CPI(M)’S APPROACH ON CERTAIN POLICY MATTERS – VI

Intensify Popular Intervention

Sitaram Yechury

SECTION II of the Political Organisational Report states:

“Globalisation, in its very nature, implies the rapid withdrawal of the State from meeting all social obligations to the people. All spheres, including public spheres, are to be privatised in pursuit of profits.  Prominent amongst these are the spheres of education and public health.”

Over these years of neo-liberal economic reforms, the budgetary allocation for education in general and for higher education in particular has been on the decline. As a result, the number of higher educational institutions particularly in the professional courses in the State sector has virtually remained stagnant. Between 1998-99 to 2003-04 the number of engineering colleges in the country increased from 732 to 1234. However, out of these 502 new colleges 488 have been established in the private sector alone. As compared to 175 engineering colleges under the government all over the country, today there are 1059 private engineering colleges in the country. This phenomenal growth of private professional institutions which saw an increase of 85.5 per cent in these five years has virtually reduced professional higher education to a commodity in the country.

Clearly, as the State withdraws from its commitment, privatisation and commercialisation of education proceeds apace. Needless to add the fees charged by these private institutions leaves the vast majority of the Indian people out of its ambit. In recent years, there have been many agitations led by students’ organisations, particularly the SFI, against this indiscriminate privatisation and commercialisation of education. The recent agitation in Kerala where scores of students were grievously injured in police action is a case in point.

While the CPI(M) will continue to intensify its struggles to force the government to discharge its responsibilities in the field of education with the objective of providing education for all, it also contends with the existing reality of the mushrooming of this large corpus of private institutions. These institutions today, apart from some stray court judgments prescribing the quantum of fees, do not function under any uniform set of rules that define its fee structure, admission policy and the course content. The State’s withdrawal from meeting its social obligations to the people which leads to such indiscriminate privatisation and commercialisation also creates a situation where it becomes incumbent upon the CPI(M) to intervene in order to ensure that such institutions are brought under social control. It is with this objective in mind that the CPI(M) had demanded the enactment of a central legislation which will empower the state governments to exercise such control on the private institutions. This need not necessarily mean State control of such institutions but a set of rules and norms that must be followed in order to ensure that the costs of education are not beyond the means of the vast majority of the people and that the admission policy will uphold the reservations enshrined under law and the content of the syllabus is in consonance with the rest of the education system.

Similarly, the health sector has also seen a sharp rise in the growth of private hospitals and clinics. Over these years of neo-liberal reform, the expenditure on public health in the State sector has also been on the decline. In fact, today, India’s spends only 0.9 per cent of its GDP on public health. The average spending of less developed countries in the world on public health is 2.8 percent. India compares very poorly on this issue even with countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Brazil. Worse is the fact that only 17 per cent of all health expenditure in India is borne by the government. The rest constitutes the private health sector in the country. India, thus, has one of the most highly privatised healthcare systems in the world today.

In such a situation with the private clinics and hospitals charging exorbitant fees, the elementary right to provide adequate healthcare to the Indian people is fast receding. Like education, health is also becoming a commodity which only those who can afford can buy. The CPI(M) while continuing the struggle to reverse this situation and force the government to increase its expenditure in the health sector with the objective of achieving health for all shall also at the same time seek to ensure that these private facilities do not exploit the people in the name of health care. Many of these private hospitals and clinics have been provided government land for the construction of their hospitals on the express condition that a percentage of patients that they treat will be done free of cost for the poor. Such a stipulation does not in fact exist in many parts of the country and is confined only to certain metro areas.

It is incumbent upon the CPI(M) to take up this issue in a big way across the country to ensure that this provision universally applies that all private health facilities must treat at least 20 per cent of its patients belonging to the poorer sections free of cost. Mobilising public opinion on such an issue and building popular struggles to achieve this is of utmost necessity in the given conditions.

Thus what we see today is that the withdrawal of the central government from meeting its obligations to the people is creating a new situation which demands popular intervention by the CPI(M). Such intervention in itself is an instrument of popular mobilisation against the privatisation of education, health and other social sectors.

Similarly, in other areas, new situations will arise where popular intervention becomes necessary to mobilise the people in achieving partial demands. As the Pol-Org report notes, “This in the final analysis will cumulatively accrue to the mobilisation and struggles against globalisation”.

Another aspect also needs to be considered. During the last two to three decades the Party has had a rich experience of work in the field of popularising science and developing a consciousness of scientific temper amongst the Indian people. In states like Kerala and West Bengal, vibrant movements in this sphere have led to massive popular mobilisation in popularising science. The Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad and the Paschim Banga Vigyan Manch had played a leading role in the development of this movement countrywide. On the other hand organisations like the Delhi Science Forum have taken up issues of science policy and provided inputs for the Party in formulating its policy positions. Together these movements developed further when the opportunity arose in the field of the government’s literacy campaign that was launched in the mid 1980s.

