India
Reports underscore how close India and Pakistan came to all-out war in late February
By Keith Jones, 20 March 2019
Just three weeks ago, India and Pakistan became the first nuclear-armed powers to ever attack each other with warplanes.
Victimized Indian autoworker and leader of fight to free framed-up workers speaks to WSWS:
Jailing the Maruti Suzuki workers for life “is meant to encourage the capitalists to further enslave the working class”
By our reporters, 18 March 2019
Jitender Dhankhar—a victimized Maruti Suzuki worker and leader of the fight to free the 13 of his former co-workers at the Manesar car assembly plant who have been jailed for life on frame-up charges—has provided the following interview to the World Socialist Web Site.
Free the Maruti Suzuki Thirteen!
Two years since Indian court condemned autoworkers to life-in-prison in monstrous frame-up
By Keith Jones, 18 March 2019
The Maruti Suzuki 13 are class war prisoners, who have already had to endure six and a half years in the nightmare that is India’s penal system.
India: Modi government suppresses disastrous unemployment report
By Kranti Kumara, 13 March 2019
According to the government’s own Labour Force Survey, India’s unemployment rate is the highest in 45 years.
Indian Trotskyists hold Kolkata public meeting to celebrate 80th anniversary of the Fourth International
By our correspondents, 13 March 2019
Sunday’s event was held against the background of intense political and military tension and the danger of war between India and Pakistan, with deadly consequences for millions of people in the region.
Trotskyists campaign in Kolkata for 80th anniversary of the Fourth International meeting
Students and workers discuss India-Pakistan military tensions and the necessity for socialist internationalism
By our correspondents, 8 March 2019
The campaign for the Kolkata meeting is being conducted as military tensions between India and Pakistan intensify.
Days after coming to the brink of all-out war
India and Pakistan stoke chauvinism, exchange threats
By Deepal Jayasekera, 6 March 2019
Although cross-border shelling has reportedly declined since Sunday, continuing tensions between South Asia’s rival nuclear-armed states have left the region on the brink of a catastrophic war.
India-Pakistan war tensions escalate
By Deepal Jayasekera, 4 March 2019
At least six civilians and two Pakistani soldiers have been killed as a result of cross-border shelling from both sides along the Line of Control.
India and Pakistan tobogganing toward a catastrophic war
By Keith Jones, 2 March 2019
India and Pakistan are teetering on the brink of what would be the first-ever war between nuclear-armed states.
India and Pakistan issue fresh war threats
By K. Ratnayake, 1 March 2019
Even as Islamabad agreed to release a captured Indian pilot as a “peace gesture,” India and Pakistan continued their war preparations.
Nuclear-armed India, Pakistan on brink of all-out war
By K. Ratnayake, 28 February 2019
Pakistan announced Wednesday that it had struck targets in India after India carried out a large-scale bombing raid deep in Pakistan on Tuesday morning.
India bombs Pakistan, Islamabad vows military retaliation
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 27 February 2019
Washington gave the green light for Tuesday’s attack, although it could trigger tit-for-tat retaliatory action that quickly cascades into all-out war.
The Progressive Revolution: Modern Art for a New India
Modern Indian art at the Asia Society Museum in New York
By Josh Varlin and Evan Cohen, 20 February 2019
The Progressive Artists’ Group brought together remarkable artists whose works express the democratic and anti-imperialist sentiments of millions as the British Raj ended.
Indian government intensifies retaliatory threats against Pakistan
By Deepal Jayasekera, 19 February 2019
Any Indian military strike could easily lead to a tit-for-tat escalation and rapidly cascade into an all-out war between South Asia’s rival nuclear-armed states.
Indian government seizes on Kashmir attack to ratchet up tensions with Pakistan
By Deepal Jayasekera, 16 February 2019
New Delhi’s denunciations and blood-curdling threats are all but an announcement of an impending Indian military strike on Pakistan.
