The purpose of starting this blog is to bring to light the lesser known
History of India through different books and writings.
Mahadevbhai, the close aid and
personal secretary of Mahatama Gandhi, maintained a diary right from the time
he joined Gandhiji in 1917 to his untimely death in 1942. His diaries throw
light not only on some of the most interesting events in the life of Gandhiji
and Indian freedom struggle, but the many critical aspects of Indian history of
the time. Unfortunately, such a crucial piece of history has not received the
attention it deserves.
Much of the writing of the
close aides of Gandhiji is in the regional language- Gujarati and not all of it
has been translated yet. Considering this, I felt it important to bring to
light some crucial writings by Mahadevbhai that are less known.
To begin with, it
being May 1st (Labor Day), it would be interesting to remember an event when
Mahatma Gandhi visited the Tata steel plant at Jamshedpur and interaction with
the work force there as discribed in Mahadevbhai
Desai’s diary as follows:
Volume 8 (1-5-1925
to 31-12-1925), page 244 to 255:
“…Jamshedpur is the creation of
Late Jamshedji Tata. Once where there was a small village, there is now a city
with the establishment of Iron and steel industry and a population of one lakh
six thousand. Gandhiji had a desire to see this city for many years now… When
the Government faced severe shortage of iron and steel during the time of war,
this industry provided lakhs of tons of material…These are gigantic industries
– thirty thousand laborers work here out of which 250 are Europeans. These
factories run day and night like the fire temples of the Parsees or like the
platform where oblations are given to the
fire (Agnihotri Ni vedni)…
‘… What if the peace experienced through
religious activities and the enrichment of the soul are also possible through
these industries? … Today in fact there is lack of peace…
‘Jamshedpur too is not free of the
pollutants that accompany an industry… Some of the difficulties were almost
inevitable. To introduce a western industry and to compete successfully with
the western world, this means that there would be some dependence on the
western world at least initially- western machinery, dependence on western
human power, and to suffer the pollutants that emerge due to such dependence. At the end of ten years, the most difficult tasks that
require utmost caution are being done by Indians too like the Americans and the
British. However as the whites have been
brought on basis of a contract, they are being paid as per the contract; but
those Indians who do the same type of work probably are not being paid even
half of the wages paid to the whites. We saw a skilled worker of Wells in the
steel factory who lifted from a hot plate with a pair of tongs a steel sheet
and placed it on other machinery skillfully, like one would turn a chapatti on
a hot plate. And we saw an Indian doing
the same work equally skillfully. But both do not get equal wages… The
superintendents of various departments were earlier Europeans but are now
Indians and they work as skillfully as the Europeans today. But they are not paid properly. But the
company is not as much as fault as it seems. To undertake exceptionally daring
jobs, foreigners had to be given inducement, and so long as the contracts with
them are valid, this inequality will continue …
‘The city has been planned by the company’s
engineers themselves. Here too due to the contracts with the white officials
there is a division between the whites and the blacks. Availability of large tracks of land has been
helpful in the planning, but the company has built houses that are affordable
only to those with certain pay scale. And as houses are scarce, in a house with
four rooms, many a times 3-4 families with lesser pay scales are seen to be
residing…
‘The hospital for the people is by the
company itself. Everyone gets free medicines… Gandhiji had gone to visit the
hospital. He was satisfied with the organization and the equipments. One
European patient was reading lying down. He was asked by Gandhiji- ‘Is your
time being spent reading?’ That fellow said- “yes”. Gandhiji said- “If I were
your nurse, I would have made you spin Khadi.”…
‘Higher officials are sitting with clubs and
libraries. There is no facility for lower ranked workers. As there is no
community work, naturally there is no advocacy of Kadhi. But if the Tata
Company wishes, it can make Khadi available to its thirty thousand workers…
‘If one looks at the life here, it can be
said that western evils have had bad influences here. In order to work in the
factory, one has to wear pants, and after coming home from work in the evening,
they go out as Sahibs. Two shops of local and one of English liquor has been
licensed by the company itself and here thousands of rupees worth of liquor is
consumed every month. And because of the
alcohol, the rate of crime is very high…
‘Therefore the Tata Company will have to
execute the responsibility of the welfare of over a lakh people dependent on it
along with its achievement of having stood the competition of the west and
having succeeding.
‘But instead of putting this responsibility
on the company, in order that the workers themselves take up the
responsibility, worker’s unions are organized in such industrial cities. Here
also there was such a union. Two years’ ago it had a dispute with the company,
there was a strike and unrest lead to firing too. However that is an old
history. The situation was such that the company was not willing to recognize
the union and the secretary of the union Shri Shet was also dismissed. And Mr
Andrews had forced Gandhi to come in order to get the union recognized... Mr
Tata agreed that the company would accept the constitution of the workers’
union...
