India

As Farmers Expand Their Agitation, Indian Government Intensifies Repression

February 21, 2021 Wasantha Rupasinghe, WSWS. Resist! Farmers, India, State Violence, Strike

Pushed on the back foot by the popular support for the farmers’ agitation against its pro-agribusiness farm laws, India’s right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is systematically intensifying state repression against protesters and their supporters. Since late November, tens of thousands of protesting farmers, principally from the nearby states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have been encamped on the outskirts of the Delhi National Capital Territory. Their Delhi Chalo (Let’s go to Delhi) protest, which is demanding the repeal of all three recently-enacted farm laws, was prevented from entering the capital by a massive police mobilisation organised by the Modi government.

The Largest Strike In Human History

February 15, 2021 Anya Parampil, The Grayzone. Resistance Report Big Ag, Farmers, India, Strike

Radhakrishnan explains why farmers are rising up, how they are organized, and how the neoliberal government of Narendra Modi has responded to the movement. Just one day after this interview, the Modi government raided the offices of Radhakrishnan’s employer, Newsclick.in, and detained its editors in what has been denounced as an act of intimidation against critical media. Learn more about the disturbing press crackdown here.

India’s Farmers’ Protests: ‘This Is History In The Making’

February 6, 2021 Sarang Narasimhaiah and Mukesk Kulriya, ROAR Magazine. Resist! Corporatization, Democracy, Farmers, India

On January 26, 2021, India observed its 71st Republic Day under historically unprecedented circumstances. On an occasion meant to commemorate the adoption of the Indian Constitution, two fiercely antagonistic visions of the country locked horns with each other in the capital of Delhi. On the Rajpath ceremonial boulevard in the heart of Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s homegrown Hindu nationalist proto-fascism was on full display. It was no coincidence, for example, that the winner of the Republic Day Parade’s tableaux competition was the state of Uttar Pradesh, whose float celebrated the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992 and its impending replacement by a Hindu temple...

Farmers Blame Miscreants For Maligning Their Image On Republic Day

January 28, 2021 Sputnik News. Resist! Farmers, India, Police violence

As part of their Tractor Protest Rally, thousands of farmers entered Delhi on Tuesday morning riding SUVs, cars, and wheeled farm equipment. A faction of the rally soon invaded Delhi's iconic Red Fort, leading to violent clashes with police as the farmers seek the repeal of several farm laws recently decreed by the central government. While farm leaders in the state of Haryana and Punjab distance themselves from the events at Delhi’s iconic Red Fort on India’s 72nd Republic Day, saying agitation against the new farm laws has nothing to do with violence, social media continues to buzz over the possible cause of clashes in the centre of the Indian capital.

Farmers’ Parade Takes Center Stage On India’s Republic Day

January 27, 2021 People's Dispatch. Resist! Big Ag, Farmers, India, Neoliberalism

New Delhi, India - January 26, the day India became a Republic, is traditionally celebrated at Rajpath — the road from the India Gate to the President’s residence — in New Delhi. The ceremony includes a parade that is a display of the might of India’s military and showcases the cultural diversity of India. This year, however, the center stage was taken not by the ceremonial parade, but the farmers’ parade that was being held in the capital city. The peaceful rally of farmers on tractors was supposed to commence from three different points in the city and follow pre-approved routes for all three. While the government and authorities had grudgingly granted permission for the rally, there was a staggering deployment of police force throughout the parade.

My Wish Is That You Win This Fight For Truth

January 21, 2021 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. Educate! Farmers, Hunger, India, Neoliberalism

On 26 January, India’s Republic Day, thousands of farmers and agricultural workers will drive their tractors and walk into the heart of the capital, New Delhi, to bring their fight to the doors of the government. For two months, these farmers and agricultural workers have been part of a nation-wide revolt against a government policy that seeks to deliver all the gains of their labour to the large corporate houses, whose profits have ballooned during this pandemic. Despite the cold weather and the pandemic, the farmers and agricultural workers have created a socialistic culture in their encampments with community kitchens and laundries, distribution points providing free essentials, recreational activities and places for discussion.

Indian Government Offers To Suspend Farm Laws

January 21, 2021 Al Jazeera. Resist! Corporatization, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, India

India’s government has offered to suspend implementation of three new farm laws that have triggered the biggest farmers’ protests in years. The cornerstone of the legislation, introduced in September, allows private buyers to deal directly with farmers. Angry farmers, who say that will make India’s traditional wholesale markets irrelevant and leave them at the mercy of big retailers and food processors, have camped out on main highways outside capital New Delhi for more than two months. Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday said the government was open to suspending the laws for up to 18 months, during which time representatives of the government and farmers should work to “provide solutions” for the industry.

Indian Farmers Plan To March Into New Delhi

January 3, 2021 Anish R., Peoples Dispatch. Resist! Farmers, India, Modi, Privatization

India’s protesting farmers, who have been camped on the outskirts of the capital, Delhi, have warned of intensifying their agitation if their demands are not met. Farmers’ organizations announced on Saturday, January 2 that they would hold a series of agitations culminating in a tractor parade in Delhi on January 26, which is celebrated as Republic Day. The government has so far refused to accept the key demand of the farmers, which is the withdrawal of three farm laws which were rammed through parliament in September. Farmers fear these laws will drive down the prices they get for their produce and pave the way for greater corporate involvement in agriculture.

