparity in wages between contract and permanent employees and difficulties in forming unions at workplaces.”
And they found India’s new chief economic advisor, Kaushik Basu’s statement authoritative enough to correct the damage done.
Further, Mint in the end had to assure its readers:
“Today, the nature of work in modern economies is very different from what it was in the Victorian age. Many workers in the same firm don’t even work together. The idea of a proletariat rests on shared experiences at a workplace. That is a fiction even in assembly line manufacturing today. A gentle draught of economic reason is enough to evaporate a politically evocative expression.”
It seems that the very Idea of Proletariat is dangerous, it smacks of class struggle, it (mis)leads workers to unrest leaving the capitalists distraught.
Open letter to academic colleagues
and the academic community at large
Cyrus Bina and Hamid Zangeneh
The sixteenth of Azar (December 7) marked the commemoration of the 56th anniversary of student protest against Richard M. Nixon, the then Vice-President of the United States, who visited the Shah’s government of the post-CIA coup d’état in the late 1953 in Tehran. This was also an occasion for the continuation of protests against June 2009 post-election bloody crack downs against the Ahmadinejad administration and its benefactor, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, which in large measure would have also brought to light the 30-year unpardonable conduct of the regime to the court of the public opinion again. The Islamic Republic has now turned into a paramilitary regime beyond the imagination of both the Shah’s regime and the founding fathers of the so-called Islamic Revolution. The irony of recent history that had positioned the Iranians between a premeditated tragedy and an impulsive comedy: the former — the CIA intervention that brought the Shah back; the latter — the pathetic post-election coup that metamorphosed the regime toward an all-encompassing paramilitary state. The context below is more pertinent to this year’s Student Day anniversary than ever.
As the universities in Iran have turned into the bastion of paramilitary “Revolutionary Guards” and “Basijis”, the present-day post-revolutionary Sha’abaan bi Mokhs (literally, Sha’abaan the Brainless), like Mr Kamran Daneshjoo and Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, portray themselves as learned individuals worthy of respect. These individuals, whose numbers are skyrocketing and whose purpose has nothing to do with learning and scholarship, have been able to get phony degrees and titles that presumably give them respect and thus prop up their stature to sugarcoat their thuggish and unbecoming mission as the agents of repression in Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad, of course, is a talented man who wore many hats in the past; he was a one-time assistant executioner in the notorious Evin Prison in which he was reportedly putting the final bullet (tir-e khalas) in a political prisoner’s head. Ahmadinejad and his cohorts in the “Revolutionary Guard” and Basij are thus desperately seeking such titles in order to do their dirty work in disguise — as a “respectable” make-belief academic authority. And this is but a horrifying parallel for some of us who know one or two things about Iran’s recent history that the senior interrogators under the Shah’s regime too used to call themselves “Doctor”, when they engaged in interrogation by means of torture leveled routinely against the tied-up political prisoners in the same prison in Tehran.
For instance, Mr Ahmadinejad, a formerly Pasdar (i.e., Revolutionary Guardsman), who was the Governor of Province of Ardebil (1372-1376 H.S. [1993-1997 A.D.]), and who himself once boasted that he had worked 18 hours a day during the entire four years of Governorship in that province, amazingly “earned” a doctorate degree, perhaps granted to him by “Mahdi” (Emam-e Zaman) himself during the same period. Someone should ask Ahmadinejad where he had found time in the same period to complete a doctorate degree. This is only the tip of the blunder, a telling story of almost all the Pasdar and Basij candidates who were planted as the watchful spies and agent provocateurs in the classroom and then rewarded with bogus degrees in universities in Iran. Yet the genuine students who were often incarcerated and abused for political activity are being marked as “starred” and routinely barred from further study for life.
On the top of this, many individuals — who were decidedly appointed as spies and sent abroad in order to identify the Iranian dissidents within the university circles in major western countries, have falsely claimed to have completed a degree programme or two in these universities, upon accomplishing their job and returning to the country. In this manner, Mr Daneshjoo — comrade-in-arms of Mr Ahmadinejad and his recently appointed “Minister of Sciences”— is a quintessential example. He does not only lie rather outrageously about a “doctorate degree” he has never earned but also continuously photocopies the work of others in broad daylight and publicises it as his own.
Mr Daneshjoo (and his alleged co-author) had literally carbon-copied the original paper (by Lee, Lee and Shin 2002) and in full public view turned it rather magically into a “brand new” paper under his name (Daneshjoo and Shahrawi 2009). Mr Daneshjoo also alleges (which upon ample investigation turned out to be a baseless, and perhaps, shameless claim) that he has earned a doctorate degree from an institution of higher learning in London, England. However, upon ample investigation by our colleagues it turned out that his claim is baseless. As the saying goes, we have seen this movie before in our beloved birthplace and elsewhere, but not in such an outrageous manner and in such a mass quantity that puts the original Ford assembly line to shame. This is only expected of the government of Munchhausen (1) and the community of con-artists under Ahmadinejad. And, aside from their real role as the agents of repression in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we are (in consultation with many of our distinguished academic colleagues) convinced that this tiny gesture — i.e., a formal academic sanction that follows in this piece — is necessary.
The academic community has no border. And the institutions of higher learning in Iran are no exception. We all have a standard to go by, and these outright cheatings and egregious acts of dishonesty have no place in the academic community at large. This also speaks both to one’s character and one’s qualification as a learned person, yet — in the case of Iran under the Islamic Republic — it has become an art form and a class by itself to paramilitarise the universities in order (1) to contain nearly all administrative and faculty functions that lend themselves to education of the most promising intellectual stratum of the population and (2) to control and reverse the atmosphere of tolerance for (universal) academic freedoms, critical thinking, and authentic curricula and genuine acquisition of knowledge, particularly in social and political sciences in Iran.
We need to watch the Iranian universities at the commencement of current academic year, particularly in the aftermath of the post-Election bloodshed that laid bare the paramilitarisation of the economy, polity, and the public space and that had metamorphosed the Islamic Republic since the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005. There are unconfirmed reports to the effect that the Ahmadinejad government is now planning to do away with all “western” social science disciplines in major universities. This is a cause for concern, as it is a reminder of the so-called earlier “cultural revolution” that made all the institutions of higher learning in Iran a target of “purification” and that led to a summary dismissal of “subversive” professors — under the authorisation by Abdolkarim Soroush and Mohammad Khatami (both of whom are now in the opposition) — in the early 1980s. And if this turns out to be true, it undoubtedly would be the largest attempt at obliteration of higher education in Iran, which is a major step toward wholesale Talibanisation of university education under Ahmadinejad. The cruel irony is that (since the 1906-1911 Constitutional Revolution) Iran without a doubt possesses the longest record of democratic movement, scientific endeavour, and advance toward modernisation than any other nation in the region.