‘The responsibility of announcing this
auspicious development was laid upon Gandhiji. In a long speech he declared the
agreement and also spoke about the relation between the workers and the owners.
This being important I am writing large parts of it here…:
[Gandhiji:] “ It
has been my great desire to see the greatest enterprise of Hindustan for many
days now, but I could not refuse the insistence of the president of the
worker’s union Mr Andrews who is more than my brother to me… I can never turn
down his request- my relationship with him is stronger than anyone else…
“We enjoyed the hospitality of
Tata’s for two days. He showed us his township with a lot of love and even now
he continues to shower immense love. I am the younger brother of the Parsee
community. I have spent my life with the Parsees. I doubt if any other
community has given me support like that given by Parsee community. Therefore I
do not hesitate/doubt to go to the Parsees. When I was in South Africa, Ratan
Tata had sent me huge support- he was the first to send Rs 25000, and he had
written that I could ask for more if required. Therefore I am under a great
obligation to the Tatas. Even today Tata has shown a lot of love and has
resolved the old differences that were going on…
“The first condition of the
agreement is that your union is accepted by the company… Workers know how to
create a dispute in no time but at the same time they are fearful. He desires
to be a member of the union but at the same time is scared to be one. But with
today’s settlement, the blessings of the company are with you...Remove the fear
from your hearts. Mr. Tata too wishes your wellbeing. He told me that he feels
that his workers are his children. My officials and I may make mistakes but our
intentions are pure. I desire to eat
after my workers are fed. I want to be happy in their happiness. In order to
prove all these feelings, he has blessed your union… The second thing is that
your secretary was removed due to some doubts… Whether to keep a person or not is
in the hands of the company… Mr Tata has said that he will try to take him
back…
“These three decisions have been
taken but what will you do? I have become a laborer so that I can recognize
both the weaknesses and strengths of a worker. That is why I live and move
about with you. I hope that you will serve the company with loyalty and work as
per the rules laid down by your union so that it can be shown that we were
worthy, Andrews was worthy of the decision taken with love by Mr Tata. Mr Andrews does not take any monthly salary
from you; he works without any selfish interest… Act as per the advice of
Andrews.
“I wish to befriend the rich and
that is because they can feed the poor and then can gather their money, and do
not eat by keeping the workers’ hungry. That is not the rule today and so
capital is afraid of labor and labor is displeased with the capital. My work is
to remove such a relation and establish a relationship based on love. Do help
in this.
“I ask from you one –two things.
Your work is nothing compared to the work that I have been doing. You are
manufacturing tons of iron but I am trying to touch the hearts of the people of
Hindustan and derive gold from it. For this, money is required and for that,
your help is required. You can help my
giving money and by wearing Khadi which is manufactured by villagers. You are
doing labor to fill your stomach but I request you to labor half an hour more
for Hindustan. Spin for half an hour more and wear Khadi. Over and above this I
ask you to pledge two things. Liquor is made by Satan. After drinking workers’
forget the difference between woman/wife, mother and sister… He swears. Save
yourself from the Satan, give up drinking. Give up visiting prostitutes. Liquor
leads to prostitution… If you want to become the sons of the soil, if you want
to serve the country, than give up prostitution. When a person becomes a Satan,
the lord is displeased with him...If Satan enters you than drown yourselves or
if you have the courage, pierce a dagger and kill yourselves but do not insult
your sisters. If you wish swaraj, discard these two things. If you do not wish to turn into paupers,
than remain away from these two things. May God help you to understand and
implement what I say to you…”
[End]
[It would be interesting to compare notes at
Jamshedpur, the condition of workers and the labor unrest; Mahatma Gandhi’s
engagement with workers at Jamshedpur and the stark disparity in the country as
expressed in his book- A Steel Man in India – by John L Keenan. John L. Keenan joined the Tata Company at
Jamshedpur in the year 1913 and worked for the company for twenty five years.
He was the general manager of the company for the last eight years of his
tenure.]
Important excerpts from the book:
Page 35, 36: “…Twenty five square miles were
acquired on leaseholds at five rupees…an acre around Sakchi, now called
Jamshedpur. Soon Pittsburgh mills were fabricating the blast furnaces and mill buildings, the scrub forest
was disappearing at the hands of one band of engineers while the other dammed
the river and the Bengal Nagpur railway built a three mile spur to the works
and laid a new road, fifty miles long…
‘The work did not
proceed without incident, and of the kind probably peculiar to India. The local
tigers became enraged at the destruction of their forest homes and killed two
of the aborigines. An elephant, driven frantic by the disturbance and the
noise, smashed to powder a number of huts near the dam…
‘But even after the
jungle hazards were overcome, the founding of Skachi was not uncomplicated.
