All India Agricultural Labour Association (AIALA)

First National Public Hearing on NREGA

2006-09-17T23:46:00.000+05:30

Report of the Public Hearing

Organised By

17 August 2006, Jantar Mantar, New Delhi
On the

Employment Guarantee Act: Tall Claims and Ground Realities;
Soaring Prices, Crumbling Public Distribution System, and the UPA Government

The hoarding announcing the Employment Guarantee Act, outside government offices in Delhi spill out with portraits of the Congress central leadership. In states, where Congress is not in power, the ruling party— be it BJD in Orissa, NDA in Bihar, SP in UP or BJP in Rajasthan—have made announcements that are louder and greater, undoubtedly to put to shame the UPA for its stinginess in assuring employment to the rural poor. Yet, apart from the credit that each wants for itself, there is little difference in the claims or the acts of the various ruling dispensations. And they stand united in the sheer callousness and complete disregard for the crisis faced by the rural poor and the agrarian labour in the crisis ridden rural India.

AIALA (All India Agricultural Labour Association) gave a call to hold a public hearing on NREGA on 17th. August while the monsoon session of the Lok Sabha was in full swing. AIALA is working in over 20 states of India and presently has a membership of over 2 million members. Although this is the leanest period of the year and there are all sorts of travel difficulties due to the rains, over 10,000 poor agri-labour from 18 states and 110 districts, responded to the call. Jantar Mantar (the venue in Delhi) witnessed thousands of labouring men and women from some of the poorest, remotest and backward districts of India, marching into Delhi, head held high, shouting their demands, carrying placards and banners and with determination to get justice. These activists braved attacks by police who beat and threatened them, tried to forcibly remove them from the trains they were travelling in and somehow stop them from reaching Delhi. Undeterred, they came in large numbers to fill the whole area with their warm and enthusiastic presence and full-throated slogans.
The public hearing (Jan Sunvai) became an urgent necessity as it became obvious that the NREGA had failed to arrest starvation deaths and even scratch the surface of the twin evils of poverty and unemployment in the countryside. Not only is the Act flawed, vague and partial, its implementation (or the non-implementation in many cases) is ridden with wholesale violations and irregularities. Yet in his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shamelessly crowed from the ramparts of the Lal Qila regarding the miracle effects of great achievements on the front of rural employment guarantee.
The record therefore needed to be put straight. This was done by the thousands of men and women at the public hearing who exposed the realities at ground level. Speaker after speaker uncovered the true state of affairs – no job-cards, no work, corruption and bribery everywhere, poor women and children dying from hunger, terrible rural distress, meagre payments, delayed payments, impossibly high tasks, indifference and insensitivity of the governments and the callous discriminations of major political parties in their games of one-upmanship.
On 17 August, as the sun mercilessly beat down in Delhi, outside the Parliament hundreds and thousands had gathered to call the cruel bluff played by the government and to attend the Jan Sunwai on the “NREGA: Tall Claims and Ground Realities; Price-hike, Dismantling of PDS and the UPA Govt.”
The Jan Sunwai (Public Hearing) started at around 11 AM and continued through 5 PM. The Jury of the Public Hearing was comprised of noted economist Jean Dreze, Prof. Manoranjan Mohanti of Delhi University, Prof. Amit Bhaduri of J.N.U., Journalist Anil Chamaria, General Secretary of AICCTU Swapan Mukherjee, CPI(ML) Central Committee members Rajaram and Srilata Swaminathan, AIALA Vice President Pawan Sharma and Ex-MLA from Jharkhand Bahadur Oraon.
People from 18 states and more than 110 districts including Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, West Bengal, etc. attended the public hearing programme before the Parliament, and expressed their strong resentment against the non-implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). The gathering was marked by a considerable participation of labouring women. The experiences and suggestions of thousands of participants were conveyed to the Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh through two memoranda.
AIALA General Secretary Dhirendra Jha initiated the proceedings by tabling the report which was a compilation of experiences of activists from across the country at the hearing. From state after state came reports of the Admin. refusing to accept applications, or of political and social discrimination in issuing job cards or of job cards not being issued months after registration is complete. Participants in the Jansunwai were of the opinion that the NREGA is being mocked in spirit and in actuality by both the Central and State Governments. Rural poor suffer starvation and chronic hunger - and yet, the job guarantee is being denied to them.
The participants heard the heart-rending tales of women like Sarupriya Devi and Sagunia Devi of Darbhanga district, who did hard manual labour for 40 days, and died of hunger and lack of medicines, waiting in vain for the wages that came too little too late. People from Rohtas district in Bihar recounted how four people who had been issued job cards, died of hunger since they were denied jobs. Representatives from Karbi Anglong district told of how over 1.5 lakh applicants from remote tribal areas of Assam have not been issued job cards for 3 months, since they are being asked to produce recommendation letters from local Congress leaders. Political discrimination by Gram Pradhans in UP and Mukhiyas in Bihar, as well as communal discrimination against Muslims in Gujarat and Rajasthan were also reported. Routine denial of minimum wages and unreasonably heavy criteria of manual labour as a basis for wages were common complaints. The decision to remove the food-grain component of wages under NREG Scheme was condemned, given the rampant hunger and rising prices of essential commodities. The gathering demanded immediate restoration of the food-grain component of wages under NREG Scheme.
Comrade Narottam Sharma from Chhattisgarh pointed out that the BJP government there was sidelining the crisis faced by the rural poor by unleashing the Conversion Bill and the Salwa Judum. While the poor were starving and their resources were being robbed, talks of religious conversion and a bill for stalling the same was being used to terrorize the poor. NREGA was supposed to be implemented in 16 districts in the state. But experiences from Bilaspur and Jagdalpur were evidence enough of the lackadaisical implementation of the Act.
In Nimtaya panchayat and Korvi panchayat, for instance, not a single job card was given. The applications were filed by the needy in February itself, yet they were not registered. Instead those demanding their rights were framed in false cases and harassed by the police. Whatever little could be extracted from the government could only be done so after pitched struggles. Objections to the government mishandling often resulted in false cases of the rural poor and harassment for being "naxal sympathetic". The Salwa Judum campaign thus not only was a convenient ploy to scuttle the real issues of the poor but also became a means for displacing the tribal people from their lands and handing over tribal lands to corporate interest. If Salwa Judum and the consequent displacement of people from their traditional land was for their security, he demanded to know then how is it that within these camps attacks were taking place for more than two hours without any protection coming to their aid.
