SOCIALISM
 
After 1917, socialism wasno longer a theoretical concept. It became a practical reality in the USSR. It showed to the world, for the first time, that basic needs for every citizen,  housing, food security, universal free education, free medical facilities was possible. At the same time when the capitalist world was hit by severe unemployment, in socialist USSR, unemployment was completely eliminated. The USSR showed that the socialist worker’s state could defend itself against all attacks, though sometimes at a great price.
 
Dr. Ambedkarwanted a socialist constitutionfor India. Thisis  sharplyoutlined in his monograph ‘States and Minorities’, published in early 1949 as a draft constitution for India. Here he proposes State socialism, along with Parliamentary democracy, protected as a fundamental right. In defence of this radical proposal, he writes :
 
The soul of Democracy is the doctrine of one man, one value.
Unfortunately, Democracy has attempted to give effect to this doctrine only so far as the political structure is concerned by adopting the rule of one man, one vote which is supposed to translate into fact the doctrine of one man, one value. It has left the economic structure to take the shape given to it by those who are in a position to mould it. This has happened because Constitutional Lawyers ….have never advanced to the conception that the Constitutional Law of Democracy must go beyond Adult Suffrage and Fundamental Rights… (they) believed that the scope and function of Constitutional Law was to prescribe the shape and form of the political structure of society. They never realised that it was equally essential to prescribe the shape and form of the economic structure of society, if Democracy is to live up to its principle of one man, one value.
Time has come to take a bold step and define both the economic structure as well as the political structure of society by the Law of the Constitution.
 
The Constitution of India that was finally drafted with Dr. Ambedkar as Chairman was a document of consensus and compromise. Many of Dr. Ambedkar’s concerns about economic democracy found their place not as fundamental rights but as Directive principles. The socialist concept of a welfare state and public ownership of natural resources found expression in articles 38 and 39. The right to work, education, health facilities, a living wage, and social security in times of old age and incapacitation in articles 41 to 43 A.
 
But on certain fundamental principles there was no compromise- such as the principle of secularism, and freedom of religion. In States and Minorities, these are expressed succinctly and unambiguously;
 
The State shall not recognise any religion as State religion…..Every religious association shall be free to regulate and administer its affairs, within the limits of the laws applicable to all.
 
The other basic principle on which Ambedkar refused to compromise was the principle of one man, one vote irrespective of class, caste, creed or gender.
 
Apart from being the leader of the fight against caste discrimination and untouchability, Ambedkar was also an important labour leader .Of course he had serious ideological differences with the red flag leaders. These centered around the issue of methods and values in the political struggle.  Ambedkar also felt that the red flag unions neglected issues of social inequality, neglected to pay attention to the elimination of caste based exclusions within the workers such as existed in the textile mills. Ambedkar had opposed the historic 1928 textile strike of the GirniKamgar Union. But in 1938, both Ambedkar and the communists came together to organize a general strike against the Industrial Disputes Bill, which sought to make strike illegal.
 
On one important issue there was no difference- the necessity of trade unions to have a political agenda.  In an address to workers Ambedkar states:
 
“to protect purely trade union interests cannot be the only reason, why trade unions must enter politics. To confine your attention to trade unionism is to mistake the immediate task forthe ultimate goal; it is to assure that slaving for others is a destiny which the labouring classes cannot escape. On the contrary, your aim should be to replace this system of wage slavery by a system which will recognize the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This means rebuilding of society.’
 
The Constitution of India confers democratic rights to citizens which go well beyond what was demanded by the Chartists. All adult Indian citizens have the right to vote. There are no property qualifications on suffrage.  Workers can stand for elections…
 
The working people in the unorganized and organized sectors comprise the vast majority of Indian citizens. Why have they repeatedly elected to power capitalist governments? Why is it that they have not yet voted to establish a working class government of their own? These are simple but basic questions that have to be raised and examined scientifically.
 
 
THE REALM OF AFFLUENCE
 
Can the working class shape politics?
 
The October revolution whose centenary we will observe this year is of course a definite answer to that question. But if we ask it as a scientific question we are compelled to ask more questions, for example:
 
Why has there been no workers’ revolution in Europe or North America thereafter? Why is the working class party so weak in the   world’s most advanced capitalist nation? Why did such a large section of working people vote for a capitalist billionaire like Donald Trump?
 
