The Dark Side: A Political Travelogue through Orissa
June 29, 2009
By Shubhranshu Choudhary. Columnist, Sanhati.
Traveling through cut-off villages near Balimela reservoir, to parts of the Dandakaranya forest and the Niyamgiri hills, the writer encounters villagers who have been paying the price of “India’s economic miracle”. His guide-book promises a great place for scenic beauty and adventure water sport - he finds instead darkness, hospitals five hours away, aluminum behemoths displacing tribals with impunity - and growing mutinies.
Lalgarh Movement – Mass uprising of adivasis in West Bengal
June 28, 2009
July 3: Medha Patkar, Gopal Menon and others arrested in Lalgarh: CRPP statement for release
July 3: Lalgarh: An interim balance sheet - Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
June 30: From Meena Sardar in 2001, to the quartz mines at Chechurgeria, to Binpur where people die at 40 - Sankar Ray
Lok Sabha Elections 2009
June 27, 2009
June 29: Verdict 2009 and the Left: Key Issues and the Road Ahead - Kavita Krishnan, CPIML(Liberation)
June 13: The West’s fantasies of a free-market “New India”
May 25: A lesson for the revolutionary Left - Anol Mitra, Sanhati
May 25: Topic CPIM - A few thoughts - Pinaki Mitra, Sanhati. [PDF, Bengali] »
May 21: The Left and Electoral Politics in India - Dipankar Basu, Sanhati
May 19: Enabling Congress to rule the country, CPI(M) goes into “ostrich mode” - PS Ray, Pinaki Chaudhuri - Sanhati
May 19: Wave against big corporate aggression: Incomplete Alienation from the CPI(M) - Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
May 19: Karat(e) against his own follies - Sankar Ray
The Maoist “Problem” and the Democratic Left in India
June 22, 2009
By Saroj Giri. Guest Contributor, Sanhati. June 22, 2009
This article studies what the author calls the “frustrating predicament” of the dissident Left in India upholding so-called democratic spaces: “non-violent social movements have reached a dead-end, NGOs are “paltu shers” (caged lions), and yet Maoists cannot be politically supported, even though “they are the only people able to make a dent” “- ed.
Maoism in India: Panic or Panacea?
June 19, 2009
By Nandini Chandra. Guest contributor, Sanhati. Paper presented at Left Forum 2009.
This paper seeks to place the present panic over Maoism in India in perspective through a consideration of the interlinking lenses of the state, media, civil society and the official/mainstream “left”. It starts with examining the gaps in P. Sainath’s dedicated reporting on rural misery, as expressing certain key features of official left ideology, starting with the cult book Everybody Loves a Good Drought (1996). It moves on to an exploration of the political context in which the National Commission Report on Maoist affected states (2008), authored by independent civil society activist-experts emerges. In its sympathetic approach to the Maoist menace, the report surely departs from the official Left position and yet in its skewed understanding of the problem, it remains deeply consonant with it. Finally, it points to the dangers of the merging of state, media, and civil society interests and what implications this has for a class based understanding of the rural masses.
The “People’s Movement Left” and Rammanohar Lohia: an evaluation at a time of crisis
June 13, 2009
By Amit Basole, Sanhati
Simplifying matters somewhat at the present juncture three significant streams of Left political practice can be identified in India: first, the Communist Parliamentary Left or what Dipankar Basu has termed the Social Democratic Left (SDL) which includes the CPM, CPI and their allies, second what may be termed the Communist non-Parliamentary Left (CnPL) which includes CPI (Maoist), CPI (ML) and smaller Maoist Parties and third, the People’s Movement Left (PML), sometimes called the “non-Party Left,” which is also largely non-Parliamentary (though for reasons different from the Maoist Left). PML includes various organizations belonging to the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM) and other related movements (such as the anti- caste movement, the new farmers’ movements).
Coolies under attack: What to make of the racist violence on Indians in Australia?
June 13, 2009
By Garga Chatterjee, Sanhati. June 13, 2009
The shocking racist attacks on an young Indian student in Australia might bring flashbacks of such assaults meted out to another young man named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aboard a train in South Africa, more than a hundred years ago.
Gravest displacement, Bravest resistance: The struggle of adivasis of Bastar, Chhattisgarh against imperialist corporate landgrab
June 1, 2009
By Sudha Bharadwaj. Columnist, Sanhati
I don’t live in Bastar, and I am not an adivasi.
But I have been active in the working class movement of Chhattisgarh for the past 22 years, a movement which became legendary under the charismatic leadership of Comrade Shankar Guha Niyogi. And I strongly feel that understanding what is happening in Bastar today is of the greatest significance not only to us in Chhattisgarh, but to all those who want to understand imperialist onslaught and corporate land grab, particularly in the resource-rich adivasi areas; for all of us involved nationwide in the anti-displacement movement which is day on day becoming a fierce life-and-death struggle against all odds; and in fact for all of us in the peoples’ movements who are faced with the abysmally criminal failure of democratic institutions and shrinking democratic spaces on the one hand, and growing repression on the other.
Binayak Sen’s release: A critical appraisal through the lens of political economy
May 31, 2009
Statement from Sanhati on Binayak Sen’s release
We critically welcome the Supreme Court of India’s decision of May 25, 2009 to grant bail to Binayak Sen, a socially committed paediatrician and civil liberties activist, who had been arrested on May 14, 2007 on false charges of abetting Maoist activity in Chhattisgarh, sedition, and waging war against the State under various sections of the draconian Chhattisgarh Special Public Security Act (CSPSA), 2005 and the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), 2004 (amended) and the IPC.
While this can be certainly seen as a small victory for the human rights and civil liberties movement in India, we cannot help but point out that the real battle for democratic rights lies ahead.
