Indian workers made history by organising largest ever general strike in the history
Indian workers made history by organising largest ever general strike in the history
January 08-2020 saw the largest ever general strike of human
history. Nearly 250 million workers across India went on a 24 hour long general
strike. India is the world’s second-most populated country, with about 1.374 billion
people. Over 928 million are “working age” (15 to 64 years old; On Jan. 8, one
in four people in this age group — 250 million — stayed off the job in the
biggest strike to date in world history.
The size of this strike is more than the total number of people that voted (219 million) for the ultra-right wing BJP government in the last general election of 2019.
It was one f the greatest show of strength-power and
solidarity from Indian workers. The 24-hour strike shut down banking-transport, retail-
public services construction sectors, and industry in many parts of the
country. Workers blocked highways and railroad tracks, with their bodies- barricades-
and burning tires. Police cars and government buildings were attacked in some
places.
The strike
was initially called around a 12-point program protesting Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s anti-worker legislation and massive privatization plans,
affecting such national assets as airlines- railways and petroleum refineries.
Other points addressed high unemployment and inflation in the world’s fifth-largest
economy and called for raising the minimum wage and pensions. Two-thirds of the
population lives on less than $2 a day; nearly half of them are “extremely
poor,” subsisting on $1.25 a day or less.
When this
strike was originally called, it was to register anger against anti-labour laws
and the selling-off of the country’s assets. But now it’s broader because there
are no jobs. The future of young people is being destroyed by Modi. This
sentiment expressed the mood in the society and especially among the young
people.
Strikers also displayed, in signs and chants, widespread opposition to Prime Minister Modi’s Citizenship Amendment Act to deny citizenship to Muslims.
In some economic
sectors strike participation was between 90-100 percent. The working class was on
the streets on January 08. The streets in India was flooded with protesting
workers. The strike engaged the whole
population, including large numbers of informal sector workers and farmers.
Economic hardship has led to publicized suicides of thousands of farmers.
Student
organizations in India and abroad were solidly behind the strike. A National
Education Strike of students boycotting classes and calling for affordable
education coincided with the January- 08 strike.
On Jan. 8,
an estimated 250 million workers across India conducted the largest ever
single-day general strike in history, targeted against the far-right Modi
government that has declared an all-out war against workers along with its
divisive agenda of religious bigotry. This countrywide strike was called Bharat
Bandh, literally meaning Shutdown India.
This is the
fourth country-wide strike by workers during Modi’s regime, the earlier three
occurring Sept. 2, 2015 (80 million); Sept. 2, 2016 (150 million), and the
two-day strike on Jan. 8-9, 2019 (150 million).
The strike
was called by 10 big central trade unions: NTUC, AITUC, HMS, CITU, AIUTUC,
TUCC, SEWA, AICCTU, LPF, UTUC, along with various independent federations and
associations, with a declaration that was adopted in September last year at a
mass workers’ conference.
All these
trade unions represent unionized industrial workers and service sector workers,
many of whom are employed by state-owned industries and companies. A
significant portion of the unionized service workers, known as scheme-workers,
mainly consisting of women, come from different welfare schemes run by the
central government.
AIKSCC, the
umbrella platform of over 175 organizations representing farmers, peasants,
agricultural workers, and non-farm rural workers decided to join this strike,
boosting it further. This wing of the mobilization was titled Grameen Bharat
Bandh, “Rural India Shutdown!”
Not only
unionized urban workers and rural workers but contractual workers joined the
strike.
Rukhsana Manzoor/Khalid Bhatti
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