Agonies of Maharashtra
(We are just in the beginning of studying problems of Maharashtra; the author and the editorial board need much help in the form of rigorous criticism, inputs, suggestions of further study etc from all knowledgeable persons, particularly from activists working (or having experience in) in Maharashtra. We would request all readers to read this present article keeping these opening words in mind and should not try to find our full and final views on Maharashtra and problems of class struggle there from this article. - Editorial Board, FAPP)
The incidents of Raj Thackeray led Maharashtra Navanirman Sena's assaults on the common migrant North Indian fruit-vendors, taxi-drivers etc. in Mumbai are quite stale by now. Many reports and analyses about it have been published explaining the rising unemployment among Marathi youth, the rise of rightist reaction of M.N.S. against migrant job-seekers, the opportunity to cash it by seizing away of the Shiv Sena's Marathi vote-bank as factors acting behind it.
Even recently, in a January edition of Hindi daily Hindustan (New Delhi edition), reacting to the misbehaviour of a M.N.S. official with popular Pakistani comedian Shaqeel Siddiqui during a live T.V. programme, an editorial termed such forces like M.N.S. as enemies of Indian democracy - the liberal system which according to the daily provides strength to our country compared to fundamentalist regimes of neighbouring countries. It is important that the daily newspaper brought to our attention, the relevance of a democratic order as a bulwark against divisive reactionary forces. But expressing much admiration for the existing Indian democratic system as a model of democracy, it could not go beyond expressing sermons for the necessity of safeguarding the existing order, nor could it explain how such threatening forces are increasingly being spawned by this democracy.
Rather two other responses to the M.N.S. assaults on North Indian toiling masses caught our attention. One from a worker in West Bengal, a place far away from Mumbai, and another from a worker's platform working in and around Mumbai itself. Both the articles appeared successively in the April and May 2008 issues of a little-known Hindi worker's monthly Hamari Soch.
The first article that appeared in Hamari Soch was by a worker, Madanlal Nirdhan, a Dalit and a Hindi-speaking person expressing anguish and pain over the attacks on Hindi-speaking common people earlier in Assam and later by M.N.S. in Mumbai. He wrote under the title "Eh Hind Walon! Hume aur mat baton!" (Oh, inhabitants of Hind! Do not further divide us!) Citing the brutality of the attacks on the poor North-Indian taxi-drivers, fruit and milk vendors, roadside khomchewallahs (roadside fast-food sellers) and daily labourers in Mumbai, his concern for the whole country was undeniable - " It appears that the country is gradually turning towards a barbarous era. Time has arrived for realization of separate 'apna apna dhaplis' and 'alag alag raags' (meaning, going each other's own way)." These anxious expressions of a worker aware of many heritages of this country's history asks "Where has our leaders gone, oh lord? Where is our India? We have to search with binoculars that India dreamt by Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad, Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad 'Bismil'...and thousands of martyrs!"
Then continuing in the same breath of concern, probably his Dalit half spoke out, "In this country' since a long time, until now, the mental filth of Dalit-Savarna discrimination has remained in existence. The Dalit Samaj, a large chunk of society, even after 60 years of independence are separating out from the mainstream of Hindu society because of fundamentalist Hindu mentality. None is seen to come forward to oppose or challenge it. They are left to be trampled upon and isolated. Even the governments and administration are indifferent about their development. Those who were yesterday dividing the society on the basis of caste, are today aspiring to divide the country on the basis of regionalism and language!"
Our friend Madanlal Nirdhan could not stop here. He continued to move into newer areas with his remarks and outpourings. His Hindi-Hindu-Hindustani self further came out through the words -"What a mockery! Hindustan se prem aur Hindu, Hindi se nafrat...? What will happen to Hindustan?... What a contradictory and narrow thinking is it! Can people afflicted with such thoughts of regionalism be patrons of dreams of an undivided India? Never... The fire inflamed by Thakre family, Asom Gana Parishad and such other narrow-minded organizations will scorch the whole country."
