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|The formation of work culture: industrial labour in a North Indian City [1890s-1940s]
Le cas des ouvriers du coton à Kanpur
Résumé
Cet article analyse le processus à l’œuvre dans la formation d’une culture du travail, parmi les ouvriers du grand centre textile de Kanpur (Inde du Nord). Il remet en question certaines hypothèses avancées dans les études sur l’histoire du monde ouvrier en Inde. Celles de M.D. Morris soulignent l’importance des stratégies de la Direction et de ses calculs économiques dans l’organisation du travail de l’usine. Les ouvriers, soumis à une discipline, semblent ne prendre aucune part active dans l’application de ces stratégies disciplinaires. Dans une étude récente, D. Chakravarty s’écarte des analyses économistes et s’intéresse davantage au contexte culturel dans les fabriques de jute de Calcutta. La persistance d’une culture « précapitaliste » caractérisait le travail de ces fabriques. Les principes bourgeois de légalisme, les codes de l’entreprise, la réglementation des services étaient étrangers à un système obéissant à une tradition fondée sur la hiérarchie et l’inégalitarisme. Si Morris donne trop d’importance au rôle des stratégies directoriales dans sa définition de la culture à l’intérieur de l’usine, en revanche, Chakravarty ne considère que le rôle, pour lui prépondérant, de la culture pré-bourgeoise. De manière différente, Morris et Chakravarty nient tous les deux la part de la pratique de l’ouvrier et ses actes de résistance quotidienne pour restreindre l’autorité et la mainmise sur la culture à l’intérieur de l’usine.
Cet article cherche donc à souligner les liens qui se tissent entre les stratégies directoriales visant à modeler les comportements des ouvriers et la politique des syndicats qui renouvelle sans cesse la culture ouvrière. Sont examinés ici les différents processus qui ont structuré le travail de l’ouvrier de l’industrie ; les normes disciplinaires que la Direction a cherché à imposer ; les agents de contrôle pour l’application des règlements à la pratique quotidienne ; la redéfinition des règlements par les ouvriers, l’articulation de leurs propres notions des horaires et du travail et, enfin, le rôle des syndicats dans la définition et la légitimation de normes spécifiques de travail.
Texte intégral
- 1 See Joyce, ed., 1987; Kaplan & Koepp, eds., 1987; Reddy 1984.
- 2 Whipp, in Joyce, ed., 1987: 210-235.
- 3 These themes are elaborated in my forthcoming book, Work, Culture and Politics… (OUP).
1There is a recurring theme in many studies of labour in India: it is the theme of India’s difference with the West. These studies emphasize the persistence of pre-industrial work values, social institutions, community and rural ties in India, in contrast to the West where a rapid cultural transformation produced an industrial work culture. That there were marked differences in the processes of working-class formation in the West and India is true. But the nature of this difference has to be reconsidered. Recent writings on labour in America and Europe have seriously questioned linear notions of change in work habits and work discipline.1 Arguments about a working class increasingly infused with industrial time discipline and work values are being undermined. The emerging picture is a much more complex one. Multiple time reckoning Systems, multiple notions of work and leisure, multiple strategies of management and discipline prevailed in Europe.2 These were not just created by State régulations and managerial strategies. Work culture and work discipline were also constituted by workers through traditions built up at home and at the workplace. Ritual times and social times which punctuated work within the rural context continued to inform the ways in which time was defined by workers in the industrial context, and the way in which they conceived of their activities.3 Ambivalences, conflicts, heterogeneity within the emerging work cultures falsify attempts at simple contrasts between the work rhythms of the werstern and non-western worker. A comparative perspective which constitutes its objects of study by contrasting it to a historical other is thus problematic. For a change in our conception of the other would call into question the validity of the study.
2In this essay, I will try and analyse the process of formation of work culture amongst industrial workers in Kanpur – a major textile city of North India. Kanpur emerged as an industrial centre in the late 19th century, but it developed rapidly only in the post-war years. The artisans and pensants who formed the industrial labour force continued to retain their community ties and village links. The culture and traditions with which they came to the industrial city, in many ways shaped the world they lived and worked in.
3I attempt to examine here the various processes which structured the industrial worker’s experience of work: the disciplinary norms which managers sought to impose; the agencies of control which gave meaning to norms in everyday practice; the redefinition of rules by workers, the articulation of their own notions of time and work; and finally the role of trade-unions in defining and legitimizing specific norms of work.
Managerial strategies
4The rhetoric of discipline was important to the public discourse of managers. Rules and regulations expressed managerial attitudes to work/non-work, they defined how workers were to behave. Discipline ensured more than production efficiency; it was crucial to the constitution of managerial authority.
- 4 Ev. Bobooa, Indian Factory Commission 1890 (hence IFC). The practice of closing the gates on late-c (...)
- 5 Ev. IFC.
5Measures to ensure punctuality and restrict absences formed part of the strategy of creating committed workers. In the late 19th century, managers in Kanpur routinely complained that the workers lacked a notion of factory time. Fines could not ensure punctuality. It was only by physically barring late entry, by closing the gates at a fixed time that the stream of late-comers could be prevented.4 Those locked out lost a whole day’s wage. Rajab, a twelve years old boy employed in the Kanpur Jute Mills, preferred setting off to work soon after the first gong at 4 a.m., reaching an hour before the engines started.5
- 6 The practice of giving ‘forced leave’ became more common after the enforcement of the payment of wa (...)
- 7 Ev. Ghasita & Munir, Royal Commission of Labour, 1931 (hence RCL), iii: 2: 249; ev. United Province (...)
6Fines were commonly imposed to punish absences. Two-days pay was deducted for a day’s absence. In the early years of the industry especially, when mill jobs were not in demand, managers considered fines and not dismissals or warning notices, as an effective mode of discipline. Later, with an increase in the influx of labour to the city, dismissals, warning notices, and ‘forced leave’ became more common.6 Another way in which managements tried to exercise control over absenteeism and desertions by workers was by holding back wages.7
- 8 RCL iii: 1: 181.
- 9 KLIC Progs.
- 10 See ev. of the Kanpur Mazdur Sabha (hence KMS) KLIC Progs.
7Fines were also a mode of regulating the quality of work. Faulty produce and an output lower than the minimum specified was categorized as ‘bad work’ and punished with fines. Fines varied in different mills, from 5 per cent of a worker’s wages in some mills to 10 per cent in others.8 But ‘bad work’ was a category broad enough to allow a variety of interpretations. It was the unpredictability and erratic nature of these punishments which was resented by workers more than the fine itself. As Zawar Husain, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton, complained: ‘sometimes the bad cloth was not even shown to the worker and he realised only on the pay day that he had to suffer a deduction. This happened often.’9 In the 1930’s strike leaders were frequently charged for ‘bad work’. And this could lead to dismissals.10
- 11 Ev. Babooa, Elgin Mills, IFC.
