India

COVID-19 is ravaging India with a brutal second wave, which Modi is using as a pretext to cut across on-going farmer and worker struggles, despite failing to undertake effective measures to protect people from the virus. The battle against Modi’s reactionary anti-farmer and worker laws must be combined with a struggle for a people’s lockdown: providing adequate support and resources to millions of households crushed by poverty, disease and death. Worker and farmer solidarity is the only answer to Modi’s rotten regime! For a joint struggle to win a decent existence! Build for an indefinite general strike!

The ongoing elections in five Indian states, with a total population of close to 250 million, provide a snapshot of the situation facing the working class across India. A common feature is the weakness of the left and its insistence on forming alliances with various bourgeois parties. The Indian working class is thus denied an independent voice. The various Communist parties should break with their ideas of class collaboration and build a united front of the Indian workers.

We have received the shocking news that Datar Singh, a renowned farmer leader and a real class fighter, has passed away. According to sources, he travelled from the Delhi sit-in to Amritsar to speak at a rally organised by the farmer activists. In his last speech, he stood firm in his opposition to Modi’s agricultural laws and argued for farmers’ and workers' joint struggle to bring down the government. When he ended his speech and took a seat, he suffered a cardiac arrest which proved to be fatal. He left behind a daughter and a son and millions of farmers organised under his genuine leadership. He was the President of the

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Farmers in India observed a national lockdown on 8 December – also called a Bharat Bandh – a day ahead of the scheduled sixth round of talks with the government, with five million taking part across 20,000 locations. Farmers blocked major roads from 11am to 3pm, predominantly in the agricultural states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. All commercial centres were closed. Protestors blocked railway tracks in West Bengal, Bihar and Odisha. Many shops and commercial areas were also closed in Delhi in solidarity with the striking farmers. Despite a massive blockade of Delhi’s main highways, farmers are still receiving solidarity from the people living there.

On November 26, nearly 250 million workers participated in a strike in urban and rural areas all over India. The strike, called by the ten central trade unions, was the fifth in the six years since Modi ascended to power.

A large part of the population in India is linked with the agriculture sector. This sector contributes 17 percent of the Indian GDP. But working conditions in the agriculture sector have not developed under capitalism and are worsening every passing day. The farmers are being pushed into further debt-traps because of the policies of liberalisation and privatisation under successive capitalist governments. There has been a general decline of living standards for farmers under the rotten capitalist system, with farmers being forced to live at the mercy of traders and multi–national corporations for their survival. The Farm Bills passed recently by the parliament are a big blow for the

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Hundreds and thousands of farmers and members from different supporting organisations from different part of India are marching towards Delhi to stage an indefinite sit-in strike. The march 'Delhi Chalo' started on 26 November 2020 towards Delhi. Their major demands include the repealing of three Farmers Bills passed by Modi's government. Currently, farmers are blocking five entry points to Delhi and have paralysed the highway traffic to the city. It is reported that farmers partially besieged the city. Police and paramilitary forces brutally attacked the marching farmers with baton charge, tear gas and water cannons

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Farmers in India launched a protest movement days after the government passed three reactionary agricultural bills in the parliament on 20 September 2020. This article will explore the Farm Bills, the struggle of Indian farmers, capitalist anarchy in agriculture and the revolutionary way forward.

A woman belonging to the lower-caste Dalits died in a Delhi hospital on Tuesday 29 September after being raped and tortured by four men in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Public outrage is sweeping the nation. This gruesome and inhuman attack has once again highlighted the barbarity poor and lower-caste women face on a daily basis in India, which is rooted in the rotten capitalist system.

This article provides an overview of the political situation in India, in which the reactionary BJP-led government of Narendra Modi has turned the COVID-19 crisis into an unprecedented disaster. The ruling class is tearing up labour protections and stoking sectarian violence, while rewarding its big business cronies. Hundreds of millions face destitution, violence and oppression. A revolutionary backlash is inevitable.

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the contradictions of capitalist society for everyone to see. It has brought to surface the glaring class divide in India. While the wealthy minority enjoy conditions of comfort and privilege, the poor are struggling for their survival.