From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks
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FROM TEXTILE MILLS TO TAXI RANKS Acknowledgements 7 Introduction 1 The Story 1 The Explanation 3 Organisation of the Book 5 1 Constructing Labour 7 Introduction 7 Class and Ethnicity 9 Overlapping Perspectives 20 Enmeshing Formations 22 2 Methodology 29 Introduction 29 Ethnicity and the Labelling of Groups 30 Developing a New Terminology 35 Reflexive Approaches 38 Identifying a Field and a Sample 41 Ethical Issues 44 Summary 45 3 Migration and Repercussion 48 Introduction 48 Migration Theory 49 Early Migration 51 Rural Context: Geography, Agriculture and Society 54 Historical Conduits 55 Mass Migration 58 Political History Post-1947 60 Mangla Dam and its Impact on Migration 61 Consequences of Mass Migration on Mirpur’s Economy and Society 64 Mirham and Oldpur 68 4 Textile Tours 72 Introduction 72 Lancashire, the Indian Sub-continent and Cotton Textiles 73 Decline of the Textile Industry in England 76 King Cotton - Oldham 79 Labour in Lancashire and Oldham 83 Migrant Labour 87 Routing Mills 93 5 Of Mills and Men 96 Introduction 96 Routes to Oldham 97 Routes to a Job 101 Organising Mill Work 105 The Night-shift in a Mill 107 Mills and Men 110 6 Of Men and Mills 113 Eid and Trips to (Azad) Kashmir/Pakistan 113 Union Membership and Participation 116 Interaction and Relationship at Work 119 Decline of Mills 124 Factors for Redundancy 125 7 Redundant not Despondent 131 Introduction 131 Initial Responses to Unemployment 132 Changes in Life Organisation 138 Family Commitments 143 Moral Change - Ways of Explaining the World 146 Work to Non-Work 149 8 TAKE-AWAY LIVES 151 Introduction 151 South Asian Entrepreneurship 151 Take-aways 157 The Maharaba 159 Relationships at Work 163 Self -employment or Survival ? 166 9 From Textile Mills to Taxi 169 Ranks 169 Introduction 169 Taxi Drivers and Taxi Rank Owners 170 Cabbing Work 175 Risky Business 180 From taxi ranks to.........? 183 10 Beyond Labour? 185 Introduction 185 Explanations 186 Narratives 190 Audiences 193 Appendix I 195 Profile Of Oldham’s (Azad) Kashmiri/Pakistani Population 195 Population 195 Economic Activity 196 Unemployment Data - by Age 198 Economic Profile of Oldham 199 Bibliography 200 Index 217 From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks Experiences of Migration, Labour and Social Change Virinder S Kalra Sociology, University of Leicester Acknowledgements Thanks to those who gave me birth and sustenance; mom and dad. Moving to my current support, the first and last, Tej. This particular story could not have been told if it were not for the financial support of ‘The British Cotton Growers Workers Welfare Fund’ and the insightful appointment made by Dr Roger Ballard. .In chronological order, but with equal thanks on many levels for multiple inputs, helps, and supports. To Raminder, Chris Pinney and Kitt Davis, for encouraging me on this misguided route. For initial meaning and motivation to the Panjab Research Group especially Ustad Darshan Singh Tatla, and to GurHarpal, Pritam, and Shinder. To Tariq, Shams, Adaalat, Mottu, Lalla, Tanveer and Cheema for food for my thoughts and my belly, inspiration and nights out. For making fieldwork sane: Shams, Mahme, Nighat, Rifat, the kids and the rest of that family (in its entirety). To Sanjay and John for providing much needed alternative academic work. For intellectually and socially listening to me moan and for putting up with me for five years, a special thanks to Sean. For giving any meaning to the academic exercise and returning the edge: Nilo, Kabir (and Shahina), Tarsem, Nusrat, Bilu, Manjit and kids. This book was partially written during a period of employment at Oldham Council and there is a long list of those who were around and provided ongoing help and information. Thanks to: Pasha, Julie, Chris H. and Chris P., Paul and Bruce, to Brian for another insightful appointment, and to Sarah for coping and Ed for lunches. The rest of the Policy Unit, especially Van, Dorotheeaa and Eileen (spooky) for putting up with all the grief. Outside of that gang , this book would not have been written without the on-going and continual support and co-operation of the many kakas and babas whose stories form the basis of the narrative. Introduction The Story Millionaires or beggars ? I wish the media would make up its mind.......Are we the scum of the earth, or have we really become the ‘new Jews’ (as someone recently described us)?.... The truth is, you can’t stereotype us...... At the end of the day, I’m afraid we’ll be whatever the media want us to be, when it suits them most.... (Eastern Eye, 21/6/96: p 9) This quote is from the weekly British Asian newspaper Eastern Eye. The commentator, Thuyafel Ahmed, was responding to a recent academic report on Britain’s ‘ethnic minorities’ derived from data in the 1991 Census. 