² ‘The habits of the Indian factory operatives are determined by the fact that he is an agriculturist or a labourer on the land. In almost all cases his hereditary occupation is agriculture, his home is in the village from which he comes and not in the city in which he labours, his wife and family ordinarily continue to live in that village; he regularly remits a portion of his wages there and he returns there periodically to look after his affairs, and to obtain rest after the strain of factory life.’ Report of the Indian Factory Labour Commission (Vol. I Report and Appendices) (London, 1908), p. 18.

³ Ray, RajatSocial Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal, 1875–1927, Delhi, 1984.Google Scholar

⁴ See Panchanan Saha, History of the working class movement in Bengal., Delhi 1978; Ranajit Dasgupta ‘Structure of the labour Market in Colonial India' Economic and Political Weekly, (hereafter EPW) Special Issue, November 1981. Ranajit Dasgupta ‘Factory Labour in Eastern India—Sources of Supply 1855–1946’ Indian Economic and Social History review (hereafter IESHR)., Ira Mitra concentrates only on political leaders in her article on the trade union movement in Bengal. Ira Mitra ‘Growth of Trade union Consciousness among the Jute Mill Workers’ EPW Special number November 1981. Parimal Ghosh ‘Emergence of the an industrial Labour Force in Bengal: A Study of the Conflicts of the Jute Mill-Hands with the State, 1880–1930’ Ph.D. thesis, Jadavpur University, Calcutta, 1984; Parimal Ghosh in his analysis of the working-class conflict integrates urban workers’ experience with their rural social background and argues that jute workers’ ‘conflicts’ with the colonial state was primarily conditioned by their experience of overall colonial exploitation. In his view jute workers’ perception of European supervisors’ attitude in the industry was coloured by their experience ‘of the oppression of the indigo planters’ in north Bihar villages. Sanat Bose ‘Industrial Unrest and growth of labour Unions in Bengal 1920–24.’ EPW, Special Number, November 1981 Sanat Bose in his article focuses on the perceptions of the political parties on the labour politics but ignores the impact of such politics on the daily life of jute workers.

⁵ E Ramaswamy, The Worker and His Union: A Study of South India, New Delhi 1977; E.D. Murphy Unions in Conflict: A Comparative Study of Four South Indian Textile Centres, 1918–1939, New Delhi 1981; Richard Newman Workers and Unions in Bombay,1918–1929, A Study of Organization in the Cotton Mills, Canberra 1981.

⁶ Chakraborty, DRethinking Working-Class History Bengal 1890–1940, Princeton, 1989.Google Scholar

⁷ Chandavarkar, R.S. “Industrialization in India before 1947: Conventional Approaches and Alternative Perspectives” Modern Asian Studies, 19, 3 (1985) pp. 628–668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ Chandavarkar, R.S.The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Simeon, Dilip, The Politics of Labor under Late Colonialism: Workers Unions and the State in Chotanagpur. Delhi: Manohar, 1994.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Fernandes, LeelaProducing Workers: The Politics of Gender, Class, and Culture in the Calcutta Jute Mills. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997).Google Scholar

¹¹ Chitra Joshi “Hope and despair: textile workers in Kanpur in 1937–38 and the 1990s” in Jonathan P. Parry, Jan Breman and Karin Kapadia. The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour. London: Sage, 1999.

¹² Doug Haynes “Just like a family? Recalling the relations of production in the textile industries of Surat and Bhiwandi, 1940–60.” in Jonathan P. Parry, Jan Breman and Karin Kapadia. The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour. London: Sage, 1999.

¹³ The classic transition debate focusing on the labor's migration from field to factory as explored in functional anthropology posits these two worlds in terms of such dichotomous oppositional categories between atomized agriculture and modern factory. See for details C.A. Myers, Labour Problems in the Industrialisation of India, Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1958. Moris. D Moris. 1955. “Labour Discipline, Trade Unions and the State in India” in Journal of Political Economy. August.; O.A. Ornatti, Jobs and Workers in India_ Ithaca: Cornell University, 1955. N.R. Sheth The Social System of an Indian Factory. Bombay: OUP 1968. B.R. Sharma,1968 “Commitment to Industrial Work: A Methodological Note” Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 4. 2, 1968.

