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Disciplining Sholapur: the industrial city and its workers in the period of the Congress ministry, 1937–1939*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2009

MANJIRI KAMAT
MANJIRI KAMAT*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Mumbai, Vidyanagari, Santacruz (East), Mumbai 400 098, India E-mail: mnkamat@yahoo.com
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Abstract

The Congress, which had launched a satyagraha in 1930 to defy the Martial Law at Sholapur, had swept to power in the Bombay Presidency after the 1937 elections. However, once in power it started using a vocabulary of discipline in the industrial city. Its acceptance of power was greeted with a surge in labour activism led by the communists. The Congress initially relaxed many of the restrictions imposed by the earlier British administration and followed a strategy of accommodation. In a city like Sholapur, where government surveillance had increased following the violent popular unrest of 1930 in response to Mahatma Gandhi's call for Civil Disobedience, such temperate policies encouraged the articulation of submerged tensions, especially as the formation of a Congress government had raised expectations. Yet a combination of factors forced the ministry to adopt an uncompromising stance towards the labour activism of this period. Sholapur's turbulent record of unrest, the constraints imposed by class alliances, the trappings of labour recruitment from the criminal tribes settlement, the increasing influence of the communists, coupled with the bureaucracy and millowners' shared aversion to unbridled trade union activity, forced the ministry to adopt tougher disciplinary measures in the city. Therefore, when the labour agitation in Sholapur threatened to disrupt law and order, it brought about a shift in the government's response and the bureaucracy reasserted its power by reverting to repressive measures in the new Congress Raj.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1: The politics of work, family and community in India , January 2010 , pp. 99 - 119
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 H.T. Lambrick to Government of Bombay [GOB], 18 August 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, p. 512, Maharashtra State Archives [MSA], Mumbai. H.T. Lambrick was the District Magistrate of Sholapur between 1937 and 1939.

2 Shankardass, Rani Dhavan, The First Congress Raj: Provincial Autonomy in Bombay (Macmillan, Delhi, 1982), pp. 257–267Google Scholar.

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5 The late 1930s also saw an escalation of communist-led labour activism in Bombay, Kanpur and Calcutta. See Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the working classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994), Chapter 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gooptu, Nandini, The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early-Twentieth Century India (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001), Chapter 9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Joshi, Chitra, Lost Worlds: Indian Labour and Its Forgotten Histories (Permanent Black, Delhi, 2003), Chapter 6Google Scholar; Sen, Samita, Women and Labour in Late Colonial India: The Bengal Jute Industry (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999), Chapter 6Google Scholar; Basu, Subho, Does Class Matter? Colonial Capital and Workers' Resistance in Bengal, 1890–1937 (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2004), Chapter 7Google Scholar; Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Rethinking Working-Class History: Bengal, 1890–1940 (Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1996), Chapter 5Google Scholar.

6 For instance, the Criminal Tribes Act Inquiry Committee, and the Committee of Inquiry into the Flogging of Gangaram Chavan, a prisoner in Bijapur jail, were appointed by the Congress ministry in direct response to the agitation at Sholapur. The Textile Labour Inquiry Committee too had important implications for the working classes in the mill-town.

7 Manjiri N. Kamat, ‘Labour and Nationalism in Sholapur: conflict, confrontation and control in a Deccan city, western India, 1918–1939’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge, 1997).

8 For details of the ‘Nariman episode’, see Shankardass, The First Congress Raj, pp. 37–40; Shankardass, Rani Dhavan, Vallabhai Patel: Power and Organisation in Indian Politics (Orient Longman, Delhi, 1988), pp. 153–164Google Scholar; Kamath, M.V., Kher, B.G.: The Gentleman Premier (Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay, 1989), pp. 200–218Google Scholar; Phadke, Y.D., Veesavya Shatakatil Maharashtra, Vol 4: 1930–39 (Srividya Prakashan, Poona, 1993), pp. 146–149Google Scholar; For a perspective of Sholapur Congressmen like T.S. Jadhav, see Andurkar, V.G., Chane Khave Lokhandache (Lokseva Sahakari Mudranalaya, Sholapur, 1985), p. 48Google Scholar.