Comrade Nilanjan Bhattacharya presented the report from Orissa. He said that while everyone may have heard of Koraput and starvation deaths, the situation all over Orissa for the agrarian poor was similar. The BJD government there has been hand in glove with Congress and BJP in supporting the zamindars. Several hundred acres of surplus land had to be freed from their clutches and attacks against AIALA leaders were frequent. In Bismalghata in Raigada district, AIALA leaders engaged in the struggle were attacked by zamindars belonging to BJD, Congress and BJP tried to kill them and even tried to prevent their treatment after the assaults. False cases were hoisted against them when released from the hospital.
Political victimization of the poor was prevalent and the rural poor were told they could get a job card only if they joined the BJD. Here officials are simply using the BPL lists to claim that job cards have been issued. The work is so slow that even the process of registration and issue of job cards is yet to be complete. In response to AIALA initiatives, the Government’s reaction is repressive rather than positive.
Comrade Bhagwant Samaon from Punjab said that the struggles of the rural poor was integrated with the struggles of the urban poor, particularly in Punjab. In the only district where NREGA was being implemented, urbanization was strong , yet NREGA was weak in implementation. The migrants to Punjab and their struggles were integral to the struggles in Punjab and he said in such a situation the NREGA was not effective, as their applications were not filed nor their job cards made. The struggles of AIALA and Mazdood Mukti Morcha to organise the workers had received the wrath of the ruling party and the forces unwilling to accept the assertion of the workers demanding their due rights. The brutal attack on AIALA leader Bant Singh was also in this light.
In Uttarakhand, the Congress led ND Tiwari government was quick to take the credit of the NREGA as a gift of the UPA government to the people. The NREGA in the state is being implemented in 3 districts: Chamoli, Tehri and Champawat. But when a team went to look at this in 45 villages in Karnaprayag and Joshimath, they found that the implementation of the scheme nonexistent for all practical purposes.
Comrade Kailash Pandey from Garhwal pointed out that clear instructions were not given to the people on how the Act would function and this was used by the administration to keep the poor out. In Chamoli for instance people did get the job cards, but they were not told that they had to apply to get the jobs. The people with the cards were waiting in vain hoping for the work to arrive. The Pradhans and the Gram Vikas Adhikaris, had not put up the stipulated notice boards in a public place in any of the villages and budgetary provisions for the same were being squandered away. The team also found that the notice boards were being put up only when special visits were organised by the senior officers.
When the team confronted the BDO on the situation of non implementation of basic provisions of the act in the villages, the BDO announced that the people of the area thought Rs 73 was too little and hence did not work! Thus evidently, a scheme brought under people's pressure, even in its diluted form was not being implemented on the pretext that people were uninterested even as people waited for the jobs.
In Joshimath, when the rural poor were not being given jobs, the team enquired about the unemployment allowance, the BDO threatened that come what may no unemployment allowance would be given. The publicity for a campaign of this level was being left to the NGOs who had shown no interest in promoting the Act. Thus together the administration, politician, NGO nexus in Uttrakhand was working to show how the Act was not successful and not needed in the chosen districts.
While the poor in the state are being denied the BPL and ration cards, in Chamoli, those in close contact with the ruling party like an inter-college teacher on study leave, retired army man with a pension, land owners with several transport vehicles had usurped the BPL cards. In remote hilly villages where there was an urgent need for BPL cards, the situation was ad-hoc. After the Chamoli earthquake even pucca houses were shown as kacha so as to give less compensation. But when it came to distributing the BPL cards, the kacha houses were now shown as pucca houses so as not to give BPL cards to those urgently requiring it. In the remote extremely poor Dronagiri village for instance, with 150 families needing the BPL, only three were given cards. Similarly, in Malari with 267 families only 11 were given the cards. While this was the situation in two poor, tribal villages, the situation in other villages were no different.
Yet another trick was again played on the people when they were told that they could file complaints if their names were missing from the BPL lists by giving Rs 20. However this had to be along with Rs 50-100 or more as bribe at the Joshimath tehsil office. The Congress government thus facilitated large-scale corruption.
AIALA and the CPI-ML have demanded that a fresh survey be done for BPL and that complaints be taken in the villages itself. Struggles have been launched on these issues and a large-scale protest was registered when the national highway was blocked for three and half-hours.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi party was quick to announce that NREGA was to be implemented in 22 districts but it has subsequently shown reluctance it as it is worried that Congress might take credit for the Act. The Congress on the other hand has expressed no interest in ensuring that the Act benefits the rural poor. Comrade Rakesh from Sitapur and Comrade Kranti from Lakhimpu-Kheri said that the registration and job cards have been made available in areas where the party and AIALA work is strong after unleashing struggles against the feudal forces and the bureaucratic inertia. In Sitapur for instance nearly all the applications were done under pressure from AIALA and the party and nearly 20,000 applications made.
In areas where the rural poor are not organized they are still to be called for application or job cards. In Hardoi and Barabanki for instance, where the movement of the rural poor is yet to gain momentum, the pradhans and panchayat secretaries are only giving the job cards to a selected amongst their supporters and that too after taking money. Those suspected of political opposition are not given the cards and sidelined by asking for their photographs. The money for photographs, Rs 1.25 lakhs per district, has been eaten up at various levels since the poor are not being compensated for the photographs that they have arranged, while no arrangements have been made either to take photographs.
Even where the cards have been made available after struggles, there is neither any work nor any unemployment allowance. While people are starving and made to suffer various indignities in areas where there is no assertion, in areas where struggles are on for the rights of the rural poor, the police have been harassing and severe repression unleashed. Comrade Ram Baksh who had launched a struggle against the feudal forces was killed by Sukumar Singh on 8 th July 2006, while he was organizing for an NREGA, social dignity and land rights march. The Imliya thana inspector, who was involved in the killing is still at large.
