PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2011 ID-52342
.
29.10.11 Resist Nee-Liberal Assaults and Corporate Stranglehold On Peasantry! .
l_n 2008, the UPA announcedwith much fanfarea"loan waiver" package for farmersas part ofitslastpre-election UnionBudgetbeforethe .
pol_ls In May 2008.Coming closeonthe heels of growing protestsoverfarmersuicides across thecountry, this much-touted Rs60,000"loan .
I .
W~l~er" ~as~allowed byan orchestrated reactionand protest fromsuper-richcorporations-similarto-their response last month tothe proposed Mlnmg Bill Withits profit-sharing clause. Even in 2008, we had pointed out that the60,000crore"debt relief" package was nothing but a gigantic fraud on thefarming community.Giventhe limitedaccess thatsmall and marginal farmers have to institutionaldebt (from banks ofthe total loans frominstitutional sources), the UPA's "loan waiver" package wasunlikely to have anysignificant impact onagrariandistress and.
and cooperative societies)-amountingtoapproximately only 20% oftotalfarmerdebt-and giventhevery small proportion ofunpaidloans(5% .
farmer suicides. P. Sainath's recent analysis of farmer suicides only reinforces what progressive and democratic forces were pointing out in 2008. Even according to an official source likethe National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), more thanquarter a million farmer suicides have .
happened between 1995 and 2010. And, in the year following the UPA's "massive" farm waiver package, the number of suicides actually .
increased from 16,196 to 17,368. Therefore, on an average, one farmer suicide happens approximately every half hour. Andthis, whenthe number of farmers is actually falling. This is the reality of UPA's "development" with a"human face"; the real faceof theneo-liberal .
economic regime. Not surprisingly,Maharashtra tops the listofstates with the mostfarmer suicides. In this one state alone, there were 20,066 farmer suicides .
between 1995-02. This figure rose to 30,415 in the following 7-year period of 2003-10. AISA had organised a fact-finding team to .
Vidarbha in May 2008after which the team had documented the multiple reasons for farmer suicides in the region. Exploding the .
myth propagated by the state that suicides were happening outof"personal"reasons, because of alack of a"support" structure provided by family andsociety,the report implicated the deep-rooted economic crisis and increasing corporate stranglehold in agriculture. On the one hand, .
the state has failed to provide the required infrastructure and support to promote agriculture. On the other hand, farmers are left to face the brunt ofthe market-from increasing costs of inputs, tocompletely unreliable returns from sales ofcrop. .
The tragic story of farmer suicides is unfortunately not confined to Vidarbha and Maharashtra-Sainath's analysis and NCRB data show that .
suicides are also rampant in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It comes as no surprise that the states and .
regions that have witnessed the highest suicide rates are also the areas wherewrit of companies like Monsanto and private money-lenders runs.Neither is it surprising that some ofthese states (especially Maharashtra) have some of highest per capita incomes in the .
country! .
The story of farm loans is indeed very different from that ofcorporate debt,where corporations transform bank loans into UU1eir own" capital, leaving the banks over the years with a l1ug~ amount of unreal:::.ed co: puratc Jel:t! fl.nd y:Jt, ane never hears of banks and oth~r financial institutions running after corporations to recover their debts, while farmers repay debts literally with their lives. Farmer suicides remain one of the most shocking and shameful indicators of the havoc that the neo-liberal regime is wrecking on millions of poor in India. And instead of reversing disastrous economic policies. supporters of the nee-liberal regime are now telling farmers to give up farming and sell their land for a pittance to companies for industrial "development". Aclassic case of the cynical use of acrisis to accentuate the crisis itseln It is high time that the progressive and democratic forces intensify the struggle against neo-liberal econom1c policies, while ,also .
exposing the real nature of schemes like the UPA's "loan waiver" scheme. 'Counting' Martrys, Discounting Their Legacy! Twodays back (27 Oct.2011 ), on the 65st anniversary of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising, AISA had released a pamphlet hailing this historic struggle in Kerala against the undemocratic regime of the Diwanof Travancore. A/SAhadalso recentlycommemoratedthe 7.50years of'Phulaguri Dhawa"-historicpeasant uprising inAssam against the Bntish colonialreg1ine. We believe that in recalling these struggles, it .
is important to find the resonance of these movements in present-day struggles happening across the country. The Punnapra-Vayalar uprising wasagainstaoppressive regime ofthe Diwan and for democratic rights. Isn'tit therefore natural to link this struggle with contemporary movements against SEZs-where once again exclusive enclaves are being created as "foreign territories'' for the corporales and where .
labour,environmentandother laws of the land just do not apply? SFI has responded toAI SA's pamphlet on the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising with acharacteristic rant againstAI SA. This is not at all .
surprising, since blind anti-AISAism is SFI's hallmark in JNII_Neither is it surprising that SFI in its whole leaflet remained .
