India

25 Years Of Kerala’s ‘People’s Plan’

September 20, 2021 Vyshakh T, People's Dispatch. Create! COVID-19, India, Kerala, Marxism, Worker Rights and Jobs

The Left Democratic Front (LDF) of the south Indian State of Kerala, led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), came to power for the second consecutive time in April this year, securing 99 out of 140 seats in the State Legislative Assembly. This victory broke a 40-year-old trend of incumbents losing the elections. One of the key factors behind this victory was the successful response of the government to natural disasters, such as floods, and the COVID-19 pandemic. The highlight of this response was a community-centered approach with thorough people’s participation. People’s participation has been a feature of many other important initiatives in the State too. The ‘Public Library Movement’ helped set up reading rooms and little libraries while the ‘Literacy Movement’ contributed to Kerala becoming the most literate State in the country.

The Sound Of His Approaching Step Wakes Me And I See My Land’s Deprivation

September 17, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! India, Political Violence, Revolution, Right wing extremism

On Wednesday, 8 September, party workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), India’s ruling political party, attacked three buildings in the Melarmath area of Agartala (Tripura). These attacks targeted the offices of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the communist newspaper Daily Deshar Katha, and two private media houses Pratibadi Kalam and PN-24. The violence took place in broad daylight as the police stood by and watched. Across Tripura, fifty-four other offices of the communists were attacked. The Communist Party – CPI(M) – and the media houses had been critical of the BJP-led state government. The CPI(M) and other organisations took to the streets to protest a range of policies; these protests have drawn considerable support from the population.

Amazon And The Destruction Of Competition And Livelihoods

September 5, 2021 Colin Todhunter, Counter Punch. Educate! Amazon, Capitalism, India

Global corporations are colonising India’s retail space through e-commerce and destroying small-scale physical retail and millions of livelihoods. Walmart entered into India in 2016 with a US$3.3 billion take-over of the online retail start-up Jet.com. This was followed in 2018 with a US$16 billion take-over of India’s largest online retail platform, Flipkart. Today, Walmart and Amazon control almost two thirds of India’s digital retail sector.

Garment Workers In Bangladesh Forced To Return To Factories

August 11, 2021 Peoples Dispatch. Educate! COVID-19, health, India, Worker Rights and Jobs

Despite a strict lockdown, at least four million garment workers in Bangladesh were ordered to resume work from Sunday, August 1. The announcement made two day earlier led to thousands of workers rushing back to major production centers in overcrowded trains and buses due to the threat of job loss, increasing the risk of COVID-19 spread. A large number of workers complained of paying more than the normal rates for transportation, which was resumed by the government only on July 31. On July 30, the Sheikh Hasina-led government issued a notice allowing garment export factories to resume operations. Following this, garment workers were seen returning to major cities from their villages in overcrowded trucks, ferries and other means of transportation. Several others traveled on foot.

Indian Farmers’ Protest Completes 200 Days

June 25, 2021 La Via Campesina. Resist! Farmers, India, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

Early January this year, while responding to a journalist’s query about the perseverance displayed by India’s farmers even after several rounds of failed negotiations with the Government of India, Rakesh Tikait of Bhartiya Kisan Union had evoked the everyday struggle of a peasant in the field. “Resilience is in our blood. Every year after sowing seeds, we wait patiently for months on end to reap the harvest. It is back-breaking work in difficult conditions. Often, a drought or an untimely hailstorm wreaks it all and smashes all our hopes for a better yield and income. Yet, we persist. We do not give up. We do not run away. Come winter, and we plant again. In one village of Rajasthan, my people have waited 12 long years for rains. Farmers are the epitome of patience. Our farm is our life.

The Kisan Farmers’ Commune In India

June 19, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Class Struggle, Farmers, India, Worker Rights and Jobs

On 26 June 2021, tens of thousands of Indian farmers will gather in front of the government offices in India’s twenty-eight states. They will come to commemorate the completion of seven months of their nation-wide protest against the extreme right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This gathering will be part of a long cycle of protests that started on 26 November 2020 as part of a day-long general strike of 250 million Indian workers and peasants. Since November, tens of thousands of farmers, or kisans, have surrounded India’s capital, New Delhi, forming a Kisan [Farmers’] Commune. This Commune came to being 150 years after the Paris Commune, out of whose defeat, Marx wrote, would rise the next experiment with socialist democracy.

The Farmers’ Revolt In India

June 18, 2021 Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Resist! COVID-19, Farmers, India, Strike, Worker Rights and Jobs

India is gripped by the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The daily confirmed cases crossed 400,000 in May as the health system convulsed, hospital beds filled up, and medical oxygen canisters emptied. The spike in the death rate has created queues at crematoriums. While the spotlight is on Delhi and other urban centres, silent deaths are spreading in rural north India. People are dying of ‘fever’ and ‘breathlessness’, the common-sense terms used to describe COVID-19 symptoms. Since many have not been tested for the disease, their deaths are not part of the official numbers. In September 2020, India’s government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), passed three acts that directly impact agriculture.

Across India, Protesters Mark Six Months Of Historic Farmers’ Agitation

May 27, 2021 NewsClick, People's Dispatch. Resist! Farmers, India, Protests, Strike

Hundreds of thousands of farmers, workers and members of trade unions, student and women organizations observed a protest at thousands of places across India on Wednesday, May 26. The day marked the completion of six months of the historic farmers’ protest against the three contentious farm laws passed by the government of Narendra Modi. Farmers across India have opposed the laws, saying it will dismantle vital state regulations, reduce the price they get for their produce and lead to greater corporate entry in agriculture.