The BPL cards have become scam ridden. The BPL card has also got tied up with several other schemes like the Kanya Vidya Dhan Yojana, where Rs 30,000 is given to the first girl from a BPL family who passes with a first division. The BPL in turn has become very difficult for the really needy while an IAS officer managed to get a BPL card and the Kanya Vidya scheme for her daughter!
While the agrarian crisis has affected the work finding capacity of the agricultural workers, the feudal forces were usurping the development schemes for themselves. The Mulayam government on the other hand has deliberately gone slow in providing relief to the rural poor through the NREGA and five and half months after the Act has been in place even the infrastructure for NREGA is yet to be put into place by the government.
Reports of starvation deaths, hunger, and suicides are pouring in from many districts in UP. Recently, a poor peasant in Pilibhit who asked for an Antyodaya card was beaten up brutally by the Gram Pradhan and police, as a result of which killed himself by setting himself on fire the next day. In Banaras, a poor peasant killed himself along with his two young children due to his inability to repay a bank loan. Despite the fact that these two districts do not fall under the purview of NREGS, such incidents show us a glimpse of the reality of rural desperation in UP. The State Government itself has admitted that it has been unable to use around 529 crores out of the fund allocated by the Central Govt. for NREGS.
In Assam, Comrade Ravikumar Phangcho explained how the NREGA is caught in a stranglehold of political discrimination. In the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar districts, over three months have passed since agricultural labourers of the hill tribes submitted registration forms – but they are yet to be issued job cards. Since March, around 1, 25, 502 families applied for job cards; government officials have organised gram sabhas and scrutiny of the application forms is complete. But workers are told that they must get letters of recommendation from Congress Party offices or elected representatives – and only then can they get job cards. Recall that these districts were selected for the erstwhile National Food for Work scheme as well, but workers were denied work even as the funds and food-grains were looted. A scrutiny of the fake muster rolls in these schemes reveals the loot that took place in the past – and is a blueprint for the future. The KANKIS has held sustained movements and submitted complaints at various levels, but these are yet to be addressed. The fact of the matter is that the Congress is trying to turn the NREGA into its pocket scheme – as a coercive means towards garnering political support.
In Jharkhand, Comrades Rameshwar Mahto and Bahadur Ram pointed out that at every step the rural poor had to fight. First a struggle had to be launched for ensuring that the Act was in place, then struggle was led for filing applications . Once that was done, job cards had to be fought for.
The JHAMKIS (Jharkhand Mazdoor Kisan Samiti) has, through its movements and initiatives, played a significant role in taking the NREGS to the rural poor. Thousands would reach the Block HQs in an organized and orderly way, with their applications, and yet the Administration would refuse to accept the applications. The Admin. would claim that the official forms were yet to be printed and privately printed forms could not be accepted. Only when Block HQs were gheraoed would forms eventually be accepted. Panchayat-level mass meetings were organized to encourage mass participation and create popular pressure. In several blocks, lockouts were organized that lasted several days. And major streets and highways in the State were blockaded for several hours at a time, on the question of issue of job cards.
These sustained struggles forced the Admin. to begin distribution of job cards. Jansunwai programmes were held at several places where officials were forced to explain the reasons for delay in issuing job cards. In Garhwa district, there were 98, 239 applicants, and our struggles forced the Admin. to issue 50,000 job cards.
In Latehar district we mobilized rural poor in large numbers in the struggle for job cards. In Manika Block, a series of struggles took place between 31 March and 15 May. A National Highway was blockaded for two hours demanding issue of job cards. It was only the pressure of these movements that 8716 job cards were distributed in Manika, 10,663 in Barwadih, and 7613 in Mahuatand. In Palamu district, 1, 22, 586 applications were submitted, only 100, 082 families were registered, and only 95,000 got job cards. In Giridih district, 1, 45, 000 applciations were submitted, of which around half the number were issued job cards. In Dumka too such efforts were made. Even after the issue of job cards, the process of actually providing work is proceeding at an extremely slow pace. The implementing agency of the Scheme is usually a Government appointee, while in every project, a petty contractor is being appointed. These contractors, instead of paying workers for daily work, are forcing them to work at a piece-rate. As a result, workers are routinely being denied minimum wages. The muster rolls are not being prepared at the work site. In a hilly region like Jharkhand, the unreasonably heavy criteria of digging 100 cubic feet of earth are as exploitative as those imposed by the zamindari system. The shrinking PDS and rising prices of essential commodities coupled with joblessness is creating a starvation crisis of frightening proportions in the State, to which the BJP Government is totally unconcerned.
Activists from a number of districts in Bihar spoke in the public hearing. Prominent among those were Shabana Khatoon from Gaya and Satyadeo Ram from Siwan. However high the media might rank CM Nitish Kumar, in the matter of implementation of NREGA, Bihar proves to be the worst laggard. The process of registration and distribution of job cards is totally incomplete – in contradiction of the false statistics being offered by the Nitish Government. The fact is that the number of job cards issued by the BDC Office to the BDO Office have been counted as ‘distributed’ – though they have yet to reach the hands of the workers! And where job cards have been distributed, they do not have a photo of the family, date of issue, or registration number. Rural poor had to hold hunger strikes, lockouts of Headquarters, and dharnas for 2-3 days simply to submit forms and collect job cards. All over the State, no effort was made by the Government to spread the word about the NREGS at the panchayats level. At Madhubani, Darbhanga, Samastipur, Bhojpur, Rohtas, gaya, Patna, Nalanda, Nawada, Muzaffarpur, Kaimur and other districts, thousands of application forms were submitted months back, but job cards are yet to be issued. And there is no provision for receipts of the forms.
The statistics provided by the Government on official websites regarding number of labour days created are completely belied by the facts on the ground. Information about how many days of employment were provided for job-card-holding families is available neither at the panchayat offices (which are non-functional in Bihar, being confined to the mukhiya’s house or almirah) nor the District HQs. There is widespread forgery of muster rolls. The criteria decreed by the State Government for what constitutes a labour day (digging 110 cubic feet – [11´5 ´2] - soil) is so heavy that no worker is able to qualify for minimum wages (Rs. 68). The agencies of the scheme are paying workers at a piece rate instead of daily wages based on daily work. All this deters women and older workers from demanding work, and reduces the appeal of the scheme for the general mass of workers too.