The clerical regime is now transformed into a full-fledged paramilitary state. These paramilitary agents of repression are now in the driver’s seat in both the administrative leadership and the faculty committees, and thus set the academic agenda in major universities. Just a few days into the post-election upheaval, the plain cloth Basij picked up Dr Mohammad Maleki — a prominent scholar and former chancellor of Tehran University. These plain cloth Basijis are the member of the same unit that in the immediate aftermath of post-election upheaval suddenly (and unprovoked) stormed through the Tehran University dormitories, destroyed much of the structure, beat and arrested the residents, and tied up several students before throwing them down from the roof on to the concrete pavement below to their eventual death. Dr Maleki has been kept incommunicado in the notorious Evin Prison till the time of this writing. And no amount of appeal to the United Nation Secretary General has so far produced a tangible result. According to his spouse, Maleki — a 76-year old who suffers from advanced cancer of prostate, abnormal heartbeat and diabetes — did not even vote for any of the proposed presidential candidates and certainly had no involvement with Mir Hossein Mousavi’s camp. He is accused of “collaboration with the enemy”, a blanket charge that has been commonly conjured up, and nowadays is rather methodically leveled, against those who defy the arbitrary political arrests by this government and its ruthless and rent-a-cop paramilitary goons. Simply put, barrel of the gun emanates more “reason” than the wisdom of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Rumi, Hegel, Russell and Whitehead combined in today’s Iranian universities.
Thus, as Iran specialists and academic persons of international repute — who have approved granting of university degrees and safeguarded the universally recognised standard of qualification for thousands of candidates (American and non-American) for a combined period of nearly 60 years across several institutions of higher learning in the US —
We hereby revoke Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s and Mr Kamran Daneshjoo’s alleged and proclaimed degrees (bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate) by means of this electronic letter and based on the unimpeachable evidence concerning the lack of authenticity in performance, forgery of the academic credentials for political purposes, and simply the integrity of the said persons above on the 16th day of Azar of 1388 (Iranian calendar) equivalent of the 7th of December 2009.
(On the Seventh Day of December of Two-Thousand and Nine)
This action is the tip of the iceberg, as it is miniscule in comparison with the courageous student resistance, which involves risking lives (along with scores of silenced and jailed faculty) in the institutions of higher learning in Iran. Yet, we believe, this is a symbolic task that should speak to the wholesale annulment of all fictitious degrees received by all members of “Revolutionary Guard” and Basij paramilitary contingents — who were deliberately exempted from the entrance exams and other essential curricular requirements and who have deliberately obtained fictitious academic degrees from the institutions of higher learning — over the last 30 years under the Government of the Islamic Republic — in Iran. This also pertains, for instance, to Mohammad Reza Rahimi (Ahmadinejad’s first Vice-President appointee), who is reportedly claiming a doctorate degree from abroad and could not produce it, at the request of the inquisitive deputies —led by those who do not even belong to the “reformist camp” — during his very recent confirmation in the Iranian Majlis. It is important to realise that paramilitarisation of universities has already led to the displacement of the bulk of student body by either silencing or incarceration without cause, arbitrary jail sentences, and even plain torture at the hands of authorities in Iran.
Therefore, the question here — i.e., academic dishonesty and granting of fake degrees that in this case have already led to the destruction of academic environment — is not limited to our professional interest but it also open the Pandora’s box of why the best and brightest Iranian students must be dismissed so arbitrarily from the universities and, more importantly, why, for instance, Tehran University campus (once a Harvard of Iran’s higher education) should become the site the so-called Friday prayers by the government, as if this is the only place to be used as a makeshift freaking mosque in this godforsaken land! We ask our colleagues in Iran and abroad to support this symbolic gesture for it does not only concern our narrow professional responsibility but also our universal duty for unconditional defence and promotion of human rights in Iran and anywhere around the globe.
Note:
(1) Baron Munchausen (1720-1797), a German adventurer known for his compulsive lying.
———————- Cyrus Bina, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota (Morris Campus), is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Iranian Research and Analysis, the author of The Economics of the Oil Crisis (1985), and co-editor of Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran (1991).
Hamid Zangeneh, Professor of Economics at Widener University in Pennsylvania, is the Editor of the Journal of Iranian Research & Analysis, co-editor of Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran (1991), and editor of Islam, Iran and World Stability (1994).
Until last year, people in the Ethiopian settlement of Elliah earned a living by farming their land and fishing. Now, they are employees.
Dozens of women and children pack dirt into bags for palm seedlings along the banks of the Baro River, seedlings whose oil will be exported to India and China. They work for Bangalore-based Karuturi Global Ltd., which is leasing 300,000 hectares (741,000 acres) of local land, an area larger than Luxembourg.
The jobs pay less than the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day poverty threshold, even as the project has the potential to enrich international investors with annual earnings that the company expects to exceed $100 million by 2013.
“My business is the third wave of outsourcing,” Sai Ramakrishna Karuturi, the 44-year-old managing director of Karuturi Global, said at the company’s dusty office in the western town of Gambella. “Everyone is investing in China for manufacturing; everyone is investing in India for services. Everybody needs to invest in Africa for food.”
Companies and governments are buying or leasing African land after cereals prices almost tripled in the three years ended April 2008. Ghana, Madagascar, Mali and Ethiopia alone have approved 1.4 million hectares of land allocations to foreign investors since 2004, according to the International Institute for Environment and Development in London.
Emergent Asset Management Ltd.’s African Agricultural Land Fund opened last year. On Nov. 23, Moscow-based Pharos Financial Advisors Ltd. and Dubai-based Miro Asset Management Ltd. announced the creation of a $350 million private equity fund to invest in agriculture in developing countries.
‘Last Frontier’
“African agricultural land is cheap relative to similar land elsewhere; it is probably the last frontier,” said Paul Christie, marketing director at Emergent Asset Management in London. The hedge fund manager has farm holdings in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
“I am amazed it has taken this long for people to realize the opportunities of investing in African agriculture,” Christie said.
Monsoon Capital of Bethesda, Maryland, and Boston-based Sandstone Capital are among the shareholders of Karuturi Global, Karuturi said. The company is also the world’s largest producer of roses, with flower farms in India, Kenya and Ethiopia.
