Millions Lose Savings in Chit Fund Scam : Bengal Erupts Against Trinamool Congress-Saradha Nexus
On 15th April, the Bengali New Year day, a strange drama was being played out on television sets across West Bengal. Anchors and technicians of Tara Music, a popular music channel, were putting up a tear-soaked show funded all by themselves. The channel owners had decided to shut shop. Little did people realize that, this was signaling towards one of the biggest financial scams that the state has seen in recent times. Closing of Tara Music along with a host of other print and television media houses meant that Saradha Realty, the Ponzi scheme company behind this vast media empire, had collapsed. For millions of urban and rural poor, this meant losing their life's hard-earned savings. Now they are angry and desolate. Five people have taken their lives. A financial scam has turned into a veritable social crisis.
Protests spread rapidly after the news came. Angry depositors and agents vandalized Saradha offices across the state. At many places they pitched themselves against local Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders, who were known to be close to Saradha Realty. People everywhere demanded that the State Government bring the swindlers to book. Even after Sudipto Sen, the absconding owner of Saradha Realty, along with two of his associates, was arrested from Kashmir, the protests have continued, demanding that the government take stern action against its own ministers and MPs involved in the scam.
It is now clear that the TMC and Sen were in a symbiotic relationship. The print and television media funded by him was avowedly pro-government. Kunal Ghosh, a Rajya Sabha member of the TMC, was CEO of that media-empire. Madan Mitra, the state transport minister, doubled up as President of Saradha's agents' union. Satabdi Roy, another MP, was the brand ambassador. Many Trinamool leaders were on the Saradha payroll, drawing fat paychecks. It has been revealed that Saradha had sponsored the ambulances and cycles that were distributed in Jungle Mahal last year. Allegedly, Sen bought a painting by Mamata Banerjee, for a whopping sum of 1.86 crore rupees! Sen himself has claimed that as many as 22 TMC leaders were involved. Among them, Kunal Ghosh and Srinjoy Bose are two Rajya Sabha MPs whose arrests are being demanded very strongly. But all this patronage also meant that Sen could work without hassle and Saradha's proximity to the ruling disposition ensured that depositors felt secure.
Mamata Banerjee tried to downplay the incident at first, terming all protesters as CPI(M) agents and marking the affair as another conspiracy against her government. She also tried feigning ignorance about the looming chit fund menace in the state, but this story does not hold water as her own party MP had written to the Prime Minister raising an alarm on this issue. As public pressure grew, Mamata Banerjee hastily promised to pass an ordinance in the state assembly which she claimed, would empower the state government against Saradha-like schemes. This measure commands little credibility, as Sen cannot be tried under this proposed new ordinance. But even more than her dilly-dallying as the Chief Minister of the state, her desperate attempts to shield the culprits within her party and government is what has really put Mamata Banerjee in the dock.
The entire political opposition in West Bengal is understandably on the streets, but neither the CPI(M) nor the Congress can wash their hands off the affair. A Congress leader and Union Minister for State, Abu Hasem Khan Choudhury from Malda, had complained against Saradha group to the PM, only to withdraw his complaint and give it a certificate of sterling service a few weeks later. Nalini Chidambaram, wife of Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, among others, looked after the legal affairs of the group.
Sen's meteoric rise took place when the Left Front was in power. It has been alleged that Sen acquired thousands of acres of land in Bishnupur in the district of Bankura in direct connivance with local CPI(M) leaders. A Bill to act against irregularities of chit funds was first proposed in 2003 but it apparently took six years to send it for the President's approval. Then the whole process went into a stalemate. Both the Tarun Gogoi government in Assam and the Manik Sarkar government in Tripura have been alleged to be complicit in Saradha's operations in their respective states.
The scam is bound to leave a deep and lasting dent on the TMC's image. Those affected by the scam are typically pro-TMC, and the growing anger and mistrust of the people with corrupt Trinamool leaders has given a serious blow to the Trinamool support base among rural and urban poor. The scam may well make Mamata as vulnerable to Congress manipulations (through CBI) as Mulayam and Mayawati.
