India's One-Day General Strike Largest in History
December 4, 2020
If those who struck on Nov. 26 formed a country, it would be the fifth
largest in the world after China, India, the United States and Indonesia,
writes Vijay Prashad.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
By Vijay Prashad
Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
Farmers and agricultural workers from northern India marched along various
national highways toward India's capital of New Delhi as part of the general
strike on Nov. 26.
They carried placards with slogans against the anti-farmer, pro-corporate
laws that were passed by India's Lok Sabha (lower house of parliament) in
September, and then pushed through the Rajya Sabha (upper house) with only a
voice vote.
The striking agricultural workers and farmers carried flags that indicated
their affiliation with a range of organizations, from the communist movement
to a broad front of farmers' organizations. They marched against the
privatization of agriculture, which they argue undermines India's food
sovereignty and erodes their ability to remain agriculturalists.
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Roughly two-thirds of India's workforce derives its income from agriculture,
which contributes to roughly 18 percent of India's gross domestic product
(GDP). The three anti-farmer bills passed in September undermine the minimum
support price buying schemes of the government, put 85 percent of the
farmers who own less than 2 hectares of land at the mercy of bargaining with
monopoly wholesalers, and will lead to the destruction of a system that has
till now maintained agricultural production despite erratic prices for food
produce.
One hundred and fifty farmer organizations came together for their march on
New Delhi. They pledge to stay in the city indefinitely.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Around 250 million people across India joined the general strike, making it
the largest strike in world history. If those who struck formed a country,
it would be the fifth largest in the world after China, India, the United
States, and Indonesia. Industrial belts across India - from Telangana to
Uttar Pradesh - came to a halt, as workers in the ports from the Jawaharlal
Nehru Port (Maharashtra) to the Paradip Port (Odisha) stopped work.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Coal, iron ore, and steel workers put down their tools, while trains and
buses stood idle. Informal sector workers joined in, and so did health care
workers and bank employees. They struck in opposition to labor laws that
extend the working day to 12 hours and strike down labor protections for 70
percent of the workforce. Tapan Sen, the general secretary of the Centre of
Indian Trade Unions, said, "The strike today is only a beginning. Much more
intense struggles will follow."
The pandemic has deepened the crisis of the Indian working class and
peasantry, including the richer farmers. Despite the dangers of the
pandemic, out of a great sense of desperation, workers and peasants gathered
in public spaces to tell the government that they had lost confidence in
them. The film actor Deep Sindhu joined the protest, where he told a police
officer, "Ye inquilab hai. This is a revolution. If you take away farmers'
land, then what do they have left? Only debt."
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Along the rim of New Delhi, the government positioned police forces,
barricaded the highways, and prepared for a full-scale confrontation. As the
long columns of farmers and agricultural workers approached the barricades
and appealed to their brethren who had set aside the clothes of farmers and
put on police uniforms, the authorities fired tear gas and water cannons at
the farmers and agricultural workers.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
The day of the general strike of farmers and workers, Nov. 26, is also
Constitution Day in India, which marks a great feat of political
sovereignty. Article 19 of the Indian Constitution (1950) quite clearly
gives Indian citizens the right to "freedom of speech and expression" (1.a),
the right to "assemble peaceably and without arms" (1.b), the right to "form
associations or unions" (1.c), and the right "to move freely throughout the
territory of India" (1.d).
In case these articles of the Constitution had been forgotten, the Indian
Supreme Court reminded the police in a 2012 court case (Ramlila Maidan
Incident vs. Home Secretary) that "Citizens have a fundamental right to
assembly and peaceful protest, which cannot be taken away by an arbitrary
executive or legislative action."
The police barricades, the use of tear gas, and the use of water cannons -
infused with the Israeli invention of yeast and baking powder to induce a
gagging reflex - violate the letter of the Constitution, something that the
farmers yelled to the police forces at each of these confrontations. Despite
the cold in northern India, the police soaked the farmers with water and
tear gas.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
But this did not stop them, as brave young people jumped on the water cannon
trucks and turned off the water, farmers drove their tractors to dismantle
the barricades, and the working class and the peasantry fought back against
the class war imposed on them by the government.
The 12-point charter of demands put forward by the trade unions is sincere,
having captured the sentiments of the people. The demands include the
reversal of the anti-worker, anti-farmer laws pushed by the government in
September, the reversal of the privatization of major government
enterprises, and immediate relief for the population, which is suffering
from economic hardship provoked by the coronavirus recession and years of
neoliberal policies.
These are simple demands, humane and true; only the hardest hearts turn away
from them, responding instead with water cannons and tear gas.
India's general strike on Nov. 26, 2020. (IndustriALL Global Union, Flickr,
CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
These demands for immediate relief, for social protections for workers, and
for agricultural subsidies appeal to workers and peasants around the world.
It is demands such as these that provoked the recent protests in Guatemala
and that led to the general strike on Nov. 26 in Greece.
We are now entering a period in this pandemic when more unrest is possible
as more people in countries with bourgeois governments get increasingly fed
up with the atrocious behavior of their elites. Report after report shows us
that the social divides are getting more and more extreme, a trend that
began long before the pandemic but has grown wider and deeper as a
consequence of it.
It is only natural for farmers and agricultural workers to be agitated. A
new report from the Land Inequality Initiative shows that only 1percent of
the world's farms operate more than 70 percent of the world's farmland,
meaning that massive corporate farms dominate the corporate food system and
endanger the survival of the 2.5 billion people who rely upon agriculture
for their livelihood.
Land inequality, when it considers landlessness and land value, is highest
in Latin America, South Asia, and parts of Africa (with notable exceptions
such as China and Vietnam, which have the 'lowest levels of inequality').
A young man, Avtar Singh Sandhu (1950-1988), read Maxim Gorky's Mother
(1906) in the early 1970s in Punjab, from where many of the farmers and
agricultural workers travelled to the barricades around New Delhi. He was
very moved by the relationship between Nilovna, a working-class woman, and
her son, Pavel, or Pasha.
Pasha finds his feet in the socialist movement, brings revolutionary books
home, and, slowly, both mother and son are radicalized. When Nilovna asks
him about the idea of solidarity, Pasha says, "The world is ours! The world
is for the workers! For us, there is no nation, no race. For us, there are
only comrades and foes."
This idea of solidarity and socialism, Pasha says, "warms us like the sun;
it is the second sun in the heaven of justice, and this heaven resides in
the worker's heart." Together, Nilovna and Pasha become revolutionaries.
Bertolt Brecht retold this story in his play Mother (1932).
Avtar Singh Sandhu was so inspired by the novel and the play that he took
the name "Pash" as his takhallus, his pen name. Pash became one of the most
revolutionary poets of his time, murdered in 1988 by terrorists. I am grass
is among the poems he left behind:
Bam fek do chahe vishwavidyalaya par
Banaa do hostel ko malbe kaa dher
Suhaagaa firaa do bhale hi hamari jhopriyon par
Mujhe kya karoge?
Main to ghaas hun, har chiz par ugg aauungaa.
If you wish, throw your bomb at the university.
Reduce its hostel to a heap of rubble.
Throw your white phosphorus on our slums.
What will you do to me?
I am grass. I grow on everything.
That's what the farmers and the workers in India say to their elites, and
that is what working people say to elites in their own countries, elites
whose concern - even in the pandemic - is to protect their power, their
property and their privileges. But we are grass. We grow on everything.
Vijay Prashad, an Indian historian, journalist and commentator, is the
executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and the
chief editor of Left Word Books.
This article is from Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not
reflect those of Consortium News.