“It is necessary to base our struggle not on one company or on one nation, but by mobilizing the workers of the world”
Maruti Suzuki workers in India send greetings to February 9 protest
12 February 2019
Jitender Dhankar, a member of the provisional committee of the Maruti Suzuki Workers Union (MSWU) in India, sent a message of solidarity to the workers and young people who participated in the February 9 demonstration against the factory closures and mass layoffs by General Motors.
India and the Maldives strengthen military ties
By Rohantha De Silva, 5 February 2019
In a clear jab against China, the two countries agreed not to allow their territories to “be used for any activity that is hostile to each other’s interest.”
India: Unions betray Tamil Nadu teachers’ and government workers’ strike
By Arun Kumar, 1 February 2019
The unions have cynically claimed that the shutdown of all industrial action is “temporary.”
Indian state government fires hundreds of teachers as Tamil Nadu strike faces a crossroads
By Arun Kumar, 30 January 2019
By isolating striking teachers and government workers, the JACTTO-GEO, which has hundreds of thousands of members, has allowed the state government to intensify its anti-democratic attacks.
India: Striking Tamil Nadu teachers and government employees defy state repression
By Arun Kumar, 28 January 2019
In an attempt to break the strike, the state government has arrested hundreds of teachers who face charges of unlawful assembly and other bogus allegations.
Indian Trotskyists campaign for Kolkata meeting to mark the 80th anniversary of the Fourth International
By Arun Kumar and Ritwik Mitter, 26 January 2019
Indian university students discuss the rising danger of war and the betrayal by the Stalinist parties of the working class.
Striking Tamil Nadu teachers denounce state and central governments
By Sasi Kumar and Nanda Kumar, 25 January 2019
Protesting teachers told WSWS that all the parliamentary parties have inflicted similar attacks on pay and conditions.
Indian government foreshadows harsher internet surveillance and censorship
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 18 January 2019
The planned laws are part of vast array of anti-democratic measures being introduced by governments internationally to target and spy on internet users.
Indian transit workers in Mumbai defy authorities, continue strike
By Kranti Kumara, 16 January 2019
As soon as the strike began, Maharashtra’s BJP state government invoked essential services legislation, threatening the strikers with mass incarceration, fines and dismissals.
India: Daikin air conditioning workers target of police assault, frame-up charges
By Kranti Kumara, 15 January 2019
In the midst of last week’s all-India strike, police launched a brutal attack on Daikin workers and are now conspiring with the company to frame up worker-militants on charges of attempted murder.
The political significance of India’s two-day general strike
By Keith Jones, 12 January 2019
This week’s general strike in India, one of the largest strikes in history, is part of a growing upsurge of the world working class.
Mounting social anger seen in two-day strike against Indian government
By our correspondents, 10 January 2019
While the capitalist media tried to black out the strike, it was supported by broad sections of the working class.
India’s “rise” and the savage exploitation of the working class
By Kranti Kumara, 10 January 2019
India’s rapidly expanding working class is condemned to poverty wages, Dickensian working conditions and precarious employment, and this in a country in which public services, if they exist at all, are dilapidated.
Millions of Indian workers hold two-day general strike against Modi government
By our correspondents, 9 January 2019
The strike, which is continuing today, is a powerful indication of the mass opposition to the Hindu-supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party-led government and its “free-market” policies.
Indian workers need revolutionary socialist program to combat social devastation and political reaction
By Deepal Jayesekera and Keith Jones, 8 January 2019
Tens of millions of workers and young people will participate in this week’s 48-hour, all-India strike against the socially incendiary “pro-investor” economic policies of the BJP-led government.
Indian Trotskyists in Kolkata to celebrate 80 years of the Fourth International
7 January 2019
The Kolkata meeting will review the essential political lessons of the protracted struggle of the Fourth International and their relevance to the fight for socialist internationalism today.
India’s unions to hold two-day “general strike” next week
By Deepal Jayasekera, 5 January 2019
While millions of workers will join the protest strike to oppose Modi and his class-war policies, the Stalinists and their union allies are intent on channelling social opposition behind the Congress and other rightwing parties.