Summary: Relations of Production and Modes of Surplus Extraction in India
May 29, 2009
By Amit Basole and Dipankar Basu, Sanhati
Assessing the nature and direction of economic development in India is an important theoretical and practical task with profound political and social implications. After all, any serious attempt at a radical restructuring of Indian society, if it is not to fall prey to empty utopianism, will need to base its long-term strategy on the historical trends in the evolution of the material conditions of life of the vast majority of the population. Attempting to contribute to past debates and as part of on-going attempts at radical transformation of Indian society, this paper tries to provide a summary account of the evolution of some key structural features of the Indian economy over the last few decades.
The Left and Electoral Politics in India
May 22, 2009
By Deepankar Basu, Sanhati
In the recently concluded 2009 general elections to the lower house of the parliament, the Social Democratic Left (SDL henceforth) In India, composed of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM), the Communist Party of India (CPI) and a bunch of smaller left-wing parties, has witnessed the severest electoral drubbing in a long time. This year, the CPM won a total of 16 parliamentary seats; compared to its performance in the last general elections in 2004 this is a whopping decline of 27 seats. The CPI, on the other hand, won 4 seats in 2009, suffering a net decline of 6 parliamentary seats from its position in 2004. Does this mean that the Indian population has rejected even the mildly progressive and social democratic policies that the SDL tried to argue for at the Central level? Is this a mandate for the Congress party and by extension a mandate for neoliberalism? I think not. This is a mandate against the SDL but not against social democratic policies; this is a mandate against neoliberalism and for welfare-oriented policies. To the extent that the Congress was pushed by the SDL to partially implement such pro-people policies, it can possibly be interpredeted as an indirect endorsement of Congress’s late-in-the day populism. After making a few comments on the national mandate, in this article, I focus my attention on West Bengal, the bastion of the SDL in India.
Relations of Production and Modes of Surplus Extraction in India: An Aggregate Study
May 16, 2009
By Amit Basole and Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. May 11 2009.
Abstract: This paper uses aggregate-level data as well as case-studies to trace the evolution of some key structural features of the Indian economy, relating both to the agricultural and the informal industrial sector. These aggregate trends are used to infer: (a) the dominant relations of production under which the vast majority of the Indian working people labour, and (b) the predominant ways in which the surplus labour of the direct producers is appropriated by the dominant classes. This summary account is meant to inform and link up with on-going attempts at radically restructuring Indian society.
Click here to read the full paper [PDF, English] »
Click here to read a shorter version and summary
Adivasi rally of April 24th, 2009
April 26, 2009
Pictures from the Adivasi Rally of April 24th, 2009.
Jobless? What jobless! A brief tour through the Economics Wonderland
April 22, 2009
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati
What we mostly find in India is not open unemployment but underemployment. This is principally because going without jobs is a luxury in a country having non-existent unemployment benefits. Employed kith and kin cannot be of much help either if one is jobless because the wage levels are barely enough to sustain one. However a person doing a job which neither she nor others consider gainful employment should not be counted as employed . Her right to labour and dignity is yet to be realised. As pressure of global capital tightens and the organised sector shrinks, workers are made to take up more and more of such unpaying and hazardous jobs, whose remuneration stagnates as the rest of the economy surges past. All this is perhaps not much surprising. What is amusing is the eagerness with which dominant economic tradition of the day ties itself in knots.
Lalgarh movement: building infrastructure in the face of governement apathy and terror
April 15, 2009
By Koustav De, Sanhati
The Lalgarh movement has moved far beyond the initial point of fighting police repression. The people have decided to take up development initiatives that in theory are their fundamental right but which they have never seen - irrigation facilities, drinking water, and a health center.
Jindal SEZ at Salboni: A First-hand Report
April 3, 2009
This report dated 20th November, 2008 was prepared by Jayanta Singha and Arjun Sengupta who were part of the fact-finding team that went to Salboni. They are also members of the SEZ Birodhi Prachar Mancha. The report has been translated from Bengali by Koel Das and Suvarup Saha, Sanhati.
In Salboni, West Midnapur district of Bengal, the Jindal Group is building a SEZ on 4877.44 acres of land. According to the State Government and JSW Bengal Steel Limited, the SEZ is being built on totally arid land. And that the land has been given joyfully, spontaneously, in return for which the Jindal Group has provided adequate compensation and promises. The job of this team was to probe the veracity of these claims, the socio-economic effect of the purported SEZ on the local population, and its environmental implications.
On agriculture, opposition to land acquisition and the parliamentary elections
April 3, 2009
By Shamik Sarkar, Sanhati
1. A short note on agriculture 2. Opposition to land acquisition 3. The tale of crisis and beyond 4. Some notable characteristics of the resistance movement by social labour 5. Parliamentary Democracy
Gorkhaland and Lalgarh: dialogues, parallels, and a challenge to mainstream parties
March 21, 2009
By Koustav De, Sanhati
(1) The Gorkhaland movement: A short background (2) Gorkhaland leadership extends hand of solidarity for Lalgarh movement (3) Exchanging views: A challenge to vote equations (4) The State’s divisive tactics (5) Looking forward
A report of the Save Naihati Industrial Area Forum
February 9, 2009
This report from a civil society forum called Save Naihati Industrial Area provides interesting perspectives to the breakdown of industry in Naihati, West Bengal, and its effects on local cultural and social life.
77 days in jail: political notes from an imprisoned worker under Left Front ruled Bengal
February 9, 2009
Loomtex Engineering Pvt.Ltd., West Bengal, continues to be a jute mill where 2,300 workers are well past the age of retirement. The management has not cleared their gratuity dues for the last 10-15 years and forces old, feeble, ailing workers to work at a measly rate of Rs. 100 per day. Loomtex is also a mill where the Provident Funds accounts of the workers have not been audited since 1997. Sangrami Mazdoor Union, newly formed by workers, has been agitating for clearance of the due provident fund and gratuity of since January 2008. On May 15 2008, a personnel manager was found dead in his office on the mill premises, while the Sangrami Mazdoor Union (SMU) was conducting a peaceful gate meeting protesting the non-payment of long standing provident fund and gratuity dues. Police and management blamed workers, throwing many of them in jail, while the spiraling violence perpetrated by the management’s hired goons threatened to break the back of SMU.
