Murder of a Worker Leader of CESC by CPIM
It was March 10, 2008 ? first day of the 48-hrs continuous strike called by the independent Trade Union of the contractor workmen of M/S Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, the private Electrical Power Generation & Distribution Company, owned by R P Goenka Group. Since early morning, striking workmen started picketing at different electrical Gears of M/S CESC Ltd in support of their strike. Suddenly, 5 truck-loads of heavily-armed goons led by some CITU leaders active among the contractor workmen of M/S CESC Ltd and along with some outsider party-cadres, appeared in one such Gear and attacked the striking workmen. At least 15-20 workmen became severely injured by this attack; and among them, one Sri Ram Pravesh Singh, a contractor workman as well as the Vice President of their independent Union, namely CESC Ltd (Mains Dept) Contractors? Mazdoor Sangh, finally succumbed to death as soon as the injured workmen were shifted to a nearby hospital. And, by this death of Ram Pravesh, one more feather is added to the cap of the anti working-class character of CPI (M).
In the April 2007 issue of FAPP, we covered the news of the struggle of the CESC Contractor Workers and also brought forward our preliminary observations regarding the significance of their struggle and also of the formation of their new Trade Union. In the said article, we have noted that in March 2006, most of these workmen had spontaneously gone for a continuous 15 days? strike defying all their 4 old trade unions affiliated to CITU-AITUC-INTUC & HMS. However, after 15 days, without achieving any of the demands, they returned back to their job, but interestingly, they did not return back to their old trade unions. On the other hand, they began to organize themselves secretly and finally, in the month of July 2006, they formed their new Trade Union. In the course of organizing themselves, they took a very important decision. It was that they won?t seek any help from any of the outsiders, like any of the so-called ?literate?-?Babu? trade union leaders/organizations and the new Union would completely be led only by the workmen themselves. From this point of view, they did not even seek any help from any of the ?Communist Revolutionary? (henceforth, CR) organizations. It is far more significant from this aspect also that 95% of these workmen are so-called ?illiterate?, migrant workers, mostly from Bihar & UP and belong to the so-called Dalit Community, lowest of the lowest strata of the Indian society.
In this backdrop, some points draw further attention to understand the struggle of these workers.
a)- The core issue, behind which these workmen have organized themselves, needs special attention. In CESC, they work for the installation & maintenance of the High Tension (henceforth, HT) Electric Lines (ranging from 1, 33,000 Volts & up to 6,000 Volts) as well as Low Tension (henceforth, LT) Electric Lines (ranging up to 220 Volts) for transmission of Power across Kolkata. Most of the HT Lines are laid under-ground, whereas LT Lines are over-ground. During the course of installation & repairing of the faults, accident has been a normal phenomenon for these workmen, particularly while working at HT Lines. Every year, on an average, at least 5-6 workmen are charred beyond recognition at HT Lines. However, since these workmen lay new cables, or repair faults of the old by digging the roads and thus making the cables visible, they are identified as ?Construction Workers?. Core demand of these workmen is that they should be recognized as ?Electrical Workers working in CESC?, and not as ?Construction Workers?. It also needs to be mentioned here that their average daily wage is approx Rs 100.00 (that also only for the day when they have been allotted jobs, otherwise they get just Rs 11.00 as Detention Charge for the idle day), they are not yet covered under ESI benefit & most of them are not granted PF facility. Still, their demand for recognition as ?Electrical Workers? is more related from the angle of their quest for an ?identity? than from some immediate financial benefits. Even the topmost leadership of the Union is still not in position to fully clarify the financial benefits they will gain if their demands are achieved. To them, this particular demand has surfaced not only from the feeling of some economic deprivation, but also from the strong sense of deprivation/denial from an identity that is related to the nature of the high-risk job they are working everyday, particularly when accidental death from high-voltage electrical shocks are so rampant in their lives. b)
