PaRCha - JNU - JNUSU - 2005 ID-62238
.
1.8.05.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSIT STUDENTS" UNION .
Gurgaon: Why Police Savagery Against Workers Should Concern Us Pollee Brutality Against Workers .
The first day of the monsonn session of lnd1an Parliament was in progress on July 25; but all eyes were on the streets of Gurgaon, watching the shocking images of thousands of workers of the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India being beaten to a pulp inside the compound of the mini-Secretariat in Gurgaon. and being forced to crawl on their knees holding theirears. .
Workers of the Honda Factory in Gurgaon had been struggling or basic rights for months-but they, like most workers in the .
hundreds of MNC sweatshops surrounding Delhi remained 'invisible'. Their daily lives-where they stood in constant terror of losing their job, where they had to take written 'permission' to v1sit the toilet, where a visiting Japanese official got away with kicking a worker, and where any worker who voiced protest was kicked out-were unknown to most people. .
Pollee Assault Was No Aberration .
The police brutality was no 'mistake' or 'over-reaction'-it is part and parcel of globalisation, where Governments, police and Administration ot developmg countries are expected to serve MNCs rather than defend the rights of their own people. .
The TV footage ofthis organised police savagery opened a window onto the enslaved world ofworkers in places !ike Gurgaon and Naida-which are laboratones of nee-liberal econom1c policies. where workers of the unorganised sector toil, stripped of their basic human rights and dignit1es. .
Just last month, the Indian PM had proudly claimed that the British Raj, far from being a tormentor of Indian people, was in fact a mentor for the institutions like police and bureaucracy and had 'served India well'. Within weeks. the Congress Govt.'s police showed its colonial DNA-re-enacting Jallianwala Bagh in its eagerness to brutalise workers in order to defend MNCs! .
Batons, Bullets and Bleeding Workers: But FDI Must Flow On! .
For the lnd1an rulmg class. the gory tale of Gurgaon not about workers' nghts, it's about protecting the interests of foreign Investors like Honda. The Japanese Ambassador threatened that the workers' spirited protests is tarnishing India's 'image' as an investment destmat1on, and the MEA rushed to reassure that fore.ign investors need not worry; the 'legal interests of .
investors' will be ~afeguarded. .
Even as PM Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi expressed 'anguish' over the police brutality over workers 1n Gurgaon, Home Min1ster Shivraj Patil has justified the savagery, say1ng the police was "compelled" to act as it did. In JNU, student leaders of Hooda's party in campus said in a public speech at a JNUSU meeting, that 'workers deserved bullets, not .
just baton blows!' .
The Myth of 'Trade Union Extremism' .
Many editorials of corporate-owned media houses have claimed that Monday's incidents should be blamed on 'militant trade-unionism'. But workers in the SEZs and secure sweatshops of Gurgaon are denied the basic right to organise or un1onise-militant or other wise! Honda officials complained that most of those who marched on the streets of Gurgaon to protest the brutality were 'outsiders', not Honda workers. But that only goes to show the solidarity ofthe working men and women of Gurgaon with their comrades in the Honda factory. It is that solidarity that has turned Gurgaon into a theatre where .
repress1on meets w1th heroic resistance of working class and common people. .
'Deal' Brokered by Hooda for Honda: Blueprint for Bullying Workers .
The workers' struggle has forced Honda to restore the 3000 retrenched workers to theirjobs. But the rest of the 'agreement' .
brokered by Hooda r~inforces all the injustices against which the workers were fighting in the first place. .
.
Workers get their jObs back-if they sign an 'unconditional apology'! .
.
.
Workers are debarred from ra1s1ng any demand for one full year; increase in wages will be linked to 'productivity'! .
.
.
Workers must sign an undertaking to maintain 'discipline' and meet production targets (read 12-hour day and no c;lemand for wage increase or humanisation of work conditions}. .
.
.
No punishment of police officials responsible for brutality; on the contrary, cases (on false charges of murder, etc... ) against64 workers to continue. .
.
.
Government refuses to recognise the vast number ofinjured workers-who are deprived of proper medical treatment or compensation. .
.
.
Fnends, Gurgaon must concern us because it IS a s1gn of the t1mes to come-a map of the India that globalisation WIShes to create, where malls and multiplexes hide the horror of workers' explo1tat1on and brutalisation. Students of JNU, true to the tradition of students' sensitivity to social issues, immediately responded to the workers' struggle. The JNUSU President an~ ~ther ;;tudents visited the workers on the night of July 25: a team of 15 JNU students led by JNUSU went to Gurgaon to partiCipate in the Bandh on July 28; JNU students organised a collection dnve of funds for the mjured workers. Today, Unions and .
workers all over India are observmg a Protest Day aga1nst the pol1ce brutality and Government's Insensitivity towards workers of Gurgaon. JNUSU appeals to students ofJNU to show solidarity with the workers' cause byjoini~g the Protest Day in JNU too-by wearing black badges and participating in the workers' protest programme at Parliament Street today. .
Sona Mitra,.
Ena l'anda. Muqbil Ahmar,.
Mona Oas, .
Y. P.. JNUS U Gen. Sccy., JNUSU Jt. Secy., JNUSU.
President. JNUSU .
.
