South Asia Citizens Web

Contrary to perceptions created by employers and pro-business think-tanks that labour has a free run, the reality facing organised labour is that even the agreements and guarantees provided by the State are not implemented. And if that were case under the authoritarian Rajapaksa regime, there has been no movement on any of these issues facing labour, close to six months after the democratic change of regime.

Following and prior to the recent 12 June Tower Hamlets mayoral election results, it seems some on the liberal and white left are asserting that racism and Islamophobia were at play. But such well-wishers are in fact colluding, appeasing, empowering and encouraging the most right wing, reactionary and corrupt fundamentalist elements of the Bengali/Muslim community in Tower Hamlets. It seems that there is a group of white leftists, trade unionists & Christian faith leaders who would prefer to keep the Bengali community insular, ghettoized and away from the mainstream. They ignore the history of the Bengalis who came to Tower Hamlets as economic migrants during 1950s and 1960s to better their lives and those of their children, and overlook the history of that community’s stand against ghettoization by the GLC in the 1970s.

Summary Response to False Charges (Sabrang Communications) 1993 Sabrang Communications registered in 1993 1993-2000 A series of human rights-related activities were successfully carried out by us and earned us several accolades. (See the Srikrishna Commission Report at http://www.sabrang.com/srikrish/sri%20main.htm and www.sabrang.com, which also contains the links to archival issues of Communalism Combat.) December 2000 Communalism Combat was honoured with the Prince Claus (…)

[This 7 page broadsheet was produced in Delhi in 1980/81 by the Committee For Solidarity with the Polish Working Class (an informal and independent grouping of dissident leftists). It has been scanned as part of the sacw.net rare document archive ]

2012 talk by Gail Omvedt for IGNOU