Synthetic Cell and Ethics

Famous Marxist biologist J.B.S. Haldane said “There is no such great invention, from fire to flying, which has not been hailed as an insult to some god”. And the achievement by scientists of Craig Venter’s company has added qualitative insult to god’s reputation. Bourgeoisie media is furious over such insult of their hero and in anger have started defaming the experiment. They have declared it to be unethical and demand its immediate ban. But with advent of scientific and technological advance the materialist view of world has been justified and has deepened, shrinking the space for god in this material world to zero. This experiment also justifies the materialist conception that life is a quality of organic matter that arose in it in special conditions. Like were on earth billions of years ago. In this organic matter sustaining life consciousness arose. And the issue of human’s invasion in god’s territory is meaningless, as here man has shown through this experiment that life is no miracle or god’s matrix but is a special materialistic quality that is driven by chemical, biological, electrical, and various other materialistic processes. Here nothing is “unethical” but is just “materialistic”, it is just the spattering of bourgeoisie media to divert the attention from the actual implications this experiment brings.
In this experiment genome of bacteria M. mycoides was designed using computer. This requires the complete genetic mapping of genome of M. mycoides, which means knowledge of the every base sequence that genome has. Genome is the genetic material inside cell nucleus which has all the information for every function that a bacterial body or even a human body can perform. Blue heron company desiegned the genome using digital genome as model. This genome was assembled in four stages using 1078 bp long DNA cassettes that were synthesized using chemicals in stoichiometric amount under suitable conditions. A cassette is DNA’s small segment. Here cassettes of length 1078 bp were synthesized, bp is measure of length that is equivalent to 3.4 Å. (1 Å = .0000000001 metre). In first stage laboratory generated cassettes were inserted inside nucleus of yeast, where it weaves 1078bp long cassettes to 10,080 bp long. And in similar hierarchic fashion, in final stages, after various other processes of chemical purification and stabilization, the whole synthetic genome was generated inside the yeast. This synthetic genome was then transplanted into the restriction-minus nucleus of bacteria M. capricolum. The transplantation works. M. capricolum cell now functions to the dictates of genome of M. mycoides. The cell replicates self. This cell is similar to natural M. mycoides in almost all of its functions. Although scientists of Craig Venter’s company name it “synthetic cell” but here synthetic is only genome. But the experiment is a milestone in field of science. Scientists said that their aim is to create a synthetic cell that can do minimum functions of a natural cell. It has opened new horizons in field of biofuels and medical science, as the microorganisms can be created, with limitations, of desired function.
Synthetic Genomics, Craig Venter’s company, is said to have a contract with biofuel company Exxon to generate biofuels from algae. Exxon is even prepared to spend up to $600 million if all its milestones are met. Regarding this Dr. Venter said his group would try to build “an entire algae genome so we can vary the 50 to 60 different parameters for algae growth to make superproductive organisms”. The synthetic cell advancement could lead to the synthesis of algae cells that produce more plant oils than nature-made algae, boosting the per-acre biofuel yield of the feedstock. And this will result in cheaper oil. The ability to control the natural functions by varying genetic parameters in genome will lead into development of medicines which will be much effective and cheaper also. The reduction in cost of production will mean more profit by exploitng surplus from labour. This is the lifeblood of this experiment and many other experiment that are in operation today, profit, profit of few parasitic plunderers. But lately there has been a raise of voice against this experiment. So first let us have a look at these concerns.
