India
India: Mass protests against Modi’s anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act continue
By Deepal Jayasekera, 24 January 2020
Rattled by the eruption of mass opposition, the BJP government has responded with state repression and fascistic rants, as exemplified by the boast of a senior BJP leader, “Our governments … shot these people like dogs.”
Mumbai hospital workers demand outstanding wages; South Korean car workers strike; Australian tram drivers vote to walk out
Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
18 January 2020
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Indian workers in general strike call for unity
By our correspondents, 14 January 2020
Striking workers discussed with the WSWS the central political issues in the struggle against the Modi government and its program of austerity and communal reaction.
The Indian general strike and the global fight against communalism and war
By Keith Jones, 11 January 2020
Tens of millions of workers, youth and rural toilers participated in Wednesday’s all-India one-day general strike, transcending communal, caste and ethno-linguistic divides.
India: Haryana public transport workers strike against outsourcing; Pakistani journalists oppose salary and job cuts
Workers Struggles: Asia and Australia
11 January 2020
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
India: Mass outrage over Hindu supremacists’ violent assault on JNU students
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 10 January 2020
All the circumstances surrounding the attack point to it having been carried out with the connivance, if not at the behest, of the Narendra Modi-led BJP government.
Massive all-India general strike protests Modi’s pro-investor, communalist policies
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 9 January 2020
The strike’s size and scope did vary across the country, but there is no doubt that it had a massive impact, and attested to the growing militancy and immense social power of the working class.
Indian workers need a revolutionary socialist program to fight Modi, capitalist austerity, and communal reaction
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 8 January 2020
While tens of millions of workers and youth will join today’s general strike to fight the BJP’s “pro-investor” and communalist policies, the unions and Stalinist parties are seeking to tie the mass opposition to Modi to the big-business Congress Party and the Indian state.
Tens of millions to join all-India one-day strike on Wednesday
By Keith Jones, 7 January 2020
The Modi government faces mass opposition to its socially incendiary big business agenda and promotion of Hindu supremacist reaction.
Garbage collectors strike in India’s Maharashtra state capital; military vehicle production workers oppose sackings in Tamil Nadu
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand
4 January 2020
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
India: Protests against anti-Muslim citizenship law in Kolkata
By Arun Kumar and Palash Roy, 31 December 2019
“It’s the BJP government and its brutal inhuman policy that has forced me to stand up and protest against it.”
Indian army chief denounces mass protests against BJP government’s anti-Muslim citizenship law
By Wasantha Rupasinghe and Keith Jones, 30 December 2019
More than two dozen people have died in the protests, most at the hands of police in Uttar Pradesh.
Mass protests continue in Tamil Nadu against Indian government’s communalist citizenship laws
By a WSWS reporting team, 28 December 2019
Thousands of Tamil Nadu residents demonstrate across the south Indian state in defiance of government and police repression.
Telangana Road Transport workers face harassment, contract-rollbacks after union surrender
By Kranti Kumara, 27 December 2019
Acting at the behest of the state government, TSRTC management is trying to force the workers to join bogus, state-sponsored “Workers’ Welfare Committees.”
Indian state intensifies repression of mass protests against anti-Muslim citizenship law
By Deepal Jayasekera, 23 December 2019
At least 25 people have been killed during the protests, which have touched all parts of the country, against the Hindu supremacist BJP government.
The fight against communal reaction in India is the fight for socialism
By Keith Jones, 21 December 2019
India has been convulsed by a growing wave of mass protests in opposition to the Modi government’s Hindu supremacist citizenship law.
Tens of thousands defy Indian government threats and demonstrate against Hindu-supremacist laws
By Deepal Jayasekera, 20 December 2019
Mass protests involving people from across ethnic and religious lines have erupted across India against the Modi government’s anti-Muslim laws.
India’s highest court greenlights repression of protests against discriminatory citizenship law
By Keith Jones, 18 December 2019
India’s Supreme Court has refused to order a probe into brutal police assaults on students protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Mass protests erupt against Modi-led Indian government’s Hindu supremacist agenda
By Keith Jones, 17 December 2019
Demonstrations against the BJP government’s Hindu supremacist “Citizenship Amendment Act” continued yesterday, spreading to cities across India.
Protests across India against new Hindu chauvinist Citizenship Act
By Rohantha De Silva, 16 December 2019
Protests have erupted across India against the Citizenship Amendment Act, which the ruling Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janata Party rammed through parliament in just four days last week.