At the end his nationalist feeling for the country is once again revealed in this manner - "The images of 'bhumi-ratnas' of Maharashtra sparkle before us till today ... can we forget M.G.Ranade, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, etc....?
It is almost a journey through a wide assemblage of varied heritages of this country. We find him starting with the M.N.S. assaults and traversing through a number of contradictions present in our society intermingled in his expressions of a very real, raw pain and anguish. Centring his article mainly on the events in Mumbai, he expressed his sense of belonging as a Hindi-speaking worker with the assaulted migrant toilers. Then his fellow feeling for the Dalits came out, and throughout the whole article he expressed the concern for a united India, the nationalist struggles of the past that formed it, and the present grave problems of regionalism, casteism and linguistic division that is more and more dividing the whole country.
But our worker friends like Madanlal ought to know more of the class essence of that history and point out to the oppressed and exploited masses of this society the real class nature of the still existing oppressions and discriminations. Sadly, he faltered in that, not being able to wriggle himself out of the prevalent ruling class conception of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan or the real roots of Hindutva of Shiv Sena. Neither could he spell out the big difference between Bhagat Singh, Azad, Bismil's dream from that of Gokhale and Tilak's India.
Coming in response to Madanlal's article, the article by Mumbai's Jagrit Kamgar Manch - 'Naam "Marathu Manus" ka - Kaam Mehenotkasho ke Khilaf ka!'- was more forthright in exposing the M.N.S., Shiv Sena-like Marathi forces of reaction, identifying its capitalist class support, for whose class interests these organizations have repeatedly come down heavily on the working masses of Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra, all in the name of 'Marathi Manus'. The worker's platform did not waiver in saying that the M.N.S. and the Shiv Sena are playing the same opportunist electoral politics, by sweeping away the real issues of the masses and inciting conflicts in the name of regionalism. When about 2 lakh 40 thousand workers were robbed of their jobs on closure of the textile mills in Mumbai, the majorities amongst whom were Marathis, then the Shiv Sena instead of supporting the workers in their struggles, supported the employers whole-heartedly. They have led assaults on workers' strikes, unions and worker leaders like Krishna Desai and Datta Samant were killed. Presently, they are the promoters of contractors in the industrial areas of Nasik, Pune, Aurangabad along with the Congress Party. These 'Marathi Manus' sloganeering forces work against all the toilers. They are attackers of migrant labourers but fully support the 'outsider' capitalists - Tata, Birla, Ambanis. Thus Jagrit Manch did not hesitate in exposing the anti-worker, anti-toiler role of Shiv Sena and the M.N.S.
But our friend Madanlal Nirdhan has opened up a Pandora's box. Starting with the reactions to the M.N.S. assaults, he has raised grave problems of Indian democracy. He has raised questions of Dalit oppressions, regionalism, and other developing divisive tendencies within the country as a whole. He has raised alarm over the erosion of the Indian nationalism. His article has revealed the instinct of a worker, a Dalit, oppressed representative leading towards the very examination of Indian democracy, instead of a blind admiration for it as expressed by the capitalist-run media like Hindustan did; and side by side, his contradiction and confusion about the assumed unity of Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan and Hindutva has also been expressed, on many aspects of which the Jagrit Kamgar Manch did not dwell at all.
Looking even specifically at the history of Maharashtra and the rise of Marathi nationalism in its MNS-Shiv Sena form, we find that its history has also borne and developed these social contradictions. But in a way far departed from its potential to develop in favour of the toiling masses - the workers, Dalits, the peasant masses.
Tilak's militant nationalism rose up against the British imperialist rule for independence. The then Bombay's active working class sections rallying in protest of his arrest in 1908, came out into the streets with defiant strike actions in probably the first political action of Indian working class. But it was the nationalism of the upper classes that did get the support, sacrifice of the common masses, workers, peasants, but did not lead them towards liberation from exploitation and oppression prevailing in the socio-economic realities of those masses. The Congress Party took up this mantle of bourgeois nationalism and independence that ultimately resulted in the compromise with the British rulers and transfer of power in 1947.
