January 18, 2022 marks the 40th anniversary of the historic 1982-83 strike that lasted for 18 months.
The strike led by Dr. Datta Samant involved 247,189 Mumbai mill workers and brought the city to a standstill. The 1982-83 strike was the last industrial action by the Mumbai mill workers when the city witnessed an industry-wide strike bringing the workforce to the centre of politics.
While the present-day public memory of the strike has receded, it is important to remember the event which fundamentally transformed the city of Mumbai.
During my fieldwork for doctoral research in 2008-09, there were umpteen times when I wanted to talk about the situation of the textile workers from the late 1990s onwards, but the discussion would swiftly move to the 1982-83 strike. Observers, activists, schoolteachers, the older residents of Girangaon (the village of textile mills in central Mumbai), and not least the ones who worked in various professions in the vicinity had a story to share about the 1982-83 strike.
It signalled the importance of the historic strike and that without taking that event into account it will not be possible to understand the contemporary condition of the mill workers and the transformations that are underway in Girangaon. However, for the present generation, the only reference that one has is that of the leader of the 1982-83 strike, Dr. Datta Samant.
Dutta Samant. Photo: Wikipedia
And this is also because he was murdered in broad daylight in the mid-1990s.
The conflict between the mill workers and the owners began over the issue of bonuses. However, as the conflict gained momentum other demands were added, such as providing for an ad hoc increase of wage per month from Rs 120 to Rs 195 per month depending on the years of service.
Secondly, to make the badli workers permanent who had worked for an aggregate period of 240 days.
Thirdly, payment of House Rent Allowance (Rs 52 per month), Leave Travel Allowance (Rs 42 per month), and Educational Allowance (Rs 30 per month). Substantial improvement in leave facilities such as privilege leave, casual leave, sick leave, and paid holidays was also one of the demands.
Finally, the strikers demanded non-recognition of Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh (RMMS) as the representative union, and the sole bargaining agent for workers. These demands shocked the employers. The mill owners were able to put down the strike by colluding with the state machinery and the RMMS, the officially recognised trade union, which had held a monopoly of speaking up for the workers.
After this, about 91,251 mill workers were laid off. The catastrophic outcome of the strike also had national-level implications, as Mumbais mill workers held the vanguard position of the countrys labour movement.
The failure of the 1982-83 strike crucially led to the reversal of the entitlements that the mill workers had obtained through various struggles and fundamentally altered workers claims over the citys social fabric. Following the strike, the workers lost the fighting spirit, which they had demonstrated historically.
Most importantly, the failure of the strike resulted in the gradual dismantling of the various social, political, and cultural institutions that contributed to the rhythms of Girangaon. These factors suggest that the industrial action of 1982-83 is indeed a key moment in the history of Mumbai as well as for the countrys labour movement.
The failure of the strike was not merely a loss of that industrial action, but it had ramifications for the future strikes of the working classes.
Throughout the strike, the state used its police machinery to threaten and inflict violence on the workers to break the industrial action. The judiciary took a long time in deciding on the case that challenged the RMMS status as the representative union. The bureaucracy too assisted in delaying the process.
The mill workers who were taken back to work had to return on deeply unfavourable terms.
First, many workers who returned to work did not receive the payments they were entitled to.
Secondly, workers had to confront an entirely hostile environment inside the factory. They were fined for the slightest mistakes and often abused and very easily charge-sheeted.
Also read: Inside the Winter of Discontent for Indias Gig Workers
Thus, the mill management gave a strong message to the workers that henceforth no resistance against its policy would be brooked. Before accepting the jobs workers had to sign a statement in which they declared that they had participated in an illegal strike, and they would henceforth refrain from agitation and not cause trouble in future. Left with little choice workers were compelled to sign the statement without even having the opportunity to read it.
The penalising of the mill workers for participating in the 1982-83 strike was, as Dr B.R. Ambedkar had said in 1938, short of making the worker a slave. And slavery is, Ambedkar stated further, nothing else but involuntary servitude. Following the 1982-83 strike, the Mumbai mill workers found themselves in a state of involuntary servitude.
Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar delivering a speech . Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The attempts by the state to term strike illegal under some conditions goes back to the introduction of the Bombay Industrial Disputes (BID) Act by the provincial government in 1938. In 1938, the then Bombay provincial government led by the Congress party introduced the BID Act which sought to curb workers right to organise industrial actions. The BID Act was opposed by various labour organisers which culminated in the successful organisation of a one-day strike in 1938 by Ambedkars Independent Labour Party.