India adopts Hindu supremacist citizenship law
By Rohantha De Silva and Keith Jones, 13 December 2019
In the face of widespread popular opposition and warnings that India is rending its “secular” political-constitutional order, the BJP government has rammed through legislation that redefines Indian citizenship in Hindu supremacist terms .
Over 40 workers killed in Indian factory fire
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 9 December 2019
All the victims are poor migrant workers from the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in northern India.
India: Congress Party brings fascistic Shiv Sena to power in Maharashtra
By Kranti Kumara, 9 December 2019
The ostensibly secular Congress Party has helped to bring the Hindu supremacist Shiv Sena back to power in Maharashtra, India’s second most populous state.
New Sri Lankan president visits India amid growing geo-political tensions
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 9 December 2019
Rajapakse’s trip was an attempt to demonstrate that his government will not threaten the interests of India and its strategic partner, the US.
Maoist union leaders isolate striking Motherson autoworkers in India
By Arun Kumar and Moses Rajkumar, 5 December 2019
Union leaders are attempting to divert Motherson workers along reactionary Tamil nationalist lines.
Indian auto parts workers demand union rights; Bangladesh cargo workers on indefinite strike; French Polynesia hotel workers expand walkout
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand
30 November 2019
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
After union surrenders, Telangana mobilizes police to bar “fired” TSRTC workers’ return
By Kranti Kumara, 28 November 2019
The unions instructed the 48,000 TSRTC workers to end their courageous anti-privatization strike and report for work Tuesday. But the government, intent on purging the workforce, barred their way.
Indian government uses police, paramilitaries to repress protests at Jawaharlal Nehru University
By Kranti Kumara, 25 November 2019
The Modi government has vilified JNU students as “anti-national” and “urban Naxals” for opposing its relentless promotion of Hindu supremacism and imposition of pro-investor measures.
India: The indefinite strike by 48,000 Telangana transport workers at crossroads
By Kranti Kumara, 19 November 2019
Despite the immense courage displayed by the workers for over six weeks into their indefinite strike, the struggle is in imminent danger because of the rotten strategy adopted by the union.
Indian Honda contract workers still on strike; West Bengal teachers demand pay rise; maintenance workers take industrial action at Australian paper mill
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and New Zealand
16 November 2019
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Over 5,000 arrests, police violence against transport strikers in India’s Telangana state
By Kranti Kumara, 11 November 2019
Despite the transport workers' courage and resiliency, the strike is in great danger, due to the treacherous union leadership's appeal to the right-wing, Hindu chauvinist BJP national government to intervene.
With ruling on razed mosque
India’s Supreme Court validates Hindu supremacist violence
By Keith Jones, 11 November 2019
The Supreme Court’s ruling attests to the extent to which India’s state institutions have become infused with Hindu communalism and India’s ruling elite is breaking with the most elementary democratic principles.
Honda motorcycle and Kerala state transport workers strike in India; Pakistan health workers oppose privatisation
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
9 November 2019
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
An appeal from Pani Wijesiriwardena, SEP (Sri Lanka) presidential candidate
Defend the striking transport workers in Telengana, India
8 November 2019
“Workers in India, Sri Lanka, throughout South Asia and internationally must not allow capitalist governments to unleash these reactionary social attacks on any section of the working class.”
India: 48,000 striking Telangana transport workers defy back to work order
By Kranti Kumara, 7 November 2019
Over 48,000 drivers, mechanics, conductors and other workers at the state-owned Telangana State Road Transport Corporation have defied a November 5 back-to-work order.
India’s Telangana state government gives fresh ultimatum to 48,000 fired strikers
By Kranti Kumara, 5 November 2019
A call to make the defence of the victimized TSRTC workers the spearhead of a working class counter-offensive against privatization and the casualization of work would resonate across India.
Modi’s assault on Kashmir and the Indian working class
By Keith Jones, 5 November 2019
The BJP government has dramatically intensified its across-the-board attack on the democratic rights and social position of the working class.
India: Growing support for 48,000 Telangana workers fired for striking
By Arun Kumar and Kranti Kumara, 2 November 2019
The Telangana transport workers courageously defied the state Chief Minister’s ultimatum that they immediately end their strike or be deemed “self-dismissed.”
Maoist union leaders continue to isolate Motherson autoworkers’ strike in India
By Moses Rajkumar and Sasi Kumar, 25 October 2019
Emboldened by the AICCTU’s isolation, management is intensifying its witch hunt of striking workers and has now suspended 44 workers since the strike began on August 26.
