By Sachin S. Bhagat

INTRODUCTION

While traveling we see the hill and mountains with covering of trees and waterfowl, which looks so beautiful and accretive, but in between we also see partially cut apart of hills. At that time we can’t understated what is actually reason of that, but when we go to closer and closer to that mountain then we realize that it is stone quarry, which engage with cutting the hill.

Mining business is a one of the developing sector of India, it’s growing at larger level, and it provides hundreds of thousands of well paying jobs to the skilled as well as unskilled workers. The stone quarries are one of the parts of mining business.

According to Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), India is one of the top ten nations in reservation of minerals and resources. Its produces more than 80 different mineral commodities and It’s largely reserves of barite, bauxite, chromite’s, coal, iron ore and manganese ore. In 2007 mining contribute the 4.4% growth of India economic.¹

“Owing to the country’s healthy economic growth, the demand for metals and minerals in India and in other developing countries has led to a steady growth in the country’s mineral industry and been a vital part of the industrial production. Greater investment in exploration and mineral production also increased the productivity and efficiency of the mining and processing operations. The value of mineral output was $25.3 billion in fiscal year 2007-08 and accounted for 3% of the gross domestic product. The values of mineral imports and exports were $77.5 billion and $20.6 billion, respectively, in 2006-07 and accounted for 34% and 14% of the values of total imports and exports, respectively” (Ministry of Mines, 2007).

The minerals are basically divided in two parts, first is major mineral resources which includes bauxite, coal, mica, gold, manganese ore, chromite’s, iron ore etc. and second is minor minerals which includes Stone, Sand, Murum, different kinds of marbles and etc.

THE PROCESS OF MINING

Mining is a process of extraction or removal of minerals and metals from earth. Our earth is rich with different minerals and metals like Bauxite, Gold, Diamonds and Coal etc. The mining is now money making business and involves larger profits. There are many private, governmental and multinational companies are involved to produce more and more minerals and profits from them. Mining is an integral part of our industry and resources.

There are different types of placer mining which include sluicing, dredging, and panning.

1) Sluicing the placer gravel is shoveled into a sluice box which sits on an incline. The sluice box has a mix of traps and riffles that catch the material as it passes through. Water is fed into the sluice and the riffles trap the heavy minerals.

2) Sluicing allows the capturing of very fine gold particles as does panning. Panning is a method used by hobbyists and personal miners using a gold pan. The pan is moved in a circular motion which removes waste material leaving the gold particles trapped in the ridges.

3) Larger placer operations use large tools for excavation including bucket wheel excavators, powers shovels, draglines, and conveyors. Dredges are large pieces of equipment that devour tons of earth quickly in search of the gold.

4) Dredges to be effective, a lot of money is initially spent for prospecting and testing the ground to determine the location and size of the gold. Usually companies will use extensive drilling programs to determine where the largest accumulations of gold are. Dredges are capable of being used to great depths, however if the gold is less than 2 feet deep they are often not effective because the gravel doesn’t stay in the buckets long enough to reach the hopper.

5) Hydraulic mining uses high pressure water which sprays an area of rock. The pressure of the water helps to break the rock up and dislodge any placer or ore deposits. The mix is then milled. Hydraulic mining is used infrequently these days because it is very destructive so it has been outlawed in most places.

6) Open pit mining involves digging really big holes in the ground and is often used for minerals like copper or coal. The size of these mines is absolutely devastating to the surrounding area. To expose the ore it is necessary to excavate and move huge quantities of waste rock. Companies attempt to do this for the lowest price possible to help maximize their profits.

7) Hard rock mining involves digging into solid rock to find the minerals which are normally in their ore  form. Dynamite, picks, shovels, drills, and a host of other equipment is used to reach the ore. Often mine shafts are dug that are made up of miles and miles of tunnels which follow the veins of the ore. (http://www.articleclick.com/Articale/Types-Of-Mining-Operation/3242)

The process of mining produces so mach pollution of water, air and soil. Large scale mining operation use huge bulldozers and excavators to extract the metals and minerals from the soil. In order to amalgamate (cluster) the extractions, they use chemicals such as cyanide, mercury, or methylmercury.  These chemicals go through tailings (pipes) and are often discharged into rivers, streams, bays, and oceans. The people who are exposed to the toxic waste from the tailings become sick.  They develop skin rashes, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, etc. In fact, the symptoms of mercury poisoning are very similar to the symptoms of malaria. As well as the dust became a cause of silicosis and other illness.

Major Mining Areas in India

http://bottombillion.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/minerals_backward.jpg

MINING IS MAHARASHTRA

In the year of 1993, India accepted new economic policy for the development of nation. As a part of the liberalization, privatization and globalization, the central government of India framed its “National Mineral Policy” with the prime motive on increasing economic growth and accordingly each of the state was to frame their “State Mineral Policies”.

The potential mineral bearing area of the State is about 58 thousand sq. km.  Among the major minerals found in the State, the production of coal during 2000-01 was 28.8 million tonnes, 3.8 per cent more than that during the previous year.  During the same period, the production of manganese ore increased by 2.3 per cent to 3.6 lakh tonnes.  The value of minerals extracted in the State during 2000-01 was about Rs. 2,143 crore, in which share of coal was about 94 per cent (Rs. 2,018 crore). (http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/megastate/economySurvery3Show.php)

The index of mineral production (base 1993-94=100) for the year 1999-2000 is estimated to be 121.15 as compared to 120.54 for 1998-99, showing a marginal growth of 0.5 per cent. The total value of mineral production (excluding atomic minerals) during 1999-2000 is estimated to be Rs. 41,052 crores, which shows an increase of 1 per cent over that of the previous year. During 1999-2000, fuel minerals have accounted for Rs. 33,678 crores or 82 per cent, metallic mineral Rs. 2,976 crores or 7 per cent, non-metallic minerals (including minor minerals) Rs. 4,398 crores or 11 per cent of the total value. (http://mines.nic.in/archp1.html)

Maharashtra is western part of India, and it constitute seventh highest contributor to the total mineral value of Indian. “Above 19 per cent of Maharashtra’s geographical area is potentially mineral-bearing. The key regions are in and around Nagpur, Chandrapur, Bhandara, Kolhapur, Raigad, Sindhudurg and Thane, and the major minerals are coal, limestone, bauxite, manganese, ore, silica sand, iron and laterite……..there are 220 mining leases excluding minor minerals and cold, in 2002-03…….In Maharashtra state mining industries generated Rs. 570 crore in 2004-05, which is an increase of 45 per cent from 2002-2003.” (Sources: Chandra Bhuhan and Monali Zeya Hazra: Rich Lands poor people is ‘sustainable’ mining possible? By Central for science and environment.)

STONE QUARRY IN MAHARASHTRA

In Maharashtra the stone quarry is an important mining business. The growing population and globalization are increasing the demand of constrictions. There are high demands of stone in bigger constriction like building towers, roads and railways tracks. Under the policy of mining in India the ‘Stone’ is categorized as ‘Minor Mineral’. The locations of Stone Quarrying and Crushing are permitted at far distance from the human habitation. But usually stone quarry activities are seen mushrooming around the Mega cities where in the Real Estate construction / developmental activities goes on at large scale.

According to “Bombay Minor Mineral Extraction Rules, 1955,” says that quarry operators are required to follow and can be heavily fined for not observing Shall not carry on or allow to be carried any mining operation at any point within a distance of 50 yards if no blasting is involved, from boundary of railway line or reservoirs or public works or buildings, except with permission of the government Shall see that the hole (where the blasting is performed) is muffled with an iron sheet with a weight of about 12 of more bags of sand on it Before starting the blasting, give warning to the public by an efficient system of signals and by putting red flags in danger zones namely 200 yards from blasting Shall warn the public not to approach the quarry within half an hour after explosion

State of Maharashtra is mostly covered by Basaltic Rocks and is commonly known as ‘Deccan Trao’. There would be over 2500 to 3000 stone quarries with crushers in the state. Stone quarry and crushing sector is treated as ‘Small-Scale’, labor intensive’ and unorganized’ providing of survival to over 40 to 50 lakhs of population in the state of Maharashtra.

Out of the 35 district of Maharashtra the 11 districts are intensive stone quarries and crasher, 18 districts have medium and 6 are with lower activities. All the mega cities are surrounded with lager stone quarries.

“According to, the manual on “State Mineral Policy & Related Matters (Manual) by Trade Commerce & Mining Department Govt. of Maharashtra, Mumbai, As on 31^st Dec, 2002 the total numbers of mining that is 1762 Minor Mining and 250 are Major Mining.  In reality the number should be much larger. This means about 88% minerals consists of Stone, Send, Bricks, Murum etc. of these minor minerals stone is the largest minor mineral in terms of quantity, income to the government as well as employment opportunities.” (Pashan Shala Repot 1997 to 2009, Santualn)

CASE STUDY OF WAGHOLI STONE QUARRY

As per population census 2001, Maharashtra State with 9.67 crore population, is the second most populous State in India. The percentage of urban population in the State was 42.4 per cent and Maharashtra was second most urbanized State among major states of India followed by Tamil Nadu (43.9 per cent). Among that the total population of the Pune district was 7,232,555 and the urban population of Pune comprises 58.08%.

Pune is one of the district of Maharashtra and it well known for its high level educational facilities, it also known as “the Oxford of the East”. Pune is divided into 13 different takulas, which are Junner, Ambegoan, Khed, Shiru, Maval, Mulshi, Velhe, Bhor, Purandar, Baramati, Indapur Daund and Haveli. Pune City comes into Haveli taluka and it’s a headquarters of Pune district.

Wagholi is well known for his stone quarries and a developing village of Haveli Taluka. It is only 20 km’s in north from Pune station; it takes only 30 to 45 minutes to reach at the place by vehicle. Wagholi the name is derived from the temple of ‘WAGHESHWAR’ which is on the entrance to this mining complex.

There are around 15 and above stone quarries are given on lease by government but there are more than 25% quarries are running illegally, and its covering around 10 to 12 Km’s area of the village. There are around 5000 to 6000 and above people are working as a daily wage labors.

At the Wagholi stone quarry area we can find all the religion and caste group communities are working together at one place without any kind of discrimination or hierocracy, which totally depending on stone quarry for their livelihood, but within that the “Vadar” community is constituted 70% population and seems more dominating caste group in all others. Vadar is one of the Nomadic Tribe (NT) community who are knows as a stone breakers community by caste occupation in Maharashtra, which they are doing from generation to generation.

The 99% per cent populations in the Wagholi stone quarry area are the migrated from the different places of Maharashtra like Buldhana, Nanded, Ahamadnagar, Kolapur, Sangli, Satara, Nasik, Beed, Usmanabad and also from neighboring state Karnataka. Above mention districts are comes under draught prone area or earthquake affected areas. The very common reason of migration is that all the stone workers in the quarry did not having land or any income sources for their livelihood in their own village. Last 10 to 15 year most of stone workers are working in quarry and they did not want back to their village from 10 to 12 years because they are daily wage earners, if they did not work for one day then they will not able to get food for next day, there are surviving on hand to mouth. In such condition they are not able to save money or send money to their relatives who are still staying in their native village. There are families in good numbers who are now settled in this area forever.

The migration is a continue process in the life of stone workers because some time they did not find job in one side or present quarry get closed or in the search of good wage they are always migrating one place to another place. The continue migration making stone workers more marginalize. Normally the workers are did not stay at one place more than 2 to 3 years and therefore they did not get enrolled their name in voting list or they did not getting rationing facilities from state government as well as local panchayat. But “Santulan” an organization is working in these stone quarries from 1997. The organization is helping this stone quarry workers to get voter identity card and because of this organization Wagholi stone quarry workers got their ration cards facility.

Santula started their school’s call Pashan Shala (school in the quarries) in every part of the Wagholi Stone quarry area. It is recognize by the state government of Maharashtra and government of India. These schools are opened in the community with taking help of the stone quarry owners were stone workers are staying. In Wagholi there were three schools from nursery to 7^th std are running (were researchers visited), the places are Wagheshwar Nagar, Gore Wasti and Suyog Nagar and all this schools are covering 240 children in age of 3 to 18 years. For the further education children’s are going to residential school which is in Pune. Organization is providing all the facilities to the children’s, they are getting good education and other facilities like books, bags, notebook etc. with this they are also getting nutritional food by midday meal scheme in the school. But still children’s are going to quarries for work when they get weekly or public holidays from school. Parent’s wants to send their child in to school but the poor economic situation of the workers make their child to work. But there are children how stopped to doing quarry work because of the school stared. One 13 years old boy told that “I use to go in the stone quarries with mother for work but from the time Pashan School has started in our area, I have stopped going for work”.

The migration is one of the cause which affecting children education. In 2004 -2005 there are 2055 children covered by that Santulan but in the same year 946 children are migrated to different places with their family.

The stone quarry workers are not staying one place and they are migrating different places it also impacting on their social life. This workers did not having any kind of government document which show their nationality or their caste so that they are not eligible to take any government facilities like NREGA, Indira Gandhi Niradhar Yojana or any national, state or local schemes as well as their children also not getting any educational facilities in the government school or scholarship from funding organization or government.

Every day there is 5 to 10 per cent children’s are not attending the school because of the health reason. Normally children’s are having Cough, Cold, Fever and Malaria; therefore they are not attending school. But the school teachers are giving every day visit to all the houses to take children in the school. If they found any child sick or not feeling well then they take that child to local PHC or teacher’s gives medicine to that child. The First Aids Box is available in every school.

The workers are starting doing work in stone quarry in the age of 14 or 15 years so that in the age of 45 to 50 normally they will die because of doing heavy work, in the accident in quarry or illness like tuberculosis, asthma or malaria. In this situation the orphan child is stay with their relatives. One 12 years girl told that, “My Father died due to illness and therefore I used to go with my mother in stone quarries to work” (she started crying)

One of the major causes of illness of workers is dust. The process of braking stone and the crushers are generating lot of dust. In summer the situation of quarry goes at worst level and in this condition the stone workers and their families are doing work and staying at same place. With this the workers have habit of taking alcohol, smoking tobacco or Ganja, chewing tobacco or Gutkha which invites illness and death.

The chances of an accident in quarry is very high every year there are 2 to 3 accident cases are taking places (which is registered in Santulan). The owner of the quarry always trying to close the matter at side only, they give some money for the treatment only if workers relatives asked more money or something then owners throw them out from quarry or send them back to village. Most of time if any worker dead in the accident the owner give money to other workers to throw or send back death body to workers village. If the owner feels that in the case there is more risk to him then only he gives more money. Recently one case took place in Wagheshwar stone quarry area were 20 years old boy got killed in an accident the owner gave some money to his family and send them back to their village.

In the Wagholi area there are around 60 private doctors are doing their practices. The stone workers have more belief on these doctors because when workers goes to this doctor they will get relief within a day and workers also want to recover as early as possible because he is getting lose. But the realities are these doctors are exploiting them. If doctor know that the patent having good money with him then they are giving injections, saline and extra dose of medicine in normal fever also without need or reason. Here the only purpose of doctors is to earn money. When Santulan doctor tell them this face the workers do not believe on them and they not taking any medication from him because they feels that the Santulan doctor is not good. Santulan’s doctor only going to every school and doing check up of children regularly without taking any money.

From Wagholi PHC the Asha worker is coming for the immunization and polio campaigning. The PHC is 4 to 5 Km’s long from the quarry area and there is now vehicle facility available in the area because of road is not in good condition so small vehicle or government transport buses are not coming in the area. It will very difficult when any accident or pregnancy case take place.

The parents are going to work at early morning 6 or 7 o’clock and they coming back at the evening 5 or 6 o’clock in the evening. Therefore the responsibility of children is to take care of house and siblings. Children in the age group of 2 to 10 years have to complete their household work before coming in to school. Normally they have to wash the cloths and vessel, cook food and take care of siblings. The boys in age group of 4 to 12 years are normally taking meals for their parents.  If in home there is no girl then boys had to do same work which girls are doing. Children are coming to school with their sibling without that they are not able to attend school.

At Wagholi Stone quarry area the stone workers are getting very less wages then minimum wage. Again in wage structure there is gender discrimination which any one can see openly. Workers men and women starting doing work from 6 o’clock both are breaking stones and filling that stones in the tractor. Morning to evening in 12 hours hard job they are only able to fill 4 to 5 tractor. For every tractor per men is getting 30 rupees and per women is getting 25 rupees. So end of the day they are earning 100 to 120 rupees a day. They getting there wage every week so every week they are getting 700 to 800 rupees. Almost all the stone workers are taking alcohol every day as well as they have habit to smoking, chewing tobacco or Gutkha. When male workers get their wage they give only 400 to 500 rupees to run the house because remain money they are spending on drinking and their daily habits.

In the stone quarry area there are so many person and children are look more elder then their age. Children are suffering from anemia and malnutrition, children are not growing according their age because of their low economic condition workers can’t afford the nutritional food for own and their family.

There is no any date available in Santulan and during the visit no one talk about sexual abuse of children, rape or molestation of women at working place or works are visiting to prostituted. But the situation in the quarry says that there are chances that all this thinks may be taking place in the quarry area but it’s not coming in the light. Still Santulan doctor and local PHC did not identified any person with HIV/ADIS.

With the help of Santulan stone quarry workers got water facility in the quarry area. Wagholi village Panchayat build the water tank for workers but presently workers are not getting water from there because the village people cut of the tab connection. The village people were not willing to give any facilities to stone quarry area workers. The workers are using blocked quarry water which gather in the middle of quarry, they using this water for drinking, bathing and other use. In the summer workers have to be depend on mercy of village people, workers are did not taking bath and wash their cloths for 2 to 4 days.

The owner is providing electricity facility to all the workers without taking money. Owner also provided place to workers to stay. Workers build up their houses by using tine, stone or plastic paper. It is very small places where they are staying it is only 8X10 house and in that whole family is staying. In one family normally husband wife two or three children and others relative are staying together. It means in one family 7 to 8 members are staying.

CONCLUSION

The stone quarry workers are one of the marginalize group in the Maharashtra, who’s social, economical, health, educational and cultural life is totally change or its destroyed. There are children who are working as a child labour in the quarry and they can’t think about education. Women, children and men at all age are suffering from different illness and having death in very less age. People are totally dependent on others for their basic amenities and economically; socially they are bonded with owners. Quarry is a place where worker getting food for his and his family to survive but it is also a place where they are getting economical exploited by others.

We are saying India is a developing country and we arc competing with other nationals and we are emerging as powerful nation in the world. But the question comes here how it can be possible when there are lakhs and lakhs people are depending on unorganized sect0r for their livelihood without any job or life security and facilities.

Stone quarry areas in Maharashtra giving job around 10 to 12 lakhs of workers and they all are totally depend on this work only so in this situation Maharashtra government should formulate policy and fund for their development.

REFERENCES

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

1)      Chandra Bhuhan and Monali Zeya Hazra: Rich Lands poor people is ‘sustainable’ mining possible? By Central for science and environment

2)      Consultation on women, mining and development- a skill-share report 16to 19 march 2009, Hyderabad, India. (mm&P)

3)      Forest People Programmer (2003), Extracting Promises- Indigenous People, Extractive Industries and World Bank, Tebtebba Foundation.

4)      Samata, Surviving a Minefield-An Adivasi Triumph, (A Landmark Supreme Court Judgement Restoring the right of Tribals) Samata Vs State of AP & Others, (2003).

5)      Khan, Khanij Aur Ham (2002), mm&P

6)      III International Women & Mining Conference report by International Women & Mining Network 2004.

7)      Samata (2007), A study on the Status and problems of Tribal Children in AP.

8)      Minerals year book 2006

9)      Minerals year book 2007

10)     Census of India 2001

11)     National Family Health Survey 2007

12)     Maharashtra Human Development Report 2002

13)     Highlights of Mining Policy and Foreign Investment-2007-2008

14)     A Report of the Consultation on the Impacts of Mining on Children in India April 2008 Samata

15)     A Report of the Fact Finding Team on the Child Labourers in the Iron Ore and Granite Mines in Bellary District of Karnataka April 2005.

16)     Elementary Education of India- District Report Cards 2007-08 National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.

17)     “Elemental Environmentalism: Water, Air, Fire and Earth” Part of the Ottawa University Institute of Environment 2006-07 Lecture Series February 28, 2007.

18)     “Stone Quarry Workers win the battle for Right to Drinking Water” report by Santulan.

19)     “A decade long movement on right to education to put of school children in stone quarry sector in Maharashtra” Pashan Shala Raport 1997 to 2009, Santulan.

Net Resources

1)      http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/01/stories/2009070151200300.htm

2)      http://www.cseindia.org/programme/industry/mining/political_minerals_mapdescription.htm

3)      http://www.childlineindia.org.in/

4)      http://ibm.gov.in/

5)      http://www.nacdor.org/TEXT%20FILES/Dalit.htm

6)      (http://www.articleclick.com/Article/Types-Of-Mining-Operations/3242)

7)      (http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/english/megastate/economySurvey3Show.php)

8)      (http://mines.nic.in/archp1.html)

Educate agitate and organize concept of Dr. Ambedkar has given meaningful massage to the people in the mode of development. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was born in a class considered low and outcast. Dr. Ambedkar fought untiringly for the downtrodden. The man who suffered bitter humiliation became the first Minister for Law in free India, and shaped the country’s Constitution. He was strong-minded fighter, a deep scholar, human to the tips of his fingers. Educate, Agitate, Organize are three final words of our savior Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. Being a Buddhist Babasaheb gave these slogans based on Buddhist philosophy. These commandments must be kept in this order. We are not trying to find responsibility in others who may have used different order by changing second commandment (Agitate) as third and changed this order to Educate, Organize and Agitate. It is highly suggested to all Ambedkarites across the world to use these final words in the same order as our savior gave us. They should not only be use in this order but also experienced in this order: Educate, Agitate, Organize.

One may question as to why we must follow a particular order of these final words of Dr. Ambedkar. It is Dr. Ambedkar’ well thought that strategic order of action to make the movement successful. One must get educated first before he can have agitated thoughts for the movement so that people can organize with his support. A changed order of these final words of Babasaheb may not only wait the group to reach its purpose; it may also divert the direction of the group, which can be harmful for the movement.

History of society

The status of communities as Dealits in the Hindu caste system was the most serious impediment to their education. While stringent social taboos conscribed their behavior, severe strictures were laid down to prevent their access to knowledge. It was treatment for some communities that they were taboo from walking on the road in daylight because even their shadow was considered polluting. On the pathetic condition of untouchables, Ambedkar had given lot of facts. He writes that , “Under the rule of the Peshwas in the Maratha country the untouchables was not allowed to use the public street if a Hindu was coming along lest he should pollute the Hindu by his shadow. The untouchable was required to have a black thread either on his wrist or on in his neck as a sign or a mark to prevent the Hindus from getting them polluted by his touch through mistake. In Poona, the capital of the Peshwa, the untouchables was required to carry, strung from his waist, a broom to sweep away from behind the dust he treaded on lest a Hindu walking on the same should be polluted. In Pune, the untouchable was required to carry an earthen pot, hung in his neck wherever he went, for holding his spit falling on earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it. The children of untouchables were not allowed to study in public school. Untouchables were not allowed to use public wells, to wear apparel or ornaments they like and to eat any food they like. The list of atrocities is even longer than this. In post-independent India, this list is lessen but not completely exhausted.

The singular role that Ambedkar played in the upliftmant of the untouchables in the early 20th century and the importance that he give to modern education for their betterment deserves special emphasis. In conferences, lecture and meetings, Ambedkar encouraged untouchable youth to acquire education in order to raise their social status and image. As early as 1924, he established the Bahishkrit Hitkarini Sabha, which had among its objectives the opening of hostels, libraries, social centers and classrooms where the untouchable youth could study. Ambedkar ideas for the untouchables was ‘to raise their educational standards so that they may know their own conditions, have aspirations raise to the level of highest Hindu and be in position to use political power as a means to that end’( Zelliot 1972.77) . This is best reflected in Ambedkar’s famous slogan Educate, Agitate and Organize.’

Educate:

Education has an immense impact on the human society. One can safely assume that a person is not in the proper sense until he is educated. It trains the human mind to think and take the right decision. In other words, man becomes a rational animal when he is educated.

It is through education that knowledge and information received and spread throughout the world. An uneducated person cannot read and write and hence he closed to all the knowledge and wisdom he can gain through books and other mediums. In other words, he shut off from the outside world. In contrast, an educated man lives in a room with all its windows open towards outside world.

The quality of human resource of a nation is easily judge by the number of literate population living in it. This is to say that education is necessary if a nation aspires to achieve growth and development and more importantly sustain it. This may well explain the fact that rich and developed nations of the world have very high literacy rate and productive human resource. In fact, these nations have started imparting selective training and education programs to meet the new technical and business demands of the 21st century.

Getting educated does not mean only to acquire academic designations. One must get educated about Babasaheb’s mission and his thoughts. We must read and learn about Dr. Ambedkars ideology and strategy to strengthen our people. We have people running organizations under Dr. Ambedkars name for years and years but one can tell from the way they think and how they work that they have no hint about Dr. Ambedkars mission. The knowledge they posses about Dr. Ambedkar is their borrowed knowledge of telephone conversations with others and they make us believe that they are the most committed followers of Dr. Ambedkar. It could be fine if they only keep this borrowed knowledge to themselves but they should not start preaching to others while they hold positions in their organizations, which actually hurt the movement instead of helping it.

Agitate:

The second step ‘agitate’ does not mean to agitate physically; it is a mental revolution in its place. It does not mean to go out and start protesting violently on the streets without getting educated first, which most probably our enemy wants us to do. After getting educated about Babasaheb’s thoughts and strategy: we should start agitating mentally. We need an agitation of thoughts in our mind in order to move to the next stage: organize.

