On 26th November 2020, families in the US settled down to celebrate Thanksgiving, perhaps with fewer members than previous years or over Zoom. Meanwhile, halfway across the world in India, the largest organized strike in history was occurring. A whopping 250 million people, including workers, farmers, student groups, and women’s groups participated in a nationwide strike that lasted for two days. To put this in perspective, that is almost the entire population of the US!

 What were these people demanding? The purpose of this strike was to protest the new labor laws put in place by the government, specifically by the BJP Party of India, an extremely right-wing nationalist group led by Narendra Modi. Organized by ten labor unions and over 250 agricultural groups, the revolt pushed for the repeal of the recently passed anti-worker and anti-farmer laws. These laws drive down crop prices consequently devastating farmer’s earnings, relax rules for firing workers by introducing more fixed-term contract employment options for bosses, and make trade union activity difficult. Implementing these measures is especially brutal because it comes after the country’s economic fallout due to COVID-19. GDP has declined by a record 23.9%, while unemployment has soared to an unprecedented 27%. Most would agree that now is the last time to enact such laws. Some other demands included a stipend of Rs 7500 ($101) to all families who earn less than the income tax threshold, a monthly 10kg ration of grain to each person in need, an end to privatization in the public sector, and a pension for all.  

The initial 24-hour strike took place all across India. Five states were completely shut down and two others reported a 100% strike. These are huge numbers but make sense; the impacts of the new laws are far-reaching. Nearly 60% of the Indian population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. The strike itself involved halting work in banks, financial services, transport, steel units, ports and docks, telecommunication services, plantations, power generating units, coal, and other mines, oil and natural gas production units, and millions of other places. It truly created a huge impact. Major metropolitan cities such as Kolkata and Mumbai came to a complete standstill as traffic was blocked. The industrial and mining belt across East and Central India experienced a shutdown. After lasting two days, this strike transformed into a march, and tens of thousands of protestors marched to New Delhi, the nation’s capital. Here, they have met with fierce repression from the Delhi police, who have made repeated use of a blockade, baton charges, and water cannons to stop the march but to no avail. Farmers have vowed to not stop, coming prepared with months worth of supplies, until the government listens to them. 

For the last three weeks, protestors have been staying put and blockading highways leading to New Dehli. Talks with the government have failed to produce any breakthroughs, and  Modi’s party insists the reforms will benefit farmers by allowing them to market their produce and boost production through private investment. This is false: the reforms will only lead to the detriment of the farmers who will get exploited by big companies. This is unfortunate for the huge population of India that is affected and hopefully, we will see some actual change in the near future.