Bihar is known for scams in development schemes for the poor – and the NREGA is rapidly emerging as the king of all scams. After the NREGA came into effect on February 2, there was a scramble to appropriate around Rs. 300 crore of the FFW scheme. These funds were meant to be spent according to the provisions of the NREGA; but instead, huge schemes were hastily drawn up, and handed over to tractors and contractors. In Darbhanga district, Rs. 36 crore was spent in this manner, in which workers got negligible employment, and tractors and contractors pocketed the funds. Following a spirited protest movement by AIALA, the National Monitor transferred about Rs. 30 crore of this fund to the NREGS head. It was under this NFFW scheme that a project was undertaken in Mabbi village, 5 kilometres from the city. Here, local labourers and rural poor, seeing tractors being used instead of labour, organized a protest and forced the contractors and tractor-owners to flee; after which they themselves appointed a team-mate to take the roll call, and began work. Thousands of women and men worked under this scheme for more than 40 days. While the work was underway, the official team did not come for the mandatory ‘measurement’; however, when workers found that wages were not being paid, they began a movement, and under pressure, the Admin. assured that when the funds were released, wages would be paid. The measurement was conducted several days after the work was complete (and after it had rained many times in the interim). According to the labour days spent by workers, their wages amounted to Rs. 7 lakh, but the Admin. is speaking of paying just Rs. 1, 75, 000. Due to their penury, workers soon accepted this paltry wage amounting to Rs. 20 a day. Meanwhile, Sarupriya Devi, awaiting the wages, died for lack of food and medicines., and her 11 year-old grand-daughter too died of starvation. Sarupriya Devi and the child’s mother Saguniya Devi had worked for almost 40 days under this scheme – and the truncated wages reached the family too little too late. All over the state there are reports of starvation deaths in several other districts too – Muzaffarpur, Madhubani, Begusarai, Nawada, Gaya, Sasaram etc. Just last week, there were reports of four people starving to death in Sasaram Block of Rohtas district. In this village, barely a dozen people are named under the Antyodaya. The village has 89 families of the Chero community and 5 of the Paswan community – but only 50 people have got job cards. These ob-card-holders are yet to see even a single day’s work. In other villages that come under the purview of NREGA, and in Begusarai which Nitish Kumar announced would come under the State Govt.-sponsored REGS, there are widespread reports of deaths and suicides due to hunger and starvation.
Rajasthan is supposed to be one of the success stories of NREGA. Here, 13, 37, 000 families were registered, and 12, 65, 942 people got job cards. But the actual work under NREGA started after March, and is now suspended due to the monsoon. The picture emerging from the tribal areas of Banswada and Udaipur is not very satisfactory. There are rampant complaints that those opposing the BJP or the dominant castes are being denied job cards. A survey that is 4-5 years old is being made the basis for deciding the number of job cards to be issued, whereas in the interim the number of adults in the families has grown. Wages are hardly ever being paid on time. The weakest part of the Scheme here is the denial of minimum wages (Rs. 73 in Rajasthan), but the average wage that workers are getting under the NREGS is between a shocking Rs 12, and Rs 40! Even where protests resulted in increased wages, they were never more Rs 50-60. in Udaipur, the criteria is a huge 288 cubic feet of earth, while in Banswada it is 150 cubic feet of earth to be dug and carried to the worksite, which is an open violation of minimum wage laws. Higher wages for the same work are to be had in nearby urban areas, and so workers do not prefer to work in the rural areas. The record of paying unemployment allowance is negligible, and workers’ objections are being met with repression and intimidation in many places.
In West Bengal, the Left Front government has not behaved any different. The ruling CPM makes sure the names of its supporters only feature in the job cards while denying it to those suspected of voicing dissent. The notable feature pointed out by Comrade Bablu from Bankura was that applications were not being entertained for the fear of paying dole. Wherever AIALA had taken initiative to get applications the activists were attacked. The pradhans were extremely reluctant to give the job cards as they were told that giving job cards without jobs would mean the government would have to pay the unemployment allowance.
In Sahil village of Malda district, on 28 April, hundreds of agrarian labourers demonstrated at the Panchayat Bhavan and demanded registration. Panchayat officials and CPI(M) activists roughed up the protestors and refused registration. The panchayat official slapped false charges on the CPI(ML) and AIALA leaders who were at the forefront of the demonstration. Even student activists from Jadavour University who had come to Malda to campaign and spread awareness about the NREGA were not spared the false charges. A vigorous protest campaign followed this repression. Seeing the popular support for the movement, panchayat officials took back the cases and agreed to register the applicants. AIALA also organized an effective protest against the money being taken from the poor applicants in the name of issuing a photograph, and succeeded in getting the money returned in several places.
The Jury concluded in its judgement that "after listening to the experiences of agricultural labourers who had come from all corners of the country, this Jury feels that it is not only a matter of grave concern for all of us but also of great shame on the part of the government and its machinery who themselves are putting up obstacles in the implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act which was passed by the Parliament. The most distressing fact is that political parties of different hues which are in power in different states as well as in the centre, have shown the same attitude of indifference to the needs of employment of agricultural labourers. This Jury feels that the poor and downtrodden of this country and the entire segment of the working class has no choice but to wage a concerted struggle for the guarantee of their right to work. This Jury also feels that any form of struggle, undertaken by the agricultural labourers, challenging the government, its administrative machinery and their nexus with the rich and the powerful would be justified. This Jury expresses its faith on the struggling capacity of the rural poor and agricultural labourers and feels that once they return to their own regions they would continue their battle for the guarantee of their rights. This is the mandate of democracy. The Jury also expresses hope in the tradition of resistance that the working class of the country has always upheld and says that such efforts alone would strengthen as well as keep alive the spirit of democracy."

