In the light of your publishing of the KYS “critique” on UCD, where there is a substantial section making allegations at NSI as well as AISA and campaigns and cyber space activism, we are perturbed by the fact that you have published it without clarifying with the maligned groups. Do we understand this as your endorsement of KYS’s ‘critique’?. You are of course free to publish what you wish to, but isn’t there a political issue when you are publishing such a document which questions the credibility of organisations and campaigns without first having felt the need to clarify with the concerned groups. More so, because you happen to have very easy access to these people, groups and campaign. It was understandable if your post was a part of an already ongoing debate on the nature of campaigns or any organisation in the university.
We would have appreciated if a credible website like you should have brought us in a debate rather than forcing us into a response pre-set by the tone of the KYS ‘document’ which is largely malicious. In our understanding KYS’s mail is not intended towards any debate but is infested with mal-intent as far as its take on organisations like NSI or AISA or Safe University Campaign.
Since you yourself function with credibility as a left group and mainly also in cyber space, you might have felt the need to engage with the organisations/people/campaigns to gauge the credibility of the KYS ‘critique’. Such a method of functioning, unintended though, ends up privileging one organisation.
We would appreciate if you would publish this email with the NSI response to KYS pasted below along with two NSI documents (1 and 2) attached. And a comradely suggestion that you can contribute to the UCD campaign with your solidarity as well as first hand critique.
On Behalf of New Socialist Initiative
Amrapali Basumatary
Dear friends and comrades in UCD,
Below is our response to comrades in KYS who have taken the initiative to produce a lengthy critique of NSI while critiquing the UCD.
While NSI has till now not said anything, some individuals and organisations have falsely implicated NSI without having full and proper understanding of NSI and its politics and posited the debates as KYS vs NSI battle. This is the first mail that NSI is writing to the group. We have not been asserting our group’s identity vis-a-vis UCD because we have a clear understanding that UCD is a platform of various individuals and organisations who have come together for a basic minimum programme. While some members of KYS and NSI might be old acquaintances, there has been no history of political engagement within the university between them. It is politically callous to project the issue in this binary.
Dear comrades in KYS and its fraternal organisations,
In the wake of the accusations (critique?) of UCD that KYS has posted in the UCD email group, we feel bound to respond, while respecting KYS’s ideological position that emails (cyber space) are “bourgeois phenomenon”. As it is clear that in the critique you have maligned constituent organisations of the UCD, especially NSI and AISA and resorted to falsities and misrepresentations about NSI, while also maligning campus campaigns like the SAFE University campaign. NSI is not a sectional organisation which focuses merely on the students, teachers and the university. It is a political-ideological platform constituted of people coming from different progressive radical movements. So when you say that we have “no work amongst workers, i.e., no trade union to speak of, and basically do nothing to promote workers’ self-organisation… NSI has more presence in the NGO networks than in the existing workers’ movement”, that we instrumentalise workers’ issues to appear ‘radical/cool’, it is nothing short of lies.
Here is a short quotation from the introductory document of NSI –
“It is a platform in the making consisting of comrades from different streams of life and left politics. Some of us are engaged in trade unions for unorganized sector workers, some of us are active on women’s issues, with particular emphasis on bringing class in women politics, while many other among us are active in theatre and university level discussion cum agitational groups as well as struggles for dalit emancipation and anti-communal struggle.”
Following are some of our points in response to your accusations or critique as you wish to project it as.
Foremost, we wish to ask KYS if the accusations were made consciously or under the duress of a sheer lack of knowledge/analysis and information about NSI?
Firstly, NSI is a constituent of the UCD. So if you are writing a critique of the UCD, stick to that rather than using it to get to other left organisations like NSI which is part of it. NSI does not represent UCD politics. Of course ideas are brought up and people debate, discuss and thereafter accept or reject as per the larger consensus in UCD.
Secondly, the NSI which is part of the UCD is the North Campus Delhi University unit, like your Delhi State Unit. The focus of this unit is in the university. There are other NSI units who work in different areas and constituencies with different focuses in many parts of the country. The way we understand a formation like the UCD is that it is a composite group of left organisations, individuals, liberals, progressives and other who came in specifically because of university related concerns. NSI with its committed left politics, is a part of it because it thinks the issues taken up by the UCD is intrinsically connected to larger issues of capitalism, democracy and university space.
Thirdly, UCD group mailing list is not the platform for you to thrash out your angst/anxiety/anger/enmity against any organisation. There could be a healthier way of dealing with your problems and critiques, in a polemical manner rather than intsrumentalising the UCD space.
We appreciate that the KYS is committed to revolutionary working class politics like the NSI and we take this opportunity to tell members of the UCD to read and know more about NSI. For a short introduction of NSI in please visit http://nsi-delhi.blogspot.com/2010/05/for-those-who-would-like-to-know-little.html#more. Any further mails about NSI or to NSI should be sent to this email rather than using the UCD mailing list. Write to us at delhi.nsi@gmail.com and read our Manifesto (title – A WORLD FOR THE WORKERS! – A FUTURE FOR THE WORLD!). We invite comments and critiques on our manifesto. We take this opportunity to initiate a polemical exchange on left politics. And hereby we are attaching two documents – a) introduction of NSI and b) NSI’s draft manifesto.
To initiate and enhance productive left political debates, please share your literatures with us.
laal salam,
NORTH CAMPUS UNIT Delhi University, New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
Editorial Note:If publishing KYS’ polemical piece amounts to Radical Notes’ endorsement of the organisation’s position, then we would be guilty of endorsing many others, including that of NSI, as we have published at least one of its documents too. We publish these materials for the importance of the questions that they raise. Since this letter is in direct response to what has been published in Radical Notes, we are obliged to publish it as it is; however we would still expect a substantial engagement with KYS’ note, touching upon the issues that it poses. Comrades from NSI would grant that the “mal-intent” and malice that they find in the pamphlet might not be visible to others, who are more interested in wider issues concerning the discursive embedding of students/university politics in larger class processes and praxes.
Delhi State Committee,
Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS)
…THE INTELLECTUALS WILL ACCOMPLISH NOTHING IF
THEY FAIL TO INTEGRATE THEMSELVES
WITH THE WORKERS AND PEASANTS…
Mao Tse-tung
NOTE: This is a review and summation of the proceedings of the forum, University Community for Democracy (UCD). UCD is constituted of different individuals who may or may not belong to organizations. Apart from some dominant tendencies which we have criticized below, the forum has some well-intentioned individuals who have increasingly become discontent with UCD’s functioning. We have prepared this piece for internal discussion within our organization, but due to requests from certain friends in UCD, we are going public with it. It encompasses many points of criticism which we often raised in UCD meetings.
Recently, some University teachers and students in the north campus of Delhi University have been running a campaign under the banner of the UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY FOR DEMOCRACY (UCD). To use the words of the campaign’s founding members, the campaign is committed to fighting against “shrinking democratic space in the University”. The focus of the campaign has particularly been on the eviction of college students from university hostels, in the wake of the Commonwealth Games. A section of “left” intellectuals and “progressive” activists can be seen allying themselves with this forum. It has become fashionable for some to be seen in its meetings and, for those who navigate more in the realms of virtual reality, to trail the forum’s activities in cyberspace.
However, in the very beginning in UCD meetings there have been activists and organizations that have questioned the constituting logic of the forum. Most of such criticism was swept under the carpet as mere issues of modus operandi or as divisive tactics. The validity of the criticism raised was often lost to many of the forum’s participants who were hostile to organization structure, and hence, to criticisms coming from organizations. Even when some of our points of criticism were noted they were hardly addressed in a manner that reassured us of UCD’s commitment to the issues raised. The following pages are a delineation of this unfortunate fact.
At a time when the Commonwealth Games (CWG) are the focus of the media, many activities of the UCD come across more as publicity gimmicks than anything else. It is important for many of the forum’s participants to be seen resisting the Games but to do that they have to mobilize people on issues close to them. With little understanding on the issues concerning different people, UCD raises them in an opportunistic vein, just so as to galvanize different issues and use them. In reality CWG is the starting point and be all and end all of their resistance. And no matter how earnestly UCD denies it, this has been their strategy because right now the Games are the highlight of the season. Even before the University opened and the campaign could take proper shape; there were overt attempts to reach the media for coverage (such as forming media coordination teams and releasing press statements).
Even the “relay hunger strike”, or rather “skip one’s lunch” strike was no exception (it is interesting to note that UCD members sat on “hunger strike” from 9am to 9pm, which basically means they did not sacrifice their breakfast and dinner—In reality a relay hunger strike is continuous, and, thereby, includes people sitting on hunger strike twenty four hours—the term relay refers to somebody ending their hunger strike and another person taking their place). Since a “hunger strike” by University students and teachers is an eye-catching story for the media, it was more important to be seen in this act of drama even if the demands of those on “hunger strike” stood thoroughly misplaced. Sadly, so as to project a significant gathering at the venue of the “hunger strike”, students were actually subjected to authoritarian tactics by teachers supportive of UCD. These teachers, acting as pied-pipers and humming the threatening tune of internal assessment, drew their hapless students to the venue by taking their classes there. Students (the majority of whom were oblivious to the issues raised), were obviously not taken into confidence when they were made to come to the “hunger strike” site.
The fact that the demands of those on “hunger strike” were misplaced reflects nothing but a sheer lack of seriousness and understanding on the issues raised. It was the form in which the “relay hunger strike” raised certain demands that was highly problematic for it reeked of sheer opportunism and sectarianism. Let us take the example of rent regulation raised during the “hunger strike”. Firstly, UCD began its campaign with absolutely no concrete demand of rent regulation. The forum was forced to pick up the issue of rent regulation in addition to the issue of hostel eviction because it was constantly accosted by the majority of students who had never even lived in college hostels, and had for a long time been faced with the problem of escalating rents. There was also urgency in making rent regulation an active demand of the UCD campaign because some other organizations had already launched a full-fledged campaign on rent regulation in the city. Hence, it was more in a competitive spirit than with any serious commitment and understanding on the issue that rent regulation became part of UCD’s charter of demands.
To further delineate the opportunism with which the issue of rent was finally raised by UCD, we would like to bring the reader’s attention to the fact that although they are now talking of rent control; escalating rents are actually being conceptualized as a University neighbourhood problem rather than a general problem for migrants coming to the city (for further illustration of this point please see CSW and KYS’s paper). This is precisely why UCD’s “hunger strike” targeted the audience in Arts Faculty (a transit point for the student/teaching community), and not any tangible authority (which in this case should really have been the Government of Delhi). And this is why the best that UCD can do on the issue of rent is to demand rent regulation from the Dean of Colleges! Quite rightly, their delegation was informed by the Dean of her incapability to regulate rents since this was way beyond the University authorities’ jurisdiction and responsibility. We return to the fundamental question— why does the University remain the centre of UCD’s resistance when authorities beyond the Vice Chancellor are to blame, and when there are many people apart from students/teachers who are adversely affected by unregulated rents? To the reader who might still believe that raising the issue of rent regulation at the University level is perhaps what is immediately feasible for UCD, we have one question—has the life of the minority ever drastically changed without a transformation in the life of the majority? For example, can an individual educated woman today feel hundred percent secure and confident in a work space when the majority of women in society are still perceived as objects of sexual consumption and undeserving of career opportunities? Friends, the answer is no and experience has taught us that.
The question of the sectarian political approach of UCD was raised several times in the meetings. As argued by us in such meetings, issues and demands should really be raised in a way that they appeal to a larger section of people affected by the state’s inaction and its collusion with private business interests. In this way we connect concerns, struggles and militancy of different sections of people who are often segregated from each other due to the functioning of the system in place. For example, the student community and workers find themselves separated by work schedules, their class backgrounds, spatial settings/norms (in terms of workers being restricted to the space of factories/work sites and students to the space of their classrooms), etc. As a result we need a politics that paves the way for a combined struggle by the different oppressed sections of society. And it is only a combined struggle that can create an effective front of resistance to the onslaught of oppression and exploitation we are witness to. However, more than a generalized struggle against recent developments in the city, UCD’s initiatives are more sectarian than anything else. In fact, their particularized (University-CWG-centric) struggle is nothing but the substitution of the generalized working class struggle by ‘middle’ class intellectualism.
Mobilization of workers and strengthening of the working class movement is essential because in our society it is the working class that is in the majority. Its labour creates profit, rent and basically all the resources in society. Understandably then, if the working class fights back the whole system is paralyzed. Apart from the fact that it is the direct object of the most fundamental and determinative form of oppression and exploitation in capitalist society, the working class is the revolutionary class also because its interests do not rest on the oppression of other classes. In fact, precisely because its objective interest for its own emancipation is the destruction of class, it can create conditions for the liberation of all human beings in the struggle to liberate itself.
Thus, contrary to the middle class intellectual’s popular perception of the working class as just another identity asserted along with numerous other identities, the working class is actually a social positioning and not an identity. It is a position which is spread over different kinds of identities, and determines how and when the different identities will assert themselves. It is ultimately through the position of the working class that different identities can be united and radicalized into a wider anti-systemic struggle that goes beyond the form in which society exists. Realizing this, ‘old’ socialism has maintained the working class as its base and has constantly assessed the dynamics of the process of class in order to pursue its politics. ‘New’ socialism on the other hand, has made students/intellectuals their constituting base. In reality, however, students/intellectuals are divided amongst different class trajectories. To put it more accurately, students abstracted from their class position have come to be envisaged as agents of ‘new’ socialism. Indeed, ‘student radicalism’ which is actively promoted by ‘new’ socialism is a by-product of making students an identity devoid of class.
It is a fact that students who join universities like Delhi University (DU), are from different classes. The trend in DU is that students from working class backgrounds generally join the peripheral and evening colleges of DU. They are mostly youth who: a) have studied in government schools, b) come from the Hindi medium background, c) who do not usually get admission to college hostels considering their 12th class schooling, d) are those who really struggle to cope with rising college fees and English medium teaching/coursework. Students from petty bourgeois backgrounds are quite the opposite—a significant number of them have studied in respectable public schools, get admission to the best north and south campus colleges of DU, and are generally the first to get admission to the limited college hostels of DU.
As a result of this abstraction of students’ class backgrounds, forums such as UCD end up raising issues of students in a manner which isolates them from the issues of the working class. This reduces the possibilities of unity between the student community and the working class. To delineate this fact it is best to highlight the issue of rent regulation again. Rather than identifying rent as a problem affecting the student/teaching community as well as workers (most of whom live on rent near industrial belts in Delhi), UCD chose to raise the problem of rent only within the ambit of the University area, and demanded rent regulation from University authorities alone. By refusing to raise rent as a generalized concern of migrants in the city, UCD has simply encouraged the student community to see this as a problem specific to them. Having effaced the issue of class struggle in the immediate locality (the immediate locality being issues of working class youth/students/construction workers, etc. in the University), UCD now seeks to locate the working class and its struggle in a far off resettlement colony called Bhalaswa. Unfortunately, judging by recent email correspondences between UCD and students of the Women’s Development Cell (WDC) in Miranda House, the trips to Bhalaswa are being envisaged by the students more as extra-curricular activities. This indicates that UCD’s form of politics is really incapable of building a long-standing and formidable unity between the student community and working class. Its politics, in fact, inculcates within students a PHILANTHROPIC approach to working class issues, and little or no realization of the significance of class struggle for the transformation of our society. Instead of unity and combined struggle, UCD’s form of politics inculcates a perception/political tendency in the student movement to i) see the working class as a “mass of laboring poor” and not as a class which embodies itself even in the student constituency, ii) to perceive the issues of the working class as markedly different from those of students, and at most, only momentarily connected/’aligned’ with issues of students.
