>From the discussions on another List ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: anant m <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 7:57 PM
--- CK Vishwanath <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > organised working class politics is turning against > the dalit struggle in kerala. > working politics vs landless peasants(dalits).one of > the failure of kerala land reform is in land > ceilings. Viswanath, just to bring some specificity to your observation - it is worth keeping in mind that: 1) The total number of jobs at Chengara plantation is 80. 2) The Sadhu Vimochana Samiti told the Revenue minister on 21st August that they are not insisting on the plantation land being given to them. 3) Plantations were exempted from land ceiling in Kerala- I am not sure what the reasoning was. The lease on the Harrison plantation itself has actually expired. There are allegations that the boundaries of the plantation do not tally with the original survey maps according to which the lease was given - that is, the plantation includes land encroached upon by Harrison Malayalam company. 4) RPGoenka group has bought into Harrison Malayalam - the exact arrangements are not clear but the plantation is now supposed to be part of backward integration for RPG's tyre manufacturing. And RPG wields a lot of influence in Kerala as of now. 5) This year there are heavy central subsidies to rubber plantations and the price of rubber has been pretty high too - so there are new hopes for the rubber workers who earn about 110 rupees per day. The union also I suspect is much like other unions in kerala's day informal labor markets - tightly controlled by union leaders who decide who should be allowed to work and who should not be allowed to work. more like guilds run by bosses than like workers unions. 6) It is important to note that while nandigram was against land acquisition, chengara is for land acquisition. two very different trajectories of claim making against a deepening neoliberal order. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
