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As
the events in the last few months have shown, there
has been a parting of the ways between the Left parties,
particularly the CPI(M) and various sections, which
had earlier appeared to be a part of a larger coalition
of forces against imperialist globalisation. While the
parting of the ways may not be surprising, given the
ideological differences that existed on a number of
issues, what has surprised many is the venom that has
been spewed out against the CPI(M). Otherwise, it is
difficult to understand why these sections think it
is alright to drive CPI(M) activists and sympathisers
off their land and throw them out of their homes, but
not "democratic" for them to come back. Obviously, Nandigram
and Singur are symptomatic of a much larger difference
that existed and which has now surfaced.
For a number of activists who are currently on the other
side, the issue has not been one of capitalist development
but development itself. As one of these activists had
put it in a discussion in which I was also a participant,
"why should we look at other alternatives to globalisation,
the traditional modes of production are our alternatives"
(emphasis added). For them, the "enemy" is science,
technology and development, divorced from the class
issue of who owns the means of production, which in
traditional modes of production amounts to who owns
the land. For them, land reform is therefore not on
the agenda; neither is industrialisation.
The second divergence with these forces is on the issue
of the State. For large sections of these activists,
capitalism, imperialism and development are all the
same. Therefore, they do not see a role for the Indian
State in either promoting development or fighting against
imperialist dominance over the national economy. The
post-colonial period saw the use of the Indian State
as an instrument of development; in this view, this
is of no consequence. Therefore, the dismantling of
the infrastructure built up by the post-colonial State
today by the protagonists of the neo-liberal order and
the battle to keep it as public infrastructure is not
their fight. Though some sections of these forces have
tried to join with the trade union movement in the fight
against privatisation of the State Electricity Boards,
by and large they have remained outside such battles.
The third issue which divides the Left from such forces
is the issue of imperialism. For a section of the anti
development forces, the institutions of global capital
such as the World Bank have been courts of appeal against
the big bad Indian State. For others, imperialism is
just capitalism and the nation state is not only not
a terrain of struggle against global capital, but a
hindrance. There is no national dimension to the struggle
against global capital but only one single global battle.
Post-Colonial State
After independence, India chose a path of development
in which the State provided the basic infrastructure
for industrial capital. Thus, the major infrastructural
activities were all carried out by the State. Some of
the projects, such as the river valley projects are
so large that they were in any case outside the scope
of private capital. This led to the growth of infrastructure
services that had stagnated under the earlier colonial
rule.
However, while the rhetoric for such projects was "development",
the State was really involved with capitalist development:
the fruits of such development went largely to the capitalist
class. What was worse, was those displaced by such large
projects, rarely received full compensation for taking
over of their lands, and their traditional right to
the natural resources they had exercised. They were
thrown out on to the lowest rung of class society as
a pauperised reserve army of labour.
In the view of some of the critics of development, as
development in India in the last five decades has led
to increasing inequality, there should be a moratorium
on development itself. Secondly, they regard big projects
as the villains of the piece and as the State is closely
involved with many of such big projects, this development
is viewed as "statist".
The demand for a moratorium on development that such
movements raise, stem from the belief that if big projects
can be stopped, then the tribal and peasant communities
will not lose their land and livelihood. However, the
issue here is not one of pauperisation versus a bare
subsistence economy and the choice between the two,
but how to break out of such a choice. The other problem
is that stopping big projects is not going to save the
natural resources that such populations are using today.
Forests are disappearing as the timber mafia, in collusion
with State authorities, are denuding ever-larger areas
of existing forest cover. Peasantry is already losing
land to market forces as real estate developers take
over their land and then convert to high value real
estate. Thus, the encounter of capitalism with those
using the forest or agricultural land as a means of
subsistence is far wider than a few large hydroelectric
or industrial projects. By focusing on such big projects,
the larger encounter of capitalism with pre-capitalist
formations is lost sight of. Industrialisation, electricity,
irrigation, telecommunications may create growing inequalities,
but their stagnation means freezing not only current
inequalities but also absolute levels of poverty that
are prevalent in both urban and rural India. By focussing
on the struggle against big projects and industrialisation,
a possible alliance of those who are fighting the loss
of their land and other resources with the workers who
are fighting against the owners of their factories is
also aborted. The fight for a more equitable society
cannot be for remaining at the current level of development
but fighting for a more equitable order. This cannot
be achieved by limiting the alliance to only to those
who are fighting against capitalist inroads of pre-capitalist
formations.