One advantage to starting a plantation 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the border with war-torn Southern Sudan and a four-day drive to the nearest port: The land is free. Under the agreement with Ethiopia’s government, Karuturi pays no rent for the land for the first six years. After that, it will pay 15 birr (U.S. $1.18) per hectare per year for the next 84 years.
More Elsewhere
Land of similar quality in Malaysia and Indonesia would cost about $350 per hectare per year, and tracts of that size aren’t available in Karuturi Global’s native India, Karuturi said.
Labor costs of less than $50 a month per worker and duty-free treaties with China and India also attracted Karuturi Global, he said. The $100 million projected annual profit will come from the export of food crops, including corn, rice and palm oil, he said. The company also is plowing land on a 10,900- hectare spread near the central Ethiopian town of Bako.
The project will give the government revenue from corporate income taxes and from future leases, as well as from job creation, said Omod Obang Olom, president of Ethiopia’s Gambella region and an ally of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s ruling party.
“This strategy will build up capitalism,” he said in an interview in Gambella. “The message I want to convey is there is room for any investor. We have very fertile land, there is good labor here, we can support them.” The government plans to allot 3 million hectares, or about 4 percent of its arable land, to foreign investors over the next three years.
Surprised Workers
Workers in Elliah say they weren’t consulted on the deal to lease land around the village, and that not much of the money is trickling down.
At a Karuturi site 20 kilometers from Elliah, more than a dozen tractors clear newly burned savannah for a corn crop to be planted in June. Omeud Obank, 50, guards the site 24 hours a day, six days a week. The job helps support his family of 10 on a salary of 600 birr per month, more than the 450 birr he earned monthly as a soldier in the Ethiopian army.
Obank said it isn’t enough to adequately feed and clothe his family.
“These Indians do not have any humanity,” he said, speaking of his employers. “Just because we are poor it doesn’t make us less human.”
One Meal
Obang Moe, a 13-year-old who earns 10 birr per day working part-time in a nursery with 105,000 palm seedlings, calls her work “a tough job.” While the cash income supplements her family’s income from their corn plot, she said that many days they still only have enough food for one meal.
The fact that the project is based on a wage level below the World Bank’s poverty limit is “quite remarkable,” said Lorenzo Cotula, a researcher with the London-based IIED.
Large-scale export-oriented plantations may keep farmers from accessing productive resources in countries such as Ethiopia, where 13.7 million people depend on foreign food aid, according to a June report by Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food. It called for ensuring that revenue from land contracts be “sufficient to procure food in volumes equivalent to those which are produced
for exports.”
Karuturi said his company pays its workers at least Ethiopia’s minimum wage of 8 birr, and abides by Ethiopia’s labor and environmental laws.
‘Easily Exploitable’
“We have to be very, very cognizant of the fact that we are dealing with people who are easily exploitable,” he said, adding that the company will create up to 20,000 jobs and has plans to build a hospital, a cinema, a school and a day-care center in the settlement. “We’re going to have a very healthy township that we will build. We are creating jobs where there were none.”
The project may help cover part of the $44 billion a year that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization says must be invested in agriculture in poor nations to halve the number of the world’s hungry people by 2015.
“We keep saying the big problem is, you need investment in African agriculture; well here are a load of guys who for whatever reason want to invest,” David Hallam, deputy director of the FAO’s trade and markets division, said in an interview in Rome. “So the question is, is it possible to sort of steer it toward forms of investment that are going to be beneficial?”
Buntin Buli, a 21-year-old supervisor at the nursery who earns 600 birr a month, said he hopes Karuturi will use some of its earnings to improve working conditions and provide housing and food.
“Otherwise we would have been better off working on our own lands,” he said. “This is a society that has been very primitive. We want development.”
December 31, New Delhi. The historical strike of almond workers continuing since last 15 days came to an end with a compromise between the employers and the Union. As is well known, this strike began on December 16 and around 20 thousand workers’ families had been participating in it. It has already being hailed as the biggest and longest strike by the unorganized workers of Delhi. Before this compromise, the employer side and the Union had sat across the table for talks earlier also, however, those talks could not establish a common understanding. Following that bipartite, the strike continued and finally on the evening of December 31, a common agreement was reached between both the parties.
Before this 15-day long strike the almond workers had put forward a 5-point charter of demand under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union (BMU), in front of the contractors. These primarily included the rights to which the workers are entitled under the labour laws. Earlier, the almond workers used to get a meagre Rs. 50 for processing of one bag of almonds. Besides, they used to be denied payment of wages for several months. Misbehaviour and abusing workers in godowns by the staff of contractors was a common thing. Moreover, the shells peeled off the almonds were sold to the workers on arbitrary prices fixed by the contractors. These shells are used as fuel for cooking by the workers. Under the leadership of the BMU, the workers had long been demanding that they should be given Rs. 70-80 per bag of processed almonds and the peeled off shells should be given to them at Rs. 10 per bag. They were also demanding that they should be given their due wages in the first week of every month.
The employers were rigid for last 15 days on not increasing the wages and they had been insisting that the workers should first of all call off the strike and return to work then, they will think about wage revision, and that too after January 16. However, the workers found this proposal unacceptable and continued with their strike. The employers’ frustration grew with every passing day as their armoury had been emptied. One of the employers was beaten up by women picketers after he attacked the women workers, the Police administration failed to break the strike by threatening and intimidating workers’ leaders, brokers also failed to break the strike by spreading rumours. After December 29, it was clear that it was just a matter of time when the employers succumb and approaches the workers for compromise. On the morning of December 31, some employers accepted the demands of the workers without talks with the Union and started work. As a result the employers’ unity disintegrated and they bifurcated into two groups. At last, around 6 PM in the evening of the same day, both the sides held talks and it was decided that the employers will give Rs. 60 per bag of processed almonds to the workers, the peeled off shells will be sold at Rs. 20 per bag, and the workers will be paid their wages in the first week of every month.
With this compromise the workers called off their historical strike and they are returning to work from the first day of the New Year. With this the biggest strike of the unorganized workers of Delhi came to conclusion. Under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union, thousands of unorganized workers proved that they can fight and they can win. Apparently, the workers could not win all of their demands. However, the issue in this strike now was not merely the revision of wages, etc. In an industry where the workers are made to toil like slaves in the most primitive conditions, constantly manhandled, facing abuses and misbehaviour and were considered an instumentum vocale, the workers waged a heroic and historical struggle to win respect for them and win their minimum labour rights. The employers were, for the first time, made to realize the massive force of workers and were made to do away with their misunderstanding, that these workers will keep enduring their excesses silently and would not speak up. Towards the end of the struggle, the employers bowed down to the workers’ power in every respect. Besides, not only the employers were made to realize the force of the united workers, but the population of the entire Karawal Nagar area understood the fact that these workers are not going to keep their lips zipped.