These notes from jail are by an imprisoned worker and appeared in ShramikShakti, November 2008.
Factory closures and plight of workers: A comprehensive summary of Bengal’s industrial condition
February 9, 2009
Contents:
Section 1: Abstract
Section 2: Voices from below
Section 3: Sickness Profiles: National Tannery, Kolay Biscuit, Eastern Paper Mill and 14 others.
Section 4: Regional Roundup of Industrial Belts: Eastern fringes, B.T. Road, Dum-Dum Lake Town, Jadavpur-Tollygunj, Taratala, Beleghata
Section 5: Factsheets: Industrial policy summary, Efforts to combat sickness, Survey of 500 sick industries, Rajarhat township, “Excess” industrial land.
Section 6: Summary
Death of small businesses in Bengal and India: a comprehensive study of retail monopoly
January 23, 2009
By Siddhartha Mitra and Debarshi Das, Sanhati. Translated from a FAMA study
Contents: 1. Introduction: the old versus the new market: the politics of change 2. The attempt to control small businesses 3. How the attack on small businesses has already impacted the rest of the world 4. What is the current situation of small scale retail in India 5. How this is all going to change 6. The death of small businesses and the false promise of new employment 7. Farmer suicides 8. Procuring the crops – the farmers are left out 9. Impact on the environment 10. That is why there is Nandigram, Khammam, Posco 11. Let us walk together
Click here for Bengali documentary on this material, produced by Canvas
Sambhu Singh vs. South City: the battle against corporate retail and real estate in a microcosm
December 30, 2008
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati.
Since December 25, something is happening in Kolkata which might turn into a major battle against corporate retail and real estate. Many of you, who are from or have stayed in Kolkata, know about the huge South City complex (company logo: Live the way the world does), consisting of the largest mall in Kolkata and a huge residential complex consisting of 4 tower buildings. The complex has come up on the grounds of the erstwhile Usha Engineering works, a factory employing around 7000 people, which was shut down and the land handed over to South City. The workers were all thrown out and their living quarters were demolished.
Living in eternal negligence – A political travelogue on the tribals in the Sundarbans, Bengal
December 26, 2008
By Sanjay Ghosh, South 24 Parganas. Translated from Sangbad Manthan by Koel Das, Sanhati.
This political travelogue probes the lives of tribals in the Sunderbans, looking at their means of livelihood, Panchayat power dynamics, and access to the public distribution system, mid-day meals, and education. The writer comes to the conclusion that “…even after 62 years of independence, this part of Sunderban, located 3 hours from Kolkata, is a land of nothing…”.
Poultry farmers in the fatal grip of monopoly capital in Bengal
December 15, 2008
By Ajay Bera, Arambag. Translated by Debarshi Das from ShramikShakti Newsletter, November 2008.
Drawing from daily interactions with hundreds of decimated farmers of Arambag Subdivision I am writing this article to give a communicable shape to my experience. Neither the electronic media nor the newspapermen care to see their abject destitution. The government has become tactically deaf. The words which are going to follow are not mine, but of the farmers.
TB Hospital sold for 1 rupee – Private players jump into medical education in West Bengal
December 14, 2008
By Bishan Dutta. Translated by Suvarup Saha, from Shramikshakti Newsletter, November 2008.
Privately owned educational institutions have been on a roll from the days of the Rajiv Gandhi’s new economic policies. Here, in West Bengal, the left-front government joined the bandwagon a little late but has been quick to champion its cause with immense dedication – testified by the mushrooming of more than 150 professional degree colleges in last few years. The newest in the list is the KPC Medical College located at Jadavpur, in the south of Kolkata.
Accumulation by Dispossession under the Aegis of a “Communist Party” - David Harvey on Bengal
December 10, 2008
By Dipankar Basu and Debarshi Das, Sanhati
In a recent lecture, eminent Marxist scholar David Harvey drew the attention of his audience to recent developments in West Bengal, India as an example of “accumulation by dispossession”. The main target of his example, the CPIM, responded to his criticism through certain claims which have been perfected down the years into an effective propaganda machine. Many exhaustive studies in the past and recent events have shown these claims to be either untruth or half-truths. This article summarizes the main contours of those studies, and argues that Harvey has indeed correctly interpreted the happenings in Bengal.
The Global Economic Crisis: a five-part study
November 9, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. This series will also appear parallely on Radicalnotes
The global economic crisis currently underway is, by all accounts, the deepest economic crisis of world capitalism since the Great Depression. It is necessary for the international working class to understand various aspects of this crisis: how it developed, who were the players involved, what were the instruments used during the build-up and what are it’s consequences for the working people of the world. This understanding is necessary to formulate a socialist, i.e., working class, response to these earth shaking events. In a series of posts here on Radical Notes, I will share my understanding of the on-going crisis as part of the larger collective attempt to come to grips with the current conjuncture from a socialist perspective, to understand both the problems and the possibilities that it opens up.
Political Economy of Contemporary India: Some Comments on Partha Chatterjee’s theoretical framework
October 23, 2008
Dipankar Basu and Debarshi Das, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Sifting through the divergent viewpoints thrown up by attempts to make sense of the recent political history of West Bengal, one is led to the conclusion that the tumultuous events have taken many, if not most, by surprise. With the benefit of hindsight one can probably say this: a combination of an insensitive state power, an arrogant ruling party, lapping-it-up corporate interests, and cheerleaders-of-corporate-sector-doubling-up-as-media orchestrated a veritable assault – a perfect storm. Yet the peasantry, initially without the guiding hand of a political party – indeed at times against the writ of the party – fought on. Through this episode Indian political economy seems to have stumbled upon the peasantry while it was looking for a short-cut to economic growth through SEZs.
Probing the politics of the annual destitution of 4 million in Damodar valley flooding
October 23, 2008
By Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. Translated from ShramikShakti Newsletter: August 2008. Open for comments.