- 12 Ibid.
8For child workers, commonly employed till the early twenties, fines obviously were not the best deterrent. Flogging was the usual punishment. When Babooa, a seven years old doffing boy returned after an absence, he was flogged. And this upset him more than the wages he lost. He sobbed for an hour in terror and pain.11 Shiv Audhar, a twelve years old boy working at the throstles, was never fined in his sixteen months at the Kanpur Cotton Mills, but he was beaten up by the mistri each time he broke ‘too many’ threads.12 But flogging was by no means confined to child workers; adults too were victims.
- 13 RCL II: 1, p. 180, KMS memorandum, KLIC Progs.
9There were various other rules regulating the general conduct of workers. Spitting on the walls, eating during working hours, smoking at unauthorised places were prohibited acts.13 While chewing tobacco or working with the fluff in the blow-room, it was quite common for workers to spit. For those in positions of authority the act had a different meaning; spitting by subordinates showed a lack of appropriate deference.
- 14 Leader, 25.10.1937.
10Managers tried to regulate mobility at the workplace by restricting movement between departments. Such rules became actually operative in periods when inter-departmental comraderie was seen as a threat. In certain periods, during the strikes of 1937-1938 for instance, there were stringent regulations against workers of one department being seen in another one. Nanhu, a weaver in the Swadeshi Mills, and Ram Singh, a piecer in the same mill, were both dismissed on this ground. Nanhu was seen talking to sizers, and Ram Singh was wandering amongst workers in the carding department.14
- 15 Pratap, 24.11.1919.
- 16 Ibid., 1.9.1919.
- 17 A chaprasi (peon) was posted outside the lavatory and no worker was allowed to spend more than 10-1 (...)
11Managerial attempts at control, in fact, touched workers’ bodies. The time spent in the lavatory during working hours was regulated by mill officiais. Such forms of control were obviously more severe in periods when the mills were busy, for example during the period of the First World War. Complaints about the severity of mill regulations were repeated by workers of several mills during the strikes of 1919. Workers of the Woollen Mills complained that a clerk was posted near the factory lavatory to keep track of time. Even a minute delay was fined.15 The workers of New Victoria Mills demanded the freedom to use the lavatory anytime of the day.16 There were similar protests by workers in 1937, again a period of labour militancy in Kanpur. Ramcharan, a worker in the Kanpur Textile Mills, complained that workers were not allowed to go to the lavatory after 4.30 p.m. and in his factory twenty-two workers were discharged for this offence.17
12The object of managerial strategy thus was to define work norms in a particular way. But the severity of rules varied from factory to factory, department to department, according to the pressures of production and on the inclinations of the super-vising authority. Factory discipline was tightened during the War period (1914-1918). Not only were working hours increased but the pressure of war work led to doser supervision over workers and a greater intolerance for any kind of slackness.
Power at the workplace
- 18 Sadasukh, a head mistri in the Elgin Mills took a cut from workers every month saying he had orders (...)
13Discipline within mill departments was enforced through mistris (jobbers). Mistris were themselves workers, subject to the authority of managers, often having to invoke the saheb’s orders (saheb ka hukm) to exercise their authority.18 But the wide discretionary powers in matters relating to leave, fines, absence, etc. allowed mistris a space within which they could exercise a sway. If mistri authority was in a way contingent on the sanction of managers, managerial control was crucially dependent on the power exercised by mistris at the workplace. However the relationship between the two was one of both interdependence and conflict. The influence of mistris over workers was strengthened through community and regional affinities between them. Their power operated through codes which were different from those regulating relationships between managers and workers. Managerial authority did not legitimise itself through similar extra-workplace sanctions.
- 19 Cf. Morris 1965.
- 20 Oral ev. Johnson, Muir Mills, Indian Factory Labour Commission (hence IFLC) (1908): 206.
14An argument commonly put forward is that the mistri System provided an inexpensive mechanism for supervision.19 Managements themselves admit how investment in supervision was not worthwhile: ‘If they had an amount of supervision which a cotton mill could not ordinarily afford, the outturn would no doubt be higher that without that supervision, but not sufficiently so as to compensate for the extra expenditure.’20 Disciplinary authority was therefore delegated to mistris.
15This explanation suggests that the employer’s choice was guided by market considerations alone; and that the power of the mistri was ‘delegated’ and ‘subcontracted’ by the management. There is a problem with such an argument. Mistri power was not simply derived power; and the mistri System was not sustained by economic logic alone. The influence mistris commanded among workers forced recognition from managements. Workers shared community bonds with mistris, were indebted to mistris for their jobs, and often for loans and lodging. A sense of obligation sustained submission and respect.
- 21 Report on the supply of labour to the United Provinces and Bengal, UP Revenue Progs., A, May 1906, (...)
16Mistris also served as mechanics or fitters in mill departments. Their technical skills added to their bargaining strength. In the early years of the industry when new mills were poaching for skilled workers, it was common for mistris who were unhappy with the management to shift to another mill along with their followers and bargain for better terms.21
- 22 Ev. KLIC Progs.
- 23 Ibid.
- 24 Ibid.
17Mistris therefore had a powerful voice. Even in matters where the sanction of the manager was essential, it was the counsel of the mistri which prevailed. On the question of dismissal for instance, Mangali Prasad, a worker in the drawing department in the Kanpur Cotton Mills noted: ‘A mistri could not always pass any dismissal order but the manager always acted on the advice of the mistri. Whatever the karigar (worker) said was disregarded.’22 When workers were punished for bad cloth most of them did not dare to make a complaint against the mistri. Zawar Husain, a weaver in the Kanpur Cotton Mills in the late 1930’s, mentioned the case of two workers in his factory, Bharosa and Iqbal, who did complain. They were not heard. In any case, noted a cynical Zawar Husain, whatever a worker said was ‘useless’, it carried no weight.23 Managements, it was generally accepted, were naturally chary of listening to complaints against men who exercised great influence among the hands and with whose services they cannot afford to dispense.24
- 25 Lal Jhanda, clipping in All India Congress Committee (hence AICC) papers, file G-43 (ii), Nehru Mem (...)
- 26 KMS memo, KLIC Progs.
18The powers of mistris were not clearly spelt out by managements. The limits of mistri authority were being continuously negotiated. In 1937, workers in the Laxmi Ratan Mills said that there was Virtual mistri raj in their factory for mistris did not bother about regulations (‘mistri master kanoon koi parvah nahin karte’).25 ‘There are no definite rules’, insisted the Kanpur Mazdur Sabna in 1937, ‘it is merely the whim and caprice of a jobber that constitutes an offence or innocence of any workman.’26
- 27 If a mistri was unhappy with a worker he could express his displeasure in various ways. Madho Prasa (...)