The Socialists, Communists and other unions supported the strike. As a result, the state did not pursue the legislation. However, the Congress-ruled state later introduced the Bombay Industrial Relations (BIR) Act in 1947 whereby, as the scholar Hub van Wersch puts it, did not forbid strikes de jure but the conditions which have to be fulfilled before a lawful strike can take place amount to a virtual ban on strikes.
Also read: Lohia, Ambedkar and Bahujan Unity: How the 2022 UP Elections Are Turning the Clock Back
As a result, the cumulative effect of the whole structure of conciliation, adjudication and arbitration amounts to a de facto ban on strike. Moreover, the Congress appointed its trade union the RMMS as the sole representative union and bargaining agent for the textile industry and made it difficult for other unions to get rid of it.
During the 1982-83 strike, the Datta Samant led union was able to dislodge the representative union but the state agencies, both the bureaucracy and the judiciary, ensured that the RMMS retained its position. As a result, after the strike was put down by the state and mill owners, the RMMS became aggressive towards the strikers and penalised them for participating in the industrial action.
It is probably this reason that a section of mill workers constantly evokes that the 1982-83 strike was never officially called off. For the workers, the strike symbolised their whole struggle for emancipation, and given the fact they were pushed into involuntary servitude, it continues for them even today.
Spatial transformation of Girangaon
The failure of the 1982-83 strike paved the way for the spatial-economic transformations of Girangaon, which broadly covers the Parel and neighbouring areas, which subsequently had broader social and political implications for the citys working classes and labouring poor.
Cotton green mills, c. 1910 in front of the Taj Mahal Hotel, Colaba. Photo: Public domain
During the strike, the majority of the private mill owners had sub-contracted cloth production to Bhiwandi, the power loom centre on the outskirts of Mumbai. Therefore, the mill owners were less keen on running the mills after the strike was over. Citing the losses their business incurred during the strike, the mill owners sought the states permission to sell a surplus portion of the mill lands in the real estate market to generate interest-free capital.
Despite workers opposition, the Maharashtra state eventually introduced the Development Control Regulations (DCR) 58 in 1991. For the first time, DCR 1991 permitted the mill owners to sell parts of mill lands in the real estate market for the revival of the textile mills and payment of workers dues. This provision was misused by several mill owners.
None of the mill owners who utilised the provisions of DCR 1991 invested their land sale profits in modernising the sick textile units and clearing workers dues. A few mills violated the norms entirely. For instance, the Phoenix Mills sought permission for workers recreation centres but instead constructed an expensive commercial bowling alley and mall. Given the violations of DCR 1991, the Maharashtra government further amended the DCR 58 in 2001. The DCR 2001 permitted the mill owners to use the entire mill land for the non-industrial purpose.
This decision paved the way for the eventual closure of the textile mills most of which were over a century old. The pressures of the real estate market, an ever-growing service sector economy and to cater to the necessities of the citys elites, the upper-middle classes and the new middle class also hastened the factory closures. These processes have radically transformed the working-class district, spatially and economically, which in turn has led to the dissolution of the twin character of the city whereby the citys elite occupied the southern part, and the working classes held the central part of the city with its distinct character.
For instance, Lower Parel, an area identified with the working classes, is now renamed Upper Worli to create a new sense of belonging of the space for the new middle class. This making of the city anew through gentrification has gradually pushed a large section of the working classes and the lower middle classes from the central parts of the city to the extreme suburbs or even their own villages.
Phoenix Mills, Parel, which is now a shopping mall. Photo: Rakesh Krishna Kumar/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Thus, the transformation of Girangaon, as a part of remodelling Mumbai into a world-class city, has resulted in the shrinking of the already limited space for the working classes and labouring poor.
Since the late 1980s protests by the working classes in Mumbai became increasingly weaker in staking their claims. As industrial actions from the late 1980s and 1990s reveal that while workers protest did attract solidarity from the artists, writers and leaders of opposition parties (in some cases ruling party too), it did not translate into the working classes occupying centre stage in politics.
The disastrous outcome of the 1982-83 strike, thus, not only resulted in working classes losing their rights and privileges earned through various decades of struggles but it heralded the unmaking of kaamgarachi or shramikanchi (labourers) Mumbai. This journey of Mumbai as a labourers city began during the sustained industrial actions carried out by the mill workers during 1928-29. These strikes brought together various strands with the mill workers and strengthened the social and cultural institutions that had their roots in the late 19th century social and economic development of Mumbai.
It is this idea of a labourers city that was rapidly dismantled following the failure of the 1982-83 strike. Since 2006, while the ex-millworkers have reorganised on the housing question and have been successful to a certain extent the unmaking of the organised workforce is now complete, and the claims of the working classes over cityscapes are no longer recognised, a clear indication of a near-complete unmaking of Mumbai as a labourers city.
Today the situation is such that the history of the significance of the textile industry and the contribution of the workers for the development of Mumbai city is on the verge of being wiped out from the public memory.
Sumeet Mhaskar teaches at the Jindal School of Government and Public Policy, O.P. Jindal Global University. He is currently finalising his book manuscript on Mumbai mill workers responses to joblessness.
Continued here:
- Why are Jamaicans forced to live in poverty? - Jamaica Gleaner - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- The ultimate price - The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Cornyn, Cruz lead another GOP delegation on border tour of RGV - Brownsville Herald - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Landworkers' Alliance Report: Debt, Migration, and Exploitation - Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants - October 29th, 2023 [October 29th, 2023]
- Searching for wholeness in a nation fractured by capitalism and ... - Kansas Reflector - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Explainer: The State of Poverty and Slavery in Ecuador - JURIST - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- That AI You're Using Was Trained By Slave Labor, Basically - Futurism - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Bibb Announces Ten Winners of $5000 Restaurant Grants to ... - Cleveland Scene - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Sugarcane Burning Is a Plague on These Black Floridians Mother ... - Mother Jones - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- 18 of the Most Haunted Places in Alabama - AZ Animals - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Immigration Health Surcharge: equality impact assessment 2023 ... - GOV.UK - October 23rd, 2023 [October 23rd, 2023]
- Books The common cause - Morning Star Online - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Search warrants executed in alleged human trafficking and slavery ... - ACT Policing News - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Modern slavery and human trafficking: identifying and reporting ... - GOV.UK - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Report: Government needs better policies to help narrow economic equity gap - Yahoo News - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- New Zealand criminal investigation into systemic migrant worker ... - WSWS - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- What back to school means in the era of PragerU - Reckon - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- The Jacksonville Shooting and the Far Right - Left Voice - September 3rd, 2023 [September 3rd, 2023]
- Build support for today's union struggles The Militant - The Militant - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Work requirements wont affect the debt ceiling but they will stir up ... - The Boston Globe - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Ten Percent of North Koreans Forced To Work as Slaves: New Report - The New York Sun - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Anti-Slavery Commissioner visits the Coffs Coast - News Of The Area - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Former Server Says Customers Should Tip If They Ask Questions - The Daily Dot - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- New exhibition looks at the UK's role in indenture labour - ianVisits - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- UNITED WE STAND: THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW - Savannah Tribune - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- No, MLK Was Not a Christian Nationalist - Word and Way - June 2nd, 2023 [June 2nd, 2023]
- Fact check: Tipping began amid slavery, then helped keep former Black ... - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Slavery - Wikipedia - December 28th, 2022 [December 28th, 2022]
- Social class - Wikipedia - December 23rd, 2022 [December 23rd, 2022]
- Author Ibram X. Kendi speaks in Portland on legacy of slavery and the tipped wage - Press Herald - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- As a Nation, We are Doomed to Fail if the 'Original Sin' of the Past is not Reconciled in the Present - CT Examiner - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Lincolnshire car wash owners handed 10-year slavery order - Lincolnshire Live - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- "Under The Banner of King Death" puts pirates in their place in the history of workers' rights - Boing Boing - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Forrest Hylton | To the Lighthouse LRB 18 October 2022 - London Review of Books - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Aussie Brands Among Most Improved in 2022's Ethical Fashion Report But There's Still a Long Way To Go - Broadsheet - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- DC voter guide: 2022 election what you need to know - WTOP - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Exploring the Fault Lines in Mental Health Discourse: An Interview with Psychologist Justin Karter - Mad in America - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Iran: 'Society has risen to overthrow the Islamic Republic' - Green Left - October 19th, 2022 [October 19th, 2022]