First, there are some intellectuals who are asking for complete ban on this technology. Their logic is that the results of the experiment will fuel inventions of such dangerous weapons which will prove hazardous for our species. And they ask for ban on this technology to avoid its use in weapons. Their protest is parallel to the voices raised over the use of nuclear power. But this is like cutting head of Ravan. Ravan cannot be defeated this way. Every time you cut a head another grows. Only when hit in stomach can Ravan die. The question here is not of technology but the weapons that are being used. But the basic strength of this system is use of weapons. And every new technology is employed by it to develop weapons. Nuclear science, genome coding abolition is not the question here. It is romanticizing the past, to abolish every new technology in order to stop the development of weapons. Even if we impose the Stone Age technology, the system we live in will use that technology to develop weapons. In capitalism anarchic laws of capital are followed. Here relations between humans are not symbiotic but are polarized, are of exploitative kind. There is no chance of having relation between nature and humans to be symbiotic. It is also of exploitation. The mechanism of system uses every technology and natural forces to make profit and this profit is result of exploitation of large population. To stop the wars we will need to smash the machinery of this system. Abolishing technology is not solution. Humanity will move only towards future and in no way restoring the things of past can solve the problems we face today.
Another brand of N.G.O. groups and media groups are asking to stop the experiment immediately but to be started again only if it is regulated under government. They worry that some anti-social forces may equip this technique to make biological weapons and can cause mass scale massacre. They consider this experiment to be unethical at the present moment as anyone can access the technology. But this is not reality. All this worry and unethical concern in actual is loyalty of bourgeoisie media to its capitalist masters. Their ethics are limited to the boundaries of this system. To the boundaries of profit. However if we keep expectations from this unethical, unjustified and moribund system it will be sheer stupidity. Every year millions of innocent people die in imperialist wars. There is sufficient grain in stores but for sake of profit of private companies it is not distributed for free among the poor. This all is ethical. Here every ethic is in favour of this system. The very foundation of this system is plundering profit. The plundering bourgeois spiders trap and suck the common masses in the cut throat web created by capital. In this cut throat atmosphere these penny writers keep playing the flute of ethics in favor of their plundering bourgeois masters.
Leave alone the protests there are a lot of people who are counting benefits from the experiment. But even these claims do not hold water. To whatever extent science develops but it is still operated by laws of capital. And in this system, following these laws, the result is starvation, poverty and unemployment. Even if we develop efficient biofuels and better medicines, the mechanism of the system is such that large population remains bereft of these developments.
To sum up, this experiment is a big achievement in scientific area. Although like every new technology, it may also be installed on weapons and make wars more deadly, but this is the problem of this system and will solve when this system will be abolished.

