India’s first great automobile success story, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), has plunged into notoriety. Its factory at Manesar in Haryana witnessed terrible violence on July 18, which led to the death of a manager and injuries to over 100 people. The violence must be condemned, strongly and unequivocally. The MSIL management has imposed a lockout and is demonising its workers as criminally irresponsible and violence-prone. It wants to sack about a third of the 1,000 permanent workers and half the 2,000 contract workers. It has mounted enormous pressure on the government to arrest as many workers as possible and guarantee industrial peace, failing which it could pull out of Haryana.