THE STRANGLEHOLD OF MICROFINANCE - K Veeraiah

OF late microfinance is being viewed as a prime tool in achieving poverty reduction and inclusive growth. Particularly after Grameen Bank fame Mohammd Yunus was bestowed with Nobel Prize, this illusion became widespread resulting in a major spurt in microfinance institutions across the world. The proponents are focusing on turnovers, repayments and profits as the indicators of its success, neglecting the ramifications of microfinance institutions (MFIs) on poverty reduction or inclusive growth. Microfinance as a vehicle of poverty reduction mechanism has its own limitations. At best, it can play only a complimentary role rather than a key role, provided, it is governed under panchayati raj system and borrowers command ownership of resources of income generation. Realising this limitation, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) correctly assessed, “Conceptually, the government’s and the World Bank project of microfinancing and SHGs serve as an alternative to rural credit which has drastically declined after liberalisation. SHGs cannot be a substitute for institutional rural credit. Such an approach must be opposed.” [On Certain Policy Matters, Document adopted in CPI (M) 18th Congress in 2005]

Recent incidents in Andhra Pradesh come as a rude shock to the proponents of financial inclusion through microfinance. These incidents resulted in suicides of 57 people, out of which, 17 are the clients of the world’s largest MFI, SKS Microfinance. As more than 30 of them are women, the intensity of the shock is such that the government of Andhra Pradesh has been forced to proclaim an ordinance. The Reserve Bank of India constituted a sub committee to look into various aspects of these modern 'merchants of Venice' who have converted MFI into an industry. Earlier in 2006 in Andhra Pradesh, 2007 in Maharashtra and 2008 in Karnataka, the role of MFIs brought several questions to the fore. These incidents force us to rethink the efficacy of MFIs as instruments of financial inclusion and of poverty reduction as well as its changing nature with the entry of finance capital through private equity route.

PHILOSOPHY &UTILITY OF ‘MICROFINANCE’

The concept of microfinance is having its roots in the neo-liberal project itself. As neo-liberalism gripped the minds of policy makers across the continents, the governments started retreating from the welfare state. Retreat of development finance from provisioning of services and financial access forced vulnerable sections of people to face financial exclusion. This resulted in widespread struggles questioning the legitimacy of neo-liberal project, such as in Bolivia, during 1986. This crisis of legitimacy forced the neo-liberal think-tanks to advocate structural adjustment programs with human face. As a way out from the crisis of legitimacy, neo-liberal policy makers devised ‘Emergency Services Fund’ in Bolivia directly targeting the households by eliminating the State intermediaries, which evolved into microfinance in due course. As the avenues for profit dried out, from 70s, the international financial capital is in search of new sources of profit. Both these efforts consolidated in the research results of the then neoliberal stalwarts such as Joseph Stiglitz who worked on reforming the small and micro lending structures across the countries and came up with revitalising the traditional financial intermediary systems by opening space for private capital and self financed efforts of people for financial inclusion. To carry out these policy directives in the interests of international finance capital, the World Bank-IMF along with their siblings such as ADB, IAB, DFID, USAID, JCB, formed into a Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CAGP) as a global hub to oversee this effort. Thus, the origins of the concept of microfinance are rooted in 'think globally and act locally' attitude of the neo-liberal project. True to their nature, these development initiatives are centred around non-governmental organisations, as they are insulated from the limitations of political economy of the State.

Providing small loans to individuals, possibly within the groups as capital investment to enable income generating opportunities is the essence of microfinance. To be eligible under microfinance schemes, the potential beneficiaries were asked to form into groups by mobilising their initial thrifts within each village. In this way, the duration between the formation of group and their eligibility for loan helped private lending agencies to gauge their cohesiveness and also the saving culture.

In Bangladesh, Mohammad Yunus, after bagging the Noble Prize became an international face of microfinance. He experimented successfully with the peer group based modules. Yunus summarised the philosophy of microfinance based on peer-groupings by saying, “(It) smooths out the erratic behaviour patterns of individual members, making each member more reliable in the process. Subtle and at time not so subtle peer pressure keeps each group member in line with the broader objectives of the credit program. Shifting the task of initial supervision to the group not only reduces the work of the bank but also increases the self-reliance of the individual borrowers”. This basically targeted women as its stakeholders. The success of microfinance is in mobilising women. Women have been historically marginalised and their marginalisation is more stark in the economic arena as well. They are easy to control morally and otherwise at the time of collections – the underlying cause of 95-99 percent of recoveries.