Fifteen Indian coal miners trapped, likely killed, in mine disaster
By W. A. Sunil, 5 January 2019
Rescue efforts after the “rat-hole” mine flooded have been hampered by inadequate equipment and the indifference of the government authorities.
India: Stalinist unions suppress Tamil Nadu auto strikes, promise “industrial peace”
By Arun Kumar and Yuan Darwin, 31 December 2018
The strikes’ outcome is further proof that the Stalinist-led CITU serves as an industrial police force for big business, containing and suppressing working-class opposition.
New postings in Urdu on capitalist breakdown and war, France’s Yellow Vest protests
27 December 2018
Four recent WSWS Perspectives are now available in Urdu, Pakistan’s national language.
Indian state elections show mounting social anger against ruling Hindu-supremacist BJP
By Wasantha Rupasinghe and Keith Jones, 14 December 2018
The BJP lost power to the Congress Party in three states that are part of the “Hindi heartland,” its traditional power-base—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.
Indian workers face slave-like conditions in Sri Lanka
By R. Shreeharan and Ivan Weerasinghe, 10 December 2018
Young men recruited from a Jharkhand village to work on a high-voltage power-line in Sri Lanka have not been paid for three months.
While Modi touts India’s growth rate,
Four jobless youths commit suicide
By Kranti Kumara, 4 December 2018
There are more than 10 million annual entrants into India’s labor market. Yet a recent study found that less than a million new jobs were created in the first three years of the Modi-led BJP government.
Indian Trotskyists celebrate 80 years of the Fourth International
By our correspondents, 23 November 2018
The Chennai meeting was attended by workers, youth and intellectuals, including some who had travelled hundreds of kilometres to participate.
The kiss of death: Stalinists seek to tie Tamil Nadu auto strikes to right-wing parties
By Arun Kumar, 10 November 2018
Opposing all attempts to broaden the struggle, the Stalinists convened an “all party” meeting, where they touted the leaders of opposition parties and their affiliated unions as the strikers’ allies.
Indian Trotskyists to hold meeting on 80 years of the Fourth International
6 November 2018
The meeting in Chennai, which will also mark 50 years of Sri Lanka’s SEP, will outline the lessons of the protracted struggle for Trotskyism in South Asia and internationally.
Indian state government arrests at least 14 union leaders
By Kranti Kumar, 29 October 2018
The Hindu-extremist BJP government in the northern Indian state of Haryana has arrested union leaders after 200,000 workers took action in solidarity with striking public transport workers.
Indian police detain thousands of striking Tamil Nadu auto workers
By Arun Kumar, 25 October 2018
Stalinist union leaders have sought to isolate the strikers, fearing that their struggle could become the focal point for a broader movement of the working class.
Indian court dismisses Maruti Suzuki workers’ bail application
By Keith Jones, 23 October 2018
There is incontrovertible evidence the Maruti Suzuki workers have been jailed for life as the result of a crude frame-up, but the judge callously refused to hear any of it.
India seizes “shadow bank” to avert potential “catastrophic” impact on financial system
By Kranti Kumara, 20 October 2018
Financial observers have said the collapse of IL&FS could have been India’s “Lehman Brothers moment”—a reference to the September 2008 bankruptcy that triggered the global financial meltdown.
Striking Tamil Nadu auto workers face dismissal
By Moses Rajkumar and Nanda Kumar, 17 October 2018
The unions have refused to mobilise workers to defend strikers at Yamaha, Enfield and MSA, and instead are making futile appeals to the courts and state government.
Tamil Nadu police arrest hundreds of striking Indian autoworkers
By Arun Kumar and Moses Rajkumar, 11 October 2018
Strikes and protests have broken out in Tamil Nadu companies that employ the majority of India’s 7.6 million auto manufacturing workers.
BJP government pushes Air India into financial morass to hasten privatization
By Kranti Kumara, 28 September 2018
The Indian government is determined to sell off what is among the country’s most identifiable companies internationally, so as to underline its commitment to the fire sale of public assets.
