About us
India Labour Solidarity (ILS) is UK-based collective that:
advocates for solidarities across global labour movements through a focus on workers’ struggles in India and the UK
extends solidarity with people who are resisting colonialism and militarisation, as well as the broader aspects of imperialism that perpetuate labour and climate injustices
How You Can Support Our Work
Introduce our model motion in your local trade union, political party and any other organisation branches
Join one of our working groups. Please email for more details about ongoing advocacy work and campaigns (indialaboursolidarity@gmail.com)
HOW WE WORK
Our understanding of structures of labour exploitation in India, the UK and more widely, recognises:
the marked variation in the sites and conditions of work
how more and more work is done as short-term contractual work
the persistence of caste- and race-based apartheid and its intersections with other axes of inequity such as gendered, LGBTQIA+ and ableist exclusions, in occupational opportunities
the limitations of analysing labour exploitation through a right–left binary lens
environmentally destructive practices and greenwashing in occupational possibilities, with increasing militarisation of mining in eco-sensitive areas inhabited by Indigenous peoples
Thus, our anti-caste and anti-colonial approach to solidarity comprises the following principles:
Foregrounding caste-based and race-based apartheid and how it intersects with exclusions based on other axes of inequity, in the marginalisation and oppression of Bahujan, Dalit, Indigenous (Adivasi, Vimukta and Tribal) and religious minority communities by the hegemonic Brahminical polity in India
Supporting the right to self-determination of all peoples living under Occupation
Recognising that exploitation based on India’s internal hierarchies is extended globally by the Indian state, for example, through its support of Israel’s continued Occupation and ongoing genocide in Palestine
Acknowledging the colonial roots of the UK’s labour policies and industrial relations and of traditional labour collectivist approaches, regardless of the ideological basis of the government in power, and exemplified through the UK’s support of settler colonialism across the world as well as Brahmanical supremacism in India
Opposing the extensive militarisation and digital surveillance enabled by states for state–corporate extractivism and mining, with extensive violations of civil and political rights of Indigenous communities and those working alongside them (e.g. activists, lawyers, and journalists), and environmental destruction.
Amplifying the resistance offered by and the voices of the communities living under Militarisation, Apartheid and Occupation, and learning from their knowledges and histories of democratic ways of working and living
Acknowledging the violations of individual human and labour rights in all contexts, and challenging these violations through the broader lens of collective egalitarian, life-affirming, eco-respecting understandings of social justice