The lower Damodar river valley in West Bengal is the home of the Damodar Valley Corporation or DVC, the first multipurpose river valley project of independent India, whose stated aims are flood control, irrigation and generation and distribution of electricity. It is also the site of horrendous annual flooding that has brought ruin to over 4 million people for over a generation. This article probes the disparity between the stated objectives of the project and its performance, and the dangerous politics of big dams that has wreaked havoc on the lives of millions in Bengal.
Farewell to the Tatas: Costs and benefits of the Tata-Singur Project, a detailed dissection of the deal
October 3, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments
Costs: the total cost of the Tata-Singur project incurred by the exchequer, and hence ultimately the tax payers, will be approximately be Rs. 3000 crores on a net present value basis when we add up the costs pertaining to the land subsidy, the tax holidays, the soft loan, the real estate gift and the subsidized electricity using an interest rate of 11%. This is about 58% of the total realized industrial investment in the state of West Bengal in 2007.
Hidden Costs of the Tata-Singur Agreement
September 22, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments.
The Tata Group of Companies is one of the largest business conglomerates in India today with about 100 large companies in its fold. With the might of the Indian State firmly behind it, monopoly capital in India has started a move to aggressively acquire foreign assets. This short note examines the true character of agreements like the one `struck’ between the TML and the West Bengal government. It is important to understand how such `agreements’ look like under a neo-liberal regime.
The dislocation of 15 million fishworkers and environmental degradation: an introduction to ongoing changes in Coastal Zone Regulations
September 22, 2008
By Suvarup Saha, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Coastal Zone Regulations in India are currently being changed and manipulated. It is necessary to examine these changes closely and understand the political and economic currents that motivate them. The 8200 km long coastline of India provides livelihood to 15 million people and is one of the richest environments in the world - changes and amendments in protective regulations thus have widespread effects, effects which are being swept under the carpet by political parties, from the right to the parliamentary Left. This is an introduction to the issue.
Understanding the demand for Gorkhaland : An introductory note
September 16, 2008
Open for comments
Voices for a separate state of Gorkhaland are once again echoing in the hills of Darjeeling and the surrounding areas. These developments are certainly disturbing for the uninformed Bengalis – they fail to understand why such a picturesque and otherwise “peaceful” place would like to secede from their province. They also feel sad at the thought of losing something so beautiful, something to be proud of. Sometimes, there is the knee-jerk reaction among some of them – a refusal to part with the region. With the state government and the mainstream media purposely continuing to feed on this ignorance and pride, it becomes important to put together a historical account of the developments in Darjeeling and thereby address questions regarding the right to self-determination of the people staying in this region. The hope is that such an introductory account of the evolving situation in Darjeeling would help the democratic-minded people to come to a rational decision.
The ongoing Singur siege: populist, social democratic, and horizontal responses to neo-liberalism
August 31, 2008
By Kuver Sinha, Sanhati. Open for comments
There is an ongoing siege in Singur, West Bengal, the site of the Tata Nano project. The Trinamul Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, has demanded that of all the land acquired by the State Government using the colonial Land Acquisition Act of 1894, 400 acres be returned to farmers who had been unwilling to sell. The Krishi Jomi Jibon Raksha Committee or KJJRC (Save Farmland Committee) is the broad umbrella organization carrying out the struggle. Various civil society groups have rallied behind this call, as have landed farmers, landless labourers, and sharecroppers of the area.
Public health privatisation in Bengal
August 29, 2008
By Indira Chakravarthy, Guest Contributor.
As a complement to Dipankar Basu’s piece on the “achievements” of the CPM government in West Bengal on the economic and social fronts (http://sanhati.com/front-page/857/), I would like to share a few facts/concerns about the health status of common people in W Bengal. Using publicly available data, Dipankar had demonstrated that West Bengal’s growth story was rather unspectacular when compared to other Indian states. Now, I would like to raise a related but different question: has even this below-average “economic growth” translated into improvements in the social sector for the common people?
A history of the brutal Rajarhat land acquisition, Bengal’s new IT hub
August 29, 2008
By Santanu Sengupta, Sanhati. Translated from Rajarhaat - Uponogorir Ontorale Arto Manuher Kanna
Rajarhaat, near Kolkata, is Bengal’s new IT hub and a hotspot for real estate investment. Within no time Rajarhat has become the hotbed of real estate investments with companies like DLF, Keppel Land, Unitech group, Singapore-based Ascendas, Vedic Realty, etc. coming in. Land prices have soared. The first phase of DLF’s Rs 280 crore (Rs 2.80 billion) IT project has been operational since 2005 and a second IT park is on the cards. Wipro, Infosys, IBM - all the major IT houses are in operation here, on subsidized lands. A wireless hub is in the offing. Contrasting with Singur-Nandigram, official state versions have given the picture that Rajarhat’s land acquisition from the mid 1990’s onwards has been peaceful. This is an acount of the immense bloodshed that lay behind this acquisition, in a decade when the civil society and media wasn’t interested.
‘Testing’ Time for a ‘Civil’ Nuclear Deal: Reflections ahead of the NSG meet
August 20, 2008
By P.K. Sundaram, Guest Contributor. August 20, 2008. Open for comments.
India’s desperate diplomacy prior to the NSG meet on August 21-22, 2008 reveals the not-so-hidden truth about the deal – at a time when there is a need for renewed focus on disarmament, India rehabilitates nuclear energy corporates in order to circumvent nonproliferation regime and secure its right to conduct nuclear tests. And it finds supports from the Bush nuclear strategy bent on reducing nonproliferation into counterproliferation.
We have no value - sharecroppers and labourers in the ongoing Singur crisis
August 19, 2008
Reporting from Singur – Shamik Sarkar, Sanhati. 19th August, 2008. Comments enabled.
