Revolutionary Papers

▴ A protest demonstration organised by the Bonded Labour Liberation Front. Photo Courtesy: BLLF

The Dehati Mazdoor Tanzeem: Organising Dalit Labour was the MKP’s unit for organising landless workers in the Punjabi countryside. As Sahotra details in his preface, the Dehati Mazdoor Tanzeem (Agrarian Workers’ Movement, DMT) was an attempt to organise the peasantry in response to the shifts in agrarian relations, political economy, and patterns of land ownership wrought by the Green Revolution. In the name of ‘development’ and ‘modernisation’, the Green Revolution in Punjab introduced displaced share-croppers and reduced the availability of work.

While the DMT was constituted in the immediate context of the ravages of the Green Revolution, it had its origins in Dalit organising in colonial Punjab. Agha Sahotra details how an organisation for Dalit Muslims, the Muslim Sheikh Federation, was founded in the early 1940s to fight caste oppression. Invisibilised in nationalist historiography, the Muslim Sheikh Federation contributed an anti-caste lens to the ongoing battle against colonial rule, labour exploitation, and social injustice. In the late 1960s, the organisation merged with the MKP, in lieu of the shifting nexus between caste, class, and agrarian labour. As Sahotra notes:

During this [second phase in our struggle] we realised that Muslim Sheikhs were not travelling alone in this boat of sorrows, there were many others with us who were all proponents of socialism. The 1951 elections showed us that we [Muslim Sheikhs] do not the majority’s vote, but once we built connections with other poor people, we became part of the majority. We also thought about how we have been outcastes for four thousand years, but now, due to the exploitation in our society, even those within the fold of caste are losing their caste and becoming landless labourers like us. Not joining ranks with them would be an injustice, both to them, and to ourselves. It is like spitting on our past, and casting shadows on our future. Thus, we have opened up our organisation to all workers, agrarian workers, and other poor people, and on 20 March 1970 in Chakk No. 22 Kararwala, zila Lyallpur we called a convention and renamed the Anjuman Muslim Sheikh [Muslim Sheikh Federation] to the Dehati Labour Tanzeem [Agrarian Labour Movement]. Later, in March 1972, we held another convention at the YMCA hall in Lahore, where the organisation was renamed again, finally becoming the Dehaati Mazdoor Tanzeem.”

— Agha Sahotra

The Punjab MKP splintered during the 1980s, and the DMT eventually merged with the Bhatta Mazdoor Mahaz (Brick Kiln Workers’ Collective) to form the Bonded Labour Liberation Front (BLLF) during the 1980s. ‘Bonded labour’ refers to workers trapped in debt bondage, across the industries of brick-making, carpet manufacturing, agriculture, and construction, among others. Individuals from marginal castes are over-represented in cases of bonded labour across Pakistan.

Tracing the development of the Muslim Sheikh Federation into the DMT and eventually the BLLF reveals a legacy of political organising that combines questions of caste oppression and class exploitation that remains marginal to histories of the Pakistani Left.

▴ Cover for a report published on the “Harappa Conference” organised by the MKP’s Dehaat Mazdoor Unit. The cover reads: “Harappa Conference: A Report on the Harappa Conference; Some Essays; Some Poems”. The Dehaat Mazdoor Unit’s choice to hold its conference in Harappa was a move to claim the archaeological remains as a symbolic site for Dalit and indigenous cultural politics.

▴ Another image from the Harappa Conference report. The cover identifies a pitchfork as the emblem for the Dehaat Mazdoor Unit. Often, the sickle, or ‘daantri’ in Punjabi, is the ubiquitous symbol for agrarian movements on the Marxist Left. However, the Dehaat Mazdoor’s Unit choice of the pitchfork marks its Dalit emphasis. A simple tool for lifting and moving loose material like straw, manure, or leaves, the implement is used in the most menial form of agricultural labour, which is usually reserved for landless Dalit workers.

▴ from 1970s Left-wing publication, Lail-o-Nihar juxtaposing the tractor and the ‘hari’, the landless worker/ peasant. The tractor led to a sharp decline in the availability of work for agrarian labour due to mechanisation, and also furthered rural inequality as it allowed rich farmers who could afford tractors to push out small-scale cultivators. Photo Courtesy: SARRC

▴ from 1970s Left-wing publication, Lail-o-Nihar juxtaposing the tractor and the ‘hari’, the landless worker/ peasant. The tractor led to a sharp decline in the availability of work for agrarian labour due to mechanisation, and also furthered rural inequality as it allowed rich farmers who could afford tractors to push out small-scale cultivators. Photo Courtesy: SARRC

▴ A bonded agricultural worker holds up her chains at a protest Source: Dawn