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The general strike called by the National Platform of Mass Organisations NPMO provided the unedifying spectacle of at least three polit...

The general strike called by the National Platform of Mass Organisations NPMO provided the unedifying spectacle of at least three political parties propping up the government playing a leading role in it. The most inexplicable was the participation of Biju Janata Dal, whose leader Navin Patnaik is a Cabinet minister in the Vajpayee government. Nonethe-less, to dismiss the whole thing as a tamasha is to ignore the emerging phenomena of organised unions, political parties and other sections of society being pulled together in a way that has not been witnessed since the reform process began in 1991. It is too early to say what, if anything, will come of this trend. Much depends on the kind of leadership that takes shape and the agenda adopted in future.

But it is worth looking closely at each of the three factors driving the protests, apart from Jayalalitha8217;s and Mamata Banerjee8217;s opportunism. One, the recession is heightening concern among members of industrial and white collar unions about job losses. Two, the form of political participation in the NPMO agitation suggests it could be a useful platform for the revival of the Third Front. Three, although broad, often unthinking, opposition to economic liberalisation is the continuing impetus for such protests, they are also fuelled by the lopsided fashion in which reform has been pursued by the present and previous governments.

What lends a distinctive character to the present agitation is the kind of political mobilisation being attempted. The engine may well be unions of bank, insurance and government employees whose strike action in the last five years had no higher purpose than to perpetuate inefficiency and low productivity. Naturally, therefore, opposition to the insurance Bill and disinvestment in PSUs looms large on the agenda and state government employees came out to demand implementation of the fifth pay commission8217;s awards. However, the combination of a worsening economic climate and policies of BJP governments at the Centre and in some states has provided the union leadership with the opportunity to throw its net wide.

Inflation and rising unemployment which affect the interests of a much wider section of people are given a harder edge by mobilisation against the BJP and communalism. How far consolidation of Dalit, minority, OBC, peasant, student and urban middle class support for the organised unions will proceed is an open question. For one, there are class and caste conflicts among these constituents that have to be managed. For another, the attempt is bound to be challenged by a newly confident Congress party whose major union, the INTUC, stood apart from the general strike. But there is no question that the process of consolidation has been spurred by the BJP government8217;s failures on the economic front, communal activities of organisations like the VHP and deteriorating law and order in states like Maharashtra. In sum, the BJP is succeeding in breathing new life into the Third Front. The political fallout is uncertain as yet. The impact on economic reform efforts is easier to predict. To push ahead with privatisationrisks strengthening the opposition unless there is concentrated action to create real economic opportunities for all those sections of the people who have not benefitted from reform so far.