International Communist Current

... how does ICC sees the AGrarian labour section of INDIA ?
I mean do ICC even recognises their presence ? Becasue in my experience they are in large numbers, unorganised suffering because of CASTE system in INdia . And are living in quiet ' feudal ' rural set ups of this nation.

Agree there is huge suffering of the rural population, in India and elsewhere. Agree that their misery is linked to such hangovers from the past as the caste system. Now capitalism is destroying and undermining their ability to make even a very poor living as peasants, hence the reports of increased suicides in rural India.
The only way out is to overthrow capitalism and with it all class society and for that we need the working class (including rural proletarians) to lead the movement, to give a perspective to all the human beings who are suffering, because it is the revolutionary class.

What is your view of the agrarian sector? Do you think there is a revolutionary class?

I'm sending links to 2 articles from this site on Nandigram in India and on the food and rice crisis in the Philippines.

http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/may/food_crisis_philippines
Deals with the food crisis and particularly the rice crisis in the Philippines

http://en.internationalism.org/ci/2007/sigur-nandigram
On the Nandigram events

There is no doubt that agrarian labour are huge section of the Indian population. They are also extremely poor. As majority of agrarian labor come from 'lower castes' the economic exploitation they suffer is aggravated by social opression and humilation coming from coming from caste system.

We appreciate your putting the word feudal in quoation marks as the horrendous exploitation that exist in rural India is not really feudal. This exploitation is equally ruthless against the poor farmers, even more so in the more 'advanced' staes like Andhra, Maharashtra and Punjab. Maximum number farmers sucide are in these state.

ICC fully recognises exploiation and soical opression of the agrcicutural labourers as well as destruction of the poor farmers and see them product of capitalism.

THANKS for the replies,

Reply to the comment by ' May ' -

1stly I think it is really important to have a good deep Class and caste synthesis to understand countryside of India . I mean difference in Landlords and poor peasents and agrarian labourers, then only we can have any true authenticity to talk and discuss.

2ndly, YES ! definately rural proletariat is much more revolutionary in my experience than urban labourers who already have been poisened by these " Trade Unions " often lead by Congress or OUR CPI and CPMs !. ALSO the question is what are the parameters which can proove which section of proletariat is more revolutionary than other ?

.... I think it is their living standarad, level of their earnings and other basic amanities like Medical facilities, education to their children. Ofcourse Indian Proletariat no matter Rural or Urban has worst living conditions yet difference is there in agrarian wage earner and industrial wage earner. For example, why to go far, even in villages their are ' Brick klin ' labourers ( and brick klinn is understood to be an industrial unit), they are usually little well off than a pure agrarian labourer. And for those poor people even this difference is great !

TO the Reply of Jujhar, : WHY did I used word " Feudal " ?
Right I absolutely Agree India is not really Feudal. And some people use the term semi-feudal, BUT I am of the opinion that may be not even semi feudal, YET feudal elemnts do exist in great terms. I shall write some factors which points towards the existence of feudalism to a good extent in Indian countryside :-

1. Existence of institution of ' bonded labour 'in rural
countryside ! Traditionally a person was bonded when he
would work whole season on landlord's land and in the
end he would be payed in kind, i.e some of the share
of the crop which has been produced wholly through the labour of that worker. THIS is outfashioned these days. NOW a days the landlord would not pay in kind , but in CASH, but ofcourse ' MODE of PAYMENT ' still will be Feudal !.. there usualy is contract with worker of around 12000 rupees for a year . where usually his per day's wage will be around 70 or 80 rs. for 365 dayz.

2. Their during the contract it is very very common that worker do take some money on loan. and that LOAN is usually from their ' master ' because obviously they do not have anything as security to give to banks and take loan. THEN these local Loan givers or comssion agents in case of small peasentry, do apply intrest atleast 4 or even 5 times ! .... hehehe vicious circle. here small peasent is bounded and forced to give land hence -SUCIEDES and our agrarian worker keeps on lingering and he and his wife and even children are forced to work on fileds or on cows and bufflows or household works in lieu of interest and rate of such work is never fixed. This is bonded labour. No wonder why rural children do not attend school.Then serious caste problems is different matter.

....their is much much more on feudal debate. I shall make u clear that this is not the scenario only of Bihar or jharkhand or Rajasthan But of the so called prosprous states like PUNJAB or Harayana or Mahrashtra !

Yes I agree to a great great deal Indian Agriculture has develloped into a capitalist one. LAbour is hired on contract and my above words may reflect tht I am ignoring this fact but it is not so. And also this devellopment of productive forces has already started shaking the existence of older or feudal production relations and to much extent it has. But let us see this also that in fields where combines have taken place of sickles and trolleys of shovel, in this rural scene either their is employement only for 10-12 dayz or agrarian worker is sitting on landlords tractor for a year and bonded under his father's loans or his own, This is feudalism .