Organize:

Educated and agitated minds will easily organize for a common mission. We must get ourselves educated and let our thoughts agitate so that we can collectively organize. Agitated minds for a common mission will help them to unite and struggle for their common goal as one force.

When it comes to organize, one must be honest with his intentions and mission. A simple agenda never produces any results and people stay ununited. My personal experience taught me that being honestly sensible about resolving any issue contributes completely. I have known people making announcements individually and in large gatherings to unite and work together. But in practice, their hidden agendas don’t let them or others unite. Their personal interests interfere in their way to make right decision and they not only remain ununited with others but they also create obstacles for others to unite. Since they cannot walk their own talk, they do not produce any effective results.

In Caste system, an individual is confined only to his or her traditional occupation. Therefore, there is a little scope to grow. But in Class, as it is open, an individual can grow as per his or her capability. Only education can bring this change. Ambedkar had also given lot of emphasis on getting education. He said that, “Educate, Organize and Agitate”. Here he had given prime importance to education. He further added that, “The backward classes have come to realize that after all education is the greatest material benefit for which they can fight. We may forego material benefits of civilization but we cannot forego our rights and opportunities to reap the benefits of the highest education fully. That the importance of this question from the point of view of the backward classes who have just realized that without education their existence is not safe.” He suffered a lot due to this caste system. Still in that system of discrimination, he succeeded to well educate himself.

In my field experience, I have taken various Social Work Colleges students views on the Ambedkars idea on educate agitate and organize. Students are thinking reason behind this Ambedkars idea for giving education and equal opportunity to the people, for removing Indian Hindu religious caste system and development of backward caste as well as all marginalized communities.  According to the social work students educate agitate and organize means create power in people for achieve basic rights in the society for life, Achieve success in the life, and struggle for social justice. In the social work field Ambedkars idea about educate agitate and organize is very much relevant in the current context because in the Indian society people are illiterate and they are not aware about education as well as their basic rights of the life, still people are facing caste discrimination in society, and lack of support and motivation. Social worker should work on these issues while doing social work. In the social work field this statement can be operationalized through awareness of education and basic rights of life, through motivation and opportunity, through social movement and work against caste system.

Educate, Agitate, and organize: this order must be maintained to see the effective results of the movement for the upliftment of our people. Babasaheb had a strategically thought and well-defined process for his mission to be successful. Following this order, can positively result in achieving more outcomes that are beneficial not only for our community but for the society as a whole.

Dr. Ambedkar said, my final words of advice to you is “Educate, Agitate, Organize” have faith in yourself. With justice on our side, I do not see how we can lose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for reclamations of the human personality.

References:

1. Ambedkar and Buddhism, by, Sangharakshita (Bhikshu) Motilal Banarsidass Published, 2006.
2. Dr. Baba Sahib Ambedkar Writings and speeches Bombay 1979, Vol.14, part 2.
3. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar – - “Annihilation of Caste”
4. Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Writing and Speeches, Vol. 1, p. 15, Bombay: The Education Department, Government of Maharashtra, (1979)

I am restricted of space.

When I learned how to dress,

I complained about that long duppatta

That strangled me sometimes.

When I first fell in love,

I complained my boundary is my religion.

When I started travelling alone,

I complained of getting raped

by those dirty looks and touches.

When I went to a new city,

I talked about that knife which

I kept in my bag;

instead of a lipstick or a chocolate.

I cried of my insecurity and my limits,

but when I saw her, I stopped complaining;

Instead …

I shouted about Rights, Liberty & Ambedkar,

because she was faceless and voiceless.

She was like those toys,

which work on battery.

I told her, ‘remove your purdah,

And let’s look into each other’s eyes’;

Then she talked about culture and tradition.

I told her, ‘let’s break it’.

Then she showed me those injury marks,

all over her body, which told me,

she is the property of her husband,

and  upper-caste men;

She said the only moment

she is not untouchable  is ,

when she gets raped.

I came back leaving her behind,

because I didn’t know the solution for

Culture of silence,

The culture of lakhs of  Rajasthani Dalit women.

Deepika Rose Alex

Michael Walzer.

The term Civil Society has gone through several transformations from an idea that entered into the intellectual discourse in the 18^th century European thought of a ‘desired state of reality’. The question then that should be asked is what the concept of ‘Civil Society’ is all about. Civil society according to Satish Saberwal is a social space which has three qualities. Its first quality is that in this social space, decisions and choices have to be made on the basis of reason and of knowledge. The second quality of civil society space is that its members have to relate to each other open-endedly, without exclusion on grounds of religion, gender and so forth. The civil society space, consequently, can carry a great variety of associations- whose membership is open. The third quality is in the decision making and choices. The civil society space should be free from coercive pressures. Coercion can take various shapes and forms; it may emanate from such agencies as the state, terrorists, family or jati and organized religion.

Marx on the other hand defines civil Society as a society that embraces the whole material intercourse of individuals with a definite stage of the development of productive forces. It embraces the whole commercial and industrial life of a given stage, and insofar transcends the state and the nation, though, on the other hand again, it must assert itself in its foreign relations as nationality and inwardly must organise itself as a state. The word ‘Civil Society’ already extricated themselves from the ancient and the medieval communal society. Civil Society as such only develops with the bourgeoisie; the social organisation evolving directly out of production and commerce which in all ages forms the basis of the state and the rest of the idealistic superstructure has however, always been designated by the same name. (Axelos 1976; 91) Marx held the view that civil society represented the interests of the bourgeoisie as revealed through the state; as such both are instruments of oppression

The notion of civil society is today commonly identified with a non- statist, often romanticized as a set of institutions that stand for liberalism in the form of free market in the economic sphere and democracy in the political sphere. The interest about civil society did not arise due to a desire to study civil society but because of the increasing disenchantment with the State (Beteille). In the recent times, the state always promised a lot but delivered a little underlining the need to look at the alternative sites for development. The civil society presented itself as the only viable and meaningful site. People began to look at the civil society and the possibilities it offered.

In India, too, the interest in the civil society essentially arouse as a result of disenchantment with the State (Kothari 1998). The Transfer of Power in 1947 unleashed enormous hopes and expectations among people. The state was expected to solve immense socio-economic problems which had been existent for a long time. It was also expected to be more responsive to the needs and aspirations of the people. It was soon realized that the state in the name of development began to serve the interests of the dominant and hegemonic classes and whatever they had promised to the poor and the deserving remained a promise. This then created a great interest in the working of the civil society and emancipator potential it was supposed to possess. It was expected to play a critical and instrumental role in creating a democratic and just order.

State and civil society:

State and civil societies are being widely debated in contemporary times. Historically, the civil society has always been looked at as a sphere that is distinct from the State, ignoring the important linkages between the two (Beteille). It is therefore deemed important to look at the inseparable linkages between the two.  Many social theorists considered the state as the creation of civil society for protecting the life and property of citizens. While championing the sovereignty of the state, they did not deny the ruler’s obligation to assure civil society rights. The modern approach to the issue is more pragmatic than theoretical, due to several reasons (P.B Nayar 2000; 130). In recent times, the concept of state has undergone considerable change. Sociologists no more use the term state as the embodiment of coercive power and sovereignty, but as a system having several parts and operating within a larger social system. The state operates through its various elements-executive, legislature judiciary, bureaucracy, the army and, in a democracy, political parties.

Leading modern societies claim to have a constitutional and democratic state, based on the rule of law which stems from the balance between the legislature and the executive. These bodies of governance are supposed to be accountable to the will of the people as expressed through electoral forms of political participation. As these governing institutions derive their power from the people, they are subject to the control of the people. This condition gives a sense of satisfaction or it may seem, to the people of that democratic state that there will be no in-equality and monopoly of power.

This fallacy however was soon discovered as power was dispersed among powerful groups, institutions and organizations. Inequalities existed but since it was non-cumulative, they were negotiated and modified through democratic struggles and bargaining among various economic and socio-political interests. Therefore, to maintain the neutral, balancing and mediating role of the state, it became necessary that democratic accountability in the political system to be advanced. This democratic accountability thus lay in the expansion of civil society and in a reduction in the role of the state. Civil society therefore cannot be seen as autonomous from the socio-economic and political process and from the state. By forgetting that the state and the society are interdependent, we often ignore the dynamic intertwining of the state and civil society.

The dialectical relationship that obtains between the state and the civil society needs to be placed in its proper perspective. The idea of civil society is based on the appreciation of the differentiation, not on the denial to the state of the powers and functions appropriate to it (Beteille). Just as the state should not try to appropriate powers which do not legitimately belong to it, the civil society should also take care that it does not overstep its legitimate boundary. The uniqueness of the political system vis-à-vis the social system is that it is the prime mover, energizer and regulator of the latter. Viewed in this perspective, the interdependence of the state and the civil society becomes apparent. An effective state is central to the functioning of an effective civil society. However, a vibrant civil society requires not just an effective state, but also a political order that is liberal and democratic, a state which enforces the rule of law and safeguards the fundamental freedom of its citizens. There is also the need for the state to incorporate welfare provisions as only these qualities of the state will enable civil society organizations to coexist and enter into healthy competition with one another.

Civil Society in the Indian context:

India has a well developed civil society and most of the organizations (CSOs) have contributed immensely to the growth of this country. However one may also say that due to the growing socio-economic as well as political tensions growing in the country, civil society organizations are not operating in a conducive environment which will help them to grow and develop. Though the Indian subcontinent can boast of a constitution that protects and safeguards the interests of the people irrespective of the caste, creed, sex or religion; the truth is still far from what it claims. The state has failed to make uniform laws for all the citizens especially women and other weaker sections of the society. Another bitter truth remains in the fact that different sections of the people are differently protected by the state and the rule of law applies to some but not all. This statement might sound ambiguous or vague but when we look at the situation of the tribes and the dalits in India, this statement would then not be looked as something vague.

Modern civil society in India has been a post independence phenomenon. With half a century of its existence as a free nation, the country has witnessed a plethora of civil society organizations; both small and large at the local as well as at the national level. However only a few of them have been able to live up to its objectives. The availability of foreign funds has been able to propel the NGO’s to a higher pedestal but have very little contribution to civil society.

Mizoram:

Mizoram is located between 22^o 19’ N and 24^o 19’ N latitude covering a geographical area of 21087 Sq. km with a population of 8.9 Lakhs (2001 census). It has an average density of 42 persons per sq. km. the state of Mizoram is surrounded by the Burma in the east, Manipur and Cachar district of Assam in the north, Tripura and Bangladesh in the west and Burma in the south. Mizoram became a full-fledged state of the Union of India in the year 1987.

In earlier times, the Mizos were independent. Around 1890, after prolonged struggle of about four decades, they came under British subjugation. In the closing year of the last century, around 1989, Lushai Hills, as the area was called, was tagged with Assam, and since then till 1972 the Lushai Hills remained as a district of Assam and administered as such. In 1954 the parliament passed an Act to change the name from Lushai Hills to Mizo Hills as the people of different tribes in the hills would like to be identified as Mizos. In 1972 she became a union territory and on 20 February 1987 Mizoram got the status of Statehood.

Mizo society is composed of various tribes and sub-tribes, prominent among them being Lushai, Paite, Ralte Hmor, Pois (Pawis) and Lakhers. The dominating Sailo sub-tribe had the capacity to absorb the culture of other groups and sub-trines under persistent external influences (Singh, S.N 1994). The Mizo came to their present habitat from Chin Hills of Burma. According to the legends they originally belonged to Sinlung, on the bank of the river Mekong in South western China. They migrated to Mizoram in waves from the Chin Hills of Burma in the later part of the 18^th century. Some of the factors which propelled them to migrate was the strong forces of the Burma state as well as Famine.

Ethnic composition of Lushai Hills District (now Mizoram)

Source: Census of India, Assam 1971 and Singh, S. N: – Mizoram, Historical Geographical, Social, Economic, Political and Administrative. 1994.

More recently the use of civil society in exerting organized pressure on autocratic and unresponsive states and thereby supporting democratic stability and good governance has received critical attention. The fact that civil social institutions can also be vehicles for participation in development programmes has also been noted. Owing to this fact we try and look at how the Young Mizo Association as an organization has played a vital role in the context of Mizoram. This would enable us to link the concept of civil society with the pragmatic reality that obtains in Mizoram. We therefore try and look at the growth of YMA (Young Mizo Association) and its relationship with the State.

Historical evolution of the Young Mizo Association:

In the late 19^th century, there was an institution which was of great importance to the Mizo community. This institution was called ZAWLBUK. Zawlbuk was a bachelor’s dormitory which was present in every mizo village during that time. The purpose of this Zawlbuk was for a.) The protection of the village from foreign enemies. b.) To provide a workforce for the community which was mainly agrarian during that time. c.) To act as a body for consultation during crisis and famines.

This institution however weakened due to the coming of the British, the advent of Christianity and the introduction of formal education etc. In no time Zawlbuk as an institution became an obsolete body and subsequently died out of the society. The death of Zawlbuk left a gap in the Society and the missionaries and some other local elders were concerned that in the event of the eventual disappearance of Zawlbuk there should be an organisation which should be able to channelize the creative energies of the youth of Mizoram. The mizo community was always enthralled by these Christian missionaries and was thereby influenced by them in almost every way. During the colonial period there was a great religious revolution called “CHANCHINTHADAK’ which means a Gospel Post or Christian literature. During that time, many Mizos converted to Christianity and thereby laying the foundation of Christianity in this tribal state.

Thus the Welsh missionaries who had come to Mizoram proposed for an association similar to the Young Welsh Association they had back home. Thus was born the Young Lushai Association, the name given by Reverend David Edward, a Presbyterian Missionary, on the 15^th June 1953. Some Mizo students though argue that the YLA or the YMA is more than a century old.

The Young Mizo Association had three objectives to begin with. They were:

• To make the leisure profitable.
• To seek progress for Mizoram.
• To uphold the honour the Christian values.

The motto of the YMA seemed a little confusing as their motto is to uphold the unspoken law or dogma called TLAWN NGAIHNA as well s to uphold the Christian values. However the YMA constantly emphasizes that they are not a religious based organisation but only believe in upholding the Christian values as the majority of mizo people are Christians in Mizoram. The YMA as an organisation can be called organic in its approach because for a Mizo, the YMA is an entity where the tribal community of Mizoram plays the pivotal role.

Young Mizo Association and the State:

Because of the circumstances in which it was born, the YMA in its formative stage had strong links with the Church, particularly the Presbyterian Church which is the largest denomination of the Catholic Church. The missionaries of this Church were involved in the formation of the YMA.  The strong linkage is reflected in that fact that to be an office bearer of the YMA, one has to be a full-Church member. But as time passed by the linkage between the Church and the YMA gradually became weak. This was also the time when the YMA developed ‘political’ character. Due to the politically adjunct situation prevailing in the country, many members of the YMA could not isolate themselves from the political movement for independence taking place elsewhere in the country during that time. It did indulge in politically-informed actions at times. Doe example, a serious encounter took place took place between the authorities and the YMA leaders when the YMA organised an informal meeting in 1945. In this meeting the latter was informed in clear terms that the people wanted a democratic system in Mizoram. Similarly, one of the movements of great political importance occurred when the YMA, Kulikawn (a locality in Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram) unit passed a resolution on the right of self determination for the Lushais in April 1943. The central committee of the YMA however did not approve of the resolution on the plea that YMA was not a political body.

Yet another instance of political consciousness among the YMA members was when they got an opportunity to send members to Burma with the sole purpose of spreading the Mizo language far and wide and doing good work to show that they sympathized with the people of Chin Hills, which were ethnically akin to the Mizos as mentioned earlier in the paper. However, at the height of autonomy movement in Mizoram, the YMA as an organisation did not take any position directly, either supporting the movement or opposing the movement. This stance taken by the YMA seemed so because of the belief they had both in the Church as well as the State who would act as stakeholders for the welfare and development of the Mizo community. The YMA being essentially a non-political and social organisation could not have taken such a direct political position. As Mr. Reuben Vlulam (General Secretary of YMA, Shillong north unit) had pointed out that the repressive measures taken by the central government could have also drastically affected even the normal activities of the YMA. In these circumstances, it would have also been impossible for the YMA to take any direct political position.

In another bloody conflict between the Brues (Bru tribes) and the Mizos in Mizoram, the YMA played a pivotal role in initiating a strategy that would bring in peace in the region. In 30^th April 2002, the BNLF (a militant outfit of the Reang tribes) declared that the outfit is ready to negotiate for a regional council, instead for an Autonomous District Council for which they were fighting for. So after the strings of violence, the government of Mizoram initiated talks for peace. During the 10^th round of talks, the Bru militants dropped all political demands including the creation of Autonomous district Council, thus paving the way to the resolution of the longstanding conflict. At last on 26^th April 2005 the 12h round of talks too place in which a memorandum of settlement was signed between the government of Mizoram and the BNLF (Goswami, P. J 2007).

The above instances of political activism can be characterised as expressions of party political processes as given by Kothari. Kothari had also mentioned that non-party political processes are essential initiatives taken by the civil society in the Indian subcontinent in particular. The YMA which is supposed to be a non-political body was becoming involved in political negotiations and this fact shows that the YMA was playing “non political party role.’ In fact as, Kothari had mentioned, non-party political processes provide sources of regeneration in the Indian democracy. We can look at the Young Mizo Association from that perspective.

The YMA is however distinctive as its role is vital for the Mizo community and thus forms an important component of the civil society in Mizoram and not the political involvement which was there but not sharply defined. By successfully undertaking these activities, the YMA has shown that the civil society through its vibrant associations can achieve greater measures of success than the state with its indifferent and oppressive administrative structures.

Some of the activities taken up by the YMA for the welfare of Mizoram:

During the early years since its inception, the YMA sought to make creative use of energies of the youth by organizing debates, discussions, games and sports. Its role in encouraging people to maintain public health and sanitation has also been remarkable. The present Government Higher Secondary School in Aizawl was established in 1944 with the active participation of the YMA.

When progress in the rest of the country in respect of increasing literacy is rather unsatisfactory, Mizoram has a remarkable achievement in this regard coming second in the country in terms of literacy rate. This remarkable achievement is mainly due to the efforts of the missionaries as well as the YMA. While we can explain the enthusiasm of the missionaries to make people literate in terms of religious motivations, we cannot find any extraneous adjunct motivation in the case of YMA except for the deep rooted conviction that its existence can only be justified by making efforts to eradicate social evils such as illiteracy.

The YMA has always played an important role when sporadic, spasmodic natural calamities or famines strike the state of Mizoram. When the state disappointed the people by not providing them immediate relief, the YMA stepped up with its innovative measures to help the people of the state which was greatly appreciated by the people of the state.

As Mr. Reuben Vlulam had mentioned that during the time of family crisis be it an accident, a funeral or even shifting of a house, the YMA members were ever willing to help their own people without rooting for any fiscal help from them. The collective spirit which guides the work of the YMA is reflected in such circumstances and one’s faith in the civil society institutions tends to get reinforced. This clearly shows that there is a greater voice in collective consciousness rather than individual consciousness.

More recently the YMA has become involved in important activities such as wild –life and forest preservation. The state today depends heavily on the YMA for ensuring the above. The YMA since 1974 took up the Green Mizoram Project. The above mentioned activities give us a clear idea of what the YMA has been doing in the state of Mizoram as an important component of the civil society in Mizoram. In recognition of the services rendered by the YMA in different fields, it received a number of awards like the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra Award in 1986 from the government of India.

Tensions with the state:

Some of the members closely associated with the YMA admit to the fact that it has been trying to appropriate functions which legitimately belong to the state thus contributing to tensions in the relationship between the civil society and the state in Mizoram. Since the YMA is an entity of the Mizo people, it tries to function in some ways which go against the policies of the state. Because of the prominent presence of the unspoken law called the TWALN NGAIHNA, the YMA feels that if the state cannot help the people of Mizoram, the YMA is then compelled to work against the government for the welfare of the people of Mizoram. As one person associated with the YMA in the pat as an important leader put it, the YMA is at crossroads. The YMA seems to have lost its original objectives and instead it is taking up many functions which its original objectives did not intend it to take up. There seems to be a certain amount of confusion about the tasks it is supposed to perform. The assumption of new powers and functions has almost made it a parallel government. The YMA’s involvement in preparation of electoral rolls does not seem to accord well with its essential objective of rendering social service. In another example where the YMA tried to punish the perpetrators of drug abuse by ostracizing them from the Mizo community and by meeting the suppliers of drugs to the youth of Mizoram is also unconstitutional. These functions legitimately belong to the state. Denial of legitimate functions to the state tends to strain the relationship between the state and the civil society and blur the distinction between the two as it has been noticed in the context of Mizoram.

The YMA has become such a powerful and influential body of the state that more often than not the people are seen approaching the YMA rather than any government department for solving their problems. The bureaucracy with its usual nonchalant and unresponsive behavior and attitude discourages people from approaching it. The YMA taking advantage of this predicament tries to put pressure thus winning the confidence of the people in Mizoram.

When we look at YMA as an organisation, we can help but see the fact that this organisation is different from any other organisation in the North East. Some of the reasons why YMA is different from any other organisation are:

• The Unspoken Law:

The YMA seeks its strength in terms of its number as well as its well wishers because of the unspoken law that binds the organisation together. This unspoken law allows the YMA to dictate terms to the state as well. Since the YMA’s motto is to uphold the TWALN NGAIHNA (unspoken law), the people of Mizoram give the attention and express their support and solidarity to the organisation. No other organisation has ever had this kind of support and solidarity in the North eastern part of the region.

• The YMA vis-à-vis the Community.

For any organisation to gain support as well as popularity, one needs to have a good rapport with the community. As for the YMA, the organisation has full support from the people of the state so much so that now they can be called as a parallel government. They YMA maintain the fact that for a Mizo, the YMA is an entity. To shun away any member of the YMA, one closes the doors of communication with the community in Mizoram as he/she would be ostracized from the community. No celebrations or funeral rites will be attended by any community member if one does not associate oneself with the YMA. Such is the power and authority that the YMA holds in the context of Mizoram.

Conclusion:

As mentioned at the outset, the interest about the civil society arose as a result of the disenchantment with the state. The state has completely supplanted the civil society in the communist societies and in the western liberal democratic societies it has not performed whatever it has promised. Hopes then began to be pinned on the civil society, popular initiatives for the welfare and development of people began to be made in the civil society.

Because of the disenchantment with the state and the mediating institutions that are its counterparts, attention is turning increasingly to what many now say is the true motive force of civil society, namely Voluntary action. The example of YMA in the context of Mizoram can be used to strengthen this statement above. The interest in voluntary action, voluntary movements and voluntary associations has given a new lease of life by the concern for the creation or revival of civil society.

The significance of voluntary action in linking society and politics together and in driving them forward in democratic systems cannot be too strongly emphasized. A democratic society cannot function properly, not to speak of its growing, if everything in it is left to the state or even constitutional bodies. Mere statutory action will be in fructuous if it is not underpinned by voluntary action. Therefore as stated before the civil society must play a role in collaborating with the state in trying to bring about the welfare and harmony in the state. The YMA in the context of Mizoram has been able to achieve this social harmony and peace in the state due to its voluntary action as well juxtaposing with the government agencies for the overall welfare of the people of Mizoram.

Since the civil society consists of associations, organisations clubs, etc, in the context of Mizoram, the YMA as an important component of Civil society in Mizoram has played a pivotal role in terms of ensuring welfare of the people of Mizoram. It has been a great force in the Mizo society and occupies a significant part of the consciousness of the Mizo society.

The state and the civil society need to respect each other. The State should encourage whenever meaningful and popular initiatives are taken in the civil society and at the same time the existence of civil society should not be based on the denials of the function of the state. They need to take care that they do not transgress their legitimate boundaries. At the same time the State needs to link itself with the civil society through various networks. In the context of Mizoram, the State can find an extremely useful network in the form of the Young Mizo Association. The interests of the people of Mizoram will be best served if the State and the YMA continue to work together.

References:

1. Beteille, A. 1999. Citizenship, State and Civil Society. EPW 34: 25-91
2. Jayaram, N. 2005. On Civil Society, Issues and Perspectives. Sage Publications, New Delhi.
3. Kumar, D. V. 2009. Explaining Mizo ethnicity: The Relevance of Opposition Approach, Man in India, 90)(1-2): 37-49
4. Jenkins, R. 2004. NGOs and Indian Politics. Oxford University Press.
5. Sen, S. 1997. NGO Relationships in India in the Post- independence Era. Manchester University Press, United Kingdom.
6. Kothari, R. 1974. State against Democracy: Transformation and survival. Ajanta Publishers, New Delhi.
7. Sangkima, I. 1995.  ‘Young Mizo Association: A study in historical perspective. Agartala, 433-441.
8. Mr. Reuben Vlulam. (General Secretary, YMA, Shillong north unit).
9. Kothari, R. 1999.   “The non-party political process, Economic and Political Weekly, 19(3): 216-224.

Biographical sketch of Karl Marx:

“And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the economic anatomy of classes. What I did that was new was to prove:

• That the existence of classes is only bound up with the particular, historical phases in the development of production.
• That the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.
• That this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society”.

Karl Marx.

Marx, Heinrich Karl, was born in Trier on May 5, 1818, the son of the lawyer and later counsellor of justice Heinrich Marx, who, as is shown by the baptismal certificate of his son, converted with his family from Judaism to Protestantism in 1824. After concluding his preparatory education at Trier Gymnasium, Karl Marx studied from 1835 in Bonn and then in Berlin, first law and later philosophy, attaining his Dr. Phil. in Berlin in 1841 with a dissertation on the philosophy of Epicurus. In the same year he moved to Bonn in order to qualify as a lecturer, but the obstacles which the government laid in the path of his friend Bruno Bauer, officially there as lecturer in theology, which culminated in Bauer’s removal from the university, soon made it clear to him that there was no room for him at a Prussian university.

