Rights | SabrangIndia https://sabrangindia.in/category/rights/ News Related to Human Rights Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:10:23 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://sabrangindia.in/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Favicon_0.png Rights | SabrangIndia https://sabrangindia.in/category/rights/ 32 32 UAPA: Delhi HC grants Bail to Kashmiri activist Khurram Parvez after close to 5 years in alleged terror funding case https://sabrangindia.in/uapa-delhi-hc-grants-bail-to-kashmiri-activist-khurram-parvez-after-close-to-5-years-in-alleged-terror-funding-case/ Wed, 10 Jun 2026 12:10:23 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47386 After four years and seven months of arrest, and a year and six months since he filed his appeal in the Delhi HC in December 2024, the senior human rights defender has been granted bail subject to certain conditions, on June 10, 2026

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]]> The Delhi High Court on June 10 granted bail to Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez in an alleged terror funding case registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under UAPA, reported LiveLaw. A division bench of the court consisting of Justice Navin Chawla and Justice Ravinder Dudeja allowed Parvez’s appeal challenging a trial court order passed on December 17, 2024, denying him bail. “We have granted bail, subject to various conditions,” the Bench said while pronouncing the verdict. The detailed order is awaited.

Khurram Parvez was arrested close to five years ago, in a case registered against him by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for alleged terror funding, conspiracy and recruiting persons for the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Parvez was arrested in the case on November 22, 2021 from Srinagar. He was remanded to judicial custody on February 25, 2022, following series of police custody remands.

On December 19, 2024, the date he filed the appeal, Parvez had been in custody for a total period of roughly 3 years and 1 month. Today –when the judgement is finally delivered–the period of incarceration totals 4 years and 7 months. It took a year and six months for disposal of a bail appeal in the Delhi HC!

The NIA alleged that a network linked to the banned terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) recruited Over Ground Workers (OGWs), gathered intelligence on security installations and facilitated terror funding. Parvez was arrested during the investigation, although he was not named in the original FIR. According to the charge sheet, the allegations against him were that he recruited OGWs for LeT, collected information regarding the movement and structure of the Army, had links with Pakistan-based terrorist organisations, and instigated protests following the killing of Burhan Wani in 2016.

Khurram’s appeal however strongly argued that the prosecution’s case against Parvez was unsupported by evidence and that he is a “factual stranger” to the larger conspiracy alleged by the NIA. It was also Parvez’s case that there was no digital evidence showing his contact with members of any proscribed terrorist organisation and that no call detail records were collected regarding the alleged meeting between him and co-accused Muneer Ahmad Kataria.

Parvez also argued that he is a human rights activist and was the Programme Coordinator and Spokesperson of the Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and also the Chairperson of the Philippines-based Asian Federation against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), which campaigns on the issue of enforced disappearances. In his appeal, Parvez said that he was a factual stranger to the alleged conspiracy and that the investigators had failed to establish any contact between him and LeT operatives or members of any banned organisation. He stated that an examination of digital devices seized from him revealed no communication with alleged handlers or evidence of recruitment of overground workers.

He also rejected the allegations that his past visits to Pakistan demonstrate links with proscribed organisations, stating that the trips were undertaken publicly as part of humanitarian and advocacy initiatives, including campaigns against landmines and enforced disappearances.

In his bail application, Khurram Pervez argued that there was no evidence that Parvez passed sensitive military information to any terrorist operative and that there was no allegation linking him to any alleged terror-funding money trail.  Counsel for Pervez included senior advocate Tanveer Ahmed Mir, along with Ms. Swati Khanna, Ms. Raminder Kaur, Mr. Md. Imran Ahmad, Mr. Shahzad Khan and Mr. Kartik Venu. The bail plea was filed through advocate Kartik Venu.For the NIA, advocates Mr. Rahul Tyagi, SPP, Ms. Priya Rai, Mr. Shubham Goyal, Mr. Jatin Khatri, Mr. Amit Rohila appeared.

Related:

Supreme Court refers UAPA bail jurisprudence to larger bench; grants interim bail to Tasleem Ahmed and Khalid Saifi in Delhi riots conspiracy case

UAPA is a Very Unjust Law in Terms of Bail…Almost Like a Life Sentence: Anand Grover

 

J’khand HC grants bail to UAPA accused as no link to Al-Qaeda established

 

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]]> Sleeping Under an Open Sky on No-Man’s Land: Two Children, Ten Lives, and the Machinery of Exclusion https://sabrangindia.in/sleeping-under-an-open-sky-on-no-mans-land-two-children-ten-lives-and-the-machinery-of-exclusion/ Wed, 10 Jun 2026 06:21:38 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47382 As deep economic anxieties regarding inflation, agrarian distress, and systemic inequality intensify, governments increasingly turn belonging into a weapon. The figure of the migrant is conveniently manufactured as a scapegoat onto whom broader social frustrations can be projected. In this calculated spectacle, two children sleeping under an open sky are absurdly framed as threats to national security

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]]> For nearly three days, ten people — including three children — remained stranded in the no-man’s land along the India-Bangladesh border near Panchagarh. Exposed to rain, storms, and the summer sun, they waited for a decision that should never have been necessary: which state would acknowledge responsibility for them.
According to reports, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) attempted to push the group into Bangladesh on June 5. Bangladesh’s Border Guard (BGB) refused to accept them, leaving them trapped in the strip of territory between the two states. Only after prolonged tensions and diplomatic pressure were they reportedly taken back by Indian authorities.
Among those stranded was a family from North 24 Parganas in West Bengal. Local reports suggest that the father, Shamsul, had spent years working as a vegetable trader in India and possessed Indian identity documents. Yet this apparently made little difference. For seventy hours, his family occupied a political vacuum: citizens on paper, but disposable in practice.
The incident is not merely a humanitarian failure. It reveals something deeper about the contemporary politics of citizenship in South Asia and beyond.
Across the world, citizenship has increasingly ceased to function as a universal guarantee of rights. Instead, it has become a mechanism of classification and exclusion. States reserve for themselves the power to decide who belongs, who is suspect, who is legal, and who can be discarded.
This tendency is hardly unique to India. From the Mediterranean to the US-Mexico border, from the detention centres of Europe to refugee camps across Asia, modern states are investing unprecedented resources into policing human mobility. The language differs — national security, border management, demographic protection — but the underlying logic remains remarkably similar.
People who sell their labour across borders are treated as threats, while capital crosses those same borders with extraordinary freedom.
Marxist political theory has long emphasised that borders do not simply regulate movement; they also help organise labour markets. Capitalism depends simultaneously on mobility and restriction. Workers are encouraged to move when their labour is needed and prevented from moving when they become politically inconvenient.
This contradiction is particularly visible in South Asia, where millions of workers, traders, and migrants have historically moved across territories that long predate the borders established by Partition. The creation of modern nation-states did not eliminate these social and economic connections. It merely transformed them into administrative problems.
As economic insecurity deepens, governments increasingly turn citizenship into a political spectacle. Questions of employment, inflation, public services, agrarian distress, and inequality become more difficult to address. Questions of belonging become easier. The figure of the “outsider” emerges as a convenient political object onto which broader anxieties can be projected.
The people stranded at Panchagarh were not responsible for unemployment, rising prices, or social instability. Nor did two small children sleeping under the open sky constitute a threat to national security. Yet they found themselves caught within a machinery that increasingly prioritises territorial control over human welfare.
The tragedy of the border is that it transforms administrative uncertainty into human suffering. A person may possess documents, a work history, a family, and a community, yet still find their existence suspended by bureaucratic discretion. Citizenship becomes less a right than a conditional status, revocable in practice even when recognised in law.
The Panchagarh incident also exposes the limits of nationalist thinking. Neither Indian nor Bangladeshi workers benefit from the production of statelessness. The victims of exclusion are overwhelmingly poor people whose labour sustains the economies on both sides of the border. Nationalist politics invites them to see each other as rivals, while the conditions shaping their lives — precarious employment, shrinking welfare provisions, rising inequality, and intensified surveillance — remain strikingly similar.
This is why the left cannot approach such incidents merely as humanitarian crises. Humanitarian concern is necessary, but insufficient. The deeper question concerns the political order that repeatedly produces these situations.
A socialist politics begins from a simple premise: human dignity cannot depend on administrative categories alone. Rights cannot be contingent upon the changing calculations of border regimes. The value of a person’s life does not derive from a passport, an identity card, or a bureaucratic determination of belonging.
For seventy hours, ten people remained trapped in a place officially designated as belonging to no one. Yet their predicament reveals a larger truth about our political moment. The no-man’s land is not merely a strip of territory at the edge of two states. It is increasingly becoming a condition imposed upon vulnerable populations everywhere — people who are essential as workers but expendable as human beings.
The challenge before the left is not simply to demand a more humane border. It is to challenge the social order that repeatedly produces human beings whose rights can be suspended at the edge of a map.
Dr Soumya Sahin is an Assistant Professor of Economics in West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences

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]]> May-June 2026: Youth Congress nationwide protests challenge education system collapse under Modi government, media gives cold shoulder? https://sabrangindia.in/may-june-2026-youthcongress-nationwide-protests-challenge-education-system-collapse-under-modi-government-media-gives-cold-shoulder/ Mon, 08 Jun 2026 08:00:05 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47321 From mid May 2026 until as recently as June 6, Youth Congress units and leadership have been protesting across the nation on the NEET paper leak row the education system had "collapsed" under the BJP-led NDA government; from Bhopal to Bhubhaneshwar, Delhi to Guwahati, Amravati to Ahmedabad, and Jodhpur to Ranchi. These protests have resonated across the country, available on social media but not commercial or mainstream. On June 6, Saturday, when a huge concentration of media attention was on the “Cockroach” gathering at Jantar Mantar, the IYC President led thousands in a protest in Haryana

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]]> Though not widely covered by India’s electronic media and scantily by newspapers, close to a dozen protests by youth organisations dominated by the Youth Congress (IYC), its NSUI units and leadership have taken place in several cities and towns including the national capital, New Delhi. Kick-started after the NEET paper leak row, these protests were amplified into calls against an education system that had “collapsed” under the BJP-led NDA government. Social media posts showed visuals of these NSUI/IYC protests from Bhopal to Bhubhaneshwar, Delhi to Guwahati, Amravati to Ahmedabad, Jodhpur to Ranchi; however, there has been a relevant cold silence on commercial or mainstream media.

On June 6, Saturday, when a huge concentration of media attention was on the “Cockroach” gathering at Jantar Mantar, the IYC President , Uday Bhanu Chib, led thousands in a protest in Haryana. Protesters faced water cannons and even barricades and police lathis, demonstrating a vibrant protest, again ignored by ‘mainstream’ media.

IYC and NSUI launched district and state-wide protests all over the country following the May 3 NEET UG (Undergraduate) cancellation that left hundreds of thousands of students in distress and limbo, some even taking their own lives.

It is not a coincidence that a day earlier, on May 15, 2026 a controversial remark by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, during a hearing on fraudulent degrees when he criticised the behaviour of “unemployed youths, journalists and activists comparing them to “cockroaches” led to widespread outrage. The very next day not only did the Youth Congress launch its large protest in the capital, but a young Indian, living in Boston, Abhijeet Dipke gave the call for the launch of the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP) that resonated among the young!

Image: IYC/X

The NEET UG (Undergraduate) 2026 examination was held on May 3 across 551 Indian cities and 14 international locations for over 22 lakh candidates. It was subsequently cancelled on May 12 following allegations of an orchestrated paper leak. The examination has now been rescheduled for June 21 with improved security arrangements. At least seven student suicides linked to the NEET-UG 2026 examination were reported in May alone, highlighting the intense psychological pressure faced by candidates. The distress has been attributed to the sudden cancellation of the exam and ongoing uncertainty over a re-test, against the backdrop of widespread paper leak allegations impacting over 2.2 million aspirants.

