ONLY A FEW PERTURBED PLACES & SOME ISOLATED INCIDENTS - @ YOUR BACKYARD
Whatever emotions it may activate or stimulate in the hearts or brains of the literati of India, autumnal months ranging from sharat to hemant are very cruel as far as the rural poor in the eastern India are concerned. They always were, if we take the mangal kavyas written some 400-500 years ago as witnesses.
At times the cruelty of 'fate' becomes so unbearable that the rural folk burst out in fury; as it happened in 2007 August - October/November among recent years, what the media christened as 'ration revolt'. In 2012 too we saw some not-so-serene autumnal blossoms, but only at a few places in south Bengal. It may be wrong to say 'a few places', but, then, the rural folk don't own any channel or daily to propagate their tales, neither they have some meghdoot to take their words afar, and we come know only a few incidents in our vicinity through our acquaintances.
At a place, at least thousands of rural toilers blocked the G T Road (NH 2). They were protesting against Non-Payments of NREGA work previously done by them and unavailability of 100-Days-Work. A heavy contingent of police and riot-police came, but observing the temperament they decided only to talk with higher admin and the villagers to make some meeting ground. What else they could do when young women dared them saying: You may start beating us and remove us from here, but then also think how you can protect all leader-babus of parties and panchayats if we too decide to beat them up at remote villages! Such rough rustic words do not come from any established party but no such party or leader was there with those villagers at that time. There were no banners of any party. The blockade continued for 8 hours till a meeting of the district admin with the representatives of the agitators was fixed.
Naturally, such small incidents go unreported in the media and this incident was no exception. But it takes something more than preparation and staging of a blockade for the mood of the masses to transcend from the mundane reality into the domain of folk-culture. It happened at a far south place almost near the Sunderbans. Folk artists composed lyrics - calling upon people to come forward to protest against NREGA non-payment, and expressing their utter dissatisfaction with both the TMC and CPM parties; they staged their song-drama on the streets - this news could get place in the Bengali daily of the Times group on October 20, perhaps being a bit unusual.
When the harvesting season was knocking at the door, the month of Kartik saw strikes of agrolabourers demanding higher wages; they were getting only `55-60 + 2 kg rice as daily wage till then whatever may be the govt declared minimum wage. In some 12 villages near the first spot (where they blockaded GT Rd), some smaller villages and some bigger, labourers staged strikes. In one particular village strike continued for 23 days! Ultimately wages had to be increased to `85-100 + 2 kg rice per day. From two other blocks news of labourers' strikes poured in. And all these strikes were conducted by the labourers themselves, without taking/getting help from any parties!
In total, how many villages were involved? How many people were involved in all these actions? At most 30-40 villages? A maximum of 10-12,000 people? What are these compared to 40,000+ villages in West Bengal and some 70,000,000 rural people? One-tenth or one-hundredth of 1%. Nothing, minuscule, microscopic, tiny. But they are showing some organised activities, whatever tiny they may look now. (In one such place village women organised protest against Delhi Rape Case too.)
This journal, once, back in 2004, reported incidents of only 4 villages, only 4 out of those 40,000+ villages, reports of flashes of rebellion of village poor, and told the readers that this coming out of the fold of parties, particularly of CPIM, was going to be the emerging trend in coming days - the village poor, the toilers were becoming restless and 4 villages showed the underlying current. In just three years time this seemingly 'unbelievable' thing appeared in WB as ration riots, but then too in a few hundred villages only, say, 1% of the villages revolted. But in 2009-11 elections the tremor was felt. Now, you may opt to overlook these few incidents at your backyard, but those angry rural toilers may also opt not to listen to you in the coming days.
Comments:
No Comments for View