¹⁴ In his studies on Bombay, Chandavarkar demonstrates that rural connections did strengthen workers’ collective bargaining power. Rural bases enabled workers to prolong their strike action in urban areas. It has thus far been taken for granted that the jute industry in Bengal, controlled by the British dominated cartel, and cotton textile industry in Bombay, owned primarily by the indigenous Indian industrialists, followed sharply contrasting courses. However, this argument about the process of labour force formation and their politics in Bombay is also applicable in Bengal R.S. Chandavarkar The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1994).

¹⁵ Subho Basu Does Class matter? Colonial Capital and Workers’ Resistance in Bengal 1890–1939. New Delhi, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. See also Subho Basu (1998) “Strikes and ‘Communal’ Riots in Calcutta in the 1890s: Industrial Workers, Bhadralok Nationalist Leadership and the Colonial State”. Modern Asian Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Vol. 34, No. 4, pp. 949–983. Subho Basu. (1996) “The Emergence of the Mill Towns in Bengal 1880–1920: Migration Pattern and Survival Strategies of Industrial Workers”. The Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol. XXVIII, No. 1, January–June 1996, pp. 97–135.

¹⁶ Royal Commission on Labour in India, Vol. V, part 2, London, 1931, pp. 126–7, (hereafter RCLI).

¹⁷ S.R. Deshpande, Report on an enquiry into conditions of labour in jute mills in India, (hereafter Deshpande Report), Delhi, 1946, p. 6.

¹⁸ In Arrah, at the centre of the plain of the Sahabad district, the density of the population was 782 persons per square mile. J.A. Hubback, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement operations in the districts of Sahabad 1907–1916, Patna, 1917, p. 18. The density of the population in Saran increased from 859 persons per square mile in 1881 to 923 persons in 1891. LSS O'Malley, (Revised by A Middleton) Saran District Gazetteer, Patna, 1930, p. 35. In Muzaffarpur, in 1872 the density was 867 persons and it rose to 906 persons to the square miles in 1881. Ghazipur, in east UP similarly had experienced a rise in the population till 1891 which reached 737.3 per square mile. B.N. Ganguly, Trends in Agriculture and Population in the Ganges valley: A study in the Agricultural Economics London, 1938, p. 10 (hereafter Trends in Agriculture).

¹⁹ In Sahabad, at the turn of the century the cultivation in the district extended over 87.6% of the cultivable area which stopped only at the southern corner of the Kaimur plateau. B.N. Ganguly, Trends in Agriculture p. 146. In the period between 1907 and 1916, fallow in Sahabad district was about 3% of cultivated land area. Undoubtedly this was indication of the over cropping of land. J.A. Hubback, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement operations in the district of Sahabad 1907–1916, Patna, 1917, p. 18. In Saran in 1901 the area under cultivation in the district was 78.6% percent of the total area of the district. The fallow land grew nothing but inferior grass. In Muzaffarpur in 1891, it was found that 80% of the total area had already been brought under cultivation. There was no room for extension of cultivation and the area recorded as fallow in a much later period in 1920s was only 0. 87% which shows that hardly one acre out of every hundred was given rest for even a single year. In Ghazipur in eastern UP similarly the cultivation reached nearly 70% of the total district in 1891. J.A. Hubback, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement operations in the district of Sahabad 1907–1916, p. 10 and pp. 115–123.

²⁰ Muzaffarpur had as many as 1,257 persons per square miles of cultivated area. B.N. Ganguly, Trends in Agriculture, p. 124. ‘In Saran most of the area recorded as fallow will grow nothing but inferior grass, and consequently it forms the only real source of pasture in the district except such scanty pickings as the cattle may find on road sides and field boundaries.’ B.N. Ganguly, Trends in Agriculture, pp. 80–81. According to the District Gazetteer of Saran, ‘The cattle are generally of poor quality. . . owing to appropriation of all available land for cultivation, pasturage is insufficient. . .’. LSS O'Malley, (Revised by A. Middleton) Saran District Gazetteer, Patna, 1930, p. 67.

²¹ In Sahabad, Ahirs constituted nearly 13% of the population. They earlier combined cow-herding with cultivation for their livelihood, but increasingly, majority of the Ahirs gave up pastoral pursuits. LSS O’ Malley (Revised by J.F.W. James) Sahabad District Gazetteer, Patna, 1924, p. 46. In Saran also, Ahirs were numerically the largest caste. Many of them gradually migrated to the banks of the Gondak and Gogra because the banks of these rivers afford good grazing grounds for their herds. Elsewhere in the districts they became cultivators. LSS O'Malley, (Revised by A Middleton) Saran District Gazetteer, p. 44. In Ghazipur, Ahirs constituted 17.64% of the population. They all became cultivators at the turn of the century. H.R. Nevill, Ghazipur District Gazetteer, Allahabad, 1909, pp. 84–86. (hereafter Ghazipur District Gazetteer).

