In this Issue
Enact the Women’s Reservation Bill without Further Delay
Once again, the debate over Women’s Reservation Bill has resurfaced, in the wake of the President’s speech promising to enact 33% quota for women in assemblies and parliament as well as 50% quota in panchayats. After 13 years of delays and vacillations, the women’s movement and progressive forces are naturally demanding that the Government and main ruling parties, who no longer have any excuse not to enact the Bill, walk their talk this time without any further delay.
The cacophony of misogynistic rhetoric voiced against the Bill since 1996, and revived this time around, has rightly invited outrage. However, let us set aside the anti-women baggage for a while, and re-examine the main case against the Bill, as articulated mainly by parties and leaders claiming to represent the dalits and OBCs. The crux of the debate is: will the Women’s Bill in its present form militate against OBC representation in parliament and benefit only elite, privileged women, and must it therefore include a quota within quota for OBC women, as a precondition for passing the Bill?
Does the women’s quota indeed represent a threat to political representation of oppressed and backward castes?
In the first place, we must note that provision has already been made, in the Bill, for 33% quota for women within the existing 22% SC/ST quota. So Mulayam Singh’s warning to the (dalit woman) Speaker in his parliamentary diatribe against the Bill, that the Bill, if enacted, would prevent her own entry into Parliament, is obviously baseless.
The question of quota within quota for OBC women is more complicated – mainly because of the fact that there is no existing OBC quota at any level in representative institutions. The question of OBC quota in assemblies and parliament is being brought up only in response to the Women’s Bill. Even in Bihar, where the state government headed by the JD(U) (the party of Sharad Yadav, the most vocal opponent of the Women’s Bill) has instituted 50% quota for women in panchayats, there is a quota within quota for women from SC/ST and Most Backward Castes (MBCs), not for OBCs as such.
OBC representation in assemblies and parliament has, by all accounts, increased significantly since the 1980s. If 33% seats are reserved for women, will it result in a decline in OBC representation? Won’t OBC women win seats which OBC men have been winning? No, say the opponents of the Bill – arguing that elite, educated, privileged women, usually upper caste women will steal a march over OBC women. The lion’s share of the benefits of women’s quota, they say, will accrue to the more privileged upper caste women.
This argument seems to be founded on a fallacy about the nature of electoral and political mechanisms. In reservation in general, it is true, where it is individuals who compete for limited seats – in jobs or education – it is the more privileged who are likely to corner the lion’s share. For instance, in the case of OBC quota, intended to correct the underrepresentation of OBCs in jobs and higher education, working class poor and women from these castes are less likely to avail benefits as compared to those from the same castes who are relatively more privileged educationally and economically. But the question arises: while OBCs continue to be underrepresented in jobs and higher education, necessitating the OBC quota, how come they are fairly well represented in parliament and many assemblies? Why has the upper caste domination in Indian politics been decisively broken, without any quota? The reason is that OBC political forces have ridden a wave of popular social mobilization that has asserted itself since the 1980s. Politics – including electoral politics – is all about contending social mobilizations, where the caliber and privileges of individual candidates is relatively secondary. This is the reason why a Phoolan Devi (the former bandit) won electoral battles even without any OBC quota. It is one matter that parties have been reluctant to field such women candidates, thus necessitating a women’s quota, but the example of Phoolan Devi suggests that when given a chance, OBC women have not fared worse than their male counterparts in electoral battles. The same social forces which benefited male OBC leaders has played in their favour too, and their lack of educational privilege has not come in the way of electoral success. The point is that politics is not a personality contest, and there is simply no reason why OBC women should fare badly in comparison with upper caste women once the Women’s Bill is brought into effect. Even the apprehension that OBC women might be denied tickets because they would be seen as less ‘winnable’ than more privileged women, doesn’t hold water. Winnability, in our electoral process, is decided less by individual privilege alone – and more by the position of candidate and party in the social balance of forces. It is this which is the biggest factor in parties’ decisions to field candidates. There is no reason why a party, in a constituency where their position in the social balance would favour an OBC candidate, would choose a non-OBC candidate in case the seat is reserved for women. Reservation for women would not alter the social balance of forces – it would only eliminate the aspect of gender discrimination from the social equation in that particular election.