Image: IYC/X

Senior Congress leader and Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi said the party would continue to press for accountability. Speaking after a protest in New Delhi, he called for “a secure and transparent system” to prevent future leaks. Politically, Congress has mobilised protests across several states through its student wing, the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), and the Indian Youth Congress (IYC). Demonstrations have included marches, candlelight vigils and symbolic protests, with leaders alleging that the issue reflects deeper institutional failures. Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib who was even detained and jailed by the Delhi police on instructions of the Modi government in February 2026, has been leading from the front: he has referred to reports of student distress and suicides, calling for greater accountability from the government. In February 2026, Uday Bhan Chib, who hails from Jammu had led shirtless protests against the Modi government for the national shame that arose out of the AI international summit especially related to the showcasing of a Chinese innovation by a an Indian commercial university as “Indian.” This time round, NSUI president Vinod Jakhar led protests in multiple cities, including Hyderabad and in Guwahati in Assam, where he been detained by police.

This uproar over the NEET paper leak followed by the institutional scams within the National testing agency (NTA) also attracted parliamentary scrutiny. On May 21, National Testing Agency (NTA) Director General Abhishek Singh was summoned to appear before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports to discuss the paper leak investigation and possible examination reforms. Committee members expressed serious concern regarding weaknesses in the examination process, including computer-based testing infrastructure, exam frequency, and institutional accountability. Officials informed the panel that a CBI probe is ongoing to identify vulnerabilities and reinforce the system. Committee Chairman and senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh remarked that all Committee members were “very concerned” about the matters discussed.

Beyond street mobilisations, the Congress has mounted an aggressive media and social media campaign. Over weeks from mid-May 2026 onwards, party leaders have repeatedly raised the issue in press briefings, accusing the Modi government of failing to protect the interests of students and job aspirants. Leader of the Opposition (LOP), Rahul Gandhi has personally met students affected by the NEET paper leak and those who have raised concerns over the CBSE evaluation system. Senior leaders and party units are regularly posting on social media demanding Dharmendra Pradhan’s resignation.

Reuters  reported on May 16 itself that the Delhi Police detained Indian Youth Congress party supporters protesting against Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan regarding the NEET paper leak and the statements made by him concerning students at near Teen Murti Circle, on May 16, 2026 in New Delhi, India. Holding posters, banners and party flags, IYC activists took out a protest march from Teen Murti Circle towards the education minister’s residence before they were stopped by police barricades. The protesters alleged that repeated paper leaks had shaken the confidence of students and exposed serious lapses in the country’s examination system.

Image: IYC/X

Livemint, Millenium Post  also covered the May 16 protests reporting that several members, including IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib, were detained during the protest. The protesting Youth Congress alleged that the education system had “collapsed” under the BJP-led NDA government.

Image: IYC/X

At a separate protest in Bengaluru, Congress general secretary Randeep Surjewala criticised the government’s handling of the examination system, alleging administrative failures. The demonstration was attended by Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and other state leaders.

Though Congress has taken a lead, the controversy has drawn responses from other opposition parties as well. In West Bengal, leaders from the Trinamool Congress joined protests calling for a court-monitored investigation. Party MP Sagarika Ghose criticised the Centre’s response to the issue.

In Bihar, Rashtriya Janata Dal leader Tejashwi Yadav said the leak allegations pointed to what he described as an “organised network,” a claim the government has not commented on.

Meanwhile, youth organisations linked to regional parties, including the Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh, have also held demonstrations.

On May 24, Newsmill reported that members of the Tamil Nadu Youth Congress organised a protest march towards Lok Bhavan in Chennai on May 24, condemning the alleged leak of the NEET UG 2026 examination paper and calling for the abolition of the national medical entrance test, which they claim favours affluent students.

At that protest, the Indian Youth Congress National Secretary Joshua Gerard led the demonstration and criticised the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), citing repeated paper leaks and systemic inequality. He stated, “Every year, 22-24 lakhs youngsters write the NEET exam and in the last 12 years, more than 5 times that papers have been leaked. We strongly condemn this, and we demand that NEET exams be banned across India. It is against poor people…the tuition centres charge around Rs 1-2 lakh every year. NEET ensures that only rich people can become doctors in this country.” Gerard further warned of escalated protests if the examination is not banned, saying, “If it is not banned, we will organise gheraos across every assembly in India.”

 

Image: IYC/X

The protest occurred amid widespread anger over the NEET UG 2026 paper leak. On the same day, May 24, the Rouse Avenue Court in Delhi placed accused Shubham Khairnar in judicial custody until June 6, following his presentation by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) earlier that day.

May 13, May 21

The Hindu and The New Indian Express reported on protests by the IYC first on May 13 in Kalaburagi and thereafter in Bengaluru on May 21.

In the first protest, members of the Youth Congress Unit, condemned the irregularities in the NEET-UG examination, members of the Youth Congress unit staged a protest outside the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Kalaburagi on Wednesday criticising the National Testing Agency (NTA) over the question paper leak and demanding its abolition. The protesters burnt tyres, displayed placards and raised slogans against the Union government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the conduct of national-level examinations.

Image: Arjun Kulkarni/ The Hindu

Addressing the protesters, Kalaburagi District Youth Congress president Shakeel Ahmed Saradagi stated that repeated controversies surrounding the NEET-UG examination have undermined the credibility of the country’s examination system causing anxiety among lakhs of students aspiring to pursue medical education. Drawing attention to the scandal and controversy surrounding the 2024 NEET-UG examination and the fresh paper leak in 2026, he said that the paper leak has recurred for the second time in three years, accusing the NTA of repeatedly failing to conduct examinations transparently and securely, thereby compromising the interests of honest students.

Mr. Saradagi pointed out that such, repeated and systemic irregularities in centralised examinations are recurring because of the growing commercialisation of education and demanded that the Union government dissolve the NTA and establish a more accountable and transparent mechanism for conducting competitive examinations.

The protesters said that repeated paper leaks and examination irregularities have eroded public trust in the examination process and cautioned that such lapses can seriously undermine the faith of students in the country’s education system.

Image: IYC/X

In Bengaluru, on May 21, twelve days later, a march to Lok Nayak Bhawan was organised. Addressing the media national general secretary Nigam Bhandary alleged that during the BJP-led NDA tenure at the Centre, the question paper was leaked 89 times, adding to the misery of the students. Speaking to the media before the protest, national general secretary Nigam Bhandary alleged that during the BJP-led NDA tenure at the Centre, the question paper was leaked 89 times, adding to the misery of the students. “The Centre has pushed the students into an inferno, as four students had committed suicide. The paper leaks have happened only in states ruled by the BJP,” he alleged.

May 29

Even on May 29, the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) and the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) organised demonstrations across several states, with youth leaders leading mashal juloos (torchlight marches) and protest rallies in multiple cities. IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib was present at a protest campaign from Goa on 29 May. The agitation then continued, and is still continuing in Mumbai, Maharashtra, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Chandigarh and Punjab before concluding in Tamil Nadu on June 20. The NSUI has simultaneously been conducting protests and student outreach programmes across major cities and state capitals.

June 2

On June 2, Youth Congress protests took place outside Lok Bhavan in Ranchi, Jharkand over NEET-UG paper leak. The Youth Congress members congregated near Lok Bhavan and raised slogans against the BJP government at the Centre reported PTI.  Protesters alleged that irregularities in examinations have increased manifold under the BJP regime. After the NEET “paper leak”, mismanagement was found in the examination conducted by the CBSE, they claimed.

“In the last 10 years, there have been 89 incidents of paper leaks in the country, and re-examinations took place 48 times. It is very shameful,” Jharkhand Youth Congress President Kumar Gaurav told reporters. He claimed that the paper leak affected students and many of them committed suicide, causing distress to their families.

“We demand justice for the families who lost their sons or daughters. But the BJP government remains silent on this. The Youth Congress demands the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan,” he said. Gaurav also announced that if their demand was not considered, they will intensify the protest and stage demonstrations outside the houses of BJP MPs and MLAs in Jharkhand.

The same day, June 2, a protest march, titled “Yuva Aakrosh Morcha,” was organised by Mumbai Youth Congress president Zeenat Shabrin and led by Youth Congress national president Uday Bhanu Chib, reported Mid-Day. This protest, in Dadar, Central Mumbai –starting from the symbolic Chaityabhoomi and culminating at the Shivaji Park was also against alleged paper leaks and examination irregularities in NEET and CBSE exams, demanding accountability and the resignation of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. The march was halted midway and several protesters detained. Reported the Mid-day.

Senior Congress leaders, including Congress Working Committee member and former minister Naseem Khan, MLA Bhai Jagtap, and AICC secretary Sachin Sawant, participated in the protest, along with hundreds of students, youth workers, and party activists.

June 4

Two days later, in another corner of the country, capital of the north-eastern state of Assam, Guwahati saw protests on the same issue. Assam Pradesh Youth Congress (APYC) president and MLA Zubair Anam Mazumder was allegedly manhandled by the police during a protest outside Rajiv Bhawan there over alleged “systemic failures”, “repeated paper leaks”, and “widespread mismanagement” plaguing major national examinations, including NEET and CBSE. The Indian Youth Congress president Uday Bhanu Chib joined APYC during the protest to demand justice and accountability for students. Here too, the protesters demanded the resignation of the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan, alleging that paper leaks and scandals in crucial exams happened during his tenure like never before. The protest was led by Mazumder, and vice-presidents Rakesh Chakraborty, among others. “The immaturity and incompetence of the BJP government and the education minister have repeatedly exposed their lack of accountability towards students,” Chakraborty said. During the protest, Mazumder was allegedly manhandled by the police, while an effigy of Pradhan was burned. Chakravarty warned that if such irregularities and negligence towards students’ futures continue, the protests will intensify.
They alleged that certain coaching centres grew with the support of the BJP government, as well as intermediaries and organised groups, who were interfering in these exams, affecting the education of millions of students. The alleged relationship between the National Testing Agency (NTA) and the BJP was criticised for jeopardizing students’ futures.

Image: IYC/X

The Economic Times reported on June 3 the announcements by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) has announced plans to intensify its nationwide agitation over alleged irregularities in competitive examinations and renewed its demand for the removal of Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The youth wing of the Congress said on that date it would launch a fresh phase of protests across several states, including torchlight marches, student outreach programmes, demonstrations and gheraos, alleging that repeated examination controversies have undermined students’ faith in the education system. According to an official statement, IYC president Uday Bhanu Chib will visit multiple states to lead the campaign, which is scheduled to cover Maharashtra, Telangana, Assam, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu, among others. “The students of this country deserve jobs, justice and accountability. Instead, they have been given paper leaks, uncertainty and a broken examination system,” IYC in-charge Manish Sharma said in the statement. He said the organisation would continue its protests “until accountability is fixed and those responsible are removed”.

Chib accused the government of failing to address concerns raised by students and alleged that examination leaks and irregularities had adversely affected the future of young aspirants. “We are now intensifying this movement across the country.

We will not stop until Prime Minister Narendra Modi is forced to sack Dharmendra Pradhan,” he said. The IYC said the next phase of its campaign would include torchlight marches, “Halla Bol” marches, student interaction programmes, district-level mobilisation drives and protests outside the residences of BJP leaders and chief ministers.

The Union Education Ministry has previously maintained that measures have been taken to strengthen examination processes and improve transparency in recruitment and entrance tests. The latest announcement comes amid continuing political debate over the conduct of public examinations and recruitment tests, an issue that has triggered protests by opposition parties and student groups in recent years.

Meanwhile, independent media reported that IYC National Secretary and National Chairman of Social Media Manu Jain said the campaign represented “the anger, frustration and resistance of an entire generation”. “Through social media, AI-driven campaigns and ground mobilisation, we are building a national movement demanding jobs, justice and accountability,” he said. The organisation also launched a dedicated digital platform inviting young people to register themselves as part of the campaign. The IYC said it would continue raising issues related to unemployment, examination paper leaks and corruption “in every street, every campus and every corner of India”.


Related:

Abolish ‘discriminatory and imbalanced’ NEET exam: Justice A.K. Rajan Committee 2021

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India

NEET 2024 Row: Supreme Court cancels grace marks, orders re-test for affected students

Students, organisations protest as allegations against NEET examinations pile up

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]]> Demolitions of homes of Gujjar Bakerwals in Jammu unconstitutional & violation of FRA 2006: AIUFWP https://sabrangindia.in/demolitions-of-homes-of-gujjar-bakerwals-in-jammu-unconstitutional-violation-of-fra-2006-aiufwp/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:49:58 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47271 The All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) along with the Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG) and Wullar Bachav Front have strongly condemned the reported brutal attack, demolition of the houses, harassment, and attempts to evict members of the Gujjar Bakerwal community in Jammu region a few days ago.

