Dr Parveen Kumar
Agriculture is a crucial sector of the Indian economy contributing to about 17 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and about 50 per cent of the population depending directly or indirectly on this sector. The farming community is a class of agriculture workers that constituting the backbone of this sector; that toils day and night in the intense hot and chilling cold to ensure that the countrymen do not go to bed hungry. In the country, those working in farms are not confined to a particular gender. If we analyze the data, we see that in 2001, of the 100 cultivators in India 67.1 were male and 32.9 were female and within a decade in 2011 the male went up to 69.7 and female came down to 30.3. Similarly of 100 agricultural labourers in India in 2001, 53.7 were male and 46.3 were female and a decade later in 2011 the number was 57.3 for males and 42.7 for females. The agriculturists, the health practitioners, the policemen and all other workers have been in the forefront in giving lives to billions and saving lives of billion others. Some of them even died saving others.
These workers all over the globe are rightly acknowledged as ‘warriors’ who lead from the front. They have proved their metal in testing times and whenever they are tried. They are the ones who work round the clock without caring for themselves and their families ultimately for the welfare of society. Despite all this, there are frequent reports of the agriculture workers being harassed by landlords and owing to the apathy from respective governments, some of them are leaving agriculture and some others are committing suicides. All this comes as a shock to all of us. In an agrarian country, such things should usually not happen. Farmers’ who produce everything on this planet should enjoy certain exclusive rights related to agriculture that must be upheld to give due recognition to them in their efforts to produce food for all of us. This is also necessary to save them from the unnecessary harassment from different sources. Now these producers working in fields have also been given rights to save, use, exchange and sell farm-saved seed and propagating material, their rights are to be recognized, rewarded and supported for their contribution to the global pool of genetic resources as well as to the development of commercial varieties of plants, and to participate in decision making on issues related to crop genetic resources.
Agriculture- a dangerous occupation: Let us take the case of United States where agriculture is also called the backbone of the country. A few years ago, agriculture ranked eighth as one of the most dangerous occupations. Today agriculture ranks as fourth dangerous occupation. According to the U.S Bureau of Labour Statistic, fatalities and injuries among agricultural workers are on the rise. Farm workers are800 per cent more likely to dies on the job than in other industries. The National Safety Council of the U.S reports that of the about 3.1 million peoples who work on America’s 2.3 million farms and ranches, 1300 die each year and 120,000 are injured. This means for every 100,000 farmers. About 25 die each year and equipments injure another 243 and five per cent of these injuries result in permanent disabilities.
History: Workers today enjoy full rights and cannot be discriminated on any basis. Unfortunately the condition of workers was not the same. Working conditions were severe and it was quite common to work 10 to 16 hour days in unsafe conditions. Any shortening in the no. of hours was accompanied by the consequent cut in wages. Death and injury were commonplace at many work places. Such inhumane treatment given to the working class inspired many writers to write books. In the late nineteenth century, the working class was in constant struggle to have an eight hour working day. As early as the 1860’s, working people agitated to shorten the workday without a cut in pay, but it wasn’t until the late 1880’s that organized labour was able to garner enough strength to declare the 8-hour workday. This proclamation was without consent of employers, yet demanded by many of the working class. At this time, socialism was a new and attractive idea to working people, many of whom were drawn to its ideology of working class control over the production and distribution of all goods and services. Workers had seen first-hand that Capitalism benefited only their bosses, trading workers’ lives for profit. Thousands of men, women and children were dying needlessly every year in the workplace, with life expectancy as low as their early twenties in some industries, and little hope but death of rising out of their destitution. Beginning in the late 19th century, as the trade union and labour movements grew, a variety of days were chosen by trade unionists as a day to celebrate labour. May 1 was chosen to be International Workers’ Day to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago. In that year beginning on May 1, there was a general strike for the eight-hour workday.
The 1904 Sixth Conference of the Second International, called on all Social Democratic Party organizations and trade unions of all countries to demonstrate energetically on the First of May for the legal establishment of the 8-hour day, for the class demands of the proletariat, and for universal peace. On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public’s eye. In 1887, Oregon was the first state of the United States to make it an official public holiday. By the time it became an official federal holiday in 1894, thirty US states officially celebrated Labour Day. Thus by 1887 in North America, Labour Day was an established, official holiday but in September, not on 1 May. In 1889, a meeting in Paris was held by the first congress of the Second International, following a proposal by Raymond Lavigne that called for international demonstrations on the 1890 anniversary of the Chicago protests. May Day was formally recognized as an annual event at the International’s second congress in 1891. May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and unofficially celebrated in many more, but rarely is it recognized in this country where it began. Over one hundred years have passed since that first May Day. This day reminds us of our fundamental duty to protect the rights of the workers and our commitment to safeguard the interests of all such working class who are shaping the future of their respective nations ultimately benefitting the humanity globally.
(The author is a Scientist at SKUAST-K).