In the Beijing summit of Women’s empowerment (1995), the then World Bank president James Wolfenson presented this idea of incorporating women in thrift groups to economically empower them. In 1997 in Washington DC, the World Bank with the support of Citigroup, Mastercard, American Express Bank, organised another summit to structuralise the execution modules of microfinance. Finally in 2002, the Monterrey at the International Conference on Financing for Development explicitly recognised that microfinance and micro credit as well as national savings are important for enhancing social and economic impact of financial sector. The United Nations was also co-opted into this understanding when the then UN secretary general Kofi Annan announced 2005 as the Year of Microfinance.

Currently MFIs are having global assets worth $50 billion and are not damaged much by the ongoing crisis of financial capitalism. This proves the resilience of this industry. By the end of the 20th century, governments appropriated the conceptual utility of microfinance by making it as a centre piece in its developmental strategies focussing on women. This also helped the governments to manage the grassroots who are disgruntled with the consequences of structural reforms. This role of SHGs is nowhere more evident than in the state of Andhra Pradesh when Chandrababu Naidu used SHGs as powerful instrument to shift the tide towards TDP during the 1999 general elections.

Another important aspect of the MFI as a developmental tool is turning the non-governmental organisations into self-sustainable entities. With this, the whole concept of NGOs has undergone a major change as they shifted their orientation from service to market and also from deemed agencies of transformation into potential counter hegemonic social forces through microcredit. They are gradually adopted into the circuits of international finance capital through the generous funding from international agencies. As neo-liberal project progresses, the popularity of NGOs as vehicles of development also has gone up. This also led to a standardisation of NGO pattern from group of social workers to CEO headed line department with technocratic professionals heading various departments. We can see this shift in all the NGOs active in MFI business.

Once NGOs were co-opted by finance capital, gradually they are transforming themselves into banks, a phenomenon that began with the Grameen Bank. In India, Swayam Krishi Sangam, popularly known as SKS, was enlisted first as an NGO, then re-registered itself into non-banking financial company and finally ended as a private limited company. In the ever increasing tying up of micro-credit organisations to circuits of international finance capital, which is evident in Indian context, the external factors and needs are bound to reflect on the internal structures of MFIs as well. Thus, the active collaboration of NGOs with donor agencies driven by finance capital and tacit role played by the state, resulted in establishment of unholy trinity which is trying to subvert the democratically elected agencies, through which credit is channelised till now, at the ground level.

INDIAN CONTEXT

The institutionalised origins of rural credit in particular and credit in general goes back to the 1970s when the welfare state took initiative in expanding the outreach and intensity of credit as a source of rural development. In continuation, in the post nationalisation period, Indian banking system's depth as well as outreach increased enormously. This growth is reflected in its commitment to increase the bank presence in rural areas and in its efforts to reach the most vulnerable sections of the society. A mandate for all nationalised banks to expand their operations at least by 25 per cent in rural areas helped to meet the first characteristic where as devising the concept of priority sector helped banking industry to mould their orientations into social banking. Priority sector includes emphasis on directed lending to sectors such as agriculture and small scale industries and also members of historically disadvantaged sections of society. Put together, nationalised banks are mandated to lend 40 per cent of their total lending to these sections/sectors and out of that 25 per cent must be disbursed to individuals belonging to weaker sections. The newly conceived program of Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) became the policy vehicle to redirect the credit to priority sector. Out of total bank lending, priority sector lending reached nearest to its target only in 1987 and from then onwards witnessed gradual decline. Particularly with the beginning of restructuring of Indian economy, total lending to priority sectors came down to nearly half of the '87 peak.