- Keeping all these workmen organized and united is much tougher than from that of any factory. First of all, there is no direct work-relation between HT workers & LT workers. On the other hand, at least 30% of the total workforce works in LT section. Secondly, workmen are divided into 22 different contractor companies. (Interestingly, responsibility of these contractor companies is merely restricted within the gambit of Labour Contractor, as all the cables, instruments, accessories etc are provided by CESC, technical aspects of the job are also directly looked after by the engineers of CESC.) And, there are few scopes of meeting workmen of one company with that of other companies, as in normal situation, every company independently & isolatedly handle the jobs allotted to them. Thirdly, even all the workmen of a specific company do not have the scope of meeting everyday at a common place ? as because very often one contractor company handles 2/3 jobs simultaneously and each job require number of days to complete. In that situation, workmen begin their day directly at the worksite and one section of workmen of a company doesn?t have much scope to meet the other section for a number of days. c)
- In this complex situation, we must feel that the leadership of the new Union, who are also workmen themselves, are facing Herculean problem to meet mass of the workmen on a regular basis and handle the problems of organization, even after their honest & sincere efforts. Still, a unique feature of this struggle is that even after two years of their initial rebellion in March 2006, general workmen still retain a high level of spontaneity for their struggle, & this inherent strength of the struggle is helping the leadership to handle such hurdles of organizing in their own way. A specific example may be worth-mentioning here. On Oct 8, 2007 morning, a workman, named Ashoke Rajbanshi was charred alive while working at an installation site of 6000 Volt Cables. His dead body was shifted to a local hospital and kept there for Post Mortem Examination. Peculiarity is that even though on that day, workmen were busy in working at different places all over Kolkata, the news of the death of Ashoke spread like fire instantly among them and immediately leaving their own workplace, they assembled in the Hospital premises. Workmen, from their previous experiences, had a strong apprehension that the CESC management, in collusion with the Contractor Companies might do away with the dead body of Ashoke to deprive his family members from the compensation to be paid (incidentally, in different occasions, both the Contractor Companies & the CESC management had vanished number of dead bodies of the workmen from the accident site with a motive of not paying any compensation to the kith & kin of the deceased, and subsequently they maintained the position that the concerned workmen had been missing from the work-place). So at least 1500 workmen kept a day and night strong vigil over the dead body, that also happened very spontaneously & at the initiative of the general workmen & not as a result of organized effort of the leadership. Even during such a situation, some henchmen of the management, on October 9th, in collusion with a section of the Hospital Authority, tried to vanish off the dead body from the hospital. But they could not skip the cautious eyes of the workmen who at that time kept their vigil continuously for more than 24 hours, and workmen reacted very sharply, once they caught red-handed all those culprits. Instantly, even before taking control of the situation by the leadership, general workmen, at their own initiative, started beating the culprits and an open battle surfaced within the hospital premises, and when police appeared to restrain the situation, workmen did not take them also in good grace. The whole situation forced the administration to call the senior level management of CESC & of the concerned contractor company at the spot and finally, both the management had been forced to assure the Union to pay the compensation to the widow of Ashok and also to provide job to his kin. Here also we find that while it is very tough to organize the workmen in meetings on a regular basis, the simple news of the accident of Ashoke had been able to bring large number of workmen at the spot and took the control of the situation in their own hand in a spontaneous manner and did not depend much on the instruction of the leadership. d)
- There is one more factor behind such high level of spontaneity of the general workers. In CESC, installation & maintenance of the Transmission Lines by the Contractor workers began during pre-NEP era, and, thus their demand for the recognition as ?Electrical Workers? is also naturally not very new. And, during this long time, workers expected that the leaders of old 4 TUs would lead them in achieving this demand, but, in real life, during this long time, these leaders had not only betrayed the aspiration of the workers, they coerced them in many ways. Leaders made the workers dependent on them on all sorts of trivial issues, like getting some small loans from the Contractors, for approval of some leaves etc, and they earned lots of money from these ?illiterate?, ?rustic? workmen as Commission for arrangement of all such trivial things. Not only that, many of these leaders work as usurers, take compound interest @ Rs 5/- to Rs 10/- per month for providing money at the exigencies of these poor workmen. Not only that, even in cases where some compensation were paid in case of accidental deaths, they grabbed a large share of this money from the hapless widow of the deceased. In this way, at one end, purse of these leaders have become fatter day by day, & at the other end, it has become apparent to these workers that along with the management, these leaders are also coercing them a lot in their own way. Thus, a deep sense of hatred against these leaders has developed in the mind of these workers, & once they get the taste of choosing leaders among themselves, their deepest anger against the old leadership has already been expressed thru? their spontaneous actions at different occasions during this life span of two years of this new Union. e)
