1) Minutes: Subcontinental Upheaval Meeting December 2009
Subcontinental Upheaval No.1 – Notes of December 2009 Meeting
1) Organisational Issues
We agreed on dividing up work on checking internet sources and write a two-weekly or monthly summary / reading suggestions for the list. Z. volunteered to read Sanhati list, M. will follow up the publications in Economic Political Weekly.
We want to get in touch with South Asia Solidarity (P.) and see what kind of work they are involved with at the moment. We should also get in touch with the Southall Black Sisters Organisation (http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/), Bengali Workers Association, Indian Workers Association and people involved in the journal Lalkar (http://www.lalkar.org/index.php), which defines itself as a anti-imperialist newspaper of Indian Communists in Britain, and so could be a very good resource for opening up our meetings to more people. The flyer announcing the next meeting should be handed out in a coordinated effort.
Preliminary date for the next meeting is Sunday 17th of January 2010 at 12:00 (LARC).
2) Debate
We summarized a text on ‘crisis in India’:
http://gurgaonworkersnews.wordpress.com/gurgaonworkersnews-no916/
We then discussed some developments since the onset of the crisis. T. introduced their project of creating a ‘spacial time-line’ of the global crisis and emphasised that in the moment of crisis we can see social connections/relations which are normally hidden by smooth capitalist business, e.g. the impact of Dubai crisis, the subsequent shift in labour migration and remittance payments affecting the rural areas of the subcontinent. We mentioned an article on ‘stranded’ South Asian workers in Dubai (T.) (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-dark-side-of-dubai_b_183851.html). Z. mentioned the relation between strikes at Kolkata Haldia docks and the struggle in Nandigram as an example how rural-urban working class struggles are interrelated:
http://sanhati.com/workersnews/
We asked ourselves whether the current food price inflation in India (50 per cent price increase for pulses, nearly 100 per cent for potatoes), the price increase for Delhi bus fares can be generalised as effects of the global crisis – given that e.g. public transport fares went up in various parts of the globe simultaneously.
In this context we asked whether current mass protests of sugar cane farmers in Delhi and traders in Delhi are a genuine expression of social tension or rather a political mobilisation by parties like the BJP. The small traders demonstrated against general price increase – which reduced their profits as middlemen – while the sugarcane farmers demanded higher guaranteed minimum prices. (In this context, it might be useful for us in future meetings to investigate what strata of the population certain political parties bank on)
One way to respond to the pressure to reduce costs might be further re-location of industry within India. We looked at the examples of re-location of industrial textile work from Bombay mills to smaller work-shops (for a history of this see: www.heptanesia.net/documents/phoenix.pdf ) and asked ourselves if there is a possibility that e.g. call centres would go a similar way: away from high cost locations like Gurgaon and Bangalore towards the small cities and countryside. What would be preconditions for labour force supply for that kind of work, e.g. language wise and in terms of general attractions for labour force, such as ‘university infrastructure’ for young professionals? In that regard we mentioned the work of Jan Breman on rural and informal labour:
In this context of re-structuring we asked whether the current crisis in the tea gardens in Bengal and the North East (news on starvation deaths) is related: global tea price developments and down-sizing and sub-contracting of tea estates.
http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/dbman/db.cgi?db=default&uid=default&ID=6344&view_records=1&en=1
Of course there is the danger that with the crisis the difference of situation of unemployed/employed or local/migrant workers will be used for creating divisions. As examples we mentioned the conflict in Chengara where ‘landless land squatters’ where attacked by union and company goons.
http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/node/37569
http://infochangeindia.org/Agenda/Reporting-conflict/A-skewed-definition-of-balance.html
Therefore the question will be how there can exist a joined struggle of rural/urban workers based on self-activity rather than institutional membership. As examples for debate we mentioned the activity of Shankar Guha Niyogi in Chattisgarh.
http://www.pudr.org/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=78
www.doccentre.net/JVA/His_Work.pdf
3) Presentations for next meeting
We agreed to work on following questions for the next meeting. We see them in the context of rural unrest and the two main answers of the state: control of proletarian reproduction and mobility through ‘work-fare’ and military measures:
a) What is the situation of ‘Operation Green Hunt’, what does the army actually do – do they engage in ‘army-to-army’ fights with the Maoists or do they act as forces of ‘social policing’ in a volatile region? (P.)
b) What is the development of struggles in Lalgarh – and what are it’s material fundaments in terms of land distribution and proletarian conditions? (Z.)
c) What kind of struggles and developments emerge from the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act? Is there a potential for generalised struggle because of the state as a general employer or will the state focus be able to diffuse content into ‘political channels’? (M.)
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