It is not only that the ‘new’ socialists deny the class background of the student community. They also, by denying students their varied class position, end up trying to mobilize only those who come from petty bourgeois backgrounds. As a result, organizations in UCD, such as New Socialist Initiative (NSI) are never seen raising issues of Dalit students who struggle to get admission in DU, of working class students who struggle to pay escalating college fees, or basically, any problem faced by students coming from government schools. In reality, for them, issues of those studying in peripheral/evening colleges or of those studying through correspondence/non-collegiate board are supposedly beyond the concerns of student activism. It is the issues of students studying in the big north campus colleges that are the central concerns of such organizations. For example, such organizations strictly function according to the University calendar. They will be active only during the actual academic session (i.e. between July and March when classes are on), and, will be mostly seen organizing seminars—these being a hot favorite of students from petty bourgeois backgrounds, who enjoy debating theories thrown at them in class. Furthermore, their campaigns in the University are centered on certain pet issues of students studying in a select few north campus colleges. These include protests against college hostel rules; night vigils/candle-marches to ‘take back the night’ or presumably to establish a ‘safe’ university campus somehow; etc. One wonders, how such campaigns actually address the concerns of the majority of students—many of whom do not stay on campus and are denied hostel admission due to the ‘lack of merit’.
Of course, when we as participants in UCD argued how necessary it was to mobilize the working class which is in the majority of those exploited in the name of development, grand events like CWG, etc., our point was noted. UCD posters soon began to carry slogans highlighting exploitation of workers, and as a gesture workers are now talked about in some of the UCD meetings. But the form in which workers’ issues are being raised by them is fundamentally paternalistic and patronizing. In a sympathetic mode the forum speaks of workers and other vulnerable sections of society, but no workers are part of the joint forum. Neither does the forum do anything to promote workers’ self-organization, nor does it participate in workers’ struggles. Making patronizing trips to resettlement colonies in the city, just so as to “investigate” and “report” the plight of slum dwellers, are more measures to appease angry activists in UCD and clear one’s conscience than to draw a formidable, active and organic link between the University community and the working class.
In fact, the recent trip to Bhalaswa was merely a gesture—a move to forge, in haste, some semblance of an alliance with the working class. No way does such a gesture promote self-organization by workers. In the case of Bhalaswa, UCD immediately began promoting a group working in the area, of whose politics they have little knowledge. In fact, in the interest of ‘alliance making’ they have refused to interrogate whether the group really represents the voice of the oppressed in Bhalaswa or is just another bourgeois oppositional group. Similarly, UCD has not taken on the responsibility of assessing, themselves, the actual class dynamics working in Bhalaswa. It is simply assumed that all those residing in resettlement colonies/slums like Bhalaswa belong to the same class composition, whereas the ground reality is more complex. Clearly, UCD’s form of politics, i.e. ‘alliance-making’ is highly problematic. This is because it simply absolves the forum of questioning the constitutive logic and politics of the organizations/groups it is allying with. It also absolves the forum of the responsibility of organizing those constituencies of people themselves. Thirdly, such form of politics leaves ample space for a lot of opportunistic maneuvering. In other words, the forum can move in and out of such alliances, depending on their own calculated interests. An important question arises here, what will happen to these alliances once the CWG are over? Well, expectedly, they will dissipate as quickly as they emerged. The analogy of a cinema hall is perhaps apt to explain this inevitability—just like everyone comes to watch a film in the theatre, cry/laugh together and then go their separate ways, most UCD groups/individuals will move on from the momentary ‘alliances’/joint initiatives they have made during the drama of CWG. A few of them, of course, will leave with plum NGO jobs in hand, and an ‘activist’ image that they can thrive on.
Hence, the point that we are trying to drive home is, that UCD can talk about workers and claim to be radical right through, whereas students/teachers continue to run the show while workers are merely expected to follow and indulge in experience-sharing. Workers’ issues then become just another ingredient to be added to cooking pot of resistance. Friends, the fact is that the forum’s form of intervention is limited to the university community responding on workers’ issues but doing nothing otherwise to help build workers’ self-organizations. Is it not true then that the University democrats finds workers’ issues “good” when they are OBJECTS of reform and concern but not when they are SUBJECTS of the struggle against the system? Here it is perhaps best to highlight the recent struggle of construction workers at the Miranda House CWG work site and UCD’s response—or rather lack of response to it. Friends, since the beginning of August construction workers and their trade union have been protesting against the Miranda House officials for non-payment of the workers’ long-standing dues and the violation of several labour laws. The same day that UCD began its “relay hunger strike”, workers down the road were protesting against their severe exploitation under various CWG construction projects. UCD failed to respond and join the struggle. The message, therefore, sent out was clear enough—we will participate only when we are in charge and not workers, and we will raise workers’ issues only as an addition to our never-ending list of “democratic” demands. Considering this, are not the issues of workers’ rights being raised in tokenism, i.e. only when it suits them?
Interestingly, some participants in the University Community for Democracy, who openly claim their “left” leanings, have unhesitatingly claimed in meetings that there is nothing wrong in particularizing the struggle since the University is their ambit of movement and sense of being. What we perhaps need to add here is the fact that when they are particularizing the struggle to the University, they particularize it even further by only raising issues of a select section of the University community. Such an approach defers the need to generalize issues of struggle, which is why people end up raising struggles in isolation. Such campaigns lose steam, credibility and relevance since they do not tap on certain organic links between their concerns and those of other affected sections in society. Of course, the aforementioned approach is nothing but opportunistic. By keeping the campaign University specific such participants aim for greater projection of themselves in the student community and media (which prefers to highlight University issues any day). By investing all their energy at the University level such participants seek a radical projection of themselves during DUSU elections, etc. This, beyond doubt, is a calculated move by many so called left intellectuals and groups in UCD. It is reflected in the larger party politics of such groups, and also in the double standards maintained vis-à-vis the entry of NGOs in the forum’s programs.
CPI(ML) Liberation, the parent party of AISA (a “left” student organization), in the interest of electoral victories has been allying with the RJD and sometimes with the JD(U). One moment it can be seen opposing the traitor Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in Bengal, and the next moment it can be seen allying with the CPM in the Bihar Assembly elections! The same kind of double standards was replicated when we opposed the entry of NGOs in the protest meeting held on 30th July and AISA supported us, but then went on to invite the same NGO person to their own program against the Commonwealth Games on August 2, 2010! Needless to say, with elections round the corner crowd pulling tactics become more important. We know for a fact that there are reservations within AISA’s own cadre about participating in UCD, yet it continues in the forum for electoral gains.
It is very disturbing that NGOs which are bodies hugely funded by exploitative governments or by multinational corporations, are provided space on platforms of resistance against exploitation. The history of NGOs tells us that they are compromised bodies which sway on issues depending on the terms and conditions of the funding they receive. They have become a big employment recruitment network and that’s about it, for their work amongst people is channeled more towards ‘welfare’ than towards transformation of society. Instead of using its own agencies to provide for people, the state has been retreating from the social sector, leaving the space open for NGOs. NGOs simply use the limited funding released by governments and non-government organizations so as to absolve the state of its larger responsibilities. And to do this they unhesitatingly exploit a cheap labour force. For example, NGO workers (‘activists’) on the ground receive a meager salary compared to NGO employees in the higher echelons.
Interestingly, by arguing that NGO people are “well-versed” in issues/“are radical”, and by promoting them as speakers, UCD is actually creating a hierarchy of knowledge. And this hierarchy is nothing but a replication of capitalist division of labour in which intellect takes precedence over action/organization building, and the suave, Oxfam funded NGO spokesperson replaces the ‘not so articulate’ trade unionist/ political activist.
There are two more disturbing things to note about UCD’s campaign. One pertains to its search for an alternative accommodation for evicted students, and the other to its “free left” image. In its initial meetings, some UCD members pushed forward the search for an alternative accommodation. The first pamphlet printed by the UCD spoke of the need to build communes in places off campus. In fact, a team met with the management of a Gandhian trust (funded by Ministry of Social Justice) which ran a hostel near Kingsway Camp, called Gandhi Ashram. The place soon began to be promoted via e-mails etc. almost like any other private accommodation; the purpose being to provide a space for those still desperately looking for affordable accommodations and also to provide a space for regrouping when things got rough during the campaign. Ironically, the Gandhi Ashram hostel is meant for poor Dalit school students who were obviously going to be displaced if college students moved into the dormitories. No one seemed to reckon with this inevitability while the plan was still being hatched.
What we also found disturbing about the Gandhi Ashram plan was the desire of creating an isolated “democratic” space. The message being sent out was nothing but we can create our own isolated commune-like space in this big bad world. This approach stems from the sectarian University-centric politics of the UCD highlighted above, and also from a non-revolutionary conceptualization of commune life. For many participants in UCD, the commune with its base in Gandhi Ashram was an apparent ‘pre-figuration’ of a new society, whereas it was far from that. Commune was being envisaged as a centre of ‘counter-culture’—an oasis in capitalist wilderness. Interestingly, this is a very familiar trope—it is based, both at once, on a vision of a transformed society without real hope for a process of transformation. This is because it is based on the vision that the lives of a minority can magically change without transforming the whole. This is, after all, how (phantom) revolution itself, is envisaged according to the pipe-dreams (joint-dreams?) of petty bourgeois students/intellectuals who enjoy the comforts/security of generous remittances from home—‘let us, at least, as a small privileged community enjoy revolution making’.
Of course, as pointed out by us in the meetings, it was nothing but ridiculous that UCD spoke of building a commune in a place which was actually going to be charging the students Rs. 1500 per bed and where 6 to 8 women students would have to live per room. How can a commune work within a market structure, and how can a place which gives you no control on the rules and regulations to be implemented, become a progressive, commune-like accommodation?! Despite these criticisms, UCD went ahead and would have signed a MoU with the Gandhi Ashram management, if it wasn’t for the sheer lack of students interested in the place. In fact, just so as to get students to join the bandwagon, emails were sent out exaggerating the facilities available at Gandhi Ashram. In the interest of pulling a crowd, the green lawns of the Ashram were highlighted. Meanwhile, it was downplayed that no fooding would be available at the place and that this was going to be a dormitory system. Indeed, such concealment amounts to lying.
Lastly, as we would like to point out, it is a shame that the University Community for Democracy prides itself for its “Free Left” image. It is typical for such a forum to claim its steadfast commitment to ‘democratic issues’. However, in reality, their idea of democracy is based on the empty notion of dialogue and communication. Democracy is, unfortunately, abstracted from its link with socio-economic forces which is why it becomes more difficult to build a consistent anti-systemic movement. We see this problematic notion of democracy manifested in the very first pamphlet released by UCD. What was repeatedly highlighted in it, as a problem, was the fact that recent developments in the city as well as at the level of the University were not discussed before implementation.
Ironically, despite all their claims, most UCD participants stand for a façade of democracy and democratic functioning. For example, many emails and curt replies to questions raised in the meetings reflect the emerging dogma that only “pragmatic” things should be discussed in meetings (pragmatic issues being those that will help UCD attract more people). Thereby, it was constantly demanded that the ideological issues be shunned, and in a very undemocratic way, that is precisely what happened in meetings. The question is, what is it that UCD will do with the people who are immediately attracted to its campaign. Aren’t they supposed to work on these people and ideologically bring them closer to progressive politics? What does one read into this persistent impatience with ideological issues? Why do they behave as if the campaign is running against time? One can only presume that they want their whole show to be unfolded before CWG! In that case there is really no long term commitment to the issues being raised, and those that join the UCD campaign are just being perceived as faces/numbers to be posited against the Games, rather than thinking human beings who have the potential to link their immediate concerns with long term politics.
Furthermore, due to its “free left” image, we find that most UCD participants enjoy asserting their “individual” form of participation vis-à-vis an organizational one. As a result, UCD has succeeded in joining a lineage of platform and forum hopping so common to bodies that are dominated by individuals. The simple fact is platforms will be unsteady as long as “radical” individuals refuse to put their “radical-ness” to the test and bring themselves under the discipline and responsibility of organization/party structure. Left fronts and left organizations cannot make individuals their fighting force and leave untouched/un-mobilized the majority of those exploited, i.e. working class. After all, what is the best form of protesting against the Commonwealth Games? Is it not by organizing the large number of workers employed under CWG projects and mobilizing them to stop work at the numerous construction sites? Indeed, this is the most effective way of exposing the Games for what they are, and certain organizations and trade unions have been doing this since the very beginning of CWG construction work.
Having said this, it must begin to seem obvious somewhere to the reader why UCD has raised the issue of workers’ rights more in the spirit of opportunism. What else can be expected when there are group’s dominating UCD, such as New Socialist Initiative (NSI), that have no work amongst workers, i.e. no trade union to speak of, and basically do nothing to promote workers’ self-organization. In their book of strategy workers issues will always be raised so as to appear radical/cool in front of impressionable students than to actually organize workers. Their politics will, in fact, promote workers’ rights and NGOs in the same breath. It is a fact, that NSI has more presence in the NGO network than in the existing workers’ movement. This is because most of their members work for NGOs, and hence, have an objective interest in promoting them. This is why on the day of the protest meeting on 30th July NSI took additional effort to put together a program in Ramjas College, inviting a now well known NGO person. Of course, we didn’t see that kind of effort put in when it came to extending solidarity to the construction workers’ struggle in Miranda House College. The fact is that groups such as NSI have work only in the University and are inactive in any other constituencies of people, especially the working class. At a time when there is an uproar regarding the Commonwealth Games, their attempt to oppose the Commonwealth Games is doomed to be student-centric and University specific. And even when they do raise the issues of the university community it will be done so opportunistically, and the issues raised will be those that cater to a select section of the university community.
Friends, ask yourself—would you rather stand by opportunistic and sectarian politics that takes for granted the issues/concerns of the majority, or would you rather stand by the combined struggle of workers and students? Friends, it is high time we recognize that NGO-ised, petty-bourgeois dominated campaigns are more enemies than friends in the struggle for emancipation. It is time to stop doing the fashionable and to be seen doing the productive. It is time to play the role of the harsh critic and to organize a formidable combined struggle against the oppression and exploitation prevalent in our society.
JOIN THE STRUGGLE TO KEEP THE SPIRIT OF EQUALITY AND JUSTICE ALIVE! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION !!