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]]> The demolition drive of the homes of the Gujjar Bakrwal community by the Jammu Administration a few days ago, is in absolute violation of Art 21 of the Constitution and Forest Rights Act 2006 says a statement issued by the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP) along with the Delhi Solidarity Group (DSG) and Wullar Bachav Front. The statement further says that “such actions are unacceptable as they violate the rights and dignity of Scheduled Tribe communities who have been residing in these areas for generations, even prior to independent India coming into existence.”

The Gujjar Bakkerwal community is a recognised Scheduled Tribe (ST) community and has lived in forest areas for centuries, sustaining their livelihoods, while maintaining a close relationship with nature and forest resources. The implementation of the Forest Rights Act 2006 in Jammu & Kashmir in 2021 recognized the legitimate rights of forest-dwelling tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers over their traditional lands, traditional migratory routes and habitats.
In view of these legal protections, any forceful eviction, intimidation, or use of violence and demolition of the houses of tribal families is a matter of serious concern. The Forest Rights Act 2006 was enacted to protect the rights of Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD), and following its provisions is mandatory for all authorities.

The signatory organisations have demanded an immediate inquiry into the incident, repair and reconstruction of their demolished houses, protection of the affected families, and strict action against responsible officials regarding this grave violation of the rights of tribal communities.
The statement further says that “it is unacceptable that a sub divisional magistrate who carried out these demolition is faking ignorance of a parliament enacted law. The officer has been directed under FRA, a special Act of the Parliament in 2006 that the rights of the nomadic tribe should be protected. Government departments and authorities are supposed to help the forest communities to claim their rights. To the contrary, in Jammu, a government officer has uprooted dozens of families without any authorisation and violated the law of the land.”

AIWFP and others have demanded that Section 7 of the FR Act should be immediately invoked against the erring official and the person should be immediately punished for violation of this central Act. They have also urged the administration to ensure that no eviction takes place and that the rights guaranteed under the Forest Rights Act are fully implemented.

The AIUFWP is an Adivasi and Forest Dwellers Union and it has stated that they stand in solidarity with the Gujjar nomadic community and reaffirm our commitment to the protection of rights of forest dwelling communities, environmental justice, and the constitutional rights of all marginalised communities.

Related:

J&K: “Tribals Bachao” protest intensifies over govt move to declare upper castes as ST

J&K to implement Forest Rights Act by March 2021

Bakerwal girl was Brutalised Because She Was a Muslim; Period

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]]> Rethinking the ‘Rajput State’: The Neemuchana & Tiladi agrarian movements https://sabrangindia.in/rethinking-the-rajput-state-the-neemuchana-tiladi-agrarian-movements/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 07:01:16 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47266 The legacy of colonial historiography and further amplified by Hindutva rhetoric has trapped our historical consciousness in the world of kings and dynasties, erasing public memory of our modern agrarian and working-class struggles.

The post Rethinking the ‘Rajput State’: The Neemuchana & Tiladi agrarian movements appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> Tiladi Sera is a serene, green village in the Barkot tehsil of Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand. Neemuchana, by contrast, is a village in the Bansur tehsil of Alwar district in Rajasthan. Separated by nearly 550 kilometres, the two villages differ sharply in terms of topography, climate, and patterns of modern development. Tiladi Sera lies in the lush green Rawain valley at approximately 1220 metres above sea level, while Neemuchana is a semi-arid village near the industrial city of Alwar.  Yet they also share striking historical parallels.

In May 1925, state troops opened fire on protesting farmers in Neemuchana village of Alwar State in present-day Rajasthan. Five years later, in May 1930, another massacre unfolded at Tiladi Sera in the Rawain region of Tehri Garhwal. Though separated by geography, ecology, and language, the two movements reflected strikingly similar tensions over taxation, forests, customary rights, and the changing nature of native states in late colonial India.

The rulers were a retreating British colonial state.

Both movements emerged within princely states that colonial administrators categorised and later historiography continued to categorise as ‘Rajput States’.  Yet in both cases, the protesters themselves were overwhelmingly drawn from Rajput agrarian communities resisting policies imposed by those very states.

The Neemuchana Movement of Alwar State

In Rajasthan, the Rajput socio-political setup traversed through all three stages: a quasi-republican clan, the feudal state and the imperial power, sometimes all three existing simultaneously.

However, Professor Shail Mayaram notes that the most basic unit of the Rajput sociopolitical setup was a coparcenary bhaichara (brotherhood) which was always represented by the khamp (sub-lineage) headed by a chief. (Against History, Against State, p. 202)

The Alwar State was formed by the Naruka khamp of Kachhwahas in 1775. However, at Neemuchana Kisan Andolan in 1925, the Alwar King and the protesting farmers of Alwar belonged to the same Kachhwaha clan.

The protest itself was not unique in Rajasthan. Historian R. W. Stern documents the mobilisation of Jaipur State forces in the early 20th century, to subdue the Shekhawat clansmen of Sikar and arrest their chief Rao Raja Hardayal Singh of Sikar, a move that was met with fierce armed resistance from the Shekhawats, another Kachhwah subclan.

In the Essays on Rajputana, Lloyd Rudolph and Susanne Rudolph observe that the States were confronted with a dual task. First, to weaken the political power of the Rajput chiefs and agrarian clansmen who, despite having played a central role in the formation of these states, were increasingly perceived as threats to centralised authority. Second, to strengthen the State’s centralised governments headed by the King and led by the educated Brahmin elite and the wealthy Mahajan class i.e. Bania and Khatri elites. Efforts to regulate and control farmers and clan-based agrarian structures frequently generated clashes between State police and agrarian clansmen, even compelling minor States to seek colonial intervention for suppression.

In the context of Alwar, Rajesh Kumar writes “The third land revenue settlement in Alwar was revised in 1923-24 by Pandit N.L. Tikko, raising the annual total demand to Rs. 29,39,112. Under this new settlement the land revenue was increased by 50 per cent and no concession was given to the Rajput cultivators, instead their Biswedari rights were forfeited.”(Proceedings of the Indian History Congress,Vol. 73 (2012); pp. 794-798)

In October 1924, the farmers began the first agitation to cancel the rates of land taxation. By early 1925, the Biswedars across Bansur, Thanagazi, Neemuchana, Bamanwas began collecting in huge numbers. Led by Govind Singh and Madho Singh of Neemuchana, they approached the Akhil Bhartiya Kshatriya Mahasabha and published their grievances in a pamphlet titled “Pukar”. Apart from reversion to previous rates, they demanded cessation of auction of banjad (infertile) land, cessation of blockage at roads connecting Alwar and Bansur, abolition of begar, permission to kill wild animals destroying crops.

In response, the Alwar government began confiscating grain stocks from the Biswedars, a move that deeply angered Rajput cultivators across the region. Many of these farmers were veterans of the First World War and began collecting weapons in anticipation of armed confrontation. They began organizing in Neemuchana. On May 14, 1925, Neemuchana was surrounded by State forces. As per official figures, 156 farmers were killed, while non-official figures claim much higher numbers. The public outrage that followed enabled the British to force Raja into exile, although the extent of accountability faced by the minister N L Tickoo remains far less clear.

Tiladi Movement of Tehri Garhwal State

The region of Uttarakhand — Garhwal and Kumaon— was ruled by three Rajput dynasties for thirteen centuries: the Katyuris of Khas origins who united the entire region in the 8th century, the migrant Panwar dynasty who replaced them in Garhwal and the Chand dynasty who replaced them in Kumaon. Unlike Rajasthan, both the Garhwal and Kumaon states were established through the gradual consolidation of numerous hill chieftaincies, forts, and clan-based polities.

After the Gurkha invasion and Anglo-Gurkha war, the Kumaon state was permanently annexed by the British and the Garhwal state was divided into British Garhwal and the smaller Tehri-Garhwal, which was retained by the Panwar dynasty.

When the Tehri ruler Kirti Shah died, his minor son Narendra Shah ascended the throne. By the late 1920s, Narendra Shah had largely withdrawn from day-to-day governance and was living comfortably in Europe, leaving the administration in the hands of his Diwan, Chakradhar Juyal. Acting in the name of an absentee and politically inexperienced ruler, the Juyal administration embarked upon an ambitious project to construct a new capital, while simultaneously facing growing pressure from the British owing to the rapid expansion of railway infrastructure in the Himalayan region.

To finance these projects and strengthen state control over resources, the administration introduced a series of deeply unpopular measures in the Rawain region. These included a grazing tax of ₹1 per head on sheep and goats, restrictions on grazing rights, fodder collection, and fuelwood harvesting, as well as bans on local forest-based festivals and customary rituals. Such policies directly undermined the subsistence economy and customary rights of local communities, fuelling widespread resentment against the Tehri State.

Author and Human rights activist Vidyabhushan Rawat notes, “Access to forests, fishing, and even keeping cattle became restricted or criminalized. Local people were prohibited from collecting minor forest produce, while British settlers such as Frederick Wilson enjoyed vast forest leases, exporting pine and chir timber to Britain”

Bhoon Singh and Heera Singh of Nagaon; Ludhar Singh, Jaman Singh, and Dalpati of Barkot; Dayaram of Kanseru , Dhoom Singh of Chakargaon started organizing the farmers of Rawain valley. On May 20, 1930, four farmer leaders were arrested and presented before the SDM (sub-divisional magistrate) Surendra Dutt. To protest the arrests, the farmers gathered in huge numbers prompting the Divisional Forest Officer Padamdutt Raturi to open fire, killing three farmers. However, the protesters managed to forcefully, free their leaders.

On May 30, 1930, the protesters gathered in huge numbers in Tiladi Sera on Yamuna bank. Diwan Juyal ordered Colonel Sundar Singh to fire. Sundar Singh refused and was suspended. Natthu Sajjwan was appointed the next army chief and ordered to fire, killing at least eighteen protesters (as per official), although local accounts put the fatality at 60-80. Around 194 farmers were arrested and sixteen more died in custody.

Conclusion

The histories of Neemuchana and Tiladi complicate, rather nuance, over-simplistic understandings of princely India by revealing deep internal tensions between the elite classes emerging within princely capitals — royalty, bureaucratic elites, and wealthy mercantile interests — and rural farming communities, both landed and landless, amid mounting colonial economic pressures. The histories of Neemuchana and Tiladi ultimately undermine the very premise of colonial labels such as the “Rajput State”.

They highlight the growing alienation of largely uneducated Rajput farmers and the increasing dominance of Brahmin and Khatri bureaucratic elites and Bania capitalist classes within the centres of princely power. Questions of taxation, forests, customary rights, and administrative centralisation frequently produced conflict between ruling establishments and the very communities in whose name political legitimacy was claimed..

Recovering, rather re-discovering, these movements is therefore essential not merely for regional history but for understanding the changing nature of power in late colonial India. They remind us that the politics of princely India cannot be understood through simplified dynastic or communal frameworks alone. Beneath the formal authority of princely cabinets existed complex struggles over land, resources, administration, and political representation — struggles that continue to remain insufficiently remembered in mainstream accounts of Indian history.

(The author is a mechanical engineer and an independent commentator on history and politics, with a particular focus on Rajasthan. His work explores the syncretic exchanges of India’s borderlands as well as contemporary debates on memory, identity and historiography; he can be contacted on adityakrishnadeora@gmail.com)

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabrangindia.