19It was not as if factories operated without any regulations. But rules were interpreted by mistris. This gave rules a fluidity. ‘Bad work’ was categorized as an ‘offence’, but what constituted ‘bad work’ depended largely on the definition of the mistri. A mistri could always ‘pick faults’ when he wanted to or bend rules for favourites.27 On the question of leave again, mistris exercised their discretion. Shivadhar, a winder in the Elgin Mills, explained the predicament of a worker asking for leave:
- 28 Ev. Mangali Prasad, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton Mills, ibid.
“To ask for leave was to face death. [A worker] had to approach the mistri in the first instance and the mistri repeatedly sent him back with scolding and abuses. There was great delay before any leave could be obtained. There were no rules and regulations. To get leave for a period of, say, 10 days was in his department a difficult affair. The Manager could be approached only when the work was very urgent. The mistri never gave any facilities and all mistris as a class were hard-hearted in matters of leave.”28
20Leave was sanctioned only after repeated requests, unpleasant encounters and prolonged delays. Mistri power in some ways impinged not just on the time of work but on family time as well. For social occasions, for family festivities, the timing of leave was crucial. When leave was sanctioned ultimately it appeared more as a special favour granted by a mistri than a right of the worker. And the rituals of delay built into the process were part of the exercice of mistri power.
- 29 Lal Jhanda, 16.1.1937.
- 30 Ev. KLIC.
- 31 Interview, Nov. 1983.
21Abusive language acquires a specific meaning within the structure of power in which it is uttered. Beating up and abuse were visible assertions of hierarchical power over workers. To humiliate, to inflict pain and suffering, was the prerogative of those in authority, and authority was constituted through the regular practice of such acts. Beating and abuse were public acts, spectacles meant to intimidate workers and create a sense of fear. Intimidation was expected to produce docile, submissive workers, respectful of hierarchies at the workplace. For new entrants, the gate and the gate-jamadar provided their first encounter with mill authority. Even when the workers were on time the jamadar would display his power by pushing them around, slapping and abusing them if there was a slight delay in showing their tickets.29 To workers, beating up and abuse meant more than pain and suffering. It caused a sense of injured pride. Zawar Husain, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton Mills, was categorical: to slap a worker or box his ears, he felt, amounted to beizzati.30 A loss of izzat (self-respect) or dignity was what hurt most. Workers complained about the tone and manner in which mistris often spoke to them. Sudarshan Chakr recalled how they were rudely driven to work by mistris even before their scheduled rest interval during the night shift was over. Workers were treated like animals, he felt: ‘jaise bhere janvaro ko hankte hai vaise mistri mazduron ko hankte the.’31
- 32 Chakr 1986.
22Central to the disciplinary code of the mistri was the notion of deference. Even styles had to conform to norms of deference. Hairstyles expressed the difference and the distance of a worker from superior managerial authority. Workers were not allowed to keep ‘English-style’ haircuts, it was perceived as a sigh of disrespect. And mistris whipped workers for this ‘offence’.32
- 33 Pratap, 3.7.20.
- 34 A mistri in the Elgin Mills for instance appropriated more than half the total sum he collected for (...)
- 35 Workers of the Swadeshi Mills charged Kandhai mistri for rishvat khori and reported him to the mana (...)
23Mistris demanded various other gestures of respect. Certain payments by workers were considered customary. A refusal to pay was seen as an act of ‘insubordination’. Compliance with the mistri’s demands could secure various favours: obliging workers, for instance, were assigned to better machines of granted leave when they wanted. Factory managers implicitly sanctioned such practices. Consider the case of Raghunath Prasad, a worker in the Empire Engineering Company. Sometime in 1920, he was asked by Ramzan, a mistri, for a monthly payment of Rs.2, in addition to the initial sum of Rs.2 he had taken for providing the job. When Raghunath refused to pay, Ramzan asked the saheb (manager) to dismiss him.33 Collections from workers were often taken in the form of contributions for religious gatherings, a large part of which was appropriated by the mistri.34 Formally workers could refuse to contribute, but fear of incurring the mistri’s displeasure added an element of compulsion to such demands. While certain payments, like the sums demanded for securing a job had become accepted practice, repeated and excessive demands were considered unfair. There was an implicit difference between the mistri’s ‘due’, and unfair extortions by him. Some mistris were seen as rishvat khor while others were not.35
- 36 Vijay Kumar Misra, ‘Mazdurin’, Kranti, Sept. 1939, proscribed pamphlet, National Archives, India (N (...)
24To have access to women’s bodies, was considered by mistris their prérogative. If a woman worker refused to reciprocate a mistri’s overture she could lose her job. A story called Mazdurin, in a Kanpur paper, Kranti, expresses the daily humiliation experienced by women workers.36 It is the story of a mazdurin (female worker) in a cotton mill. One day when the mazdurin is at work, a mistri called Ram Murat cornes and stands beside her. Ram Murat, the story mentions, ‘is a mistri, who is aware of his prerogatives as a mistri.’ He is furious that the mazdurin does not acknowledge his presence. She does not smile at him or talk. He kicks her and orders her to look at him. When he receives no response, he grabs her by her hand. She pushes him off and abuses him. Ram Murat threatens to fire her if she does not meet him at night. The mazdurin flees. The story ends on a note of despair: a mazdurin cannot always save her izzat, she can be compelled into submission.
25The mazdurin here is anonymous. It could be any female worker, many shared similar experiences. The mistri is clearly identifiable, he has a name. His crime is not done in anonymity. It was a public spectacle through which the mistri asserted his position and his prerogatives. His name ironically is Ram Murat: one with the divine appearance of Ram who personified goodness and virtue.
- 37 A festival to honour Saraswati, the goddess of learning.
- 38 Joshi 1985.
- 39 Pratap, 27.10.19.
26Arbitrariness in a sense was the basis of mistri power. The lack of definite rules allowed them to exercise their authority in arbitrary ways. But coercion and arbitrariness was only one of the many faces of the mistri / worker relationship. The authority of mistris was tempered by ties of kin and community with the workers they recruited. Codes of mutual help operating between community groups could affect a bending of rules and softening of authority. Their arbitrariness then was not a random one, it functioned within such cultural codes. But these community bonds could not be taken for granted, they had to be endlessly renewed through reciprocal gestures. The mistri saw himself as a patron who expected repeated signs of gratitude from those who received his patronage. The respect for mistris was ritualised in many ways: for instance on Basant Panchami37 day workers paid homage and presented them garlands and turbans after a pooja (worship) held within factory premises. In retum mistris presented the workers with topis (caps) and vests.38 They played an important part in the mohalla (neighbourhood) life of workers. They organised kathas (religious discourse) and ramlilas and occasions like these helped to bind the participants in a common social world.39
- 40 Ev. Lalloo, KLIC Progs.
- 41 In some mills mistris collected funds from workers to give dalis to managers on Christmas; Pratap, (...)
