What the State Elections Showed
Have you heard the angst or anger of nearly a million Assam Tea workers while watching Gogoi's resounding hat trick win in the state assembly poll? Well, they really matter in the election, as the total tea workers community weighs almost 5% of the total electorate! A day's pay for temporary picker-worker is just `25; how many cups of tea cost that much in your place? [http://ibnlive.in.com/news/assam-polls-cong-faces-tea-workers-resentment/148147-37-64.html] A permanent tea worker, as per the latest wage settlement signed last year between the owners and the sole tea workers' union (which belongs to INTUC, i.e. Congress), gets only `71-72 per day now.
Could you listen to the cries of desperation of the poor of rural Kerala who are experiencing India's topmost socio-economic inequality in their life, in that very state which is famed for highest human development in India, while watching panel discussions of elite persons dissecting marginal defeat of LDF in Kerala assembly election? (For True Believers of Kerala Development Model our blasphemy may appear as only a vilification and nothing else, but they may go through "Is Food Insecurity in Kerala a Myth?" by Joseph Tharamangalam in EPW May 14, 2011.)
Could you take note of the sighs of Tirupur textile workers and their family members, many of whom, failing in the struggle of survival are putting end to their life, making Tirupur the Suicide Capital of India, while Amma Jayalalitha banged to power in the TN election? Could you hear the shouts of the MRF or Nokia or Hyundai workers who compelled the established TU-s there to take the path of strike action where the demands included even a bizarre one like removal of surveillance cameras (in MRF factory), when AIADMK-CPIM-CPI? supporters were bursting crackers?
Were the voices of some 10-20 thousands of workers in several factories of WB, who are fighting independently and forming or trying to form their independent organisation, at all audible in the deafening jubilation of TMC victory (or CPIM defeat)?
Answers to all the questions above are: NO, not at all. The indignant voices of the workers and peasants who are fighting or thinking of starting their fight, who are trying to form workers own independent organisations in their places, were inaudible in the hullabaloo of the established political parties in the arena of election fight. And precisely there are three reasons for that. (1) That stream of new fights and new organisation of workers is still very slender, moreover they are not organised yet as a unified platform. (2) The so called camp of revolutionary communists is also insignificantly small to make themselves heard, to a great extent they are detached from the working class, while many of them cannot or do not conduct what may be called truly Leninist revolutionary agitation-propaganda in their election campaigns. (3) What is more, most of the workers, toiling peasants and other toilers, even including not a small section of those involved in the new fights and new organisation making process, are still imbued in bourgeois petit-bourgeois parliament-centric politics, including thoughts like 'teaching a lesson to the CPIM by voting them out of power'.
This is the most important gist regarding the state election processes and results, the remaining are some other notable things for a slight better understanding of the concrete socio-political reality of the states, which also could have been seen even if the elections were not there but which the election results made more evident. We shall deal with only a few of them which we think necessary to reckon for the revolutionary activists. But as there are quite a number of such important aspects for each of the states concerned we shall not only a point or two for each state.
For Assam, a striking point is more and more polarisation of the people in nationality and religious basis as were evident from the astounding increase of seats of the Muslim based AIUDF, from 10 in 2006 to 18 in 2011; it increased its vote share from 9% in 2006 to 12.8 % in 2011. This time they gained mainly in the Bramhaputra valley while more or less maintaining their base in the Barak valley too. (Muslims account fro 30% of the state's population, the second highest in India only after J&K, and their concentration matters in 40 seats out of total 126 as the election pundits say.) The Bodo outfit BPF also grew in number of seats and even could snatch a seat from non-Bodo-majority area. The so called 'Hindu' vote pocket of BJP swung towards Congress, while BJP slipped from 10 seats in 2006 to 5 this time; the AGP lost much of its ground; the CPI-CPIM were washed away from the assembly this time and all these loses were gains of Congress; plus, surprisingly the TMC opened its account by winning a seat. This Congress-BPF-AIUDF tri-polarisation (though BPF is a Congress ally) is indeed marked this time. Revolutionary activists will have to reckon with the increasing polarisation of toiling people on Nationality-Religion basis. How the polarisation matters in day to day life of workers organiser is shown here by a single fact. Thousands of construction workers of Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer Limited in Lepetkata near Dibrugarh staged a united successful strike this January demanding minimum wages. But at this same site some untoward incidents occurred in February 2010 after a clash of a section of workers with the police. Local (Assamese) workers were incited against migrant workers by raising 'local' sentiment by external forces, and there is no reason why they will not succeed again. Then, the Bodo versus Santhal dreadful episodes of recent past cannot be forgotten so quickly. But at the same time we cannot forget for a moment that all the nationalities of the North East India are essentially oppressed nationalities and the religious minorities, particularly the Muslims, are de facto 'second class citizens' in India. How to develop class unity among workers irrespective of nationality and religion is a challenge for the revolutionary activists there.
