Tuesday, December 23, 2008
justice and change
bandhs
bandhs
I happen to be an active participant in enforcing bandhs in the past. This includes throwing stones at buses. Forcefully pulling down shutters of the shopkeepers, intimidating people going onto railway station etc.
The working class does not have any weapons to fight its own struggle. He doesnot have the money power or the propoganda machine that the capitalist class has. The only weapon he has is a disciplined army of workers led by the communist party.
The protest movements organised by the communist party and the mass organisations especially the trade unions in its command have the sole porpose of creating pressure on the capitalist – big landlord led ruling class. This is to increase the bargaining power of the working class against the ruling class.
The protest movements start with certain forms. In trade union circles, with a signature campaign, black bands, walkout during lunch hours, work to rule, tools down, one day token strike and thenultimately indefinite strike.
In these progression of events, the vanguard is not starting with the 'convinced' or the 'converted' worker. The whole lot of initial protest forms have a duel purpose. One to send across the message to the capitalist to agree the demands and more important to make the workers aware of the demands, their strengh, to organise them for the next form of protest.
The communist party cannot be short sighted to intimidate workers with their muscle power and go for the ultimate step of 'indefinate strike'.
It is very important to go through the initial forms of protest to bring about 'conciousness' amongst workers.
The difference between a simple trade union and the trade union led by the communist being the trade union led by the communist would inculcate a political conciousness apart from making him aware of the collective bargaining strength of a trade union.
When the workers in banks strike in support of striking teachers or striking post office empleyees a certain ammount of working class solidarity, a conciousness of working class as a homogenous force comes into fore.
The communist party with his army of workers through these small struggles are preparing for the ultimate taking over of power to establish a classless society.
But in the whole process, as i said before, there cannot be any short cuts. The voluntary participation in protest action is very necessary.
Voluntary participation is been ignored. The focus is on the success of protest action.
The communist party is the vanguard of the working class, and to a great extend of the society. It has the responsibility of convincing the participants of these struggles. It cannot act as brahmins of the working class.
The convincing is difficult, time consuming but unavoidable.
If the people are convinced, the bandh would be spontaneous.
There is a big unorganised sector. They have to be organised. The task is much more tough. They have everything to loose. The hire and fire policy is much more rampant in this sector. But making it impossible for them to reach work during a bandh is not the kind of participation of the unorganised sector i envisage.
Organising them would take time but there is no alternative to participatory struggle and action. The organised sector cannot make a situation where the daily wages person wants to work but is unable to.
Every action, any form of protest action should be seen as a form of awareness campaign, a form of participation by unorganised, weaker sections of the society.
Unfortunately, we the communist party have engineers to implement a protest action. Strikes in industrial sector in the past by intimidation. These tactics were taken over by the trade union careerists like datta samant and geoge fernandes in mumbai.
Now we have a bank of engineers who can implement bandhs in an efficient way. The technology has been pirated by other political parties like the trinamool in bengal and bjp and the muslim leage in kerala.
There was an argument about the public transport. Let the public transport trade union participate in the bandh. Let the small, petty traders association participate in the bandh. Then engineers would be jobless.
Support or no support for the cause, its taken for granted, the bandhs would be successfull.
ONLY VOLUNTARY PARTICIPATION CAN TELL HOW SUCCESSFULL THE BANDH WAS.
The engineers of these bandhs, i myself use to be one, should be fired.
If bandhs have to have its impact as an ultimate working class tool, it has to be used more discreetly.
But alas, that's the easiest of the protest actions today. The degree of error is zero. They are bound to succeed.
It is in this context, i completely agree with comrade bb.
Although i completely disaggree with the way it was communicated. It sets a bad precedent. He should not have kept mum inside the party(as he himself admitted). He should have kept mum at the press conference. I don't think it serves any purpose to be in the good books of the capitalist class (merchants chamber).
We should realise, all through out the nandigram crises and the singur crises we are coming across as the saviours of the exploiting class.
We have to communicate agressively. More investements, more progress, more exploitation. But we are trying our best to improve the living standards of people within the capitalist society.
So i agree with comrade bb on what he said but not where he said.