> March 2019 200 MILLION STRIKE IN ANTI-MODI PROTEST India still awaits the good times India had a massive general strike in January, and unemployment remains a major issue. No one knows what impact that will have on this spring's election Naike Des In protest ata wholesale market in Kelata during the general stk on 8 January 2019 0 4 NDIA’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is hoping to secure a renewed mandate in this spring’s election to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, But on 8 and 9 January, 150-200 million people across the country walked out of their workplaces to show their anger in the streets. Buses stayed in their depots, banks were closed, schoolchildren had an enforced holiday, motorways were occupied, and effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi were burned. Nearly every sector of the economy was affected. The police arrested many activists, especially in the state of Rajasthan; many workers were seriously injured. Modis 2014 election campaign slogan proclaimed ‘Good times ahead’, yet five years on, there’s still no sign of them. Economic growth may have remained strong at more than 7%, and wasrecently praised by the International Monetary Fund (1), but unemployment has been so high that the labour ministry has not published figures since 2016. Young people are migrating from countryside to cities, willing to do any work at all, and even graduates have trouble finding jobs. In 2018 Indian Railways advertised 63,000 vacancies; 19 million people applied. ‘Modi has begun to privatise India’s railways and banking sector, and has cut the budgets for healthcare (already down to only 1.2% of GDP in 2018) and education (0.6%) (2). The budgets for rural livelihood security under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantees Act, allowances to schools for providing free meals to all children, safe drinking water programmes and literacy initiatives are also being reduced, Economic growth may have remained strong, but unemployment has been so high that the labour ministry has not published figures since 2016 ‘The government is also reviewing 44 national labour laws, which have until now imposed a 48- hour week (an eight-hour working day, with one day of rest a week), and the requirement that redundancies be approved by government authorities. These basic employment rights, the envy of India’s Asian neighbours, were won through a hard struggle at independence in 1947, through a compromise between business owners and reformers. Rajasthan testing ground Existing laws are to be replaced by four new pieces of legislation that reduce workers’ rights in favour of employers’ rights and curb trade wnion freedoms: once amendment bill no 2018 to the 1926 ‘Trade Unions Act is passed, local authorities will have new powers over trade unions, including authority to grant official recognition and arbitrate in internal disputes. In Rajasthan, a testing ground for central government policies, a union will need to show that 30% of a company’s employees are members (compared with 15% previously) in order to gain recognition. A ‘simplification’ of the 1947 Industrial Disputes Act allows factories employing up to 300 workers (compared to 100 previously) to be closed down without the need for government authorisation, ‘This means 86% of industry will be free to exploit workers,’ said Amarjeet Kaur, general secretary of the All India Trade Union Congress (Aituc), which is linked to the ‘Communist Party of India (CPI). Fixed-term employment contracts, until now restricted to the textile industry, have been authorised in all sectors in the name of flexibility Labour legislation covers only the formal sector, which employs around 7% of India’s active population; only 2% of them are in a trade union. The rest are hard to mobilise, but in the January strike there was a modest, though increasingly visible, convergence between the public sector and the informal sector (construction workers, domestic servants, drivers), as well as smallholder farmers and agricultural workers. ickshaw and taxiModi has begun to privatise India’s railways and banking sector, and has cut the budgets for healthcare and education Can this large-scale mobilisation seriously threaten the antisocial forces that govern the country today? India is used to huge symbolic marches and general strikes; the January strike was the third during Modi’s current term of office, following those in September 2015 and September 2016. This time, a dozen trade unions came together to establish a common platform; as usual, unions linked to communist political parties were in the majority. But the social-democratic Indian National Trade Union Congress (Intuc) took the lead, seeking to establish the Congress party, to which it is affiliated, as a credible political opposition. The three communist parties — the CPI, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) or CPI(ML) — are not ready to form a common political movement that would represent the aspirations of the most disadvantaged, including women, factory workers, ‘Muslims, tribal peoples and Dalits. Activist students, teachers, and journalists are under pressure and being arrested — ‘McCarthyism in India’ in the words of writer Anand Teltumbde, who had been harassed by the police (5). Many people, including on the far left, have started to hope that the general election will be won by a coalition led by the Congress party, which represents a more human form of neoliberalism. Nalké DESQUESNES Naiké Descuesnes isa journalist ‘Translated by Charles Goulden (() ‘India’s strong economy continues to lea global growth [bttps://wwmf-org/en/News/Articles/2018/08/07/NA080818. India Strong Econoniy Continues-to Lead Globs! Growth] International Monetary Fund, Washington DC, 8 August 2018, (2) Business Standard, New Delhi, 4 February 2018, (©) Anana Tettunibde, McCarthyism in Modi’ Ina’ [htpss/Avww jacobinmeg.com/2018/10/moat jp dale hindu repression ‘oi ], Jacobi, 23 October 2018, TRANSLATIONS >> FRANCAIS Ein Inde, les « beaux jours » attendront (fr) spaflo. En la India, los “buenos tiempos” esperaran