Gurgaon in Haryana is presented as the shining India, a symbol of capitalist success promising a better life for everyone behind the gateway of development. At a first glance the office towers and shopping malls reflect this chimera and even the facades of the garment factories look like three star hotels. Behind the facade, behind the factory walls and in the side streets of the industrial areas thousands of workers keep the rat-race going, producing cars and scooters which end up in the traffic jam on the new highway between Delhi and Gurgaon. Thousands of young people lose time, energy and academic aspirations on night-shifts in call centres, selling loan schemes to working-class people in the US or pre-paid electricity schemes to the poor in the UK. Next door, thousands of rural-migrant workers uprooted by the agrarian crisis stitch and sew for export, competing with their angry brothers and sisters in Bangladesh or Vietnam.
In the September 2011 issue you can find:
1) Proletarian Experiences –
Daily life stories and reports from a workers’ perspective
*** Workers’ Reports from Gurgaon/Faridabad Factories –
Short reports given to and further distributed by Faridabad Majdoor Samachar in spring 2011. Most of the accounts are from workers in the garment export industry based in Gurgaon
*** Systemic Collapse or Emancipation? On Accidents –
Commemorations for victims of two ‘accidents’ in Gurgaon and Okhla and further political questions
2) Collective Action –
Reports on proletarian struggles in the area
*** Small Upsurge of ‘Spontaneous’ Collective Actions by Garment Export Workers in Okhla, Gurgaon, Manesar –
Seven reports on direct collective actions in the garment export industry in March 2011. In order to enforce the payment of the (new) minimum wage, workers in several factories went on short wildcat strikes.
3) According to Plan –
General information on the development of the region or on certain company
policies
*** Shifts in the Call Centre Industry: Gurgaon Tata Workers’ Report and Global Re-Locations –
We look briefly at local and global changes in the call centre industry in relation to the current crisis. We document a call centre workers’ report from Gurgaon.
*** A Prelude? Current Problems of the Real Estate Giant DLF –
DLF was the main private company ‘which built the new Gurgaon’. This was before the global real estate bubble burst. Currently the fundaments of DLF are shaky.
4) About the Project –
Updates on Gurgaon Workers News
*** Suggested Readings: A Few Texts for the International Revolutionary Debate –
The global and historical character of the current crisis forces us to coordinate both debate and practice ‘for workers self-emancipation’ on an international scale. Following texts are selective, but we think that they can stand as examples for ‘general theses’, ‘concrete analysis’ and ‘historical debate’ of class struggle and revolutionary movement.
On the current and historical crisis of capitalism
On capitalist crisis and challenge for communist movement
Theses on proletarianisation, food production and (food) crisis
On recent uprising in Egypt
On recent uprising in Tunisia
On recent movement in Spain
Recent contribution for revolutionary debate on Russian Revolution
Last, but not least!
To abolish the global work/war house will take more than informative exercise! If you live in Delhi area, please be welcomed to take part in Faridabad Majdoor Talmel – a workers’ coordination. We distribute Faridabad Majdoor Samachar on ten days each month in various industrial areas around Delhi. You can also participate in the workers’ meeting places which have been opened in various workers’ areas. If you are interested, please get in touch. For more background on Faridabad Majdoor Talmel:
http://faridabadmajdoorsamachar.blogspot.com/p/fms-talmel.html
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