People's Democracy

(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)

Vol. XXX

No. 43

October 22, 2006

Organise The Unorganised Workers In The Rural Belt

Workers’-Peasants’ Joint Convention In Kolkata

 

 

THE movement that was started under the joint auspices of the Bengal CITU and the Bengal unit of the AIKS had a formal beginning through a mass convention that was held in Kolkata. The venue was the indoor stadium that was packed to capacity. AIKS leader Benoy Konar presided.

 

A recent joint meeting of the Bengal councils of the CITU and AIKS has already resolved to work in close cooperation with each other based on coordination across the state and to organise in particular the rural masses of Bengal.

 

The lead speaker at the mass convention was the Bengal CITU president Shyamal Chakraborty who started off by noting three important points:

 

Shyamal Chakraborty said that capital had started to penetrate agriculture from the 1990s in particular. As a result several things had occurred. Very many peasants would lose out and move to the cities in search of survival. Technological input, while improving efficiency of production, also affected the number of kisans engaged in agriculture negatively. Statistics can prove the postulate, said the speaker:

 

Year                     Kisans and khet mazdoors

[As a percentage of working people (all-India)]

1961                               74 or more

1991                               65

2001                               54 or less

RURAL ECONOMY EXTENDS

 

Kisans who do possess land plots but are impoverished because of developing circumstances are forced to commit suicide and the figure has exceeded 30 thousand over the past several years all over India. The number of non-agricultural workers in the villages has increased by leaps-and-bounds. However, no provision could be made for them in terms of employment.

 

With the spread of the rural economy in Bengal, said the speaker, a vast market could be created for agricultural goods and industrial products. There have been set up such instances of economic activity as:

 

The people who are associated with these activities represent the erstwhile kisan and khet mazdoor families. Khet mazdoors benefit from semi-perennial work for less than 130 days per month on an average. Even farmers and kisans get to engage themselves in alternative jobs away from the principal crop seasons. With production becoming more-and-more decentralised, the out-of-season peasants also find gainful employment in home-based outputs of manufacturing goods. 

 

NUMBER OF RURAL WORKERS GOING UP

 

The recent reports of the union government, said Shyamal Chakraborty, would put the number of unorganised workers in the country as close to 37 lakh. Here, the CITU leader recalled that the recognition of the fact of the existence of unorganised workers as mentioned in the CMP was principally borne out of the pressure created by the CITU through movements in Bengal and elsewhere on behalf of the unorganised from the 1980s in particular.

 

In Bengal, with the number of kisans and khet mazdoors becoming less and less, the number of non-agricultural workers has had a concurrent rise. 

 

Year                   Ratio of rural workers 

[To the working population in villages in percentage] 

1991                                     29.3

2001                                     41.6

 

Year                  Ratio of kisans and khet mazdoors

[To the working population in villages in percentage]

1991                                     70.7

2001                                   58.6

 

The process is going to escalate given the fact that employment will go on shrinking in the agricultural sector and a concomitant rise in the number of unorganised workers in the villages, pointed out the speaker.

 

Women who belong to the rural unorganised worker category suffer a great deal in the sense that in many instances, equal pay for equal work is just ignored by the private proprietors. 70 per cent of the workers engaged in home-based outputting system are women. According to the 1991 census figures, 95.8 per cent of working women work in the unorganised sector. Labour remains cheap in view of the crowded labour market, fewer purchasers, and a great many sellers. The management take advantage of the situation by lowering wages all the while. Women suffer the most in the circumstances being unorganised as well.

 

In Bengal, said Shyamal Chakraborty, there are 2 crore 13 lakh unorganised workers. Of them, there are 1 crore 40 lakh workers, and 73 lakh khet mazdoors. Other 800-odd villages, all the 38,500 village units possess non-agricultural workers. The convention decided that TU units would be built up in all 38,500 villages.

 

JOINT CITU-AIKS INITIATIVE

 

The CITU does not possess the manpower or the infrastructure, considerable they are, to cover this enormous task. Hence, the AIKS that has units in all the villages of Bengal and has membership strength of 1.48 crore, must step in. The AIKS organisers, skilful and dedicated, shall set up TU units in the villages and blocks. If necessary, the khet mazdoor will have dual membership of the AIKS and the CITU.

 

The entire joint drive must not just be an initiative of fraternity. Unless the unorganised army of rural people are organised, they would ultimately fall prey to the dictates of the forces of reaction, reminded Shyamal Chakraborty.

 

Shyamal Chakraborty ended his address by expressing the hope that the joint programme of CITU and AIKS would work in a successful way towards bringing about a change in the correlation of class forces of rural Bengal.

 

Secretary of the Bengal unit of the AIKS Samar Baora said that joint kisan-shramik action had been feature of the history of Bengal from the 1960s in particular. He recalled how when the workers of ACC-Vickers-Babcock were starving because of the intransigence of the management, kisans of the area had rallied by bringing in bagfuls of rice in solidarity. 

 

Similar instances took place when jute mill workers in Hooghly and Howrah fell in bad times. Samar Baora also noted that for a long time now, seasonal kisans would work in riverbeds extracting sands or in brick kilns. It was time to organise them under the banner of the CITU and the AIKS leadership of the rural belts would come forward to act as the catalyst.

 

CITU state general secretary Kali Ghosh pointed out that it was the demand of the present situation that the shramik-kisan unity, functional and won to the grass-roots’ level must be organised, strengthened and extended. He recalled the glorious role of the kisans during the railway strikes of 1954. In the post 1967 scenario in Bengal, said the veteran CITU leader, the workers helped the kisans and the bargadars preserve their land and crops.

 

CHANGING ECONOMIC SCENARIO

 

In his address, Benoy Konar noted that agricultural income was getting less, as was the dependence on agriculture although in the latter case, it was not to the extent it should have been. Agriculture would keep a kisan or a khet mazdoor gainfully employed only for a part of the year. The dependence on agriculture was rooted in the slow extension in industry. Poverty still stalks the villages although not to the extent that used to.

 

Benoy Konar recalled how he had purchased a second-hand motorcycle back in 1956 to move about for electioneering; the vehicle was a kind of wonder to the rural folk. Now, he said, even small townships have hundreds of motorcycles, scooters, and auto rickshaws. This is a reflection of the steady economic development of Bengal under the Left Front government. In organising the unorganised in the villages, said the speaker, the aim was to unleash a revolutionary force in the state.

 

The convention raised the following demands based on which joint Bengal CITU-Bengal AIKS movements would be launched: