[Previous entry: "5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL"] [Next entry: "‘Israeli terror is worse’"]

07/31/2005:

"Workers Rock India"

As I write this article, Gurgaon approaches its third day of street riots. The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged full support for neo-liberalism and the global war on terror upon his visit to Washington, only to see the Indian district in the state of Haryana explode, exposing the contradictions of the Indian economy.

Gurgaon is a prime example of combined and uneven development under late capitalism. The satellite-town of New Delhi, India's capital, is host to an impressive lineup of multi-national corporations (MNCs) such as Honda, Suzuki, and IBM. Although eighty-percent of the Gurgaon population subsists by agricultural labor, the region is also a major industrial complex. Four-fifths of India's cars and seventy-percent of India's motorcycles are made in the area.

The rich and the affluent middle classes, who are tied to the circuits of global capital, can be found sipping away their Rs.100 lattes (about $2.50) in one of the many Starbucks-imitate coffee shops. This minority stands in stark contrast to the majority of the population that are engaged in rural, blue-collar, and informal labor and on average earn less than $2 a day.
Full: counterpunch.org