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2. The Telugu People’s Struggle for Land and Dreams
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 09-2024
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier catalogues the immense cultural production of the Telangana armed struggle in India and how it inspired the people to participate in cycles of protest against colonialism, monarchy, and landlordism, building on the idea that art and culture are both produced by the class struggle and, in turn, produce the class struggle. In a society that was prevented from being fully literate, storytelling and songs played a key role in building confidence and organisation.
- Topic:
- Social Movement, Protests, Land Rights, and Telugu
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
3. The Condition of the Indian Working Class
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 05-2023
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier offers a broad analysis of the living and working conditions of India’s large and diverse working class.
- Topic:
- Reform, Labor Market, and Working Class
- Political Geography:
- India and South America
4. The People’s Steel Plant and the Fight Against Privatisation in Visakhapatnam
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 08-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- When the storm of neoliberalism swept across India three decades ago, the country’s public sector industry was the first to take a frontal hit. For those that unleashed the storm – an alliance of international capital and Indian big capital – state-owned enterprises represented a succulent buffet of assets and resources to be gobbled up. There were hundreds of public sector enterprises that could be privatised in order to feed the asset-hunger of big capital; these included ports, shipping and ship-building industries, airports, airlines, railways, oil and gas extraction industries, petrochemical refineries, the telecommunication network, the nationwide railway network, enterprises that manufacture heavy machinery and electrical equipment, hotels, power generation and distribution, large insurance companies, the huge network of public sector banks, and, last but not least, steel plants. During these thirty years of neoliberalism, the Indian state, at the behest of big capital, has run a persistent and pernicious offensive to undermine public sector enterprises. However, this offensive has not been as smooth-sailing or as fruitful as the neoliberal camp has wished, as the unionised working class has fought tooth and nail against every move towards privatisation, be it big or small, with much more success than failure. Though the Indian government has privatised or shut down scores of public sector enterprises, many more units – particularly the largest of them, such as the public sector steel plants – remain in the public sector as a result of workers’ resistance. This struggle between the Indian working class and big capital, mediated through the Indian state, makes for an instructive tale of the fight against neoliberalism – a fight whose successes are seldom spoken about. The story of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant is an important example of this unyielding struggle. Located on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in the port city of Visakhapatnam in India’s south-eastern Andhra Pradesh state, Visakha Steel, as the plant is affectionately called by the people of the state, or Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), as it is officially christened by the Indian government, holds pride of place in the state’s industrial landscape. The birth story of Visakha Steel is itself an illustration of the public sector industry’s deep roots in Indian society and the reasons for its continued survival. This unique steel plant, which was born of the will of the people in 1982, has survived multiple attempts to privatise it and has thrived in the face of many challenges. Based on the political and economic situation at different points in time, governments have tried various routes to privatise the plant: when the plant is vulnerable, they try to push disinvestment, the privatisation of individual departments, and the sale of assets; when the plant is going strong, their methods include diverting resources, policy sabotage, denying permissions, and delaying vital business decisions. All such attempts have been successfully beaten back by the plant’s workers alongside allied movements and people in the region who fought for the steel plant.
- Topic:
- Privatization, Neoliberalism, and Capital
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
5. Activist Research: How the All India Democratic Women’s Association Builds Knowledge to Change the World: An Interview with R. Chandra
- Author:
- R. Chandra and Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 11-2022
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- Beginning in the 1960s, Tamil Nadu, a southern state in India with a population of 73 million, experienced an agrarian transformation. This process, brought on by the introduction of new technologies into farming, gave rise to new contradictions while at the same time sharpening the old ones in village society and had a marked impact on the politics of the entire state. During this period, these contradictions manifested in numerous incidents of organised atrocities against oppressed castes as well increased violence against women. In this context, a group of women activists in the communist movement in Tamil Nadu formed an organisation called Jananaayaga Madhar Sangam (‘Democratic Women’s Association’) in 1973 to address the specific nature of women’s exploitation and oppression. Eight years later, in 1981, Madhar Sangam joined a group of other left-wing women’s organisations from different Indian states to establish the All India Democratic Women’s Association (AIDWA). Leading a range of struggles to mobilise a broad section of women against gender and caste oppression and against class exploitation, AIDWA built a strong organisation that now has over 11 million members. One of AIDWA’s organisational strategies is ‘intersectoral organising’, which focuses campaigns on the specific issues of different sections of women (such as oppressed caste women or Muslim women) and then mobilises its members as well as other mass organisations into these campaigns.1 These struggles are not distinct from each other; together, they are united in building power for women’s emancipation. Such a multi-layered approach demands a continuously evolving understanding of realities on the ground and of the situation of women in all the complex intersections of society (such as caste hierarchies and religious differences). Regular and rigorous grassroots research by AIDWA has become a necessity to grasp these complexities and to better prepare AIDWA for its campaigns. In the 1990s, India’s neoliberal turn wreaked havoc among the working class and peasantry. Hunger and precariousness heightened social tensions along the hierarchies of caste, gender, and social identity (including religion). Surveys by AIDWA in this period revealed new fault lines in both the countryside and in cities. One of the leaders of AIDWA in Tamil Nadu, R. Chandra, developed many of the organisation’s surveys that looked at changes in the agrarian economy, at caste oppression, and at the specific impact of the rightward drift of Indian politics on Muslim women. During the years these surveys were carried out, R. Chandra served as a state committee member and joint secretary of AIDWA in Tamil Nadu as well as the district president of AIDWA in Tiruchirappalli. Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research spoke to R. Chandra about AIDWA’s surveys in particular and activist research in general.