If You are Young

Where spring is pulsating
Amidst violent autumn and desolate winter
That is where you belong
If you are young!
Where future-symphony is playing
Where dreams are on a journey to discover
Where audacious projects of approaching is being forged
Where memories are fuel,
Filled in the heart of workman’s furnace
Where restless hot air is giving momentum to life
You have to be there
If you are young!
Where life is being uprooted
Where living words are being murdered
And where verdicts are passed on voices
For incarceration and solitude,
Where exiled flora
And black baking rocks are present
Therse you are being awaited
If you are young!
Where barricades of resolves are being raised
Where bunkers of knowledge are being dug
Where flags of challenges are being unfurled
There is where you have to be deployed
If you are young!
-Shashi Prakash

The Science of Religion

“Religion is the general theory of the world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in a popular form” Marx. And this statement explains the essence of religion, the general theory constructed by man of his world. The religion exists as the sum of all social relations constructed by man, his expression of social consciousness, although an inverted one. Inverted, because it is not the true expression but an unclear and subjugated consciousness of man who fails to understand his own society.
Today we live in profit motivated capitalist system. The era of capitalism converts everything into commodities, weighs everything, mind you here "thing" refers to human emotions and even humans also, in money. The religion thus is also forged through power of capital. The various godmen today compete each other in promising “sinners” to repent and give peace of mind. Everyone has his own technique; some do yoga, some develop way of living and some do not even wear clothes. Their growth in India has been astronomical both in numbers and their accounts. The long hands of law fall short as they fund various political parties. Although this is the “shining” face of religion but its other face, is its salability in politics. Religion exists as an instrument which political parties use to expand their vote bank; some use Hindu card, some Muslim and some use Dalit card and even many fundamentalist terrorists also find the support and justification through religion. Babri mosque demolition, Mumbai 1992 riots, Gujarat massacre all represent the violence and destruction which in the name of religion have been instigated on us. Religion justifies the violence and inhuman activities in favor of the governing power.
The religion has evolved with the evolution of economic relations among humans. What we see today is evolved product of history. Considering the length of our article we will try to see how it originated in order to discuss its current state and with some certainty its future.
“Religion exists as sum of human beliefs and actions, and beliefs held by the real individuals acting in a real society”- Caudwell. Thus its evolution and origin lies in evolution of man and his social relations. In the primitive society man with his understanding of external world constructed some common beliefs, rituals to express them and all this we define as magic. Ritual dance, gait or appearances of animals, imitations of sounds of rains, actions of sowing were performed; he projects his feelings into outer reality. Cause and effects were interpreted in reverse. But magic helped him gain some knowledge of nature like rains were asked for only in rainy season. This was the first attempt to understand and control the nature, although feeble and very unclear. It thus reflects the social consciousness of primitive man in relation to nature. Magic is thus parent of science. With development of science and the art it becomes unnecessary and dissolves from the picture to the background existing still in fairy tales with us. On the other hand the understanding of the social relations got further intricate. With division of labor which is caused by development of production forces, magic shows an organization, coherence, a tough visible structure as the economic production develops and evolves to take the form of religion. With division of labor, classes arise and thus arises exploitation of one by another. This division is hierarchic in nature. Chief, headman, director of labors, priests, warriors and godking arise with latter at the apex of the pyramid. The confused perception of these social relations, of hierarchy of classes, of individuals makes them external and divine. The “gods” either dwelled in through priest or had incarnation in the godking. The exact architecture of the pyramid depends on economic production level, which in turn depends on the topography of area, its history and most importantly on the internal forces of society. These factors decide society to be monotheist or polytheist in faith. This particular topic asks for another descriptive article and considering our subject of discussion we avoid going into further detail.
In the beginning of history it was the forces of nature that dominated man, and in course of further evolution they underwent most manifold and varied personifications among the various peoples. Even in the existing society man is dominated by means of production which he himself has produced, and then the production relations which stem from it, as if they are extraneous force. The economic system we live today in is capitalism. The profit motivated system. It lives on the wage labors. On their poverty, unemployment, and their starvation. Religion has its deepest roots in “…..social oppression of the working masses and their apparently complete helplessness in face of the blinding force of the capital, which every day and every hour inflicts upon ordinary working people the most horrible suffering and the most savage torment, a thousand times more severe than those inflicted by extraordinary events, sudden wars, earthquakes . “Fear created the gods”. Fear of blinding forces of capital….” Lenin explains. The fear is irrigated by the uncertain nature of capital, the fear is not only in labor class and peasants but even the middle man, big capitalists and landlords; all are under the danger of being displaced in this cut-throat competent market.
During fall of feudalism and victory of capitalism science propelled the struggle against religious authority of church and the moral justification given to the feudal system. The atheistic movement broke out in the Europe. Renaissance and Enlightenment cleared mists of religion from common masses, people rose up and called for every theory to be tested on litmus of reason and if a theory, through its propagators, failed to do so it was criticized and changed. In India never was there any Renaissance or Enlightenment and the extent of the dogmatism, religious, orthodox views have very deep roots in society. The society that came out of womb of colonization had lost its heritage of proud past. It was product of 200 years of slavery and the culture which it had was full of dogmas and orthodox views. Today everywhere religious shackles enslave the individual’s freedom. Superstitions, honor killings and infanticide exist in one of fastest growing economy of the world. The science we have today is what developed after capitalism got established in western countries. In Europe, Capital after defeat of feudalism forcefully dragged the religion and science out of the contradictions and fuelled them to strengthen self. Scientific attitude was sucked out of common man’s mind and was limited to classrooms, labs and books whereas the religion was again filled in to obscure the authority of the ruling class. In India never the science was common dose of a common man, the capital had to do no struggle in resolving cultural struggles against religion. Here it stood victorious, ready to serve capital.

