During her tour of three districts of Marathwada which are reeling under a severe drought, former Rajya Sabha and CPI(M)’s politbureau member, Brinda Karat found the Maharashtra government’s relief schemes woefully inadequate and the local administration lethargic. The result: Agricultural labourers as well as kisans (famers) are in deep distress.

Highlights of her findings:

• The publicised relief measures are in reality either non-existent or highly adequate.
• The government’s promise of providing 150 days of work under MGNREGA is just that: an empty promise.
• In one of the villages Karat visited, labourers had not been paid for 6 weeks. This in effect is pushing them into a debt trap.
• The acute drought has made the soil hard and stony. Because of the unrealistic schedule of rates, though the daily wages are pegged at Rs. 191 per day, no labourer is able to earn more than Rs. 125.
• With successive drought years, farmers are heavily in debt. Already in the first 100 days of the current year, 320 farmers have committed suicide. A majority of the farmers have yet to receive compensation for crop loss for the previous year. Instead of relief from government, farmers are receiving notices from banks adding to their trauma and despair.
• With water and fodder in short supply, desperate farmers have to sell off their cattle at half the price.
• Despite the publicity of water being supplied to villages by the administration, most of the water requirement is being met through private parties who are reaping huge profits.

In a memorandum submitted to the commissioner, Aurangabad, Karat has pointed to some urgent remedial measures. Here is the full text of her memorandum:
 
The Commissioner,
Aurangabad Division
 
Dear Shri Dangat ji,

The Kisan Sabha is holding a campaign on the issues of acute agrarian distress in the Marathwada region. As part of the campaign I had been to a number of villages, cattle fairs, cattle shelters and met approximately 200 kisans and agricultural and MNREGA workers from around  15-20 villages from the districts of Aurangabad, Beed and Jalna.

The Kisan Sabha will undoubtedly give you a comprehensive charter of demands in the coming days. Meanwhile, I would like to draw your urgent attention to the following issues. These are only related to the immediate short term issues which obviously have to be within the framework of a long term plan to deal with water scarcity, water conservation, forestry, etc:

1. The declared government schemes are not seen on the ground in large parts of the area and where they are in operation they are inadequate. The depth of the distress requires administrative measures in a mission mode to bring relief. Unfortunately this is not the case as the following examples show:

2. MGNREGA: I was told by the collector of Beed district that the number of workers on MGNREGA sites has increased from 10,000 to 55,000. However, in all the villages I had reports from there was no work available, not even for the large number of cane cutting migrant workers who have returned to their villages and are desperately looking for work. The government promise of providing 150 days of work is a mockery in the face of this reality.

Even assuming that the official records are all of real workers and not substantially "ghost" workers, as is being alleged by many of the workers seeking work, it is clearly inadequate. With no agricultural work available, the importance of MGNREGA cannot be overemphasised. I believe this requires much greater attention and monitoring to provide work on demand as mandated by the law. 

3. I met MGNREGA workers at the worksite in village Takarwan. They were wearing black ribbons on their wrists as a sign of protest since they have not been paid a single paisa since the work on the project started one and a half months ago. When I checked with the collector, he said that the funds were slow in coming but that it would be done shortly.

It is extreme callousness that in times of such distress wages for work completed are not paid forcing the workers into debt. This is an example of government created and driven debt. I would request you to ensure immediate payment as per the law.

4. The other critical issue on MGNREGA is the current schedule of rates. The soil has turned hard and stony. Yet the work norms are so high as to be impossible for any worker to fulfill. I was informed by the women workers that they have to dig and lift approximately 5,000 kilos of mud a day to reach the work norm for a minimum wage. This is the extent of the cruelty of the government to deprive the workers of the minimum wage. 

It is no surprise therefore that according to the measurement of work done, not a single worker is eligible for the full wage of Rs 191 but the average works out to around Rs 125. It is urgently required to ensure payment of the full wage and reduction of the SORs.

5. As far as kisans are concerned the urgent issue is that of immediate debt relief. Instead, banks are sending notices leading to further trauma and distress. As it is in this region till mid-April, the suicides this year are as high as 320.

Fruit growing kisans such as orange farmers stated that they have had to cut and burn their dried up trees for lack of water. In Beed district it was said that the compensation for crop loss of last year has still not been received by the vast majority of kisans. This again shows the absence of sensitivity on behalf of the government. It is essential to ensure debt relief as well as crop compensation on a war footing.

6. Distress sale of animals is a critical issue driven by debt as well as by the huge expenditure required to maintain the animals with no water availability and no fodder. In the cattle fair at Pachod in Paitha tehsil, Aurangabad, kisans were selling a pair of bullocks priced at Rs 70,000 for just Rs. 30,000-35,000. This is linked to the failure to provide water and cheap fodder.

There are two issues which need to be dealt with urgently. Firstly, the scheme for cattle shelters if implemented properly can be of great help. But these are far too inadequate in number. Also the government must directly run these shelters instead of handing them over to societies which are not being paid in time leading to further problems. Secondly, the amount of assistance does not cover the actual cost of maintaining the animal.

