Celebrating September 5 – The Peasant-Worker Alliance Today T. Jayaraman
The massive mobilisation for the worker-peasant rally in New Delhi scheduled today, September 5, is a unique one, in which, perhaps for the first time, large numbers of workers and peasants would march together against the policies of the Indian state. This clearly has aroused the interest and attracted the attention of many democratic sections, while the Left across the country has been enthused by the mobilisation for this protest, despite the parallel pre-occupation of mobilising relief and assistance for disaster-hit Kerala. It is perhaps appropriate therefore to remind ourselves of the significance and current state of the worker-peasant alliance in our society.
We may also recall that for decades now, massive gatherings of the peasantry in the capital have been dominated by mobilisations by so-called farmers’ organisations, that exclusively focus on particular farmers’ issues, especially those of remunerative prices and cheaper inputs,, issues that affect not only the poor farmer but equally also the most well-off and economically powerful sections of rural society. In the last few years however, mobilisation of the poorer sections of rural society and their demands including land reform and the redistribution of land have met with increasing response. The September 5 event has all the hallmarks of being one of the most successful of these, together with the qualitative difference of adding to it the theme of working class – peasant unity and their alliance for a common set of demands.
What is the significance of the worker-peasant alliance in India? This is the class combine whose objective class interests are firmly opposed to that of the ruling bourgeois-landlord class combine. The term peasantry here is used with the clear understanding that they are not a homogenous class, but that various strata can be distinguished amongst them. Of these the lowest strata are the ones whose objective interests converge with that of the working class at the present time. The bulk of this strata as also the majority of the working class do not belong to the dominant castes of the caste hierarchy. But those who suffer the most in terms of caste discrimination are vastly disproportionately represented in the worker and peasant classes. Hence, though class oppression and caste discrimination are by no means identical phenomena, offering the opportunity to deal with them in different ways, they are nevertheless profoundly linked in Indian society.
It is this bourgeois-landlord class rule, and their efforts to extricate themselves from the contradictions and crises of their rule that has led to the sorry state of affairs in the country today. From the failure of the bogus slogan of Congress socialism to the lie of the “sabka vikas” of the current dispensation, from the lop-sided benefits of liberalization and privatization that has rapidly escalated all the inequalities of Indian society to the tragic spectacle of farmer suicides, from the continued hold of caste discrimination in its most evil forms to the lynchings driven by communal hatred, all of these arise from the nature of this class rule, that while enriching the ruling classes has sought to divide the ranks of the people.
It is not as if in seventy years of Independence, the ruling classes have not managed to effect any change at all. Some advance of the productive forces has taken place, but all too often as in scientific research, they have as yet merely demonstrated the potential. In the countryside a new stratum of capitalist landlords, fashioned out of the old landlords or sections of the ascendant rich peasantry has come into being, while in many regions commercial production and cash transactions are the norm rather than the exception. But the story has been largely one of hope betrayed rather than hope realised. If there any doubts as to whether more could have been achieved, one has only to point to the example of China to realise what India has missed doing.
It is from this point of view that the working-class and the peasantry have a common enemy and this is why the worker-peasant alliance is a fundamental class alliance necessary for economic, social and political transformation. It does not therefore require any particular immediate cause or economic rationale. Indeed at times superficially what appears to be beneficial to one (like higher prices) may not appear beneficial to the other. One has to look beyond the immediate appearance to see the real commonality of interest of the working class and the peasantry.
At the same time the circumstances of Congress rule under Manmohan Singh earlier followed by BJP rule under Modi have also created the conditions for a more immediate convergence of interests between the working class and peasantry. One after the other the two regimes have each done their share to cutback on welfare, reduce the expenditure of the state in schemes that help the poor, done little to ensure remunerative prices or lower input costs, and cut back across the board in sectors like agriculture and health, both regimes alternating each other in carrying out this agenda.
Especially after the “reforms” began in 1991-92, the ruling classes have launched a concerted attack on wages and livelihoods, on trade union rights, on organizing at the work place while a hostile judiciary has done little to defend working people’s rights. In the face of these attacks, the working masses have been on the defensive, while the bourgeoisie has gone on to the offensive. In the rural areas, the focus, partly under the influence of the farmers’ organisations, has shifted to the role of the state, while mobilisation against the landlord class itself, and for struggles on issues such as land, has not been very significant. In the industrial sector and in urban areas too, the large-scale growth of labour in the informal sector, and the assignment of a part of the labour to workers under contractual agreements paying effectively lower wages, has made direct organising against the capitalists, even on basic issues such as wages or work-place safety, much more difficult.
In this background, much of the mobilisation of the urban working class, whether through class-based organised organisations or in general associations, and the mobilisation of the peasantry and rural manual labour has been directed against the state. It is undoubtedly true also that the state aids the capitalists and rural elite increasingly through the changing of policies and various legal and administrative measures that aid increased exploitation. Clearly opposing the state on such policies is a necessity. In contrast to the early days of capitalism such mobilisation against the state has an important role to play, as is evident from experience around the world.
But such mobilisation against the state has added value for the future, if it is the stepping stone to mobilisation directed also, more overtly and straightforwardly, at the capitalists and landlords themselves. Neo-liberal policies are not only directed by the state, they are also expressed in the ways that capitalists and landlords act on a daily basis. Mobilising workers in the factory and the peasantry and rural manual labour in the countryside are also an indispensable part of the class struggle against the ruling class, and the worker-peasant alliance must be manifest in this struggle too.
Some of these thoughts however are for the morrow – for today we shall be content with celebrating the present.
