For Decent & Dignified Work

To Protect Our Basic Rights

To Save the Nation for the Future of Our Children 

THE joint national convention of central trade unions and industrial federations, held on August 8, 2017 in Delhi gave the historic call for a massive ‘Mahapadav’ (sit-in) near Parliament from November 9-11.

This ‘Mahapadav’ is intended as a warning for the Modi led BJP government at the centre, which appears to be drunk with power that the workers of this country will no more take its onslaughts on their lives and living conditions, on their basic rights at the workplace, on their fundamental right for a decent and dignified life, lying down. The national convention declared that if the BJP government continues with its neoliberal agenda of making the workers, the toiling people sacrificial lambs at the altar of the big domestic and foreign corporates, to help them amass wealth at the cost of the workers who produce that wealth, the working class will have no other way than to go for an indefinite country wide strike. The national convention called upon the working class to prepare for such an eventuality.

The demands raised by the workers are not new. These are demands raised by the entire trade union movement of the country, including those who chose to desert the joint movement a couple of years back, just two days before the countrywide general strike of September 2, 2015.  They are the demands of the entire working class, in fact, entire toiling and patriotic people of our country. The joint trade union movement has been raising them since 2009. It has raised these demands when the Congress led UPA was in power. It has been raising them during the last three years, when the BJP led NDA government under Prime Minister Modi is in power.

The situation became more grave, the onslaught on the conditions of the workers and toiling people have become more severe since the BJP led government came to power at the centre with a majority of its own. This government has hastened implementation of neoliberal policies, which in essence are meant to transfer wealth, the public resources from the people to the big corporates, domestic and foreign. Disinvestment and privatisation of the public sector, amendments to the labour laws on the pretext of improving ‘ease of doing business’, demonetisation etc are all meant for this.

All its promises of providing two crores jobs every year, of bringing down the prices, of ‘sabka saath; sabka vikas’, of ‘acche din’, of bringing back black money stashed in foreign banks and depositing Rs 15 lakh in each person’s bank account – every single promise has fallen flat. Instead, today, the economy is in an absolute mess. Modi’s highly personalised and publicised initiatives for demonetisation has wrecked havoc in the lives of the workers, particularly the unorganised sector workers and the small and medium enterprises and traders. The GST has not only attacked the rights of the state governments in our federal system, but it has led to increase in the taxes and rise in the prices of most of the commodities used by the common people including essential items like medicines. Lakhs of small traders are affected and in turn the workers, mostly the unorganised workers working for them.

But the government is trying to camouflage its failures with slogans – ‘Make in India’, ‘Skill India’, ‘Start Up India’, ‘Swacch Bharat’ etc. Struggling peasants are killed. Workers fighting for their rights are beaten up by the police.

On the other hand, while the workers and the common people are suffering because of the policies of the government led by the BJP with a former RSS pracharak as the prime minister, the guide and guru of BJP, the RSS is using its various outfits across the country to ensure that the workers, the people do not come together and unitedly fight against these policies. They seek to divide the people on the basis of religion, caste etc. The so called ‘gau rakshaks’ are on the prowl across the country lynching, stabbing and killing dalits and minorities, particularly the Muslim minorities. Ironically, dalits are lynched and killed by these Manuwadi mobs for doing the work assigned to them – of skinning dead cows – by the Manuwadi society itself. How atrocious and shameful!

State authority is used to impose the ideology of the RSS on the entire country. State institutions are filled with RSS ideologues, not persons of eminence in their fields committed to the Indian constitution. Attempts are made to destroy and tear apart our secular society. Scientific thinking is attacked. Unscientific ideas, myths are promoted as science, by none other than the prime minister. Rationalist voices, voices that oppose their policies, their ideology are sought to be suppressed by killing – Dhabolkar, Pansare, Kalburgi, Gauri Lankesh, Santanu Bhowmik – the list goes on. They think that by disrupting the unity of the people and creating an atmosphere of terror and mistrust in the society, they can sustain their exploitative rule. It is time to tell them that they are mistaken. The working class will not allow it.

Over seventy years back, our forefathers have fought for and achieved Independence from British imperialism. They fought for a secular self reliant country; for a country where all our people would enjoy equal rights. They fought for our people to live a dignified and decent life free from poverty, illiteracy, ill health. Today, a party, an outfit of the communal fascistic RSS, which had no role in our struggle for independence is carrying out policies that would negate all these objectives for which our forefathers sacrificed their lives. The government is handing over our natural resources, our land, our mines, our forests, our waters etc to the private corporations, domestic and foreign. 100 per cent FDI is being allowed in many sectors including strategic sectors like defence, railways, insurance, banking etc. Big multinational companies are being invited to come and exploit our workers, offering them cheap labour and union free work places. Our patriotic people are being misguided by raising false slogans of ‘nationalism’ to camouflage these anti-national policies.

All the major issues raised by the trade union movement are related to the neoliberal policies of the government. The erstwhile Congress led UPA government has implemented the same neoliberal policies. In fact it was the Congress government that had initiated the neoliberal policies officially in our country. The former BJP led NDA government of Atal Behari Vajpayee too implemented the same policies and even tried to hasten them. The present BJP led NDA government of Narendra Modi is even more determined to implement them with ‘bullet’ speed.

This is a reflection of the desperation of the big corporations, of the ruling classes to come out of the global crisis, to protect their profits and increase them, by increasing exploitation of the workers and the toiling people. Neoliberalism is the latest phase of capitalism. Crises are inevitable in the capitalist system. All the latest data show that the economy of our country is facing serious difficulties. It has not only slowed down but is said to be slipping into recession. The workers and other toiling people may be subjected to even more attacks on their living and working conditions in the coming days.

This is bound to increase discontent and anger among the people. The ruling classes are promoting communal and divisive forces to divide the people, divert their attention from real issues, disrupt unity and weaken united struggles so that neoliberal policies that benefit the big corporations are continued. The corporate media, which once criticised Modi for the massacre of thousands of Muslims in Gujarat when he was chief minister of the state, had no compunction in projecting him as the messiah of the people, when it suits them. This is because they believe that Modi and his BJP led by the communal fascistic RSS can best promote their interests today, given their commitment to neoliberal policies and their readiness to use authoritarian and dictatorial methods to suppress opposition.

The working class and the toiling people have to be vigilant against such machinations of the ruling classes and the dangerous game plan of the communal and divisive forces working in tandem. Their heinous designs to disrupt unity must be thwarted.

The working class cannot neglect any more the need to correctly understand the reasons for their problems. It has, not only to understand, but also take the lead in fighting against the policies that are responsible for their miseries. It has to unite all its forces irrespective of caste, religion, region, gender etc.  It has to identify its friends among other sections of the people and build a wide unity. It is only such unity and united struggles of the people that can reverse and decisively defeat the anti worker anti people anti national policies of this government. The working class has to take the lead in such a fight. At the same time it has to seek and take the support of all the other sections of the toiling people, particularly the farmers, agricultural workers, the artisans etc to broaden the struggle.

It is necessary to put into practice the slogans adopted in CITU conferences – ‘Reach the unreached’ and ‘Link up issues with policies; expose politics behind the policies’.

The November 9-11 ‘Mahapadav’ should be utilised with this perspective. It should be made a milestone in the working class struggles against neoliberalism; a milestone in the history of the joint trade union movement of the country; and a milestone in the struggle towards freedom from all exploitation.