Going beyond immediacy, this incident shows how vulnerable the downtrodden people are to Saradha-like shady financial institutions which promise them a better return on their hard-earned savings. Saradha is only the tip of the iceberg. An estimated 15000 crore (more than half the annual state budget!) industry of chit funds with dubious track records are operational in West Bengal. One can only imagine the chaos at the collapse of this industry. It's not hard to understand how things have come to such a pass. With banking facilities shrinking for the poor, even small-scale saving schemes are systematically being made defunct. While demanding a ban on irregular financial institutions, it is important to stress that only by strengthening and spreading our banking system and small savings schemes for the rural and urban poor can necessary objective conditions be built to prevent proliferation of future Saradhas. The rise of chit funds has meant diversion of potential savings away from small savings schemes of the government, a key reason why the government has to resort to market borrowings in a big way. The rise of Saradha and growing indebtedness of the WB government are two sides of the same coin.
We demand a CBI probe under supervision of a serving Judge of the Supreme Court, to unearth the truth behind the entire scam. The Trinamool leaders accused in the scam should immediately be sacked from public office, and put behind bars. The seething anger on the street must not go in vain.
Working Class Struggles: Defying Assassination and Repression
May Day commemorates the historic struggles for workers' rights and the legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs of 1886. In May 2013, the legacy of the Haymarket Martyrs continues to be most relevant and alive with meaning – as India's workers fight courageous battles defying repression and assassination in different parts of the country. To commemorate May Day 2013, we begin by revisiting the memory of the Haymarket Martyrs. We also pay tribute to Com. Gangaram Koal, AICCTU tea garden leader martyred in Assam on 25 March 2013, and bring you updates on workers' struggles in the Delhi-NCR region, especially the NOIDA workers who have been arrested during the All-India Strike and have since been in jail.
May Day and the Haymarket Martyrs
W.T. Whitney, Jr.
The following account was written for and distributed at a May Day event in Maine, USA. The translations from the Spanish are by W.T. Whitney, Jr. Courtesy http://www.laborstandard.org/Vol1No3/MayDay.htm
On May 1, 1886, Albert Parsons, head of the Chicago Knights of Labor in the USA, led 80,000 people through the city’s streets in support of the eight-hour day. In the next few days they were joined nationwide by 350,000 workers who went on strike at 1,200 factories, including 70,000 in Chicago.
On May 3, August Spies, editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers Newspaper), spoke at a meeting of 6,000 workers, and afterwards many of them moved down the street to harass scabs (strike-breakers) at the McCormick plant. The police arrived, opened fire, and killed four people, wounding many more.
On May 4, Spies, Parsons, and Samuel Fielden were speaking at a rally of 2,500 people held to protest the police massacre when 180 police officers arrived, led by the Chicago police chief. While he was calling for the meeting to disperse a bomb exploded, killing one policeman. The police retaliated, killing seven of their own in the crossfire, plus four others; almost two hundred were wounded. The identity of the bomb thrower remains unknown.
On June 21, 1886, eight labor leaders, including Spies, Fielden, and Parsons went on trial, charged with responsibility for the bombing. The trial was rife with lies and contradictions, and the state prosecutor appealed to the jury: “convict these men, make an example of them, hang them, and you save our institutions.”
Even though only two were present at the time of the bombing (Parsons had gone to a nearby tavern), seven were sentenced to die, one to fifteen years imprisonment. The Chicago bar condemned the trial, and several years later Governor John P. Altgeld pardoned all eight, releasing the three survivors (two of them had had their sentences reduced from hanging to life imprisonment).
On November 11, 1886, four anarchist leaders were hanged; Louis Lingg had committed suicide hours before. Two hundred thousand people took part in the funeral procession, either lining the streets or marching behind the hearses.
Unfortunately, the events surrounding the execution of the Haymarket martyrs fueled the stereotype of radical activists as alien and violent, thereby contributing to ongoing repression.