- CESC is not just any company, rather one of the many wings of RPG (RP Goenka) Group, a representative Group of big industrial houses of India. As on March, 2007 recorded net profit of CESC alone has exceeded Rs 300 Crores. R P Goenka, Chairman of CESC, though a Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Rajasthan, but is allegedly very close to ruling CPI (M), particularly with Buddhadev Bhattacharya, Chief Minister of West Bengal. CESC management, in line with the policies of liberalization-globalisation, has already reduced a large number of permanent work-force in all the departments by way of VRS and all those jobs have already been handed over to the Contractor workmen. In this background, CESC knows it very well that if contractor workers of Transmission Line Jobs achieves their long-pending demand of recognition as ?Electrical Worker working in CESC?, their next immediate demand would be permanency of their services, particularly, since all the jobs done by these workmen are perennial in nature. And, not only that, if these workers can make some progress with their demands, it will make an impact to contractor workers of other departments of CESC, and also even out of CESC. So, CESC management is very much alarmed by the progress of this Union. At the other hand, CPI (M) has already lost its ground within the organized workers in all the industrial belts of West Bengal. And, in the last Party Conference, they have decided to concentrate within the unorganized workers. In this situation, if these contractor workers of CESC can set the trend by their activity that attacks of the employers & betrayal of the leaders are not the only fate for the workers, they can control their own fate once they choose the path of the struggle, decide the course of struggle collectively & also take charge of the organization of that struggle by themselves, definitely it will have an impact on other workers, specially on the Contractor Workers, & it will be more troublesome for CPI (M) & all other Parliamentarian Parties to keep the workers dependent on them. So, not only from the point of protecting the interest of CESC management, CITU & CPI (M) are not taking the advancement of these workers in good grace and taking all efforts to break the struggle of these workers. In this direction, in April 2007, in connivance with the CESC management & Contractor Companies, CITU and other 3 TUs, ignoring this Union, illegally signed one bi-partite agreement on the overdue Charter of Demands of these workers and in it, avoiding the question of recognition of their identity, they raised average monthly income of these workers in the range of Rs 300.00+ something. Not only that, they arranged to make the enhanced payment with the arrears on an emergency basis. Interestingly, a large number of workmen boycotted this payment, and are till now withdrawing the payment at the old rates. In this way, workers are fighting all the conspiracies & attacks of the management & their henchmen in their own way.
FAPP, since its birth, is trying to draw the attention to a very specific feature of the present time, which has not yet been properly recognized by most of the CRs of India; i.e., the all pervasive and devastating effect of the temporary defeat of the first offensive march towards socialism by the international working class, which took the global phenomenon after seizure of political power by the proletariat in Russia, China & some of the third world countries. Some of the visible significant expressions of this defeat are: (a) all over the world, old Communist Parties have been degenerated to the appendage of the capitalist classes, & a prolonged period has elapsed and still a true Communist Party with proletarian class character and also proletarian class base is yet to emerge; ?old? has been degenerated, but the ?new? has not yet been born; (b) an utter confusion in the ideological plane have overcast its shadow, and an utter sense of betrayal/defeatism has engulfed the body & mind of the politically disarmed international working class & toiling masses.
Imperialism, under the leadership of US, have seized this opportunity & expanded its ruthless attack over the world proletariat & toiling masses in the name of ?Neo-Liberalism/Globalisation? etc etc. Particularly, since last 15-20 years, it has taken an all-encompassing phenomenon.
Again since last few years, such claustrophobic and strangulating attack of international imperialism & the ruling classes of the national level are forcing the toiling masses of different strata, in different extents, into spontaneous protests/revolts against all these attacks. After betrayal of all the old parties & in absence of any true new Communist Party, these protests/revolts are mostly developing ?from below?.