It has been over a year and a half that 997 acres have been sealed off by Tata’s fences here. But many landowning farmers have not accepted compensation. In the last week of July, 2008, the Krishi Jomi Jibon Jibika Raksha Committee (Committee for saving farmland, life, and livelihood) gave the call to “outsiders working in Tata’s plant” to leave Singur, “to protect the rights of unwilling farmers, Bargadars, and agricultural workers”. After that, Trinamul leader Mamata Banerjee declared that there would be a continuous blockade of the project from August 24th. The pressure of the movement forced workers who had been coming to the site from outside to stop.
What is the state of workers in the new industrial zones of Tamil Nadu?
August 16, 2008
This conversation with a worker from Tamil Nadu, appeared in Shramik Istahar, May 2008. It has been translated by Koel Das, Sanhati.
I was conversing with Sudhakarda. Sudhakar Raut, originally from Orissa, used to work in a reputed private engineering factory in West Bengal. He lost his job after being victimized in a lock-out while fighting against the injustice of the factory owner. I met him a couple of days back when he talked about his experiences over the last one year.
Nuclear Deal, ‘National Interest’ and the Indian Left
July 20, 2008
By P.K. Sundaram, Guest Contributor. Open for comments.
It is the Indian Left’s concurrence, rather than its disagreement, with the idea of a nuclear future (including nuclear weapons) that has made its case weak and inaudible to the larger masses.
Fighting Neoliberalism: Does West Bengal Show the Way?
July 17, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Mindless economic growth through unfettered operations of the “free” market, that is often portrayed in the mainstream media as a panacea for all of India’s economic problems, has now been shown to be seriously flawed as a sensible strategy for economic development. Active, pro-people state intervention through sound policies is essential for making any meaningful dent on the problems facing our country today; and this includes, if historical experience is anything to go by, even the achievement of sustainable, broad-based economic growth. In every known case of successful industrialization and economic development, be it England or Continental Europe or USA or Japan or the East Asian tigers, the State has played a pro-active role in directing investments, mobilizing resources to finance that investment, protecting fledgling industries from undue competition from abroad, and so on; it is, therefore, inconceivable that any state, or the country for that matter, can make that transition without State intervention through effective policies for agriculture and industry. State governments subscribing to this viewpoint would claim to have put this political philosophy into practice, especially the one in West Bengal.
The Indo-US Nuclear Pact and the Hoax of Nuclear Power
July 9, 2008
The Indo-US Nuclear Pact and the Hoax of Nuclear Power - By Dipanjan Rai Chaudhuri
India’s Nuclear History: A Brief Outline
Choosing the Wrong Future: The U.S.-India Nuclear Deal - By Andrew Lichterman and M.V. Ramana
Wrong Ends, Means, and Needs: Behind the U.S. Nuclear Deal With India - By Zia Mian and M. V. Ramana
Liberalism Betrayed? The Maoist Electoral Victory in Nepal
June 29, 2008
By Saroj Giri, Sanhati. Open for comments.
The workers chanted “Allende, the people are defending you: hit the reactionaries hard.” The mood of the masses was militant. They were waiting for a lead that never came. - Tariq Ali, Allende’s Chile
Is the Maoist victory in the Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal a challenge to the liberal consensus and hegemony or is it its expansion, or worse, its intensification, co-opting the Maoists in the process? It could be either, mostly depending on which way events unfold in the coming days. The ‘meaning’ of the Maoist victory calls for a critical examination even as it promises an interesting and politically salient expose of the intricacies and dangers of trying to beat liberal democracy in its own game. Liberals, both left-wing and right-wing ones, have welcomed the Maoist victory though with caution and sometimes clenching their teeth, as a victory of the ballot over the bullet and a step forward for democracy and peace in Nepal. Those on the revolutionary left have however hardly allowed their pleasant surprise at the results to underestimate the enormous risks of ‘right-wing deviation’ and capitulation that the present path entails for the Maoists.
Corporate encroachment and the Panchayat elections: A rural montage
June 15, 2008
By Shamik Sarkar, Sanhati. Open for comments.
I. Beliya village, Haruda, and promises of development
II. Singur, its sharecroppers and laborers, and the Opposition
III. Corporate hands in rural Bengal
A brief overview of the Indian poverty debate
June 9, 2008
By Alita Nandi, Sanhati. Open for comments.
Click here to read the technical version of this article [PDF, English, 120KB] »
In the early 1990s various liberalisation policies had been introduced in India and India had started to experience higher growth rates (compared to pre-liberalisation period). The official poverty estimates published by the Planning Commission showed a decline in absolute poverty levels from 36% in 1993-94 to 26% in 1999-00. The question that became important at this juncture was, “Did the advantages of this high economic growth reach all echelons of society, in particular the ‘poor’?” And so the official reports at this time showing a reduction in absolute poverty levels created a stir. Some old issues about poverty measurement and some new ones were brought into the foreground and heavily debated and discussed. Here I attempt to trace out the key issues of this debate.
Disadvantaged Social Classes in the Panchayat system: Social Democratic Half-truths
June 2, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati. Open for Comments.
In a recent article in Macroscan, Jayati Ghosh (JG hereafter) has argued that West Bengal is a “pioneering state” with regard to panchayati raj institutions and other measures aimed at decentralization of state power in India. The author shows that when one uses the correct index in the analysis, these conclusions vanish into thin air - of the states studied, Maharashtra, for example, outperforms West Bengal in participation of disadvantaged classes in Panchayats, even though it has never had the benefit of a progressive, left-wing government. The author suggests that this may be due to a vibrant culture of grassroots social and political activism, nurtured and led in no small measure by the radical left.
Tumi Maharaj Sadhu hole Aaj! - Real estate land-acquisition in HindMotors
May 30, 2008
Leaflet from Gana Udyog
B.L.R.O. Srirampore: I won’t commit this to paper. However, there is one set of rules for common people, another for the Birlas. I can’t do much from my chair. We are servants who obey government directives. Decisions come from much higher up.
