A Riot of Our Own.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Workers in New Delhi protest environmental regulations - Brief Article

Didn't like the recent anti-globalist, anti-capitalist street actions in Seattle and Washington, D.C.? Then maybe you should have caught New Delhi's riots last November. India's capital was shut down even tighter than the American cities; crowds of rock throwers targeted policemen, not just fast-food restaurants. But the angry New Delhi protesters were neither Greens nor environmentalists, neither anarchists nor even wielders of giant puppets. They were industrial workers, and they were mad because stringent new pollution controls were shutting down their mostly small workplaces.

These workers of the developing world united--with nothing to lose but their jobs--under the banner of the Small Industries Action Front. The specter that was haunting Delhi was an order by India's Supreme Court immediately to shut down factories located in residential areas. An estimated 50,000 workplaces were covered by the order, suggesting two conclusions: that Delhi had been pretty lax in its zoning enforcement for a very long time, and that the court's decision to put matters right overnight was going to lead to considerable disruption for everyone involved.

"We are protecting our basic rights to...