27There were however, limits to the exercise of power and patronage. Mistri power was contested in various ways. There were conflicts within the mistri hierarchy. Line-mistris and assistant-mistris exercised supervision over workers in their charge but they were subject to the authority of head-mistris. In some mills subordinate mistris had to give a regular cut front their wages, to head-mistris. In the Elgin Mills for instance, Sadasukh, the head-mistri demanded a regular payment of Rs.5 from mistris and R.1 from workers.40 Overall charge within the department rested in the hands of departmental managers, and the mistris’ equation with departmental managers was important. Managers had favourite mistris whose recommendations carried greater weight. Mistris would try to win favour with departmental managers by giving dalis (gift).41 Sometimes a disciplinary measure against a worker could be overruled by the manager. In the Kanpur Cotton Mills, a worker who had been dismissed by a mistri, successfully appealed to the manager for reinstatement.
- 42 Ev. Mangali Prasad, KLIC Progs.
- 43 Ibid.
- 44 Ev. KMS, ibid.
28Managers were in a way distant from the actual enforcement of day to day disciplinary measures. They sanctioned the arbitrariness of mistris, at the same time they were often considered relatively more impartial. Managerial authority, unlike that of mistris, was not sustained through networks outside the factory. In the late thirties when there was an outery against mistri corruption, managers in comparison, appeared somewhat fairer.42 Mistris took bribes to grant leave; managers, many workers believed, were particular about formal procedures. They preferred getting written requests for leave.43 This assumption of the relative impartiality of managers underlies the kms proposal of 1938 to strengthen managerial powers in certain matters. ‘The right of punishing a workman’, the kms proposed, ‘should be confined only to the manager who should personally satisfy himself that the complaint against an accused is correct and beyond doubt.’44
- 45 Pratap, 25.8.1919.
- 46 Interviews with Moolchand and Sudarshan Chakr, both of whom had worked in textile factories in Kanp (...)
29But the image of the manager was not a fixed one. During the period of the First World War, when mill discipline was tightened, complaints about managerial authority were widespread. If the relative distance between managers and workers made the former appear impartial, at times this distance evoked images of an impersonal, indifferent and cruel authority. In 1919, a year of major strikes in Kanpur, the rancour against managerial indifference was widespread. The Pratap, a local paper closely linked to the workers’ movement, carried many stories and poems about callous managers who whipped and abused workers.45 The inaccessibility of the manager added to the general sense of outrage against mill authorities during a strike in the Kanpur Cotton Mills in 1924. Rumours about managerial tyranny circulated. The striking workers, it was widely believed, were thrown alive into boilers inside the mill.46
Everyday practice
30How did workers experience work? And how did their everyday experience define the culture of the factory?
- 47 Statement of fifty spinners and weavers of the Muir and Kanpur Cotton Mills, IFLC: 218.
- 48 Ev. IFC.
31Characteristic of the early years of industry in Kanpur, as elsewhere in India, was the long working day, stretching from 12 to 15 hours in many factories. Long hours inside the factory meant to many workers a sense of unfreedom. Some preferred a shorter rest interval in the day: a longer interval involved working late into the night. ‘We want to get home as early as possible’, they said.47 ‘Work is a jail. There is no rest in the day’, emphasized Sheo Shankar, a mule minder in the Elgin Mills.48
- 49 IFLC, p. 214.
- 50 Statement of thirty weavers and twenty-five piecers residing at Chotumia’s buildings, IFLC: 218.
32The concept of long and short work hours is a relative one and was experienced as such. Around the turn of the century, when a 15-hour day was common, to many managers a 12-hour day seemed short. ‘By long hours are meant hours of work of above 12 hours daily’, stated the management of the Elgin Mills in its written evidence to the Factory Labour Commission in 1908.49 Workers did not always conceptualize the length of the work day in terms of the number of hours worked. It was not just the grind of 12 to 15 hours, which made the day long for them, but the sense of a ‘time deprived’. The work day appeared long when work time cut into and absorbed the time they could spend with their family and friends in the mohalla. ‘We have no time at home in the evening’, complained some spinners and weavers of Kanpur in the early years of this century.50
- 51 Interview with Raghubir who worked in the Kanpur mills since the 1920’s, 10.12.1978.
- 52 Statement of weavers and piecers, IFLC: 218.
33Recapitulating his early experience of work, Raghubir, an old worker, talked of the difficult work hours which left him no time for his children. ‘Abba tum kahan gaye the’ (Father, where have you been?), was the question his children asked him every Sunday.51 His children were asleep when he left for work in the morning, and they were back in bed when he reached home after dark. Most workers resented coming in to clean the machines on Sundays because it took away the only day they could spend at home. Sunday was a day they met friends, roamed in the bazaar, and did odd household chores. Sheo Shankar was categorical about a holiday on Sundays: ‘I do not care if I get a rupee less, but I want my Sunday holiday.’52
- 53 Ev. Babooa, IFC.
- 54 Ibid.
- 55 Ibid.
34For working children the day was long when it left no time to play. By the time Babooa, a nine years old boy working in the 1890’s, arrived home, it was dark. ‘He has no time to play. He eats his dinner and goes to sleep’, we are told.53 Play time was long over for Mahabeer, a nine years old boy of Cooper Allen, ‘the lamp at home is light-ed [sic] by the time he gets home.’54 Some had no time to play even on Sundays. Sheo Audhar for instance, an eleven years old boy, who worked at the throstles in the Elgin Mills, could never play. On Sundays he worked till midday and then had to help his father with the weekly shopping and other chores.55
- 56 S. H. Freemantle, IFLC: 220.
- 57 Tula Ram, for instance, was helped out with a job in a textile mill by his brother Beni Ram. But Tu (...)
- 58 Freemantle writes for instance, ‘owing to the necessity for importing hands at the opening of new m (...)
- 59 Ibid.: 90.
- 60 Ev. G. Thornley, manager John’s Mill, IFLC: 172.
35How did workers react to work conditions in the factory? Desertion was a common response. New recruits who found work intolerable sometimes left in the course of the first six months.56 Some workers preferred construction and coolie labour to fixed hours inside a factory.57 Experienced workers could also desert. Around the turn of the century many skilled workers left their jobs in Kanpur and moved to newly established mills in other centres in the hope of easier discipline.58 About two-thirds of spinners in the Delhi mills were from Kanpur.59 Experienced workers could exercise greater bargaining power and demand better conditions in new centres which needed their services. The Agra millowners, for instance, appreciated the efficiency of workers from Kanpur but they ‘always had a lot of trouble with the Kanpur men’.60 These workers led the strikes for a short work day in Agra.
- 61 Lota is a métal pot used for bathing and washing; angocha is a cloth used as a towel. In december 1 (...)
- 62 Letter d. 1.1.1938, from Labour Officer to the KLIC, file 1-L/38, coll. 1, Rajendra Prasad Papers, (...)
