[Reader-list] Re: gurgaon workers

[shivam]

> This is exactly
> what happened in Gurgaon on 25-7 and on the following
> days.

25-7? It's interesting how "9/11" has been changing our language. 



On 7/28/05, mahmood farooqui <mahmoodfarooqui at yahoo.com> wrote:
> A column I wrote for Mid-Day Bombay...
> 
> __________________
> 
> 
> 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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Raised one above my head
And poured in into my life
(-JD)

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