India cancels talks with Pakistan, threatens military action
By Keith Jones, 24 September 2018
India’s army chief said “pain” should be inflicted on Pakistan, while applauding New Delhi’s scuttling of foreign ministerial talks with Pakistan.
Indian Stalinists seek to divert discontent into an alliance with capitalist parties
By Arun Kumar, 15 September 2018
The Stalinist parties are preparing for an electoral pact with right-wing regional and casteist parties, as well as the Congress party.
India: Kerala residents face ongoing impact of floods
By Arun Kumar, 11 September 2018
Over a million people remain in 2,780 relief camps, with little hope of returning to normal life in the near future.
India expands anti-China “strategic partnership” with Washington
By Keith Jones, 8 September 2018
New Delhi signed onto a “foundational” military cooperation agreement aimed at transforming India into a front-line state in the US offensive against China.
India: Police charge pro-Dalit activists under anti-terrorism laws
By Kranti Kumara, 6 September 2018
With the aim of muzzling opposition to the BJP government and its noxious Hindu supremacist ideology, police arrested five left-wing activists after conducting warrantless searches of their homes.
India: Kerala floods death toll climbs to 445
By Sathish Simon and Deepal Jayasekera, 27 August 2018
Although water levels are receding, flood survivors have been virtually abandoned by government authorities.
Bangladesh jute mill workers demonstrate; Paradip port workers strike in Orissa
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
25 August 2018
The World Socialist Web Site invites workers and other readers to contribute to this regular feature.
Unprecedented monsoonal floods kill over 370 in southwest India
By Sathish Simon, 20 August 2018
While heavy monsoonal rain is normal at this time of the year, the disastrous levels of flooding in Kerala are unprecedented and not a “natural” event.
Amidst Turkish crisis Indian rupee falls to all-time low
By Deepal Jayasekera, 18 August 2018
The decline of Indian rupee is a part of a global rush by investors away from so-called emerging markets.
Indian government threatens to end citizenship for millions of Assam residents
By Rohantha De Silva, 9 August 2018
The Bharatiya Janata Party is whipping up Hindu chauvinism, not just in Assam state, but throughout India.
India truck protest enters its eighth day
By Wasantha Rupasinghe and Kranti Kumara, 27 July 2018
A nationwide indefinite protest launched July 20 by the All India Motor Transport Congress, a lorry-owners’ association, has paralyzed truck-transportation of goods across India.
Indian government backs mob lynchings targeting Muslims and minorities
By Pradeep Ramayake, 26 July 2018
These attacks are the result of provocations by Hindu extremist groups, supported by the BJP government.
Indian elite alarmed as Maldives gravitates toward China
By Rohantha De Silva, 20 July 2018
The rivalry between India and China over the Maldives underscores the geo-political tensions created by Washington’s offensive against Beijing.
Millions of refugees face harsh conditions across South Asia
By Rohantha De Silva, 13 July 2018
The plight of millions of refugees in South Asia is a damning indictment of the imperialist powers and the regional ruling elites.
India: Victims of police attack on Tuticorin protests speak out
By Sasi Kumar and Moses Rajkumar, 5 July 2018
WSWS reporters interviewed survivors of the police assault on demonstrators demanding the closure of the Sterlite copper smelter.
Pickets in Sri Lanka and India demand freedom for Julian Assange
By our correspondents, 20 June 2018
The campaign to free Assange “is inseparably bound with the struggle for the defence of democratic rights and against the repression of the basic rights of the working class.”
Nine million truck drivers across India strike over increasing fuel prices
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 19 June 2018
Although fuel price hikes are affecting working people as a whole, the union bureaucrats are blocking any united struggle against this and other government austerity measures.
Indian workers and students demand freedom for Julian Assange
By our reporters, 15 June 2018
Indian Trotskyists campaigned last week in Kolkata and Sriperumbudur as part of the international struggle to defend the WikiLeaks editor.