Why One State in India Is Showing Promising Signs of Democracy

May 22, 2021 Vijay Prashad and Subin Dennis, Toward Freedom Create! Class Struggle, Democracy, India

The right wing in Kerala has typically claimed that the Left is not equipped to build the state’s infrastructure. But this time, the right wing had no grounds to make its typical complaints. Since 2016, the state government has not only improved the basic transportation infrastructure but has also built up other kinds of infrastructure needed by the working class and the peasantry.

Bill Gates, The White Man’s Burden And Modi Government’s Vaccine Debacle

May 9, 2021 Prabir Purkayastha, Peoples Dispatch. Educate! Capitalism, COVID-19, India, Vaccine

The incompetence of the Indian government is starkly visible in its handling of the current COVID-19 crisis. It fares even worse on the vaccine front. Its belief in the ideology of free-market capitalism is that the market will magically produce whatever we need. This is why it starved the 7 public sector vaccine manufacturing units (Down to Earth, 17 April 2021) of any support. And also gave the public sector vaccine, Covaxin, developed by ICMR and National Institute of Virology to a private company, Bharat Biotech on an exclusive basis. It also believed that Serum Institute of India, another private sector company and the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer, would make vaccines in required amounts without orders or capital support.

In Kerala, The Present Is Dominated By The Future

May 7, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Strategize! Elections, India, Kerala, Left Politics

Kerala, a state in the Indian union with a population of 35 million, has re-elected the Left Democratic Front (LDF) to lead the government for another five years. Since 1980, the people of Kerala have voted out the incumbent, seeking to alternate between the Left and the Right. This year, the people decided to stay with the Left and give the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader, Pinarayi Vijayan, a second term in office as the Chief Minister. Health Minister K. K. Shailaja, popularly known as Shailaja Teacher, won her re-election with a record-breaking tally of over 60,000 votes, far exceeding her closest contender. It is clear that the people voted the Left government back in for three reasons...

Biden Chooses Monopoly Profits Over Lives In India

May 2, 2021 Sam Carliner, Left Voice. Educate! COVID-19, India, Patents, Vaccines

India is prominent in the news right now, as it has become the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide. Rhetoric from the Biden administration might lead people to believe that resolving the crisis in India is a top priority. As thousands of people die each day in India and the United States restricts all travel from the country, however, it turns out that Biden’s support for vaccine nationalism is fueling the crisis. Biden has promised aid to India in the form of personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, test kits, and other supplies — but without vaccines, that essentially slaps a band-aid on the problem. There are two actions the United States could take, though, that would make a serious dent in the spread of the pandemic in India.

Farmers Block Expressway In Indian State Of Haryana To Protest Against Farm Laws

April 11, 2021 Priya Yadav, Sputnik News. Resist! Farmers, India, Privatization, Strike

Hundreds of farmers from across India have been camping out Delhi's borders for the past four months to protest against newly introduced agricultural laws by the federal government. While the farmers are demanding the laws, passed last September be repealed, the government has agreed to only making amendments and refused to repeal them. Intensifying their protests against newly introduced agriculture laws, farmers blocked the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal expressway at several places in state of Haryana on Saturday. Several farm leaders were detained by the Haryana Police even as farmers sitting on the expressway were forcibly removed for allowing the traffic to pass. Huge jams on the highway have been seen since morning when farmers hit the expressway.

How India’s Farmers’ Protests Could Upend The Political Landscape

March 4, 2021 Vijay Prashad, People's Dispatch. Educate! Elections, Farmers, India, Strike

For the past three months, Indian farmers and agricultural workers have been in the middle of a difficult struggle against the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Tens of thousands of them have gathered around the capital city of New Delhi; they say that they will not disband unless the government repeals three laws that negatively impact their ability to remain economically viable. The government has shown no sign that it will withdraw these laws, which provide immense advantages to the large corporate houses that are close to Prime Minister Modi. The government’s attempt to crack down on the farmers and agricultural workers has altered the mood in the country: those who grow the food for the country are hard to depict as “terrorists” and as “anti-national.” Modi’s party—the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—currently holds power in several of the states that border Delhi.

From The Murder Of Berta Cáceres To Dam Disaster In Uttarakhand

March 4, 2021 Don Fitz, Popular Resistance. Educate! Berta Caceres, Environment, Hydropower, India

March 2, 2021 was the five year anniversary of the murder of Berta Cáceres, who opposed the Agua Zarca dam in Honduras. That date was less than one month after the deaths of dozens of people from Tehri Dam disaster in Uttarakhand, India. The two stories together tell us far more about consequences of the insatiable greed of capitalism for more energy than either narrative does by itself. In addition to being sacred to the indigenous Lenca people of Honduras, the Gualcarque River is a primary source of water for them to grow their food and harvest medicinal plants. Dams can flood fertile plains and deprive communities of water for livestock and crops. The Lenca knew what could happen if the company Desarrollos Energéticos SA (DESA) were to build the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam on the Gualcarque. As Nina Lakhani describes in Who Killed Berta Cáceres?, the La Aurora Dam, which started generating electricity in 2012 “left four miles of the El Zapotal River bone dry and the surrounding forest bare.”

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