Another accomplishment of this strike was that the trade unions of electoral parties were sidelined by the workers consciously and they brought their struggle to an end under the leadership of the BMU, without any kind of support or help from any electoral party. The workers made it a point that they would not let any electoral party infiltrate into the movement. The workers rejected all varieties of brokers of electoral Trade Unions. They clearly understood the real character of the electoral parties, the R.S.S., Police administration and similar forces of the area and realized that they have to fight on their strength only, which is massive.
Ashish Kumar, convener of the BMU, told the media that this struggle is not an end, but a beginning. In future, the almond workers of Delhi will continue to fight under the banner of the BMU for those rights which are still out of their reach. Ashish said that till this whole industry continues to function informally, the workers will remain weak in their legal battle. The next aim of the Union is to make the government’s labour department give formal status to this huge industry.
Abhinav, correspondent of labour monthly Bigul and a researcher of the unorganized workers of Delhi, said that this struggle will stay in the memories of the workers of Delhi for decades to come. This struggle was first of its kind and it dismantled this myth that the unorganized and informal sector workers cannot wage organized struggles. By organizing workers in their areas of residence and working class neighbourhoods, the struggle of the unorganized and scattered workers can be given an organized and huge form. Undoubtedly, it is a challenging task, however, this strike has emphatically proved that this challenge can be overcome.
No change in sight for women’s rights
No expropriation of privileged mights
Militarists prescribe global peace lies
Working class interests fail to unionize
Organic farming for corporate profits
Healthcare granted for the insured elites
Homeless poor in the glitzy American nights
Hundred twenty-two die in daily medical plights
Twenty-five hundred families each day bankrupt
Subjects of Superpower profoundly distraught
Feed into Afghan, Iran, and warmongering distractions
Collectively throttle international socialist aspirations
The Wars are going to end, say the War Presidents
Monopolist bankers at G-20 make economic precedents
Plutocratic nobility yield from ethical charity claims
Priests abuse children, forgive selves, avoid prison chains
Anticommunist Herta Müller wins Nobel literature
Postmodern Rands follow individualistic scripture
Private properties grow sacred with economic recessions
Consumerism thrives on year around discount seasons
Environmental concerns lip-served by business interests
Mountains ravaged, peoples displaced, plundered forests
Insidious attempts at defining freedom, political liberties
Minorities oppressed amidst democratic Colacracies
Marriages outlawed for all sexual orientations
Intending immigrants still illegal alien notions
Middle strata suffers from pangs of alienation
Trickled money from the rich their sole aspiration
Poor’s crimes are poverty and unemployment
Stealing of breads still law & order assessment
World capitalism is absolved of systemic failures
Of unequal laws, old boys networks, racist cultures
Two Thousand and Ten promises to be more of the same
Let’s not celebrate this arrival of an age old game
Where monopolists continue to be magazine covers
Instead come what be the day, let’s join the class struggles
Revolutions won’t be scheduled for any auspicious occasions
Oligarchs cannot be rescued by their Gods or divine interventions
“Enough already!”, cry Zapatas in Chiapas and Orissa’s Maoists
Poor and wretched shall rise, and the rich ruling classes perish!
Strike continues under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union
Thousands of Workers uncompromising on their demands
The historical strike of almond workers of Delhi completed its two weeks on December 30. As is well known, almond workers of Karawl Nagar area of North-East Delhi are on strike since December 16 under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union, with the demands of implementation of labour laws and granting formal status to this completely informal almond processing industry worth millions of rupees. There is an extensive almond processing industry in the Karawal Nagar area in which 60 almond processing godowns are functioning. Nearly 20 thousand workers are employed in this industry who are presently at strike. This whole industry is linked with the global market as the almonds processed in it come from USA, Australia, etc. The unprocessed almonds are imported by the importers of Khari Baoli, which is the largest dry fruits market of Asia. It is located in the Old Delhi. These importers give these almonds to the petty contractors of Karawal Nagar on contract for processing. Due to this strike, the big importers of Khari Baoli and the petty contractors of Karawal Nagar are facing a crisis of existence, as 80 percent of almond supply has stopped. As a consequence, the rates of almond in the markets have shot up by 30 to 40 percent.
The workers are demanding that the contractors of almond implement the minimum labour laws. Presently, they are being paid Rs. 50 per bag of processed almonds which is Rs. 50 less than the minimum wages which are in effect in Delhi, because a skilled almond worker can process at most two bags of almonds if he or she works for more than 12 hours. That means that his/her day wage equals to maximum Rs. 100 per day. Apparently, this kind of wages is not sufficient for livelihood. As a consequence, the workers have to employ all of their families into this work which often includes children. Besides, these unprocessed almonds come to processing after being soaked in acid due to which workers have to face a lot of health hazards, for example, their hands become badly bruised, nails start melting, and also various kinds of lungs conditions arise. Going by the law of minimum wages, these workers should be given Rs. 80 for every bag of processed almonds. Reportedly, the godown owners get Rs.125 to Rs. 150 per bag of unprocessed almonds. And yet, the contractors are insisting that they would not give more than Rs.60 per bag. However, the workers are not ready to work below Rs. 70 per bag. Ashish Kumar, convener of Badaam Mazdoor Union, contended that if almond processing industry has to continue functioning in the Karawal Nagar area, the contractors will have to pay Rs. 70 per bag of processed almonds. Firstly, these godowns are functioning illegally in this area, and secondly, they are laughing away all labour laws. In such case, either these contractors will be forced to close their godowns and would not be allowed to open godowns in any area of Delhi, or they will be forced to grant the rights of labourers, to which they are entitled under the labour laws.
