Millions of workers join nationwide strike
kolkata — Police clashed with stone-throwing protestors in Kolkata on Tuesday, authorities said, as tens of millions of Indians staged a 48-hour nationwide strike months before Prime Minister Narendra Modi runs for re-election.
Unions said that some 200 million workers took part in what they called the biggest show of force since Modi’s right-wing government took office in 2014, accusing it of neglecting workers and farmers.
The stoppage called by 10 unions hit India’s vast black economy as well as public services, banks and the insurance sector, with West Bengal in the east and Kerala and Karnataka in the south the worst affected.
West Bengal’s capital Kolkata, home to five million people, saw sporadic violence as protesters squatted on train tracks, clashed with police, set fire to effigies of Modi and staged marches waving red flags.
Strike supporters put up blockades at a number of stations in East and West Bardhaman, Birbhum, Hoogly, North and South 24 Parganas districts and obstructed train movement.
In Kolkata, many public and private buses were seen plying on the roads. The strike supporters ransacked a number of buses and trucks and demonstrated on busy city streets including the Central Avenue by torching tyres.
“Security forces fought pitched battles with stone-throwing protesters on roads,” West Bengal’s Transport Minister Subhendu Adhikari said. “At least 10 buses have been damaged after protesters threw stones and set fire to vehicles,” he said. More than 100 people were arrested, police said.
“Police are detaining our people like foxes catching chickens,” Subhash Mukherjee, president of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions said, adding that the government was showing its “fascist face”.
The state Left leadership accused the Trinamool Congress government of indirectly supporting the Central government’s activities by opposing the strike here and claimed that the Trinamool and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have a secret understanding.
In Kerala, thousands of protesters blocked trains, causing major delays, while buses were off the roads, leaving thousands of commuters stuck. Local media reports said protestors also stopped employees from reporting to work at several places in the coastal state, which last week was hit by violence related to women entering one of Hinduism’s holiest temples.
Demonstrators got into the act across the state by blocking rail traffic, following which several trains ran behind schedule.
Protesters blocked trains at practically all major stations in Kerala.
State-owned private buses and contract vehicles went off the roads but pilgrims to the Sabarimala shrine were allowed to proceed from all places.
But during the day, even Sabarimala services got affected especially from Kottayam bus station amid angry exchanges between the pilgrims and the staff of the state owned transport service. Private vehicles, however, plied. Banks, state and central government offices remained shut but shops and establishments including hotels opened in several parts of the state.
According to the striking bank employees, over 22,000 bank employees in the state took part in the strike, leaving banking activities in shambles. Workers at Cochin Port and Cochin Export Processing Zone were stopped by the protesters.
Similar images from neighbouring Karnataka state showed demonstrators blocking trains and staging protests in the state capital Bangalore, India’s major information technology hub.
In India’s financial capital Mumbai, a separate strike by 33,000 bus company employees made for transport misery in the already chaotic metropolis, despite an industrial court declaring the stoppage illegal.
The left-leaning unions have put forward a 12-point charter of demands before the government aimed, they say, at reviving Asia’s third-biggest economy and improving worker rights. They are also unhappy about an amendment in India’s labour laws that the government has said is aimed at bringing transparency and ameliorating conditions. —