MIA: Marxist Writers: Che Guevara
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Singaravelar - A Pioneer of the Communist Movement in India
Singaravelu Chettiar , respectfully known as ‘Singaravelar’ is one of the pioneers of both the Indian freedom and the Indian Communist movement as well. He was a contemporary of Mahatma Gandhi and Lenin. Born on 18/2/1860 to a fisherman’s family, Singaravelar breathed his last on Feb 11,1946. When he passed away, the Congress leader C Rajagopalachary popularly known as Rajaji paid him tribute by saying that “an avowed freedom fighter and an honest leader had passed away” . Singaravelar can be called rightly as a pioneer in all the streams ,viz, Indian National Congress movement, Communist movement, Self-respect Social movement and Trade Union movement in pre-Independent India. His Hindustan Labour Kisan Party was considered more dangerous than the Indian National Congress by the British Rulers then.
After having had education and graduated in Law, he visited London in 1902 to establish a trade relationship with a British firm in rice trade. There, he came across several publications on Politics , Philosophy , Economics etc. After his return to India, he associated with National movement led by the Indian National Congress leaders. When Gandhiji gave a call for boycott of courts, colleges, schools, government positions in protest against the Jalianwala Bagh massacre by the British Police, Singaravelar burnt his professional attire for lawyer in a public meeting . He evinced deep interest in knowing the political changes that were taking place in Soviet Russia after the 1917 Revolution and started reading Marxist literature ,speeches of Lenin. Impressed with ideas of Communism, he propagated them among the Congressmen by saying that only Marxism could emancipate the oppressed classes from the exploiters .
When M N Roy , as a candidate member in the executive body of the Communist International established in March 1919 under the guidance of Lenin was assigned the responsibility of reporting about Indian political situation and the various revolutionary groups operating in India with a view to taking the ideas of the Communism to the Indian people, he identified four places in India where there were some people who had already Marxist perspective. They were S A Dange in Bombay, Singaravelar in Madras, Muzafar Ahmed in Calcutta and Ghulam Hussain in Lahore which is presently in Pakistan after partition. It was then in 1922, Singaravelar started establishing contact with the Communist International . Subsequently, a close co-ordination between Dange, Muzafar Ahmed and Singaravelar followed within India.
It was Singaravelar who first used the word ‘Comrade’ , when he addressed the 1922 Congress Session in Gaya and electrified the youth with that magical word and informed them that he was there at the conference to greet the delegates on behalf of the International Communist movement. It was in Gaya session of the Congress, Sinagarvelar called for “Total and Complete Independence for India”.
Writing on the impact of Singaravelar’s speech in Gaya session, M N Roy noted in his ‘ Vanguard of Indian Independence’ published from Berlin :
“When Singaravelar addressed the delegates and the participants of the Congress session in Gaya as ‘Comrades; there was thunderous applause from the assemblage and there was demand from the delegates that Singaravelar be included in the Congress sub-committee on labour. His call for total and complete Independence was amazing “.
Singaravelar published ‘Hindustan Labour Kisan Gazette’ and a newspaper by name ‘Worker’ in Tamil and popularised the Communist manifesto of Marx and Engels. His periodical , ‘Non-Cooperator’ was nipped at the bud by the British rulers then . Sensing the ‘danger’ posed by the activities of the various Communist groups as mentioned above, the British rulers were desperate to nip the fledgling Communist movement at the bud.. As a consequence, the Kanpur Conspiracy case was framed up in 1924 against 8 leading Communist leaders who were M N Roy, Muzafar Ahmed, S A Dange, Singaravelar ,Ghulam Hussain , Nalini Gupta, Ramcharanlal Sharma,and Shakat Usmani..
In 1925, when the conference of Communist Party was held in Kanpur, it was supposed to have been inaugurated by Sakhatwala , a Communist opposition leader in England. As he could not make it to Kanpur, it was Singaravelar who inaugurated the conference Even before the Communist Party conference in 1925, it was Singaravelar ,who hoisted the Red flag first in Asia in 1923 ,when he floated his ‘Hindustan Labour Kisan Party’. The Kanpur Conference of the Communist party decided that Hindustan Labour Kisan Party be disbanded and its mouth-piece , ‘Hindustan Labour Kisan Gazette’ be converted as the organ of the Communist Party of India.
Singaravelar had close political relationship with E V Ramasamy Naicker, popularly known as ‘ Periyar’ ( meaning elder /veteran in Tamil) who was active leader of Self-respect social movement in Tamilnadu. Singaravelar imbibed the ideas of Communism in Periyar and suggested he visited Soviet union then. After his return from Soviet union, Periyar started popularising what he saw in Soviet union then in post revolution era. Periar’s self-Respect movement and Singaravelar’s Communist movement both had close working relationship between 1932 and 1934..Alarmed by the danger posed by the twin movements led by both Singaravelar and Periyar, the British got annoyed with Singaravelar and sent secret notes ,saying that it was Singaravelar who was instrumental in “spoiling” Periyar who otherwise was only concentrating in social movement disengaged with the communist movement. The outcome of hostile attitude of the British resulted in the ban of Communist party in 1934.
Being a powerful orator and writer in Tamil and English, Singaravelar tirelessly worked for the cause of the workers. He used several pseudonyms to write articles in scores of various Tamil and English newspapers and periodicals including ‘The Hindu’ . He organised workers meetings in Madras to condemn the brutal killing of two American workers by , Chacko and Vancity. In August 1921, he led from front the funeral processions of 7 workers killed by the blacklegs of Buckingham &Carnatic Mill in collusion with the mill management. He escaped the house arrest by the British and managed to show black flag to the Simon Commission that visited India in 1928 to ascertain whether India had attained the political maturity for introduction of political reforms by the British. When Lenin stopped breathing on January 21, 1924 , Singaravelar paid rich tributes to Lenin in his 'Hindustan Labour Kisan Gazette' through an editorial.
Singaravelar’s collection of books was really massive, about 20,000 books. Due to lack of proper attention and maintenance , a big chunk of his books has been lost.Yet, Some of his books have found their way to Moscow's Lenin Library where there is a separate section of books in memory of Singaravelar,known as 'Singaravelar Section'.
“I learnt my Marxism and Darwinism from Singaravelar ”, said Thiru Vi Ka, a popular Tamil writer and freedom fighter during the British days.
R MARAN
Globalisation and Health, 1980 - 2000: Pathways of Impact and Initial Evidence
Giovanni Andrea Cornia, Stefano Rosignoli & Luca Tiberti
This paper tries to shed light on the relation between globalisation policies and health and argues that globalization policies contributed – through different pathways - to a slowdown in the pace of improvement of the social determinants of health. This caused, in turn, a corresponding deceleration (relative to the 1960-80 trends) in health gains in several regions and also globally. The authors, though not claiming to provide a final conclusion, argue that there is strong enough case to believe that the unsatisfactory health trends of the Globalization Era is related to a premature and acritical application of liberalisation-globalisation policies.
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This paper tries to shed light on the relation between globalisation policies and health and argues that globalization policies contributed – through different pathways - to a slowdown in the pace of improvement of the social determinants of health. This caused, in turn, a corresponding deceleration (relative to the 1960-80 trends) in health gains in several regions and also globally. The authors, though not claiming to provide a final conclusion, argue that there is strong enough case to believe that the unsatisfactory health trends of the Globalization Era is related to a premature and acritical application of liberalisation-globalisation policies.
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View/ Download the
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Reflections on the Left
Prabhat Patnaik
Perhaps the most significant feature of the recent Indian election is the loss suffered by the Left. The BJP’s defeat was more or less anticipated, except by the psephologists, as was some loss by the Left; but the actual extent of the Left’s loss has been quite staggering. True, its vote share has fallen only marginally; but in its Bengal base it has majority in only about a third of the total Assembly segments, and in Kerala even less, which is a serious setback. This setback is significant because the Left, even though not a contender for power at the Centre as of now, is a major driving force behind India’s journey towards a modern, secular and democratic society. It is of course not the only such force: there are large numbers of progressive social and political movements which also play this role. But it differs from all of them in one crucial respect, namely that it also has electoral strength which they lack; and such strength does matter. Any impairing of such strength therefore portends ill for the progress of India’s democratic revolution.
The media have been full of analysis of the Left’s loss and of advice for its revival, much of which ultimately focuses on just one point: it must discard its “phobia” about “imperialism”. This is occasionally expressed directly, such as by Lord Meghnad Desai in an interview to The Hindu, but usually indirectly. Sometimes it is said that the Left should not have withdrawn support from the UPA government; but since the withdrawal was precisely on the question of India’s entering into a possible strategic alliance with U.S. imperialism, this argument amounts to saying that the Left exaggerates the imperialist threat. Sometimes it is said that the people’s verdict was in favour of “development”, from which the inference can be drawn that the Left’s electoral loss must be attributed to its lack of success in ushering in “development” (meaning “development” within the neo-liberal paradigm, for which the different states in the country are vying with one another to attract corporate and MNC investment). This again amounts to saying that the Left’s opposition to the neo-liberal paradigm, which is linked to its anti-imperialism, is responsible for its obsolescence, and hence defeat. Sometimes it is argued that there was a “wave” in favour of a secular and stable government which worked to the advantage of the UPA and to the detriment of the Left, since the latter forged links in the “third front” with Parties that had done business with the BJP earlier. If the conclusion from this claim is that the Left should have gone into the election alone rather than with “third front” allies, then that at least is compatible with the Left’s ideological premises (though it is unlikely to have made much difference to its electoral fortune); but if the conclusion is that the Left must always be with those who would be normally supposed to ride such a “wave”, then that amounts to suggesting that it should compromise on its anti-imperialism to become a permanent fixture of the UPA camp. The commonest advice to the Left in short is to stop making a fuss over “imperialism”.
