How Indian states are using FIRs to reframe wage-related workers’ disputes as crimes
· Scroll
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In April, a series of protests by contract workers in the industrial belts of Manesar and Noida in the National Capital Region were met with a wave of First Information Reports that list several provisions of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita.
At first glance, these FIRs appear to document incidents of disorder – unlawful assembly, rioting, damage to property and attacks on police personnel. A closer reading reveals that they do far more than describe events. They actively reframe a wage-related labour dispute as a matter of public order and criminality.
Labour protests and strikes have been rolling across India since early this year – from Barauni in Bihar, to Panipat, Faridabad and Manesar in Haryana and Noida in Uttar Pradesh.
Different industries, different states, different employers but the same complaints: workers pushed to a breaking point by stagnant wages, rising prices, 12-hour shifts paid as eight, precarious employment conditions and a cost-of-living crisis sharpened by the cooking gas shortage.
What connects the protests is the condition of being a contract worker in India in 2026 – formally employed, substantively unprotected, and now, when they protest, criminally liable.
In Noida, protests by workers in April were first ignored and then met with prohibitory orders and mass detentions under Section 170 of the Bharatiya...