 

Related:

Hindutva’s Rajasthan Project: Brahmin-Bania Power, not just Muslim baiting

September of Fear: Targeted Violence against Christians in Rajasthan exposes pattern of harassment after Anti-Conversion Bill

Rajasthan: Civil Society demands arrests, rule of law and end to minority targeting under anti-conversion law

PUCL slams recently passed Rajasthan anti-conversion bill as “draconian and unconstitutional”

The post Rethinking the ‘Rajput State’: The Neemuchana & Tiladi agrarian movements appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded? https://sabrangindia.in/judgement-delivered-paradox-prevails-every-voter-a-citizen-but-what-is-the-fate-of-51-8-million-excluded/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 10:41:41 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47252 The Supreme Court’s May 27, 2026 verdict upholding the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) settles the legal question of constitutional authority but leaves unresolved concerns on absence of due process and independent functioning by the ECI, the arbitrary abuse of process and access: questions of unreasonable and unchecked mass deletions etc.

The post Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> On May 27, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise undertaken by the Election Commission of India (ECI) in Bihar and later across the 12 more states, holding that the exercise neither stands in direct conflict with the Representation of the People Act and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, nor detracts from the constitutional imperative of free and fair elections. Petitions against first, the hasty SIR launched and conducted in Bihar and thereafter in Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala had highlighted gross anomalies in the ECI’s capabilities and motives while conducting the exercise. The 124-page verdict however reads like a sanitised appraisal of what was, indeed, a fractious and contested process. The Court finally concluded that the SIR is traceable to Section 21(3) of the Representation of the People Act read with Article 324 of the Constitution and is intended to advance the very objective, which Part XV of the Constitution seeks to protect, namely, the conduct of free, fair and credible elections through accurate electoral rolls.

The verdict brings to a close one of the most significant constitutional controversies concerning electoral administration in recent years. While the judgment conclusively answers the question of whether the Election Commission possesses the authority to undertake a SIR, it leaves several substantive concerns unresolved. The challenge before the Court was never confined merely to the legality of electoral roll revision. Rather, it centred upon whether an exercise ostensibly intended to identify eligible electors had, in practice, transformed into a process requiring already registered voters to re-establish their entitlement to remain on the electoral roll, thereby blurring the distinction between verification of electoral eligibility and an unregulated (by law or authority) scrutiny of citizenship.

While upholding the ECI’s powers, the Division Bench simultaneously issued a series of directions intended to regulate the consequences of deletions arising from the SIR exercise. Yet it is within these directions themselves that some of the most difficult constitutional questions continue to persist.

The sudden introduction and expansion of SIR and the deletion of 5.18 crore electors

One of the most consequential yet insufficiently examined aspects of the SIR exercise is its unprecedented scale and the magnitude of voter deletions that followed its implementation across multiple States. No previous exercise of its kind under Election Law or Practice has ever had such intent or result. It is there then that this verdict –by failing to engage in the crucial gaps and issues in implementation highlighted by the multifarious Petitioners—substantively falters.

The result is this: While the Supreme Court has, after rigorous hearings and several interim orders, ultimately upheld the constitutional validity of the SIR framework and accepted the Election Commission of India’s justification (that the exercise was intended to enhance the accuracy, completeness and integrity of electoral rolls). The moot question of what necessitated the adoption of an extraordinary and intensive verification mechanism when the Representation of the People Act, 1950, the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960, and the established system of continuous revision already provides for detailed procedures for the addition, correction and deletion of names from electoral rolls remains unanswered.

2023-2024, two years prior to the launch of the Bihar SIR in June 2025 were also marked by related issues that directly impact on the autonomy and functioning of the Election Commission of India (ECI) a hitherto constitutional authority that enjoyed broad respect and acceptance. The present Regime’s overturning of a Supreme Court of India (SCI) final judgement on the need for wider choice and representation (including that of the Chief Justice of India-CJI) in selection of the CEC etc. is one such. The other is the huge accountability crisis in counting methods and transparency by the ECI around the Lok Sabha Polls of 2024, reports around which may be read here and here. Given the outcry by citizens groups and Opposition parties around “Vote Chori” and manipulation during and post 2024 LS polls (including the Haryana, Maharashtra state elections), the ECI even arbitrarily decided to amend its own Rules in ensuring availability of the CCTV footage during storage and counting to citizens and candidates.

The SIR 2-25-2026 was therefore conducted under a shroud of allegations and scrutiny. Thereafter follows the May 27 judgement of the apex court that in a sense obliterates these background developments.

The judgment recognises the Commission’s constitutional authority under Article 324 and Section 21(3) of the Act, yet neither the Court nor the Commission appears to have fully explained why existing statutory mechanisms were considered inadequate or incapable of addressing concerns relating to migration, duplication, deaths or ineligible entries. The absence of such justification becomes particularly significant when the practical outcome of the exercise has been the near arbitrary removal/deletion of more than 5.18 crore (51.8 million!!) electors across thirteen states/jurisdictions.

Impact of SIR across the States

State Total Electorate Deletion
Bihar 7.89 Crore 47 Lakh
West Bengal 7.69 Crore 83.86 Lakh
Uttar Pradesh 15.44 Crore 2.05 Crore
Gujarat 5.08 Crore 68 Lakh
Madhya Pradesh 5.74 Crore 34.25 Lakh
Chhattisgarh 2.12 Crore 25 Lakh
Rajasthan 5.46 Crore 31 Lakh
Tamil Nadu 6.41 Crore 74 Lakh
Kerala 2.78 Crore 9 Lakh
Goa 11.85 Lakh 1.28 Lakh
Puducherry 10.21 Lakh 0.77 Lakh
Andaman & Nicobar Islands 3.10 Lakh 0.52 Lakh
Lakshadweep 0.57 Lakh 206
Total 50.99 Crore 5.18 Crore

 

The Bihar exercise, initiated through the Election Commission’s notification dated June 24, 2025, became the foundation upon which the SIR model was subsequently replicated in twelve other States and Union Territories. According to the available figures, the cumulative impact of these exercises resulted in the deletion of approximately 5.18 crore names from electoral rolls covering an electorate of nearly 50.99 crore voters.

The scale of these deletions was unprecedented in the history of electoral roll revision in India. Uttar Pradesh alone witnessed deletions exceeding 2.05 crore electors, while West Bengal recorded deletions of approximately 83.86 lakh names. Tamil Nadu saw nearly 74 lakh deletions, Gujarat approximately 68 lakh, Madhya Pradesh 34.25 lakh, Rajasthan 31 lakh and Chhattisgarh around 25 lakh. Even smaller jurisdictions such as Goa, Puducherry, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep recorded deletions running into significant proportions of their total electorate.

These figures raise an important constitutional question: When a bureaucratic exercise hurriedly undertaken in the name of electoral ‘purification’ results in the such mass exclusion of more than five crore (50 million) registered voters, should not the burden of transparency and accountability correspondingly become more exacting and higher?

Bihar as the testing ground of SIR

The Bihar experience illustrates the complexity of this concern. Before the commencement of the SIR exercise, Bihar’s electoral roll consisted of approximately 7.89 crore registered electors. Following the intensive revision process, the draft electoral roll published by the Election Commission contained only 7.24 crore electors. This meant that nearly 65 lakh individuals who had previously appeared on the electoral roll were absent from the draft roll. The Commission attributed a substantial portion of this reduction to the non-submission or non-collection of Enumeration Forms during the verification process. However, the omission of such a large number of previously enrolled electors at the draft stage immediately generated concerns regarding the practical consequences of a documentation-based verification exercise conducted within compressed timelines and under challenging administrative conditions.

The Commission subsequently issued its final press release on September 30, 2025 announcing the completion of the Bihar SIR. According to the data disclosed therein, 3.66 lakh names were permanently deleted after detailed statutory verification, while 21.53 lakh eligible electors were either restored or added through Form-6 applications and the claims-and-objections process. As a result, the final electoral roll stood at approximately 7.42 crore electors. At first glance, the Commission presented these figures as evidence of a successful correction mechanism that enabled genuine electors to re-enter the electoral database. However, a closer examination of the numbers reveals a significant discrepancy.

The pre-SIR electoral roll contained approximately 7.89 crore electors, whereas the finalised roll contained 7.42 crore electors. This represents a net reduction of approximately 47 lakh electors. Yet the numerical explanation offered by the Commission does not fully account for this decline. If 3.66 lakh names were permanently removed after verification and 21.53 lakh electors were subsequently added, the total documented movement in the database amounts to 25.19 lakh electors. Even after accounting for these figures, an unexplained variance of approximately 21.81 lakh electors remains between the pre-revision electorate and the final electoral roll. Put differently, the available data does not mathematically reconcile with the final published electoral database.

This discrepancy is not merely statistical. It goes to the heart of the transparency and accountability concerns that surrounded the SIR exercise from the beginning. Electoral rolls are the foundational instruments through which the constitutional guarantee of universal adult suffrage under Article 326 is operationalised. Consequently, when millions of names disappear from electoral rolls during a revision exercise, a clear and comprehensive explanation becomes essential. The available public figures explain certain categories of additions and deletions, but they do not adequately account for the entire difference between the pre-revision and post-revision electorate. In the absence of a detailed category-wise reconciliation identifying how and why the remaining electors ceased to form part of the final database, the figures disclosed by the Commission appear incomplete and internally inconsistent.

The issue becomes even more significant because the revised Bihar electoral roll was not merely a provisional administrative exercise. It became the basis for the conduct of the Bihar Legislative Assembly elections held in November 2025, with the results declared on November 14, 2025. Specifically put, is a state election, where as many as 47 lakh (4.7 million) voters did not cast their franchise because they were not given a chance to prove their electoral status, legitimate in the eyes of the Law, Courts and Constitution?

Consequently, the constitutional questions raised before the Supreme Court were not being examined in an abstract or prospective setting; they concerned an electoral framework that had already been implemented and utilised for a completed democratic exercise. The Court’s eventual decision therefore validated not merely the legal authority to undertake a SIR but also the inefficient and partisan exercise with practical consequences flowing from that exercise.

Yet the larger constitutional concern remains unresolved. The Election Commission consistently maintained that the purpose of the SIR was to ensure that every eligible citizen was included in the electoral roll while simultaneously removing ineligible, duplicate, shifted or deceased voters. However, the public discourse and the statistical outcomes reveal that the exercise was perceived primarily through the lens of deletion rather than inclusion. The overwhelming –and heavily partisan and unaccountable–administrative focus appeared to be directed towards verifying existing entries and identifying names for exclusion. There was comparatively less emphasis on institutional mechanisms designed to assist vulnerable citizens in retaining their electoral status or navigating documentation requirements. For many petitioners and civil society organisations, the concern was not merely the removal of ineligible names but the possibility that genuine electors could be excluded because of absence of access–procedural, technical or documentation-related difficulties.

It is this broader context that explains why the challenge to the Bihar SIR generated such intense public debate. The controversy was not only confined to the Election Commission’s authority to revise electoral rolls. Rather, it concerned the manner in which that authority was exercised, the scale of deletions that followed, the burden imposed upon existing electors to re-establish their eligibility, and the absence of complete public clarity regarding the final numerical outcomes.

Even after the Supreme Court’s judgment of May 27 upholding the legality of the SIR framework, these factual and statistical questions remain largely unanswered. The Court resolved the narrow, legal issue of constitutional powers; it did not fully address the concerns arising from the moral, constitutional and real-life consequences of an exercise that ultimately resulted in the deletion of more than 5.18 crore (51.8 million) electors across the country and left significant discrepancies in the publicly available electoral data. In a democracy founded upon universal adult franchise, those questions are not peripheral. They fundamentally point to the relationship between electoral integrity and electoral inclusion, the right to Universal Adult Franchise, integral to a living, participatory Democracy. On grounds of ‘prevention of illegible voters/voting’, the fundamental and key constitutional question of not ever disallowing any eligible voter from his Right to Vote has been consciously blurred if not obliterated.

Contradictory position on citizenship and deleted voters

One of the most significant aspects of the judgment lies in the Court’s treatment of citizenship-related scrutiny undertaken during the SIR exercise.

In paragraph 186(f) of the judgement, the Court held that the Election Commission is empowered to undertake only a limited enquiry into citizenship for the purpose of satisfying itself regarding eligibility for inclusion in the electoral roll. The Court expressly clarified that such an enquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship in the strict legal sense and that any action taken pursuant to such an exercise is confined exclusively to electoral consequences. According to the Court, the consequence of such a determination is correspondingly limited. It affects an individual’s entitlement to remain on the electoral roll and consequently their participation in the electoral process, but it does not divest the individual of citizenship nor foreclose adjudication by the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

However, the subsequent directions appear to create a degree of tension with this formulation.

