Trump and Netanyahu’s war on Iran hits Indian workers and exporters alike

The government has started evacuating Indian workers from the war zone in West Asia. Already, an estimated 260,000 Indian nationals have returned home on evacuation and on commercial flights, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs. At least two Indian workers have been killed in the war already. There are also the workers who were waiting to go to West Asia for jobs. Estimates from Indian recruitment agencies suggest that more than 300,000 jobs could be delayed because of the conflict.

It is of course good that the Indian workers have been brought home to safety, but these workers will not find jobs back home and the evacuation also means that the workers cannot send the remittances that sustained their families back in their villages. Remittances worth over Rs 12 lakh crore annually from the West Asian region risk getting affected with jewellery and garment exports besides pharmaceutical shipments bearing the brunt of it, given the deep integration of the Gulf with India’s external sector.​

Within the country the global wars have led 63 per cent of Indian companies to freeze hiring or downsize, with 15 per cent shifting to contracts, eroding job security and morale across manufacturing, IT, and services.

​The US-Iran war has severely disrupted Haryana's industries, particularly textiles and basmati rice exports, through LPG shortages, raw material price surges, and supply chain breakdowns. Around 400 dyeing units in Panipat have shut down due to LPG cuts, with PNG supplies rationed by 60 per cent to 150 units, idling 60 per cent of production across textiles and related sectors.

LPG scarcity has led to the closure of dyeing operations, the backbone of Panipat's Rs 60,000 crore handloom/textile industry (Rs 20,000 crore exports), forcing 125+ units in Barhi and Kundli to close. It is estimated that 300 textile factories in Haryana have shut down. More than 35,000 workers have become unemployed in the towns, with many migrant workers returning to their states. Agricultural workers too have been affected by the war and also by the climate changes which has destroyed crops in many parts of the country.

Wednesday, 1 April 2026 will bring workers and farmers on the streets demanding that the wars stop, the new labour codes be repealed and the farmers be protected.  The Government has been sympathetic to the corporations and to business and industry. It has forgotten that its first duty or Raja Dharma is to protect the citizens of the country, the workers and farmers. It could begin by placing before the nation a report on how the working class has been impacted by the new technologies and the war and what measures the Government will take to protect the most vulnerable sections of Indian citizens.

Industrial and agricultural workers in India and elsewhere have been deeply affected by wars being fought in different parts of the world.  While the wars have affected Indian business and industry through higher energy and commodity prices, supply‑chain disruptions, trade and remittance shocks, financial‑market volatility, and defence/strategic uncertainties—not because of trade union activities or strikes---in one of the first signs of the impact of the US-Iran war on the Indian economy, the private sector recorded its slowest expansion in more than three years in March 2026.

Conflicts in West Asia have repeatedly pushed up crude oil and gas prices in the past as well, raising India’s import bill, feeding into wholesale and retail inflation, and squeezing margins for energy‑intensive industries such as airlines, shipping, petrochemicals, and heavy manufacturing.

Higher fuel costs also worsen the current account deficit and put pressure on the Rupee, which in turn raises the cost of imported machinery and inputs for industry. Wars have indirectly strained India's job market and workers through inflation, hiring freezes, and sector slowdowns, while directly threatening millions of migrant workers in conflict zones.

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The Migrant Workers Solidarity Network (MWSN) has recently compiled a list of the large-scale protests and strikes in India. As many as 28 were recorded in the first three months of 2026. The map in their report dramatically illustrates the extent of the nation-wide protests. The  nation-wide strike by central trade unions on 1 April 2026 should therefore be seen in the context of these recent protests all over India, demanding the repeal of the new labour codes.

The basic right workers in India and the world won was the right to a permanent job, living wages and laws which protected workers from extreme exploitation. One of the first rights won by workers all over the world was the eight-hour-work-day; however,  the  development of new technologies, mainly robotics and AI, and because of the interconnectivity of world markets, the corporate world has pushed governments to help create a labour market in which they can legally hire and fire workers.

This has happened in India too. Over the years the number of permanent workers in private and public sectors have been going down and the number of non-permanent workers has been growing.   The non-permanent workers category arises with the decrease and disappearance of permanent jobs. It includes contract workers, migrant workers, temporary workers and casual workers.

The 28 major strikes in 2026 so far have been by contract workers demanding an eight-hour work shift, payment of their wages which have not been paid for months and also, in some cases the protests were triggered by death of a worker on duty and the callous attitude of the employer. The protests and strikes have been in both public sector and in private companies owned by Tatas, Ambanis and Adanis.

People have been largely unaware about these strikes because the protests have not been covered by the mainstream media, regional media or even on social media.  The reason for this deafening silence of the country to the sufferings of the majority of our people is the result of the success of the campaign to demonise trade unions and workers. Even political parties and judges (from labour courts to the Supreme Court), have succeeded in stigmatising the very word “worker” or “mazdoor”.

Are workers really responsible for the growing number of closure of factories all over India? Parliamentary data from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs indicates that over 2,04,000 private companies closed down between 2020–21 and 2024–25.  This trend however can be linked directly to restructuring, insolvency and market stress, not to labour unrest.

The lack of permanent jobs is dramatically illustrated by the number of employees in Maruti-Suzuzki’s  plants in Haryana’s Gurgaon, Manesar and Kharkhoda. Maruti Suzuki employs around 35,000-36,000 workers across its plants, but only 17-18 per cent of them are permanent—roughly 6,000-6,500 individuals who earn on an average Rs 1.3 lakh every month, those working mainly in supervisory roles. The rest (82-83 per cent) includes 40 p.c. contractual workers, 21 p.c. temporary workers and 21 p.c. trainees/apprentices earning anywhere in the range of Rs 12,000-30,000.

The Kharkhoda plant, Suzuki’s largest planned facility (aiming for 2.5 lakh vehicles/year by 2029), currently hires fixed-term employees (FTEs) for 3-year contracts made legal by the new labour codes against which the central trade unions have called the nation-wide strike.

The contract workers’ strikes and protests documented by the Migrant Workers Solidarity Network and contract workers protesting for decades for the right to permanent jobs since they do the same work as those who have permanent jobs and the State and courts had upheld the right of contract workers to regularisation of their jobs if they worked in jobs of a perennial nature. The new labour codes have done away with any legal protection.

Nandita Haksar is a human rights advocate long associated with the northeast. Her many books include Shooting the Sun: Why Manipur was Engulfed by Violence and the Government Remained Silent (Speaking Tiger, 2023)

Views are personal. More of Nandita Haksar’s writing may be read here