PROBLEMS OF COLONIAL LABOUR: A CASE STUDY OF THE CONSERVANCY WORKERS OF MADRAS CORPORATION IN THE PRE-UNION DAYS 1885-1920*

C. RAMACHANDRAN and G. D. ANANDA VIJAYAKUMARI

The conservancy of the city is one of the most important responsibilities of a municipal administration. The Corporation of Madras imported low-caste Telugu speaking people from the neighbouring districts to do this job. Their conditions of work and existence were deplorable. Their wages were very low, hence, they had to supplement their regular income by private scavenging. The similarity of their work, along with the fact that all the workers belonged to the same castes and linguistic groups and inhabited the same residential quarters (cheries, in Tamil), gave them a sense of cohesion unmatched by the other sections of the working class in the pre-union days. This paper studies the response of the Corporation and the colonial state to a situation where the workers could hold their own.

Dr. C. Ramachandran, Assistant Professor and Mrs. G. D. Ananda Vijayakumari, Research Scholar, are both in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

Scavenging and handling of human excreta is universally regarded as the most degrading of all jobs. The need for the disposal of waste and rubbish in the Indian cities and villages required a set of people to do this lowly but essential work, and those who performed this were categorised as untouchables. They carried on their work with considerable difficulties, both social and economic. Mahatma Gandhi and several workers, including Dr. Ambedkar, tried to awaken the country's social conscience to the condition of this class of workers, but the social institution of untouchability continues. Even among these groups, very little improvement can be seen in the lot of the scavengers, as they continue to perform the traditional unclean work. Though in general, much research on labour has been done, there has hardly been any work on the history of the scavenging people. This paper seeks to fill in this gap in labour history. It examines the employment of scavengers by the Corporation of Madras—their social position, the mode of recruitment, the nature of their work, the conditions of social existence, their economic position and their response to the adverse conditions in the pre-union days. The history of Madras started with the coming of the English in the middle of the 17th century. In the year 1639, Francis Day of the landed there in search of a site for establishing a factory. The area was a cloth producing centre and the cloth produced here was cheaper than that produced in Armagon in Andhra (Srinivasachari, 1939:1-5). By 1654, Fort St. George was built. Around it, homes for the English settlers and a church were built and it was called 'White Town'. To the north of the fort was the new settlement inhabited by the Indians which was commonly referred to as the 'Black Town' (Chandrasekaran, 1956: 98). In course of time the village of Madras had grown into a city by integrating into its fold the neighbouring villages. The city of Madras received the first Charter of incorporation in 1687, the Charter being granted by the King of , and passed under the

*The authors are grateful to Dr. D. Veeraraghavan for the very valuable comments and criticism on the draft of this paper. However, only the authors are responsible for the views expressed in this paper. 108 C. Ramachandran and G. D. Ananda Vijayakumari common seal of the East India Company. (Neetakanta Sastri, 1957: 67-69). By this Charter, a corporation was established, composed of Indians and some Englishmen. The corporation was empowered to decide petty cases and to levy rates upon the inhabitants and to build schools, a town hall and a jail. But before its creation, the Governor of the East India Company made arrangements for the upkeep and maintenance of Madras city (Chandra Sekaran, 1947:99). It was when Governor Streynsham Master was in power (1678-81) that the first serious attempt was made at the conservancy of the streets. (G.O. No. 840, L & M 14-5-1917). The work of conservancy was entrusted to an official designated as 'scavenger' and the first scavenger was John Figaria (Balasundaram, 1958:106-107). Governor Streynsham Master wanted to levy a small tax on the house owners for the upkeep of the town. But when the inhabitants vehemently protested, this move was given up (Coats, 1915: 7-8). When the municipal Government of Madras was formed in 1687 by a Charter of the East India Company, it was decided to transfer the taxes to the Corporation, subject to the condition that the conservancy of the city should be managed by the Corporation. But unfortunately, the Corporation made no serious attempt to organise the work of keeping the town clean, due to the fact that the Corporation had no revenue, and it could not act freely without the counsel of the Governor.

Many legislations were enacted from time to time to increase the powers of the Municipal Government of Madras. In the year 1885, the Health Department was created by the Madras City Municipal Act of 1884, with a Sanitary Inspector as its head. He was entrusted with the task of maintaining the conservancy arrangements of the city of Madras. In order to provide an efficient and regular removal of rubbish, night soil and sullage water, the city of Madras was divided into divisions of different proportions. Each division was under the control of a Sanitary Inspector who was given an assistant called Process Server, and he had under him a certain number of peons, coolies, carts and drivers. Each division was again divided into sections, each section under a peon who was supposed to be responsible for supervising the work of the carts and coolies in his section (Lakkraju Pantulu, L, 1941: 753). There were several thousands of men and women working to keep the city free from the dangers of filth and silt.