9 Bombay 1936–37: A Review of the Administration of the Presidency (Bombay, 1938), pp. i–ii; Bombay 1937–38: A Review of the Administration of the Presidency (Bombay, 1939), pp. i–ii.

10 Sholapurcha Kamgar (Sholapur, 1944), p. 23.

11 GOB, Home (Special), File 550 (14) of 1933, p. 135, MSA. The File has information on 1934.

12 Intercepted letters, S.M. Joshi to R.G. Karadkar, 11 June 1937 and Shankarrao Deo to Dr K.B. Antrolikar, 12 June 1937, in Records of the Deputy Inspector General of Police; Criminal Investigation Department [Records of the DIGP; CID], Maharashtra, Mumbai, File 3/INC/37II, p. 421, Office of the Deputy Inspector General of Police; Criminal Investigation Department [Office of the DIGP; CID], Maharashtra, Mumbai; Lambrick to GOB, 10 June 1937, 16 June 1937 and 13 July 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, MSA; M.K. Pandhe, ‘Labour Organizations in Sholapur City’ (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Poona, 1960), pp. 68–70: See Proceedings of the Textile Labour Inquiry Committee [Proceedings of the TLIC], Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, S.G. Sardesai, Lal Bawta Girni Kamgar Union, Sholapur in File 42 of 1937–38, pp. 506–507, MSA.

13 Ibid; Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India, p. 420; V.B. Karnik, Indian Trade Unions: A Survey (Popular Prakashan, Bombay 1978), Chapter IX.

14 Lambrick to GOB, 29 April 1937, 7 May 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, pp. 315–321, MSA.

15 GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (78) of 1937 and File 543 (79) of 1937, MSA; Lambrick to GOB, 2 April 1937, 7 April 1937 and 7 May 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, MSA.

16 Lambrick to GOB, 16 June 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, p. 453, MSA; Intercepted letter, Deo to Antrolikar, 12 June 1937 in Records of the DIGP; CID, File 3/INC/37II, p. 425, Office of the DIGP; CID.

17 For the cancellation of the restriction to hold labour meetings at the Hom Maidan in August 1937, see reply of M.Y. Nurie to R.A. Khedgikar's question in the Bombay Legislative Assembly, Extract from the Bombay Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol 3, 4 May 1938, in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (94) of 1935, MSA; for the removal of the externment order against G.D. Sane and S.G. Sardesai passed by the Congress ministry in October 1937, see GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (44) I of 1934, pp. 165–167, MSA; for the cancellation of the security demanded from the Ekjut newspaper, see Pandhe, ‘Labour Organizations in Sholapur City’, p. 69. Although the dates of the above files are 1935 and 1934 respectively, some of the information in them relates to the Congress ministry period.

18 See GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, MSA pertaining to the criminal tribes agitation at Sholapur.

19 Annual Administration Report on the working of the Criminal Tribes Act in the Province of Bombay for the year ending 31 March 1939, Part I (Bombay, 1939), p. 2; GOB, Home (Special), File 543(82) of 1937, p. 87, MSA.

20 Royal Commission on Labour in India [RCLI], Evidence, Bombay, Mr H.H. Strutton (London, 1931), I(2): 451. According to Mr Strutton, who was the Manager of the Sholapur Industrial Settlement, ‘During plague epidemics the average millhand clears out of Sholapur. We do not allow our people to clear out. We inoculate them.’ The Bombay Chronicle, 11 April 1916; Land Revenue Administration Report, Part II of the Collectorate of Sholapur in GOB, Revenue Department, Compilation 511, Pt XII of 1915, p. 27, MSA.

21 The Bombay Chronicle, 19 February 1920; For instance Mr Strutton, in his evidence to the Royal Commission on Labour, clarified that had they joined the strike, ‘we would probably transfer them to another settlement where there is no mill work, but only as a matter of discipline’. See RCLI, Evidence, Bombay, Mr H.H. Strutton, I(2): 451; The settlement workers also abstained from going on strike in 1934 for the same reason. R.G. Karadkar, the General Secretary of the Lal Bawta Union who led the criminal tribes agitation in 1937 said that the 1934 strike had failed, as the millowners had engaged settlers to work in the mills. GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, p. 219, MSA; Kamat, Labour and Nationalism in Sholapur, Chapters 1, 4.