The task for Marxism, understood as the scientific method, is not only to analyse working class revolutions, but also to understand and contend with conservatism in the working class.
 
An important development not anticipated in the Communist manifesto is the development of what Eric Hobsbawm calls a ‘realm of affluence’ in developed capitalism. Instead of the general pauperization  of the proletariat predicted by the Manifesto, what is observed in these countries is the phenomenon of a large section of the working class achieving a  ‘middle class’ standard of living. Engels uses the term “labouraristocracy’’. Lenin argues that Imperialism engenders “super profit” for the capitalist class of a nation, which in turn allows giving the workers a petty bourgeois standard of living. Baran and Sweezy in their analysis of ‘monopoly capital’ attribute super profits to monopoly of the market by the big corporations.
 
I would like to examine the phenomenon of ‘the realm of affluence’ – from a different angle.
 
 
INEFFICIENCY
 
There has been much talk about the ‘increase in GDP growth rate’ under neoliberal economic policies. This is attributed to a supposed “greater economic efficiency” achieved due to these policies. In fact, capitalist development is characterized by growing mechanization of the production process. This results in a reduction of costs due to increase in output per unit of labour employed.
 
However, if we calculate the output per unit of energy expended in the production process, a different picture emerges, as the following few examples show.
 
Which is more efficient- a handloom or a powerloom? A handloom weaver produces about 6-8 metres of cloth in a day. A powerloom weaver produces about 72-80 metres of cloth in a day, tending four looms.  Each loom consumes about 5 kwh of electric energy.
 
The manual work humans perform can also be measured in units of energy. A human can do manual work continuously over 8 hours with a power output of about 30 watts. This means than in a day of 8-10 hours of manual labour, the human being  can perform about 240-300 watt-hours of work. One manday thusis equivalent to ¼ to 1/3^rd kwh of energy.
 
What the above figures indicate is that in handloom production about 20-25 metres of cloth is produced per kwh of energy expended. In powerloom production, about 4 metres of cloth is produced per kwh of energy expended (80 metres/20 kwh) . If we measure output per unit of energy expended, powerloom is about five to six times less efficient than handloom.
 
A similar comparison can be made between cycle transport and motorcycle, or, in earth moving between manual digging and a mechanized shovel. In each case, machine powered production process is much less efficient than manual work, when we measure output per unit of energy expended.
 
We can also compare the energy contents of food and fossil fuels by converting kilocalories into kwh, as shown in the following table:
 
Petrol            13 kwh/kg
Diesel            13.3
LPG               12.8
Ethanol           8.5
Methanol        5.5
LNG               15
Veg oil           10.5
Cereals          4.2 
Coal               8.3
 
According to David Pimentel, each year the USA uses about 200 million tonnes of oil to produce and consume 100 million tonnes of foodgrains. That is 2 kg of fossil fuels to produce and consume 1 kg of food grains or about 6.5 kwh of fossil fuel energy to produce and consume 1 kwh of food energy.
 
If the human digestive system could have digested hydrocarbons the way it digests carbohydrates, it would be irrational to do capitalist agriculture. Pumping and eating hydrocarbons would be less irrational.
 
The belief in capitalist efficiency is created because we measure cost in financial terms. Finance is a social construct arising in the context of exchange value .In financial terms, human-power energy is not cheap. If we assume a minimum wage of Rs 400 per day, human-power energy costs aboutRs 1600 per kwh. By contrast, petrol costs Rs 6 per kwh. Coal is even cheaper- about Rs 1.50 per kwh.  Electricity costs about Rs 5 per kwh.
In financial terms, human-power energy costs about 300 to 1000 times the cost of fossil fuel energy, and this is what capitalism is all about, replacing human-power energy with ‘cheaper’ fossil fuel energy through mechanization.
 