Upto 1890, the conservancy work of the city of Madras was wholly entrusted to the contractors. From 1890-91 onwards, the Corporation of the city of Madras started regularly employing labourers on its own, although the supply of bullocks, carts and drivers continued to be provided by private contractors (G.O. Nos. 255-256, L & M 28.2.1891). !n the year 1905, the Madras Corporation established three depots, and by 1908, the entire work of cleaning and the upkeep of the city of Madras came to be managed departmentally (G.O. Nos. 2390-91, L & M 17.11.1907).

Throughout the early period, right up to the close of the 19th century, the conservancy work of the City Corporation seemed to have suffered a great deal due to the scarcity and non availability of labour. As the work of scavenging was considered socially degrading, the workers of Madras were not ready to do this kind of job. Hence, the Corporation had to import labourers from the Telugu speaking districts of . Even amongst them, only people belonging to certain castes, namely the Chuckleys, Yanadies, Naickens, Ooddons, Somaries and Obberavas were traditionally willing to take up this work. Further, among these castes, particular sub-castes undertook only specific kinds of work. For Problems of Colonial Labour 109 example, drivers of the carts transporting night soil and garbage, street sweepers, clearers of latrines for men and women, were all Chuckleys. Side coolies belonged to the caste of Naickens and Ooddons. Box cart drivers and box cart men were Somaries and Naikens. Obberavas generally worked in garbage depots and trenching grounds (Coats, 1915: 39). This led at times to a considerable scarcity of men to do specific tasks. This scarcity became worse due to the fact that the same workers were much in demand to do similar work privately within the city, for example in the harbour, cotton mills and mercantile firms. Some of the private employers paid them better wages than the Corporation. Moreover, such coolies were also needed in other places, like Burma, where they could earn more money for less work (G.O. No. 1460 L & M, 25.10.1893).

The scarcity and non availability of labourers locally, made the Corporation enlist conservancy workers from the neighbouring regions. In 1894, an overseer was sent to Nellore and he travelled over the district to obtain coolies for the Corporation. In the same year, the Administration Medical Officer, Central Province, was approached for the possibilities of recruiting labourers for this purpose. In the year 1902, also, subordinate officials were sent out of Madras, in search of coolies for conservancy work. Even in the year 1913, the situation had not changed much. Private contractors were sent up-country with powers to advance money to workers, so as to induce them to take up the work in the city. The collector of Ganjam was sounded on the possibility of securing Oriya labour for Corporation service. In the same year, the Chief Superintendent and a Sanitary Inspector were sent to Nellore, Guntur and North Arcot districts to recruit labour. In 1915, a permanent labour recruitment depot was established in Nellore but, as the results were unsatisfactory, the project was abandoned after 3 months. The scavengers recruited by the Corporation in this period were not committed to their jobs. During the seasons for agricultural work many of the scavengers left their jobs to do sowing, transplanting or harvesting (G.O. No. 1471-1471 A, L & M 16.10.1894). This resulted in the seasonal scarcity of hands, which the bureaucracy found very difficult to overcome. Whenever the Corporation thought in terms of tightening its control over the scavengers, they were faced with the prospect of all the scavengers abandoning their work and returning to their villages as a protest. So the Corporation could not enforce the rules as strictly as the other employers did. This situation improved slightly after 1916. The scavengers got used to the mechanical performance of their work. Many of the offsprings of the first generation of scavengers, came to be inducted into this work. By then, the practice of particular sub-castes doing specific work within the Health department also slowly disappeared.

Why did the scavengers migrate to work in the city when they had their agriculture to attend to in their villages? In most cases, they came to the city in search of work, only when there was a failure of monsoons. (G.O. No. 840, L & M 14.5.1917). The absence of the 'scavenging castes' in the city of Madras attracted the lower caste agricultural workers to take up the job. Moreover, the scarcity of work and the growth of population, which automatically reduced the resources available to everybody in the region, forced the labourers to migrate to urban areas. Thus, it was more the push factor, than the attraction of new work in the city, that compelled many of the scavengers to migrate to the city.

