[Reader-list] From Mills to Malls: Loss of a City's Identity

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>From Mills to Malls

Loss of a City's Identity

One Hundred Years, One Hundred Voices, The Millworkers of Girangaon:
An Oral History
by Neera Adarkar and Meena Menon;

Mariam Dossal

Oral history has come into its own in India. In this superbly crafted
book based on the testimonies of the textile mill workers of Mumbai,1
the concern is two-fold. The first, to ensure that the vital role
played by Mumbai's industrial working class in the history of Mumbai
city be clearly recognised and memories of their contribution kept
alive. The second, that the mill workers severely threatened by the
loss of jobs and sale of mill lands be given their just due. These
dues involve financial compensation, opportunities for reskilling to
obtain a decent livelihood and access to alternate and improved
housing. It is a book which brings together scholarship and the
struggle for justice.

The book records the rich and distinctive life-histories of many mill
workers who journeyed from villages to Mumbai city to escape hunger
and oppression, in search of a better life. Here migration stories are
drawn from personal wells of pain, loss and separation, from depths of
rural poverty whose long shadow continues to darken both India's
countryside and its cities.

Mumbai today is one of the world's largest and fastest growing cities,
and its mill lands stretching across a thousand acres, lie in the
heart of Bombay island in Girangaon or 'mill village'. It is in
Girangaon that Mumbai's one and a half lakh mill workers have lived
and worked for more than a 100 years. Today, with a number of the
city's 95 mills having closed and many more facing the same fate, the
mill lands have become one of the most expensive of real estate
precincts in the city, eyed hungrily by property developers and land
sharks. Girangaon is embattled space, which in recent years has
witnessed some of the fiercest conflicts in the city's history. The
main losers in this ongoing battle have been the mill workers, and the
cosmopolitan working class culture they had created in the period
between 1875 and 1975.

Mumbai's mill workers and their families form a very important part of
the labouring poor who made Mumbai the nation's industrial metropolis
with a uniquely multi-cultural identity. By their side stand hundreds
of thousands of dock workers, railway workers, workers in the road
transport, engineering and pharmaceutical industries, as well as
artisans and large numbers in the unorganised sector: the poor who
build, service and enable the city to live. Each has a history waiting
to be told, waiting for their signifiers: historians and concerned
citizens to take full measure of their contribution.
Activist-historians Adarkar and Menon have shown the way.

'Who creates the history or tells the story,' is all-important, urban
sociologist Doreen Massey reminds us, '…for they have the power to
shape others' understanding of both the past and the present'.2 The
effort on the part of Adarkar and Menon is to enable Mumbai's mill
workers to tell their story in their own words, a pro-ject strongly
endorsed by labour historian Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, who draws on his
extensive research in this field and provides a useful introduction to
the book.

Until now, much that goes by the name of working class history, admits
Chandavarkar, has been reconstructed from official documents and
reports, information obtained from officials, mill-owners, financiers
and builders. Even historians sensitive to the differing world view of
the poor have relied heavily on speeches of union representatives,
newspaper reports and official documents. In this book, union
representatives do have their say, but they share the stage with large
numbers of other workers whose oral testimonies enable us to hear them
distinctly.

Oral testimony as a methodology for historical research has its own
pitfalls. These comprise selective remembrance, with interviewees
providing information determined by the nature of the question asked
in the first place, as well as chronological and factual inaccuracies.
But when judiciously combined with corroborative evidence, oral
testimony does open windows to worlds which otherwise remain out of
view. Linguistic usage is one significant window.

Mumbai in Their Words

We 'wear' our language and use specific words, sentences, idiom and
syntax, in ways that are class specific. In the case of Mumbai's
working class a large number of whom were single, migrant males,
living space meant sharing a single room, a 'gala' or 'kholi' with
many other single men. These rooms were often furniture-less, to
maximise sleeping space for the men working in shifts. The kholi
remained a kholi, never getting converted into a 'ghar' or home. The
difference is of a single word, but one that reveals worlds of denial
of basic comfort, privacy and human dignity.

The workers' interviews provide us with rich descriptions of what
Mumbai looked and felt like by those who arrived as fresh migrants.
While many were overwhelmed by the crowds, speed and noise, there were
some, such as trade union leader S S Mirajkar, who despite personal
hardships was awed by the sheer diversity and energy of Mumbai. He
recounts his first impressions thus: "I was impressed by the
magnificence of this city – you could hear different languages, the
people of different regions in India, all together, with their own
identities and yet together – ...they were all represented. This city
had a unique character, a pace, a passion, an industriousness. This
city could attract anybody."