Side by side with this dominant brand of nationalism of the bourgeois which led the masses towards the formation of an Indian state that laid all the exploited and oppressed sections of society at the hands of its native exploiters - the big bourgeois and landlord classes of this country, there was another current of national liberation struggle that as Lenin said, while referring to the progressive elements in a national struggle, contained "the elements of democratic and socialist culture". It reflected different aspects of the national-liberation aspiration of the masses, the toiling classes. Along with the struggle for liberation of this country from imperialist rule, it aspired for liberation from all forms backward and feudal oppressions in the countryside and from exploitation of the capitalists in the cities and industrial centres. It could have been achieved only by thorough democratization of the Indian society and not mere adoption of the imperialist framed constitutional structure and its state as the transfer of power in 1947 gave us.
The Bombay workers' struggles in the textile mills and other industries repeatedly showed this urge of the workers throughout the decades preceding independence and even in the decades of 1950s after 'independence'. The communist-led Girni Kamgar Union in Bombay's textile mills led successive militant struggles of workers in spite of state repressions. Girangaon and Hutatma Chowk became the red citadel amidst these confrontations between the might of labour and capital. Many prominent communist leaders were arrested for anti-state actions in famous cases like the Meerut Conspiracy Case to drown the rising revolutionary potential of the working class. Numerous workers who came from different regions within Maharashtra and from the North-Indian states of U.P., Bihar fought together heroically and in a united way. Just prior to 1947, the heroic solidarity of Bombay's workers in support of the naval mutineers is a valiant example of this. Many a times, the germs of these struggles spilled into different rural regions from where the workers came, opening up possibilities of newer struggles of the rural oppressed against their oppressors.
In the rural areas of Maharashtra, especially the Konkan region and parts of Bombay-Deccan there were significant peasant struggles and realignment of non-Brahmin, peasant castes in the decades of 1920s and 1930s.The British colonial rulers introduced new land tenure systems of khoti in the regions of Konkan-Ratnagiri, by which the Brahmin and Bania khot landlord were installed. The anti-khot agitation of Mahars and the majority Marathi-Kunbi peasant castes emerged against this. On the other hand in the Bombay-Pune belt of Deccan apart from a number of non-Marathi trading and money-lending strata there existed the only Marathi trading and money lending strata of Deshashtha Brahmins, several of whom were land owners, their lands being cultivated by lower caste tenant cultivators. Therefore another peasant movement erupted there in the 1920s and 1930s targeting the non-Marathi speaking Shetji (rich person) and the Marathi speaking Bhatji (a Brahmin priest). These peasant movement had both the expressions of anti-Brahminism and anti-feudalism but it gradually consolidated the majority peasant castes of Maratha-Kunbis. Often the Marathi peasant employed Dalit Mahars and themselves aspired for Kshatriya status. The later developments show that non-Brahminism drew its greatest strength from among the few rich peasants who emerged out of this. This emerging dominant peasants, as in Deccan, discovered in non-Brahminism not a path towards annihilation of caste and feudal relations but a means of realising their own social advancement. On the other end in the Deccan amidst stagnation and subdivision of holding the possibilities of emergence of a strata pauperised peasantry loomed largely. But that is for later. Then, in 1938 itself, amidst the rising peasant struggles in these regions, there was a march of peasants to Bombay against the khoti land tenure system in Ratnagiri. Ambedkar had introduced a bill in the state assembly to abolished it. Also in 1938 his Independent Labour Party joined the communists in calling a one day strike to protest against the proposed Industrial Disputes Act. Neither the Khoti abolition bill was passed nor they were able to stop the enactment of the Industrial Disputes Act.