Over the years the remains of many deceased or martyred radicals, among them Emma Goldman, Bill Hayward, and Joe Hill, were deposited at the Haymarket Monument in Chicago, where seven of the eight men on trial lie buried. Ever since that time, in almost every country except one (ironically, the USA) May 1 has been honored as International Workers Day.
The internationalization of the Haymarket legacy was apparent two days after the hangings when José Martí, leader of Cuba’s struggle for independence from Spain, who was then living in exile in New York, wrote a detailed, emotion-filled report of the events leading up to the executions. Full of analysis, his article entitled “A Terrible Drama” appeared on January 1, 1888, in the Argentine paper La Nación, published in Buenos Aires. Early on in his piece he notes:
“Frightened by the growing power of the plain people, by the sudden coming together of the working masses (previously held back by the rivalries of their leaders), by the demarcation of two classes within the population — the privileged and the discontented (the latter a thorn in the side of European high society) — the republic determined to defend itself with a tacit covenant, a complicity whereby criminal action is triggered by the authorities’ misdeeds as much as by the fanaticism of the accused, in order to use their example to terrify — not by means of pain directly visited upon the rabble, but by the fearsome revival of the hangman’s hood.”
At the end of his long article José Martí quoted from the Arbeiter-Zeitung issued on the day of the executions:
“We have lost a battle, unhappy friends, but we will see in the end an ordered world that conforms to justice: we will be wise like the serpent and quiet like the dove.”
In our own time the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano has commented on “A Terrible Drama” (in his Memories of Fire, vol. II):
“The scaffold awaited them. They were five, but Lingg got up early for death, exploding a dynamite cap between his teeth. Fischer was seen unhurriedly humming the ‘Marseillaise.’ Parsons, the agitator who used the word like a whip or a knife, grasps the hands of his comrades before the guards tie his own behind his back. Engel, famous for his sharp wit, asks for port wine and then makes them all laugh with a joke. Spies, who so often wrote about anarchism as the entrance into life, prepares himself in silence to enter into death.
“The spectators in the orchestra of the theater fix their view on the scaffold — a sign, a noise, the trap door gives way, now they die, in a horrible dance, twisting in the air. [Here he quotes Martí.]
“José Martí wrote the story of the execution of the anarchists in Chicago. The working class of the world will bring them back to life every first of May. That was still unknown, but Martí always writes as if he is listening for the cry of a newborn where it is least expected.”
Repression on Workers Continues in Noida
April 25: March to Noida
Hundreds of workers, youths, students, women, trade union activists and CPI(ML) members marched in Noida and held a protest demonstration at the Noida DM’s office shouting slogans decrying the terror witch-hunt against the workers and trade union leaders that is ever-going since the successful two-day national general strike of 20-21 February, 2013, demanding immediate and unconditional release of all the jailed workers, and strict action against all the officials who have led this blatant and unlawful mass arrest of workers and trade union leaders aimed at threatening the working class of NCR region against any form of protest against capitalist exploitation, at the behest of industrialist lobby.
Ever since the national general strike in February, the Noida administration has been persistently going after workers to subdue and suppress any grievance the working class has against its intense exploitation and utterly terrible working and living conditions. There has been a really palpable sense of fear among the workers in Noida and the April 25 call to protest right at the DM’s office was meant to clear the atmosphere of terror and arouse confidence amongst the workers, which the programme certainly did. After the protest demonstration a memorandum was also handed over.
The march was led by Party’s Delhi State Secretary Comrade Sanjay Sharma and AICCTU leaders apart from youth and student leaders. Several leaders made speeches at the protest venue calling upon working class solidarity to defend workers’ rights and livelihood and resist and repel every form of repression being carried out by capital and a complicit government and administration.
Nationwide Protest Programmes by AIPWA against Rapes and Assaults on Women
The All-India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA) held protest programmes at several places across the Country on 22nd April to condemn spiralling incidents of rapes and assaults on women and to demand concrete action for urgently saving children and women from becoming brutal victims of these crimes being committed with greater impunity.