In paragraph 186 (g), the Court directed that where the Commission is not satisfied that a person fulfils the statutory conditions for inclusion in the electoral roll, it would be incumbent upon the Commission to refer such an individual to the competent authority within the Central Government for adjudication in accordance with law. The Court further clarified that any deletion effected on this ground shall remain subject to the outcome of such adjudication.

If this is genuinely so, and the Commission possesses neither the authority nor the required expertise/wherewithal to determine citizenship, can or should elections be conducted before final and thorough adjudication of all those excluded, given the hastily conducted SIR that excludes staggering numbers of Voters/Electors?

Without linking the final adjudication process under a badly conducted SIR to actual future conduct of elections, the Court has given lent its approval to a basically incomplete and flawed process. Besides, the practical consequence of this direction is significant. Although the Court repeatedly emphasises that the Commission itself does not determine citizenship, the Commission’s dissatisfaction regarding a person’s eligibility may nevertheless become the trigger for a formal citizenship adjudication before another authority. Consequently, while the Election Commission may not be exercising citizenship jurisdiction in the strict legal sense, its findings can initiate a process that ultimately culminates in a determination of citizenship status.

The issue becomes even more pronounced in paragraph 186(h), where the Court specifically directed that all cases involving persons whose names had been deleted from the 2003 electoral roll on the basis of the Commission’s opinion that they were not citizens must be referred within four weeks to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955. The competent authority was directed to decide such matters after providing notice and an opportunity of hearing and, preferably, before the next Parliamentary, Assembly or Local Body election, whichever occurs earlier.

The Court further directed that if the competent authority ultimately concludes that the deleted individuals are citizens, their names shall be restored to the electoral roll. When and if that happens, what of the Denied Right to Vote in all previous elections until the process is completed/conducted?

Significantly, however, the judgment remains silent on the converse situation.

The directions clearly prescribe the consequences where the competent authority determines that the individual is a citizen. Restoration to the electoral roll follows as a matter of course. However, the judgment does not elaborate upon the legal consequences that would follow if the competent authority were to hold that the individual is not a citizen. The judgment neither identifies the statutory mechanism governing such a situation nor discusses the broader legal implications arising from such a finding.

The judgment therefore resolves the question of institutional competence but leaves unresolved the apprehension reflected in the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) notification dated June 24, 2025. The notification provides that where the Election Registration Officer (ERO) or Assistant Election Registration Officer (AERO) entertains doubts regarding the eligibility of a proposed elector—whether due to non-submission of requisite documents or otherwise—a suo motu inquiry may be initiated, followed by the issuance of notice requiring the individual to show cause as to why his or her name should not be deleted from the electoral roll. Upon completion of field verification and examination of documentary material, the ERO/AERO is empowered to decide upon inclusion in the final electoral roll and is required to pass a reasoned speaking order in each case. Significantly, the notification further directs EROs to refer cases involving suspected foreign nationals to the competent authority under the Citizenship Act, 1955, while authorising AEROs to independently exercise the powers of the ERO under Section 13C(2) of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Consequently, although the Court has affirmed that the Election Commission’s enquiry does not amount to a determination of citizenship, concerns persist regarding the practical operation of a framework in which electoral scrutiny may, in certain cases, culminate in processes closely connected with questions of citizenship status.

Lal Babu Hussein and the presumption of validity of existing electoral registration

A central plank of the challenge to the SIR exercise was the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Lal Babu Hussein and Others v. Electoral Registration Officer, (1995) 3 SCC 100. In Lal Babu Hussein, the Court was dealing with disputes relating to electoral registration in which questions of citizenship directly arose. Recognising the serious consequences associated with exclusion from electoral rolls, the Court laid considerable emphasis on procedural fairness, adherence to natural justice and independent application of mind by electoral authorities.

The Court directed that the officer conducting the enquiry must entertain all forms of evidence, documentary or otherwise, that the affected person seeks to produce. The affected individual must be afforded a meaningful opportunity to rebut any material relied upon against them. The enquiry was characterised as quasi-judicial in nature, requiring fairness, objectivity and reasoned decision-making. The Court further directed that election authorities must consider the provisions of the Constitution, the Citizenship Act and all related legal provisions before arriving at a conclusion. It also quashed restrictions imposed by the Election Commission on the consideration of certain documents and emphasised that evidentiary value must be assessed on a case-by-case basis. Most importantly, the Court underscored that authorities must conduct themselves in a manner consistent with natural justice and free from preconceived notions.

The significance of Lal Babu Hussein lies not merely in its procedural safeguards but in its recognition that inclusion in an electoral roll carries a presumption of validity. The petitioners challenging the Bihar SIR relied heavily upon this principle. Their contention was that once a citizen has already been included in the electoral roll through a legally recognised process, the burden should not casually shift onto that individual to once again establish eligibility through a fresh and intensive verification exercise.

The Supreme Court, however, distinguished Lal Babu Hussein from the Bihar SIR.

According to the Court, Lal Babu Hussein was decided in the context of individual adjudicatory proceedings concerning specific disputes, whereas the Bihar SIR constituted a systemic and inquisitorial exercise undertaken across the electorate in furtherance of the Commission’s constitutional mandate. Consequently, the Court held that while inclusion in the electoral roll undoubtedly gives rise to a presumption of validity, such presumption remains rebuttable and cannot operate as a blanket embargo upon the Commission’s authority to undertake a Special Intensive Revision.

This distinction forms a critical component of the judgment. However, it simultaneously raises a broader constitutional question. If inclusion in an electoral roll generates a presumption of validity, what practical protection does that presumption provide when millions of electors are subjected to fresh verification through a statewide exercise? While the Court recognises the existence of the presumption, the judgment substantially limits its practical effect by permitting large-scale re-examination of already enrolled electors.

Citizenship by presumption, not by documents: the unresolved core of the SIR debate

One of the most significant yet insufficiently examined aspects of the Bihar SIR litigation concerns the nature of citizenship verification itself. Throughout the proceedings, the Election Commission justified the exercise on the ground that electoral rolls must contain only eligible citizens, while the Supreme Court ultimately held that the Commission is empowered to undertake a limited enquiry into citizenship for electoral purposes.

However, the larger difficulty lies in the fact that Indian citizenship law does not prescribe a single, universally accepted document that conclusively establishes citizenship in every circumstance. Unlike identity verification, which may be undertaken through documents such as Aadhaar, citizenship is ordinarily established through a combination of statutory presumptions, factual circumstances, birth records, lineage, residence histories and legal provisions contained in the Citizenship Act, 1955. Consequently, the entire SIR exercise appears to have proceeded on a presumption of citizenship rather than on the basis of any definitive citizenship document recognised uniformly under law.

This becomes evident from the categories of documents accepted during the SIR process. Aadhaar, for instance, is fundamentally a document of identity and residence; it is not a proof of citizenship. Similarly, documents such as ration cards, bank passbooks, school certificates, board examination certificates, property records or welfare-related documents may establish the existence, residence or identity of an individual during a particular period, but none of them independently constitute proof of Indian citizenship. Even birth certificates, which are often treated as foundational documents, do not by themselves establish citizenship in every case, particularly because citizenship by birth in India is governed by different statutory conditions depending upon the date of birth and the status of parents under the Citizenship Act. In that sense, the controversy surrounding SIR was never merely about the production of documents but it was about the legal assumption that citizenship could be inferred through a documentation framework despite the absence of any statutory provision prescribing a definitive citizenship document.

A departure from established electoral practice

The controversy is further accentuated by the fact that the SIR exercise marked a substantial departure from the traditional process of electoral roll maintenance. Historically, electoral registration in India has operated on the basis that inclusion in an existing electoral roll carries a presumption of validity unless specific grounds for deletion are established through the procedure prescribed under the Representation of the People Act, 1950 and the Registration of Electors Rules, 1960. The Supreme Court itself acknowledged this principle by recognising that inclusion in the electoral roll creates a presumption of validity, though one that is rebuttable. Yet the SIR framework effectively required millions of already enrolled electors to re-establish their eligibility through fresh documentation and verification procedures.

The contrast with earlier exercises becomes particularly relevant in light of the experience of Assam. The National Register of Citizens (NRC) process in Assam was conducted under a unique statutory and historical framework, involving specific legacy documents, electoral roll references dating back to 1951 and a legal architecture shaped by the Assam Accord. The documents accepted in the NRC process were tailored to that specific context. By contrast, the Bihar SIR exercise adopted a different framework altogether, while simultaneously rejecting reliance upon certain forms of prior electoral inclusion that had historically been treated as relevant indicators of eligibility.

Foreigners’ tribunals and the limits of analogy

Pertinently, comparisons were frequently drawn with the Foreigners Tribunals functioning in Assam. However, such analogies are not straightforward. The Foreigners Tribunal system emerged from a distinct historical and statutory context linked to immigration concerns in Assam and derives authority from specialised legal provisions applicable in that region. There is presently no equivalent nationwide mechanism automatically applicable to citizenship disputes arising from electoral revision exercises in other States.

Consequently, while the Court’s directions contemplate referral to a competent authority, they do not identify whether any existing institutional structure is capable of handling such disputes on a large scale. Nor do they explain how citizenship determinations are expected to be completed within the timeframe contemplated by paragraph 186(h), particularly when citizenship questions often involve complex inquiries into birth, descent, migration, residence and statutory status extending across decades.

The missing context behind the Bihar SIR

Any assessment of the Supreme Court’s verdict must necessarily be situated within the broader actual, on-ground, reality/factual context in which the Bihar SIR was conceived and implemented. According to the Commission, the exercise was intended to ensure that every eligible citizen was enrolled, no ineligible voter remained on the rolls and entries relating to deceased, shifted or duplicate electors were removed.

The notification stated that the Commission would scrupulously adhere to the constitutional and statutory framework governing electoral eligibility, particularly Article 326 of the Constitution and Section 16 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950. Article 326 guarantees elections based upon adult suffrage, while Section 16 identifies circumstances under which an individual may be disqualified from registration as an elector, including non-citizenship, unsoundness of mind and disqualification arising from electoral offences.

The Commission invoked Article 324 of the Constitution and Section 21 of the Representation of the People Act as the source of its authority. It further stated that the exercise represented the first intensive revision of Bihar’s electoral rolls since 2003 and was necessary to preserve the integrity of electoral rolls in light of rapid urbanisation, migration, demographic changes, underreporting of deaths and concerns regarding the presence of foreign nationals.

To implement the exercise, Booth Level Officers were directed to conduct extensive house-to-house verification. Existing electors were required to complete Enumeration Forms and provide supporting documents. Electoral Registration Officers and Assistant Electoral Registration Officers were entrusted with processing claims and objections before final publication of the revised rolls.

Although the stated objective was to ensure inclusion of all eligible voters, the implementation of the exercise generated widespread concerns from civil society organisations, political parties and election law scholars. Critics questioned the compressed timeline, the documentary requirements and the practical feasibility of requiring millions of electors to complete the process within a matter of weeks. These concerns ultimately formed the foundation of the constitutional challenge that reached the Supreme Court.

The significance of this background cannot be understated. The legal controversy surrounding the Bihar SIR did not arise merely because a revision of electoral rolls was undertaken. It arose because the revision was conducted through an extraordinary and unprecedented methodology that fundamentally altered the manner in which existing electors were required to establish their continued presence on the electoral roll.

The full judgement dated May 27, 2026 can be read here

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The post Judgement delivered, paradox prevails: every voter a citizen, but what is the fate of 51.8 million excluded? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> “₹4 a Kilo for a Crop That Costs ₹20 to Grow”: Nashik’s onion farmers erupt in protest over deepening price crisis https://sabrangindia.in/rs4-a-kilo-for-a-crop-that-costs-rs20-to-grow-nashiks-onion-farmers-erupt-in-protest-over-deepening-price-crisis/ Wed, 27 May 2026 12:19:25 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47232 Farmers in the thousands blocked the Mumbai–Agra Highway in Maharashtra’s onion belt, demanding fair procurement prices, compensation for distress sales and relief from export restrictions; the protests were supported by the Opposition Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) leaders who were also detained

The post “₹4 a Kilo for a Crop That Costs ₹20 to Grow”: Nashik’s onion farmers erupt in protest over deepening price crisis appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> A major farmers’ protest erupted in Maharashtra’s Nashik district on May 26, as onion cultivators blocked stretches of the Mumbai–Agra National Highway to protest the continuing collapse in onion prices and what they described as the government’s failure to protect farmers from mounting financial ruin.

