Speech delivered by Ms. Sheena of Purogami Mahila Sangathan at the ‘All India Conference on Privatisation in Electricity and Other Sectors’, held at New Delhi on 15 April 2025
Dear Comrades,
First of all, I would like to congratulate AIFAP and all the members of this forum for organising this important Conference. Purogami Mahila Sangathan is of the firm belief that this Conference marks an important step in our common fight against privatisation.
Purogami Mahila Sangathan (PMS) believes that the exploitation and oppression of women has its source in the existing political and economic system. It is the same political and economic system that exploits and oppresses all the people of our country, including men. Therefore, PMS organises women and works to build the unity of women and men in the common struggle against the attacks on our rights.
From the time the program of globalisation through liberalisation and privatisation was launched by the Narasimha Rao government in 1991, our organisation has been in the front ranks of the struggle of the working people of our country against privatisation.
When the Vajpayee government privatised Modern Foods and BALCO in January 2000, PMS was among the organisations that actively opposed it.
PMS is one of the founding organisations of AIFAP. We have participated in the all sided work of AIFAP against privatisation — the public meetings, the running of the website of AIFAP, and the campaigns to enlighten masses of people against the consequences of privatisation of railways, electricity distribution, education and healthcare on their lives.
Privatisation is not only an attack on the masses of people in general. Women are among its worst victims. Previous generations of workers have fought and won many rights, including rights that specifically benefit women. In government jobs, there is pay parity between women and men, there is job security, the right to unionise, pension benefits, maternity benefits, crèches, etc. though every attempt is being made to take away these rights.
It is well known that capitalists in general do not provide these rights and facilities and try to get away by giving as low wages as possible, on whatever pretext. In addition, women workers are even more vulnerable to sexual attacks when they work in the private sector.
The history of not only our country, but also of the whole world proves that the whole-hearted participation of women is mandatory to ensure the success of the struggle of people against exploitation and injustice. Women have a very important role to play in the struggle against privatisation.
We have the example of the RINL in Vishakhapatnam, where all the people – workers, people at large, women, men, youth have united, overcoming barriers of party and union affiliation, overcoming barriers of religion, caste and gender, to prevent privatisation. They have stopped privatisation for 5 years! Similarly in Gadhinglaj, in Maharashtra all consumers, including a large number of women united with the electricity workers and forced the authorities to desist from installing smart meters.
When women join the struggle the strength increases manifold. They bring in all their resourcefulness, ability to plan, and ability to make sacrifices. All of us members of AIFAP have the responsibility of ensuring increased participation and leadership of women.
We have to encourage the participation of family members in the struggle. We have to bring them to meetings, out on the roads. We must make them aware and informed about why we are waging the struggle. Then they will support us in countless ways. There have been instances in the recent past, when families have come, even bringing young children in the support of the workers’ struggles.
As for the young generation, the more the policy of privatisation is pushed ahead, the more they lose in terms of opportunities for relatively better jobs! Youth bring their energy and their skills in using modern technology. The challenge before all of us is to enable the participation of more women, more youth and more family members. We should take it up as an important task!
Today we are discussing privatisation of electricity. All of us know that smart meters are a step towards privatising electricity distribution. We know that states in which the BJP runs the government have been trying to install them. But what about other states? The website of the National Smart Grid Mission reports that they have been installed in J & K, Punjab, West Bengal, TN, and Himachal as well! And we know which parties have formed the governments there!
This just means that we cannot depend on these parties, irrespective of their election promises. We have to unite across barriers of sector and union and party affiliations. We have to educate the people at large about how privatisation adversely affects them.
AIFAP has being doing very important work on these lines. PMS will keep contributing to the struggle against privatisation.
Inquilab Zindabad!