The Kerala development model must be critically re-examined particularly it being so dear to the 'left' intelligentsia. The above-mentioned critique of Joseph Tharamangalam can serve as a starting piece. Let us quote a few sentences from that. "K P Kannan's article (26 February 2011) on Kerala's rapidly declining agriculture must be welcomed as an urgently needed intervention by one of the best experts in the field on an issue of critical importance for the people of Kerala and beyond. As the author rightly remarks, the issue has not caught the public imagination as it should; indeed, it has remained one of low priority for policymakers as well as the supposedly vibrant civil society in Kerala." "To begin with, there is evidence of rising inequality (e g, rural Kerala having the highest Gini coefficient in ?India), increasingly unequal access to education, health and other forms of social goods and security which are being privatised at a fast pace." "On the critical issue of access to food, Utsa Patnaik (2010) has noted that 12% of rural and 20% of urban people in Kerala fell below the official 2004-05 poverty lines of Rs 430 and Rs spending levels that allowed for accessing only 1,475 calories and 1,300 calories, r?espectively, far below the 2,400 recommended calories. [emphasis ours]" "It is important to examine these figures in the context of Kerala's status as one of the worst food deficit states in India. ?Kerala now produces less than 15% of its foodgrain requirements, down from over 50% in the 1950s just before Kerala launched its famous land reforms." Moreover, the 'highly developed and educated' Kerala supplies a good army of educated unemployed migrants each year, so underdeveloped Kerala still is in industrial field including service sector industries. Kerala economy is, at times, mocking called 'Money-Order Economy', so much it is dependant on return from workers working outside! Additionally concerning are the steady march of religious outfits like Muslim League, BJP etc, though BJP got a bit marginalised as mush this election showed. Anyway, critical studies and writings of eminent persons cannot make up for the whole of the necessary understanding; summing up of life experiences by the activists down in the field there is essential.
For Tamilnadu there are several points that may be noted. # Though the CPIM's only consolation is increasing a seat in TN assembly (from 9 to 10, plus, the CPI got 9 this time and the Forward Block 1) by allying themselves with the AIADMK, they have much to explain as to why they are always changing allegiance, once swinging towards DMK and next time towards AIADMK ? and so on. Do they have anything except electoral arithmetic in their 'principles'? Let us have a quick look at the history of CPIM double-speak in TN. (1) On Nov 8, 2003 CPIM friendly "The Hindu" under the headline "Jayalalithaa plea for support ridiculous: CPI (M)" reported "The CPI (M) today "summarily rejected" the Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo, Jayalalithaa's appeal for its support for formation of a non-BJP, non-Congress Government at the Centre. Terming her plea for CPI (M) assistance in a post-poll scenario "ridiculous", the State secretary, N. Varadarajan, categorically ruled out "any alliance" with the AIADMK. "How does she seek our support after inflicting repressive measures on the people of Tamil Nadu and ruining the State during the past two years?" (2) In Frontline (dated Dec. 27, 1997 - Jan. 9, 1998) article 'Elections '98 ? A round-up from the States' T.S. Subramanian commented: "TAMIL NADU has emerged as a bright spot for the United Front. The existing alliance, led by the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), has not only regained its cohesion, but also strengthened itself with the addition of two more national parties, the CPI(M) and the Janata Dal." We are not increasing the size of examples of hypocrisy of CPIM by citing more such case-histories. # TN is India's third largest economy, third in terms of capital employed in industries and also in industrial production and it is the biggest in terms of number of factories and number of industrial workers. All these indicate some sort of development which naturally indicates developed political manifestation. But surprisingly its political arena is dominated too much by personality-centric politics like MGR centric ? later Jayalalitha centric grouping, Karunanidhi centric grouping and in this field a new player is emerging ? Mr Vijayakant with his DMDK. DMDK got just a single seat in 2006 election barely a year after its launch. This time they are the number 2 party with 29 seats. But more important is its position in the electoral arithmetic, they matter much and can decide electoral fate in 135 seats, that is they can swing the result of TN election by selecting any electoral partner! It got 8% votes in 2006 all by itself; in 2009 parliamentary election it bagged 10% votes independently (though winning no seats at all). There are other minor players in the field with many other