CAMPAIGN FOR RENT REGULATION & MORE HOSTELS
A Joint Campaign of Centre For Struggling Women (CSW) and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS)
Over many years Delhi has become a city of migrants. Students in search of a decent education and unemployed people in the desperate search for work have poured into the city in large numbers. The Government conveniently attributes the city’s growing crime rate, stress on resources, its ‘landscape degradation’, etc. to this movement of people. It adamantly refuses to acknowledge the fact that the condition city-dwellers find themselves in today is actually the creation of its own anti-people policies and the protection it provides to the landlord/rentier class in the city. To elaborate, the Government’s account of the challenges before the city clearly conceals the fact that the major crisis for city-dwellers, i.e. lack of housing and the need to pay high rents, is the result of landlords owning properties in excess and overcharging those who cannot afford their own housing. Precious little is done by the Government to check the excesses of these property owners in the city. Initiatives to collect property taxes are taken back almost as soon as they are launched and, pro-tenant clauses in the Delhi Rent Act are openly flouted.
The state’s collusion with landlords and the builder mafia is apparent in many ways. This is best reflected in a policy approach supportive of slum demolition, the lack of rent regulation, selling of government land at throw away prices to builders, little or no investment in the building of students’ hostels, highly priced government housing schemes (such as those introduced by the Delhi Development Authority), and in fact, the sheer lack of sufficient housing projects being launched by the government. Due to this undeniable nexus between the interests of the state and that of landlords, it is students and workers who suffer. Migrant labourers who come to the city are forced to live in sub-human conditions in slums or, to crowd into small rented rooms, paying most of their earnings as rents. Students coming from afar are also compelled to live on rent since most colleges in the city provide little or no hostel facilities. They too cut rent costs by sharing small rooms with each other—an atmosphere hardly conducive for study. In other words, the majority of students’ and workers’ monetary subsistence (money received from home and wages, respectively) is appropriated by landlords in the city.
It is important to note that the number of workers and students living on rent is no small number and that, it in fact, constitutes the majority of city dwellers. The magnitude of exploitation in this regard is hence, far from insignificant, and is extremely disturbing. Is this really what a city should be like—a place where most are either homeless or, are slum dwellers living in the constant fear of being ‘relocated’ (displaced), or are those forced to reside in private lodgings for high rents? It is time we locate the root cause behind the pathetic living conditions of students and workers in the city. This piece aims at providing a perspective that shows how things are connected and work to exclude the majority of people from resources and opportunities, and the right to a good healthy life. It is being circulated in the context of our launching a city-wide campaign for rent regulation and the provision of more hostel facility for students who come to study in the city. This Campaign, in fact, is part of ongoing struggles that CSW and KYS have been organizing in the past. These struggles have focused on the concerns of tenants, and basically, the most oppressed section of people working and living in the city. As a youth organization Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) has extensive work in working class colonies across Delhi. It has collectivized women and youth of these working class areas on issues such as lack of water and electricity supply, the poor condition of government schools in these neighbourhoods, and the apathy of the local administration/police with respect to heinous crimes committed in such colonies. Similarly, Centre For Struggling Women (CSW) has been in the forefront in organizing militant struggles in the University of Delhi for basic infrastructure like hostels. Due to struggles launched by CSW in the recent past, prestigious colleges like St. Stephen’s have had to provide hostel facility to their women students. It is to be noted here that colleges like St. Stephen’s provided the hostel facility only to men students—something which encouraged many women students to give up taking admission in the college. Of course, with the extension of this facility to women students, the age-old chauvinistic culture that prevailed in the college was put to the challenge—in 2005 CSW’s member, Maya John, became the first woman President of the college. The current Campaign For Rent Regulation & More Hostels derives inspiration from CSW’s struggle to provide hostel for all and their earlier Campaign For More Girls’ Hostels, Safe Neighbourhoods And A Safe City.
We hope that what is argued below convinces all who read it, of the need for collective struggle. Indeed, it is only through collective struggle that we can actually expose and challenge the system in place.
WHY PEOPLE MIGRATE TO DELHI:
Why Students: The reason why students migrate to Delhi in large numbers is that there is an acute shortage of government funded universities in India. Those that exist are in a poor condition and fail to accommodate the ever growing number of students aspiring for higher education. The reason behind this shortage of government universities and the poor condition of those that do exist is the paucity of government funding. Investment in education is less than 3% of the GDP! Furthermore, educational policies of the Indian state have been geared towards commercialization and privatization of education. Successive central and state governments have, for example, unhesitatingly recognized private colleges/universities. As a result, private educational institutions have spread everywhere, outnumbering affordable government-run colleges/universities. By strengthening the presence of private colleges/universities vis-à-vis government ones, governments have made education so costly that it has become inaccessible to the majority of Indian people. As a result students flock to the handful of government colleges/universities located in cities like Delhi.
The poor investment in education by successive governments has also led to the deterioration of regional universities, and hence, encouraged the creation of centres of excellence like Delhi University, Jamia Milia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University. It is only with balanced and inclusive development of different regions, that students will have well-established regional universities to study in. For this, of course, our governments need to spend more on education and the social sector as a whole.
A large number of educated youth also flock to Delhi in the hope of securing government jobs. The city is now “home” to many who crowd into small rooms just so that they can receive “coaching” for various competitive examinations. However, most of these youths are forced to go back empty handed after 5 to 6 years of such preparation, simply because there just aren’t enough government jobs to be had.
Why Workers: Unbalanced and non-inclusive development of different regions in the country has also affected employment opportunities of people drastically. In regions across India (Orissa, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Bengal, Maharashtra, etc.) the Indian state rules in the interests of Indian and multinational companies that seek to plunder natural resources and to raise a cheap supply of labour from the ranks of displaced tribals, agrarian labourers and poor peasants. Government after government, in its collusion with private business interests has snatched agricultural land, forests and other resources from poor peasants and tribals. Half hearted attempts at land reform and the withdrawal of various agrarian subsidies have brought ruin upon poor peasants, pushing them to commit suicide or to join the ever increasing rank of agrarian labourers. Even in “well developed and rich” states like Gujarat, Delhi and Punjab, exploitation is rampant and, industrialization and corporate farming (the usual indices used to calculate such states’ development record) are based on the ruination of the most vulnerable sections of rural society.
On being denied their lands, rivers and forests, those displaced are compelled to turn to cities like Delhi where employment at construction sites, factories and sweatshops, restaurants/bars, etc. can be found. Needless to say, the wages earned are abominably low and are a cause of much distress.
HOW THE MAJORITY OF TENANTS LIVE IN THE CITY:
With their limited monetary resources, both students and workers compromise with their health and well being when taking up lodgings in Delhi. So as to pay the escalating rents students crowd into small rooms just so that they can share the rent with others. This uncomfortable living is complemented by poor fooding since most students try and survive the day on one or two meals alone. In such living conditions students find it difficult to concentrate and study properly—something which impacts their class performance greatly. One has only to visit places like Nehru Vihar, Gandhi Vihar, Christian Colony, Sangam Park, Gurmandi, Munirka, etc. to come face to face with students living like this. Of course, there are some students who take better places on rent but there too students face problems such as harassment by landlords/neighbours. Rents are arbitrarily increased and landlords get students to vacate suddenly on the pretext of something or the other.
For women students such private accommodations are even more precarious since landlords and male neighbours feel free to sexually harass them. This is why almost every woman student staying on rent has a horror story to narrate and feels vulnerable in such places. Some students, like those from the Northeast, are deliberately charged higher rents by landlords and, women northeast students are made victims of the worst incidents of sexual harassment. A very large number of students and youth in search of work come from places like the northeast. This migration clearly indicates the sheer lack of investment by the Indian state in these regions. Due to lopsided development in states like the Northeast, students are compelled to come to metropolitan cities like Delhi to study. Similarly, the paucity of jobs in these regions compels many to migrate in search of employment. For example, a large number of nurses who work in hospitals across Delhi come from the northeast states. Once here they earn a limited amount as salaries, most of which then goes to pay off rents.
The fact that a large number of students are compelled to live in off-campus housing is not only because a large number of them come to Delhi to study, but also because most colleges of Delhi University (D.U.) do not provide hostel facility. Shockingly, out of D.U.’s 76 colleges, only 11 provide hostels for outstation students! Considering this, most students who come to study in institutions like this can be found living in private accommodations. Affordable and comfortable hostel facility rather than being a fundamental right has become a privilege for which only a select few are eligible. It is worse for women students since they are denied hostel facility in many co-educational colleges which only provide this essential facility to their men students.
Just like students, workers who migrate to the city desperately search for affordable housing. Most end up living in slums where basic amenities like water and electricity are scarce. Safety and hygiene are a distant dream in such settlements since most of them have come up along the slopes of open drains and empty land beside the Municipality’s garbage dump-sites. These slums are either being pulled down by builders who want cheap land for their real estate business or, are burnt to ashes since fire fighting authorities take their own sweet time in reaching places where the poor reside.
Many workers also live in cramped accommodations in colonies near industrial belts of the city. Earning only between Rs. 2500 and Rs. 5000, they are forced to part with a large amount of their meager earnings as rent. What they pay for is a small room in which they and their five to six member family, resides. Needless to say, in these cramped conditions, discomfort breeds, tempers fly and unhappiness grows. Here too as tenants, workers and their families are devoid of basic facilities like water and electricity. It is a fact that in many such colonies, people are forced to queue up for water and the electricity supply is cut for nothing less than 6 to 10 hours a day. Undeniably, private power distributors in Delhi practice very selective load shedding, often choosing working class colonies over other posher areas. In working class colonies like Baljit Nagar where KYS has been extensively working, water reaches many houses every third day! In this regard KYS has spearheaded a militant struggle against the Delhi Jal Board Authorities as well as the water (tanker) mafia that operates in the locality. Similarly, in the same locality women’s lives were reduced to hell when rumour of a serial killer, i.e. Hammer-man, made its way into the public domain. Realizing the discontent and fear prevalent in the youth and women in the locality KYS carried out an investigative inquiry, following which it organized a huge protest outside the Delhi Police Headquarters. Through its inquiry the organization proved that rather than a serial killer on the loose, who attacked women and miraculously escaped the notice of other family members crowded into the small rooms/houses in Baljit Nagar, the assaults (and in two cases, murder) were actually incidents of domestic violence. As a result of the pressure applied on the Delhi Police, arrests of guilty family members began to be made shortly after.
Apart from high rents, workers and students’ problems are compounded by the poor condition in which the public transport system exists. With the acute shortage of Delhi Transport buses most of the time commuters are travelling in crowded buses, endlessly waiting for buses at stands/depots, etc. As a result, the travel to and fro from their workplaces/institutions to their homes is nothing short of a nightmare.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS THAT HAVE MADE IT WORSE FOR TENANTS:
Recently, over the past two years as Delhi’s authorities have hurriedly prepared for the Commonwealth Games, conditions for tenants in the city have worsened. The preparation for the Games has, indeed, allowed the state to crack down on the most vulnerable sections of society. Construction workers, most of whom are migrants, are being overworked and underpaid at the various Commonwealth sites. The homeless, labourers, hawkers, and now students have had to pay the brunt for the massive construction work and subsequent redirecting of funds. Slums have been demolished and ‘relocated’ overnight, street vendors have been denied their rights, and now students too have been recently evicted from their college hostels in the wake of the Commonwealth Games!
The face of the Commonwealth Games is really less about the games, and more about the herding of poor people into ill-equipped resettlement colonies (in the hope of concealing the city’s poverty), cracking down on rickshaw-pullers and street vendors, evicting students from college hostels, and the brutal exploitation of cheap labour for the massive construction projects. It is time for introspection—when this country has little to boast of in terms of a mass sports culture, why should we sacrifice and celebrate these Games?! It is a fact that the same Indian state that is pouring funds into the Commonwealth Games’ fund, does little for its sporting community. So far governments have done little to build new stadiums and have invested precious little in the upkeep of existing sports infrastructure. New stadiums are built, old ones are renovated and Indian sportsmen are provided world class training only around certain “spectacular” events like the Asian Games some years ago and now on the occasion of the Commonwealth Games. In other words, a consistent and dedicated investment in sports is missing.
It is also a fact that till today sporting facilities are missing from the majority of government-run schools, killing the potential of so many young people to learn and specialize in sports. We find no sports centres in most colonies built by the government, especially JJ (Jhuggi-Jhopdi) colonies. The result of this is that only a select few (those who happen to study in good private schools or, live in posh localities that run sports clubs), indulge in sports. The majority of Indian youth learn to play in dry drains and the narrow streets of working class colonies. They cannot even dream of being professional sportsmen.
Of course, under the garb of the Commonwealth Games, landlords have hiked rents considerably. They had done so earlier too, when the Delhi Metro reached certain areas of the city. As expected, nothing was done then and nothing is being done now to control the fleecing of tenants. In its hurry to meet the deadlines of the Commonwealth Games, both the central and Delhi government have turned a blind eye to the growing problems of tenants. In fact, they have added massively themselves to the problems of workers and students by, consistently increasing the prices of essential commodities (pulses, vegetables, milk, petrol, diesel, electricity and even water) and taxes like V.A.T. By conveniently quoting the rising prices of water and electricity, landlords in the city have further dug into the pockets of workers and students living as tenants. They have also come up with disgusting practices like compelling their tenants to buy provisions from provision stores run by them in the locality!
On average rents have gone up two to three times this past few months. For students paying a rent of Rs. 3000, are now being charged an extra two to three thousand rupees. If they resist they are asked to vacate the accommodation. Realizing that students from colleges affiliated to D.U. have vacated their hostels temporarily, landlords have hiked rents, knowing there will be plenty of takers for their lodgings. Needless to say, these events are going to have long term repercussions for students even when the Commonwealth Games are over. The escalated rents are here to stay, as no PG is going to come down from a hiked rent of say Rs.8000 to Rs.5000, post the Games.
OUR APPEAL:
Since the problem of high rents, eviction, displacement etc. is a general one and affects not just one group of people in the city, it is important to address not a particular set of persons but the majority of city dwellers. Issues and demands should be raised in a way that they appeal to a larger section of people affected by the state’s inaction and its collusion with private business interests. In this way we connect concerns, struggles and militancy of different sections of people who are often segregated from each other due to the functioning of the system in place. For example, the student community and workers find themselves separated by work schedules, their class backgrounds, spatial settings/norms (in terms of workers being restricted to the space of factories and students to the space of their classrooms), etc. Of course, groups that can and should unite also find themselves segregated by wrong kinds of politics. By following initiatives that seek to particularize and defer the need to generalize issues of struggle, people come to raise struggles in isolation. Their militant campaigns lose steam, credibility and relevance since they did not tap on certain organic links between their concerns and those of other affected sections in society.