The Science today only dwells into producing items of luxury for few plunders. Scientists today have excess to computers; have unprecedented facilities where all information is only a click away, whereas the 3/4th of population lives in poverty. On one side scientists are reaching out to find the basis of diseases by complete mapping of human gene, on the other side in Asia, Africa and Latin America every year millions of children die because of ordinary diseases whose cures were found a century ago. One side man is searching for signs of water on moon while on the other side in metros like Delhi and Mumbai millions of people are forced to drink polluted diseased water. Science which became harbinger of European revolution has now just become appendage to bourgeoisie (capitalist) economic political science and an instrument to install war toys for imperialist countries. In India it was appendage only. To take back again the science to people, to cut down the inverted consciousness of religion we need to revive the culture through social acts. “Mere knowledge, even if went much further and deeper than that of bourgeoisie economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under the control of society. What is above all necessary for this is a social act” Engels. The social act which Engels refers today will be through new series of cultural and political revolutions, of proletarian Renaissance and Enlightenment, revolutions of the working mass, of the majority of population. Religious mist will then be cleared as every social relation will be organized and then we will not need fetishisms to worship our fears.

Criticism: Three Idiots

Recently the movie “3 idiots” was released which broke all the past records of success! Really a good movie! It seemed after this movie that either both Raj Kumar Hirani and Aamir Khan had been meeting Kapil Sibbal or Mr. Kapil Sibbal took their class before making film. Film is good editing wise and story moves with pace and thus attaches. The movie starts with the effect of pressure on students in institutes running professional courses. We are shown that how pressure of family, peer pressure, pressure of earning money and a name in society does not allow a youth to be educated. To be educated means is to gain knowledge and to be able to apply that knowledge in practice. But the education methodology is such that it does not allow one to learn but rather in mugging up the subject in order to be successful or get good marks. It is more of a kind of training then education. Inventions, new thoughts and creativity has no relation whatsoever with this training. First a human should be educated and then trained. As far as modern scientific education methodology is concerned, this criticism seems correct. Even our Human Resource Development minister has been emphasizing on this for past one year publically. But the first question is this that is it the reality of our society and its education system? A nation where 77% of population lives on or under 20 Rs per day, a society where 46% of children suffer from malnutrition , a nation where only 7% of total eligible youth population reaches the higher education, can never have the primary question of the education methodology in engineering institutes. The primary question is that why only 7% of eligible youth reaches higher education and why only 1% of total eligible population reaches the institutes offering professional courses. The reason behind is this profit-based system which can never give opportunity to the deserving. The majority of population still lives in darkness of illiteracy. And in this regard film makes a very dangerous point. Aamir khan suggests a boy who sells eggs, milk and iron the clothes in hostel that you do not need money to study in school! But only uniform and a bag and if caught change the uniform and school, these "creative ideas" actually dodges the point that it is the responsibility of state to provide education to all and if it does not then it must be questioned. If the 50% children in India follow the "creative ideas" of film then what will happen? We leave this on the imagination of director. The film never criticizes the government and the system which is root to all problems. It only criticizes the education methodology of engineering colleges, that too without any definite aim and result. This criticism has nothing to do with the majority of youth population.

The second question is even more important. Such toothless criticism only helps in strengthening this profit based capitalist system. These criticisms only complete the hegemony of the capitalism. It happens self-spontaneously and do not always require intervention of state. Ministers do not take class of movie makers for this. The social levers of state do this job on their own. Reformism is one such ideology which does this job. Such films act as safety valve in society. After watching such movies viewer unconsciously looses his subversive (revolutionary and creatively violent) pressure. It creates a false illusion of sensitive nature of this system. Neither Kapil Sibbal nor Aamir Khan or Raj Kumar Hirani can do anything to keep cut throat competition away from education system. The society and the system we live have "social Darwinism" as its principle. That is, survival of the fittest. And here the class of the best is not genetic but is sold in market. The main question is of "purchasing capacity".