(1) Land-acquisition in HindMotors for real-estate: A Timeline
(2) Background
Panchayat Election 2008 results and the future of the CPIM
May 26, 2008
By Pinaki Mitra, Sanhati. Open for comments.
This article analyses the reactions of the CPIM leadership to the recent election reversals, gleaning from the reactions certain classic maladies of the Party itself. It then looks back at the CPIM’s history of compromises, ending with the dilemmas it now confronts.
Will the “Great Indian Middle Class” show up, please?
April 9, 2008
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati. Comments enabled
Where is the “Great Indian Middle Class”? Where are those conspicuously-consuming, frequently-flying, gizmo-toting, big car-driving, globalized offsprings of our jet-setting “new economy”? Don’t we see them all around us: living in highrises with blue-tiled swimming pools, with people living a few miles away getting water once in three days, shopping in glittering malls built on the land of evicted slums, driving around in Toyotas and Chevrolets on roads choked with traffic? From all accounts, and appearances, we have reached the heady days when the Indian middle class has finally arrived. They are the ones who supposedly constitute one of the biggest markets in the world, for whom multinational corporations are falling over one another to invest in India, for whom our governments’ policies are directed, for whom roads and airports are built, for they ARE the “people” of India. This great middle class is our hope, the engine of growth for our economy. So - where is it?
Stages of Revolution in the International Working Class Movement
March 25, 2008
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati (Open for comments)
This article attempts to throw some light on the following two questions: (1) How does the classical Marxist tradition conceptualize the relationship between the two stages of revolution: democratic and the socialist? (2) Does the democratic revolution lead to deepening and widening capitalism? Is capitalism necessary to develop the productive capacity of a society? The answer to the first question emerges from the idea of the “revolution of permanence” proposed by Marx in 1850, accepted, extended and enriched by Lenin as “uninterrupted revolution” and simultaneously developed by Trotsky as “permanent revolution”. This theoretical development was brilliantly put into practice by Lenin between the February and October revolutions in Russia in 1917. The answer to the second question emerges clearly from the debates on the national and colonial question in the Second Congress of the Third International in 1920. From this debate what emerges is the idea of the democratic revolution led by the proletariat as the start of the process of non-capitalist path of the development of the productive capacity of society, moving towards the future socialist revolution. Rather than deepening and widening capitalism, the democratic revolution under the proletariat leads society in the opposite direction, in a socialist, i.e., proletarian direction. Promoting capitalism is not necessary for the development of the productive capacity of a country.
Social democracy meets postmodernism: the secret pleasures of being Stalinist
December 26, 2007
By Saroj Giri, Sanhati. Open for comments
We are told that the CPIM is mounting a Stalinist defence of the Stalinist horrors they enacted in Nandigram and elsewhere. Wondered what a possible post-modern defence would look like? Something like Professor Patnaik’s? Perhaps it is senseless to raise such a question. But there are parallels. Does not the Negri-inspired postmodernist transmogrification of imperialism into a cool, decentred, frictionless Empire amount to a defence of imperialism?
Nandigram and the Blind Faith in Industrialization
December 21, 2007
From the June 2007 issue of the Hindi Journal “Samayik Varta”. Comments enabled.
Original article by Sunil. Translated by Amit Basole (abasole@gmail.com).
The events in Singur and Nandigram and before that the struggles in Kalinga Nagar and Dadri have achieved at least this much; the intoxicated ruling class proceeding rapidly on the path of globalization has been slowed down and a debate has been initiated in the country. The government has been forced to rethink matters somewhat.
The Social Democratic Left and its Apologists (open for comments)
December 17, 2007
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati
Prof. Prabhat Patnaik’s (PP henceforth) recent diatribe against the Left’s presumed intellectual detractors strikes one as decidedly odd. For it is obvious from the very beginning that PP is carefully setting up a straw man to be knocked out with a flourish a few paragraphs down the line. Conflating the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] with the Left, or with what he sometimes refers to as the “organized Left”, and equating a critique of CPI(M) with a negation of politics are the two rhetorical devices repeatedly used by PP to achieve his goal. After glossing over crucial facts, repeating some oft-heard falsehoods and offering his definition of political praxis (to which I agree with minor reservations!), PP discovers messianic moralism as the ground on which the recent critique of CPI(M) rests. With this stupendous discovery PP’s straw man is fully constructed; it remains to knock him down to oblivion and this PP does with his usual elan.
Fear of the Unfamiliar – Responding to Patnaik (open for comments)
December 16, 2007
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati
A spectre is haunting the CPI(M)- the spectre of the People. All the powers of the old Left (or to borrow their term, the “organized Left”) have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Prakash Karat, Prabhat Patnaik and N. Ram, party cadres and state police.
The first step in the process of exorcism is delegitimization. The resistance of the people of Singur and Nandigram has long been attempted to be delegitimized by attributing it to the so-called unholy alliance of the Trinamool Congress, Jamaat and the Maoists. That is familiar terrain, to brand all opposition as the handiwork of right wing or ultra Left forces, and hence deny it’s political legitimacy. However, what was unfamiliar for the CPI(M) was “so many intellectuals suddenly turn(ing) against the Party with such amazing fury on this issue”. That tens of thousands of common people would accompany these intellectuals, many of them long time fellow-travellers and supporters of the Left Front, out on the streets in a spontaneous show of outrage and protest was something totally unfamiliar to the CPI(M), which has converted “the people” into a fetish. And, Prabhat Patnaik’s essay seems to have been born out of a fear of this unfamiliar.
You are not what you were - Ashok Mitra after 14th November, 2007
November 15, 2007
By Ashok Mitra. Translated from Bengali by Debarshi Das, Sanhati.
Till death I would remain guilty to my conscience if I keep mum about the happenings of the last two weeks in West Bengal over Nandigram. One gets torn by pain too. Those against whom I am speaking have been my comrades at some time. The party whose leadership they are adorning has been the centre of my dreams and works for last sixty years.