36Not all workers could shift from Kanpur to other centres in search of easier work discipline. Those who remained back, tried to define their own pace of work within the long 12 to 15 hours a day. Since most of the daylight hours were spent in the factory, domestic time intruded into factory time. Workers carried their lotas, clothes and angochas into the factory.61 Since many of the Kanpur mills were located on the banks of the Ganga, workers would have a dip in the river during the day. In the winter months they washed in the cooling tanks which contained hot water discharged from boilers.62
- 63 Ev. KLIC Progs.
- 64 Ev. IFC.
- 65 IFLC: 218.
37Workers took time off from work for a smoke or a chat or a little rest. Breaks for a smoke, insisted Lalloo, a worker in the Elgin Mills, had to be distinguished from just ‘whiling away’ time: ‘workers did not while away their time in latrines but, since no smoking was permitted inside the mill, smokers used to go into the latrines for smoking.’63 Rajub, a twelve years old worker in the Kanpur Jute Mills, went out about seven times in the day to drink water from the waterman just outside the factory gate.64 For piece-workers breaks from work meant reduced earnings. Yet weavers and spinners on piece-wages took frequent breaks especially in the hot sumtner months.65
- 66 For insightful comments on this aspect in the context of the German working class, see Ludtke, in S(...)
38Evidence like this from official inquiry commissions has its problems. Worker witnesses rationalize informal work breaks in terms of physical necessity: it is the heat, or the long hours or the need for a smoke which makes a break necessary. Clearly, this was not ail that the breaks meant to workers. The times they went out to the lavatory or took a rest were also the times when they chatted, gossipped, and exchanged information. These were expressive times when they teased and joked.66 They were moments of communion with other workers, moments when collective identities of the work place were forged. And managerial attempts at control were often directed at restricting such comraderie between workers, especially during periods of strikes.
- 67 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, IFLC: 202.
- 68 Ev. Butterworth, Woollen Mills, ibid.: 197.
- 69 The management admitted that ‘unless they [the workers] wanted to work they could not be tempted to (...)
- 70 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, ibid.: 202.
39Skilled workers, who worked at piece-rates, could exercise a greater control over their work day. It was customary for weavers in most mills to leave before closing time;67 and tailors in some mills never came before 7.00 a.m.68 The offer of extra payments could not always persuade skilled workers to work long hours.69 In the wider conflict over the control of work time, skilled workers often countered managerial Controls with their own norms. In the North-West Tannery the saddle makers refused to take entry and exit passes when they went out during working hours. Instead, the ‘men themselves regulated the going out’.70
- 71 Ev. KLIC Progs.
40If managers accused workers of ‘stealing time’, workers in turn made countercharges. Workers redefined the formal limits of the work day and asserted their right to informal breaks, but they demanded from managers a respect for time regulations. They thus expressed a complex and apparently conflicting attitude towards time regulations: questioning as well as reconfirming their legitimacy. Whenever work time intruded into their ‘leisure time’, they seemed to express an acutely calculating attitude. Sheo Audhar who worked in Kanpur in the 1890’s was sure that the afternoon recess was of half an hour and not the stipulated one hour, for ‘he could not get time even to eat all his dry food (chabena) at the recess’.71 Zawar Husain who worked in Kanpur in the 1930’s was certain that his mill always started 10 mins. before and closed 5 mins. after time.
41Did these attempts by workers to define the pace of work constitute resistance? Notions of what constitutes a slow and a fast pace of work are culturally grounded. A work pace that does not conform to managerial definitions is not necessarily intented by workers as an act of resistance. But when such work practices are continuously categorized by managers as violations of norms, or punished as acts of opposition to authority, there is a conscious effort by workers to preserve their own practices, in defiance of imposed norms. An unintended opposition to work norms then becomes an intended act of resistance.
42In these forms of resistance, intended and unintended, the focus of opposition was rules, formal codes. Authority objectified in rules is different from authority personified in individuals. When actions of individuals violate notions of justice held by workers, the target of opposition is the person. This attack can be of various forms. The person in authority can be harassed, or mocked and ridiculed, or humiliated, or physically attacked. In many different ways, authority is questioned, its limits are sought to be redefined.
- 72 Chakr 1965.
43In the Elgin Mills, in the 1930’s, when an unpopular supervisor known for his strictness was appointed in the night shift, the workers devised their own way of protest. To mock and harass him, a worker was repeatedly sent to him for permission to use the lavatory. When the supervisor refused, the worker threw a shoe at him.72
- 73 Ibid.
44To those in authority, repeated demands for leave are never legitimate; and when they were made in an obviously mocking fashion, an acceptance of the demand would be an admission of managerial weakness. In this case the supervisor, belonging to a ritually ‘clean’ caste, was doubly humiliated because the worker harassing him was from an ‘impure’ Chamar caste.73 The impudence of a worker from a ‘lowly’ Chamar caste violated the supervisor’s notions of hierarchy; and the attack with a shoe, considered ‘unclean’ because it was made out of leather, defiled his sense of ritual purity: it was the worst indignity a haughty, upper caste supervisor could suffer.
- 74 Chakr 1986: 49.
45The shoe became a metaphor of protest again when some time in the 1930’s, workers from the same mill tried to lampoon the gate pass System. They entered the mill gate with passes tied to their shoes. When asked for their pass, the workers showed their shoe to the gate-keeper displaying their irreverance for his authority.74
- 75 Ibid.: 7.
46Protest sometimes took the form of physical violence against those in authority. Sudarshan Chakr recalled instances from the 1920’s when workers beat up unpopular mistris and supervisors. A common practice was to cover the victim with sack-cloth, tum off ail lights and thrash him. The identity of the workers was thus concealed. In the Elgin Mills a European supervisor called ‘bambai saheb’ was beaten up by some workers.75
47Thus rules and norms of work were continuously negotiated. There were reassertions of old norms and questioning of new ones, silent and hidden acts of résistance as well as spectacular demonstrative ones, redefinitions of rules and attacks against persons. All these forms of opposition, intended or unintended, were important to defining the culture of work.
Rules redefined
48Managers expected certain norms of work in the factory. Yet, as we argued earlier, the responsibility of mistris for day to day discipline within the factory gave rules a fluidity and flexibility. Besides, managerial strategy did not only try to transform old habits and impose new norms. It also accommodated existing practices of workers and modified rules. New rules often formalized practices which existed in an informal way earlier.
49How did managers perceive the everyday practice of workers?
- 76 Ev. Muir Mills, IFLC: 204.
50One can broadly distinguish between three kinds of conceptions in managerial discourse. First, there is the common stereotype of the Asiatic/Indian worker who is incapable of continuous work; a contrast to the vigorous European: ‘The Asiatic labourer is incapable of continuous work and however light his task may be, he must have intervals of absolute idleness which are unknown to the vigorous European.’76
- 77 Ev. Kanpur Cotton Mills, ibid.: 197.
