This was the message to Ambedkar Society of USA in the month of
January-2021 by
A.SIMPSON
organizer and member of
ALL INDIA KISAN SABHA
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Ambedkar's Democracy put too much faith in the judiciary. Courts from the local through High courts and the Supreme court are within the control of the ruling powers. Now and then, the judges deliver 'fair' judgements careful not to hurt this or that group of ruling classes.
And as the saying goes, 'justice delayed is justice denied'. How can a poor man framed by the state find the financial and other resources to fight his case in Supreme Court?
Gopalakrushna Naidu of Keezh VenmaNi 'fame' was acquitted! How many criminals have been punished for atrocities on Dalits?
Do we not find retired chief justice being appointed as governor or rajya saba member?
If the ruling powers are fascist, can a dissenting judge survive? Goons will attack, maim and kill him.
Take the case of Hathras gang rape. See the disgusting way that the district admin and police behaved.
This is a harsh reality.
Rule of law is fine concept in theory. But fails miserably to give justice to the poor , especIally if they are dalits and women.
Ambedkar's constitutionalism has no answer.
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Farmers' movement
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The developments in the Farmers' movement are a lesson about the inadequacy of mechanical understanding of contitutional and electoral democracy in India and the need for rethinking about Ambedkar's stand on rule of law alone.
Who makes the law? In any election for state assembly and parliament assembly, the average voting percentage is about 66 %
So, one third of the electorate does not vote at all.( The rich families generally do not bother to come to voting booth and vote.
It is very likely that the very poor and depressed class people also are either un-interested or prevented from voting at the risk of physical injury )
So, the contest is only between one two or three sections of the OBC.
In class terms they are the rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants and landless labour of the OBC
.
Moreover, people know that whoever wins is not going to make much change in their lives. They vote for their caste and for money. It is common knowledge that voters are openly bribed.
The parties get huge funds from rich industrialists, and even from foreign companies and governments as election fund. Goons threaten the super-rich such as contractors, mine-owners, real-estate thugs, liquor-barons, stock-exchange gamblers, film-financiers and such anti-social elements.
Election time is eagerly awaited by mercenary criminal gangs who are ready to do anything for the highest bidder.
Common people especially in rural areas, are primarily influenced by caste loyalties, cinema-influence, and the money , feast and liquor festival on election day.
On top of all these , the BC section have their panchayat ( kapp) ( Naadu in tamillnad). These kapp panchayats are a sort of extra-constitutional organizations, They openly declare that no legislation and law is more binding on them than the decision of their kapp.
Invariably , it is the rich peasants of the area who control these kapps with their money and muscle power and caste loyalty. of middle peasants , poor peasants and landless labour and odd-job labourers of their respective castes.
People who live in urban centers and industrial areas cannot really understand the age-old hold of such kapps over the minds of the OBC in India's countryside .
The depressed classes have no such kapp organization , because they lack numerical strength, and financial resources.
Each village has a caste-composition of rich and middle peasants and the poor peasants, landless agricultural labour and non-agricultural depressed communities have no option except to follow the dictates of the kapp.
This is the reality.
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What was the view of Ambedkar on the reality of dalits being a minority in every village -15 % - only and surrounded by caste hindus and made to live in their own hamlets with a lot of social restrictions? what solutions did he have? Nothing much.
He was alive only for a few years after independence ( 1947-1957).
In the first few years after Independence, he did very good work as Law minister in Nehrus cabinet and had full support of Jawaharlal Nehru.
After he resigned from Nehru's cabinet ( a blunder), he became increasingly ineffective due to poor health, wrong ideology and failure to understand the mood of the people in his own state Maharashtra.
As a minister, he did wonderful work.because, there was not much difference between Jawaharal Nehru and Ambedkar so far as issues like Industrialization, Public sector, Reservation for dalits, strong central government , secularism and abolition of superstition through education . , development of agriculture through giant irrigation projects and co-operative farming.
The blunder was that he was too hasty and did not realize that Nehru was actually in a minority among his colleagues in the congress party though he was a towering personality among the people all over India.
Ambedkar was at best confined to Maharashtra.
More surprising, Nehru's congress was built on the alliance at grass root level of Muslims, Dalits and progressive brahmins.
Even in those years, he was against the reactionary UP brahmins and backward class kulaks in Uttar Pradesh.
He managed to stay in power because of his all-india perspective and support, pro-left policies and careful grooming of second rank leaders.
Ambedkar was not a mass leader . Nehru was.
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Being a Stalin follower, Nehru was against feudal zamindars and landlords only. He knew the importance of rich peasants, middle peasants and poor peasants in villages of India.
