ORISSA

Khet Mazdoors Gear Up For Struggle

Bhubaneswar To Host AIAWU National Council Meeting

Sudarsan Das

Come June, with the onset of monsoon, the agricultural labourers and peasants get down to work in their fields for cultivation. However, this time in Orissa, the early monsoon while engaging the agricultural labourers and the peasantry in the start-up work of cultivation will also open up an opportunity for them to cultivate strategies for the struggle ahead. And, the struggle is for a better and dignified livelihood; for a minimum of 100 days work in the ensuing year at a wage of Rs 66 per day; for distribution of a minimum of 1 acre of agricultural land and 4 decimal homestead land to the landless households; and for an effective and transparent PDS system which can take care the basic minimum requirements of their living.

The opportunity for discussing the strategies for the struggle is arising due to the fact that the national council meeting of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU) is schedule on June 10-11, 2005 at Bhubaneswar, the state capital of Orissa. The AIAWU Orissa state committee in its meeting held on April 23 while discussing the holding of the council meeting at Bhubaneswar, has decided to go for a campaign on the above demands to build up a strong agricultural labour (khet mazdoor) struggle in the state in the days to come.

The dichotomy of ‘poverty amidst plenty’ is not seen as starkly in any part of the country as one notices it in Orissa. The state is hugely rich in natural resources. Its mineral deposits, forest coverage, both ground and surface water reserves, a 480 km long coastline etc are some of the rich natural resources the state possesses like no other state. Orissa houses only 3.57 per cent of nation’s population but it is home to 98.39 per cent of national reserves of chromite, 70.39 per cent of bauxite, 95.11 per cent of nickel, 24.37 per cent of coal, 26.50 per cent of iron ore, 29.94 per cent of manganese, 6.39 per cent of coast line, 5.65 per cent of arable land, 7.82 per cent of the forest of the country and what not. But in spite of its vastness in natural wealth, the state is among one of the poorest and most backward states of the country, having 47.15 per cent people living below poverty line against the national average of 26.10 per cent. The percentage of rural families living below poverty line is found to be much higher in the state (66.37 per cent as estimated by the panchayat raj department, Govt of Orissa in 1997).

Besides structural poverty, the state also faces poverty due to floods, cyclone, drought etc and poverty due to lack of either money or material to survive. In terms of the development indicators like literacy rate, infant mortality rate, per capita income etc, the living condition of the people of the state is considered to be the lowest, barring a few northeastern states. In an analysis on ‘State of living of the people in the most advanced and backward state by 2020’ (by none other than India Today which has given the ‘Best Chief Minister Award’ to Orissa CM, Naveen Patnaik) it has been projected that by 2020 Orissa will house 4 BPL category people in a population of every 10, whereas by that time there would be only one BPL person in every 588 people of Haryana, 156 people of Punjab, 96 of Kerala. Even Bihar would be far ahead of Orissa, where there would be only one person under BPL category out of every 16.

In the year 1985, the Koratpur-Bolangir-Keonjarh (KBK) region of the state, infamous for perpetual drought and famine, created headlines through out the country when the story of sale of a 14 year old girl, Banita by her sister-in-law due to utter poverty found its way into the media. The situation forced the then and subsequent prime ministers to visit the place. But today, a week does not pass without news of a child being sold by its parents or kith and kin, in this or that part of the state. Death due to hunger, although constantly denied by the ruling BJP-BJD alliance government in most of the cases, is a fact of life in the state across regions. Large scale migration is rampant. Every year nearly 3 lakh people move out of the state to far off places in other states, including Andaman & Nicobar islands in search of work, landing themselves in untold miseries. But who are these people, who suffer the most? Most of them are khet mazdoors and marginal farmers. The people who produce foodgrains to feed the rest of the population are forced to live without a square meal a day, without minimum health care and basic education for their children.

These khet mazdoors account for 20.98 lakh population in the state as per Economic Survey, 2004-05. The number of marginal farmers (having less than 1 hectare of land) in the state is 21.45 lakh. These farmers can be treated as agricultural labourers, because the earnings from their land do not suffice to manage their livelihood and they have to work in the fields of other farmers. Therefore, the total number of agricultural labourers or khet mazdoors in the state are a significant 42 lakh, which is much higher a number when relatively compared to that of any other state in the country. And the point to note is that majority of these mazdoors belong to the SC and ST community, who apart from striving for a minimum living, face the brunt of social stigma, a constant attack on their right to lead a dignified life.

The bourgeois-landlord ruling classes have been shedding crocodile tears over the rampant poverty in the state and been making false promises of saving the state from this situation for long. Without addressing the core issues of poverty alleviation, like land reforms, the BJP-BJD led government is resorting to gimmicks through various schemes, including central schemes such as Swarna Jayanti Gram Swarozgar Yojana (SGSY), Sampoorna Gramin Rojgar Yojana (SGRY), Drought Prone Area Programme (DPAP), Food for Work Programme (FFWP), Swarna Jayanti Shahari Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY), National Slum Development Programme (NSDP) etc. The list is so exhaustive that one can hardly remember the schemes, most probably for even those who design these. With the jargon of "people’s participation", "participatory rural appraisal" "accountability", "transparency", "self-help-best help" etc, the NGOs also come forward with solutions to the problem. All these turn out to be nothing but a cruel hoax for the vast majority of the population of the state who languish in utter poverty.

In a state like Orissa, still dominated by feudal landlords and having an agrarian economy with such vast portion of population living below poverty line, what could be the way out except for integrating land reforms as an important component of poverty alleviation strategy? After distributing 1,63,658.351 acres of land among 1,46,450 persons by the year 2003-04, the Economic Survey (2004-05) says that 5.98 lakh families in the state are still landless. Actually, around 43 per cent population in the state are landless, when one takes into account the fact of quality of land the so-called marginal farmers hold for cultivation purposes. So, in a state having such a magnitude of landless people in a predominantly agriculture-driven economy, how can a decent and dignified living be ensured to the people of the state in general and the agricultural laborers in particular, without a full fledged struggle for land rights? And, who else other than the landless khet mazdoors, the rural proletariat in true sense, can lead this struggle for ‘land to the tillers’ in alliance with the working class and other sections of the people? It must be noted here that this struggle for land rights and land reforms is necessarily an important component of the struggle for building a better Orissa, an Orissa free from hunger and famine-like situation.

In the given conditions, to reverse the situation of the state and of the life and living of the agricultural laborers in particular, a strong khet mazdoor organisation is an urgent need of the hour. A strong campaign on the demand of ‘Land to the Landless’ must be unleashed in selected pockets, particularly in the northern and southern part of the state which is largely populated by SC and ST people, majority of whom are agricultural labourers. A minimum of 100 days work at a wage of Rs 66 per day, an effective and transparent PDS system, drinking water facilities for every hamlet are some other demands on which the khet mazdoors must be moblised. The state committee of Orissa AIAWU in a meeting, which was attended by AIAWU joint secretary, Hannan Mollah, chalked out a detailed plan for undertaking a massive campaign on the above issues in the coming days. A decision has also been taken to organise a massive rally of khet mazdoors on June 10 on the occasion of the national council meeting.

(The author is joint secretary of the reception committee for hosting National Council Meet of AIAWU)