After the beginning of the strike, the contractors used all kinds of means to break the unity of the workers. First of all, on December 17, the goons of contractors attacked the workers and their leaders and then getting the Police administration into its pocket, got F.I.R. lodged against Union leaders themselves. Three union leaders spent two days in Jail and then got released on bail. But, this, in spite of breaking the unity of workers, strengthened it even further and the strike which involved 60 percent of workers, now had 90 percent of total workers in its support. Following this, the owners tried to run their godowns under Police protection, but the picketing teams of women workers agitated militantly and got these godowns closed and took their labourers in the support of strike. After that, one of the owners, Mr. Vasudev Mishra, who also contested in the MCD elections last year as an independent candidate, attacked the women workers with a stick, but in retaliation women workers beat him up and got him arrested by the Police. However, as is usual with the arrest of owners, he was released after a few hours and no case was lodged against him. Frustrated with the failed attempts, now the owners tried to outsource their work to other areas of Delhi, however, they had to incur huge losses, because unskilled labour of some other areas, ruined a lot of almonds during the processing. And lastly, now the owners have resorted to the old technique of spreading rumours through various kinds of brokers among labourers to break their resilience. But this attempt, too is being foiled by the internal organization of the workers and Union leadership. The workers are unrelenting and demanding that either they will work on Rs. 70 per bag, or the whole almonds processing industry will be vanished from the face of Delhi. They themselves will take legal initiative to get these unauthorized and illegal godowns closed down: within Karawal Nagar and beyond it.
Some of the godown owners are RSS cadre themselves and the RSS is constantly slandering against this workers’ movement. Today, everyone in Delhi knows that this almond workers’ strike is unique and unprecedented in every sense of the terms. Notably, these workers do not belong to a single factory or a few factories, who could be organized through old Trade Unionist methods. These workers are scattered across an extensive area. They cannot be found under one roof or in one area. This strike is proving to be the largest strike of completely unorganized workers in Delhi, involving more than 20 thousand workers’ families. It has shaken the roots of the globally-linked almond processing industry of India. This huge movement of workers till now has not received any kind of support from any electoral party. On the contrary, all the local political leaders of these electoral parties are trying to sabotage this movement in every possible way. Despite all, these the workers have refused to succumb.
Yogesh, member of Badaam mazdoor Union said that the workers have prepared themselves that either their demands are met or this whole industry will be closed. They understand the fact that they are not dependent on their employers for their livelihood, on the contrary the employers are dependent on the workers. Police administration in face of the militant workers, is now reluctant to take any open offensive against the movement, however, it is trying to cut off the Union leadership from the workers secretly. They are propagating among workers that the Union people are “outsiders”. Replying to this slandering, Yogesh of the Union, said that the Constitution of India gives every citizen of India the right to fight for the legal rights of any section of society including workers and he/she can help, support or even lead that section in the struggle for legal and constitutional rights. If the workers’ rights activists of the Union which also include respectable researchers and students of Delhi University, are “outside elements”, then Gandhi Ji was an outsider for the peasants of Champaran, Medha Patkar is an outsider for the people of Narmada Valley. This whole logic is promoted by the administration when it has to defend the ‘privileges of the employers. Police officials are saying that the Union leadership is causing law and order situation in the whole area. But they are not telling, how are they doing so? Are they breaking any law? They are just trying to organize workers for their just demands. However, this indeed creates a “law and order situation” for the employers and hence, the “nation” and the “country”, which obviously does not include the working class! Apparently, the Police administration’s conception of “nation” and “country” is exclusive of the workers and peasants.
Abhinav, workers’ rights activist, a researcher in Delhi University and correspondent of workers’ monthly Bigul, said that every working class movement in this country is making it more and more obvious and apparent that all the instruments of the State, for example, the Police, military, judiciary, bureaucracy, etc, are working for the protection of the profit machinery of the capitalist class and the property of the propertied class. If there is a just struggle for the legal rights of the workers and it becomes a menace for the smooth functioning of this exploitative machinery, the whole administration creates a hullabaloo of “law and order, unrest, anarchy, chaos” and embarks upon the suppression of this movement. The almond workers have staged a heroic struggle for their legal rights. But this struggle does not stop here, rather it starts from here. They will have to link their struggle to the working class struggles going on in this country and brace themselves for a struggle of systemic change. The problems of workers can be solved permanently only by this way.
National Forum for Telangana
JNU forum for Telangana
Venue: Press club, Raisina Road no 1,
Date: 26th December
Time: 3PM
It is none other than the class interests of ruling political parties which pressurized the central government to backtrack their decision over separate statehood for Telangana. Contrary to its statement on 9th December (to initiate the process to create the Telangana state), the central government made a very confusing statement, satisfying the ruling class of Andhra and Rayalaseema on 23rd December. The Home Minister announced that the opinions of all the concerned forces will be taken into consideration from now on. Not a single word was mentioned about the formation of Telangana. The statement not even states whether opinion will be considered to form Telangana or to continue with the united Andhra Pradesh. This particular statement led to the celebrations in Andhra and Rayalaseema, and once again the people of Telangana felt the betrayal.
Now the class dimensions in opposing the separate statehood to Telangana are clearly visible. In one word, this is a war between upper class power coalitions of Andhra Rayalaseema and the poor, marginalized and deprived people of Telangana. The ruling class across the spectrum of political parties came together launching war against the democratic aspirations of the people of Telangana. The huge land interest in the name of SEZ’s and real estate business, of Lagadapati Rajagopal (MP from Vijayawada constituency) and several other similar forces, led to the fabrication of a ‘movement’ in these two regions against the democratic aspirations of Telangana people. All the mainstream political parties and their opportunistic stands were never so exposed in the political history of Andhra Pradesh. Political parties such as Congress, TDP, CPM, PRP, Loksatta extended their support for the formation of Telangana prior to the centre’s decision on the 9th. Some parties even stated that they will support the resolution on bifurcation of the state if it is introduced in the state assembly. However, immediately after the 9th December announcement, these opportunistic political parties took a u-turn and refused to support the people of Telangana. The so-called struggles in these two regions were sponsored by ruling parties in Andhra and Rayalaseema. The keen observation of the ground situation explains the nature of their sponsoring class interests.
The feudal and capitalist forces are unable to visualize a situation of not having control over the rich natural resources of Telangana such as water, coal mines, forest, granite quarries, and vast cultivable lands. Decades of exploitation pushed this region to underdevelopment whereas the Andhra region flourished at the cost of blood and sweat of the Telangana people and their resources. It is a pure class war between the mainstream political lobby of Andhra and Rayalaseema on one side and people of Telangana on the other. At this historical juncture the common people of Andhra need to recognize the same forces as their enemies too and launch a struggle against them in the spirit of the Telangana movement.
Now once again Telangana is burning. The people voluntarily came to the streets expressing their dissent against the centre’s betrayal. The state government deployed forces in universities turning them into battlegrounds. As we all are aware, generations after generations the people of Telangana have spilled their blood for the cause of Telangana. And the people are aware that it is the ruling class interest which is operating underneath the so-called united Andhra Pradesh sentiment. We request one and all to come and express solidarity with the struggling people of Telangana. Your presence encourages us to take our struggle further. The support from like minded individuals will also send an encouraging message to people on ground.