The agitation, organised under the banner of the Kanda Utpadak Shetkari Kranti Mahamorcha, drew large participation from onion growers across Nashik — one of India’s largest onion-producing regions — and was supported by leaders of the opposition Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA), including Rohit Pawar, Harshvardhan Sapkal and Ambadas Danve.

Demonstrations by different lots of farmers in a few thousands at the APMC’s procurement offices across districts culminated in a 10,000-strong blockade on the highway with several thousand being detained/arrested by the police. Apart from the protesting farmers, Opposition leaders who stood with protesting farmers in support were also detained. Harshvardhan Sakpal, President of the Maharashtra Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), Rohit Pawar, Member of Vidhan Sabha (MLA) from Karjat from the NCP-Sharad Pawar (NCP-SP) and Ambadas Danve, former Leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly from Shiv Sena-Udhav Thackeray.

According to a report published by Rural Voice, nearly 1,500 farmers gathered in Chandwad town and temporarily blocked traffic on the highway while demanding remunerative prices for onions amid a steep crash in market rates. Farmers argued that the current prices being offered in markets are far below their production costs and have pushed cultivators into severe distress. The report noted that onion wholesale inflation has remained negative since March 2025, while retail inflation has stayed negative since May 2025, reflecting a prolonged decline in prices that has sharply reduced farmer earnings.

Across several other media reports, farmers repeatedly highlighted the widening gap between cultivation costs and market returns. The New Indian Express reported that onion growers were demanding procurement at ₹32 per kilogram while prevailing market prices in parts of Maharashtra had reportedly crashed to as low as ₹4–6 per kilogram. Farmers and opposition leaders argued that the current rates are insufficient even to recover the cost of seeds, fertilisers, labour, storage and transport.

The immediate trigger for the protest was the Centre’s announcement of onion procurement through NAFED and NCCF at revised rates of approximately ₹1,580 per quintal. Farmer groups rejected the procurement price as grossly inadequate. Speaking during the protest, several cultivators stated that onion production itself costs roughly ₹1,800–2,000 per quintal, making the government’s procurement rate economically unviable. The Hindu quoted one farmer saying that cultivators were “not even able to recover the cost of production after selling onions.”

Farmer organisations demanded that procurement prices be increased substantially, with various groups seeking rates between ₹2,400 and ₹3,000 per quintal. Protesters also called for compensation for farmers who had already sold onions at distress prices over recent months. Reports in National Herald, Mid-Day and The Times of India noted that growers additionally demanded expanded procurement operations across onion-producing talukas, direct intervention in markets, and stronger implementation of price deficiency payment schemes.

The protest also reflected growing anger over repeated export restrictions imposed on onions over the past several years. Farmers alleged that unstable export policies and sudden government interventions had weakened India’s onion trade and severely damaged farmer incomes. According to The Hindu, opposition leaders argued that international markets, including Bangladesh, had increasingly reduced onion imports from India due to inconsistent export policies.

The demonstrations quickly escalated into a large-scale highway blockade. Multiple media outlets, including The Times of India and The Economic Times, reported that protesters marched from the Chandwad APMC to the Mumbai–Agra highway, blocking traffic for nearly 90 minutes to two hours. Long queues of vehicles formed on both sides of the road as farmers raised slogans, dumped onions onto the highway and wore garlands made of onions as a symbol of their distress.

Some protesters also distributed Melody toffees during the agitation in a symbolic political gesture directed at the Prime Minister after recent public attention around the confectionery brand. The Economic Times reported that protesters sarcastically remarked that if onions were promoted in the same way, perhaps their prices too would rise.

Police later intervened and detained several protesters and opposition leaders, including Harshvardhan Sapkal (INC) Rohit Pawar (NCP-SP), and Ambadas Danve (SS-UBT). According to The Times of India, more than 300 police personnel, including riot control units, were deployed to manage the situation. The report stated that over 50 protesters were detained under provisions of the Bombay Police Act before being released later.

While authorities alleged that some protesters attempted to deflate the tyres of stranded vehicles, opposition leaders claimed they had instructed demonstrators not to target ambulances, public transport or ordinary civilians. Nevertheless, the confrontation underscored the intensity of frustration among onion growers, many of whom say they have been trapped in recurring cycles of debt, price crashes and policy uncertainty.

Importantly, the Nashik protests are not an isolated flashpoint. They reflect a broader agrarian crisis that has repeatedly surfaced in Maharashtra’s onion economy over the past decade. Farmers participating in the agitation argued that while the costs of cultivation have steadily increased due to fertilisers, pesticides, labour, transport and storage expenses, government interventions have largely focused on controlling consumer prices rather than ensuring farmer incomes.

Several farmer leaders warned that continuing distress sales and unstable pricing policies could intensify indebtedness and deepen the agrarian crisis across onion-producing regions of Maharashtra. As protests spread beyond Nashik into areas including Sambhaji Nagar and Solapur, the demonstrations have once again drawn national attention to the fragile economics of onion cultivation — a sector where even minor policy shifts can determine whether farmers survive a season or sink further into debt.

 

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2025 in Protest: Across issues, across India

 

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]]> Bhodu Sekh Case: Union agrees before Supreme Court to repatriate deported Bengali-speaking individuals pending citizenship inquiry https://sabrangindia.in/bhodu-sekh-case-union-agrees-before-supreme-court-to-repatriate-deported-bengali-speaking-individuals-pending-citizenship-inquiry/ Mon, 25 May 2026 11:55:03 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47201 Union tells Court those sent to Bangladesh will be brought back and their citizenship claims examined in India; clarifies decision is confined to the exceptional facts of the case

The post Bhodu Sekh Case: Union agrees before Supreme Court to repatriate deported Bengali-speaking individuals pending citizenship inquiry appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> In a significant development in the ongoing litigation over the alleged deportation of Bengali-speaking individuals to Bangladesh, the Union Government on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it would bring back certain persons who had been deported and conduct a proper inquiry into their citizenship status before taking any further action.

Appearing before a Bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul Pancholi, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta stated that the Union had decided, “keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case,” to facilitate the return of the deported individuals and examine their claims to Indian citizenship in accordance with law.

“My instructions are, the Government will bring them back, and thereafter will examine their status, and depending on the outcome, will take steps accordingly,” the Solicitor General submitted before the Court, reported LiveLaw.

Senior Advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the affected individuals, urged the Court to formally record the Union’s assurance. The Solicitor General agreed, while clarifying that the statement was being made in the exceptional circumstances of the present case and should not be treated as a precedent for future matters involving deportation or citizenship disputes.

As per LiveLaw, recording the submission, the Supreme Court passed an order stating: “The Solicitor General of India submits that keeping in view the peculiar facts and circumstances of the case, and by not treating it as a precedent to be followed in other instances, the Government of India has decided to bring the respondents back to India and to verify the claim of Indian citizenship. Their continuation in India will depend on the outcome of such enquiry.”

The Solicitor General informed the Bench that the process of bringing the individuals back from Bangladesh could take approximately eight to ten days.

The proceedings arise out of a series of habeas corpus petitions concerning Bengali-speaking families who were deported to Bangladesh in June 2025 during identity-verification operations allegedly conducted under a Ministry of Home Affairs directive. In September 2025, the Calcutta High Court had directed the repatriation of several deported persons, including Sunali Khatun, her husband Danish Sekh and their minor son Sabir Sekh, as well as Sweety Bibi and her two sons, Kurban and Imam. The High Court had sharply criticised the “hot haste” with which the deportations were carried out, observing that the affected individuals were removed without adequate inquiry, without a meaningful opportunity of hearing, and in apparent violation of procedural safeguards contained in the Union Government’s own guidelines.

The present development marks a substantial shift in the Union’s position. Earlier, in December 2025, the Centre had agreed to facilitate the return of Sunali Khatun—who was then in an advanced stage of pregnancy—and her young son on what it described as “purely humanitarian grounds.” At the time, the Supreme Court had underscored the need to balance legal enforcement with humanitarian considerations, remarking that some situations required “law to bend to humanity.”

That earlier intervention had followed disturbing findings by the Calcutta High Court regarding the manner in which the deportations were executed. According to the pleadings before the High Court, the affected families, originally from West Bengal but residing in Delhi for livelihood, were detained during an identity-verification exercise and deported to Bangladesh within five days. The High Court had noted that documentary material, including electoral records relating to the deportees’ family members, prima facie indicated Indian lineage and warranted a fuller inquiry before any coercive action could be taken.

While the Union Government has consistently maintained that the deportations were lawful and that the citizenship claims remain disputed, Friday’s undertaking before the Supreme Court indicates that the affected individuals will now be given an opportunity to establish their nationality status within India before any further steps are contemplated.

 

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The post Bhodu Sekh Case: Union agrees before Supreme Court to repatriate deported Bengali-speaking individuals pending citizenship inquiry appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> Noida Protest 2026: A labour uprising the state refused to understand https://sabrangindia.in/noida-protest-2026-a-labour-uprising-the-state-refused-to-understand/ Fri, 22 May 2026 12:50:41 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47179 The protests that paralysed Noida’s industrial belt in April 2026 exposed not only worsening labour conditions but also the growing tendency of the state to treat democratic labour mobilisation as a law-and-order problem

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]]> The protests that engulfed Noida and Greater Noida in April 2026 were among the most significant labour uprisings witnessed in India’s industrial belts in recent years. For several days, factory workers across electronics units, garment export factories, mobile manufacturing plants, automobile ancillary industries, pharmaceutical units, and textile facilities occupied roads, blocked industrial routes, halted production lines, and confronted police personnel in scenes that dramatically disrupted one of North India’s most important manufacturing corridors.

Yet from the start of the protests in April 2026, the state attempted to reduce the protests into something smaller, narrower, and more criminal than they actually were. What was unfolding in Noida was not merely a law-and-order disturbance. It was not an irrational outbreak of mob violence. Nor was it simply a reaction to one wage notification.

It was the culmination of years of accumulated distress inside India’s industrial economy. The protests represented the eruption of long-suppressed anger over stagnant wages, forced overtime, unsafe working conditions, contractual exploitation, rising inflation, arbitrary deductions, labour insecurity, and the collapse of institutional mechanisms through which workers could negotiate with employers.

For perhaps the first time in years, the invisible workforce powering India’s manufacturing economy forced itself into national visibility. In addition, the state responded not with dialogue or labour mediation — but with policing, criminalisation, conspiracy narratives, mass FIRs, detentions, and coercive force.

That response revealed something fundamental about the contemporary Indian political economy: labour unrest is increasingly treated not as a democratic or industrial issue but as a security threat.

The industrial glory of Noida was built on invisible and disposable labour

For more than two decades, Noida and Greater Noida have been projected by governments, investors, and industry bodies as symbols of India’s industrial transformation — sprawling manufacturing corridors representing export growth, technological expansion, and integration into global supply chains. Electronics assembly plants, garment export units, pharmaceutical industries, footwear factories, automobile ancillary hubs, and mobile-phone manufacturing facilities turned the region into one of North India’s most important industrial belts.

Political speeches, investment summits, and corporate campaigns repeatedly celebrated Noida as evidence of India’s emergence as a global manufacturing destination under initiatives such as “Make in India.” But beneath this image of industrial modernity existed a vast labour regime built upon invisibility, insecurity, and disposability.

The industrial economy of Noida depended overwhelmingly on migrant labourers arriving from Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bengal, Odisha, Assam, and other economically distressed regions. These workers migrated not because industrial employment guaranteed stability, but because rural economies increasingly offered little possibility of survival amid agrarian distress, shrinking agricultural incomes, indebtedness, and chronic unemployment.

