Has the Singur nightmare come back to haunt the country’s largest automobile company, Tata Motors? Land losers or farmers had protested against the company’s factory in West Bengal in 2008, and the agitation had gained enough steam to force Tata to relocate its factory to the country’s ‘industry-friendly’ state of Gujarat. With theGujarat Khedut Samaj, a farmers organisation, supporting the striking workers now saying that they are sons of farmers who are increasingly getting displaced by the rapid land acquisition for industry in Gujarat, the story seems to be taking new twists.
Gujarat’s so-called ‘industry-friendly’ model has come under attack in the past few years, and the recent history of labour strikes in the state shows that almost all major industrial strikes have been prohibited by the labour department, bearing testimony to the government’s eagerness to extend its support to the industry. “Gujarat does not even have an Agriculture Policy, whereas it has an Industrial Policy,” alleged Sagar Rabari, secretary, GKS, trying to establish the state government’s overtly industry-friendly stance. Rabari now plans to move the Gujarat High Court questioning the government’s decision to prohibit the workers’ strike at Tata Motors, saying when it is not an essential commodity or service, what was the hurry in declaring the strike illegal.
A quick check of the state’s recent labour strifes show that almost all major strikes have been declared illegal; be it the General Motors strike in 2011 or the RIL textile unit strike in 2012, strike at Arvind’s Ahmedabad unit in June 2012, the Apollo Tyres strike in November 2012, L&T Hazira strike in 2013, and the list is long.
[“Source-business-standard”]