Delhi is all set to witness a historic event on Wednesday, 5 September 2018 – the Mazdoor-Kisan Sangharsh Rally (Worker-Peasant Struggle Rally). For the first time ever, a massive joint rally of industrial workers, service sector employees, farmers and agricultural labourers is going to take place in the capital city.
While many among the middle classes have been talking about an Undeclared Emergency in the country and the need to fight it, the fact of the matter is that the farmers and workers of our country have been facing an undeclared emergency for decades.
More than three lakh farmers have committed suicide since 1995. This period saw sharp reduction in government support for agriculture and farmers being pushed into the hands of moneylenders due to reduction in priority sector lending by banks. The prices that farmers received for their crops remained awfully inadequate. Farmers” real incomes declined, and vast sections of them fell into a deadly debt trap. The massive number of peasant suicides that followed constitute the most blood-curdling episode of structural violence the country has seen in recent times, something which can only be called policy-driven mass murder.
Even as the government continues to cut support and subsidies for our farmers, it continues to grant massive tax concessions to the corporates (Rs. 86,145 crore in 2016-17). Public sector banks have written off loans worth Rs. 2.41 lakh crore, handing over public money to fat corporates while common people”s benefits are cut in the name of lack of resources.
The agrarian crisis has led to large numbers of farmers migrating to the cities in search of jobs. But what we have seen in our country in the last three decades is jobless growth, with the employment growth rate being less than the population growth rate. As the number of jobless increased, corporates found it easier to pay workers less, to deny their rights, and to replace more and more permanent jobs with contract jobs.
As a result, while the rich continue to get richer, workers” wages remain unacceptably and shamefully low. Job security has been eroded as jobs have become increasingly contractualised and casualised, and successive governments have sought to dilute, weaken and do away with labour laws designed to protect workers. Public sector enterprises which were built with the labour of our working people are being sold off to the corporates for cheap.
Public spending on education and health have suffered cutbacks. The centre”s budgetary allocation for health in 2018-19 is just 0.29 per cent of the GDP – unsurprisingly, India”s public spending on health is among the lowest in the world in proportionate terms. Central funding for education is just 0.45 per cent of the GDP.
While all these policies were pioneered by the Congress, the BJP government has carried on with these with intensified ruthlessness. The Modi government has sold national assets worth Rs. 1.96 lakh crore till the end of March 2018. It implemented the mindless measure of demonetisation, which crippled agriculture and threw countless number of workers out of jobs. The implementation of GST has burdened small businesses, and taken away the autonomy of the States to raise tax revenue.
To contain the rising anger of the people against the Modi government, the RSS-BJP has sought to divert attention from its failures by instigating caste violence and communal hatred. Mob lynching of Dalits and minorities in the name of “cow protection” is among the most disgusting tactics adopted by the RSS-BJP to divide the working people.
The BJP government”s fund cuts in the field of education were reflected in moves to raise fees and to cut scholarships for research students. When its attempt to silence protesting students failed, the government decided to attack the students and higher education itself directly, by reducing the number of research seats in universities. If there are fewer students coming into universities, there would be fewer people who would know more about what is happening in the country and thus be critical of the government! People who continue to be critical of the government could be jailed on fake charges.
For all those who are concerned about what is going on in our country, it should be obvious that the movements of the farmers and workers who form the biggest section of people in India have to gather pace to bring about meaningful change. Massive protests by farmers and workers, such as the Kisan Long March in Maharashtra in March 2018 and the Workers” Mahapadav in Delhi in November 2017, have been indicative of developments in this regard.
It is absolutely essential, therefore, that all of us stand in solidarity with the Mazdoor-Kisan Sangharsh Rally on 5 September.
While such mass protests in the past were by farmers and workers separately, the Mazdoor-Kisan Sangharsh Rally will be the first time when there will be a joint rally of the organised movements of these sections. The call for the rally has been given by the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU). The major demands are:
1. Curb price rise; universalise Public Distribution System; ban forward trading in essential commodities.
2. Implement concrete measures to generate decent employment.
3. Declare minimum wage of not less than Rs 18000 per month for all workers.
4. Retract anti-worker labour law amendments.
5. Ensure remunerative prices for peasants as per Swaminathan Commission recommendations; ensure timely public procurement.
6. Implement debt waiver for poor peasants and agricultural workers.
7. Pass comprehensive central legislation for agricultural workers.
8. Implement MGNREGA in all rural areas; amend the Act to cover urban areas as well.
9. Ensure food security, health, education, and housing for all.
10. Provide universal social security.
11. No contractorisation of employment; ensure equal wages for equal work for men and women.
12. Implement redistributive land reforms; implement the Forest Rights Act.
13. Stop forcible land acquisition.
14. Provide relief and rehabilitation for the victims of natural calamities.
15. Reverse neoliberal policies.
The corporate media and even the so-called “liberal” media in the past have refused to cover mass protests of the working people, especially those of the workers. The corporate media has made it a habit to talk about “traffic jams” caused by workers” protests, while staying completely silent about their demands and their working and living conditions. Such shenanigans can be expected to be repeated this time as well. The hope, however, is that the rising alternative media and progressive sections active on the social media will play a bigger and more positive role to bring back the real issues sharply into focus.