'SEZ' word is mentioned in .
absolutely silent on question of SEZ.s raised in our pamphlet. Fact of the matter is. whenever whatever context, SFI-CPI(M) see theirblood-stainedhands in the mirror!After all,didn't the CPI(M) government in West Bengal,in .
tthe CPI-CPI(M) with their 64 MPs inParliament -~2003itself,pass the West Bengal SEZ Acttwo years beforethe Central SEZAct?And didn'pass theSEZActin 2005-whichhassubsequentlyled to mass.ivecorporateland graband displacement across thecountry? .
the legacyof the PunnapraVayalar uprising. TheSFI wantsus to believe that after the .
noright' to 'claim'According to SFI. AI SAhas'.
massacres and rapes in Singur and Nandigram by CPI(M) cadre and the state machinery in West Bengal,after the brutal killings of .
peasants and peasant leaders in Naxalbari demanding radical land reforms, SFI-CPI(M) alone has the right to claim the legacyof all Comrades', whether the SFI-CPI(M) like it or not, the radical forces in the country WILL carry forward the legacyof all .
movements!! '.
revolutionary movements, rather thanbetraying them as CPI(M) has done.The fact of the matter is that the radical left movement .
emerged preciselyto rejuvenate the legacy of various peasant struggles, from the 1857 freedom movement onwards-_g_ .
legacy that the 'official left' abandoned and betrayed after theTelangana uprising, andsubsequentlygot busyin ·:practicing .
capitalism" as CPI{MJ leaderandformerWest Bengal chiefministerBuddhadeb Bhattacharya neattypyt it! .
.
Suchcta, Gen.Sccy., AISA,JNU Abhisbck Kr. Yadav, Vice-President, AISA, JNU .
.
PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2011 ID-52342
.
29.10.11 Resist Nee-Liberal Assaults and Corporate Stranglehold On Peasantry! .
l_n 2008, the UPA announcedwith much fanfarea"loan waiver" package for farmersas part ofitslastpre-election UnionBudgetbeforethe .
pol_ls In May 2008.Coming closeonthe heels of growing protestsoverfarmersuicides across thecountry, this much-touted Rs60,000"loan .
I .
W~l~er" ~as~allowed byan orchestrated reactionand protest fromsuper-richcorporations-similarto-their response last month tothe proposed Mlnmg Bill Withits profit-sharing clause. Even in 2008, we had pointed out that the60,000crore"debt relief" package was nothing but a gigantic fraud on thefarming community.Giventhe limitedaccess thatsmall and marginal farmers have to institutionaldebt (from banks ofthe total loans frominstitutional sources), the UPA's "loan waiver" package wasunlikely to have anysignificant impact onagrariandistress and.
and cooperative societies)-amountingtoapproximately only 20% oftotalfarmerdebt-and giventhevery small proportion ofunpaidloans(5% .
farmer suicides. P. Sainath's recent analysis of farmer suicides only reinforces what progressive and democratic forces were pointing out in 2008. Even according to an official source likethe National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), more thanquarter a million farmer suicides have .
happened between 1995 and 2010. And, in the year following the UPA's "massive" farm waiver package, the number of suicides actually .
increased from 16,196 to 17,368. Therefore, on an average, one farmer suicide happens approximately every half hour. Andthis, whenthe number of farmers is actually falling. This is the reality of UPA's "development" with a"human face"; the real faceof theneo-liberal .
economic regime. Not surprisingly,Maharashtra tops the listofstates with the mostfarmer suicides. In this one state alone, there were 20,066 farmer suicides .
between 1995-02. This figure rose to 30,415 in the following 7-year period of 2003-10. AISA had organised a fact-finding team to .
Vidarbha in May 2008after which the team had documented the multiple reasons for farmer suicides in the region. Exploding the .
myth propagated by the state that suicides were happening outof"personal"reasons, because of alack of a"support" structure provided by family andsociety,the report implicated the deep-rooted economic crisis and increasing corporate stranglehold in agriculture. On the one hand, .
the state has failed to provide the required infrastructure and support to promote agriculture. On the other hand, farmers are left to face the brunt ofthe market-from increasing costs of inputs, tocompletely unreliable returns from sales ofcrop. .