22 RCLI, Evidence, Bombay, Mr H.H. Strutton, I(2): 450.

23 GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, p. 3, MSA.

24 Sholapurcha Kamgar, pp. 30–31; Kirloskar, Shanta, Comrade Minatai Sane: Ek Bhuyichakra (Srimati Minakshibai Sane Smriti Samiti, Sholapur, 1991), pp. 29–30Google Scholar.

25 Telegram, Karadkar, General Secretary of the Lal Bawta Girni Kamgar Union to K.M. Munshi, Home Minister, 4 September 1937, in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, p. 19, MSA; Lambrick to GOB, 8 September 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, p. 529–531, MSA; Ekjut, 9 September 1937.

26 Sholapurcha Kamgar, p. 30.

27 GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, p. 219, MSA.

28 Pethe, V.P., Demographic Profiles of an Urban Population (Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1964), p. 5Google Scholar.

29 Minakshi Sane, Tatakathit gunehgar zamatichya chalwalichya itihasatil kahi gahal zhaleli pane (Bombay, n.d.). This is a pamphlet written by Minakshi Sane (formerly Karadkar) who led the criminal tribes agitation at Sholapur launched by the Lal Bawta Union in 1937.

30 Note of Home (Special) Department in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, p. 131, MSA; This note refers to the appointment of an Inquiry Committee by the Congress ministry in September 1937 to investigate the policy and law relating to the criminal tribes. The Committee consisted of Narayanrao Joshi, Rao Bahadur Chitale, Khan Bahadur Abdul Latif, Dr K.B. Antrolikar and F.B. Dhabi all of whom were MLAs with Munshi, the Home Minister, acting as the Chairman. Mr D. Symington, the Backward Class Officer was appointed as the Secretary of the Inquiry Committee.

31 Ibid., p. 219. Meeting of the settlement workers behind the Vishnu Mill addressed by Karadkar, 28 September 1937.

32 Ibid., p. 215, 253. Lambrick to GOB, 29 September 1937; Order under Section 144 Criminal Procedure Code, 2 October 1937. Following the stone-throwing incident in the settlement, Lambrick, the District Magistrate of Sholapur, strongly recommended the promulgation of Section 144 in his letter to the Government of Bombay dated 29 September 1937. This request was sanctioned by the Congress ministry and the order was issued at Sholapur on 2 October 1937.

33 Ibid., p. 381. See Lambrick's Confidential Report, 21 October 1937. Another reason for extending the order under Section 144 besides the continuing agitation was the cancellation of the externment order against Sane and Sardesai sanctioned by the Congress ministry in October 1937. The District Magistrate feared that their arrival in Sholapur would escalate the agitation.

34 Pandhe, ‘Labour Organizations in Sholapur City’; Haynes, Douglas E., ‘The Labour Process in the Bombay Handloom Industry, 1880–1940’, MAS, (2008), 42 (1): 1–45Google Scholar.

35 Sholapurcha Kamgar, pp. 31–32; Pandhe, ‘Labour Organizations in Sholapur City’, pp. 73–75; GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, pp. 447–487, MSA; Records of the DIGP; CID, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Bombay Presidency Police Secret Abstract of Intelligence [Police Abstract], Vol L, Number 44, 6 November 1937, pp. 368–369, Office of the DIGP; CID, Maharashtra, Mumbai; A.L. Irabatti, Mazhya Ayushyatil Tippane (Mazhya Ayushyatil Tippane Prakashan Samiti, Sholapur, 1970), pp. 47–48.

36 Sholapurcha Kamgar, pp. 31–32.

37 Interview, S.G. Sardesai, Talegaon, March 1992; GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, pp. 465–491, MSA.

38 Lambrick to GOB, 3 December 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 800 (74) (15) Pt I of 1935, p. 623, MSA.

39 The Bombay Chronicle, 9 November 1937; Lambrick to GOB, 11 November 1937; Press Note, 15 November 1937; J.B. Irwin to Lambrick 15 November 1937; Bombay Sentinel, 30 November 1937 in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, pp. 535–639, MSA.

40 Ibid., pp. 537–542. Lambrick to GOB, 11 November 1937.

41 Ibid., pp. 540–542, 625. Manager, Narsinggirji Mill to Manager of the criminal tribes settlement, Sholapur, 9 November 1937 and Lambrick to GOB, 11 November 1937.