²² Orders of Government, No 898/1-710 of 15th June 1889, Nainital, By order W.C. Benet, Secretary to Government, North Western Province and Oudh, attached to William Irvine, Report on the revisions of records and settlement in Ghazipur district 1880–188, Allahabad, 1886, p. 3.

²³ According to Stevenson Moore, the settlement officer for Muzaffarpur district in Bihar between 1892 and 1899, in Bihar 100 acres of cultivated land needed 6,480 man days. Assuming there were 512 cultivated acres to every square mile of gross area and nine months in the working season, this equalled to 116 labourers per sq mile each day. The number of labourers available, calculated from the district census figures, was 168 per sq mile per man day which was 45% higher than was necessary to obtain the existing levels of production if labour were more efficiently used. Quoted in C.M. Fisher, ‘Indigo plantations and Agrarian Society in North Bihar in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries. ‘Unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1976, p. 230. (hereafter ‘Indigo plantations and Agrarian Society in North Bihar’) p. 230.

²⁴ Monsoon generally came in June and the heaviest rain fall occurred in July and August, varying from 11.40 to 13.15 inches. From the middle of September monsoon gradually disappears. LSS O’ Malley Revised by (J.F.W. James), Sahabad District Gazetteer, p. 16.

²⁵ See LSS O’ Malley (Revised by J.F.W. James), Sahabad District Gazetteer p. 87 and LSS O'Malley, (Revised by A Middleton), Saran District Gazetteers, p. 74.

²⁶ The irrigation facilities in the Sahabad district improved after the introduction of Sone canal system which helped to save crops in the years of drought from 1881 onwards. Selection of Papers Relating to the Famine of 1896–97 in Bengal, Vol. 1. (October to November), Calcutta, 1897, pp. 3–4.

²⁷ Drake, D.L.Azamgarh District Gazetteer Allahabad, 1911, p. 23.Google Scholar

²⁸ B.B. Chowdhury, ‘Land market in Eastern India, 1793–1940 Part II: The Changing Composition of the Landed Society” IESHR, Volume XII, April–June 1975, Number 2, pp. 133–167. He also discusses in detail the impact of the growth of the land market on the peasantry in the Bengal presidency in ‘The Process of Depeasantisation in Bengal and Bihar, 1885–1947’, IHR, Volume II, Number 1, pp. 105–165.

²⁹ Roberts, D.T., Report on the revision of records of part of Balia district 1882–1885 AD, Allahabad, 1886, p. 53.Google Scholar

³⁰ ‘A cultivator not in debt’ writes a Sahabad officer, ‘is viewed with dislike and suspicion, and debt is their common burden. Fifty percent of the cultivators are in debt for grain lent by the their landlords, and forty percent are in debt to mahajans (village merchants and bankers) for either grain or money. The latter section consists of men of the some substance who can command credit; but the former are of the poorer class cultivators and the grasp of landlord on them is firm and unrelaxing.’ C.J. O’ Donnel, ‘The Ruin of An Indian province: An Indian Famine explained. A Letter to the Marquis of Harlington, Secretary of State in a Liberal and Reforming Government, London, 1880, pp. 16–17. (hereafter The Ruin of An Indian province).

³¹ William Irvine, Report on the revisions of records and settlement in Ghazipur district 1880–1885, p. 61. In Jaunpur, the process of land alienation stared earlier. By 1818 in Jaunpur the few large estates comprised about 307,000 acres of the total occupied area where as the remaining 663,000 acres were in possession of 87,000 recorded sharers. Ibid, pp. 10–11.

³² Das, A.N., Agrarian Unrest and Socio-Economic change in Bihar, New Delhi, 1983, p. 37.Google Scholar

³³ J.A. Hubback, Final Report on the Survey and Settlement operations in the district of Sahabad 1907–1916, Patna, 1917, p. 28. See also W. Irvine, Settlement Report Ghazipur, p. 61.

