People's Democracy

UTTAR PRADESH

Gearing Up Against Sugar Mills Privatisation Threat

D P Singh

THAT only about two months old Ms Mayavati led BSP government of Uttar Pradesh is bent upon pushing ahead its retrograde policy of privatisation of the state and cooperative sector sugar mills, was the main concern of a recent convention held at Bullandshahar in West UP. Organised on July 15 by the Uttar Pradesh state unit of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), this zonal convention of cane growing farmers, was attended by some approximately 315 delegates from the western districts of the state --- Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut, Bullandshahar, Aligarh, Agra, Mathura, Etah, Bareilly, Muradabad and Bijnore. The aim was to thoroughly discuss this privatisation threat and work out ways and means to resist it by through the mass mobilisation of workers and peasants and sustained, protracted struggles.

AIKS joint secretary cum finance secretary Noorul Huda, a former member of Lok Sabha, inaugurated the convention. He said the fact that the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had won the latest state assembly elections with a comfortable majority, has made the oppressed and downtrodden sections of the people have great expectations that the new government would take steps to ameliorate their life and living condition. But the latest announcement of the UP government’s intention to privatise 28 cooperative and 33 state sector sugar mills in the state clearly indicates that the Mayavati government is hell bent on pursuing the same old anti-people and discredited policy of liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation (LPG) that is being dictated by the US controlled World Bank-IMF-WTO trio. Huda added that the indiscriminate privatisation of sugar mills would, on the one hand, seriously and adversely affect the lakhs of cane growing farmers and, on the other, endanger the life and livelihood of thousands of workers and employees engaged in these mills for decades. On behalf of All India Kisan Sabha’s centre, Noorul Huda congratulated the organisers of the zonal convention and the delegates assembled therein, and fervently hoped that the cane growing farmers and sugar mill workers and employees would unitedly launch a powerful struggle against this wrong, anti-people policy of the BSP led state government.

Cautioning the delegates, Noorul Huda stated that as all the bourgeois-landlord political parties were in favour of the LPG policies and did not utter a single word against such them, it is only through a joint and combined struggle of the peasants, workers and other toiling masses that such policies could be resisted and reversed.

D P Singh, president of the Uttar Pradesh state unit of the All India Kisan Sabha and member of its Central Kisan Council (CKC), placed the main resolution before the delegates. On this occasion, he severely criticised the state government’s decision to privatise the cooperative and state sector sugar mills, and stated that the talk of privatising the sugar mills on the plea of the losses they are suffering is nothing but a fraud perpetrated on the people. The fact is that as many as 21 cooperative run sugar mills, out of the 28 mills proposed to be privatised, have been running in profit. Likewise, a majority of the 33 state sector sugar mills were initially established and run by private owners, and the state government took them over when they began to incur losses. It is anticipated that once the mills are privatised, cane growing farmers, sugar mill workers as well as consumers will have to suffer heavy and irreparable losses because of the private players’ insatiable greed of profits.

The resolution blamed the preceding state governments, corrupt ministers and bureaucratic management for the sickness of the sugar industry. It noted that the government should have invested adequate funds to revive the sugar mills, which it did not.

The resolution demanded that the state government must immediately revoke the decision of privatising the sugar mills and take suitable steps for modernising the mills that have fallen sick. It warned that no worker or employee must be retrenched and immediate payment of all arrears must be made to the cane growers.

The resolution made an urgent appeal to all political parties, sympathetic to the cause of the peasants and workers, all peasant organisations and all concerned personalities to take an active part in this struggle. It also asked all the district units of AIKS to draw all cane growing farmers and all consumers into action, with a view to organising a militant and protracted mass struggle in the coming days.

Devendra Sharma (Bijnore), Dharamvir Rathi (Muzaffarnagar), Ashok Sirohi (Bullandshahar), Satya Prakash Sharma (Meerut), Brijmohan Sharma (Aligarh), Rajbir Singh (Etah), Digambar Singh (Mathura), Achyut Thakur (Moradabad), Surendra Singh (Bareilly) and Rao Daud Khan (Saharanpur) took part in the debate following the resolution, offering valuable suggestions. The resolution was put to vote and adopted unanimously amid great enthusiasm

Surendra Singh of CITU and Brijlal Bharti of All India Agricultural Workers Union offered fullest cooperation and active participation. Bharat Singh, a member and the All India Kisan Committee of the AIKS and joint secretary of the UP unit of the organisation, was also present on the dais.
The conference decided the following course of action:

July 20 to 31: Widest possible publicity campaign in all the districts of Western UP.

August 1 to 15: District level conferences.

August 16 to 31: Large-scale dharnas before all mill gates.

September 19: Demonstrations at all district headquarters.

First week of October: Jail Bharo movement in all districts.

D P Singh announced that the state unit of Kisan Sabha would organise such zonal conferences in the central and eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh also, in order to extend the struggle throughout UP.

K N Bhatt, general secretary of the UP Sugar Mill Employees Federation and member of the CPI(M) state secretariat, dwelt on the grave crisis facing the cane growing farmers, sugar mill workers, employees and consumers. He announced that a joint meeting was to be convened by the Sugar Mill Employees Federation at Lucknow on July 28, to take stock of the situation, coordinate the activities between the CITU, AIKS and AIAWU, and intensify the struggle in the immediate future. He expressed the hope that the movement against the privatisation path embarked upon by Mayavati led BSP state government would turn into a huge popular mass struggle eventually.

The convention was presided over by Uttar Pradesh State Kisan Sabha vice president Karamvir Singh Solanki.