| honda workers gurgaon haryana aituc citu cpi cpi-m globalization india indian trade union workers movement strikers repression revolution working class struggle strikes caste dalit untouchable dalits scheduled caste discrimination liberation casteism workers vanguard anti-casteism globalization honda workers gurgaon haryana |
| September 9, 2005 To Workers Vanguard: On July 25 Indian television showed footage of hundreds of striking workers surrounded by cops and made to crawl on the ground as the cops worked their way through the crowd beating heads, backs, and limbs with thick, metal-tipped clubs and continuing to beat as their victims lay bloody and senseless for a full 45 minutes. It was like the Rodney King video on a tape loop. In the end at least one worker, apprentice Kanhaya Lal, was dead and over seven hundred more were dangerously hurt. The next day there was more footage, this time live, as thousands of people desperately looking for family members at the local hospital resisted with rocks and sticks as police used clubs, tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets to drive them away. Seventeen of the victims were still missing as of August 26 and may be presumed dead (The Telegraph [Calcutta], August 27). Politicians mouthed the outrage that millions felt. The leader of the low-caste-based Rashtriya Janata Dal party said, �Even animals are not treated like this.� Others, invoking the British colonialist massacre of helpless protesters that fueled the Independence struggle, called it a second Jallianwala Bagh. Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who caused a little scandal when he spoke at Oxford recently by thanking the British for the legacy of colonialism, expressed �deep anguish and concern.� page 2 (of 4) |
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