Marx’s father, the first in his line to receive a secular education, had broken with the world of the ghetto and had become a disciple of the Enlightenment–of Leibniz and Voltaire, of Kant and Lessing. His native Trier had once been the seat of a Prince-Archbishop, but early in the century it had been occupied by the French and incorporated by Napoleon in the Confederation of the Rhine. Under the French regime, the Jews, who had suffered from grievous civil disabilities earlier, achieved equal rights as citizens. The doors of trades and professions hitherto closed to them were now open. Since the Jews of the Rhineland owed their emancipation to the Napoleonic regime, they supported it with ardor. They faced a major crisis, however, when, after Napoleon’s defeat, the Rhineland was assigned by the Congress of Vienna to Prussia, where Jews were still deprived of their civil rights. Threatened with the loss of his legal practice, Marx’s father decided in 1817 to convert to the mildly liberal Lutheran Church of Prussia. Being a vague deist and having had no contacts with the synagogue, he regarded conversion as an act of expediency without great moral significance.

The young Marx grew up in a bourgeois household where tensions stemming from its minority status were at best subjacent. His mother, a fairly uneducated woman who never learned to write correct German or to speak it without an accent, does not seem to have had a major influence on him. In contrast, relations with his father, despite some strain, remained close almost throughout the latter’s life. He introduced the young Marx to the world of human learning and letters–to the great figures of the Enlightenment and to the Greek and German classics. Although Marx was early repelled by his father’s subservience to governmental authority and the high and mighty, the intellectual bonds that had been created between father and son began to be severed only in the last year of the father’s life, when the son became a Young Hegelian rebel at Berlin University.

The young Marx was fortunate to have another role model besides his father, the Freiherr Ludwig von Westphalen, a next-door neighbor. Westphalen, though socially his superior, enjoyed cordial relations with Marx’s father: they were both at least nominal Protestants in a largely Catholic city, and they shared an admiration for the Enlightenment and for liberal ideas. An uncommonly cultivated man, Westphalen spoke several languages, knew Homer by heart, and was exceedingly well read in ancient and modern philosophy and literature. He soon found himself attracted to his neighbor’s son; he encouraged him, lent him books, and took him on long walks during which he talked to him about Shakespeare and Cervantes and also about the new social doctrines, especially that of the Saint-Simonians, which had lately created such a stir in Paris. The bond between the two was close, and the distinguished upper-class Prussian government official became the spiritual mentor of the future leader of proletarian socialism.

This was the time when the younger elements of the radical bourgeoisie of the Rhineland, tinged with Young Hegelianism, urged, in agreement with the liberal leaders Camphausen and Hansemann, the publication of a big opposition paper in Cologne; Marx and Bauer were also consulted as capable main contributors. A concession — necessary at that time — was quietly obtained by a devious route, and the Rheinische Zeitung appeared on January 1, 1842. Marx contributed lengthy articles from Bonn for the new paper; foremost among these were: a critique of proceedings in the Rhine Province Assembly, a study of the situation of the peasant vintners on the Mosel, and another on wood theft and the relevant legislation. In October 1842 he took over the management of the paper and moved to Cologne. From this point the paper adopted a sharply appositional character. But the management was so adroit that despite first double censorship, and then triple censorship, imposed upon the paper (first the ordinary censor, then the Regierungspräsident, and finally a Mr. von Saint-Paul dispatched ad hoc from Berlin), the government found this sort of newspaper hard to deal with and therefore decided to forbid further publication of the paper as of April 1, 1843. Marx’s resignation from the editorial board on this date bought a three months’ stay of execution, but then the paper was finally suppressed.

Marx then decided to move to Paris where Arnold Ruge also wished to turn, following the suppression of the Deutsche Jahrbücher at about the same time. But first in Kreuznach he married Jenny von Westphalen, sweetheart of his youth, to whom he had been engaged since the beginning of his university days. The young couple reached Paris in the autumn of 1843, and here Marx and Ruge published the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, a journal of which only the first issue appeared; a continuation failed, partly because of the insuperable difficulties of circulating it secretly in Germany, and partly because of the differences of principle which very soon became apparent between the two editors. Ruge remained tied up with Hegelian philosophy and political radicalism, while Marx threw himself into the study of political economy, the French socialists, and the history of France. The result was his conversion to socialism.

In September 1844, Fr. Engels visited Marx in Paris for a few days: the two had been in correspondence since their joint work, on the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, and their collaboration, which only ended with the death of Marx, dates from this point. The first fruit of this collaboration was a polemical pamphlet against Bruno Bauer, with whom they had likewise parted ways on principles in the course of the disintegration of the Hegelian school: The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and Company, Frankfurt a. M., 1845.

Marx’s health became undermined by his strenuous work in the International and his still more strenuous writings and organizing. He continued work on the refashioning of political economy and on the completion of Capital, for which he collected a mass of new material and studied a number of languages (Russian, for instance; Marx was fully fluent in German, French, and English). However, ill-health prevented him from completing the last two volumes of Capital (which Engels subsequently put together from Marx’s notes).

Among the socialist organizations Marx made contact with in Brussels was the German Workers’ Educational Association, headed by a type-setter (Schapper), a cobbler (Bauer), and a watchmaker (Moll); its headquarters were in London, and it was affiliated with a federation called the Communist League. In 1847 this group commissioned Marx to write a document expounding its aims and beliefs. Reworking a first draft provided by Engels, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in a burst of creative energy and dispatched it to London early in 1848. It was published, without having any major impact, a few weeks before the outbreak of the Paris revolution. The by now familiar first sentence, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle,” adumbrates what is perhaps the most distinctive aspect of all of Marx’s later work. His period of apprenticeship was over. He would elaborate and refine his message later on, and his specific political views and orientations would undergo many changes, but the main line of his intellectual development was determined.

When the 1848 revolution broke out in Germany, Marx returned to the Rhineland, after having spent some time in revolutionary Paris, and once again assumed the editorship of a radical newspaper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. He and Engels now worked for an alliance of the liberal bourgeoisie with the incipient working-class movement. When the revolution failed, Marx, back again in exile, entertained for a while the will-o’-the-wisp of an impending new revolutionary outbreak. Castigating the liberals for their failure and their cowardice, Marx still expected that the revolutionary flame would be rekindled in the very near future.

In August 1849, Marx was presented by the French government with the alternatives of retiring into a distant provincial retreat or leaving the country. He made his decision and embarked for London. He was never to leave this city again for any length of time.

During the first phase of his stay in London, Marx considered the city a temporary port he would soon leave when the Continental revolution came again. In these early years he wrote his most brilliant historical pamphlets, The Class Struggles in France (1850) and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852). These works are informed by a burning revolutionary ardor, but perhaps more importantly, they show Marx at his best in his new role as a social historian of distinction.

As the London years went on, Marx, although never despairing of the coming of a new revolutionary upsurge, realized that the fires of 1848 had burned out. Refusing to participate in a variety of insurrectionary conspiracies advocated by Continental revolutionaries, Marx and Engels withdrew from most of their fellow refugees. Since he had not managed to make many contacts in the British labor and socialist movement, Marx now retired almost completely into the narrow circle composed of his family, Engels and a few other devoted friends and disciples. He remained in this isolated condition throughout most of his life. When he wrote to Engels about “our party” he was referring to Engels and himself.

In June 1852 Marx obtained an admission card to the reading room of the British Museum. There he would sit from 10:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M. every day, pouring over Blue Books of factory inspectors and perusing the immense documentation about the inequities of the operation of the capitalist system that was to become an important part of Das Kapital. Here also, filling notebook after notebook, he deepened his knowledge of the British political economists whom he had begun to study during the Paris days.

Throughout most of the London period Marx lived in dire and abject poverty. Only once had he attempted to find regular gainful employment (as a clerk in a railway office) but was turned down because of his illegible handwriting. Being entirely devoted to his work and absolutely convinced that the anatomy of the political economy of capitalism, which he now was describing, would provide an indispensable instrument for the “necessary” emancipation of the working class, Marx continued his scholarly tasks even when he and his family were pursued by angry creditors and found it hard to obtain lodging. Three of his children died from malnutrition or lack of proper care. When one of them died, he had no money to pay for a coffin until a fellow refugee came to his rescue. He and his family were exhausted by a variety of illnesses, some of which clearly stemmed from their miserable living conditions. But Marx persevered. Had it not been for the financial support that the devoted Engels gave to the full measure of his ability, the family might have gone down completely.

Meanwhile, work on what was to become Das Kapital proved even more time-consuming than had been anticipated. A first sketch entitled A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy had been published in 1859 but attracted little attention. The first volume appeared in 1867. Marx never completed the subsequent volumes; they were finally published by Engels and Kautsky after his death.

Marx’s grinding poverty was slightly relieved for a time when the foreign editor of the New York Daily Tribune, then probably the world’s largest newspaper and one with a radical orientation to boot, asked him to become its regular correspondent for European affairs at one pound sterling for each article. He was to send them regular weekly dispatches for almost ten years. When ill health, lack of detailed knowledge, or the pressure of work on Das Kapital prevented him from writing, Engels, much more the facile journalist, took over. Recently, efforts to establish which of the unsigned articles were written by Marx and which by Engels have proved a profitable occupation for Marxicologists. In any case, these occasional writings provide privileged access to the operation of Marx’s mind. The articles range over a variety of subjects–diplomatic events, social histories of England and the Continent, analyses of the secret sources of war and crisis, analytical accounts of the consequences of British domination in India–and reveal his reactions to the passing scene that are otherwise available only in his Correspondence, particularly with Engels.

Throughout the fifties, Marx and Engels watched expectantly for signs of the major economic crisis that would inaugurate a new period of revolutions. None came for many years. When a serious slump finally occurred in 1857, it had no revolutionary consequences. Marx then concentrated less on the expected economic breakdown and more on organizing the working class, but here too he was disappointed for a long time. To be sure, Ferdinand Lassalle, the romantic firebrand of German socialism, had created a German labor movement. But Marx disapproved of its political orientation even more than of Lassalle’s histrionic manners. Jealousy of Lassalle, who had borrowed most of his theoretical weapons from Marx, may have been one of the motives for Marx’s hostility, but there were more objective reasons. He was suspicious of Lassalle’s tendency to build a socialist movement upon some sort of unspoken alliance with Bismarck and the Prussian government.

On the rest of the Continent, more particularly in France, the working-class movement was quiescent, not having fully recovered from the disasters of 1848. As for England, Marx never managed to have much sympathy for the stolid, unideological and pragmatic labor leaders who dominated the union movement there. He regarded most of them with withering contempt and they, in turn, to the extent that they knew him at all, returned the compliment.

Marx’s wife died on December 2, 1881, and on March 14, 1883, Marx passed away peacefully in his armchair. He lies buried next to his wife at High gate Cemetery in London.

The Work of Karl Marx which postulates for a classless society:

Karl Marx was a socialist theoretician and organizer, a major figure in the history of economic and philosophical thought, and a great social prophet. But it is as a sociological theorist that he commands our interest here.

The Overall Doctrine

Society, according to Marx, comprised a moving balance of antithetical forces that generate social change by their tension and struggle. Marx’s vision was based on an evolutionary point of departure. For him, struggle rather than peaceful growth was the engine of progress; strife was the father of all things, and social conflict the core of historical process. This thinking was in contrast with most of the doctrines of his eighteenth century predecessors, but in tune with much nineteenth century thought.

To Marx the motivating force in history was the manner in which men relate to one another in their continuous struggle to wrest their livelihood from nature. “The first historical act is . . . the production of material life itself. This is indeed a historical act, a fundamental condition of all history.” The quest for a sufficiency in eating and drinking, for habitation and for clothing were man’s primary goals at the dawn of the race, and these needs are still central when attempts are made to analyze the complex anatomy of modern society. But man’s struggle against nature does not cease when these needs are gratified. Man is a perpetually dissatisfied animal. When primary needs have been met, this “leads to new needs–and this production of new needs is the first historical act.” New needs evolve when means are found to allow the satisfaction of older ones.

In the effort to satisfy primary and secondary needs, men engage in antagonistic cooperation as soon as they leave the primitive, communal stage of development. As soon as a division of labor emerges in human society, that division leads to the formation of antagonistic classes, the prime actors in the historical drama.

Marx was a relativizing historicist according to whom all social relations between men, as well as all systems of ideas, are specifically rooted in historical periods. “Ideas and categories are no more eternal than the relations which they express. They are historical and transitory products.” For example, whereas the classical economists had seen the tripartite division among landowners, capitalists, and wage earners as eternally given in the natural order of things, Marx considered such categories as typical only for specific historical periods, as products of an historically transient state of affairs.

Historical specificity is the hallmark of Marx’s approach. When he asserted, for example, that all previous historical periods were marked by class struggles, he immediately added that these struggles differed according to historical stages. In marked distinction to his radical predecessors who had tended to see history as a monotonous succession of struggles between rich and poor, or between the powerless and the powerful, Marx maintained that, although class struggles had marked all history, the contenders in the battle had changed over time. Although there might have been some similarity between the journeymen of the late Middle Ages who waged their battle against guildmasters and the modern industrial workers who confronted capitalists, the contenders were, nevertheless, in a functionally different situation. The character of the overall social matrix determined the forms of struggle which were contained within it. The fact that modern factory workers, as distinct from medieval journey- men, are forever expropriated from command over the means of production and hence forced to sell their labor power to those who control these means makes them a class qualitatively different form artisans or journeymen. The fact that modern workers are formally “free” to sell their labor while being existentially constrained to do so makes their condition historically specific and functionally distinct from that of earlier exploited classes.

Marx’s thinking contrasted sharply with that of Comte, as well as of Hegel, for whom the evolution of mankind resulted primarily from the evolution of ideas or of the human spirit. Marx took as his point of departure the evolution in man’s material conditions, the varying ways in which men combined together in order to gain a livelihood. “Legal relations as well as form of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather have their roots in the material conditions of life, the sum total of which Hegel . . . combines under the name of ‘civil society’. . . The anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy.”

The change of social systems could not be explained, according to Marx, by extra-social factors such as geography or climate, since these remain relatively constant in the face of major historical transformations. Nor can such change be explained by reference to the emergence of novel ideas. The genesis and acceptance of ideas depend on something that is not an idea. Ideas are not prime movers but are the reflection, direct or sublimated, of the material interests that impel men in their dealings with others.

It was from Hegel, though perhaps also from Montesquieu, that Marx learned the holistic approach that regarded society as a structurally interrelated whole. Consequently, for Marx, any aspect of that whole–be it legal codes, systems of education, religion, or art–could not be understood by itself. Societies, moreover, are not only structured wholes but developing totalities. His own contribution lay in identifying an independent variable that played only a minor part in Hegel’s system: the mode of economic production.

Although historical phenomena were the result of an interplay of many components, all but one of them, the economic factor, were in the last analysis dependent variables. “The political, legal, philosophical, literary, and artistic development rests on the economic. But they all react upon one another and upon the economic base. It is not the case that the economic situation is the sole active cause and that everything else is merely a passive effect. There is, rather, a reciprocity within a field of economic necessity which in the last instance always asserts itself.

The sum total of the relations of production, that is, the relations men establish with each other when they utilize existing raw materials and technologies in the pursuit of their productive goals, constitute the real foundations upon which the whole cultural superstructure of society comes to be erected. By relations of production Marx does not only mean technology, though this is an important part, but the social relations people enter into by participating in economic life. “Machinery is no more an economic category than is the ox which draws the plough. The modern workshop, which is based on the use of machinery, is a social relation of production, an economic category.”

The mode of economic production is expressed in relationships between men, which are independent of any particular individual and not subject to individual wills and purposes.

In the social production which men carry on they enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production correspond to a definite stage of development of their material powers of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of reality–the real foundation, on which legal and political superstructures arise and to which definite forms of social consciousness correspond. The mode of production of material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being determines their consciousness.

Basic to these observations is that men are born into societies in which property relations have already been determined. These property relations in turn give rise to different social classes. Just as a man cannot choose who is to be his father, so he has no choice as to his class. (Social mobility, though recognized by Marx, plays practically no role in his analysis.) Once a man is ascribed to a specific class by virtue of his birth, once he has become feudal lord or a serf, an industrial worker or a capitalist, his mode of behavior is prescribed for him. “Determinate individuals, who are productively active in a definite way, enter into. . .determinate social and political relations.” This class role largely defines the man. In his preface to Das Kapital Marx wrote, “Here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class- interests.” In saying this, Marx does not deny the operation of other variables but concentrates on class roles as primary determinants.

Different locations in the class spectrum lead to different class interests. Such differing interests flow not from class consciousness or the lack of it among individuals, but from objective positions in relation to the process of production. Men may well be unaware of their class interests and yet be moved by them, as it were, behind their backs.

Despite his emphasis on the objective determinants of man’s class-bound behavior, Marx was not reifying society and class at the expense of individual actors. “It is above all necessary to avoid postulating ‘society’ once more as an abstraction confronting the individual. The individual is a social being. The manifestation of his life–even when it does not appear directly in the form of social manifestation, accomplished in association with other men–is therefore a manifestation and affirmation of social life.” Man is inevitably enmeshed in a network of social relations which constrain his actions; therefore attempts to abolish such constraints altogether are bound to fail. Man is human only in society, yet it is possible for him at specific historical junctures to change the nature of these constraints.

The division of society into classes gives rise to political, ethical, philosophical, and religious views of the world, views which express existing class relations and tend either to consolidate or to undermine the power and authority of the dominant class. “The ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the dominant material force in society is at the same time its dominant intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production.” However, oppressed classes, although hampered by the ideological dominance of oppressors, generate counter-ideologies to combat them. In revolutionary or prerevolutionary periods it even happens that certain representatives of the dominant class shift allegiance. Thus, “some of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as whole” go over to the proletariat.

Every social order is marked by continuous change in the material forces of production, that is, the forces of nature that can be harnessed by the appropriate technologies and skills. As a consequence, “the social relations of production are altered, transformed, with the change and development of the material means of production, of the forces of production.” At a certain point the changed social relations of production come into conflict with existing property relations, that is, with existing divisions between owners and non owners. When this is the case, representatives of ascending classes come to perceive existing property relations as a fetter upon further development. Those classes that expect to gain the ascendancy by a change in property relations become revolutionary.

New social relationships begin to develop within older social structures and result from contradictions and tensions within that structure at the same time as they exacerbate them. For example, new modes of production slowly emerged within late feudal society and allowed the bourgeoisie, which controlled these new modes of production, effectively to challenge the hold of the classes that had dominated the feudal order. As the bourgeois mode of production gained sufficient specific weight, it burst asunder the feudal relations in which it first made its appearance. “The economic structure of capitalist society has grown out of the economic structure of feudal society. The dissolution of the latter sets free the elements of the former.” Similarly, the capitalist mode of production brings into being a proletarian class of factory workers. As these men acquire class consciousness, they discover their fundamental antagonism to the bourgeois class and band together to overthrow a regime to which they owe their existence. “The proletariat carries out the sentence which private property, by creating the proletariat, passes upon itself.” New social and economic forms are fashioned in the matrix of their predecessors.

The Grundrisse

The Grundrisse provides valuable insight into his thought as he developed the idea that were to appear in Volume I of Capital nearly a decade later. The Grundrisse encompasses the full breadth of his projected economic theory in unpolished form; it reveals a movement between economic and philosophical categories that is largely missing from Capital. In the following discussion we will first consider Marx’s critique of alienation, next his discussion on the impact of automation on capitalist economies, and finally his reflections on methodology. All three of these instances provide useful insight into Marx’s ongoing use of critique in his self clarification.

In his discussion on alienation, Marx turns to one of his earliest themes, now refracted through the prism of 15 years of economic research. It is therefore especially interesting to note that in key respects his earlier views have changed but little. Much of Marx’s discussion recasts his earlier argument from the manuscripts in terms of the labour theory of value. While Marx continues to talk of labour objectifying itself in alienated form, he is principally concerned to show that labour is the source of all value including capital, and that as a consequence labour produces the condition for its own domination. Marx first notes that labour produces a surplus value (beyond the value of goods necessary for it own subsistence):

The point is that the working time necessary for the satisfaction of absolute necessities leave some free time (which varies at the various stages of the development of productive forces), so that surplus produce can thus be created if surplus labour is done.

This surplus value is then alienated from the worker and used as a means of his or her enslavement:

Now this surplus labour appears objectified as surplus product, and this surplus product, in order to valorize itself as capital, divides itself into a double form: as objective labour conditions (material and instrument) and as subjective labour conditions (food) for the living labour now to be put to work…all the factors which were opposed to the living labour power as forces which were alien, external, and which consumed and utilized the living labour power under definite social conditions which were themselves independent of it, are now established as its own product and result.

In other words, labour experiences a two-fold enslavement at its own hands: First, it is enslaved to the capital produced by an earlier generation of workers; and second, it is enslaved by the need to but back its subsistence goods – commodities also produced by labour. In Marx’s earlier formulation, these two forms of enslavement refer to labour’s alienation from both the labour process and its products.

Marxist Theory of Class Conflict

“The History of all hitherto existing Human society is a History of Class Struggle.”

-Karl Marx.

The term Class has been defined by many different writers in many different ways. Some of the relevant definitions of Class are:

Class is defined as an aggregate of person essentially having the same social status in a given society.                                                            – Ogburn and Nimkoff.

Class is defined as any position of a population marked off from the rest by a social status.                                                                - MacIver and Page.

From the above definitions it becomes clear that class is a division of a society on the basis of a person’s social status or a group’s social status.

One of the greatest theoretician in sociology to talk about class conflict is Karl Marx. Marx postulated the theory of macro level conflict which formed the basic concept for all the other conflict theorists. His mastery in history gave him a rich insight into the future of human society. He saw the emergence of a new socio-economic system built on the ruins of feudalism. He believed that human society passed through different stages of development and each stage contains its own seed of distribution.

Conflict formed the basis of Marxist analysis. Marx believed that revolutionary overt conflict brings about real change. After the final revolution, a new society would be born where there will be no conflict of interest based on private property but the new society would be characterized by cooperation.

Class Conflict formed the central theme of Marxist theoretical scheme based on the following premise:-

• The History of all hitherto existing human society is the History of Class struggle.
• It is not the man’s consciousness that determine his being but it is his social being that determines his consciousness.
• The ideas of the ruling class are in every age the ruling ideas, those who had dominant material forces are also dominant in the intellectual forces.

Therefore Marxist analysis of class can be summarized in the following points.

The importance of Property:

This is the most important distinguishing characteristic of every society and the most important determinant of an individual’s behavior is his relation to the means of production. It is not his occupation but his position to the means of production that determines one’s class. It is the individual’s or group’s relation to the instrument of production that determines their class. Property divisions are crucial breaking lines and the increasing consciousness on the means of distribution further fortified class barriers.

The Economic determinant:

The basis of capitalistic society is the accumulation of resources, means of production. The bourgeoisie converted power and used it as an instrument of exploitation. These dominant classes also use the wheel of the political machinery for their vested interests.

Polarization of Class:

With the increase in exploitation, the society becomes more and more divided into two hostile groups – the Bourgeoisie or the oppressors and the Proletariats or the oppressed. The Bourgeoisie are the ones who owns the means of production and the Proletariats who own nothing but their labor. Marx also talks about two other class of people known as the Petit Bourgeoisie and the Lumpen Proletariats. These two classes however according to Marx will eventually come together with the larger working class to revolt against the Bourgeoisies.

Theory of Surplus Value:

With the increasing exploitation of labor, the profit of the capitalists also accumulates. The Theory of Surplus Value refers to the quantity of value produced by the worker beyond necessary time. The price of any commodity is determined by the amount of labor it takes to produce it. The increasing exploitation leads to the surplus wealth accumulated by the capitalist thereby dividing the society into rich and poor.

Pauperization:

With the increasing exploitation of labor by the capitalist, the profit accumulates whereas the working classes are left with nothing. These capitalists pamper themselves with their riches whereas the poor working class are becoming poorer and poorer.

Alienation:

Due to the exploitation and inhuman working conditions, the workers become more and more alienated. Work for them is no longer the expression of man himself. He becomes external to his work. He becomes more and more estranged from himself and from the product of his work. The worker then is alienated even from his fellowmen and from the community itself.

Class Solidarity and Antagonism:

With the reign of capitalism there emerged amongst the working class a sense of solidarity and antagonism begins to develop so much so that the division in the society into two groups becomes streamlined and the class struggle becomes more intensified.

Revolution:

Once there is a class consciousness among the working class and the feeling of togetherness prevails the Marx predicted that a bloody revolution will take place at the peak of class struggle. This revolution will happen at the time when the economic crisis will be at the peak in the society. This revolution will shake the capitalists of the society and eventually overthrow them.

Social Dictatorship of the Proletariat:

The revolution according to Marx will be violent but will not involve mass killing. The property will be wrested from the capitalists and they will cease to have power since they will be reduced to the rank of the proletariats.

Inauguration of a new society:

After the onslaught of the revolution on the capitalists, the capitalists are reduced to the ranks of the proletariats. This will bring forth the emergence of a new society which Marx calls a Communist Society. In this society according to Marx, no one will own anything and everyone will own everything. In this society an individual will get only according to his need.

In order to understand Marx’s Theory of Surplus Value it is important to understand the Marxist theory of class conflict as Marx had always maintained that there are several steps that the Proletariats would face and feel before any kind of revolution or creation of a new society could emerge. In this context, the Theory of Surplus Value was attached as one of the pre requisites for a revolution to happen.

It should be noted that understanding the Theory of Surplus Value alone without referring to Marx’s general theory is not only appropriate but also difficult to conceive and interpret in a manner as it should be. Therefore The Theory of Surplus Value has to be juxtaposed with his other theories as all of them are inter related with what Marx tries to explain.