- Slavery by any name is wrong: the push to end forced labor in prisons - The Guardian US - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Abortion, Marijuana, Slavery: 11 Themes to 2022 Ballot Measures - The Epoch Times - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Visions of Progress tells tales of two Charlottesvilles, Black and white - Bristol Herald Courier - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Miss Malini's job advert puts spotlight back on 'exploitative bosses' and a 'pittance' as salary - Moneycontrol - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- As Hurricane Ian Threatens Florida's Southwest Coast, What's Happening On The Ground - KPCC - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Truths about student debt, college costs, and corporate freeloading on the backs of students. - Daily Kos - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- The Kohinoor, Cullinan and the enduring demand for reparations across the colonial world - The Indian Express - October 2nd, 2022 [October 2nd, 2022]
- Divine Politik: The rise of robots should be the downfall of capitalism The Daily Free Press - Daily Free Press - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Stop romanticizing the lives of 1950s housewives - Halifax Examiner - September 14th, 2022 [September 14th, 2022]
- Domestic workers, long excluded from labor protections, call for codified rights - The 19th* - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Pierre Poilievre Claims He's a Friend of the 'Working Class'. He's Spent Years Attacking Canadian Workers. - PressProgress - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Stockard on the Stump: Governor declares he didn't violate the Little Hatch Act Tennessee Lookout - Tennessee Lookout - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- How Central American immigrants played a vital role in the U.S. labor - Fast Company - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - People's World - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- How FrontLine Farming Is Using Land to Grow Food and Heal Generational Trauma - 5280 | The Denver Magazine - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Queen Elizabeth II Reigned For 70 Years: Here Are The 10 Longest-Reigning Kings And Queens Of The UK - Forbes - September 11th, 2022 [September 11th, 2022]
- Ballot initiatives to watch in 2022 midterms, from abortion to slavery - USA TODAY - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- 10 Songs That Deal with Labor Rights and Hating Your Job - MetalSucks - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Conflict and modern slavery: the investment perspective - Schroders - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The Santa Cruz County boom town that went BOOM - The Mercury News - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- This Labor Day, buy produce grown only on farms that respect workers rights - The Hill - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- The unity imperative: Lessons for building the anti-fascist alliance - Communist Party USA - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Agency visits US to share efforts to end fisher abuse - - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- High income tax in PNG is a disincentive - POST-COURIER - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- For women of color in care work, racial and economic inequities abound, report shows - The Boston Globe - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Opinion | Behind the Rise in Union SupportAnd the Challenge Ahead - Common Dreams - September 7th, 2022 [September 7th, 2022]
- Slavery and Trafficking Risk Order imposed on Lincolnshire car wash owners - Forecourt Trader - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Opinion | The Tide Is Turning: US Congress Finally Considers a National Domestic Workers Bill of Rights - Common Dreams - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Edited Transcript of ADH.AX earnings conference call or presentation 22-Aug-22 1:30am GMT - Yahoo Finance - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Conservatives Explain Why They Are Preparing For A Civil War - The Onion - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- 10 Black Millionaires Who Got Busted By The IRS For Failure To Pay Taxes - Moguldom - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- 34 Great Records You May Have Missed: Spring/Summer 2022 - Pitchfork - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Amazon Hit by Strikes Across the Globe - Novara Media - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- The Past, Present, and Future of Work - YES! Magazine - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- National Trust members: get ready to choke on your carrot cake - The Guardian - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Lost Yet Connected in Time: Brown, Peltier, Melaku-Bello, Abu-Jamal, and Assange - LA Progressive - August 23rd, 2022 [August 23rd, 2022]
- Mondelz commits to living wage for cocoa farmers and invests in education programmes for children - ConfectioneryNews.com - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Opinion | The Supreme Court Has Too Much Power and Liberals Are to Blame - POLITICO - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Breaking the stranglehold of speculative property ownership | interest.co.nz - Interest.co.nz - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Why fashion should act now to legislate living wages in the supply chain - Drapers - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- Georgia's six-week abortion ban goes Into effect, an attack on... - Liberation - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]
- 10 years on, what is the true legacy of the London 2012 Olympics? - Metro.co.uk - July 27th, 2022 [July 27th, 2022]