It was shocking to hear that of the amount of Rs 70 rupees to be disbursed per animal pay day,  Rs 8 was being cut by government for the projected price of the manure from each animal per day. This is perhaps the most bizarre approach which depicts the callousness of the government and should be removed and adequate expenditure provided.

7. While the government has publicised its efforts to provide water, in the areas I had visited the main supplies were provided by private  water companies. There were reports of a nexus between government suppliers and private companies.  In any case, it is a fact that the private water companies are making windfall profits, exploiting the desperate need of the people for minimum supplies of water which the government has utterly failed to provide, leaving the field open for private suppliers. There is no regulation or control over the prices being charged. This is an urgent issue which needs to be addressed by the administration.

These are a few of the issues which I wanted to bring to your attention. The deep distress is the region demands a much more comprehensive and mission approach which is sadly lacking.

Yours sincerely,
Brinda Karat

(Along with  colleagues in the Kisan Sabha and CPI(M) including comrades PS Ghadge,  Bhausaheb Zhirpe, B Potbhare and B Bhumbe).

The post Government Insensitivity Amidst Acute Distress in Marathwada appeared first on SabrangIndia.

 
Brinda Karat

We run 125 area-based cells for women across the country. If in a certain locality a particular community is predominant, many more women of that caste or community come to our cells there. Therefore, in certain areas we have a predominance of Dalit or Muslim women approaching us for assistance. We have found through this experience that if there is anything truly ‘secular’ in India it is the violence against women.
 

A very basic and important aspect of our approach is the framework through which we approach the issue and on the basis of which we arrive at our understanding and perspective of the issue. Therefore, for us to see the triple talaq issue as a religion-based issue alone is not right.
 

It is true that dowry related violence and killing predominantly affects one community just as triple talaq affects only Muslim women. But what people fail to see is that the status of women across the board is under assault and being undermined.
 

Taking a second wife is very common, across the board, in all communities, whether the personal law allows it or not. Violence against women – severe beating, slapping around, being thrown out of the matrimonial home, is also common to all communities, whether society at large, the community, political parties, etc. acknowledge it or not. Likewise, among Muslim women, triple talaq is certainly a matter of great concern.
 

Now, what do we as an organisation do when faced with this form of unfair and brutal treatment? The most important thing to remember is that as an organisation we believe in a multi-dimensional approach. We believe that a woman has different choices. She can go to court, negotiate a settlement with a local maulvi, or seek the support of a local women’s organisation. The important thing for us is that it is the Muslim woman down there who is facing the situation. She is the protagonist who is fighting for herself and her children. She is fighting the family, her community and the State. It would be well for campaigners to remember whom they are fighting for.
 

Hence, for us as an organisation, given the aggressively polarised situation in India where the woman is a prime target of communal violence, there is a broad preference to resolve the issue of triple talaq within the framework of religion itself. So, while we know that the stance of the Muslim Personal Law Board has been indecisive, etc., given the ground-level situation, we believe that we need to engage with them even as we, as an organisation, also support women who have gone to court on the issue of triple talaq.
 

While there may be some who are of the view that we should not engage with the AIMPLB because they are non-secular, we feel that they are part of the different choices a Muslim woman in India has. She can go to court, she can go to the local maulvi, she can go to a women’s organisation. If she feels that she needs to demand a greater share from the AIMPLB or Wakf Board, say, to ask the latter why they are not spending wakf money for women’s shelters, she should have the right to make that demand and it is for us to support it.
 

When protest against anything, even a practice like triple talaq, becomes polemical and part of the political agenda of groups who do not necessarily have any concern for the plight of women in general, or Muslim women in particular, it becomes problematic.
 

In the context of the recent incident in Orissa (see box), we are in the process of launching a mass protest and campaign against the practice through a leaflet where we will solicit men and women of all communities – not just Muslims – to say that such a practice is wrong. Then, at a general level, this specific issue must fit into a wider campaign about the Indian Constitution, women’s rights and gender. At an individual level, the intervention must have an appreciation of the position of that individual Muslim woman, the protagonist.
 

This is an approach that we like to follow in all our campaigns and protests because we believe, fundamentally, that when any issue is looked at or approached from a religious point of view it gets polluted and vitiated. The issue must remain gender-based.
 

With religious fundamentalism on the rise and identity-based groupings on the upswing, with aggressive community-driven violence and its retrograde rhetoric vitiating the political atmosphere, we believe that it is unethical for a political campaign to victimise the victim, that is, the Muslim woman, further. We believe that it is ridiculous to expect reform in one area when all around – politically and socially – we are regressing as a polity. The shoulders of a Muslim woman have always been bent with the plight of her existence. Now, with aggressive Hindu communalism, they have been further bent in humiliation by brutal sexual violence. At a time like this we believe a humane, multi-dimensional approach that not only recognises her plight through practices like triple talaq, but also strengthens her capacity to fight them, is the right ethical and realistic approach.

Archived from Communalism Combat, July 2004 Year 10   No. 99, Cover Story 9
 

The post ‘If there is anything truly secular in India it is the violence against women’ appeared first on SabrangIndia.