Articles by Paaritosh Nath

The changes in labour laws announced during the lockdown period in several states reflect a lack of concern for the highest levels of unemployment seen in the past 45 years and the large number of workers leaving industrial pockets and returning back to an economy ravaged by agrarian distress. The events of the last few months suggest that distinctions amongst the working class in terms of organised/unorganised, formal/informal, and migrant/local are being narrowed. Labour must consolidate across the board taking anchorage in the commonalities of experience that various divisions face today.

In its haste to placate the growing resentment amongst the unemployed youth, the Indian government has come up with an ill-informed and loose definition of who constitutes the “economically weak.” Some of the major arguments that have been levied against the 124th amendment to the Constitution are empirically substantiated in the light of the current state of employment generation, particularly in the public sector, as well as the performance of the state with respect to fulfilling the existing reservation policy.