³⁴ A local official of the government observes at the turn of the century that ‘In Bihar the share which the land lord receives is determined either by danabandi, or apraisement or batai, i.e., by the actual division of the crops on the threshing floor. In the former case, the division of the produce has passed into an estimate of the value of the crop before it is cut, the produce of each field being estimated by appraisers (Salis) while the crop is standing. Before the landlord's share is determined, a deduction is made from the whole estimated produce, which may be as low as ten percent, but usually amounts to twenty percent of the whole; and all the expenses of harvesting and the customary allowances made to the village artisans menials etc are supposed to be paid from this deduction. When, however, either party is dissatisfied with the estimate made by the appraisers, the tenants and zamindars resort to danabandi or actual division of the crops. Under this system the harvesting expenses and village allowances are paid in kind, and a deduction is made in favour of the tenant before the grain is divided. Increasingly by the end of the nineteenth century zamindars tried to reinforce danabandi system.’ LSS O’ Malley (Revised by J.F.W. James), Sahabad District Gazetteer, pp. 97–98. Alienation of a large share of agricultural produce from the real cultivator acted as disincentive for the producer. In most cases the cultivator concentrated his attention on the fertile land near the village and ignored the distant fields. Even on this land he made half hearted efforts and would perhaps pulverise the land in a routine manner. Use of irrigation and careful application of manure would not attract him. Ibid, p. 99.

³⁵ Grierson, George A., Bihar Peasant Life, Patna, 1926, (Second Edition), p. 197.Google Scholar

³⁶ Selection of Papers Relating to the Famine of 1896–97 in Bengal Vol.1 (October to November), Calcutta, 1897, pp. 3–4.

³⁷ The Ghazipur district gazetteer recorded that during 1868–69 famine, ‘the prices rose to a great height, . . . and . . . that it was found necessary to establish a poor house in Ghazipur.’ In 1873 and 74, again distress was felt throughout the district. In 1877–78 the area of famine expanded owing to the depletion of the stock of the grain ‘consequent on the unusual amount of exportation both to Europe and to the famine stricken tracts of Madras and Bombay.’ Distress revisited the area in 1896. However, the famines were not limited to Ghazipur alone. The severity of famine gradually increased in the east which slowly proceeded from west through the decades. Census of India, 1881, Vol 1. E. White, Report on Census in N.W. Province 1882, p. 27. All the districts in east UP and north and central Bihar experienced famines in this period. Gaya experienced scarcities in 1866, 1873, 1889, 1891–92. Sahabad, too, witnessed famines in these years, Saran underwent the same experience except for the years of 1890–91. Muzaffarpur, Monghyr and Bhagalpur had similar experience. Selection of Papers Relating to the Famine of 1896–97 in Bengal Vol 1 (October to November), pp. 76–92.

³⁸ The impact of the famines was reflected in the decline of the population in these districts. In the 1890s Saran witnessed a decline of 2. 2%. LSS O’ Malley (Revised by A Middleton), Saran District Gazetteers, p. 35. In Muzaffarpur, like the other districts the decline ensued in from 1891. B.N. Ganguly Trends in agriculture, p. 123. Ghazipur similarly had experienced a rise in the population till 1891 which reached 737.3 per square mile but it declined from 1891 onwards. In 1901 it was 656.9 and in 1911 there was further decrease to 603 per square mile. B.N. Ganguly, Trends in Agriculture and Population in the Ganges Valley, p. 10.

³⁹ The Saran district gazetteer summed up the situation clearly: ‘It (Saran) never produces sufficient for its own consumption, and imports consequently exceed exports, the cost of the surplus being met largely from the earnings of natives of the districts employed elsewhere.’ LSS O'Malley, (Revised by A. Middleton), Saran District Gazetteer, p. 91.

⁴⁰ In ordinary circumstances the agricultural workers would not have left the districts. As one report of a famine mentions in 1881 that ‘The majority of relief labourers (famine victims) can not migrate to a distance for a short time; they have their families, their fields, and their concerns at home, all which will in a very few weeks urgently need their presence.’ Temple minute, p. 40.

⁴¹ In 1890, nearly 83.01% of the emigrants registered for over sees migration to Trinidad, Demerara, St Lucia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Natal, Fiji and Surinam were residents of the United Provinces and 14.7% of Bengal and Bihar. Most of these workers were residents of east UP districts of Azamgarh, Ghazipur Balia, or Bihar districts of Sahabad, Saran, Patna, Gaya, Muzaffarpur, Monghyr, Darbhanga, Bhagalpur. R.Mc. Leod, Annual Report on emigration from the port of Calcutta to British and Foreign colonies, 1890, Calcutta, 1891, pp. 7–8.