Hence, rather than particularizing the struggle against recent developments in the city, we must link up with connected concerns so as to expose how the “particular” (be it in terms of experiences, mobilization, etc.) is a false or exaggerated projection of the reality. The demand for rent regulation and affordable subsidized housing for all is a call that addresses all those living as tenants in the city. It is a potent cementing force in this regard. Of course, apart from raising common general demands, we must actively and consistently reach out to all those who are affected. Our action plans should include concrete mass mobilization of the different affected parties rather than mere information-gathering exercises, occasional meetings with them, etc. The latter is more patronizing in its approach to groups being reached out to. It cannot be our strategy to connect with the larger audience of people affected. Hence, the Campaign for Rent Regulation and More Hostels is working towards raising common concerns actively amongst different sections of people living as tenants in the city. We seek to encourage the student community in universities like D.U., not to raise the issue of rent, eviction, etc. within the limited sphere of the university alone, but also to become active participants in ongoing struggles raised by others faced with the same problem. We also aim at encouraging the student community to connect problems they face with larger questions of poor resource allocation, denial of opportunities by the system, etc. This is why we believe that demands such as provision of more hostels for students, housing for all, the removal of draconian economic policies like privatization of education and Special Economic Zones Act (2005), etc. are crucial for the Campaign. By raising these issues students are fighting the actual source of their exploitation and are strengthening the working class movement. Indeed, by supporting long standing demands/concerns arising from the working class movement, initiatives taken by students no longer remain sectarian (particularistic) in nature.
Friends, it is time we object and fight against people’s labour becoming someone else’s profit. By raising the issue of escalating rents we should realize that we are tapping on widespread social discontent. As tenants in the city, we, workers and students, cannot continue to watch our hard earned wages and limited monetary resources, line the pockets of greedy landlords in the city. It is time for collective struggle against landlords. We must realize that no longer can our individual battles with landlords bring us relief. We must step forward to give our individual struggles a collective form. It is only through collective struggle that we can pressurize the local government to administer its duties and regulate rents in the city as well as provide subsidized housing.
THE WAY AHEAD:
Indeed, our struggle against the rentier economy must not limit itself (in terms of ideas, visions and action) to certain immediate goals that are set. Our collective struggle must see this popular discontent and despair as stemming from the inequalities that capitalism breeds. Our fight is, hence, against a system that allows private business interests to control the economy and social life. The Campaign For Rent Regulation and More Hostels is just one of the forms our struggle against the system shall take. Through this particular struggle we must realize the significance and need for other larger struggles.
Of course, to fight a system we need a road map, and it is here we believe that the movement for socialism, both in the past and the present, will be our best guide and source of inspiration. This collective struggle by students and workers can draw much inspiration from socialist societies that built cities where homes were provided to all and where living spaces were redesigned so as to emancipate womankind from the burden of domestic chores (responsibilities that were earlier considered solely those of women). Socialist societies, despite several failures, have constantly endeavoured to provide the majority a home to live in and have developed community life in ways never imagined. In countries such as Cuba, the now dissolved USSR, etc. properties held in excess were confiscated and distributed to those who had lived as tenants for years as well as those who were homeless. Furthermore, socialist states invested heavily in construction of housing complexes, community/sporting/recreational centres, schools, colleges, hospitals, and entire cities—the driving force being the desire to accommodate the needs of all, as well as the desire to provide the majority the best of opportunities. It was in these very housing complexes built in socialist societies that individual kitchens (where women slaved away at back-breaking housework), were removed and community dining halls were created for each such housing complex. For certain segments of the society, such as students, endeavours were made to inculcate commune living and lifestyle.
We cannot create these progressive changes in our immediate social world but we can aspire for them and pave the way for their development and acceptance. For this we must begin to desire holistic and systemic change. We must realize that the actual resolution of the housing question lies within the struggle for and creation of a new socio-economic structure. In this light the Campaign For Rent Regulation and More Hostels is one step in that direction.
We Demand
• Rent Regulation by Delhi’s Rent Controller
• Provision of Hostel facility for students in every Delhi University college
• Funds allocated for renovation of existing hostels, be used for building larger capacity hostels.
• Construction of more working women’s hostels
• Provision of subsidized housing for all
• Institution of a judicial commission to inquire into the condition of tenants in Delhi
• Provision of more affordable public transport (U-specials, L-Specials, etc.)
• Public audit of the Commonwealth Games’ accounts
We Condemn
• Slum demolitions
• Hike in rents by landlords across the Delhi
• Eviction of current hostellers from college hostels
• Promotion of private accommodations
• The plunder of collective resources by private business houses.
• The anti-people policies of the Indian state
Since the beginning of August, the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti has been mobilizing workers employed in Miranda House College against their exploitation. The trade union has been mobilizing workers since the commencement of construction work at the various Commonwealth Games work sites. It is, in fact, the only trade union of construction workers in the city. Despite the difficulties in mobilizing an unorganized work force like construction workers, the union has constantly made successful interventions. The struggle of workers at Miranda House marked its fifth successful intervention in Commonwealth Games construction sites. The details of the Miranda House struggle follow.
On August 6, 2010 the workers sat on a dharna outside the college, following which they took out a rally around the University campus. The latter was aimed at reaching out to construction workers employed at other work sites in Delhi University. On not receiving a response from the Miranda House authorities on their demands, the workers decided to sit on dharna outside the college office on August 12. They were supported in their struggle by the college students and members of the Miranda House Staff Association such as the Secretary, Ms. Nandini Dutta. The struggle was also supported by women and youth organizations like Centre For Struggling Women (CSW) and Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS).
The workers and students/teachers, under the banner of the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti, were protesting the non-payment of wages due to the workers. They were also protesting several other violations of labour laws such as those pertaining to payment for overtime, mandatory weekly rest, etc. The workers at Miranda House had not been paid for the entire one month and four days for which they worked at the college. Furthermore, the rate of payment fixed by the contractor, Ms. Payal was well below the legal minimum wage rate. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the contractor defaulted in paying the workers and continuously violated several labour laws, the principal employer, i.e. the college Principal, Ms. Pratibha Jolly refused to step in and release the workers’ arrears. She, in fact, tried to act as a negotiator between the contractor and the union, something which the union vehemently opposed. Under the pressure applied by the union, on August 4, a small part of the workers’ dues was released with no further surety provided by the college administration to look into the other key demands of the workers. The protest held by workers on August 6, fell on deaf years.
Finally, after waiting till August 12, for a formal response from the Principal, the workers and the union decided to sit in protest, once again, against this high-handed and insensitive behavior on the part of the principal employer. As a backlash the college administration called in the Delhi Police who immediately started intimidating and manhandling the workers and students sitting on protest. Meanwhile, inside the college committee room, the Principal, the contractor, etc. refused to negotiate a written agreement. After much deliberation it was agreed to get the accounts together, for which the union sat down. Exact calculations of the payments due to the workers, and that too at Delhi’s daily minimum wage rate, were made and submitted for negotiation by the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti.
While the negotiation proceeded, students and workers addressed Miranda House students who had congregated. In the discussion that took place it was pointed out by the Union as well as others present that it was shameful the way Miranda House hostellers were evicted from the hostel last moment (i.e. just two weeks before college reopened), followed then by this blatant and heartless exploitation of labourers employed at the hostel renovation site. The assembly of students and workers present was also formally addressed by Sri Narendarji, executive member of Indian Council of Trade Unions (ICTU) and the Secretary of Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti. Alok Kumar, Secretary of the Delhi Nirman Mazdoor Sangharsh Samiti, in his address, congratulated the workers for their endeavours and stated that the union’s initiative would now be to bring together workers from all the different work sites in the area. He spoke of intensifying the struggle and speculated that if the workers demands were not met by Miranda House Principal and the contractor, then the workers would not hesitate in striking work in the college.
It is clear from this instance that workers are willing to mobilize and use the strength of their organizations to fight back against their brutal exploitation. As members of the construction workers’ organization, we seek support of other democratic and progressive sections in this fight for justice.
Addendum
LIST OF LABOUR LAWS VIOLATED BY CHIEF EMPLOYER i.e., PRINCIPAL OF MIRANDA HOUSE & THE CONTRACTOR, Ms PAYAL
Principal of Miranda House, Ms. Pratibha Jolly, is the principal employer and she is the one who is the key violator of set labour law norms.
• According to section 21 (2) of The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, every principal employer shall nominate a representative duly authorized by him to be present at the time of disbursement of wages by the contractor and it shall be the duty of the representative to certify the amounts paid as wages. In section 21 (3) it is further emphasized that it is the duty of the contractor to ensure the disbursement of wages in the presence of the authorized representative of the principal employer. As delineated in Section 21 (4), in case the contractor fails to make the payment of wages within the prescribed period or make short payment, then the principal employer shall be liable to make payment of wages in full or the unpaid balance due. [See Cominco Benani Zinc ltd. v. Pappachan, 1989 LLR 123 (Kerela).
• The Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996. Section 45 specifies that if the contractor fails to make payment of wages then the employer/principal employer is liable to make all the payments. Also see The Payment of Wages Act, 1936, section 3 (2).
• Section 30 of the Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 prescribes proper norms for maintenance of registers and records. For liability of principal employer in this regard also see Minimum Wages Act, 1948, section 18 (1) and section 21 (1), (2) of The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
Other Norms violated by both principal employer and contractor:
• Section 28 (1) (b) of The Building and other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 prescribes a day of rest in every period of 7 days with payment for the day of rest.
• Section 28 (1) (c) this Act of states that if work is carried on the day of rest, a worker is to be given the overtime rate specified in section 29.
• Section 29 (1) prescribes that any work above the normal work day should be given twice the ordinary rate of wages.
• The Minimum Wages Act, 1948, Section 17 prescribes that when an employee is employed on piece rate, the amount of wages paid cannot be less than that paid for minimum time rate. Also see Section 3 (2) (d).
• Section 25 prescribes that when a contract or agreement is being made between employer and employee whereby the employee relinquishes or reduces his right to a minimum rate of wages or any privilege or concession accruing to him under this act, then such a contract/agreement shall be null and void, and employees have to be paid according to the legally prescribed minimum wage.
• Section 12 (2), Comments (ii) states clearly that where a person provides labour or service to another for remuneration which is less than the minimum wages, such labour is “forced labour” within the meaning of article 23 of the Constitution and thereby entitles the person to invoke article 32 or article 226 of the Constitution of India.
• Moreover, there was a violation of many other norms mentioned in Building and other Construction Workers Act. There are no provisions made for facilities like crèches, canteen, latrines/urinals, accommodation, drinking water, etc. Prescribed safety and health measures are also being violated.
• The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 in Section 29 (2) prescribes that every principal employer and every contractor has to exhibit notices of particulars like the hours of work, wages, nature of duty, etc.
• According to The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, women workers are liable to be paid equal wages.
• Supreme Court Guidelines (in Vishaka Judgement 1996) prescribe the constitution of anti-sexual harassment complaints committees in every workplace. The construction site in Miranda does not have such a committee in place for the women workers employed.
The following text is devalued with increasing speed: the global crisis and subsequent struggles shake the global wage scale. In June 2010 the Indian government ‘free-floated’ the petrol and diesel prices, fueling the already double-digit inflation. In the UK the government increased the VAT by 20 per cent and cut wage-subsidising benefits. The collapsing Euro inflates the Rupee. The struggles in China and Bangladesh put pressure on wages in the global low-income zones. We will see whether class struggle and crisis will re-shape the global wage-division, old concepts like ‘workers’ aristocracy’ and most of the concepts of ‘integrated’ working-classes ‘in the imperialist nations’ will help little to understand. We need global proletarian debates.
The following ‘relative’ comparison of Delhi and London minimum wages and their respective purchasing power would be a rather tedious endeavor if seen as a purely statistical enterprise or poverty competition. It would result in the usual ‘statistical findings’, e.g. that if you are inclined to become a well-groomed truck-driver with a passion for cheap daily newspapers and road-side cups of tea you should move to Delhi; whereas for any other reasons you should make it to or stay in London – if you can – because you will earn roughly four and a half times as much in terms of purchasing power. If you were a textile company manager looking for low wage zones your perspective might be a little more blunt. You would compare the absolute wage difference between a potential minimum wage worker in London’s East End (around 1,200 GBP per month) and those of a worker in Delhi’s Okhla industrial zone (around 76 GBP per month). The fact that in absolute terms the London wages are about sixteen times higher will make investment decisions a fair bit easier.
We compare the workers’ wages to consumer goods and services. This in itself will tell us little about the actual social position we find ourselves in once we depend on this wage and have to sell our labour power for it. How does our wage compare to the income of people in the city around us? Will we feel ‘excluded’ from wider social life and life-styles? How does the wage compare to the general ‘productive social wealth’, the material power to set in motion bodies and minds for profitable purposes or mass destruction? We compare wages which are set by two different states, wages which are defined as ‘minimum’ in terms of the local, moral, historic minimum level of reproduction for a worker. One local context is the capital of an ‘ex-colony’, the capital of a developing country, the regional centre of an emerging global industrial cluster. The other local context is the capital of an ‘ex-empire’, the centre of historical Industrial Revolution, with 250 years of industrial working class history. The centre of world finance, real estate bubbles and a declining manufacturing base. This also means that Delhi area is dominated by a work-force which – in general sense – knows how many acres of wheat you can reap in a certain amount of time or how many shirts or metal parts a worker can produce per day. Productive workers from mainly rural backgrounds have a rough notion how their productivity relates to wages they receive and prices they have to pay. London is characterised by mainly ‘unproductive labour’: a cleaner might know how much money their company charge the client, they know about exploitation on an immediate level, but less on a social scale.
Workers’ wages and their consumption level tell us something about the ‘stage of capitalist development’, if we agree that one of the characteristic outcomes of industrial working class struggle is that after the class wars of mining, railway building and machine and weapon manufacturing workers a following generation of workers is able to buy ‘industrial goods’ in form of long-lived consumption goods like radios, fridges or washing machines. We also have to mention the ‘sources’ of our consumer products. In Delhi we refer to the most common trade-form for basic food items, vegetables or durable consumer goods: small traders. The prices in London are based on prices of large super-market chains for daily goods and internet price comparisons for durables – because this is how proletarians shop in general. We leave it to a different research to find out whether the demise of small traders and the consequent drop of general wage level due to increased competition will be compensated by ‘cheaper’ large-scale and ‘more direct’ trading.
