People's Democracy

Krishnan Kutty

CONSIDERING that India is an agriculture oriented country and 70 per cent of our people (and 60 per cent of our work force) depend on agricultural sector, it is a really sad situation today that our agricultural graduates and researchers have become such a disillusioned lot with shrinking employment opportunities, collapsing agricultural sector and a crisis-ridden education system. Students of the Haryana Agricultural University (HAU) have taken to the streets and are spearheading an agitation with the slogan "save agriculture, education and employment", attracting the attention of the people of Haryana. The agitation has developed into a major political issue in Haryana causing considerable headache to the Om Prakash Chautala government.

The HAU students were compelled to adopt the path of struggle in the present scenario of zero per cent employment opportunities for agricultural graduates and research degree holders today. Recruitment to agricultural services has been suspended for years now. The future of students studying in agricultural educational institutions is at stake. Hence the HAU students raised the demand of introducing agricultural education at the higher secondary stage of school education and ensuring employment opportunities to all graduates. They had organised a long struggle last year, when the Chautala government had stepped in to settle the issue, on June 15, 2000, by assuring implementation of the demands, but has failed to respect the agreement since.

To bring into focus the drop of employment opportunities together with other related problems facing the agricultural sector, the students of HAU observed a token strike on March 27, earlier this year. They were also protesting against the anti-people and anti-student Chautala government which violated the June 15, 2000 agreement. A fortnight later, the HAU authorities, under pressure from the government, ordered students to vacate their hostels. Students began a relay hunger strike and boycotted classes and research work protesting this decision. All the 490 students of the Agricultural College are on strike thereafter. Since then, 120 students of the Agricultural College of Kaithal have also joined the agitation.

The HAU authorities have suspended four leading activists of the agitation with charges of instigating students to strike. Rajender Sharma and Bijender Sharma (both former president of students union) Rajesh Bhattia and Rishikanth Mudugil are the students suspended. The police have registered false cases against all the 490 students with fabricated charges and the court has banned the students from entering the campus. Braving all these oppressive measures, the students are determined to go ahead with their agitation.

On May 25, the joint action committee spearheading the strike organised a massive convention at Jat Dharmasala, Hissar. Cutting across party lines, leaders of all major political parties except INLD participated in the convention. Among others, Raghuvir Singh Kadyan, MLA and former minister from Congress (I), Kaval Singh, former minister from HVP, Rajendra Singh Mathi from BJP, Prithivi Singh of CPI(M), Prof Arjun Singh of HAU, Gautham Sreedhar, President of Students Union, Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, and P Krishnaprasad, All India President, SFI addressed the gathering. They were also joined by SFI all India joint secretary K K Ragesh, Haryana State Secretary Jai Bhagavan, Hissar District Secretary Dinesh Siwaj, State Secretariat Member Neelam and others.

All the speakers including, those from Congress (I) and BJP, lambasted the liberalisation-privatisation-globalisation (LPG) policies and demanded protection and strengthening of our economic self-reliance. This clearly indicates that public pressure is mounting against the ruinous economic reform of the government all over the country. The local leadership of the Congress (I) and BJP were compelled to condemn the policies of their own parties. P Krishnaprasad said that the agitation has to be developed to an all India level and assured the students that a convention of Agricultural University students from all over the country will be organised at the earliest. The meeting has decided to further strengthen the agitation with the support of the people. A massive rally will be organised on June 21 in Bhiwani to further support the strike.

Hundreds of students and youth started on a March to Delhi on June 1 and reached on June 8. Enroute they visited many villages and towns and shared their problems with the people of Haryana.

After reaching Delhi they sat on dharna at Kisan Ghat for two days.

Representatives of various political parties and student organisations expressed their solidarity with them by visiting their dharna camp and addressing them. Sitaram Yechury, Polit Bureau member, CPI(M), Samik Lahiri, general secretary SFI, K K Ragesh, joint secretary SFI, Sridhar, president PGS Students Union (IARI), Bratin Sengupta, MP, Bijendra Sharma and Rajendra Sharma, ex-presidents HAU Students Union, Bhupendra Singh Huda, President Haryana Congress, DP Yadav, MP, Ram Pratap Malhan, President Kisna Sangharsh Samiti and Albeena Shakeel, vice-president JNUSU were those who expressed solidarity.

The students have also decided to organise a massive dharna in front of the Haryana Assembly from the second week of June onwards, when the Assembly will resume its session.

The crisis in Indian education, including agricultural education, today is due to the fact that it has not been able to shirk off the colonial stigma it still possesses. Our education system had been shaped and developed during the British colonial period and its fundamental character remains unchanged even after 54 years of our independence. Our general education is not employment oriented and its basic aim is to train and select students eligible for university education. General education system is not vocation-oriented and has no links with our economic sectors such as agriculture, industry and services. Due to this, even after completing 12 years of school life, millions of students do not possess skills to enter productive work. Only around 5 per cent of the relevant age group enter higher education sector in India. In other words, 95 per cent of students are thrown out as good for nothing without being provided with any meaningful skills by our education system in order to select 5 per cent of students qualified for university education. It is a criminal act.

All of us know that our agricultural sector offers huge employment opportunities just like industry and services sector. By introducing employment oriented agricultural and industrial education at the secondary school level, our education system can help instill a positive attitude towards labour among students. And when they complete 12 years of education, they will come out of schools as skilled farmers, agricultural workers, industrial workers and craftsmen who can strengthen our economy and contribute to the development of our people and country.

Another demand of the agitation is to save agriculture from the ruinous export-import policies and the anti-people economic reforms being pursued under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation. The opening up of our market to the multinational companies and the unrestricted import of primary goods thereafter has resulted in a large-scale crash of price of agricultural products and ruthless exploitation of farmers. At the same time, the withdrawal of subsidies on electricity, water and fertilizers by the government has made input costs unbearable for farmers. The agriculture sector is facing an unprecedented crisis today because of these policies. Apart from lip service, the Vajpayee government is not doing anything to save our farmers from this crisis.

The extent of damage can be seen by the fact that all crops, including plantation crops, have registered a 2.2 per cent annual growth in the post reform period compared to 3.4 per cent in eighties. After the implementation of the LPG policies, the absolute number of workforce has been reduced, even if marginally, for the first time since independence, from 239 million in 1993-94 to under 236 million in 1999-00 (Source: A comparative survey by K Sundaram, the Economic and Political Weekly, issue dated March 17, 2001). As far as the distribution of workforce is concerned, agriculture and allied sector have shown a sharp decline. In 1993-94, the share of workforce in the primary sector was 639 per 1000 workers. That has been reduced to 598 per 1000 workers in 1999-2000.

According to the same sources, over the last six years the rate of growth of workforce in every segment has been lower than the rate of growth of population over the same period. While the population has grown at a rate of 1.9 per cent per annum between 1994 and 2000, the total workforce has grown by just 0.81 percent per annum over the same period.

All this shows that the tall claims of a boom in employment generation by the advocates of globalisation is absurd. According to the latest National Sample Survey, the percentage of growth of employment in the organised sector in 1999 was 0.04 as against 1.44 in 1991. The public sector added no additional jobs showing zero per cent growth and private sector 0.11 as against the 1991 figures of 1.52 and 1.24 per cent respectively.

In this background the ongoing agitation by HAU students deserves full support of all progressive minded and patriotic people. It is a right and earnest initiative taken at the right time to expose how the economic reforms are affecting the common man. The agitation has all the potential to develop into a major political movement against the anti-people, anti-national globalisation policies being pursued by the communal NDA government.