51Second: there is the conception that Indian workers had no notion of work discipline, they could make no distinction between work time and domestic time. Washing, bathing, shaving and other activities associated with the home are performed in the workplace: ‘About 10 per cent of our hands may be seen any time of day bathing, washing garments, smoking or otherwise loitering about the mill compound.’77 Factory time for managers was production time and all other activities were categorized as ‘idling’, ‘dawdling’, ‘loitering’.
- 78 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, ibid.: 202.
- 79 Ev. HD Allen, Cooper Allen and Co, ibid.: 187.
52Third: there was a belief that workers operated with their own notion of what constituted legitimate work and overwork. Managers asserted that workers could not be driven to work. ‘If he [the worker] thinks he is being overworked he will cease Coming to work’, said one Kanpur manager,78 ‘the average Indian workercannot be hastened… [he] greatly prefers to spin his task out to his own time’, asserted another.79
53Within this managerial discourse there are two contradictory assumptions. There was, on the one hand, a desire to reform the workers and impose a new disciplinary work regime, on the other, a recognition of the limits to reform. These apparently conflicting strands of argument defined the specific nature of managerial strategy and the work culture of the factory. Implicit in the second assumption is the belief that culture in any society is a given, natural attribute; and work discipline must adapt to the natural culture of a society. In this argument disciplinary strategies make no sense because discipline cannot be imposed. Arguments about the futility of reform were dominant in managerial discourse in periods when there was pressure for reform, for instance, during the early years of this century when the demand for regulation of working hours was widespread. But this resistance to reform co-existed with the attempt by managers to impose work norms in the everyday life of the factory.
- 80 Ev. Ramdeen, Woollen Mills, IFC.
- 81 Report on the Babu Khan case, KLIC progs.
54Managerial regulations within the factory implicity recognised the need to accommodate certain customary practices. It was the custom in most factories for workers to leave their work to the joriwala (neighbouring worker) while they took a break.80 The joriwala became a taken for granted phenomenon. The System gave some monoeuvrability to both managers and workers. To managers, it gave the possibility of uninterrupted production; to workers, it gave flexibility within working hours. But in the absence of any formal code the working of the System depended on the power equation among workers and between workers and managers. Factory dadas could bully their neighbours into looking after their work more often than other workers. When managers saw the practice as an infringement on their authority, they attacked it. Consider the case of Babu Khan, a weaver in Kanpur Textiles and an active trade unionist. Babu Khan, the management claimed, used to be away from his looms five or six times a day for half an hour or more at a time. His work was carried on by his joriwala. When Babu Khan was charged with neglecting his duties, he replied: ‘What does it matter to you what time I spend outside so long as the production comes from my looms?’ The management in turn claimed, ‘If his co-weaver could look after four looms and get the production from them, there was no particular reason why the Company should retain Babu Khan’s services.’81
- 82 Ev. Ramcharan, ibid. William Reddy points to a similar System of doublage in cotton mills in the An (...)
- 83 Ev. Ramcharan, KLIC Progs. Some managers claimed to have introduced a System by which a mark was pu (...)
55The deorha (double shift) System in a way formalized a practice which informally existed in the institution of the joriwala. While the joriwala System was implicitly accepted by managers, the deorha System had their explicit sanction. In the deorha System, each worker had to work four looms instead of two for one hour, while another group of workers was allowed rest in this period.82 Many workers complained that the deorha System led to conflicts between them. Since two workers shared responsibility for work on the same set of looms, there were disagreements over who was responsible for any flaws in the material. The decision often depended on the equation between mistris and workers: those closer to a mistri were more likely to get away without any charge.83
- 84 Joshi 1981.
- 85 Ev. Muir mills, IFLC: 204. S. M. Johnson of Muir Mills in fact stated, ‘they did not however want a (...)
- 86 Lal Jhanda, 16.1.1937.
- 87 Ev. Jamaji Pallanji, Alliance Ginning and Pressing Factory, Aligarh, IFLC: 177.
56Absenteeism became an accepted part of the work rhythm in factories. Workers remained away in their villages for long periods, despite the threat of a loss of job when they returned.84 Absences could not be stopped, so managements had to devise alternative ways of sustaining production. This they did in several ways. There was the System of employing badlis. The management of the Muir Mill explained: ‘There are so many spare hands employed in an Indian cotton mill to provide for absentees that the absence of one or two men need not stop a machine.’85 In the thirties, a period when factories were cutting down on the number of workers, in many factories no substitutes were employed in place of absentee workers. The joriwala did the work of the absentee worker.86 In ginning factories, where women were generally employed on the night shift, it was customary for husbands or other family members of women workers to act as substitutes when they were absent.87
- 88 Ev. Padampat Singhania, director Juggilal Kamlapat Spinning and Weaving Mills, KLIC Progs.
57Though managements disapproved of unscheduled breaks during working hours they could at best regulate such breaks, not disallow them. The ticket System reflects an attempt by mill managers to sanction as well as control such breaks. Workers had to take a ticket each time they left their work. The limited number of tickets in circulation restricted the number of workers going out at any given time. By the thirties, when the hours of work were officially reduced to nine, the legitimacy of such breaks was no longer recognised and the ticket System was discontinued in most mills.88
- 89 A ghat is a paved area by a river for bathing purposes, ev. Shivadhar, a winder in the Elgin Mills.
- 90 Ev. Zawar Husain, weaver, Kanpur Cotton Mills, KLIC Progs.
- 91 Ev. Woollen Mills, IFLC: 190.
58Managers caricatured the workers’ inability to distinguish between work time and domestic time, yet managerial practice allowed a blurring of distinct times. By providing bathing ghats for workers in the factory compound many managers accepted a phenomenon which otherwise formed a subject of their scorn and ridicule. In the 1930’s however, certain managements tried to restrict the use of bathing facilities and allowed workers to wash at the ghats only during scheduled intervals.89 Smoking in the mill compound was disapproved by managers: it was not only dangerous because of the fire hazard, but to managements it was synonymous with ‘loitering’. Yet smoking during work hours could not be totally stopped. Managements therefore attempted to regulate the space and time for smoking. The cotton godown for instance was a prohibited area, and Ishaq Ali, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton Mills, was beaten up for smoking there.90 In the Woollen Mills there was a special space for smoking within the compound. but no one was allowed here for an hour after the mill started and half an hour before it closed.91
59The making of work norms in the factory thus involved a process in which managements tried to lay down the broad parameters of acceptable behaviour, but the limits of acceptability were continuously pushed and redefined by worker practice. The unspoken code of the factory took for granted many practices which managements otherwise censured. But the lack of written rules for such codes allowed at times a manoeuvrability and flexibility. This allowed the space for a struggle between the management and the workers for their own definition of rules.
