Simon Hardy<\/i><\/p>\n
Workers in India showed their power on 7 September when up to 100 million workers went on strike for one day, the second such strike in two months.<\/p>\n
Other sectors joining the September general strike were workers in insurance, engineering, textiles and the shipbuilding industry.<\/p>\n
The majority of the strikers were in southern Kerala and West Bengal, both federal states where the Communist Party of India (Marxist) is in government. The CPI (M) still has major support amongst workers, but has become a strongly pro capitalist party that has viciously used police and armed thugs against protesting workers and peasants in recent years.<\/p>\n
However it was, the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) – affiliated to the CPI (M) – which took the lead in calling the strike, joined by the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), which is affiliated to the ruling Congress party.<\/p>\n
The strike was organised by eight trade unions in all who organised themselves into a co-ordination committee. This is the first national strike to unite such a broad spectrum of unions, though the BJP affiliated unions refused to participate. Obviously party and union leaders are feeling the pressure of the mass of workers, facing the effects of the crisis, despite India\u2019s reportedly strong recovery.<\/p>\n
The protest focussed on „increases in prices, disinvestment in public sector banks, huge job losses, and rampant violation of labour laws and lack of adequate protection to workers in the unorganised sector.“ The workers also demanded improvements to social security, including the rehiring of sacked workers who lost their jobs in the recession and increases in benefits for unemployed workers.<\/p>\n
This was also an inspiring example of workers unity, with the unemployed and employed working together to stop the bosses dividing the working class.<\/p>\n
In some areas coal miners too came out on strike, organising a protest march and demanded the government take action to reduce prices on essential goods.<\/p>\n
The strike was strong amongst bank workers, closing most bank branches. Bank workers are worried about proposals to allow more foreign investment, which will lead to privatisation in the mostly publicly owned banking sector. In India 70 per cent of banking is in the public sector. There are growing calls amongst the national and provincial capitalist \u00e9lites for privatisation of the publicly owned banks and industries and workers are understandably angry with more sell-offs to make profits for their exploiters.<\/p>\n
In addition many flights were cancelled and shops closed as air industry workers too participated in the huge demonstrations and mass meetings to discuss the crisis and the workers\u2019 fightback.<\/p>\n
The government is claiming that India\u2019s economic growth is increasing at its highest rate since 2007- reaching 8.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2010. If this is even accurate, it is certain that growth in GDP is not directly leading to improvements in the lives of the poor or the working class. Inflation in India reached 9 per cent in July, and although it was easing to around 7 per cent by September the impact on the poor is still causing real hardship.<\/p>\n
Around 830 million workers in India live on less than $2 a day. India for all its expanding capitalism over the last decade, is still dogged by massive economic problems, many inherited from the colonial past and near-feudal landlordism, still unable to improve the lives of most of the people living in the countryside and in the slums of the great cities.<\/p>\n
India has seen several one-day strikes in recent years that have seen millions of workers take both political and industrial action against injustice.<\/p>\n
But the trade union leaders make sure the strikes stop after a day and everyone goes back to work.<\/p>\n
If the working class wants to really defeat the government\u2019s cuts and privatisation agenda then indefinite strike action aimed at compelling the government to abandon its sell off plans and to raise public sector wages and unemployment benefits is necessary.<\/p>\n
But in order to really challenge the capitalist \u00e9lite in India, as well as to free the 52 per cent of the labour force still working on the land, a revolutionary party of the workers and the poor peasants has to be built in India.<\/p>\n
Such a party would campaign for the expropriation of big private industry and the banks under workers control and lead the peasants in movement to end landlordism in the countryside. It would also demand self-determination for Kashmir \u2013 now witnessing many weeks of an uprising by youth and brutal repression by Indian armed forces.<\/p>\n
It would demand recognition of the rights of the indigenous peoples of eastern and northern India. Such revolutionary party, coming to the head of a massive movement, could take power, overthrowing a Congress or BJP government. It would fight for a workers and peasants government based on councils of the working classes of town and country.<\/p>\n
This must be the outline of a strategy for revolutionaries in India today.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Simon Hardy Workers in India showed their power on 7 September when up to 100 million workers went on strike for one day, the second such strike in two months. Other sectors joining the September general strike were workers in insurance, engineering, textiles and the shipbuilding industry. The majority of the strikers were in southern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7724,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,1,17],"tags":[104,219,188],"class_list":["post-2803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-uncategorized","category-working-class-fights","tag-archive","tag-india","tag-strike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2803"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6455,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2803\/revisions\/6455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fifthinternational.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}