Our country is also not an exception of this specific phenomenon of the present time. Different strata of the working people are facing the brutal onslaught of the policies of ?Neo-Liberalism? of the ruling class of India in many ways. Betrayal of the old Communist Parties of India, like CPI/CPI (M) etc has become so apparent day-by-day that today, none of the Indian proletariat & peasantry, believe that these are the parties of their own. Even, the CR camp could also not bring forth any ray of hope to them due to various reasons, primary among them is obviously the different rightist as well as ultra-leftist trends. Having no other alternative, they are being forced to protest/revolt spontaneously against such attacks of policies of neo-liberalism ?from below?. Recent spate of struggles in Nandigram-Singur-Kalinganagar-POSCO, revolts against corruption of Ration Dealers in so many villages of West Bengal, protests of Dalits of Maharashtra against the massacre of Khairlanji, struggle of the Honda workers in Haryana, Toyota workers of Karnataka and in some other industries/plants, reflect this phenomenon of present time. Thru? these isolated protests/revolts, a process of alienation from the ?old? and birth of the ?new? is slowly emerging ? which is not always apparently visible. Not only that, thru? these spontaneous protests/revolts, the struggling people are trying to bring forth their partial & semi-conscious sum up of the past Defeat. And, in this way, class struggle in India is again trying to re-emerge in a very colourful and peculiar manner.
In this circumstance, role of the conscious communists is not to strive for taking leadership of these struggles at any cost under their banner, and on the other hand, is to ?read? & ?understand? the spontaneous, partial, semi-conscious summing up of the past experiences of the toiling masses and to concentrate their all efforts so that the advance section of these struggles, a new section emerging ?from below?, can complete this sum up consciously, can alienate themselves from the ?old? (not only from the old organizations, but also from old lines-habits-practices) and to help them to take charge of the leadership of the emerging class struggle from a conscious class point of view.
Let us now see the question of struggle & organization of CESC Contractor workers from this perspective.
In most of the struggles emerged during last few years, we?ll find that ?old? remains intermingled with the ?new?. Struggles that have surfaced in rural India against the land acquisition policies of all state governments in the name of ?industrialization?, are started spontaneously by the local people; we?ll find that none of these struggles are organized consciously ?from above?, i.e., by any of the old parties (examples of the so-called struggles organized ?from above?, are the strikes of the airport employees, ?land? struggle of Andhra Pradesh in 2007 etc). At this phase, actions are spontaneously decided by the common people; new set of leaders from the common masses are emerging; struggling people are trying to exert their control over the decisions of the struggles. However, it is also a fact that struggling people have not yet been able to put their complete faith on the vast potential of their own collective strength & ability, and to alienate themselves from old habits of depending heavily on party machinery and the clout of parliamentary politics; and thus after some times, leadership of these struggles are being snatched by the leaders of the old parties (like Trinamool in West Bengal, CPI in Orissa etc) and thus all the revolutionary potentiality of the struggling people are being strangulated.
In case of working-class front, the ?new? has started to emerge in a bit different manner. In the article of April, 2007 issue of FAPP, referred earlier, namely ?The Calcutta Electric Supply Co.?s Contract Workers? Fight & New Organisation Formation?, we tried to cover this subject in a bit detail. So, without repeating further, we can just make here some sweeping comments. In ?90s, we have seen the trend of forming new Trade Unions under the leadership of different CR organizations/individual honest pro-worker leaders. However, since beginning of the new millennium, it has almost been reduced to an exception. On the other hand, two distinctly different phenomenon have started to emerge. (a) In the recent struggles of Honda workers (of Haryana), Toyota workers (of Karnataka), India International workers (of Ghajiabad), we find workers? militant struggles, still carrying banners of the ?old' Trade Unions, but the very way they fought showed it amply clear that they went beyond the limit or boundary imposed by those ?old' unions and leadership. In ?content', they belong to the ?new' struggles, but in ?form', they are yet to break apart from the ?old'. (b) Continuous, and apparently segregated & unconnected struggle of the Jute workers of West Bengal since 2002 (and continuing till this day) is the glaring example of the 2nd phenomenon. They are consciously doing this without building up any local plant level TU organization at all. It is the expression of their summing up the history of Jute workers past struggle in their own way ? though definitely incomplete and partial. As for example: To them creating just another union may upset their 100 percent unity of action that they are showing in their fights, and in addition, may enhance the possibility of buying up the leaders by the management. Then, there is a strong disbelief, suspicion about ?union?, ?party? etc in general. In 2007, series of spontaneous revolts of the unorganized workers in some ?new-generation? plants in Orissa have also reflected this phenomenon. Struggle & organization of the CESC Contractor workers also come under this category, with some advancement. They have also summed up their past experience in their own way, and departing from the path chosen by the Jute workers, they have built up their own Union; but decided that they won?t allow any non-worker leader in their Union Committee, nor would they allow any ?outside? organization/leader at their helm, and Union will be led only by the workers themselves.
