The Long Haul - the Bombay Textile Workers Strike of 1982-83
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The Long Haul - The Bombay Textile Workers Strike of 1982-83 by Rajni Bakshi 2 Table of Contents Publisher's Preface .............................................................................................................................. 4 Author's Note ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1: Assessing the Odds ........................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER 2: Why Samant? ................................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 3: Why fight? ..................................................................................................................... 32 CHAPTER 4: The making of a stalemate ............................................................................................. 44 CHAPTER 5: Divide and lose .............................................................................................................. 53 CHAPTER 6: The Long Haul ............................................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER 7: All quiet on the east side? ................................................................................................. 72 CHAPTER 8: Agni Pareeksha .............................................................................................................. 79 CHAPTER 9: Death of a dream ............................................................................................................ 93 CHAPTER 10: Lessons ....................................................................................................................... 106 Epilogue ............................................................................................................................................... 118 Glossary ............................................................................................................................................... 125 3 Publisher's Preface The strike by the textile workers of Bombay (1982-3) was a momentous event. Its significance for the working class movement has perhaps not yet been adequately understood. This is in any way no simple task. The question will be debated by experts in analysis and action for quite some time. A contribution towards this process is a compilation of facts about the strike. Rajni Bakshi in this book presents the facts. Based on interviews, discussions and secondary sources she reconstructs the events as they took place and attempts to get at the forces and factors that lay behind the events. There would be no uniform agreement about her interpretations and conclusions. There would, however not be, we hope, any dispute over the facts and hence the book can become a basis for discussion. It is only fair to add that the views expressed are of the author and do not reflect the opinions of BUILD Documentation, Centre. BUILD Documentation Collective 4 Author's Note I first met textile workers in January 1982, to discuss not the strike but non-party political organisations in urban slums. It was immediately evident that for them the two were inseparable. The strike was an attempt to articulate and organise discontent with life in the mills and the larger socio-political reality through new and different means. It was easy, then, to share the sense of living in revolutionary times. Over the next two years I regularly met with numerous textile workers, particularly the small group I first met in January 1982, and attempted to understand their hopes, aspirations and reasons for struggling. From July 1982 onwards the accounts of these meetings were regularly published in The Telegraph, along with assessments of how the strike was progressing. Yet when the strike effectively ended in June 1983 and I wrote the last of several lengthy reports on the strike, too many questions remained unanswered. Moreover, the human saga of the struggle, so cursorily covered in journalistic reports, seemed in danger of being forgotten by all but those who actually suffered. From this grew the need for a book that recorded this saga and assessed its implications. Apart from utilising the notes on scores of interviews with workers and officials during the strike, I met with a cross-section of trade union leaders, mill owners and government officials to record how they viewed the strike in retrospect. I also consulted Dr. Samant's files containing correspondence and papers relating to the strike, and numerous books on trade unions and strikes in India. This book is not intended to be a clinically objective view of the strike or the textile industry and those who control it. It is the story of a search and struggle to realise certain aspirations and is thus necessarily subjective. The first draft of this book was completed in mid-1984. But the process of finalising the manuscript and publishing it was delayed for a variety of reasons. In spite of the delay I hope that this account will, in some limited way, be of use to those who want to understand the struggle of Bombay's textile workers. This book is a result of the inspiration, help, encouragement and opportunities provided by many people. I would like to thank: - M.J.Akbar and Ajay Kumar for giving me the opportunity to write extensively on the strike in The Telegraph. And Olga Tellis, my senior colleague, who gave me leave of absence to write the book and encouraged my work. - Harsh Sethi and the Indian Council of Social Science Research for a grant that funded the research. - Rajni Kothari, D.L.Seth, Smitu Kothari and Vijay Pratap and others at Lokayan who have helped me to better articulate the questions and guided the search for a deeper understanding of the political process. - BUILD, for publishing the book. - Sundeep Pendse for his help and encouragement. 5 - The friends at the Centre for Education and Documentation (CED) for always helping and encouraging. - Shirin Mehta, who painstakingly corrected the proofs. - Manjit Kriplani Madon, whose prodding first led me to contemplate this project. Vir and Malavika Sanghvi, whose support and. faith at crucial times has made this possible. Achin and Nita Mukherjee who bore with my endless agonizing and doubts and were consistently supportive. - My parents and family who believe in me even when we disagree. Without their love and encouragement this book could not have been written. - Above all and most importantly, to Gulab Gajarmal, Khandeo and Lata Shelke, K.P.Kamble and countless other textile workers and their families who gave me their time and confidence. It was the warmth with which they welcomed me into their homes, the candour with which they shared details about their lives, dreams and aspirations which made it imperative that their story be told. If in my telling of it the account lacks anything in sincerity, depth, accuracy or fairness it is due to my own failings, for which I hope they will forgive me. 6 Introduction A small crowd had gathered under the window of S.A.Dange's house in Dadar. But the crowd was not there to see or hear the original radical leader of Bombay's textile workers and father of the communist movement in India. All attention was focussed on a battered old truck sparsely decorated with posters of a fist defiantly jutting out of a factory chimney. The veteran firebrand was out of sight and an indeterminate mood seemed to prevail. But then a group of drum-beating and dancing men joined the gathering around the truck and immediately changed the atmosphere. The jubilation infused by these revellers peaked with the arrival of an air-conditioned white Fiat car with tinted glass windows. From the vehicle emerged a burly man. His smile was reticent but his manner was purposeful. All eyes shifted from the truck to this man, clad in white, striding slowly into the crowd. The cheering which started then reached a crescendo as the big, balding man hauled himself on to the truck. The balcony of Dange's flat was empty, the windows of his room, shut tight. Below, Dr. Datta Samant was in control. Soon he was leading the seemingly small gathering out of the small lane onto the broad Ambedkar road. The policemen, who had been gossiping in small groups at the street corner dispersed to fall into position and waited for the motley crowd to pass. First came the stragglers who had remained ahead of the truck. Behind the truck came a wide river of humanity which surpassed all expectations and bewildered even the cynics. Long after the truck, with Datta Samant triumphantly atop, had passed on to the main road this river continued to flow uninterrupted. It was January 18, 1984, and the defeat which was a painful reality was nowhere in sight. The morcha wending its way through Dadar and Parel towards Byculla was like a victory march. When the truck stood at the crest of the Parel flyover I turned back to look at the river of heads submerging the three-lane road and no end was in sight. Spread throughout the one lakh strong procession were self-willed cheer leaders, chanting the praises of Samant and celebrating the determination of the textile workers. S.K.Limaye, who had over five decades of experience in organising labour stood at the end of this river, apart but not aloof. “Unprecedented and remarkable.