PRAGOTI

 While there may not be much merit in the arguments of those who have been criticising the poverty line for being too low on the basis of a per capita per day basis, their concerns remain valid. This is again entirely due to the double speak of the planning commission which has not shown clarity in making its stand clear on whether these poverty lines will be used for targeting of beneficiaries households or not.

Against the “means-based approach” to development that the bourgeoisie projects, the left must project a “rights-based approach”. Since “rights” are guarantors of welfare gains, every winning of rights likewise strengthens them. The acquisition of rights on the part of the people, including rights to minimum bundles of goods, services and security, amounts therefore to winning crucial battles in the class war for the transcendence of capitalism. If the left were to put on its agenda a struggle for people’s rights and adopt a rights-based approach to development as opposed to the means-based approach of the bourgeois formations, it would not constitute a retreat into abstract humanism but would be an integral part of the dialectics of subversion of the logic of capital. Prabhat Patnaik writes in the Economic and Political Weekly

In mid-December 2009, I visited fishing areas in and around the Mundra coastal region which hosts the vast Mundra Port and SEZ Limited (MPSEZL). The visit to the coastal areas adjoining the Mundra port in the Kutch revealed discontent among fisherfolk, traders and pastoralists over the creation of a special economic zone in the area. Apart from environmental concerns, the traditional livelihoods of residents in the area have also been affected by the new industrial projects, leading to organised protests, as witnessed in Bhadreswar village a few months ago.