Right time for people to assert their rights

The above lines are from Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merchant of Venice “and these lines exactly describe the economic and social situation prevailing in the world today. The neoliberal policies across the world have taken away the life of the poor by taking away the means by which they are living. India is no exception to this and we have seen how farmers, weavers and workers have committed suicides unable to bear the economic burden imposed on them due to the implementation of new economic policies.

It is now election time in India and the nine phase elections are taking place in the midst of increasing social and economic crisis. The results of the elections will be declared on 16th May 2014.Election time is definitely an appropriate time to discuss and deliberate on political and economic situation prevailing in the country and the role to be played by the common people of the country in the political discourse and in setting the political and economic agenda for the next govt in Delhi.

Economic Crisis: Neo liberal policies have created a global economic crisis and now it is evident that this crisis is not temporary but the crisis is permanent and systemic, inherent to the neoliberal model currently pursued by most countries. When we look at the economy of our country, we observe that inflation in India has been in the double digit for a long time and for the last two years the economic growth has been less than 5% and the rapid depreciation of rupee raising fears of current account deficit has exposed India’s extreme dependence on external capital inflows. The Congress party claims it to be a party of inclusive growth and credits itself for the economic expansion of the last ten years. Basing on this premise, the Congress party is staking its claim to form a UPA-3 govt. But the Indian big business is nervous by the world economic crisis and is demanding India’s next Govt to take extreme social route and wants the next Govt to impose massive social spending cuts, removal of gas and fertiliser subsidies, lifting of restrictions on layoffs and plant closures, privatisation of PSUs and infrastructure facilities, and increase and removal of ceiling on foreign direct investments etc. UPA-2 Govt was committed to implement all these measures but could not do so due to intense opposition and massive general strikes by the working class of India. Indian big business today wants a strong leader who can implement all these measures ruthlessly with an iron hand. They want a new messiah and their new messiah is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its prime ministerial candidate, the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. Modi has won accolades from India’s corporate elite for lavishing business with tax and land concessions, pushing through development projects over popular opposition, and effectively illegalizing strikes.

Rich becoming richer: The benefits from both the UPA model of growth and the now fashionable Gujarat model have been entirely appropriated by the Indian ruling elite and foreign investors. Tax concessions, gift of govt assets (from telecom spectrum to coal fields) at free or nominal cost, availability cheap labour and services are instrumental in the increase of profits to the corporate class. India, according to the Wealth-X UBS report has 109 billionaires and the world’s third-largest population of Ultra High Net worth Individuals. At the same time India has the world’s largest concentration of those living in “absolute poverty”—defined as people not getting sufficient caloric intake to do a full day’s work. Three-quarters of India’s population survives on less than two US dollars per day.

Rising unemployment: It was said that economic growth will create jobs but even when economy grew by 8.8% during 2005-10, the rate of employment growth was just 0.8% and this shatters the myth that economic growth will automatically create jobs. The 68th NSSO (National Sample Survey Organisation) on unemployment reveals that youth unemployment and particularly unemployment among educated youth has increased. The situation today is such that even B Tech graduates are applying for posts like sweepers and peons. As regards to women employment, the NSSO finds that the total number of women who were working in the rural and urban areas was 14.85 crores in 2004-05; this has come down to 12.91 crores by 2011 – 12. In agriculture sector there is drastic reduction in women employment and during the last five years it came down by more than 2.6 crores. Women desperately want to work but they are not getting any employment.

