Resisting Corporate Control: Forging Worker-Peasant Unity
P Krishnaprasad
UNDER neoliberal regimes, working people face growing hardship as farmers are denied fair prices for their crops, workers earn below the minimum wage for strenuous labor, and many struggle with debt, unemployment, forced migration, and soaring costs of living. Meanwhile, corporate elites, who control the means of production, amass vast profits through the exploitation of labor and unchecked resource extraction-land, water, forests, and minerals-with the explicit support of the ruling BJP party.
The ruling class parties, both in power and in opposition, are under the grip of the powerful International Finance Capital-Monopoly Capital (IFC-MC) nexus. They are also facing mounting pressure from the growing struggles and mass movements of farmers, workers, and other social sections. As a result, especially those in opposition are, to some degree, compelled to align with the cause of the working people.
The growing anger of the working people was clearly reflected in the 18th Lok Sabha election, which dealt a setback to the BJP. The party lost its single-party majority, a position it had held in the previous two elections, and was forced to rely on allies to retain power. In Haryana, despite securing a victory, the NDA's vote share fell significantly, from 46.3% in the Lok Sabha election to 39.9 per cent in the Assembly elections.
However, the NDA-3 government remains steadfast in its pro-corporate agenda, as evidenced by the 2024-25 Union Budget's Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM). DAM aims to corporatize agriculture by digitalizing farms, promoting contract farming, and reshaping cropping patterns to serve corporate interests. Corporate control over agro-processing, value addition, trade, procurement, and the food market will jeopardise food security. The budget further encroaches on state powers over agriculture, land, cooperation, and industry, further eroding federal governance.
The BJP, as the principal ruling class party, is resorting to extreme neo-liberal reforms in response to the deepening systemic crisis of global capitalism. The severe economic downturn and persistent decline in the rate of profit are compelling corporate interests to intensify their exploitation of the working people. Farmers are denied remunerative prices for their crops, while workers, both in India and globally, are deprived of their rightful minimum wages.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) pressures the Government of India not to enact a Minimum Support Price (MSP) law that ensures income at C2+50 per cent with guaranteed procurement for all crops, and strengthening the Public Distribution System (PDS). The corporate agenda argues that MSP and PDS distort the market. Their aim is to impose neo-liberal reforms on farmers, workers, and all sections of the working population, including small traders and non-monopoly capitalist producers, further entrenching corporate control over the economy.
Imperialism also aggressively drags the working people into devastating wars, as we see in Palestine, Lebanon, Ukraine, and numerous other conflict zones around the world. At the same time, identity politics is being weaponised to divide the working class along lines of race, caste, region, and religion. An example of this divisive strategy within India is the ongoing conflict in Manipur.
The IFC-MC combine exerts significant influence over India's economy, particularly in agriculture and labour, driving policies like privatisation and widespread contractualisation that harm workers. In response, workers and trade unions are increasingly resisting these neoliberal measures, highlighting the growing conflict between imperialist interests and India's working class.
A key growing contradiction is the erosion of state governments' federal rights. The 2017 GST centralised financial and administrative power to serve corporate interests, stripping states of taxation rights and leaving them resource-constrained, dependent on external loans for basic functions obligations such as paying salaries and pensions. Similarly, the creation of the Ministry of Cooperation in 2019 and the National Cooperation Policy further undermine state autonomy.
The ‘One Nation, One Election’ policy challenges India's federal principles by undermining states' autonomy in electing their own governments independently of the Union Government's electoral process. In response, the Kerala State Assembly unanimously passed a resolution opposing it.
These repeated assaults on federal rights pose a serious threat to the integrity of the Indian Union, which was historically forged through the struggle for independence against British colonialism. The Union was founded on the principles of federalism, democracy, secularism, and the economic autonomy of its diverse nationalities.
Distress migration driven by the agrarian crisis forces peasants and rural workers into the expanding reserve army of migrant labour. This migration undermines the livelihoods and rights of workers in the manufacturing and service sectors. The four labour codes exacerbate the situation by imposing exploitative conditions, denying workers basic rights like minimum wages, social security, and pensions, and stripping them of dignity and a decent standard of living.
Workers in agriculture, manufacturing, and services cannot safeguard their livelihoods unless strong unity between workers and peasants nationwide is built. The goal is to transform issue-based solidarity into a powerful worker-peasant unity, expanding it into a broad people's movement against corporate exploitation and communal threats, as learned from historical struggles like the farmers' movement at the Delhi borders.
Currently, unity exists primarily at the level of coordination between kisan organisations and trade unions. Expanding this unity to encompass the broader masses of peasants and workers, reaching down to the villages and workplaces, is essential. Such an expansion will help build a massive and cohesive worker-peasant unity, effectively mobilising resistance against corporate exploitation.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) have been working together in this direction, focusing on identifying concrete policy demands to build large-scale struggles. This has allowed to intensify contradictions at national-level. Similarly, mass struggles focused on concrete local demands will further deepen local contradictions. Workers and peasants are giving an ultimatum to the NDA-3 government, either implement key demands- including MSP and minimum wage-within a reasonable timeframe, or face a nationwide, indefinite mass struggle.
The SKM and CTU will jointly organize massive worker-peasant protests in districts on 26 November 2024, marking the fourth anniversary of the historic farmers' march to Delhi and the All-India General Strike by workers against the three farm laws and four labour codes. Widespread campaigns, including padayatras and cycle yatras, are being organized in villages. A call has been given to all social sections-including students, youth, women, traders, and petty producers-to join this struggle in solidarity.
A significant mass mobilization on the streets, aimed at creating a conducive environment to elevate the anti-corporate struggle to new heights, is crucial for protecting the people of India. This movement seeks to build a broad-based people's movement in pursuit of alternative policies to replace neo-liberal capitalism.
The 12 major demands include: legally guaranteed MSP at C2+50 per cent for all crops, repeal of the four labour codes, and no contractualisation or outsourcing of labour; implement national minimum wage of Rs 26,000 per month, pension of Rs 10,000 per month, and social security for all workers, including organised, unorganised, scheme workers and contract workers and agriculture sector; implement a comprehensive loan waiver for farmers and agricultural workers to combat debt and prevent suicides, while ensuring access to low-interest credit; no privatisation of public sector undertakings and services, including health, education, and defense, abolish the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP), no prepaid smart meters, ensure free power for agricultural pumps, and provide 300 units of free electricity to domestic users and shops; no Digital Agriculture Mission (DAM), National Cooperation Policy, and ICAR agreements with MNCs that undermine state rights and promote the corporatisation of agriculture; end indiscriminate land acquisition and implementing the LARR Act 2013 and FRA; guaranteed employment with 200 days of work and Rs. 600/day wages in MGNREGA, expanded to urban areas, immediately withdrawal of the exclusion of families from MNREGA and pay the pending wages; a comprehensive public sector insurance scheme for crops and cattle, ensuring crop insurance and benefits for tenant farmers; control price hikes, strengthen the PDS, ensure quality public healthcare and education for all, provide a Rs 10,000 monthly pensions at age 60, and tax the super-rich to fund these initiatives; strict laws against communalism and discrimination, upholding secularism; and ending violence against women, children, and marginalised groups, including dalits, tribals, and minorities.
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