There are different concepts used by Marx to explain the theory of Surplus Value. These concepts are necessary to understand as it will help us to develop to have a better understanding and develop that analytical skill in understanding the premise of the Marxist paradigm. By doing so one would have the grip of the theory and what Marx postulates in his Theory of Surplus Value.

The different concepts used by Karl Marx in the Theory of Surplus Value:

Labour:

Man just as the society he lives in, is inseparable from nature with which he constantly interacts. Man cannot exist without providing for his primordial, natural, biological needs. Nature cannot provide everything that man needs in a readymade form. Much has to be produced by the man himself which means he has to work. Thus began his labour and as his labour processes developed, man distanced himself from nature.

What is labour?

Labour according to P. Savchenko, has always been a domain of exchange between man and nature.  The content of labour may remain the same at different stages of man’s history but the character of labour however, undergoes revolutionary changes whenever one mode of production is superseded by another. Therefore objectively to man’s vital activity, labour is his eternal companion. Labour is a most important factor in the evolution of world civilization.

The process of labour has three important elements which are:

• Labour as a purposeful activity.
• Means of Labour:
  • It means that the things man uses to act upon nature and to adapt natural objects for his own use. There are material and mental means of labour.
  • Means of Production: man uses the means of production to reinforce, as it were, the organs of his own body. (microscope, iron ores, railways)
• The Object of Labour: this means the materials which are to be transformed or processed. There are primary objects as well as secondary objects of labour.

The instruments and objects of labour essential to manufacturing the things that man needs are material elements of the labour process. In their totality, they constitute the means of production.

Understanding Labour process under capitalism:

Under the capitalist mode of production, the process of labour has the following distinctive features.

a)    The means of production are owned by the capitalist and labour power becomes united with the means of production only after it has been bought by the capitalist, the hired worker is economically bound to capital, and his labour is controlled by the capitalist rather than by himself.

b)    The product of labour is the capitalist’s property by virtue of his owning the means of production. In the case of simple commodity production, the producer owned the means of production and, consequently, the product of labour. Under capitalism, factories, enterprises, shops, land, railways etc belong to the capitalists who do not personally participate in the production of material goods and services.

Just as any commodity, labour power has use value and value. The value of labour power is determined by the socially necessary working time spent to produce the means of subsistence for the worker and his family. The use value of the worker’s labour power is the ability of the worker to create, in the course of labour, a value that is greater than the value of his one labour power.

The excess value created by the wage-workers over and above the value of their labour power is referred to as Surplus Value. It is appropriated by the capitalist without remuneration. That explains why surplus value is the goal of capitalist production from the capitalist’s point of view only that labour is productive which produces surplus value and increases his capital.

What are the new features acquired by labour under communism?

Communist labour is labour performed gratis for the benefit of society, labour performed not as a definite duty, not for the purpose of obtaining a right to certain products, not according to previously established and legally set o quotas, but voluntary labour, irrespective of quotas, it is labour performed without expectation of reward, without reward as  a condition, labour performed because it has become a habit to work for the common good, labour as a requirement of a healthy organism. Thus communism will contribute to the development of world civilization by turning labour into every citizen’s prime vital need.

Labour Power:

The combination of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, whom he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description is called Labour Power.

Labour Power as a Commodity: In order that labour power is a commodity, the following conditions must be met:

The individual whose labour-power it is… sells it as a commodity. In order that he may be able to do this, he must have it at his disposal, must be the untrammeled owner of his capacity for labour, i.e., of his person. He and the owner of money meet in the market, and deal with each other as on the basis of equal rights, with this difference alone, that one is buyer, the other seller; both, therefore, equal in the eyes of the law. The continuance of this relation demands that the owner of the labour-power should sell it only for a definite period, for if he were to sell it rump and stump, once for all, he would be selling himself, converting himself from a free man into a slave, from an owner of a commodity into a commodity.

The second essential condition to the owner of money finding labour-power in the market as a commodity is this — that the labourer instead of being in the position to sell commodities in which his labour is incorporated, must be obliged to offer for sale as a commodity that very labour-power, which exists only in his living self.

For the conversion of his money into capital, therefore, the owner of money must meet in the market with the free labourer, free in the double sense, that as a free man he can dispose of his labour-power as his own commodity, and that on the other hand he has no other commodity for sale, is short of everything necessary for the realisation of his labour-power.

How the Value of Labour Power is Determined:

The value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer.

The value of labour-power is determined, as in the case of every other commodity, by the labour-time necessary for the production, and consequently also the reproduction, of this special article. So far as it has value, it represents no more than a definite quantity of the average labour of society incorporated in it. Labour-power exists only as a capacity, or power of the living individual. Its production consequently pre-supposes his existence. Given the individual, the production of labour-power consists in his reproduction of himself or his maintenance. For his maintenance he requires a given quantity of the means of subsistence. Therefore the labour-time requisite for the production of labour-power reduces itself to that necessary for the production of those means of subsistence; in other words, the value of labour-power is the value of the means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of the labourer….

The owner of labour-power is mortal. If then his appearance in the market is to be continuous, and the continuous conversion of money into capital assumes this, the seller of labour-power must perpetuate himself, “in the way that every living individual perpetuates himself, by procreation.” The labour-power withdrawn from the market by wear and tear and death, must be continually replaced by, at the very least, an equal amount of fresh labour-power. Hence the sum of the means of subsistence necessary for the production of labour-power must include the means necessary for the labourer’s substitutes, i.e., his children, in order that this race of peculiar commodity-owners may perpetuate its appearance in the market.

The minimum limit of the value of labour-power is determined by the value of the commodities, without the daily supply of which the labourer cannot renew his vital energy, consequently by the value of those means of subsistence that are physically indispensable. If the price of labour-power fall to this minimum, it falls below its value, since under such circumstances it can be maintained and developed only in a crippled state. But the value of every commodity is determined by the labour-time requisite to turn it out so as to be of normal quality.

The concept of Value:

To understand the importance of value in this paper, it is important to brief about Marx’s theory of Value. According to this theory, the main postulates emphasized by Karl Marx are:

• Commodity production is the outcome of a specific division of labour: “Only such products can become commodities with regard to each other, as result from different kinds of labour, each kind being carried on independently and for the account of private individuals”

• The value of commodities expresses what private labors have in common: it is a socially necessary quantity of labour.

• Exchange relations are the manifestation of the social character of value: “If we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality (…)it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity”

Value:

Value has ‘mass’. Physicists take this to mean the quantity of matter a body contains and often contrast it with the molecule or atom. Matter is the substance out of which an object is made or which it consists. Value is embedded in the body of commodities. Its substance is abstract labour. Its magnitude is determined by labour time. Marx is therefore interested in the quantity of this social substance contained in commodities. Value is non empirical and therefore cannot be known absolutely, only relatively in terms o another body. ‘Relative’ means in relation or proportion to something. The value of one commodity is expressed relative to the value of another commodity, by the proportions in which they are exchanged.

Marx, as a classical economist, believed in an absolute rather than a relative standard of value. This absolute standard was the basis of the rate of exchange between commodities, the level around which actual prices fluctuated. Labour was both the measure and the source of value, value was the amount of socially necessary labour time embodied in the production of a commodity, and this absolute value was the basis of relative exchange value.

It is therefore necessary to define value by reference to exchange-value. The Grundrisse, which is a 900 pages of notes compiled by Marx during the period of 1857-1858. The Grundrisse commences to talk in terms of a reduction of exchange value to value in the sense of labour-time expended in production (social labour in the sense that individual labors are assumed to be equal, or to b standardized).

Commodities:

The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,” the unit being a single commodity. A commodity is an object outside us, a thing that by its properties satisfies human wants of some sort or another. The nature of such wants makes no difference as it can be directly as a means of subsistence or indirectly as means of production. Every useful thing, as iron or paper may be looked at from the two points of view of quality and quantity. It is an assemblage of many properties, and may therefore be of use in many ways.

The utility of such a thing makes it a use value. But this utility is not a thing of air. Being limited by the physical properties of the commodity, it has no existence apart from that commodity. A commodity, such as iron and paper, is therefore, so far as it is a material thing, a use value, something useful. This property of the commodity is independent of the amount of labour required to appropriate its useful qualities. Use values become a reality only by use or consumption as they also constitute the substance of all wealth, whatever may be the social form of that wealth.

Use Value:

Use-value in the classical sense is the objective function of a good or service, which depends on the application made of the good by the purchaser, but not on the purchaser’s subjective valuation of the good. This contrasts with utility in neoclassical economics, where the utility of a good is its subjective valuation, which necessarily can vary from individual to individual. The classical concept of utility could also be described as “concrete”, as opposed to the “abstract” utility of neoclassical economics, differing in the same sense as do Marx’s concepts of concrete and abstract labour.

Use value of a good or service is created by all societies, capitalist and non-capitalist. The use values of such are not specifically measurable in a numerical sense; it is the level of demand by a community, or social necessity for certain goods or services. Unique to capitalist production is the exchange value of goods or services. The exchange value is the value of a good or service compared to another good or service. Understanding use value and exchange value broadly defines two kinds of economies – subsistence economies and surplus producing economies. Subsistence economies are concerned with meeting needs for social good while surplus-producing economies are concerned with meeting social needs (real or perceived) and creating excess profit. It is important to remember that a good or service becomes a commodity under capitalism because it is produced with the intention of being exchanged for a profit. “in commodity production, production necessarily implies exchange; exchange in a necessary step in the process of reproduction”
However, all commodities, in addition to having an exchange value, retain their use value as well. Goods that have a use value can transition to also having an exchange value when they are appropriated by private industry. An example of this is the water industry in Bolivia, which was owned and maintained by the government, and provided as a service to the public. When the water industry was privatized, the service of water was given an exchange value, for which citizens than had to pay for.

The concept of use-value was also undergoing development at the early stage of Marx’s introduction to political economy, and like the labour theory of value, Marx initial understanding was quite different to the final. In the course of a powerful insight into the conflict between Ricardo and Malthus, Marx expressed an opinion which is diametrically opposed to the labour theory of value—that use determines value. Having criticized Ricardo and Say for forgetting in the debate over thrift versus luxury that “there would be no production without consumption”, he continues: “that it is use that determines a thing’s value, and that fashion determines use.… Both sides forget that extravagance and thrift, luxury and privation, wealth and poverty are equal.”

Exchange Value:

Marx was very particular about the distinction between value, as the absolute worth of a commodity, and exchange value, as the relative price that commodity would obtain in exchange with another commodity. The relative concept of exchange value, the ratio at which goods exchange (whether measured in labour-time or, when “posited as money”), was thus based on value, but could diverge for many reasons. It is the appearance of value, but “the mere form of appearance is not its proper content.” As a corollary, if absolute value was to be the basis of exchange value, then the class standing of the parties to a transaction could not affect the transaction itself: “A worker who buys commodities for 3s appears to the seller in the same fashion…as the king who does the same.” The two sides of the commodity, use and exchange value manifest the two sides of the labour by which it is created. They are fused in the act of exchange as the substance of value, abstract labour, is transformed into its form, exchange value. The single process of exchange is two sided:

• The conversion of the commodity into money. (M-C)
• The reconversion of the commodity into money. (C-M)

Valorization:

The valorization of capital is a concept created by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. The German original term is “Verwertung” (specifically Kapital verwertung) but this is difficult to translate, and often wrongly rendered as “realisation of capital”, “creation of surplus-value” or “self-expansion of capital” or “increase in value”. In modern translations of Marx’s economic writings, the term valorization (as in French) is preferred because it is recognized that it denotes a highly specific economic concept. It refers both to the process whereby a capital value is conferred or bestowed on something, and to the increase in the value of a capital asset.

Marx introduces the concept in chapter 7 of the first volume of Das Kapital. The capitalist production process, he argues, is both a labour process creating use-values and a value-creation process through which new value is created. However, value creation as such is not what the capitalist aims at. The capitalist wants his capital to increase. This means that the worker must create more value for the capitalist than he receives as wage from the capitalist. The worker must create not only new value but surplus value. A value creation process which goes beyond the point at which the worker has just created the equivalent of the value of his own labour power, and begins to increase the value of capital, is a valorization process, not just a value creation process.

Valorisation thus specifically describes the increase in the value of capital assets through the application of living, value-forming labour in production. The “problem” of valorisation is: how can labour be applied in production so that capital value grows? How can assets be invested productively, so that they gain value rather than lose it?

When a worker is put to work on a commercial basis, he initially produces a value equal to what it costs to hire him. But once this value has been created, and the work continues, he begins to valorize capital, i.e. increase its value. Marx claims however that this process, whereby capital grows in value through human activity in production, becomes obscured and hidden in the theories of economics.

The “fetish” of capital reaches its culmination when it appears that capital grows of its own accord without anybody doing anything. In that case, people are no longer able to perceive or understand the connection between human activity which forms new value, and the increase in the value of their assets.

If Verwertungsprozess is translated as “self-expansion of capital”, this actually conveys the exact opposite of what Marx intends: after all, the expansion of capital is not automatic, it requires human work to expand it.

Surplus Value:

Surplus Value is the social product which is over and above what is required for the producers to live. The measure of labour is labour time, so surplus value is the accumulated product of the unpaid labour time of the producers. In bourgeois society, surplus value is acquired by the capitalist in the form of profit. The capitalist owns the means of production as Private property, so the workers have no choice but to sell their labour power to the capitalist to live. The capitalist then owns not only the means of production, and the worker’s labour power which he has bought to use in production, but the product as well. After paying wages, the capitalist then becomes the owner of the surplus value, over and above the value of the worker’s labour-power.

In all societies in which there is a division of labour, there is a social surplus. What is different about bourgeois society is that surplus values takes the form of capital, and surplus value is in the fact the essence of production in capitalism – only productive work that is work which creates surplus value, is supported. All ‘unproductive labour’ is eliminated. The capitalists may increase the amount of surplus value extracted from the working class by two means

• By absolute surplus value: extending the working day as long as possible.
• By relative surplus value: by cutting wages.

Attempts by individual capitalists to increase their profits by introducing machinery or speeding-up production by technique fail as soon as their competitor copy the new technique and restore their market share. The end effect of these improvements in production may be to increase the productivity of labour, but unless the rate of surplus value is increased proportionately, the rate of profit will actually fall. Having been accumulated as capital, surplus value must then be distributed to landlords, bankers and other parasites, and expended via taxes on the various expense of maintaining the social fabric.

The production of absolute surplus value:

Marx set up a system of concepts to analyze commodity production and exchange. He argued that Surplus Value cannot originate in exchange, but most come about through the purchase of labour-power, and its employment in production. According to Marx, capitalist production can be seen in two ways:

• In terms of the production of use-values

Labour process or the production of use-values is the activity of production. All societies must produce use-values (of one sort or another). Labour ‘is the everlasting nature imposed condition of human existence.’ Human labour is purposive as a plan is first conceived and then carried out. He however argues that purposive production is part of ‘human nature’, and that workers suffer ‘alienation’ in a capitalist system because their productive activity is imposed on them rather than being an expression of their own will. The labour process is common to all forms of society.

In a capitalist production, labour-power and means of production are bought and set to work by the capitalist. The production process is therefore under his control, and resulting product is his property.

• The production of surplus value

A capitalist produces use-values only because they are the necessary vehicle for the production of surplus value. A simple numerical example (of cotton spinning) illustrates the general principles. The value of the yarn produced is the sum of the values of the means of production used up, plus the labour performed in cotton spinning itself. Suppose that the value of a day’s labour-power corresponds to six hours of labour (that is the commodities consumed by the worker and his family embody six hours of labour), and the worker is paid the equivalent in money. If he worked for six hours, the new value created (in addition to the cost of the means of production used up) would be just equal to the wage, leaving the capitalist no profit. But the labourer will be required to work for longer than this, say for twelve hours, and the extra six hours will create Surplus Value for the capitalist. This is the central point of Marx’s theory of Surplus Value.

To produce surplus value, the capitalist spends his money on two particular kinds of commodities; one where part of his capital is advanced to buy means of production and another art to buy labour power. The value of the means of production used up is transferred to the product, because the labour needed to produce means of production is part of the total labour required to produce the final product. The part of capital that buys means of production, then, creates no new value or Surplus Value. It is merely preserved in the value of the product and returns to the capitalist when the product is sold. Marx calls it Constant capital because it remains constant in value during the process of production. Constant capital is only constant in the sense that it creates no surplus value in itself although it is a necessary condition for the production of surplus value.

Labour power on the other hand is expended as actual living labour, which creates new value and surplus value. The part of capital that is advanced to buy labour power expands in value during the process of production. Marx calls it Variable capital.

• Understanding the rate of surplus value

Marx tried to explain the rate of surplus value by giving some concrete examples. He came out with a formula to explain the rate of surplus value. If C stood for capital advanced by the capitalist, c being the constant capital and v being the variable capital, then the value of the product is C1 = c + v+ s, where s is the surplus value produced. The new value created by labour is v + s, and the value of the means of production used up which is c, has been transferred to the product.

• Rate and mass of surplus value.

According to Marx, the rate of surplus value (s/v) depends on the value of labour power and the length of the working day. The total, or mass, of surplus value gained by a capitalist is equal to s/v X v, the total variable capital, and the latter is equal to the value employed. Surplus value is proportional to variable capital and not to total capital advanced.

Production of Relative Surplus Value

According to Marx, the unnecessary labour time in which the worker recoups for the capitalist the value which the capitalist has not paid wages for creates surplus value. The rate of surplus value can be increased by lengthening the working day so that more surplus-labour is extracted on top of a given amount of necessary labour. Surplus value can be equally increased, within the limits of a given working day, if necessary labour-time can be reduced, that is, if the value of labour power falls.

Surplus value that derives from a reduction in necessary labour-time is called Relative surplus value, distinguished from Absolute Surplus Value, which results from a lengthening of the working-day. It is however necessary to understand that it is not possible to identify one part of surplus value as relative and another part as absolute without a starting point.

Production of absolute and of relative surplus value

Productive labour was considered simply as labour that produces use-values. Anyone who performs a necessary function in production is part of the ‘collective labourer’, and is productive in this sense, even though there is no identifiable use-value produced by that specific individual. On the other hand, a labourer is only productive for capital if he produces surplus value.

Marx also explains that unless natural conditions are such that workers can produce more than they need for subsistence, there can be no surplus value. However, favourable natural conditions need not lead to exploitation at all, even less to specifically capitalist exploitation. Changes of magnitude in the price of labour power and in surplus value depend upon three variables: a) the length of the working day. b) the intensity of labour and c) the productiveness of labour. An increase in the productiveness reduces the value of labour power and increases the rate of surplus value (relative surplus value). An increase in the intensity of labour or, equivalently, a lengthening of the working day also increases the rate of surplus value (absolute surplus value).

Marx’s analysis of surplus value hinges on the distinction between labour and labour power. The worker sells labour power and is paid the value of his labour power. What the capitalist gets from the worker is value creating labour. If workers were paid for their labour, for the value they create, they would either be paid in full, leaving no surplus value, or they would be paid less than the value created, which would apparently be a violation of the principle that value is exchanged for value. Either way, it would not be possible to explain capitalism in terms of the exchange of equal values.

Rate of surplus values:

The rate of surplus value is also called as “percentage of surplus value” and ‘degree of exploitation’ as well.

When the workers get down to work, they have to perform, for some time, work that is equivalent to the value of wages. This portion of the work is one that has to be performed for their own sake. Workers have to do this portion of work. For labourers, this is the portion of necessary labour. After the completion of work that is equivalent to the value of wages, whatever work that is performed thenceforth, the whole of it will be not for the sake of the workers but for the sake of the capitalist. Which means, after getting down to work every day, workers perform ‘necessary labour’ for some time and ‘surplus labour’ for some more time. Neither the capitalists nor the workers know that the work done daily thus consists of two portions.

If the working day is ’12 hours’, it may have 6 hours of necessary labour and 6 hours of surplus labour. Or there may be 4 hours of necessary labour and 8 hours of surplus labour. These two portions might thus be of any portion.

It is the “rate of surplus value” that expresses the ratios of the two portions of labour in a ‘working day’. By means of ‘this rate’ one can know how much work the workers have done for themselves and how much for the exploiters. This rate of surplus measures ‘exploitation’ just as a thermometer measures ‘heat’. It reveals the degree of exploitation. The rate of surplus value can, therefore, be called as ‘degree of exploitation’.

‘Surplus value’ will be known only if the expenditure spent initially on the commodity and the value at which the commodity is sold are known. Thus, the rate of surplus value will be known if the proportions of wages and surplus value are seen.

Example:

If the wages given to the labourer is 27 and the surplus value is 108. What then is the rate of surplus value? What are the portions of necessary and surplus labour?

Answer:         if 27 wages give   –   108 surplus value,

100 wages give   –    ?

108 X  100  = 400%

2

In this example, the rate of surplus value is 400%. That is, 400 for 100. This means, if the first part is 100, then the second part is 400.

Necessary Labour              :           Surplus Labour

100                       :                  400

1                         :                    4

The working day is of 4 + 1 = 5 parts. In it, 1 part is necessary labour and 4 parts are surplus labour. If there is a device of working day of 12 hours as per this proportion, the time of necessary labour comes to 2 hours and 24 minutes and the time of surplus labour comes to 9 hours and 36 minutes. Here, the degree of exploitation is 400.

The rate of surplus value is represented by the following formulae:

Surplus value (s/v)    =         surplus value =                surplus labour

Variable capital           value of labour power                      necessary labour

The first two formulae represent, as a ratio of values, what is represented in the third formula as a ratio of the times during which those values are produced. These mutually replaceable formulae are rigorously definite and correct.

Surplus   Labour* =             Surplus       Value =            Surplus Product

Working   Day                            Value of the Product                             Total Product

One and the same proportion is expressed here alternately in the form of labour-times, of the values in which those labour-times are embodied, and of the products in which those values exist. It is understood that by ‘value of product’ the political economists mean only the value newly created in a working day, the constant part of the value of the product being excluded.

Some issues concerning “surplus value and its ‘rate’.

If an example is taken of cloth manufacturing where the constant value I 80 and the variable value is 20, there are still fixed means of 400 value in the ‘work place’. The rate of surplus value has nothing to do with either the 80 constant or with the fixed means in the work place. As wages along give the surplus value, the relations of these 2 factors alone continue the rate of surplus value.

ü  Surplus value and the ‘rate of surplus value’ are not the same.

ü  ‘Surplus value’ means the ‘mass’ which is excess than the capital.

ü  The ‘rate of surplus value’ means the relationship between the ratios of necessary labour and surplus labour.

ü  The formula to know surplus value is: “commodity value ‘minus’ capital’.

ü  Symbol of surplus value is S and symbol of wages is V.

ü  The formula of rate of surplus value is S/V.

ü  Symbol for rate of surplus value is Sⁱ.

Sⁱ =  S/V X 100.

Allanson Wahlang

Rumblings of discontent rattled the 18-party strong third Front with Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Rajendra Gavai raising a banner of revolt against party colleague Ramdas Athawale for attempting to hijack the front’s leadership.

The developments came barely a fortnight after the Third Front, christened the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), was formed and just a day after it released an ambitious joint election manifesto.

“RLDF does not belong to any single leader, it is a coalition of 18 parties, all of which have an equal right in the decision making process. But Athawale has been taking decisions without even consulting us and certain things we learnt through media conferences,” Gavai said.
He was making a pointed reference to Athavale’s move to offer five seats to Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) headed by former union minister Ram Vilas Paswan for the Oct 13 Assembly elections in Maharashtra.

The RLDF is in the process of working out seat-sharing deals and so far 260 seats have been unanimously decided by the 18-party leaders.

“Even as our talks are continuing for the remaining 28 seats, Athavale has gone ahead and offered five seats to LJP,” said Gavai, part of the RPI-United (RPI-U), a coalition of all factions of RPI that was formed last month.

Gavai’s opposition to Athawale’s decision also comes from the fact that the LJP was earlier a part of the Third Front. However, it later parted company to join hands with Bharatiya Republican Party (BRP) leader Prakash Ambedkar, who stayed away from from the RPI-U.

According to party circles, LJP, which was offered only one seat in the earlier seat-sharing formula for 200 seats, demanded more seats. It is believed that in order to bring it back to the RLDF fold, Athawale decided to hand over five seats to Paswan’s party.

However, Gavai claimed that he would not leave the Third Front and would do everything to save the RPI-U.

“We are not opposed to the LJP or Paswan joining RLDF, but Athawale should have consulted us. If he continues to ignore the other parties in the Third Front on such important decisions, then we shall be left with no options,” Gavai said, making a veiled threat to quit.

Reacting to the developments, Athawale maintained that all decisions are being taken unanimously.

Small parties unite to form third front – 26^th August

Maharashtra will witness triangular contests in the assembly elections scheduled for October with smaller and secular parties banding together on Monday to form a third front called the Republican Democratic Left Front (RDLF).

In political circles, setting up of the third front is considered a setback to the Democratic Front (DF) comprising the Congress and the NCP. A senior Congress minister said that unless the DF takes the third front seriously, it would split secular votes which will benefit the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance.According to RPI chief Ramdas Athawale, 17 smaller parties, including the United RPI, PWP, Janata Dal(S), Samajwadi Party(SP), CPM, and Raju Shetty-led Swabhiman Shetkari Sanghatana have joined the third front. A crucial meeting was held at the PWP office which was attended by Athawale, Dr Rajendra Gavai(both RPI), Shetty, Sharad Patil and Pratap Hogade (both Janata Dal) and Abu Azmi (SP).

The third front decided to organise a show of strength at Shivaji Park on September 12 to send a message about the front’s decision to fight all the 288 assembly seats.

The front leaders will meet again on August 28 to start the process of sharing seats for the polls. The Congress-NCP have yet to decide whether to go in for a pre-poll alliance. Mayawati’s BSP is all set to go on its own.

