Millions of Indian workers went on a one-day General Strike on February 12, 2026 demanding among other things the scrapping of the four Labour Codes that were enacted by the BJP-led NDA regime at the Centre five years ago to enslave working people. It is a strike against anti-strike laws that was brought in by this ‘largest democracy’! It is a strike to defend the right to organise and to retain the right to form trade unions. It is strike against a state-sponsored modern slavery system that the Modi regime wants to inflict upon Indian workers. When the campaign was at its peak, the Chief Justice of India stepped in to lend credence to these attacks defying his own oath to defend Constitution that, in turn, guaranteed the right to association including trade unions.

The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions comprising ten Central Trade Unions and Sectoral/Industrial Federations and Associations gave the call for this General Strike. This call was endorsed by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), the umbrella body of farmers’ organisations like AIKS and the joint platform of agricultural and rural workers’ organisations.

The strike call demanded, besides scrapping of four labour codes, the restoration of MGNREGA, repealing of the Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, and the withdrawal of Electricity Amendment Bill as well as the Seed Bill along with workers’ basic demands on minimum wages, pension, convening the long over-due Indian Labour Conference (ILC) - the apex tripartite body for labour policy making, etc. The surrender in the Indo-US FTA has ignited anger among the people in general and our farmers in particular, who were more vocal its strike actions.

The February 12, 2026 General Strike has demonstrated that the workers and farmers of India will not tolerate the savage attacks of this communal corporate nexus. From coalfields and refineries to ports, factories, plantations and financial institutions, the working people of India have asserted their unity and determination. In terms of its capacity and intensity to stall the production and service as well as to mobilise on the strike day, it is a historic strike. One estimate says that more than 30 crore workers and peasants militantly resisted the onslaught of the present ruling rightist political dispensation.

It is the 24^th General Strike since the implementation of the liberalisation policy in the early 1990s. It is historic and resoundingly successful. Reports from across the country indicate that several crores of working people participated in the strike action, demonstrations, picketing and solidarity mobilisations. There was a bandh like situation in Kerala, Tripura, Odisha and some parts of Karnataka.

The strike impacted the national coal belt, with 85%–90% participation in Coal India and Singareni Collieries, halting production and transport. Operations were paralysed across iron ore, bauxite, and manganese mines in Odisha, West Bengal, and Madhya Pradesh. In the power sector, Kerala reported 95% participation, while Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra saw 100% shutdowns. Tens of thousands of electricity workers joined in Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Haryana, affecting Power Grid units in the North East and South India.

In the petroleum sector, contract workers achieved a total strike across Assam’s refineries (Digboi, Bongaigaon, Numaligarh) and terminals, with major disruptions to LPG and POL depots in Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Gujarat. Maritime operations at Paradip, Kakinada, and Tuticorin ports stopped entirely, while Kolkata and Cochin ports faced substantial cargo and dock worker participation.

Kerala saw an extraordinary mobilisation of nearly one crore workers and peasants, closing 105 state PSUs and 200 factories in the Cochin SEZ. In Karnataka, over 1.5 lakh workers from giants like Toyota, Volvo, and Bosch shut down major industrial hubs including Peenya and Mysuru. Similar stoppages occurred in the automobile and engineering clusters of Tamil Nadu (Samsung, Yamaha) and the multinational belts of Telangana (Toshiba, Mahindra & Mahindra).

Across the country, the strike hit the jute industry in West Bengal (85%), cement plants nationwide, and textile and tyre clusters in the South. In the North, project work in Uttarakhand halted completely, while MNREGA workers in Himachal and industrial/scheme workers in Uttar Pradesh organised massive rallies alongside farmer organisations.

The General Strike received full backing from farmers, agricultural workers, students, youth, and women's organisations. Joint demonstrations, including rail and road blockades, occurred in over 600 districts, resulting in mass arrests at 200 centers. This growing class unity between workers and peasants lays a solid foundation for a future alliance. To challenge the current capitalist order, the working class must continue intensifying these movements to integrate broader democratic forces into collective action.

What does a strike teach us? It teaches us about capitalism as a social system and its barbarian instincts along with crisis-prone character. A strike teaches workers about the state and its class character. A strike teaches about the various wings or organs of the state like the judiciary, legislature, and executive.

Comrade Lenin said that “A strike teaches workers to understand what the strength of the employers and what the strength of the workers consists in; it teaches them not to think of their own employer alone and not of their own immediate workmates alone but of all the employers as a class, the whole class of capitalists and the whole class of workers”.

Now it becomes quite clear to the workers that the capitalist class as a whole is the enemy of the whole working class and that the workers can depend only on themselves and their united action. It often happens that a factory owner does his best to deceive the workers, to pose as a benefactor, and conceal his exploitation of the workers by some petty sops or lying promises. A strike always demolishes this deception at one blow by showing the workers that their “benefactor” is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

A strike, moreover, opens the eyes of the workers to the nature, not only of the capitalists, but of the government and the laws as well as judiciary.

It becomes clear to every worker that the Modi government is their worst enemy since it defends the capitalists and binds the workers hand and foot. The workers begin to understand that laws are made in the interests of the capitalist alone; that government protect those interests; that the working people are gagged and not allowed to make known their needs; that the working class must win for itself the right to strike and to retain the right to union.

The government itself knows full well that strikes open the eyes of the workers and for this reason it has such a fear of strikes and does everything to stop them as quickly as possible. Every strike strengthens and develops in the workers the understanding that the government is their enemy and that the working class must prepare itself to struggle against the government for the people’s rights.

Strikes, therefore, teach the workers to unite; they show them that they can struggle against the capitalists only when they are united; strikes teach the workers to think of the struggle of the whole working class against the whole class of factory owners and against the arbitrary, authoritarian government.

This is the reason that the revolutionary trade union calls strikes “a school of class war,” a school in which the workers learn to make war with their class enemies for the liberation of the whole people, of all who labour, from the yoke of capital.

It is interesting to recall the saying of one German Minister of the Interior during the Bismark period in Germany, one who was notorious for the persistent persecution of socialists and class-conscious workers. He, not without reason, stated before the people’s representatives that “Behind every strike lurks the hydra monster of revolution.” Strikes, therefore, always instill fear into the capitalists because strikes begin to undermine their supremacy.