The testimonies of Mumbai's mill workers also reveal how dramatically
the city's urban topography has changed even within their lifetimes.
As late as the 1930s, large parts of central Bombay were without
electricity and lay in wooded darkness after sunset. In the vicinity
of Dadar railway station were coconut plantations and people returning
from work late in the evening had to be careful, adds S S Mirajkar, or
else "…you could collide into the coconut trees". Speaking in a
similar vein, Madhukar Nerale, owner of the famous Hanuman Theatre at
Lalbaug recalled: "Where Hanuman Theatre stands now, (it has since
been demolished and given way to a marriage hall, ) there was a
vegetable farm. There was only jungle around that, no industries or
anything."

The book details the vital networks based on familial, community and
village ties, which sustained the city's migrant mill workers. These
included the jobbers, 'mandals' of many kinds , 'vyayamshalas' or
gymnasiums and later political organisations, all of which provided
essential support systems. Unconventional relationships also gained
acceptance with large numbers of men being single and away from their
families for long periods of time. As trade union leader Bhai Bhonsale
puts it: "There was a different culture then. It was common to gamble
and also to 'keep' another woman. To have another woman was considered
a sign of manliness. And these women were loyal. To the man, to the
family, to the wife and children. She could be a widow or a deserted
woman. At first people used to mutter a little, but later it would be
accepted. She would become part of the family. She was not married to
the man, but she had her own status."

Many who were interviewed remembered Girangaon's distinctive working
class culture with pride and fondness. While Hanuman Theatre and other
theatres in the area were the sites for many folk dramas and dance
performances, such as 'loknatya', 'tamashas' and 'lavnis', it was
street life in Girangaon that was culturally vibrant and
communitarian, whose loss they miss greatly. It was in the streets of
Girangaon that bhajans and kirtans were sung, sculptors made Ganpati
idols, 'rangoli' artists drew on the side-walks and painting
competitions were held. The dramatic increase in vehicular and
pedestrian traffic has adversely affected such forms of cultural and
artistic expression. "Where is the space to do that now, when the cars
even climb the footpaths?" asks singer Nivrutti Pawar sadly.

The book successfully links the history of the cotton mills of Mumbai
to important developments in the late 19th and 20th centuries,
especially the freedom struggle and the rise of the communist and
socialist parties. Eight general strikes which took place in the years
between 1918 and 1940 politicised Mumbai's mill workers and
contributed to the groundswell demand for India's independence. Such
overt political action enabled links to be forged between mill workers
and other sections of the working and middle classes.

The book records experiences of workers during the Samyukta
Maharashtra movement and the growing demand for Mumbai to be made the
capital of the linguistically defined, predominantly Marathi-speaking
state. Many also speak of their participation in the Left movement and
of the charismatic leadership provided by leaders such as S A Dange
and Krishna Desai. About Krishna Desai even his opponents in the Shiv
Sena such as R S Bhalekader had this to say: "Krishna Desai would have
won from anywhere, even a distant suburb like Jogeshwari. He was
daring, he had no guards, no protection… We were shocked by his death.
It was like we had lost our backbone." His murder on the night of June
5, 1970 constitutes a watershed in the history of Mumbai's working
class. It was a great blow to the political future of the Left parties
and contributed substantively to the growing support for the Shiv Sena
among the poor in Mumbai city.

Job Insecurity

Growing support extended to the Shiv Sena by the mill workers was in
large part due to the fact that the Left parties did not seriously
address the questions of job insecurity and unemployment. This is
evident in the words of Bal Khavnekar of the Girni Kamgar Sena : "I
joined the Left when I was young, but it did not provide jobs. This
was their drawback. No political party except the Sena bothers about
providing a livelihood". By pitching job demands for the
'Marathi-speaking Manus', the 'sons of the soil', the Shiv Sena came
across as the party which cared. Many workers confronted with problems
of low self-esteem turned to it to gain a greater sense of personal
and political empowerment. As Nivrutti Pawar observes: "Marathi people
used to be afraid of the outsiders then. We were all poor and
uneducated and we couldn't speak English". By creating a sense of
foreboding with imagined threats from 'outsiders', accompanied by the
widespread use of strong-arm tactics, the Sena drew mill workers to
the Girni Kamgar Sena and away from the Left unions.

Violence and job insecurity are ever-present realities in the lives of
the poor as these statements by Mumbai's mill workers makes clear.
Everyday violence got compounded many times over during the communal
riots that have occurred in the city since the mid-19th century.
Particularly traumatic were the riots that took place during
partition, whose scars and painful memories remain even today. One
painful experience is recounted by B Neelprabha, a CPI activist, who
was seven years old at the time when riots broke out in the wake of
Gandhiji's murder. Finding herself in the Muslim dominated locality of
Null Bazaar and confronted with a mob, Neelprabha was saved by the
courage and timely intervention of Sheikh-chacha, a vendor of biscuits
and bread who escorted her to safety to her family living in Khetwadi.
She recounts: 'As we approached my house, a crowd attacked us when
they saw chacha…They hit him with a big wooden pole and killed him. I
can never forget the sight. He died before my eyes! I cried and
cried." Not only do such memories remain etched forever in the minds
of those who experience the trauma, but they diminish the public self
of each citizen and challenge Mumbai's claim to being a city – a place
where strangers feel at home with each other.