person-centric parties. This factor shows, to some extent, political backwardness of TN. # The Dravid movement emerged as a strong anti-Brahminic anti-Hindi-Hindu (that is upper caste Hindu) movement. But later that flavour was made blunt both by DMK and AIADMK who degenerated and did not hesitate to be partner of BJP. Plus Caste is a strong point in TN in spite of its economic development. Though caste based parties did not fare well this time, both the alliances maintain their caste equations by partnering with minor caste based parties and individuals and that still matters in TN election politics. As for example:? (1) if Karunanidhi liberally offers seat to Nadar based PMK, Jayalalitha will reciprocate by alliance with Nadar based AISMK; (2) if Jayalalitha give seats to Dalit based PT and RPI, Karunanidhi answers that by liberally giving Dalit based VCK to contest 10 seats to its surprise &c?! # TN is famous in negative voting. In 2001 there were Karunanidhi's mal-governance, corruption etc (vs Jayalalitha's, who was no less 'corrupt', clever electoral-caste arithmetic in which she won despite herself being banned from contesting elections due to criminal charges); in 2006 there were Jayalalitha's mal-governance, corruption, tremendous attack on the workers including state-employees (vs Karunanidhi's alliance game); in 2011 there were Karunanidhi's (and his family's) skyrocketing corruption, mal-governance (this time mainly severe power cuts plus some other things too of course), etc (vs Jayalalitha's clever electoral arithmetic). It seems that the TN people have no other way to express their dissatisfaction than through voting and changing govt in every election since last two decades. #Nonetheless, let all these not make us forget that there is another side, and that is important, besides these disgusting affairs. A slow reappearance of workers in the arena of struggle is being seen there in several factories, albeit with or under the banners of the established trade unions at the moment.
The West Bengal election result cannot be simply whisked away mentioning the strong anti-incumbency factor developed by the CPIM through their corruption and above all their highhandedness, plus, the condition of the masses of people, particularly the toiling people. Here the word 'condition' means their being still submerged in bourgeois ? petit-bourgeois parliamentary politics, which left no alternative to them than to vote with anti-CPIM approach, of course coupled with expectations from the TMC. There is something else or some other aspects to be considered which is/are not insignificant.
West Bengal elections may show a startling change, poribarton in TMC coinage, with Left Front votes diminishing from 48.41% in 2006 to 41% in 2011 and TMC alliance votes increased from 41% to 49%, while voter turnout also increasing from 81.97 % in 2006 to 84.46 % this time which is a record turnout among major states in recent years. But that things had been changing in the lower depths were visible to revolutionary activists even before the TMC forward march became evident in the last Panchayat Poll (2008) or the Parliamentary election (2009) or even before the Singur (2006), Nandigram (2007) incidents. As our prediction about changes in rural psyche in our Oct 2004 issue proved correct in later days, particularly through the so called Ration-Riots of 2007, we cannot resist the temptation to reproduce a few lines from that Oct 2004 article "Recent Rural Restlessness in West Bengal": "Within a span of just a couple of weeks, Sept. 28 to Oct. 10, some signs of the expression of the accumulated mistrust, disgust, wrath, etc among the West Bengal rural poor were displayed; and that too in a single Block of a single District. ? The leaders ?couldn't stay in the village for several days in shame, and, perhaps, fright too. Whom could they blame! Those villagers were all 'supporters' of their party, in the sense that the majority of them were their party's 'voters'. And they could not and did not portray the incident as 'instigated' by ? their opponent parties, it was totally spontaneous. ?the sudden party-govt violence may pull a sudden break to the motion, the trend, of the rural toilers for a time being, for a few days or months, etc. ? That the three incidents of the Aushgram villages show a trend, which may be feeble-but-emerging, was perhaps reaffirmed again by an incident in a nearby block within another fortnight. The issue there was the same. But the village poor are not just unhappy with the corruption in ration distribution ? they are unhappy with 'everything going on', the hell-of-a-life which is turning harder and harder each day? ?." And while the village people had started their spontaneous, independent dynamics in 2004, in the case of workers' struggle the trend became visible as early as in 2002 when more than a hundred thousand Jute Workers in 35 different mills spread over 5 districts conducted spontaneous simultaneous strike action against the capitalist-govt-party-TU nexus without any organisation whatsoever.