The OBC were mostly tenant cultivators in British India.
Nehru's abolition of zamindari system and reform of tenancy laws made congress very popular among the OBC even.
In states like Punjab, he left the entire thing to leaders like Pratap Singh Kairon and likewise, in every state he chose and supported mass leaders who would follow his understanding of international developments, pro-left stance and step-by-step social reform carefully and gradually breaking the emotional bondage of poor peasants and landless labour to rich peasants of their own caste in every village.
He was also very meticulous to enlist the support of 'progressive' section of forward communities because, the social reality in INDIA is that people still respect people from forward communities with progressive outlook. Forward communities included Brahmins, Reddys, Kayasthas ( like Mudaliar and Pilais).
A note worthy feature even today is that every party in WestBengal has brahmin leaders. This is true of even of the numerous revolutionary splinter groups in West Bengal. And even in Taminadu,
EVR was not from backward community . Nor mass leaders like Anna ,Kalaignyar Karunanidh and MGR. At one time, the communist party in Tamilnadu had all brahmin leaders like PRamamurthy, MR Venkataraman, A Baasubramanyam and Sreenivasa Rao!
It is easy to forget that such kapp panchayaths are grass root democracy rather than once in five-years state and general elections.
When such grass root democracy is progressive, it will be absolutely great. and is capable of overthrowing state and central governments. But still, it is a BC caste dominated grass root democracy in which the dalits and the poorer sections of the BC have no voice.
The Jat are a caste-based community. There are hindus, Sikhs and Muslims too in the Jat kapps. ( No place for Dalits).
It is a good thing that in the present farmers struggle, the BKU of Tikait is playing a progressive role . Perhaps it is rallying against the upper caste domination of BJP ( thaakurs, brahmins, and numerically strong Yadhava middle and rich peasants).
It is good that the struggle is spreading in Western Uttar Pradesh nearer to Delhi and having a large percentage of Muslims.
Muzaffarnagar used to be a strong leftist center long back.
The green revolution brought great prosperity to the farmers of punjab and Hariyana. Automation with tractors made them stronger. Many jat sikhs migrated to western countries like Canada . Invariably, the OBC rich and middle peasants are regionalists and in worst cases, even separatists . They are not too reluctant to accept Western aid.
This is a dilemma for dalit and left movements . If they antagonize the middle peasants, they cannot even enter a village to spread progressive ideas of socialism.
If they compromise with the kulaks and middle peasants, they can do nothing for the poor and landless.
The Left movements's solution is replacing kapp with kisan unions. The kapp is a caste union whereas kisan union is class-based. So, more progressive and parallel center of real democracy.
In every community, including the brahmins , the majority of people are poor compared to the more fortunate in their own community. Once the poor-rich divide is realized by the poor in every community, it gets the much healthier class-orientation.
Though most dalits are landless agrarian labourers, it should be remembered that the OBC also has a lot of landless labour.
So, the right way is to bring both the dalit and obc landless labour into the class-oriented all-india-kisan organization on specific demand for RADICAL LAND REFORM .
What is the that radical landreform?
1) No family should own more than three standard acres.
2) No family should employ tenant cultivator.
3) All peasants should be and would be registered land-owners. There will be no class as landless agrarian labour.
4) all peasants will be members of the agricultural co-operative.
5) The peasants should not have the right to sell or pledge their land to anyone.
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Such a kisan union and program only will solve the problem of dalit oppression and break the caste based leadership of the kulaks and rich peasants over the poor peasants and landless labour of their own community.
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The poverty of dalits can be solved partly by this program but this is not a permanent solution.
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Population of India in 1950 was 37 crores. .
In 2020, the population of India is nearly
140 crores.
Without Food security, no nation can be really free from Imperialist blackmail.
The Green Revolution ( improved irrigation, fertilizers,crop rotation, and high yielding variety seeds ) made India self-sufficient in food grain
This was the contribution of M.S.Swaminathan.
He also submitted a report to support minimum sale price of food grains to Food Corporatioh of India.
When there is excess production, price will go down and peasantry will be adversely affected. The state and central governments procure food grains and distribute them to urban population and working class in factories.
We have to pay a remunerative price to the peasant cultivator and at the same time, ensure that food items are available at low price to the urban people and factory labour.
Naturally, the system has to be subsidized. A good part of the general tax income has to be used for such subsidy.
Free market economy without government active role in this activity is not good.
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Agrarian capitalists -super rich- will procure from poor peasants, hoard them in their private godowns and artificially hike the price in free market.
They will export the food grains to any country that gives them super profit. Common people, even the middle class will not be able to pay the high price. Poor workers will starve even to death.