This deterioration is linked to the change in RBI outlook about social banking as a result of the government accepting Narasimham Committee recommendations. In policy terms, it implied that the government agreed to direct lending initiatives based on need, business prospects, profitability and financial viability, minimising operations cost. In post-1991 period, National Sample Survey Organisation surveys in two rounds, 1993 and in 1999 shows that in rural areas 72 per cent of households are indebted to informal sources of lending. Out of that 72 per cent, loans raised through informal money lenders stood at 22 per cent and pawn brokers stood at 21 per cent. The credit is redirected from weaker sections and sectors of society to capital markets and consumer credit. This resulted in excluding the vast sections of people both vulnerable and not so vulnerable people from accessing the financial services thus leaving the field open for the entry of private financial intermediaries. Exactly this was the time when Chit fund companies flourished across the country. Chits like Margadarshi in Andhra Pradesh and Sriram, Sundaram Finance in Tamilnadu became an all India phenomena. These are concentrated on individual clients rather than groups. In Andhra Pradesh itself, thousands of chitfund companies became operational in 1990s. Some of them took even the shape of private banks which collected thousands of crores in deposits and disappeared overnight.

At the same time, influenced by the changes in international policy scenario, governments both at the centre and in states adopted the concept of micro-credit modelling around Self-help Groups (SHGs). NABARD championed this concept in India. The implementation is more or less fashioned along the lines of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Gradually the central government stepped into promote DWACRA groups under Women and Child Welfare ministry. In certain parts, they roped in NGOs and in some others they roped in political field workers as it had happened in Andhra Pradesh to form DWACRA groups. They were told that in due course, these groups, after reaching certain levels of savings, will be linked to banks through loans to empower them. In all these efforts, women stand out as key focused section. Crores of people were mobilised in these structures across the country with more than 6 million self help groups (each group contains 10-20 members) with 54.47 billion worth deposits as on 2009 March. The current process is riddled with low levels of lending and perceived reluctance of banks to deal with SHGs as they are not cost worthy. Even then governments such as in AP promoted SHGs with a promise of getting them 25 paise interest with which SHGs swelled till recently. Thus the ground is well prepared for the entry of first the NGOs and then the commercial MFIs to poach this client base.

At this juncture, institutionalised money lending in the form of MFIs entered the scene after realising the potential of this sector. They replaced SHGs with joint lending groups (JLGs). In case of SHGs, there is no need of collaterals but they have to run around the banks for loans. In case of MFIs, different types of collaterals starting with ration cards, gas connections to valuable items at home are initiated. As MFIs are in the business of advancing capital for profit, they hunt around the needy JLGs. Thus, in India currently two streams of microcredit structures are under operation. As on August 2010, India is abuzz with 3000 MFIs lending Rs 20,000 crores to 28 million borrowers experiencing 105 per cent of compound annual growth rate. The returns on equity in MFIs increased from 5.1 per cent in 2008 to 18.3 per cent in 2009 in MFIs. With assured interest rates varied from minimum of 30 per cent to maximum of 60 per cent with which profit is certain, private equity portfolios are eager to enter into this sector. The market's response to SKS' script confirms this trend. MFIs, by mobilising capital from market sources through equity and other market oriented instruments, became vehicles for the circulation of finance capital. This is substantiated by the fact that by July 2010, more than 200 billion USD is pumped into MFI industry. Once they enter, they drive the industry according to their own interests. Currently Spandana negotiated for 60 million equity from Teamlease of Singapore. The World Bank and its MFI arm, IFC are active in lending to the corporate MFIs in India. The IFC even announced microfinance initiative for Asia in collaboration with Kreditanstalt fur Wideraufbau to lend to MFIs in India. The DFID is coming up with a new poverty initiative strategy focusing on states where MFI penetration is less. Thus, the entry of international finance capital and the profit oriented MFIs in lieu of SHGs which thrive on bank linkages vitiated the market resulting in suicides by the borrowers, who fail to repay in time and withstand the pressure from the MFIs. This is what is happening in Andhra Pradesh and what happened in some other states in recent years.

(To be continued)

Source: www.pd.cpim.org
Vol. XXXIV, No. 44, October 31, 2010

BIRBHUM: PEOPLE STAND UP AGAINST TMC-MAOIST TERROR IN BATIKA

EMPOWER THE YOUTH - R Arun Kumar

THE entire country is one in saluting the youth who did us proud in the Commonwealth Games. India is one of the few young countries in the world with an enormous potential of human resources to harness for its growth and development. There are 45.9 crore young people in our country – 37.9 per cent of the country's population – who are aged between 13-35 years. This is the age-group that is officially categorised as youth according to the National Youth Policy (2003). It would be of enormous advantage to the country if this huge potential is properly nurtured.