Job security a dream: During the last two decades of neo liberal regime, permanent employment has come down drastically. Precarious forms of employment with no job or income security like contract, casual, temporary, daily waged, fixed term, outsourced, etc have increased. Even in the organized sector including the government and public sectors, contract workers outnumber the permanent workers. The situation is worse in the private organised sector. In many private industrial establishments contract workers comprise more than 70% - 80% of the total workforce. These contract and other workers are paid only half, a quarter, or even less of the wages of the permanent workers doing the same job in the same enterprise. For example, in Maruti Suzuki out of the 3400 workers only 1000 (29.41%) are permanent employees while the remaining 2400 (70.59%) are casual or temporary employees. These casual employees get less than half the wages paid to the permanent employees. Thus Maruti Suzuki earns super profits through such intense exploitation of the contract and other such workers. Maruthi is just one example and there are many more Maruthis in the private sector. In this context, the Public Sector is also no different and precarious forms of employment exist in the PSUs also. In Bhilai and Rourkela steel plants contract workers get around Rs 5000 per month and for the same job, a permanent employee gets Rs 30000 a month. In Maharashtra a BSNL contract worker is paid Rs 1500 per month as wages, which is less than half of the minimum wages in that state. The 43rd Indian Labour Conference has recommended amendment to the Contract Labour Act to ensure equal wages and other benefits to contract workers as the permanent workers performing the same job. But the UPA government did nothing to implement it.

These profits are also not distributed among all employers even-handedly but concentrated in the hands of a few corporate households:

Thus the share in the total profit of the just 0.04% of the total sample companies was 49.87% in 2005-06 and this in 2010-11, has increased to 57.92%. Given the fact that some corporate groups own many companies, it is clear that less than ten corporate groups or so earn around 60% of all the profits, indicating the extent of concentration of wealth under the UPA II rule.

Govt Scheming to exploit: We have seen how workers are exploited by precarious forms of employment in private and public sector and how the casual employment is leading to concentration of wealth in few hands. India is a welfare state and to provide welfare measures to its citizens, the Govt devised different kinds of schemes like Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the Mid Day Meal Programme, the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project etc. It is estimated that around 1 crore workers, mostly women are employed in these schemes and programmes. But minimum wages and other social welfare benefits are not paid to these workers employed in the Schemes. The Govt refuses to recognize them as workers. It gives them a new nomenclature and calls them ‘social workers’ and they are not paid wages but honorarium. Thus lakhs of ‘ASHAs’, ‘USHAs’, ‘Yasodas’, ‘Mamathas’ etc are paid a pittance of Rs 1000 to Rs 4000 as ‘honorarium’. Some are not paid even this meagre amount. These social workers are also utilized by the Govt to do other jobs related to census, surveys, distribution of old age pensions and other benefits to the people in the village. These other extra jobs outside the purview of their normal duties are being done by the scheme workers without being paid any additional compensation for the extra work done by them. The 45th Indian Labour Conference recommended that the ‘scheme workers’ should be recognized as workers and should be paid minimum wages and social security benefits including pension and gratuity. The UPA II government did nothing to implement these recommendations. Similarly, the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Women that anganwadi workers and helpers should be paid minimum wages linked to consumer price index were also totally ignored.

Increasing attacks on workers: As part of neo liberal policies, the Govt wanted to make significant amendments to the labour laws and wanted to make them industry friendly. The Govt could not amend the labour laws as desired by the industry due to the stiff opposition and resistance put in by the working class movement of the country. But Govt willingly allows violation of labour laws across the country and today 10-12 hour work day has become the norm for most of the private companies. No over time is paid for the extra work done beyond 8 hours of work. Non payment of minimum wages and other statutory benefits including equal wages, maternity benefits etc with the connivance of the labour administration have become rampant. Any attempt to organize workers for their rights are nipped in the bud with active cooperation of the Govt authorities. In most of the industries, workers are not allowed to organize as a trade union and they are not allowed to join the trade union of their choice. We have seen how the workers aspirations to form as a union were thwarted by the Management of Manesar plant of Maruti Suzuki. The Congress led Haryana government fully supported the management and resorted to brutal suppression of the workers’ struggle. Even today around 150 workers who have been falsely implicated in various cases are languishing in jails with the courts even refusing to grant them bail. False police cases, imprisonment, physical attacks including murder in addition to victimisation are taking place in many private companies all over the country. We have seen how workers agitations were brutally suppressed in Reddy Labs in Andhra Pradesh, in Hyundai and Foxconn in Tamil Nadu, in the industrial areas of Nasik in Maharashtra, in the hydro power projects in Himachal Pradesh etc.