Free Julian Assange rallies called in Sri Lanka and India
7 June 2018
The SEP and supporters of the ICFI will demonstrate in Colombo, the Sri Lankan capital, and Sriperumbudur, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
One million Indian bank employees and thousands of Sri Lankan railway workers strike
By our correspondents, 1 June 2018
Industrial action has erupted across the subcontinent against government austerity measures.
The Tuticorin massacre and Modi’s India
By Keith Jones, 26 May 2018
The barbarity of class relations in contemporary India was laid bare in Tuesday’s police massacre of protesters in Tuticorin demanding the closure of a copper smelter that has spewed toxic chemicals for decades.
Fearful of widening mass anger over police shootings
Indian authorities shut down polluting copper plant in Tuticorin
By Deepal Jayasekera, 25 May 2018
Sections of the ruling elite fear the police attacks in Tuticorin will fuel already volatile social tensions across India.
In act of state terror
Indian police kill 12 protesting industrial pollution in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu
By Deeepal Jayaskera, 24 May 2018
Indian authorities have justified the killing of protesters who were demanding the closure of a smelter, owned by a billionaire Indian industrialist, that has wreaked havoc on the lives of people in southeast Tamil Nadu.
India: Varanasi flyover bridge collapse kills 18
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 18 May 2018
The tragedy is a further indication that government authorities and construction companies are endangering the safety of workers and the public as a whole.
India’s BJP government creates new category of workers who can be fired at will
By Kranti Kumara, 16 May 2018
Even the appellation “fixed-term employment” is a misnomer, since an employer can terminate a worker’s contract at any time and without providing a rupee in severance pay.
Machines: An unflinching look at an Indian textile mill
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 15 May 2018
Rahul Jain’s austere but effective documentary focuses on one of the hundreds of textile plants in Gujarat state on India’s west coast.
India: Tamil Nadu government arrests hundreds of protesting teachers and public sector workers
By Sasi Kumar and Moses Rajkumar, 10 May 2018
The demonstrators’ main demand is for the scrapping of a regressive new pension system.
The Maruti Suzuki workers and the re-emergence of class struggle across South Asia
By Wije Dias, 7 May 2018
Wije Dias, general secretary of the Sri Lankan section of the ICFI, and a veteran Trotskyist of more than 50 years standing, spoke from Colombo to the ICFI’s International Online May Day Rally.
Indian Stalinist congress opts for alliance with big business Congress Party
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 30 April 2018
The corporate media has almost universally welcomed the CPM’s overture to the Congress, calculating that it will strengthen the ruling elite against the working class.
Seychelles opposition alliance rejects India’s plans for military base
By Rohantha De Silva, 25 April 2018
India’s move to establish a military base in Seychelles is part of its drive for strategic dominance of the Indian Ocean.
India’s BJP government imposes death penalty for child rape
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 24 April 2018
The BJP ordinance is an attempt to divert attention from the role its leaders in Jammu and Kashmir have played in shielding those who raped and murdered an eight-year-old Muslim girl.
British Commonwealth summit sees line up against China and Russia
By Mike Head, 23 April 2018
The CHOGM gathering saw a concerted drive to transform the 53-member grouping, long regarded as an imperial relic, into a confrontational vehicle.
BJP leaders’ cover-up of rape and murder of Kashmiri Muslim girl provokes outrage across India
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 20 April 2018
Asifa Bano was repeatedly raped, then killed in what police now concede was a conspiracy aimed at terrorizing and forcing the semi-nomadic Bakkarwal from Jammu and Kashmir’s Kathua District.
Indian Stalinists at loggerheads over what right-wing course to follow
By Deepal Jayasekera and Keith Jones, 18 April 2018
At issue in the factional struggle is how to align with the Congress Party, until recently the Indian bourgeoisie’s preferred party of government.
Indian Trotskyists hold public meeting in Chennai against Internet censorship
By our correspondents, 16 April 2018
Speakers explained the connection between the attack on free speech, the drive to war and the rising struggles of the working class.