These migrant workers, of the Telugu speaking region, were engaged by the Corporation of Madras in street conservancy, incinerators, rubbish, depots, night 110 C. Ramachandran and G. D. Ananda Vijayakumari soil depot and trenching grounds. The condition of work varied from section to section in the Health department.

Street Conservancy The worker had to remain at work from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the morning and from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the evening. They had to be present punctually at 6 o' clock when the muster roll was taken by the Conservancy Inspector. Even a sight delay resulted in their being marked absent. They swept the roads, collected the rubbish and kept them on the road sides. These heaps were removed by the bullock carts or trollies (Government of Tamil Nadu, 1978: 72). The rubbish removed by the carts or trollies were collected at the incinerators and burnt. In 1911, 436 male and 51 female workers were employed by the Corporation of Madras in street conservancy (Budget Estimates 1911-12: 42-43). This figure included the workers employed to maintain the public lavatories also.

Incinerators There were two big incinerators; one for the north range and the other, for the south range. Besides these, temporary small incinerators were also used to burn the rubbish. The ashes produced were used to reclaim the low lying areas in the city of Madras. At the incinerators, the coolies attended to the collection of combustible matter by raking, screening and separating loose earth and other non-combustible matter from the rubbish, and then consigned the rubbish to the furnace box of the incinerators. When the rubbish was not removed to an incinerator, it was deposited at a rubbish depot, otherwise known as the dumping ground. Each such depot was provided with a superintendent and a number of coolies. The workers were required to be present at 8 a.m. in the morning and 3 p.m. in the evening. They had to stay back till the work was finished by 12 noon and 6 or 6.30 p.m. in the evening Lokkraju Pantulu, 1941 : 760). In the year 1911, 35 male workers were employed in the two big incinerators (G.O. No. 5181, L & M 12.4.1911).

Conservancy of Night Soil Before the introduction of the flushout system of latrines in Madras, a large number of men and women were employed for the collection and removal of human excreta. There were two kinds of latrines: the public latrines, which were maintained by the workers engaged in the street conservancy, and the private latrines, for which house owners or tenants had to make their own arrangements for the removal of night soil (G.O. No. 1678, L & M 1.9.1913). The Corporation latrines were cleaned both in the morning and evening. The workers were to present themselves at 6 a.m. in the morning and 3 p.m. in the evening and were expected to be present in their posts till 10 a.m. in the morning and 5 p.m. in the evening. They collected the filth, cleaned, washed and disinfected the latrines and their surroundings. They kept the buckets loaded and ready for the carts or lorries that removed the night soil and also assisted in loading them.

Disposal of Night Soil All night soil collected was taken to the places of final disposal which were of two kinds; pail depots and trenching grounds. Problems of Colonial Labour 111

Pail Depots These were constructed close to the sewage pumping station where the night soil was liquified and poured into the sewers and carried away (G.O. No. 351, L & M 3-3-1919). The coolies had to give muster at 9 a.m. in the morning and 3 p.m. in the evening and were required to be present till 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. respectively.

Trenching ground The trenches which were filled with night soil, were about two feet deep. Night soil was sold as manure after six months. The male and female coolies were expected to work from 7.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m. with an interval of two hours. In 1911, 87 male and 39 female workers were employed in the disposal of night soil. The conservancy workers had to work seven days in a week. They had no weekly or religious holidays. While the entire city of Madras celebrated its festivals, the scavengers were required to be at work in the interest of public health. Also, their jobs were not made permanent. They could be dismissed at any time, at the wishes of the sub-officials. As they were kept temporary, for years together, there was no chance of promotion, though they had put in 10 to 15 years of service. The conservancy workers who formed the lowest cadre in the corporation service, were put under the immediate control of peons. The scavengers never felt happy about the peons. They complained bitterly about the bribe they had to pay to the peons initially for getting into the service. As everybody was kept temporary for years together, in order to retain his job over a period of time, the sweeper had to give the peon a regular mamool (bribe) (C. of M.F. No. 549, H.D., 10-6-21). As most of the scavengers employed by the Corporation did private scavenging, they had to bribe the peon, in order to get away with this violation of rule. After the muster, when the conservancy overseer was out of the way, the peons allowed the scavengers to attend to private work. As there was no leave eligibility for the scavengers, and since they were employed as temporary hands, they had to pay some money to the peons on returning to work after a period of absence. Thus, the peons, like the jobber in the textile industry had considerable power to cause trouble to the conservancy workers, who would not quite fall in line.