A National Youth Readership Survey (NYRS-2009) undertaken at the behest of the National Book Trust by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has brought out interesting facts on the prevailing trends among youth. According to the Survey, 72.8 per cent of the youth, 33.3 crore, are literate. Among them, around a fifth are doing unpaid housework and just over one in ten have a regular salaried job or are wage earners. 73 per cent of the literate youth in the country are from the Scheduled Castes (22.7 percent), Scheduled Tribes (9.8 percent) and Other Backward Classes (40.3 percent).

Data shows that 76 per cent of the literate youth have not gone to college. This is because, according to another study, every year 93 lakh students want to go to college but only 30 lakh seats are available. For admission into the premier educational institutions in our country, the gap between what is needed and what is available becomes even more huge. For IIT admission, there are 7000 aspirants at each mark point in the entrance examination! All these statistics show that many are forced to give up their educational aspirations mid-way. Thus, we find only 10 per cent of the youth from the concerned age-group in higher education, which is well below the world and Asian average. US president Obama is pointing at this small percentage of educated youth and exhorting the American youth to 'wake-up to their challenge'. Just think about the distances the country can go, if opportunities are made available for all the aspiring youth to pursue their dreams!

Another important fact established by these studies is that most of the successful youth are either from middle class or higher middle class families. The policies of privatisation and commercialisation of education are increasingly converting education into a privilege rather than a right. It is money that decides to what extent one can study, more than talent. If education is made accessible to all, it would open the gates of huge reservoir of talents that can be successfully used for nation building.

'HANDS-OFF APPROACH'

Similar is the case with employment. Crores of our youth are unemployed or without any regular, assured employment. Unemployment among those between 15-24 years in rural areas was 12-15 per cent in 2004-05 according to the ministry of labour. Without a secure employment to eke out their livelihood, youth are naturally concerned and worried about their future. The growth rate of the labour force is higher than the growth rate of population and the growth rate of employment has not been in proportion to GDP growth. Lack of dynamism in the private industrial and service sectors, coupled with the shrinking government sector has constrained the growth of employment opportunities. Instead of addressing this issue, the government is adopting a 'hands-off approach', arguing that in a liberalised world, it is for the market to provide opportunities and for an individual to grab them. The hollowness of this neo-liberal view is once again exposed by the current global economic crisis. Even in India, the crisis has resulted in the loss of lakhs of existing jobs and a potential 80 lakh jobs could not be created because of the crisis, adding to the already bulging unemployment figures. With an additional 110 million youngsters to be added to the workforce by 2020, the future looks bleak in terms of ensuring employment to all.

The escalation of unemployment, especially among the educated youth, renders waste whatever social and material investments made in education. It deprives the country from putting to positive use their productive time and energy. Secondly, these youth would become susceptible to various vices. Reports indicate that alcoholism among youth has increased by 100 per cent in the past 10 years.

Right from the first Five Year Plan, the government has been repeatedly stating its intentions of giving primacy to the youth. But the reality is, the government has failed to live true to its grandiose statements and has never even reviewed the reasons for its failure. Moreover, with the current government’s insistence on implementing the neo-liberal policies, these goals would never be reached. Instead of addressing and changing this reality, the government is trying to mask it and 'educate' the people to ignore it.

DANGEROUS AND VOLATILE COCKTAIL

The NCAER Survey also states that 77 per cent of the youth are interested in music and films and television engages most of their time, followed by radio. Interestingly, the internet is accessed by only 3.7 per cent of the youth. The mainstream media has a tremendous impact and influence on the youth today. It brazenly promotes consumerism and individualism in such a manner that the primary ambition becomes to 'get-rich-quick' at any cost. This is confirmed by a survey done by the Coca Cola. Not surprisingly, reality shows, which shower 'instant money' on the winners, grab the most TRP ratings. Youth are influenced to dream about this 'illusionary world' than bother too much about their present reality. Besides, they run a sustained campaign against politicians and political process to create a sense of apathy and cynicism towards both. Along with these, as Terry Eagleton states, “Watching television for long stretches confirms individuals in passive, isolated, privatised roles and consumes a good deal of time that could be put to productive political uses”.