Once Cholera swept the works and the aborigines scattered to the surrounding
hills. Newcomers brought malaria with them and again many workers left
overnight…
Page 36: “…A
Santhali girl, working in the brick department, had the first Tata steel baby.
While carrying a load of bricks on her head…she felt her time coming and she
was delivered in the checker chamber. What’s more when the baby was born, she
picked it up and walked off to her home with it.”
Page 82, 84, and
85: “…there were other changes;
Industrial India had been inundated with Russian pamphlets. The workmen no
longer sat around the sand beds at night telling stories of the great past.
They held their heads high and looked you in the eye. They talked of home rule
and of a new Government. There had been a wave of strikes all over the
industrial sections. Tata’s workmen had walked out without notice the preceding
February and had stayed out for a month. Their grievance had been examined and
they received among other things, a twenty-five percent wage increase…
‘…At the plant and
in the town a great number of Indians, I noticed, now wore little muslin caps.
I talked to a fine strapping fellow about it… “It is Gandhi’s idea,” he said,
“a sign of the times, the beginning of an India for Indians movement…”
‘…Of all the
changes I could perceive, the deepest was apparent not so much in the relations
of some of the new men to the old timers, but in the attitude of the workmen in
general toward the management. The old friendly spirit of affection which our
laborers had felt for his foreman had been replaced by an acute distrust not
far from hate... This unhappy state of things, the exact antithesis of all that
the Tatas had wanted for their plant, came about as a result of the strike…
‘…Then a few of
them convinced it to be a great joke on the company if they should tear up the
rails connecting the works and the railway station, thus cutting off raw materials and the coal supplies...
‘Soldiers detailed
to prevent the men from destroying plant equipment ordered the prankish
strikers to leave. They emphatically refused. The soldiers were ordered to load
and take aim. The men, like overgrown children, laughed at the soldiers and
their officer. The order was then given to fire. Thirteen strikers were killed
and many more taken to the hospital…
‘Although the
strike was ended not long after, the men did not forget the death of their
fellows. They turned from quiet, conscientious workers to aggressive men who
did just what they were paid for and not a bit more. For several years, on the
anniversary of that day, the Indians observed one hour’s silence.
‘The men who had
led their strike now became their official leaders. They formed a union which
many of the Tata workers joined. Meanwhile there were strikers in other parts
of India…labor leaders became political minded…
Page 89, 90, and 93: “…With industries
flourishing and huge dividends almost a matter of course, the whole of
industrial India in 1920 was ripe for a siege of unrest. Tata shares, leading
the rest, rising or falling almost two to three hundred rupees in a single
session of the exchange. The Bombay mills were making new millionaires every
week. But the cotton mill operators still worked for starvation wages, still lived
in horrible barracks, sometimes whole families of them jammed into one room.
And it was early 1920, before that first strike, that the Tata management made
its first big mistake, a blunder of omission which underlay the strike and a
lot of subsequent misunderstandings.
‘Over a period of years the Tata workmen had
received only one meager raise, a ten percent increase in 1917. .. Had the Tata
American management told the men frankly that they did not intend to withdraw
that ten percent war bonus, but in fact planned to add a further ten per cent
raise, there never would have been any strike. And the management could have
done so. For if the entire amount had
come entirely from the holders of deferred shares only, they would still have
gotten a thirty-five rupee dividend, or well over a one hundred percent of
their original investment…But the management was blind to the trends of the
times, and the company paid heavily for their myopia…
‘…A group of anarchists, called terrorists,
were making their opposition to the government, to any Government, strongly
felt in Bengal. More important, through the soviet consulates in Kandahar and
Jalalabad in Afghanistan, near the Indian border, Russian literature filtered
steadily into the country …
Page 93: ‘…When the first labor union was
formed in Jamshedpur after the 1920 strike… Since it was far from being
representative, the union was denied recognition until 1925, when Mahatma
Gandhi, Motilal Nehru…, and C.F. Andrews came to Jamshedpur and discussed the
matter with R. D. Tata…
Page 94: ‘…Mahatama Gandhi’s friend, later
his biographer, C.F Andrews, chosen first president of the steel workers’ union…
‘…Thus five years after a strike which had
been engineered by outsiders, some of whom cared nothing for labor, collective
bargaining was won for the workmen by India’s greatest patriot, Mohandas
Gandhi…
Page 164,165,166: ‘…The whole decade of the
1920’s could hardly have been plagued with more intense labor unrest, as
lockouts, strikes, sit-down strikes and lightning strikes bedeviled employee
and employee and employer. The spare, ascetic figure of Mohandas Gandhi was no
longer unknown to the diehard British Industrialist…If strike hurt the
capitalists; they also hurt the Government… Men would come to a plant prepared
to work. Suddenly everybody would simply sit down for a few hours. The non-work
period was called in Hindi a Hartal, or halt…
‘One man, however, could always sway a mass
meeting of workers with the power of his own simple and holy faith. I saw
Mahatma Gandhi address some sixty thousand persons on the grounds of the town
hall…
‘When Gandhi mounted the platform and bowed
to the people, a wild shout of welcome arose. “Mahatma Gandhi ki Jai!”