The character of Boman Irani, Viru Sahastrabuddhe, is actually the anti-message of the movie. For instance, he explains that life is like a race and if you will not run fast enough the person behind will crush and move ahead of you. Yes, this is the truth of capitalist system. The cuckoo's chick is born in crow's nest and throws the eggs of crow on its birth. Life starts with death. In the struggle of different species only the best survives. But capitalism applies this struggle of different species among humans with fitter and better on one side and less fitter and average on other side and organizes a cut throat competition between them. Darwin's law is for inter species analysis and not for intra species analysis. But capitalism can use it this way only; this is the law of capital. At one more place Viru Sahastrabuddhe tells one more right thing. He explains to Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi that they belong to middle class and lower middle class. You cannot afford the "all is well" philosophy of Rancho. All is not well for you. But Rancho is the hero of film and how can his philosophy go wrong! In the end, Raju Rastogi despite being a below average student despite being expelled from college for some time, gets a job in multinational company! And the interview board is like angels! They are enthralled over the honesty and truthfulness of Raju Rastogi! Now those who have seen these greedy animals, they know quite well what would have been the behavior with him. Farhan Qureshi becomes what he wants to be, a photographer. All goes well. But we all know that in reality if that had been happening then the youth would not have been in such despair.

Movie also presents very insensitive view towards the questions of poverty and gender. Raju Rastogi belongs to a destroyed lower middle class. The picturization of his family is very insensitive. Movie changes to black and white whenever there is scene on his family. His paralyzed father, his poverty shattered mother, his sister -every member is being joked about. As if poverty is not at all an issue! But this is the biggest problem of this society. The only issue for director is the education methodology in engineering colleges. With this, it has also been shown that poor are dirty. Raju's mother uses the same belan to roll the chapatis which she uses to scratch the itch of Raju's father and then serve the same chapati to Raju's friends. What has been found in experience is that poor are great hosts and offer whatever they have with their heart. The way film picturizes the poor family one can easily be prejudiced. At one more place in the film a student, who has exceptional cramming abilities, has to read speech in Hindi for some ceremony in institute. He prepares it in roman script as he does not know Hindi. Our Rancho replaces the words "chamatkar"(miracle) with "balatkar"(rape) and "dhan"(money) with "istan"(breast of woman). After this the speech becomes funny. Although this was done to make the fun of "mugging up" trend in engineering college, but this "absurd humour" experiment shows insensitivity. Then in the whole movie words "balatkar" and "istan" are used to signify various things in the movie, which shows the lack of sensitivity towards women. But the Indian viewers have not that ability to grasp the form of humour so as to discuss the structure and form of humour. Indian cinema has not developed that ability of Indian viewers.

But this is not the main issue. The main thing is that this film on the whole does a reformative criticism of the education system and that too without any operative part. It in no way attaches itself to the 85 % population of this county. The reformative criticism is just what Kapil Sibbal has been speaking of. Its work (not aim) is to strengthen the hegemony of this system culturally and ideologically in mind of those youth who consider changing the structure of this society. (Translated from an article of Abhinav Sinha in Ahwan, 2009)

