Punjab & The Workers Revolt in Ludhiana and Malwa
The politics of capitalist-landlord [or entrepreneur-landlords whichever term is more relevant] & rich-peasants [who labours in main agricultural activities but are more dependent on hired agricultural labourers] is once again proving to be an enigma for the working class movement. The big bourgeois landlord ruling classes' policies of J?nker reform path of agrarian reform from the top that have produced a stunted and fragmentary democracy compromising with numerous vestiges of the old, feudal remnants paving the way for such an appearance of the capitalist farmer & rich peasantry in the social, economic and political realities has no doubt produced this puzzle. But time and again the communist movement in its preliminary quests for building up a real liberation struggle for itself and other opposed masses have got entrapped in this enigmatic role of the capitalist farmer & rich peasantry. It has been seen in the case of rise of Marathi-Kunbi rich peasants who emerged as the rallying forces of caste and national chauvinism in Maharashtra, then again in the rise of reactionary politics of the rich Patidars or Patel landed gentry of Gujarat among other examples. The same has been revealed earlier in Punjab with the rise of the Akali Dal further acquiring violent religious-chauvinist forms of Khalistan movement in the 1980's. [Though it must be added and admitted that subjugated and cornered feeling of Punjabi nationality that was generated by many actions of the central ruling power of India e.g. the division of the already divided Punjab into Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, particularly the way Haryana was carved out of Punjab based on infamous 'linguistic count'; plus the revulsion of the have-not sections of Sikh population towards the luxurious, glamorous and perverted sudden-rich upwardly moving section of Punjabi Sikh society etc were objectively behind the beginning of Khalistani movement. And all these were never properly addressed afterwards.] Now the workers in Punjab have experienced the battering of the Sikh chauvinistic politics that is once again raising its ugly head in the capitalist farmer & rich peasant dominated Punjab's politics.
On December 5th the immigrant workers of the industrial city of Ludhiana in Punjab faced the battering and rampage of chauvinist Sikh reactionary elements when they were beaten up, their homes and family members attached and belongings burnt mercilessly. The Punjab state police openly fanned and instigated these elements in order to crush a spontaneous protest and demonstration of about ten thousand and more immigrant workers. Earlier on December 4th when workers in such heavy numbers spontaneously assembled, bursting out in anger putting up roadblocks and targeting vehicles the police remained helpless. It was sparked of by the police's open denial to accept complaints and act accordingly in spite of repeated road-snatching of the worker's meagre earnings on Ludhiana roads. As on other occasions the police utilized the rising Punjabi-Jat Sikh chauvinism to assault and create panic amongst the migrant workers colony. Why the Punjabi-Jat Sikh chauvinism is rising has some concrete reasons which we shall have to see later in our discussion.
The paradox is that, still these huge number of migrant workers have remained indispensable to the Punjab's exploiting classes. The industrial bourgeois of Punjab starting from the well known companies such as Hero Cycle, Avon Cycle, Oswal, Monte Carlo to the large number of small industries typical of Punjab's stunted industrial development have for decades found amongst these large mass of immigrant 'Purbaiyas' or 'bhaiya' majdoors from Bihar and U.P. mostly and also from Uttaranchal, Rajasthan and Himachal an easy prey to fleecing and exploitation. They employed those workers under inhuman, degrading conditions as contract or casual labours bereft of any right even though on the other hand the immigrant workers in Ludhiana, as in other parts of Punjab, repeatedly face insult and oppression that more and more permeates the whole of Punjab's social life with strengthening of Punjabi-Sikh chauvinism. Only the recently continuing road-side snatching and manhandling of the workers by local Sikh youth's bikers gangs in Ludhiana and utter disregard by the police for the pardesis' complaints provided the immediate trigger for the workers spontaneous revolt of December 4th. It was then that the helpless administration and the police sought it to be crushed through the rampage of local Punjabi-Sikh youth. Behind this violent reaction to the workers protests lay a much bigger problem of Punjab's rising unemployment combined with the national-religious chauvinism built up by the dominant Jat-Sikh affluent, rich peasant sections. It is the manifestation of a more and more perverted socio-economic and political scenario that is gripping the whole state of Punjab, one of the foremost, prosperous states in this country. It has precipitated from the halting and faltering capitalist development in a typical J?nker path that has instead of wiping away the oppressions and contradictions of caste, communalism and national chauvinism strengthened and intertwined one with the other distorting and derailing different opportunities of emergence of the class struggle of the exploited. Many of us from far off see the role of the big bourgeois-landlord ruling classes behind this distorted development of a much acclaimed state that Punjab is, but lose sight of the politics of dominance and oppression of the regional elite - the capitalist landlords and rich peasants of the state.
