Peasant in penury: Singur A Faint Echo Of China
Dipak Basu
The Statesman, 30 December
Developments in Singur reflect a growing tendency of the government to force people to give up their land and houses for the private sector without paying proper compensation. They also reflect similar incidents in China. As India is trying to emulate China, the adverse effects of that country’s repressive policies towards farmers are also palpable here.
China’s booming economy is matched with considerable strife especially in the countryside. The minister of public security has acknowledged that 2005 witnessed 87,000 incidents of unrest, registering a 6.5 per cent increase from 2004. As many as 20 villagers were killed by the police in 1993 when they protested against the government’s seizure of farmland for a power plant. Peasants in Dongzhou blocked the access to the power plant last December.
Poor compensation
Land seized from peasants for the development of new industries and infrastructure reduces their minimal subsistence base, leaving them with what is called two-mouth lands that won’t feed a family of five. This has forced members of many households to join China’s 200 million migrants in search of work across the country. Peasants are losing their land to roads, power plants, dams, factories, waste dumps, and housing projects. Compensation for acquisition is minimal. It doesn’t compensate for the land lost by a rural society without social security, which was abolished in the drive towards capitalism. The state has lost much of its legitimacy. Another aspect of rural unrest stems from environmental pollution. China’s phenomenal growth has been achieved through the destruction of the rural resource base.
An important court case in China gives an example of the people’s struggle against an oppressive state. Yao Fuxin and XiaoYunliang, who were arrested recently in the city of Liaoyang, played a leading role in organising workers of China’s collapsing state-run industries. Protesting against unpaid and missing wages, official corruption, and factory closures, more than 50,000 former workers from 20 state-run industries took to the streets of Liaoyang. Among them were workers from the Ferroalloy Factory, where Yao and Xiao had been waging a four-year campaign for a living wage and against corruption.
Yao and Xiao were arrested. A charge of subversion has been filed against them by the Liaoyang Intermediate Peoples’ Court. If convicted, they face the penalty of death. Levelling a seriouis charge is China’s way of scuttling the labour movement.
The tragedy in China’s countryside signifies that the Beijing bureaucracy has nothing to do with socialism. Over the last two decades, the regime has been rapidly removing any constraints on the capitalist market and the inflow of foreign investment ~ a process that has widened the social divide and reintroduced the most brutal forms of exploitation. The bureaucracy and its associated capitalist entrepreneurs have made huge fortunes and can afford the best of education for their children. But public education for the vast majority has been badly eroded and the lack of funding has forced many schools to send out their students as cheap labour.
The Chinese government once claimed to provide nine years of free education to all children. Since the early 1990s, however, Beijing has ended that guarantee and made provincial governments responsible for funding schools in the rural areas where the bulk of the population still live. The national government’s education budget is overwhelmingly used for the wealthier urban areas and especially for higher education. Over one-third of national education funding is allocated to colleges and universities, which are attended by just 0.5 per cent of the population.
China will spend just 2.4 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product on education this year or 21.9 billion Yuan ($2.6 billion) ~ one of the lowest levels in Asia. By comparison, the average spending on education in so-called developing countries is 4.1 per cent of GDP, and 5.3 per cent in developed countries. Huge profits are generated through cheap child labour. The kids have to carry out tasks that are at once dirty and dangerous. Schools in China breed pigs, maintain farms, operate market stalls, sew, clean, or, in at least one area, assemble fireworks. The bulk of the profits do not flow to the students, parents or even the schools but to the various local officials and entrepreneurs involved.
The police crackdown on the Falun Gong sect has underscored the extreme nervousness of the Chinese bureaucracy confronted with deepening economic and social problems to any form of protest or opposition. The police are still pursuing the leaders of the peasant movement in January 2006 in the Daolin township of Hunan province. Up to 10,000 peasants took part in the protest.
The break-up of the collective farms in the early 1980s, and the restoration of market relations and de facto private ownership of land in the rural areas has resulted in an enormous growth in social inequality. A thin social layer generally connected with the government and ruling party bureaucracy has been able to enrich itself by gaining control of large tracts of land or the contracts to operate business.
At the same time, millions struggle to survive on plots of land. They are barely able to sustain a family. A large number of peasants have been reduced to hired agricultural labourers working for the new landowning class, or have been forced to take up employment in rapidly expanding rural firms. Indeed, there has been a mass internal migration from the countryside to the large industrial cities.
The ability of peasant families to supplement farm income has been undermined by a sharp decline in new investment in rural enterprises, layoffs and shutdown. The option of migrating to the cities no longer exists given the record level of urban unemployment. Up to 15 million rural immigrants have returned to their villages and towns of origin. According to one estimate, there will soon be 200 million “surplus labourers” in China’s rural areas ~ an effective unemployment rate of 25-30 per cent.
Guiding principle
The process of industrialisation demands the conversion of farmland into industrial work places. However, in the developed countries there exist strict environmental laws relating to conversion of land and location of industries. The guiding principle is that Nature is a capital asset and ought to be regarded as such. Both China and India are ignoring the fact that destruction of Nature can cause environmental disasters.
In Japan, for example, farmers are entitled to receive at least double the current price of their lands plus a house or apartment in addition to a job in the new establishment or a very generous pension to compensate for their loss of assets, income and accommodation. In the former socialist countries like the Soviet Union, farmers would either retain their houses or would get new houses in different areas. They could work in the new industry or be transferred to another agricultural farm without loss of income or entitlements.
Only in a seemingly fascist state like China did the state force the farmers to vacate the land without proper compensation in order to promote private capitalists from Taiwan or Hong Kong. India is following the fascist regime of China. The incidents in Singur, Narmada Valley and Orissa are testament to this inhuman policy.