This is hardly surprising. All over the world, in countries where the urban middle class has escaped as yet the adverse consequences of globalization, anti-imperialism among the students, the educated youth, and the literati is at low ebb. On the contrary there is even a desire to welcome closer integration with the imperialist world as a means of ushering in a secular and progressive modernity, and of countering phenomena like feudal patriarchy, religious authoritarianism and communal-fascism. Since Left ideas typically get nourishment from the literati and the urban intellectual strata, even though these ideas reach their fruition in the struggles of the workers and peasants, who are the victims of globalization but are sociologically distant from the intellectual strata, the Left movement gathers momentum in situations where the urban middle class has also suffered from globalization and hence makes common cause with the workers and the peasants. But it faces problems in situations where the urban middle class is a beneficiary of globalization. In such cases, the resistance to imperialism and globalization often gets championed by forces other than the Left; or, if the Left remains committed to the interests of the “basic classes” and resists globalization, it often suffers through isolation from the intellectual strata and the urban youth and students. (This loss, though real, can of course be more than offset by an increase in its support base among the peasantry through its resistance to globalization).
The current anti-imperialist upsurge in Latin America, which has brought Left or Left-oriented governments to power over much of that continent, is a consequence of the long years of crises that hurt, and hence radicalized, the urban youth, students and intellectuals. On the other hand, in much of central Asia, and now Iran, where the urban youth has not directly experienced the adversity inflicted by globalization, imperialism still retains the capacity to mobilize, or at least claim the sympathy of, vast numbers of the urban population in so-called “orange”, “tulip” and “velvet” “revolutions” that are supposed to bring in modernity and democracy together with neo-liberalism. In India, since the adversity of workers, peasants, agricultural labourers and petty producers, under globalization, has been accompanied by high growth rates, and rapid increases in incomes and opportunities for the urban middle class, a degree of pro-imperialism among this class which includes intellectuals, media persons and professionals, and hence a degree of exasperation with the Left’s continued adherence to old “anti-imperialist shibboleths”, is hardly surprising.
The Left’s error that accounts for its loss in the recent elections can be located here. As long as the urban middle class in India is not hit by the adverse consequences of globalization, it will continue to remain sympathetically disposed towards imperialism. Anti-imperialist ideological appeals alone, though they must continue to be made, will not sway it much. Two additional factors that will contribute towards this sympathy for imperialism are, first, the assumption of US Presidency by Barack Obama who represents “imperialism with a human face”, and, second, the strong opposition to imperialism coming at present from the Islamist movements with which broad sections of the Indian urban middle class have little affinity. As long as the Indian Left remains true to its ideology and the interests of its class base, the pro-imperialist sympathies of the Indian urban middle class will necessarily entail some estrangement of this class from the Left. This is a phenomenon that will haunt the Left for as long as the current conjuncture continues. In the recent elections, it follows that a certain loss of urban support for the Left became unavoidable when it broke with the UPA because of its anti-imperialism. (In Kerala, such alienation from the Left was compounded by certain specific local factors: the secular segments of the electorate could not accept the Left’s relationship with the PDP, and the Left’s stand on the SNC-Lavalin Deal carried little credibility.)
If the Left had managed to increase its support among the workers, peasants, petty producers and the rural poor, then it could have offset this loss among the urban middle class; even if it had managed to retain its support among the former, its overall loss would have still remained limited. But, notwithstanding its opposition to imperialism, it did not have an alternative policy on development, different from what the neo-liberal paradigm dictated. In West Bengal, the government led by it pursued policies of “development” similar to what the other states were following and in competition with them, which, being part of the neo-liberal paradigm, necessarily brought with them the threat of “primitive accumulation of capital” (in the form specifically of expropriation of peasants’ land). These policies, though subsequently reversed in several instances, had an adverse impact on the “basic classes” and caused a crucial erosion of the class base of the Left.
While some loss of peasant support on account of Singur and Nandigram was anticipated in West Bengal, it was thought that the Opposition’s thwarting of “development” would make the urban middle class switch to the Left as the preferred alternative (because of which pictures of the Nano car were posted all over the state as part of the CPI(M)’s campaign to remind the electorate of the Opposition’s intransigence in thwarting “industrialization”). As a matter of fact, however, the Left lost votes both among the urban middle class and among the peasants and the rural poor. It lost votes among the urban middle class because this segment could not stomach the Left’s anti-imperialism and its fallout in the form of a distancing from the UPA; it lost votes among the peasants and the rural poor because the Left’s anti-imperialism was insufficient, in the sense that it did not extend to the formulation of an alternative economic policy. True, the scope for a state government to produce such an alternative economic policy is limited; but no effort in this direction was discernible.
The Left, it follows, cannot pursue its resistance to imperialism unless it also evolves an alternative approach to “development”, different from the neo-liberal one which is promoted by imperialist agencies everywhere. The central feature of such an approach must be the defence of the interests of the class base of the Left. Development must be defined in the context of the carrying forward of the democratic revolution, as a phenomenon contributing to an improvement in the economic conditions of the “basic classes”, and hence to an accretion to their class-strength. It must be seen as having a class dimension and not just referring to the augmentation of a mass of “things”. A supra-class notion of development, such as the augmentation of a mass of “things” or the mere growth of GDP, is a form of commodity-fetishism, and a part, therefore, of the ideology of imperialism. Hence any “development” that entails primitive accumulation of capital (which includes primitive accumulation through the state budget via the doling out of massive subsidies to capitalists for undertaking investment), that entails a reduction in workers’ wage-rates, rights, and security, cannot form part of the Left’s agenda. If, in the context of the competition between different states, private investment refuses to come into Left-ruled states because of their development agenda being different, then alternative ways of undertaking investment (e.g. through public or cooperative sector investment) have to be explored; and of course whatever relief can possibly be given to the “basic classes” against the onslaught of the neo-liberal policies must be provided.
Accepting the advice given to it to overcome its “outdated” opposition to imperialism and to the neo-liberal policies promoted by it will amount to self-annihilation by the Left and to its incorporation into the structures of bourgeois hegemony; it would entail a transformation of the Left into a “Blairite” entity. The argument may be made that a temporary acceptance of bourgeois hegemony will quicken the capitalist transformation of our society and hence bring the question of the transcendence of capitalism that much faster on to the agenda. This argument is not just similar to, but actually identical with, the bourgeois argument that the imposition of absolute deprivation on workers, peasants and petty producers in the process of capitalist development is of no great moment since such deprivation is only temporary and will be more than made good in due course. (The argument advanced, even by as sensitive an economist as Amartya Sen, during the Singur and Nandigram agitations, that building London and Manchester must also have meant the dispossession of some peasants of the time, suggesting that such losses are eventually more than compensated, is of this genre).
This is a flawed argument on several counts, of which the most obvious one is the following: capitalist transformation in societies like ours, even as it erodes pre-capitalist and non-capitalist structures, cannot absorb the producers displaced by such erosion into the fold of the capitalist sector itself, since the level of technology on the basis of which this transformation is undertaken, and the rate of its change, are such that its capacity to generate employment is negligible. (The context in which London and Manchester were built was altogether different: inter alia large-scale emigration was possible at that time from the capitalist Centre to the temperate regions which were opened up through colonialism for white settlement). Capitalist transformation in societies like ours is altogether different: it gives rise to a process of sheer pauperization but not of proletarianization of petty producers, for reasons quite different from those adduced by the Sixth Congress of the Communist International that had first cognized this phenomenon in colonial and third world societies.
The Sixth Congress had attributed this phenomenon to the fetters put on capitalist transformation in these societies by their integration into the world economy, under imperialist hegemony, which trapped them in a certain pattern of international division of labour. But the phenomenon today would arise not from the fact of such fetters, which obviously are quite loose in the case of an economy like India: it can apparently break out of this international division of labour and experience rapid capitalist transformation within a neo-liberal dispensation. The phenomenon arises today from the contemporary technological basis of such capitalist transformation.
It follows that if the Left fell prey to this argument, of first seeking to usher in capitalist transformation in the hope of working for its transcendence later, and hence proceeded today along a “Blairite” path, then it would remain a Blairite entity forever. The moment of that passage from capitalist transformation to the transcendence of capitalism will never come as some natural historical break; and if there is no such discontinuity then this entire distinction between two phases becomes invalid.
