Corona virus pandemic and the countrywide lockdown declared with an aim to control the pandemic have brought upon an unprecedented crisis in the lives of the entire working people including workers, agricultural labourers. The pictures of the long march of thousands of pauperized, retrenched workers trying to return to their homes on foot have most blatantly brought this cruel truth of the lives of entire poor toiling mass to the forefront. Just as many people have lost their lives in the corona pandemic, similarly many workers also have lost their lives due to thirst and hunger or accidents during this long march. This incident is making it clear that the uncertainty and crisis which the lockdown has imposed on the lives of the workers and the poor toiling mass is in no way less than the Corona pandemic. This has also proved that whatever efforts may be taken to present any natural disaster dissociated from prevailing class exploitation, it is utterly false. In a class-divided society, any natural disaster affects the exploited classes most badly and inflicts crisis in their lives.
The fact that the governments and the administrations do not have any headache regarding the lives of the workers and the poor toiling mass is also clear from the manner this crisis has been imposed on the migrant workers. The government had no thought before imposing the lockdown regarding its effect on the migrant workers. Now when these workers are trying to return to their native villages covering hundreds of miles on foot in a desperate attempt to survive, then this government of the affluent is not concerned about their lives, they are concerned only with the probability of infection. Though when the affluent people brought this infection from abroad, the government allowed them to enter and move about without any restrictions; now the government is trying to confine the poor workers and they are being treated like beasts. The administration does not have any planning to enable these people to live as human being.
Not only these migrant workers but the entire toiling mass of the country, including all the workers are facing a severe crisis due to this lockdown. Millions of workers and toiling people have already lost their jobs due to the stoppage of all productions and almost all the production-related activities as a consequence of the lockdown. It has been made clear by the capitalists and the contractors that not only the millions of workers associated with productions in the unorganized sectors, but even the contract labourers associated with factory productions will not be paid any wages during this period. Moreover, the capitalists have declared in most of the cases that no wage will be paid to even the permanent workers employed in the private sector during this period. It is not at all surprising that the capitalists, who do not pay the rightful dues of the worker even while capitalist production is running, will now refuse to pay wages in this period. The government is also not taking any measure to compel them to pay wages; they have washed their hands off it with a perfunctory appeal to the capitalists. This also makes clear that the appeal to the employers for payment of wages is nothing but merely some consolatory words. The poor people including the workers do not have any savings due to the exploitation of the capitalists and the rural exploiters like landlords and money-lenders. So these people are facing disastrous uncertainty being jobless in present situation. They do not have any answer to the question that how they will procure the minimum means of livelihood now and in the uncertain future.
The Central Government has announced a relief package of 17 hundred billion (1 lakh 70 thousand crore) rupees. The measures announced in this package for specific relief is very less. This relief is utterly insufficient compared to the crisis which the workers and the poor people are facing after losing all the means of earnings. Even a fraction of their needs will not be fulfilled by this relief. The government ought to have taken the total responsibility of providing food, shelter and treatment to all the citizens, especially to the poor section during this disastrous period. Instead, they are trying to side-line their responsibility by taking some superficial measure without attending to the real tasks. This incident has again made it clear that the governments and the administrations are not at all concerned about the poor people in this society based on exploitation.
Till now the spread of infection of the corona virus has been confined to cities and mainly within the affluent people. But in future, if the infection of this virus spreads to the poor, lower income areas of the cities, then its consequence for them will be terrible. The areas of the cities dwelt by poor toiling people are more densely populated and more unhygienic. As there is no vaccination for this virus and as it is severely contagious, the possibility of very fast spreading of the infection in these localities is very high. It is very difficult for the poor working people even to procure the minimum means of livelihood being under extreme exploitation of the capitalists and other exploiters. In such a situation, it is beyond their capacity to avail treatment for an epidemic of this scale. The poor people have to depend almost entirely on the government medical system. They have no other choice. Everybody knows what its condition is. As it is, the condition of the government medical system is very bad. On top of that, during the last few decades of globalization, with adoption of the ‘pay and use’ principle which the governments are following, the government medical system has deteriorated further. Advanced and modern treatment can be obtained mainly in private sector which is beyond the means of the poor people. If this corona infection spreads in the country in a large scale, then it is only a matter of time to see how many poor people will die without treatment. Forget about the requisite hospital beds or the equipments for treatment, the government is even unable to conduct tests for this virus on a wide scale due to the scarcity of the test kits, which could have enabled to take more effective measures to contain this pandemic. The responsibility of the health, education of the people lies with the government; they impose tax at a high rate on the common people for this purpose also. Where does that revenue from the tax go? The government spends the money raised as tax from the common people for providing various facilities to the affluent section, for maintaining the system of police-military-bureaucracy and generally for the capitalist development which is aimed to serve the privileged, affluent section of the society. The government has gradually shirked out of the health, education sectors for the common poor people. This crisis has demonstrated how this principle of the ruling class has brought the common people to a terribly disastrous situation.
Along with the world economy, the Indian economy was going through a profound depression even prior to the lockdown due to the corona pandemic. It is clear as daylight that the pandemic and the lockdown will put the economy in much deeper crisis. The capitalist organisations who had wanted to retrench workers due to the depression are taking the advantage of this situation. It can only be apprehended that many workers and employees will lose their jobs, many small businesses will collapse when the lockdown will be withdrawn; the total picture cannot be conjectured right now. But it is for sure that it will happen in a massive scale. Secondly, the revenue of the government has decreased as the production and the sales of the country has almost ceased. Besides this, the capitalists have demanded monetary aids for themselves from the government to fight this crisis. The government has already taken some steps in this regard. They will take some more steps in the future. They will pass on the burden of this crisis of the capitalists and the government to the workers and the toiling masses through various measures including inflated rates of taxes.
The more the burden of the crisis will be imposed on the workers and the toiling masses, their conflict with the government and the capitalist class will be intensified inevitably. A campaign should be reached to the workers and the toiling masses as much as possible so that they can realize that this crisis is not a natural crisis, the origin of this crisis is the exploitation of the capitalists and the landlords. This campaign should be carried on in concurrence with the experience of their lives emphasizing the relation of this crisis with this exploitative society. At the same time, an effort should be undertaken as far as possible by the advanced sections of the working-class and the communist activists to campaign amongst them and to organise them so that the workers and the toiling masses can put up a struggle against the capitalists and the government in demand of their valid rights.
Along with this campaign, the advanced class-conscious workers should extend their helping hand and stand in support of especially the workers, poor peasants, agricultural labourer comrades within our organisation and also in the vicinity who are facing difficulties in this hard times. All the political campaigns will seem meaningless to them if the advanced class-conscious workers and communist activists cannot stand in their support in this difficult situation. But the principal task of advanced workers and communists is not to provide relief to them; the principal task is to make them aware of how this exploitative society has thrown them into this crisis and make them conscious and united to fight against the entire system.
As the scientists could not discover any vaccine for the corona virus till date, they and the rulers of various countries are propagating the idea of maintaining social distance as the only way to fight this pandemic. Actually every person is advised to keep distance with other people. It is essential to maintain necessary physical distance to prevent the possibility of the infection of corona virus. But human beings are social creatures in fact. No one can live without mutual cooperation. Capitalism generally preaches the ideology – ‘live by yourself’. As the influence of this bourgeoisie ideology is strong, the campaign for maintaining social distance can throw the relation of mutual cooperation among the people in obsolescence; selfishness and self-centredness will replace mutual cooperation. We must oppose this ideology.
This corona virus pandemic has emerged as a global crisis which started spreading from China to many countries of the world within a few months. In fact, this pandemic has come to the forefront as an assault to the entire human civilization which has to be confronted by the entire mankind in a united way. But today, the human society is divided into many capitalist nations where the capitalist classes of the respective countries are in power as the ruling classes in the leadership of a few huge imperialistic monopoly capitalist organisations. These capitalist organisations are always engaged in ferocious competition in the interest of their profits. Almost all the scientific researches are controlled by these multinational capitalist organisations and the imperialist countries. They undertake researches in those fields only which is important to these big capitalists including the imperialist capital – either this will fulfill their requirement of military munitions or it will be useful for their interest in profit. The necessities of the life and death of the workers and the toiling masses is not important. Thus the task of discovery of a vaccine for corona virus is also related with their interest for profit. It goes without saying that if all the scientists of the whole world had endeavoured to discover the vaccine through mutual cooperation without considering the interests of the capitalists, for the interest of the entire mankind, working under a centre, then the possibility of success of this endeavour would have been much greater. But it is not possible in present capitalist world. From this point of view, the assault of the corona virus is forcefully bringing the need to begin the journey to socialism by abolishing the capitalist rule.
It is also to be noted at the same time that during this pandemic, many unscientific, prejudiced activities, like drinking the urine of the cow, are going on under the patronage of Hindutva, fascist forces. Their campaign and activities against corona epidemic is part and parcel of the general campaign of unscientific thoughts by these forces. Generally all kinds of fundamentalist forces carry on such campaign of unscientific, superstitious thoughts in different ways. These unscientific thoughts are a great hindrance in perspective of taking a conscious role by the entire population to confront with the pandemic. These kind of unscientific prejudiced ideas are standing on the backward socio-economic foundation. Naturally in a backward country like ours, the question of the abolition of the remnants of the old production relations is very much important in order to advance towards socialism which is brought to the forefront by the corona pandemic.
Human beings are dependent on nature for living. They procure the means of subsistence through the action of human labour on nature. The relation between man and nature should be harmonious and mutually cooperative. Whenever man assumes an aggressive role towards nature, destroys it, then the nature also retaliates on mankind. The attack of the corona virus is also an example of this retaliation of nature against the aggressive assault of the mankind on nature. The crisis of the corona pandemic has again revealed how helpless man is in face of this retaliation of nature. This incident also showed that in the contradiction between nature and the man, nature stands in the principal position. The harmonious and mutually cooperative relation between man and nature should be revived in order to prevent these types of crisis. This task is not possible within the present capitalist system. In order to make possible, the present capitalist class should be uprooted in the first place, who are continuously conducting a dreadful destructive assault against the nature in their excessive greed for profit the consequence of which has to be borne by millions of toiling people. For this reason, the attack of the corona virus is upholding the need to advance towards socialism by abolishing the capitalist system and invoking the working class who can lead in this task to play their historical role.
Editorial Board
31st March, 2020
Comments:
No Comments for View