The Shiv Sena-BJP is eager to hammer out a seat-sharing formula before other parties start the process. But both parties are waiting for the actual announcement of the polls.

Third front jolted as RPI quits ahead of polls – 23^rd September

Nagpur : In a pre-election blow to the 18-party Third Front, the Republican Party of India (RPI)-Gavai – an important component – walked out of the alliance here Tuesday.

RPI leader Rajendra Gavai announced that his party would independently contest at least 15 seats in eastern Maharashtra’s Vidarbha region for the Oct 13 assembly elections.

Ramdas Athavale, who heads the Third Front christened as Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), dismissed the development, saying that the RPI(G)’s exit from the conglomerate would not have “any impact” on its poll prospects.

Gavai’s decision came six days after he accused Athavale of attempting to ‘hijack’ the group’s leadership, and threatened to quit the RLDF.

“RLDF does not belong to any single leader, it is a coalition of 18 parties, all of which have an equal right in the decision-making process. But Athawale has been taking decisions without even consulting us. Certain things we learnt through media conferences,” Gavai said Sep 15, a day after the group’s joint election manifesto was released in Mumbai.

Gavai’s grouse stemmed from Athavale’s move to offer five seats to the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) of former union minister Ram Vilas Paswan.

While the RLDF had worked out seat-sharing deals among its constituents for 260 seats, discussions were on for the remaining 28 seats. The state assembly has a total of 288 seats.

Source: NorthIndiaTimes

Front could not do well as it lacked money power: athawale – 22^nd October

The Republican Left Third Front, formed ahead of assembly elections in Maharashtra, could not fare better as it lacked money power, RPI leader Ramdas Athawale said today. The front contested all 288 seats and as per the latest figures, looks set to bag around 10 seats.

“We could have done better. We fell short as far as money power was concerned,” Athawale, who played a key role in the formation of the Front, said.

“This election was important in the sense that there was rampant use of money. We will ask the Election Commission to ensure that elections are fought with as little money as possible,” the former Lok Sabha member said.Asked if the front’s strategy to not align with either the ruling Congress-NCP combine or the opposition Shiv Sena-BJP alliance had failed, Athawale said “now, in any case, Congress-NCP do not need our support to form the government.”

The stage is set for the 13th Oct 2009, assembly elections in Maharashtra where the ruling Congress-led alliance faces a stiff challenge from the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine for the control of one of India’s most industrialized states.

In 2004, the Congress and NCP won 139 seats in the 288-member assembly. The Shiv Sena and BJP finished with 119 seats while smaller groups as well as independents secured 30 seats.

This time, Raj Thackeray’s Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) has cast a long shadow on the Shiv Sena and BJP. For the Congress, the Republican-Left alliance is a worry.

In this year’s Lok Sabha elections, the MNS undercut the Shiv Sena and BJP in at least 10 Lok Sabha constituencies.

The elections will be a credibility test for Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who took charge of Maharashtra after the November 2008 terror attack on Mumbai.

For Shiv Sena’s Udhav Thackeray, this is the first assembly election in which he will compete less with the ruling combine than his own estranged cousin Raj Thackeray.

A total of 3,559 candidates, including 211 women, are in the fray. There will be over 84,000 polling booths.

As the election date is approaching, people are searching for thier names in Voters List.

Ms. Mayawati rally in Kasturchand Park, NAGPUR

NAGPUR, 8th Oct, 2009

to campaign for her party candidates in various constituencies here. The rally, to be held at Kasturchand Park, will be the first at the venue in the run up for October 13 elections in Maharashtra.
Political observers will be keenly watching the crowd response and tenor of her speech. Ever since she attained power with a thumping majority in UP, the BSP has been eying the substantial Dalit votes in Maharashtra especially in regions like Vidarbha. For the last two years, her rallies in the city have been marked by huge crowds. While most political parties shy away from holding rallies at K P because the effort required to fill up the cavernous venue, the BSP deliberately chose to show its growing clout.
Massive crowds have attended her rallies and the party has tried to flex its muscles in the last assembly as well as Lok Sabha elections this year by fielding candidates in almost every constituency. But till date, it has not managed to open its electoral account. However, it played spoilsport for the Congress-NCP and recently for the BJP too at several places as the BSP mostly fielded candidates borrowed from these established parties. The BSP support was largely drawn from the political space it occupied because of the disarray that the Republican Party of India found itself with its countless divisions.

BSP to contest all 288 seats in Maharashtra

Nagpur, 03 Sep, 2009

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) has decided to contest all 288 seats for the forthcoming assembly elections scheduled to be held on October 13 on its own.
“As per the directives of party President Mayawati, we will fight alone in state assembly elections on all the 288 seats,” BSP General Secretary and in charge of party affairs in Maharashtra, Vir Singh, MP, said today.
BSP has maintained its upward graph and thus party has decided to fight alone and create a situation where no party is in a position to form the government without its support, Singh told reporters.
Singh along with national secretary K K Sachan and state leaders is already camping in the city to select the probable candidates.

BSP releases appeal, to contest all 288 Assembly seats in Maharashtra

Mumbai, 01 Sep, 2009

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in Maharashtra today released an ‘appeal’, instead of any manifesto, by the party chief and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati in the run-up to the October 13 Assembly elections in the state.
Releasing the appeal at a news conference here, BSP national general secretary Dr Suresh Mane said it asked the people of the state to vote the party to power for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden.
He said the party would contest all 288 Assembly seats in the state on its own and added the party chief and other senior leaders would campaign in the polls.
The BSP leader said the party will highlight the ill effects of wrong economic policies of the ruling Congress government at the Centre and state, its failure in handling atrocities against Dalits in the state, the indebtedness of the state (Rs 1,95,000 crore debt) and BSP’s positive sides such as filling backlog of Backward Class employees, end of toll-tax system in Uttar Pradesh.
Emphasising that the number of seats won was not the only criterion for success, Mr Mane said in the recently concluded Lok Sabha polls, BSP had won 4.75 per cent votes (17,85,669 votes) and pointed that the party’s voting percentage had increased in every election.
Asked whether BSP had received any invitation from the newly-created Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF) to join them, Mr Mane said they had never joined any coalitions. If it does, it leads the coalition, he added.

Reference: newkerala.com

New Delhi: BSP’s ambitions of emerging as a pan-India party today suffered a further jolt when it failed to make any mark in Maharashtra and Haryana assembly polls.

As the poll results were out, BSP supremo Mayawati’s desire of leading a party with a strong base in several states outside Uttar Pradesh failed to materialise with poor showing in the two states where it had shown promise earlier.

The results have come as a dampener to the party which had projected Mayawati as prime ministerial candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.

BSP, which decided to go alone in Maharashtra, failed to win any of the 281 seats it had contested out of the total 288 assembly seats there. On the other hand, its arch rival Samajwadi Party managed to win four seats in Maharashtra.

The performance of Mulayam Singh Yadav’s party stung BSP more as SP had failed to open its account in that state during the 2004 assembly elections. BSP at that time too had failed to win any seat there.

Despite Maharashtra having around 30% Dalit votes, BSP failed to open its account in the state. Mayawati had addressed a couple of rallies in the state. In the last assembly elections, it had managed 4% vote share in Maharashtra.

In contrast to BSP’s performance, the Third Front formed by Left parties, SP, JD(S) and Republican Party of India (RPI) and smaller Maharashtra based parties like Shetkari Sangathana and Peasants and Workers Party (PWP) managed to win nine seats among them.

The Front, known as Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), would be expecting to be included in the government formation as the Congress-NCP have bagged 143 seats among them and may require a few more seats to be comfortably placed in the assembly.

In Haryana, where BSP’s vote share in this year’s Lok Sabha elections was 21%, managed to win only one seat, the same as in the last assembly elections in 2004.

Another factor which worked against Mayawati’s party was a break-up of its pre-poll alliance with Bhajan Lal-led Haryana Janhit Congress which won six seats.

Mayawati, who was the lone star campaigner for her party, addressed around eight rallies in the state and put up candidates in 86 out of the total 90 assembly seats there.

BSP may remain a mere spoiler, say analysts

The electoral battle in Maharashtra has has ended up being a fight between the Congress and the NCP on the one side and BJP and the Shiv Sena on the other, BSP remains overshadowed

New Delhi: Despite the decisive roles it played in the last two parliamentary elections, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), one of the very few political parties that increased its share of votes in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, may remain a mere spoiler in Tuesday’s assembly elections in Maharashtra, say analysts. The reasons: the very nature of its support base as well as its style of functioning, they add.

They say that the BSP, which has grown steadily in Maharashtra—but never opened its account in the 288-member state assembly—has been overshadowed by the advent of the third front, the Republican Left Democratic Front (RLDF), in the state.

The electoral battle in Maharashtra has, over the past few elections, ended up being a fight between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) on the one side and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena on the other.

“The BSP may not be able to grow beyond a point unless something magical happens in the state,” said Jai Mrug, Mumbai-based psephologist.

“The BSP had managed 4% votes in assembly elections and 5.43% in Lok Sabha elections in 2004, largely because of the mismanagement of the Congress party. It is true that its vote share increased, mainly because of the BAMCEF (All India Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation) and DS4 (Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangharsh Samiti),” added Mrug.

BSP founder Kanshi Ram had launched both the organizations.

During election campaigns in the state, BSP leader Mayawati did draw large crowds, but the coming together of various factions of the Republican Party of India (RPI), and its decision to join the Left and the socialist parties in RLDF is expected to hit the BSP’s prospects.

Analysts say the BSP support was largely drawn from a voter base that was split due to the disarray in RPI.

According to Mrug, this as well as Mayawati’s unwillingness to allow any other leaders to rise to the top would block the growth of the BSP—currently the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh—in Maharashtra.

“It will remain a spoiler now,” said Mrug.

However, Tanuja Khobragade, the BSP candidate from Chandrapur assembly constituency, said the party would emerge as surprise winner in many constituencies as it is the only party that has raised relevant issues.

Khobragade has raised issues such as pollution and unemployment in her constituency, which is surrounded by coal mines.

The BSP, which has 281 candidates in the fray in Tuesday’s elections, has also tried to highlight the alleged fallout of the economic policies of the Congress-NCP government in the state and the United Progressive Alliance government at the Centre; the increasing number of atrocities against the Dalits in the state; and the poor state of the Maharashtra economy.

The BSP’s presence has been very visible in the Vidarbha region. Huge hoardings, picturing Mayawati and the party symbol elephant, loud speakers screaming haathi haathi (elephant, elephant), and party workers wearing purple stoles can be spotted in almost all towns in the region.

That may not translate into votes.

“She won’t be able to gather many votes here. Maybe around 200 of the 12,000 votes here,” said Samar, a resident of a largely Bengali neighbourhood in Chandrapur town. He gave only one name.

J.D. Ramtek, a BSP activist, admitted that his party had helped both the fronts (Congress-NCP and Shiv Sena-BJP) in the past.

“But this time, we want to win some seats in Vidarbha,” he said.

Whatever happens, Ramtek added, indirectly agreeing to the general opinion among analysts, the party would “decide who wins the elections”.

Assembly poll outcomes a blow to Mayawati
Lucknow |Friday, 2009 4:05:06 PM IST

The Bahujan Samaj Party’s (BSP) poor showing in the Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh assembly polls has dealt a blow to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati and her dreams of ruling the country.

The BSP, which she heads, failed to open its account in Maharashtra – the land of the party’s biggest icon B.R. Ambedkar – and failed to score beyond one seat even in Haryana. It is yet to take birth in Arunachal.

Mayawati had not only projected her party as a potential “kingmaker” in both Maharashtra and Haryana but she had also pumped in a lot of energy to carve out a place for the BSP in both states. Hoardings outside the Mumbai airport as well as other parts of Maharashtra showed her as the country’s “future prime minister”.

According to the party’s own evaluation, its vote share has gone down in comparison to that in the April-May Lok Sabha polls. As against a 15 percent vote share in the Lok Sabha elections in Haryana, it plummeted to a paltry 7 percent in these polls. In Maharashtra, this figure has fallen from five percent to 4.5 percent.

What made matters worse for Mayawati was the BSP’s sworn political foe Samajwadi Party marching way ahead, by bagging four seats in Maharashtra.

A pall of gloom has descended at the party headquarters here. Party general secretary Satish Chandra Misra, known to be Mayawati’s closest confidante, has chosen to go underground, in an apparent facesaving bid.

Mayawati had been banking on the support of Dalits in the poverty-ridden and Dalit-tribal dominated Vidharbha region of Maharashtra. However, the only seat the party managed to touch in the number two position was Latur city and this too was attributed to the dominant Muslim vote.

Of the 24 Maharashtra seats on which BSP stood at number three position, seven had Muslim candidates.

As for Haryana, the party’s nominees lost their deposits in bulk. The sole winner – at Jagadhri – was a Muslim, Akram Khan, who defeated his Congress rival by a margin of more than 4,000 votes. Only on two seats could the BSP manage to stay on at second position, while figuring at the third place in 12 places.

Evidently, Mayawati’s biggest worry now is forthcoming by-elections to 11 state assembly and one Lok Sabha seat in Uttar Pradesh early next month. If the outcome of these polls has any bearing on them, bad news may be awaiting her.

SP scores 4 in Maha polls, BSP still at nil

Express News Service

Posted: Oct 23, 2009 at 0406 hrs IST

Lucknow The Samajwadi Party, which has won four seats in the Maharashtra Assembly elections, on Thursday expressed satisfaction that it had retained its “support base among the minorities and secular-minded people”.

The BSP had contested 281 of the 288 seats in Maharashtra but failed to open its account in the state. Spokesman of SP, Rajendra Chaudhary, said: “Though the chief minister misused public funds in the Assembly elections of other states and tried to whip up passions, it failed to find favour with the electorate there.” He added that even the Dalit electorate was amazed at the “five-star lifestyle of Dalit ki beti”, who has only concentrated on erecting statues and building parks.

Asked about BSP’s dismal show in Maharashtra, party general secretary Suresh Mane, who is based in Mumbai, said: “The BSP expected to win five to seven seats, but the votes cast in favour of the party did not convert into seats.”

Blaming the Third Front and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Mane added: “While the Third Front was strategically used by the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance, the MNS was used by the Congress. We were marginalised in the process.” The party, however, has marginally increased its vote share to 5 per cent from 4.16 per cent in the 2004 Assembly polls. The Third Front comprising the Left parties, SP, JD(S), Republican Party of India and smaller Maharashtra-based parties like Shetkari Sangathana and Peasants and Workers Party won 9 seats.

Continuing its formula of “social engineering”, the Bahujan Samaj Party on Thursday announced four Brahmin candidates in Maharashtra for the coming Lok Sabha polls.

One of them is the chairman and managing director of the Rs 1,800-crore Pune-based DSK group, DS Kulkarni, who will contest from Pune.

More than 500,000 Brahmins and around 400,000 Dalits are the majority voters in the Pune Lok Sabha constituency. The Marathas and OBCs constitute around 250,000 voters each.

“We will continue with our social engineering formula, which has produced good results for us in Uttar Pradesh [Images ]. We will contest from all the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra and will include all castes and communities including dalits, OBCs, Marathas, Brahmins, Muslims and tribal communities,” BSP’s Maharashtra unit chief Vilas Garud told Business Standard.

The three other Brahmin candidates are environmentalist Jayendra Parulekar from Ratnagiri, head of a prominent shipping company AK Tripathi from Thane, and chief priest of the popular Kalaram temple, Sudheer Das, from Nashik.

DS Kulkarni’s candidature is expected to hit the Bharatiya Janata Party’s [ Images ] performance in Pune, where the party depends on the huge chunk of Brahmin voters. It could also benefit Indian Olympic [ Images ] Association president and Congress Member of Parliament from the city, Suresh Kalmadi.

“We do not care what benefits whom. The BSP was polled 4.6 per cent votes in last Lok Sabha elections in Maharashtra and we plan to increase this to 12 per cent this time,” Garud said.

Maharashtra counts its votes Thursday

New Delhi News.Net
Tuesday 20th October, 2009 (IANS)

Maharashtra will Thursday count the millions of votes polled in the assembly elections to decide who gets to rule the sprawling state — one of India’s most industrialised.

Thousands of officials will count the millions of votes polled in the Oct 13 assembly elections to pick a new 288-member legislature.

As the elections took place only five months after the Lok Sabha battle, won by the Congress-led coalition, the mood is quite upbeat in the ruling Congress-led Democratic Front camp in the state.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), its ally, are hoping to secure a hat-trick.

But the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Shiv Sena allinace is determined to dislodge the Congress and NCP and usher in ‘Shiv-Shahi’ (Shivaji’s Rule).

In the 2004 elections, the Congress and the NCP won 139 seats and the Shiv Sena-BJP alliance 119. Independents bagged 30 seats.

Unlike in the past two assembly elections, the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) of Raj Thackeray is a factor that threatens to upset the Shiv Sena-BJP calculations.

The MNS proved its nuisance value in at least 10 valuable seats in the Lok Sabha election, estimate the Shiv Sena and the BJP.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Republican Party of India (RPI) and the Left are giving uncomfortable moments to the Congress-NCP coalition.

For the Congress in the state and in New Delhi, the challenge is to retain the second most important political state after Uttar Pradesh.

The elections are a test of credibility for Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, who took charge of Maharashtra after the November 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai, replacing Vilasrao Deshmukh.

A victory could help him gain an upper hand over senior party leader Narayan Rane, a former Shiv Sena stalwart who is desperate to become the chief minister.

On the opposition side too, the stakes are equally high.

BJP leader Gopinath Munde, who guided the election battle, is hoping for a win — so as to achieve the coveted status once enjoyed by his brother-in-law, the late Pramod Mahajan.

As for the Shiv Sena, Udhav Thackeray fought the elections less against the ruling combine than his own estranged cousin Raj Thackeray.

The electoral outcome would indicate who the people of Maharashtra consider the rightful heir to Bal Thackeray’s legacy.

Among the most eagerly watched results would be Amravati, where Rajendrasingh Shekhawat, son of President Pratibha Patil contested against a prominent Congress rebel; Wani in Yavatmal from where farmer widow Bebitai Bai tried her luck; and Osmanabad where Jagjitsinh Patil of NCP was pitted against Shiv Sena’s Omraje Nimbalkar.

Union Minister Sushilkumar Shinde’s daughter Praniti stood from Solapur while his colleague Vilasrao Deshmukh’s son Amit contested from Latur.

Election Commission officials say they are ready for the vote count. ‘We are prepared. All arrangements have been made for the peoples’ verdict,’ said an official.

He said the first results would be declared by late morning. All results would be known by late afternoon.

Around 60 percent of the 7.60 crore electorate in the state exercised their franchise Oct 13. There was repolling in 22 polling centres, mostly after Maoist guerrillas tried to disrupt voting.

Maya magic fails to charm Maharashtra, Haryana

Submitted by Sarthak Gupta on Fri, 10/23/2009 – 10:09.

The Bahujan Samaj Party’s plan to expand its bases in Haryana andMaharashtra suffered a jolt on Thursday as the party won just one seat in Haryana while failing to open its account in Maharashtra.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leadership was hoping to emerge as kingmaker in Haryana as it had secured 15.75 per cent votes in the Lok Sabha elections in May.

At the start of the election process, the BSP had tied up with Bhajan Lal’s Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) to dent the Congress votebank. The alliance however crumbled as the HJC decided to contest the election in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Despite the setback, the BSP had high hopes, fielding candidates in 86 of the state assembly’s 90 seats. BSP supremo Mayawati campaigned for the party and addressed about six public meetings in various parts of the state.

With an eye on the large chunk of Scheduled Caste voters, BSP leaders belonging to the Dalit community from Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi were assigned for electioneering.

Yet, the BSP failed to repeat the Lok Sabha election performance and had to remain content with one seat. Its candidate Akram Khan won from Jagdhari, defeating his nearest rival Subhash Chand of the Congress by about 4,000 thousand votes.

BSP candidates were runners-up in Prithala, Punhana and Sahona seats in Haryana and stood third in about 12 constituencies, bringing some consolation to the party.

The BSP’s Haryana in-charage Man Singh Manhera told HT, “We will review our performanceand strengthen the organisation for the next electoral battle.”

It was a complete washout for the BSP in Maharashtra where the Scheduled Castes constitute 30 per cent of the voters. Having decided to go it alone in the western state, the BSP had fielded candidate in 281 of the assembly’s 288 seats.

Abstract

The term paper is an in depth engagement with a thinker and a concept articulated by him. The term paper is thus an intense theoretical understanding, analysis and critique of the concept chosen. As a consequence it helps the student to be thorough in terms of the theory related to the concept, the linkages, its application and its implications.

The thinker I have selected for the term paper is Louis Althusser, a French philosopher and a structural Marxist. Althusser, considered being an influential philosopher to emerge in the revival of Marxist Theory in the 1960s, attempted to reconcile Marxism with structuralism. The focus of academic engagement is a concept forwarded by him, namely, Ideological State Apparatus. The term paper delves deep into this concept while at the same time unravelling new terms and concepts related to it like, Repressive State Apparatus, Interpellation and an Althusserian perception of Ideology, the State, relations of production and the structure of society.

About Althusser

Louis Althusser

Louis Althusser was born on 16^th October, 1918 in Birmandries, near Algiers, Algeria, the son of Charles Althusser and Lucien Berger. His father was a bank manager, whom Althusser saw as an authoritative, distant figure. Althusser was a Catholic. The monastic life fascinated him in his youth, and he remained a believer till about 1947.

Althusser was educated at Algiers, Marseilles, and Lyons. In 1939 he was admitted to the Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS), but the war interrupted his studies, and he was called up to serve in the army in September. Althusser did not see action in the early days of World War II. In 1940 Germans occupied northern and eastern France and Althusser had to spend five years in a German concentration camp, mostly in Schleswig. Later he said that he found life easy because he enjoyed the comradeship of men and behind barbed wires. He admitted that he felt well protected. After the war Althusser resumed his studies at the ENS, where, with his sense of coming from a ‘different world’, he felt being a complete stranger. Another impact of having spent 5 years in the camp was that he got pushed to the left and joined the Communist Party in 1948, remaining its life-long member.

During this period Althusser met Helene Rytman, who became his companion and later his wife. Althusser suffered from depression regularly and was given shock treatment and therapy. This pattern remained basically unchanged till 1990– of depression, therapy and shock treatment, and periods of active writing and working. Althusser completed a master’s thesis in 1948 on the German philosopher G.W. Hegel. In the same year he was appointed caiman at the ENS. He was responsible for preparing students for the aggregation or final examination. He taught philosophy and played a central role in influencing French intellectuals for a generation.

Althusser was a relatively unknown political philosopher until 1965. In fact, he had the reputation of being a recluse. Pour Marx (For Marx) and Lire de Capital (Reading Capital), a collection of papers written for a seminar on Das Kapital at the ENS in 1965, changed the situation. These books represented intellectually hard-line Marxism, but not dogmatism. By reading Marx “to the letter” Althusser challenged contemporary softer interpretations of Marx’s work.

Marxism was not for Althusser an ideology or world-view but a revolutionary science, ultimately the science of society. “I should add that, just as the foundation of mathematics by Thales ‘induced’ the birth of the Platonic philosophy, just as the foundation of physics by Galileo ‘induced’ the birth of Cartesian philosophy, etc., so the foundation of the science of history by Marx has ‘induced’ the birth of a new, theoretically and practically revolutionary philosophy, Marxist philosophy or dialectical materialism.” [1]

In the Party his relations with the secretary general, Georges Marchais, and other members of the leadership, were never easy. Due to his leanings toward Maoism, he was nearly dispelled in 1966 in a dispute over China’s Cultural Revolution. Althusser mentions in his book of memoir, L’Avenir diure Longtemps (The Future Lasts Forever) that Mao had granted him an interview, but he dropped it, fearing the political reaction against him. In April 1978 he launched an attack on the Communist Party in Le Monde wherein he published a denunciation of the leadership in ‘What Must Change in the Party.’  After the rise of the student movement in 1968, Althusser’s influence in France faded. During the turbulent events in May 1968, Althusser was in a sanatorium, recuperating from depression. Althusser himself once counted that he suffered at least fifteen depressions from 1947 to 1980. To the disappointment of the student’s movement, he supported the official party line and did not consider the situation revolutionary. Later his view changed, and he held that there was a real atmosphere of fraternity on the streets and Party had lost touch with the student masses in revolt.

On November 6, 1980 Althusser killed his wife. In L’Avenir diure Longtemps (The Future Lasts Forever) which was published posthumously in 1992, he explained this disaster. Having being deemed unfit for trial was admitted in a mental hospital. Althusser stayed in hospital until 1983. Althusser died of a heart attack on October 22, 1990 and his last few years were spent in intellectual as well as personal isolation.

Structuralism

The term paper is located in the context of structuralism because Althusser is said to be a structural Marxist who sought to reconcile structuralism and Marxism. The irony of the situation is that Althusser never accepted himself to be a structuralist.

The terms ‘structure’ and ‘social structure’ were widely used in sociology and have been since Herbert Spencer introduced the term ‘structure’ into the field in the 19^th century. The dark post-war mood that lent existentialism its appeal faded when economic recovery set in, and in the boom-period of the 1960s it was replaced by a new vogue called structuralism. Structuralism became an intellectual fashion in the 1960s in France. Ernest Gellner, a well known French Philosopher, sociologist, and a social anthropologist wrote, in 1970: ‘a spectre is haunting the intellectual scene – structuralism or better “le structuralisme”.[2] Roman Jacobson’s linguistic structuralism, Roland Barthes’s structuralist literary criticism and Lévi-Strauss’s anthropological structuralism enjoyed widespread interest. Louis Althusser and his student Michel Foucault were also regarded as representatives of this trend.