Copenhagen: Hopenhagen to Brokenhagen

Imagine that we are living in a logical world (it’s little hard to do, but do try once). Now think that we get to know that because of emission of CO2 and green house gases, the temperature of whole world is rising and if this is not stopped environment will be seriously damaged. But this can be avoided. Few scientists tell that we need to replace fossil fuel based technologies by alternative technologies which create no such problem. But to do this we would need organized human power. Various nations of world would have met, discuss and then have agreed on a common plan. Those who had technology they would have shared that and those with man power would have shared that. But, alas, the fundamental basis of this hypothetical construction is wrong, so clear all such imaginations from your mind. We are not living in a logical world. We live in an anarchic, inhuman, unorganized, profit blinded and insensitive world. We live in a capitalist world where the divinely given law of competition is crushing every human value and beauty under the wheels of profit. Both humanity and environment are crushed in the collision of profit of corporate houses and multinational companies and the national governments representing them. For example, Lord Oxburgh, the chairman of Shell UK, speaking at the Greenpeace Business Lecture in January 2005, accepted this with surprising honesty: “Whether you like it or not, we live in a capitalist society. If we at Shell ceased to find and extract and market fossil fuel products while there was a demand for them, we should fail as a company. Shell would disappear as any kind of economic force” (Independent, 26 January 2005). And now see this statement with the statement of global warming scientist James Hansen: “The fundamental problem is that fossil fuels are the cheapest form of energy. As long as they are, they are going to be used” (Times, 3 December). It’s obvious that a system which is profit centered and has cut-throat competition as its fundamental can think only of immediate profit and, hence, it is tough for it to think over question of environment. The way Copenhagen summit ended could have ended only in that way. Despite being aware of the reasons and solutions of environmental problems the representatives there could not come to a decision. Because here the issue was just not environment. Environment conservation has its own political economy. In a capitalist world which is divided in categories of imperialist nations, smaller imperialist nations, non imperialist capitalist nations, developed nations, developing nations etc, how can the emission cut be on a common consensus be justly done? In the whole summit the main contradiction was - the contradiction between the various imperialist camps.
From the starting of the summit, contradictions between America-European Union and China-G77 started coming into light. Emerging economies, i.e. China, India, Brazil and South Africa, made a group (& called Basic Nations) and started making pressure on the developed nations (mainly on America & E.U.) to follow Kyoto protocol. But, winner of the Nobel prize for "peace", president of America, Barack Obama, made it very clear that they are not going to cut down their carbon emission by 40% to the level of 1990, as set by Kyoto protocol; at the max they can reduce only 17-19% & that is not even to the level of 1990 but to that of present level. But with the increasing share and strength of the capitalist class of emerging nations in the world market, the representatives of these countries were not in any mood of compromise and stooping before America and E.U., and they started mobilizing other G77 nations with them. After this America and Britain started showing their real character. President of the summit (i.e. prime minister of host nation Denmark), Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who was using the summit tactically in the favor of developed nations, presented the Copenhagen accord to other countries just before two days of the end of summit with the hope that in this short period of time these countries will not be able of thinking over it properly and thus, accept it easily. This accord is just a two and a half page document. Generally, the documents of environment summits of U.N. are not used to be so small but what else the imperialist countries can write when they have to just impose their orders fraudulently. As there is no need of explanation, Rasmussen received huge criticism from the emerging and other G77 nations and none of them accepted this accord. After this developed nations started threatening to third world countries by saying that they will stop giving grants and even offered bribe in the form of funds related to this accord, for which any nation who signs the accord would be eligible. But all these tactics failed in pressurizing emerging countries to accept this accord. And, thus, no consensus could be made to reduce carbon emission levels; summit just became a platform of groupism and display of power between the developed and emerging nations for control over world markets. Copenhagen turned from “Hopenhagen” to “Brokenhagen”. The curtain over the "worries" and "serious thinking" of the masters of capitalist world has been uncovered, and once again, the old mordant truth of capitalism has became clear that a system based on the blind market forces gives rise, and can give, only to a cut-throat competition for earning immediate profit, and these capitalist plunderers can never come to any consensus for the long term benefits of humanity and life on earth.
This is an illogical system which is destroying this whole planet along with human life. But, definitely, we do not support the pessimistic destructionist views of those environmentalists who are saying that the irreversible loss to environment is carrying on and very soon it will be too late and, earth's environment will become incompatible for the survival of human life. It is our strong belief that the millions of working masses, sensitive youths, students and intellectuals, who are fighting against this capitalism & imperialism in different countries, will not let the stage of this apocalypse arrive. Before that, this manic and delirious capitalism will be smashed and the process of building a humanity centered society will start taking place. We have full faith on the conscience of humanity.