Accepting the advice to eschew its opposition to imperialism will not only erode the existing class base of the Left, without ever creating the conditions for a revival of revolutionary resistance later on a new basis; it will not only fritter away the Left’s class base built through decades of struggles in exchange, not for a later rebirth as a revolutionary force but for an incorporation in a Blairite fashion into the structures of bourgeois and imperialist hegemony; but it will also push the “basic classes” into the arms of extremist ideologies, ranging from “Maoism” to Islamist anti-imperialism, which not just unleash violence and restrict mass political action, but, for this very reason, are also “unproductive”, in the sense of being intrinsically incapable of achieving even the intermediate goals they set for themselves, let alone achieving a society that emancipates people. Anti-imperialism is not a product of the Left’s imagination; it arises from the objective conditions faced by the people. If the Left abandons it, then others, no matter how incapable of overcoming these objective conditions, will step in to fill the vacuum, and the people will be left to their mercy.
Perhaps the most significant feature of the recent Indian election is the loss suffered by the Left. The BJP’s defeat was more or less anticipated, except by the psephologists, as was some loss by the Left; but the actual extent of the Left’s loss has been quite staggering. True, its vote share has fallen only marginally; but in its Bengal base it has majority in only about a third of the total Assembly segments, and in Kerala even less, which is a serious setback. This setback is significant because the Left, even though not a contender for power at the Centre as of now, is a major driving force behind India’s journey towards a modern, secular and democratic society. It is of course not the only such force: there are large numbers of progressive social and political movements which also play this role. But it differs from all of them in one crucial respect, namely that it also has electoral strength which they lack; and such strength does matter. Any impairing of such strength therefore portends ill for the progress of India’s democratic revolution.
The media have been full of analysis of the Left’s loss and of advice for its revival, much of which ultimately focuses on just one point: it must discard its “phobia” about “imperialism”. This is occasionally expressed directly, such as by Lord Meghnad Desai in an interview to The Hindu, but usually indirectly. Sometimes it is said that the Left should not have withdrawn support from the UPA government; but since the withdrawal was precisely on the question of India’s entering into a possible strategic alliance with U.S. imperialism, this argument amounts to saying that the Left exaggerates the imperialist threat. Sometimes it is said that the people’s verdict was in favour of “development”, from which the inference can be drawn that the Left’s electoral loss must be attributed to its lack of success in ushering in “development” (meaning “development” within the neo-liberal paradigm, for which the different states in the country are vying with one another to attract corporate and MNC investment). This again amounts to saying that the Left’s opposition to the neo-liberal paradigm, which is linked to its anti-imperialism, is responsible for its obsolescence, and hence defeat. Sometimes it is argued that there was a “wave” in favour of a secular and stable government which worked to the advantage of the UPA and to the detriment of the Left, since the latter forged links in the “third front” with Parties that had done business with the BJP earlier. If the conclusion from this claim is that the Left should have gone into the election alone rather than with “third front” allies, then that at least is compatible with the Left’s ideological premises (though it is unlikely to have made much difference to its electoral fortune); but if the conclusion is that the Left must always be with those who would be normally supposed to ride such a “wave”, then that amounts to suggesting that it should compromise on its anti-imperialism to become a permanent fixture of the UPA camp. The commonest advice to the Left in short is to stop making a fuss over “imperialism”.
This is hardly surprising. All over the world, in countries where the urban middle class has escaped as yet the adverse consequences of globalization, anti-imperialism among the students, the educated youth, and the literati is at low ebb. On the contrary there is even a desire to welcome closer integration with the imperialist world as a means of ushering in a secular and progressive modernity, and of countering phenomena like feudal patriarchy, religious authoritarianism and communal-fascism. Since Left ideas typically get nourishment from the literati and the urban intellectual strata, even though these ideas reach their fruition in the struggles of the workers and peasants, who are the victims of globalization but are sociologically distant from the intellectual strata, the Left movement gathers momentum in situations where the urban middle class has also suffered from globalization and hence makes common cause with the workers and the peasants. But it faces problems in situations where the urban middle class is a beneficiary of globalization. In such cases, the resistance to imperialism and globalization often gets championed by forces other than the Left; or, if the Left remains committed to the interests of the “basic classes” and resists globalization, it often suffers through isolation from the intellectual strata and the urban youth and students. (This loss, though real, can of course be more than offset by an increase in its support base among the peasantry through its resistance to globalization).
The current anti-imperialist upsurge in Latin America, which has brought Left or Left-oriented governments to power over much of that continent, is a consequence of the long years of crises that hurt, and hence radicalized, the urban youth, students and intellectuals. On the other hand, in much of central Asia, and now Iran, where the urban youth has not directly experienced the adversity inflicted by globalization, imperialism still retains the capacity to mobilize, or at least claim the sympathy of, vast numbers of the urban population in so-called “orange”, “tulip” and “velvet” “revolutions” that are supposed to bring in modernity and democracy together with neo-liberalism. In India, since the adversity of workers, peasants, agricultural labourers and petty producers, under globalization, has been accompanied by high growth rates, and rapid increases in incomes and opportunities for the urban middle class, a degree of pro-imperialism among this class which includes intellectuals, media persons and professionals, and hence a degree of exasperation with the Left’s continued adherence to old “anti-imperialist shibboleths”, is hardly surprising.
The Left’s error that accounts for its loss in the recent elections can be located here. As long as the urban middle class in India is not hit by the adverse consequences of globalization, it will continue to remain sympathetically disposed towards imperialism. Anti-imperialist ideological appeals alone, though they must continue to be made, will not sway it much. Two additional factors that will contribute towards this sympathy for imperialism are, first, the assumption of US Presidency by Barack Obama who represents “imperialism with a human face”, and, second, the strong opposition to imperialism coming at present from the Islamist movements with which broad sections of the Indian urban middle class have little affinity. As long as the Indian Left remains true to its ideology and the interests of its class base, the pro-imperialist sympathies of the Indian urban middle class will necessarily entail some estrangement of this class from the Left. This is a phenomenon that will haunt the Left for as long as the current conjuncture continues. In the recent elections, it follows that a certain loss of urban support for the Left became unavoidable when it broke with the UPA because of its anti-imperialism. (In Kerala, such alienation from the Left was compounded by certain specific local factors: the secular segments of the electorate could not accept the Left’s relationship with the PDP, and the Left’s stand on the SNC-Lavalin Deal carried little credibility.)
If the Left had managed to increase its support among the workers, peasants, petty producers and the rural poor, then it could have offset this loss among the urban middle class; even if it had managed to retain its support among the former, its overall loss would have still remained limited. But, notwithstanding its opposition to imperialism, it did not have an alternative policy on development, different from what the neo-liberal paradigm dictated. In West Bengal, the government led by it pursued policies of “development” similar to what the other states were following and in competition with them, which, being part of the neo-liberal paradigm, necessarily brought with them the threat of “primitive accumulation of capital” (in the form specifically of expropriation of peasants’ land). These policies, though subsequently reversed in several instances, had an adverse impact on the “basic classes” and caused a crucial erosion of the class base of the Left.
While some loss of peasant support on account of Singur and Nandigram was anticipated in West Bengal, it was thought that the Opposition’s thwarting of “development” would make the urban middle class switch to the Left as the preferred alternative (because of which pictures of the Nano car were posted all over the state as part of the CPI(M)’s campaign to remind the electorate of the Opposition’s intransigence in thwarting “industrialization”). As a matter of fact, however, the Left lost votes both among the urban middle class and among the peasants and the rural poor. It lost votes among the urban middle class because this segment could not stomach the Left’s anti-imperialism and its fallout in the form of a distancing from the UPA; it lost votes among the peasants and the rural poor because the Left’s anti-imperialism was insufficient, in the sense that it did not extend to the formulation of an alternative economic policy. True, the scope for a state government to produce such an alternative economic policy is limited; but no effort in this direction was discernible.
The Left, it follows, cannot pursue its resistance to imperialism unless it also evolves an alternative approach to “development”, different from the neo-liberal one which is promoted by imperialist agencies everywhere. The central feature of such an approach must be the defence of the interests of the class base of the Left. Development must be defined in the context of the carrying forward of the democratic revolution, as a phenomenon contributing to an improvement in the economic conditions of the “basic classes”, and hence to an accretion to their class-strength. It must be seen as having a class dimension and not just referring to the augmentation of a mass of “things”. A supra-class notion of development, such as the augmentation of a mass of “things” or the mere growth of GDP, is a form of commodity-fetishism, and a part, therefore, of the ideology of imperialism. Hence any “development” that entails primitive accumulation of capital (which includes primitive accumulation through the state budget via the doling out of massive subsidies to capitalists for undertaking investment), that entails a reduction in workers’ wage-rates, rights, and security, cannot form part of the Left’s agenda. If, in the context of the competition between different states, private investment refuses to come into Left-ruled states because of their development agenda being different, then alternative ways of undertaking investment (e.g. through public or cooperative sector investment) have to be explored; and of course whatever relief can possibly be given to the “basic classes” against the onslaught of the neo-liberal policies must be provided.