The No-spin Zone - Nandigram, facts and myths (ongoing commentary)
November 11, 2007
Nov. 26, 2007 - Ration riots - The Disconnect and the Connections - Debarshi Das
Nov. 24, 2007 - Sushilbabur Maaneboi, or how to tell a Sushil from a Harmad and other exam questions - Cheatsheet by Saikat Bandyopadhyay
Nov. 24, 2007 - The Fig Leaf Falls - Debarshi Das
Nov. 21, 2007- An Autumn of Discontent - Debarshi Das
Nov. 18, 2007: The spark of Nandigram - Debarshi Das
Nov.16, 2007: The CPI(M)’s Harmad Bahini - human shields, rape as a weapon and other parallels with private militias the world over - Siddhartha Mitra
Nov. 16, 2007 - Which side are you on, Mr Bhattacharjee? Neo-liberal games and the cloak of turf war - Debarshi Das
Nov. 15, 2007 - How long shall we sing the TINA tune? Nandigram comes to me as burning torch of courage. - Suvarup Saha
November 13, 2007 - “Bol ki lab aazad hain tere” - Debarshi Das
November 12, 2007 - The struggle of memory against forgetting… - Debarshi Das
November 11, 2007 - Are Maoists the new WMDs? - Debarshi Das
November 11, 2007 - Who is fighting this turf-war, and why sides need to be taken - Partho Sarathi Ray
Penetrating the Retail Sector in Bengal - the Reliance Juggernaut (Blog article, open for comments)
July 31, 2007
By Partho Sarathi Ray, Sanhati
The latest neo-liberal onslaught on the lives and livelihoods of working people in India is taking place in the retail sector. After agriculture, the retail sector employs the largest number of people in India. Of the 40 million people involved in retailing as an economic activity, 0.5 million are in organized retail whereas around 39.5 million people are employed in unorganized retail trade. This includes all sorts of small retailing operations ranging from neighbourhood “mom-and-pop” shops to street vendors to small farmers who travel to cities daily to sell their produce to the small-scale transporters who transport the retail goods. These 40 million adults in the retail sector roughly translates into 160 million dependents, making the retail sector the source of livelihood for approximately a sixth of India’s population. The decade of liberalization, which has seen stagnation in the agrarian economy and large scale job losses in the manufacturing sector, has pushed more and more people into different aspects of retailing in absence of any other opportunities.
Chronological progress of Nandigram case (PIL filed by Association of Lawyers of Calcutta High Court against the State)
July 27, 2007
A reverse chronological background of the case is presented below.
A History of Trade Union Movements at Hindmotors, and the Recent Strike
June 13, 2007
Till 1990, almost 16,000 people worked at Hindustan Motors (HM). Among the unions there, it was CITU (Center of Indian Trade Unions) that was most powerful. As a trade union, CITU was notorious for its internecine fights and factionalism throughout Hooghly district. Towards the beginning of the 90s, the then CITU secretary Maloy Ghosh was murdered by a rival faction near HM station.
Nandigram and the Unravelling of Social Democracy - Blog article (open for comments)
June 12, 2007
By Saroj Giri, Sanhati
Movements against displacement have for a long time been understood in India largely in pre-political terms of an almost natural opposition between an undifferentiated modernity of global capitalism and equally undifferentiated local communities of traditional societies. Kalinganagar and Nandigram, in putting up a tenacious resistance to capital and the state, have however made such viewpoints untenable and call for a political understanding of movements against displacement. Events in Nandigram therefore will be here presented in the light of the decomposition of social democracy represented by the CPIM. The jolt of Nandigram comes at a time when, after long years of social democratic containment of working class movements, the party was just settling down to actively spearhead the march of capital in the state.
Censorship or Democratization? - Venezuela, Chavez, and Freedom of Speech
June 7, 2007
Open for comments.
As far as world public opinion is concerned, as reflected in the international media, the pronouncements of freedom of expression groups, and of miscellaneous governments, Venezuela has finally taken the ultimate step to prove its opposition right: that Venezuela is heading towards a dictatorship. Judging by these pronouncements, freedom of speech is becoming ever more restricted in Venezuela as a result of the non-renewal of the broadcast license of the oppositional TV network RCTV. With RCTV going off the air at midnight of May 27th, the country’s most powerful opposition voice has supposedly been silenced.
Gregory Wilpert contests this view, reporting on the landscape of Venezuelan media, its composition then and now, the nature of RCTV and its role in the coup of 2002. Also included is an appeal of support from Michael Lebowitz and other intellectuals.
Some questions about agrarian structure in contemporary India - Blog article, open for comments
May 15, 2007
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati (courtesy RadicalNotes)
The first thing that probably needs to be clarified in the study of agrarian structure in India (and other parts of the periphery) is to understand agrarian structure as an articulation of various modes of production under which socially necessary labour is being undertaken. The concept of socio-economic formation, as an articulation of various modes of production, but distinct from the concept of mode of production itself might prove useful here. I feel that this is a very important point that is often ignored in much Marxist theorising.
Once we agree to understand agrarian structure as an articulation of various modes of production, several questions immediately arise. One, what are the various modes of production that are articulated in various forms in India today? Capitalist and pre-capitalist modes. That much is clear and widely agreed upon.
Critique of Frontline article Index of Equity on Land Distribution in West Bengal - Blog article open for comments
May 9, 2007
By Aditi Sarkar, Sanhati
Aparajita Bakshi (2007) in her recent article Index of Equity constructs, in her own words, “a simple index of access to agricultural land” to claim the “socially broad based land reform” achievements by the government of West Bengal. This article professes the great strides that the government of West Bengal has made in achieving equality by enacting its policies of distributing land among the Dalits and the Adivasis.
Equity was measured simplistically as some combination of the fraction of land owned by certain under-privileged groups compared to the size of these groups to the total population. Even if this measure was called land-distribution equity, instead of equity index, it is ill-conceived. It does not, for example, factor in fundamental qualities of the land like soil type, its arability and its proximity to irrigation facilities.
