[Reader-list] gurgaon workers

[mahmood farooqui]

A column I wrote for Mid-Day Bombay...

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Labouring in an Illiberal Culture

In the first volume of Das Capital, Karl Marx writes
that ‘A cannot be “your majesty” to B unless at the
same time majesty in B’s eyes assumes the bodily form
of A.’ That is to say that ‘one man is King only
because other men stand in the relation of subjects to
him. They, on the contrary imagine that they are
subjects because he is a King.’ This could be extended
to the coercive authority enjoyed by the police. As
long as they retain the aura of being a disciplinary
and coercive force which is sanctioned by the state
their authority might be regarded as legitimate. But
when the people they seek to control come to regard
their use of force as illegitimate they become little
more than lathi-wielding hooligans. This is exactly
what happened in Gurgaon on 25-7 and on the following
days. 

Irrespective of the role played by ‘outside agent
provocateurs and vested interests’ in precipitating
the violent clash between the police and the workers
of the Honda factory on 25-7, the next day the
anti-police sentiment had extended to at least half
the city. People who had nothing to do with the Honda
factory or with the workers turned up at the Civil
Hospital the next day, relishing the chance to teach
the police a lesson. When Mahatma Gandhi had attempted
to de-legitimise colonial institutions- its police,
its courts, its armed forces- he had been severely
criticized even by many nationalist leaders for ‘this
open invitation to anarchy.’ As it turned out, Gandhi
too was left wringing his hands in disappointment for
‘Indians,’ he said in 1947, ‘had all along only wanted
English rule without the Englishmen.’

If I were the editor of one of the leading newspapers
of the country, my most natural reaction on Monday
afternoon, as the workers of the Honda factory
‘clashed’ with the police, would have been to ring up
someone higher up at Honda to find out what is going
on. It would be natural because I might know them
personally, would admire them for their
entrepreneurial successes and because foreign
investment and investor confidence is of the supremest
importance. 

But above all I would do so because the word Union
today only implies obstructive opportunism where the
leaders, like so many villains of Hindi cinema, always
betray the poor, simple workers. Twenty years after
unionism and working class militancy have been buried
under the discotheques and bowling alleys of Girgaum,
what legitimate concern could any worker have? As the
Indian Express editorial pontificates on Thursday, let
them work or let other workers do an honest day’s
work. 

Naturally then, my paper’s coverage of the event would
begin with the description of the event as a ‘clash’
between workers and policemen. Notwithstanding the
facts that in this clash over a thousand workers were
injured, that they had nothing to match the Police
lathis, that they were inveigled into a close compound
to present a memorandum, that they were then beaten up
in an enclosed space until they lay prostrate on the
ground and then some more, were made to crawl while
holding their ears and beaten on their backsides, that
the Deputy Commissioner of the city joined in with a
baton and that the police had made advance
preparations for teaching them this ‘lesson’ by
requisitioning troops from Rewari, Rohtak and
Faridabad.

Of course I would mention the losses to the Honda
factory in an agitation that has now gone on for many
months and which has made them halve their production.
But I would not carry any reaction, not a single bite
or interview with the workers about what they wanted.
I would even shy away from locating the families of
the injured and eliciting their reaction until
Wednesday. 

The dashing, hands on DC a very ‘one of us’ fellow who
bravely fought alongside his men to take control of
the situation wanted to know why should workers who
are unhappy with their management turn against the
State. He should know, the negotiations have been on
for almost a month and the administration has taken a
leading and proactive part in them, so why are the
workers upset with the police? For the simple reason
that, right through colonial times, for the agitating
and striking workers the police always appears on the
behalf of the management and always to quell ‘riotous’
or ‘violent’ workers. Indeed the colonial police’
disruption of Nationalist rallies and their assault
against workers sprang from the same impulses and was
carried out in similar fashions.

In spite of their seemingly intractable differences
the two leading historians of the Indian Working Class
Rajnarayan Chandavarkar and Dipesh Chakrabarty have
both pointed to the importance of workers
socialization, the civic-material culture in which
they live, in determining their attitude towards
Capital and the State. Chandavarkar shows us how the
working classes of Bombay derived their identity from
their neighbourhood activities, and that to them the
State, especially the police, often appeared
indistinguishable from the management. While
Chakrbarty wonders how the worker’s struggle for an
equal and fair treatment might fare in a society that
is otherwise very hierarchical, unequal and illiberal.


In Gurgaon, these past few days we have seen both
these aspects of labour. The workers, though beaten
and bruised remain defiant. The media and the
commentariat, on the other hand, wants a free and fair
treatment for Capital but an illiberal one for labour.
Let them then think of India and get on with
production, the insurrection can await their children.







		
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