[Reader-list] Manesar class struggle

[asit das]

                *Manesar: Class Struggle of the 21st Century*

                                                        By Amaresh Misra



While right wing sections inside the media, fanatically anti-working class
bloggers, vested interest in the Haryana establishment, and other sundry
forces are baying for Trade Union/Communist blood in the unfortunate
incidents that took place inside the Maruti-Suzuki plant at Manesar, sober
assessment reveals a different picture.

1991, the year that inaugurated new economic policies and the
liberalization drive, marked also the emergence of new ideas regarding the
management of productive forces.  Large Public Sector sections were
dismantled. Enormous human and domestic/foreign capital resources were
placed in the hands of private corporate players. In the name of fiscal
management, State expenditure was sought to be restricted. *But perhaps,
most importantly, production relations between labour and capital, workers
and management, were altered*.

Foreign Direct Investment in the manufacturing sector brought in foreigners
in management as well. The new management structures—that included Indians
and foreigners—were inculcated with a new work ethic that placed growth
above workers welfare: *but the crucial change rested in the way the new
management culture downplayed the cultural sensitivities of the Indian
worker.*

In a famous case that took place last year in the Honda factory of
Haryana’s industrial belt, foreign trained Indian managers refused to allow
workers to celebrate *Vishvakarma Pooja*. In the Hindu pantheon, *
Vishvakarma* is the lord of tools and workers—his birthday is normally a
holiday, no less relevant than *Ram Naumi*, *Buddha Jayanti* or the
birthday of Prophet Muhammad.

Workers worship their tools on *Vishvakarma Diwas*. In Honda, a worker was
assaulted by the supervisor when, the latter tried applying a *teeka* on
the former’s head. Indian workers have their own definition of what
constitutes `hard work’. It includes whiling away time, bonding with fellow
workers, and then putting in extra work at the right time. Also, the sense
of impersonal hierarchy is alien to Indian workers. They can respect an *
angrez* who mingles with them; but they will boycott Indian managers trying
to put up foreign airs and indulging in unfamiliar hierarchical behaviour.


Foreign—especially American, German and Japanese personals—were often found
dumbfounded by these cultural practices. Because of historic factors—the
traditional resistance of the Hindi-Urdu belt to British Imperialism,
the  rugged-peasant
masculinity and sense of honour—dubbed mistakenly, `pre-modern’ by social
analysts—the management Vs worker clash was more severe in
post-liberalization, North Indian factories.

In the 1990s and 2000s, India saw substantial creation of wealth. The
culture of malls and new units in service sector and manufacturing,
inducted a new working force emerging from Bihar, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and
Haryana. The management culture in force looked more towards casual,
contract labour.

Affiliated either to Communists, Congress, and BJP-Shiv Sena—or practicing
Dutta Samant type syndicalism—the old Unions were unable to read the modern
times. After failing miserably in creating space for casual/contract
labour, they started losing their grip over old working class centres as
well.

Interestingly, the Gurgaon-NCR based factories flirted at first with CITU
and AITUC, the Trade Unions respectively of the CPM and the CPI. The
workers—most of them in their twenties—young, restless and
ambitious—however, soon grew tired of old negotiating skills of traditional
Unions. It is symptomatic that last year, the Manesar Maruti-Suzuki plant,
saw the emergence of a new Union with a new, younger leadership. Sonu
Gujjar, the erstwhile chief of the Union, typified the novel, 21st century
worker. By presenting the viewpoints of workers through con-calls and other
modern techniques, Sonu Gujjar grabbed national headlines. His colleagues
wanted their own voice, independent of the management, to be heard.

Indeed this contemporary worker, especially in North India/Hindi-Urdu
heartland, was both more rooted and cosmopolitan. Unlike his counterpart of
1970s and 1980s, who hailed mainly from a landless labour, poor peasant or
a pauperized proletariat background, the contemporary worker came from
middle to upper-middle peasant backdrop. In Indian terms, he belonged
to a *khaata-peeta
*milieu—he was much more capable of acting on his own. *He was part of the
North Indian pattidari village community system that ensured both bonding
and individuality*. He had learned how to fight while growing up, without
getting inflicted with the scars of the *lumpen proletariat*. Averse to
slow paced, constitutional ways, he found the quick action recommended by
radical Left activists—or `on their own’ *marka* angry young men—far more
attractive.

