People's Democracy

BALCO Nagar at Korba, Chhattisgarh, where the BALCO plant is situated, is seething with unrest. Thousands of workers, along with the local residents from all walks of life - the students, youth, women as also the rural folk from the adjoining villages, have been squatting round the BALCO plant, day and night, round the clock, since March 2, the black day when the Rs 5000 crore BALCO plant was handed over to M/s Sterlite on a platter for a mere Rs 551.5 crore. The agitation on this count has started with a massive Korba Bandh on February 26.

From the March 3, morning shift, the strike began. The BALCO Bachao Samyukta Abhiyan Samity, comprising all the trade unions functioning in BALCO, affiliated to the INTUC, AITUC, BMS, HMS, CITU and NLO, had given the call for indefinite strike in protest against the BALCO sell-out. Hundred per cent of the workers stayed away from duty. And not just sitting at home - the striking workers have been in dharna around the plant at Parasbhatta chawk, round the clock and such is the resentment that they have been joined by hundreds of people of the locality from all walks of life, with the resolve to reverse the disastrous sell-out deal.

The anti-privatisation struggle has given birth to the Nijeekaran Birodhi Samyukta Sangharsh Samity, consisting of all the political parties, viz, the Congress, CPI(M), CPI but not, of course, the BJP. The Sangharsh Samity also includes various mass organisations of students, youth, women, the Adivasi Parishad and even the local businessmen, and others. The local Chambers of Commerce have joined in the anti-privatisation struggle, as a constituent of the Sangharsh Samity, although their national forum has everyday been after the government to ensure that Sterlite gets the possession of BALCO.

The representatives of the local Chambers of Commerce are taking an active part in the dharna and rallies being held almost everyday. From a movement of the trade unions at the initial stage, the struggle against privatisation of BALCO has now turned out into people’s movement.

Almost every day mass meetings and rallies are being held at BALCO Nagar addressed by the leaders of various political parties and mass organisations, expressing their resolve to stop the BALCO sell-out at any cost.

On the morning of March 4, a massive procession of several thousands of workers and common people covered the 14 km long route from BALCO to Korba town. On the same evening, a 15,000 strong torchlight procession of women moved around the BALCO township, creating a sensation all round. The participation of thousands of women from adjoining villages in the procession speaks for the active involvement of rural folk in the anti-privatisation struggle.

On March 5, chief minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi visited BALCO Nagar and addressed a huge crowd of more than 25,000 people gathered at the Ramlila Maidan. The chief minister declared his total support to the anti-privatisation struggle at BALCO and commented :

"the BALCO deal is daylight robbery of the country’s wealth by the BJP government, and the struggle must continue till the infamous deal of the BALCO sell-out is reversed.

The meeting was also addressed by trade union leaders, the general secretary of the Chhattisgarh State CITU, Manas Kumar Nandy who called upon the workers and the people to carry on the struggle unitedly, to force the government to reverse its decision to pass BALCO into private hands.

While strike has been going on full swing, the Sangharsh Samity has sent in a team of volunteers from the striking workers, working without wages, to maintain the temperature of the smelter furnace called the ‘cell house’ to prevent the alluminium from freezing, ensuring that no collapse of the plant takes place. Thus, from the 6^th onwards, around sixty workers have been daily going to the plant to work in the ‘cell house’. Reports indicate, contrary to media propoganda and the disinvestment minister lies, that it is the Sterlite officials who have been trying to create hindrance in their work in maintaining the ‘cell house’.

Throughout Manas Nandy and the district CITU president Kameshwar Singh, have been camping at Balco Nagar. On March 6, Tapan Sen, secretary CITU, visited BALCO and addressed the massive gathering of workers at Parasbhatta Chawk to express solidarity and support on behalf of the all-India organisation, to be followed on March 8, the Vice President, Samar Mukherjee with secretary, Chhattisgarh State Committee of CPI(M) S Kumar. All the five central trade unions, viz., CITU, AITUC, HMS, INTUC and BMS , in a joint statement, have called upon the working class in Inida to organise countrywide solidarity actions in support of the BALCO workers, sending protest telegrams to the prime minister, demanding scrapping of the BALCO deal.

In the meantime, taking advantage of the Supreme Court’s intervention, the local BJP MLAs have been trying to create provocations in the area and disrupt the peaceful united strike in BALCO. From the 8^th onwards, the Sterlite officials at BALCO, along with BJP legislators and local police, moved around the township making threatening announcement of dire consequences, if the workers continued the strike, not even a single worker responded to join duty. Rather, the striking workers and the local people demonstrated before the police station protesting the disruptive and provocative activities of the BJP leaders as agents of the Sterlite management.

The struggle against BALCO sell-out has not remained limited to Korba alone but has extended much beyond. At Raipur Airport, on March 4, hundreds of youth volunteers blockaded a BALCO car, suspecting it of carrying Sterlite officials to Korba. On March 5, a rail-roko agitation paralysed the railway movement on the Bilaspur-Korba route for more than four hours. Talk is also going on with respect to a Chhattisgarh Bandh in support of the BALCO workers’ struggle. Side by side, the workers of the Asansol factory of BALCO in West Bengal have been staging continuous dharna before the plant since March 2 and foiled the conspiracy of Sterlite to shift the produced materials from the Asansol factory.

