Mayhem at Dinhata by D. Bandhopadhyaya (Statesman, Feb. 14, 2008)

On 5 February, police fired on a group of Forward Bloc demonstrators at
Dinhata in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal.

Five persons were killed on the spot and a dozen others were seriously
injured. They did not wage war against the state. They did not storm the
Winter Palace. They did not try to pull down any "Bastille" at Dinhata. They
were not armed revolutionaries trying to seize power through the barrel of
gun. In fact, they were unarmed. The lone policeman who died was not hit by
any bullet. He was injured in stone-throwing.
These demonstrators were demanding proper implementation of the National
Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005, for "enhancement of livelihood
security of the poor and destitute households".

It was reported that against a target of 100 days employment guaranteed by
the law, mandays generated in Cooch Behar was around eight in a year. That
apart, there were allegations galore regarding widespread leakage of NREGA
funds. They were asking for what was legally due which was being
systematically denied to them. Prima facie, their action was constitutional,
legal and legitimate.

On 6 February, the Central Employment Guarantee Council constituted under
Section 10 of the NREGA met at Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi, for reviewing
implementation of the Act. As a member I attended it. The Union minister for
rural development in his opening remarks mentioned that strong lobbies had
developed in different parts of the country to scuttle the programme. He
also hinted that vested interests wanted the programme to fail as it might
hurt their economic and financial interests. He did not elaborate. But the
heart rending episode at Dinhata clearly substantiated what he had said.

Cooch Behar is noted for tobacco cultivation. It is a labour-intensive crop.
The NREGA, if properly implemented, would have enhanced the wage rates in
the market. Unless the wages offered by tobacco cultivators were higher than
the notified minimum wages, labour would not be available on call in
adequate numbers and at the appropriate time. Hence there would be a
built-in intention for the land owners to see that the programme was not
implemented so that they could get labour cheap and in proper numbers when
required. As such, there is nothing to be surprised at the dismal
performance of the NREGA in Cooch Behar.

This tragic episode had brought into fore the fact that the poor in India in
distant corners of the country accepted and internationalised this programme
as their own. They were demanding its proper and effective administration
which would give them a slightly better income and livelihood. Obviously,
such a demand would be treated as inimical to the interests of the "kulak"
lobby which was eager to get cheap labour for maximising profit.

We are talking about Dinhata where lives were lost for a totally legal
demand. But the story is the same for the whole of West Bengal. At the
meeting of the council referred to, data was circulated by the ministry of
rural development. Dr Santosh Merhotra, adviser (RD), Planning Commission,
made a composite comparative table giving state-wise prevailing market rates
of wages, the NREGA wage rates and employment provided in percentage.

The table makes a dismal and despairing reading. West Bengal ranks fourth
from the bottom in implementing the NREGA. Even states like Chhattisgarh (
44.6 per cent), Jharkhand (32.6 per cent) and Uttarakhand (27.4 per cent)
are better performers. It is way behind Tamil Nadu (61.1 per cent),
Maharashtra (55.9 per cent), Rajasthan (52.5 per cent) and Punjab (41.7 per
cent). Is it due to administrative inefficiency? Or is there anything more
serious in the class character of the CPI-M?

West Bengal's performance deteriorated from 14.3 per cent in 2006-07
to 11.8per cent in 2007-08 (December). There is a degree of
consistency in its
non-performance. The CPI-M is now dominated by the middle and upper
peasantry in the rural areas. It is not in their class interest to implement
the NREGA properly which would push up wages from Rs 44.58 (per male worker)
and Rs 32.35 (per female worker) to anywhere near Rs 70 per day which would
drastically reduce the profit margin for them. The same class interest which
prevented bestowing of title to the land that the share-croppers tilled and
creating alternative institutional credit structure for the poor peasantry
was behind this non-performance.

The ruling CPI-M is, perhaps, not aware of people's wrath against them. The
party is suffering from the syndrome of, in the words of Fred Halliday
"enduring inability of those with power and wealth to comprehend the depth
of hostility to them and the ability of history to surprise". Otherwise,
there would not have been this outburst from a Left Front partner of 30
years' standing.

Professor Randhir Singh (formerly of Delhi University) used the term
"secondary illiterate" in respect of the present crop of leadership of the
CPI-M in West Bengal. By this term he meant "those who had the benefit of
literacy once and come to know a few things. Know them to be true, but now
gone illiterate, have forgotten whatever they once knew".

He continues: "CPM leaders no longer speak in the language of socialism or
class politics, not even when bourgeois ideologues or TV anchors get
provocatively aggressive. And on rare occasions they refer to Marxism, only
vulgarise it. Here is a gem of vulgarisation from Chief Minister Buddhadeb
Bhattacharjee: 'From agriculture to industry, from villages to cities, this
is civilisation. We Marxists never deny this aim. We too want this to
happen'."

Bravo Mr Bhattacharjee for outdoing Marx in Marxism. It only reminds one of
Hans Mangus Enzsberger's moving short poem: Karl Heinrich Marx:
"I see you betrayed/ by your disciples/ only your enemies/ remained what
they were."

(The author was secretary to the Government of India, ministries of finance
(revenue) and rural development and executive director, Asian Development
Bank, Manila)
http://thestatesman.org/page.news.php?clid=4&theme=&usrsess=1&id=190778

*http://cpmindia.blogspot.com/*

*CPM urges cadres to take on NGOs it frowns on*

Rajib Chatterjee

KOLKATA, Feb. 13 (Statesman): The message seems clear and borrowed directly
from President George W Bush: civil society be damned, you are either with
us or against us. For, after targeting human rights organisations for
raising their voice against violations by the state and its police in
Bengal, the Marxists now have Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in their
line of fire. The CPI-M has accused NGOs they don't approve of accepting
foreign funds that are aimed at encouraging "anti-Left activities" in the
country and in states where the Communist movement is strong.

In the 28 January edition of its mouthpiece ~ Peoples' Democracy ~ the CPI-M
has demanded an amendment in the law to prohibit "foreign funding for NGOs".
The CPI-M states that "anti-imperialist agencies" use these NGOs to carry
out anti-Left and anti-CPI-M propaganda. The CPI-M has claimed that many
such NGOs are RSS-run and receiving funds from abroad. Some ultra-left
elements are also running civil liberties and human rights organisations
"with external links" in order to carry on anti-CPI-M activities in the
country, the party stated. What remained unstated was that there are,
obviously, good NGOs and bad NGOs; and those willing to do the party's dirty
work when it wants to target or demonise a citizen or a group obviously fall
in the former category!

In the article, the CPI-M expressed concern over the number of
foreign-funded NGOs in the country. The party said the number of NGOs
receiving funds from abroad had been "steadily increasing" and many of these
organisations were "intervening in political issues" and were engaged in
"anti-Left activities". The article further reads: "The law should be
amended to prohibit foreign funding for NGOs and the so-called social
movements which indulge in political activities." The party informed its
members that the matter would come up for discussion during the upcoming
nineteenth party congress.

The CPI-M has alleged that "imperialist agencies", as part of its campaign
against organised Left movement in the country, are trying to inject
anti-Left ideology among the people through NGOs. The CPI-M has also
demanded that the role of the "NGOs which organise people utilising foreign
funds" should be "exposed". The party has instructed its cadres to "counter
the activities of the NGOs" which "take anti-Left positions" and attempt to
"de-politicise people."