This contemporary worker disliked both the detached persona of the foreign
manager as well as the philistine, pseudo-personalized approach of Indian
mangers. He was as impatient with the *taalu-chaalu andaaz* of the
foreigners as with the *baniagiri* of Indian executives.

In March 2012, while the Manesar plant was facing wage negotiations between
the new Union and the  management, two workers shocked the managers with
their statistical knowledge. The workers knew exactly that between 2007 and
2011 *while the Maruti Suzuki  workers’ yearly earnings increased by 5.5
percent*, the consumer price index (for the Faridabad centre, Haryana),
went up by over 50 per cent. Since 2001, *profits for the Maruti Suzuki
company increased by 2200 percent*!

So in any case, the Maruti Suzuki management was throwing crumbs at the
workers. The workers’ salary was in no way, by any yardstick, commensurate
with the rise in Company’s profit.  Yet the Manesar plant management was
not ready to grant even a miniscule wage increase. Here, while contract
labor got Rs. 7000 a month, regular workers survived on a mere Rs. 17000.
Manesar workers were demanding wage increase of Rs. 15-18000, which the
management was resisting, even when Honda workers were getting similar pay
scales.

In this period of global crisis, the Maruti section(Swift and Dzire cars)
was contributing more to Maruti Suzuki’s super profits. There seems to be
immense pressure on the management to reduce wages in the name of
increasing productivity. But why should Indian workers always suffer during
a downward spiral cycle of global capitalism?

The problem is that post-liberalization India has no idea of 1857, India’s
first war of Independence. The Bengal Army of the East India Company, which
remained at the forefront of the war’s long and torturous course, comprised
of soldiers from the Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar belt. They
rebelled against what was seen as the insensitivity of a multinational
company—the world’s largest that managed a huge country like India plus
other colonial stations—towards the sense of dignity, pride and religion of
both Hindus and Muslims.

It is imperative to note that the Manesar incident arose following an
anti-Dalit, caste slur issued by a supervisor to Jiya Lal, a worker. Then
Jat-Gujar-Tyagi-Dalit workers—belonging to the Haryana region—and UP-Bihar
Poorabias—united to give a fitting reply to the miscreants belonging to the
management. The management brought in hundreds of bouncers to beat workers
to submission. *In fact, the official statement of the Maruti Suzuki
Workers’ Union, states that the bouncers started the fire that killed a
senior manager*.

*So class solidarity overcame caste divisions*—a similar phenomenon
occurred during 1857.

Both 1857 and Manesar incidents arose out of cultural slights inflicted by
an insensitive foreign/part-foreign management. At the other end of the
spectrum, it can be seen that like the Manesar incident, the cultural
aspect of 1857 carried a slew of wage related issues, and other
socio-economic grievances, nursed by soldiers against the British East
India Company.

It can be seen clearly that though India runs on the workforce of UP,
Bihar, Delhi and Haryana, *the people of these regions have historically
resisted the homogeneity, uniformity and conformity demanded by global
corporate culture*. *These workers demand their own indigenous-capitalist
ethic, different from the west*. They are in no mood to comply. Be it
Gujarat or whatever take, Maruti Suzuki anywhere—Gujarat is not India. But
UP, Bihar, Delhi and Haryana do constitute India. The country is finished
without these states. As the author signs off this article, news about
certain Jat sections of the Haryana establishment dividing Jats and Gujars
and undermining workers’ solidarity is pouring in—massive police repression
has been unleashed on workers. Without a proper enquiry, workers are being
blamed for the Manesar violence. Such tactics however are not going to
work—after twenty years of enormous  liberalization, India is on the
threshold of a gigantic working class unrest. Indian people regard economic
reform and the English speaking managerial elite with disdain. They have
tasted wealth—but they also know that, foreigners and their lackeys have
amassed riches a thousand times over. With people of North Indian
origin—their culture of constructive violence and non-submission to power
intact—leading this battle, the stage is set for new class struggles of the
21st century. Like the Anna Hazare movement of August 2011, the Manesar
incident has taken all political parties by surprise. Their political
response system is simply, not attuned to the new, 21st century Indian
reality.