From Freedom Struggle to Street Struggle: Why Workers Still Protest? Asks veteran Trade Union Leader C. Srikumar

OPINION PIECE

India marked its 79th Independence Day with tricolours flying high, patriotic songs, and the national anthem echoing across the country. But beneath the celebrations lies a bitter truth — while the government basks in the glory of freedom, workers, farmers, and their unions are still forced to fight for their basic rights.

Just a month ago, on July 9, lakhs of workers participated in a one-day nationwide general strike. The question is unavoidable: why, after nearly eight decades of independence, do we still have to take to the streets for justice?

Let history not be forgotten. During the freedom struggle, it was the working class and trade unions — particularly the AITUC — that stood shoulder to shoulder with the national movement, winning landmark rights like the Trade Union Act of 1926 even under colonial rule. After independence, workers were the backbone of nation-building — expanding railways, setting up defence industries, driving irrigation projects, building public sector enterprises, and ensuring the nationalisation of banks and insurance.

But over the last two decades, successive governments have betrayed this legacy. Under the banner of “ease of doing business” and corporate-friendly reforms, permanent jobs have been killed off, replaced with insecure contract and fixed-term work. Public sector jewels are being sold off. Even core sectors — defence, education, healthcare, electricity, banking, insurance — are not spared. Social security is being shredded. In today’s India, job security is a relic, and dignity of labour is under assault.

Unemployment and underemployment plague our youth. In the Central Government alone, over 15 lakh posts lie vacant; in PSUs and banks, another 5–10 lakh. Reservation for marginalised communities exists only in the public sector — and yet, this very sector is being dismantled. Bank employees fight privatisation, insurance workers fight for wage revision, municipal conservancy workers fight for regularisation, ordnance factory employees fight corporatisation, and government staff demand the restoration of the Old Pension Scheme.

Worse still, the government refuses to talk. The Indian Labour Conference — the country’s highest tripartite forum — has not been convened. The Joint Consultative Machinery for government employees is paralysed. This is not governance; this is contempt.

India today is an economic power, but let us be clear: it is the sweat of its workers and farmers that made this possible. A country that ignores them is not on the road to development — it is on the road to injustice. As we approach the 80th year of independence, the government must shed its arrogance, return to dialogue, and respect the principles of socialism and secularism enshrined in our Constitution.

Freedom without justice for workers is not true freedom, he concludes.

Views expressed here are those of C. Srikumar, Veteran Trade Union Leader & Deputy General Secretary, World Federation of Trade Unions