The structuralists stressed the persistence of “deep structures” that underlie all human cultures, leaving little room for either historical change or human initiative. Structural perspective takes the position that the institutions of the state must function in such a way as to ensure perpetuation of capitalism. Thus the state reproduces the logic of the capitalist structure through its economic, legal, cultural, educational and political institutions. So the institutions of the state function in long term interests of capitalism itself rather than in short term interests of a particular capitalist class or members of it as said by traditional Marxist. Structuralists argue that the state and its institutions have a certain degree of independence from the ruling or capitalist class. Structuralism seeks its structures not on the surface, at the level of the observed, but below or behind empirical reality. What the observer sees is not the structure, but simply the evidence of the product of structure.

Schaff lists the following four characteristics which form, he suggests, an intellectual trend: first, structuralists approach the subject matter of their research as a specific whole which dominates all its elements. They are critical of atomism, where things are studied as discrete parts of an aggregate, and where wholes are no more than the sum of their parts. The whole, according t o the structuralist, forms a system whose elements are interconnected and where the structure of the whole determines the position of each element. Second, structuralists’ believe that every system has a structure: the task of science is to find out what that structure is.

Althusser and Structuralism

Althusser too, like the structuralists, propounds to look at ‘complex totalities’ and not just the elements which compose them. These elements – the relations of production, forces of production etc, he says are linked in specific ways. Indeed the nature of each part of the whole is determined by its role in the totality.  Thus economic practice according to Althusser does not exist on its own but as a part of a larger structure. The larger structure includes apart from economic practice, ideological and political practice. He prefers to look at the whole rather than a sum of its elements.

ISA is in a way conceived from this structuralist school of thought which says that the state and its institutions have a certain degree of autonomy from the ruling capitalist class.

Inter-linkages

To understand concept of ISA, one needs to know certain other terms which are related and linked in the following way: (This map also reflects the way the term paper is explained)

Reproduction of conditions of production

Marx in Das Kapital (Vol 2) proved that no production is possible which does not allow for the reproduction of the material conditions of production: the reproduction of the means of production. Thus the ultimate condition of production is the reproduction of conditions of production.  Every social formation arises from a dominant mode of production. So, in order to exist, every social formation must reproduce the conditions of its production at the same time as it produces and in order to be able to produce, it must therefore reproduce:

1. The productive forces
2. The existing relations of production

It must reproduce firstly the means of production. This includes the labour power and the material forces i.e. raw material, fixed capital (buildings, machines etc.). A kind of endless chain ensues where for example a Mr. X produces wool, for him to reproduce his raw material he will be dependent on Mr. Y who produces woollen yarn who will in turn depend upon Mr. Z for machinery and so on.

Reproduction of labour power

Apart from the material forces, reproduction of labour power is equally important, if not more. It is ensured by giving labour power the material means with which to reproduce itself: by wages (- the means to pay for housing, food and clothing, to raise and educate children) this is not enough to ensure for labour power’s reproduction. Available labour power must be ‘competent’ i.e. suitable to be set to work in the complex system of the process of production. The labour power has to be diversely skilled and hence must be reproduced. Here diversely skilled means the socio-technical division of labour i.e. the different jobs and posts. This is achieved outside production: by the capitalist education system and by other instances and institutions.

The reproduction of labour power reveals (as will be elaborated later in the paper) that it entails reproduction of not only ‘skills’ but also reproduction of its subjection to the ruling ideology or the ‘practice’ of that ideology. It is in the forms and under forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power.

The other crucial aspect is the reproduction of the relations of production- which will be tackled later.

The bourgeoisie can only secure the stability and the continuity of exploitation (that it imposes in production) on condition that it wages a permanent class struggle against the working class. This class struggle is fought by perpetuating and reproducing the material ideological and political conditions of exploitation. It is carried out within production (cuts in the wages, intended for the reproduction of labour power, repression, sanctions, redundancies, anti-union struggle etc.). At the same time it is conducted outside production. It is here that the role of the state – of the RSAs and the ISAs (the political system, school, churches, channels of information) – intervenes in order to subject the working class by both – repression and ideology (M`arxisme et lute des classes 1976 p.65)

Social formation

This model is an attempt to reveal how society is structured. This is how even Marx conceptualised the society to be. The base or the infra structure refers to the economic forces of production while the super structure consists of the legal, political, cultural, ethical institutions. Althusser concentrated more on the super structure or infrastructure. He said that even the super structure consists of two levels:

1. Politico-legal i.e. State, Law etc.

2.  Ideology i.e. religious, ethical, legal, political etc.

The most important conditions of existence of a social formation need not necessarily be economic. The political and ideological levels do not always reveal the presence of eco lurking behind them. The relation between the base and super-structure is not one of ‘expression’ where the super structures are reflexes or ‘phenomena’ emanating from the economic structure or essence. Rather the superstructures could be seen as the necessary conditions of existence of the eco base.

Marx stated that economy is ‘determinant in the last instance’.  Thus he meant that the functioning of the institutions in the super structure is ruled by the economics of the base. Contradictorily Althusser stated that ‘the lonely hour of the “last instance”   never comes ‘ (1965). He maintained that the super structure is relatively autonomous and functions by its own ideology and own specific rules and laws. Louis Althusser is against the mechanistic interpretation of the base-superstructures metaphor, and proposes a quite distinct concept of the social formation. He thus rejects Marx’s economic determinism by arguing that the super structure had a degree of relative independence from the base.

To substantiate this point he gives the example of the Russian Revolution of Feb 1917. a large part of the State Apparatus survived after the seizure of the State power by the alliance of the proletariat and the small peasantry

On the reproduction of relations of production:

The relations of production are those which make and maintain a capitalist as one belonging to the bourgeoisie and the worker as belonging to the proletariat. These relations of hierarchy and oppression are secured by the legal-political and ideological superstructure. It is exercised by the State power in the State Apparatuses- by Repressive State Apparatus and Ideological State Apparatus. The RSA secures by force (physical and otherwise) the political conditions of the reproduction of relations of reproduction and also conditions for the practice of ISA. Behind the ‘shield’ of the RSA the ISA contributes to the relations of production. The political apparatus does this by subjecting individuals to the political State ideology; the communications apparatus by blasting every citizen with daily doses of nationalism, chauvinism, liberalism, moralism etc. by the means of press, radio, television; the same goes for cultural apparatus, the religious apparatus and also the family.

In the Middle Ages, the Church (the religious ISA) alongside the Family were the ISAs which carried out educational and cultural functions. Publishing and Communications as also Theatre were integral parts of the Church. In the pre-capitalist historical period, there was one dominant Ideological State Apparatus, the Church, which carried out not only religious functions but also educational, communications, cultural functions. French Revolution transferred State power from the feudal aristocracy to the merchant-capitalist bourgeoisie and attacked the number one Ideological State Apparatus: the Church.

The ISA which has now been installed in the dominant position is the educational ideological apparatus. Behind the scenes of political ISA, which is more apparent, is the educational ISA. Like all other ISAs, its primary function is to reproduce the relations of production in favour of the dominant class.

Ideological State Apparatus

Marx: Though Marx recognized the complexity of the State, he did not systemize it in a theoretical form, thus restricting their terrain to that of political practice. In Marx’s writings (Communist Manifesto and the Eighteenth Brumaire), the State is explicitly conceived as a repressive apparatus. The state is an aide of the bourgeoisie class to help dominate the proletariat while in the process of extorting surplus value. In concrete terms it is the police, army, courts and prisons. To validate this point Althusser gives certain examples from political democracy which point out to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie through the repressive state apparatus: the massacre of June 1848 and of the Paris Commune; of Bloody Sunday, May 1905 and ‘censorship’ on a play by Gatti on Franco, to name a few.

This theory however lacks in the sense that it does little to advance the theory of the State. It blocks its development, which in necessary.

At this point it is necessary to point out that STATE POWER AND STATE APPARATUS are two different things.  The objective of the class struggle concerns State power, and in consequence the use of the State apparatus by the classes holding State power as a function of their class objective

The proletariat must seize State power in order to destroy the existing bourgeoisie  State apparatus and, in a the first phase replace it with a quite different, proletarian State apparatus, that in later phases sets in motion a radical process, that of destruction of the State (the end of the State power, the end of every State apparatus).

State apparatus may survive without being affected or modified: it may survive political events which affect the possession of State power. Example: even after a social revolution like that of 1917, a large part of the State Apparatus survived after the seizure of the State power by the alliance of the proletariat and the small peasantry.

Gramsci: The only person to venture into this territory was Antonio Gramsci, who included certain civil society institutions like the Church, the Schools etc. as being part of the RSA. He too however, did not systematize it.

Althusser: To advance the theory of the State, he gives the new concept: the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs). Althusser defines ISAs as ‘ a certain number of realities which present themselves to the immediate observer in the form of distinct and specialises institutions. He proposes an empirical list of these institutions.’

1. The religious ISA (the system of different churches)
2. The educational ISA (the system of different public and private ‘schools’)
3. The family ISA
4. The legal ISA (also belongs to the RSA)
5. The political ISA
6. The trade union ISA
7. The communications ISA (press, radio and tv etc.)
8. The cultural ISA (literature, arts, sports etc.)

It is necessary to distinguish between ISA and RSA for clarity and to understand the basic premise and functioning of each State apparatus.

The ideology of the ‘ruling class’ unifies the ISAs. Given the fact that the ‘ruling class’ in principle holds State power, and therefore has at its disposal the RSA, we can accept the fact that this same ruling class is active in the ISAs insofar as it is ultimately the ruling ideology which is realized in the ISAs. No class can hold State power over a long period without at the same time exercising its hegemony over and in the State Ideological Apparatuses. Thus ISAs may be not only the stake, but also their site of class struggle.

School- one ISA which is so silent! (Educational ISA)

The school takes in children of all age groups starting from infancy to adulthood- the years when the child is most vulnerable and thus can be moulded. What are we taught in school part from learning to read, write, add- techniques and know how??  Children are taught:

• Rules of ‘good’ behaviour i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labour, according to the job he is destined for.
• Rules of morality, civic and professional conscience
• Respect for the socio-technical division of labour
• Respect for rules of the order established by class domination.

All these ‘rules’ are wrapped in the ruling ideology which perpetuates the domination of the class in power and consequent subjugation of the one oppressed.

Thus school ISA ensures reproduction of- not just skills but also submission to the rules of the established order / ruling ideology and also submission to the ‘practice’ of that ideology.

At the age 0f 16, a huge mass of children are ejected ‘into production’: these are the workers or small peasants. Another portion of scholastically adapted youth carries on and fills the posts of small and middle executives, petty bourgeois of all kinds. A last portion reaches the summit, either to fall into intellectual semi-employment, or to become the agents of exploitation – capitalist, managers, the agents of repression- soldiers, policemen, politicians, administrators.  At every level they get out, they are provided with an ideology, which suits the role it has to fulfil. The role of – the exploited, the agent of exploitation, the agent of repression, of the professional ideologist. Of all, it is only the school ISA which has the obligatory audience of the totality of the children in the capitalist social formation, eight hours a day for d or six days out of a week.

To reinforce this point Althusser locates the Soviet revolution and Lenin in the framework of ISA and its importance in being instrumental to retain and wield power. Lenin’s primary interest lay in revolutionizing the education system in Soviet Russia to make it possible for the Soviet proletariat, who had seized State power, to secure the future of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transition into socialism. The educational system becomes a part of consensus creation to generate support for the politics of capital and also nurtures new ideas that would expand the rule of capital. The educational system is vocation based leaving no room for critical thinking. This is done so that students become a part of the labour force as soon as possible. Education rather than encouraging creativity, critical thought and dialogue, it has become a method of control, a tool of disciplining and a scheme of consensus building that would facilitate the reproduction of the capitalist system.

Thus ISA may not be only the stake but also the site of class struggle.

Media

The most influential accounts of the workings of ideology and related concepts like those most useful for analysing the media, come from what may be broadly describes as teh Marxist perspective. At its most basic level, ideological analysis attempts to understand how dominant social groups are able to reproduce their social and economic power. It does so by focusing on both the material and intellectual manifestations of these reproductive processes.

Certain ideas and beliefs are legitimized and made real through their media representations. For ex: many media texts revolve around individuals, either as the focus of news reports or as the central characters in fictional stories. According to Althusser, the centrality of individualism assists in the reproduction of existing social formations. It prevents people from seeing or thinking of themselves as members of a collective group, such as a social class, which if acknowledged may cause them to resist their ‘given’ role and seek to challenge the capitalist values that oppress them.  Thus the emphasis that media put on individual actions can be constructed as ideological. This masks the power relations at work at a given historical moment and to individualise is to ignore the relations of class, caste, gender and race, which are detrimental in any given society in terms of affecting the opportunities an individual can actually exploit.  It holds individual accountable and not the larger structure.

Interpellation: advertisements really work to sell the dominant ideology, as much as they sell consumer goods. The ‘call upon’ the consumers to see it as being representative of their desires and interests, which are closely connected to the values of consumer capitalism. The consuming individual is only really given a choice within the interests of those who rule.

Ideology

Graeme Turner: ‘Ideology as a kind of veil over the eyes of the working class, the filter that screened   out or disguised their ‘real’ relations to the world around them’ (1990, p.25)

The whole explanation of ISA revolves around the concept of ‘ideology.’ It is thus necessary to understand Althusser’s perception of ideology and his elucidation of the same.

The term was first invented by Cabanis, Destutt de Tracy and their friends, who assigned to it as an object the (genetic) theory of ideas. Marx took it up fifty years later and said that ‘ideology is the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or social group.’ Ideology is a complex term which has multiple and contradictory meanings of which the most influential explanations come from the Marxist perspective

Ideology plays a key part in peoples everyday perceptions of the world. For traditional Marxists ideology was a reflection- a false consciousness i.e. a false understanding of the way the world functioned by pointing to the real world hidden by ideology. For Althusser, rather than being a ‘false consciousness’, ideology in fact structured peoples lived experience. Ideology is a necessary feature for any society, including the classless communism of the future. It serves as a factor of social cohesion. It plays an important position of adapting human beings to the roles required of them as bearers of the prevailing relations of production.  Every individual’s conception of themselves as coherent autonomous persons- is the means through which they are subsumed under ideological social relations. ‘It is in the forms and under the forms of ideological subjection that provision is made for the reproduction of the skills of labour power.’(Althusser1965). The role of ISAs is to attempt to force the working class to submit to the relations and conditions of exploitation through ideology. Thus the need to recognise the effective presence of a new reality: i.e. ‘ideology’.

Ideology is the fabric and medium of all societies. In Marxism, according to Althusser, they suffer from a basic reductionism where the super structure is reduced to phenomena of the base, or they (super structure) are the result of a simple, essential contradiction – the economic. Ideology is thus relegated to the surface of appearances and thus ideology is excluded from the material existence and always mentioned last among the super structures. Althusser ventured to reconceptualise and transform the way the relations between the base and the super structure are defined. He wished to do away with the ‘over – determination’ of the base (or the economic). The ISAs represent the form in which the ideology of the ruling class must be necessarily realised. In fact the ideology of the ruling class becomes the ruling ideology only through the installation and the development of the specific ISAs in which it is realised.

Ideology is thus a ‘representation’ of the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence. Ideologies are imaginary and do not correspond to reality, though they do make an allusion to it. They need to be interpreted to discover the reality behind their imaginary representation of that world (ideology=illusion/allusion) Ideology has material existence.

• There is no practice except by and in an ideology;
• There is no ideology except by the subject and for subjects.

An ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices. This existence is material. The imaginary relation of ideology is itself endowed with a material existence. And that ideology influences human action which takes place in the material world. Where only a single subject is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is material in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from which derive the ideas of that subject. Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are “inserted into practices”, for example, rituals, conventional behaviour, and so on. .

Interpellation

“All ideology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constructing’
concrete individuals as subjects. Subjects to what? The answer: to the material practices of the ideology. This (the creation of subjects) is done by the acts of “hailing” or “interpellation”. These are acts of attracting attention (hailing), forcing the individuals to generate meaning (interpretation) and making them participate in the practice.

Ideology acts and functions in such a way that it ‘recruits’ subjects among the individuals, or ‘transforms’ the individuals into subjects by that very precise operation which Althusser has called ‘interpellation’ or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace everyday police hailing: ‘Hey, you there!’  (is concerned with hailing of suspects). When a person responds to such a hailing, whether or not it was addressed to him, by the very act of responding he becomes a subject. Experience shows that the practical telecommunication of hailing is such that they hardly ever miss their man: verbal call or whistle, the one hailed always recognises that it is really him who is being hailed. The existence of ideology and the hailing or interpellation of individuals as subjects is one and the same thing. Thus what we think takes place outside of ideology in fact takes place in ideology.

As ideology is eternal, it has always-already interpellated individuals as subjects i.e. to say that individuals are always-already subjects. An individual is always-already a subject, even before he is born. Even before the child is born, it is certain in advance that it will bear its Father’s Name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable. Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideology

As a result of interpellation the individual sees him/herself as a sovereign, autonomous individual. On doing so, the individual recognises him/herself as the subject of ideology, but at the same time, in Althusser’s terms, the individual also misrecognises him/herself According to Mark Jancovich “These positions are not normal and inherent to individuals, but individuals ‘misrecognise’ or mistake these positions as being natural and inherent in themselves”(1995, p128). As a result of misrecognition, individuals become the active agents of ideology, giving power and sustenance to the very ideologies that work to exploit them.

Advertisement: The ideology of consumption (which is, undeniably, the most material of all practices) uses advertising to transform individuals to subjects (to consumers). It uses advertising to interpellate them. The advertisements attract attention, force people to introduce meaning to them and, as a result, to consume. The reader or viewer of the ad is transformed into the subject of (and subject to) the material practice of the ideology (consumption, in this case).

Critique

Louis Althusser wanted to expand Marxist theory in order to understand how societies reproduce their social formations. In doing so he was addressing what he saw as the limitations in traditional Marxist thinking. His model of the base super structure where base was the determinant factor has been widely criticized. He challenged the view that everything in society could be reduced purely to the economic, arguing for an approach that took the modern state and social institutions into account. Thus to put it in a nutshell his rationalization of ISA and RSA has been a value addition which challenges the traditional determinist Marxist link between the economic base and the super structure.

Althusser’s demarcation of RSAs and ISAs into two different water0tight compartments can also be questioned. It seems an over simplification of the complex nature of the Sate today in the 21^st century.

A strong critique of Althusser by Marxist themselves is of the way he suggest that the subordinate social groups were the passive receivers of the dominant, capitalist ideology. The concept of hegemony offered another explanation of how the dominance of certain class values came about. Gramsci suggested that this dominance occurred not simply through the imposition of the will of the dominant class through ideology, but by its presentation of itself as the group best able to fulfil the interests and aspirations of other classes, and by implication, a whole society. In this way dominant classes can be said to rule through consent rather than coercion. According to Gramsci, consent is not simply given without question; rather, it must be continually renegotiated and re-established, since however much the interests of the ruling class are presented as accommodating those of the subordinate classes, their interests are in opposition.  Thus one can bring out two criticisms from the clarification above: firstly, Althusser assumes passivity of the proletariat class while narrating the influence of ISAs and ideology and secondly, he has reconceptualised what Gramsci said in different language while perhaps adding on little to what Gramsci had to say.

Conclusion

Thus though Althusser can be credited with challenging the traditional economic determinism of the conventional base super structure model where economics was the determining factor, he  has done little to add on to what Gramsci said about Hegemony . In fact Gramsci even conceptualised a way out of the capitalist cycle by talking about counter hegemony and organic intellectuals. Althusser doesn’t seem to have come forward with any such new ideas. In his defence though, it can be said that his conceptualisation of ideology and ISAs are as stated in his essay, ‘notes towards an investigation’. Thus he has not attempted to concretize it into a theory but is open to innovations.

Apart from this Althusser has brought in many new dimensions to the stream of Marxist thought, which were beyond the scope of this paper. These are crucial and important to further ones understanding of Marxism in the 21^st Century.

In applying the focus of this paper to DTSW, while specifically addressing the caste system, one can say that if we place the Brahmins as the capitalist class and the Dalits as the proletariat, we can say that right now the focus is more on employment than on empowerment. Thus the struggle is in the ‘base’ while we need to locate it in (apart from the economic sphere) in the social, cultural, religious, political sphere- thus the Ideological Institutions. So to say in Althusserian terms we need to place the struggle in the ISAs and not just the base structure. The latter is necessary for true empowerment and emancipation of the oppressed.

References:

E-resources:

• www.marxist.org/glossary/people/althusser-louis
• www.introductiontomarxism.com

The plight of Dalits is one of the menacing realities in the 62 yr old independent nation India. Dalits literally mean broken people or the “untouchables” or the “outcaste” who are at the bottom of India’s caste system. They are also referred as “Schedule Caste” which refers to a list of socially deprived caste prepared by the British Government in 1935.[1] Dalit is a category that is used to describe 16 percent of India’s population or almost 160 million people. They live an insecured existence, rejected by much of the society because of their ranks as untouchables. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions and routinely abused at the hands of the police and of higher caste groups that enjoy state protection[2].

In terms of size, P.Sainath in his article “Dalits in India 2000”[3] reported “There are more Dalits in India than there are people in Pakistan. There are more Dalits in India than there are people in Brazil, marginally more. If taken as a national population they would be the fifth largest in the world after China, India, the United States and Indonesia. You are really taking about a very large section of humanity. They comprise about 16.48 per cent of India’s population and their contribution in terms of labor and their contribution to culture is enormous and significantly larger than their share in the population. What is disproportionately lower relative to their size in the population is their ownership of land and property and their access to education and to employment of a serious, meaningful and gainful nature.”

Image from e Hindu version

The practice of Untouchability – the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of birth, is central to caste. The abolishment of “Untouchabilty” was made enforceable through the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, although it remains very much a part of rural India. Cases of this discrimination of this type in urban area often surfaces in news articles. Villages are segregated on the lines of caste in many parts of India. The higher caste may not use the same wells, visit the same temple, drink from the same cups or even lay claim to their land that is legally theirs. In schools, the dalit children are asked to segregate from the higher caste. There are a number of fights over burial grounds and burning ghats because in a very large number of villages, the Dalits are not allowed to use the burial grounds. A long list can be produced on discrimination on this line.

In terms of education and employment, dalits again lack behind. Most Dalits live in extreme poverty. They are absorbed in menial tasks as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers and cobblers. Dalit men, women & children numbering in tens of millions work as agricultural labourers works for Rs. 15 – Rs. 35 a day.[4] Dalit women face the triple burden of caste, class & gender. According to Tamil Nadu State government official, the raping of Dalit women exposes the hypocrisy of the caste system as “no one practices untouchability when it comes to sex.”

Dalit voices have always remained unheard. In extreme cases, with the help of the so-called media, it is able to produce some stir. The struggle has been since a long period of time. The discrimination faced can’t be ignored but can be in a subtle manner. The response of the state has been in this pattern. Several laws came in. Laws granting Dakits special consideration for government jobs and education reach only a small percentage. Laws designed to ensure that Dalits enjoy equal rights and protection has seldom been enforced. Laws of land reform and protection of Dalits remains unimplemented in most of the Indian states. The reasons mainly being police corruption and caste baisedness.

Dalits through out the country also suffer in many instances from de facto disenfranchisement. During election, those persuaded by typical electioneering are routinely threatened and beaten by political party strongmen in order to compel them to vote for certain candidates.

Due to the lack in access of mainstream political organizations and the pace of reforms, Dalits have begun to resist subjugation and discrimination in two ways: Peaceful protest and armed struggle. But Dalits who dare to challenge the social order become victim of the structures that firmly guard the caste system.

It is seen that the Dalits are discriminated everywhere. Being inexistence seem to be an easy answer. But they are in search of answer. They have travelled a long way struggling to win the battle. And they aren’t planning to give it up ever.

In the paper I have chosen to investigate the case of Madurai district of Tamil Nadu in terms of the plight of Dalit. I belong to Assam, where the case of dalit atrocities is minimal. Dalit as a word hardly exist in the state. So I chose Tamil Nadu, which is a hub of dalit discrimination, as seen in the reports. And the rationale behind choosing Madurai- the Temple City is to investigate the status of Dalits (Harijan) oppressed – The Children of God[5] in the region which is surrounded by Hindu temples. The datas used are secondary data.

The Caste System- A brief understanding

The root for the emergence of Dalit is the Hindu Caste System.

The caste system in India is the largest surviving social hierarchy. It encompasses a complex ordering of social groups on the basis of ritual purity. Traditional scholarship has described this more than 2,000-year-old system within the context of the four principal varnas, or large caste categories. In order of precedence these are the Brahmins (priests and teachers), the Ksyatriyas (rulers and soldiers), the Vaisyas (merchants and traders), and the Shudras (laborers and artisans). A fifth category falls outside the varna system and consists of those known as “untouchables” or Dalits; they are often assigned tasks too ritually polluting to merit inclusion within the traditional varna system.

Within the four principal castes, there are thousands of sub-castes, also called jatis, endogamous groups that are further divided along occupational, sectarian, regional and linguistic lines. Collectively all of these are sometimes referred to as “caste Hindus” or those falling within the caste system. The Dalits are described as varna-sankara: they are “outside the system”—so inferior to other castes that they are deemed polluting and therefore “untouchable.” Even as outcasts, they themselves are divided into further sub-castes. Although “untouchability” was abolished under Article 17 of the Indian constitution, the practice continues to determine the socio-economic and religious standing of those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. Whereas the first four varnas are free to choose and change their occupation, Dalits have generally been confined to the occupational structures into which they are born.

A person is considered a member of the caste until death, although the particular ranking of that caste may vary among regions and over time.