1 Ahmed, expresses a concern about the socio-economic position of Asians in Britain and how this comes to be represented in the media, as either economically successful or deprived. In this book I share Ahmed’s wish that the ‘media would make up their mind,’ but apply it to the field of academic research on minorities in Britain. The occupational and economic status of racialised and ethnicised groups has attracted a great deal of research since the arrival of post-war migrants. Academic studies have, historically, focused on ‘British-Asians as beggars and not millionaires’ where deprivation and disadvantage have been the key terms in their description. Recently, however, there has been a shift in perspective with an increasing emphasis on minority success rather than failure. This issue has divided academic opinion in much the same way as Ahmed concludes for the media, with some hailing ‘Asians as the new Jews’ and others emphasising continuing deprivation and discrimination. By offering a historically grounded analysis, which details patterns of migration and settlement through the lens of income generation and employment, this book illustrates that it is not possible to simply ‘stereotype’ minorities in terms of success and failure. Contemporary academic studies on economic activity and South Asians in Britain have concentrated on self-employment and entrepreneurial business development. 2 As Cater and Jones point out: ‘Over the past decade or so, Asians have acquired an unshakeable reputation as entrepreneurs, a group whose future is that of the new Jews’ (1988: 182). Given this emphasis, it would not be too difficult to forget that the mass of South Asians came to Britain to work in her declining 1 2 From Textile Mills to Taxi Ranks manufacturing industries. Any move into self-employment by South Asians can therefore be usefully seen in the light of the historical transformations in the economy of Britain. The shift from a predominantly manufacturing economic base to one where services, in their many manifestations, constitute the dominant sector has resulted in far reaching and multiple social changes. These transformations have been keenly felt in the old industrial heartland of Britain, those places which, in the post-war years, have become settler areas for South Asian migrants. From textile mills to taxi ranks, is not only a metonym for the shift to a service sector economy but also literally presents a shift in place of work for many (Azad) Kashmiris/Pakistanis men in the North of England. This book is not a traditional ethnography about a group of people who are variously labelled as Pakistani, Kashmiri, Black, Muslims, yet it recognises the influence of that genre of writing. 3 It is about a group of people who have emotional, spiritual and material ties to the geographical district of Mirpur in the politically disputed territory of (Azad) Kashmir. It is not representative of those people who labelled themselves Pakistani in the 1991 census, nor is it meant to serve as a morsel of cultural difference for the avaricious appetite of post-modern consumer culture, though no doubt it will become entwined in that particular net. What is presented is an exploration of the way in which the old-fashioned, though nevertheless still substantive, issues of employment, work, income generation and economic status affect and are effected by a racialised group of people, who often closely related, now live for most of the time, in the town of Oldham in the North West of England. Simultaneously, it is also a history of the demise of the textile industry in Oldham and the structural changes in the economy of that town, the North West region and Britain as a whole. The issues of income generation, employment and unemployment as they relate to the working lives of a section of the Mirpuri/Pakistani ‘community’, now settled in Oldham, form the core narratives of this book. Stories of workers and industry, of home and abroad, of dreams and realities merge and entwine in the practices of everyday life. For purposes of clarity there are three broad processes under consideration: migration, labour/work and the effects of economic change. Migration from Mirpur has been a long-standing means of providing income for the residents of what was a peripheral area of the British empire and subsequently a disputed territory of independent Pakistan. In the 1960s, the demand for labour in the cotton textile mills of the North West of England attracted large numbers of South Asian male migrant labour. A combination of factors result in migration, such that from the mid-sixties up to the early eighties there was an increasing concentration of (Azad) Kashmiri/Pakistani male labour in the textile industry - both cotton and woollen- of the North of England. For many of these men their lives were consumed by working, Introduction 3 saving, and more working, occasionally relieved by trips to (Azad) Kashmir/Pakistan.