Thus there was the Maharashtra's strong heritage of Dalit and other lower castes movements starting from Jotiba Rao Phule, Chatrapati Shahuji and later Ambedkar's organizations of considerable Mahar following, that forged as a challenge to the upper-caste Brahmin dominance. There was a strong workers movement in the cities. There was an emerging peasant movement. There appeared from these potent movements the possibility to forge unity of different section of the toiling masses - from workers in the cities to the oppressed peasant and Dalits and lower castes in the rural belts.
These were those "real elements of democratic and socialist culture" that showed every possible potential of developing into a formidable challenge to both the British rulers and the native exploiters and oppressors who thrived under the umbrella of British rule only to further consolidate it after independence. It was not Tilak, or Gokhale, but the likes of Bhagat Singh, who recognized this much before independence. Bhagat Singh said, "The real revolutionary army are only the peasants and workers in the villages and factories." Commenting about the struggles led by the Congress Party, he said, "These struggles are being carried out on the strength of middle-class traders and few capitalists. Both these classes, especially the capitalists, can not take the risk of putting their own properties or ownership in danger." In reality the bourgeois class, represented by the Congress Party feared these grass-root forces of struggle for this very reason, that the struggles of workers, peasants, Dalits, poor masses may move further ahead putting an end to their exploitation and oppression through a real thoroughgoing revolution. And here lay the difference between Tilak, Gokhale-s on one hand and Bhagat Singh, Ashfaqullah and Bismil-s on the other; between bourgeois nationalists and the revolutionaries who gradually took the path of working class revolution and socialism. Our friend Madanlal Nirdhan could not distinguish between these compromisers and real revolutionaries neither history was told or taught to the workers in this way by anybody .
But history, through its painful path of abortion of the real liberation struggle and rise of the compromising bourgeoisie and landlord rule, brought it out more clearly. The peasant movements of the decades of 30s and 40s failed to unite, splitting and separating from each other. The Dalit movement led by Ambedkar could only unite the Mahars, remaining confined to constitutionalist means and educational and other reforms programme. Another significant section of upper echelons of Chamars remained mired in the opportunist electoral politics and design of the Congress Party. The sizeable Dalit sections of Chamars, Mahars and Mangs remained disunited. Then the attempts of uniting still broader working masses within the newly formed Independent Labour Party in those decades of 1930s also failed because of overwhelming Mahar presence and inclination in it.
Only at the dead end of his life in the 50s, Ambedkar realized the necessity of uniting other oppressed sections of the society, from the idea of which the Independent Labour Party was formed later once again to further split and lose its strength. The peasant revolts of Western Maharashtra also failed to unite the Dalits and middle caste Maratha Kunbis for a proper anti-caste, anti-feudal struggle. Instead, the Marathi-Kunbi caste cluster of peasant proprietors came to the forefront. In the cities, the working class, as a result of the undeveloped democratic revolution at grass-root level in the rural, agrarian countryside, ultimately failed to overcome the still existing divisions of caste, regionalism and language within them.
By then, Marathi nationalism was at the centre of Maharashtra's social and political scene. After independence, when demands of forming states on the basis of linguistic differences was reverberating in many regions of this country, the movement for formation of Samyukt Maharashtra also gathered steam. It had before it as an obstacle the big bourgeoisie - the Parsee, Marwari, Gujarati capitalists - who controlled the Indian state and the very industrial centre of Maharashtra - Bombay, its industries and businesses. On the other hand, in form of a new challenger, rose from the Marathi population a thriving Marathi peasantry, prospering in sugarcane, cotton and tobacco plantations with their big cooperatives owning plantations, mills, means of finance, and a big grip on Maharashtra's rural economy. The conflict of the rising Marathi regional bourgeois among which a major section is termed as 'Co-operative Bourgeoisie' (but there also rose Maharashtrian Industrial Bourgeoisie - the Kirloskars and Dahankars etc) with the big bourgeois 'outsiders', brought the question of control over Bombay at the centre. The Congress Party split, with its high command in favour of a big-bourgeoisie-controlled Bombay as a centrally administered city, while the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress standing in favour of the Samyukt Maharashtra movement's demands of including it in Maharashtra. Popular Marathi resentment grew against the big-bourgeoisie led Indian state, and the movement for a state of Maharashtra, with Bombay in control of the Marathis became so strong that ultimately the Nehru Government succumbed to it. The communists, socialists and regional Congress leaders became gained further popularity through this state-formation movement.