Indian Stalinists got huge “donations” from right-wing party to fund election campaign
By Kranti Kumara, 25 October 2019
The Tamil Nadu-based DMK’s 250 million-rupee handout to the Stalinists was effectively a payoff for the services they have rendered in promoting the anti-worker DMK and suppressing the class struggle.
22 October 2019
Sri Lankan SEP and IYSSE hold successful meeting on India’s Kashmir lockdown
By our correspondents, 19 October 2019
“The Modi government’s anti-democratic moves are not just directed against the Kashmiri people, although they are the immediate target, but against the working class as a whole.”
India: Telangana Chief Minister fires 48,000 striking transport workers
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 16 October 2019
Although the unions have refused to call for a general strike, there is widespread public sympathy for the TSRTC strikers and mounting fears within ruling elite that the government’s dictatorial actions could spark mass opposition.
Detentions without charge, night-raids, torture:
India’s state of siege in Kashmir continues
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 10 October 2019
With the blessing of India’s Supreme Court and the staunch support of big business and the opposition, the BJP government continues to impose an unprecedented security lockdown and communications blackout.
India: Motherson autoworkers strike at cross roads
By Arun Kumar, 9 October 2019
Motherson workers should break the isolation imposed upon them by All India Central Council of Trade Unions and fight for the broadest mobilization of workers in India and internationally behind their struggle.
040 India Motherson autoparts workers strike
8 October 2019
030 India Motherson autoparts workers strike
7 October 2019
Indian Trotskyists hold public meetings in defence of Assange and Manning
By our correspondents, 2 October 2019
Speakers explained the persecution of Assange and Manning is part of an escalating attack on democratic rights by governments everywhere.
India: Police arrest hundreds of striking Motherson autoworkers at protest
By Moses Rajkumar and Sasi Kumar, 28 September 2019
The state government is seeking to break the month-long strike for decent wages and conditions.
Victimized Maruti Suzuki workers support striking GM workers
By our reporters, 26 September 2019
The following statement of support for striking General Motors workers in the US was sent by Jitender Dhankhar on behalf of the Provisional Committee of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union in northern India .
Trump-Modi lovefest in Houston underscores Indo-US alliance of war and reaction
By Keith Jones, 23 September 2019
By taking a starring role at Modi’s Houston rally Sunday, Trump put Washington’s support for India’s brutal assault on Jammu and Kashmir on full display.
India’s top court greenlights New Delhi prolonging Kashmir state-of-siege indefinitely
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 21 September 2019
India’s Hindu-supremacist BJP government has imposed an unprecedented security clampdown to suppress mass opposition to the constitutional coup it mounted against Kashmir August 5.
India: Motherson auto parts company in Chennai victimises strikers
By Arun Kumar, 20 September 2019
The company is the largest supplier of moulded parts, assemblies and modules to India’s domestic automotive industry.
025 Indian autoworkers face jobs and wage cuts
18 September 2019
Hundreds of thousands of Indian auto workers face sackings and wage cuts
By Saman Gunadasa, 18 September 2019
The assault on Indian workers is part of the escalating global attack on the jobs, wages and working conditions of auto workers in the US, Canada, Mexico, Europe and Asia.
As Indian economy sinks, Modi government scrambles to respond
By Kranti Kumara, 18 September 2019
With the growth rate falling sharply, India’s government has announced a slew of new economic measures, just weeks after tabling its budget.
India: Kolkata students and workers demand freedom for Assange and Manning
By Ritwik Mitter and Arun Kumar, 11 September 2019
ICFI supporters spoke to students at Jadavpur University in Kolkata and workers from BSNL, the Indian government-owned telecommunication company.
India labels 1.9 million Assam residents “foreigners” as prelude to their mass expulsion
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 5 September 2019
Almost all of the 1.9 million people who have been deemed “foreigners”—some 6 percent of Assam’s population—are Bengali-speaking, and more than 90 percent of them are impoverished Muslims.
India: Motherson autoworkers strike indefinitely in Tamil Nadu
By Sasi Kumar and Moses Rajkumar, 2 September 2019
About 500 permanent workers from Motherson Automotive Technologies & Engineering remain on strike to demand recognition of their newly-formed trade union.
India crows over US support for its assault on Kashmir
By Keith Jones, 30 August 2019
For almost four weeks, Jammu and Kashmir has been under a state of siege, with cell phone and internet service suspended, thousands held without charge, and security forces terrorizing the population.