With all these discussions, the point on which we want to draw the attention is that the question of struggle & organization of CESC Contractor workers represent a specific phenomenon of emerging class struggle (even though till now it is limited only in the arena of economic demands) in India and an expression of summing up of the past experiences, particularly of the Defeat & betrayal (though definitely very partial & incomplete) by the toiling masses, as also expressed in their own way thru? other recent struggles. Unless upcoming communist revolutionaries of India decide accordingly their course of action regarding these struggles, the possibility they are reflecting will again be murdered and the future of Indian revolution will again be drifted into the backdrop.
[It may be worth-mentioning here that comrades of one small CR group, when got the information of the struggle & organization of these workers, went voluntarily to these workers, built up close relations with them, and once they could establish that they had no intention to take control & ?leadership? of their independent Union, workers have accepted them as their comrades-in-arms and now, remaining with these workers, comrades of this CR group are in the learning process of how to help these workers to complete their sum up of the past experiences consciously by way of assisting this ?new?, ?independent? struggle.]
Let us again return back to our starting point, from where we started this article. Why did CITU goons murder Ram Pravesh? Is this an exceptional incident, or a question of mere Union rivalry?
We want to say, no. Journey of CPI (M) to betray the working class began in the sixties, when they chose the path to utilize struggle of the masses for mere electoral purpose, and to form Government within the boundary of present constitution; as soon as they came to power in West Bengal, they opened their innings by ordering police to fire at the struggling Port workers & Marichjhapi refugees. Once ruling class of India decided to take the path of ?Globalisation?-?Liberalisation? in the name of New Economic Policy etc -- CPI (M) and its allies, after some initial fumbling & trembling, decided to hail it. The ?Industrialisation? policy taken by CPI (M) & their allies in West Bengal & Kerala, where they are in power, is in no way different from that of taken by any other parliamentary parties in India & their governments. And in this way they are completing their journey towards proving themselves as one of the trusted commanders of the ruling classes of India.
Not only that, where there are spontaneous protests, as happened in Nandigram-Singur, they have no hesitation to suppress these resistances with the help of police-administration and also by the armed cadres. Now it is known to all how CPI (M), its government as well as its party cadres played its role in Singur & Nandigram to send the clear message to the MNCs & Indian big houses that they won?t have to face any resistance from the toiling masses to enhance their exploitation. And, in this respect also, there is no difference between CPI (M) and other parliamentary parties. What CPI (M) has done in Singur/Nandigram, Biju Janata Dal has also done the same in Kalinganagar & in POSCO, Congress in Maharashtra, AIDMK in Tamil Nadu. Murder of Ram Pravesh is also part of this project. CPI (M) has to protect the interest of R P Goenka, owner of CESC Ltd, so that he can continue to reduce his labour cost by way of doing those high-risk jobs by these contractor workers. And Ram Pravesh was one of those heroes, who stood strongly against such policy of R P Goenka. And not only that, as discussed earlier in point (e), to them the advancement of the struggle of these workers is ringing an alarm-bell as an incoming of the ?new? rejecting the path of ?old?. So, to them, crushing this struggle is not only urgent & imminent, but also the only option left to them for their own survival. So, they have to murder worker-leaders like Ram Pravesh and many others, and also to take many such other steps to crush the struggle of CESC Contractor Workers.
So, finally, Ram Pravesh is one of them who represent the emerging ?new?, and his murder by the CITU goons is one of those many facts which represent the culmination of the journey of ?Defeat? of the old lefts.
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