(Arindam Sen with inputs from Comrade Rajendra Pratholi is Central Committee in-charge of Uttarakhand.)

The upcoming agitations and organisations of rural health workers are powered by a new awakening of a seven lakh strong contingent of women workers who have entered the labour force over the last five years or so and whose ranks are steadily swelling, even as the workforce in many other sectors are on the decline. They also represent a powerful challenge thrown up to an obnoxious set of labour policies of the neliberal state: casualisation of permanent jobs, extremely exploitative feminisation of low-paid work and denial of even minimum wages, not to speak of government employee status, to those engaged in hundred percent public projects. In the backdrop of our first national initiative in this sector, it is time to reflect on the experience gained so far and on the path that lies ahead.

So far the fastest development in this sector – reminiscent of but probably surpassing the speed witnessed in Assam about four years ago – has been recorded in Uttarakhand. The work started here with midday meal cooks and spread to Anganwadi and then to ASHA. But the last became the first in a matter of about four months since summer this year, when a drastic cut in honorarium (see Liberation, August 2 011) made the ASHAs extremely agitated and the Party and the AICCTU took prompt, concerted, energetic steps to mobilise them. Following a number of massive and militant demonstrations in block and district headquarters and the state capital, the rural health workers crossed long and difficult miles – mostly from hill tracts – to throng the national capital on 5th September. However, comrades are very much alive to the challenge of quick consolidation, the lack of which leaves the yet-to- be-registered (process started) union vulnerable to pulls from other forces.

Like Uttarakhand, other states too display their special features of evolution of work in this sector. Rather than running for uniformity, we should creatively build on this features. In some cases, especially in initial stages, it may be necessary to use an apparently NGO style or form of mobilisation – for the proletariat can defeat the bourgeoisie only by selectively adapting to its own needs the techniques, including organisational techniques, developed by the latter – provided we are careful about our communist orientation and content of work.

In addition to state features we should also take into careful consideration a very special characteristic of ASHA organisations. These are essentially trade unions no doubt, but of a special kind. While other TUs represent the striving for workers’ liberation from the yoke of capital and its state, those in women-only or women-dominated trades represent, in addition, a strong urge for women’s liberation from patriarchal bondage and oppression institutionalized in the capitalist state. When a young wife in our semi-feudal setting steps out of her home to appear in interview for the job, undergoes training for days together if selected, and then starts spending a major part of the day beyond the four walls, a great change occurs in her relations with the family, society and state. She experiences a new (relative) freedom and also a hundred restrictions sought to be imposed on that freedom. Point 7 of the charter of demands submitted to the Government of India reflects such gender concerns and various local issues routinely crop up at the grassroots.

Given this real- life interpenetration of class and gender issues/aspects, it is but natural that both the AICCTU and AIPWA have contributed to the development of work in this sector, though not in uniform ways. In Bihar for example, it has been basically a joint venture of sorts, while in Uttarakhand there was little involvement of AIPWA, which on the other hand took the entire initiative in Hooghly district of West Bengal. Such regional variations will be there, but generally speaking what we need is complementary roles of both organisations – which can be achieved not spontaneously or casually (in the name of “naturalisation”) but only under specific guidance and monitoring by the Party.

However, this must not lead to an artificial compartmentalisation of tasks. Quite to the contrary. Only by taking up the concrete issues of a particular trade (both class and gender-related) can a women’s organisation acquire an active mass following among labouring women. And only by concerning themselves also with the live gender issues (in addition to economic demands) of working women can a TU strike deeper roots among them. To ensure both is the function of the party leadership, which is committed to developing a class-focused women’s movement as distinct from a narrowly conceived feminist movement and a revolutionary TU movement that rises above narrow trade unionist politics and culture to pursue holistic emancipatory aims encompassing class, caste and gender. With adequate homework, the forthcoming national conferences of our TU centre and women’s organisation can help that process in significant ways.