Bengal Communists Try A Faceover in Singur

The Bengal Communists of India are busy completing their faceover in Bengal as the new face of the Communists in India.
In its attempt, to paint the picture of a new and post Marxian Bengal, a capitalist friendly Bengal, a pragmatic Bengal, the first guillitone will naturally fall on the small farmers of Bengal, in terms of inadequate compensation and forcible land acquisition on behalf of industrialists. Singur Krishijami Bachao Committee (Save Singur Farmland Committee) has been running an agitation against forcible land possession for the last eight months. Tillers and sharecroppers who till the land in Amar Sonar Bangla, are being forced to make way for a Tata Motors small car project.
How can one possibly expect, Indian Communists, to use their leverage over Indian Congress at the Centre. Afterall, neither the kulaks, nor the sharecroppers of Bengal, are friends of the revolutionary proletariat.
The bhadralok is surely emerging from the facade of years of sterile Marxist posturing, and confronting sharecroppers, women and children with the full might of the police force, in aid and support of, much needed capitalists who were disenchanted with Shri Jyoti Basu, for all these lost decades.
The Bengal Communists, are finally emerging from the shadows of sterile and outdated rhetoric. Pumping capital into Bengal, is the new mantra. And kulaks and sharecroppers will be the first casualty, surely. For afterall, that distinction was anyway never real. For the Indian communists, kulak or the sharecropper, is a farmer, and farming is no more than a means to an end - industrial subsidization and the emergence of the industrial proletariat, that will one day surely emerge, and display its revolutionary potential on the global stage, as we all watch in awe for that fabulous finale.
Bengal communists, are putting final touches to their makeover, as they handover the reigns of Bengal's capital driven industrialization, to non Marwari capitalists from progressive lands.

Sixth Pay Commission and Farmers

Mention the Sixth Pay Commission, and farmers of India, in the same breath, and even the Communists, who consider it their divine right, to extract the the maximum possible from the Indian Government, for the salaried government employees, raise their eyebrows.
But what exactly, is the issue that is behind the presumption, that somehow farmers and farm labour, have nothing at all to do with Sixth Pay Commission. What really are the root assumptions that are behind this raising of eyebrows ?
The Communists have no doubt contributed, to this assumption that Sixth Pay Commission is somehow only meant for government and state employees.
They of course, have theories about agricultural surplus, industrial subsidization, working class as the vangaurd of the proletariat, farmers as the remnants of backward modes of production, farmers as representative of feudalistic Indian society, etc.
But it is surprising, that the Communists have fooled, even the centrist and rightist parties, the Congress and the BJP, political parties, whose thought processes, are derived from more local inspiration, into thinking that Sixth Pay Commission, is inconceivable for farmers of India.
It would be an interesting excercise, to engage the Congress and BJP think tanks, into considering the demand for inclusion of farmers, in Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, as a directly affected party, without whose interests being considered, the entire foundation of Sixth Pay Commission, is a complete fraud being enacted.

Comintern and Kulak Indian Farmer

The Communists of India have always been deeply suspicious of Indians and anything that reeks of traditional modes of production. And they have never ever really believed in the potential of the farmers of India to ever be the vanguard of the Communist revolution.
In my opinion, when each worker on the farm is assured a minimum wage by the CPI and CPI(M) supported Central government, the Comintern dream will come the closest to being achieved. For then, there will be no self employed and thus non - revolutionary, farmers in India, by definition. They will all have happily joined the salaried class, of the revolutionary Indian proletariat like their brethren, in Bengal and Kerala.
Farmers too, shall be happy to join the ranks of industrial labour, given a salary by contract farming managers, who themselves will be under the thumb, of Indian communists supported, Central government. The day will come when contract farms shall be an integral part of the efficient modes of production and not just part of the feudal Indian rural countryside. The real revolutionary potential, of the Indian farmer, will then be achievable, as contract workers on large farms, and no farmer shall be forced to live with the derogatory label of kulak.
The problem is how do we convince Shri Prakash Karat and CPI(M) to back the demand of including farm workers in the Sixth Pay Commission, even if at some points lower than government and public sector employees.

Farmer Demands or Rights ?

