India: Urgent Tasks Before The Left
By M. Vijaya Kumar
19 March,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Louis Carroll says in “Alice in Wonderland”: “if you don’t know where you want to go, then any road will take you there”. Our experience tells us that if you don’t know where you want to go, then no road will take you there. As Michael Lebowitz, the noted Marxist theoretician says, “Our greatest failing is that we have lost sight of an alternative. Because of our failure to envision an alternative as a whole, we have many small pieces, many small ‘no’s; indeed, the only feasible alternative to barbarism proposed has been barbarism with a human face. Let us think about a real alternative to barbarism, a grand conception but yet a very simple one”. Socialism may be a historical possibility, or even necessary to eliminate the evils of capitalism, but this does not mean that it will inevitably take its place.
As Prakash Karat, general secretary of CPI (M) puts it, “To build socialism, particularly in lesser developed capitalist countries is a more protracted and complex process than it was envisaged under the impact of the October Revolution.”
The Left in India has stopped talking about a socialist society that can replace the neo-liberal economy. Mostly, we hear them talking about improvements to the present policies. New understanding must overcome the inertia of past ways of looking at things. The magnitude of reforms has no meaning unless the direction is clear. It is imperative that the left has to put forward an alternate agenda for development and modernization. The clarion call of the Latin American Left, “Another world is possible!” is very much relevant in the Indian context also.
According to Istvan Meszaros, one of the greatest Marxist thinkers
of our time, “There will be no advance whatsoever until the
working class movement, the socialist movement, is re-articulated
in the form of becoming capable of offensive action, through its appropriate
institutions and through its extra-parliamentary force…….in
conjunction with the radical political movement that can also be active
through parliament.”
When operating in a parliamentary democracy, the temptations of legislative comforts will surely take their toll on the morale of the elected Left representatives, right from panchayat level to the parliament. There are instances where some Left MLAs and MPs had shifted to other bourgeoisie parties, with the sole intention of getting re-elected. Only sound ideological education and active involvement in mass struggles can inoculate the leaders and cadres from the pressures of operating in a political environment dominated by bourgeoisie culture and values.
While the bold stand taken by the Left parties with regard to the Indo-US Nuclear Deal is highly commendable, we should not forget that the fighting spirit is evaporating among the cadres, slowly drowning the cadre into the morass of lethargy and inaction. The land struggle in Andhra Pradesh, taken up by the both the CPI and CPI (M) showed how the Left can indeed push the poor peoples’ agenda to the centre-stage of politics. But at the same time, they have to realize that the struggle had not yet been taken to its logical end. Neither had these parties been able to enlarge it into a national struggle, at least in those states, where they have some presence, such a Tamil Nadu, Bihar and Jharkhand.
With both
the major Left Parties, the CPI and CPI (M) making preparations for
their respective national congresses, it is time for retrospection
and assessment of future opportunities for advancing the Left movement
in the country.
India's path to socialism
The efforts of the Left forces in building a broad coalition with progressive democratic forces has not taken off. What is being pursued, unfortunately are electoral alliances with regional and casteist parties, often ending up with marginal or insignificant presence, in the legislative arena. What the Left had failed to build, is not a viable third front, but in reality, the hegemony of an alternative ideology.
For the
Italian Marxist theoretician Antonio Gramsci, hegemony is the process
of political domination through ideological domination. He showed
how states use the popular culture, mass media, education, and religion
to reinforce an ideology which supports the position of dominant classes
- putting words into people’s mouths. Dominant groups in society,
including fundamentally but not exclusively the ruling class, maintain
their dominance by securing the 'spontaneous consent' of subordinate
groups, including the working class, through the negotiated construction
of a political and ideological consensus which incorporates both dominant
and dominated groups."
In The German Ideology, Marx and Engels write that “The ideas
of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e. the
class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same
time its ruling intellectual force....”
Importantly
Gramsci showed how subtle the process of imposing hegemony worked,
and that its effectiveness is in getting individuals to actively support
a system which does not act in their own best interests. Gramsci held
that “Class struggle must always involve ideas and ideologies,
ideas that would make the revolution and also that would prevent it.”
"The revolutionary forces have to take civil society before they
take the state, and therefore have to build a coalition of oppositional
groups united under a hegemonic banner which usurps the dominant or
prevailing hegemony." Gramsci says in his Prison Notebooks, "A
social group can, indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before
winning governmental power (this is indeed one of the principal conditions
for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when
it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it
must continue to 'lead' as well."
The track record of the CPI (M) led Left Front in the case of land
acquisition policies and efforts at industrialization of West Bengal
by inviting private monopoly capitalists and their open endorsement
of SEZs had sent confusing signals to the people and created disarray
among the sympathizers.
The two major Left parties seem to be getting embroiled in un-needed controversies, that could ultimately weaken their movement. One such issue is the demand for separate statehood for Telangana. While some of the cadres in the two parties are succumbing to the divisive sentiment, the CPI seems to be capitulating while the CPI (M) leadership till now seems to be firmly set against division of the state. Even the Naxalites have joined the chorus for separate statehood, whatever might be their real intentions. The argument that there is a strong sentiment for separate statehood requires closer examination.
Georg Lukács, the noted Hungarian Marxist, in his book, History and Class Consciousness investigates this ‘false consciousness’ concretely as an aspect of the historical totality and as a stage in the historical process. This consciousness is, therefore, neither the sum nor the average of what is thought or felt by the single individuals who make up the class. And yet the historically significant actions of the class as a whole are determined in the last resort by this consciousness and not by the thought of the individual and these actions can be understood only by reference to this consciousness. As Marx says of bourgeois thought: “Man’s reflections on the forms of social life and consequently also his scientific analysis of those forms, take a course directly opposite to that of their actual historical development.”
