India is gearing up for a historic worker-farmer’s strike on February 12

Millions will stop work on Thursday demanding the withdrawal of the new anti-worker labor codes, restoration of the rural employment guarantee act, and the protection of the country’s sovereignty and the secular-democratic constitution.

Rally in preparation for the nationwide strike scheduled for February 12 -- image via the CITU on Facebook

By Abdul Rahman, People's Dispatch

India will witness the largest ever national strike in its history on Thursday, February 12, in opposition to the four new labor codes, trade deals with the US and EU, and several other anti-people policies of the ultra-right-wing government in the country, unions claimed.

A nationwide campaign to ensure broad popular participation in the strike has already been taken up by the constituents of the Central Trade Unions (CTUs), a collective of farmers organizations called the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), agricultural workers unions, students, women, and youth groups from all across the country.

There are 10 major constituents of the CTUs, including the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU), All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS), among others.

Several major political parties, such as the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Communist Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation, among others, have also extended their support for the strike.

Major demands

The major demands of the strike were outlined in a press release of the CTUs in Delhi on Monday.

The central demand is the withdrawal of the four new labor codes. They were introduced last year by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, after a delay of over five years following their adoption in the parliament.

The delay was attributed to the fierce opposition the codes faced from the trade unions who have called them antithetical to the basic interests of the working classes in the country.

The unions also support the demands raised by the SKM about the reversal of several other anti-people pieces of legislation, such as a new rural employment guarantee act called the VB-G RAM G Act, new seeds and electricity acts introduced recently, among others.

The unions and SKM are also demanding the reinstatement of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) 2004, which was scrapped by the government to bring the VB-G RAM G Act.

The unions and left parties claim that the VB-G RAM G Act makes the right to employment provided by the NREGA ineffective and deprives an essential safeguard for millions of rural Indians against absolute poverty and destitution.

No trade deals with US, EU

The unions have also opposed the new trade deals signed by the Narendra Modi government with the UK, EU, and the US and have called for their immediate withdrawal.

They allege that if the trade deals are allowed to go through as they are, they would negatively impact India’s small industries and millions of farmers, as they allow for the unfiltered entry of agricultural products and other goods.

The All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), a key organization in SKM, said that the recent deal between India and the US marked the complete surrender of the country’s sovereignty to Trump. The deal will “break the backbone of the rural economy of India,” it underlined in the statement issued last week.

Attacks on the country’s secular and democratic constitution

The protection of secularism, enshrined by India’s constitution, is another major demand of the February 12 strike. The unions claim that the BJP-led government has implemented policies and disseminated speech that promotes religious hatred towards Muslim and Christian minorities in the country, in direct violation of the secular and egalitarian nature of India’s constitution.

The Hindi-supremacist BJP government has also unleashed an unprecedented attack on democratic dissent in the country arresting hundreds of activists, scholars, journalists, and others, booking them under draconian laws and charging them for sedition and terrorism.

Trade unions, the SKM, and left parties have called for the reversal of these policies and the protection of democratic spaces and the fundamental rights of the people.

February 12 will be the third such mobilization against the BJP government’s policies in less than a year. The CTUs and SKM organized a massive strike in support of these demands on July 9 last year, in which over 250 million people participated.

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