In that whirlwind of Samyukt Maharashtra movement, other social movements were cast into the background. The communists dreamt of a united socialist Maharashtra in a socialist union of India; but the Marathi rich peasantry, the upcoming cooperative barons Chavan, Vasantdada Patil, Sharad Pawars usurped the fruits of that movement, leaving the struggles of the toiling masses sidelined. The communists got rich electoral dividends, but the Marathi rich elite sections came up to the forefront. It showed once again, among many other examples, that India is neither merely a country for Hindi-Hindu-Hindustan, nor is India a single nation, that has only one nationalism - Indian nationalism.
From the rise of that Marathi nationalism, the dominance of big bourgeois-landlord rule accommodated and co-opted Marathi rich peasants, capitalists into the ruling class politics in spite of certain contradictions from time to time within them. And with it Shiv Sena emerged in the year 1966, encouraged and promoted by the Congress Party and hence the big bourgeoisie, as a tool to divert the discontent of the Marathi masses in the name of 'Marathi Manus' and to wipe out the communist influence on the working class and other toiling masses. It was also a time when the masses of the whole country was getting disillusioned with Congress rule and discontented with rising unemployment, stagnation of the economy. Later the Shiv Sena spread its venomous influence further through its hindutva politics of riots that flared and polarised the masses of Bombay such as in 1984 in the infamous riots of 1992-93 post Babri Masjid demolition gradually spreading its poison to the rural belts of Maharashtra.
Today, during the phase of New Economic Policy of Liberalization-Globalization Mumbai has been taken control by the Real Estate Mafia - Mumbai, one of the main and biggest centre of working class movement has been slowly de-industrialized. It has resulted in rising exploitation and hardships of the masses, the rising unemployment and retrenchment of workers from a large series of closed textile mills, and other factories, the peasant suicides in Vidarbha, Mumbai has no more remained an industrial centre. It has become the hub of international and national financial activities and the residence of the rich and elite who thrive on globalization and liberalization pauperizing the masses. And Raj Thackeray's Maharashtra Nava Nirman Sena has become another tool to raise the bogey of Marathi nationalism to hoodwink the Marathi toiling masses making North Indian toilers the scapegoat. Our friends like Madanlal Nirdhan must realize that our 'hindwalons' and 'netas' have given us this India in the name of 'azadi' and we the workers and peasants and toilers have laid all our faith in them, even today merely appealing to them not to divide us further. It is this mockery or virambana within us, the Marathi, Hindi-speaking, Assamese, and many other workers and toilers of different language, caste, religion of this land that we still do not realize that the struggle for azadi and mukti that was attempted by the sacrifice and struggle of thousands of workers and peasants has been betrayed and aborted and it is still being repeatedly betrayed by these bourgeois landlord and elite ruling sections of our society for their exploitation and rule.
Some Endnotes:
1) Shiv Sena then and MNS now: in 1966 Shiv Sena had a base for Marathi nationalism - rising unemployment and economic stagnation and that Bombay culturally did not belong to Marathis. But this is not true in 2008 when Marathi influence in Bombay's social and cultural life through a distorted capitalist development has been established. That is why Shiv Sena was able to bring about a much bigger divide on national/regional Marathi basis in 1966. (TOI, 060208 - Dipankar Gupta)
2) Anti-khot agitation: in the Konkan/ Ratnagiri 'non-Brahmin movement' the agitation spread against the control of Chitpavan Brahmins and Banias strata - against labour service, money lending and trading. But this did not dissolve the division between the non-Brahmins or forge solidarities across them. The bulk of population consisting of Kunbis and Marathas (30%) did not mix with untouchables and were ready to boycott Mahars and other Dalits at any time.