About Condition of Dalits in Tamil Nadu with special focus in Madurai District

Brief Profile of Tamil Nadu

image-christiancouncil.in

Tamil Nadu is the eleventh largest state in India by area and the seventh most populous state. It is the fifth largest contributor to India’s GDP and the most urbanised state in India. The state has the highest number (10.56%) of business enterprises in India, compared to the population share of about 6%. It is one of the foremost states in the country in terms of overall development. Tamil Nadu lately emerged as the most literate state in India as announced by HRD Ministry.

The region has been the home of the Tamil civilization since at least 1500 BC, as attested by numerous archeological sites in and around Adichanallur. Its classical language Tamil has been in use in inscriptions and literature for 2500 years.

-      Total No. of districts – 30

-      Total No. of sub districts – 201

-      Total No. of Villages – 16317

-      Total No. of Inhabited Villages – 15400

-      Total No. Of Towns – 832

-      Total No. of Statutory Towns – 721

Source: http://www.tn.gov.in/deptst/socioEcoIndicator.pdf

Brief Profile of Madurai

Madurai district is one of the oldest districts of the State and culturally and politically famous one from the earliest period in the history of Tamilnadu. Dindigul and Karur districts in the north, Virudhunagar district in the south, Sivagangai district in the east and the Theni District in the west bind Madurai district. Madurai City is the headquarters of this district. Madurai district is famous for its orchards, forest products and handloom weaving. Once famous for its agricultural products, it retains its agricultural tinct of economy and remains backward industrially.

The city of Madurai and the suburbs abound in temples and shrine of historical as well as mythological importance. Kundram draw a congregation estimated to more than ten lakh. In Tirumangalam taluk the Chellayee Amman Koil festival is of local importance. In Melur taluk, the only festival worthy of mention is the Chellichiamman festival. During the chitrai festival period (April-May) spread over ten days, the Meenakshi temple attracts a large number of devotees from all over the country. Most important festivals celebrated in the district are Pongal, Deepavali, Adi Kirithigai, Kanda Sashti and Chithirai. Amman worship is one of the important features of Dravidian culture. Main languages spoken in the district are Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Urdu. Religion wise break-up of population of the district is indicated below as per 1991 census. Hindus: 2200349, Muslims: 122994, Christians: 76141, Sikhs: 103, Buddhists: 30, Jains: 385, Other religions and persuasions: 96, Religion not stated: 241. The District lies between 100 25’ and 90 65’ north latitude and 770 48’ and 780 35’ east longitude. The general geographical information of the district is simple and flat as well as hill area. Vaigai River is flowing in the district and is dry during the summer season. Madurai District consists of Seven Taluks, namely 1.Madurai North, 2.Madurai South, 3.Vadipatti, 4.Melur, 5.Thirumangalam, 6.Peraiyur and 7.Usilampatti. The total geographical area of the district is about 10,88,622 sq.km. The Madurai District is divided into 13 Blocks.

General Info of Madurai

Source: Census 2001

Madurai

Schedule caste in numbers:

Table: Comparative analysis of Madurai with Tamil Nadu (General, SC, ST to Total Population)

Source: Census 2001

Land Holding Status

Even after more than half a century of the Constitutional provisions for their upliftment and several programmes of development, Scheduled Castes continue to be one of the most economically deprived and socially oppressed communities. Almost 80 percent of the SC population lives in rural areas, and most of them are dependent on agriculture, but to a lesser extent as cultivators but more as agricultural labourers. Most of the SC population constitutes the hard-core poor of rural India.

P.Sainath in the article “Dalits in India 200” rightly points out, “When I am taking about Dalits I am taking about people who are very largely poor. Who are the Indian poor? Forty per cent of the Indian poor are landless agricultural laborers, 45 per cent are small and marginal farmers, 60 per cent of them own less than one hectare and of the remaining 15 per cent, 7.5 percent are rural weavers and other kinds of artisans. What does that show you? It shows you that 85 per cent of the poor people’s problem is directly linked to land. That is the issue we will come back to because central to the Dalit question again is land, or rather the lack of land.”[6]

The datas will give a background of the condition of Dalits in terms of land.[7]

Rural Poverty

Table: Schedule Caste in Rural Population & Rural Poverty

In the table it is seen that the share of SCs among those who are below poverty line in rural India is higher than their share in population. Overall agricultural development per se, without direct access to land, doesn’t seem to ensure better living for the SC population. Most of the SCs are landless or near landless with less than one acre of land. The degree of landless of the SCs is a quintessential characteristic of their social and economic deprivation in a rural society where land is the defining aspect of social hierarchy.[8]

Table: Percentage of landless and near landless households among SC

The above shows the extent of landless and near landless status of the SCs. It is seen from the table that there is  actually rise in the near landlessness of SC households in the period from 1981-82 to 1991-92.

Access to land, even if it is a sub-marginal extent plays a critical role in improving the living status of SCs in rural India. The control over land is also the basis of caste hierarchy (Nancharaiah, 1988). Not only landlessness is at the centre of rural poverty, but ownership and control of land is also the basis of agrarian hierarchy. For Scheduled Castes ownership of land denotes enhanced social status, self-respect, self-confidence and a sense of equality as well (Sankaran 2000). This formed the basis for egalitarian land reforms and provision of access to land to deprived communities like Scheduled Castes. As a part of land reforms, redistribution of ceilings surplus land to rural poor, particularly to Scheduled Castes was conceived as an important programme. Distribution of government wastelands and Bhoodan lands is also based on the principle of providing land to agricultural landless and other poor, especially the Scheduled Castes.

.

Source: GOI 2006

Of the total of 54.03 lakh hectares of ceiling surplus land distributed in different States up to March 31, 2003, only about one-third of the land was distributed among Scheduled Castes and the rest among others. Similarly, of the 57.42 lakh beneficiaries, SCs constitute only about 36%.

Source: Indiastat.com

Compiled from the statistics released by: Department of Economics and Statistics, Govt. of Tamil Nadu

From the data above, one can see that there has been decrease in tremendous decrease in all sizes of land holdings of the SCs in Madurai District from 1995-96 to 2000-01. The gap increases as we move up in the sizes of land. A comparatively much less decrease in seen in terms of the other category. Only 3 (for SC) in compared 39 (for others) is the number of operational holding (20 & above) in 1995-96 while the number decreases to 0 (for SC) in 2000-01 but increases to 45 for others in the same period.

The data clearly shows the while the marginalization process is all pervasive in the landholding structure of the country, it may not be an exaggeration to say that while most of the SC holdings are marginal in nature, most of the holdings of others are non-marginal size. The case of Madurai clearly shows the asymmetry.

Educational Status

Education develops in us a perspective of looking at life. It helps us build opinions and have points of view on everything in life. The words ‘cultivate’ and ‘civilize’ are almost synonymous to the word ‘educate’. That says it! Education is important as it teaches us the right behavior, the good manners thus making us civilized. It teaches us how to lead our lives. Education is the basis of culture and civilization. It is instrumental in the development of our values and virtues. Education cultivates us into mature individuals, individuals capable of planning for our futures and taking the right decisions. The future of a nation is safe in the hands of educated individuals. Education is important for the economic growth of a nation. It fosters principles of equality and socialism. Education forms a support system for talents to excel in life. It is the backbone of society. But a section of the society of India has been deprived from that provision.

Despite constitutional provisions and safeguards, dalit representation in higher educational institutes and in the workforce remains largely minimal. At the primary education level, though enrolment reflects the diversity in the composition of student population, it does not provide any comparability between the dalits and non-dalits. There are disparities among dalits in all respects – whether in terms of gender or in terms of urban and rural or regional backgrounds. It is quite heartening to note that, even today, dalit men and women are at the bottom of the educational pyramid, despite the repeated claims and counter claims of the government and the political establishment on their efforts to uplift this disadvantaged group. In higher education, there is no doubt, a considerable improvement has been made in terms of promoting diversity in admissions after the introduction of reservation policy. However, this is not adequate in view of the proportion of SC/ST population still outside the fold of higher education. For instance, the percentage of share of scheduled caste students in higher education is only 7.77 per cent and that of scheduled tribes is 2.33 per cent of the total enrolment in 1996-97 [MHRD 1997]. This is negligible in terms of the expected levels of enrolment of dalits in higher educational institutions. Further, there has been a far lesser participation of dalits in prestigious subjects/courses of study which are in demand for high salaried jobs. In 1996-97, a majority of dalit students are enrolled in the arts subjects (56.5 per cent among SCs and 77.7 per cent among STs), followed by science (13.3 per cent among SCs and 8.7 per cent among STs) and commerce (13.2 per cent among SCs and 9.4 per cent among STs) at the undergraduate level. The enrolments at the postgraduate level also show similar signs. The proportion of dalits in the professional stream is very low – 7.9 per cent among SCs and 2.1 per cent among STs are in professional courses like engineering and medicine taken together. Therefore, the share of dalits in those courses that are market-friendly is far from satisfactory. The

emerging areas of software, bio-technology, bio-informatics, etc, are almost beyond the reach of the dalits. This is where one has to focus more when the demands for diversity in admissions are made.[9]

India Stat

Source: Department of Secondary & Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

About 50 % of the SC category is literate by 2001 while the data stands at 66.64 in the general category. The above data shows a positive trend for the SCs esp. the rise in female category from 3.29 in 1961 to 41.90 in 2001.

Source: National Commission for SCs & STs

Source: National Commission for SCs & STs

Source: Census 2001

From the data above we can generalize that the literacy rate has improved over years in SC category. But again the quality of education differs. Going back to the article mentioned above one can’t just rely on this data and make a comment on the status of dalit education.

Atrocities

The section will cover the Nature & Magnitude of atrocities experienced & the response of State & Civil Society Organisation

Thevars [caste Hindus] treat Sikkaliars [Dalits] as slaves so they can utilize them as they wish. They exploit them sexually and make them dig graveyards for high-caste people’s burials. They have to take the death message to Thevars. These are all unpaid services.

— Manibharati, social activist, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu[10]

Despite myriad policies and schemes aimed at ameliorating their lot, dalits still suffer from not only poverty but from discrimination and also systemic violence. Given the high prevalence of atrocities (as registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of) Atrocities Act;2 hereafter SC/ST Act) violence on dalits ought to be taken as a unique factor affecting their mobility. In fact, more than the number of cases, their low conviction- rate is an area of concern. By atrocities one must assume not only physical violence but also the social setting that encourages and condones violence on the community. Though scholars and social reformers emphasised from time to time that there is no religious sanction for untouchability, there is a widespread notion in society that dalits are born inferior and any attempt by them to move away from their place will lead to social disharmony. It deserves to be noted that atrocities are exclusively a rural phenomenon; although even a couple of decades ago atrocities in urban areas were reported [Joshi 1982]. [11]

On the caste related atrocities, Anand teltumbde, in Khairlanji – A strange & bitter crop, has written “Contrary to the image of India being a non violent society, violence has always been ingrained in the Hindu societal structure; where inequality is ideolized and rigidified with the divine sanction. Any transgression of this social code is supposed to invite the wrath of divine forces. It is not for nothing that the Hindu God personify violence. In no other religion are Gods depicted bearing deadly weaponds and indulging in macabre violence….those who challenge this framework are reminded of weapon wielding gods of the violent end they face…It is this feature of the system that has seemingly governed Indian History for over two millennia. This systematic character is no longer confined to hindu society alone. Through its ideological hegemony it pervades almost the whole of India Society.”

Atrocities faced by Dalits are on a rise all over India. An atrocity is a concentrated expression of caste consciousness. The Sc & ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, enacted in 1989, is designed to prevent abuses and punish those responsible, establish special courts for trial and such offences and provide victim relief and rehabilitation. The offenses include forcing members of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe to drink or eat any inedible or obnoxious substance; dumping excreta, waste matter, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in their premises or neighborhood; forcibly removing their clothes and parading them naked or with painted face or body; interfering with their rights to land; compelling a member of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe into forms of forced or bonded labor; corrupting or fouling the water of any spring, reservoir or any other source ordinarily used by scheduled castes or scheduled tribes; denying right of passage to a place of public resort; and using a position of dominance to exploit a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe woman sexually.

The potential of the law to bring about social change has been hampered by police corruption and caste bias, with the result that many allegations are not entered in police books. Ignorance of procedures and a lack of knowledge of the act have also affected its implementation. Even when cases are registered, the absence of special courts to try them can delay prosecutions for up to three to four years. Some state governments dominated by higher castes have even attempted to repeal the legislation altogether.

Between 1994 and 1996, a total of 98,349 cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and atrocities against scheduled castes. Of these, 38,483 were registered under the Atrocities Act for the sorts of offenses enumerated above. A further 1,660 were for murder, 2,814 for rape, and 13,671 for hurt.15 Given that Dalits are both reluctant and unable (for lack of police cooperation) to report crimes against themselves, the actual number of abuses is presumably much higher. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has reported that these cases typically fall into one of three categories: cases relating to the practice of “untouchability” and attempts to defy the social order; cases relating to land disputes and demands for minimum wages; and cases of atrocities by police and forest officials.

Data for 1981-90 from Anand Teltumbde Anti imperialism & Annihilation of Castes, 271. Data From 1990-2000 and 2001-2005 from National Crime Records Bureau, http:ncrb.nic.in/crime2005/cii-2205/table7.1htm

The above table provides the average incidence of atrocities against dalits (all India) against SCs and STs during three decades shows a consistent and substancial rise under various crime heads except for arson, those under PCR Act and others. while there is a significant rise in all major heads of crime, there is a drastic decrease in crimes registered under the SC/ ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act from the yearly average of 15182.8 during 1981-90 to almost half 8585 during 1991-2000, thereafter it registers a slight increase to 9863.8 during 2001-05. Since this act is considered string, the police shows a general reluctance to register a crime under. The 2005 annual report of National Crime Records Bureau says: ‘the cases reported under SC/ ST PoA Act have shown a decline of 21.1 percent over the average of the last five years (2000-04) and 2.8 % over the previous year. [12]

Some of the datas revealing caste atrocities in India is listed below. Datas of Tamil Nadu and Madurai district has also been listed below[13]:

Note :

1. Violent crime includes Murder, Rape, Kidnapping and Abduction,
Dacoity, Robbery and Arson.
2. ‘Others’ include Hurt Cases.
3. Cases under SLL upto 1993 are for PCR Act only.
Source : Crime in India 2000, National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of
Home Affairs, Govt. of India & Past Volumes.

Note : The Schedule Caste and the Schedule Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)
Act, 1989 Does not Extend in State of Jammu & Kashmir.
Source : Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No.595, dated 20.2.2003.

Note : The scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes
(prevention of atrocities) Act. 1989 does not
extend in the state of Jammu & Kashmir.
Compiled from the statistics released by : Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 3600, dated on 17.04.2008.

Abbr. : NA : Not Available.
Note : The Scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (Prevention of atrocities)
act. 1989 does not extend to the state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Source : Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 3110, dated 22.03.2002 &
Lok Sabha Unstarred Question No. 1801, dated 7.03.2006., &
Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India. &
Rajya Sabha Unstarred Question No. 4123, dated on 05.05.2008.

Source : Crime in India 2001, National Crime Records Bureau, Ministry of
Home Affairs, Govt. of India.

Some cases of atrocities in Madurai district and Tamil Nadu & the response of the state – Excerpts from books and articles

Dalits In Dravidian Land, S. Vishawanathan

“The first Dalit graduate from a village in Madurai district walked home at the end of the term passing through the upper-caste area of his village wearing shoes and trousers. Perceiving this to be a challenge to their authority, Backward Caste youths set upon him and beat him to death” (Untouchable Citizens, page 185). Two young people, both students at Annamalai University, fell in love and married. The young man was a Dalit. The young woman’s family, belonging to the Vanniar caste, above Dalits in the caste hierarchy, objected to the marriage and the couple was found dead under suspicious circumstances (Dalits in Dravidian Land). In July 1998, soon after K.R. Narayanan took over as President, a group of Dalit youths attempted to celebrate the fact of a Dalit becoming the First Citizen of the country. Caste Hindus objected and a clash followed, finally resulting in twenty Dalit huts being torched and over a hundred dwellings of Dalits being damaged (Dalits in Dravidian Land, page 99). On Independence day 2003, the Dalit panchayat president of a village in one of the southern districts of Tamil Nadu was “assaulted and humiliated in public because he `dared’ to unfurl the national flag at the panchayat’s official function (Dalits in Dravidian Land, page 279).

Broken People: Caste violence against India’s untouchables; Human Rights Watch, 1999, Books for change

In the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, clashes between Pallars (a community of Dalits) and Thevars (a marginally higher-caste non-Dalit community) have plagued rural areas since 1995. New wealth among the Pallars, who have sent male family members to work in Gulf states and elsewhere abroad, has triggered a backlash from the Thevars as the Pallars have increasingly been able to buy and farm their own lands or look elsewhere for employment. At the same time, a growing Dalit political movement has provided the Pallars with a platform for resisting the still-prevalent norms of “untouchability.” While some Dalits have joined militant groups in Tamil Nadu, such groups have generally engaged in public protests and other political activities rather than armed resistance. The Thevars have responded by assaulting, raping, and murdering Dalits to preserve the status quo.

Local police, drawn predominantly from the Thevar community, have conducted raids on Dalit villages, ostensibly to search for militant activists. During the raids they have assaulted residents, particularly women, and detained Dalits under preventive detention laws. With the tolerance or connivance of local officials, police have also forcibly displaced thousands of Dalit villagers. During one such raid, Guruswamy Guruammal, a pregnant, twenty-six-year-old Dalit agricultural laborer, was stripped, brutally beaten, and dragged through the streets naked before being thrown in jail. She told Human Rights Watch, “I begged the police officers at the jail to help me. I even told them I was pregnant. They mocked me for [having made] bold statements to the police the day before. I spent twenty-five days in jail. I miscarried my baby after ten days. Nothing has happened to the officers who did this to me.”

Excessive use of force by the police is not limited to rural areas. Police abuse against the urban poor, slum dwellers, Dalits, and other minorities has included arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and forced evictions. Although the acute social discrimination characteristic of rural areas is less pronounced in cities, Dalits in urban areas, who make up the majority of bonded laborers and street cleaners, do not escape it altogether. Many live in segregated colonies which have been targets of police raids. This report documents a particularly egregious incident in a Dalit colony in Bombay in July 1997, when police opened fire without warning on a crowd of Dalits protesting the desecration of a statue of Dalit cultural and political hero Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. The firing killed ten and injured twenty-six.

Police and upper-caste militias, operating at the behest of powerful political leaders in the state, have also punished Dalit voters. In February 1998, police raided a Dalit village in Tamil Nadu that had boycotted the national parliamentary elections. Women were kicked and beaten, their clothing was torn, and police forced sticks and iron pipes into their mouths. Kerosene was poured into stored food grains and grocery items and police reportedly urinated in cooking vessels. In Bihar, political candidates ensure their majority vote with the help of senas, whose members kill if necessary. The Ranvir Sena was responsible for killing more than fifty people during Bihar’s 1995 state election campaign. The sena was again used to intimidate voters in Ara district, Bihar, during the February 1998 national parliamentary elections.

Melavalavu Murder case

Dalits who have contested political office in village councils and municipalities through seats that have been constitutionally “reserved” for them have been threatened with physical abuse and even death in order to get them to withdraw from the campaign. The Melavalavu murders of 1997, which created a lot of sensation in the State and which both Viswanathan and Gorringe record was also a clear case of Dalit progress inviting retaliation by higher castes. The presidentship of the panchayat of Melavalavu village, close to Madurai, was reserved for Dalits. Members of the Thevar caste, a backward caste but above the Dalits, tried their best to prevent it by disrupting the election process. Finally, under police protection, the election was conducted and Murugesan, a Dalit, was elected president. Members of the higher caste made it difficult for him to operate from the panchayat office. Murugesan went to Madurai to make a representation to the District Collector. On his way back, a mob stopped the bus he was travelling in, dragged him out and murdered him and six of his followers in June 1997. (One account says that the murder was committed by some who were travelling with Murugesan.) As told to Human Rights Watch by an eyewitness, the leader of the attack “instructed the Thevars [caste Hindus] to kill all the Pariahs [Dalits]… They pulled all six out of the bus and stabbed them on the road… Five Thevars joined together, put Murugesan [the Dalit president] on the ground outside the bus, and chopped off his head, then threw it in a well half a kilometer away… Some grabbed his hands, others grabbed his head, and one cut his head… They deliberately took the head and poured the blood on other dead bodies.”13 As of February 1999, the accused—who had been voted out of their once-secure elected positions—had not been prosecuted. Those arrested were out on bail, while the person identified as the ringleader of the attack was still at large.

The potential of the law to bring about social change has been hampered by police corruption and caste bias, with the result that many allegations are not entered in police books. Ignorance of procedures and a lack of knowledge of the act have also affected its implementation. Even when cases are registered, the absence of special courts to try them can delay prosecutions for up to three to four years. Some state governments dominated by higher castes have even attempted to repeal the legislation altogether.

News articles

Dalits segregated, walled off in Madurai village

Shambhavi Rai / CNN-IBN(Published on Sun, May 04, 2008 at 11:26, Updated on Sun, May 04, 2008 at 17:11 in India section)

Madurai: It’s crime of another kind in a village in Madurai in Tamil Nadu – one of caste divide. There’s even a wall that separates the upper caste from the Dalits in the village.

It’s a reality that people of Uthapuram village in Madurai have been waking up to since 1989. The 600 m long 10 m high brick wall that separates the Dalit colonies in the village from the colonies of the Pillaimars or the upper castes. Dalits have been denied access to many common resources in the village.  Villager Muniappan says, “Until last April, the wall was even electrified-we came to know after a bird died of electrocution-but after government intervention the wires were removed.” But the wall of separation still exists. The Dalits have separate community halls, crematoriums and water taps and are not allowed to take part in temple functions.  Even getting to the bus stop means waking half a kilometre extra around the wall.  Ganesan, another villager says, “This wall has been around since 1989. We have no access to their place because we are born to a lower caste. All the dirt from their village comes in to our water bodies spreading diseases. We will fight if action is not taken immediately.”

The upper castes however deny they practice untouchability.  ”There is no untouchability in this village. This wall has been built only on our private land,” says one villager.

Meanwhile, the Disctrict Collector (Madurai), S S Jawahar said that the administration is trying to put an end to this practice. “They were living in harmony all this while, but now there is a dispute. The administration is keen on finding an amicable solution; if that doesn’t work out then we would proceed in accordance with the law,” Jawahar said. But after all these years of existence, the wall might not stand firm after all. Local Communists are threatening to break the wall if authorities don’t resolve the issue.
Study on Dalit employees reveals discrimination

(Date:18/02/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/02/18/stories/2009021858990300.htm)

Mohamed Imranullah S.

MADURAI: A majority of Dalit Government employees, including sweepers, teachers and even doctors, are facing discrimination at workplace, according to a recent study conducted by Evidence, a human rights organisation here.

The study claimed that they were “humiliated, intimidated, isolated or subjected to other kinds of emotional torture” by their colleagues and higher officials. The discrimination at workplace also affected their familial life.

A. Kathir, Director of Evidence, said that the project was undertaken by collecting data from 77 government servants of whom five were women. Only those who agreed to affix their signatures in the questionnaires were included in the study.

Employees of education, highways, revenue, health and other departments in Cuddalore, Villupuram, Vellore, Salem, Dharmapuri, Pudukkotai, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Madurai, Theni, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Tirunelveli were interviewed.

A 33-year-old orthopaedician in a Government Hospital at Cuddalore had told that he was asked to treat only Dalit patients. Fellow doctors and other staff members also commented before him that beneficiaries of reservation were always incompetent.

Similarly, a 48-year-old schoolteacher from Vellore said that he was ill-treated by the headmaster who often made fun of him in the presence of other teachers. He claimed that many caste Hindu students did not respect him.

Of the 77 interviewees, 75 agreed that they were subjected to caste discrimination. Thirty eight per cent said that they were victimised in service-related issues, while 30 per cent said that they were humiliated for their physical appearance.

Plaints with rights panel

Forty seven government employees had lodged complaints with their higher officials or the National/State Human Rights Commission. But only four of them managed to get a solution to problems faced by them. Thirteen had approached courts.

Thirty Dalits stated that trade unions, particularly those meant for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, had supported them in seeking justice. Further, out of the five women, three said they were subjected to gender discrimination.

The only consoling factor the study found was that 49 interviewees did not face caste discrimination in their localities as against 34 people who claimed that they were discriminated both at their workplace and surroundings.
Panchayat chiefs admit to caste bias in Dindigul district

(Date:10/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/10/stories/2008021059230600.htm)

S. Vijay Kumar

MADURAI: Presidents of 35 of the 65 reserved panchayats in Dindigul district have admitted to caste bias in their villages.

Signing affidavits stamped with the official seal, the panchayat chiefs have confirmed various forms of discrimination, including the double-tumbler system, denial of entry into temples and forced scavenging work.

‘Evidence,’ a Madurai-based human rights organisation, that conducted a study in the villages in the last 45 days, has sent its findings to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the National Human Rights Commission and the State Chief Secretary, seeking their intervention to render justice to the “affected” Dalits and declare the villages “atrocities-hit”.

After exposing caste discrimination in six districts, including Madurai, Theni and Sivaganga, fact-finding teams of ‘Evidence’ met presidents of the reserved panchayats in Dindigul and obtained their feedback on printed questionnaires.

In some villages, Dalits were forced to convey death messages and do “menial” services on burial ground. While restrictions in using public toilet, water bodies and common pathway were noticed in some villages, complaints of punishment at ‘kattapanchayats’ were reported from a few others.

Threat from officials

Listing specific areas where caste discrimination was prevalent, ‘Evidence’ executive Director A. Kathir said though the organisation had brought to light bias in many districts, there was hardly any change at the grassroots level. Village chiefs who admitted to discrimination in writing were threatened by officials to withdraw their statements.

