NOIDA Police Firing on Rural Protesters
Why the Working Class must strongly oppose such Governmental Repressions
The Noida Firing on August 13 by UP police that killed and injured many rural protesters (whose land was taken by the govt) has proved it that the character of police and all such organs of bourgeois ?democracy? cannot and does not change by changes in ministries, or in common parlance change in ?governments?; they continue to act ferociously against the people and for the ruling classes whenever they are opposed strongly in their plan of robbing the people and nature, or ?feel? outraged; though they always tell that they ?fired in self defence?. The UP govt ordered only a few routine administrative changes and announced judicial probe into the incident, things that many govt do in such cases and which yield almost nothing. All newspapers reported that the wounded persons were in the main elderly people, though it seems from some reports that persons killed in police firing were of younger age groups. The rage of the assembled mob can be estimated by the nature and extent of mass-reactions ? burning down police cars, running tractor on a police personnel engaged in police action ? furthermore, from this mass-reactions the nature and extent of administrative actions against the people that can generate such mass-reactions can well be guessed.
One could have stopped here after condemning the govt act had there not been some confusions and questions that cropped up in the proletarian camp in the making. We must address those questions and confusions to clarify our ideas. What are they?
One: Those people came by tractors, weren?t they? It seems there were landlords who exploits labourers. Why should we go to support them or their movement?
Firstly, it is unfortunately so that the people came there were organised and led by landlords and/or rural bigwigs. Because conscious leadership of the other class who can organise the rural toilers, the working class, is absent in the arena. But all of themwere not landlords, neither landlords were a sizeable part of them. Generally it can be assumed that in villages the landlords are numerically a sheer minority except in a few places where the labourers come from outside and all agricultural works or farm activities are based on migrant labourers. Though rich peasants, i.e., who themselves take part in major agricultural operations but hire and exploits labourers too, however constitute a sizeable section of the rural populace in agriculturally more developed places like western UP (in the sense of more developed than eastern UP), still they and the landlords together form a minor section of village populace. The assembled people didn?t come from a wide region either ? if landlords and rich peasants assembled from a wide region, they could form a sizeably big mass of these upper strata of the rural society. In this case they came from a small locality. Therefore, the major section of the assembled and marching people were from the toiling lower strata of the society. Whenever the cultivating landlords or rural capitalists want to show govt a strength they organise the village people of lower economic strata who are numerically much more larger, without whom those on the top are powerless. Naturally, even persons totally unfamiliar with concrete data of agro-economics of that particular area near Noida can say that, on that day too, overwhelming majority of the marching rural people were toilers; be they toiling peasants like middle or poor peasants, or agricultural labourers. In all the movements led by rural bourgeoisie starting from that now-history Nasik movement of 1980s led by Sharad Joshi up to the recent struggles in Rajasthan demanding irrigation water, they are the toiling peasants and labourers who mostly bear the burn.
Secondly, condemning govt atrocity against a move doesn?t necessarily mean or requiresupporting the movement or even the slogan(s) or demand(s) of the movement. As far as the particular demand was concerned, we shall examine that later.Let us continue about movements led by rural bourgeoisie. Moves that drew most attentions were (1) moves with demand for rising the Minimum Support Price (MSP), and say, (2) as we are seeing in Rajasthan, highlighting demand of irrigation water. In case no: (1) the proletariat undoubtedly and unhesitatingly will stand against that very demand for rising MSP which will necessarily increase food grain prices ? and besides the urban working class who will have to bear the load, two large rural strata are net buyers of food grains: obviously the labourers and the poor peasants too. Proletarian camp will only make itself a laughing stock if it supports a demand that goes against itself, its rural counterpart and its closest rural ally in the revolution, and thus against majority populace of our country. Our another ally force, the middle peasants, in general produce only enough for their own consumption, but they also sell a good part of their produce in the market to buy various things they need and save something for next session?s cultivation. It may seem that they will be benefited by a rise in MSP, but a rise in grain prices pushes up prices of other necessities in the market, and thus the middle peasants? benefit gets reversed to its opposite ? a net loss. Moreover, proletariat cannot fight for more profit of the rural bourgeoisie. Though cunning people may try to deceive the rural labourers and semi-proletarian elements by saying, ?If the farmers get profitable price then only they can increase your wages?, the rural poor know from their experience that it is never so. So there is no question of supporting a movement with the movements with demand for rising MSP. Proletariat cannot fight for more profit for the rural bourgeoisie. But consider, if due to our weakness, the debility of proletarian camp, the rural bourgeois lead these people into their own move and if govt starts a fierce crackdown on such a move that leaves some people dead, some injured, then? In that case, the proletarian camp must condemn the govt crackdown, because the govt, the machine of today?s ruling class rule and oppression, never claim to have any moral right.
Two: The counter logic goes like: Those people came to demand higher compensation. It was not to resist acquisition. It is like demanding higher kitty for Compulsory Retrenchment, known to outsiders as Voluntary Retirement Scheme, and not fighting reduction of workforce through VRS. Then, some property owners are demanding higher compensation for govt acquisition of their properties. Why should we be bothered by this? It seems as if the villagers are also in the game of real estate gambling!
