Noted social activist Gautam Kumar Pritam, who is Socialist Party (India)’s candidate for Bihar elections in 2020 from Bihpur constituency (Bhagalpur, Bihar) was interviewed by Kosi Nav-Nirman Manch and NAPM Bihar leader Mahendra Yadav.
When and how did you decide to enter politics?
I used to be a sportsperson because of which I would come into contact with ministers and MLAs. Bihpur has been home to several great freedom fighters, many of whom were imprisoned or martyred. I used to feel that these people should be commemorated in some way, that the government should construct memorials and parks in their name. I tried to talk to local MLAs about this, but they did not show any interest at all. In fact, I realised that they did not really care about the issues of local people. They only seemed to know how to manipulate and polarise the public for votes on the basis of caste and religion.
It was around this time that I joined the Rashtravadi Dal and participated in the Ram Manohar Lohia Saptkranti Vichaar Yatra, a political procession which journeyed through various parts of India spreading Lohia’s message. As a result of this political engagement, I started to realise that Bihpur was in desperate need of a political alternative. It needed to rise above the petty politics of caste and religion and engage in a new kind of politics which reflected the needs and aspirations of the local people. I, along with many friends and supporters, began to work towards providing such an alternative by trying to address various social and political issues in the area. It was at this time that I came in contact with members of the SP(I) and decided to join the party. In the 2015 Bihar assembly election they nominated me as their candidate from Bihpur. This is how I came to be involved in active, electoral politics.
According to you what are the main problems which beset the people of Bihar and how do you think these can be addressed?
Bihar has two big problems, both of which are related. They are the poor quality of education and the high level of unemployment. It is often said that India is a young country, but even within India, Bihar is among the youngest states. But most of our young people are compelled to migrate out of the state in search of employment or a good education.
Bihar has seen many champions of social justice come to power. Their parties have been governing the state for the last 30-35 years. Many of our chief ministers have belonged to marginalised sections of society. Yet, they have never engaged with the issue of education in a serious, considered way. A few years ago an education commission was appointed by the state government which included several eminent educationalists and academics such as Muchkund Dubey, Anil Sadgopal and Madan Mohan Jha. The commission prepared a 300 page report on the state of public education in Bihar and on how to implement a common school system. But Nitish Kumar did not show an iota of interest in the report and completely disregarded it.
The Bandopadhyay Committee was formed to look into the issue of land reforms in the state. They worked hard to collect data, they conducted aerial surveys of the state. But today all those files are gathering dust. Land conflicts are the biggest reason behind the unrest and violence which has been happening in Bihar and land reform needs to be urgently implemented.
Bihar is also beset by natural disasters and experiences both flooding and drought in equal measure. In some parts of the state there is such water scarcity and land degradation that farmers are unable to grow a second crop. In areas like Bihpur frequently flooding of the Kosi and Ganga rivers causes destruction and devastation every year.
Talking about the current situation, the government has continued to extend the Covid-19 restrictions which has had an adverse effect on people. The truth is if effective measure had been taken at the start of the pandemic, like large-scale testing, we would not have found ourselves in our current horrific situation. This has been a colossal failure of the government which they do not want to admit. So instead they try to distract people with talk of the Ram temple, China, Pakistan etc.
You are contesting the election from the Bihpur Vidhan Sabha constituency. You stood from the same constituency last time as well. What significance does this area have for you, what are the main social, economic and political issues of this area which need to be addressed? How do you plan to deal with these if you come to power?
Bihpur is primarily an agricultural region. There are no industries here. Most people migrate to other parts of the state and the country in search of employment. A very tiny portion of the population is in government jobs, the rest are all farmers and farm labourers. Bihpur is situated between the Ganga and the Kosi rivers because of which the land here is very fertile. It produces an excellent crop of mango, litchies, bananas, and corn. Bihpur’s Zardalu mango is famous all over the country. Nitish Kumar even ships consignments of the mango to his friends and acquaintances. But the farmers who grow these crops are on the brink of starvation as they do not get the appropriate price for them.
July, August and September is the peak season for bananas here. They are shipped to various parts of the country. But because of the lockdown and the economic crisis the whole supply chain has been disrupted. Not only are the farmers suffering huge losses, the farm labourers whom they employ are also facing tremendous economic hardship. Many of the migrants who had returned to Bihar during the lockdown, many with bloodied feet from walking hundreds of kilometers, today find themselves in a helpless situation where they do not even know where the next meal for their children will come from.
If there could be more industrial development in the area, such as the establishment of factories for manufacturing fodder for the local cattle and food processing plants which make various products using local agricultural produce like banana and corn, then it would help improve the economic status of those whose livelihoods are dependent on agriculture. Bananas for example can be used to make a wide variety of products including fibre, banana chips etc. But banana farmers today have no access to any of this. Recently a petition was submitted in the High Court on the state of the farmers in the area, we also organised protests and undertook a hunger strike to draw attention to these issues. However, no action was taken by the administration.