Sri Lankan PM backs Indian repression in Kashmir
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 28 August 2019
The support for New Delhi’s anti-democratic measures in J&K reflects the fact that all factions of Sri Lanka’s ruling elite are moving towards the imposition of dictatorial rule.
Auto and railway workers in Tamil Nadu, India defend Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
By our correspondents, 22 August 2019
Workers denounced the ongoing persecution of Assange and Manning and spoke out against the brutal attacks by the Indian government on their own basic rights and social conditions.
Indian assault on Kashmir in third week, thousands arrested
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 21 August 2019
Despite India’s efforts to black out what is happening in Kashmir, information is leaking out that points to both widespread repression and popular resistance.
India, Pakistan exchange artillery-fire, threats over Kashmir
By Keith Jones, 19 August 2019
At least 4,000 people have been arrested in Jammu and Kashmir in the two weeks since New Delhi placed the disputed region under a state of siege.
Ashok Leyland autoworkers in India strike to demand higher bonuses
By Deepal Jayasekera, 19 August 2019
The Ashok Leyland strike is part of series of militant struggles developing among autoworkers globally amid a major crisis in automobile industry in India and internationally.
State of siege in Kashmir: A warning to the international working class
By Bill Van Auken, 17 August 2019
Western governments and media have maintained virtual silence over the police state crackdown against 13 million Kashmiris.
India’s unprecedented lockdown of Kashmir in eleventh day
By K. Ratnayake, 15 August 2019
India’s Hindu supremacist BJP government has imposed a brutal lockdown to suppress mass opposition to its subjecting Indian-held Kashmir to permanent central government domination.
020 Kashmir
14 August 2019
New Delhi’s assault on Kashmir and the fight against communal reaction, imperialism, and war
By Keith Jones, 10 August 2019
With the aim of inciting communal reaction against mounting social opposition and strengthening its hand against Pakistan and China, India’s BJP government has illegally stripped Jammu and Kashmir of its special status.
Indo-Pakistani conflict sharpens with New Delhi’s assault on Kashmir
By Keith Jones, 9 August 2019
In response to India’s aggressive and patently illegal moves to tighten its control over disputed Kashmir, Pakistan has taken a raft of retaliatory measures and issued thinly-veiled war threats.
To enforce Monday’s constitutional coup
India dramatically intensifies repression in Kashmir
By Keith Jones, 8 August 2019
India’s ruling elite has rallied behind the BJP-led state assault on Jammu and Kashmir, even while conceding that it is a “roll of the dice” fraught with domestic and geopolitical “risk.”
India’s Hindu supremacist government abrogates Kashmir’s autonomy
By Keith Jones, 6 August 2019
Yesterday’s actions will enflame tensions with Pakistan, and constitute a further stage in the Indian ruling elite’s turn toward authoritarian forms of rule and promotion of Hindu communal reaction.
Indian auto workers speak out in defence of Assange and Manning
By our correspondents, 24 July 2019
The Trotskyists in India are building support in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal for rallies to demand freedom for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning.
Report details Indian security forces use of torture against Kashmiri people
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 23 July 2019
Jammu and Kashmir has been under de facto military rule since 1990, with over half a million security forces deployed in a state of just 13 million people.
22 July 2019
India’s pro-business BJP government tables austerity budget
By Kranti Kumara, 17 July 2019
The budget was tabled amid a mounting economic crisis and competing demands by domestic and foreign business, on the one hand, and the rating agencies and IMF, on the other.
Tamil Nadu government bans strikes in auto component industries
By Arun Kumar and Kranti Kumara, 6 July 2019
The ruling class's major goal is to transform India into a premier center of global auto manufacturing by imposing brutal working conditions.
Pompeo touts Indo-US alliance, bullies New Delhi
By Keith Jones, 28 June 2019
India’s ruling elite is determined to double-down on its reckless gamble that it can realize its great-power ambitions by serving as US imperialism’s junior partner.
Severe water shortage afflicts Chennai, India’s fourth-largest metro area
By Arun Kumar, 25 June 2019
While the authorities have sought to blame the crisis on the failure of the monsoon, the real cause of the acute water shortage is the criminal indifference of successive central and state governments to people’s basic needs.
“Water has been made a commodity for profit”—Chennai residents speak out on city’s water crisis
By a WSWS Reporting Team, 25 June 2019
WSWS reporters spoke with workers and other impoverished residents of Chennai about the severe water crisis afflicting India’s fourth largest metropolitan area.
Indian prime minister boosts strategic ties with the Maldives and Sri Lanka
By Rohantha De Silva, 15 June 2019
Modi’s visits were to make clear that New Delhi is determined to prevent China regaining influence in the two Indian Ocean island nations.
