Fact checking Mukul Rohatgi's speech before the UNHRC // Unfair Labour Practices Abound at Tata’s Sanand Plant
On 4 May
2017, Mukul Rohatgi, the attorney general of India, told the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)
that the ancient Sanskrit phrase, “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” - the world is
one family - was “reflected in the Indian tradition of openness and diversity;
coexistence and cooperation.” Rohatgi was leading the Indian delegation at
India’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - a process by which the UN takes stock
of the human-rights record of its 193 member states. With broad strokes,
Rohatgi painted a picture celebrating the Indian government’s ostensible
commitment towards the “promotion and protection of human rights in all parts
of the world.” A closer inspection of his rhetoric, however, reveals stark
contradictions between the situation that Rohatgi presented, and both, the
reality of the human-rights compliance in India, as well as statements that he
has previously made as the highest law officer of the country...
That day, India, led by Rohatgi, presented its third UPR report before the UNHRC. The review, which
the UNHRC initiated in 2008, takes place once every four years. It is conducted
by the UPR Working Group, which consists of all 47 countries that comprise the
UNHRC, although any UN member state can participate during the review. The
review is based on a report submitted by a national government, declaring the
efforts it has made to meet its human-rights obligations along with reports
that are submitted by other organisations and stakeholders. These include
reports by human-rights treaty bodies—which monitor the implementation of
international human-rights agreements—the country’s national human-rights institution,
and civil-society organisations. (Disclosure: The Commonwealth Human Rights
Initiative, where both of us are presently working as programme officers, was a
member of a civil-society coalition called the Working Group on Human Rights in
India and the UN, which submitted a report on India’s human-rights record to
the UNHRC.)
These reports and the questions raised in advance by members of the
UNHRC set the stage for Rohatgi’s presentation of India’s human-rights record.
He presented India’s commitment to and fulfilment of its human-rights
obligations on a plethora of issues. These included, among others, the Armed
Forces (Special Powers) Act, and the repeated instances of custodial violence
and sexual assault. Rohatgi’s speech was doublespeak: his claims before the
UNHRC contradicted his submissions in India, and the omission of the
human-rights violations in the country was conspicuous. Below is a list of five
claims that Rohatgi made, and the inconsistencies or inaccuracies from which
they suffer... read more:
http://www.caravanmagazine.in/vantage/mukul-rohatgis-upr-unhrc-fact-checkWorkers At Tata’s Sanand Plant Have Been Awaiting Wage Hikes For Over Two Years, As Unfair Labour Practices Abound
Nearly two years since their strikes began, over 400
workers at the Tata Nano plant in Sanand, Gujarat, still await wage increments.
Representatives of the Bharat Kamdar Ekta Sangh (BKES)—a union representing the
permanent workers at the Sanand plant—and officials from Tata have been
haggling over new terms since March 2017. These recent negotiations are the
third round in 18 months. “This is related to the wage hikes from 2015-2016. We
have not even started discussing what the future should look like,” Hitesh
Rabari, one of the representatives of the BKES, told me.
According to Rabari, the Nano plant in Sanand currently
employs close to 3,000 workers who work on the assembly line. Of these, he
said, nearly 500 hold permanent positions, while the rest work as contract
labourers. Most permanent workers at the plant earn between Rs 12,000 and Rs
15,000 a month, Rabari told me. The workers are currently demanding revised
wages close to Rs 20,000 each. “If you look at the automobile industry in the
context of the ongoing inflation, then expecting Rs 22,000 to 25,000 a month is
not much considering the years of experience working for the industry,” Rabari
said. A Tata Motors spokesperson with whom I corresponded over
email, wrote that it was against the company’s policy to share the composition
of the workforce and its wages... read more:
