Victims as voters in Tamil Nadu

THE election campaign in Tamil Nadu, which in its initial stages was highly personalised and led the rivals to rush to the Election Commission with complaints against one another almost every day, changed for the better as the date of polling drew nearer. Substantive issues of concern came to centre stage, thanks to appeals from trade bodies and non-governmental organisations to political parties to spell out their stand on various issues. Thus, problems faced by people under the neo-liberal regime - such as the agrarian crisis, the industrial downswing and the resultant loss of jobs and wage cuts - began to dominate the political discourse. The failure of the Central and State governments to protect the people from the adverse impact of their policies and to provide even basic amenities such as drinking water became the focus of the campaign - not an enviable situation for the ruling parties at the Centre and in the State, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) which are allies in this election.

Visits to the Cauvery delta encompassing the districts of Thiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Thanjavur and Tiruchi, the agrarian heartland of Tamil Nadu, and the Karur-Erode-Tiruppur-Coimbatore belt, the industrial hub of the State, would convince anyone of the havoc played on hapless people not only by three successive years of drought but also by the governments' withdrawal of several welfare measures citing financial crunch. Together, these regions account for about one-third of the 39 Lok Sabha constituencies in the State, where elections will be held on May 10.

The collapse of the cooperative and other institutional credit systems, the government's failure to support the farmers in distress through price support and procurement systems for their produce, the discontinuance of the subsidy on fertilizers and its efforts to exclude large sections of people from the public distribution system have added to the people's misery. The efforts of the farmers organisations in the delta to solve the Cauvery problem through direct talks with organisations representing Karnataka farmers are yet to make any significant progress.

During the past two years there has been a substantial fall in the area under cultivation, For instance, in Thiruvarur district, samba cultivation had to be restricted to one lakh hectares, against the normal 1.5 lakh ha. About 1.5 lakh small and marginal farmers and 2.4 lakh agricultural workers were the worst affected in the district. In Nagapattinam, the number of agricultural workers swelled to 3.17 lakhs in March 2003 from 2.68 lakhs in March 2001. The number of small and marginal farmers, holding less than 2 ha fell from 51,530 to 36,138 during the same period. Apparently this means that a large number of marginal and small farmers have joined the ranks of labour. Loss of jobs and the absence of alternative support mechanisms have driven hundreds of agricultural workers to places even outside the State for jobs. Acute scarcity of drinking water has been reported in many places. Coconut and mango cultivation has also been affected.

The agrarian crisis has had a cascading effect on other sections of the society as well. Trade in towns such as Thanjavur, Mayiladuthurai and Kumbakonam has been badly affected. Tea shops are open only in the morning hours. Fishermen complain of a fall in their business.

The Cauvery has become an election issue. Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and DMK president M. Karunanidhi accuse each other of "betraying" the State's interests on sharing of Cauvery waters with Karnataka. Mani Shankar Aiyar, who is seeking re-election from Mayiladuthurai, told Frontline that the attitude of both the Tamil Nadu and Central governments was unhelpful in resolving the issue. Jayalalithaa, he said, was only trying to politicise the problem. He said: "She (the Chief Minister) does not understand that the Cauvery problem is not an inter-party dispute but an inter-State dispute, of which cognisance has been taken by the Central government under the Central legislation termed the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956. Once such cognisance has been taken, the responsibility to solve the dispute rests with the Central government, specifically, the Prime Minister (who is also the ex-officio Chairman of the Cauvery River Authority). There are only two options available. One is to go back to the Supreme Court. The other is to change the Chairman of the Authority [the Prime Minister] by elections defeating the BJP with the purpose of putting a non-BJP party in power... Instead of working towards that end, Jayalalithaa has forged an alliance with the same Vajpayee, whom she described as a `traitor' to the farmers and farm workers of the Cauvery delta."

Dejected by the government's failure to resolve the Cauvery issue and provide relief, the delta farmers are apparently angry with the Chief Minister and her electoral ally, the BJP. The mood in the Lower Bhavani delta villages around Gobichettipalayam, Erode and Modakurichi towns, is no different. The farmers there alleged that the mismanagement of water by the AIADMK government in the Bhavani Sagar dam affected their ability to raise paddy in about one lakh ha in November and December 2003. In some villages, the agriculturists have put up posters, declaring that their vote is "not for the AIADMK", because the government run by it has "ruined" farmers' lives by not releasing Bhavani water in time.

Next to agriculture, the weaving industry is the largest employment-provider in the State. Thousands of families depending upon about 4.5 lakh powerlooms have been affected by the taxation policies of the Central government. The 10 per cent levy of Cenvat on fabrics manufactured by the powerlooms has throttled the industry in several places, such as Bhuvanagiri, Thanjavur, Kumbakonam, Salem, Erode, Chennimalai, Tiruchengode and Coimbatore. The Communist Party of India (CPI) candidate for the Coimbatore Lok Sabha seat, K. Subbarayan, said: "The powerloom and handloom sectors which have earned for the country substantial foreign exchange in the past, have fallen sick, because of the policies of the Central government. When the local industries are dying, the BJP-led government is boasting about its bulging foreign exchange reserves."

According to M. Annadurai, secretary, Erode Powerloom Owners Association, along with the rising price of cotton owing to export, the heavy excise levy on powerloom-made fabrics would ruin the industry. With thousands of powerlooms remaining crippled, the large workforce that depends on it for survival is worried about its future. In a small town called Ilampillai, about 20 km from Salem, 19-year-old R. Shanmugam is working on a powerloom set up in a small room and he is not sure about his future. Cenvat haunts him. Just 25 years ago, Ilampillai and its surroundings used to reverberate with the clatter of about 6,000 handlooms. Hardly 100 of them survive now. Powerlooms have supplanted the handlooms and now, Cenvat is threatening the existence of powerlooms.