Why is fossil fuel cheap? This is only because of an irrational pricing convention. There is extensive literature on the subject of pricing of non-renewable resources in capitalist economic theory, all essentially based on a 1930 paper by Hoteling. Capitalistic pricing of fossil fuels is based on the cost of extraction, refining and transportation plus a profit mark-up. . This is as rational as  fixing the price of  a bag of foodgrains in a godown  as the cost of its transportation  from the godown to the point of use plus a profit mark-up, say about five rupees for  a 50 kg bag. With this method of pricing it is cheaper to produce wheat by burning wheat in steam engine tractors, rather than growing wheat with only manual labour. Capitalist pricing of fossil fuels thus obscurantist, because it obscures the real inefficiency of automotive machines.
 
With this flawed and irrational method of costing it costs less money per unit output to deploy machines rather than humans, though energetically speaking, machines are generally less efficient than humans. An important factor for both profit and super profit is this contrived and notional ‘machine productivity’.  A higher margin of profit can be earned by producing at a money cost less than the social average money cost of production, by replacing human labour by machines.
 
Increasing mechanization and automation, which is at the core of ‘technological upgradation’, results in higher margin of profit in the short run. It also lowers the average social money cost of production in the longer run.  This results in a constant lowering of the margin of profit as more and more units mechanize their production process..

When we measure production costs in  terms of energy, i.e. output per kwh of energy expended, it turns out that capitalism is intrinsically inefficient, perhaps the most inefficient mode of production in human history. The ‘realm of affluence’ is based on “off balance sheet creative accounting”, on fossil fuel  energy subsidy, on deprivation of our grandchildren and future generations of their entitlement in the finite stock of  non-renewable resources of the earth. The present ‘realm of affluence’ is thus predicated on a ‘realm of scarcity and hunger’ for the future. If the previous calculations are correct, and they can all be verified, capitalism is not freedom, as ideologists like Milton Friedman have tried to argue. Capitalism is a form of social vandalism based on obscurantist mumbo jumbo of bourgeois economics, a rapacious trade off of our children’s survival for  the petty consumerism of the present.

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Image: Amir Rizvi
 
How can this freedom of choice be reconciled with the aspect of necessity that is central to all scientific analysis?
 
In the context of social change, necessity has two different aspects, two different meanings. There is the realm of the subjective, the desirable, necessity as human need, and there is the realm of the objective, the inevitable, what necessarily must happen, what is compelled by underlying circumstances. Marx’s brilliant “Theses on Feuerbach” shows how both the subjective and the objective aspects of necessity can be encompassed into a single, integral, comprehensive and consistent world view.
 
In the very first thesis, Marx makes a number of assertions about science (rational materialism). In science, theory and practice are inseparable. Though science is objective, and conscious human activity subjective, it is incorrect to pose ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ as mutually exclusive opposites.  In scientific practice, the two aspects are merged.
 
“The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.”
 
Feurbach‘does not grasp the significance of “revolutionary”, of “practical-critical”, activity.’
 
“The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth — i.e. the reality and power… of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.”
 
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
 
Rational practice is simultaneously subjective and objective. Rational practice (science) , ispractical-critical activity. It is revolutionary.
 
Marx asserts that revolutionary activity is not an external add-on to science- but a necessary consequence.  Scientific practice, if it remains critical, realistic, consistent and true to the values of science necessarily becomes revolutionary.
 
Many years later, Engels expressed it thus: “… the more ruthlessly and disinterestedly science proceeds the more it finds itself in harmony with the interest and aspirations of the workers.”
 
With his ‘materialist conception of history’, Marx achieved what Democritus had asserted two thousand three hundred years earlier.  Marx’s 1845 breakthrough, opened the path, for the first time in human history, for all of reality, both natural and social, to become a subject of rigorous scientific inquiry.
 
Lenin summarizes the two intertwined aspects of social necessity in a single sentence:
 
 “Man’s consciousness not only reflects the objective world but creates it “
 
With all of reality becoming the subject of science, science itself ceases to be a subject, and instead becomes a powerful and distinct method for understanding and engaging with reality. Kosambi’s great achievement was to give a definition of science which can properly encompass this new comprehensive, universal role.
 
 
POLITICS
 
The strength of scientific theory lies in its predictive power. Within twenty five years of the Manifesto, the Paris Commune of 1871 in many ways appeared to be a confirmation of its predictions. Marx and Engels considered the Paris commune to be the realization of the first ‘worker’s state’ in human history. They studied it closely to discover in its practice, general principles for the worker’s movement. In the words of Marx:
 
 “It was essentially a working class government, the product of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economic emancipation of man.”
 
