How the war on Iran set off worker protests around Delhi

Gangeshwar Datt Sharma was born in 1969. He dropped out of school after a secondary education, and soon after, joined a shoe-making unit in Noida, which catered to the Russian market. The son of a post office employee, Sharma’s family had no political background; nor had he encountered activism at close quarters. But within months of joining work, the young Sharma got involved with the workers’ movement.

In 1988, the management expelled some workers for asking for their rights. Police intervened and arrested workers for protesting. “I felt that it is an injustice and I started organising workers against the exploitation by managements. I decided to work for them,” Sharma says at his house in Barola village, near Sector 49 in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, where he has been under house arrest for more than a week. Also under house arrest are three others, while over 350 people, including many women, have been arrested by the police.