⁴² In the 1890s the Kankinarah jute mills employed totally upcountry workers. Of the 4,500 workers employed in Samnagar jute mills nearly 3000, were from Bihar and east UP. Report on Police Supervision in the Riverine Municipalities in Bengal, Nos 6–11, Judicial Police 1896, WBSA, p. 28.

⁴³ RCLI Vol. V, Part II, Oral Evidence of S. C. Bhattacharya. p. 255.

⁴⁴ The census report of 1891 points out that the sex ratio among the migrants was in favour of male migrants. In Howrah male migrants in that year were 11,629 and female migrants were 3,652. In Bally another neighbouring mill town in Howrah district male migrants were 953 while women were 192. C.J. O’ Donnel Census of 1891, Vol. I, Calcutta, 1893, p. 112. The predominant nature of male migration was reflected in the increasing ratio of women in the population of rural areas of east UP. In most cases, single women came to mill towns when all means of support for them were exhausted in the rural areas. The 1891 commission interviewed six women workers in the jute mills of whom five were widows. Indian Factory Commission 1890 Calcutta, 1890, pp. 66–76 (hereafter IFC 1890) In later period also, widows who were denied family support continued to come to mills. Narsama Kurmi came to the jute mills when she lost her husband and her own family did not provide her shelter. RCLI Vol. XI, part II, p. 360.

⁴⁵ Of the twenty life histories of the jute workers collected by the R CL I thirteen almost had no income from land at all. These people often lived on the edge of starvation. For example Dor Bosna, a ‘Madrassi’ worker, stated before Royal Commission that he came to mill towns as he did not get sufficient food in the villages. He was a weaver in the Ganjam district. Dor Bosna helped his father in weaving but the fall in prices of cloth forced his family to borrow from mahajan. He regularly sent money back home. RCLI Vol. XII, p. 359. Another survey at Jagaddal shows that 605 of the Jagaddal workers had no land at all. K.A. Chattapadhaya, Socio-Economic survey of Jute labour, Department of Social work Calcutta University, 1952, p. 30, quoted in Samita Sen ‘Women workers in the Bengal Jute Industry, 1890–1940: Migration, Motherhood and Militancy’, unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1992, p. 42, Footnote 2.

⁴⁶ RCLI Vol. V, Part II, p. 132.

⁴⁷ Deshpande Report, p. 26.

⁴⁸ RCLI Vol. V, Part I, pp. 31–32.

⁴⁹ RCLI Vol. V, Part 1, pp. 31–32.

⁵⁰ Foley, Labour in Bengal, p. 11.

⁵¹ RCLI Vol. V, Part II.

⁵² General Dept Miscellaneous Branch Nos. 1–33, Aug 1893. WBSA. Annual Report on the Working of Factories Act 1898, General Dept Miscellaneous Branch, No 25, Aug. 1899. WBSA. General Dept Miscellaneous Branch, No 26–27, September, 1898. WBSA. In 1905, Foley, while commenting on the reasons behind the exodus of labour from Bengal, commented that ‘one of the mills which suffered from plague was situated up the river, plagues starting from an insanitary busti close-by.’ B.Foley, Report on labour in Bengal, p. 12. Municipal authorities, however, were prompt in taking less expensive emergency measures whenever rumours about epidemics spread.

⁵³ AARBM, 1918, p. 12.

⁵⁴ AARBM, 1918, pp. 7–8.

⁵⁵ AARBM, 1918, p. 12.

⁵⁶ AARBM, 1931, p. 34.

⁵⁷ RCLI Vol. V, Part 1, p. 52.

⁵⁸ Dr. Jean Orkney ‘Report on the Titaghur health centre’, 1931 Manager's Report to the Director 1932, Titghar No. 2 Jute Mill p. 9. V/8/ 2/1932 TDA, DUA.

⁶⁰ Myna Khandayet a worker from Puri district stated that he borrowed money to pay his train fare from Puri to Calcutta. Narsama also borrowed money to come to Calcutta. RCLI, Vol. XI, pp. 360–362.

⁶¹ The story of Fagua in the novel Asamapta Chatabda, written by Mohanlal Gangapadhaya shows why workers needed right contacts for employment in the jute mills. Fagua came to mills with his cousin who was a lorry driver and tried to obtain a temporary employment but did not know whom to approach. Fagua had to wait three months to find aright patron. He was helped by a mill clerk who got his name recorded in the list. Mohanlal Gangapadhaya Asamapta Chatabda, Calcutta, 1963, pp. 38–52.