UPA Government must not be allowed to play with NREGA and RTI

Agricultural Labourers and Small Peasants will punish the government for inflicting starvation and suicides

Addressing the Jansunwai, CPI(ML) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya congratulated the large turnout at the public hearing and the willingness exhibited by the people to fight for their rights and commented that the PM in his Independence Day address from the ramparts of the Red Fort, hailed the NREGA as a historic piece of legislation. But in the courts of the rural poor and concerned citizens of India, Governments stand convicted of subverting the very idea of employment guarantee. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, UP, and Bengal are emerging as a zone of starvation and hunger deaths, while the dismantling of the PDS continues unabated. Dipankar said that be it the thousands of agrarian workers’ who have come to Delhi to attend the first-ever People’s Tribunal on the NREGA, or the farmers who have come today to Dadri to protest against displacement by corporate SEZs, popular agrarian struggles everywhere are having to face State repression. In Chhattisgarh, the State repression is being disguised as a ‘peace campaign’ in the name of the Salwa Judum - but it is inflicting suffering and displacement on the tribals.
He said that starvation deaths and Koraput and Kalhandis was not restricted to Orissa and every state had its own starvation district and every district in the country had a Koraput like panchyat reflecting the widespread crisis that the people were facing. He said a law that had been fought and gained only because of the pressure exerted by the rural poor and sympathetic intellectuals was now in need of being saved from irrelevance because of the way the government in various states and the UPA government was seeking to murder it. He said that like the right to vote, which was won by the rural poor after battling massacres, every little right had to be struggled for. He said that while the government was reluctant to implement the law of the likes of NREGA and land reforms (which has not been fully implemented even in West Bengal with 30 years of CPM rule), whenever people ensured its implementation, they were told they were taking the law on to their own hands. Thus several agricultural workers leaders were incarcerated in false cases and in jail.
He said that the struggles of the poor thus included not only struggles for jobs and land but also for widening the democratic spaces .
Comrade Dipankar further added that the NREGA and the Right to Information Act (RTI) were the much-touted showpieces of the CMP and the UPA Government. Now, even as reports of rampant corruption in NREGA are coming to light, the UPA Government is busy trying to subvert the RTI Act in order to protect corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. He called upon agricultural labourers to thwart this attempt and forge a fighting unity with small and middle peasants to punish the UPA government for inflicting starvation and suicides on the rural poor.
The gathering included Aruna Roy, Sandip Pandey, Nikhil Dey and many others who joined their voices with those of the distressed rural poor, and expressed solidarity with their struggle against the callousness of Governments. AIALA's National President Rameshwar Prasad, Vice Presidents Swadesh Bhattacharya and Krishna Adhikari, General Secretary Dhirendra Jha, Secretaries Janardan Prasad, Ravi Kumar Phangcho, Sanjay Sharma and Satyadev Ram were present in the Public Hearing. AIALA National Executive member Vidyanand Vikal conducted the proceedings.
The Public Hearing resolved to launch a nationwide united movement against Government’s apathy, bureaucratic corruption, and utter lack of concern of panchayats towards effective implementation of NREGA, and for popular control and democratic participation and monitoring of the NREGS.
Concluding the Jansunwai, AIALA National President Comrade Rameshwar Prasad issued a rousing call to spread the movement for implementation of the NREGA to every corner of the country, and to make the struggle more popular and militant than ever. It was with this resolve and confidence that the participants ended the Public Hearing.