Accepting the advice given to it to overcome its “outdated” opposition to imperialism and to the neo-liberal policies promoted by it will amount to self-annihilation by the Left and to its incorporation into the structures of bourgeois hegemony; it would entail a transformation of the Left into a “Blairite” entity. The argument may be made that a temporary acceptance of bourgeois hegemony will quicken the capitalist transformation of our society and hence bring the question of the transcendence of capitalism that much faster on to the agenda. This argument is not just similar to, but actually identical with, the bourgeois argument that the imposition of absolute deprivation on workers, peasants and petty producers in the process of capitalist development is of no great moment since such deprivation is only temporary and will be more than made good in due course. (The argument advanced, even by as sensitive an economist as Amartya Sen, during the Singur and Nandigram agitations, that building London and Manchester must also have meant the dispossession of some peasants of the time, suggesting that such losses are eventually more than compensated, is of this genre).
This is a flawed argument on several counts, of which the most obvious one is the following: capitalist transformation in societies like ours, even as it erodes pre-capitalist and non-capitalist structures, cannot absorb the producers displaced by such erosion into the fold of the capitalist sector itself, since the level of technology on the basis of which this transformation is undertaken, and the rate of its change, are such that its capacity to generate employment is negligible. (The context in which London and Manchester were built was altogether different: inter alia large-scale emigration was possible at that time from the capitalist Centre to the temperate regions which were opened up through colonialism for white settlement). Capitalist transformation in societies like ours is altogether different: it gives rise to a process of sheer pauperization but not of proletarianization of petty producers, for reasons quite different from those adduced by the Sixth Congress of the Communist International that had first cognized this phenomenon in colonial and third world societies.
The Sixth Congress had attributed this phenomenon to the fetters put on capitalist transformation in these societies by their integration into the world economy, under imperialist hegemony, which trapped them in a certain pattern of international division of labour. But the phenomenon today would arise not from the fact of such fetters, which obviously are quite loose in the case of an economy like India: it can apparently break out of this international division of labour and experience rapid capitalist transformation within a neo-liberal dispensation. The phenomenon arises today from the contemporary technological basis of such capitalist transformation.
It follows that if the Left fell prey to this argument, of first seeking to usher in capitalist transformation in the hope of working for its transcendence later, and hence proceeded today along a “Blairite” path, then it would remain a Blairite entity forever. The moment of that passage from capitalist transformation to the transcendence of capitalism will never come as some natural historical break; and if there is no such discontinuity then this entire distinction between two phases becomes invalid.
Accepting the advice to eschew its opposition to imperialism will not only erode the existing class base of the Left, without ever creating the conditions for a revival of revolutionary resistance later on a new basis; it will not only fritter away the Left’s class base built through decades of struggles in exchange, not for a later rebirth as a revolutionary force but for an incorporation in a Blairite fashion into the structures of bourgeois and imperialist hegemony; but it will also push the “basic classes” into the arms of extremist ideologies, ranging from “Maoism” to Islamist anti-imperialism, which not just unleash violence and restrict mass political action, but, for this very reason, are also “unproductive”, in the sense of being intrinsically incapable of achieving even the intermediate goals they set for themselves, let alone achieving a society that emancipates people. Anti-imperialism is not a product of the Left’s imagination; it arises from the objective conditions faced by the people. If the Left abandons it, then others, no matter how incapable of overcoming these objective conditions, will step in to fill the vacuum, and the people will be left to their mercy.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Whither Higher Education!
G Selva
AFTER the pre-poll and exit poll surveys, now it’s the time for the media to survey India’s ‘top educational institutions.’ Nowadays one of the main sources of income for the electronic and print media are the advertisements coming from private educational institutions. In the milieu of such a market driven, profit oriented media business, however, can we expect an articulation of the voice and demands of the people who are struggling hard to avail the facilities of education?
As we know, the media’s constant effort is to ‘create’ news --- just like masala movies project certain heroes, villains and comedians. And now the media’s new hero is Mr Kapil Sibal, the new HRD minister, who said that a review will be undertaken of all the institutions that had been granted the ‘Deemed University status’ by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
There is now no doubt that a review of the status of deemed universities is long overdue, as students who want to study and their parents are facing immense hardships, and thus Mr Sibal’s statement is welcome. These hardships emerge because of collection of capitation fees, high tuition fees, lack of quality education and undemocratic attitude of institutions etc. But if we look at the problems in the background of the Congress party’s professed love for the neo-liberal economic policies, it raises genuine doubts whether the ‘new hero’ will be able to identify, leave alone fight, the real villain?
The original concept of a deemed university was to extend recognition to such educational institutions as were able to set up excellent educational standards with remarkable capabilities. Naturally, such institutions were valued. It was the former Indian president and eminent educationist, Dr S Radhakrishnan, who introduced the idea of a deemed university and, accordingly, the first institution to be given the status was the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1958. Later, many other prominent government institutions too were given the deemed university status, like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
Until the 1990s, granting the deemed university status was very rare. Between 1958 and the 1990’s, only 29 institutions were granted this status. In the last 15 years, however, 63 institutions were given this distinction, while in the last five years alone 36 institutions have been notified as deemed universities. Now, in all, there are 125 of them. The most glaring example of the recent proliferation would be found probably in Tamil Nadu where the number of deemed universities has increased from 18 in 2007 to 35 in 2008, with many others in the queue.
The reason for this sharp increase in the number of deemed universities since the 1990’s was the modification of the UGC rules granting ‘deemed to be university’ status by the previous NDA government in order to help the self-financing colleges to come out of the control of the affiliating universities. The conditions regarding fixed endowment, number of years of their functioning and requirement of land were relaxed in case of de novo institutions.
The UPA government, which came to power after the NDA, in spite of strong opposition from the Left parties and the students movement across India, shamelessly implemented the same policies on education. As a result, deemed universities and private institutions mushroomed in the last five years. Thus the UPA government has extended a red carpet welcome to the private players who exploit and make maximum profit from the aspiring parents and students.
These deemed universities have never followed any of the regulations laid down by the UGC, AICTE, MCI and other central regulatory bodies. For example, the chancellor of deemed university should be a doctorate holder. But in most of the existing deemed universities, the chancellors are either diploma holders or post graduates through correspondence education. Also, in most of the cases, the land being used by these deemed universities are encroachment of panchama land, temple land, village pond and cattle grazing fields etc. Legally, except the original beneficiaries of these lands, others are not entitled to use it for any purpose. As per the UGC guidelines, a deemed university is not supposed to run any sub-centres, but in practice many deemed universities violate this rule. For example, Vinayaka Mission University, Salem, Tamilnadu, has more 900 sub-centres all over India.
During its last tenure, instead of controlling the ‘educational dacoity’ by private players, the Congress party, the party to which our new ‘hero’ belongs, has helped them by allowing them to remove the word ‘deemed’ and use in its stead the words “Under Section 3 of the UGC Act.” From the time the state started withdrawing from its responsibility to provide education to its citizens, not only deemed universities, but private institutions from the kindergarten schools to institutions of higher learning have turned into so many centres of unbridled profiteering.
If Mr Kapil Sibal is honest and committed to his words on the deemed universities, the immediate task is to cancel the deemed university status for all institutions, which were given this status on the basis of the NDA government’s modification of rules.
The erstwhile UPA government had promised that nobody will be denied professional education only because he or she is poor. Based on the available data, currently 43 per cent of the institutions private unaided institutions, accounting for 30 per cent of students enrolment. Most of these institutes are blatantly violating all the government regulations and are not under any social control. This ‘educational dacoity’ is being aided by the government’s policies on the one hand, while the judiciary is unfortunately granting it legal approval on the other. To control and save Indian education from private players, there is an immediate need to enact a central legislation to regulate the fees and admissions in these private institutions.
After the Kothari commission, except for the New Education Policy 1986, the central government did not declare any broad policy framework for educational development in the country. Nor has it undertaken any comprehensive review of the education system. So the need of hour is to undertake a comprehensive review of our educational system, to rectify the immediate problems and formulate a broad vision and direction for the future development of education in our country. To do it, the government constitute a national commission on education.
Unless and until the UPA government realises that providing education to people is the prime responsibility of the state, we cannot control privatisation and bring in major positive changes in our educational system. The immediate task is to allocate six per cent of the GDP to education, which was suggested by the Kothari commission four decades ago. The UPA government agreed to it in principle during its last tenure, but never implemented it.
The above issues and demands that are there in front of our new ‘hero’ need immediate attention and action. But we also know how, in order to satisfy the private lobby and maintain the landlord-bourgeoisie character of the state, the UPA government delayed the passage of the Right to Education bill which could have enshrined education as a fundamental right in our constitution. Thus, education is not only an issue for the students movement but a larger social issue involving all sections of the society. The need therefore is of building a common struggle involving all sections of the society.
AFTER the pre-poll and exit poll surveys, now it’s the time for the media to survey India’s ‘top educational institutions.’ Nowadays one of the main sources of income for the electronic and print media are the advertisements coming from private educational institutions. In the milieu of such a market driven, profit oriented media business, however, can we expect an articulation of the voice and demands of the people who are struggling hard to avail the facilities of education?