India’s Farmer Revolt

December 15, 2020 Subin Dennis, Tribune Magazine. Resist! Corporatism, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, India

The farmers’ struggle taking place now on the borders of Delhi and its neighbouring states is one of the most important mass agitations that India has seen in its three decades of neoliberal reforms. Since 26 November, hundreds of thousands of farmers have congregated on the borders of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. At the beginning, most of them were from the state of Punjab, located about 200 km from Delhi, but many more have since joined from the state of Haryana, which abuts Delhi on three sides, and then from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh as well. With their caravans, the farmers have occupied long stretches of several highways that connect Delhi to its neighbouring states.

250 Million People Participate In Countrywide Strike In India

December 2, 2020 People's Dispatch. Resist! COVID-19, General Strike, India, Modi

On Thursday, November 26, India witnessed the biggest organized strike in human history. Over 250 million workers and farmers, along with their allies among students, feminists and civil society groups participated in the nationwide strike. The strike coincides with India’s Constitution Day, which commemorates the adoption of the constitution in 1949, and comes in the background of an unprecedented attack on workers’ rights and farmers’ protections by the right-wing government of prime minister Narendra Modi.

The Irresistible Rise Of The Civilization-State

August 25, 2020 By Aris Roussinos, Unheard. Educate! China, India, Russia, US Empire

A specter is haunting the liberal West: the rise of the “civilization-state”. As America’s political power wanes and its moral authority collapses, the rising challengers of Eurasia have adopted the model of the civilization-state to distinguish themselves from a paralyzed liberal order, which lurches from crisis to crisis without ever quite dying nor yet birthing a viable successor. Summarising the civilization-state model, the political theorist Adrian Pabst observes that “in China and Russia the ruling classes reject Western liberalism and the expansion of a global market society. They define their countries as distinctive civilizations with their own unique cultural values and political institutions.” From China to India, Russia to Turkey, the great and middling powers of Eurasia are drawing ideological succor from the pre-liberal empires from which they claim descent, remolding their non-democratic, statist political systems as a source of strength rather than weakness, and upturning the liberal-democratic triumphalism of the late 20th century.

Modi’s ‘New’ India: Notch Or Knot On China’s Belt (And Road Initiative)

July 16, 2020 Danny Sjursen, Antiwar.com. Educate! Border, China, India, US Empire

File it in the rapidly-brimming "biggest-stories-of-2020-you-haven’t-heard-about" folder. Amidst the madness merger of pandemic and protests – both of which Trump’s minions have blamed on China – there’s been scant attention paid to a brewing conflict between two of the world’s nine nuclear-armed powers (accounting for some 430 warheads between them). One is a rather flighty proxy – India – that Washington has long pursued with the oft-hopeless passion of a smitten suitor. The other, an "enemy" of "freedom," America, and apple pie everywhere: a Chinese dragon to whom new cold war enthusiasts – no doubt with visions of (defense contract) dollar signs dancing in their heads – have ascribed near preternatural ability and ambition.

Indian State Shows Why Fighting COVID-19 Requires Working-Class Power

May 5, 2020 Samantha Argawal, Truthout. Create! COVID-19, India, Pandemic, Working Class

Even as the death toll in the U.S. from COVID-19 climbs to 63,583 and increasing numbers of Americans are forced to decide whether to forgo potentially life-saving treatment or face bankruptcy, we are bombarded daily with pro-corporate rhetoric opposed to universal health care systems. We are told that the market is the most efficient mechanism for distributing goods and services, including health care, and that social democratic policies like Medicare for All are a fiscal “fantasy” that would leave us with inferior quality care. But the COVID-19 crisis has thrown up a stubborn challenge to this pro-market logic. Despite high levels of private sector health care spending, the U.S. not only has fewer hospital beds per capita than other wealthy nations but also has huge regional disparities in how those beds are distributed.

The Pandemic Is A Portal

April 13, 2020 Arundhati Roy, Information Clearinghouse. Educate! COVID-19, India, Solidarity Economy, Workers

Who can use the term “gone viral” now without shuddering a little? Who can look at anything any more — a door handle, a cardboard carton, a bag of vegetables — without imagining it swarming with those unseeable, undead, unliving blobs dotted with suction pads waiting to fasten themselves on to our lungs? Who can think of kissing a stranger, jumping on to a bus or sending their child to school without feeling real fear? Who can think of ordinary pleasure and not assess its risk? Who among us is not a quack epidemiologist, virologist, statistician and prophet? Which scientist or doctor is not secretly praying for a miracle? Which priest is not — secretly, at least — submitting to science? And even while the virus proliferates, who could not be thrilled by the swell of birdsong in cities, peacocks dancing at traffic crossings and the silence in the skies?

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