In late 1930's Ambedkar introduced a bill in the provincial legislature for abolition of khoti system that increased prevailing tensions. Kunbis and Mahars seemed willing to accept anything that can absolve them from liabilities to khots, landlords and sahukars.
In 1938-39 there were frequent reports of rising conflicts between landlords and tenants ...angry meetings and assaults by Mahars on Brahmin and Bania khots, often participated by mill workers from Bombay on leave (then main immigrants to Bombay's mills were from Ratnagiri/Konkan ) . About 40% of Ratnagiri population sought work in Bombay. (The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India. Bombay 1900-1940 : Rajnarayan Chandravarkar)
3) Caste system/regionalism would dissolve under pressure of social change (or in other words, by class struggle automatically, i.e., undermining the necessity of struggle against caste system which in turn will also help develop class struggle) alone - an ahistorical thinking : within the urban and industrial setting casteism and regionalism were repeatedly de-formulated (or re-formulated?) in new ways . It shows the nature of hesitant, faltering bourgeois led capitalist development in a backward country in this imperialist era. In the then (1930-40) Bombay's occupational structures loose communal clusters based upon caste and village language and religion formed around specific occupation . Although on the other hand it had no straight forward relation between specific occupation and the caste, identity etc. Marathis and Kunbis were evenly distributed in the textile mills. More than half of Muslim males were employed in the weaving shade. North Indian migrants from the largest group of workers in preparatory processes. Overwhelming majority of Dalits were employed in ring spinning department etc... Julah Muslims and Kamati weavers were the most skilled and hence employed in complicated jacquard and fancy looms. Even the dock workers had such region wise, caste wise divisions centred around different occupations.
During the 1931 census the term 'caste' covered distinctions due to racial difference, to topographical origin, to occupation and social customs. But the caste associations and panchayats beyond the work place did not conform to this categories. Of course Maharashtrian society was characterised by its homogeneity. In particular the intermediate Maratha caste had become by late 19th and 20th century a conglomerate of numerous intermediate peasant castes.
Like the Julaha Muslims, the north Indian migrant were also victims of racial perceptions and social prejudices prevalent in local society as expressed through words like 'bhaiyas live with other bhaiyas in areas dominated by bhaiyas'. One anthropologist concluded 'local (Marathi and Gujarati) people have a tendency to look down upon bhaiyas as crude country men, and regardless of their caste or achieved class position in the city, bhaiyas have little meaningful contact with local population. Even though there are often exaggerated accounts of such divisions existing in the work place and the neighbourhood where they lived it bring out the Marginalisation of north Indian workers in Bombay and the attitude of locals towards them. Thus they said 'pardeshi hang together more than other castes'. Conversely caste organisation among Marathi and Kunbi workers, especially from Ratnagiri were considerably more diffuse.
4) Divisions utilised by employers : in the general strike of 1928 Marathi weavers from Ratnagiri played a prominent part and became targets of repressions. Mill owners and managers in order to reduce their dominance engaged a large number of Marathis from Deccan who were perceived to be more pliable though less skilled. Similarly in 1932 Pathans were used to break the dock workers strikes and like in several other occasions it led to another communal riots. (ibid-Chandravarkar)
5) Workers in modern production attached to rural backwardness: the casual, uncertain conditions of employment forced most workers to maintain links with their villages and hence their dependence on contractors called jobbers who hailed from the same villages. The rural base often provided for subsistence of a workers family during retreat from the mills and the city in times of distress.