The attack on Statist development has become fashionable
both from certain sections of the "left" and the right.
Thus, both the NGO movements and the IMF/World Bank
theorists demand a roll back of the State. The Fund/Bank
theorists argue that the economic functions of the State
be handed over to private capital. The NGOs’ demand
that social functions of the State be handed over to
NGOs; in effect the attack on the State by the Bank/Fund
lobby is complemented by the NGOs. In Latin America,
the NGOs shifted the focus of the struggle against foreign
capital to micro management at local levels. In a larger
sense, their attack on the State without defending public
assets that had been built by the State led to the de-legitimisation
of the State and made it easier for foreign capital
to take over the national assets in Latin America.
Freezing Development or Supporting Economy
To bring out the problems of freezing development, let
us examine India’s needs, starting from only two items:
food and energy. Is there a way of meeting the demand
of India’s growing population and giving them minimum
nutritional levels without increasing foodgrain production?
At the moment, by all accounts, a large part of India’s
poor do not get enough to eat. Our self-sufficiency
in food is also due to depressing peoples consumptions.
Obviously, food production and productivity of land
has to be increased in a big way if we have to achieve
true food self-sufficiency. We need to replenish the
nutrients in the soil, put in water and improve the
seeds. Staying where we are using traditional methods
will not allow for this growth in productivity to take
place. Is there a way of increasing food production
without using additional energy in some form? Without
fertilisers? Is it our objective that the Indian peasantry
should remain at this subsistence level for the future?
If we want to stop the influx of rural poor into the
cities, would we not have to consider a minimum standard
of living in the villages including health, education,
and easy transportation?
To understand the energy economy, we must understand
that there are two aspects of energy. We do not create
energy: we only transform energy to a useful form, for
example solar or coal to electricity. The other aspect
is that while we transform energy, we also produce waste
products that need to be disposed of. The crisis today
regarding energy is a two fold one: one is how to access
stored energy such as fossil fuels which are finite
in nature and how to dispose waste products such as
hazardous nuclear wastes and carbon dioxide which is
accumulating in the atmosphere creating the well-known
greenhouse effect.
To those advocating traditions as the alternative, it
is a back to nature argument that is put forward. The
cities and the rich are then seen as the villains while
the "protagonist" is the peasant or the tribal living
in a non-monetised energy economy and supposedly in
harmony with nature. His or her low-energy economy is
juxtaposed to the high-energy economy of advanced countries
arguing therefore that this is the only answer to the
global energy crisis. Obviously, it has a resonance
with the advanced countries, which are busy arguing
that while their high-energy lifestyles are not negotiable,
the developing countries should not ape these lifestyles
but stick to their traditional ones with maybe some
marginal changes; that India should be content with
energy consumption one twentieth that of the US or Europe,
as otherwise the global energy consumption levels are
not sustainable.
If we want to increase food production and also the
standard of living of the poor, we will need a larger
amount of energy per capita then we are using now. It
has been shown that per capita consumption of energy
matches quite closely with per capita GDP using purchasing
power parity. So freezing energy levels to current ones
– we use per capita 1/20th the energy that US does –
is also asking for freezing current levels of development.
In fact, when the US asks India and China to put a cap
on emissions of greenhouse gases, it is effectively
asking for a cap on development also. It is not surprising
therefore that those forces who in any case do not have
imperialism on their radar, have no problems with dovetailing
their demands on the Indian State with that of the US.