As we know, the media’s constant effort is to ‘create’ news --- just like masala movies project certain heroes, villains and comedians. And now the media’s new hero is Mr Kapil Sibal, the new HRD minister, who said that a review will be undertaken of all the institutions that had been granted the ‘Deemed University status’ by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
There is now no doubt that a review of the status of deemed universities is long overdue, as students who want to study and their parents are facing immense hardships, and thus Mr Sibal’s statement is welcome. These hardships emerge because of collection of capitation fees, high tuition fees, lack of quality education and undemocratic attitude of institutions etc. But if we look at the problems in the background of the Congress party’s professed love for the neo-liberal economic policies, it raises genuine doubts whether the ‘new hero’ will be able to identify, leave alone fight, the real villain?
The original concept of a deemed university was to extend recognition to such educational institutions as were able to set up excellent educational standards with remarkable capabilities. Naturally, such institutions were valued. It was the former Indian president and eminent educationist, Dr S Radhakrishnan, who introduced the idea of a deemed university and, accordingly, the first institution to be given the status was the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore in 1958. Later, many other prominent government institutions too were given the deemed university status, like the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the National Institutes of Technology (NITs).
Until the 1990s, granting the deemed university status was very rare. Between 1958 and the 1990’s, only 29 institutions were granted this status. In the last 15 years, however, 63 institutions were given this distinction, while in the last five years alone 36 institutions have been notified as deemed universities. Now, in all, there are 125 of them. The most glaring example of the recent proliferation would be found probably in Tamil Nadu where the number of deemed universities has increased from 18 in 2007 to 35 in 2008, with many others in the queue.
The reason for this sharp increase in the number of deemed universities since the 1990’s was the modification of the UGC rules granting ‘deemed to be university’ status by the previous NDA government in order to help the self-financing colleges to come out of the control of the affiliating universities. The conditions regarding fixed endowment, number of years of their functioning and requirement of land were relaxed in case of de novo institutions.
The UPA government, which came to power after the NDA, in spite of strong opposition from the Left parties and the students movement across India, shamelessly implemented the same policies on education. As a result, deemed universities and private institutions mushroomed in the last five years. Thus the UPA government has extended a red carpet welcome to the private players who exploit and make maximum profit from the aspiring parents and students.
These deemed universities have never followed any of the regulations laid down by the UGC, AICTE, MCI and other central regulatory bodies. For example, the chancellor of deemed university should be a doctorate holder. But in most of the existing deemed universities, the chancellors are either diploma holders or post graduates through correspondence education. Also, in most of the cases, the land being used by these deemed universities are encroachment of panchama land, temple land, village pond and cattle grazing fields etc. Legally, except the original beneficiaries of these lands, others are not entitled to use it for any purpose. As per the UGC guidelines, a deemed university is not supposed to run any sub-centres, but in practice many deemed universities violate this rule. For example, Vinayaka Mission University, Salem, Tamilnadu, has more 900 sub-centres all over India.
During its last tenure, instead of controlling the ‘educational dacoity’ by private players, the Congress party, the party to which our new ‘hero’ belongs, has helped them by allowing them to remove the word ‘deemed’ and use in its stead the words “Under Section 3 of the UGC Act.” From the time the state started withdrawing from its responsibility to provide education to its citizens, not only deemed universities, but private institutions from the kindergarten schools to institutions of higher learning have turned into so many centres of unbridled profiteering.
If Mr Kapil Sibal is honest and committed to his words on the deemed universities, the immediate task is to cancel the deemed university status for all institutions, which were given this status on the basis of the NDA government’s modification of rules.
The erstwhile UPA government had promised that nobody will be denied professional education only because he or she is poor. Based on the available data, currently 43 per cent of the institutions private unaided institutions, accounting for 30 per cent of students enrolment. Most of these institutes are blatantly violating all the government regulations and are not under any social control. This ‘educational dacoity’ is being aided by the government’s policies on the one hand, while the judiciary is unfortunately granting it legal approval on the other. To control and save Indian education from private players, there is an immediate need to enact a central legislation to regulate the fees and admissions in these private institutions.
After the Kothari commission, except for the New Education Policy 1986, the central government did not declare any broad policy framework for educational development in the country. Nor has it undertaken any comprehensive review of the education system. So the need of hour is to undertake a comprehensive review of our educational system, to rectify the immediate problems and formulate a broad vision and direction for the future development of education in our country. To do it, the government constitute a national commission on education.
Unless and until the UPA government realises that providing education to people is the prime responsibility of the state, we cannot control privatisation and bring in major positive changes in our educational system. The immediate task is to allocate six per cent of the GDP to education, which was suggested by the Kothari commission four decades ago. The UPA government agreed to it in principle during its last tenure, but never implemented it.
The above issues and demands that are there in front of our new ‘hero’ need immediate attention and action. But we also know how, in order to satisfy the private lobby and maintain the landlord-bourgeoisie character of the state, the UPA government delayed the passage of the Right to Education bill which could have enshrined education as a fundamental right in our constitution. Thus, education is not only an issue for the students movement but a larger social issue involving all sections of the society. The need therefore is of building a common struggle involving all sections of the society.
Disinvestment – For What?
Dipankar Mukherjee
“Therefore, if the objective of the government were to bridge the resource gap by disposing of the capital assets, in order to meet the consumption expenditure, it would simply not be permissible by any amount of fiscal prudence. If you have Rs 2 lakh crore of fiscal deficit; in two years you can dispose of all the assets which you have; then, what are you going to do from the third year? Therefore, we would like to know the basic objectives. You shall have to decide on that. We would like to have a categorical answer from the government. It is not merely a question of disinvestment.……In the last ten years, no consensus has developed on these particular aspects. Disinvestment for what objective? What are you going to do with the proceeds of the disinvestment? Is it only to bridge the Budgetary gap? Is it prudent to dispose of the capital assets and use it for meeting the normal consumption expenditure? Should you not explore the possibility of reducing your fiscal deficit through other appropriate ways? All these questions would surely come.”
The above questions were raised by none other than the present union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in Rajya Sabha eight years back when he was in opposition, just before the budget on February 27, 2001 while moving a Calling Attention Motion on the disinvestment of BALCO. The questions still remain unanswered. No consensus has developed as can be seen from the stand of different political parties during the debate on the motion of thanks on the president’s address on June 4, 2009.
Why then this urgent call for disinvestment in select PSUs? Is it only because the “Left road block” has been removed after five years? But then the above words of wisdom were uttered eight years back when Congress did not need the support of Left to remain in opposition! The clue is there in the above mentioned speech of Mukherjee when he said:
“…I read from the newspapers saying, “Stick to the deal: FICCI advices the government.” They would like to have total private sector and total market economy everywhere. It is not today: from day one, they are demanding that.”
That is the crux of the issue. Who wants disinvestment? FICCI and other industrial bodies like CII, ASSOCHAM etc who were goading the then disinvestment minister Arun Shourie in 2001, and who are now fixing the agenda for the new government. It is they and not the people of this country who are yearning for ownership in PSUs.
PEOPLE’S OWNERSHIP
THROUGH SHAREMARKET?
People of the country elect their representatives in parliament and through parliament elect their government. Public Sector Enterprises are owned by the government and not by the government of the day. People’s ownership in PSU is ensured through parliament, elected by the people. The ownership of the people through Parliament can not be diluted by ownership of a few people through share market. The fallacy of this newly coined word of “people’s ownership” to conceal the process of “creeping privatisation” i.e. privatisation in phases, becomes clear if one looks the disinvestment of shares of BHEL, a navaratna PSU carried out by the Congress government during 1991-1996 when Dr Manmohan Singh, as the finance minister initiated the process of selling shares of PSUs. The Left parties, when they opposed and stalled the selling of 10 per cent shares of BHEL during the last UPA regime, threw at the government’s face the following share holding pattern of BHEL to expose the fallacy and real intent of such disinvestment in the name of “people’s ownership”.
BHEL’s Share Holding Pattern
Category of Share holder % of Shares
Government of India 67.72
Foreign Institutional Investors 17.03
Mutual Funds 05.14
Insurance companies 03.83
Bodies Corporate 03.86
Individuals holding nominal share 01.92
capital up to Rs 1 lakh and others
The above clearly shows that in the name of people’s/ workers’ ownership of shares, about 21 per cent shares were handed over to FIIs and private corporates during Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure as finance minister and the so-called people’s share was only 1.92 per cent. Similar was the case of NTPC and other blue chip PSUs, where FIIs and private corporate grabbed most of shares, disinvested through this process.
CONGRESS Vs
CONGRESS
The presidential speech on disinvestment more or loss reiterates Congress manifesto for the 15th Lok Sabha election which states:
“The Indian National Congress rejects the policy of blind privatisation followed by the BJP-led NDA government, but believes that the Indian people have every right to own part of the shares of public sector companies while government retains majority share holding.”
The “blind privatisation” led to the defeat of NDA in 2004 election. Congress is now trying “enlightened privatisation” through back door in the name of the people! If Congressmen of post 1991 vintage were really interested in forms of public participation in public sector, they could have looked into the report of a sub-committee of the Congress Party appointed by the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on April 10, 1958 to consider the problems relating to State-owned corporations and companies and to suggest better parliamentary supervision. The 10-member sub-committee, headed by V K Krishna Menon included Feroze Gandhi, Dr P Subbarayan, Mahavi Tyagi among others. The sub-committee had recommended the following on the question of public or employee’s participation.
