Labour Day 2025

The first message I opened this morning was from friend Jose Maliekal. Happy Labour Day. That was the essence of the four images sent on WhatsApp. My instinctive response was: “Is it relevant anymore?” I drew my friend’s attention to my WhatsApp status which was the image given below. 

“May Robots do all the work soon!” That was my caption.

I’m envisaging a world in which all the laborious tasks will be carried out by robots and an International Labour Day should be dedicated to them.

My friend’s response to my questioning of the relevance of the raised Communist fist in his message was very characteristic of him: “Co-optation of the Proletariat is not equal to their Rights to Life as Species beings are granted; An Unalienated Life is realized. If Religion was the Opium, in Marx's time, the Machinations of the Market are more dangerous opiums of today. The workers need to unite, to open their eyes, to unmask the mesmerizing Doublespeak of the Market.”

My thought immediately went in this direction: India is becoming a $5-tillion-dollar economy according to the government. The country now has 205 billionaires, placing it third globally after the USA and China. India’s economy is growing by leaps and bounds. We’re gonna eradicate poverty soon. We will have affluent cities for people and palatial temples for our gods….

I go to the gate to pick up my newspapers which arrive punctually before sunrise. “India’s Shame – the trap of bonded labour.” That is one of the op-ed articles in The Hindu. What! Bonded labour in a 5-trillion-dollar economy that has a burgeoning galaxy of billionaires? My early morning dream about opulence for both humans and gods came crashing to the ground.

There are 1.84 crore [18.4 million] bonded labourers in India currently, says Rejimon Kuttappan’s Hindu article. That is, nearly twice Sweden’s population live in subhuman conditions here in our 5-trillion-dollar economy. “In addition to bonded labour,” Kuttappan goes on, “crores of unorganized Indian workers, particularly migrants, endure forced labour in India, which closely resembles bonded labour.” A very tiny fraction of India’s labourers works in the organized sector, which implies that the vast majority of them are underpaid and exploited inhumanly.

India is a rich country with too many poor people. That has become a cliché now, I know. I’m repeating it merely to remind myself that the Labour Day is still relevant. Maybe, it will always be relevant. Because the very system that creates 205 billionaires is also programmed to create 205 million impecunious labourers. In fact, the billionaires thrive on the blood and sweat of the labourers and other ‘poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’

The global economic system is unbalanced and arrogant, Pope Francis writes in his autobiography, Hope. In the Pope’s words: “An economy that kills, that excludes, that starves, that concentrates enormous wealth in a few to the detriment of many, that multiplies poverty and grinds down salaries, that pollutes, that produces war, is not an economy: It is just an emptiness, an absence, a sickness.”

Ours is a sick world. That raised fist in red colour which my friend sent me this morning in greeting is a meaningful symbol not in India alone. Poverty and exploitation of the poor is a global phenomenon.

“The world stands in need of liberation,” as an old hymn says. It’s worth your while clicking on that link and listening to the hymn. 

HAPPY LABOUR DAY!