S. Vikram, Political Commentator
What is visible in Noida is not merely a labour dispute. It is the desperate reaction of a class that has been rendered absolutely invisible—by the media, by the government’s narrative, and even by a civil society preoccupied with identity.
For three days, industrial workers have clashed with police, demanding what should be mundane: a revision of minimum wages, an eight-hour workday, and weekly offs. These are not revolutionary demands. They are a century old for the industrialised world. But for India’s 94 percent informal workforce, they remain trapped in a time warp.
The immediate trigger is economic strangulation. Real wages have been stagnant for over a decade, while the cost of living in urban spaces has exploded. The war in Iran has sent black-market LPG cylinder prices soaring to Rs 4,000, and high indirect taxes have further squeezed household budgets . The new Labour Codes, far from protecting workers, have merely formalised precarity, encouraging contract labour over permanent employment .
But what is truly significant is the geography of this unrest. Noida is not an isolated incident. Before this, workers in Panipat calculated their demands systematically on a cost-of-living basis and took to the streets. In Chhattisgarh, a boiler blast at a Vedanta plant killed 16 workers—a grim testament to how little safety concerns the system . In Odisha, tribal women are facing lathi charges and firings to resist forced evictions for mining projects .
The state’s response has been brutal and intellectually bankrupt. The UP Chief Minister has dismissed the protests as an attempt to “revive Naxalism” . This is a lazy conflation of material distress with ideological insurgency. Ironically, the Union Home Minister had declared the end of Naxalism in Parliament just a week ago . The cognitive dissonance is staggering.
Yet, this moment is significant for two reasons. First, it proves that material concerns—wages, working conditions, survival—can still pierce the fog of parochial and emotive politics. Second, the moribund Left, despite its weakness, has shown it can still inspire collective action, even if only in spurts.
However, the silence of the major opposition parties is deafening. By refusing to stand on the ground with these workers, they have failed a basic test of political acumen, leaving a vacuum that the state is only too happy to fill with brute force