AIALA has demanded for the following:
1. The process of registration and issue of Job Cards for aspirants under the NREG Scheme is marred by political discrimination by local representatives of various ruling parties as well as by the administration and the respective state governments. One of the most glaring examples of this can be seen in Karbi Anglong and North Cachar hill districts of Assam where around 1.5 lakh applicants have not been issued Job Cards, simply because they do not owe allegiance to the ruling Congress party. These applicants have been told to bring letters of recommendations from local Congress leaders, failing which they will continue to be denied job cards. Similar political discrimination by the Gram Pradhans in UP and Mukhiyas in Bihar is reported. In West Bengal too, state as well as CPI(M)-controlled panchayat officials are making political affiliation the basis for registration. In Rajasthan and Gujarat, there are reports of widespread communal denial of job cards to Muslims. We strongly condemn this partisan and discriminatory act and demand that Job Cards be immediately issued, and all job-card-holders be provided with employment under this scheme. In many states, in complete violation of the Act, the distribution of Job Cards is being done on the basis of a fixed quota assigned to the panchayats by the administration. We demand an immediate stop to this practice so that every applicant gets his or her due under the Act.
2. Workers are being systematically denied actual minimum wages prevalent in respective states. The criteria of heavy manual labour (digging around 100 cubic feet of earth and carrying the same to the work site) as well as the system of paying by piece rate are stated to be the main hurdles in the payment of minimum wages. These effectively militate against the spirit of the Act, and are especially deterring to women and middle-aged workers. We therefore demand that the system of payment by piece rate be abolished under the Act; also that the system of fixing heavy criteria be replaced by payment of minimum wages for a full day’s (7 hours) work (as stated in the Act). We also demand a six-hour day for women workers.
3. We demand that the amount and date of payment of wages be compulsorily displayed on the job card. It must be ensured that all muster rolls be produced for audit in panchayats and blocks. The labour-mate be entrusted with the task of implementing the scheme, and the Collector be held responsible for preventing the use of tractors and contractors in the Scheme. It is urgent to devise some concrete form of penalising the bureaucrats and elected representatives who are irresponsible towards implementing the Scheme. With the NREGA having come into force, the use of NFFW funds under NFFW heads is a sheer violation of the law - and demands a thoroughgoing enquiry into these schemes, especially pertaining to the muster rolls.
4. The decision to remove the food-grain component of wages under NREG Scheme is highly condemnable given the rampant hunger and rising prices of essential commodities. We demand immediate restoration of the food-grain component of wages under NREG Scheme. The Government’s responsibility for starvation deaths be fixed: in the event of failure to issue Antyoday cards, job cards and employment on the basis of the job cards, in areas/families that are cases of starvation or hunger are reported, the DM be suspended. Almost all states reported that the gradual dismantling of the PDS was sharpening rural distress. We demand revamping of the PDS to end the system of ‘targeting’, and to make at least 50 kg of essential food grains (rice and wheat) available to every rural poor household at the subsidised rate of Rs. 2 and Rs 3 per kg respectively. Blackmarketeers of subsidised food-grains must be severely penalised.
5. The system of public monitoring be extended to panchayats and the representation of labour organisations at every level be ensured. Representation of agricultural labour organisations be guaranteed in Employment Guarantee Councils at the Centre and in all the States; also similar Councils be created at the District and Block levels as well. The Right to Information Act be implemented in tandem with the NREGA, as a crucial tool to ensure transparency of the NREGA.

