What can be more delightful than an unexpected holiday! At least the engineers reading this can very well understand what it means! Yesterday’s bandh was a perfect example of an official holiday that we long for. But while going deeper behind yesterday’s bandh the reasons that I believe were not so congenial.
The bandh was called by almost a dozen of labour unions including CITU (Centre of Indian Trade Union) and INTUC (Indian National Trade Union Congress). On 28th August (Friday) the trade unions met together to decide to take a view on government’s latest proposal. A committee led by finance minister Arun Jaitley proposed to significantly increase the monthly wages. It also suggested for a hike in the bonus ceiling, provident fund and health insurance.
The bandh had mixed effect in different parts of the country, where in Mumbai, Swabhimaan Union led by Nitish Rane backed the bandh call and services of nearly 10,000 cabs were affected. In Kolkata partial impact was seen on local trains while shops, markets and business establishments remained closed.
Now the question arises what were the demands that led to yesterday’s bandh?
The bandh was initially decided to be called after talks between the 11 trade unions and Bandaru Dattatreya (Union Labour Minister) failed. The main points of the demands were:
- Withdrawal of labour law amendments and Land Acquisition amendment ordinance.
- Stop privatization and foreign investment in railways, insurance and defence.
- Unions demand a minimum wage of Rs 15000 a month.
- Increase in bonus ceiling and widening the coverage of health insurance and provident fund.
The demands of the strike as described above, some of them (hike in minimum wages and increase in bonus ceiling and health insurance cover) are completely justified and the related laws should be amended with immediate effect. While there are some points like the privatization of railways, insurance and foreign investment on which we should respect the government’s judgement. Let’s say, till now privatization of these sectors was neglected and the results are quite evident. For instance take the example of railways, where most of the developed countries are travelling at the speed of 250 Km/Hr we are still happy with 90-120 Km/Hr (average). The fact is the longer we close our economy to foreign investment, the longer it will take for us to move forward. The sanitation in the Sleeper Coaches of the trains is still pathetic.
In early 1990s when globalization hit India in sectors like software, there was a boom and India today is one of the biggest providers of software services. So I believe if the privatization clause of the demands is removed, most of the demands of the bandh are justified.
Impact of yesterday’s bandh on daily wage labourers:
I will not comment on, whether yesterday’s bandh would really do any good or bad but what happened yesterday really had impact on the daily wage labourers. If not all, most of the agitating bodies represent the organized sector workers, whose livelihood won’t be affected much without a day’s work. The victims of yesterday’s bandh were those daily wage labourers who carry load in the vegetable mandis. They are the ones who have no idea of the political scenario. Strike for them is synonymous to no food for the day. So it is the responsibility of the government to make sure these situations don’t arise in the first place and ensure that the gap between organized and unorganized sector is reduced.