⁶² The following examples further help to demonstrate this point. Abdul Khan was brought to the Chapdany mill by his cousin who was a sardar. Biro came to Rishra with a member of his village who secured him an employment in a jute factory. Mohan Noonia also got into mill work through his country cousin. RCLI, Vol XI, pp. 362–364.

⁶³ RCLI, Vol. XI, p. 360.

⁶⁴ In fact Community is more a symbolic construction as Cohen suggests in his writings “A reasonable interpretation of the word's (Community) use would seem to imply two related suggestions: that the members of a group of people (a) have something in Common with each other which (b) distinguishes them in a significant way from the members of to her putative groups.” The most significant factor in the construction of Community thus Cohen argues is “boundary ‘ which “encapsulates the identity of Community”. “They exist in the mind of the beholders . . . This being so the boundary may be perceived in different terms, not only by people on opposite sides of it, but also by the people on the same. This is the symbolic aspect of Community boundary . . .” A.P. Cohen, The symbolic Construction of Community, p. 12.

⁶⁵ IFC Report, 1890, pp. 88.

⁶⁶ M. Sen Sediner katha, p. 124.

⁶⁸ Weavers were mainly peace workers. RCLI, Vol. V Part I, pp. 96–100.

⁶⁹ Interview with George Harrison a supervisor in Naihati Jute Mill during the period 1950–55. Dundee 7/8/1992.

⁷⁰ The 1908 Commission reported that “it is custom, however, that in the case of broad looms there shall be 5 weavers for each set of 5 looms, the extra hand is in some cases engaged by the mills and in some cases he is engaged by the 4 weavers themselves who paid him monthly wages. IFLC, 1908.

⁷¹ M Sen, Sediner Katha, Calcutta, 1978 ‘Magi’ is Bengali slang for woman, though initially the word meant elderly women.

⁷² For example, a petition to the District Magistrate of 24 Parganas by jute workers in March 1931 noted that workers were not allowed to even attend ‘nature's call’ freely. Their relatives were not allowed to give any information regarding emergency developments at home during the period of work. This stringency they maintained was due to the gates being closed during working hours. WBSA, GOB Political Department, Political Branch d/o No. 126.

⁷³ R Dasgupta, “Material Conditions and Behavioural Aspects of Calcutta working-class 1875–1899”, p. 29.

⁷⁴ In early years with shorter working hours workers exercised much freedom in taking leave from work. In 1888, the magistrate of Howrah remarked that many of the workers who came from neighbouring villages were content to do 21 days work in a month saying that they could earn sufficient money in that time and did not care to work on the remaining days. Report on condition of lower classes in India, Famine Nos. 1–24 December 1888 Para 25, NAI. Describing the early years of jute mills, Samaresh Basu in his novel on Jagatdal has shown how factories remained closed for days as workers went out to celebrate festivals in nearby villages. Samaresh Basu, Jagaddal, Calcutta, 1945.

⁷⁵ Ranajit Dasgupta provides a detailed assessment of how religious festivals like Muharram, Id or Chat brought relief from monotony of industrial life. However, Dasgupta thinks that the demands were raised in 1895 as migrant workers suffered from deep social alienation in this period. See R Dasgupta Material conditions and behavioural aspects of Calcutta working-class 1876–99; Centre for studies in social sciences, Occasional Paper No. 22, Calcutta, January, 1979.

⁷⁶ The old employees often ‘educated’ new workers about the supposed rights of workers. Mr Orr an experienced manager of Gouripore jute mill told high level police official called Pratt during the strike wave in the jute mills that” agitators are about, possibly old hands, who are teaching the younger ones their rights or supposed rights.” Bengal Judicial progs; police dept; Jan. to March 1896, A Nos. 8–10, p. 4961, IOL.

⁷⁷ See Dipesh Chakrabarty Rethinking Working-Class History, particularly the chapter on “Protest and Authority” pp. 155–185. Chakrabarty points out that “Managers obviously claimed that they were in loco parentis to the workers. The worker was a child and was thought incapable of “rational”, “adult” behaviour'' p. 163.

⁷⁸ AARBM, 1915, p. 1.

⁷⁹ For example, in Howrah on 27th November, 1920 looting in bazaars were started by the striking Fort William workers. They were soon joined by striking workers from other mills. Ibid xxxv.

⁸⁰ Ibid.