In spite of all this complex conflicts, December 4th became a different day. The workers who assembled at the Dhandhari police chowki in the industrial area of Ludhiana in spite of facing continuous abuse, manhandling and blunt refusal to accept the workers' complaint by the police did not budge. Instead more and more workers started assembling and their protests and discontent spread so far and fast throughout Ludhiana's industrial areas that the Delhi-Ludhiana-Jalandhar National Highway was jammed, cars and vehicles became targets of the workers wrath. And in front of a swollen assembly of 10000 workers the police became helpless. In fact the workers revolt spread to such as extent that five police divisions of Ludhiana were put under curfew. The workers for once after many years exhibited their strength and power spontaneously.
Coincidentally on that same 4th December Ludhiana was witness to another conflict that is more and more aggravating in Punjab in recent times. Some Sikh religious organizations grouped to target a religious congregation of a sect - Divya Jyoti Sansthan - which is one of those sects or Deras outside the pale of Khalsa Sikh Panth. Supported by sections of Dalits and other oppressed masses of Punjab they are repeatedly facing assaults and violence by the Jat- Sikh capitalist farmer & rich peasant dominated SGPC, the Akali Dal - BJP government and other Sikh fundamentalists. Still the significance of December 4th lay much more in the spontaneous demonstration of force and potential of the workers of Ludhiana. But another occasion of Dalit Sikh outburst or rather the class nature of that in rural Punjab in May in the same year demand attention, we shall attend to that at the later part of this discussion.
Let us be back on the track - Of course, this spontaneous workers' revolt lacked the necessary direction to advance further. In the midst of fear, destruction and assault and even arrests of workers a mass exodus of migrant workers started within a couple of days.
Then came another peculiar reaction in this chain of events. Peculiar to Punjab's because of its divide and dichotomy between the Jat-Sikh powerful rich in the vast rural areas and the Punjabi-Hindus of other upper castes traditionally controlling the industries and much of trade and transport. Hence this time a different reaction came from the industrial bourgeoisie. The exodus of migrant workers stirred the industrial bourgeois into action. The industrialists and their associations started petitioning the government for ensuring the return and security of the migrant workers. They started blaming the police for not taking sterner actions against workers and letting the incidents go out of hand. While in other circumstances the same industrialists readily use the local youth criminals to crush workers struggles in their factories but they also direly need the disorganized, helpless migrant workers for their inhuman exploitation of capital to continue. So they have raised alarm about the exodus saying already 30% labour shortage and more in later days are affecting industrial production. They have even declared of bringing out pamphlets which became popular in 2005 in which Hindi words are supposed to be written in Punjabi script reminding the local population that 54 lakh voters of Punjab are migrants from U.P. and Bihar and they own 18% of property and they could not be underestimated. In 2005-2006, during the attacks on the series of workers movements that led to exodus of workers such pamphlets were used. In fact, the 5 lakh, i.e., half million strength of migrant workers in Ludhiana, in a city of 4 million people [which translates out to be one eighth] form a core of the work force in the industries. A local industrialist openly admitted "We Punjabis cannot do without migrants".