The Survey states that only 30 per cent of the youth expressed their interest in politics, even while 72 per cent expressed their interest in current affairs. This shows that while the youth of the country are concerned about the issues and problems of the country, they are not so much inclined to be part of the political process. While the former is heartening, the later is not. This entire situation creates a dangerous and volatile cocktail – a combination of discontent generated due to the failure in realising their dreams as they lack opportunities and a cynical attitude towards politics and political process. This is the 'ideal condition' on which all sorts of divisive forces thrive. Look at Kashmir. The youth there, are deprived of opportunities and repeatedly let down by the ruling class parties which breeds cynicism and a feeling of alienation. The separatists are trying to use this discontent to further their divisive agenda.

The religious fundamentalists also would exploit this situation. They would try to take advantage of the fact that a large number of youth, 59 per cent, expressed their interest in religion. In order to prevent these kinds of divisive forces from taking advantage of the situation, urgent steps should be initiated to tap the latent energies of the youth for constructive purposes. Youth have to be properly empowered through education, employment and, of course, given a say in the decision making process. The inherent cultural and artistic talents of the youth should be identified, nurtured and properly groomed. They should be made aware of the rich, composite, secular culture of our country and its history of tolerance.

If the government provides necessary support for everyone to pursue education according to their talent and interest we could reap benefits from our numerical strength. This is as much true for employment. The recently concluded Commonwealth Games are a small example to show how even little opportunities made available to the budding talents would go a long way in bringing laurels to the country. Krishna Poonia, a discus throw gold medallist in these games said the medals she and her colleagues have won shows, “what we can do – if we get the opportunity”. The 'if' is indeed a capital 'IF'. To replace the indecisive 'if' with a confident 'yes', it needs a sustained struggle. This is intrinsically linked with the struggle to burst the ideological 'mask of illusion' weaved by the ruling classes.

As Gramsci states, the consciousness of the oppressed is usually a contradictory amalgam of values imbibed from their rulers, and notions which spring more directly from their practical experience. These two are dialectically opposite and give rise to friction. Explaining the reasons for their practical experience and real conditions, we should help the people in questioning the neo-liberal values and lead the fight for their genuine rights. This is the only way to realise the true potential of our youth. It will also ensure the country's march into the future with its head held high and unity intact.

Courtesy: www.pd.cpim.org
Vol. XXXIV, No. 43, October 24, 2010

BALARAMPUR - TWO CPI (M) LEADERS MURDERED BY MAMATA-MAOIST NEXUS

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BALARAMPUR - WIDOWED MOTHER OF SANTOSH MAJHI DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO LOOK AFTER THREE GRAND CHILDREN

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FIRE IN THE LIFE OF COMMON PEOPLE

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COMMONWEALTH GAMES OF UNDER-WEIGHED BABIES - INDIA WINS GOLD MEDAL

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JANGALMAHAL COMES TO NORMALCY AFTER DEPARTURE OF PERVERTED MAOIST BUTCHERS, RAPISTS AND EXTORTIONISTS

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LALGARH CELEBRATES OVER DEPARTURE OF PERVERTED MAOISTS

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PEOPLE CREATE HISTORY, NOT ARMS - BIMAN BOSE

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NORMALCY RETURNS TO LALGARH

PERVERTED MAOIST BUTCHERS MURDER TWO BROTHERS AT BALARAMPUR IN PURULIA

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WEST BENGAL IN THE ARENA OF DURGA PUJA FESTIVAL

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WEST BENGAL MEDIA AFRAID TO WRITE AGAINST MAMATA-TMC-MAOIST BUTCHERS, RAPISTS AND EXTORTIONISTS

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MAMATA BANERJEE BECOMES NERVOUS BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE RETURNING THEIR HOMES IN LALGARH/JANGALMAHAL

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LURKING THREAT TO SECULARISM - R Arun Kumar

TWENTY years back, on these same days, the BJP with its topmost leader, L K Advani took out a rath yatra that spilt blood along its trails. Recently, Advani along with Uma Bharati was back in Somnath, the place from where the yatra was started, to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Incidentally, Ayodhya Ram temple, the issue that the BJP used for undertaking the rath yatra then, is in the news again, with the court deciding on the ownership title deed. Once again, the religious fundamentalists are back to do what they do best, rattling communal rabble. The defeat of BJP in the last two successive general elections in our country, thus, should not deceive us. In spite of their defeat, they continue to occupy substantial socio-political space in our country and vouch for the interests of the ruling classes.

Religious fundamentalism is once again on the ascendancy, threatening the secular, cultural and moral fabric of many countries in the world. Terrorism, exploiting religious sentiments, is also on the rise. The socio-economic conditions of the current period are contributing to the growth of religious fundamentalism and conservatism across the world. Religious fundamentalism, tries to exploit the existing religious feelings among the people to further its sectarian ends.