In the days I used to comb the Indian countryside, one Jat farmer whom I absolutely loved talking to, in his really serious moments, used to say - farmers of India have no demands, they can take what they want. I am talking of the luminary Mahendra Singh Tikait of Bhartiya Kisan Union. The sad story is that immediately in half an hour, this man would change and discard his wisdom and get yet another Jat of his Balian biradari to start penning down on a torn piece of Amar Ujala Hindi newspaper - a list of farmer demands from all the surrounding villages. Lo behold, the list of demands, would actually begin to reach four figures, sometimes when the fancy would take him he would scold the chaps who were compiling the list of farmer demands to not exceed 999 in any case. And then somebody would come up with the 1000th demand of a young buffalo calf to be distributed to each farmer by the government. Tikait would then suddenly get bored and then say - "Achha chalo, Joshi ji ko Maharashtra se bula lo. Wo padha likha manas hai. " But then how Mahendra Tikait behaved with Sharad Joshi is another long story.
Joshi even in those days, used to say, farmers of India can fight only, and only if they can be crystallized around one single demand - remunerative prices for farm produce. The sheer complexity of regional differences amongst Indian farmers, prevented him for seeing the benefits of any other approach.
Even today I find, whenever ten farmers sit down together and become extremely pleased when the local constable of the local thana salutes them, they ask somebody to bring out a piece of paper and pen, and start compiling that next authoritative list of " farmer demands " to put before the government.
And of course we all know that Chidambaram, Pawar, Ajit Singh, Mulayam Singh Yadav and the Indian bureaucrats know very well, to suppress their yawns and get away from the audience with the venerable Chaudhary sahib.

Exit Policy for Indian Farmers

The time has come to initiate a debate on a framework which lays out the contours of a possible "exit policy" for small Indian farmers. Indian farmers would like to stop lifting the burden of being subsidy receivers and would like to gift their entire lands and thereby no more enjoy any subsidies, if only the Indian government will guarantee them a viable exit policy and compensation on the lines of European and American farmers.
What better way can there be to conclusively prove the truth of the promises of ushering in a Second Green Revolution, than by vacating all farm lands, reorganizing them into large modern corporate viable holdings, and allowing a new breed of B-schools trained management cadre of farm managers to till the land, manage land, water and seed resources.
This will show and demonstrate to the sceptics, the benefits of large land holdings, modern agricultural technology, GM seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, export oriented contract farming, crop and horticultural diversification, liberal farm credit and futures commodities trading, will it not ? Surely this is a great and worthy national project of epic proportions that will win the approval of McKinsey consultants, IMF and World Bank.
Why should uneducated farmers live on small unviable farm lands, why should they not migrate en masse to cities and live their lives under the comforting shade of the Sixth Pay Commission and the risk free bounties it can offer them. Is not everybody of sensible mind leaving farming to start life as an urban dweller ?
Surely farmers are desperate to gift their lands and agree to be re classified as government servants, even at a fraction of other government servant salaries. Will the government show this generosity ?
Parliamentarians have intricate formulae for raising their own fixed salary and benefits. Farmers of India would also like to partake of a similar farm payments / wages formula that concerned parliamentarians can surely evolve for them, if they are willing, and put their minds and considerable expertise to the task.
After all India is now Shining India, a super power, an Asian Tiger pushing for a role on the world stage and a seat in United Nations Security Council. If this seat in the Security Council is not going to benefit the farmers, who is it meant to benefit ?

Cotton Farmers - Tolstoy and Indian government

Tolstoy writings on civil disobedience and non violence carry an unforgettable comment - "I sit on a man's back, choking him, and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by any means possible, except getting off his back." This is now the relationship between the Indian government and Indian farmers as the ministers make flying visits to cotton farming areas of Vidarbha and flood hit areas of India, professing great concern for cotton farmers and their problems and releasing press notes on farmer suicides.

Contract Farming

A simple survey of farmers of India would easily show that they will unanimously accept contract corporate farming and commodities futures trading, if only they are treated on par with industrial labour, and given the same guarantees of assured income, offset against inflation, in the Sixth Pay Commission. Why must farmers be excluded from Pay Commission diktats ? Which farmer in India wants to be the lord of agricultural land in this country ? Let Tatas, Ambanis, Vedanta, Walmart and Tesco take over all agricultural land in India and just settle a minimum monthly salary for Indian farmers. In fact, farmers will be happy to even gift their lands to multinationals, corporates, central and state governments, if only, a guaranteed minimum wage is declared for farmers.

Indian Farmer and Emperor's New Clothes

Many years ago, there lived an emperor, who loved beautiful new clothes so much that, he spent all his money, on being finely dressed. His only interest, was in going to the theater or in riding about in his carriage, where he could show off his new clothes. He had a different costume, for every hour of the day. Indeed, where it was said of other kings that they were at court, it could only be said of him that he was in his dressing room!One day, two swindlers came to the emperor's city. They said that they were weavers, claiming, that they knew, how to make the finest cloth imaginable. Not only were the colors and the patterns extraordinarily beautiful, but in addition, this material had the amazing property, that it was to be invisible, to anyone who was incompetent or stupid ." It would be wonderful, to have clothes made from that cloth," thought the emperor. "Then I would know, which of my men, are unfit for their positions, and I'd also be able to tell clever people from stupid ones." So he immediately gave the two swindlers a great sum of money to weave their cloth for him.They set up their looms, and pretended to go to work, although there was nothing at all, on the looms. They asked for the finest silk and the purest gold, all of which they hid away, continuing to work on the empty looms, often late into the night....The Indian farmer is also having his wonderful clothes, stitched by master weavers. Read more ....