The literacy mission was launched as a cover to the government’s withdrawal from providing education for all. While the expenditure on education was decreasing, the literacy mission was promoted by the ruling classes as a cheaper alternative. Such an activity was envisaged to be conducted through non-governmental organisations and many of our science movement organisations participated in this programme. This gave a further boost to the growth of the All India People’s Science Network. Simultaneously, opportunities also emerged for the Party to intervene in many other spheres as well.  Increasingly, as the government and its agencies were relying exclusively on non-governmental organisations for conducting development activity, many of our comrades are participating in such activities. In this context, the Pol-org report recollects the CC document adopted in 1995 with reference to the People’s science movement. The formulations made in this document continue to remain valid today for all other fields in which such activities take place. They, therefore remain a valuable guide for work in those areas where Party comrades participate.

The 1995 CC document “On People’s Science Movement”, generalising the experiences of over a decade, noted:

“Since the formation of the network, the range of issues taken up have increased and so has the participation of the people in them.  The objective of the Party members, however, must be clear: whatever be the issue on which these activities are organised, they must contribute to further deepening the democratic secular consciousness of the Indian people and strengthening their scientific temper. In this, they must be able to effectively counter the twin challenges posed by ruling class policies, and play a role in the defense of national sovereignty and secular and democratic rights and values. It is only through this that the Party will be able to advance its objectives and this must be the yardstick by which the activities are chosen and determined.”

While doing so, it is necessary to recollect some of the formulations of this document which continue to remain a valid guide for work in other areas as well.  The document also warned: “There are associated risks in such an approach. One such is the risk of co-option, where Party comrades, working in close contact with administration and the government, tend at times to assume the role of government officers and thus jeopardise our larger objectives.  Another associated risk is that of “flush funding”.  The large amount of State resources can make some  comrades susceptible to its influence. On both these counts, it is the  absolute vigilance on the part of the Party committees which is important. No funding of any specific project, whatsoever be its dimension, can be accepted by our Party members working in these organisations without the prior approval of the respective Party committees and fractions. Unless this is strictly adhered to such risks can undermine the objectives….

“Any new body that is being set-up by us, any funding that is being received by any such body will have to be taken only after prior  approval of the Party committees at the centre, state or respective levels…..

“Under no circumstance should organisations associated with the Party, either directly or through sponsored organisation, accept foreign funding.  Foreign funding here means any funding that requires clearance under the FCRA.”

Finally, while all the above applies equally to all Party comrades working in all spheres, the following must be adhered by all working with popular social movements: “Our Party members have both the right and the liberty to author and produce literature that is within the broad framework of the Party’s understanding. But, any literature that contains formulations that are in divergence or not discussed by the Party earlier, must be cleared necessarily in the central or state fractions. The dissemination of literature coming from these organisations by the Party members leading them, is quite rightly construed as having the approval of the PB and CC. If such prior discussions in the central fraction and approval is not obtained, it would eventually amount to disrupting that very purpose of strengthening people’s consciousness which is the declared objective of these bodies. Notwithstanding the past experience, the failure to do so will be subject to Party discipline.

“It needs to be clarified that in an organisation whose broad activities and the diversity of the people associated with these will both necessitate the production of literature whose language and formulations may not be similar to that of the Party’s. In fact it should not be so.  But this cannot be treated as a license to propagate (contrary) viewpoints, by Party members, even for discussions, without the prior discussion and approval of the relevant Party committees.”

It is this approach that must guide the Party and its members who are working in all such organisations that are aimed at developing popular intervention. Depending on the situation there may be various organisations that may emerge where our Party comrades are active in the states. For example in some states like Andhra Pradesh, new organisations have been set up by the Party on the question of fighting caste discrimination and oppression. Likewise in many other states in many diverse fields there may be a necessity for setting up new organisations with specific objectives. All of these need to function under these guidelines and the concerned Party committees will have to supervise the implementation of these guidelines in these bodies.

In a situation when the State abdicates its responsibilities to the people in the era of globalisation, the consequent difficulties and miseries heaped on the people and the resultant discontent will have to be addressed by the Party in the form of launching specific struggles on specific demands and in the process deepening the Party’s links with the people. It is only through such popular intervention that the Party will be able to expand its activities amongst the people and strengthen itself while at the same time strengthening the consciousness and struggles against imperialist globalisation.

 (Concluded)