By B. Sivaraman
The
labour arena in India has suddenly become a happening place. After a successful
telecom strike by 2 lakh BSNL workers on 3 December 2018 and two successive
bank strikes on 21 and 26 December 2018 involving a million bank employees, 4
lakh defence sector civilian workers are now on a 3-day strike on 23–25 January
2019.
These
are no routine run-of-the-mill industrial actions. BSNL workers successfully
fought against the Modi government’s policy of denying them the 4G spectrum and
handing it over only to private monopolies. The second bank strike in December
2018 was against the government’s policy of merger of three public sector banks
as a short-cut in handling the unsustainable non-performing assets crisis. Now
defence employees are on strike to challenge the Modi government’s policy of
privatising defence production.
Less
noticed but no less significant was the ‘work-to-rule’ agitation staged by 1.3
million workers of Indian Railways on 11 December 2018 against privatisation.
Some 75,000 steel workers under SAIL went on a strike as far back as in April
2017 against disinvestment and revived their protests in 2018 against the
outright sale of Salem Steel Plant. Last year, about 50,000 regular port
workers — including 32,000 from 12 major ports — followed them up with an
all-India strike in May 2018. Lakhs of casual workers joined them in opposing
the Major Ports Authorities Bill 2016 pending in parliament, which they feared
would pave the way for corporatisation of ports as a transitional step for subsequent
privatisation. The labour scene was also peppered with similar direct actions
by airline workers, insurance employees and all-India transport workers in
between.
The
three-day strike by Coal India Limited (CIL) workers in June 2017 was a watershed.
When 2.8 lakh CIL workers followed it up with a threat of indefinite strike,
the Modi government had to beat a retreat and drop the privatisation move. It
was the first major defeat for Modi at the hands of the working class. The
string of industrial actions that originated in 2017 continued as a wave of
strikes in the 2018 winter of discontent and shows no let-up in 2019. These are
all political actions challenging the government’s policies. In the political
context of a rightwing surge with its implications for union power, which
showed signs of weakening initially, these actions mark a turning of the tide.
Among
them the defence workers’ strike is exceptional and has some added
significance. .Alageswaran, the versatile worker leader of the Ordnance Factory
of Tiruchirapalli, who is also a literary personality and has authored three
books, including one on India’s foreign policy, says even as he was addressing
the workers, “We have no other economic demands on the table. The 4 lakh
workers from 42 state-owned ordnance factories, DRDO units, all the Military
Engineering Service (MES) centres and Army Station Workshops are challenging
the government at the policy level. Put an end to privatising defence
production. In a sense, the strike is historic. This is for the first time that
all the civilian employees under the Department of Defence have come together
for a strike action. Earlier workers of only some ordnance production units
used to come together”. He also pointed to yet another special feature: “The
strike is also total. Partly because, as it happened in the case of Coal India
and banks, the officers are also supporting the workers as they are also
against the Modi government whittling down the public sector defence production
industry in favour of Ambanis and Adanis”.
“We
had two rounds of talks with the Defence Secretary and he refused to accept our
demands claiming they fell in the realm of government policy beyond his
ministry. It was the government’s prerogative, he argued. We did not take it
lying down. Things did not lapse back into the routine pragmatic bargaining
process of going by what is practicable and achievable. Even if there is no
scope for immediate reversal of the policy, we felt the need to register our
strong protest”, he adds.
In
the case of CIL, the proposal was for dividing the company into four units and
go for outright strategic sale. No defence production unit has been put on the
bloc for privatisation as yet. However, defence production is being outsourced
to private corporates, Indian and foreign. The Rafale scandal, in which HAL was
sidelined in favour of Dassault, is a fallout of this policy. Not only Ambanis,
Indian biggies like Adanis and Punj Lloyd are vying with Swedish Saab and
American Airbus Industries for the Indian aerospace market space.
Union
Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre informed the Lok Sabha on 11 July
2018 that 94 contracts involving Rs.82,979 crore have been signed with Indian
vendors for supply of defence equipment. He also said that contracts have been
signed with 7 US arms majors, 7 Israeli firms, 5 UK firms, 3 each with German
and Swedish firms and 2 with French firms, including with Dassault for Rafale
fighters. He, however, did not disclose the total amount involved in these foreign
deals. Unofficial media estimates put the figure at $20 billion.
Side
by side, the government has also embarked upon disinvestment. Foreign
investment up to 49% in defence manufacture units has been allowed through
automatic route and up to 100% would be cleared in select cases. The government
partly rolled back the government stakes in defence PSUs like Bharat
Electronics Limited (BEL) and BEML, where the government shareholding now is
66.72% and 54.03 % respectively. In February 2017, the government further
announced 26% stake sale in BEML and is presently negotiating with Mitsubishi,
Siemens and L&T in this regard and according to BEML trade union leader
Anjaneya Reddy, the workers went on a strike against this. Clearly, under the
so-called nationalists the military-industrial complex in India is acquiring a
transnational dimension throwing up serious security issues.
India
has become the largest buyer of arms in the international market. After already
bagging $20 billion worth of contracts, global arms majors are still drooling
at a bigger slice of the pie. The stakes are indeed very high — for both Modi
government as well as the workers. When four lakh workers raise the war cry ‘No
privatisation of defence production’, it echoes like ‘No more Rafales’! (IPA Service)
The post Strike Against Handing Over Defence Production To Ambanis And Adanis appeared first on Newspack by India Press Agency.
