https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/need-to-look-beyond-the-power-struggle-in-maharashtra/
It shows the extreme economic polarisation taking place in Mumbai and elsewhere. Opulent constructions have been coming up for the rich in an arrogant, In Your Face sort of way and on the other the construction workers involved in the biggest capitalist enterprise, the construction industry, are getting the worst deal. Several of these workers were from the construction industry, those building houses for the rich are treated most miserably by contractors.
The poor are being killed in large numbers by automobiles , India is on top of the chart in road crash deaths. And there are numerous other such deaths , killing in other sectors.
Many of our intellectuals are very active and rightly in social media against communal violence of the Hindutva elements . But there is generally a strange silence on the deaths of lakhs of innocent people due to other causes .As if these do not matter at all.
Our politics need to be completely reoriented, going much beyond power and election politics. So also the orientation of the media.
There is a steady deterioration in the living conditions of ordinary workers following the decline of trade unions and the organised industries. A fairly decent accommodation was part of life at least for a few workers in the past. This was most visible as one passed by train past the sprawling Godrej industrial empire with its housing quarters in Vikhroli suburb in Mumbai.
The contract system is multiplying, the workers wages are low and many workers I have talked to complained that they are not being paid for months even while the contractor makes a big profit .
30/06/2022
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