The stark fact about the dependence on the migrant workers is not simply this. If the migrant workers are the backbone of Punjab's industries, they are also very significant by their presence in the rural areas as agricultural labourers, especially from the second phase of Green Revolution since 1975 when the main cultivated crop extended from wheat to rice. Actually the starting of widespread paddy cultivation in Punjab was possible because of the "Purbaiya" (eastern) migrant agricultural workers who were experienced in rice cultivation. Punjab's economy thrives to a great extent, both in industrial and rural areas, on the exploitation of these migrant workers. The capitalists in Punjab cannot reap profit without them.
Thus the whole story of today's problem of the prosperous and one of the richest state of the country is much more complex. The green revolution that made Punjab a show piece state in agriculture that could boast of having highest per capita annual income among Indian states for years after years is now almost going to give a grinding halt. There is rising unemployment among Punjabi youth a major part of whom are Sikhs who come from the rural areas as a result of stagnation in Punjab's Green Revolution fed agricultural development. On the other hand the important branches of production from agriculture to industries are for a long time crowded with and dependent on extreme exploitation of the migrant workers.
What on those two days of December 4th and 5th emerged spontaneously from the workers of Ludhiana was only a glimpse of their potential strength and power that landed up as victims of blind chauvinism. What lesson will the working class of this country and the workers of Ludhiana take from this bitter experience? Will the workers of Ludhiana once again return to their factories backtracking, relying on the so called protection and security being talked about by their industrial bourgeoisie employers? That will only mean surrendering themselves once again as fodder for exploitation and oppression by these oppressors. Because in Punjab there are millions of Punjabi people in the same boat as themselves. And those Punjabi people, they may be called Sikh too, not only suffer almost as much as the Bihari agricultural/industrial workers but also shown their wrath against the system of exploitation and rebelled, though not always in a clear-cut or "class" way. Who are they? Let us investigate.
Firstly, there are the Dalits who make up more than a third, precisely 37%, of the population of the state. In rural Punjab roughly 24% of them are landless and an extra 72% has negligible to 0.40 Hectares of land. As 'cultivators' also they are outcast - more than 94% of them are not cultivators. 65% of the rural Dalits in Punjab work as "rural labour" - as they are categorised in the NSS 516 (2004-05). In urban Punjab roughly 34% of Dalits are under the ambiguous category 'self employed', even a rickshaw puller or mobile-street-side shoe repairer may mean that; and 48% works as wage/salaried labour and slightly more than 15% are 'casual labour' giving 63% as total 'labourers'. And the Dalits are a massive section of Punjabi people. So Dalit-cum-Labourers constitute nearly a quarter of Punjabi population. They are oppressed as labourers and also as Dalits. And Bihari people know what caste oppression is.
Then, we may discount the Adivasi people as they, according to that NSS report, constitute only 0.4% of the populace. If Dalits are weighed against the other sections of population the following picture is revealed. The other two big sections of the population besides the Dalits were reported as 'OBC' and 'Others', about 18% and 45% respectively. In rural Punjab 40% of the OBC household were recorded as rural labours, whereas less than 12% of 'Others' were so. Among rural Punjab OBC households 78% have 0.4 Ha land or less, while among 'Others' only 37% fall in that group. In urban Punjab 55% of the OBC-s were regarded as wage/salaried persons including 6.6 % casual labour, while almost 40% of the 'Others' belong to wage/salaried category but only 3.8% of them were casual labourers.
Among Dalit rural households 63% or nearly two third have 'Monthly Per-Capita Consumer Expenditure' (MPCE - a dubious count in governmental statistics which many researchers in poverty related economics hardly believe) less than Rs. 690/-.
Among rural OBC households, 42% or roughly two fifth fall in that grouping and among rural 'Others' households less than 19% or less than a fifth were in that grouping.
These figures expose to some extent the glaring difference present within the Punjabi society to outsiders and show 'class' positions in 'caste' terms and show some sort of correlation between the two. But figures speak less. Punjab's social divisions have become so acrimonious that in today's Punjab even the 'shmashans' [Crematorium] bear mute evidence of the religious casteist divide. Frequently in the villages of present day Punjab two Crematoriums are noticed: one for the general, Swavarna castes and the other for Dalits. And for the migrant workers, a part and parcel of Punjab for over a quarter of century or more, there is no place in either of these even in their death.