echoed against the distant hills. Here, I saw, was a great man. This frail
framework of bone and muscle clothed in a few yards of homespun cloth had,
through his love for his fellow men, attained the lonely grandeur of greatness.
It seemed to me that this was no longer a labor meeting, but convocation of men
to hear the voice of one they believed holier than they.
‘Gandhi raised his hand to still the
deafening acclamation. The gesture commanded complete silence. Then he began to
speak, to exhort each man to give his utmost effort in the knowledge that God
would watch over him. Above all, he urged abstemiousness in all things, and
complete faith in prayer. He spoke like a man inspired. I wondered what would
happen in an American labor meeting if a union leader tried to persuade the men
to depend on God, to offer prayers for better working conditions!
‘For a few years the management enjoyed a
false sense of security…
Page 169, 170, and 171: ‘…In the middle of
February 1928 the mills were running at top speed. Without warning one night
all the drivers of the heavy duty cranes failed to show up at ten o’clock for
the late shift… On June first, after three months of sit down strikes,
lightening strikes and general bedlam, the company declared lockout…
‘…August 12 arrived, the gates were opened,
and not one workman turned up…Eventually, with Subhas Chandra Bose’s offer to
mediate, a solution seemed to be possible. A whole month went by in arguments
and meetings which lasted until morning. Certain demands were met, others
rejected…In a long list of twenty-four further conditions, the ten weeks’
maternity benefits were granted…
(The divide between the haves and the
have-nots, the Capital and the Labor as narrated in the book :)
Page 191, 192: ‘…When Herman Brassert landed
in Bombay in 1937, he expected and wanted to find the India of Kipling. He went
to the Taj Mahal Hotel, a Tata Project, to a suite…He dined in the
air-conditioned dining room to the music of a Viennese orchestra. He travelled
across India to Calcutta in an air-conditioned train as comfortable as the
Twentieth Century Limited. From Calcutta he was whisked to Jamshedpur in a Tata
plane in less than an hour. A Rolls Royce took him to the company guest house
where he sat on a divan made in Michigan, rested his feet on a Persian rug,
found relief in a drink made in Scotland served by a Hindu bearer, while a
Mohammedan followed up with a bottle of Schweppes.
‘He looked around for a while. Then he said,
“I’ve been in this country for more than a week. And I’d like to know, where is
India, anyway?” We took him to see a village of the ancient iron workings at
joda…He saw thousands of little Indians attacking open mining faces and loading
the ore into mining tubs…He saw the endless streams of Khol, Santhal and Ho
women, the inhabitants of the district…with baskets of iron ore balanced on
their heads…
Page 193: ‘…The happy friendly little hill
men fascinated Herman Brassert as they had fascinated me. Their lives, with a
simple, unvarying history of birth, marriage, procreation and death, are full
and complete… No diversions as we know them are needed to break the monotony of
living; indeed I doubt that it is monotonous… They challenge the accepted
belief that what we call civilization, with its perfection of mechanics, its
emphasis on material improvements, is necessarily a boon. Uncomplicated,
“uncivilized” peoples are not so concerned with competition, with getting ahead
of the other fellow, as to forego meditation and the search for immortality. If
Heaven lies about us in our infancy, surely the little Joda men are closer to
God than many of us who view the world from the sixtieth floor of an office
building.
Page217: ‘…It is frequently said that the
Congress party, with or without Gandhi as its head, is supported by moneyed
commercial interests of India. I can only speak of the Tata attitude. The Tata family has always been empire
minded. They do, on the other hand want to see India a self – governing
dominion. So, feeling that eventually the Congress party will win dominion
status for India, the Tatas give the Congress a helping hand in a quiet way…’
End
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