So, after the big win of Left Front in 2006 assembly election we said that it did not and could not reflect an important part of the socio-political reality ? the nascent trend of the workers peasants to exert themselves; thus a parallel process has already been started at the lower depths and, "After all they [the CPIM] have taken their big win in terms of seats as a mandate of the people for Buddha Babu's capitalist roadmap for 'Development' ? for prosperity of the state of West Bengal. Naturally, they will not hesitate now to add full steam to what they have been doing for the last few years. That would eventually mean increasingly fierce aggression on the workers and peasants and people at large. More such attack, wider deeper will be ground of conflict between the people and the government and obviously the parties in the government. This objectivity would put forward the necessity for at least the class conscious and advanced workers to close their ranks so as to be able to correctly handle the possibility of spontaneous struggle in the grassroots. The ground has already started getting hot." [FAPP Nov 06] As an example we cited two facts just after the swearing in ceremony of 2006 ? on the one hand Mr TATA coming to congratulate the CM and giving him a surprise 'gift' ? the announcement of TATA Nano car factory in Singur, on the other hand thousands of peasants thronging around and encircling the TATA MD's car at Singur!
The anger of the peasantry, of the rural poor later became further evident in the Ration Riots spread over hundreds of villages in 2007. In that year on March 16, 30-40 thousand toilers of Nandigram chased away the CPIM armed goons and polices within two days of the latter's capturing Nandigram with bloodbath, and the people recaptured Nandigram ? they did that without any outside help or even suggestion, let alone outside leadership.
The workers' independent actions crystallised in the formation of their own independent trade union to begin with in the case of thousands of contract workers of CESC, who worked spread over many local service centres ('gears' in those workers' language) in Calcutta and also in neighbouring districts, in 2006; and they achieved this feat themselves, without any external help or even suggestions. After that workers of a number of factories in WB organised themselves in their own independent organisations and in several other places they are in the process of forming their organisations. The workers showed by their action that the new trend is here to stay.
As far as rural scenario is concerned this crystallisation in the form of organisation happened to some extent at only a few places. But independent activities, like interfering in governmental acts, pressurising the party or the panchayat for this or that, pressurising to be heard and obeyed regarding local road construction or hospital ?etc were visible in a few places at quite recent times also, even including places where the CPIM won in the assembly election this time. All these suggest at least a thing, that the toiling people are eager for getting some democratic space and that they are not ready to succumb easily to party-panchayat-moneybag nexus, their corruption, their nepotism, their arrogance, their interference in all aspects of life, and this is also the harbinger of future conflict between the rural people and the TMC combine.
Finally, to conclude, the changes that took place in Kerala, TN and WB and also the hat trick win of Congress in Assam will not change the socio-economic dynamics as conducted by the ruling classes. All the parties, who won or who lost, have shown through their deeds that they all will abide by the globalisation-liberalisation-privatisation line of the ruling classes. And in that sense life will not change for the toiling millions except changing to worse. Hence, the contradiction between people and the ruling parties and classes will only increase. Also another thing surfaced, that is the trend of the toiling people to act, to take their fate in their own hands. Revolutionary activists need to intensify and extend (in space) their revolutionary agitation-propaganda and simultaneously should assist the toiling people to fight and organise independently. There is no time to waste ? get down to job immediately.
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