Arch-communalist Modi sworn-in as India’s prime minister for second time
By Deepal Jayasekera, 1 June 2019
Big business, reports the Economic Times, wants the government placed on a “war footing” to rapidly implement “investor friendly reforms.”
Stalinist CPM and CPI suffer meltdown in India’s national election
By Deepal Jayasekera, 27 May 2019
The Stalinists’ electoral debacle is the outcome of their decades-long political suppression of the working class and key role in implementing a “pro-market,” “pro-investor” agenda.
Indian big business propels Modi and his Hindu supremacist BJP to a second term
By Keith Jones, 24 May 2019
For decades the Stalinists have justified their support for right-wing governments by claiming this would block the BJP’s path to power, but the end result is that the BJP and Hindu right are a greater menace than ever.
The Indian elections and the fight to free the Maruti Suzuki class war prisoners
By Saman Gunadasa, 23 May 2019
Completely blacked out from the election campaign has been any discussion of the plight of the 13 Maruti Suzuki workers who have been jailed for life on frame-up murder charges.
Indian Elections:
Stalinist CPM faces debacle in its West Bengal “bastion”
By Deepal Jayasekera, 22 May 2019
Much of the CPM’s apparatus has defected either to the right-wing Trinamool Congress or the Hindu supremacist BJP of Narendra Modi.
Dominated by communalist appeals and threats
India’s multi-phase election concludes
By Keith Jones, 18 May 2019
The working class will come into headlong conflict with India’s next government, whatever its precise composition.
Indian elections: Congress combines populist rhetoric with jingoism and communalism
By Wasantha Rupasingha, 16 May 2019
The Indian bourgeoisie’s traditional party of government, the Congress, like the BJP, is committed to pro-investor “reform” and an anti-China partnership with US imperialism.
ICFI supporters hold rally in India to demand freedom for Assange and Manning
By our correspondents, 16 May 2019
The rally in the capital of the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu attracted the attention of workers and youth.
245 India: Free Assange campaign
9 May 2019
ICFI supporters in India to hold picket to free Assange
9 May 2019
The protest organised by the Indian Trotskyists is part of the ICFI’s international campaign to defend WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.
India’s election and the revolutionary program to oppose austerity, war and communal reaction
By Keith Jones, 8 May 2019
The BJP’s turn to militarism and unabashed communal reaction is animated, above all, by its fear of growing social opposition.
As class struggle sharpens,
Indian Stalinists stump for right-wing bourgeois government
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 1 May 2019
India’s Stalinist parliamentary parties have redoubled their efforts to subordinate the working class to the parties and putrid state institutions of the Indian bourgeoisie.
Chauvinist “We Tamil” party seeks to divide working class in Indian elections
By Athiyan Silva and V. Gnana, 1 May 2019
The “We Tamil” party relentlessly promotes Tamil nationalism to divide workers and peasants in India along ethnic lines, and subordinate them to imperialism and the Indian state.
India: BJP makes indicted Hindu supremacist terrorist a “star” election candidate
By Keith Jones, 24 April 2019
Pragya Thakur Singh—who is under criminal indictment for her role in a 2008 bomb blast—is standing against Congress Party General Secretary Digvijaya Singh in Bhopal.
Major Indian airline grounded, threatening 23,000 jobs
By Deepal Jayasekera, 23 April 2019
The crisis facing Jet Airways, and which has caused it to ground all its aircraft, is part of a global crisis of the aviation industry.
Voters go to polls in Tamil Nadu in second phase of India’s national election
By V. Gnana, 18 April 2019
In Tamil Nadu the election contest is dominated by two reactionary alliances, fronted by rival Tamil-nationalist parties and allied respectively with the BJP and the Congress Party.
Communalist taunts, bellicose threats, phony promises
India’s election descends into the mire
By Keith Jones, 16 April 2019
With each week, the election campaign in the world’s “largest democracy” grows more toxic.
Samjhauta Express bombing:
Indian Court allows violent Hindu supremacists to go scot-free
By Kranti Kumara, 9 April 2019
In what is a consistent pattern in cases involving Hindu communalist violence against Muslims, an Indian court has exonerated four Hindu extremists implicated in a 2007 bombing that killed 68.
Preparing for “tomorrow’s wars,” India shoots down satellite
By Deepal Jayasekera, 1 April 2019
Modi’s order that India demonstrate its “space war” capabilities was driven by both strategic and immediate electoral considerations.
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