For them, freezing development is the objective and
if the US also propagates this for India, then the US
is an ally.
Of course, we also need to look at the model of development
that produces inequitable development and also inequitable
use of resources. However, even if we look at equitable
models of development, we will still need a much greater
per capita consumption of energy than we have today.
Any solution to the problems of meeting food and energy
needs of the people necessarily entails a higher level
of production and a greater use of science and technology.
It demands a different mode of production. It will bring
the issues back to production relations and locate the
development debate within this context. We come back
to the question of who owns the land, who owns the factories
and who provides the labour for production.
Those that propagate traditional modes of production,
forget that one essential component of these models
is the division of labour in terms of castes. The traditional
modes of production had embedded social relations including
the caste system. Any "going back to our tradition"
model including the Gandhian one, cannot break with
the caste system but will necessarily reinforce it.
It is not possible to have the land owned by one caste,
with other castes providing the labour and not replicate
the traditional social relationship between castes.
The rejection of industrialisation and urbanisation
has also brought out another distorted view of development.
These forces now argue that the State should play no
role in planning land use and acquiring land, leaving
this to the "market". The market, as is well known in
neo-classical economic literature, fails when dealing
with "limited" resources such as land. It neither delivers
compensation to those who do no own the land but depend
on it, nor does it provide development of public facilities
so important for healthy development of the city. That
is why world over, the State controls land use and does
not leave it to the market. Those arguing for a market
led land use, are in effect on the same side as the
most ardent market fundamentalists. Even in the US,
the home of neo-liberal economics, no serious economist
talks about urban development being left to the market.
The parting of the ways over Nandigram/Singur with the
organised Left is a part therefore of a much larger
picture. The so-called anti-globalisation forces have
a large section (e.g., NAPM) that identifies development
itself as the enemy. Their view of development also
dovetails with their belief in the essentially "evil
nature of the State", a belief that this section shares
with the protagonists of the neo-liberal order. A section
of the Left (different sections of Maoists) joining
them is not surprising, as they have also looked upon
the peasantry as the only basis of resistance and bring
a kind of limited peasant radicalism into the equation.
It is these sections that would reduce the global issues
to one of rejecting the global order and opting out
of the system.
Interestingly enough, the Maoists, who otherwise profess
Marxism-Leninism, have no problems with identifying
also with these sections. For them, the Indian State
is in any case already "comprador" and therefore its
role in development or fighting against imperialism
irrelevant. Therefore, in their view, engaging with
imperialism on issues such as WTO, Intellectual Property
Rights, India-US Nuclear Deal are all only cosmetic
exercises. The net result is the same as not recognising
a category called imperialism.
The other section that has also parted company with
the Left is one whose constituency is primarily the
"West". In their view, global democracy is centred on
New York, Paris and London, with periodic travel to
these places as the only means of establishing their
democratic credentials. It is not surprising therefore
that fighting against imperialism on the ground – the
India-US nuclear deal for example – has drawn at best
a lukewarm response. For most in this section, the opposition
is to the US giving India such a good strategic deal.
It is not about fighting the Indian elite, which wants
India to become a subordinate ally of US imperialism.
The critical stage of the battle over the India-US Nuclear
deal and therefore against India becoming part of US’s
war mongering in West Asia, has not been of any concern
to them. In this period, they have had no hesitation
in joining hands for Left bashing with the worst elements
of the Trinamul Party and other similar forces, including
repeating all of the usual canards that the Trinamul
uses.
The key issue is to engage with the actual imperialist
agenda on the ground, be it in WTO or the India-US Nuclear
Deal. The slogans for quitting WTO, promoting traditional
models of production, arguing for reduction of trade
are attempts to work out a solution in isolation from
the rest of the globe and not joining the national struggle
to the larger global one. Going back to our traditional
models of production is not an option for the future.
The problem with a back to the trees campaign as is
being propagated is the difficulty of growing tails
again. Evolution is a one-way process, true no less
for societies as for the species. |
