RESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO ONLINE AIKC MEETING OF ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA
November 6, 2020
Dr Ashok Dhawale
Respected Comrades S R Pillai, Hannan Mollah, Amra Ram and my dear comrades,
I welcome and greet all of you in this first-ever online meeting of the AIKC in the 84-year old history of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) that is being held during the Covid pandemic, which has underlined the age-old basic contradiction of man versus nature, and which is aggravated by the basic class contradiction between the exploiters and the exploited.
We are holding our AIKC meeting on the eve of the 103rd anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia led by Comrade Lenin and the Bolshevik Party. This revolution was a trail-blazer in human history and has tremendous achievements to its credit. One of its most relevant victories for today’s times was the decisive defeat of fascism led by Hitler.
We are meeting at a time when the crucial US Presidential election has almost seen the defeat of another authoritarian leader Donald Trump, who has been described as the worst President in US history. As of today morning, of the 270 electoral votes needed to win, Democratic Party challenger Joe Biden has won 264, while Donald Trump of the Republican Party is stuck at 214. Biden currently leads over Trump massively in the nationwide popular vote, with 50.5 per cent as against 47.9 per cent. We have to wait till results are declared.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
Covid cases across the world have surpassed 40 million. However, they could actually be much higher. USA, India and Brazil in that order continue to have the highest number of Covid cases and deaths. Some advanced capitalist countries in Europe have been forced to impose new lockdowns because of resurgence. There is still no certainty about the vaccine, and even when it comes, it will be a long time before it reaches the poor in the world.
In stark contrast to the capitalist countries, the socialist countries with their socialized health systems, have been much more successful in combating the Covid pandemic and in protecting the people from economic distress. China reported over 85,000 cases and the death of 4,634 people. Cuba lost only 123 people and Vietnam lost only 139 people to the Covid pandemic. The DPR Korea continues to report zero deaths in the country.
The global pandemic has been compounded by the global recession. The IMF has said that this recession will reverse the progress made since 1990s in reducing global poverty and will increase inequality. The World Bank described the current global economy as undergoing the deepest recession since the Great Depression of 1929-30. According to the World Bank, by 2021, over 150 million people will be pushed into extreme poverty. According to the ILO, the global reduction in the work hours in the second quarter of 2020 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019 was equivalent to the loss of 400 million full time jobs.
This has sharply widened economic inequalities. Global billionaires have been fattening their profits even during this pandemic recession. The stimulus packages announced by various capitalist countries have benefited the rich corporates vastly. Taxes on the rich have fallen by nearly 80 per cent in the last few years. On the other hand, the class offensive against the working class, peasantry and all other sections of the working people has sharply increased.
Recently there have been huge popular protests and strikes against the miseries imposed on the people in countries like Greece, Thailand, Indonesia, Belarus and elsewhere.
Three welcome events have occurred in the world in the last couple of months.
Luis Arce, candidate of former President Evo Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party, was elected President of Bolivia last month by winning 55.1% of the votes. Evo Morales was ousted as President in November last year, despite massive popular support, by a US engineered military coup. The latest results in Bolivia reconfirmed the fact that people’s struggles and movements can fight and push back US imperialism’s efforts to install puppet governments of its choice. We can never forget that Bolivia was the country where the Communist icon Che Guevara was martyred in 1967 at the hands of US lackeys.
In a referendum last month, the people of Chile overwhelmingly voted for rewriting the country’s Constitution. The Constitution came into effect under the ruthless military dictatorship engineered and backed by USA of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet came to power after a coup in 1973 which assassinated the socialist President Salvador Allende. All left and democratic forces in Chile mobilized for this historic vote. For over a year, massive mass protests against inequality and sufferings of the people were on. The key demand was that the country needs a new Constitution to be able to fix deep inequalities in society.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern-led New Zealand Labour Party swept the elections, winning a single party majority and registering the highest number of seats since 1996. New Zealand’s tackling of the Covid pandemic and its policies to protect the environment, address climate change and reduce social inequalities have been noted with appreciation in the world.
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
In India, the situation of the Covid pandemic continues to be grim. India’s rate of growth of both Covid cases and deaths is the highest in the world. The Asian average of infections is 2,764 per million, while the Indian average is 5,544. Deaths per million in Asia are 49, while in India they are 84.