A HARD NEWS story of 27 Dec 2009 issue begins as: "Paramjeet Kaur, mother of three, isn't scared to go to jail if it is for a good cause. She has already been to jail twice for capturing panchayat land allotted to Dalits under the Punjab Villages Common Lands (Regulation) Act, 1961. She proudly narrates how on April 22, 2008, she along with several landless Dalits, seized 22 acres of land earmarked for them in Daler Singhwala village in Mansa district of Punjab. ? Her husband is in the army and earns enough to sustain their family, she says. He has built a decent house with his savings where their large joint family lives. ? She is now determined - whatever hurdles comes her way she would battle on and get what her people deserve, a small piece of land to build a house." Land capturing again started in Mansa, Sangrur and Bhatinda districts of Punjab from May 1, 2009. For years the administration did nothing when landlords encroached upon common land or land meant for Dalits. This time the landlords started again with the call of 'social boycott'. Dalis have seen many such boycotts in the past which mean blocking entrance for Dalits in Guurdwaras, not allowing grazing in their lands, etc and even preventing Dalits to defecate in the lands of upper caste people. This happens even if they ask for legitimate wages, or end to bonded labour. By the thrust of the movement the administration said that it would consider giving 5 'marlas' of land to each family to build house within 3 months and their job applications would be processed within a month. The Dalits didn't agree, they wanted to see results after so many years of dry promises. When the Dalits refused to give up 'encroachments' made by them Landlords began their own agitation. They also blocked roads. And government started actions against the Dalits by arresting all of their leadership and thousands more.
The landlords knew their class interest very well and apprehended more danger in coming days if Dalits were not stopped immediately. It did not even evaded the keen eyes of bourgeois print media. That HARD NEWS article reported ? They (i.e. landlords) spread rumours that if they [Dalits] were taking possession of panchayat land, then later they might encroach into their land as well. They could smell the possibility of unleashing some sort of nascent agrarian revolutionary unrest from the Dalit Sikh agricultural workers who had within them a dream of appropriating landlords' agricultural land. A agricultural 'worker' dreaming to be a 'peasant' may sound surprising for a 'capitalistically developed' Punjab, but it is a fact.
That was not the only event of agitation and rebellion by Punjab Dalits who are overwhelmingly workers. A NGO, ACTION AID, reported in September 2007 some strange facts of the remnant feudalistic character of Punjab's agrarian society and economy like Bonded Labour.
"12 September, Punjab: Ninety Dalit campaigners, including 12 women and two children, have been put behind bars till 24 September, 2007.
"The campaigners of Dalit Dasta Virodhi Abhiyan (DDVA) were arrested while leading a peaceful Padyatra (march) that started from Fatehgarh Sahib in Punjab on 14 August '07 to culminate into a huge rally on 6 December' 07 at Ludhiana, Punjab after covering 2000 kilometres. The March aims to raise awareness against bonded labour.
"The campaigners led by Jai Singh reached Gannaur village of Sangrur district in Punjab on 8 September 2007. Their entry was opposed by the upper caste landlords.
" "The village landlords came armed with sticks and resorted to physical and verbal abuse to intimidate us," said a campaign supporter and an eye witness.
"The campaigners and their supporters staged a demonstration outside the sub divisional magistrate's office. The detainees have been booked with the charges of disobeying government orders under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code. ?". So, the same Sangrur District figures again here. [http://www.actionaid.org/india/index.aspx?PageID=3599]
There are many of such concrete examples. Many a times the rebellions, in a distorted way, expressed themselves wrapped in religious disguise. We saw the battles between High Caste Sikhs and Dera Sacha followers in 2008, with Dera Sachkhand followers (so called followers of Rabidas - a prominent figure of the Bhakti movement) in 2009, etc.
