India

In February last year, at the peak of state violence against the Indian farmers’ struggle, I wrote in Solidarity that the “repression… could signal the Hindu-nationalist regime’s panic-stricken weakening and decline, or the onset of an even more consolidated authoritarianism”. With the farmers’ defeat of the Modi government, one of the most important popular victories against capitalism anywhere in years, chinks of light have opened up. Nonetheless both possibilities remain. Modi announced withdrawal of the three pro-corporate agricultural reform laws on 19 November. By the end of the month...

In 2002, when India and Pakistan seemed on the edge of armed conflict in the Kashmir region, Solidarity already described India’s rule in its Jammu and Kashmir state as “unbridled state terrorism against the Kashmiri people”. Since then things have worsened considerably. India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, in 1947, 1965 and 1999. We support the internationalists opposing conflict and fighting the militarists and chauvinists on both sides. Since 2002, however, the international conflict has faded into the background as India asserts ever more unbridled power over the...

Since the Modi regime suppressed the autonomy of (and broke up) the Muslim-majority Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in 2019 , the repression there has been unrelenting. On 22 November Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez was arrested. India’s National Investigation Agency raided his home and the office of his organisation, the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS), seizing his mobile, laptop and some books, plus his wife’s mobile. Last week the JKCCS condemned the killing of three civilians in Srinigar. As it repression and atrocities mount, Indian government is trying to...

On 19 November, India’s farmers triumphed after a year-long struggle, as Narendra Modi’s government announced it would repeal its neo-liberal agricultural reforms. In January, at a high point of that struggle, working-class activist Nodeep Kaur was arrested , held for 45 days and subjected to violence and abuse by the police. She briefly shot to international prominence after Meena Harris, niece of US Vice President Kamala Harris, tweeted about her case. See here for a short background article on Nodeep’s family and her arrest and treatment in jail, and here for a longer one on her and her...

“Mr Modi, you apologised when you withdrew the farm laws – when will you apologise for killing 700 farmers? “… The farm law is a glimpse, now for the CAA and labour code” (From a graphic circulating among Indian activists. The CAA is the anti-Muslim Citizenship Amendment Act ) A year-long mass movement of India’s farmers, with strong working-class support, has defeated Narendra Modi’s far-right government. On the morning of 19 November Modi announced that the three farm laws passed in September 2020 would be repealed soon. The government’s retreat comes a week before the first anniversary, on...

Brent North Labour MP Barry Gardiner has been prominent opposing “fire and rehire”. He has joined demonstrations at the Clarks dispute in Somerset, far from his constituency. He has good connections in the unions, and in the Corbyn years he seemed to have a surprising amount of support from people who saw themselves as part of the Labour left. Yet as far as I can see Gardiner, who loyally served Tony Blair as a minister, is a self-serving opportunist. Still, a Labour MP who backs a strike for opportunist reasons can still help boost the dispute. However there is much worse than mere...

In one of the biggest general strikes in history, on 26 November 2020, hundreds of millions of Indian workers and farmers protested against neo-liberal reforms by the country’s far-right government. The workers’ strike was over quickly. But that day launched one of history’s biggest mass movements, Indian farmers’ struggle against agricultural reforms in the interests of giant corporations. Six hundred protesters have died (mainly from camping out in harsh conditions, but some from violence) during this remarkable movement, the strongest and most sustained challenge to Modi’s regime so far. It...

According to UNESCO estimates, globally, 132 million girls are out of school, including 34.3 million of primary school age, 30 million of lower-secondary school age, and 67.4 million of upper-secondary school age. UNICEF reports 15 million of those girls come from the East Asia/Pacific region. Every fifth girl in the region was unable to read and understand a simple text by age 10 according to 2020 figures. The pandemic has also caused increases in gender-based violence, early marriage and teenage pregnancy. One way of pushing for increased education for girls is through projects such as PAWA...

In another sign of a revival of Indian farmers’ struggle against the Modi regime, thousands of farmers and supporters blocked train tracks across the country on 18 October. The “Rail roko” (“Stop the trains”) mobilisation, organised by the Samyukt Kisan Morcha coalition of farmers’ unions, was focused on demanding the resignation of minister Ajay Mishra, after a car carrying his son mowed down and killed four protesters . The farmers’ movement is aimed at winning repeal of three pro-capitalist agricultural “reforms” passed by India’s Hindu-nationalist-dominated parliament last year. It began...

On 3 October, a few days after Indian farmers relaunched their protest movement against pro-corporate agricultural reforms by India’s far-right regime, four protesters in Uttar Pradesh state were mowed down by a car carrying the son of a government minister. Following widespread protests and Supreme Court criticism of the police’s failure to arrest the son, Ashish Mishra, he has now been taken into custody. In violence following the killings several others were killed, including the driver of the car and two activists from the ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In the last...