LASTLY I would like you to correct me, specially in knowing how much capitalism has develloped in INDIAN Rural side and ACTUALLY what ACTUALLY what are the PARAMETERS with which we can say that a country is CAPITALIST or feudal or semi-feudal.

And yes, take out of your mind that the above scenario I described exist in few areas and are negligible, no this condition exists in great number.

Hi Anon,
You have recounted important facets of the situation in India.
There is severe weight of castes and agrarian workers, majority of whom come from lower caste, face brutal exploitation everyday. The conflict between castes exists even in the most ‘advanced’ states. The recent riots by ‘majabhi’ Sikhs in Punjab were expression of anger against the Jat Sikhs.
Anon, you are right; there is much bigger poverty in the villages than among urban working class. There is bonded labour too and indeed it is more than negligible. And then there have been epidemics of suicides by farmers.
So you pose the question “what are the PARAMETERS with which we can say that a country is CAPITALIST or feudal or semi-feudal”.
I have one curiosity – why you are starting with the country? Why not with villages or districts or tribal areas some of which had remnants of primitive communism till a few decades ago? Possibly this is too simplistic? Or possibly you think that nature of dominant ‘social system’ in a country will determine the nature of social system in this or that of its village, even if some group of village with tribal populations have some remnants of ‘primitive society’.
Or why not start with the system that is dominant at global scale today? In my view this will be a better approach. To ask what is the system dominant at the global scale, a system that compels everything else to submit to it, to become only an adjunct to it, only to produce for it, and to fulfill its interests? We can say that we are living under a decadent capitalist systems which is decadent not only in America but everywhere else where the relations ships of capital exist, they are decadent and rotten every where.
May be we shall look at India. Who owns the levers of power in India? Those who owns the land? Or those who owns the capital? Whose interests guide all the actions of the state? Those of some petty ‘feudal lords’ [although the things you recount are not negligible there are no vast ‘feudal lord’ anywhere in India] or those of the capitalist class who can buy and sell Prime Ministers? You just have to pose the question to get the answer. The state in India is just an instrument of the bourgeoisie and this bourgeoisie is as decadent, as reactionary, and as bloodthirsty as the American bourgeoisie. There are non-negligible remnants of pre-capitalist societies, but everything that exists, despite the massive chaos that exist in India, submits to the interest of capitalist system.
In fact one phenomenon you mention, the suicide by the farmers, is a particularly ruthless expression of the domination of capitalist relations. There are possibly farmers’ suicides in remote districts of Orissa too where ‘feudal’ elements are the strongest, but farmers suicides on mass scale exist only in the most advanced states. In the these states, domination of capital in agriculture is the strongest. A farmer must invest huge amounts in tractors, tube wells, fertilizers and seeds if he is to carry on farming but his profits are not such that he can return the loans. So what do he do? Many runs away to the slums in the cities and lives a miserable existence often as lumpen proletarians. In Bhatinda district in Punjab there are villages where everybody wants to sell off land and run away. A small minority commits suicide although this ‘small minority’ also runs into tens of thousands. Let us be honest, a vast tragedy is being played out in the villages in India. In next couple of decades, if working class does not destroy capitalism, inexorable march of capital will destroy peasantry, through suicides, through dispossessions or by just staying put in the villages and leading an impoverished miserable existence.
It is good to note your interest in ‘revolution.’ Hopefully revolution you are interested in is workers revolution.

Ok. India is capitalist and imperialist. But where you see workers fighting in India? I suspect city worker in india never can destroy capitalism. people fight in village.

Pe, I think your views about the Indian wrking class are based on a lack of knowledge of the history of the working class struggles in India...

Second your view of indian society and of indian working class really not in sync.

You say that indian is capitlist but working class cannot destory it. Who then can destroy capitalism - the people in the village? What is the basis of these views? It will be interesting to hear your arguments,

This fetishism of peasants fighting capitalism in villages and forests is indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding of history and how capitalism works. In the capitalist epoch, the peasantry are residues of an outmoded form of production: feudalism. They cannot coherently organize on an internationalist revolutionary scale. Even if a "peasants" revolution takes place, what will they do about the industries and other large capitalist enterprises in the cities, which are the future of India and the world? The working class is the only revolutionary class that can liberate humanity from capitalism and bring about socialism. In fact, the Maoist gangsters only use peasants to set up brutal anti-worker state capitalist regimes. This is something all communists need to firmly oppose.