“As it must be the aim to enable workers to participate not only in management but also as functionaries and owners in a direct way these shares may be either confined or made preferentially available to those engaged in the industry and a Director can then be drawn from the ranks of the investing employees. ......Such shares shall not be available for purchase by private corporations or business concerns.”
Is it acceptable (especially the portion emphasised)? Or is it regressive for the present Congressmen inspired by “Reform” mantras? After all, they are now so taken in by the repeated query of the corporate and the elite circles “where from the resources will come for social sector expenditure”? As though social sector expenditure in education, health and social security is a one time expenditure which can be dispensed of by selling the PSU shares in one or few tranches? But is resource really the issue?
UPA GOVT’S RECORD
WITH PSU RESOURCES
The reserves and surplus of Central Public Sector Enterprises was Rs 2.59 lakh crore in 2003-2004 when the UPA government came to power. The same has gone up by another Rs 2.26 lakh crore and stood at Rs 4.85 lakh crore in 2007-2008. Who stopped them to use this amount of Rs 2.26 lakh crore for any productive purposes, including social sector expenditure? As a matter of fact, out of this huge reserve and surplus, an amount of Rs 1.42 lakh crore is being utilised in non-productive financial investments. For example, NTPC, a navaratna PSU, was having as on March 31, 2008 cash and bank balance of Rs 14,933 crore, out of total reserves and surplus of Rs 44,393 crore? Do you have to sell shares worth Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 15,000 crore while similar amount of huge money is locked in non-productive reserves? The pet answer is — these reserves are for the company’s expansion and future projects. But is that true? No. Nobody invests all his money, whether capital or reserves, to run a business or start a project. The investor puts a part of it as equity from his/her pocket and borrows the rest from banks as debt. For all big private sector players, the government is now permitting 4:1 debt equity structures i.e. for every one rupee investment the private sector can borrow 4 rupees from the banks and financial institutions (FIs). They are therefore low equity (i.e. their own investment) and high debt companies, with debts borrowed mainly from public sector banks and FIs. On the contrary the Public Sector Enterprises have high equity and low debt. At a time, when banks are having huge funds at their disposal, the government-owned CPSEs can borrow from banks based on present debt equity position. As on date CPSEs together have roughly a debt equity ratio of 1:2 i.e. the equity is double the amount of debt. To be more precise, as per latest Public Enterprise Survey 2007-2008, CPSEs have an equity of more than Rs 6 lakh crore against a long term loan of Rs 3.2 lakh crore.
CREEPING PRIVATISATION
INSTEAD OF ‘BLIND PRIVATISATION’
The CPSEs, therefore, in the line of private sector can borrow safely an amount of Rs 15-20 lakh crore from the banks and FIs without shedding any equity shares i.e. without any disinvestment. Who stops them? Why then should they go for selling shares of a petty amount of Rs 20-30 thousand crores? Is there any economic logic?
No. The objective is neither people’s ownership nor overcoming resource crunch. It is located much deeper in the ideological concept of free market economy where public sector has no place. The objective is only privatisation i.e. change of ownership of CPSEs. The routes are different – “Shouriean” way of what the Congress calls “blind privatisation” or the “Manmohanimcs” route of “creeping privatisation” under different nomenclatures viz retail investor, workers’ participation or now the people’s ownership.
“For God’s sake do not try to befool every body that only disposal of capital assets is the core of economic reforms”, bemoaned Pranab Mukherjee on December 04, 2002 while initiating a short duration discussion on disinvestment in Rajya Sabha. We can only tell the Congressmen of pre-91 vintage –– for the sake of Congress leaders like Nehru, Krishna Menon and Feroze Gandhi, do not befool the people that “creeping privatisation” is people’s ownership.
“Therefore, if the objective of the government were to bridge the resource gap by disposing of the capital assets, in order to meet the consumption expenditure, it would simply not be permissible by any amount of fiscal prudence. If you have Rs 2 lakh crore of fiscal deficit; in two years you can dispose of all the assets which you have; then, what are you going to do from the third year? Therefore, we would like to know the basic objectives. You shall have to decide on that. We would like to have a categorical answer from the government. It is not merely a question of disinvestment.……In the last ten years, no consensus has developed on these particular aspects. Disinvestment for what objective? What are you going to do with the proceeds of the disinvestment? Is it only to bridge the Budgetary gap? Is it prudent to dispose of the capital assets and use it for meeting the normal consumption expenditure? Should you not explore the possibility of reducing your fiscal deficit through other appropriate ways? All these questions would surely come.”
The above questions were raised by none other than the present union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee in Rajya Sabha eight years back when he was in opposition, just before the budget on February 27, 2001 while moving a Calling Attention Motion on the disinvestment of BALCO. The questions still remain unanswered. No consensus has developed as can be seen from the stand of different political parties during the debate on the motion of thanks on the president’s address on June 4, 2009.
Why then this urgent call for disinvestment in select PSUs? Is it only because the “Left road block” has been removed after five years? But then the above words of wisdom were uttered eight years back when Congress did not need the support of Left to remain in opposition! The clue is there in the above mentioned speech of Mukherjee when he said:
“…I read from the newspapers saying, “Stick to the deal: FICCI advices the government.” They would like to have total private sector and total market economy everywhere. It is not today: from day one, they are demanding that.”
That is the crux of the issue. Who wants disinvestment? FICCI and other industrial bodies like CII, ASSOCHAM etc who were goading the then disinvestment minister Arun Shourie in 2001, and who are now fixing the agenda for the new government. It is they and not the people of this country who are yearning for ownership in PSUs.
PEOPLE’S OWNERSHIP
THROUGH SHAREMARKET?
People of the country elect their representatives in parliament and through parliament elect their government. Public Sector Enterprises are owned by the government and not by the government of the day. People’s ownership in PSU is ensured through parliament, elected by the people. The ownership of the people through Parliament can not be diluted by ownership of a few people through share market. The fallacy of this newly coined word of “people’s ownership” to conceal the process of “creeping privatisation” i.e. privatisation in phases, becomes clear if one looks the disinvestment of shares of BHEL, a navaratna PSU carried out by the Congress government during 1991-1996 when Dr Manmohan Singh, as the finance minister initiated the process of selling shares of PSUs. The Left parties, when they opposed and stalled the selling of 10 per cent shares of BHEL during the last UPA regime, threw at the government’s face the following share holding pattern of BHEL to expose the fallacy and real intent of such disinvestment in the name of “people’s ownership”.
BHEL’s Share Holding Pattern
Category of Share holder % of Shares
Government of India 67.72
Foreign Institutional Investors 17.03
Mutual Funds 05.14
Insurance companies 03.83
Bodies Corporate 03.86
Individuals holding nominal share 01.92
capital up to Rs 1 lakh and others
The above clearly shows that in the name of people’s/ workers’ ownership of shares, about 21 per cent shares were handed over to FIIs and private corporates during Dr Manmohan Singh’s tenure as finance minister and the so-called people’s share was only 1.92 per cent. Similar was the case of NTPC and other blue chip PSUs, where FIIs and private corporate grabbed most of shares, disinvested through this process.
CONGRESS Vs
CONGRESS
The presidential speech on disinvestment more or loss reiterates Congress manifesto for the 15th Lok Sabha election which states:
“The Indian National Congress rejects the policy of blind privatisation followed by the BJP-led NDA government, but believes that the Indian people have every right to own part of the shares of public sector companies while government retains majority share holding.”
The “blind privatisation” led to the defeat of NDA in 2004 election. Congress is now trying “enlightened privatisation” through back door in the name of the people! If Congressmen of post 1991 vintage were really interested in forms of public participation in public sector, they could have looked into the report of a sub-committee of the Congress Party appointed by the then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru on April 10, 1958 to consider the problems relating to State-owned corporations and companies and to suggest better parliamentary supervision. The 10-member sub-committee, headed by V K Krishna Menon included Feroze Gandhi, Dr P Subbarayan, Mahavi Tyagi among others. The sub-committee had recommended the following on the question of public or employee’s participation.
“As it must be the aim to enable workers to participate not only in management but also as functionaries and owners in a direct way these shares may be either confined or made preferentially available to those engaged in the industry and a Director can then be drawn from the ranks of the investing employees. ......Such shares shall not be available for purchase by private corporations or business concerns.”
Is it acceptable (especially the portion emphasised)? Or is it regressive for the present Congressmen inspired by “Reform” mantras? After all, they are now so taken in by the repeated query of the corporate and the elite circles “where from the resources will come for social sector expenditure”? As though social sector expenditure in education, health and social security is a one time expenditure which can be dispensed of by selling the PSU shares in one or few tranches? But is resource really the issue?
