The Basis Of The Centre-State Problems

The development in India since independence and even before has been on a capitalist path. The British colonialists established this system in which all the natural and human resources of India were to be plundered for the benefit of the colonialists. They considered India as their monopoly to be exploited and plundered. In the same fashion, the new rulers of India, to whom the British transferred power in 1947, the big landlords and big capitalists, consider India as their estate which is there to be plundered. They consider the natural resources, minerals, waters and forests as their private property which is to be exploited by them alone. They consider the nations; national minorities and tribal peoples as existing in India by their permission. It is this economic power which lies behind their communalism, which they propagate in order to divide the Indian people and divert them from seeking real solutions to the problems which the people face.

In Punjab, as in the rest of India, capitalist development has been given new impetus since the "Green Revolution" of the sixties. Capitalism is developing in both industry and agriculture. However, there is no industry that serves the agriculture in Punjab. Consequently, all the farm inputs such as the fertilizers, the implements and machinery have to be imported from outside Punjab. The central government controls the prices of these agricultural inputs as well as the credit facilities for the Punjabi farmers. At the same time, the central government also sets the procurement prices for the agricultural produce. Over the years, the prices of the agricultural inputs have rapidly increased while the prices of the agricultural produce have been kept down. As a result, the producer has been constantly pauperized. The procurement prices announced by the Agricultural Price Commission this year once again does not even cover the farmers' production cost for wheat. At the same time, the grain market is also monopolized by the central government, which dictates to the farmers where and when to sell. The small and marginal farmers are being ruined as they are forced to sell their produce at a very low price.

This uneven development of capitalism has created various contradictions from which arise the problems of centre-state relations, the problem of the control of the river waters and natural resources, territorial disputes, etc. These problems are reflections on the political plane of contradictions in the economic base of society.

The big capitalists and the big landlords in Punjab do not take a consistent and principled stand on these matters. They are always ready to strike a deal with the central government. If the deal goes well for them, they are happy, but if the deal turns out to be not so good, then they once again raise these matters as a bargaining chip with the centre. Thus, they play into the hands of the central government and the problems remain unresolved. Because the compromisers in Punjab raise these issues from the perspective of their own narrow interests, some people say that these issues do not concern the people, that the people should not worry about these problems but should fight for "real economic issues" and socialism. But the issues of water, land, natural resources, and so on are the real economic issues which greatly concern the people. To ignore these issues is to play the game of the central government. To ignore these issues is to negate the democratic movement and the rights of the people. Far from ignoring these issues, the people must wage this struggle resolutely and uncompromisingly.