The wages of the scavengers were abysmally low. When the conservancy of the city was in the hands of the contractors, a male scavenger received five rupees eight annas and five pies and a female scavenger two rupees three annas and eight pies per month in the year 1889 (G.O. No. 488M, L & M 25-5-1887). At about the same time in Bombay a male sweeper received Rs. 9 and a female sweeper received Rs. 6 per month (Masselos, 1982:101-139). Even after the contract system was abolished by the Corporation, there was little improvement in the wage level of the conservancy workers. As a matter of fact, in 1892, the male scavenger received five rupees eight annas and the woman received three rupees per month less than what they received in the contract system (G.O No. 547, L & M 29-3-1893). In the year 1892 the fact that the wages were very low was accepted even by the Corporation itself. This rate of wage continued upto 1902 when an increase of one rupee per month was granted by the Corporation (G.O. No. 1056, L & M 1-9-1902). Again, in 1908, the Corporation gave an increase of eight annas to the conservancy worker per month, as therewere a sharp increase in the price of consumer articles. This rate of wage continued till the end of the First World War. An attempt has been made to estimate the income of the scavenger of the Madras Corporation and compare him with his own caste men 112 C. Ramachandran and G. D. Ananda Vijayakumari employed in the private firms in the year Circa 1914 (G.O. No. 2781, Law General 3-10-1924).

It will be seen in the table that the scavengers employed by the Corporation of Madras were paid a considerably lower wage when compared with the workers doing similar work in the private industries. If one accepts the fact that the scavengers did a degrading and obnoxious job, as an economic compensation at least, they were entitled to get better pay. The take-home amount even less than the wages received, as a considerable portion of their wags were deducted as fines for various offences such as absenteeism, coming late for muster, misbehaviour on the part of the worker or being found doing private work (C of M.F. No. 1165, H.D. 20-11-20). The repeated pleas of scavengers for increase of wages and the reduction of fines met with unsympathetic response from the bureaucracy. They contended that the scavengers family formed not only a social unit, but also an economic unit, as both male and female members were employed by the Corporation of Madras (Council Proceedings, 26th Jan 1926). The institution of private scavenging developed in the city due to the fact that in the pre-flushout days, the lavatories in individual houses were required to be kept clean by house owners. But the Corporation did not assume this responsibility, contending that the city was too vast and the financial resources were inadequate (G.O. No. 905, L & M, 12-6-1891). In the absence of any other set of people to do private scavenging, as it happened in Bombay, the Corporation scavengers took up this work. The conservancy workers viewed certain localities exclusively as their own domain of operation, and refused to work along with any fresh hands if they were inducted against their wishes. When they absented themselves from the city for long spells to undertake agricultural operations in their villages, they leased out the right of cleaning the lavatories to other persons who, in order to make good the money they had given to obtain the right', demanded relatively high wages. (New India, 24 Apr. 1923). The house owners had their own set of problems vis-a-vis the scavengers. Though fully aware of the fact that the nature of the work involved was so essential to the upkeep of the city, the house owners felt that the scavengers demanded arbitrarily high wages. In addition to the wages, the scavengers demanded small gifts and/or money during traditional Hindu festivals to augment their income. An unwilling house owner was faced with the unenviable prospect of uncleaned lavatories for days together (G.O. No. 876,L & M. 1-6-1909). Further, the scavengers did not observe any fixed timings for cleaning the toilets. This practice often led to the refuse being deposited in street corners or flushed into the open drains. On its part, the Corporation too had its own problem, which mainly revolved around the scavengers Problems of Colonial Labour 113 doing private scavenging in duty hours. Thus the practice of private scavenging especially in the pre-flushout days made the position of the house owners and the Corporation very weak. Aware of the helpless predicament of the house owners vis-a-vis the scavengers, the Corporation and the Government made some efforts to curtail the power of the scavengers, if possible to eliminate the system of private scavenging altogether. But these efforts did not meet with much success. Almost all Corporation scavengers did private scavenging to supplement their income, and any effort on its part to prevent this, the Corporation feared, would result inevitably in a strike.