When we compare London-Delhi wages relative to food items, the London wages are about five to six times higher, if we compare them in relation to the mentioned ‘durable consumer articles’, London wages are fifteen times higher. The astonishing fact is the relative ‘expensiveness’ of agricultural goods’ in India, compared to ‘basic manufactured items’: While I can buy five times as much rice of my London minimum wage, I can ‘only’ buy three times as many shirts or shoes. This is only partly due to higher relative petrol prices in India, which form a decent chunk of food prices. Apart from room rents – which are a peculiar issue – it is personal services such as cooked food or hair cuts where a minimum wage in Delhi can command as much personal service labour as the wage in London. This tells something about the low levels of service proletarian wages in the Indian metropolis! Out of good attitude we put ‘global goods’ into the equation, e.g. Nescafe, Mc Chicken, Nokia mobile phones or IPods. We can see that the ‘wage division’ widens when it comes to these ‘global goods’ – which doesn’t mean that the Delhi young proletarian would not have access to the ‘use value’ of these goods. Let’s not argue about the use value of a McChicken, but of Chinese Fake-Brand MP3-Players or Handy-Cams. Apart from the ‘old school’ consumer durables like fans, gas-cookers and bicycles, the modern proletarian in Delhi owns a mobile phone with gadgets. We suggest the thorough article on Sanhati: “Do 600 Million Cellphones Make India a Rich Country”
But let’s stick to the basics: the level of minimum wage as means of reproduction for a worker. Behind this phrase a political field of question opens up. In London the nominal/direct wage does not cover reproduction, in the sense that in case of illness, unemployment, old age the state has to guarantee an additional part of income. The London minimum wage is hardly a ‘family wage’: the state has to top up in terms of child benefits etc. In Delhi these ‘welfare provisions’ only exist on paper, in 90 per cent of cases workers won’t get unemployment or pension money, neither health care. For most workers in Delhi the minimum wage has to cover parts of these future or ‘accidental’ costs. In a purely economical sense we would have to add these monetary benefits or service costs to the London minimum wage. On the other hand a London worker is very likely to be ‘fully proletarianised’ in the sense that s/he hasn’t got a ‘second home’ in a village and no access to – however small – a piece of land and wider family network which could act as a basic security net. We can argue whether it is not the other way around – that the urban wage has to finance the maintenance of the small piece of land and the rural family members. Fact is that many workers in Delhi industrial areas try to save money – first of all on rent – in order to be able to ‘save money for the home’. Ideally a ‘single worker’ – who is either unmarried or whose family lives in the vilage’ will try to save half of his or her monthly wage. The most common life perspective – or illusion – is that the urban industrial wage work is a temporary stage and that there is a future as semi-peasant / shop-keeper etc. in the village.
When it comes to rent and living arrangements the ‘village’ plays a role. In London only ‘migrants’ would stay five people to a room, no separate kitchen – which is the norm in Delhi, not only for families, but also for unrelated young workers. In this way they can drop the rent share of their total wage to under 10 per cent. In London you might rent a room in a shared flat, giving you access to a kitchen and a toilet, which will cost you around 50 per cent of your wage. In the relative wage comparison we took all three different scenarios into account: comparing the most common set-up; comparing ‘a single worker’ to ‘a single room’ according to the respective local ‘workers’ housing standards’; comparing ‘a single worker’ to ‘a single room’ according to London housing standards. The main obvious result is that compared to other ‘goods’ rent in London is relatively high and the main reason for why the relative wage levels are ‘only’ four to five times higher. Who would have thought?! At this point the quantitative state of mind leaves us clueless: Is it expression of a higher living standard to live in a London Stratford bed-sit, while your two-weeks dead neighbour starts to send his whiffs through the mortar?
What about the ability of workers in Delhi and London not only to be a categorial part of global working class formation, but to take part in it in a physical and communicative way. We can compare costs for flights Delhi-London and costs for an hour spent on the internet and we can see that a flight belongs to the ‘fridge/washing machine’-category out of reach for most Delhi workers, while the internet is closer to home. Here again, we reach other forms of exclusion. Even if a worker in Delhi would be able to save money for the flight, that does not mean that s/he will get a visa. Even if a worker in Delhi can surf on the net, the fact that the Hindi sites are still rather insular compared to the ‘global electronic village’ of the the English speaking Indian upper-class is not an ‘economical’ problem. Which does not mean that the worker in Delhi would not have the means for ‘political mass-expressions’, see prices for printing a small newspaper or for sending it by post. On a similar relative price level range the products of ‘knowledge circulation cum mental domestication’ such as daily newspapers or cinema. In terms of access to career paths to leave the minimum wage misery it looks rather bleak for proletarians on both sides of the globe. A truck driving license might be within reach, but won’t solve the initial problem. The worker in Delhi would have to save around 833 years in order to afford the two years fees for a MBA (management degree), while the worker in London might make it in 20 years. Great.
How do these wages relate to themselves in the historical dimension, does the gap close or widen over time? Difficult question. We can assume that since it’s introduction in 1997 the relative minimum wage in the UK fell – which was 3.60 GBP at the time. But did it increase in Delhi? Minimum wage in Delhi 1990 was around 900 Rs. The early 1990s were turbulent times in terms of inflation, up to 18 per cent annual consumer price increase in 1994 to 1996. If we assume an average annual inflation of around 8 per cent for 1990 to 2010 period, the wage of 900 Rs would have had to increase to 4,177 Rs by 2010 to compensate. Here the fundaments of statistics become drift-sand. Since 1990 the share of temporary and casual jobs, the amount of jobs through contractors increased rapidly, while more and more permanent workers lost their jobs. May be the minimum wage has increased in real terms, the general conditions of industrial workers in Delhi have hardly improved. In what kind of ‘working class position’ would a London minimum wage be situated in Delhi? If we take a common commodity basket (rent, food, clothes, transport, consumer goods – according to average share of total wage), we come to a medium wage ratio of 4.5 times higher wages in London. This would mean that the ‘equivalent’ to the London wage in terms of purchasing power would be around 23,400 Rs per month in Delhi. What kind of wage workers in Delhi would earn this kind of wage – which would place them into widely hailed ‘emerging Indian middle-class’? Some call centre workers earn that kind of money. Permanent workers in the automobile industry earn this much, partly more. We can see that major wage differences run within the industrial areas of Delhi as much as within the global working class. We can also see that the ‘wage question’ is everything but an ‘economical question’, but – in the end – a question of social-historical power, of class power. Let’s stop calculating!
But whoever wants to know how we calculated things: We could see a rather shaky exchange rate between Rupee and British Pound during 2009 – 2010. At the end of November 2009 the rate was 1 GBP / 78 Rs. Since then the British Pound steadily declined in value – or rather, the Rupee got appreciated. On 3rd of May 2010 the rate was 1 GBP / 68 Rs. For the total wage calculation we take the minimum wage for industrial helpers in Delhi May 2010 of 5,200 Rs per month based on an 8-hours day and a 6-days working week. We have to emphasise that only a fraction of workers actually get this wage, most workers earn less or have to work considerably longer hours for it. We base the London hourly minimum wage of 5,80 Pounds on the same monthly working times.
Item [Kilo Rice]: Price Rs in Delhi [22 Rs] / Price GBP in London [1.10] – Amount of Items I can buy with monthly wage in Delhi [236] / London [1091] (London Wage this times higher/lower than Delhi Wage [4.6])
Down with eviction of students from College Hostels!
Onwards to students self-activity!!
The current administration of Delhi University has attempted to reshape the University through a series of sinister agendas – be it the introduction of semester system, the European Studies Programme or the biometric identification system. All of them have shared one thing in common: the thwarting of democratic debate on proposals for change, and the routine violation of regulatory protocols.
The latest episode has been the eviction of students (2,000 students according to reports) from a number of hostels in Delhi University in order to make them available for the Commonwealth Games. Hostels are being renovated and beautified for the officials and visitors of the Games, while students are scrambling around for their own accommodation. The students, like the 40,000 families on the Yamuna bank, are now among the many that have been displaced in the name of national glory. What comes into question is the fact that the University has agreed to avail of 20 crores of rupees from the Commonwealth Games project without taking any cognisance of how and where such resources are generated. It has thus become an accomplice in the larger process of reckless corporatisation that the whole city is undergoing in the bid of becoming a “global city”.
This has left students at the mercy of private accommodation, with its unregulated rents and precarious guarantees. Rents are rising in anticipation of the increased demand for PGs and flats, forcing many existing residents to move out and making accommodation unaffordable for incoming residents as well. The University has made no attempt to devise a mechanism to control or subsidise rents. The inflated prices that students pay are in effect the costs they bear for the cosmetic surgery DU is undergoing, and by extension, the hidden burden they carry for the Commonwealth Games. Some newspaper reports even indicate that hostel fees may increase after the hostels have been “upgraded”. Moreover, the lack of a viable and safe alternative has compelled many girls seeking admission in DU to rethink their decision. The University has also failed to consider living conditions around campus, especially from a gender-sensitive perspective. We can only begin to imagine what it must be like for those with physical disabilities to navigate around dug-up roads, unmarked holes and hazardous construction material.
The students are told that their eviction is “for their own good”. It is “for them” that the authorities are “improving student infrastructure”, making “world-class” hostels. Where was this concern for well-being when the college authorities took the decision to evict students? Not once was there any dialogue with students about this “upgradation”, or about the best and most suitable way to go about it. Instead, the whole decision-making process was shrouded in mystery, leading to utter chaos and confusion: while Hansraj made its hostel residents sign a bond last year declaring they had no objection to being evicted between July and October 2010, Miranda House students have still not been officially informed about the eviction!
We cannot allow the University to get away with such deliberate and avoidable irresponsibility. We make the following demands from the University:
• We demand the provision of alternate accommodation for evicted students.
• This accommodation should be at par with the hostels, both in terms of prices as well as qualitative conditions such as basic amenities and safety.
• We also demand, as conscientious members of a larger community, that this provision not be met at the cost of another section of society.
On our part, let us work towards creating another space, a commune perhaps, an imaginative and practical alternative that is self-governed by members of the university community, a cooperative living space that meets its own needs and conducts itself in a responsible and democratic fashion.
If you are angered by what you see around you in the University, and indeed, in the city, if you want to speak out against the shrinking of democratic space and are ready to reclaim what is rightfully yours, please come and join us!
Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters for the middle-classes which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young middle class people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam. And the rat-race will not stop; on the outskirts of Gurgaon, Asia’s biggest Special Economic Zone is in the making. The following newsletter documents some of the developments in and around this miserable boom region. If you want to know more about working and struggling in Gurgaon, if you want more info about or even contribute to this project, please do so via:
1) Proletarian Experiences -
Daily life stories and reports from a workers’ perspective
*** Three Communists in Gurgaon -
The industrial development and proletarian unrest in Gurgaon did not remain unnoticed. We talked to three communists who decided to focus their political activity on the vast landscape of working class formation. The comrades are part of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist left, belonging to three different political organisations.
2) Collective Action -
Reports on proletarian struggles in the area
*** Inflationary Proletarian Struggles -
While opposition parties arrange token protests against the price hikes, workers on the ground battle for higher wages. In March 2010 Delhi government announced 33 per cent increase of minimum wages, but this hike hardly ever reaches shop-floor reality. In the aftermaths of the minimum wage increase we observe various spontaneous proletarian actions in Gurgaon and Okhla industrial areas. The combination of an interlinked (automobile) industry and organisational efforts like Faridabad Majdoor Talmel can become future lines of coordination and generalisation of the unrest.
*** Update on Struggles of Permanent Automobile Workers at Sanden Vikas and Exide -
The first-tier supplying industry of the automobile industry is heating up under the double pressure of increasing demand of the assembly plants on one side and the more confident claims of the workforce on the other. The recent struggles at Denso, Sanden Vikas and Exide express the difficult position of a young permanent work-force: they appeal to the classical union form of struggle hoping to secure an increasingly precarious position. These classical forms detach them from the wider casual and temporary workforce and therefore from the true ‘material’ power-base.
*** Waterwars, Energy Crunch and Revolting Villages -
Groundwater levels in Gurgaon drop dramatically, gobbled up by industry and upper-middle class life-style. Water and energy flows are diverted away from workers’ and peasants’ spheres. We document some struggles of ‘villagers’ against the lack of resources and oil-pipe-line projects crossing their fields.
3) According to Plan -
General information on the development of the region or on certain company policies
*** The Social Tsunami Impact / Snap-Shots against Capital-Class-Crisis -
This is an attempt to introduce a regular update on general tendencies of crisis development in Indian – motivated by Greek shock-waves, naked shorts and potential spillovers. Apart from short glimpses on the macro-level of things we focus on general trends in agriculture and automobile sector: the current demise of the past and the toxicity of the future.
4) About the Project -
Updates on Gurgaon Workers News
*** Glossary -
Updated version of the Glossary: things that you always wanted to know, but could never be bothered to google. Now even in alphabetical order.
Public Meeting
Indian State’s War on People and the Assault on Democratic Voices
3PM-8PM, 24TH APRIL 2010
Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay MARG, ITO, DELHI
SPEAKERS: Randhir Singh, Justice Rajender Sachar, PK Vijayan, Madan Kashyap, Sumit Chakravorty, Neelabh, B D Sharma, S A R Geelani, Aparna, Kabir Suman, Darshanpal, Arundhati Roy, Ravinder Goel, Karen Gabriel, N Venuh(NPMHR), S R Sankaran(to be confirmed), Kalpana Mehta, Rajkishore, Varavara Rao, G N Saibaba, Mrigank, Ish Mishra, Radhika Menon, Shivmangal Sidhantkar and others
Operation Green Hunt is an unprecedented military offensive on the people: Indian government has been at war with the people of Kashmir and the North East for decades. In the name of ‘national security and integrity’ and ‘national interest’, the government has been trying to crush the democratic aspirations of these oppressed nationalities with state terror. Through Operation Green Hunt, the government has brought its war on people to the heart of India. If the total number of government forces presently engaged in this Operation is taken in its entirety (including the paramilitary forces and the state police) it comes close to a quarter of a million (2.5 lakh). This is more than double the US forces presently deployed in the occupation of Iraq —approximately 1.2 lakh— and bigger than the armies of Australia, Netherlands and South Africa put together. The war preparations alone speak volumes about the real intentions of the government. Air Force helicopters equipped with guns are used against the adivasis, airstrips are constructed in Raipur and Jagdalpur, tens of Jungle-Warfare schools are established to train the forces in special operations, new barracks and bases to station armed forces are prepared all over the war zone, and public buildings such as schools, panchayat houses and health centres are converted to camps for the Security Forces and torture chambers. In the name of fighting Naxalites/Maoists, new armed forces such as the CoBRA, Jharkhand Jaguar, C-60, etc are raised with public money to unleash terror on the adivasis. With a heinous intent, special emphasis is given by the government to recruit adivasi youths into government forces and state-sponsored vigilante gangs to instigate a bloody internecine war. To top it all, army commanders are deputed to oversee the war operations while the US is providing ‘advisors’, military intelligence, satellite surveillance and overall ‘tactical guidance’.
The hidden objective behind this unprecedented military offensive is to crush all forms of people’s struggles and revolutionary movements so as to clear the way for the giant multinational companies, with whom hundreds of MoUs have been signed by the government. Till September 2009, MoUs worth of Rs.6,69,338 crores have been signed in the adivasi regions of these states (which is 14 percent of the total pledged private investment in the entire country). Arcelor Mittal alone is planning to invest $24 billion for the production of iron-ore in the mineral-rich regions of Jharkhand and Orissa. Likewise, the financial worth of the unexplored bauxite deposits of Orissa alone is estimated to exceed $4 trillion. The powerful foreign and Indian corporations are lying in wait for the government clears the land of the adivasis and smash their resistance, so that they can move into the land with earth-diggers and empty the land out of its minerals. The stage has been set to undertake what has been termed by a Government-appointed committee as the “biggest land-grab after Columbus”. The target this time is not the indigenous inhabitants of North America, but the adivasis of central and eastern India.