The author is Professor in International Economics, Nagasaki University, Japan
The Statesman, 30 December
Developments in Singur reflect a growing tendency of the government to force people to give up their land and houses for the private sector without paying proper compensation. They also reflect similar incidents in China. As India is trying to emulate China, the adverse effects of that country’s repressive policies towards farmers are also palpable here.
China’s booming economy is matched with considerable strife especially in the countryside. The minister of public security has acknowledged that 2005 witnessed 87,000 incidents of unrest, registering a 6.5 per cent increase from 2004. As many as 20 villagers were killed by the police in 1993 when they protested against the government’s seizure of farmland for a power plant. Peasants in Dongzhou blocked the access to the power plant last December.
Poor compensation
Land seized from peasants for the development of new industries and infrastructure reduces their minimal subsistence base, leaving them with what is called two-mouth lands that won’t feed a family of five. This has forced members of many households to join China’s 200 million migrants in search of work across the country. Peasants are losing their land to roads, power plants, dams, factories, waste dumps, and housing projects. Compensation for acquisition is minimal. It doesn’t compensate for the land lost by a rural society without social security, which was abolished in the drive towards capitalism. The state has lost much of its legitimacy. Another aspect of rural unrest stems from environmental pollution. China’s phenomenal growth has been achieved through the destruction of the rural resource base.
An important court case in China gives an example of the people’s struggle against an oppressive state. Yao Fuxin and XiaoYunliang, who were arrested recently in the city of Liaoyang, played a leading role in organising workers of China’s collapsing state-run industries. Protesting against unpaid and missing wages, official corruption, and factory closures, more than 50,000 former workers from 20 state-run industries took to the streets of Liaoyang. Among them were workers from the Ferroalloy Factory, where Yao and Xiao had been waging a four-year campaign for a living wage and against corruption.
Yao and Xiao were arrested. A charge of subversion has been filed against them by the Liaoyang Intermediate Peoples’ Court. If convicted, they face the penalty of death. Levelling a seriouis charge is China’s way of scuttling the labour movement.
The tragedy in China’s countryside signifies that the Beijing bureaucracy has nothing to do with socialism. Over the last two decades, the regime has been rapidly removing any constraints on the capitalist market and the inflow of foreign investment ~ a process that has widened the social divide and reintroduced the most brutal forms of exploitation. The bureaucracy and its associated capitalist entrepreneurs have made huge fortunes and can afford the best of education for their children. But public education for the vast majority has been badly eroded and the lack of funding has forced many schools to send out their students as cheap labour.
The Chinese government once claimed to provide nine years of free education to all children. Since the early 1990s, however, Beijing has ended that guarantee and made provincial governments responsible for funding schools in the rural areas where the bulk of the population still live. The national government’s education budget is overwhelmingly used for the wealthier urban areas and especially for higher education. Over one-third of national education funding is allocated to colleges and universities, which are attended by just 0.5 per cent of the population.
China will spend just 2.4 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product on education this year or 21.9 billion Yuan ($2.6 billion) ~ one of the lowest levels in Asia. By comparison, the average spending on education in so-called developing countries is 4.1 per cent of GDP, and 5.3 per cent in developed countries. Huge profits are generated through cheap child labour. The kids have to carry out tasks that are at once dirty and dangerous. Schools in China breed pigs, maintain farms, operate market stalls, sew, clean, or, in at least one area, assemble fireworks. The bulk of the profits do not flow to the students, parents or even the schools but to the various local officials and entrepreneurs involved.
The police crackdown on the Falun Gong sect has underscored the extreme nervousness of the Chinese bureaucracy confronted with deepening economic and social problems to any form of protest or opposition. The police are still pursuing the leaders of the peasant movement in January 2006 in the Daolin township of Hunan province. Up to 10,000 peasants took part in the protest.
The break-up of the collective farms in the early 1980s, and the restoration of market relations and de facto private ownership of land in the rural areas has resulted in an enormous growth in social inequality. A thin social layer generally connected with the government and ruling party bureaucracy has been able to enrich itself by gaining control of large tracts of land or the contracts to operate business.
At the same time, millions struggle to survive on plots of land. They are barely able to sustain a family. A large number of peasants have been reduced to hired agricultural labourers working for the new landowning class, or have been forced to take up employment in rapidly expanding rural firms. Indeed, there has been a mass internal migration from the countryside to the large industrial cities.
The ability of peasant families to supplement farm income has been undermined by a sharp decline in new investment in rural enterprises, layoffs and shutdown. The option of migrating to the cities no longer exists given the record level of urban unemployment. Up to 15 million rural immigrants have returned to their villages and towns of origin. According to one estimate, there will soon be 200 million “surplus labourers” in China’s rural areas ~ an effective unemployment rate of 25-30 per cent.
Guiding principle
The process of industrialisation demands the conversion of farmland into industrial work places. However, in the developed countries there exist strict environmental laws relating to conversion of land and location of industries. The guiding principle is that Nature is a capital asset and ought to be regarded as such. Both China and India are ignoring the fact that destruction of Nature can cause environmental disasters.
In Japan, for example, farmers are entitled to receive at least double the current price of their lands plus a house or apartment in addition to a job in the new establishment or a very generous pension to compensate for their loss of assets, income and accommodation. In the former socialist countries like the Soviet Union, farmers would either retain their houses or would get new houses in different areas. They could work in the new industry or be transferred to another agricultural farm without loss of income or entitlements.
Only in a seemingly fascist state like China did the state force the farmers to vacate the land without proper compensation in order to promote private capitalists from Taiwan or Hong Kong. India is following the fascist regime of China. The incidents in Singur, Narmada Valley and Orissa are testament to this inhuman policy.
The author is Professor in International Economics, Nagasaki University, Japan
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