Our Central Demand: Each Poor Family

Must Be Ensured 100 Days’ Work 

Shyamal Chakraborty

THE UPA government has brought in a bill as promised in the CMP for ensuring one hundred days work per family.  The union government has attached several qualifications to the basic issue of one hundred days’ work.  The bill excludes the urban poor.

The bill incorporates the words ‘below-the poverty-line’ or BPL for the targeted beneficiaries.  Let us look at the poverty line itself. Take for example a man in the village does work for 110 days gainfully.  Is he rich enough to be kept out of the 100 days’ work scheme? 

If we lean on the generous side and fix his daily wage at Rs 70, his yearly earning is (Rs 70 x 110) Rs 7700.  His daily wage is thus Rs 21, and assuming that he has a family of four per capita income of this household is just Rs 5.25.  Shall we consider him disqualified on the score of being ‘overqualified’ for the scheme?  Can anything be more ridiculous?

The Left has correctly asked for a scheme where 180 days work is to be ensured.  One has to understand that the fulfilment of this demand would not make any significant difference for the government but would provide real relief to the rural poor of the country.

POVERTY AND BPL

According to the UNHRC, the BPL can be mapped either by an income figure of $1 or $2 per day, which roughly translates into Rs 45, or Rs 90 per day.  Going by these poverty lines, 34.7 per cent or 79.9 per cent of the people of this country were below the poverty line in 1999-2000.

The union government has manipulated figures to project that anybody having an income above Rs 8 per day cannot be considered BPL.  In addition, a rider has since been added.  The union government believes that not more than 10 per cent of the 27.09 per cent people living BPL in the villages and 23.62 in the cities would become eligible for the one-hundred-days-work guarantee scheme.

Intake of calories in the meanwhile has been going down alarmingly. In 1973-74 official poverty line had corresponded to a daily calories norm of 2400 kcal (rural) and 2100 kcal (Urban). In 1993-94 the official poverty line was sufficient to acquire only 1968 kcal  (daily) per capita in the rural areas and 1890 kcal (daily) per capita in urban areas.  Yet, the ‘accepted’ norm for qualifying for the BPL category remains higher at 2400 and 2100 kcal for villages and cities respectively. In the circumstances, the provision for guaranteeing work for only those below the poverty line is a deception played on the vast masses that groan in poverty.

Let us look at the international scene.  In China, which is at the primary stage of Socialism, those who spend 60 per cent of the income on food are considered BPL.  In the developed capitalist country of the United States, the figure is 33.3 per cent.  By such norms, the number those in the BPL category would be substantially higher than those on the basis of official poverty line.

It is our basic demand that the union government must ensure work for workers, peasants, women, khet-mazdoors, youth, people of various communities, and for people of all religious beliefs, of all creeds, and belonging to the backward sections.  The demand is for a provision in which a person can live honestly.

The demand includes provision for food, shelter, potable water, education, and electricity at cheap rates.  The most important provision is for regular work for a period each year.  This will ensure that the poor live and develop.  At least we shall not see thousands of suicides by the poor every year around the country.

Development economists define poverty as denial of many things.  Poverty can connote hunger, lack of shelter, lack of basic medical facilities, lack of potable water, lack of access to basic education, lack of jobs and fearfulness about the future. Poverty means lack of empowerment, lack of representation, and lack of freedom.

CREATION OF JOBS

If that is so, then the right to one hundred days of work must be associated with the union government taking the responsibility for education, health, housing, potable water, and supply of electricity.  The masses need to become involved in wide movements across the country to ensure that this is so.

We must also realise that with the market for jobs shrinking and the size of the working population increasing, it becomes a buyer’s market and wage rate keeps falling. Poverty increases by leaps and bounds and the union government’s talk of ‘fixing wages’ becomes a cruel joke played on the poor.

The present face of capitalist globalisation is neo-liberalisation of economy.  Production is decentralised across the nations, states, provinces, and areas, even to home-based units.  The rank of workers now includes those toiling away in the semi-urban areas and in villages.  Unorganised workers have the overwhelming majority of the nation’s work force.  Of the 50 crore of population above 18 years of age, 37 crore belong to this sector.

To ensure, the vast army of the jobless productive employment, jobs must be created.  Endeavours based on such activities like road construction, digging ponds, digging wells, creating shallow water bodies as small catchments for rain water, producing organic fertilizers, building dams, fabricating toilets, setting up low-rate tourist centres must accompany health measures, literacy drives, and development of animal resources. 

To give a cogent example: in Jangipur in Murshidabad district in rural Bengal, one sees Left Front-run municipalities preparing young women to take blood pressure of patients in areas that remain remote.  For a nominal fee, the women check blood pressure at least two days a week, and earn Rs 750 per month, supplementing their other income sources.

All these activities will produce employment. Since development involves jobs creation, and when this does not happen workers get organised and prepare for the class struggle.

It is distinctly possible to build up a vast mass movement across the country on the basic demand for one hundred days work.  Even those marginally above the poverty line would get involved in the movement for jobs to be created.  The poor will raise the strident slogan for employment, calling upon the union government to implement what the UPA had promised in the CMP.

Based on the demand for jobs, the poor of the country would become united in a strong movement and the worker-peasant unity would be further augmented.  The slogan of campaign must be transformed into an effective slogan for the implementation of the demand for one hundred days’ work for each poor family, through struggles and movements as more and more sections of the people would come forth to swell the ranks of the struggle across the country.