The writer C.L.R. Jamesdescribed the commune thus: “The Paris Commune was first and foremost a democracy”. It was governed by a body elected by universal suffrage. It was concerned with worker’s rights. Night shift work was banned in bakeries. None of the government functionaries was paid a wage more than that of a skilled worker. Women played an active role in its defence. The Commune lasted for 72 days after which it was suppressed by a bloodbath in which tens of thousands of workers were killed.
Perhaps for the first time in history, the democratic demand for “Universal suffrage” had been realized in practice, if only for two months.
 
Only a year after the Commune, in his speech at the congress of the International Working Men’s Association at the Hague in 1872, Marx had this to say:
 
“The congress at The Hague has brought to maturity three important points:
It has proclaimed the necessity for the working class to fight the old, disintegrating society on political as well as social grounds; and we congratulate ourselves that this resolution of the London Conference will henceforth be in our Statutes.
In our midst there has been formed a group advocating the workers’ abstention from political action. We have considered it our duty to declare how dangerous and fatal for our cause such principles appear to be.
Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor; he must overthrow the old politics which sustain the old institutions, if he is not to lose Heaven on Earth, like the old Christians who neglected and despised politics.
 
But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same.
You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries — such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps also add Holland — where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must someday appeal in order to erect the rule of labor.”
 
Tactics may change according to time and place, but certain general principles do not change- the working class must be politically active, and not restrict itself to non-political organizations. It must have its own party. It will prefer peaceful means, wherever these are available, but when suppressed by force, it will defend itself, with force, if necessary.
 
At the same time when Marx and Engels were becoming active in Europe, important changes were taking place in India. In the second half of the 19^th century, modern capitalist production was just commencing in India. A modern industrial working class beginning to be formed. In 1853 the first railway connected Thane and Mumbai. The first textile mill started functioning at Tardeo the next year, in 1854. However, when the country erupted in the revolt against the British rule in 1857, this industrial working class could not play a significant role because it had hardly come into existence.
 
 
EQUALITY
 
At this time, in India, yet another stream of political change was being born – a struggle for equality, for social change to abolish inequality and discrimination.  In 1848, Jyotiba and Savitribai Phule started their first school for lower caste women. In the next two decades of the eighteen fifties and sixties, the struggle against caste inequality and for social equality grew steadily in strength.
 
On the other side of the world, the abolition of slavery in 1865 following the victory of the anti-slavery Union army, under the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln, in the bloody American Civil War, was hailed by democratic forces all over the world.  Both Marx and Phule were deeply impressed by Abraham Lincoln.
 
In a letter written by Marx to Lincoln in January 1865, Marx articulates that as long as white workers tolerate racism in their midst, they cannot emancipate themselves from their own exploitation.
 
“While the workingmen, the true political power of the North, allowed slavery to defile their own republic… they were unable to attain the true freedom of labor, or to support their European brethren in their struggle for emancipation; but this barrier to progress has been swept off by the red sea of civil war.
The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American anti-slavery war will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead the country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.”
 
Phule dedicated his book ‘Gulamgiri’ “To The good people of the United StatesAs a token of admiration for their
 
SUBLIME DISINTERESTED AND SELF-SACRIFICING
DEVOTION in the cause of Negro slavery; and with an earnest desire that my countrymen will take their noble example as their guide in the emancipation of their Sudra Brethren from the trammels of of Brahmin thraldom.”
 
In 1873, Phule formed the Satyashodhak Samaj to work in an organized manner for the emancipation from caste domination. One of Phule’s disciples, Narayan Meghaji Lokhande was among the first to organize the modern industrial working class in India .Lokhande was a mass leader and labour organizer.  Along with the struggles against caste domination and for equality, the fight for labour rights was among the early struggles for democratic rights in India.
 
It is pointed out that the “Bombay Millhands Association” started by Lokhande was not a trade union. While this may be true, there is no doubt that what Lokhande initiated was a workers movement for basic labour rights concerning working hours, rest periods, leave etc. which later  became rights under legislation like the Factories Acts .Lokhande also worked actively for worker’s unity and communal harmony during the communal riots of 1893. He ultimately fell victim to plague in 1896, while working selflessly in plague relief activities.
 