The struggle against BALCO sell-out has given a new dimension to the anti-privatisation struggle. While ministers are busy striking murky deals selling- out the national wealth for a song, and their hired economists and intellectuals are daily justifying the scandal as divinity on the TV screen and in national dailies, the workers and the mass of the people of Chhattisgarh have decided to ignore those over-fed elites of the higher echelon. They have decided to take to the path of struggle and resistance against this day-light robbery on the country’s wealth by the aristocracy in governance. And such peoples’ upsurge has created such a surcharged situation in the whole of the state of Chhattisgarh that many of those, so long supporting privatisation, have fallen in line, in opposition to the nasty deal of the BALCO sell-out.

The shameless corruption and the abnormal anxiety of the BJP government to sell out BALCO for a song has now become a scandal and the talk of the town at Korba. A plant having 2,720 acres of land, a 270 mw captive power plant, a replacement price of Rs 1,080 crore at the current market rate, with a huge stock of produced alluminium worth Rs 100 crore, besides the bauxite mines with huge reserves at Mainpat and Kawardah, and another plant at Asansol, has been sold at only Rs 551.5 crore, not even one-tenth of its real value.

Only few years back, when already the talk of selling BALCO was going on, Rs 200 crore was invested in the Korba plant to install a new cold rolling mill. Yet the same has to be handed over to Sterlite. What plunder and loot!

In this anxiety to hand over BALCO to Sterlite, the BJP government has crossed all bounds of shamelessness. The BJP leaders have gone to the extent of demanding President’s Rule in Chhattisgarh if the Sterlite is not given a free hand over BALCO. They are not bothered about the thousands of workers and their family members spending days and nights in dharna on the roadside at BALCO, because they have already sold out the workers rights too and their jobs along with the company, by agreeing to a ‘one-year protection clause’ to the workers’ present service condition. On the other hand the BJP government feels no shame in moving to Supreme Court for protection of Sterlite’s right. As per the central government’s action BALCO is now with Sterlite. Then how can the same government can plead in the Supreme Court on behalf of a private promoter? Everything is fair under liberalised policy regime--- might be the answer by the sellers’ brigade in government.

In fact, in the background of the wide-spread opposition against privatisation, the recent debate in Parliament on the BALCO sell-out has demonstrated an almost consensus situation among the polity against privatisation of profit making PSUs. And this consensus is not limited to those in opposition alone, but almost all the constituents of the ruling NDA combine, except the BJP, have also expressed opposition/reservation against the sale of a controlling stake in profit-making PSUs. In such a context, the anxiety of the disinvestment minister and his swadeshi-brand party, to escort the Sterlite safe to throne of BALCO, demonstrates their commitment not to the country’s well-being, but somewhere else.

Seeking to confuse the people in the background of this widespread opposition, the scamstar sellers brigade in government as also the interested quarters in the media are raising the point as to whether such opposition is against corruption, or against privatisation as such. They act as though corruption and privatisation in the liberalised policy regime can be separated from each other.

The fact is that giving away profit-making PSUs, or a perennial income- generating source in them for a one-time sales proceeds, is itself a corrupt proposition. It may be foolishness for fools, but definitely satanic on the part of those having sense, and also having commitment to serve not the country but somebody else. Such a tainted and economically corrupt idea cannot be made operative, corruption-free, in a fair or transparent manner. Each and every exercise of disinvestments, right from the sale of PSU shares during early Congress regime, sale of GAIL shares abroad at cheap rates, the sale of Modern Food at a throw-away price to Hindustan Lever, and the last one---the BALCO sell-out have been scam-tainted.

The same exercise is going on in respect of other PSUs, slated for fast track privatisation. According a recent press report, valuation of assets of four five-star hotels and one four-star hotel under the Hotel Corporation of India, with huge land assets and buildings, all situated in prime locations of different metropolises, have been made at around less than Rs 700 crore (The Times of India) by the agencies engaged by the government sponsored global advisor, again at less than one third of the actual value.

In this case also, the global advisor, appointed by the government is the same Jardine Fleming, which had recommended the sale of BALCO at a throw-away price.

Further, against almost all the global advisor companies (appointed by the Vajpayee government to decide on the sale of various blue-chip PSUs), viz, the Jardine Fleming, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB), ANZ Grindlays etc., investigations have been initiated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for their alleged involvement in irregular practices. In fact, "the same ANZ Grindlays, which had presided over the distress-sale of Modern Food in favour of Hindustan Lever and has now been rewarded with the contract of presiding over the sale of Indian Airlines, was found guilty in the infamous security scandal perpetuated by Harshad Mehta in 1992" (The Hindustan Times, March 7, 2001).

Maybe, involvement in irregularities has been considered as a main essential qualification for the global advisors by the government of India for presiding over PSU sell-outs. And the game is clear - to keep the PSUs for sale as much under-valued as possible, courtesy the prospective buyers in the corporate or MNC’s clan.

Thus, corruption and privatisation are the two sides of the same coin in the present liberalised policy regime and cannot be separated.

The people of Korba and Chhattisgarh have been asserting this fact of life with their resolve to reverse the scandalous BALCO deal. Korba is boiling with peoples’ anger against the robbery of the country’s precious wealth, and it points the way to all anti-privatisation struggles.