People's Democracy

Mumbai Witnesses 10,000-Strong SFI-DYFI Rally

Ramesh Thakur

HAILING from 23 districts of Maharashtra, nearly 10,000 students and youth recently converged in the state capital Mumbai and held a large rally, condemning the central and state government policies as regards education and employment. The rally was jointly organised by the SFI and DYFI state committees, and was preceded by a month-long statewide campaign, which included several district conventions of students and youth, college-gate and area meetings, postering, handbill distribution, wall-writing campaigns and press conferences. Such a statewide SFI-DYFI rally was held after six years; the last such rally was held in 1995.

CRISIS IN EDUCATION

AND EMPLOYMENT

The rally was being held in the background of a deep and growing crisis in the spheres of employment and education in Maharashtra.

According to the Maharashtra government’s Economic Survey for 2000-2001, the number of registered unemployed in the state has crossed 43,49,000. If the figure for unregistered unemployed is calculated as per the National Sample Survey estimates, it will come to 1 crore 54 lakh. This means that the total quantum of unemployment in Maharashtra is in the region of two crore today!

The onslaught of the LPG policies of the central and state governments has had a disastrous impact in these spheres. For instance, while the number of factories in Maharashtra increased by 1,010 during 1996-99, factory employment in the same period declined by 47,000. In the year 1999-2000 alone, employment in the public and private sectors declined by 50,000. There are nearly 20,000 closed or sick factories in the state, and their number is constantly growing. Retrenchment, layoffs, closures and so-called "voluntary retirement scheme" are the order of the day. The ban on government recruitment has been in force for long, and now efforts are being made to downsize the government and semi-government employees by nearly two per cent in each department.

In the rural sector, efforts are on since long to dismantle the Employment Guarantee Scheme (EGS). While there were 9,814 works under the EGS in 1998-99, the figure came down to 6,879 in 1999-2000. Compared to the amount spent on EGS in 1999, Rs 5192 crore less was spent in 2000.

The so-called self-employment schemes for rural youth, advertised by both central and state governments, have proved a farce. No efforts have been made to distribute government lands, forest lands and grazing lands to the landless. Rising input costs and falling crop prices have hit the peasantry hard. The removal of quantitative restrictions on agricultural imports has led to massive rural indebtedness, peasant suicides, alienation of land and hence unemployment.

In the face of this situation, recently came the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh's thoroughly insensitive remark that "the government is not an institution for providing employment." While announcing its new employment and self-employment policy, the first thing the state government did was to stop even the paltry unemployment allowance that was being given to graduates and matriculates!

The situation is no different in the sphere of education. In 1983, the then Congress state government began the privatisation of education in an organised manner by starting the pernicious system of "non-grant" educational institutions. The latter were denied state grant-in-aid but were allowed to charge exorbitant donations and capitation fees. The SS-BJP regime further extended its ambit. The system has proliferated to massive proportions and is now making higher education a monopoly of the rich.

Then there are the constant rounds of fee hikes for both school and college education, as a corollary of the declining state expenditure on education. Towards the same end, the DF regime last year started the contract system for the appointment of primary and secondary teachers, with the new recruits getting a pittance of Rs 3,000 per month, with no prospects of assured permanent employment. Technical, engineering, medical and university education is facing a host of serious problems.

MAJOR DEMANDS

OF THE RALLY

Taking account of this deep crisis, the SFI-DYFI rally made the following main demands centering around employment and education.

About employment, the rally demanded: lifting of the ban on government recruitment; rescinding the move to downsize the workforce; filling of all vacancies of teachers at all levels; an end to the contract system in the appointment of teachers; restoration of the unemployment allowance to graduates and matriculates; absorption of part-time employees into government service on a priority basis; filling up the SC/ST backlog in government posts; expansion of the EGS with greater outlay; and so on.

About education, the rally demanded: reversing the policy of cutting down the subsidy on education; withdrawal of the "non-grant" system in education; reversal of the policy on autonomous colleges; waiving of fees for students in drought-affected areas; solution to the burning problems of SC/ST students living in government-run social welfare hostels; withdrawal of all fee-hikes; stringent action against those responsible for the mess in medical and engineering college admissions this year; etc.

Apart from these specific demands, the rally also highlighted four other fundamental issues, viz reversal of the LPG economic policies that have led to the present crisis in education and employment; opposition to the saffronisation of education that is being pursued by the BJP-led central government; an end to corruption in education, employment and all other spheres; and, finally, the inclusion of the right to education and employment as a fundamental right in the country's constitution.

RALLY

PROCEEDINGS

As a prelude to the rally that was held at the Azad Maidan, a 200-strong SFI-DYFI jatha on foot began from the Kamgar Maidan at Parel in central Mumbai by garlanding the statue of Babu Genu, one of the most renowned martyrs of Maharashtra who had sacrificed his life in the freedom struggle while opposing the import of British cloth in 1930. The jatha walked a distance of over 10 km to reach Azad Maidan.

The SFI’s all-India general secretary Shamik Lahiri, state DYFI leaders Raju Paranjape, Ramsagar Pandey, Shailendra Kamble and Usha Desai, and state SFI leaders Umakant Rathod, Umesh Deshmukh and Sarika Chaturvedi addressed the rally, dwelling upon the problems and demands outlined above. State DYFI president Ramesh Thakur presided over.

All the leaders of the fraternal class and mass organisations who addressed the rally were former student and youth leaders. They included Prabhakar Sanzgiri, Uddhav Bhavalkar and Mahendra Singh (all CITU), Ahilya Rangnekar (AIDWA) and Ashok Dhawale (AIKS). They dwelt on the various political challenges facing the country and the state, linking them to current issues of education and employment.

Several organisations helped in the preparations for this rally, including the collection of more than 10,000 food packets from the people of Mumbai for the students and youth who had come from all over Maharashtra. They included the CPI(M), CITU, NRMU, AIDWA, BEFI and others. The rally concluded with a call to observe November 3 with large student-youth demonstrations at the district level.