In a recent judgement of the Supreme Court, the three Judges bench agreed to the summary procedure for imposition of punishment in the contempt case. In the case, Leila David vs. State of Maharashtra, filed before the Supreme Court, the petitioner among other reliefs, had also asked for direction to initiate criminal proceedings and strongest punishment against some twelve judges of the Bombay High Court. When the matter was being heard in March in the Court of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice A.K. Ganguly, one of the petitioners threw chappal at the Judges ((2009)4SCC578 Leila David vs. State of Maharashtra & Ors ). The case of contempt was taken up the same day in the Supreme Court. Justice Pasayat passed the following order:
“Today when these matters were taken up suddenly the contemnors started shouting and used very offensive, intemperate and abusive language and one had even gone to the extent of saying that the Judges should be jailed for having initiated proceedings against them and not interfering with orders by various judges of the Bombay High Court. They said that Judges are to be punished for not taking care of their so –called fundamental rights. One of them even threw chappal at the Judges. This happened in the presence of learned Solicitor General of India, two learned Additional Solicitor General and large number of learned counsel including the President of the Supreme Court Advocates –on – Record Association. This conduct is contemptuous. There is no need for issuing any notice, as the contemnors stated in open court that they stand by what they have said and did in the Court.”
The contemnors were sentenced a three months simple imprisonment by Justice Pasayat. However Justice A.K. Ganguly disagreeing with Justice Pasayat, passed a dissenting judgment. He held that, as per section 14 (1) of Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, in initiating a contempt proceeding and when contempt is allegedly committed in the face of the Court, the Court has to inform the alleged contemnors in writing the charge of contempt and then afford them opportunity to make their defence to the charge. Thereafter on taking such evidence as may be necessary or as may be offered by the persons and after hearing them, the Court may proceed either forthwith or after adjournment to determine the matter of the charge and may make such order for the punishment or discharge of such persons as may be just. Justice Ganguly held that:
“The safeguards statutorily engrafted under Section 14 of the Act are basically reiterating the fundamental guarantee given under Article 21 of the Constitution. This guarantee which possibly protects the most precious fundamental right is against deprivation of one’s personal liberty “except according to procedure established by law”. This Court, being the guardian of this right, cannot do anything by which that right is taken away or even abridged and especially when the court is acting suo moto.”
He further concluded in his order that:
“Therefore, in this view of the matter, I cannot agree with the view expressed in the order of His Lordship Justice Passayat, for sending the alleged contemnors to prison for allegedly committing the contempt in the face of the Court without following the mandate of the statute under section 14. I, therefore, cannot at all agree with His Lordship’s order by which sentence has been imposed. I am of the view that the liberty of a person cannot be affected in this manner without proceeding against them under Section 14 of the Act. In my opinion Section 14 is in consonance with person’s fundamental right under Article 21.”
The matter was then directed to be placed before the Chief Justice, who on the very day of the incident, constituted three judges bench to hear the matter. When the contempt proceedings came up for consideration before the Supreme Court, Attorney General supported the view taken by Justice Pasayat. The Solicitor General and the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association also agreed with the submission of the Attorney General. The three judges bench of the Supreme Court concluded
“As far as the suo motu proceedings for contempt are concerned, we are of the view that Arijit Pasayat, J. was well within his jurisdiction in passing a summary order, having regard to the provisions of Articles 129 and 142 of Constitution of India [see the note below]….While, as pointed out by Ganguly, J., it is a statutory requirement and a salutary principle that a person should not be condemned unheard, particularly in a case relating to contempt of court involving a summary procedure, and should be given an opportunity of showing cause against the action proposed to be taken against him/her, there are exceptional circumstances in which such a procedure may be discarded as being redundant.” (Para 28 and 29, (2009)10 SCC 337)
Further coming to the conclusion that the procedure adopted by Justice Pasayat was right, the Supreme Court said:
“In the instant case, after being given an opportunity to explain their conduct, not only have the contemnors shown no remorse for their unseemly behavior, but they have gone even further by filing fresh writ petition in which apart from repeating the scandalous remarks made earlier…this is one of such cases where no leniency can be shown as the contemnors have taken the liberal attitude shown to them by the Court as a license for indulging in decorous behavior and making scandalous allegations not only against the judiciary, but those holding the highest positions in the country…” (emphasis mine)
Just for a comparison and to show the changing tenor of the judiciary today, we might quote from a recent book penned by one of the most revered Indian judges of all time, Justice O Chinnappa Reddy, who narrated the following story, while suggesting “that the expression ‘contempt of court’ should be replaced by the expression ‘obstructing justice’” and that the definition of criminal contempt should be drastically modified to exclude most kinds of criticism of judiciary and judgements:
“There is a well-known story of a judge of the American Supreme Court who when asked by the Court as to why he did not take action against a litigant who shouted ‘Nine old fools’ when the Court pronounced judgement against him said ‘There is no question that all the nine of us are old men and whether we are fools or not is a matter of opinion’.”
————– Note: Article 129 provides “The Supreme Court shall be a court of record and shall have all the powers of such a court including the power to punish for contempt of itself.” Article 142 (the part relevant here) provides that Supreme Court shall have every power to make any order for the purpose of punishment of any contempt of itself.
On 17th December a rally was held in New Delhi (from Ramlila Ground to Parliament Street) to protest the state’s ongoing offensive against the people of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashra. People from many states joined the rally. For more information…http://radicalnotes.com/journal/2009/12/11/rally-against-war-on-people-december-17-2009/
On 4th December, a convention of organizations and campaigns from all over India was held in New Delhi, to protest the state’s ongoing offensive on the tribal people. For more information… CLICK
Demanded implementation of Labour Laws, condemned the collusion of Police with contractors and employers
December 23, New Delhi. Nearly 2000 almond workers staged a huge demonstration at Jantar-Mantar in the afternoon under the leadership of ‘Badaam Mazdoor Union’. As is well known, approximately 20 thousand almond workers have been on strike for past one week. These workers organized themselves into ‘Badaam Mazdoor Union’ (BMU) a year ago and since then, they have been fighting for the rights to which they are entitled under various labour laws. The BMU declared strike in the almond processing industry located in Karawal Nagar which is situated in the North-East Delhi, following which 20 thousand workers’ families stopped work, who were engaged in this work. Due to this strike the entire almond processing industry of Delhi has come to a standstill. This pressure is hurting even more because these almonds come from the US, Canada and Australia to India for processing, after which they have to be sent back. These companies outsource the work of processing to India to exploit the extremely cheap labour of India. Khari Baoli, situated in Delhi, is the largest dry fruits market of Asia. The big businessmen located in Khari Baoli take contract for this processing work and then give it on subcontract to petty contractors situated in Karawal Nagar. These petty contractors get this work done by poor labourers on wages which are next to nothing. The workers are given a mere Rs. 50 for the processing of one 23 kg bag of almonds. The total profit on one bag of almonds is arount Rs. 7000. Of this profit, one share goes to the foreign company, another to the big businessmen of Khari Baoli, and yet another to the petty contractor who play in lakhs of rupees, while the workers are constantly on the verge of starvation.
