Editorial

Lacking Political Will

No doubt may day being the biggest occasion for the red flag bearers would be dull without some political rhetorics. But marking May 1 by the self-proclaimed representatives of labour in this country may at best add to the festive spirit and entertain Marxist bosses in particular. At no point of time communists ever tried to organise workers on political issues during their eight-decade-old handling of labour problems. Even today workers, organised sector workers to be precise under their sway are in no urgency to recognise political significance of May Day. It is another day in their life of drudgery and self-deception. The social and political participation situation is not getting any better.

For all practical purposes this international solidarity day for working men has become one more ritual to most of them as they join rallies and highly decorated meetings otherwise soulless, to please their leaders. In truth only white collar employees with assured social security net and better incentives in pay scales take the luxury of observing May Day, without any concrete action plan to offer for toilers. The concept of vanguardist party of working class in the Indian context sounds ludicrous as their theory sharply differs from what they practice in the fields and factories. That workers as a class are unlikely to lead any kind of revolution in India seems to be a hard reality that even die-hard optimists would refuse to deny. They–Marxists, Maoists, Communists—talk about it because they believe in scriptures and without them they are in a helpless situation. Political parties on the left need some occasions to keep their cadres busy while dancing to the tune of status quo-ists and May Day provides one. The basic reason behind workers’ reluctance to react to national and international events that directly or indirectly affect their social existence is apolitical nature of labour movement, rather trade union movement right from the beginning.

As for politics one area that is risk free is election. Workers, subalterns in general, believe that they matter only during elections and adult franchise is being projected by the parties as panacea. Employers have nothing to lose if employees remain satisfied by way of enthusiastically participating in elections all the time because all contending forces will have to obey the working rules framed by the corporate world. They always try to separate politics from labour movement and yet they think to lead working class revolution is their historical task.

There is no difference between a communist party-led union and a rightist party like Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party-led union in their approach to industrial relations and wage labour. They all revolve around productivity, rather marximisation of productivity with minimum labour costs. It may be ironical but sometimes workers treat all parties as their bargain counters and flock to better bargainers. As a result they are under the control of rightist and reformist parties. The parties in power enjoy the support of large number of industrial workers because it is always safe to bargain with employers with government backing. With the change in regime in different states workers too change their loyalty. This is now a time-tested practice in labour culture.

There are so many political issues and yet organised sector workers, not to speak of unorganised millions who are always on the run because of perpetual uncertainty and job insecurity, remain passive. They think politics is not for them, it is for rich people and party bosses. They have no goal to reach other than somehow maintaining the status quo. They are not in favour of breaking the status quo because they are not being taught to do so. In a sense labour in this part of the globe is in an identity crisis. If most labour organising fails to cross the barrier of stereotypes and traditional framework, it is because movement is bound by law, the age-old law though archaic in many respects, is designed to create a creamy layer, a section of protected workers who in turn would manage shop-floor level activities on behalf of the management.

Unless workers in India get politically conscious and motivated the idea of May Day solidarity will remain on paper. In India communist parties are basically middle class parties and being ruling parties in some states they represent at worst the upper segment of the vast and heterogeneous middle class people. It is now an established fact that the official communist enterprise has abandoned the concept of social revolution, even of their kind completely while trying hard to get rid of whatever remains of their Marxist pretence. They know well more than anybody else if they still talk of working class emancipation and solidarity on May Day it is because old habits die hard.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 41, Apr 21- -27, 2013

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