NEW DELHI, July 26: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s troubled coalition waded into a fresh crisis on Tuesday after a savage police assault on striking workers at a major Japanese firm near Delhi rocked the parliament and tested the government’s economic reforms plans. Monday’s widely-televised police assault with sticks and clubs on workers of the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India in neighbouring Gurgaon brought India’s left and right together against the centrist Congress party which rules Haryana, the state in question.
The workers’ agitation, many of whom allege large-scale arbitrary retrenchments, was being led by the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), which belongs to the Communist Party of India, an ally of Dr Singh’s United Progressive Alliance. Japanese diplomats have been quoted as saying the incident could affect foreign investments, a holy cow with the government.
A foreign ministry spokesman played down the comments, saying: “An isolated incident involving a labour dispute should not become a benchmark for judging the investment climate in India. “The country’s democratic institutions and its legal system provide an effective mechanism to deal with such incidents in a transparent manner. The legal interest of foreign investors will be fully safeguarded.”
Home Minister Shivraj Patil told parliament that 92 workers were injured in the assault, which was graphically covered live on television. The opposition and the government’s leftist allies said the figure were grossly played down and sounded like a police handout. There were reports of many workers, including a few of their leaders, missing since the attack, which went on till late into Monday night.
There were reports of violence, including teargas firing by police in Gurgaon also on Tuesday. The main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party demanded the resignation of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda. The party staged a walkout in parliament, where it has a censure motion against Dr Singh pending for discussion.
The government’s communist supporters, already miffed by the prime minister’s perceived proximity with the United States since his last week’s visit to Washington, were withering in their attack.
“This government is an agent of the capitalist class,” fumed Gurudas Dagupta, AITUC general-secretary and an MP. The CPI says there have been several attacks on workers and farmers in Haryana and Punjab, where the Congress rules, and in Rajasthan, where the BJP is in power, in recent days.
The Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India says it has suffered losses of over Rs1 billion (US$22.9 million) due to production loss. It had dismissed four office-bearers of the trade union and suspended another 20 employees. The workers say thousands had been retrenched. Alleging ‘wholesale violation’ of labour laws and ‘large-scale victimization’ of trade union workers, AITUC says the chief minister and state labour department “is not intervening and district administration and police are openly assisting the management”.
Dr Singh, whose pro-market reforms are on test, condemned the attack, as did other leaders of his coalition including Sonia Gandhi. But they have refrained from saying which side was to blame. The state-backed National Human Rights Commission urged the government to investigate the incident. The state government has ordered a judicial inquiry.
NEW DELHI, July 26: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s troubled coalition waded into a fresh crisis on Tuesday after a savage police assault on striking workers at a major Japanese firm near Delhi rocked the parliament and tested the government’s economic reforms plans. Monday’s widely-televised police assault with sticks and clubs on workers of the Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India in neighbouring Gurgaon brought India’s left and right together against the centrist Congress party which rules Haryana, the state in question.