The ongoing War on People leaves a trail of devastation and death: In the wake of this war imposed by the government on our own people the death-count in mounting. In a region where 40 people are said to be killed every week on an average (Outlook, 22 February 2010), what the corporate media has missed or has deliberately overlooked is the sheer number of adivasis who died in the hand of the government’s armed forces. Whereas the government has claimed success in killing around 170 ‘Maoists’/‘Naxalites’ during the joint operations under Operation Green Hunt till now, whereas the media quoted the Maoists saying that none of the killed were the members of their organisation. There are reasons to believe that a great part of the dead were unarmed and defenceless villagers killed in cold blood by the joint forces in fake encounters. The killing of adivasis in Gompad, Singanmadugu, Tetemadugu, Dogpadu, Palachelim, Palad, Kachalaram and scores of other villages in Chhattisgarh seems to have followed such a pattern.
An attack on democratic voices: By these acts of fascist repression, the government has made it very clear that the Naxalite movement is not the only target of its war operations. Any movement, organisation or individual that fights for people’s demands and against government policies, is to be branded as a part of the Naxalite/Maoist movement and suppressed by the government through Operation Green Hunt. Swapan Dasgupta, the editor of the journal People’s March in Bengali and owner of Radical Publications was arrested. He died in police custody on 2nd February 2010 even before his trial began due to police torture. He has become the first martyr to fall under the draconian UAPA. Lalmohan Tudu, president of People’s Committee against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) in Lalgarh was picked up from his house and shot dead by the paramilitary forces on 23rd February, 2010. On 20th November 2009, Wadeka Singana, the president of the Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangh (CMAS), Narayanpatna in Orissa along with another activist was shot dead by the police during a rally to protest against the atrocities committed on women by the government’s armed forces. Two of the CPI(ML) leaders Ganapati Patro and Tapan Malik have been arrested on numerous trumped up charges. In Kalinganagar 28 platoons of special police were used to attempt to forcibly acquire land for a road in service of Tatas. When the Bisthapan Birodhi Janmanch Sukinda led adivasis protested, police firing on 30th March 2010 led to bullet injuries to 16 tribal people. Repression is intensifying in the anti-land acquisition movements of Niyamgiri and Jagatsinghpur and against movements under Lok Sangram Manch in Rayagada of Orissa.
The Vanavasi Chetna Ashram of Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian social activist working in Dantewada for the past 18 years among the adivasis and fighting against the atrocities of Salwa Judum, was razed to the ground on 17th May 2009. In three eastern districts of Uttar Pradesh no mass activity is allowed by declaring these districts as ‘Naxal-infested.’ Two PUCL activists, Sheema and Vishwa Vijay were arrested in Utter Pradesh. Hundreds of leaders of farmers’ organisations in Punjab were arrested to prevent their democratic right to protest against state killings of farmers and other leaders. Thousands have been imprisoned in jails all over the country and tortured for allegedly being Naxalite/Maoist ‘sympathizers’. People’s organisations like PUCL, IAPL, PUDR, RDF, PDFI, CRPP, APDR, DSU, etc. and their activists have been falsely implicated by the government. This is an attempt to unleash state terror in order to curtail our democratic rights and to silence all voices of dissent against this genocidal Hunt of the Adivasis. A climate of undeclared emergency now prevails in the country in the wake of this war on people and the assault on democratic space by the Indian State.
The Home Minister, who has been campaigning desperately to mobilise support for this US-dictated war on the poorest of the poor, has even gone to the extent of denying the existence of Operation Green Hunt! Similarly, he continues to utter the rhetoric of ‘Talks’ while refusing to take a single step towards creating a conducive atmosphere for any negotiation to take place. Such, lies, hypocrisy and double-talk by Chidambaram with the support of the Arnab Goswamis, Rajdeep Sardesais and his other wily allies in the corporate media, has not been able to hide the truth of this war. Even the Supreme Court of India, while hearing a petition on the ‘disappearance’ of 12 adivasis from Gompad village of Dantewada district during Green Hunt, castigated the government’s offensive. The court observed, “Some of the reports appearing in the media are disturbing. Over two lakh people have been displaced in this fight… Where will they go? What will they grow?” (IBN Live, 17 February 2010).
The resistance to the government’s war on people is growing: The millions of adivasis under direct attack from the state’s offensive are using all means to defend themselves and their jal-jangal-jameen. The democratic and progressive sections of the country have also come out against the government’s war on the people in the last few months. Individuals and organisations within India and abroad have in one voice condemned the government’s genocidal war. Hundreds of protest rallys, dharnas and demonstrations are being organised in different parts of the country and outside. Peasants, workers, employees, intellectuals, artists, writers, civil rights activists, students etc. have registered their strong protest against the government, and demanded an immediate halt to the Operation Green Hunt. The need of the hour therefore is to unite and build the broadest possible solidarity among the people against this war and intensify the resistance. Only an unceasing wave of mass resistance can stop government’s assault on struggles against sale of the country and plunder of resources and suppression of democratic struggles.
A memorial meeting for Com. Pyla Vasudeva Rao
Date: April 20 2010 (Tuesday), Time: 5:30 PM o
Venue: Gandhi Peace Foundation, Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg (near ITO)
Veteran communist revolutionary of India and one of the foremost leaders of the glorious Srikakulam Armed Struggle Pyla Vasudeva Rao breathed his last at 10:00 AM on April 11, 2010 after fighting cancer. He was 78 years old at the time of his death; of these he had party life of 58 years of which the last 42 years were spent in underground.
Born in 1932 in Rittapadu village of Srikakulam dist, Com. Pyla joined the united Communist Party in 1953 when a party unit was formed in his village. Taking up a teacher’s job on the Party’s instruction, many of his students joined the revolutionary communist movement. He became a professional revolutionary in 1962 and also a member of the district committee of the party.
In response to the clarion call of the Great Naxalbari Peasant Armed Struggle, the Srikakulam Girijan Armed Peasant Struggle started on 25thNovember 1968 and on the decision of the party, Com. PV went underground. As a member of the Srikakulam leadership, Com. Pyla became part of the CPI(ML). He participated in the 1970 CPI(ML) Party Congress (first after Naxalbari). In Srikakulam movement he worked alongside Comrades Panchadi Krishnamurthy, Vempatapu Satyam, Adibhatta Kailasam, Subbarao Panigrahi and others.
Between 1969-70 many important leaders of Srikakulam leaders were martyred and the movement suffered huge losses and setbacks. CPI(ML) PC was reorganized of which Com. Pyla became the secretary. Opposing the line of individual annihilation, Com. Pyla resigned as PC secretary and joined with other Srikakulam comrades to revive CC led by S.N. Singh. Since then he was a member of the Central Committee of the Party. In 1974, APRCP led by Com. CP Reddy merged with the CPI(ML) led by Com. SN Singh and Srikakulam movement became part of the state movement. Com. Pyla was elected state committee secretary in 1976 when Com. P. Ramanarasaiah was killed in a fake encounter.
He was re-elected to the CC in the 1980 Special Congress. For long the Party in AP was identified with his name.
Com. Pyla consistently practiced and supported the revolutionary mass line and struggled against rightism and revisionism. He was an ardent votary of an armed agrarian revolution and of building areas of sustained resistance. His death comes at the time when the peasants of India are rising in many parts against the decadent rule of the ruling classes, against landlord oppression and forcible displacement. Srikakulam Armed Struggle continues to inspire the revolutionaries and struggling people of the country. Srikakulam Armed Struggle which reached the highest point in terms of resistance and people’s participation among all the struggles inspired by Naxalbari continues to serve as a beacon light for the present revolutionary movement. Com. Pyla as one of the leaders of that movement continues to live in the memory of the revolutionaries and the struggling people of the country.
On 9th April, 2010, ‘JNU Forum against War on People’ organised a cultural programme titled ‘A Cultural Evening of Protest against Operation Green Hunt’ at Godavari Dhaba in JNU to oppose the sate-military offensive on tribals of Eastern and Central India. The programme included, as its pamphlet clearly states, a play called ‘Sadak’ written by Habib Tanvir, screening of documentary and songs, poetry, performances by students from JNU, Jamia and Delhi University. As soon as the programme started, a group of miscreants led by ABVP and NSUI leaders tried to disrupt the event by shouting slogans and abusing the organisers. Apprehending an attack on the performers, students present in the audience formed a human chain around the stage. However, the ABVP and NSUI hooligans broke this human chain forcefully, physically assaulting and injuring students, to clear their way to the stage. They disconnected the electricity, destroyed audio-visual equipments, vandalised the dais and beat-up anyone, who dared to come on their way. Number of students were injured in this attack and had to be taken to AIIMS for medical help. While ABVP-NSUI-YFE goons went on the rampage, the chief security officer of JNU, who was present at the spot, remained a mute spectator. The next day, when students were protesting against this incident, once again some ABVP-NSUI-YFE miscreants started pelting stones at the protesters and tore down the posters of ‘JNU Forum against War on People’.
In Delhi University we have seen similar attacks by fascist forces on students’ events as well. Two months ago, a mobile book store by ‘Janchetna’ was attacked by ABVP hooligans, where they tore books and damaged the van before students came out in numbers in protection of their own space. It is evident from these incidents that the fascist forces are afraid of any kind of pro people programme. They want to rob our democratic spaces by force. They want to silence any voice, which raises question on people’s misery, state repression and dismantling of democracy.
The JNU administration, instead of taking steps against these lumpens, is trying to propagate all sorts of misinformation about the incident. First, the administration raised the issue of prior permission for holding a meeting, knowing fully well that the cultural programme was hold at a ‘dhaba’ and there is no provision for and precedence of administrative permission for such events. We have experienced similar selective administrative harassment in Delhi University as well. It has become a standard practice of the university administration not to clamp down on the perpetrators of such incident. Instead these incidents have been used as an excuse to snatch away the remaining limited democratic space through official-legal measures. JNU administration has gone a step farther on this occasion by joining the ABVP-BJP-NSUI- YFE chorus of branding the event as an ‘anti-national’ protest. It is perhaps a cruel joke (and indeed a fascist strategy) that the architects of Operation Green Hunt, which has resulted in loss of life and livelihoods of millions of people, are claiming to be ‘patriots’ today!
Worldwide, universities have traditionally been a crucial space for freedom of expression, the exploration of ideas and critical debate. They have always been, and should always be, sites where even the strongest critique of the state can be – in fact, must and should be – made possible. This is an essential character, not just of the university as an institution, but of the democratic principles of the society it exists in. The JNU incident, once again, reveals the systematic way in which the democratic spaces are taken away by a nexus of fascist goons and the university administration.
We, ‘Campaign against War on People’, a community of students and teachers of Delhi University, unequivocally condemn ABVP-NSUI-YFE for the attack. We also condemn the JNU administration for their vicious propaganda campaign and for failing to take steps against the miscreants. We demand the following measures be taken immediately
1) Disciplinary actions must be taken against these goons, who are destroying the democratic fabric of our universities.
2) JNU administration must apologise for their misinformation campaign.
Date: Saturday, April 17, 2010
Time: 1:30pm – 5:30pm
Location: Indian Social Institute (ISI) 10, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi (India)
We will screen two short documentaries about workers’ occupation of Visteon car parts factory in London in April 2009 and the occupation of Hero Honda plant near Gurgaon in May 2008. Marco, who has been involved in the Visteon occupation, will share his experience. We want to debate about the potentials and difficulties of workers’ struggles in Delhi’s industrial belt and about what kind of practice a revolutionary left can develop in support.
Enfield, England
“Visteon Occupation – they fight for us all” (20min)
After the crisis blow of autumn 2008 the global car industry started an attack on its work-force. The Ford subsidiary Visteon decided to shut down three plants in the UK – the workers responded by spontaneous occupation. The documentary shows the self-activity of workers and the role of state and unions. We will have the possibility to discuss with a comrade who was actively involved in the occupation.
In the last years there have been several ‘wild’ occupations of factories in Gurgaon. The occupations were organised mainly by workers hired through contractors and they remained largely unknown to the wider public: five days occupation at Hero Honda and Delphi in Gurgaon in 2006, at Medikit and Honda HMSI in 2007, at Hero Honda in Dharuhera in 2008. These struggles ask us – a revolutionary left – about our potentials of practical support. Comrades of Faridabad Majdoor Talmel will present some ideas.
Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt: Interim Observations of the Jury, 11th April 2010
The jury heard the testimonies of a large number of witnesses over three days from the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa as well as some expert witnesses on land acquisition, mining and human rights violations of Operation Green Hunt. The immediate observations of the Jury are as follows:
Tribal communities represent a substantial and important proportion of Indian population and heritage. Not even ten countries in the world have more people than we have tribals in India. Not only are they crucial components of the country’s human biodiversity, which is greater than in the rest of the world put together, but they are also an important source of social, political and economic wisdom that would be currently relevant and can give India an edge. In addition, they understand the language of Nature better than anyone else, and have been the most successful custodian of our environment, including forests. There is also a great deal to learn from them in areas as diverse as art, culture, resource management, waste management, medicine and metallurgy. They have been also far more humane and committed to universally accepted values than our urban society.
It is clear that the country has been witnessing gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, which have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The 5th Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appear to have been totally apathetic to their plight.
The development model which has been adopted and which is sharply embodied in the new economic policies of liberalization, privatization and globalization, have led in recent years to a huge drive by the state to transfer resources, particularly land and forests which are critical for the livelihood and the survival of the tribal people, to corporations for exploitation of mineral resources, SEZs and other industries most of which have been enormously destructive to the environment. These industries have critically polluted water bodies, land, trees, plants, and have had a devastating impact on the health and livelihoods of the people. The consultation with the Gram Sabhas required by the PESA Act has been rendered a farce as has the process of Environment Impact Assessment of these industries. This has resulted in leaving the tribals in a state of acute malnutrition and hunger which has pushed them to the very brink of survival. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment. It is also a glaring example of corruption – financial, intellectual and moral – sponsored and/or abetted by the State, that characterizes today’s India, cutting across all party lines.
Peaceful resistance movements of tribal communities against their forced displacement and the corporate grab of their resources is being sought to be violently crushed by the use of police and security forces and State and corporate funded and armed militias. The state violence has been accentuated by Operation Green Hunt in which a huge number of paramilitary forces are being used mostly on the tribals. The militarization of the State has reached a level where schools are occupied by security forces.