The Dalit and other oppressed masses in their numerous Deras of Sachcha Sauda, Divya Jyoti, Sachkhand, etc were often patronized by the Congress Party for weakening the Akali's influence of the Sikh Panth or on the other the pauperized Sikh masses under the influence of the Akali or other revivalist forces and more fanatical brands of sikh fundamentalists.
The Bihari Migrant labourers who showed the spark of the power of their class even if for a single day and the Dalit Punjabi agricultural workers who showed indirectly and covertly their desire of land which only some landowners could sense must unite. If they become united they can yield such a great force in Punjab which will give nightmares to those mo-bike gangs allied with the police contingents. This is the prospective but yet unaccomplished side of the reality for which the advanced workers of Punjab, be they from Jat Sikh or Dalit Sikh or Bihari or any other nations, nationalities, castes must strive for.
Repeatedly the Punjab Dalits and migrant workers are becoming direct targets of this Jat-Sikh chauvinists who are rallying the upper caste Sikh masses. Many a times the Akali Dal - BJP ruling parties and their government in the state acted as the tool to further this. Side by side more aggressive and militant role is being adopted by Sikh religious, fundamentalist organizations. In October 2007 this same Ludhiana was witness to a cinema hall blast where a large majority of migrant workers were watching a Bhojpuri film. All of those killed and most of the injured were migrant workers. Jat Sikh chauvinists also attacked several times Dalit Sikhs, many such conflicts spilled blood in the recent past in such fights.
But surely the Dalits and Biharis are not the sole constituents of the oppressed working people of Punjab. There are Jat Sikh and also OBC oppressed people and workers. They too are objectively constituents of the potential revolutionary camp opposed to the ruling classes and should also be brought in the camp. Time and again oppressed people, irrespective of caste and religious barrier, joined the united struggle against the British rulers and then the ruling classes of India as seen in the history of communist movement in this sub-continent since the colonial times.
This is a prospect that the workers movement in rural and urban Punjab had opened up and the advanced workers and revolutionary communists must try to make this probability a reality. The road is thorny though. Let us see what the thorny side look like.
"Sunday December 14th, 2003: Dal Khalsa's convention on migrant labour problem on 14th Dec, 03 at Amritsar have set the alarm bells ringing. The convention presided by S. Harcharanjit Singh Dhami, working president of the Dal Khalsa gave a call to the people of the state to wake up before its too late. ? This convention is a "wake up call" for all concerned against the sheer number of migration from Bihar & UP to Punjab. We feel the influx of migrants has had a serious socio-economic-cultural ramification on Sikhs in particular and Punjab in general. ? We are witnessing the explosive situation that has now developed in the northeast and Maharashtra because of over-burden of the migrants. ? According to a preliminary study by the Punjab Agricultural University (Ludhiana), nearly one tenth of the total population of the state is migrant labour. Another survey by the same university is startling. It says that the migrants are earning app. 3000 crores per annum and out of it they were remitting back two-third of their earnings to their native places.
The origin of current migration can be traced back to the days of green revolution. But it has increased many times in the post-militancy period as compared to 1983-84. More than 22 lac migrants have got settled in various parts of the state but they have consolidated themselves mostly in industrial towns as compared to other cities. The ratio of migrant labour against locals is app 80:20 in the case of industrial sector and 70:30 in respect of agricultural sector. We had conducted study in Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Ropar. You name it, whether is textile, industry, manufacturing, sugar mills, brick kilns, construction, agriculture, everywhere Bihari labourers have outnumbered to locals. A large army of migrant labour has reduced the employment opportunities and prospects of the Punjabi labour." [www.dalkhalsa.com/Archives/News/Dec_03/14_Dec_03.html]
It can be seen that an anti-migrant sentiment was being fanned and fuelled since many years. This anti-migrant feeling has as its 'real' basis the spiralling unemployment problem in Punjab which in turn is the product of slow, half-hearted, half-baked, distorted development of capitalism through J?nker path in Indian agriculture allied with imperialist designed 'green revolution' and under-development of industrial sector - a twin curse befallen on Punjab (true for Punjab on both side of the border, and break-away Punjab i.e. Haryana and Himachal). This fault-line the Dal Khalsa wants and wanted to use for their end to fan up anti-migrant reaction among all Sikh masses, particularly youth, and it is indeed easy for them to get entrapped in this Dal Khalsa generated chauvinism, because they, in reality, see quite a number of migrant workers working in rural and urban Punjab. It is perhaps true that the extent of migration from Bihar is presently on the wane due to more availability of jobs back at home, but any Indian state whatsoever do not have the power to solve outward migration by employing all employable persons in the state, a thing impossible to achieve at least under the present regime.
