[The powerful All-India Railwaymen's Federation (AIRF) is now…]

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The powerful All-India Railwaymen's Federation (AIRF) is now making preparations to launch indetinite strike action in There are 1.8 million workers on the Indian Railways, and one third of these have been employed for many years as so-called 'casual workers' , with wages that are well below even the extremely low average wage in the industry.

•The action is being taken to gain higher wages, a shorter working day and a whole range of basic conditions and provisions that the government has consistently refused to grant.

General strike

Identical demands were raised by the general strike of railway workers in May 1977, which was ruthlessly suppressed by the Gandhi The police, army and even the navy worked together with hired thugs to attack pickets, beat up and torture militants and their families.

Workers were evicted brutally from their houses, 25,000 strikers were dismissed and 20,000 arrested.

The AIRF is continuing its demand for the re-employment of victimised workers and an amnesty for those strikers still in detention.

A key figure in that earlier dispute was Socialist Party leader, George Fernandes, who now plays a central role in the Janata coalition government as Minister for Industries.

Profitability

For all its confused tactics, the Janata's economic policy has one very clear objective: the maintenance of capitalist profitability.

The Gandhi dictatorship directed a vicious offensive against the living standards of workers and peasants but since the ending of the emergency wages have not even risen to compensate for inflation, and have scarcely begun to reach the levels of 1975 which were those of poverty and starvation.

Nor have the sweeping promises of land reform made any material difference in the lives of the millions of dying landless labourers.

Although the railways strike will be the most signif