Why is OBC quota proposed only in response to the Women’s Bill, while it is not seen as necessary in general? Opponents of the Bill retort that it is precisely to counter the threat of growing OBC assertion in politics that the upper caste dominated parties have embraced the Women’s Bill. Again, such an argument is based on a fallacious and superficial understanding of the basis of the increased OBC representation in politics. OBC political assertion reflects the growing assertion of an emergent kulak class in agrarian India. To reduce it to the assertion of the marginalised ‘backward castes’ alone would be to ignore that it also reflects the assertion of a powerful emergent landed class, which represents a more privileged layer within the backward castes, while, however, positioning itself as the voice of the genuine social aspirations of the backward castes as a whole. The ruling class including the dominant national ruling parties have, to a large extent, accommodated this kulak class and its political representatives, which have not proved in any way a hurdle to the economic and social policy thrust of other ruling class parties. The initial expectations from some quarters, that these parties would prove a hurdle to communal politics or to neoliberal economic policy have been badly belied. Tensions might remain between powerful ‘regional’ players and national formations, but the latter, while they might seek to replace the regional outfits, will do so by accommodating the OBC-kulak forces rather than by jettisoning them. Moreover, the Women’s Bill is highly unlikely to overturn the power of the agrarian kulak class in the balance of social forces. Rather, the same political logic and process that has benefited OBC male leaders is likely to benefit OBC women as well.
It is not our case that ‘OBC parties’ and leaders like Sharad Yadav or Mulayam are more anti-women than those from the Congress or BJP. Rather, they are pitting the OBC agenda against women, not simply because they are anti-women or even because they feel more threat from the Women’s Bill, but because they perceive a political benefit in flaunting purported concern for OBCs. Sharad Yadav, for instance, is clearly seeking to use the Women’s Bill issue as a timely tool in his bid to pose as OBC messiah and step into the shoes left vacant by the decline of Laloo Yadav. Today, in any case, there is no unity even in the camp of OBC leaders and parties, on the ‘quota within quota’ position. Nitish Kumar of the JD(U) has strategically chosen not to endorse his party colleague Sharad Yadav’s stand on the Women’s Bill. In Parliament, Mulayam Singh too said not a word about ‘quota within quota’ for OBC women, choosing instead to suggest the even weaker mechanism of a party-wise quota of 20% tickets to women candidates.
In his speech in Parliament, Mulayam Singh said that with 22% reserved for SC/STs, and 33% for women, there would be no space left for upper castes and backward castes. He said that leaders like Advani, Joshi, and others had reached the Lok Sabha through hard struggles, and the Women’s Bill would ‘destroy this leadership.’ He also employed the usual misogynistic spectre of women in parliament relegating men to domestic work, saying “those thumping tables today will tomorrow be left thumping mattresses at home,” and lamented the ‘state of affairs’ where women like Sonia, Mamata, Jayalalitha and Mayawati were calling the shots everywhere. Interestingly, these arguments were clearly targeted not just at OBCs but specifically at upper caste leaders (even naming them), and even more interestingly, his implication that women elected through quotas would not be the product of ‘hard struggles’ and would destroy able leadership, actually echoes the meritocratic arguments posed by protestors against OBC quotas. Clearly, be it Sharad Yadav or Mulayam, the arguments against the Bill are not just emanating from ‘concern for OBC representation’, but rather these leaders have complex and distinct motivations that necessitated different articulations and emphases at different political junctures.
We do not oppose a ‘quota within quota’ on principle, nor do we reject it on the spurious argument that ‘women’ are an undifferentiated category uninflected by caste and class. In fact, it would be our greatest concern that women from oppressed castes and classes get their share of representation. What are objectionable are the attempts to use the OBC issue as a smokescreen to stall the Women’s Bill. The need of the hour now is to pass the Women’s Bill in its present form without a moment’s further delay. If indeed experience reveals that women’s reservation is resulting in any appreciable decline in OBC representation, OBC quota in assemblies and parliament, in general as well as within the women’s quota, can be accommodated through amendment.
Cyclone Relief Work by RYA & AISA
Activists of Revolutionary Youth Association (RYA) from the districts of North 24-Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly, accompanied by doctors from People's Health and activists of All India Students’ Association (AISA) went to Sahebkhali in the Sunderbans on 10th June with relief materials for the cyclone affected people. We had heard that Sahebkhali, which stands on the border of the two 24-Parganas, was hit hard by cyclone Aila, but that its people are yet to receive adequate aid. We took a motorboat (4 hours journey) on the river Ichamati, which runs between India and Bangladesh. As we travelled along Bengal's Durand Line, we witnessed the stark contrast between the embankments on the two shores. While there were sturdy, broad concrete embankments on Bangladesh territory, on which even motor vehicles could ply, the embankments on the Indian side were fragile, mud structures.