By contrast the role of LokmanyaTilak in the labour movement is not without contradictions. Tilak opposed the first Factories Act, on the grounds that it was an instrument of the British industrialists to burden Indian manufacturers and render them uncompetitive. At the same time, he worked actively among the workers to organise nationalist resistance against the British, using the popular Ganpati festival and giving it a ‘sarvajanik’ form, for this purpose. Tilak was much revered by the workers for his militant and uncompromising anti-British speeches and writings.
 
In 1908, we witness the first mass political uprising of the Indian working class in the form of a six day strike by the Mumbai workers cutting across all industries, to protest the sentence of six years transportation against Tilak. Lakhs of workers came out on the streets in July 1908 and fought pitched battles with bricks and stones against British bullets. More than 200 were killed.
 
Lenin wrote about this uprising in the following words:
 
 “But in India the street is beginning to stand up for its writers and political leaders. The infamous sentence pronounced by the British jackals on the Indian democrat Tilak—he was sentenced to a long term of exile, —this revenge against a democrat by the lackeys of the money-bag evoked street demonstrations and a strike in Bombay. In India, too, the proletariat has already developed to conscious political mass struggle—and, that being the case, the Russian-style British regime in India is doomed!
 
Much has been written about Tilak’s social conservatism. But what must be understood is that his mind was not closed. His views were not static, and were evolving due to his close involvement with the masses, in particular with the labour movement. It has been pointed out that during the 1893 Hindu –Muslim riots in Bombay, whereas Lokhande held both communities responsible, and worked for communal harmony, Tilak in a meeting at Pune, held the Muslims as responsible, though encouraged by the British, and asked Hindus to retaliate. But after he returned to India in 1914 from 6 year prison sentence in Mandalay, Tilak became a votary of Hindu-Muslim unity. His bail application in Mumbai High Court in 1916 was argued by young barrister Mohammed Ali Jinnah. Both Hindus and Muslims crowded to hear him speak at mass meetings. On 1916, he addressed a meeting at Bhiwandi, before a mainly Muslim crowd, in which he was presented with a purse for Rs 5001. The Lucknow Pact between the Muslim League and the Congress in December 1916, was only possible because of the joint efforts of Tilak and Jinnah. Almost 100 years ago, at a mass meeting held in Godhra on 4^th November 1917, Gandhi, Tilak and Jinnah shared a common platform as the star speakers.
 
The epoch making event of the 20^th century is undoubtedly the October revolution in Russia of November 7^th 1917, and the establishment of a socialist worker’s state thereafter in the USSR. Lokmanya Tilak was deeply impressed by the 1917 Russian revolution. In 1918, he spent a year in Britain while conducting a defamation case against Chirol. According to reports of the British intelligence, Tilak was not interested in sightseeing at London, but spent most of his time in the office of the militant left wing paper “Daily Herald”, in discussions with leftist leaders like Lansbury, Williams, Hyndman and Saklatwala. The intelligence reports record that in his speeches in England Tilak repeatedly made laudatory references to the policies of the Bolshevik party in Russia, and particularly to their international policy.
 
This year we are observing the 100^th anniversary of the historic October revolution. During our commemorations, it would be important to revisit the Tilak archives to study more closely his writings and speeches in the final chapter of his life.

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Karl Marx and Frederick Engels answer this question emphatically in the affirmative in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, published in 1848.
 
In the ‘Manifesto’, they make a number of assertions- about  inevitable crisis in capitalism, that capitalism  produces its own gravedigger- the working class, that the working class needs its own party – a communist party, and that as a first step , the working class must win the battle for democracy.
 
The working class attempting to shape politics preceded Marx and Engels. In the 1830’s, the working people of England, Scotland and Wales were mobilizing en masse in what is called today the Chartist movement, to make democratic political demands. In 1838 they published the People’s Charter, setting out the main aims of the movement. Working men should be able to vote in parliamentary elections , voting should be by secret ballot, workers should be eligible to stand for election , property qualifications should be abolished and MPs should be paid a salary.
 
