THE Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) congratulates the working class, peasants, agricultural workers, students and other democratic sections for the magnificent strike across the country on January 8 despite large scale arrests and repression.
 
The joint platform of the trade unions and different federations has successfully underlined the extremely difficult conditions of livelihood which remains ravaged by the policies of the Modi government, through their magnificent collective action. The strike across all sections of the economy was excellent due to extremely enthusiastic participation of industrial workers both in the organised and unorganised sectors, as well as the financial and other service sectors. The strike was particularly pronounced in PSUs, transport, tea, jute, engineering and scheme workers.
 
A new feature of the all India strike was the large participation of the peasantry and agricultural workers in the rural areas to highlight the severity of agrarian distress.
 
The student organisations had also given the call for a strike to highlight the severity of increasing costs of education and assault on democracy in the campuses which came into sharp focus with the recent assaults in Jamia, AMU and JNU. The college and university students have played a big role in spreading the message of the strike with the particular concern for the defence of the Indian constitution. School, college and university teachers participated widely.
 
The general strike was total in Kerala. In Tripura, braving the brutality of the BJP and the state administration, the strike was near total. Strike was complete in Manipur. In West Bengal, the strike was extremely vibrant and widespread with the TMC led state administration doing everything possible to foil the bandh. The strike was very significant in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Maharashtra and in many other states.
The Polit Bureau is confident that the voice of the workers and other sections of the working people together with students and other democratic sections should redouble the resolve and defeat the back breaking economic policies of impoverishing the overwhelming majority of our working people, divisive policies of polarisation, furthering the fascistic onslaughts to undermine the very foundations of the constitutional principles of the republic. The strike action today paves the way for even broader unity of the people through forging mightier struggles.