Development and Venezuela - A Story
April 23, 2007
By Saikat Bandyopadhyay, Sanhati - Coutesy Rowak
This essay is a case-study of the nature of development in Venezuela, focussing on the protest of indigenous Wayu, Bari, and Yukpa people against coal mining in the state of Zulia. The issues raised by the opposing sides resonate with the current struggle in West Bengal. The author analyses the role of Hugo Chavez in this tussle, coming to the conclusion that ” Chavez is not claiming that there is only one way to development, and it is scientifically known. He is not prescribing Fukuyama-esque truths, rather he is entering into dialogue, and learning. It is those who have made a spectacle of him at Rabindra Sarobar, adoring him with packed houses, that have learnt their trade from M.T.V. They have learnt how to abstract away the politics, and make lifeless icons for their sordid carnivals and their voting industry, icons who will perhaps soon grace their T-shirts…”
Click to read essay [Bengali, PDF, 7 pages]
From Raichowk to Singur - Notes on Industrialisation
April 23, 2007
By Saikat Bandyopadhyay, Sanhati - Courtesy Axarjatra
This essay starts its journey from a famous presentation by Ashwin Adarkar in Raychowk, 1999, looking at the prescriptions made current in its wake, and moves on to a long, chilling excerpt from “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” by John Perkins. It ends with a meditation on the function of ideology in the establishment of economic truths, and the proactive and reactive functions of the seemingly warring players in this brutal game whose result has been fixed by its very existence.
Click to read essay [Bengali, PDF - 25 pages]
Globalisation of Capital: Some Questions
April 7, 2007
By Debarshi Das, Sanhati (Blog Article, open for commentary)
The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman is a known whipping boy of the liberal left. When his bestseller The World is Flat was released in 2005 it was received with usual disdain and ridicule (I found the following review particularly enjoyable: The peculiar genius of Thomas L. Friedman). In the book, Friedman argues that due to advancement in information technology, globalisation has become a practical panacea for us. Here ‘us’ implies all the citizens of the world, not just those living in the first world. The playing field has been levelled so much that it has become flat. What is required is to reap the benefits of globalisation by pushing for greater openness of trade for goods and services and freer movement of capital. Globalisation creates wealth for all the stakeholders, and interconnects them in gigantic supply chains. People all over the world will be keen to maintain the supply chains undisturbed. World peace will thus be attained. There are some who are creating obstacles on this highway to peace and prosperity. Friedman calls them Islamo-Leninists.
The real debate over economic reforms in India
April 5, 2007
By Dipankar Basu, Sanhati
The debate over economic “reforms” in India has been going on for quite a long time now. This long and heated debate has been centered around the effects of what has been called “economic reforms”, a sharp change in the policy regime governing the Indian economy. It might be useful to recall that the policy regime in India gradually started changing right after Rajiv Gandhi came to power towards the end of 1984; of course the change was considerably accelerated after Manmohan Singh, the current prime minister, became the finance minister in the Congress government in 1991. Since then there has been no looking back; whether it is a coalition government led by the centrist Congress or led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), economic reforms have continued apace. In fact, consensus about the necessity and desirability of reforms is evident across the whole political spectrum, ranging from the right-wing BJP to the social democratic communist parties, CPI and CPI(M).
Factoring Globalization into the virtuous spiral - Partho’s comment on Dipankar’s article
April 4, 2007
By Partho Sarathi Ray
I started following this interesting discussion rather late but would like to make a few layman’s observations. A crucial point which seems to have not been considered in detail in this discussion on the “neo-liberal” economic reforms in India is globalization. What Dipankar has stated about Adam Smith’s observation that “division of labour” being the cause of prosperity of an economic system (by “economic system” I refer to anything from an enterprise to a society or a national economy, better word), is true, because in division of labour lies the efficiency of extracting profit, and for generating the so-called virtuous spiral. Although Adam Smith describes this division of labour as “parts of a complex production process can be separated into different points of production, which may be located in different firms, or even different geographic regions”, he considers this division to still work in a sort of unified economic system, as in a corporation or a national economy.
Nandigram has stood up
March 30, 2007
By Saroj Giri, Sanhati
Everytime in India, large numbers of people, as in Kalingangar, Singur and Nandigram today, stood in a direct and antagonistic relation to capital and the state, a middle class ideology of alternative plans and people’s plans has not just acted to limit the initiative and political character of the movement to the ‘enlightened interests’ of the urban radical intelligentsia but, as a consequence, capital has instead ultimately gone ahead with its own original plans without even any kind of green restructuring. And this happened since the problem is always identified at the level of a particular technology or system of production (industrial modernisation) and not in terms of social relations, not in terms of class and power relations.
A State against the Nation
March 30, 2007
By Somnath Mukherji, Sanhati
It is the case of a state against the nation: a nation of people that get in the way of progress and development; a nation of illiterate, ill-fed, ill-clad people springing up from within this amorphous glob called the masses. How could these people represent civil-society? Are they not engaged in their struggles of daily subsistence? Surely they have not read Marx, Weber, Foucault or the tomes on developmental economics. How then could they decide what is good for them, let alone what is good for the society?
Challenging the current development paradigm - A Discussion Paper from Mazdoor Mukti
March 29, 2007
Issued for discussion and dialogue by Mazdoor Mukti
Know at the outset that the “we” on whose behalf this proposal is being submitted refers to ordinary people, ordinary labourers, employees, students, youth; who are born with no form of connection with any Establishment, who toil and perish; who at most cast votes during elections, apparently to chose our rulers, but are not involved at any stage of national planning; who are not ministers, nor bureaucrats, nor police chiefs, nor leaders of parties engaged in parliamentary politics; not even promoters-contractors-order suppliers who mill around ministers and bureaucrats; not eminent citizens who wine and dine with capitalists as part of the same elite, bonded socially, culturally and economically in multifarious ways. Simply put, we are those who have no say in how present day society runs or will run.