42 Annual Administration Report on the working of the Criminal Tribes Act in the Bombay Province for the year ending 31 March 1937, Part I (Bombay, 1937), pp. 2, 10, 11; Annual Administration Report on the working of the Criminal Tribes Act in the Province of Bombay for the year ending 31 March 1938, Part I (Bombay, 1938), pp. 2, 11.

43 Annual Administration Report on the working of the Criminal Tribes Act in the Province of Bombay for the year ending 31 March 1939, Part I (Bombay, 1939), p.11; Annual Administration Report on the working of the Criminal Tribes Act in the Bombay Province for the year ending 31 March 1940, Part I (Bombay, 1940), pp. 1, 4, 7; Report of the Criminal Tribes Act Enquiry Committee, 1939 (Bombay, 1939).

44 Report of the Textile Labour Inquiry Committee [Report of the TLIC], 1937–38, Vol I, Interim Report (Bombay, 1938).

45 Proceedings of the TLIC, Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, Examination by V.L. Mehta of the representatives of the Lal Bawta Girni Kamgar Union, Sholapur in File 42 of 1937–38, p. 519, MSA.

46 Ibid., Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, Examination by K.K. Desai of W.T. Cullen, Laxmi and Vishnu Mills, Sholapur in File 42, pp. 393–394.

47 Ibid., pp. 393–396.

48 Report of the TLIC, 1937–38, I, 93.

49 Proceedings of the TLIC, Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, Examination by D.R. Gadgil of W.T. Cullen, Laxmi and Vishnu Mills, Sholapur in File 42 of 1937–38, pp. 369–373, MSA.

50 Ibid., Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, Examination by K.K. Desai of W.T. Cullen, Laxmi and Vishnu Mills, Sholapur in File 42 of 1937–38, p. 387, MSA; Report of the TLIC, 1937–38, I, 94.

51 Proceedings of the TLIC, Interim Inquiry, Oral evidence, Examination by D.R. Gadgil of S.G. Sardesai, Lal Bawta Girni Kamgar Union, Sholapur in File 42 of 1937–38, p. 521, MSA.

52 For the business response to the Congress ministry's policies see Markovits, Claude, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, 1931–39: The Indigenous Capitalist Class and the Rise of the Congress Party (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1985), Chapter. 6, pp. 150–178CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Lambrick to GOB, 11 November 1937 and Manager, Narsinggirji Mill to Manager of the criminal tribes settlement, Sholapur, 9 November 1937, in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) of 1937, pp. 537–542, 625, MSA.

54 GOB to Lambrick, 12 February 1938 and Telegram, Lambrick to GOB, 14 February 1938 in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, pp. 205, 217–221, MSA.

55 Sholapur Samachar, 9 November 1938.

56 G.D. Sane, President, Lal Bawta Girni Kamgar Union, Sholapur to Jawaharlal Nehru, Ex-President and Member of the Working Committee of the Indian National Congress, 12 May 1938, in All India Congress Committee Papers [AICC Papers], File G-38 of 1938, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library [NMML], New Delhi.

57 GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, pp. 99–135, MSA.

58 Ibid., p. 195. Reverend S.P. Hieb, Manager, Sholapur Industrial Settlement to C.S. Devadhar, Backward Class Officer, Poona, 8 February 1938. The criminal tribes settlement at Sholapur was also referred to as the Sholapur Industrial Settlement.

59 Interview, S.G. Sardesai, Talegaon, March 1992. The word ‘fraternizing’ was used by Sardesai in the interview.

60 GOB to Lambrick, 12 February 1938, in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, p. 205, MSA.

61 Ibid., M.P. La Bouchardiere, District Superintendent of Police, [DSP], Sholapur to Lambrick, 14 February 1938, p. 259.

62 Ibid., GOB to Lambrick, 8 February 1938 and 12 February 1938, pp. 189, 205.

63 Sane to Nehru, 12 May 1938 in AICC Papers, File G-38 of 1938, NMML; La Bouchardiere, DSP, Sholapur to Lambrick, 14 February 1938 in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, p. 257, MSA.