Karl Marx states, “Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress”. In these times of global economic crisis and increasing burdens on the common people, it is natural for them to search for means to 'de-stress'. In this quest, they find religion as “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation”. It is in this conjuncture that Marx had stated that “it (religion) is the opium of the people”, as it provides them a temporary 'escape' from life's real, mundane existence.

Some of the research studies published in the Science magazine examine the link between economic status, psychological conditions and religion. A research paper published in February tries to link socio-economic factors to the psychological state of a person and observes, “Women with medium to high levels of financial hardship reported an increase in their feelings of anxiety and depression during the study period, while women with no financial hardship reported a decrease in their feelings of anxiety and depression over time”. Though this study is done on women, the findings might be equally true for men too. Another research published in July concludes, “Anxiety and uncertainty can cause us to become more idealistic and more radical in our religious beliefs”.

This in fact, is the experience of contemporary Russia. As the Soviet Union crumbled two decades ago, mysticism and pseudo-science began to thrive. The Russian Orthodox Church too gained in prominence and popularity. All these were linked to the dismay and confusion of the population. In Soviet Union, everyone was looked after and the state had given them a place to live for free, but after its collapse, there were a huge number of people who were abandoned and left completely helpless. They had no work, no means for existence. There exists a mood of total abandonment among many people and in such a situation, fraudsters who promise to bring the dead back to life, offer spiritual healing lessons are looked as 'soothing balm for the soul'. There are clear indications that the State has connections with these pseudo-scientists and is promoting them.

RISING RELIGIOSITY

Even in our country, we witness a growth of religiosity among the people in the past few years. According to the State of the Nation Survey conducted by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in 2007, the amount of religiosity among Indians has gone up in the last five years. Religiosity, it seems, has increased among people belonging to all the religious communities and to a larger extent, particularly, among the rich, upper caste and well educated citizens. To cater to the busy urban souls, innovative religious sites exist in the virtual world that offer e-darshan and e-pujas, apart from providing religious/spiritual guidance.

Another study, based on the 2001 census states that India has 2.5 million (25 lakhs) places of worship, many of which are built on public land. (Incidentally, we have only 1.5 million (15 lakhs) schools and 75,000 hospitals!) The Supreme Court recently castigated the state governments for failing to act against thousands of these illegally built places of worship. The governments usually turn a blind eye in many instances, where small structures are slowly converted into full scale complexes by further encroachment of public land.

Apart from these, the number of babas, gurus or god men professing various supernatural, healing powers also is on the rise. Many state functionaries and 'celebrities' often visit them to pay obeisance, further increasing their popularity. There are also separate television channels and programmes to exclusively telecast religious discourses. The print media too runs advisory columns on religious and spiritual matters. So, what we have today in India, as some commentators have stated, is a giant supermarket of religions, religious personalities and discourses where one can shop for custom made products.

The market research division of the tourism ministry in a recent report states that Andhra Pradesh emerged as the top tourist destination in the country, thanks to the temple town, Tirumala. A comparative study of the patterns of tourism in our country shows that half of the package tours are religious tours. The State which fails to contain construction of places of worship on public places, plays a pro-active role in promoting religious tourism. It even undertakes the development of religious shrines, providing and upgrading infrastructural facilities – better connectivity, resorts and other facilities – to those places. Kanipakam temple in Andhra Pradesh and the Golden Temple in Vellore – both of them within 100 kilometre radius from Tirumala are a good example.

The involvement of the State in religious affairs, which is a violation of our stated secular position, is justified in the name of promoting culture. Religion is made synonymous with culture and in our country this assumes majoritarian contours. This can be best understood when we look at the recent films – safeguarding 'our culture, traditions' observing 'our festivals' always mean Hindu culture and festivals. It is this increasing interest in religion and failure to differentiate Indian culture from Hindu religious culture that the fundamentalists are trying to exploit.

EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC CRISIS

The current global economic crisis is a severe jolt on the aspirations and lives of millions of people. The ruling classes want to come out of the economic crisis, an off-shoot of the neo-liberal policies, by further intensifying the attacks on the livelihoods of common people. The absence of job-security is as much true for a contract worker in factory, as it is for an IT professional. Middle-classes are encouraged to invest in speculative activities. In this situation, it is natural for the people to become more and more concerned about their future and worry about what happens to them and their children. This anxiety is driving them towards religion, which is being exploited by both the so-called god men and religious fundamentalists.

