Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour

Force in Bengal during The Colonial Period:

Its Socio-Economic Impact
Nirban Basu

Abstract : Bengal proved to be one of the most industrially developed regions in

India in the colonial period with large number of jute mills, collieries and tea-
gardens, financed mostly by the British capital. The labour force in the province
was mostly of non-local origin. and by 1920's we find quite a large wage-earning
industrial force in Bengal- large in absolute numbers though not in proportion to
total population but as they were of heterogeneous (social, occupational, ethnic
or religious) backgrounds with strong ties to their original roots, even at the end
of the World War II, they could not be counted as 'industrial proletariat' in the
proper sense of the term.

Key words: Industrialisation, Labour-force, Colonial period, Bengal.

It was primarily with the intrusion of metropolitan capital and the

launching of the colonial enterprises like tea plantation, colonies, jute textiles,
engineering concerns and new modes of transport (like railways) in the
second half of the 19th century that a distinctly new kind of labour force
emerged in India. The industrial wage-earners were a distinctly new social
group but they did not imply a formation of the working class in the classical
Marxian sense.

Bengal, being the earliest citadel of the English colonial power, proved
to be one of the most industrially developed regions in India in the colonial

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18 Nirban Basu

period. Rich in natural resources, having great opportunities of transport

and communications and helped by the existence of coalmines which
provided steady sources of energy, Bengal was an ideal field for
industrialization. The industrial landscape of colonial Bengal can be divided
under three broad heads (i) Greater Calcutta with large number of jute mills
along with some cotton mills, engineering concerns, iron foundries etc, (ii)
the collieries and (iii) tea - gardens.

I. Jute:

Jute has been cultivated in Bengal for a long time past, particularly in the
East Bengal districts. Even in the early years of the 19th century, there was
a remarkably large textile industry in Bengal and as late as in 1850, the
value of the finished jute products exported from India exceeded that of
raw jute. But all these were handloom products and it was only in 1835 that
pure jute yarn was made and sold in Dundee. The first jutemill of India was
established at Rishra in Hooghly district of Bengal in 1854 - 55. Only one
more mill came up by 1863-64 but from then on, the growth of industry
was fairly rapid.1 The maximum growth in jute mill formation took place
from 1890's to 1911. Twenty mere jute mills were added during the inter-
war years.

The jute industry of India was centered in Bengal and more particularly
in the Calcutta metropolitan area. The few mills outside Bengal in U.P. and
South India, were established only after 1919. Moreover, the Bengal mills
possessed great advantage in being near the source of supply of raw jute for
Bengal had a monopoly of raw jute cultivation. The whole of the jute mill
area in Bengal was located on the either side of the river Hooghly, in a
radius of about 50 kilometer north and south of Calcutta from the Bansberia
in the north, to Budge Budge in the South. Even within this area, there were
certain areas which accounted for considerable concentrations of jute mills
such as Naihati, Kankinara, Noapara, Jagaddal, Shyamnagar, Titagrah,
Khardah, Kamarhatty and Baranagar (all in what is now North 24 Paraganas
District), Narkeldanga, and Beliaghata ( Eastern Calcutta), Garden Reach,
Metiabruz, and Budge Budge ( in the present South 24 parganas), Chengail,
Bauria, Sankrail, Uluberia, Bally, Shibpur, Ghusury(Howrah District),

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 19

Serampore, Bansberia, Champdany, Bhadreswar and Telinipara ( Hooghly

District).

Table2
Distribution of Jute Industry in Bengal ( 1939)

District No. of fabrics No. of works

Howrah 24 62,552
24 Parganas 57 1,68,835
Hooghly 16 49, 842

The jute mills or the manufacture of jute fabrics was overwhelmingly

controlled by the Europeans for a long time. Since the very beginning the
jute industry made efforts to energise itself in a way that world eliminates
wasteful competition. It finally resulted in the formation of the Indian Jute
Manufacturer's Association in 1884 whose name was later changed to Indian
jute Mills Association (I.J.M.A). It became a monopolistic organization.
Jute was basically an export item both in the raw and the manufactured
form. Many of the problems of the industry followed from the economic
factors inherent in an export oriented industry, the problems of production
in excess of demand occupying often.

There were three important chronological phases in the growth of jute

fabrics manufacturing industry.3 The first covers the initial uncertainties of
the industry roughly upto the last decade of the 19th century; the second
deals with the expansion of markets from the beginning of the 20th century
and the great prosperity during the World War I when raw jute prices slumped
and even as the demand for gunny which was used to make cloth, sandbag
and canvas increased astronomically. Flushed by the trading profits, Indian
businessmen mostly the Marwaris already engaged in export of raw jute
and gunny dealing, made a rush to establish a number of new mills and to
install additional looms in existing mills. This was in the early 1920's and
the third stage started almost simultaneously when a lingering crisis began
to engulf the jute industry and to continue for long with only some temporary
exceptions. The combined forced of Indian entry and imbalances, in the

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20 Nirban Basu

backdrop of an expanding and then sharply contracting finished jute-products

market, had a manifold impact on the jute economy affecting both the
employers and the employees.