The handloom weavers' grouse is that although the Centre had reserved 11 varieties of cloth such as dhotis, cotton by silk and silk by silk for the handloom sector, the powerloom weavers wove these textiles too and labelled them "handloom made". Besides, government support to the handloom sector in the form of rebate has practically come to nought owing to some modifications in the scheme. The situation is so bad that out of about 1,500 handloom weavers cooperative societies in Tamil Nadu only 300 are functioning now.

Equally depressing is the non-functioning of sago factories owing to poor arrivals of tapioca. In Namakkal district, 70 per cent of the thousands of poultry farms have to stop activities owing to acute water scarcity and severe competition from Andhra Pradesh. In the Nilgiris, tea planters are agitated over the fall in green leaf tea price.

The sufferings of those connected with the medium and large industrial units, which are the victims of the reforms regime, are worse. In the last five years some well-known industrial units including India Meters and Dunlop have been closed. As a result, thousands of workers have lost their jobs. The TI Group does not have half the number of workers it had on its rolls five years ago. In Ashok Leyland, 2,000 of the total 9,000 workers have quit under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS). A labour leader regretted that although Prime Minister Vajpayee announced some years ago the creation of a Rs.25,000-crore fund for the reorganisation of the textile industry, nothing had been done to revive the B&C Mills, one of the earliest composite textiles mills in the country. Once a pride of Chennai, the mill was closed in 1996.

In the Government Industrial Estate at Ambathur, believed to be the largest of its kind in Asia, the number of employees working in hundreds of ancillary units has fallen sharply from about 4 lakhs in 1996 to about one lakh now because of the closure of most of the units. Similar is the situation in other industrial estates.

The closure of the industrial units and the consequent impoverishment of thousands of workers have crippled the economy of North Chennai. A similar situation prevails in and around Coimbatore, where many textile mills, foundries and engineering units have been closed. In Salem, thousands of people have become jobless following the closure of about 10 spinning mills.

The workers of the large, profit-earning Neyveli Lignite Corporation and the Salem Steel Plant are worried that the axe of privatisation may fall on these units anytime now. The Integral Coach Factory, Chennai, is already on the path of privatisation. It is outsourcing a number of jobs and reducing staff strength either through transfers, redeployment or VRS.

Another large social group affected by the economic policies of the government is the fishing community. From competition from foreign trawlers to harassment by fish workers and policemen of neighbouring countries, or even neighbouring States, the problems they confront are many. During the fish breeding period (from April 15 to May 29) when they are banned from fishing in the sea, they are not given any relief to maintain themselves. In Pondicherry, the government provides 90 kg of rice and Rs.300 to each fish worker's family. The relief provided to fish workers in Chennai during the "rough season" is denied to women. B. Karunanidhi, general secretary, Tamil Nadu Fish Workers Unions Federation, says that the government discriminates against Indian fishermen by banning the fishing of particular varieties while allowing foreign trawlers to catch these.

Sea erosion is another major problem. About 25 villages around Pazhavanthangal are facing the threat of extinction owing to sea erosion. In Nagapattinam, scores of villages around Serugur are facing a similar threat. P. Rajendran, general secretary, Bay of Bengal Fish Workers Association, says that about 1,500 deep-sea fishing trawlers and over 3,000 fibreglass boats are engaged in fishing in the sea off Nagapattinam. Owing to the contamination of water by effluents from the shrimp farms along the Nagapattinam coast, several fish varieties could not survive in the sea up to a distance of about 70 km from the shore, according to Rajendran. This has forced fish workers to go further and sometimes cross the maritime boundaries. They get caught by Sri Lankan and LTTE boatmen and are detained for months together. This happens frequently and the government has done nothing to end this menace, says Rajendran.

With large sections of people remaining discontented and about 12 lakh government employees and teachers extremely unhappy with the government for the way in which it handled their strike in 2003, it is not surprising that the ruling combine finds itself in an unenviable situation. Communist Party of India (Marxist) central committee member T.K. Rangarajan said: "The large sections of people who have been silently suffering for the past few years, will see in the election an opportunity to vent their grievances."

Apart from the numerical strength of the Democratic Progressive Alliance - comprising the DMK, the Congress(I), the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK), the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), the CPI(M), the CPI and the Indian Union Muslim League - its cohesion is striking. Many consider this unprecedented. The candidates appreciate the "involvement" of the workers of alliance parties. In constituencies where leaders such as former State Congress(I) president E.V.K.S. Elangovan (Gobichettipalayam), former DMK Minister Subbulakshmi Jagadeesan (Tiruchengode), CPI leader K. Subbarayan (Coimbatore) and MDMK president L. Ganesan (Tiruchi) and Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar (Mayiladuthurai) the coordination among the allies is evident.

This is in contrast to the way the BJP-AIADMK alliance is functioning in many places. For instance, the BJP is left to fend for itself in constituencies such as Chidambaram. The AIADMK itself suffers from deep fissures now. Party insiders attribute this to the drastic changes Jayalalithaa effected in the leadership at different levels at the party conference held at Vandalur, near Chennai, from December 2003 to February 2004. The senior leaders who were sidelined are now said to be in a mood to work against the AIADMK candidates themselves.