At the time of going to press, reports of programmes have come only from few places; rest will be published in the next issue. In Vijaywada a human chain was formed that blockaded traffic for an hour and an effigy was burnt. Similar programmes with effigy burning were held at several districts in Andhra Pradesh including Vissanapeta of Krishna district, Ananthpur town, and Kakinada, Prathipadu, Yeleswaram in East Godavari district. AIPWA leaders led and addressed the protest demonstrartions.
As Unions Around the World Prepared to Commemorate The International May Day, Hundreds of Bangladeshi Garment workers Died in Factory Collapse
As Many as 1,000 Workers May Have Been Killed
There are fears as many as 1,000 people may have died in a building collapse that is now Bangladesh's worst ever industrial accident. At least 377 people, mainly female workers, are confirmed to have died, and more than 1,000 were injured, when the Rana Plaza factory building in Savar, that housed several garment units with over 3000 workers, collapsed on Wednesday, 24 April. Hundreds of people are still missing. Rescuers are still crawling through the rubble, hoping to find anyone who has managed to survive so long, but nearly all the people being carried out now are dead.
The disaster sparked a mass rally by garment workers, who clashed with police. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the angry crowds as the workers, some armed with bamboo sticks, blockaded roads and attacked factories in the textile hub of Gazipur. Rescuers said at least half of those still inside the collapsed building were women and children, and the building also housed a crèche on its 7th floor.
Survivors said the building developed visible cracks on Tuesday evening, but factory bosses had demanded staff return to the production lines despite a police evacuation order. "We were working inside the building when it collapsed," one survivor said. "I was still working, I could not understand what happened, my co-worker told me why are you sitting here? Run run. Before I could reach the exit the building collapsed." The collapse of the multi-storey building is the worst industrial accident in the country's history and the latest in a spate of tragedies in the "Made in Bangladesh" clothing sector.
During the long search, the owner Rana was missing. Local media reported he left his basement office in Rana Plaza just before the collapse, drove away and dropped from sight. He was arrested Sunday as he tried to cross the border into India. For years, though, Rana had sat at the nexus of party politics and the powerful $20 billion garment industry that drives the economy of this deeply impoverished nation.
While Rana is currently a leader of the youth group of the ruling Awami League, he has also worked for that party's archrival, the Bangladesh National Party. This intersection of politics and business, combined with a minimum wage of $9.50 a week that has made Bangladesh the go-to nation for many of the world's largest clothing brands, has made dangerous factory conditions almost normal.
Labour activists had called for improved safety standards after a November 2012 garment factory fire in the same suburb, when locked emergency exits trapped hundreds of workers inside and 112 people died. But almost nothing has changed.
The largest factory in the stricken complex, New Wave Style, lists international retailers such as Benetton among its clients. British low-cost fashion line Primark and Spanish giant Mango have so far acknowledged having products made in the collapsed factory bloc, while a host of brands including Wal-Mart and France's Carrefour are investigating.
Hundreds of thousands of Bangladeshi workers walked out of their factories in solidarity with their dead colleagues on Thursday as flags flew at half mast and a national day of mourning was held.
The National Garment Workers' Federation called on major international buyers to be held to account. "This negligence must stop. The deaths of these workers could have been avoided if multinational corporations, governments and factory owners took workers' protection seriously," NGWF president Amirul Haque Amin said in a statement.
Around 4,500 Bangladeshi factories produce clothes for many of the world's major brands, employing 4 million workers and generating 80 per cent of Bangladesh's $US24 billion annual exports, making it the world's second-largest apparel exporter behind China with wages as low as $37 a month for some workers toiling for 10 to 15 hours a day, in unsanitary and unsafe working conditions.
CPI(ML) dips its flag to mourn the massive loss of innocent lives due to criminal apathy of govts and capitalists towards the lives of working class and shares the grief of all those who have lost their near and dear ones and resolves to intensify struggles to ensure safe working conditions and punish all such criminals.