Memorandum to the Rural Development Minister
The experiences and suggestions of thousands of participants were conveyed to the Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh through a memorandum. While the Jan Sunvai was in progress a delegation comprising AIALA President, Com. Rameshwar Prasad. Vice President Krishna Adhikari and General Secretary Dhirendra Jha met the Minister and handed over a memorandum of demands. Apart from demanding urgent and universal extension of the NREGA to the whole of the country, the delegation called upon the rural development minister to take immediate steps to ensure effective implementation of the Act. In particular, they called for

(a) ending partisan/political discrimination:
(b) prompt issuance of job cards to all applicants without any numerical restriction or delay
(c) daily disbursal of wages on the basis of 7 hour working day for men and 6-hour working day for women (the present practice of piece rate wage for heavy manual labour like digging of 100 cubic feet of earth is deterring women and even middle-aged men and forcing them to work often for two days or even more to earn one day's wage)
(d) restoration of foodgrain component of wage according to the wish and requirements of workers, and
(e) punitive measures against bureaucrats who are callous and indifferent to the implementation of the Act and who are found to be condoning and even promoting violations of the provisions of the Act
(f) extension of PDS to make at least 50 kgs of subsidised rice/wheat available at Rs. 2 per kg to every family
(g) mandatory suspension of DM in case of any instance of starvation death in the respective district
(h) extension of public monitoring down to panchayat level through direct participation of representatives of agricultural labour organisations in local employment guarantee councils.

Obituary
Comrade Shrikant Ram
Comrade Shrikant Ram (19) succumbed to a fatal accident on 17 August while on his way to Delhi to attend the People’s Tribunal on NREGA. He was traveling along with several other comrades from his native village Usman Chak in Masaurhi block of Patna when he accidentally fell down from the fast moving Jan Sadharan Express near Firozabad railway station. When the news reached Delhi, his whereabouts were inquired through the concerned governmental authorities and it turned out that the local police had already cremated his body as 'unclaimed'. AIALA National Executive member Vidyanand Vikal rushed to Firozabad to visit the site of the accident and met the local authorities who could not explain why the police had displayed such undue haste. Comrade Shrikant Ram was a devoted party cadre and very enthusiastic activist. We pay our homage to Comrade Shrikant and express our heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family. The local Party unit organised a memorial meeting in his village on August 20.

-Reports compiled by
Srilata Swaminathan, Radhika Menon and Sanjay Sharma

Manifesto of All India Agricultural Labour Association (AIALA)

2006-09-06T00:38:00.000+05:30

Manifesto

Adopted by First All India Conference
14-15 November, 2003
Comrade Ramayan Sabhagar
Ara (Bhojpur), Bihar

1. An acute systemic crisis has engulfed agrarian India. The symptoms of the crisis can be seen most graphically and tragically in the surge of starvation deaths and farmers’ suicides taking place not just in backward regions but even in the most advanced pockets of the much-trumpeted green revolution. While farmers suffer from distress sale, mounting debt burden and frequent crop failures, agricultural labourers reel under the burden of growing unemployment and falling real wages. We, agrarian labourers who have to bear the brunt of this agrarian crisis have no other way but to fight back with all the strength and determination at our command. Through our organised and united resistance we can and must not only defeat the attacks on our own lives, and win and secure our inalienable rights but also lead the nation out of the current impasse.

2. If the proximate cause of the crisis is to be located in the WTO-dictated trade liberalisation package, on a more fundamental level it stems from the stupid strategy, pursued since independence, of trying to promote capitalist farming without first clearing the soil of the deeply entrenched survivals of feudalism. For all the tall talk of “zamindari abolition” and land redistribution, only a very tiny proportion of the total cultivable land in the country has been redistributed till date. While 60 per cent rural households still have access to only 15 per cent of the agriculturally operated land, the top 20 per cent layer of the rural society continue to control more than two-thirds of the total land under cultivation. Rather than providing land to the tiller, which proved to be the key to democracy and development in socialist as well as developed capitalist countries, successive governments at the centre and the states assigned the task of rural development to the reactionary forces of landlords and kulaks, providing them with all kinds of support. The “green revolution” was precisely such a strategy of “betting on the strong” and now the whole thing has started backfiring.

3. The official remedy prescribed to solve these problems – the new agricultural policy wedded to liberalisation (removal of quantitative restrictions on imports, withdrawal of subsidies, etc.) and corporatisation (direct or contract farming by Indian or foreign monopoly houses coupled with large-scale entry of agribusiness corporations) and, of course, the removal of ceiling restrictions to pave the way for all this – has proved worse than the disease. The enhanced and unscrupulous dependence on imported biotechnological products is fraught with dangerous consequences, while the encouragement of reckless switch-over from food crops to cash crops has already destroyed the nation’s food security and exposed our farmers to the vagaries of international market. While mountains of foodgrains rot in FCI godowns and starvation deaths stalk large parts of the country, farmers are condemned to resort to distress sale in the absence of assured government procurement at a minimum support price. Huge reduction in public investment in infrastructure development, notably in the field of small irrigation projects, and criminal negligence in protecting our biodiversity from greedy patent-seekers from abroad, have irreparably weakened the fundamentals of Indian agriculture.

4. We, agricultural labourers, are made to bear the brunt of this man-made, state-sponsored crisis. We are sought to be crushed under the combined pressure of the new onslaughts and the old modes of oppression. While the age old structure of economic exploitation and caste, gender and ethnic oppression is sought to be reinforced by systematic application of feudal-kulak violence and state repression including brutal massacres, the new policies are leading to growing land alienation, declining employment and real wages, systematic eviction of adivasis and denial of their traditional rights over land, forests and hill tracts, and revival of a state of semi-bondage especially for migrant workers. And then there is this ubiquitous ‘development mafia’, the corrupt politician-bureaucrat-contractor nexus, which siphons off the lion’s share of funds sanctioned in the name of employment generation and rural development schemes and disbursed through the panchayati raj institutions and other channels. As for our economic plight, even the most recent National Labour Commission conceded that “Agricultural workers get employment for less than 6 months in a year, there [is] acute indebtedness amongst the rural and agricultural workers … approximately 40% of agricultural workers are migrants … [working] 12 hours a day and getting no weekly rest, they are hardly provided any housing and their payments are delayed and defaulted. The most severely affected migrant workers are women and children. … The enforcement of minimum wages is a real problem… We have neglected the agricultural sector during the last 50 years although it has been the backbone of our society and economy.”