Once inside Noida’s industrial ecosystem, many workers entered conditions defined by insecurity, overcrowding, exhausting work schedules, and near-total absence of bargaining power. As The Times of India reported during the protests, large numbers of workers employed across electronics factories, garment units, footwear industries, and ancillary manufacturing facilities earned roughly between ₹11,000 and ₹13,000 per month despite routinely working extended shifts. Workers and labour organisers told the newspaper that shifts regularly stretched beyond eight hours, often reaching 10–12 hours during periods of intense production demand.

Several workers alleged that overtime had effectively become compulsory. According to accounts cited in The Indian Express, workers frequently began shifts early in the morning and returned late at night after exhausting factory schedules, leaving little time for sleep, recovery, or family life. In many factories, labourers alleged that refusal to comply with overtime expectations risked threats, penalties, or removal from work rosters.

The wage structure itself revealed the depth of economic exploitation. Even before deductions, monthly wages barely sustained survival within NCR’s rapidly rising cost of living. After accounting for rent, transport, food, electricity, and remittances sent back to families in villages, many workers reportedly retained almost nothing by the end of the month.

Contract labour became the central mechanism of industrial control

One of the clearest realities exposed by the Noida protests was that the industrial economy of NCR no longer functions primarily through stable, direct employment. Instead, it increasingly operates through a vast contract labour regime that allows industries to maximise production while minimising accountability.

The modern factory system in Noida is built not merely on low wages, but on deliberately structured insecurity.

Across electronics factories, garment export units, footwear industries, pharmaceutical facilities, automobile ancillary plants, and mobile-phone assembly units, workers repeatedly stated during the protests that they were employed not directly by companies but through contractors, labour suppliers, manpower agencies, and intermediaries who controlled recruitment, attendance, wages, discipline, and dismissals. Reports by Hindustan Times described these intermediaries as effectively functioning as “shop-floor fixers” operating between management and labour.

This structure was not incidental to industrial production. It became central to the organisation of industrial power. The contractor system served several purposes simultaneously:

  • insulating companies from direct legal liability,
  • fragmenting workers into unstable categories,
  • weakening collective bargaining,
  • discouraging unionisation,
  • and ensuring labour remained permanently replaceable.

Workers repeatedly described how insecurity itself became a mechanism of industrial discipline, as reported by The Wire.

Many alleged they had no written contracts and could be removed from work without explanation. Others stated that labourers were routinely terminated before they became eligible for statutory protections, bonuses, provident fund benefits, or wage increments. Accounts documented in reports by The Indian Express and labour organisers covering the protests suggested that the fear of sudden dismissal had become normalised inside factories.

The figures cited during the protests were staggering:

  • 58.2% of workers reportedly had no written employment contract,
  • 51.7% lacked social security protections,
  • over 47% were not entitled to paid leave.

These numbers revealed something fundamental about Noida’s industrial economy: Insecurity was not exceptional. It had become structural.

Even inside formally organised manufacturing systems linked to major domestic and international supply chains, workers increasingly existed in conditions resembling informal labour.

Reports emerging during the protests, including coverage by Scroll and labour-rights commentators, repeatedly highlighted how contractualisation fragmented workers inside the same factory. Workers performing identical labour often belonged to different employment categories depending on the contractor through whom they were hired. This meant different wage structures, different entitlements, and different levels of vulnerability despite identical work on the same production lines. The contractor system therefore did more than reduce labour costs. It actively prevented worker solidarity.

Workers alleged that attendance systems were manipulated, overtime compensation arbitrarily reduced, and deductions imposed without transparency. Multiple reports documented complaints regarding deductions for aprons, uniforms, slippers, safety equipment, and even questionable “ITI diploma” schemes that workers believed either did not exist or offered no meaningful educational benefit.

Several workers reportedly told journalists and labour organisers that raising complaints about overtime, wage deductions, or conditions could lead to immediate removal from work rosters. This fear was economically devastating for migrant workers. For labourers supporting families in villages while surviving in rented industrial settlements around Noida, losing employment could immediately trigger hunger, debt, or eviction.

As per The Caravan, women workers faced particularly severe vulnerabilities inside this structure. Reports by independent media platforms and labour groups documenting the protests described complaints regarding overcrowded and unhygienic toilets, inadequate sanitation facilities, and dismissive responses from supervisors when concerns were raised. Contractual insecurity also made reporting harassment or abuse significantly more difficult because workers feared retaliation or dismissal.

The Noida protests therefore exposed how contractualisation had fundamentally transformed industrial relations in India. The contractor system was no longer merely a labour arrangement. It had become the primary architecture through which industrial discipline, labour suppression, and economic control were maintained across India’s manufacturing economy.

Inflation turned low wages into a survival crisis

The immediate economic context behind the protests was critical. By early 2026, industrial workers across the NCR region were already under immense financial pressure. The energy crisis triggered by geopolitical tensions in West Asia and disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz sharply increased fuel prices across India. LPG costs surged, transport became more expensive, and food inflation intensified dramatically.

For workers already surviving on stagnant wages, the consequences were devastating. Indian Express and The New Indian Express repeatedly documented workers explaining how monthly wages no longer covered basic survival expenses. Rent alone reportedly consumed one-third to half of monthly income for many migrant labourers living in overcrowded industrial settlements around Noida and Greater Noida.

One worker described returning to cooking on a wood-fired chulha because LPG cylinders had become unaffordable. Others explained that after paying rent and transport expenses, almost nothing remained for food, healthcare, or family support.

The protests therefore emerged from material desperation. This was not abstract labour dissatisfaction. Workers were confronting the collapse of subsistence itself. The erosion of real wages had become impossible to ignore. Even as industrial productivity increased and companies expanded production, workers experienced declining purchasing power and worsening living conditions. The industrial economy demanded more labour from workers while giving them less capacity to survive. That contradiction produced explosive anger.

Haryana’s wage hike triggered an explosion that was already building

The immediate trigger for the Noida uprising came from neighbouring Haryana. After sustained labour unrest and wage-related mobilisation across industrial centres such as Manesar, Gurugram, and Faridabad, the Haryana government announced a substantial increase in minimum wages in April 2026. As per The Hindu, the revised wage rates reportedly increased minimum pay for unskilled workers from roughly ₹11,000–11,300 to more than ₹15,000 per month.

The announcement spread rapidly through worker WhatsApp groups, labour settlements, contractor networks, factory dormitories, and informal worker circles across Noida and Greater Noida. Its political impact was immediate. Workers across industrial belts in Uttar Pradesh began directly comparing their wages with those offered in neighbouring Haryana for nearly identical work.

The question emerging inside factories was devastatingly simple: Why were workers producing for the same industrial economy being paid thousands less simply because they worked across a state border?

This comparison carried enormous political force because Noida, Greater Noida, Gurugram, Manesar, and Faridabad do not function as isolated industrial regions. They form part of an interconnected NCR manufacturing ecosystem where labour, contractors, and production networks constantly move across state boundaries. Workers assembling electronics, garments, automobile components, footwear products, or mobile phones in Noida often performed labour nearly identical to workers employed in factories in Manesar or Gurugram. Yet wage structures differed dramatically.

Coverage by Scroll, and worker testimonies documented by independent labour-rights groups highlighted how workers increasingly viewed this disparity as evidence of deliberate labour suppression rather than economic necessity. The comparison with Haryana transformed workplace dissatisfaction into political anger. Workers and labour organisers reportedly argued that industrial competitiveness in Uttar Pradesh increasingly depended upon keeping labour cheaper, more weakly protected, and less organised than neighbouring states.

This was one of the most important dimensions of the protests. The Noida unrest rapidly became about far more than a single wage revision. It exposed a broader development model in which states compete for industrial investment by suppressing labour costs, expanding contractualisation, weakening collective bargaining structures, and maintaining a permanently insecure workforce.

The collapse of labour institutions left workers with only the streets

One of the deepest structural causes behind the unrest was the collapse of institutional labour negotiation mechanisms. Historically, industrial disputes in India were mediated through trade unions, labour commissioners, conciliation systems, industrial tribunals, and collective bargaining processes. Those systems have steadily weakened.

Reports by Article 14 and others repeatedly noted that workers today possess very few effective institutional avenues through which grievances can be meaningfully addressed. The weakening of trade unions combined with the expansion of contract labour fragmented workers and undermined collective organising.

As a result, workers increasingly felt that no institutional mechanism existed through which employers or the state would seriously engage with their grievances. This is crucial to understanding the escalation in Noida. The unrest did not emerge because workers suddenly became violent or irrational. It emerged because institutional channels for labour negotiation had been systematically hollowed out.

Workers turned to the streets because the structures historically meant to mediate industrial conflict had largely collapsed. The tragedy is that the state itself helped weaken these institutions — and then responded to the resulting unrest through coercion instead of reconstruction.

 Labour Codes deepened worker anxiety and distrust

The protests also unfolded against the backdrop of the implementation of the four Labour Codes in late 2025. The Codes covering wages, industrial relations, occupational safety, and social security were promoted as reforms intended to modernise labour regulation and improve ease of doing business. But workers and labour scholars increasingly viewed them differently.

Many feared that the reforms weakened labour protections while expanding managerial power and flexibility.

Labour economist K.R. Shyam Sundar noted in The Indian Express that the new framework created uncertainty regarding working-hour limits and increased executive discretion in labour regulation. Workers repeatedly alleged that “flexibility” effectively meant longer hours, increased overtime pressure, and weaker enforcement of labour standards.

The old Factories Act imposed clearer restrictions on daily working hours and spread-over limits. Critics argued that the new framework diluted these protections under the language of reform. Importantly, many workers reportedly expected the Labour Codes to improve wages and standardise protections after their implementation in November 2025. When these expectations were not realised, frustration deepened dramatically. Workers increasingly perceived labour reform not as protection but as deregulation in favour of industrial capital.

The critical appraisal of the new labour codes may be read here.

The state reframed a labour crisis as a security threat

Perhaps the most alarming feature of the Noida protests was how rapidly the Uttar Pradesh government transformed what was fundamentally a labour and economic crisis into a security operation. From the very beginning, the state appeared far more willing to investigate conspiracy than exploitation.

Instead of foregrounding the actual grievances driving workers onto the streets — stagnant wages, inflation, contractual exploitation, unpaid overtime, unsafe working conditions, arbitrary dismissals, and collapsing labour protections — the official response increasingly shifted toward the language of destabilisation, subversion, and law-and-order threat.

As reported across The Hindu, senior officials and police authorities repeatedly suggested that “outside forces” and organised conspirators were responsible for the unrest.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath publicly suggested that “urban naxalites” and disruptive actors were attempting to provoke industrial instability. Simultaneously, sections of the police and administration alleged that Pakistani social media handles had amplified misinformation surrounding the protests.

This framing was not politically neutral. It fundamentally altered the meaning of the protests themselves. Workers demanding dignified wages and humane working conditions were no longer treated primarily as citizens articulating economic grievances. They were increasingly portrayed as potential instruments of destabilisation.

The implication was deeply dangerous: Large-scale labour mobilisation itself became suspicious. The state effectively suggested that worker anger on such a scale could not emerge organically from economic suffering and structural exploitation. Instead, unrest had to be explained through hidden instigators, ideological infiltration, foreign amplification, or organised conspiracy. This reflected a broader political tendency increasingly visible across India — the securitisation of democratic dissent.

Economic protest was not treated as evidence of policy failure, labour distress, or institutional collapse. It was reframed as a threat to public order and industrial stability. This shift carried enormous consequences.

Once labour unrest was classified as a security problem rather than a social or economic issue, coercive policing became easier to justify while structural questions about wages, labour protections, and exploitation were pushed into the background.

Coverage and commentary emerging during the protests in Scroll.in repeatedly warned that this narrative erased workers’ own political agency. The implication was that workers themselves were incapable of collectively resisting exploitation unless manipulated by hidden actors.

Historically, this has been one of the most common methods used by states to delegitimise labour movements. By converting economic anger into conspiracy, governments avoid confronting the structural conditions that produced the unrest in the first place.

