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Theft of the Commons
by Girish Mishra
Znet
August 31, 2006
For quite some time two news items have been dominating the media
in Delhi. The first relates to the intervention by the higher judiciary
to remove commercial establishments and other kinds of encroachment
from the residential areas and public land. The second item concerns
the controversy whether the drinks marketed by Coca-Cola and PepsiCo
contain pesticides whose level is 24 times or above the safe limit.
The Centre of Science and Environment has come out with concrete facts
and figures in this regard.
On the surface, these two items seem quite unrelated, but a moment’s
reflection shows that it is not so. In fact, they reflect one and
the same phenomenon, i.e., the growing attacks on the commons since
the beginning of modern capitalism. To understand this, one has to
go a bit in the meaning of the commons and the growing attacks on
it.
This term as collective noun is used in singular. It includes all
kinds of concrete and abstract that are used and owned by the people
collectively. It includes water resources, forest resources, rare
birds, endangered species of animals, air, minerals, mountains, parks,
recreation facilities, public educational institutions, libraries,
museums, zoological gardens, public hospitals, roads and railways,
air space, historical monuments, sculptures, paintings, music, dance
forms, literary works beyond the purview of copyright laws, children
and their health, traditional knowledge and so on.
The first successful attack on the commons began soon after industrial
capitalism came into being. It was enclosure. To quote Michael Turner,
“The term enclosure mainly refers to that land reform which transformed
a traditional method of agriculture under systems of co-operation
and community in communally administered holdings, usually in large
fields which were devoid of physical territorial boundaries, into
a system of agricultural holding in severalty by separating with physical
boundaries one person’s land from that of his neighbours. This was,
then, the disintegration and reformation of open fields into individual
ownership. Inter alia enclosure registered specific ownership, adjudicated
on shared ownership (for example by identifying and separating common
rights), and declared void for all time communal obligations, privileges
and rights. Enclosure also meant the subdivision of areas of commons,
heaths, moors, fens and wastes into separate landholdings and again
involved the abandonment of obligations, privileges and rights.”
The enclosures created a large army of cheap labourers who were pushed
out of rural areas and compelled to work in the newly established
factories. With the disappearance of village commons and buying out
of small peasants, landlessness and pauperization increased.
Till the establishment of the British rule in India, the village community
owned land and it was not subject to sale and purchase. While a cultivator
had the right to use the land, he did not have the right to sell.
That is why, to distinguish it from European style feudalism, Marx
called it Asiatic mode of production. The British rule converted land
into a commodity and private ownership was established on it. Along
with this, grazing grounds, forests with its resources, fishery, toddy
tapping, river crossing, the right to fish, minerals of all kinds,
water resources, etc. were brought under the domain of private ownership
and their use was prohibited unless paid for. Peasants, especially
tribal population, were deprived of their customary rights of freely
grazing their cattle in the forests and taking timber, roots, nuts,
fruits, leaves and fuel for their use without payment. There were
a number of agitations by the tribes as well as rural people and they
were violently suppressed.
Now-a-days vigorous attempts are being made by the corporate sector
to grab the commons. Tribal population is being deprived of their
customary rights. They are being told not to graze their cattle in
the forests and not to take fuel, and the timber to build their huts.
They are being prohibited from taking roots, nuts and fruits to sustain
themselves. Plants of medicinal value are being entrusted to pharmaceutical
firms for exploitation. Tendu leaves, used for rapping bidis, are
being auctioned off to the highest bidders. The poor tribals cannot
earn their living by gathering and selling tendu leaves. They are
being evicted because the government wants to make forests attractive
for tourists so that foreign exchange is earned and business activities
can prosper.
Besides, corrupt forest officials, the police and politicians help
smugglers take out and export timber, hides of animals, rare birds,
feathers of peacock, medicinal plants, etc. These smugglers are quite
powerful. Not long ago, the sandalwood smuggler Veerappan had become
a terror and could be eliminated by putting in a great deal of effort.