The tragic story of farmer suicides is unfortunately not confined to Vidarbha and Maharashtra-Sainath's analysis and NCRB data show that .
suicides are also rampant in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It comes as no surprise that the states and .
regions that have witnessed the highest suicide rates are also the areas wherewrit of companies like Monsanto and private money-lenders runs.Neither is it surprising that some ofthese states (especially Maharashtra) have some of highest per capita incomes in the .
country! .
The story of farm loans is indeed very different from that ofcorporate debt,where corporations transform bank loans into UU1eir own" capital, leaving the banks over the years with a l1ug~ amount of unreal:::.ed co: puratc Jel:t! fl.nd y:Jt, ane never hears of banks and oth~r financial institutions running after corporations to recover their debts, while farmers repay debts literally with their lives. Farmer suicides remain one of the most shocking and shameful indicators of the havoc that the neo-liberal regime is wrecking on millions of poor in India. And instead of reversing disastrous economic policies. supporters of the nee-liberal regime are now telling farmers to give up farming and sell their land for a pittance to companies for industrial "development". Aclassic case of the cynical use of acrisis to accentuate the crisis itseln It is high time that the progressive and democratic forces intensify the struggle against neo-liberal econom1c policies, while ,also .
exposing the real nature of schemes like the UPA's "loan waiver" scheme. 'Counting' Martrys, Discounting Their Legacy! Twodays back (27 Oct.2011 ), on the 65st anniversary of the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising, AISA had released a pamphlet hailing this historic struggle in Kerala against the undemocratic regime of the Diwanof Travancore. A/SAhadalso recentlycommemoratedthe 7.50years of'Phulaguri Dhawa"-historicpeasant uprising inAssam against the Bntish colonialreg1ine. We believe that in recalling these struggles, it .
is important to find the resonance of these movements in present-day struggles happening across the country. The Punnapra-Vayalar uprising wasagainstaoppressive regime ofthe Diwan and for democratic rights. Isn'tit therefore natural to link this struggle with contemporary movements against SEZs-where once again exclusive enclaves are being created as "foreign territories'' for the corporales and where .
labour,environmentandother laws of the land just do not apply? SFI has responded toAI SA's pamphlet on the Punnapra-Vayalar uprising with acharacteristic rant againstAI SA. This is not at all .
surprising, since blind anti-AISAism is SFI's hallmark in JNII_Neither is it surprising that SFI in its whole leaflet remained .
'SEZ' word is mentioned in .
absolutely silent on question of SEZ.s raised in our pamphlet. Fact of the matter is. whenever whatever context, SFI-CPI(M) see theirblood-stainedhands in the mirror!After all,didn't the CPI(M) government in West Bengal,in .
tthe CPI-CPI(M) with their 64 MPs inParliament -~2003itself,pass the West Bengal SEZ Acttwo years beforethe Central SEZAct?And didn'pass theSEZActin 2005-whichhassubsequentlyled to mass.ivecorporateland graband displacement across thecountry? .
the legacyof the PunnapraVayalar uprising. TheSFI wantsus to believe that after the .
noright' to 'claim'According to SFI. AI SAhas'.
massacres and rapes in Singur and Nandigram by CPI(M) cadre and the state machinery in West Bengal,after the brutal killings of .
peasants and peasant leaders in Naxalbari demanding radical land reforms, SFI-CPI(M) alone has the right to claim the legacyof all Comrades', whether the SFI-CPI(M) like it or not, the radical forces in the country WILL carry forward the legacyof all .
movements!! '.
revolutionary movements, rather thanbetraying them as CPI(M) has done.The fact of the matter is that the radical left movement .
emerged preciselyto rejuvenate the legacy of various peasant struggles, from the 1857 freedom movement onwards-_g_ .
legacy that the 'official left' abandoned and betrayed after theTelangana uprising, andsubsequentlygot busyin ·:practicing .
capitalism" as CPI{MJ leaderandformerWest Bengal chiefministerBuddhadeb Bhattacharya neattypyt it! .
.
Suchcta, Gen.Sccy., AISA,JNU Abhisbck Kr. Yadav, Vice-President, AISA, JNU .
.