The tragedy of the Noida response was that it prevented any serious political engagement with the actual realities workers were describing: impossible living costs, wage stagnation, contractor exploitation, unsafe workplaces, and the collapse of labour negotiation mechanisms. The more the state emphasised conspiracy, the less it spoke about labour. And that silence revealed the deeper priorities underlying the response.

Detailed report on fact finding on Noida protest may be read here.

Police repression became the state’s primary language

As the protests intensified around April 13, the state moved decisively away from negotiation and toward coercive suppression. What began as labour unrest was increasingly met with the machinery of criminal law, mass policing, surveillance, and punitive force.

Reports emerging from Noida and Greater Noida in Hindustan Times described widespread lathi charges, raids, detentions, arrests, and sweeping FIRs filed against workers and unnamed persons allegedly involved in the protests. Workers and activists repeatedly alleged that police intervention escalated confrontations that had initially been localised and economically driven.

Instead of functioning as mediators attempting to reduce tensions, police operations increasingly appeared designed to demonstrate overwhelming state control. The scale of criminalisation was extraordinary.

According to reports emerging during the crackdown from The Indian Express, police registered cases against thousands of unnamed persons under serious penal provisions including rioting, unlawful assembly, destruction of property, and attempt to murder. Entire working-class neighbourhoods reportedly came under fear and surveillance.

Workers described police raids in labour settlements late at night. Families reportedly searched desperately for detained relatives without clear information regarding where they had been taken. Independent reports and labour-rights accounts alleged that minors and uninvolved persons were also picked up during police operations conducted across industrial localities.

Accounts emerging from detention facilities and Kasna jail raised serious constitutional concerns. Lawyers, labour organisers, and civil-rights activists cited in reports by Scroll.in alleged violations of Articles 21 and 22 of the Constitution, including arbitrary detentions, denial of timely legal access, failures to promptly inform families, and procedural irregularities surrounding arrests.

What was particularly striking was the collective nature of the crackdown. The policing increasingly resembled punitive action directed not only at specific accused individuals but at labour communities themselves. Fear spread rapidly through worker settlements across Noida and Greater Noida. The message being communicated by the state was unmistakable: Collective resistance would invite overwhelming coercive force.

This was especially significant because the protests themselves emerged from the collapse of institutional labour mediation mechanisms. Workers had already reached a point where they felt trade unions, labour departments, and industrial dispute systems no longer meaningfully addressed their grievances. The state’s response to this institutional collapse was not reconstruction of dialogue, rather it was criminalisation.

The criminalisation of labour solidarity was equally significant

The crackdown did not remain confined to workers physically present at protest sites. Very quickly, the focus of police action expanded toward labour organisers, student activists, writers, independent voices, and individuals publicly expressing solidarity with workers. What made this phase of the crackdown especially alarming was that the state increasingly appeared to treat labour organising itself as suspicious political activity.

The shift became particularly visible through the arrests and prosecutions that followed the April 13 protests. As reported by The Indian Express, police repeatedly alleged that the unrest had not emerged organically from worker anger but had instead been orchestrated by an “organised syndicate of outsiders.” Authorities claimed that labour organisers and activists associated with groups such as Mazdoor Bigul Dasta played a “significant role” in provoking violence, disrupting public order, and inciting workers.

This narrative became central to the state’s justification for the crackdown. Among the most prominent cases was that of Aditya Anand, a 28-year-old BTech graduate from National Institute of Technology Jamshedpur and an employee at Genpact, whom police described as a “mastermind” behind the Noida protests. As reported by The Indian Express, Anand was arrested from Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu on April 18 and later linked by Haryana Police to separate labour unrest and violence in Manesar that had occurred four days before the Noida protests.

Police alleged that Anand delivered “provocative speeches,” organised marches, and encouraged workers to block roads. He was booked under multiple serious provisions, including rioting, unlawful assembly, assault on public servants, criminal conspiracy, and attempt to murder. Yet the details emerging about Anand’s background complicated the state’s narrative considerably.

His family described him not as a violent conspirator but as someone deeply engaged with labour issues and social movements. His younger brother told The Indian Express that Anand had rejected job opportunities abroad, including in Sweden, because he wanted to remain in India and work on issues affecting ordinary people. The family stated that he had long been associated with labour concerns and youth activism linked to the Naujawan Bharat Sabha, the organisation historically associated with Bhagat Singh.

The symbolism here was politically significant. A labour activist speaking publicly about workers’ rights was increasingly being framed through the language of criminal conspiracy and organised disorder. The crackdown intensified further in May when authorities invoked the stringent National Security Act against two accused linked to the protests: Aakriti Chaudhary, a 25-year-old history graduate from Delhi University, and former journalist Satyam Verma.

The use of the NSA marked a dramatic escalation. Preventive detention laws of this nature are generally associated with threats to national security or public order of an exceptional nature. Their invocation against individuals associated with labour protests and worker solidarity immediately raised concerns among civil-rights groups and labour organisations.

According to The Indian Express, police alleged that Chaudhary and Verma were active members of Mazdoor Bigul Dasta and had played “significant roles” in violence, arson, and disorder during the protests. But the accounts emerging from families and lawyers sharply challenged this narrative.

Aakriti Chaudhary’s father reportedly stated that she had been picked up from Botanical Garden Metro station on April 11 — two days before the violence on April 13 — raising serious questions about the chronology of the allegations against her. Her family argued that she had merely participated in activities supporting workers’ rights.

Her father, who works with Ganashakti, the CPI mouthpiece, told The Indian Express: “I’m proud that my daughter was raising her voice for workers’ rights. She is the Bhagat Singh of today.”

Similarly, advocates representing other accused argued that students and social workers had merely expressed solidarity with workers through speeches, meetings, and street plays — activities traditionally associated with democratic protest movements.

The case of Satyam Verma was equally revealing. Verma, a journalist and editor associated with writings on Bhagat Singh and anti-colonial political history, was arrested from his residence in Lucknow. Friends and associates described him as a long-time journalist, translator, and intellectual engaged with labour and democratic issues rather than violent mobilisation. Other arrests followed a similar pattern.

Himanshu Thakur, a 24-year-old history postgraduate from Hansraj College and a NET-qualified scholar, was accused of instigating crowds and coordinating violence. His family described him as someone involved in student activism, translation work, and social causes, including protests relating to student deaths during the Delhi flooding crisis.

What became increasingly visible through these arrests was a larger pattern: The state was collapsing the distinction between labour organising, political solidarity, and criminal conspiracy.

This distinction mattered enormously. Instead of recognising collective labour mobilisation as a democratic response emerging from exploitation, inflation, contractual insecurity, and wage stagnation, authorities increasingly personalised the unrest through narratives centred on masterminds, infiltrators, and ideological actors.

This framing effectively erased workers’ own political agency. The implication was that workers themselves could not independently organise resistance after years of economic distress and labour exploitation. Their anger had to be explained through manipulation by “outsiders.” Historically, states confronting labour unrest have often relied upon precisely this strategy.

Worker mobilisation is reframed not as a consequence of material exploitation but as evidence of political contamination or organised subversion. The consequences of such a framework extend far beyond one protest. Once labour solidarity itself becomes suspicious, the democratic space available for workers to organise, negotiate, document abuses, and collectively assert rights begins shrinking dramatically. This was what made the Noida crackdown especially significant. The issue was no longer merely how the state handled one industrial protest.

The deeper question was whether independent labour mobilisation itself was increasingly being treated as illegitimate within India’s contemporary industrial order — particularly when it challenged industrial profitability, disrupted production, or exposed the inequalities hidden beneath the language of economic growth and “Make in India” industrial success.

Detailed report on state crackdown on dissent may be read here.

Noida was one of the most important labour protests in contemporary India

The importance of Noida cannot be overstated. The protests formed part of a broader wave of labour unrest across industrial regions including Manesar, Surat, Panipat, Barauni, Faridabad, and other manufacturing hubs.

Across sectors and geographies, workers raised remarkably similar demands:

  • living wages,
  • overtime compensation,
  • social security,
  • dignified working conditions,
  • stable employment,
  • humane working hours.

This convergence revealed a national labour crisis. Noida exposed the widening contradiction at the centre of India’s economic model: expanding industrial growth and rising productivity alongside deepening worker insecurity and stagnant real wages. Most importantly, the protests revealed the limits of governing labour through precarity, exhaustion, fear, and suppression.

The interim wage hikes announced after the unrest only reinforced this reality. The government responded meaningfully only after workers paralysed industrial movement and disrupted production. That fact alone is a profound indictment of the existing labour regime.

Noida was not merely an industrial disturbance. It was a warning from the workforce sustaining India’s manufacturing economy — a warning that an industrial system built on insecurity, wage suppression, informalisation, and coercion cannot indefinitely maintain social peace.

 

Related:

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Documents Cannot Decide Democracy: How CJP is training communities to navigate the SIR process

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

Caged Voices, Silenced Truths: FSC’s expansive indictment of India’s press freedom crisis

Workers Cry for Justice!

The post Noida Protest 2026: A labour uprising the state refused to understand appeared first on SabrangIndia.

]]> No ‘Pakistan conspiracy’ in Noida labour unrest: Fact-finding report https://sabrangindia.in/no-pakistan-conspiracy-in-noida-labour-unrest-fact-finding-report/ Mon, 18 May 2026 08:50:05 +0000 https://sabrangindia.in/?p=47110 According to the statement released by the team, citizen investigators found no evidence to support allegations circulated by sections of the administration and media that foreign elements were behind the protest

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]]> A fact-finding team consisting of former bureaucrats, journalists and advocates has rejected claims that the recent labour protest(s) in Noida were the result of a “Pakistani conspiracy”, concluding instead that stagnant wages and wage disparities with neighbouring states were the primary triggers, reported Hindu BusinessLine.

The team, formed by civil rights group Jan Hastakshep included Supreme Court senior advocate S.S. Nehra, former Hindu College professor Ish Mishra, retired IFS officer Ashok Sharma, senior journalist Anil Dubey, and senior advocate M.Z. Ali.

The team visited Noida on April 24 and spoke to workers across multiple industrial units, shopkeepers and other affected residents on the issue.

According to the statement released by the team, investigators have found no evidence to support allegations circulated by sections of the administration and media that foreign elements were behind the protests.

Instead, the team reported how, the anger among the workers had been building for years over low wages, rising inflation and comparisons with higher minimum wages in neighbouring Delhi and Haryana. The agitating workers told the team that factories relocating from Delhi and Gurugram to Noida continued paying lower wages after shifting operations, despite higher pay scales prevailing in those regions.

The fact-finding group said that this dissatisfaction intensified after workers learned that wages at units in Haryana –barely 170 kilometres away–had increased significantly following a hike in minimum wages there. This comparison, combined with stagnant wages in Noida for 10 years, reportedly triggered the initial sit-in protest at a garment-manufacturing unit in Sector 83 earlier this month. According to the Fact-finding team’s statement, protests spread across industrial clusters in Sectors 59, 60, 62, 83 and 84, eventually drawing tens of thousands of workers onto the streets. The team also alleged that police action escalated tensions and that more than 1,000 workers were detained, with some families not informed of their whereabouts for several days.

The team of investigators noted that the state government’s subsequent actions, including issuing notices to 43 contractors, cancelling licences of 10 contractors and announcing a 21 per cent wage increase, indicated acknowledgement of the irregularities in wage practices rather than evidence of any external conspiracy.

Significantly, a trade union leader who had worked in a multinational company, also told the team that two decades ago, wages were not an issue in NOIDA and Greater NOIDA because wages here were higher than in other states. However, conditions have changed over the past 20 years.

Disparate wages: While wages increased in Delhi and Haryana, they did not increase in Uttar Pradesh, and companies arbitrarily set their own minimum wages. This difference also significantly increased exploitation. He added that most of NOIDA industries operate with only contract labour, with companies hiring workers through contractors who provide no security or other benefits.

The team concluded that the unrest reflected long-standing labour grievances rooted in wage stagnation and rising living costs, and called for implementation of revised minimum wages, linking wages to inflation, and withdrawal of cases against workers involved in the protests.

Related:

NSA slapped on journalist, DU scholar in Noida workers’ protest case amid allegations of crackdown on dissent

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