Workers who came to Jantar-Mantar demanded that this almond processing industry which runs in Karawal Nagar and some other areas of Delhi should be given a formal status by the government and it should be regularized, as not a few hundreds are involved in this industry, but thousands of workers are toiling in it to earn a meagre livelihood. Ashish Kumar, Convener of BMU told the mediapersons that the contractors who are at the helm of the affairs in this industry laugh away the labour laws and exploiting the workers in a primitive and barbaric way. It is one of the most glaring example of wage slavery in modern times and that too in the heart of National Capital. For this, they have squandered away money to collude with the Police and local musclemen and political leaders. Against this dictatorship and exploitation, the workers in this strike are demanding that this industry be regularized by the government and labour laws be implemented. The second demand of the workers is that the workers should be given Rs 80 per processed bag of almonds rather than Rs 50. That would be equivalent to minimum wages. Besides, these contractors have not provided the workers with any identity card of job card due to which often they refuse to make due payments to the workers and the latter have no proofs whatsoever, to make a claim. The BMU also demanded that double payment should be made for the overtime. Apart from that, the contractors sell the rind of almonds to the workers. The workers use it as fuel to cook food. As this is a useless by-product of the process of processsing done by the workers themselves, it should not be sold to the workers. It should be given to them free of cost. The workers also demanded that the Police should lodge an F.I.R. against those goons of the employers who attacked BMU leaders and women workers with deadly weapons on the morning of December 17. Ironically enough, the Karawal Nagar Police arrested the Union leaders instead of arresting the contractors and their goons and lodged a F.I.R. against them under section 107 and section 151 and sent them to jail, from where they were released on bail on December 19. The BMU leaders also demanded action against the Karawal Nagar Police.
This strike which started on December 16, is being already hailed as one of the biggest unorganized workers’ strike in the history of Delhi. Almost 20 thousand workers’ families are involved in it. The whole almond processing industry of Delhi has been paralysed due to this strike. Due to the stoppage of almond supply, the prices of almond are increasing. On the other hand, the contractors are dreaming of crushing this huge movement of workers with the muscle power of their goons and tacit support of the Police administration. However, the workers are in no mood to surrender and they are intensifying their strike with every passing day. The BMU leadership demanded the Labour minister of Delhi and the Deputy Labour Commissioner of North-East Delhi to intervene in the matter and ensure the implementation of the labour rights of these workers. If the snatching away of workers’ rights goes on like this, then the workers will gherao the Labour Minister and Chief Minister of Delhi. It is the right opportunity for them to become cautious and implement these laws. They also warned the employers and contractors to wake up before the time runs out. They warned them not to try strength of the workers as it might cost dearly to their profit machinery. They cannot defeat organized working class power with petty street goons. They need to implement the labour laws and give the workers what they are legally entitled to.
Nepal’s Maoist party Tuesday ended a countrywide three-day general strike and threw an open challenge to India to begin direct talks with it instead of ‘remote-controlling’ the Nepali ruling parties. It also threatened to launch an indefinite general strike from Jan 24.
After paralyzing the country for two days and a half with a general strike that shut down transport, industries, markets and educational institutions, Maoist protesters Tuesday brought out ‘victory rallies’ in many parts of the capital that converged in a meeting in front of the interim parliament.
Watched by hundreds of riot police guarding the parliament building, Maoist chief and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda said talks with the ruling parties were breaking down regularly since the ruling alliance was a ‘robot’ taking its orders from the Indian government.
‘In the past, (after King Gyanendra dissolved the elected government and imposed a handpicked cabinet), the then ruling parties asked us to hold talks with them,’ Prachanda told a mass meeting of hundreds of people in the capital. ‘But we refused, saying we will not hold talks with servants but only with the master (the king).’
Nearly seven years later, after an anti-monarchy movement that deposed the king, Prachanda said that time had come to say the same thing. Only this time, he said, the master was New Delhi.
‘We are ready to go to Delhi and start talks,’ he said.
Prachanda added that civilian supremacy in Nepal ‘had been assassinated by India’.
He referred to the Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor’s reported statement at a banquet in New Delhi recently that Maoists combatants should not be incorporated into the Nepali army.
‘Is he the governor of Nepal,’ Prachanda asked. ‘Can he order the Nepali people?’ Isn’t the integration a decision to be taken by Nepal’s government and parties?’
Nepal, he said, became semi-colonized by the British rulers of India in the 19th century after being forced to sign an unequal treaty that made the country cede almost a third of its territory.
‘The British left India but their colonial mentality remained,’ he said.
Prachanda is calling for a five-point negotiation with India that will scrap all unequal treaties and make public ’secret treaties’ detrimental to Nepal’s national interests. He is calling for the resolution of all boundary disputes and the withdrawal of Indian troops from Nepal’s Kalapani region. The Maoist chief is also calling for an end to the ballooning trade deficit between the two neighbours.
He has asked New Delhi to draw a strategy on a war-footing so that Nepal, sandwiched between India and China, can benefit from its proximity to the world’s two fastest growing economies.
The Maoist chief is asking India to treat its smaller northern neighbour as an equal instead of trying to keep it reduced to a ‘puppet’ and ‘robot’.
The Maoists Tuesday also pledged to start a month-long campaign from Christmas Day to ‘awaken the people’.
Prachanda said during the meeting that his party would expose Indian and other foreign agents and the corrupt, including those indicted in a commission that was to have brought deposed king Gyanendra and the other abettors of the royal coup in 2005 to justice but was never made public.
