It is necessary to remember the past to understand what we are experiencing today. many comments for this article (except few) mention the good and properous life in post 1990s and the need to change. But who paid for this prosperity - Have we ever thought about the people who built this malls and skyscrappers and made cities what they are today. Is it possible for the people who built it enter these places? They are not allowed to enter. It is Datta Samant who kept the intersts of the workers importnat and it is for which he paid his life. Did we ever ask the question why he was killed? Who did not want to him to be alive? and why? Are those 250,000 workers are fools to follow him? Why the management could not give workers what they wanted. What ever they demanded were just meagre but even that could not be given. It is not the matter of capability of the industry but it is a principle that workers demand should not be fulfilled by the management. Today the government has come out with many anti-worker policies including the 2005 Act on Special Economic Zones (SEZ) which is invited by the industry as need of the hour. It provides almost free entry and exit and rarest of the rare possibilites for implementing and monitoring labour laws, huge tax sops and many more 'social bribes' for the corporates to establish their business in SEZs. Today thounds of workers in textile and garment industry in india are working in a precarious and insecured conditions. They don't know when they will go home from the factory. They are working for more than 12hrs a day. They don't get bonus, pension and even their due for working overtime. No leave benefits, no medical benefits and further women are being sexually exploited in these factories. Have the people talking about the economy ever cared about the society. We need a leader like Datta Samant to care for the people who build this "booming, vibrant, growing, shining india".
