PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 1999 ID-40924
.
Issues Tlaat JNUSU Electitln rn'usl Debate ::1 .
21.10.08.
Unite against corporate loot and its defenders! .
What constitutes the threat of corporatization? Why we should debate it in JNU? In the face of the neo-liberal onslaught, dictated by giant .
corporates, the defense of lives and livelihoods of the common people of this country must be a key concern for the students of JNU. This Is not an Issue far removed from us: it silently affects our job prospects, the kind of campus atmosphere that surrounds us, even what books and courses are available for us to study. .
Historically the corporates, by sheer control over large capital have monopolized natural resources -land, forest, .I'·' and even water. .
·~ .
From heavy industry to the kirana shop in our locality, no space is free from the corporate assault today. Governments in country after country have become the dancing puppets of these large corporate oligarchies. Wars have been waged to serve corporate interests; entire civilizations in Latin America , and recently Iraq and Afghanistan, have been wiped out so that US corporates can control their resources. Across India, from Orissa to the North-east, entire tribal communities are wiped out so that corporate mafias can control mineral and forest resources of their lands. The recent spiral in food prices was a direct outcome of the .
manipulation of the global food market by five agro-retail corporate giants, leading to suffering and starvation across several continents. .
Yet the ideas that masquerade as truth today declare: "corporates can do no wrong", "the only path to development is the corporate path","there can be no progress without corporates." .
But let us stop and ask ourselves, Is this really the case? .
Ask the citizens of Bhopal who still relive the fateful night of 3'a December 1984, when chemicals from the Union Carbide factory swept over the town, killing hundreds and forcing others to live with the perennial aftereffects--birth defects, tumors and respiratory disorders-of having been exposed to gas. .
Ask the starving farmers in Vidarbha who have been forced by government policy to buy BT cotton and other genetically modified seeds from corporates that hav~ only .
led them deeper into the debt trap and propelled many to .
such desperation that they take their own lives. .
Ask the many young men and women who come to metros in search of jobs, but suddenly find that the American company on whose policy of outsourcing they hinged their dreams has removed them from work as a "cost-cutting .
measure" .
In India today, "corporate commonsense" is pervasive and extends into almost every institutional realm. Govern-ments, at the state and central level believ~ it; educational .
institutions train students to fit the corporate mould; and the .
media propagates corporate 'virtues' each day. .
The Congress and the BJP have always been the champions of corporate interests, acting on the maxim of 'profit over people'. In the campus, too, their offspring, NSUI and ABVP openly espouse this political logic, without any pretense or shame. The JNU student movement .
which has always valued 'people over profit', has repeatedly opposed these forces and rejected them. .
But this struggle has become all the more protracted .
with some of the earlier "opponents" of capital and corporate.;, like the CPI[M] who promised to rally people under the red flag, now choosing to turn this very red flag into a red carpet .
for corporate interests. In all the states where It Is ruling, the CPI(M) has chosen to implement and promote the corporate agenda, often at gun point, whether In Slngur, Nandigram and recently in Chengara. On campus, In a shameless display of double standards, SFI has emerged as the defender of the brutal policies of the CPI(M), even while maintaining a ritual rhetoric against the neo-liberal assault. .
Not just in actions, the CPI[M] has internalized this .
corporate commonsense to such an extent that itJUStifies 1t, even in its ideological articula.tions. When a self-procla'1med 'left' force reiterates this corporate logic, then it not only .
delegitimizes the struggles for alternatives, but also strengthens the ruling class and corporate myth that 'there 1s no alternative.' The uncontrolled capitulation of CPM therefore poses·a double danger to the struggle. .
How CPI(M) turned itself into the 'Corporate .
Party of India' (Murderers) .
.
Listen to what Jyoti Basu said at a Kolkata press conference in January: "Socialism is not possible now ... We had spoken about building a classless society, but that was a long .
time ago...Socialism is our political agenda and was mentioned in our party document, but capitalism will continue to be the compulsion for the future." [IndianExpress, 6Jan, 2008] .
Listen to the CM of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya at the CPM's highest state-level forum, the 22ncs state confer-ence: .
11Let industry grow on its own momentum ... There is no need for any political interference in Industrializa-tion." [Indian Express, 18 Jan 2008] .
This opportunism is no longer restncted to the CPM's .
"Bengal line" alone. Selling Kerala to big investors, Kerala's Industry minister E. Kareem said , .
"Nowhere else In India can you see such a concen-tration of skilled workers. Significantly, they receive very low wages, compared with their counterparts else-where. The wages offactory workers in Kerala Is lower than the national average. But the media often fall to reflect such positive changes...." (Frontline, Dec 1 2006) .
Again in 2008 Kareem said, "The investorshouldhave all freedom in choosing his employees. No economic theory not Marx certainly says that one who Idly watches while others work can claim wages." .
At the present juncture , according to the CPI[M], whoever, whenever, whatever-industrialists and industries must not only be invited and appeased with all kinds of sops,the state government must unleash all of its financial and coercive powers to get things done 1n their favour. .
· PTO .
.
PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 1999 ID-40924
.
Issues Tlaat JNUSU Electitln rn'usl Debate ::1 .
21.10.08.
Unite against corporate loot and its defenders! .
What constitutes the threat of corporatization? Why we should debate it in JNU? In the face of the neo-liberal onslaught, dictated by giant .
corporates, the defense of lives and livelihoods of the common people of this country must be a key concern for the students of JNU. This Is not an Issue far removed from us: it silently affects our job prospects, the kind of campus atmosphere that surrounds us, even what books and courses are available for us to study. .
Historically the corporates, by sheer control over large capital have monopolized natural resources -land, forest, .I'·' and even water. .
·~ .
From heavy industry to the kirana shop in our locality, no space is free from the corporate assault today. Governments in country after country have become the dancing puppets of these large corporate oligarchies. Wars have been waged to serve corporate interests; entire civilizations in Latin America , and recently Iraq and Afghanistan, have been wiped out so that US corporates can control their resources. Across India, from Orissa to the North-east, entire tribal communities are wiped out so that corporate mafias can control mineral and forest resources of their lands. The recent spiral in food prices was a direct outcome of the .
manipulation of the global food market by five agro-retail corporate giants, leading to suffering and starvation across several continents. .
Yet the ideas that masquerade as truth today declare: "corporates can do no wrong", "the only path to development is the corporate path","there can be no progress without corporates." .
But let us stop and ask ourselves, Is this really the case? .
Ask the citizens of Bhopal who still relive the fateful night of 3'a December 1984, when chemicals from the Union Carbide factory swept over the town, killing hundreds and forcing others to live with the perennial aftereffects--birth defects, tumors and respiratory disorders-of having been exposed to gas. .
Ask the starving farmers in Vidarbha who have been forced by government policy to buy BT cotton and other genetically modified seeds from corporates that hav~ only .
led them deeper into the debt trap and propelled many to .
such desperation that they take their own lives. .
Ask the many young men and women who come to metros in search of jobs, but suddenly find that the American company on whose policy of outsourcing they hinged their dreams has removed them from work as a "cost-cutting .
measure" .
In India today, "corporate commonsense" is pervasive and extends into almost every institutional realm. Govern-ments, at the state and central level believ~ it; educational .
institutions train students to fit the corporate mould; and the .
media propagates corporate 'virtues' each day. .
The Congress and the BJP have always been the champions of corporate interests, acting on the maxim of 'profit over people'. In the campus, too, their offspring, NSUI and ABVP openly espouse this political logic, without any pretense or shame. The JNU student movement .
which has always valued 'people over profit', has repeatedly opposed these forces and rejected them. .
But this struggle has become all the more protracted .
with some of the earlier "opponents" of capital and corporate.;, like the CPI[M] who promised to rally people under the red flag, now choosing to turn this very red flag into a red carpet .
for corporate interests. In all the states where It Is ruling, the CPI(M) has chosen to implement and promote the corporate agenda, often at gun point, whether In Slngur, Nandigram and recently in Chengara. On campus, In a shameless display of double standards, SFI has emerged as the defender of the brutal policies of the CPI(M), even while maintaining a ritual rhetoric against the neo-liberal assault. .
Not just in actions, the CPI[M] has internalized this .
corporate commonsense to such an extent that itJUStifies 1t, even in its ideological articula.tions. When a self-procla'1med 'left' force reiterates this corporate logic, then it not only .
delegitimizes the struggles for alternatives, but also strengthens the ruling class and corporate myth that 'there 1s no alternative.' The uncontrolled capitulation of CPM therefore poses·a double danger to the struggle. .
How CPI(M) turned itself into the 'Corporate .
Party of India' (Murderers) .
.
Listen to what Jyoti Basu said at a Kolkata press conference in January: "Socialism is not possible now ... We had spoken about building a classless society, but that was a long .
time ago...Socialism is our political agenda and was mentioned in our party document, but capitalism will continue to be the compulsion for the future." [IndianExpress, 6Jan, 2008] .
Listen to the CM of Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya at the CPM's highest state-level forum, the 22ncs state confer-ence: .
11Let industry grow on its own momentum ... There is no need for any political interference in Industrializa-tion." [Indian Express, 18 Jan 2008] .
This opportunism is no longer restncted to the CPM's .
"Bengal line" alone. Selling Kerala to big investors, Kerala's Industry minister E. Kareem said , .
"Nowhere else In India can you see such a concen-tration of skilled workers. Significantly, they receive very low wages, compared with their counterparts else-where. The wages offactory workers in Kerala Is lower than the national average. But the media often fall to reflect such positive changes...." (Frontline, Dec 1 2006) .
Again in 2008 Kareem said, "The investorshouldhave all freedom in choosing his employees. No economic theory not Marx certainly says that one who Idly watches while others work can claim wages." .
At the present juncture , according to the CPI[M], whoever, whenever, whatever-industrialists and industries must not only be invited and appeased with all kinds of sops,the state government must unleash all of its financial and coercive powers to get things done 1n their favour. .
· PTO .
.