As we reached Sahebkhali, the nature and magnitude of the tragedy dawned on us. With villages flooded by water 5 feet deep, people are staying on thin strips of embankment, without water or medicines. Many of the people were indisposed. As we embarked on a stretch of embankment, people flocked to our doctors for treatment. We visited a few other places to distribute relief materials and witnessed how people's lives were devastated by a joint enterprise of nature and government apathy. Funds meant for maintenance of the embankments had disappeared. Mindless destruction of mangrove forests robbed people of all protection from nature's fury. In spite of the cyclone having been forecasted well in advance, there was complete failure on the part of the WB State Government in evacuating and rescuing people. The government is silent on the issue of alternative livelihoods for people who have lost everything they owned. Besides arranging for immediate relief to the affected people, it is necessary to secure the embankments and rehabilitate displaced people through Valamiki Avas Yojana or Indira Avas Yojana. The government needs to be pressurised to develop mechanisms that facilitate immediate evacuation and relief in the event of a natural disaster. Such mechanisms are not unheard of. It is by meticulously maintaining precisely such mechanisms that Cuba has managed to minimize human suffering in consecutive hurricanes. In order to play a part in preventing such devastation and suffering in the future, there is a need to educate the people to perceive the disaster through the prism of political-administrative failure instead of it as a natural calamity and restricting ourselves to a humanitarian role post calamity.
AIALA Convention in Dharmapuri
Convention demanding 2 acres land, 5 cents house-stead, 200 days work and Rs.200/day wage in NREGA was held by All India Agricultural Labourers’ Association (AIALA) at Dharmapuri in Tamil Nadu on 15th June. Dozens of rural poor participated in the convention and 95 percent of them were women. Com. Balasundaram, State Secretary of the Party, came down heavily upon the CM-in-the-making, Mr. Stalin, the Dy. CM, for being lavish in allocating lands for the corporate sector in the name of development and who is now absolutely silent about the promises of his government on 2 acres land to the rural poor. Com. Balasundaram said future belongs only to the revolutionary communist party, and called upon the rural poor to rebuild communist movement in the district which has rich communist tradition.
The proceedings of the convention were conducted by Com. Ramakrishnan, AIALA dist organizer. AIALA State General Secretary Com. Janakiraman, AIPWA state leaders comrades Thenmozhi and Usha also addressed the gathering. State Committee Members Ilangovan and Chandramohan also participated in the convention.
Movements and Agitations in Chhatishgarh
CPI(ML) and Safai Kamgar Union (sanitary workers’ union, affiliated to the AICCTU) jointly held a dharna at the Commissioner’s office in Bhilai on 6th June with several demands pertaining to the livelihood and working condition of the sanitary workers working for the Bhilai Municipal Council. A memorandum was handed over to the Commissioner asking him to ensure proper wages, safe and dignified working condition such as providing raincoats and gumboots for the sanitary workers, housing, education for their children, medical facilities and an weekly off on Sunday be granted to them. About four hundred people attended the dharna. The workers from Durg Municipal Council, Kumhari Municipality and Bhilai Steel Plant also attended this dharna. The dharna was led and addressed by comrades Brijendra Tiwari, Shyamlal Sahu, Ashok, Rekha, Jayprakash Nayar, Adalat Ali, Manglu and Keshav among others.
Previously a rally of Durg’s rickshaw sanitary workers was held on on 22nd May and a memorandum with their demands was handed over to the Dy. Commissioner of Durg. The memorandum demanded the statutory minimum wage to be ensured and recorded in the master roll. The sanitary workers went on strike on 6th June when the contractor continued to pay them the depressed wages despite Dy. Commissioner’s assurances that things will be improved. The struggle is on.
The Party State Committee is also engaged in freeing up illegally occupied agricultural land from Sona Breweries of Raipur. The land in question is situated at village Gorhi. The company had bought the 50 acres of agricultural land and started constructing there a factory for manufacturing beer. Also, it illegally occupied 10 acres of revenue land belonging to the Gram Sabha (village conference) and started constructing road connecting the factory to the main roads. The sarpanch, and other panchayat members have done foul play in allotting the land to the company. It is clearly mentioned in the Panchayat Act that the Gram Sabha needs to be taken into confidence before taking such important decisions. The situation has become quite tensed in the 20 villages near Gorhi as those opposing this unconstitutional and grossly illegal act are being threatened of dire consequences by the company goons. Many people have been slapped with false cases against them by the company.
With the demand to stop construction on the said sites, a thorough investigation and stringent legal action against the company, punishable action against the Gram Panchayat officials for deliberately ignoring the Gram Sabha and providing full security to the villagers, more than thousand people demonstrated at the District Magistrate’s office and presented him their demands. A memorandum was also given to the Supdt. of Police. At the moment the construction activity is stopped.