The massive marches in support of these democratic demands were sought to be suppressed and dispersed, resulting in fierce clashes, arrests and jail terms for the leaders.  One of the slogans of the chartists,  emblazoned on a banner of the Boiler makers, came from the pen of the Roman writer Terence, a former slave himself,  written two thousand years earlier- “Humani Nihil Alienum”.Marx, when asked his favorite maxim, also wrote the same words- Humani Nihil Alienum.  “Nothing human is alien to me.”
 
So we see that Marx and Engels were not the first assert a role for the working class in democratic politics.  This, the working class in Britain did for itself. But three years before the ‘Communist Manifesto’, in 1845, Marx and Engels were the first to make an assertion of a different kind.
 
This was a statement about the scope of science and the scientific method.
 
 
SCIENCE
 
What do we mean by science?
 
D.D. Kosambi gives an answer which is as profound as it is brief: “Science is the cognition of necessity”
 
In the 5^th century BC, the Greek materialist philosopher Democritus, with incredible foresight, writes: “Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity”. 
 
In his doctoral thesis of 1841, Marx chose to compare the philosophy of Democritus with that of his follower Epicurus. For young Marx, the problem was of finding a space for human activism. If everything is determined by chance and necessity, then where is the space for human freedom- for conscious human action? In this early writing, Marx, striving to keep a space open for activism, argues his preference for Epicurus, though in terms that are distant from his later Marxism.  In 1841 Marx is not yet a Marxist.
 
The year 1845 is a milestone in the history of science.  In this year Marx and Engels asserted that changing society is a valid subject for scientific investigation. The method for doing this they termed as “the materialist conception of history”.
 
Neither Marx nor Engels were born as Marxists. They arrived at what we today term ‘marxism’, through a process of activism, study and criticism of contemporary philosophical trends , culminating in  their path-breaking  formulation of ‘a materialist conception of history’ in two documents, the “Theses on Feuerbach”, and “The German Ideology” in 1845.
 
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men.”
 
“The history of nature, called natural science, does not concern us here; but we will have to examine the history of men, since almost the whole ideology amounts either to a distorted conception of this history or to a complete abstraction from it.”
 
In the history of science the idea of a ‘materialist conception of history’ (the science of history referred to in the previous paragraph) does not begin with social science, but in the natural sciences.  A conception of biology as a historical science begins well before Darwin (whose Origin of Species was published only in 1859). From the preceding century it was being recognized that two sciences- geology, and biology, could only be rationally understood as historical sciences. The fossil record, where geology met biology, were the pages of a history book, with a strong thread of causation linking the later pages of this book to the earlier ones.
 
By the early 19^th century, through the works of geologists like James Hutton and Charles Lyell, and biologists like Leclerc (Buffon) and Lamarck, it was being asserted that all of nature had a history, that this history could be understood, and that moreover, the human species, as a biological species, was a product of this natural history. The threads of necessity running through natural science in the form of a natural history were becoming evident.  Biological science was taking shape as a program of cognizing this necessity.

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Video Courtesy: cjp.org.in

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Two years of the Modi regime have seen the Indian political economy in doldrums, inflation on the increase and scant job creation. In this scenario the government appears intent on legislating against the right of labour to organize and protest, further sharpening its authoritarian and anti-democratic thrust.

As the results of the 2016 Assembly elections were announced on May 19, there was exultation on the corporate-driven television channels: the discourse centred around how these results implied a great leap forwardfor the Modi government and consequently, the ‘economic reform’ process. The stock market however was scripting a different story. On May 19 and 20, the BSE index fell by 350 points.
 
With the completion of two years of the BJP led NDA government this May, the body language of the Indian political economy is in stark contrast to the optimistic claims of the Modi camp.  The BSE index is today actually lower today than it was at this time two years ago. The rupee has fallen 20 % from Rs 57 to the dollar in May 2014, to Rs 67 in May 2016. 
 
Despite a huge subsidy to the Indian economy over the entire two years of Modi rule due to low crude oil prices, price rise has continued unchecked, especially in food grains and pulses. Public and private services in health, transport, housing and education have deteriorated and have become more expensive.  
 
Exports have declined continuously during this period. Manufacturing is in decline. Despite the much-hyped schemes like “Make in India”, “Start Up India”, “Skill India”, job creation in India in 2015 was the lowest in any year since the global crisis of 2008. The common people are experiencing, not ‘acche din’, but ‘kacche din’.
 