The Maoists have also warned of an indefinite general strike nationwide from Jan 24 if the ruling parties still fail to reach an agreement. (IANS)
Delhi witnesses one of its largest unorganized workers’ strikes in last 20 years
Strike continues into sixth day despite threats and intimidations by the police and goons of factory owners
Supply to international markets badly hit, Delhi’s almond processing industry paralysed
2000 workers organize a huge warning rally
December 20, Delhi. The huge almond processing industry of Delhi, situated in the Karawal Nagar, continued to be paralysed on consecutive sixth day. As is well known, nearly 30 thousand almond workers’ families went to strike with their families six days ago under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union (BMU). In the meanwhile, on the morning of December 17, the contractors and their armed goons attacked a peaceful procession of women workers, injuring three BMU activists and several workers. In self-defense, workers started pelting stones on the goons due to which 4 of them were injured. However, the Karawal Nagar Police, completely playing in the hands of the employers, unilaterally lodged a case against the Union leaders under section 107 and section 151, and sent them to Tihar Jail. These BMU leaders were released on bail on the night of December 19. The shameless Karawal Nagar Police kept the injured, bleeding BMU activists in the Police Station, without providing them any kind of medical assistance, and doing so intentionally. On the other hand, the real culprits, the hooligans of the contractors were let go by the Police! Not even a single case was registered against them. Even more shameful is the fact that the Police lied to other BMU officials that they were taking the arrested leaders for M.L.C. and a case has been registered against the contractors and their henchmen. The contractors used casteist abuses against dalit workers and dalit BMU activists. And yet, the Police refused to register any case against the contractors and their gundas. The contractors and owners had calculated that with the arrest of the top BMU leaders, the strike will disintegrate. But, contrary to their great expectations, the arrest of BMU leaders, rather than shaking the courage and confidence of workers instilled in them an indomitable resolve to fight till the end. The 20 percent workers who had not joined the strike, joined it on the night of 19th December.
After the release of the leaders, workers warmly welcomed them and organized a historical rally on the morning of December 20 in the whole western Karawal Nagar. The rally had been organized as a symbolic warning to the contractors and the Police. Almost 2000 workers participated in the rally, predominantly female. The rally started in Prakash Vihar area of Karawal Nagar and covered the entire western Karawal nagar. During the rally, workers raised various slogans against the contractors, Police, capitalism, etc. The common citizens of Karawal Nagar saw this rally with awe and supported the demands of the workers. It was the biggest workers’ rally in the history of Karawal Nagar. The workers demonstrated their militant unity with this rally and re-emphasized their resolve to continue the struggle till their demands are met.
Due to the continuation of the strike into the sixth day, the almond processing industry of Delhi has come to a halt. Thousands of unprocessed almond bags are lying dump in the godowns of the contractors. On the other hand, the demand for almonds is increasing with every passing day as Christmas and New Year is coming near. It is noteworthy that the almond that is processed in Delhi comes from the companies of the US, Australia and Canada and a number of European countries. These companies, in order to exploit the cheap labour of India and minimize their costs, send their almonds for processing to the big businessmen of Khari Bawli of Delhi, which is the largest dry fruit market of Asia. These big businessmen give this work of processing on sub-contracting to the petty contractors of Karawal Nagar, who laughing away all labour regulations and laws, exploit the workers cruelly. These are the very workers who have been on strike for the sixth consecutive day and who have been demanding for the fulfillment of all their rights given by the labour laws, for example, the piece rate should be fixed in accordance with the law of minimum wages, that is the per bag processing rate should be fixed according to the minimum wages; the workers should be given double overtime payment; they should be provided with identity card and job card; and the due payment should be made in the first week of the month; abuse of workers should be stopped immediately by the contractors. The almond workers formed their Badaam Mazdoor Union last year and since then they have successfully fought on a number of issues. Due to the present strike the rates of almond are increasing swiftly in Delhi’s markets.
Convener of BMU, Ashish Kumar Singh said, “Till now, the Police administration has worked hands in gloves with the contractors to sabotage the strike. We have completely lost faith in the Karawal Nagar Police administration and to initiate action against the goons of the contractors, we will lodge a complaint directly in the office of DCP, North-East Delhi. And if the DCP office fails to take action, we will move to court. The goons of contractors will not be spared and they’ll have to pay for every drop of blood of workers and their leaders. Strike is our weapon. We’ll continue the strike till all our demands are met.”
Yogesh, member of BMU, said, “It is for the first time that the workers have organized themselves in such huge numbers. We have witnessed strikes in the past too, however, then the workers of U.P., Bihar and Uttaranchal failed to come together and the strikes failed. It is for the first time, under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union that the workers have organized themselves across the divides of caste, gotra and region, with their class interests in command.” Yogesh told that they have been reported by various sources that the baffled contractors are planning a fatal attack on the leadership of the BMU, with the Police on their sides. He said that faced with any such attack, we will reply proportionately. Despite the patronage of the Police, the contractors cannot defeat the worker power.
Benedict Anderson was in Delhi recently to deliver a lecture on his latest work. He “is one of the first and original theorists of nations and nationalisms. His pathbreaking work ‘Imagined Communities’ is an exploration of how various peoples have at a certain juncture in history imagined themselves into nations. An anthropological explorer of various national-liberation movements in East and Southeast Asia, Prof Anderson sees the rise of nationalism as being closely connected with the growth of printed books and with the technical development of print as a whole”. Paramita Ghosh interviewed Anderson for Hindustan Times. FOR THE FULL TEXT
Q:As a man of the Left, what is the future of Marxism in south Asia and in India?
A: Communism has taken a beating in the last 20 years. But it won’t go away if underlying problems in society don’t go away. There has to be new ways to revive it. However, one framework which Marx never anticipated was how the atomic tests would destroy civilisation. The limits of resources are not there in Marxist vocabulary, it comes from Thomas Robert Malthus and it has to be grappled with.
India has three kinds of Communisms. The established left, the CPI M-L and the new Naxalites who are no longer led by college students. They go to the bottom of society.
Q:One of our living realities is the competition between Indian and China amid the babble of economic cooperation. How can Third World solidarity be revived?
A: What solidarity can there be to speak of? There was never a leftist government in India. The Cold War put China on one side and India played a role in between…. Both are rapidly expansionist, they are bound to get in each other’s hair. But it is in everyone’s interest to reduce the power of America.
China wants a ring of friendly countries around it, but it won’t occupy them. It’s not clear what China wants in Africa. I don’t know whether they intend to stay. If the Chinese start moving there, then it might get interesting.
There is, I think, however, a growing acceptance that war will not get you more territory. What threatens nation-states are not external states, but internal collapse. It has happened in Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia. It may happen in India. States can’t get any bigger, but they can get smaller.