Unions and work culture
60Unions participated in the process of formation of the culture of work and in legitimizing the discourse of discipline among workers. For managements unions had two contradictory faces. Unions were synonymous with indiscipline and disruption of work; at the same time unions were potentially the voice of discipline among workers. Their credibility with the management and ability to bargain for concessions was contingent on their disciplinary powers over workers. Successful bargaining gave unions a legitimacy in the eyes of workers and this made their disciplinary authority more effective.
61The language of the Kanpur Mazdur Sabha (kms) in the 1930’s reflects the shared assumptions in the discourses of managements and the union. This is particularly interesting since the kms, the only workers’ union in Kanpur of the 1930’s, was dominated by Communists, and was known for its radical rhetoric. The union played an important rôle in negotiating with the management, persuading them to concede some of the demands of the workers during the strikes of 1937-1938. But the concessions were given on the assurance that the kms would help in enforcing a disciplinary regime. The kms of the 1930’s was stronger than it was in the earlier decade. And its strength and popularity made its disciplinary voice potentially more powerful.
- 92 KMS Memo., KLIC Progs.
- 93 ’Frequent retums [to the village] make the formation of a permanent labour force difficult in the c (...)
62A memorandum submitted by the kms to the Kanpur Labour Inquiry Committee during the strikes, expresses in a rather unequivocal fashion, the union’s attitude towards work discipline in the factory.92 The kms operates with assumptions about ‘commitment’ and ‘efficiency’ common to the managerial discourse on labour. A ‘committed’ workforce for the KMS is an urbanized workforce, based permanently in the city. Like the management, the kms considers ‘absenteeism’ an ‘evil’ which hinders the formation of a committed workforce.93 It suggests measures to reduce absenteeism so that a ‘permanent’, ‘efficient’ and ‘healthy’ labour force can be created.
63The kms notions of what constitutes useful time and wasteful time are in terms of the function of time in the productive efficiency of a factory. Time spent away from the machines, even if it was to go to the lavatory, is considered in a sense, wasteful. Lavatories, the kms suggests, should be located in close proximity to each department so that time was not ‘unnecessarily wasted’ in going to and fro. Shorter hours and weekly holidays were seen in terms of their function within the productive life of the factory. Shorter hours would lead to greater efficiency, holidays were necessary to recoup and work efficiently during the week.
64It would be an over-simplification to reduce the attitudes of the kms entirely to managerial assumptions. Although certain categories used by the kms were similar to those of the management, it was also trying to re-negotiate the terms of discipline. Its legitimacy among the workers it represented was dependent on the respect it gave to their notions of justice and fairness.
65The kms was critical of the punitive strategies of the management. It questioned the management categorization of certain practices as ‘breaches of discipline’. ‘Bad work’, the kms proposed, should not be punished, unless it was proved that it was a deliberate act; movement from one department to another should be punished only if it was not for a ‘bona fide purpose’; workers on piece-wages, it argued, should not be punished for ‘short work’, i.e. for producing less than a specified output. Proposais like this reflect a difference between the managements’ conceptions and those of the kms. It respected the sanctity of rules but it preferred ‘definite’ rules of discipline to ambiguities which allowed the possibilities of managerial manipulation. Besides, the kms was insistent that managements observe certain norms. Corporal punishment and abusive language, the kms emphasized, should be treated as ‘severe breaches of discipline’ on the part of managers.
66The kms was thus defining both the limits of managerial authority and worker freedom. The language of discipline embodied in the kms mémorandum was, however, the public voice of the kms which was different from its private everyday idiom. In the day-to-day life of the factory, individual members of the kms did not operate with the same notions of efficiency and commitment. But the public idiom was not empty rhetoric. It formed a part of the institutional ideology of the kms and this gave a legitimacy to the discourse of discipline in the factory.
67In analysing the process of formation of work culture this essay questions certain assumptions in the writings on labour history in India. The emphasis in studies like that of Morris is on the role of managerial strategy and the economic calculations of managers in shaping the nature of work in the factory. Workers, subject to discipline, seem to have no active role in re-defining disciplinary strategies.
- 94 Chakravarty 1989.
68Dipesh Chakravarty’s recent study moves away from economistic analysis and focusses much more on the cultural context of the Calcutta jute mills.94 Work in the jute mills was characterized by the persistence of a ‘pre-capitalist’ culture. Bourgeois notions of legality, factory codes, and service rules were alien to a System governed by hierarchical, inegalitarian traditions. If Morris overplays the role of managerial strategy in defining the work culture of the factory, Chakravarty focusses only on the determining role of ‘pre-bourgeois’ culture. In different ways both Morris and Chakravarty deny the role of worker practice and everyday resistance in re-defining the limits of authority and reshaping the culture of the factory.
69This essay seeks to emphasize the links between managerial strategies towards worker practices and the politics of the trade unions in the making and the re-making of work culture.
Bibliographie
References
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Chakr, S. (1986), Kanpur ke mazdur andolan kaa itihaas. Kanpur.
Chakravarty, D. (1989), Rethinking Working Class History: Bengal 1890-1940. New Delhi, Oxford University Press.
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Joyce, P., ed. (1987), The Historical Meanings of Work. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Kaplan, S. L. & Koepp C. J., eds. (1987), Work and its Representations. New York, Cornell University Press.
Ludtke, A. (1982), “The Historiography of Everyday Life: The Personal and the Political”, in R. Samuel et al., Culture, Ideology and Politics. London, Chapman & Hall.
Molund, S. (1981), First we are People... The Koris of Kanpur between Caste and Class. Stockholm, Coronet BKS ( “Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology” 20).
Morris, D. M. (1965), The Emergence of an Industrial Labour Force. Berkeley, University of California Press.
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Notes
1 See Joyce, ed., 1987; Kaplan & Koepp, eds., 1987; Reddy 1984.
2 Whipp, in Joyce, ed., 1987: 210-235.
3 These themes are elaborated in my forthcoming book, Work, Culture and Politics… (OUP).
4 Ev. Bobooa, Indian Factory Commission 1890 (hence IFC). The practice of closing the gates on late-comers continued in the 1930’s. Ev. Lalloo, weaver, Elgin Mills, Kanpur Labour Inquiry Progs. (hence KLIC) UP Industries Progs., file 1145/1937.
5 Ev. IFC.
6 The practice of giving ‘forced leave’ became more common after the enforcement of the payment of wages act (1937) which prescribed a ceiling on fines.
7 Ev. Ghasita & Munir, Royal Commission of Labour, 1931 (hence RCL), iii: 2: 249; ev. United Provinces Govt., RCL iii: 1: 184-185.