The BJP central government under Modi has virtually abdicated its responsibility towards containing the pandemic. Worse is the fact that crores of people have been subjected to a double assault of the pandemic and the deepening economic recession. There is absolutely no relief for growing sufferings of the people, massive unemployment and rising hunger.
The BJP’s election manifesto for Bihar has cynically promised that if it forms the government in the state, vaccine will be given freely. It is the Central government’s responsibility to ensure universal and free access to the vaccine to everybody, all over the country.
As a result of the blatantly neo-liberal policies of the Modi regime during the last six years, India’s economy was in the dumps even before the Covid pandemic began. The Covid pandemic and the central government’s response to it has made the economy much worse.
The GDP of India has contracted by 23.9 per cent in the April-June 2020 quarter, which is the worst performance among major countries in the world. The RBI has projected a contraction of (-) 9.5 per cent for GDP for the whole year. Further contraction of the economy is imminent. Labour participation rate has dropped drastically and nearly 15 crore people have lost their livelihoods. CMIE anticipates that India needs to create 8 million new jobs every year to stop further fall in labour participation.
The Global Hunger Index has recently ranked India at 94 amongst 107 countries. In comparison with all our neighbours, this is the worst performance. India’s low ranking on this index indicates a very high level of malnutrition and undernutrition of our people, particularly of our children. There are several crore tonnes of foodgrains rotting in the central godowns. These must be used to provide free food to the hungry immediately.
In obscene contrast to this growing hunger and unemployment, India’s 50 richest people grew wealthier by 14 per cent in 2020. Mukesh Ambani has become the fifth richest man in the world during this global pandemic, with his wealth rising by 90 crore rupees per hour.
The centre is attacking the states, denying them their huge arrears of even the GST dues.
Clearly, the economy and the people need substantially higher public investments to build our much-needed infrastructure. This will generate large-scale employment and expand domestic demand that could kickstart the economy in the direction of a revival. But on the contrary, the entire package of economic reforms being pursued by PM Modi in the name of self-reliance, amounts to self-subservience of our economy to private profit.
Now the BJP government has begun large-scale assaults on workers and peasants. 29 existing labour laws have been repealed and replaced by four labour codes bulldozed in the monsoon session of Parliament. Almost all beneficial provisions relating to rights and protection of the workers and those related to regulation in control of employers have been either diluted or removed altogether. These codes seek to convert workers into slaves.
The Central government has enacted, in a most dubious manner, brazenly curtailing the rights of the Indian parliament, the three Farm Bills. The government violated all parliamentary norms and rules to enact these laws through deceit and disruption.
These new laws hand over Indian agriculture, our produce and our markets to foreign and domestic agribusiness corporations. This immensely benefits foreign and domestic corporates to reap super-profits, imposing misery both on the farmers and the people. The Minimum Support Price is sought to be gradually abolished. Though poorly implemented, the MSP did provide some security of income to the farmers. With the amendments to the Essential Commodities Act, the scope for large scale hoarding, creating artificial food scarcity leading to black marketeering and price rise, threatens the country and the people. The proposals for ‘land pooling’ and legalising the contract farming system with benefits to agribusinesses will completely destroy traditional farming. India’s food security is at stake.
These laws bypass elected state governments and are a serious undermining of federalism, a basic feature of our Constitution. Some opposition state governments have announced to enact their separate laws. Punjab has announced a three-year prison sentence to those buying below the MSP. Many opposition ruled states are moving towards rejecting these central Farm laws and enacting state level legislations. Punjab has passed laws concerning the MSP, and Rajasthan has announced that they are proceeding in this direction.
The LDF government in Kerala has decided to move a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court against the Farm laws as they violate state rights. The LDF government has taken various measures to further strengthen the agriculture sector and the security of farmers and those whose livelihood depends on land. Paddy cultivation has been incentivised by announcing procurement through cooperatives. A comprehensive programme called ‘Subhiksha Keralam’ was launched which comprehensively ensures every aspect of agriculture and allied sectors including fish farming. The LDF government has declared a minimum support price for 16 vegetables from November 2, 2020. This is the first time in the country when vegetables are being brought under the MSP. In order not to allow agriculture to be put at the mercy of the corporates, alternative set of policy instruments are being implemented. These include the protection of paddy land by giving monetary incentives to the farmers. A farmer’s welfare fund board has been created for payment of pensions to the farmers. These are all novel interventions in agriculture happening for the first time in the country. They outline a Left alternative in the times of this grave crisis for the peasantry and our people.