64 Kamat, Labour and Nationalism in Sholapur, Chapter 5.

65 Telegram, Lambrick to GOB, 14 February 1938 and letter, La Bouchardiere, DSP, Sholapur to Lambrick, 14 February 1938 in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, pp. 221, 257, MSA.

66 Ibid., La Bouchardiere, DSP, Sholapur to Lambrick, 14 February 1938, pp. 255–259. Also see Appendix ‘A’ in the same letter for the attendance statistics in the Laxmi, Vishnu Mills and among the settlement workers in particular on 14 February 1938. The statistics show that the absenteeism was higher amongst the settlement workers of these mills on 14 February 1938.

67 Ibid., Telegram, C.S. Devadhar, Backward Class Officer, Poona to GOB, 14 February 1938. Over 300 settlers went on strike on this day, despite the advice given to them by the local authorities and the Congress leaders.

68 Ibid., La Bouchardiere, DSP, Sholapur to Lambrick, 14 February 1938, pp. 255–259.

69 Ibid., Extract from the Police Abstract, 26 March 1938, p. 375.

70 Ibid., Lambrick to J.W. Smyth, Commissioner of the Central Division, 2 April 1938; S.P. Hieb, Manager, Sholapur Industrial Settlement to C.S. Devadhar, Backward Class Officer, Poona, 21 February 1938; Devadhar to Manager, Laxmi Mills, Sholapur, 23 February 1938; The Bombay Sentinel, 23 March 1938, pp. 299, 301, 359, 421.

71 S.S. Mirajkar, Secretary, Bombay Provincial Trade Union Congress to General Secretary, Indian National Congress, Allahabad, 30 May 1938, in AICC Papers, File G-38 of 1938, NMML; The Bombay Sentinel, 13 May 1938; The Bombay Chronicle, 18 May 1938, in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) II of 1938, pp. 1, 9, MSA; Letter to B.G. Kher by R.A. Khedgikar, S.V. Parulekar and others for the release of the 13 Sholapur prisoners mentioned in The Bombay Chronicle, 26 March 1938 in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) I of 1937–38, p. 367, MSA.

72 Kamat, Labour and Nationalism in Sholapur, Chapter 3.

73 Government Resolution: Committee appointed to investigate into the circumstances of the whipping of Gangaram Chavan in Bijapur District Prison, 13 August 1938; Government Resolution, 28 May 1938; Also see Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Flogging of Gangaram Chavan, a prisoner in Bijapur Jail; Bombay Police Abstract, 4 June 1938 (Extract) in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) II of 1938, pp. 115, 135, MSA.

74 Ibid., Home Department Notes, 12 July 1938; Bombay Provincial Weekly Letter, 16 July 1938; Inspector General of Prisons to GOB, 26 July 1938; Lambrick to GOB, 29 July 1938; GOB to Lambrick, 28 July 1938; Home Department Notes ending with the remark ‘No premature release’ signed by K.M. Munshi, Home Minister dated 1 September 1938; District Magistrate's Report pertaining to the ensuing municipal election, 7 August 1938, pp. 129–133, 135, 145–153.

75 Chandavarkar, Rajnarayan, Imperial Power and Popular Politics: Class, resistance and the state in India, c. 1850–1950 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), p. 94Google Scholar; Markovits, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, pp. 166–171; Shankardass, The First Congress Raj, pp. 160–188.

76 Sholapur Samachar, 8 November 1938.

77 Markovits, Indian Business and Nationalist Politics, pp. 168; Shankardass, The First Congress Raj, pp. 179–184.

78 Sholapur Samachar, 8 November 1938, 9 November 1938 and 10 November 1938.

79 Inspector General of Prisons to GOB, 26 July 1938, in GOB, Home (Special), File 543 (82) II of 1938, p. 147, MSA. The sentences of nine of the principal union activists were to expire at the end of November 1938, that is, a fortnight after the strike of 7 November 1938.

80 Sholapur Samachar, 10 November 1938.

81 Dr K.B. Antrolikar Papers, ‘Election manifesto of Dr Antrolikar for the Loksabha election of 1952’, in my possession; Sholapurcha Kamgar, p. 38; Kirloskar, Comrade Minatai Sane, pp. 39–40.