The Government of Madras decided, in March 1889, to look at the possibilities of taking over the private conservancy (G.O. No. 344, L & M, 26-3-1889). Accordingly, the Corporation set up a Conservancy Committee which submitted its report on 12th July, 1889. The report was of the opinion that private scavenging could never be successfully carried out in Madras under the existing conditions by the Corporation. The private scavengers formed a trade union of their own and were fully cognizant of their power as labourers of a very undesirable form of labour (G.O. No. 1441, L& M, 8-9-1891). But the Governor was not satisfied with the arguments of the Corporation for its proposal of taking over the private conservancy and he felt that it could do little to better the conditions. The provincial Government even considered the levying of a small tax on the rate payers to provide funds to the Corporation to take over private scavenging (G.O. No. 1133 L & M 18-7-1891). But the Corporation was not very enthusiastic about such a proposal, for it would definitely be unpopular with the rate payers (G.O. No. 936, L & M, 27-5-1892). The efforts of the Corporation to introduce certain changes in the system met with stiff resistance from the workers. In the year 1890, G.M.J. Moore, President of the Municipal Commission (Madras Corporation) proposed to alter the routes of certain conservancy carts in one division as an experiment. The sweepers whose transfer was involved in this move, demonstrated, alleging that they were being moved away from the locality in which their relations, the private scavengers were located. The president was compelled to abandon his plan to change the route of the carts fearing a general strike by the conservancy workers of the Corporation (G.O. NO. 1441, L & M, 8-9-1891).

In 1890, the Government of Bombay passed the Municipal Servants Bill, which tightened the control over certain classes of municipal servants, whose functions intimately concerned the public health or safety, which included employees like scavengers, firemen and lamp lighters. As per this act, workers were required to give two months notice of their intent to resign, or else, had to get the written permission of the Commissioner or his officers or produce health certificates, otherwise, the penalty for the wilful breach of duty was forfeiture of pay and three months imprisonment or a fine or both (G.O. No. 936, L & M 27-5-1892). The Corporation of Madras felt such labour laws were necessary to enable the executives to punish the leaders when strikes occurred, and to prevent them from running away to cultivate their lands or to take up sundry work that would get them higher wages for a short period. A committee was established on 8th October, 1891 to consider the possibility and desirability of legislating a similar measure in Madras too. This committee recommended a law on the lines of the Bombay Municipal Servants Act, and it also suggested the dropping of the proposal of the Government of Madras to levy a special scavenging cess (Council Proceedings,1-8-1892). But the Government refused to approve the above laws, as the laws were unpopular and it limited the sweeper's freedom of movement. Besides, it felt the laws would enhance the cost of 114 C. Ramachandran and G. D. Ananda Vijayakumari scavengers and would increase the difficulty of obtaining them (G.O. No. 936, L & M, 27-5-1892). The very fact that the Corporation felt it necessary to introduce such a draconian law to restrict the power of its own employees, indicates how, being fully aware of the importance of the nature of their work in the life of the city, the scavengers, unlike other sections of the working class, succeeded to a great extent in imposing their own terms of work. In January, 1900, when N.Seshadri Raju of Kamaleeswaran Pettah, Madras, started a private conservancy agency, the scavengers and sweepers of the Madras city presented a petition to the Government of Madras to prohibit the service. But the Government refused to involve itself in the matter on behalf of the scavengers of Madras (G.O. No. 302, L & M, 6-3-1900). On the contrary, the bureaucrats of the Madras Corporation felt very happy about the introduction of an organised private conservancy agency, as it could relieve the city from the clutches of the scavengers. But as it turned out, even this private agency could not cover the whole city of Madras (Council Proceedings 20-8-1900). The total inadequacy of the scavenging services available for a large city as Madras continued till the Corporation introduced the concept of flushout latrines in the houses. To sum up, we can say, that the condition of the scavengers in this period was very deplorable. Their wages were very low, even below the level of their own employed in the private companies. In order to enhance their earnings, they had to do private scavenging, which was the prime cause of friction between the Corporation and the scavengers. They did a socially disfavoured and degrading job for which, however, they were not economically compensated. They were not given a subsistance wage and they were denied other benefits of a permanent employee like leave, retirement benefits, medical care and so on. But the scavengers were in a position to impose their own terms on the Corporation of Madras. In addition to the fact of being an essential service, peculiar factors like caste loyalties, certain castes discharging only certain types of work even within the conservancy department, and living in cheries gave them a sense of cohesion and solidarity unmatched by the other sections of the working class. This internal solidarity went a long way in preventing the Corporation from imposing unfair and unjust labour laws on them, restricting their private efforts and personal enterprise to augment the meagre wages. It is to the credit of the scavengers that all this happened much before the emergence of trade unionism.

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Abbreviations

G.O.N.: Government Order Number L & M: Local and Municipal Department Madras Corp. Code: Madras Corporation Code C of M F No.: Corporation of Madras File Number H.D: Health Department Council Proceedings: Madras Corporation Council Proceedings