The Congressional decision to prohibit railroad workers from going on strike and force them to accept a contract that meets few of their demands is part of the class war that has defined American politics for decades. The two ruling political parties differ only in rhetoric. They are bonded in their determination to reduce wages; dismantle social programs, which the Bill… Read More Chris Hedges: Time to Strike for American rail workers
First posted March 01, 2015 his interview has appeared in Scroll.in. The two parts may be read here and here. The Modi government has issued a special coin to commemorate the 175th birth anniversary of the Tata Group founder, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata. In honouring him, what is the message the government is seeking to convey to the people? The… Read More Democracy and workers’ movements – stories from Jamshedpur
First posted May 1, 2021 NB: Today is International Labour Day, May 1, 2021. As a tribute to India’s workers, I post a chapter from my monograph on the history of the labour movement in Jharkhand during the 1930’s. It was titled The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism: Workers,Unions, and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928-1939. The… Read More 1938: the year Indian workers fought for themselves
First posted June 14, 2017 NB: This paper was first presented to the Association of Indian Labour Historians conference in Delhi, March 2000. It refers to material presented in my book, The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism: Workers, Trade Unions and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928-1939. It was also presented to the Nehru Memorial… Read More Strike-breaking or the Refusal of Subalternity? Ethnicity, Class & Gender in Chota Nagpur: The Tatanagar Foundry Strike of 1939
In 2020, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, announced one of the harshest Covid lockdowns in the world, causing nearly 200 million migrant labourers to be stranded without wages, food and housing. Many undertook long journeys to return to their home villages, while others, caught in limbo with their families, were forced to wait, living… Read More The Great Abandonment: the extraordinary exodus of India’s migrant labourers
NB: A recent article headed The Right is Writing Now, celebrates unsung warriors, and (if the report is correct) criticises the ‘Left’ for ignoring them. It is unfortunate that history has become a battleground and that aristocratic warfare seems to be the sole focus of those historians who choose to identify themselves as ‘Right’. (Judging… Read More P. Sainath: ‘The Last Heroes: Foot Soldiers of Indian Freedom’
हृदयेश जोशी #Silicosis कार्यस्थल पर होने वाली एक जानलेवा बीमारी है जिसे “मौत का कुंआं” भी कहा जाता है. सिलिका मिश्रित धूल फेफड़ों में जाने से मजदूर बीमार हो जाते हैं. भारत में हर साल हजारों मजदूर इस बीमारी के कारण दम तोड़ रहे हैं. देश में सिलिकोसिस पीड़ितों की सही संख्या का अंदाजा नहीं… Read More सांसों में सिलिका- हर साल इस बीमारी से हो रही हजारों मजदूरों की मौत
GABRIEL WINANT While academic historians generally divide political economy, political history, and social history into three separate fields—the study of markets, the study of the state, and the study of ordinary people and communities—they were irreducibly fused for Davis. He certainly could do political economy with the best of them: I return often to his… Read More Mike Davis (1946-2022); lonely pillar of a more open Marxism
Amrit Dhillon When Ram Yadav fled India’s strict countrywide lockdown imposed in March 2020, he was one of the lucky ones, managing to hitch rides from Delhi on trucks going in the direction of his village near Kanpur, 400km (250 miles) away. An estimated 10 million workers were forced to walk home, travelling on foot via fields, forests… Read More The migrant workers struggling in wake of India’s Covid response
Clara Mattei Austerity, like trickle-down economics, has been relegated to the list of things economists don’t talk about anymore. Austerity’s core policies – hikes in interest rates, downward pressure of fiscal spending and wages – had their last stand with the European sovereign-debt crisis a decade ago, and the resulting public outcry made the “a-word”… Read More Don’t be fooled: policymakers are quietly invoking austerity by other names
After the truth-shower 