It is in this background elections are taking place and naturally the popular anger over price increases, unemployment and corruption will be targeted against the Congress party and this may result in the party suffering major electoral loses. It is expected that the Congress will win its fewest seats ever. BJP is trying to exploit the mass discontent in the people and is projecting Modi as the candidate of “good governance and development.”

The myth of Gujarat: Modi is campaigning on the plank that he will bring in the Gujarat-type economic growth to the rest of India. But in Gujarat most social indicators—including access to health care, literacy and education are abysmally at a lower level. Gujarat has emerged as one of the fastest growing states in the country under liberalisation. However, its focus was on providing a business friendly environment to attract investment, not improving the conditions of the workers and the people in general. Incentives provided to large industrial houses amount to 40% of the total state budget while small and medium industries get just 2-3% of the state budget. The report of the Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States’ headed by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India put Gujarat in the category of less developed states and this blows away the myth of Gujarat model. Gujarat’s rank was 14 in the case of wages of male casual workers and 8th in the case of wages of female casual workers in rural areas despite a ‘miracle’ growth in agriculture in the state. According to Planning Commission Gujarat’s ranking in poverty alleviation is 11 among the 20 states. The Infant Mortality Rate in Gujarat in 2012 was 38 per 1000 live births while it was 12 in Kerala, 21 in Tamil Nadu, 25 in Maharashtra and Delhi and 28 in Punjab. Around half of children in Gujarat were underweight and malnourished. 55.3% women are anaemic. The state’ expenditure on health care which was 4.5% of the budget 15 years ago, has drastically come down to 0.77% now.

Hindutva Agenda: While assuring to implement the neoliberal agenda of big business, Modi is equally careful to make gestures to the BJP’s Hindu nationalist party cadre. The BJP manifesto repeats longstanding demands like building ram temple at Ayodhya, removal of the special status to Jammu and Kashmir and implementation common civil code. The BJP supported by the corporate media is trying to give an impression of a massive popular wave for Modi. In reality the enthusiasm for Modi is limited to the corporate boardrooms and sections of the middle class.

Congress and BJP two sides of the same coin: There is no difference between Congress and BJP as far as implementation of neo liberal policies are concerned. Both Modi and Rahul are assuring the Indian big business houses and international finance capital that they will continue to implement neo liberal policies with more vigour and strength after the elections. A Govt at Delhi, by any of the two, will not make any difference to the working class and working class should understand this.

The rising prices, no growth in real wages, absence of job security and social security and increasing deterioration in the working conditions are giving rise to resentment and anger among all sections of employees and workers. The number of workers participating in protests, March to parliaments and general strike is increasing year after year. It is this anger of the common people and workers, the BJP want to exploit and wants to come to power by showcasing the so called model of development in Gujarat and at the same time trying to polarise people of this country on communal lines. Big business which wants implementation of neo liberal policies, by ruthlessly suppressing resistance, is backing BJP in its nefarious designs to capture power at the centre. It is due to this precise reason the elections to the 16th Loksabha are sought to be projected as fight between two parties and to be more precise between two individuals i.e. NaMo and RaGa. In this fight between NaMo and RaGa, Corporate media is trying to build consent and consensus in favour of NaMo. An impression that there is a broad consensus for the neo liberal policies is carefully fashioned in the TV discussions and the only other point of discussion is who would be more effective in taking them forward. Discussions on lives and livelihood of the people and their suffering due to new economic policies are deliberately avoided by both the print and electronic media.

Two decades of experience with neo liberal regime clearly indicates that the conditions of the common people and workers cannot improve with policies of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation. So what is required is an alternative policy course different from what is pursued by UPA and NDA. In India for the last 30 years no single party got mandate on its own and it is a period of multi party coalition Govts. People should support those political combinations that are making the common people and their conditions, the centre point of discourse in the elections. Democratic and secular forces should be strengthened and they should be given a chance to play a decisive role in Govt formation at the Centre which will be extremely beneficial to the common people of the country.