In different parts, one can see hundreds of historical buildings being
grabbed by the powerful. One and a half decades ago, a mob of Hindu
communalists demolished a historical mosque in Ayodhya. Statues and
idols, rare manuscripts and paintings are still being stolen from
museums and temples to be smuggled out of the country. Not long ago,
the dress worn by the last Moghul empress of India, Jeenat Mahal,
was stolen from the Red Fort and Gandhi’s spectacles from a museum
in New Delhi. Only recently, Rabindra Nath Tagore’s medals and other
valuables were stolen from a museum.
Not only in Delhi, but elsewhere also, there seems to be a competition
among the rich and powerful, besides the vendors of spiritual wisdom,
to grab public space. They encroach upon parks, roads, reserve forests
and start their activities. New gods and goddesses have emerged and
are being utilized for grabbing the public land. Most of these activities
are moneymaking. There is seldom any attention given to maintenance
of parks and other commons. From the celebration of marriages to religious
functions freely take place in parks or by enclosing the roads, unmindful
of the inconvenience to the people at large. Politicians, officials
and the local elite grace these functions. The local elite takes its
dogs to the parks and makes them dirty. The watchmen and other maintenance
staff seldom do their duties. The walls of parks, educational institutions
and other public buildings are plastered with posters and writings
without any hesitation.
In Delhi the local government has built a number of sports complexes
on public land. In the beginning, the local population was allowed
morning and evening walks free of charge, but, now, this facility
has been withdrawn and prospective walkers are being told to pay hefty
fees. Similarly, the government has set up a number of parks, one
of them near the historic Qutub Minar where the entry fee is Rs 10
per head and there are expensive eating and other shops inside. Thus,
these parks have become out of bounds for most people. The free entry
to most historical monuments has been abolished. Entry is restricted
to those pay. Even the entry to rail museum is barred to the children
from the poor segments of the society because they cannot afford to
pay. Similarly, the public hospitals are becoming day by day expensive
because of the imposition of fees on one pretext or the other. The
result is that the services of the hospitals built on public land
and maintained at the expense of the public exchequer are being diverted
to the better off. Private hospitals and educational institutions
with land and other facilities at concessional rates were supposed
to give preference to the weaker sections of the society. They have
breached this stipulation with impunity. Thus they have grabbed a
portion of the commons without any obligation.
Private shopkeepers have been trying to encroach upon the public land
for their trading activities and they are unmindful of inconvenience
they cause to the residents. Most of them have no parking space and
their customers park their vehicles in front of the houses and gates
of local residents. The national and international corporate entities
compete with them in grabbing public space for private use. The malls
are coming up in a big way in metro cities. They not only grab public
space, but use water and electricity also in disproportionately large
amounts while the people at large suffer from scarcity and rising
rates. Air and noise pollution is on the increase. But who cares?
Cola companies, as has come out, care a damn for the health of the
customers, especially the children. Demonstration effect of the West
and the high voltage propaganda with the help of the film and sports
personalities on the electronic media have a tremendous impact on
the children. What David Ballier, the author of Silent Theft, says
in this regard needs some serious thinking. To quote: “Having discovered
that children are one of the most under-exploited market segments,
marketers in the 1990s developed all sorts of ingenious ways to persuade
impressionable youngsters to become avid consumers. Marketers have
identified a “primary market”… an “influence market”… and a “future”
market (the lifelong spending that kids will do based on brand loyalties
they develop while young).” In other words, if you own a child at
an early age, you can own it for all time to come. Earlier the corporates
were satisfied with grabbing a share in the market, but now they want
to grab the minds of the prospective customers. They want to dominate
the personal attitudes and loyalties of the children for all time
to come. “This motivation to insinuate brand names in the formation
of children’s identities has brought commercials into every imaginable
aspect of a child’s daily life.” As we have noted in the beginning,
the children are an integral part of the commons and the future of
a society depends on them. One may very well see where the society
may head if this silent grabbing of a very valuable part of the commons
is not stopped.
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