Group of intellectuals, artists extend support to industrial strike, Grameen Bharat Bandh on February 16

New Delhi [India], February 14 : A number of public intellectuals and artists issued a joint statement on Wednesday in support of the joint call by the workers and farmers for a sectoral industrial strike and Grameen Bharat Bandh on February 16.
A total of 34 people signed the joint statement, which appeals to people from all walks of life "to extend all support to this momentous action" of the farmers and the workers.
Prabhat Patnaik, economist; Irfan Habib, historian; Nasir Tyabji, economic historian; Anil Chandra, cultural activist; and P Sainath, journalist, are some of the people who signed the statement.
"The Central Trade Unions (CTUs) and the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) have given a united call for an Industrial/Sectoral Strike and Grameen Bharat Bandh on 16 February. They have joined forces to launch united and coordinated struggles and bring together all sections of the labouring classes who face the severest brunt of the attack by the BJP-led government's pro-corporate, anti-people policies," the statement read.
The statement claimed that the farmers and workers have joined hands to create a far more powerful force to challenge the government's ever-more aggressive offensive on their lives and livelihoods and its poisonous communal propaganda to disrupt any united struggle.
This force will gain increasing momentum as it takes its campaign to the farthest corners of the country, the statement said.
"The government's rhetoric of India becoming a global leader with a trillion-dollar economy cannot hide the sharp decline in livelihoods and growing economic distress being imposed on the millions of workers and farmers. Steep hikes in corporate profits have come at the cost of the people," the statement said.
The statement further said that unemployment in the country is worse today than it has ever been in post-independence India.
"Real wages of workers are on the decline and working hours are being increased; many states have already legalised a 12 hour working day. Drastic cuts in support for peasants and workers in agriculture have gone hand in hand with allowing corporates to loot and plunder. The result is increasing suicides by farmers and rural workers as well as distress migration from the countryside that is further swelling the numbers of unemployed in the cities," the statement said.
They also said that shrinking access to education and healthcare through increasing privatisation of these sectors have added to the people's distress.