People are also seething with discontent against the growing income inequalities. Culture and religion, which were used to mobilise people against economic exploitation of the colonialists, are used today to divide people and deflate their anger. The limited strength and reach of Left and progressive forces in many countries, is being exploited by the right-wing conservatives and fundamentalists. The victory of right-wing political parties in many European countries, the growth of the Tea party groups in the US, moves to ban wearing veils and the expulsion of Romas in France, show us how these conservative, fundamentalist forces are using the economic crisis.

In our country, it is an established fact that fundamentalist forces use religion and religious symbols to promote their political cause. Ayodhya is only one such expression, while even as recent as during the 2009 general elections, Hindu fundamentalists used yagnas for mobilisation. Meera Nanda in her recent book, The God Market: How Globalisation is Making India More Hindu gives many more examples of the growing religiosity in our country and how religion is used for reaping political benefits.

FREE MARKETS AND FUNDAMENTALISM

Along with the usual players – the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal, Jammat-e-Ulema, etc – we see the emergence of some new fundamentalist groups during this period. One among them is the group that brings out regular publications in the name of Voice of India. Calling themselves as bhaudik kshatriyas, they are spreading rabid anti-Islam and anti-Christian feelings through their writings. They are further right to the RSS, and criticise RSS for not openly renouncing the sarva dharma samabhava philosophy (for them Islam and Christianity are not dharmic but asuric creeds). They maintain good relations with the neo-conservatives of the US, share the same anti-Islam, free market philosophy and regularly publish their writings.
Meera Nanda also writes in her book about attempts to revive the Swatantra Party and pursue its ideology. Two famous IT tycoons, Infosys Narayana Murthy and Jaithirath Rao, founder CEO of Mphasis are the chief moving force behind this idea. They are basically wedded to the neo-liberal ideology of 'minimum interference of the State for maximum freedom to the individuals' and were ready to pump enormous sums of money to start a political party. Realising that getting elected on this platform is a difficult proposition now, they have instead started various NGO's and think-tanks, to propagate their ideas and influence policy decisions in favour of free markets. In this quest, they have allied with the BJP too, until the riots in Gujarat distanced them. Despite their opposition to communalism, they are not openly taking a position against the illiberal world view. Just as the erstwhile Swatantra Party allied itself with the then Jan Sangh, they too are displaying similar indications.

These two groups, along with the Sangh Parivar, share a common view – supremacy of free markets and Hindu religion. They are different only in their intensity of pursuing right-wing politics. They commonly feed on the discontent of the people, a result of the economic policies dear to them and exploit peoples' religiosity.

Globalisation does not only mean economic exploitation, but also includes cultural homogenisation. Right-wing fanatics who do not have any problem with the economic agenda of globalisation, try to whip up peoples' opposition against its cultural attacks, using religion. This serves the purposes of ruling classes as their core – economic policy – is not attacked. Ruling classes, facing a severe challenge to their hegemony because of the economic crisis, are willing to allow the growth of right-wing fundamentalist forces rather than lose their hegemony. Fascism and Hitler are examples too hard to forget. In order to retain their hegemony, they openly promote religiosity among the people, thus feeding the right-wing fundamentalists, even though they publicly express their concern at the growth of right-wing.

Some Western sociologists have suggested that religiosity and religion would end with the growth of modern industries and true secularism would prevail – 'religion ends at the factory gate'. India is a classic example where, temples exist even 'within factory gates'. We even have the phenomenon where big industrialists either build huge temple complexes or donate liberally to renowned temples (most of them would be unwilling to increase the wages of their workers!) Some other sociologists have suggested that the increasing number of religions and their contrasting claims would make people realise their fallaciousness and disenchant them. This too proved wrong. Moreover, many eminent intellectuals and scientists openly profess their belief not only on god but also on babas!

