People's Democracy

DESPITE all its problems, the Left Democratic Front (LDF) of Kerala can certainly boast of certain solid achievements that its regime has made during the last five years. Some of these achievements pertain to the cooperative sector which the LDF regime gave a new lease of life. It will be worthwhile to look into the content of these achievements.

When the LDF was voted in, it inherited an empty coffer from the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) that was going out. All sources of income had been either choked or fully drained by the UDF partners and shared among themselves. That is why most of the UDF leaders are facing trials and have to appear in court on almost all days except holidays.

Yet the LDF faced the problems of the state with a clear perspective. In the very beginning, the CPI(M)-led LDF decided that the governance of the state must be made fully transparent. People should be taken into confidence so that the government can share its problems with the people. This alone would be regarded as a big achievement of the LDF government’s under a bourgeois-landlord set-up. Transparency is a much-hyped goal which every party claims to be aiming at. But in Kerala the last five years witnessed how a government could be transparent to the core. This was evident from the People’s Plan, for instance, that has often been said to be the only substitute for the globalisation policies of the central government.

Kerala has gained a lot through the cooperative sector during the last five years. A special feature of the cooperative sector in Kerala is that, unlike many other cooperative ventures in other parts of India and elsewhere in the world, it is a genuinely collective human effort. Its importance can be gauged in the backdrop of the policies of globalisation.

As we know, the global market strategy is today being formulated by world imperialism that is spreading its neo-colonial tentacles all over the world. It is an all-embracing venomous and parasitic plant as far as the third world, including India, is concerned. The cooperative sector in Kerala has acted as a remedy to this all-embracing globalisation and as a means of resistance.

If the cooperative sector in Kerala escaped the tentacles of imperialism, it was through years of hard fought struggles. As a result of these struggles, the movement attained a human touch and became a broad-based movement of the people. Today, it is the strongest cooperative movement in India, and has a capital base of more than Rs 8,000 crore. Credit worth around Rs 10,000 crore is transacted through these institutions. Some figures suffice to show what the cooperative sector of Kerala has achieved during the last five years. A bird’s eye-view will also show that, but for the will power and initiative of the LDF in general and the CPI(M) in particular, what was achieved in the last five years would have taken at least half a century.

1) A new cooperative bill was introduced and enacted in the assembly. The act stipulated that the appointments to the sector could be made only through an examination conducted by the Board of Cooperative Examinations. It also made provisions for the appointment of a Cooperative Election Commission.

2) A self-reliance group project was organised by bringing together small peasants, agricultural labour and other rural folks. This has given the people involved a sense of security, which they did not feel before.

3) A sum of Rs one crore was allotted to primary lending societies. These societies helped small peasants and other categories of people to meet certain immediate requirements without being subjected to the exploitation by local moneylenders who had been thriving under the former UDF rule.

4) A Coffee Marketing and Processing Cooperative Society was established in Wynad to encourage conservation, culturing and marketing of coffee.

5) The Kerala State Rubber Cooperative (RUBCO) was established, with Kannur as headquarters, and expanded to encourage rubber-based industries. RUBCO is an example of how political will and proper direction can foster industry by utilising the raw materials abundantly available in the state. Usually, the rubber cultivators feel forced to sell their produce to middlemen who profit from their toil. The whole bunch of collected rubber goes to foreign industrialists who make necessary products from it and sell them in different markets including ours at usurious rates. RUBCO has proved that rubber can be fully utilised in Kerala if more of similar enterprises are established. The cooperative sector gets rubber from producers at a rate Rs 2 higher than the market rate.

6) Neeti stores were established throughout the state under the cooperative sector to intervene in the market effectively in favour of the people. 104 Neeti medical stores were opened and are operating very effectively.

7) The work of the RAIDCO has been expanded. It supplies, in sufficient quantities and at reasonable rates, agricultural tools required by rural folks.

8) Cooking gas refilling plants were established in the cooperative sector at Palakkad. Neeti Gas is introduced in the sphere of cooking gas.

9) A plant producing Ayurvedic medicines was established with an investment of Rs 110.42 lakh under the SC Development Corporation.

10) A sum of Rs 136.28 lakh was spent for the rejuvenation of Sahithya Pravarthaka Cooperative Society. The SPCS, the cooperative society of writers, is the largest of its genre. But due to bad governance and inefficient management the society deteriorated to become a loss-incurring group, always getting complaints from writers and readers. After the measures taken by the LDF regime, the society is now running profitably.

11) A number of hospitals and dispensary societies were established.

12) Integrated Cooperative Development Projects were launched in 13 districts.

13) A Visual Cooperative Society was created to encourage visual media.

14) A Cooperative Academy was started to establish professional colleges in the state in the cooperative sector. The academy has started five engineering colleges and a medical college at Kochi. The academy is perhaps the first of its kind in the field of education. While a number of lobbies are campaigning for the unscrupulous "self-reliant" institutions, as they are called, the cooperative sector has provided a very useful substitute. Steps have been initiated to start 10 engineering colleges including a community college.

15) A good network of hospitals has been established in the sector. Besides, a federation of cooperative hospitals, a college of physiotherapy and a nursing college have been established.

16) Ready-wear cooperative societies for women were organised for women in Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kannur and Kasargod districts.

17) In Idukki district, three cooperative units were established --- a cooperative tea factory, milk culturing unit and a fodder-producing unit.

18) In 19 taluks, Agricultural Development Banks were established.

Such a growth of the genuine cooperative movement in the state has of course been an eyesore to the UDF partners, some of whom had been thriving on fake societies, getting undue income from them.