This sentiment is now present not only among the unemployed youngsters or those who foresee unemployed future, but also among persons in the academia. In an article "The Sixth River Is A Sea" by Chander Suta Dogra in OUTLOOK magazine, March 3, 2008 we find, "Dr Kharag Singh of the Chandigarh-based Institute of Sikh Studies held a seminar on the changing demographic in Punjab recently. "We concluded that even as Punjab needs migrant labour, some regulation by way of legislation is needed to prevent migrants from taking roots here," he says." The article right at the start cracked an old venomous joke(!) about Biharis and then proceeded "From one Bihari to five and to how Punjab itself might be at risk, an incidental joke is taking incendiary tones." and The correspondent further added, "Radical Sikh groups like the Dal Khalsa too have protested against migrants and in the last six months have held two 'Punjab Jagao' marches from Amritsar to Hoshiarpur and in the Malwa belt "to create awareness among the people about the need to preserve Punjabi identity and culture from migrant influence". Among the issues the Dal Khalsa and other radical Sikhs are pressing for are restriction on buying of land by migrants and a bar on voting rights till people have been residents for at least a decade.
"What is galling to the locals is that of late migrants in places like Ludhiana have begun contesting elections. Incidentally, the Ludhiana municipality now has three migrant councillors. Ludhiana is even a big market for Bhojpuri movies?six of the 14 cinemas screen films for Purvanchalis regularly. Small wonder then that Manoj Tiwari, a Bhojpuri star, comes for his movie premieres to Ludhiana."
Forces like Dal Khalsa is trying to make and broaden the rift between Hindi speaking Bihari people and Punjabis and this is to be countered by bridging the already created gap, trying to unite Punjabi and migrant exploited, oppressed working people. This is a challenge before the revolutionary communist activists and advanced workers of Punjab. Moreover, there is the task of helping Bihari migrant workers to transcend from the level of spontaneity as they showed on early December 2009 to the level of consciousness, starting with elementary workers' consciousness, trade union level consciousness that cutting across linguistic, national, caste etc barriers the workers must unite to fight against capitalists, and so arise the need to unite with Dalit Punjabi workers and then, with all oppressed, exploited working people of Punjab. The Punjabi workers' duty and responsibility towards making this unity a reality is more. But Bihari migrant workers must also come out of cocoons of only-Bihari surroundings, as for example they must try to communicate with Punjabi workers in Punjabi language which will show their respect for the national culture of Punjab.
Communist forces outside Punjab can expect a lot from their counterparts in Punjab because comrades there showed extraordinary tenacity and ability to fight with their 'mass line' even under most difficult times. The industrial workers of Punjab also showed their willingness and ability to fight even in the hard times as for example during the Khalistan movement: "Na Hindu Raaj, na Khalistan, Raaj Kare Mazdoor, Kisan" - a slogan heard from Punjab at that time will remain unforgettable; and it was not just a slogan - there were workers' rallies of several thousand workers. We hope they are already on the job. We know that we all passed through and are still passing through the period of defeat of international working class movement which caused a major set back - and it will take time to regroup for the communist forces and time to rejuvenate for the workers. But still, any positive step of them, even an inch, will be highly important and their activities and accomplishments need to be propagated in maximum possible scale among the workers of India.
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