People's Democracy

Siksha Karmis Emerge Victorious Amidst

Terror Unleashed By The BJP Govt

 Vasudev Sharma

ON September 21, the BJP regime in Madhya Pradesh exposed itself by resorting to undemocratic means to thwart the ongoing agitation of teachers. Instead of making    efforts to resolve the impasse the government adopted high-handed measures to cancel the permission for dharna and confiscated tents and mikes. On September 19 itself the government started arresting leaders of the striking siksha karmis and by the afternoon of September 20, the government had arrested 25 district presidents and hundreds of block presidents of the union. By the late night of September 20 thousands of siksha karmis were arrested.  All railway stations and bus stands had been turned into police barracks. However, these terror tactics of the government failed to break the resolve of the striking siksha karmis. In spite of immense hurdles they reached Bhopal in large numbers for the rally and then also courted    arrest.

The struggle to revise the panchayati pay scale had been going for last several years. It was only to intensify this struggle that siksha karmis came in large numbers to Delhi recently.  After getting a concrete assurance of redressal from Lal Krishna Advani, the dharna, which continued for three days, was shifted from Delhi to Bhopal. After reaching Bhopal a five-member delegation consisting of state president, Muralidhar Patidar, Darshan Singh, Jagdsih Yadav and Manoj Bairagi met a group of ministers which was presided over by Kailash Joshi to discuss the charter of demands, Anshu Baish Committee report and the agreements of the last strike. In this meeting rather than discussing the demands the government threatened the striking leaders and gave enough hints of things to come. They fulminated at Sitaram Yechury being called to address the agitating siksha karmis in Delhi.

As a last resort the agitating siksha karmis called for a vaada nibhau (fulfill promises) rally on September 21. The government was in a belligerent mood and postponed its cabinet meeting to September 23, which was supposed to be held on September 19. The BJP government never wanted to resolve the crisis and instead started using terror tactics right from the beginning. However, siksha karmis were resolute and relentless in their struggles. For more than 15 years they were forced to lead a life of abject misery due to sheer apathy of the successive governments in MP. This time it was not easy to break their resolve. Most of the schools in district and block headquarters were closed and their dharnas were getting huge mass support. It was this resolve of unity and struggle that ultimately forced the government to accede to the demands of siksha karmis.

On September 21, the administration initiated a massive crackdown on agitating siksha karmis. They first deceptively arrested the president of siksha karmis’ union, Muralidhar Patidar and Vasudev Sharma after having called them for   negotiation. Soon by the evening administration had arrested more than thirty thousand siksha karmis from all over the state. They did not even spare women siksha karmis who had come with their children in arms for the rally.  Senior CITU leaders Badal Saroj and S P Sharma were also sent to jail who had come to address the rally. Unable to break the  resolve of the agitators even after resorting to terror, and sensing the huge public support to the agitation, the government ultimately relented and invited the leaders for     negotiations from the jail just  before the chief minister was leaving for a foreign tour.  The negotiations took place at the airport itself.

The chief minister accepted 15 out of 21 demands of the striking siksha karmis. He gave a concrete assurance of 1000, 1200 and 1500 rupees increase in salary and assured that the orders would be released immediately after he returns from his foreign tour.  After this agreement the executive committee of the siksha karmis’ union met and decided to call off the agitation. Thus a glorious movement of 54 days came to a successful end. Siksha karmis immediately returned to their respective schools.

One of the remarkable features of this long and arduous struggle was the solidarity expressed by various sections of the people including several trade unions, government employees union, bank employees union, bidi workers union. They staged demonstration at different places in several cities like Bhopal, Damoh, Gwalior, Riwa, Indore, Ujjain, Balaghat, Umaria, Guna, Muraina, Kailaras, Sabalgarh, Singrauli etc. and burnt effigies of the BJP government.

While announcing victory, the president of siksha karmis’ union, Muralidhar Patidar put the onus for bringing normalcy in the schools on the government and warned them of more struggles if the government dared to dilute the agreement. He also thanked leaders of trade unions and other employees unions who expressed their solidarity with the striking siksha karmis, in particular CITU leader Badal Saroj.