LACUNA IN OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM

This dichotomy depicts the lacuna in our education system. The presence of fundamentalist forces in our education system and their using it as a means to promote their ideology is one-half of the story. The other half, once again, is the complacency of the State in providing scientific, democratic and secular education to all. The stress in our education system is to produce human resources to further develop the forces of production and reap super profits. All other aspects are subsumed to educate people to confirm them to the ruling class ideas. Critical enquiry is discouraged as far as possible because that leads to an understanding of the productive relations, which may ultimately pose a challenge to the existing relations and ruling class hegemony. But as Marxism teaches, after a certain extent, for any further growth of productive forces, the productive relations have to change. Culture, which includes education and religion becomes an important arena of struggle to hasten this process.

Lenin had stated, “It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society”.

Posing the question why religion is able to retain its hold on people, he answers, “Because of the ignorance of the people, replies the bourgeois progressist, the radical or the bourgeois materialist. And so: 'Down with religion and long live atheism; the dissemination of atheist views is our chief task!' The Marxist says that this is not true, that it is a superficial view, the view of narrow bourgeois uplifters. It does not explain the roots of religion profoundly enough; it explains them, not in a materialist but in an idealist way. In modern capitalist countries, these roots are mainly social. The deepest root of religion today is the socially downtrodden condition of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blind forces of capitalism, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extra-ordinary events, such as wars, earthquakes, etc. 'Fear made the gods'. Fear of the blind force of capital – blind because it cannot be foreseen by the masses of the people – a force which at every step in the life of the proletarian and small proprietor threatens to inflict, and does inflict 'sudden', 'unexpected', 'accidental' ruin, destruction, pauperism, prostitution, death from starvation – such is the root of modern religion which the materialist must bear in mind first and foremost, if he does not want to remain an infant-school materialist. No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds of masses who are crushed by capitalist hard labour, and who are at the mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until those masses themselves learn to fight this root of religion, fight the rule of capital in all its forms, in a united, organised, planned and conscious way”.

Our fight against the growth of right-wing fundamentalism should thus be a fight against that blind force of the capital, its economic policies, culture and ideology and to change the existing relations of production.

Courtesy: www.pd.cpim.org

SCHOOL TEACHER DIBAKAR MAHATO OF SHALBONI IN WEST BENGAL KILLED BY PERVERTED MAOIST BUTCHERS & RAPISTS WHO WANT MAMATA AS CM OF WEST BENGAL

MAMATA'S DANGEROUS GAME

In her eagerness to mobilise every dissenting section and use every available weapon against the Left Front government in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee is playing a dangerous game fraught with major, long-term implications for the internal security of the country. First, Monday's rally in Lalgarh was a joint Trinamool-Maoist enterprise, with the latter dominant in the mobilisation. Ms Banerjee not only called for the resumption of negotiations with the Maoists, but also pressed for withdrawal of security operations in the Jangalmahal region (though this time she set a condition: the extremists should declare a ceasefire). This is in direct opposition to the stance of the central government, which is struggling to meet the Maoist armed threat in West Bengal and other parts of the country. Although the Railways under her charge have been repeatedly targeted by the Maoists, the Trinamool chief spoke up for the Maoist front, the ‘People's Committee Against Police Atrocities,' whose members are known to take the law into their own hands. Ms Banerjee also managed to enlist the support of ‘social activists' Swami Agnivesh and Medha Patkar in this politically loaded endeavour. Both extended vocal support to the Trinamool Congress and the Maoists in the name of protecting the rights of Adivasis — speciously asking the ultra-left outfit to abjure violence and take to the democratic path. In such a situation, arms-wielding Maoists have seamlessly merged with Trinamool cadre in West Bengal, posing a serious threat to public order in the region.

Political India knows Ms Banerjee to be a law unto herself, and her politics to be irresponsible. But this cannot be a rationalisation for the United Progressive Alliance government to allow one of its important constituents and a senior Minister to publicly support, and collaborate on the ground with, armed extremism that does not have any compunction in unleashing terror against political opponents as well as civilians. The Congress, which heads the UPA, is itself mired in contradictions on this vital issue. Although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the Naxalites as the “greatest internal security threat to our country,” his party extended moral support to the rally. Not surprisingly, the issue has rocked Parliament with the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Left parties questioning the commitment of the government in tackling the Maoist violence when one of its constituents is deeply enmeshed with Naxalite groups. With Assembly elections in West Bengal due in less than a year, political opportunism has given short shrift to internal security considerations. There will be a huge price to pay if the central government continues to look the other way as Ms Banerjee pursues her akratic course for power at any cost.