UPA GOVT’S RECORD
WITH PSU RESOURCES
The reserves and surplus of Central Public Sector Enterprises was Rs 2.59 lakh crore in 2003-2004 when the UPA government came to power. The same has gone up by another Rs 2.26 lakh crore and stood at Rs 4.85 lakh crore in 2007-2008. Who stopped them to use this amount of Rs 2.26 lakh crore for any productive purposes, including social sector expenditure? As a matter of fact, out of this huge reserve and surplus, an amount of Rs 1.42 lakh crore is being utilised in non-productive financial investments. For example, NTPC, a navaratna PSU, was having as on March 31, 2008 cash and bank balance of Rs 14,933 crore, out of total reserves and surplus of Rs 44,393 crore? Do you have to sell shares worth Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 15,000 crore while similar amount of huge money is locked in non-productive reserves? The pet answer is — these reserves are for the company’s expansion and future projects. But is that true? No. Nobody invests all his money, whether capital or reserves, to run a business or start a project. The investor puts a part of it as equity from his/her pocket and borrows the rest from banks as debt. For all big private sector players, the government is now permitting 4:1 debt equity structures i.e. for every one rupee investment the private sector can borrow 4 rupees from the banks and financial institutions (FIs). They are therefore low equity (i.e. their own investment) and high debt companies, with debts borrowed mainly from public sector banks and FIs. On the contrary the Public Sector Enterprises have high equity and low debt. At a time, when banks are having huge funds at their disposal, the government-owned CPSEs can borrow from banks based on present debt equity position. As on date CPSEs together have roughly a debt equity ratio of 1:2 i.e. the equity is double the amount of debt. To be more precise, as per latest Public Enterprise Survey 2007-2008, CPSEs have an equity of more than Rs 6 lakh crore against a long term loan of Rs 3.2 lakh crore.
CREEPING PRIVATISATION
INSTEAD OF ‘BLIND PRIVATISATION’
The CPSEs, therefore, in the line of private sector can borrow safely an amount of Rs 15-20 lakh crore from the banks and FIs without shedding any equity shares i.e. without any disinvestment. Who stops them? Why then should they go for selling shares of a petty amount of Rs 20-30 thousand crores? Is there any economic logic?
No. The objective is neither people’s ownership nor overcoming resource crunch. It is located much deeper in the ideological concept of free market economy where public sector has no place. The objective is only privatisation i.e. change of ownership of CPSEs. The routes are different – “Shouriean” way of what the Congress calls “blind privatisation” or the “Manmohanimcs” route of “creeping privatisation” under different nomenclatures viz retail investor, workers’ participation or now the people’s ownership.
“For God’s sake do not try to befool every body that only disposal of capital assets is the core of economic reforms”, bemoaned Pranab Mukherjee on December 04, 2002 while initiating a short duration discussion on disinvestment in Rajya Sabha. We can only tell the Congressmen of pre-91 vintage –– for the sake of Congress leaders like Nehru, Krishna Menon and Feroze Gandhi, do not befool the people that “creeping privatisation” is people’s ownership.
The Paradox Of Capitalism
Prabhat Patnaik
JOHN Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.
In a famous essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, written in 1930, Keynes had argued: “Assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not, if we look into the future, the permanent problem of the human race (emphasis in the original).
He had gone on to ask: “Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling because, if instead of looking into the future, we look into the past, we find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has been hitherto the most pressing problem of the human race… If the economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional purpose.” He had then proceeded to examine how mankind could fruitfully use its time in such a world.
True, after Keynes had written there has been the second world war, but thereafter mankind has had six and a half decades without any “important war” of the sort that could interrupt what he had called the “era of progress and invention”. And the rate of population growth has also not accelerated to a point that can be considered to have invalidated Keynes’ premise. And yet if we take mankind as a whole, it is as far from solving the economic problem as it ever was. True, there has been massive accumulation of capital, and with it an enormous increase in the mass of goods available to mankind; and yet, for the vast majority of mankind, the “struggle for subsistence” that Keynes had referred to has continued to remain as acute as ever, perhaps in some ways even more acute than ever before.
To say that this is only because not enough time has passed, that over a slightly longer time period Keynes’ vision will indeed turn out to be true, is facile. The fact that the bulk of mankind continues to face an acute struggle for subsistence is not a matter of degree; it is not as if the acuteness of this struggle for this segment of mankind has been lessening over time, or that the relative size of this segment has been lessening over time. We cannot therefore assert that the passage of more time will lift everybody above this struggle.
DICHOTOMY STRUCTURALLY
INBUILT IN CAPITALISM
Likewise, to say that while enormous increases have taken place in the mass of goods and services available to mankind (the increase in this mass being more in the last hundred years than in the previous two thousand years, as Keynes had pointed out), its distribution has been extremely skewed and hence accounts for the persistence of the struggle for subsistence for the majority of the world’s population, is to state a mere tautology. The whole point is that there is something structural to the capitalist system itself, the same system that causes this enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce goods and services, which also ensures that, notwithstanding this enormous increase, the struggle for subsistence must continue to be as acute as before, or even more acute than before, for the bulk of mankind.
Keynes missed this structural aspect of capitalism. His entire argument in fact was based on the mere logic of compound interest, i.e. on the sheer fact that “if capital increases, say, 2 percent per annum, the capital equipment of the world will have increased by a half in twenty years, and seven and a half times in a hundred years”. From this sheer fact it follows that output too would have increased more or less by a similar order of magnitude, and mankind, with so much more of goods at its disposal, would have overcome the struggle for subsistence. The reason Keynes assumed that an increase in the mass of goods would eventually benefit everyone lies not just in his inability to see the antagonistic nature of the capitalist mode of production (and its antagonistic relationship with the surrounding universe of petty producers), but also in his belief that capitalism is a malleable system which can be moulded, in accordance with the dictates of reason, by the interventions of the State as the representative of society. He was a liberal and saw the state as standing above, and acting on behalf of, society as a whole, in accordance with the dictates of reason. The world, he thought, was ruled by ideas; and correct, and benevolent, ideas would clearly translate themselves into reality, so that the increase in mankind’s productive capacity would get naturally transformed into an end of the economic problem. If the antagonism of capitalism was pointed out to Keynes, he would have simply talked about state intervention restraining this antagonism to ensure that the benefit of the increase in productive capacity reached all.
The fact that this has not happened, the fact that the enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce has translated itself not into an end to the struggle for subsistence for the world’s population, but into a plethora of all kinds of goods and services of little benefit to it, from a stockpiling of armaments to an exploration of outer space, and even into a systematic promotion of waste, and lack of utilization, or even destruction, of productive equipment, only underscores the limitations of the liberal world outlook of which Keynes was a votary. The state, instead of being an embodiment of reason, which intervenes in the interests of society as a whole, as liberalism believes, acts to defend the class interests of the hegemonic class, and hence to perpetuate the antagonisms of the capitalist system.
ANTAGONISMS IN
THREE DISTINCT WAYS
These antagonisms perpetuate in three quite distinct ways the struggle for subsistence in which the bulk of mankind is caught. The first centres around the fact that the level of wages in the capitalist system depends upon the relative size of the reserve army of labour. And to the extent that the relative size of the reserve army of labour never shrinks below a certain threshold level, the wage rate remains tied to the subsistence level despite significant increases in labour productivity, as necessarily occur in the “era of progress and innovation”. Work itself therefore becomes a struggle for subsistence and remains so. Secondly, those who constitute the reserve army of labour are themselves destitute and hence condemned to an even more acute struggle for subsistence, to eke out for themselves an even more meager magnitude of goods and services. And thirdly, the encroachment by the capitalist mode upon the surrounding universe of petty production, whereby it displaces petty producers, grabs land from the peasants, uses the tax machinery of the State to appropriate for itself, at the expense of the petty producers, an amount of surplus value over and above what is produced within the capitalist mode itself, in short, the entire mechanism of “primitive accumulation of capital”, ensures that the size of the reserve army always remains above this threshold level. There is a stream of destitute petty producers forever flocking to work within the capitalist mode but unable to find work and hence joining the ranks of the reserve army. The antagonism within the system, and vis-Ã -vis the surrounding universe of petty production, thus ensures that, notwithstanding the massive increases in mankind’s productive capacity, the struggle of subsistence for the bulk of mankind continues unabated.
The growth rates of world output have been even greater in the post-war period than in Keynes’ time. The growth rates in particular capitalist countries like India have been of an order unimaginable in Keynes’ time, and yet there is no let up in the struggle for subsistence on the part of the bulk of the population even within these countries. In India, precisely during the period of neo-liberal reforms when output growth rates have been high, there has been an increase in the proportion of the rural population accessing less than 2400 calories per person per day (the figure for 2004 is 87 percent). This is also the period when hundreds of thousands of peasants, unable to carry on even simple reproduction have committed suicide. The unemployment rate has increased, notwithstanding a massive jump in the rate of capital accumulation; and the real wage rate, even of the workers in the organized sector, has at best stagnated, notwithstanding massive increases in labour productivity. In short our own experience belies the Keynesian optimism about the future of mankind under capitalism.
But Keynes wrote a long time ago. He should have seen the inner working of the system better (after all Marx who died the year Keynes was born, saw it), but perhaps his upper class Edwardian upbringing came in the way. But what does one say of people who, having seen the destitution-“high growth” dialectics in the contemporary world, still cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the “economic problem of mankind”? Neo-liberal ideologues of course propound this illusion, either in its simple version, which is the “trickle down” theory, or in the slightly more complex version, where the State is supposed to ensure through its intervention that the benefits of the growing mass of goods and services are made available to all, thereby alleviating poverty and easing the struggle for subsistence.