The comprehensive attack on basic working class rights by the Modi Government in the name of labour law amendments has to be seen in the background of  the comprehensive failure of this government on the economic front.
 
The government is increasingly desperate for investment. With very little to offer foreign investors by way of infrastructure, what the Modi government is offering them instead is  regulatory and environmental concessions, and the slavery of the Indian workers.
 
Both the organised as well as the unorganised sector workers are under attack. In the name of labour reforms, the entire edifice of labour laws which has been constructed over more than a century of the labour movement is sought to be dismantled.
 
Labour is in the concurrent list with legislative power for the states as well as the centre. The changes in labour laws were initiated by the BJP state government in Rajasthan, which made fundamental amendments in four laws. The Central Labour Minister issued instructions for other states to follow suit along the Rajasthan model.
 
The Industrial Disputes Act has been amended to make it possible for employers to layoff or retrench workers and close factories at will without government permission if they employed less than 300 workers.
 
The Contract Labour Act has been amended to absolve the principal employer of responsibility for compliance. Upto 49 contract workers can be employed without a licence.
 
Since the entitlement of contract workers to basic  rights like minimum wages, bonus etc. arises out of conditions in the license, effectively this means that contract workers employed without a licence have no right to minimum wages, bonus, or provident fund.
 
Amendment to the Factories Act in Rajasthan has doubled the minimum number of workers needed for its becoming applicable. Changes in the Apprentice Act made it possible for employers to employ large numbers of employees with no rights of workers- not even the meager rights of contract workers, even after working five years in an establishment.
 
In Maharashtra, amendments have been made in the Factories Act and Contract Labour Act similar to Rajasthan.
 
The changes proposed in the central legislation go even beyond the changes in Rajasthan. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail the proposed changes. (CITU Notes containing detailed analyses of the proposed changes may be obtained by sending an e mail to the writer)  
 
Defeating the attack on workers rights requires that the BJP to be defeated electorally, as took place in 2004.

It  is sufficeth to say that the Central government proposes to replace 44 labour legislations by 5 code bills. The code bills are designed to restrict and take away basic rights such as the right to strike, the right of workers to defend themselves against arbitrary victimisation and removal from work, and the right to have a union leadership of their choice.
 
The attack on the unorganized sector is equally severe, including severe cutbacks in allocations for scheme workers such as anganwadi sevikas, mid day meal workers, and ASHA workers . There are more than one crore such scheme workers in the country, most of them women.
 
The proposed changes are part of the ‘labour reforms’ of an aggressive neo liberal economic policy. Some of the changes currently proposed were considered by the previous UPA II government.

Five years back all the major central trade unions including INTUC (Congress-affiliated) and BMS (affiliated to the RSS), came together to fight these changes. This unity has strengthened in the intervening period, resulting in several All India Strike actions including a 2 day strike in February2013 and a one day general strike in September 2 last year.
 
The RSS affiliated BMS union, though party to the strike decision withdrew at the last moment under political pressure. This has severely undermined their credibility among the workers, and also deprived them of their claim to be a non political organisation.
 
A welcome consequence of the BMS flip-flop is that today politics is no longer a prohibited subject in the trade union discourse, (in the interests of trade union unity.) Today the united trade union movement is openly critical of the politics of the Modi government not only in areas of labour rights, but also on issues of economic policy like giving control of national natural resources to corporate houses.  The politics of communalism and religious hatred was openly criticized in the joint trade union rallies of May Day 2016.
 
[Neither in 2013 nor 2016 do these protests garner ‘mainstream media attention.]
 
Today the united trade union movement is openly critical of the politics of the Modi government not only in areas of labour rights, but also on issues of economic policy like giving control of national natural resources to corporate houses.  The politics of communalism and religious hatred was openly criticized in the joint trade union rallies of May Day 2016. 
 
Faced with growing resistance from an united trade union movement, in which the ‘Red Flag’ unions were playing the leading role, it appears that the BJP governments had decided to suppress the rising tide by resorting to misuse of both the state machinery as well as extra legal strong arm tactics.
 