PaRCha - JNU - JNUSU - 2005 ID-62238
.
1.8.05.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU UNIVERSIT STUDENTS" UNION .
Gurgaon: Why Police Savagery Against Workers Should Concern Us Pollee Brutality Against Workers .
The first day of the monsonn session of lnd1an Parliament was in progress on July 25; but all eyes were on the streets of Gurgaon, watching the shocking images of thousands of workers of the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India being beaten to a pulp inside the compound of the mini-Secretariat in Gurgaon. and being forced to crawl on their knees holding theirears. .
Workers of the Honda Factory in Gurgaon had been struggling or basic rights for months-but they, like most workers in the .
hundreds of MNC sweatshops surrounding Delhi remained 'invisible'. Their daily lives-where they stood in constant terror of losing their job, where they had to take written 'permission' to v1sit the toilet, where a visiting Japanese official got away with kicking a worker, and where any worker who voiced protest was kicked out-were unknown to most people. .
Pollee Assault Was No Aberration .
The police brutality was no 'mistake' or 'over-reaction'-it is part and parcel of globalisation, where Governments, police and Administration ot developmg countries are expected to serve MNCs rather than defend the rights of their own people. .
The TV footage ofthis organised police savagery opened a window onto the enslaved world ofworkers in places !ike Gurgaon and Naida-which are laboratones of nee-liberal econom1c policies. where workers of the unorganised sector toil, stripped of their basic human rights and dignit1es. .
Just last month, the Indian PM had proudly claimed that the British Raj, far from being a tormentor of Indian people, was in fact a mentor for the institutions like police and bureaucracy and had 'served India well'. Within weeks. the Congress Govt.'s police showed its colonial DNA-re-enacting Jallianwala Bagh in its eagerness to brutalise workers in order to defend MNCs! .
Batons, Bullets and Bleeding Workers: But FDI Must Flow On! .
For the lnd1an rulmg class. the gory tale of Gurgaon not about workers' nghts, it's about protecting the interests of foreign Investors like Honda. The Japanese Ambassador threatened that the workers' spirited protests is tarnishing India's 'image' as an investment destmat1on, and the MEA rushed to reassure that fore.ign investors need not worry; the 'legal interests of .
investors' will be ~afeguarded. .
Even as PM Manmohan Singh and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi expressed 'anguish' over the police brutality over workers 1n Gurgaon, Home Min1ster Shivraj Patil has justified the savagery, say1ng the police was "compelled" to act as it did. In JNU, student leaders of Hooda's party in campus said in a public speech at a JNUSU meeting, that 'workers deserved bullets, not .
just baton blows!' .
The Myth of 'Trade Union Extremism' .
Many editorials of corporate-owned media houses have claimed that Monday's incidents should be blamed on 'militant trade-unionism'. But workers in the SEZs and secure sweatshops of Gurgaon are denied the basic right to organise or un1onise-militant or other wise! Honda officials complained that most of those who marched on the streets of Gurgaon to protest the brutality were 'outsiders', not Honda workers. But that only goes to show the solidarity ofthe working men and women of Gurgaon with their comrades in the Honda factory. It is that solidarity that has turned Gurgaon into a theatre where .
repress1on meets w1th heroic resistance of working class and common people. .
'Deal' Brokered by Hooda for Honda: Blueprint for Bullying Workers .
The workers' struggle has forced Honda to restore the 3000 retrenched workers to theirjobs. But the rest of the 'agreement' .
brokered by Hooda r~inforces all the injustices against which the workers were fighting in the first place. .
.
Workers get their jObs back-if they sign an 'unconditional apology'! .
.
.
Workers are debarred from ra1s1ng any demand for one full year; increase in wages will be linked to 'productivity'! .
.
.
Workers must sign an undertaking to maintain 'discipline' and meet production targets (read 12-hour day and no c;lemand for wage increase or humanisation of work conditions}. .
.
.
No punishment of police officials responsible for brutality; on the contrary, cases (on false charges of murder, etc... ) against64 workers to continue. .
.
.
Government refuses to recognise the vast number ofinjured workers-who are deprived of proper medical treatment or compensation. .
.
.
Fnends, Gurgaon must concern us because it IS a s1gn of the t1mes to come-a map of the India that globalisation WIShes to create, where malls and multiplexes hide the horror of workers' explo1tat1on and brutalisation. Students of JNU, true to the tradition of students' sensitivity to social issues, immediately responded to the workers' struggle. The JNUSU President an~ ~ther ;;tudents visited the workers on the night of July 25: a team of 15 JNU students led by JNUSU went to Gurgaon to partiCipate in the Bandh on July 28; JNU students organised a collection dnve of funds for the mjured workers. Today, Unions and .
workers all over India are observmg a Protest Day aga1nst the pol1ce brutality and Government's Insensitivity towards workers of Gurgaon. JNUSU appeals to students ofJNU to show solidarity with the workers' cause byjoini~g the Protest Day in JNU too-by wearing black badges and participating in the workers' protest programme at Parliament Street today. .
Sona Mitra,.
Ena l'anda. Muqbil Ahmar,.
Mona Oas, .
Y. P.. JNUS U Gen. Sccy., JNUSU Jt. Secy., JNUSU.
President. JNUSU .
.