India: Modi government accelerates anti-worker privatization drive
By Kranti Kumara, 9 April 2018
A key aim of the privatization drive is to cut jobs, impose speed-ups, and further erode wages and working conditions, making India more attractive to investors.
April 8, public meeting in Chennai, India
Oppose Internet censorship! Defend freedom of speech!
By the supporters group of the ICFI in India, 3 April 2018
The supporters group of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in India will hold a public meeting in Chennai on April 8 against Internet censorship.
Maruti Suzuki workers hold protest demanding release of 13 framed-up colleagues
By Saman Gunadasa, 21 March 2018
The demonstration marked one year since Maruti Suzuki workers’ leaders were sentenced to life in prison on politically-motivated charges.
French President Macron signs basing deals in India
By Athiyan Silva, 20 March 2018
Macron’s four-day visit to India last week highlighted the growing military build-up in South Asia.
A travesty of justice that must not stand!
One year since India’s courts condemned framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers to jail for life
By Keith Jones, 17 March 2018
The thirteen’s only “crime” is to have rebelled against the sweatshop conditions that prevail in India’s new, globally connected auto industry.
Social media giants work with Indian government to censor Internet
By Pradeep Ramanayake, 8 March 2018
The Modi government’s measures are part of escalating efforts by governments around the world to silence political dissent.
Indian Stalinists routed in Tripura bastion
By Arun Kumar, 8 March 2018
Whenever the Stalinist Left Front has formed government in one of India’s states over the past quarter century, it has pursued right-wing, “pro-investor” policies.
India’s highest court upholds life sentences for framed-up Pricol workers
By Kranti Kumara, 28 February 2018
There are striking parallels between the company-state frame-up of the Pricol workers and the victimization of Maruti Suzuki workers—13 of whom have been jailed for life.
Indian authorities intensify vendetta against framed-up Maruti-Suzuki workers
By Keith Jones, 22 February 2018
State authorities are petitioning the courts to impose death-sentences on 13 autoworkers whose only crime was to challenge poverty wages and brutal working conditions.
WSWS call to fight Internet censorship published in Urdu, Bengali, and Telugu
21 February 2018
The US government, in close collaboration with Google, Facebook, and other giant IT corporations, is implementing massive restrictions on Internet access to socialist, antiwar and progressive websites.
France to sign basing deal with India, drawing Europe into drive to war in Asia
By Athiyan Silva, 19 February 2018
The Indian Ocean more and more resembles a powder keg, as competing nuclear-armed powers set up rival networks of military bases to surveil and threaten each other.
“The union is certainly not on our side”
Indian autoworker speaks about life in the “Detroit of South Asia”
By Ram Ramiah and Parwini Zora, 17 February 2018
An auto parts worker in South India describes the slave-like conditions he confronts daily enforced by management with the support of the union.
India strengthens ties with ASEAN countries
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 5 February 2018
Modi’s manoeuvres with ASEAN are part of India’s transformation into a frontline state in Washington’s strategic offensive against China.
Indian-Pakistani clashes in Kashmir put South Asia on knife’s edge
By Sampath Perera, 31 January 2018
India’s army chief has said that if the deteriorating situation along the border warrants it, his forces stand ready to call Islamabad’s nuclear “bluff” and strike inside Pakistan.
India: First-ever visit by an Israeli PM used to strengthen strategic ties
By Wasantha Rupasinghe, 27 January 2018
India’s burgeoning military-strategic partnership with Israel dovetails with its ever-more pronounced alignment with Washington and its principal Asian allies, Japan and Australia.
Indian factory fire kills 17 workers
By W. A. Sunil, 24 January 2018
Women and children were trapped inside the building because illegal constructions blocked their escape.
Indian Prime Minister Modi to tout pro-business record at World Economic Forum
By Kranti Kumara, 23 January 2018
The WEF deliberations will be bookended by speeches from Modi, a slavish servant of big business and Hindu supremacist, and the fascist-minded billionaire, US President Donald Trump.
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