Even peaceful activists opposing these violent actions of the State against the tribals are being targeted by the State and victimized. This has led to a total alienation of the people from the State as well as their loss of faith in the government and the security forces. The Government – both at the Centre and in the States – must realize that it’s above-mentioned actions, combined with total apathy, could very well be sowing the seeds of a violent revolution demanding justice and rule of law that would engulf the entire country. We should not forget the French, Russian and American history, leave aside our own.
Recommendations:
1. Stop Operation Green Hunt and start a dialogue with the local people.
2. Immediately stop all compulsary acquisition of agricultural or forest land and the forced displacement of the tribal people.
3. Declare the details of all MOUs, industrial and infrastructural projects proposed in these areas and freeze all MOUs and leases for non-agricultural use of such land, which the Home Minister has proposed.
4. Rehabilitate and reinstate the tribals forcibly displaced back to their land and forests.
5. Stop all environmentally destructive industries as well as those on land acquired without the consent of the Gram Sabhas in these areas.
6. Withdraw the paramilitary and police forces from schools and health centres which must be effectuated with adequate teachers and infrastructure.
7. Stop victimizing dissenters and those who question the actions of the State.
8. Replace the model of development which is exploitative, environmentally destructive, iniquitous and not suitable for the country by a completely different model which is participatory, gives importance to agriculture and the rural sector, and respects equity and the environment.
9. It must be ensured that all development, especially use of land and natural resources, is with the consent and participation of the Tribal communities as guaranteed by the Constitution. Credible Citizen’s Commissions must be constituted to monitor and ensure this.
10. Constitute an Empowered Citizen’s Commission to investigate and recommend action against persons responsible for human rights violations of the tribal communities. This Commission must also be empowered to ensure that tribals actually receive the benefit of whatever government schemes exist for them.
The Independent People’s Tribunal took place from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This was organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country. The people’s jury, comprising of Hon’ble Justice P. B. Sawant, Justice H. Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, and Dr. K.S. Subramanian heard testimonies from the affected people, social activists and experts from Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal.
For more information, please contact: Sherebanu 9953466107; Purnima 9711178868
The Independent People’s Tribunal concluded today with the jury comprising of Justice (Retd.) Sawant, Justice (Retd.) Suresh, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, Dr. Mohini Giri and Dr. K S Subramanian presenting an interim recommendation report to the public, Government and the media on the issues of on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt. The interim report was drafted by the jury members after three days of deliberations and hearings of depositions and testimonies from affected people and activists from the states of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Orissa.
Presenting the recommendations of the jury before the media, public and Government, Justice (Retd.) Sawant said “There is a perception within the Goivernment and media that by organising meetings like the IPT, we, everyone present in this room are supporting the Maoists and the death of the 76 CRPF jawans. Let me clarify this position for once and for all: We are not supporting the Maoists. We do not support violence in any form, State or otherwise. We here are discussing problems of the tribals and the crisis that is pushing people to a brink of desperation and escalating the cycle of violence.” It is clear that the state had let the tribals and the poor of this land down. Instead of restoring their faith in the Constitution of India, its judiciay and its spirit, the Government asked for abjuring of violence. “Are these morals only to be remembered in such times, and to be forgotten when atrocities are committed by the state itself?” Dr. P M Bhargava noted that the civil society needs to stand resolute in resisting the current development paradigm and that the case of the BT Brinjal was a case in point for small victories of the people. “The patience of the masses is running out if some serious rethinking is not.” Dr. Mohini Giri lamented on the fact that the Government took no notice of People’s Tribunals like these and recommendations that emanated from it. She criticised the Government for their lack of understanding of the issues that were affecting people and implored them to do so immediately.
The interim report of the Jury states “gross violation of the rights of the poor, particularly tribal rights, which have reached unprecedented levels since the new economic policies of the 90’s. The 5th Schedule rights of the tribals, in particular the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act and the Forest Rights Act have been grossly violated. These violations have now gone to the extent where fully tribal villages have been declared to be non-tribal. The entire executive and judicial administration appears to have been totally apathetic to their plight. It could well be the severest indictment of the State in the history of democracy anywhere, on account of the sheer number of people (tribals) affected and the diabolic nature of the atrocities committed on them by the State, especially the police, leave aside the enormous and irreversible damage to the environment. (Attached is the interim jury report).
The first session of the day took stock of the situation in Orissa with regards to industrial and mining projects, land acquisition and people’s resistance movements against such displacement, disposession. Addressed by activists Praveen Patel, Praful Samantra, Abhay Sahu and photographer Sanjit Das, the narratives pointed out to how corporate greed colluding with government officials was bleeding out the tribals. Praveen Patel presented a paper on the ‘Political Economy of Mining’ and pointed out that under the current policy, foreign companies were getting away with virtual robbery, taking huge profits, paying very little in taxes and in fact exacting a huge price from the poor (especially tribals) who are displaced and who suffer severe health and livelihood impacts from the rampant pollution.
The problematic exploitation of iron and bauxite ore was further highlighted in Praful Samantra’s talk. For example, the sites containing the most bauxite ore are located atop mountains and correspond to the sources of numerous streams. Mining the ores amounts to ruining the water supply for the adivasis living in the area, while leaving the company with zero liability. Protests are suppressed in a manner similar to that seen in other states: “…in the last year 14 people have been shot dead. In the last 6 months, villagers have been banned from leaving their areas, even to go to the hospital. In September 2009, 30 innocent villagers were put in jail and branded as Maoists. We went there and fought for them because they were innocent. The administration assured us that they would be released but they are still in jail now. Their families are starving now.”
Abhay Sahu, a leader of the Anti-POSCO movement, spoke about the situation on ground. Local people have been protesting the proposed port project, to be built by POSCO which would ruin the lucrative beetle vine cultivation as well as destroy the livelihood of lakhs of fishermen. He testified on the intimidation tactics used by the State-company nexus to kill the protests: “On 29 November 2007, state and company goons set fire to a village in my area. They occupied all schools and building in the area. When people started fighting back, the police had to abandon their posts.”
Lingaraj Azad, a tribal rights activist, talked about the delicate balance of nature in Niyamgiri, Orissa where the Dhongria Kondh tribe has dwelled for centuries. The Niyamgiri hill is under threat from Vedanta Resources for its bauxite reserves. “We have abundant herbs and trees. In the hills, there are 8000-9000 people in 200 villages. These people know nature and nature knows them. Soil, earth, water, trees—these are regarded as God and prayed to. They have no material possessions except Nature and all of it. There is no concept of private property, it is all for common use”. The Niyamgiri mining project has been receiving international media attention after the human-rights violations at Vedanta mining sites were made public.
Ajit Bhattacharjea, a journalist, stressed that lands in tribal areas were community property and did not belong to the State. Handing these lands to corporates needed to stop. Banwari Lal Sharma appealed to the politicians: “We need to spread a message of peace and make these politicians understand that we are not their enemies but we are all friends. When they sell away the country they are selling away parts of themselves.”
The session after break saw several eminent personalities addressing the audience, including Arundhati Roy, Shoma Chaudhury, Bianca Jagger, Arun Aggarwal, Kavita Srivastava and Advocate Shanti Bhushan. Arun Aggarwal presented a well researched paper on the Economics of Mining. According to him, revenue from mining activities to the state accounted for a measly 1.4% of total profits while the rest was pocketed by the corporation. The politics of mining was so complicated and corrupt that the nexus could be tracked between the corporations, politicians and police. For him, the fact that the ultra left movement was situated in areas of mineral wealth concentration, mining activities and displacement of people was a point of great importance and not to be ignored. He recommended that all mining activity should be conducted by Government owned enterprises so that the profits could be distributed more equitably. Shanti Bhushan, in a surprise address, asked the civil society to not remain silent but condemn violent acts by Maoists. Accepting the fact that tribals had been exploited for years, he added that civil society’s silence on condemning the recent carnage was being perceived as their support of Maoist violence. “How can you accept an armed resistance and overthrow of the State with violence? What is the agenda of the Maoists? If they mean well, then why don’t they give up arms and participate in elections? Let it be all done in the open.” Shoma Chaudhury, Editor-Features, Tehelka spoke on the role of the media and accepted that the debates and discussions on television channels were resolutely and sadly binary. The discussions on these topics needed to be made more complex, because they required a combination of solutions. “Keeping out perspectives – whether the Government’s, Civil Society’s or the general public will only narrow down the discourse on these complex problems that we find ourselves in. This exclusion in itself is a very dangerous trend and needs to be arrested”. She added “There is no place for violence in a democracy. Agreed. However, did democracy exist in the states of Chhattisgarh, Orissa? Democracy does not only mean election. The judiciary, police, forest officials and magistrates all represent India’s democratic structure and it is these very institutions that have failed the people.” Bianca Jagger, returning from a visit to Orissa, spoke about her experience with the Dongria Kondh tribe. She said that despite being a foreigner she related to the problem of India’s tribals. Her experience of having worked as a human rights activist in Latin and Central America shows that indigenous communities everywhere are being pressurised by the current development paradigm. Saying that there is a lot to be learnt from indigenous communities and their ecologically sustainable lifestyle, she added “I request the Government of India to retrospect into why there is an armed insurrection to begin with?”. Arundhati Roy began by asking a very poignant question “Does the government want war or peace?”. In the current context of anti-maoist operations and rampant industrial activity that was displacing people, she said “it seems to me that war is a synonym for creating an ideal investment climate.” According to her, in the 1970’s and 80’s, democracy was the single largest threat to imperialist, capitalist western nations, who overthrew democracies in Latin America. Now however war is being in Afghanistan and Iraq to install democracy and all its associated institutions. She questioned the nature of democracy, as it existed today, saying that “democracy and democratic institutions have been reduced to being vessels of Free Market Capitalism”.
For more information, please contact: Sherry 9953466107; Purnima 971178868
Social Scientists, Experts and Adivasi representatives depose before the Jury;
Testimonies on Land Grab and Government/Corporate Atrocities in Jharkhand and West Bengal
A poignant session (9.4.2010) on Chhattisgarh and the situation of adivasis was presented at the Independent Peoples Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt on 9.4.2010. This was followed by a second session focusing on two other states (where the Operation Green Hunt has recently commenced) with presentations and depositions on 10.4.2010. Speakers from Jharkhand and Orissa testified on numerous violations of laws, relating to land acquisition, tribal protection, pollution, and other violations of the Indian Constitution by corporations and the state governments.
At the Jharkhand session, several eminent speakers, including academics and leaders of popular resistance movements spoke about the situation of displacement, resistance and the looming threat of Operation Green Hunt recently commenced in Jharkhand as well. Prem Verma, spoke about the strength of the movements that have powerful grassroots support and have been largely successful in their struggles to keep their land.
Dr. Alex Ekka, spoke on the umbilical relationship between tribals and their forests. He said: “Our worldview is cosmocentric. Every being has a place in this worldview, whether it is a rock, a bird, or a person. This is the worldview that will lead to a sustainable and peaceful life on what we adivasis call our Mother Earth.”
James Topo spoke emphatically on the pathetic state of education in tribal areas. The content of textbooks is completely irrelevant to the needs and context of adivasi children with the content-writers unable or unwilling to grasp that difference. The failure of education is exploited by officials; an example was given of a land acquisition officer giving a cheque to a tribal, assuring him that it was only a record of their conversation.
Gladson Dungdung, a tribal rights activist spoke on the atrocities on civilians in the name of Operation Green Hunt in Jharkhand since March 2010. Adivasis in the area are experiencing this operation in the form of harassment, detention, looting and beating. The result, as it is being manifested now, and only likely to grow, is that the village economy has ground to a complete halt, threatening the delicate balance of sustenance on which the adivasis survive. Fear has set it, villagers are unwilling to go into the forest to collect minor forest produce, rural markets are empty and all democratic space for protest has been closed to the adivasis. Migration out of the forest has commenced. Gladson Dungdung stated: “Operation Green Hunt is not for cleansing Maoists but for establishing corporate houses in the mineral corridor, which was labeled the Red corridor only after the State realized that corporations were not signing MoUs for certain areas where protest was likely. The adivasis will never give their land – we tell the steel corporations that we don’t want to eat steel, we want to eat foodgrains.”
Dr. Bani of the Azadi Bachao Andolan spoke of the many hurdles faced in the successful struggle to stop the huge NTPC thermal power plant, which would have ruined thousands of acres of prime agricultural land. Most members of the Andolan have at least 10 false cases booked and pending against them. He spoke of the farce that is the public hearing for approval of projects. Hearings scheduled say, for 6th April at a distance of 20 km from the site of construction (in violation of the law) get secretively held on the 5th April, 11pm, to dissuade people from attending and participating (sited from a real 2009 incident).
Dr Bani also mentioned demonstrated alternatives to power production (touted as a mode of development) for example, where the government wants to buy land with mineral resources worth 40-60 crore/acre for a pittance from farmers, ABA have instead started small power plants, fully owned by the villagers, which utilize the local coal resources to power 50-60 households and all revenues would be split evenly between the villagers. He stressed on importance of development that was locally imagined and with locals benefitting and deciding on operations and economics.
Radha Krishna Munda of the Jharkhand Jungle Bachao Andolan spoke of ground realities in the implementation (or lack thereof) of the Forest Rights Act in Jharkhand. Additionally he talked of the harassment that adivasis and popular movements are facing. “An atmosphere of suspicion and intimidation has been created” he said – instead of implementing the Forest Rights Act, the nexus of police, civil administration and Forest Department is actively conniving with corporations to illegally give away adivasi land.
The West Bengal session saw a re-presentation of protests and peoples movements consistently dubbed Maoist in the past, Lalgarh being an example. Local activists and leaders of peoples’ movements are being branded as Maoists, a common thread that was also seen in the testimonies from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Sujato Bhadro talked about the grave situation in Lalgarh, where a day after the Chief Ministers convoy was blown up, the police attacked villages 40 km away and mistreated the villagers. A village woman’s eyes were brutally gorged in the attack, another miscarried her baby. Currently, joint forces in the “affected areas” run amok, in violation of Constitution of India and international norms to which India is a signatory. People are being abducted, not produced in 24 hours and night raids are being conducted. In an unprecedented move, the entire area of Lalgarh has been governed under Section 144 of the CRPC since 17th June 2009.
Anup Mandal, a marathon runner at the national level, spoke of being beaten by the police despite protesting about his lack of any Maoist connection and had to be recognised and rescued by a journalist after considerable damage. He was confined to bed for 4 months, putting an end to his dreams of competing at the international level. He said: “I want the SP to be held responsible; as it was due to him that my life was ruined.”
Montu Lal and Gajen Singh, activists, also testified on atrocities in Lalgarh. Government has set aside funds for Joint Forces and for the Harmat Vahini but there is no funding for the poor. People have evacuated the villages and the paramilitary forces have taken measures that seem to be designed to take vengeance on people – such as polluting village wells and forcibly recruit people for petty work. “It feels like these are actions of a foreign occupying force”.
The Independent People’s Tribunal will continue from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This is organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country.