While partition and other communal riots corroded Mumbai's
cosmopolitan culture and identity, it was the 18 month-long textile
strike of 1982-83 that turned the mill workers' world upside down.
This identity had been constructed with a commitment to a modern
industrial work culture made possible by the multifaceted occupational
opportunities that Mumbai offered. As the strike petered out, mills
closed, workers lost their jobs, the city's rich and diverse
occupational identities were effaced – leaving space for political
opportunists hawking pseudo-religious identities. These ill-fitting
identities have been coupled to new needs created by a consumerist,
market driven economy. They have significantly altered the lives of
Mumbai's working class and undermined their sense of self. What
remained of their class consciousness has been weakened further by the
violent communal riots which rocked the city in 1992-93 and rent it
apart. In the aftermath of the polarisation on communal lines, Mumbai
has changed in a fundamental sense and can never be the same.

Today, a great deal of talk centres around 'development of the mill
lands' and of Mumbai being converted into another Singapore or
Shanghai. While these proposals promise benefits to industrialists,
financiers, builders, property developers, the mill workers and other
groups of the working poor are left to fend for themselves. Mumbai is
to be converted into a financial hub, a service centre, but on the
re-employment, reskilling and housing of the workers there is a
deafening silence.

Until a decade ago, Mumbai's mill lands were protected by laws which
ensured that industrial land could not be used for commercial or
residential purposes. However, the new Development Plan of 1990 has
made drastic changes in land use possible. Today, Girangaon, the
historic industrial working class district is 'up for grabs'. What was
industrial India's heartland is rapidly being replaced with luxury
apartments, office space, and entertainment centres, places which are
becoming a foreign country for the working poor. The hurry and lack of
social concern with which this structural change is taking place
indicates a desire on the part of civic officials and
property-developers to wipe clean the slate of Mumbai's working class
history. But, say Adarkar and Menon, ' the battle for space, for jobs,
for a future' continues. It is payback time, they say, time for the
city to acknowledge its responsibilities. Mumbai's mill workers are
"…now waiting for the city to return some part of that history back to
their children". By restoring them to their rightful place in the past
would strengthen their claims to a dignified present.

The few drawbacks of the book are to be found in historical
inaccuracies about pre-industrial Mumbai. Bombay received in dowry by
the English king Charles II on his marriage to the Portuguse princess
Catherine of Braganza in 1661 was handed over to the English East
India Company in 1668. It served the Company as its earliest and only
political base until the British embarked on territorial acquisition
after the battles of Plassey and Buxar a century later. It is neither
true that the island town was ignored for a hundred years, nor that it
was developed only as 'a strategic naval base to curb piracy'.
Bombay's history of the 17th and 18th centuries is a rich and
absorbing record of challenging technical and economic achievements by
way of land reclamations, fortifications, shipping and ship-building,
not to speak of coastal and long-distance trade which saw its
emergence as the foremost port-town on the west coast of India by the
1740s, especially with the decline of the premier Mughal port of
Surat.

It is also not true that mill workers were 'among the first migrants
who came to the city', for way back in the 1670s governor Gerald
Aungier's invitation to artisans, agriculturalists and merchants to
come and settle on the island, in return for political security and
religious tolerance paid off rich dividends and groups of kolis,
bhandaris and agris from the hinterland as well as mercantile
communities from Gujarat came and made the city their home. The text
also contains some editing and grammatical errors and incomplete
references. It would have also helped to have detailed statistics
providing a clear picture of the numbers of workers employed in the
mills at different periods of time. And of course, literary
considerations apart, the history of Mumbai's cotton mills is not 100
but 150 years old. These limitations do not however take away from
what is an extremely illuminating and richly documented book. A book
which shows us just how extraordinary are the lives that ordinary
people live.

Notes

1 The city's name was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai in June
1995. In this review, while the name Mumbai is used in most places,
when deemed necessary Bombay has been retained. In everyday speech
however and reflecting its long-standing cosmopolitan character, the
city continues to be called Mumbai, Bambai or Bombay, depending on who
is speaking and the context in which the conversation or reference
takes place.
2 Doreen Massey, Journal of Urban History, Vol 26, No 5, July 2000, p 655.