Wheat is also an important crop in this region. Many of the returning migrant workers had on their journey back home helped harvest the wheat in the fields they were passing by. They were able to support themselves because of this. The government hardly did anything to help them, their grain godowns were locked during this time. The Socialist Party (India) also worked in collaboration with the Rehnuma Foundation and other local volunteers to deliver grains to 1600-1700 families. But the government officials and MLAs did not seem to be concerned in the least.
These days one other big problem is the water-logging of roads due to the monsoon rains. Most roads have become unusable because of poor drainage. So there is also an urgent need to create a proper drainage system. There is also an ongoing government scheme to bring piped water to every home. For this, roads all over the constituency were dug up for the laying of pipes, but none of the roads have been restored to their original state and continue to lie in disarray. Nor has the water supply started functioning yet. Electrification of villages is taking place but that too has been ridden with irregularities and corruption. People only receive electricity bills intermittently, but they are hugely inflated with a late fee levied for the months for which the bill was not sent.
In the three blocks that make up the Bihpur Vidhan Sabha constituency, Bihpur, Narayanpur and Kharik, the state of the administration is unacceptably bad. In the block offices, often a single official can be found managing over a dozen gram panchayats. Important posts like block development officer and circle officer often lie vacant. There has been a long-standing demand that the constituency be given the status of a subdivision. I had participated in a hunger strike under the aegis of SP(I) demanding this. Eventually, a DSP was appointed for the region. However, this post is yet to be filled.
The social and political work we do never finds coverage in the mainstream media which is largely controlled by the government and other vested interests. When I organise a sporting event the media publishes a big news item on it, but when we recently organised protests highlighting the poor state of the area’s corn farmers they were hardly acknowledged.
The current public representative of Bihpur is a member of the opposition party, but she was previously a member of the ruling party. However she has done nothing for the constituency in either of these roles. All public representatives we have had have been uninterested in the development of the area and have only looked after their personal interests. Now the assembly elections are around the corner and the government is preparing for them with a new-found fervour. Everyday there are new pronouncements.
Recently government school teachers were granted some small concessions in an effort to appease them. But normally they are not respected or valued at all. While the state of education in schools remains deplorable, they are promising big monetary prizes for people who complete class 10 or class 12. What good will this do? It is only a waste of public money. Instead they should focus on improving the quality of education and developing good educational infrastructure.
The government claims that Bihar is developing rapidly but as someone familiar with the ground realities of the state I can tell you that this is far from the truth. The people are desperate for a public representative who will truly stand up for them. I aspire to present myself as a candidate who can play this role, be the voice of the people, be a strong advocate for implementing the solutions to their problems. Even the last time I stood for election from this constituency, I had resolved to not ask for votes on the basis of caste, religion, money, alcohol etc. like other candidates do. Instead I wish to make the real issues and problems of the people the basis of my campaign. If people feel that I am the right person to represent their interests and amplify their voices, only then should they vote for me.
How was your experience in the last election? How will your election strategy be different this time?
The last elections were extremely polarising and most people were under the spell of the divisive campaigns that were carried out by the big political parties. Also at that time people only knew me as a social worker and did not think that I would be effective as a politician. But I think that perception has changed now. People have developed more trust in me over the last few years.
The other important factor is that people have started to realise how the politics around the Ram temple which has been so influential here in the last few decades has not done them any good. The temple is now under construction but they have not received any benefit from it whatsoever. Lakhs of people were promised employment and a better life but none of it has materialised.
This time our main strategy is to connect with people at a personal level. We plan to carry out discussions with the migrant workers who have returned to the region after facing a very difficult journey. We want to talk to them about how they were forgotten by the people they voted into power when they most needed their help. We want to make people see the futile nature of the politics which exploits the divides of caste and religion. We want to reach out to farmers and women and engage with them on the issues of education and employment, on the exploitation and oppression they are being subjected to. We want to talk to them about what their way out of their current state could be.
The minority communities of the region, especially Muslims, have always had second-class status in Bihar. Every political party, whether the BJP or Congress, treats them in this way. We want to reach out to the minorities and talk to them about how parties often exploit their dislike for the BJP by presenting themselves as a foil for the politics of Hindutva. The truth is that none of these parties has been able to do anything to stop the BJP and the politics of Kamandal that started in the 1980s in the wake of the Mandal Commission report. This is because these parties have never tried to address these issues at the ideological level. They have never worked to promote the progressive ideas and values which can be an antidote to the BJP’s politics of hate and division.
It does not matter so much whether I win or lose the election. I believe that an election campaign should be a movement in itself, a means to engage with and mobilise people and to introduce them to new ideas. The politics of the Hindi-belt region has for the last 40 years been devoid of any sort of ideological struggle. This region is in many ways a focal point of the politics of our country, it has been the breeding ground for many of our current political polarisations. So an engagement with people at the level of ideas becomes even more important here. But for decades politics here has been reduced to a game whose objective is to capture power. The ideas and values of the great leaders and thinkers of our country as well as this region, such as Gandhi, Ambedkar, Lohia, Bhagat Singh, Periyar Lalai Singh Yadav and Jagdev Prasad can form the basis for social and political change, but no effort has been made to take these ideas to the common people.