But this illusion often appears in an altogether unrecognizable form. Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who is well-known for his administration of the so-called “shock therapy” in the former Soviet Union that led to a veritable retrogression of the economy and the unleashing of massive suffering on millions of people, has come out with a book where he argues that poverty in large parts of the world is associated with adverse geographical factors, such as drought-proneness, desertification, infertile soil, and such like. He wants global efforts to help these economies which are the victims of such niggardliness on the part of nature. The fact that enormous poverty exists in areas, where nature is not niggardly, but on the contrary bounteous; the fact that the very bounteousness of nature has formed the basis of exploitation of the producers on a massive scale, so that they are engaged in an acute struggle for existence precisely in the midst of plenitude; and hence the fact that the bulk of the world’s population continues to struggle for subsistence not because of nature’s niggardliness but because of the incubus of an exploitative social order, are all obscured by such analysis. Keynes’ faith in the miracle of compound interest would be justified in a socialist order, but not in a capitalist one.
JOHN Maynard Keynes, though bourgeois in his outlook, was a remarkably insightful economist, whose book Economic Consequences of the Peace was copiously quoted by Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International to argue that conditions had ripened for the world revolution. But even Keynes’ insights could not fully comprehend the paradox that is capitalism.
In a famous essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren”, written in 1930, Keynes had argued: “Assuming no important wars and no important increase in population, the economic problem may be solved, or be at least within sight of solution, within a hundred years. This means that the economic problem is not, if we look into the future, the permanent problem of the human race (emphasis in the original).
He had gone on to ask: “Why, you may ask, is this so startling? It is startling because, if instead of looking into the future, we look into the past, we find that the economic problem, the struggle for subsistence, always has been hitherto the most pressing problem of the human race… If the economic problem is solved, mankind will be deprived of its traditional purpose.” He had then proceeded to examine how mankind could fruitfully use its time in such a world.
True, after Keynes had written there has been the second world war, but thereafter mankind has had six and a half decades without any “important war” of the sort that could interrupt what he had called the “era of progress and invention”. And the rate of population growth has also not accelerated to a point that can be considered to have invalidated Keynes’ premise. And yet if we take mankind as a whole, it is as far from solving the economic problem as it ever was. True, there has been massive accumulation of capital, and with it an enormous increase in the mass of goods available to mankind; and yet, for the vast majority of mankind, the “struggle for subsistence” that Keynes had referred to has continued to remain as acute as ever, perhaps in some ways even more acute than ever before.
To say that this is only because not enough time has passed, that over a slightly longer time period Keynes’ vision will indeed turn out to be true, is facile. The fact that the bulk of mankind continues to face an acute struggle for subsistence is not a matter of degree; it is not as if the acuteness of this struggle for this segment of mankind has been lessening over time, or that the relative size of this segment has been lessening over time. We cannot therefore assert that the passage of more time will lift everybody above this struggle.
DICHOTOMY STRUCTURALLY
INBUILT IN CAPITALISM
Likewise, to say that while enormous increases have taken place in the mass of goods and services available to mankind (the increase in this mass being more in the last hundred years than in the previous two thousand years, as Keynes had pointed out), its distribution has been extremely skewed and hence accounts for the persistence of the struggle for subsistence for the majority of the world’s population, is to state a mere tautology. The whole point is that there is something structural to the capitalist system itself, the same system that causes this enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce goods and services, which also ensures that, notwithstanding this enormous increase, the struggle for subsistence must continue to be as acute as before, or even more acute than before, for the bulk of mankind.
Keynes missed this structural aspect of capitalism. His entire argument in fact was based on the mere logic of compound interest, i.e. on the sheer fact that “if capital increases, say, 2 percent per annum, the capital equipment of the world will have increased by a half in twenty years, and seven and a half times in a hundred years”. From this sheer fact it follows that output too would have increased more or less by a similar order of magnitude, and mankind, with so much more of goods at its disposal, would have overcome the struggle for subsistence. The reason Keynes assumed that an increase in the mass of goods would eventually benefit everyone lies not just in his inability to see the antagonistic nature of the capitalist mode of production (and its antagonistic relationship with the surrounding universe of petty producers), but also in his belief that capitalism is a malleable system which can be moulded, in accordance with the dictates of reason, by the interventions of the State as the representative of society. He was a liberal and saw the state as standing above, and acting on behalf of, society as a whole, in accordance with the dictates of reason. The world, he thought, was ruled by ideas; and correct, and benevolent, ideas would clearly translate themselves into reality, so that the increase in mankind’s productive capacity would get naturally transformed into an end of the economic problem. If the antagonism of capitalism was pointed out to Keynes, he would have simply talked about state intervention restraining this antagonism to ensure that the benefit of the increase in productive capacity reached all.
The fact that this has not happened, the fact that the enormous increase in mankind’s capacity to produce has translated itself not into an end to the struggle for subsistence for the world’s population, but into a plethora of all kinds of goods and services of little benefit to it, from a stockpiling of armaments to an exploration of outer space, and even into a systematic promotion of waste, and lack of utilization, or even destruction, of productive equipment, only underscores the limitations of the liberal world outlook of which Keynes was a votary. The state, instead of being an embodiment of reason, which intervenes in the interests of society as a whole, as liberalism believes, acts to defend the class interests of the hegemonic class, and hence to perpetuate the antagonisms of the capitalist system.
ANTAGONISMS IN
THREE DISTINCT WAYS
These antagonisms perpetuate in three quite distinct ways the struggle for subsistence in which the bulk of mankind is caught. The first centres around the fact that the level of wages in the capitalist system depends upon the relative size of the reserve army of labour. And to the extent that the relative size of the reserve army of labour never shrinks below a certain threshold level, the wage rate remains tied to the subsistence level despite significant increases in labour productivity, as necessarily occur in the “era of progress and innovation”. Work itself therefore becomes a struggle for subsistence and remains so. Secondly, those who constitute the reserve army of labour are themselves destitute and hence condemned to an even more acute struggle for subsistence, to eke out for themselves an even more meager magnitude of goods and services. And thirdly, the encroachment by the capitalist mode upon the surrounding universe of petty production, whereby it displaces petty producers, grabs land from the peasants, uses the tax machinery of the State to appropriate for itself, at the expense of the petty producers, an amount of surplus value over and above what is produced within the capitalist mode itself, in short, the entire mechanism of “primitive accumulation of capital”, ensures that the size of the reserve army always remains above this threshold level. There is a stream of destitute petty producers forever flocking to work within the capitalist mode but unable to find work and hence joining the ranks of the reserve army. The antagonism within the system, and vis-Ã -vis the surrounding universe of petty production, thus ensures that, notwithstanding the massive increases in mankind’s productive capacity, the struggle of subsistence for the bulk of mankind continues unabated.
The growth rates of world output have been even greater in the post-war period than in Keynes’ time. The growth rates in particular capitalist countries like India have been of an order unimaginable in Keynes’ time, and yet there is no let up in the struggle for subsistence on the part of the bulk of the population even within these countries. In India, precisely during the period of neo-liberal reforms when output growth rates have been high, there has been an increase in the proportion of the rural population accessing less than 2400 calories per person per day (the figure for 2004 is 87 percent). This is also the period when hundreds of thousands of peasants, unable to carry on even simple reproduction have committed suicide. The unemployment rate has increased, notwithstanding a massive jump in the rate of capital accumulation; and the real wage rate, even of the workers in the organized sector, has at best stagnated, notwithstanding massive increases in labour productivity. In short our own experience belies the Keynesian optimism about the future of mankind under capitalism.
But Keynes wrote a long time ago. He should have seen the inner working of the system better (after all Marx who died the year Keynes was born, saw it), but perhaps his upper class Edwardian upbringing came in the way. But what does one say of people who, having seen the destitution-“high growth” dialectics in the contemporary world, still cling to the illusion that the logic of compound interest will overcome the “economic problem of mankind”? Neo-liberal ideologues of course propound this illusion, either in its simple version, which is the “trickle down” theory, or in the slightly more complex version, where the State is supposed to ensure through its intervention that the benefits of the growing mass of goods and services are made available to all, thereby alleviating poverty and easing the struggle for subsistence.
But this illusion often appears in an altogether unrecognizable form. Jeffrey Sachs, the economist who is well-known for his administration of the so-called “shock therapy” in the former Soviet Union that led to a veritable retrogression of the economy and the unleashing of massive suffering on millions of people, has come out with a book where he argues that poverty in large parts of the world is associated with adverse geographical factors, such as drought-proneness, desertification, infertile soil, and such like. He wants global efforts to help these economies which are the victims of such niggardliness on the part of nature. The fact that enormous poverty exists in areas, where nature is not niggardly, but on the contrary bounteous; the fact that the very bounteousness of nature has formed the basis of exploitation of the producers on a massive scale, so that they are engaged in an acute struggle for existence precisely in the midst of plenitude; and hence the fact that the bulk of the world’s population continues to struggle for subsistence not because of nature’s niggardliness but because of the incubus of an exploitative social order, are all obscured by such analysis. Keynes’ faith in the miracle of compound interest would be justified in a socialist order, but not in a capitalist one.
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