Saturday, January 2, 2021
The far-right BJP government’s callous imposition of a strict lockdown without preparations to cater to the migrant workers in the cities who depend on daily wages had triggered an unprecedented forced mass-migration. This pushed tens of thousands to walk hundreds of kilometers back to their villages. Dozens died on the road. The government also took advantage of the pandemic to scrap labor laws and deregulate the trade of agricultural commodities. On November 26, despite heavy repression and arrests of trade union leaders, 250 million workers were mobilized by ten central trade unions in what turned out to be arguably the largest general strike in human history. On the same day, hundreds of thousands of farmers from neighboring states arrived at the borders of Delhi, braving tear-gas, water cannons and baton charge by police as they broke the barricades erected on their way.