What is
required to be done by the Left Parties is instead of capitulating
before such a demand, this false consciousness of a section of the
people has to be understood in the true Marxist perspective. As Engels
says, “behind the formal economic error may lie concealed a
very true economic content.” The real root of backwardness lies
not in a united state, but in the systematic denial of opportunities
for the poor in all the backward regions of the state and in the whole
country. In a word, opportunism mistakes the actual, psychological
state of consciousness of proletarians for the class consciousness
of the proletariat. The superior strength of true, practical class
consciousness lies in the ability to look beyond the divisive symptoms
of the economic process to the unity of the total social system underlying
it. The objective theory of class consciousness is the theory of its
objective possibility. Having failed to build a class conscious movement
and struggle among the poor and deprived populace, the Left has allowed
the opportunist bourgeoisie politicians to mislead the people into
believing that their deliverance lies in a separate state, but not
in the struggle for a better life. According primacy to economic struggles
is very vital for the survival and growth of the Leftist movements.
One such major issue is the struggle for land. As Vandana Shiva says,
“Farming has moved into the hands of agribusiness corporations
and monopoly retail chains are taking over. Ultimately this will drive
out a majority of the 60 crore farmers out of agriculture.”
The McKinsey-authored Vision 2020 set out the removal of millions
of people from the land as one of its objectives. Successive governments
at the Centre and in many States seem to have latched on to that vision
with much zeal. This is not a natural evolutionary process. It is
a violent and imposed process. The industrial model of farming is
at the root of farmers' suicides. Yet, the disease is being offered
as a cure. The Agriculture Minister, Sharad Pawar has stated that
farmers' need to be "weaned" off the land. And the Vice
Chairman of the Planning Commission, Montek Singh Ahluwalia has talked
of "the feasibility of large corporate ownership of farmland"
Since the reform process has started in China, 20 crores of people have shifted to cities. In India, the ruling classes claim that agriculture accounts for only 22 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) while as much as 70 per cent live in rural areas. So the cure they suggest is that about 50 crore of people have to seek other avenues of sustenance. The money taken away from farmers has been used to build flyovers in cities and subsidize the richest of the rich. With no opportunities in rural areas, all these 50 crores have to migrate to cities. That will be a disaster for the country’s economy.
Bank loans to poor peasants are drying up. Poor peasants have no other option but to take money from loan sharks and unable to repay, 2 lakh farmers have committed suicides in the last 15 years. In our country, 2,17,000 villages have water quality problems. Excess fluoride, arsenic, nitrate, iron and salinity are causing health hazards. Only 55 per cent of villages are connected by roads. On the other hand, the ever-growing urban poor, surviving in slums, are being continuously pushed into darkness by slum demolition drives, neglected in sanitation, power, and water.
Now, the
government is actively promoting SEZs as if it is the only solution
to the country’s underdevelopment and unemployment. The SEZ
policy is probably one of the most controversial of all government
policies in the post-liberalisation era. The SEZ policy offers a host
of incentives to developers of such zones and units within such zones
with very minimum regulatory controls, virtually creating tiny principalities,
within the republic. But the promises are nowhere near what is claimed.
The only visible effect is negative, that of grabbing from the poor
peasants and handing over valuable agricultural lands on a platter
to the rich. As AB Bardhan, the General Secretary of CPI says, “The
establishment of SEZs is not the only and necessary way to industrialization.”
We have to apply industrialization that can create employment, not
simply profits for the rich. Out of the tax concessions given to the
rich industrialists (nearly 1.5 lakh crores per year), only one third
of this amount, that is 50 thousand crores is sufficient to provide
gainful employment to the unemployed youth of this country.
Livelihood and Employment
India has 50 crores of young people. Out of 70 crores of working age population, only 48 crores are employed in some sort of occupation and the rest are without any regular and reliable source of income. Unemployment is rising nationwide, with about 5 crores unemployed youth registered in employment exchanges and many more this number who do not have regular employment. Nearly half the working age population lack employment of any sort. Employment in the unorganised sector accounts for 91.39 % of work force. India brings out 20 lakh professional graduates into the workforce annually. Out of this, only 20% are able to get employment. The IT industry employs only 0.02% of the total workforce. Employment as a whole, has suffered during the period of liberalisation. According to the Government's own calculations, employment growth has fallen from 2.7 per cent a year in the pre-liberalisation period to just over 1% a year in the liberalisation period. Today, thanks to the liberalization policies, the job growth rate is a mere 0.5%. Out of the total workforce, 50 % depend on agriculture. The major cause of the collapse of employment as a whole is the zero growth in agricultural employment (0.02 per cent per year). Lacking opportunities, crores of people are migrating to cities seeking livelihood. In fact the Indian economy has become further and further distorted due to neo-liberal reforms in such a fashion that the conventional measures of its 'growth' do not necessarily represent better life for the vast majority of the people. The only solution lies in creating jobs in the rural areas and increasing investments in agro-based industries. This only can ease the acute unemployment situation. To increase the employment, the approach plan to the X1th Plan asserts that we must pay special attention to labour intensive manufacturing sectors such as food processing industry, textiles, small and medium enterprises, tourism and construction.
These are just two of the major problems, the third being inflation and rising prices of essential commodities, on which the Left has to urgently wage struggles. In these days of neo-liberal euphoria and the Thatchrite assertion that “There is no alternative”, the decisive and determined struggles of the Left in leading the deprived masses against oppression and injustice is the only hope for us.
“Another
World is Possible!!”
Author Bio: Professional engineer with interest in Marxist studies.
E-mail: marlavk@yahoo.com
