I FEEL LIKE BECOMING A TERRORIST

(New Series No. 237, March 2008)

Young Wage Worker: In 6 months, they definitely terminate your job. Many a time, a month passes before one gets work in any place. When 10 days pass of sitting idle, then hopelessness increases. One feels like dying…To commit suicide is a sin. I stop myself from doing so by saying suicide is a sin.

Manager of a factory supplying parts to Maruti, Suzuki car factories: There is more work with power presses. There is no count of fingers getting chopped. In these 2 years, 18 workers’ hands are being cut from the wrist. This is not to be shown in the records therefore treatment is done through private doctors. Seeing all this, I feel a lot of pain. My helplessness causes still more pain to me.

70 years old retired professor: Reading the newspaper early in the morning ruins my mood. How many disgusting things…My conscience says shoot these leaders and officers.

Those who were earlier villagers: Another young man of Mujesar village has recently committed suicide. Villages on whose land the factories of Faridabad stand, large numbers of the residents of these villages are in the grip of addiction. Rent from rooms is the main source of income for many of them. Young people full of arrogance and intoxication won’t even listen to their elders.

20 year old worker: Every day 12 hours. When there is more demand for the goods, then each day it is 16 hours of work. No day off in a week. No day off in a month. It is forced, if you don’t stay for 12-16 hours then there is no job. Payment at hourly rate. Whether it is second hour or 15 hour, the rate is the same. Production is not according to an hourly rate. Initially, for a new piece, if they set a time of 10 minutes then by reducing it, they make it 9, 8, 7, 6 minutes per piece. Then there is plus, minus, deduction if the production is less than what was set…

Lining charge and master constantly reprimand us. Why do we not oppose this? Why do we grapple to achieve the target? Why don’t people think? I get very angry. I feel like blowing away the bosses. I feel like becoming a terrorist.

*We are not happy with what there is. We want change.

-Each one of us goes to great lengths to change one’s conditions. From stretching our body to killing our conscience….What all we don’t do…A few people, one in many, are able to fulfill their desires. But, on looking back, these things which were considered very important are in reality found to be insignificant. All around conditions are going from bad to worse…Our efforts are failing.

-A common understanding is “the system itself is bad.” That solutions for people’s problems cannot be found for each person separately has also become a common understanding. That our condition will only change by transforming society also became a common understanding. And yet it seems that our efforts to transform our society has reached a level of stagnation.

*Discontent from the present used to be expressed prominently in demonstrations, strikes, confrontations with the police, armed revolts. That is a fact that throughout the world in these 100 years, but the success of meeting-strike-revolt has proved to be a failure. In the whole world, factories have been increasing, the number of workers has been increasing, size of the family has been shrinking., women working alongside men has been increasing, hours of wage-work have been increasing, pace of work has been increasing, insecurity is increasing…

Discontent has been increasing. Rage has become explosive. Throughout the world, their expression in meeting-strike-confrontation decreased greatly. Workers, following leaders is not seen often.

*What to do? Where to go?

We are very well aware of the personal importance of our own steps. The practical importance of our coordinations at workplaces and residences is known to all of us. In our opinion, in this extremely difficult environment, it is necessary to think and consider the extensive importance of our own coordinations and steps.

One person participates in many coordinations. Some coordinations of the old type are loosening, breaking but for a person to participate in new coordinations is becoming easier. Conditions have increasingly become such that a bond can easily coordinate with many bonds. These can take us beyond I-department-factory-neighborhood and provide a larger space. With ease, we can create world-wide coordinations.

-Coordinations which are outside of the bounds of practical/pragmatic interests are necessary and it is not difficult to form them. Such coordinations of ours can now and then with ease bring to a stand-still all that is happening. These will provide us with breathing spaces. These will save us from desperation.

-Market and money have forcibly joined the world together. Whereas through our coordinations, we can form bonds of our desire with 5 to 6 billion people in the world. To overcome the present, exchange and experiences and ideas can certainly help one another. These bonds-coordinations will provide momentum to churning that is going on for the creation of a new society in the world.


Demands are: Zestful life, Joy, Happiness, Love, Respect, Contentment

-If we put it this way, then for our own selves, for dear ones what we need is time, time, time. The real poverty of us people who are compelled to slog for 12 to 16 hours is the dearth of time.

-When we are sent back from the gate, given break, forced to sit idle, time becomes a death for us. This time which increases our worries is time forced on us. This time is not our own time.

-In this period of 12 to 16 hours work, continuous holidays for 3-4 days is necessary for merely saving life. 3-4 days of holiday will be able to provide some time for rest, worry-free sleep, get togethers, for some fun.

-Continuous work is causing derangement. Increasing vacancy of factories-offices is a point of departure for a zestful life.

-Coordinating holidays is how flowers of joy bloom.