[Context: In a Whatsapp group, De-Domestication, a friend’s post: “Dear all, Will it be possible for us to put together every 5th or 10th year something like Future Year Book of India / South Asia 2023 or 2024 ? It will have an inventory of contesting images of futures at a particular point of time of a particular part of the world or concern or concept …”]
●● To contribute to possibilities that seem to be positive, to frame arenas like India or Asia seem to be not only inadequate but also hindrances and counterproductive.
As an example, see this translation from the January 2013 issue of Majdoor Samachar, “In March 2016”.
●● Imagining A Near Future
[ It was in 1979 that instead of peasants, factory workers were adopted by a maoist group as the focus of its activities. Some attempts were made in Gwalior, Indore, Bhopal and other places amongst factory workers. A break from that group led to the publication of Majdoor Samachar as a monthly in 1982 from Faridabad, a major industrial city in North India.
In these forty years, interactions with factory workers in Delhi’s Okhla Industrial Area, Udyog Vihar Gurgaon, Industrial Model Town Manesar, Noida in UP state, and Faridabad have constituted the arena of Majdoor Samachar’s activities. Reflections on these interactions with factory workers and on the worldwide fragmentary ones’ that we have had have been the contents of Majdoor Samachar.
The upsurge of factory workers in the national capital region in India during 2011-12, especially that of young Maruti Suzuki car factory workers in the Industrial Model Town, Manesar (Gurgaon) was exhilarating. It gave us some glimpses of global workers in these vibrant times. In this context the January 2013 issue of Majdoor Samachar was devoted to imagining a near future. Translation follows.
The November 2019 de-occupation of the Honda two-wheeler factory in IMT Manesar by the workers hired through contractor companies, the recent pandemic of fear, and the global lockdowns seem to have made Majdoor Samachar’s January 2013 write-up relevant today. ]
Link of “Imagining a Near Future”:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JMRm-Kn7Qhl23_UtQCtHU84H7zqwXTfQ/view?usp=drivesdk