Right to pray (Vol:26 Iss:15 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2615/stories/20090731261504200.htm)

THE discriminatory practices against Dalits are in violation of the Constitution and various laws of the land. For instance, the Tamil Nadu Temple Entry Authorisation Act, 1947, speaks of the “rights of all classes of Hindus to enter and offer worship in temples”.

“Notwithstanding any law, custom or usage to the contrary, every Hindu irrespective of the caste or sect to which he belongs shall be entitled to enter any Hindu temple and offer worship therein in the same manner and to the same extent as Hindus in general or any section of Hindus; and no Hindu shall, by reason only of such entry or worship whether before or after the commencement of this Act, be deemed to have committed any actionable wrong or offence or be sued or prosecuted therefor,” it says.

These rights include the “right to bathe in or use the waters of, any sacred tank, well, spring or water-course appurtenant to the temple, whether situated within or outside the precincts hereof” and the “right of passage over any sacred place, including a hill or hillock or a road, street or pathway, which is requisite for obtaining access to the temple”.

The Act makes it clear that whoever “(i) prevents a Hindu from exercising any right conferred by this Act; or (ii) molests or obstructs a Hindu in the exercise of any such right shall be punishable, in the case of first offence, with fine which may extend to one hundred rupees, and in the second case of second or subsequent offence, with imprisonment which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees, or with both.”

The Tamil Nadu Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, also says that there should be no discrimination in the distribution of any prasadam or theertham in any religious institution on the grounds of caste, sex, place of birth or any of them.

The Temple Entry Authorisation and Indemnity Act, 1939, introduced by the Rajaji government also aimed at removing all restrictions on Dalits to enter Hindu temples.

The Madras High Court, in its order dated June 17, 2005, in the case relating to the denial of right to Dalits to pull the Swarnamoortheeswarar temple car at Kandadevi village in Sivaganga district, observed thus: “…Oppression, atrocities and humiliation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes is a shameful chapter in our country’s history. For thousands of years the S.Cs and S.Ts in our country have been humiliated, insulted and looked down upon. In fact, even today the so-called upper castes and even Other Backward Classes often look down and insult the members of the S.Cs and S.Ts. This can no longer be tolerated in this modern age of democracy. In the modern age, equality is one of the basic features which characterises this era. Today no people and no community will tolerate being treated as inferior and will oppose such ill-treatment, and will be justified in doing so.”

In the case relating to the closure of Draupadi Amman temple at Kandampatti village in Salem district, the High Court on August 28, 2008, directed the Revenue and HR & CE Departments and the police officials to reopen the shrine within four weeks and ensure adequate protection to Dalits who enter the temple and offer worship.

Expressing anguish at the animosity of caste Hindus and the increasing number of disputes between caste Hindus and Dalits over entry into temples and participation in temple festivals, the court’s Madurai Bench said in an order, in another case, on August 17, 2008, that the court was pained to record that situations like the present one were continuing even in the 21st century. “Even at the time of worshipping God, groups are divided on caste lines. The dominant community in the village is not willing to accommodate the Dalit brethren even at the altar of the god,” the court observed.

S. Dorairaj

Two Dalits killed over temple worship

March 7th, 2009 – 9:27 pm ICT by IANS Chennai,

In separate incidents, two Dalits were killed following a dispute over worshipping in a temple in Tamil Nadu, the police said Saturday. The victims were identified as K. Paramasivan, 27, and E. Easwaran, 55. The killings took place at Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli district.

Paramasivan was attacked Friday night when he was on his way to his village. Easwaran was attacked while riding a two-wheeler with a friend.

In both cases, the dispute apparently was over worshipping in a temple belonging to the largely pastoral Konar community.

State responses – as given by human right watch

The effectiveness of the role??

From the above cited cases, one can find that the response of state administrations to incidents of caste violence amounts to failure to ensure equal protection under the law and exposes a pattern of complicity and collusion on behalf of police and local official. Despite ambitious calls for action by central and state government in the aftermath publicity of massacres and police raids, the Indian authorities have shown little commitment to resolving the root causes of the caste conflict. In many states where massacres and large scale police attacks on Dalits in rural and urban settings continue to take place, state administration should act swiftly and without bias to bring offending state and private actors to justice. To dismiss violence aas purely a law and order concern or to depict it as inevitable consequence of ancient fued between caste hindus and dalits or between haves and haves not is misleading and irresponsible. Such a characterization suggests that state has no protective role to play or that state itself has not contributed to the abuse.

Tamil Nadu Government-Appointed Commissions

State governments in India share a common history of appointing judicial commissions of inquiry to quell public outcries against police excesses during large-scale communal and caste clashes. Although these commissions do serve a political function, their findings, if and when released to the public, are frequently in favor of the state. The Tamil Nadu experience is no exception to this rule.

As of December 1998 the state was one of five to have established a state human rights commission (SHRC). The commission’s investigations into human rights abuses by the police and caste Hindus are, however, blocked if the state first appoints its own judicial commission of inquiry. Like the National Human Rights Commission, state human rights commissions are denied jurisdiction over an investigation if the matter is pending before “any commission duly constituted under any law for the time-being [sic] in force.”129 The state government of Tamil Nadu has exploited this provision by appointing its own commissions of inquiry before state human rights commission investigations get underway. States have little control over the investigations of statutory (human rights) commissions. Conversely, government-appointed commissions almost invariably find in favor of the state and the police. Those findings that go against the state are rarely implemented or made public.

A Tamil Nadu government official explained that judicial commissions’ findings “do not become public unless the government tables it with the legislature; findings that are against the state are often not tabled… By appointing its own commissions, the state government does not permit the State Human Rights Commission to do the investigation. It literally ties its hands.”130 The appointment of judicial commissions has become almost routine following caste clashes. The Justice Mohan Commission, for example, was appointed by the state government in July 1997 to look into recurring caste clashes and suggest measures to prevent them, but only “after the state government knew that the State Human Rights Commission was on the job.”131 The Justice Mohan Commission submitted its report in September 1998. In October 1998, Chief Minister Karunanidhi announced that not all the recommendations could be accepted.

In another large-scale clash in Coimbatore in November 1997, Muslims shops and houses were burned down by Hindus, reportedly with support from the police. Before the SHRC could take up the investigation, the state appointed the Justice Gokulakrishnan Commission, and “[a]gain their hands were tied.” During the southern district clashes of April to December 1997, police opened fire in two villages and attacked Dalit women in a third. Three commissions headed by three district judges were immediately appointed.133 The director of People’s Watch contends that “it has been the history of Dalit people that every commission of inquiry has gone against their interests.” Another activist added that “the retired judges who are appointed always toe the line of the government.”

Given proper resources, state human rights commissions stand to play an important role in the protection of human rights. Because their investigations enjoy greater independence from the state than judicial commission investigations, the statutes under which they are formed need to be amended to ensure that judicial commissions cannot be appointed as a means of undermining their powers. Moreover, the mandates of human rights commissions themselves need to be strengthened to ensure that their recommendations are binding and their findings are made public.

Role of civil society (?)

Anand Teltumbde in his book, Khairlanji – A strange and bitter crop severly criticizes the civil society. He writes “It is a popular myth that there exists a significant progressive section of non dalit – a civil society that is opposed to caste. He gives a comparative analysis of the role of civil society in identifying issues and being selective about it. He argues that a large section of people who bear the progressive mantle on social issue such as communalism, gender, discrimination, developmental & environmental issues and the general exploitation of labour & peasantry, runs off when it comes to issues related to caste. He specially criticized the role of as the popular protest related to Khairlanji issue were apolitical. He puts an strong question after citing various example. The question is “Why does civil society turn uncivil towards dalit?”

Suggestion for transforming India into an egalitarian India

ü    The division of Indian society on the basis of caste system is one of the main factors contributing to a never ending problem of inequality in India. A system, which is thousand years old, with rigid norms and which have been safeguarded the majority of the population, seems to be a herculean task. But then the Dalit movement started. The division on caste lines is so ingrained that it took another century of years for the people to realise and question the system. There are many pros and cons of the dalit movement and the country being almost converted into a liberal model formulates subtle policies to hide the biggest reality of the country. So the questions which ares first are Can caste be eliminated? Or should we just try to transform it? If caste is eliminated, then will the country’s major religion Hindu will survive? Will India survive? But one thing is for sure, India can’t be egalitarian unless caste is eliminated. So the first answer would be, on a very optimistic note, is to abolish caste system completely. To abolish caste system following strategies can be adopted:

• In order to uproot caste system Dalits should be able to question the Brahminical power along with the legitimacy of the Shastras.
• For this Dalits should be empowered and the focus should be on uniting the divided Dalits and equipping them with legal and political support.
• To uproot caste system, one needs to locate the struggle in not just the socio-eco-political domain, but also in the psycho-cultural and the educational (“Educate, Agitate, Organise” as said by Dr. Ambedkar ) domain.
• An organic leadership, that can reflect the plights of all the oppressed of the caste system, not only the interest of its own community ,will be very important
• Constitutional provisions have guaranteed safeguards to protect and promote the interests of the SCs. Need to use it as the primary tool against the atrocities and injustice perpetuated based on caste.
• Advocacy at all levels through media, social movements, mobilization of masses   etc.
• Mobilization through Conscientisation ‘or consciousness raising’
• Promote inter-caste marriage as endogamy is one of the major reasons why caste has perpetuated for thousands of years.
• Caste is a notion, it is a state of the mind. The destruction of Caste does not therefore mean the destruction of a physical barrier. It means a notional change.

ü   Other suggestion can be in the line of better education On the whole, the issues that a dalit confront today have more to do with living in a civil society with honour and dignity. The attitudes, perception, and treatment that the dalits confront in their everyday life require a lot more preparation on the part of the state and the educational institutions. It is just not sufficient to wash off responsibility after making policies and programmes for upliftment of the disadvantaged sections, but it necessitates the education of those not disadvantaged and at the other end of the fence. as the one at Bhopal Increasing incidents of hostility would only put more stumbling blocks on the path to this realisation. Therefore, focus should be more on respect for diversity in order to facilitate a better tomorrow and an effective democracy.

ü   One shortcoming of the country’s approach towards welfare of dalits is that atrocities are mostly taken as a law and order problem, divorcing them from the larger strategy for social justice. Atrocities do represent a significant hindrance to socioeconomic mobility of the community. Policy-makers should take into account that ending violence on dalits is a basic requirement for success of the redistributive policies, rather than assuming that those policies would result in termination of violence/discrimination. It is time policy-makers realised that atrocities are society’s response to dalit mobility and factored it in the welfare policies, whatever they might be.

Miles to go before I sleep…but the walk is not to eternity. The walk is to make an egalitarian society. The walk is to achieve equality.

Mamoni Doley MA-SW 2nd year

References:

ü Anand Teltumbde, 2008, Khairlanji – A strange & bitter crop, Navayan publishing

ü Broken People – Caste Violence against India’s Untouchables, Human Right Watch, 1999

ü S. Srinivasa Rao, Dalits in education and workforce, Economic and Political Weekly July 20, 2002

ü Devashis Chakraborty, D Shyam Babu, Manashi Chakravorty What the District Level Data Say on Society-State Complicity EPW June 17 2006

ü S. Vishwanathan’s articles

ü Census 2001

ü National Crime Record Bureau website

ü Tamil Nadu Government website

ü Wikipedia

ü www.indiastat.com

ü Frontline Magazine, Online edition archives (the articles are attached along with the link in the write-up)

ü Articles from Hindu online archives (the articles are attached along with the link in the write-up)

ü Articles from CNN-IBN, IANS

ü http://www.asiasociety.org/policy-politics/human-rights/dalits-india-2000?page=0,0 P. Sainath, Dalits In India 2000

ü Scheduled Castes and Land Deprivation D. Narasimha Reddy*   http://www.boell-india.org/download_en/DNR_Scheduled_Castes_and_Land_Deprivation.pdf

ü Study on Dalit employees reveals discrimination (Date:18/02/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/02/18/stories/2009021858990300.htm)

ü Panchayat chiefs admit to caste bias in Dindigul district  (Date:10/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/10/stories/2008021059230600.htm)

ü Right to pray (Vol:26 Iss:15 URL: http://www.flonnet.com/fl2615/stories/20090731261504200.htm)

[2] Broken People – Caste Violence against India’s Untouchables, Human Right Watch, 1999

[3] http://www.asiasociety.org/policy-politics/human-rights/dalits-india-2000?page=0,0

[4] Broken People – Caste Violence against India’s Untouchables, Human Right Watch, 1999

[5] Another term used for Dalits by M.K Gandhi

[6] http://www.asiasociety.org/policy-politics/human-rights/dalits-india-2000?page=0,0

[7] As the focus is on Tamil Nadu in general & Madurai in particular, most of the datas will be of that region

[8] Scheduled Castes and Land Deprivation D. Narasimha Reddy*

http://www.boell-india.org/download_en/DNR_Scheduled_Castes_and_Land_Deprivation.pdf

[9] Dalits in education and workforce, S. Srinivasa Rao, EPW July 20, 2002

[10] Broken People: Caste violence against India’s untouchables; Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, February 17, 1998

[11] EPW June 17 2006 What the District Level Data Say on Society-State Complicity Devashis Chakraborty, D Shyam Babu, Manashi Chakravorty

[12] Anand Teltumbde, 2008, Khairlanji – A strange & bitter crop, Navayan publishing

[13] A very limited amount of data was found in context to district

On 10^th December 1948, the United Nations passed the Human Rights Declaration. The Right to Life is a part of these Human Rights. The right to life has been explained and in that the right to water is quite predominant. The right to life would be incomplete without the right to water; the latter is a pre-condition for the right to life. Similarly the right to food, health and development would also remain incomplete without the right to water. The declaration also includes the protection, respect, fulfillment and promotion of these human rights by the signatory members. India too is a signatory to the covenant of Human Rights. By the virtue of this the Indian state has obligations to fulfil and thus it has to deliver on these rights.

However the reality for some parts of India is quite contrary. 1991 brought in new economic reforms which gave precedence to the market economics. Thus water too became a commodity which is quite contradictory to it being a right. A market ruled by capitalism and profit motive has led to privatisation of water. On one hand we observe privatisation of water and on the other the traditional sources of water are drying up due to changes in climate and the imbalance in the nature’s cycle. This has had serious repercussions for people from economically weaker sections of the society.

This article puts forth the case of Karjat taluka in Raigad district of Maharashtra. Raigad district is surrounded by metros like Mumbai and Pune. Inspite of the proximity to few of the developed parts of Maharashtra, Raigad district lacks access to essential amenities. This is true especially for the tribals of this region. Raigad district is home to adivasis groups like the Kathkaris, Thakars, Mahadev Koli who traditionally depend on forest and its natural resources for survival.

Struggles

In 1985 the adivasi- men, women, youth and children from the Karjat tribal belt walked a distance of 50 km demanding drinking water for the remote adivasi areas and raising the pertinent question of water availability. The public hearing arranged then was well attended and as a direct consequence, the municipality undertook the repair of run down wells, constructing new wells and hand pumps. Thus a collective effort on part of the people, Jargrut Kashtakari Sangathana and the Government proved to be useful. But if the government is more concerned about the profit of the contractors, share of the ‘peoples representatives’, some percentage to the bureaucracy and so on, even these efforts would not last long. As a consequence the wells and hand pumps broke down in a few months.  

A similar struggle was waged in April and October 2007. This time alongwith with water the people raised the question of land, forest and livelihood. This time the women from the villages were in the forefront and they put forth their demands, the government efforts, the efforts on part of the villagers and the governance unit at the community level (gavki) and its role. A small study was conducted on the same and was complied alongwith the role of the central government Maharashtra and gram panchayat. Right to drinking water is a Human Right and the lack of it has serious implications and dimensions to it which have been illustrated in this article.

The Stree Gavki conducted a small study at their village level and prepared a document based on the findings. They found out that apart from a few villages most of the villages face scarcity of water, water is available at a minimum distance of 1 km and the topography in this hilly region is dotted with steep climbs. To avail of the tanker facility, a water source has to be at a distance of 1.5 kms and above. This pre condition makes these villages even more vulnerable. It has been observed that some of the most interior villages belong to the Kathkari and Thakar adivasi groups. Thus it is these groups which also face discrimination.

The latest piece of advocacy carried out by Disha Kendra was arranging a public hearing on the issue of water and women in Karjat taluka. The public hearing was organised which brought together the affected people, the government representatives and a panel of experts who have worked with issue of water closely.

Market and water

The proximity of Karjat to Pune and Mumbai has translated into a high demand for the land. An SEZ slated to be established in Raigad faced a lot of wrath of the farmers and local people. As a result the SEZ was stalled. However the market has innovative ways to enter a place if entry is restricted is some forms. The purposes are many- ashrams, farm houses, tourism, hospitals, educational institutes, resorts etc. This has increased the demand for water in the region. The traditional sources are drying up due to indiscriminate cutting of forests of the Sahyadris.  The resultant consequence is that water has become scarce. These people can afford to construct private wells, bore wells and can also pay for their maintenance. This means the ground water level has gone down. These commercial places require huge amounts of water to maintain the gardens, fill up swimming tanks etc. The villages however have to face water crunch to fulfil even basic needs of drinking water, water to wash utensils and clothes.

In Malegaon Kathkari wadi, the land neighbouring the village has been bought by Shivanand Baba who has built a bungalow, a boring with a motor which draws water from beneath the ground. This has resulted in the Kathkari wadi getting lower pressure on their boring.

This sends a message that those who can afford to pay for water- which is ironically a basic right- will get it, thus commodifying water and threatening the right to life.

Water and its various dimensions

Scarcity of water is multi-faceted and it impacts many other spheres of life. In Karjat for example, the ashram schools which are residential schools were shut down this year for a period of two months due to scarcity of water. Thus the schooling of the students was hampered. The girl child stays back in the village to fetch water for the household (thereby reducing the mother’s work load so she can go wage work) and doesn’t attend school.

Women being the ones responsible to collect and distribute water, it is they who face a lot of trouble especially in the months after December. In the months after winter the water sources close to the villages dry up and the women have to travel 3-4 km one way to fetch water. A woman has to make minimum 3 to 4 rounds of water collection daily- this is excluding the daily household work of cooking, cleaning, washing clothes etc. This affects the health of the women- they have to undergo a lot of physical and mental stress owing to the long distance and at times steep climbs. It has been observed that pregnant women also have to lift and carry heavy pots of water.

In village called Borichiwadi, the women have to travel to another village to wash clothes. They have to spend Rs. 24 for the to and fro travel. This scenario is seen after Holi after which the scarcity of water pinches even harder.

To get water on time many women travel at night to collect water. This is quite problematic considering the fact that these villages are in hills and forested which brings up the fear of snake bites and scorpions. The villages don’t house medicines and antidotes for the same. Some women complain of having faced domestic violence because they couldn’t get water on time.

The family suffers financially as well. When one earning member has to devote the whole day to household work and a major portion of the day to fetch water, the person cannot carry out day wage labour. The women thus cannot be earning members during the months of water scarcity, which adversely affect the family finances. Thus poverty and availability of water are also closely related. Some families have elders staying while the younger generations have migrated. They are not capable of collecting water themselves. These persons have to pay somebody from the village to fetch water everyday. Thus water becomes expensive and impinges upon the family’s financial resources.

Some of the important anti-caste struggles involved forcefully accessing water from the village well. Mahatma Phule opened up his well for the lower caste people. Discrimination too is a very important aspect of availability of water. The Hindu caste system has laid down rules of purity and impurity which has resulted in upper caste people not allowing the lower caste and adivasis to access water from village wells etc. Though the situation has changed, there are some cases wherein the adivasis are denied water by the virtue of being adivasis.

Conclusion

This article illustrates the case of one taluka, but this reality can be seen in many parts of rural India. The government alongwith the three tier Panchayati Raj system has to be more accountable and transparent. While constructing wells and bore wells the villagers’ opinion should be taken into consideration as they would be more knowledgeable about the sources of water. There should be some control of the panchayat on the commercial activities in these areas and their usage of water. Precedence should be given to local needs as opposed to commercial interests.

Water is the need of every human being; its conspicuous consumption should be avoided for the greater good of all. As has been illustrated in the article, water impacts so many dimensions like health, education, finances etc. Thus availability of water is necessary for all round well being and development of human beings.

Devki (MSW 2nd year)

Dr Ambedkar Architect of Indian Constitution

Ambedkar’s work ‘revolution and counter revolution’ is an alternative version of Indian history. This version is a necessary alternative to the Vedic and puranic interpretation of Indian history. The work revolution and counter revolution is a piece of subaltern history. Indian history which is written from the viewpoint of Brahmanism and patriarchy, is rewritten by Ambedkar through the lens of oppressed and marginalized of course good amount of reading, observation and research have been invested by Babasaheb in this venture. It also points to the fact that one needs to correct and reinterpret the history for a social change in favor of the oppressed. This is a complete deconstruction a reformation that starts from the very root of oppression.

There are many interesting revealing in this book to Ambedkar there was a period of time when Shudras were kings to him the first turning point in India’s political history is the emergence of kingdom of Magadha in 642 b.c. founder was Sisunag and he belonged to the non-aryan race of nagas it grew to an empire and then in 413 b.c nagas were succeeded by nandas in 322 b.c nanda king was deposed by chandragupta who established the maurya dynasty under emperor Ashoka the empire became so vast and Ashoka made Buddhism the religion of the state this became a blow to Brahmanism. Brahmins lost the state patronage and means of occupation the revolution that happened amid brahminism was Buddhism for almost 140 years of maurya rule brahmins lived as depressed class. Pushyamitra who was a samvedi brahmin brought an end to maurya empire and thus happened the decline of buddhism this was the counter revolution that happened. History of India is not uniform it has a brahminic phase, Buddhist phase and Hindu phase.

Buddhism emerged as an answer to the evils that existed in brahminic society, buddhism was the revolution against brahminic society. Decline of Buddhism emerged as a result of the revival of brahminism under the king Pushyamitra, with the help of Manusmirti this lead to the establishment of hindu religion with its rigid caste system and suppression of women.varna system was replaced by rigid caste system with strict division of labour and endogamy. Manu smriti was the gospel of counter revolution against Buddhism. ‘If the Revolution of Pushyamitra was a purely political revolution there was no need for him to have launched a campaign of persecution against Buddhism which was not very different to the campaign of persecution launched by the Muhammad of Gazni against Hinduism. This is one piece of circumstantial evidence which proves that the aim of Pushyamitra was to overthrow Buddhism and establish Brahmanism in its place. Another piece of evidence which shows that the origin and purpose of the revolution by Pushyamitra against the Mauryas was to destroy Buddhism and establish Brahmanism is evidenced by the promulgation of Manu Smriti as a code of laws. ‘(Revolution and counter revolution in ancient India, Ambedkar, b.r,)(date unknown)

Muslim invasions starting from 7th century AD lead to the fall of Buddhism. Even the muslim invasions targeted hinduism but it survived because of state support Buddhism was badly affected because of lack of state support and mass murders of monks. Indian history prior to Muslim invasion was the history of struggle between Buddhists and brahmins.

if Buddhism was the revolution and establishment of hindu religion was the counter revolution then in the modern times Indian history witnessed the revival of this revolution. This revolution was lead by Babasaheb Ambedkar, his revolution was the greatest revolution that India ever witnessed. He revolutionized Buddhism and rejected Hinduism with its very basis of Vedas and shastras and he burned manusmriti that emerged as a counter revolution to Buddhism. When the reformation he aimed didn’t materialize from within he went outside the frame work and challenged the structure by the mass conversion. His period and the times after that witnessed the greatest dalit assertion and constitution of India became the gospel for the revolution renewed by Babasaheb Ambedkar if Buddhism, the revolution was the thesis then Hindu religion, the counter revolution was the antithesis. Buddhism was a proposition then hindu religion, the counter thesis negated it then Babasaheb’s revolution, is it a synthesis? certainly not, because synthesis is a stage where conflict is resolved between synthesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truth and arriving at a new proposition, this didn’t happen Babasaheb went out of the hindu structure completely and  the conflict was not resolved and it’s still going on. The struggle in front of all of us who believes in this revolution is to keep this revolution lively till Buddhism gets the recognition it deserves, it’s not even recognized as a historical phase in Indian history by society.

Babasaheb officially destroyed the authority of manusmriti by drafting the Indian constitution that established rights of Dalits and women as human rights. As a part of the fieldwork a survey was conducted to know the awareness of second year MSW students regarding constitution of India. The questionnaire consisted of three parts. First part was to analyze the knowledge of students regarding the history of constitution like, when did it come into force, drafting committee chairman etc. Second part was to figure out the knowledge of students regarding the structure of the constitution like number of parts, schedules etc. third part was to analyze the knowledge of students regarding the themes like which part abolishes untouchability, which part talks about right to education etc, sample size was 123,.survey was conducted in Mumbai, Pune , Satara, among the MSW students.

For the question, when did the constitution of India came into force only 36 were able to give the correct answer, the most rightly answered question was who was the chairman of Indian constitution drafting committee 91 answered  it rightly as Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar compared to the awareness regarding history, awareness on structure and themes were very less. For example only 17 gave right answer for the question, how many parts are there in Indian constitution, only 21 gave the right answer for the question, which part consist of fundamental rights. not even 10 were able to write all our fundamental rights correctly, only 37 mentioned correctly 73^rd and 74^th amendment, only 40 answered correctly the article that abolishes untouchability, 44 didn’t answer the question, ‘do you think it’s important to know Indian constitution’.

My argument is that students even from MSW course have a very general understanding of constitution. This is because of the way it’s taught. In our schools and colleges only some primary information regarding constitution is shared. In-depth and organized knowledge should be provided regarding constitution right from school level and this knowledge should be organized around history, structure and themes because as Indians we owe our obligation to constitution of India. It is the document that replaced manusmriti and also it is the origin of any policy, legislation and reform for social change.

Deepika (MSW 2nd year)