The proletariat has of course no reason at all to support the idea of bargaining on compensation. But the point is we are to see the demand in proper perspective, just blaming the villagers will not suffice. Let us proceed.
Firstly, if we closely observe our villages that are a bit developed (not in international standard, only relative to more backward regions of India) we shall see a higher concentration of land. But in spite of that, a sizeable part of land under cultivation in such villages belong to toiling strata like middle and poor peasants. So among the people who went to demand higher compensation our future allies too highlighted their interest.
Secondly, our allies in the villages were given some compensation money by the govt and were told to pack their things and go. But what they will do thereafter? They do not possess any non-agricultural skill and there is not a heavy demand for unskilled hands in industries either, and the wages there are miserable, we all know that. General experience have shown all the so called development displaced persons that the uprooted ones do not get a place in the so called developed zone. So they are to carry on with the compensation money if they cannot resist acquisition. Naturally, with the logic of the present system, they will try to extract maximum possible price from the govt which will not hand out any benefit accrued from that land acquisition. All these factors played behind their demand of higher compensation money, and there were other factors too which we shall see.
Thirdly, for poor and even middle peasants, or peasants in general do not consider land as a commodity in a backward society like ours ? and in developed capitalist societies, ?peasantry? is not there, there are only ?farmers? who manage farming with hired labourers on land that is their own or rented. In backward societies a peasant is tied by thousand threads with land since many years and generations, they cannot and does not think like an urban rich that land is an ?investment?. But these urban rich people and capitalists plus government are giving the rustic people lessons on capitalist economy ? some ugly notions, that land, and for that matter Nature and parts of it, can be considered as a commodity, as personal property, that can be used to make profit. Then the peasants are getting their further lessons from capitalists: Land price will go up in future ? because land is finite in this world; so buy real estates and sell at a later point of time! Even the govt is teaching the simple rural fellows the same lesson. They are seeing how the govt is making/has made a killing by land sales in places near Gurgaon, Noida, in the outskirts of Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai. Kolkata etcetera. Their apprehension became all the more true a few days before the incident when some person of a village in the same region of western UP submitted a Right of Information application along with necessary fees that why land acquisition notice was served there, what public purpose or ?greater common good? would be fulfilled by the govt there (just think how undemocratic is our govt which charges a fee for governmental information). The appropriate govt body answered after a delay that they ?still do not know the exact reason for land acquisition? there ? and this story came from a place near Noida! The villagers cannot be blamed if they guess that the govt is also behaving like a real estate shark, a so called developer ( a term for those who should rather be termed as devastator) also are earning super-profit by land acquisitioned now to be sold later. The land when parcelled to SEZ owner-developers or other capitalists, they are also profiteering much from land in the outskirts of growing cities. Then who are to be held responsible if the simple rural fellows also try and press hard to fetch some more money for their land, an ?education? imparted on them by the government?
We hope readers may get the point that what compelled the rural people went to demand higher reimbursement. Here we would like to mention another point from another perspective. This is the defeat of the international working class movement and its effects. For a long period of time there is no party at all in the scene. Whereas it would have been obligatory for the workers to help their rural counterparts to lead rural struggles and work for the preparation of agrarian revolution, democratic revolution. The workers are not at all in the arena to show the peasants the true path of liberation. Just imagine if there were a group of hundred workers organised on a political platform in Greater Noida, if they had taken the role of class conscious workers, if they had been propagating the idea of complete land reform in the revolutionary sense, i.e., the idea of agrarian revolution, among the village toilers from before, ? if they were in the scene, if they had a following among the rural labourers and poor peasants ? what would have happened if cases of forcible land acquisition arise in such places.
Anyway, we shall finish here with a last point.
When today?s peasants are losing land, particularly where we are witnessing struggle against land losing by govt land acquisition, it is not the same old depeasantisation process that is there now behind their losing land. In that previouss depeasantisation process, the rural poor could see who were losing land and who were gaining and increasing land, may be within their own village. But nowadays, where struggle against land acquisition is taking place, almost all rural classes/strata are getting clubbed together to fight, barring somewhat bigger non peasant land owners and/or non resident owners. This is different from a revolutionary struggle centring land which means fighting for land in a revolutionary way. But apart from that we are witnessing some peculiarities in these new struggles. (1) In general they are not coming under the banner of a known established party, rather they are keeping distance from them (though at a later point of time they may seek assistance of an established party out of helplessness). PLUS, and this is important: In cases of some extreme points of their fight, the lower strata are taking a decisive role, as was in Kalinganagar in January 2006, and in some cases they are handling situation independently ? like on the first week of January 2007 or on 16th March 2007 in Nandigram. It seems, the people are also learning lessons of history themselves, where their conscious proletarian co-fighters are absent in the arena due to their weakness. (2) Besides, the land to be acquired by the government is meant for native and foreign capitalists ? and the would be land losers know that very well. Somehow or other this is giving shape a visibly direct contradiction between the rural toilers on one hand and foreign capitalists and their native allies on the other. This is also to be observed and studied.
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