15-Day long strike of Almond Workers comes to conclusion

December 31, New Delhi. The historical strike of almond workers continuing since last 15 days came to an end with a compromise between the employers and the Union. As is well known, this strike began on December 16 and around 20 thousand workers' families had been participating in it. It has already being hailed as the biggest and longest strike by the unorganized workers of Delhi. Before this compromise, the employer side and the Union had sat across the table for talks earlier also, however, those talks could not establish a common understanding. Following that bipartite, the strike continued and finally on the evening of December 31, a common agreement was reached between both the parties.
Before this 15-day long strike the almond workers had put forward a 5-point charter of demand under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union (BMU), in front of the contractors. These primarily included the rights to which the workers are entitled under the labour laws. Earlier, the almond workers used to get a meagre Rs. 50 for processing of one bag of almonds. Besides, they used to be denied payment of wages for several months. Misbehaviour and abusing workers in godowns by the staff of contractors was a common thing. Moreover, the shells peeled off the almonds were sold to the workers on arbitrary prices fixed by the contractors. These shells are used as fuel for cooking by the workers. Under the leadership of the BMU, the workers had long been demanding that they should be given Rs. 70-80 per bag of processed almonds and the peeled off shells should be given to them at Rs. 10 per bag. They were also demanding that they should be given their due wages in the first week of every month.
The employers were rigid for last 15 days on not increasing the wages and they had been insisting that the workers should first of all call off the strike and return to work then, they will think about wage revision, and that too after January 16. However, the workers found this proposal unacceptable and continued with their strike. The employers' frustration grew with every passing day as their armoury had been emptied. One of the employers was beaten up by women picketers after he attacked the women workers, the Police administration failed to break the strike by threatening and intimidating workers' leaders, brokers also failed to break the strike by spreading rumours. After December 29, it was clear that it was just a matter of time when the employers succumb and approaches the workers for compromise. On the morning of December 31, some employers accepted the demands of the workers without talks with the Union and started work. As a result the employers unity disintegrated and they bifurcated into two groups. At last, around 6 PM in the evening of the same day, both the sides held talks and it was decided that the employers will give Rs. 60 per bag of processed almonds to the workers, the peeled off shells will be sold at Rs. 20 per bag, and the workers will be paid their wages in the first week of every month.
With this compromise the workers called off their historical strike and they are returning to work from the first day of the New Year. With this the biggest strike of the unorganized workers of Delhi came to conclusion. Under the leadership of Badaam Mazdoor Union, thousands of unorganized workers proved that they can fight and they can win. Apparently, the workers could not win all of their demands. However, the issue in this strike now was not merely the revision of wages, etc. In an industry where the workers are made to toil like slaves in the most primitive conditions, constantly manhandled, facing abuses and misbehaviour and were considered an instumentum vocale, the workers waged a heroic and historical struggle to win respect for them and win their minimum labour rights. The employers were, for the first time, made to realize the massive force of workers and were made to do away with their misunderstanding, that these workers will keep enduring their excesses silently and would not speak up. Towards the end of the struggle, the employers bowed down to the workers' power in every respect. Besides, not only the employers were made to realize the force of the united workers, but the population of the entire Karawal Nagar area understood the fact that these workers are not going to keep their lips zipped.
Another accomplishment of this strike was that the trade unions of parties like C.P.I. (M.L.) were sidelined by the workers consciously and they brought their struggle to an end under the leadership of the BMU, without any kind of support or help from any electoral party. The workers made it a point that they would not let any electoral party infiltrate into the movement. The workers rejected all varieties of brokers of electoral Trade Unions. They cleary understood the real character of the electoral parties, the R.S.S., Police administration and similar forces fo the area and realized that they have to fight on their strength only, which is massive.
Ashish Kumar, convener of the BMU, told the media that this struggle is not an end, but a beginning. In future, the almond workers of Delhi will continue to fight under the banner of the BMU for those rights which are still out of their reach. Ashish said that till this whole industry continues to function informally, the workers will remain weak in their legal battle. The next aim of the Union is to make the government's labour department give formal status to this huge industry.
Abhinav, correspondant of labour monthly Bigul and a researcher of the unorganized workers of Delhi, said that this struggle will stay in the memories of the workers of Delhi for decades to come. This struggle was first of its kind and it dismantled this myth that the unorganized and informal sector workers cannot wage organized struggles. By organizing workers in their areas of residence and working class neighbourhoods, the struggle of the unorganized and scattered workers can be given an organized and huge form. Undoubtedly, it is a challenging task, however, this strike has emphatically proved that this challenge can be overcome.