The working class in India will down tools in a national general strike tomorrow, following a call by a joint platform of 10 trade union centres; as well as independent all-India sectoral federations and associations, to oppose the decision of the Modi government to implement its anti-worker Labour Codes.
These four new codes are supposed to streamline and ‘simplify’ India’s existing labour laws. They do so only in the sense of making it simpler for the bosses to exploit us and make our lives hell. The farmers’ union coalition ‘Samyukta Kisan Morcha’, which spearheaded the historic farmers’ movement that forced the Modi led government to repeal his reactionary Agricultural Bill, extended its full support to this general strike.
The profit-hungry corporates are demanding 70-90 hour working weeks. Permanent employment is fast becoming a thing of the past. Whatever employment is generated is mostly precarious and non-permanent. The Modi government itself has acknowledged that “Even after 73 years of independence approximately 90 percent of workers work in unorganized sectors that do not have access to social security.” The total number of workers from both sectors consists of more than 500 million people, whom the bosses want to reduce to raw material for exploitation.
The big corporates want the working class to be chained and its voice suppressed, to ensure unbridled exploitation and unhampered loot of the country’s wealth – its public sector, natural resources including land, mines, forests, water bodies etc. The recent murder of the Naxalites in Chhattisgarh by the Modi government under ‘Operation Kagar’ was primarily done with the intention of removing all obstacles to mining this mineral-rich forested region.
In the sugarcane fields of Beed, Maharashtra, a brutal reality is unfolding one that should outrage everyone with a conscience. Female workers, trapped in poverty and denied basic healthcare, are being pushed to undergo hysterectomies just to escape the burden of menstruation. Why? Because a doctor’s consultation costs ₹350 ($4) the same as a day’s wage and taking a day off means no pay at all. This is not just exploitation; it’s bodily sacrifice for survival. Among 82,000 women, at least five have already gone under the knife. And where does this blood-stained sugarcane end up? In the supply chains of global giants like Pepsi and Coca-Cola who sell fizzy drinks while turning a blind eye to the human cost.
The Indian government has also been exporting workers for exploitation abroad. Many of the 6,500 migrants who died in the Gulf building the FIFA 2022 World Cup stadium came from India. Modi has just signed a bilateral framework agreement with the butcher Netanyahu to send Indian workers to fill the employment vacuum created by Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.
As we have seen with the recent inspiring strike of Samsung workers in Chennai, the Indian proletariat will not take this abuse lying down. The BJP & Congress governments who have alternated their rule in India ever since independence have done absolutely nothing. The workers can rely on nothing but their own strength.
The demands of the strike are:
- Combatting price rises through universalisation of the public distribution system and banning speculative trade in the commodity market.
- Reversing unemployment through concrete measures to create jobs.
- Strict enforcement of all basic labour laws, without any exception or exemption, and stringent punitive measures for violation of these laws.
- Universal social security cover for all workers.
- Minimum wages of not less than Rs 15,000/- per month with provisions for indexation.
- Assured pensions of not less than Rs.3,000/- p.m. for the entire working population.
- Ending disinvestment in Central/State Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs).
- An end to the outsourcing of permanent perennial work to exploited contract workers, and the payment of the same wages and benefits to contract workers as regular employees for the same and similar work.
- Removal of all ceilings on payment and eligibility for bonuses.
- Compulsory registration of trade unions within a period of 45 days from the date of submitting an application; and immediate ratification of ILO Conventions C 87 and C 98 to protect the right to organise and assemble.
- An end to Labour Law amendments that favour the bosses.
- An end to Foreign Direct Investment in Railways, Insurance and Defence.
- Withdrawal of the Land Acquisition amendment bill, which would make it easier for fatcat corporations to seize land for exploitation.
We communists support all the demands, but we ask: why was the strike delayed from its original date shortly after Operation Sindoor, in which Modi plunged India into a war with nuclear-armed Pakistan? This was the ideal time to launch a strike, not only to accomplish the strikers’ demands, but to bring down the Modi regime, which is the biggest impediment to accomplishing them!
We say this strike must become the beginning of a mass political campaign to tear down the Modi government, and then come for the capitalist system he represents, and which brings so much misery to working people. Under the banner of warmongering patriotism and Hindutva sectarianism, Modi seeks to rob and abuse the population on behalf of the rich. He carves up our economy and vast resources, selling them to piece by piece to fatcats abroad. He threatens nuclear conflict that would decimate the subcontinent.
The working class alone has the power to combat this. The Revolutionary Communists (India) call on the workers to use their might to bring the fight to Modi and the capitalists!
Victory to the general strike!
Down with the Labour Codes!
Down with Modi!
Down with Hindutva!
Death to capitalism!