8 RCL iii: 1: 181.
9 KLIC Progs.
10 See ev. of the Kanpur Mazdur Sabha (hence KMS) KLIC Progs.
11 Ev. Babooa, Elgin Mills, IFC.
12 Ibid.
13 RCL II: 1, p. 180, KMS memorandum, KLIC Progs.
14 Leader, 25.10.1937.
15 Pratap, 24.11.1919.
16 Ibid., 1.9.1919.
17 A chaprasi (peon) was posted outside the lavatory and no worker was allowed to spend more than 10-15 minutes. Ev. Ramcharan, KLIC Progs.
18 Sadasukh, a head mistri in the Elgin Mills took a cut from workers every month saying he had orders from the saheb. Pratap, 27.10.1919.
19 Cf. Morris 1965.
20 Oral ev. Johnson, Muir Mills, Indian Factory Labour Commission (hence IFLC) (1908): 206.
21 Report on the supply of labour to the United Provinces and Bengal, UP Revenue Progs., A, May 1906, nos. 90-95.
22 Ev. KLIC Progs.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Lal Jhanda, clipping in All India Congress Committee (hence AICC) papers, file G-43 (ii), Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (hence NMMML).
26 KMS memo, KLIC Progs.
27 If a mistri was unhappy with a worker he could express his displeasure in various ways. Madho Prasad, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton Mills was beaten up by a mistri and reported to the manager who ordered his discharge.
28 Ev. Mangali Prasad, a worker in the Kanpur Cotton Mills, ibid.
29 Lal Jhanda, 16.1.1937.
30 Ev. KLIC.
31 Interview, Nov. 1983.
32 Chakr 1986.
33 Pratap, 3.7.20.
34 A mistri in the Elgin Mills for instance appropriated more than half the total sum he collected for organising a katha (religious gathering); ev. Shivadhar, KLIC Progs.
35 Workers of the Swadeshi Mills charged Kandhai mistri for rishvat khori and reported him to the management. Lal Jhanda, 16.1.1937. Rishvat khor is a person who takes bribes.
36 Vijay Kumar Misra, ‘Mazdurin’, Kranti, Sept. 1939, proscribed pamphlet, National Archives, India (NAI), no. 526. The introduction in parenthesis mentions that the story provides a living description of the predicament of a female worker.
37 A festival to honour Saraswati, the goddess of learning.
38 Joshi 1985.
39 Pratap, 27.10.19.
40 Ev. Lalloo, KLIC Progs.
41 In some mills mistris collected funds from workers to give dalis to managers on Christmas; Pratap, 15.12.19.
42 Ev. Mangali Prasad, KLIC Progs.
43 Ibid.
44 Ev. KMS, ibid.
45 Pratap, 25.8.1919.
46 Interviews with Moolchand and Sudarshan Chakr, both of whom had worked in textile factories in Kanpur.
47 Statement of fifty spinners and weavers of the Muir and Kanpur Cotton Mills, IFLC: 218.
48 Ev. IFC.
49 IFLC, p. 214.
50 Statement of thirty weavers and twenty-five piecers residing at Chotumia’s buildings, IFLC: 218.
51 Interview with Raghubir who worked in the Kanpur mills since the 1920’s, 10.12.1978.
52 Statement of weavers and piecers, IFLC: 218.
53 Ev. Babooa, IFC.
54 Ibid.
55 Ibid.
56 S. H. Freemantle, IFLC: 220.
57 Tula Ram, for instance, was helped out with a job in a textile mill by his brother Beni Ram. But Tula Ram quit the job very soon: he could not stand the fixed hours in a factory. Instead he worked sometimes as a painter, sometimes as a construction worker. See Molund 1981.
58 Freemantle writes for instance, ‘owing to the necessity for importing hands at the opening of new mills conditions were and are somewhat easier, discipline less strict, and pay somewhat higher.’ Report on the supply of labour to the United Provinces and Bengal, UP Revenue Progs. A, May 1908: 89.
59 Ibid.: 90.
60 Ev. G. Thornley, manager John’s Mill, IFLC: 172.
61 Lota is a métal pot used for bathing and washing; angocha is a cloth used as a towel. In december 1919 when the striking Elgin mill workers were locked out by the management they complained that their lotas and clothes were locked inside the factory. Pratap, 1.12.1919.
62 Letter d. 1.1.1938, from Labour Officer to the KLIC, file 1-L/38, coll. 1, Rajendra Prasad Papers, NMMML, New Delhi.
63 Ev. KLIC Progs.
64 Ev. IFC.
65 IFLC: 218.
66 For insightful comments on this aspect in the context of the German working class, see Ludtke, in Samuel & al., eds., 1982.
67 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, IFLC: 202.
68 Ev. Butterworth, Woollen Mills, ibid.: 197.
69 The management admitted that ‘unless they [the workers] wanted to work they could not be tempted to do so by the prospect of extra payment.’ Gavin Jones, Empire Engineering Company, ibid., p. 203.
70 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, ibid.: 202.
71 Ev. KLIC Progs.
72 Chakr 1965.
73 Ibid.
74 Chakr 1986: 49.
75 Ibid.: 7.
76 Ev. Muir Mills, IFLC: 204.
77 Ev. Kanpur Cotton Mills, ibid.: 197.
78 Ev. JB Sunderland, North-West Tannery, ibid.: 202.
79 Ev. HD Allen, Cooper Allen and Co, ibid.: 187.
80 Ev. Ramdeen, Woollen Mills, IFC.
81 Report on the Babu Khan case, KLIC progs.
82 Ev. Ramcharan, ibid. William Reddy points to a similar System of doublage in cotton mills in the Andelle valley in France. There was an outrage against this system in 1860 because workers claimed too many fines were resulting from flaws in the cloth that occurred during doublage (p. 244).
83 Ev. Ramcharan, KLIC Progs. Some managers claimed to have introduced a System by which a mark was put to differentiate the work of two men at the same loom. Entwsistle, Manager, Kanpur Textiles, KLIC Progs.
84 Joshi 1981.
85 Ev. Muir mills, IFLC: 204. S. M. Johnson of Muir Mills in fact stated, ‘they did not however want a full complement [of workers] every day, because the full complement included expected absentees’ (p. 207).
86 Lal Jhanda, 16.1.1937.
87 Ev. Jamaji Pallanji, Alliance Ginning and Pressing Factory, Aligarh, IFLC: 177.
88 Ev. Padampat Singhania, director Juggilal Kamlapat Spinning and Weaving Mills, KLIC Progs.
89 A ghat is a paved area by a river for bathing purposes, ev. Shivadhar, a winder in the Elgin Mills.
90 Ev. Zawar Husain, weaver, Kanpur Cotton Mills, KLIC Progs.
91 Ev. Woollen Mills, IFLC: 190.
92 KMS Memo., KLIC Progs.
93 ’Frequent retums [to the village] make the formation of a permanent labour force difficult in the city. A permanent labor force is of immense benefit to any industry.’ (KMS Memo., KLIC Progs.)
94 Chakravarty 1989.
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