In its earlier phases the colonial expansion appears to have continued towards more and more intense exploitation of labour by capital. But in the later 19th century the British colonial state a greater reluctance to accept the full consequences of capital accumulation and a growing concern to somehow keep alive the fragile small-holding base of agrarian economy was seen. (ibid - Chandravarkar)
6) the communist led Girni Kamgar union: having a widespread influence among the textile (and other also) mill workers it faced the brunt of attacks of the ruling classes and the state. Along with mass arrest popular workers leaders of the communist party were arrested in the Meerut conspiracy case for conspiring to overthrow the British rulers. It was not afforded any bargaining status, members and supporters were continually victimized at the workplace and after the success of the 1928 general strike the colonial officials increasingly tried to wipe out this red peril. Throughout 1930's the mill owners refused to recognize or negotiate with this union while the congress led factions or other compromising unions were supported. The state always felt a threat of emerging national agitations from the struggles of this union. The congress party in accordance with its bourgeois characters was highly ambivalent in its attitude towards the workers and played an effective collaborating role with the mill owners and the colonial state. Off course it still had a wide base because of its image as the leading nationalist party. It lay upon a revolutionary working class party to forge ahead the working class struggle.
Even earlier 'radical' congress leaders like Tilak was insensitive to the working class agitations (Bipan Chandra: the rise and growth of economic nationalism). During the Assam tea coolies' strike Gandhi in 1921 said 'we seek not to destroy capital or capitalist but regulate the relation between capital and labour. We want to harness capital to our side'. (Young India- 15th July, 1921)
After the Meerut conspiracy case arrests of the leading communist worker leaders from Bombay dissident anti communist factions were promoted by the congress with connivance of the employers diluting the influence of the communist on the workers. Latter during the anti-khot agitation, according to some historians, the separate organization of the untouchable workers further split the movement. (ibid- Chandravarkar)
7) The communists who had a big influence on the workers of the textile mills etc had their vision tied narrowly to the city and the urban working class. They made few attempts to engage with the problems with the country side or to develop proper theoretical perspective. Thus in late 30's Ambedkar's Mahar movement showed precisely the promise of a political rhetoric which was able to register and encompass the rural as well as the urban nexus of working class lives. The communists of Girni Kamgar union arealleged to have remained confined within the rigid theoretical discourses of class. Whatever may be the shortcomings it is a fact that in the path towards a thoroughgoing peoples democratic revolution and peasant agrarian revolution it was unable to bring the unity of city's workers struggles and the rural peasant struggles accordingly. (ibid- Chandravarkar)
7) About the present state : in Maharashtra, cotton never received the support that sugarcane did. It was grown in poor regions by dry land farmers with far less political clout than the Pawars of western Maharashtra. As India embraced neo-liberal globalization that clout waned further. On the one hand cotton growers were locked into the volatility of global prices. On the other inputs costs was exploding. While poor cotton growers never developed much political and electoral clout, traders and textile barons did. By Sept 2006 farmers in the region of Vidarbha were killing themselves at the rate of 1 every 6 hours on average. The union govt. came through with its Rs.71000 Crore loan waiver for indebted farmers. In Maharashtra, the lion's share of that waiver's benefits went to just 7 of the state's 35 districts, none of them in the poor cotton growing regions of Vidarbha and Marathawada, most of them within the power base of Sharad Pawar. And all these were about bank debt. Money-lenders debt was not touched. In spite of all these no basic problem has been resolved. (P. Sainath -Hindu-3.4.2009)
Between 1991 and 2001 the number of unemployed person in the state and its capital jumped 6 fold; in the state 45 lakh and in Mumbai 6 lakh in 2001. As percentage of labour force in the state over the decade it rose from 1.1% to 6.4 %. In Mumbai it was 2.7% in 1991 and 11.7% in 2001. The national average for the same period was 7.2%. Most worryingly there has been a sharp increase in unemployment among young people. Especially in Mumbai 23% of workforce aged between 20-24years were recorded as unemployed in 2001 as against 6% in 1991. But this is only from the census - the real picture is even worse.[TOI 12.06.2009]
Comments:
No Comments for View