5. The Commission did in a way mention the need to put in place an “effective framework of laws and social security” for agricultural workers, but the demand for a comprehensive central legislation for agricultural labourers continues to be denied by government after government at the Centre. The government now talks about an umbrella legislation for the unorganised sector as a whole, once again bypassing the insistent demand for a separate legislation for agricultural labourers and ignoring the fact we, agricultural labourers, constitute the overwhelming majority of unorganised workers in the country. All talks of empowerment of working women are bound to remain empty till the government could enact and enforce a legislation for agricultural labourers guaranteeing equal wage for equal work and adequate maternity and childcare benefits to the more than 50 million-strong contingent of women agricultural workers, who, in turn, are the biggest segment of working women in the country. Ironically, with the sole exception of Kerala, all other state governments including those donning the progressive mantle have refused to enact any legislation for agricultural labourers. The Left government of Tripura has put its own legislation in cold storage while the CPI(M) in West Bengal refuses to recognise the existence of agricultural labourers as a class, refusing to open a branch of its agricultural labour wing in the state even though the founding conference of the organisation was held in West Bengal itself.

6. The attitude of the propertied classes and their representatives in state power becomes crystal clear as soon as we raise our democratic demands. When, as producers of food and cloth for the whole people we claim ownership of the lands we till, they invoke the sacred “fundamental right” to property enshrined in the Constitution, making a laughing stock of the “directive principles” which require the state to secure to all of us “work, a living wage… a decent standard of life” and so on. When we ask for even a small rise in wage, let alone demanding the statutory minimum wage, the sky seems to come crashing on the heads of kulaks, landlords and rich peasants. They do not refuse to pay when the prices of fertilisers, insecticides and diesel go up, or when electricity and irrigation costs escalate, but the moment we seek even a meagre increase in wages, they begin to talk of enhanced costs of cultivation. If we press further, they try to displace us by hiring machines and cheaper labour from outside. When these tricks do not work, they let loose their goons and the administration and the police rush in their favour. Clearly, their view is that the entire burden of the crisis must be borne by the direct producers, while they enjoy the sunny side of economic reforms.

7. We straightaway reject this logic of the rich. We are for a comprehensive and constructive resolution of the crisis based on radical land reform. To this end, we the rural proletariat and semi-proletariat, in close alliance with poor and middle peasants, are locked in a mortal combat with the old and new landlords, the agrarian bourgeoisie or kulaks and the upwardly mobile, reactionary sections of rich peasants. No amount of violence can deter us from the path of struggle. We must prepare and organise ourselves to wage a determined resistance in every form necessary and defeat the anti-poor anti-worker design of the rich and the powerful at all costs.

8. Our struggle is not confined to the issues of land, wages and employment alone. As producers and workers, we have every right to secure a decent standard of living and an improved quality of life. But our children are still held in social and cultural bondage, they have to bear the burden of illiteracy and malnutrition, educational backwardness and all sorts of discrimination. We know that it is not possible to bring about any significant and durable improvement in our lives without changing the existing order based on exploitation and oppression of the working majority. And political power holds the key to any major socio-economic and cultural transformation. This is why the ruling classes and their state, all the old and new forces of domination are filled with horror when they see us rising and marching with the red flag.

9. We are confident of victory in this protracted war because we know our strength. We are the largest contingent of the Indian working class. And we are a growing army: the proportion of landless households to total rural households increased from 35 per cent in 1987 to 41 per cent in 2000. We are not alone, we encompass and have close ties with the vast majority of fellow toilers and weaker sections of society – dalits and other oppressed backward castes, adivasis, women, national and religious minorities – whose multiple movements together are contributing to a mighty awakening and assertion of the Indian people for democracy, development, social justice and genuine independence. Together with the industrial workers and the labouring peasantry we constitute a formidable force, the biggest and strongest bulwark for freedom, democracy and people’s unity.

10. We are the inheritors of a glorious legacy of heroic peasant rebellions and militant people’s struggles. Our predecessors have shed their precious blood to free this country from the yoke of British colonialism and thousands of our brothers and sisters are still waging valiant struggles for a better tomorrow, for a real people’s democracy and socialism. We have to build on this great heritage to chart a new course of advance. In the course of our fight for land and liberty, dignity and democracy, we have been putting up a bold resistance to imperialist domination and the forces of feudal reaction and communal fascist violence. Now we have reached a stage where we must be able to make our presence felt as a class, not just at the grassroots and in the rural society, but on the national plane and in the country as a whole. Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the revolutionary party of the proletariat and in close solidarity with the toiling, struggling millions, we shall eradicate feudalism, and defeat the emerging reactionary kulak power to march ahead to a new India, a people’s democratic India, a socialist India.