Angry and protected

Clothing manufacturers and pilots want to strike new champions of white-collar activism.

Photographs can be so telling. On Tuesday,this newspaper published a photograph of a group of manufacturers and retailers of readymade clothes uncomfortably clutching placards that said Bandh! Bandh! Bandh! In protest against excise duty imposed on garments and made ups. Twenty thousand shops were shut down in Mumbai and Thane on Monday,according to the protesting organisations. Meanwhile,our beloved national carriers put-upon pilots have been forced to air their multifarious grievances again: the Indian Commercial

Pilots Association,which represents a few hundred pilots from the former Indian Airlines and is certainly the whitest of white-collar unions,called for a 14-day strike from Wednesday.

Both these instances of white-collar activism are classic responses to reform by entrenched

interests. The garment makers are outraged that they will have to pay excise on what they make something,surely,that every industry should expect,especially with the Goods and Services Tax,which will hopefully make a detailed and complex list of exemptions history,on its way in. Their objections to paying tax clutch at various straws: that it is a rejuvenating industry,that 129 other products were not attracting excise earlier and they dont have to pay 10 per cent yet,that production is decentralised,that the GST is on its way anyway. What is nevertheless obvious is that this is a blatant attempt to demand government freebies for the sector in which you get your livelihood,and a demand that is being pushed through striking work precisely the sort of action that,when taken by other sections of the workforce,understandably irritates white-collared workers and owners of capital.

Meanwhile,there are the oppressed pilots of Air India. They are horrified that,post-merger,the route rationalisation implemented by their cash-strapped company which has just begged for handouts totalling several thousands of crores from the government has cut into their compensation. In particular,they are incensed that their families arent getting free international travel any more. It is difficult,hearing these tales of woe,to not have ones heart bleed. Indeed,Civil Aviation Minister Vayalar Ravi seemed to be moved,declaring that it was a matter between me and my children. Yet we and the government should find it easy to harden our hearts. Reform and rationalisation cause discontent. When that discontent is focused among those who have been comfortable hitherto,cosseted and protected by the state,there are few arguments to marshal for it that are not going to sound self-serving and weak.