The most serious aspect is that the BJP Central government is utilizing the period of the Covid pandemic and the lockdown to advance the core RSS agenda of converting India into its conception of a rabidly intolerant fascistic Manuwadi `Hindutva Rashtra’.
This is clearly shown during the last one year by the following events: the abrogation of Article 370 and withdrawal of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir; the new Land Law permitting outsiders to purchase land and property in Jammu and Kashmir; the crackdown on countrywide agitations against the CAA-NPR-NRC; the Delhi communal riots incited by the RSS-BJP and the false incarceration of secular and minority activists in them; the incarceration of several intellectuals and human rights activists in the Bhima Koregaon case of attacks on Dalits, which were actually led by RSS men; authoritarian attacks on democratic rights and civil liberties and indiscriminate arrests under draconian laws like UAPA, NSA and Sedition, with a clear intention to criminalise all dissent; the Supreme Court verdicts on the Ram Temple and the Babri Masjid demolition case, which amount to a travesty of justice; the inordinate Supreme Court delay in taking up several key pending cases relating to Article 370, CAA-NRC-NPR, electoral bonds and so on; the laying of the foundation stone of the Ram temple at Ayodhya in the presence of the PM and the UP CM; the increasing horrific assaults on Dalits and women especially in UP, of which the Hathras case of gang rape and murder is the most heinous; the contempt case against senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan that reinforces intolerance and repression; the rampant attacks on several journalists critical of the government and on the other hand, the BJP rallying behind its stooge Arnab Goswami who has been implicated and arrested in an abetment to suicide case; the obnoxious handling of the Sushant Singh Rajput suicide case just to help the BJP election campaign in Bihar; the massive TRP scam involving the Godi media which are being protected to the hilt by the Modi regime; the letter written by the Maharashtra Governor to the Chief Minister rebuking him for upholding secularism; the rampant misuse of the CBI, ED, Income Tax and other central authorities to target the opposition; the thrust of the new education policy on commercialization, centralization and communalization; and the massive crony corporate corruption entailed in the electoral bonds and the PM Cares Fund.
Unfortunate border clashes took place between India and China a few months ago. 20 Indian soldiers were martyred in these clashes. It is necessary to solve the border issue through bilateral discussions. To contain China, the USA has cemented the QUAD – USA, Japan, Australia and India – military alliance. For the first time, the Quad is going to conduct joint military exercises. The first joint exercise is the Malabar 2020 naval exercise in order to show ‘shared will’ to work together on common security interests.
The Modi government is enthusiastically going ahead with the QUAD alliance, which will turn India into a junior military partner of the USA. During the last three decades of neo-liberal policies, successive central governments have already turned India into a junior economic partner of US imperialism.
OUR FUTURE TASKS
Almost all sections of the working class and the peasantry have been intensifying their protests and struggles against all the above policies of the Modi government. The countrywide programmes by the working class, kisan and agricultural workers organisations on August 9, September 5, September 23 and September 25 saw large mobilisations. On September 25, in many parts of the country, normal life was disrupted and a virtual bandh-like situation was created. Preparations are now on for the November 26 countrywide general strike and the November 26-27 Chalo Delhi call and simultaneous countrywide actions by farmers’ organisations. To make these actions embodying worker-peasant unity a historic success is one of the major immediate tasks before our AIKC meeting today.
The results of the Bihar state assembly elections will soon be declared. In December are the panchayat elections in Kerala which will be fought by an expanded LDF against both the Congress and the BJP. Within a few months are the crucial state assembly elections in Kerala, West Bengal, Tamilnadu and Assam. The AIKS has to prepare itself to be in the forefront of the Left-led electoral battle against the Congress and the BJP in Kerala; against the BJP and the TMC in West Bengal; against the BJP and the AIADMK in Tamilnadu; and against the BJP in Assam. Left and democratic forces must be strengthened in these states.
All over the country, we must redouble our efforts to expose and fight the neo-liberal, pro-corporate, anti-people, communal, casteist, authoritarian and fascistic nature of the BJP-RSS central government. We must spare no efforts to win the minds and the hearts of the peasantry and the people of India in favour of radical policy changes. We can do this only by vastly strengthening our struggles, our propaganda and our organisation in the days ahead.
Comrades, let us make the above three central political calls the calls of this AIKC meeting!
Long Live AIKS! Long Live Worker-Peasant Unity! Inquilab Zindabad!