- Topic:
- Communism, Social Movement, Women, Interview, and Activism
- Political Geography:
- South Asia and India
6. Kanak Mukherjee (1921-2005): Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 03-2021
- Content Type:
- Research Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- The twentieth century was marked by national liberation struggles that emerged in Africa and Asia, as well as in Latin America where neo-colonial structures had subordinated the formally independent countries. The achievements of the Russian Revolution in 1917 inspired the peasantry and the working class across the Global South. The fight for equality and liberation under the leadership of working people are ongoing in the anti-imperialist struggles of our time. Women, in a myriad of ways, powerfully shaped and continue to shape all of these struggles. In the Women of Struggle, Women in Struggle series of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we will present the stories of women in struggle who contributed not only to the wider arena of politics, but who also pioneered the establishment of women’s organisations, opening up paths of feminist resistance and struggle throughout the twentieth century. Praxis, as a knowledge of theory and of organisational methods of struggle as they change and respond to history, gives sustenance to ongoing struggles to face oppression. As militants, we study the diverse organisational methods of these women not only to better understand their political contributions, but also to inspire us as we build the organisations necessary for our fight against oppression and exploitation today. In this second study, we discuss the life and legacy of Kanak Mukherjee, a fighter for the people and people’s struggles who was born in undivided Bengal, India, in 1921. The rich trajectory of her activism teaches us about the history of women organising in local, national, and international struggles that linked women’s rights to anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist struggles throughout the twentieth century. In Mukherjee’s own words: ‘We cannot see the question of women’s rights in isolation. The roots of women’s subjugation and the discriminations against them lie in class exploitation’.
- Topic:
- Education, Imperialism, Colonialism, Feminism, Biography, and Gender
- Political Geography:
- India and Asia
7. Indian Women on an Arduous Road to Equality
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 10-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- Despite the constraints that their socioeconomic conditions impose on them time and again, Indian women have found their collective voice to fight for their rights. A vibrant women’s movement in various parts of India has fought against the apathy of the state towards the condition of women, attaining big and small victories in asserting the constitutional rights of women as citizens and workers.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Women, Feminism, Social Order, Socioeconomics, and Mobilization
- Political Geography:
- India and Asia
8. The Farmers’ Revolt in India
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 06-2021
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- Despite India’s achievement of a certain level of self-sufficiency in food production over the decades, the chronic agrarian crisis, often manifested in the suicides of farmers, persists. This dossier traces the causes of this crisis, which go back to the days of British colonial rule and to the choices made by the Indian state at various points since independence.
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Food, Food Security, Colonialism, and Farming
- Political Geography:
- India and Asia
9. CoronaShock and Socialism
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 02-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- In late December 2019, the Wuhan Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in central China’s Hubei Province detected cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. In the first few days of January 2020, Chinese authorities were regularly informing the World Health Organisation (WHO) as well as other major countries and regions with close ties to China’s mainland, such as Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan about the outbreak. On 5 January, the WHO released its first briefing on a ‘pneumonia of unknown cause’ in Wuhan. Little was known about the virus, neither how to properly understand it nor whether transmission could occur between humans. The genome sequence for the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was published by the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) on 12 January. Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese pulmonologist who is advising the Chinese government on this pandemic, confirmed human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus on 20 January. As soon as it was clear that this virus could be transmitted between humans, the Chinese authorities acted. Wuhan, a city of 11 million people, was shut down, the scientific establishment in China – and its collaborators around the world – went to work to understand the virus and the disease (COVID-19), and medical personnel in China rushed to be trained and to help break the chain of the infection. Inside Wuhan, the neighbourhood committees, which include members of a range of other associations, Communist Party cadres, and volunteers of all kinds, hastened to assist with temperature checks, food and medicine distribution, and assistance in hospitals. After ten weeks in lockdown, Wuhan opened once more on 8 April. On 15 May, the authorities started to test all the residents of Wuhan once again in order to protect public health and to resume social and economic activities (China shared the results of this test to aid with studies on the feasibility of the herd immunity theory). On 30 January, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared that the outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). From its Geneva headquarters, the WHO sent up a flare which effectively read: a highly contagious virus has been detected that requires stringent measures of tests, physical distance, and aggressive sanitation. At this point, in the aftermath of 20 January, a gulf opened between the capitalist states and the socialist states. Our analysis shows four main areas of differentiation between the socialist and capitalist approach to the virus. The socialist approach is based on: Science-based government action Public sector production of essential materials Public action mobilised to facilitate social life Internationalism In the capitalist states (such as the United States, Brazil, and India), the governments have instead operated in a hallucinatory manner, pretending that the virus is either not real or not contagious and hoping that some extraneous factor would protect their citizens from its dangers. For-profit sector firms have failed to provide the necessary equipment, while public action has been hard to galvanise in atomised societies that lack the habit of organisation and struggle. Finally, to cover up their incompetence, the ruling political class in these states has resorted to stigmatisation and jingoism, using – in this case – the lethal combination of racism and anti-communism to blame China. In this report, we look at three countries (Cuba, Venezuela, and Vietnam) as well as one state (Kerala, India) to investigate how these socialist parts of the world have been able to handle the virus more effectively.
- Topic:
- Governance, Capitalism, Pandemic, COVID-19, and Socialism
- Political Geography:
- India, Asia, Brazil, Vietnam, South America, Cuba, Caribbean, Venezuela, North America, and United States of America
10. One Hundred Years of the Communist Movement in India
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 09-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- Dossier no. 32 provides a brief introduction to the history of the communist movement in India, which turns one hundred years old on 17 October 2020. Founded by a handful of Indian freedom fighters who were inspired by the October Revolution, the Indian communist movement has a history of glorious struggles and significant achievements. The communists in India have tirelessly worked to advance the rights of the working people, and to demonstrate the possibility of a future without the exploitation of human beings by human beings.
- Topic:
- Communism, Social Movement, Radicalization, and Activim
- Political Geography:
- India and Asia