In the SP(I), we have always endeavored to do this because we believe that this is what will help create the foundations of an egalitarian society. Until such a society is established we have no hope of overcoming injustice and exploitation. We have to strike at the root of our many conflicts of caste and religion, which lies in the unjust Varna structure which is the basis of our society. The very foundations of this structure have to be upturned. This is the struggle which will take us towards socialism and towards social progress and development. We believe that such a turn towards socialism amongst the people is inevitable, but we have to ensure that we are able to reach out to them with our ideas in an effective and engaging way.
We do not have the resources and structures which allow bigger political parties to launch extravagant campaigns. We will have to form teams of volunteers and go village to village and door to door. We will also have to fully harness the power of social media to get our message out. We plan to fight the election with integrity and dignity. In fact we are strong advocates of electoral reform and our party even submitted a petition signed by 10 lakh people to the speaker of the parliament asking for such reform. We believe that the money spent by all candidates on an election should be the same and that public awareness campaigns about the candidates should be carried out by the government itself by for example, putting up hoardings in public places with the details of all candidates including their criminal record.
What role do you envision for socialism in the world today? As a member of the Socialist Party (India) what role do you think the party can play in regional and national politics?
There are numerous political parties and organisations which claim to be socialist in our country today, but I feel far from satisfied with the sort of work they are doing. As Babasaheb Ambedkar has pointed out, the social inequality and strife we see in our country has its roots in the Varna system. In the Indian context, capitalism and neo imperialism form a nexus with caste and religion. This is something the socialists of our country need to properly understand and address. Otherwise, socialism will remain just a dream. The time has come for socialists to speak openly and forcefully on caste, this is an imperative pre-condition for the establishment of socialism.
Socialists have been silent on many critical issues. After the Supreme Court order on the Ram Mandir, many of them refused to take a stand. They said that the court order should be taken as the final word and that there was no need to make any further statements. But SP(I) has continued to oppose the construction of the temple and even observed a Black Day to register our protest. This is because we believe that it is not the job of the court to merely deliver judgements, but to deliver justice.
Today many socialist activists have become inactive and silent due to the pandemic. I would like to ask them what they are afraid of? Would Lohia or JP or Gandhi have been afraid and silent at such a time? The vice-president of our party, Dr Sandeep Pandey has refused to let the Covid restrictions dent the spirit of the party. Under his leadership we have undertaken lockdown relief work on a large scale and continued to register our protest against CAA-NRC. This is not the time to be afraid or silent, it is the time to take stock and to strengthen our resolve.
In the USA, a black person was brutalised and murdered by the police and the public response to this was so forceful that the country’s president had to go hide in his bunker. Such a public movement is a form of socialism. In India too, only such widespread public action can strengthen socialism, but for this the socialists need to take a stand and come out onto the streets. It is not enough to sit and intellectualise about the ideas of socialist thinkers, this has to translate into action on the field.
One very important issue is that of the caste census. In order to establish social justice in this country it is imperative that people from all sections of society are represented in all public and private institutions in proportion to the size of their population, be it in the judiciary, the legislature, the executive or the media. Socialists need to make this issue the focal point of their campaign. They must take it up in a systematic way and take to the streets demanding a caste census and the implementation of reservations on its basis.
As a young activist of the Socialist Party (India), I implore the leadership of our party to start a nationwide movement on this issue. Lohia toured the country with the slogan “Sansopa ne bandhi gaanth, picchda paave sau mein saath (the Samyukt Socialist Party has resolved, the marginalised will get a 60% share)”, which resonated with the common person and contributed to the surge in the politics of the backward classes. Similarly, the SP(I) and other socialists should demand an equal and fair share in the land, wealth, resources and political power of this country for all sections of society.
Along with this they should also take a clear stand on the Ram temple issue. The objective of the whole movement around the temple has been to establish the dominance of the RSS in our country, it has nothing to do with religion. The RSS talks about Hindus and Hinduism all the time, but I would like to ask them which Hindus are they referring to? The Hindus that are divided into 6733 castes? The RSS has never had a leader from a lower caste. They must be questioned about this. The SP(I) must be fearless and direct in asking these questions. I think this is the biggest challenge we face right now.
I feel very happy and fortunate to be associated with SP(I) because they have always given me complete freedom to express myself. I have never been asked to self-censor in any way, on any platform. Within the party all of us talk about issues of social justice with mutual respect and open-mindedness. So I would tell anyone who wants to participate in political change and contribute to social progress that the SP(I) is an excellent platform for fulfilling these objectives.
To the people in the country who are supporting the right-wing forces which are working to strengthen the varna system I would like to say that this will only lead to more bloodshed, more violence against women, and more regressiveness in our society. As someone has aptly said “Lagegi aag to ayenge ghar kai zad mein, yahan pe sirf hamara makaan thodi hai (when the fire is lit many homes which be burnt to ashes, my house isn’t the only one in this neighbourhood).” The whole country will face ruin. When the next generation asks us what we were doing at this time, we should think about what reply we would like to give them.