For more information, please contact: Sherry 9953466107; Purnima 971178868
A discussion with the Producer of “Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela”, Roberto Navarrete, preceded by the screening of the film. Date: Monday, 12/04/2010. Time: 2:00-5:00 pm
Location: Indian Social Institute 10, Institutional Area, Lodi Road, New Delhi (India)
Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela
(Director Pablo Navarrete, 65mins, Alborada Films, 2009)
February 2009 marked 10 years since Hugo Chavez took office, following a landslide election victory, and launched his revolution to bring radical change to Venezuela. While wildly popular with many in the country, Chavez’s policies and his strongly-worded criticisms of the U.S. government have also made him powerful enemies, both at home and abroad, especially in the media.
Filmed in Caracas in November 2008, on the eve of the 10th anniversary of Chavez’s controversial presidency, this feature-length documentary takes a journey into the heart of Venezuela’s revolution to listen to the voices of the people driving the process forward.
The film traces the recent history of Venezuela, before and after the election of Hugo Chavez to the presidency, using archive material and interviews with Venezuelans living in the barrios of Caracas who are involved in community and social movements. The achievements and challenges facing the Bolivarian process are put into context by means of interviews with leading Venezuelan social scientists Edgardo Lander and Javier Biardeau, as well as the Canadian economist Michael Lebowitz, who currently lives in Venezuela.
“This is a rare film about Venezuela, a country in extraordinary transition. Watch this film because it is honest and fair and respectful of those who want to be told the truth about an epic attempt, flaws and all, to claim back the humanity of ordinary people.”
- John Pilger (Journalist, author and documentary filmmaker)
“A lively, well-researched documentary which pulls off that most difficult of tasks – an honest account of the achievements and the weaknesses of the Chavez government.”
- Sue Branford (Journalist, former Latin American analyst for the BBC World Service)
INDEPENDENT PEOPLE’S TRIBUNAL ON LAND ACQUISITION, RESOURCE GRAB AND OPERATION GREEN HUNT
9th – 11th April, 2010, Constitution Club, New Delhi
Stop structural violence against adivasis
Stop destructive development and restore the faith of the adivasis in the Indian Constitution
The Independent People’s Tribunal on Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt, organized by Citizen’s against Forced Displacement and War on People, kicked-off today to a packed hall, consisting of students, academics, activists and the media. The Independent People’s Tribunal is being held in New Delhi, Constitution Club.
Dr. Vandana Shiva, well-renowned environmental activist presented the inaugural address and spoke about the “urgent need to develop democratic spaces”, such as the IPT. She said “the complex issues related land acquisition, mining and exploitation of the tribals as well as mechanisms of state suppression need to be discussed in a open manner by concerned individuals and intellectuals without the threat of arrest”. Advocate Prashant Bhushan, continuing in a similar vein, referred to the mining mafia that was bleeding the nation of its resources. According to him “rampant mining is displacing adivasis from their lands and leading to the ecological ruin of India’s forest land”. He questioned the logic of undertaking such activity ‘in public interest’ when 80% of the profits were pocketed by private companies, while people were left dispossessed and left to suffer health hazards. Mr. Bhushan then introduce the People’s Jury comprising of Hon’ble (Retd) Justice P. B. Sawant, Justice (Retd) H. Suresh, Dr. V. Mohini Giri, Professor Yash Pal, Dr. P. M. Bhargava and retired IPS officer Dr. K. S. Subramanian. (Jury Bios are attached at the end of the press note). The first session was also addressed by Mr. S P Shukla who spoke about the deep injustice being met out to the tribals and the unfair polarisation of the debate in the media and the state. He said that violence by the Maoists was representative of years of injustice suffered by the poor in these lands and that use of excessive force, clamping down on democratic spaces by arrests and detention of activists like Binayak Sen would only exacerbate the situation. He strongly recommended that the State should engage in widening the discussion on the issue if it wanted to solve it. Dr. B D Sharma, a retired civil servant and ex-chairman of the SC/ST Commission, Bastar spoke about the continuous denial of rights of the tribals by the state – in the form of violations of the Vth Schedule of the Constitution, Panchayati (Extension) to Schedule Areas, Forests Rights Act.
Day 1 of the Independent People’s Tribunal focussed on the current situation in Chhattisgarh. Sudha Bhardwaj, lawyer and labour rights activist, Chattisgarh Mukti Morcha deposed on the intricate nexus between the State and Corporations in expropriating the land for industrial and mining purpose. She deposed on the ground situation in Chhattisgarh where in gross violation of the PESA Act, gram sabhas were being manipulated to take decisions on land use and sale, against collective community decision-making process. According to Sudha the scale of corruption was enormous. The district officials were facilitating the transfer of tribal land, flouting all legal and procedural conduct. She recommended that there should be strict enforcement of the Forest Rights Act and procedures of granting environmental clearances. In all cases, corporate acquisition of tribal land was to be stopped to restore the faith of the tribals in the State. Goldy M George, rights activist in Chhattisgarh also reiterated the corporate land grab and pointed out to the number of secret MOUs that were being signed, without adequate public consultation. Activists in these areas were being targeted by insidious campaigns by the State and corporates. The politics of alienation of the tribals was part of a larger strategy to use the politics of genocide in the game of Power. Harish Dhawan, human rights activist, Peoples Union for Democratic Rights spoke about the terror unleshed by the Salwa Judum and its role in the current operations.
The second part of the session focused on narratives by tribals, from the state of Chhattisgarh. The general narratives were different in details but similar in the pattern – atrocities by the police and Sulwa Judum SPOs; torture, interrogation and illegal detention for being an alleged ‘naxal’ supporter. Lingaram who was tortured and forced to join the Judum spoke about how the Gram Panchayats were mute to the cause of the tribals, and in fact, detrimental to their existence. He questioned the enormous amount of money spent since independence on the ‘welfare plans’ for the tribals and the lack of any progress in this regard. Lamenting on the lack of education and health services, he said that tribals needed development on their terms and not of the kind that was being enforced upon them from all quarters. Himanshu Kumar, Gandhian activist, spoke about the advisory, legal and rehabilitation support provided by the Vanvasi Chetna Ashram to the tribals and the consequent attempts by the state to squash the same by terrorizing villagers. Dr. Binayak Sen, offered a different perspective on structural violence that is embedded in the treatment meted out to the tribals. According to him, statistics on malnutrition revealed a severe hunger crisis and are emblematic of the neglect that these regions had been subjected to for long. He derided the state for using the development rhetoric when masses were dying of hunger and malaria.
The Independent People’s Tribunal will continue from 9th – 11th April, 2010, at the Constitution Club, New Delhi. This is organized by a collective of civil society groups, social movements, activists, academics and concerned citizens in the country.
For more information, please contact: Sherbanu (9953466107); Purnima 9711178868
on
Land Acquisition, Resource Grab and Operation Green Hunt
9-11 April 2010, Speaker’s Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
Central India is home to the Adivasis and Dalits, India’s first people. It is also home to the richest concentration of natural resources in the country. Today, as powerful Indian and global corporations race each other to gain control of the land, water, forest and mineral wealth of the region, this natural wealth has become a curse to these indigenous but marginalised communities. What comes between corporate greed and natural resources are the tribals asserting their customary rights, right to life and livelihood, as well as their constitutional rights over the same natural resources. Corrupt corporations, joining hands with corrupt states, are helping destroy India’s vibrant natural heritage and mineral wealth. Human rights abuses by police, paramilitary forces and state-sponsored militia are spreading in the name of Operation Green Hunt, which seems to make it a war against the very citizens it promises to protect. A virtual information blockade prevents information from coming out of states like Chhattisgarh which are bearing the brunt of Operation Green Hunt. Our country needs to know the truth about such a massive war against our own people. That is why an Independent People’s Tribunal, consisting of eminent jury members, has been called to hear testimonies from affected people, deliberate and submit a report on the matter to the public.
The heartlands of India are the lungs of the country as they are part of a vital ecosystem comprising of the water cycle and the forests that produce oxygen. They also comprise of the rich agricultural lands. For centuries, the indigenous communities have fought against the greed of the forest and timber mafia in order to conserve these forests and the rich mineral wealth within them.
However, with the opening up of the global market, the pressure on the State to hand over most of these areas to global corporations for mining and other ‘industrial’ purposes has increased. Private companies, both domestic and foreign— Arcelor Mittal, Jindal, Essar, Posco, Tata, and Vedanta, to name but a few – are taking advantage of the opportunity thus presented. This worldview of ‘Development and Globalisation’ has also become the mantra that is threatening people’s rights to land, resources and livelihood. The Adivasis are being forced out of their own homes and villages, where their communities have lived for thousands of years. This violation of the democratic and constitutional rights of indigenous communities has led to the present situation of conflicts.
The vicious systemic violence is being taken to a new level by using military and paramilitary forces through Operation Green Hunt. The UPA government’s last election victory has emboldened Home Minister P. Chidambaram to arm-twist state governments into participating in Operation Green Hunt. Independent sources acknowledge that more than 100,000 paramilitary/police personnel armed to the teeth have been mobilized against the poorest of the poor. Air force, helicopter gunships, military trainers, special forces units etc. are on the roll in several Indian states since November 2009. With even independent journalists being barred from entering conflict zones, only government versions of violence and military operations are being released to the media and the public. While the state justification for Operation Green Hunt is an attack on the Maoists, it is evident that the brunt of this war and hunt will be borne by the Adivasis.
Citizens and civil rights groups who have voiced concerns against Operation Green Hunt are being labelled as ‘Naxal sympathizers’ and are being arrested. Journalists are being blocked from entering the impacted areas to investigate these brutalities. Unless stopped, this is likely to lead to an unending cycle of violence which could lead to genocide of the Adivasis and a civil war-like situation in many parts of the country.
It is in this context that an Independent People’s Tribunal (IPT) on these issues is being organised by several individuals and groups, inviting a panel of eminent jurists, administrative service personnel, social scientists and writers. The people’s jury will hear testimonies from the affected people, social activists and experts working in these areas. The authorities would also be invited to participate and present their viewpoint. The tribunal will conduct its hearings on the 9th, 10th and 11th of April 2010 at the Constitution Club, New Delhi.
Why IPT?
The Independent or Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) has, through earlier hearings, gained acceptance in the country as a means for civil society groups to present an issue of immense public concern before an impartial and eminent group of jury members, whose report on the subject would be useful in educating and informing the people and mobilizing public opinion.
The present IPT focuses on a vital issue that could spell life or death for 80 million indigenous people of our country. The IPT will focus on the States of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, which are bearing the brunt of Operation Green Hunt. In particular, it will examine human rights abuses, forcible acquisition of Adivasi land as well as the looting of land, water, forest and mineral wealth in these areas.
In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Every individual needs to stand up to defend our common natural heritage as well as the constitutional rights of our indigenous people.
As Martin Niemöller said:
“THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
When the government puts corporate interests ahead of constitutional law, suppresses free speech and victimizes those who it is meant to protect, every single citizen’s freedom is at risk.
Speak now.
Organised by: Citizens against Forced Displacements and War on People
Endorsed by: ……………………………….…………………………………………
Campaign Secretariat
6/6, Jangpura B, New Delhi
Coordinators
Sherebanu Frosh: +91-9953466107
Abhishek Jani: +91-9899111320
K. Madhuresh: +91-9818905316.
Below is the text of the leaflet that was distributed for JNU’s meeting (05/04/2010):
To remain human one has to take sides. This declaration of partisanship is now an axiom. The full-fledged but undeclared war – ‘Operation Greenhunt’ – which has been unleashed by the powers-that-be on the toiling masses of central and eastern India, their heroic struggles to protect their livelihoods from the increasing depredations of capital, and the radical leadership of such struggles has ensured that. What we need to ask now is not what this axiom of partisanship amounts to, but how should it be construed.
The appearance of diverse levels of popular upsurge in Indian society can be saved only when we, their supporters outside the physical and socio-occupational geographic boundaries of those struggles, commit ourselves to go the whole hog in recognising the self-constituting essence that binds these struggles together (irrespective of their localised tenor), and in claiming and reclaiming it in our respective locations. Thus we bring ourselves within the purview of transformative politics.
That will, of course, imply we cease to be passive supporters of ‘those’ movements and become their active comrades-in-arms. What those rural-tribal struggles desperately need at this precarious juncture is our willingness and capacity to envisage ourselves – our ‘outsideness’ notwithstanding – as being internal to them in the sense of being actively engaged in the politics of social transformation. This politics cannot remain limited to fighting the ruling classes and their state by the way of just counter-propaganda – which has as its diesel nothing more than left-liberal humanitarian outrage. It must go beyond that to ground and articulate such counter-propagandistic manoeuvres, doubtless necessary but patently insufficient in themselves, in a countless multiplicity of struggles that concretely articulate the critique of the generalised political economy in the specificity of its respective physical geographic and socio-occupational locations.
Marx and his comrades in the First International declared, “Since the various sections of workingmen in the same country, and the working classes in different countries, are placed under different circumstances and have attained to different degrees of development, it seems almost necessary that the theoretical notions which reflect the real movement should also diverge.” The test for the revolutionaries is to envisage “the community of action” among and through these divergences. What anti-capitalist movements require today, so that they can unfold into a self-constituting constellation of revolutions, is what Marx called “the spirit of generalisation”. As long as this spirit is missing, the working class will continue to be an infernal miasma of sectarian conflicts even as the representatives of its various radical sections, caught in the pragmatics of their respective experiences, are unable to see the generalised thread of political economy that not only links their locations and movements to each other but makes them constantly unfold into one another.
All of us who oppose Operation Greenhunt must, in the illuminating light of this spirit, begin to recognise in it a particularised manifestation of a generalised assault that capital in its late neo-liberal moment has unleashed on all sections of the working masses. Only then will we be able to truly share the struggle and the misery of the toiling masses in the agrarian-tribal zones by embracing their destiny on our own grounds.
On 4th April 2010, the Delhi Police and the Special Intelligence Branch of Andhra Pradesh, arrested and detained Dr Sunil Mandiwal, an assistant professor of Hindi at Delhi University. Dr Mandiwal is a popular social and cultural activist besides being a committed teacher. The police’s excuse for picking up Dr Mandiwal and detaining him till late at night was that they wanted to interrogate him in connection with the Kobad Ghandy case. Dr Mandiwal has been informed by the police that he will continue to be interrogated indefinitely from the morning of 5th April. This arrest is in continuation with ongoing and sustained attempts by the state since the charge-sheet against Kobad Ghandy was filed, to criminalise and stigmatise intellectuals and activists. This arrest raises very profound and disturbing questions about the state of democracy in the country. We appear to be fast returning to an unstated Emergency and its reign of terror.
The University community strongly condemns such attempts to harass, victimise and criminalise members of its community. It strongly condemns the impunity with which the state is violating civil and democratic rights. We demand that the police stop abusing its powers and victimising members of the university community forthwith. We also demand that the Indian state immediately cease its vilification and persecution of its citizens and refrain from creating an Emergency-like situation.