So, it is the responsibility of the government to pay a good price to peasant cultivators and sell them cheap in ration shops to poor people at low price. The govt may also open low-cost canteens.
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In the long run, small patches of land
without road facilities to reach the village and good transport will affect the peasantry.
There are vagaries of monsoon. Floods and Monsoon failures. Sometimes, high breed seeds give very good yield for the first two or three years and by imperialist conspiracy,the land becomes totally barren. soon.
The peasants need loan for meeting the cultivation expenses. Before Nationalization of banks by Indira Gandhi, the peasants used to borrow money from the local money-lenders pledging their land as security.
When there is crop failure, the land was attached by the money-lender by court-order.
After Bank Nationalizatio, the peasant can get bank loan for cultivation. Thus, they were saved from losing their land to the money-lenders.
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The state introduced Crop Insurance also so that peasants will be compensated for loss due to crop-loss by floods, excess rains or draought. All these are Progressive measures. Where will the money come from? By direct and indirect taxation. When the rural people get good harvest and good surplus amount to spend, they will be the buyers for consmer goods . The consumer industry will then thrive and provide job openings.
Without Heavy-industries and medium industries, the consumer industry cannot get raw materials and other inputs.
That is why Ambedkar and Nehru always gave top importance to laying the foundation of Industrial development.
When this is done by the Government, as under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, it is the spur to solve the problem of unemployment.
Automation by tractors will make the landless labour un-necessary in agriculture.
Dalit labour will be affected most.
Even poor peasants and marginal peasants will be reduced to the state of landless labour and if there is no industrial development to give them job , they are forced to become migrant labour and in big cities. mostly as un-organized labour exploited by contractors who treat them as no better than slaves.
When there is pandemic, and lock down , it is this poor population who have to walk literally thousand miles with all their meagre luggage back to their village. where also there is no job or food.
To avoid this tragedy, the government introduced a scheme for minimum wage during lean period in agriculture. Also Food security bill.
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Will education solve this problem?
yes and no.
What is the use of degree without a job? The future of Dalit youth should not be tied up to their rural patch of land. They should get skills in technology, especially small-scale , consumer industry and medium industries.
Special schools known as Technical High school were opened by some industrialists . After fininshing that, they joined polytechnics and then engineering colleges. As a rule, such students were better equipped in technology.
There are ITI ( Industrial training institutes)
Punjab and Haryana do not have any very big industries but there are hundreds of medium and small scale industries. Technical skill will enable them to be self-employed also.\
These are the progressive directions taken by the Congress government over MANY decades.
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Why should we give top-most priority to defeat the Modi-Amit shaw government?
1) They are planning to allow corporates , mostly American to enter the agriculture scene in India. They will play the same role as
money-lenders in Burma and Ceylon in the 1920-1940 period.
They will convert the rich villages into giant farms. and drive out even the rich peasants from the granary of India. May be they will increase production but will use it for export only.
The local big business will also do that.
They will hoard and finish off the public distribution system.
They have money power and will not need the government to incur subsidy expenses
.
India will not then aim to become a welfare state.
There will be artificially created scarcity of food grains.
Only very big business companIes who earn one lakh per DAY in share market will prosper,
The middle class even will be affected.
All the public sector assets will be privatized.
Banks will once again become bankrupt.
and many more evils. The
fellows will waste public money in armaments industry and to justify that , will wage war against neighboring countries.
All these are typical Nazi methods. The only difference being, Germany was already a developed nation but this fascist turn by Indian government will make it a junior partner in the war-games of US-EU and anglo war mongers.
People of India will have to face HUGE destruction. and once again become a slave country.
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It is a good thing that the rich peasants are daring to challenge the fascist goons.
Without forgetting the class interests of poor peasants and landless labour, the kisan ssociation must participate in the peasant revolt , patiently explain to the poor peasants and mixing freely with the very poor of all communities, wrest the leadeship of the movement from the kulak lobby and get the support of middle peasants, poor peasnts, landless labour and un-organized labour.
The most-important point is that we should not allow anarchist elements, separatists and CIA agents to infiltrate. We should expect the state to unleash violence sooner or later and equip the protesters to be prepared for self-defence.
In any joint action with the rich peasants, we should put forward concrete plans for the benefit of landless labour and poor peasants without allowing caste overtones.
Speak for the poor peasant and landless labour of ALL THE CASTES. Let them fight our battle. The DALITS also will gain. Build caste solidarity on class basis.
Ambedkarism cannot do that. See how Mayavathi and Paswan are behaving . See how ramdas athwale is behaving. See how puthiya thamizagam is behaving.
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