Punjab Update
As part of State-wide protests in Punjab on 9th June a rally was held in Noormehal where by-elections were scheduled on 12th June, 2009. Deputy Chief Minsiter Sukhbir Badal invited CPI(ML) Liberation's State leader Comrade Tarsem Jodhan for a meeting but nothing concrete came out of this meeting. On 8th June the Punjab and Haryana High Court taking notice of the writ petition filed by CPI(ML) Liberation directed the Punjab Home Secretary to present a concrete report of attacks by Police on labourers. Meanwhile the SDM rejected the bail application of our senior leaders. Though the Govt. under pressure released the labourers but leaders are still behind bars. Revolutionary Youth Association's activists burned effigy of Chief Minister in Machiwara Distt Ludhiana on 11th June which was widely published in Media. RYA's Chandigarh unit has started a postcard signature campain and fund collection drive in University and engineering colleges and major market places. These protest postcards will be sent to Prime Minister of India demanding unconditional and immediate release of leaders and fulfilment of genuine demands of rural labourers. A meeting of extended state leadership was held on 13th June and following decisions were taken: (1). From 15th - 30th June a state wide effigy-burning of Badal Govt. specially in areas of rural Malwa where the struggle is going on. (2). A state level convention to be held in Bathinda on 20th June. Many intellectuals, Left and democratic forces have confirmed their participation for the convention. (3). National Executive meet of AIALA on 23rd - 24th July in Chandigarh. On this occasion there will be huge mobilization in Chandigarh on 23rd July. Com. Prem Singh Gahlawat, national leader of All India Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (AIKSS), also visited Punjab from 14th to 17th June. He met State leaders in Gurdaspur, Nabha and Ludhiana jails.
UPA Govt Proposes Political Policing of Cyberspace
(Among the first footfalls of intensified assault on civil liberties by the UPA Govt in its second term is s proposal to police dissident websites and intercept emails. Excerpts from an article by Sevanti Ninan published in The Hindu, June 16 below. Ed/-)
The controversial Mr. A. Raja also presides over the lawmaking which governs the use of the Internet in India. Last year, a few weeks after the Mumbai attacks in November, a Bill which had been sitting around in a Standing Committee since 2006 was hastily passed, without much debate in parliament. The Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008 seeks to give teeth to existing laws on information technology and cyberspace. Last month, shortly before Mr. Raja began his second stint, the Department of IT posted on the Internet the results of its labours in drafting rules for this Act. Here, then, is an idiot’s guide to what Mr. Raja and his men are proposing to do, in the name of national security, safe Internet use, and suchlike.
a) Intercept email, under Section 69 of the Act
b) Block websites and web content, under Section 69A
What can be the basis for a request to block? The Sovereignty or Integrity of India, the Defence of India, the Security of the State, Friendly Relations with Foreign States, Public order, and, for “preventing incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to above.” Apart from the fact that all of the above are open to interpretation, do note the “preventing incitement” bit. In case somebody thinks you might provoke someone to do something, they can block your website.
What about a right to be heard before the blocking? There is none. The job of Secretary, Department of Information Technology, suddenly becomes a pivotal one in the matter of freedom of expression. He has the final say in any blocking.
Review of the decision? A committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary, GOI, needs to meet at least once in two months for that. As an Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) official said at a recent meeting when questioned about the inordinately long time taken for a review, “Bahut cases hote, saab. Cabinet Secretary khali nahin baithe hota.” His point was that overall there is a four-level scrutiny, and that so far blocking of web pages or sites has been very rare indeed, three to four cases in the last five years.
c) Monitor and collect traffic data relating to a website, in the name of ensuring cyber security, and foiling cyber security incidents. Under Section 69B.
d) Set up an Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), whose constituency “shall be the Indian cyber community”, under Section 70B (1).
If you plough through all the citizen-friendly sounding stuff that this team is supposed to do, you will hit upon this clause: “For carrying out its functions prescribed in section 70 (B) of the Act, CERT-IN may seek information and give directions for compliance to the service providers, intermediaries, data centres, body corporate and any other person, as may be necessary.” This innocuous body can order your service provider to cough up any data it wants. And what level of officer can do this? Any officer of CERT-IN, not below the rank of Deputy Secretary to the Government of India. Again, the defence is that this clause only relates to cyber security. The rules empowering CERT-IN are drafted by the organisation itself. Talk of giving yourself powers because you are making the rules!
A fight to oppose the extraordinary powers Mr. Raja’s ministry is arming itself with, protect privacy, and prevent web content blocking without a prior right to be heard is urgently called for.
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