The right wing strategists appear to have prepared a script in which the red flag would be painted as an ‘anti-national’ ideology, which was opposing development , and supporting ‘terrorists’ in the name of democratic rights. The first act of this multi-act play, was to suppress the left in the universities, which was seen as a soft target, and make them an example of what could happen to those opposing the government.
 
What the government did not anticipate nor could they contend with, was the spirited resistance from the universities, exemplified by the JNU counter-struggle. The very ideologies which they sought to suppress were now broadcast on prime time by all the major media (at least for a few weeks!). The resistance was sharply and eloquently articulated by Kanhaiya Kumar and his colleagues.
 
From the first day after Kanhaiya’s release from jail, the BJP and RSS found themselves at the receiving end of a public debate, which has continued since. Seeking to don the mantle of desh-bhakts , they found themselves having to defend themselves against the charges of pseudo-nationalism and hypocrisy.
 
During the Mayday rallies this year, speaker after speaker, not only from the left unions, openly commended the JNU students, and criticized the RSS. Azaadi from hunger is our demand , they said on May 1, 2016, and that is why we are demanding a minimum wage of Rs 15,000. We need to maintain our unity to fight this anti-worker and anti-farmer government, and that is why we need to have azadi from communalism and politics of religious hatred. How can a government which is bent on handing over the natural resources of this country like coal, oil and gas to multinationals preach to us about nationalism, they asked.
 
The space for criticism of neoliberal economics as being detrimental to the interests of this country, and the exposure of the  nexus between communalism and right wing political economy has widened, due to the events of February and March this year.
 
As the trade unions mobilise for the August 9 day of action with the demand “Modi Sarkar Chalejao”, and the proposed All India strike on September 2, this space is set to widen.
 
Can the attack on labour rights be defeated ? Yes, if the trade unions follow a consistent strategy over the coming years. Recall that in 2001 the BJP led NDA government had made a serious attempt to curtail labour rights, through the instrument of the 2^nd National Labour Commission. Disinvestment of the public sector was also high on its agenda.

In the bye elections (Rajasthan) which were held in the four constituencies in September 2014 , in three out of those four constituencies, which the BJP had won with wide margins just four months earlier , the BJP was defeated. In two of these three it was trounced with wide margins.
 
At that time the opposition to the 2^nd NLC was far less united than it is today. Despite this handicap, the trade unions, led by the left organizations, conducted successful struggles to stall the so called labour reforms, and disinvestment, till the parliament elections in May 2014.
 
 These struggles included  numerous sectoral and All India strikes including a historic 3 day strike of the oil sector workers in January 2014, which, coupled with legal challenges, stalled the privatisation of HPCL.
 
In May 2004, the BJP led NDA government was itself removed from power at the centre, resulting in the scrapping of both the 2^nd NLC recommendations as well as the Disinvestment ministry.
  
The contemporary Rajasthan experience is significant. In May 2014 the BJP  had won all 25 seats to Parliament. Four winning candidates were sitting MLAs, necessitating bye elections within 6 months. The labour law amendments were passed in the Rajasthan assembly in July 2014.
 
During August there were widespread trade union joint protests which included the BMS union.  In the bye elections  whichwere held in the four constituencies in September 2014 , in three out of those four constituencies, which the BJP had won with wide margins just four months earlier , the BJP was defeated. In two of these three it was trounced with wide margins.
 
Determined and widespread trade union campaigning in the coming days, coupled with a cool and calculated electoral arithmetic strategy has the potential to restrict the BJP in the coming period. Defeating the attack on workers rights requires that the BJP to be defeated electorally, as took place in 2004.
 
A strategy for achieving this objective is eminently possible today. Trade union unity is stronger. There is a consensus about resisting the Modi government offensive. The unity of the working people goes beyond trade unions to include organisations of farmers, youth and students.
 
The strike action planned for September 2, 2016, will be wider and deeper than the September 2 strike last year. But the real test will be the assembly and Lok Sabha elections. Much depends on whether the defence of labour and farmer rights can become a dominant political issue in the forthcoming electoral battles.
  
The author is Secretary, CITU Maharashtra; Centre of Affiliated Trade Unions-CITU is a national trade union affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist, CPI-M.
 

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