The gradual replacement of the European magnates by the Marwaris

was the most significant long-term development in the history of the jute
industry in the inter war years.4 Already by the turn of the century, internal
trade as well as the bulk of the jute export trade along with the speculation
went into the hands of the Marwaris. After the World War I they started
establishing new companies or buying up shares of European companies
by offering good prices and in return for loans, both short or long-term, to
them. During the Depression of the 30's the Marwaris garnered a large
number of shares held by the middle class Bengalis. The position of the
Marwaris in the jute companies was further well-enhanced during the second
world war years. By the end of the World War II, the Europeans had seen
the writing on the wall and were ready to leave. By 1947, 13 major European
mills were taken over by the Marwaris and the industry started becoming
"Swadeshi controlled". Within a decade after independence, the process
was more or less complete.

As for the labour force in the jute industry there are certain salient features:
First, there was a rapid increase in the number of wage-earning population
employed in the jute mills since 1863 - 64, but systematic estimates are
available only from 1879. The formation of the jute labour force was more
or less complete by 1921, although it continued to expand till 1980, the
peak year being 1929 after which the Great Depression started.

Second, because of the highly localized growth of the jute industry, the
working mass also became concentrated in a relatively small number of
jute mill towns.

Third, although the number of mills remained the same between 1929
and 1937, the number of labourers decreased by 60,000. This was primarily
due to the World Wide Great depression ( 1929 - 1934) which had its impact
on the jute industry too. The situation somewhat improved after 1934-35
and became stable after 1937-38, but it never reached the 1929 - 30

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 21

dimensions. The total number of labour again fell by 20,000 between 1942
and 1944. This reduction however, did not indicate any reduced availability
of employment. On the other hand there was, in fact, a scarcity of labour,
particularly of the skilled type, such as spinners. The process started in
1942 following the Japanese air-raids on Calcutta and the situation was at
its worst in January, 1943 when, according to one estimate, the shortage of
labour amounted to about 13.3 p.c of the total requirement. The mills had to
work with inexperienced and untrained labour. Even when the World War-
I ended, the position had not reverted to normalcy.5 The labour exodus to
the native villages was not the main reason, but many jute workers had also
found jobs in the military depots, opened in and around Calcutta, where
rates of wages were much higher.

As for the regional composition of the labour force, in a report in 1906,

Foley said,6 "twenty years ago, all the hands( in the jute mills) were
Bengalis". In the intitial stages, labour was almost entirely local and even
though they constituted the vast majority of the workforce till the mid-
1890's, its composition was already undergoing a noticeable change and by
1895 non-local non-Bengali labour constituted a fairly sizeable section of
the workforce. The rapid growth of industry and the spread of information
in the neighbouring provinces that work was available in the factories of
Bengal might have accounted for this change. Moreover, agriculture in
Bengal was more remunerative than work in the jute mills but what the jute
mills paid was enough to attract labour from Bihar, Orissa, U.P. first and
then from C.P. or even Madras.7 It is of interest to note that the period of the
most rapid expansion of the jute industry and the concomitant growth of
the jute labour force, i.e, 1891 - 1919 correspond to an enormous flow of
people from Bihar, Orissa and U.P. to the Calcutta metropolitan area. The
influx was responsible for a marked and quick change in the composition
of that force and also in the demographic pattern of the concerned area.
Thus as Prof. Parimal Ghosh has rightly pointed out8 that the industrial
sector came to be appended to the traditional agricultural sector in the interior.
Ordinarily, industrial employer did not spend anything towards the
reproduction of their labour force and indeed dumped the burden of care of
the sick and the needy on the rural society. Needless to say this helped to

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22 Nirban Basu

make the industries all the more competitive in the world market. From the
other side, the labour also benefitted. Left to itself, by all accounts, it seems
there would have been a certain crisis in agrarian relations which were
averted through the inflow of remittances from the labour in the cities.
Moreover, as Foley observed9 that each mill had formed connections - not
deliberately fostered but nevertheless regular and steady - with certain areas.
Besides, the proportion of Bengali labourers was not equally low in all
areas, the exceptions were in the Budge Budge subdivision of south 24
Parganas and in the Uluberia sub-division of Howrah district.

As for the communal composition of labour force, the presence of the

Muslims became marked roughly between 1890 and 1911, when they were
an important part of thousands of immigrants who flocked to Bengal mills
from Bihar and U.P. To a certain extent, they replaced the local Hindus.
Fremantle observed in 190610 " the proportion of upcountrymen has
increased, the more energetic Musalmans ( mostly hereditary weavers)
having displaced the local Hindus in the weaving sheds. The 1911 census
showed that the Muslims constituted 31.81 p.c of jutemill operators. The
proportion remained more or less unchanged in 1921. We have no detailed
data for the subsequent periods but there seems to have been no significant
change."

As for the caste composition of the jute mill labour force, the census of
1911 gave a detailed breakup of the jute labour force into 71 castes and
subcastes each with over 1,000 worker.11 The Census of 1921 provided
almost the same information.12 Certain features stand out from the census
reports.13

The overwhelming majority of the jute workers had rural origins and
were mostly ruined artisans, landless peasants or unemployed farm labourer,
They belonged to a variety of castes and subcastes and it would not be very
wrong to say that migration to jute mill centres represented a sample of
rural population in the emigrating areas. The most deprived sections in the
countryside the lowest in the social hierarchy and the untouchables like
Chamar, Muchis, Doms, Bagdis, Kewats etc and the Namasudra community
among the Bengali labourers take together, formed a very high population,

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 23

more than 25 p.c of the total labour force.

Regarding recruitment of labour force

In fact, the supply of labour to Bengal jute mills was part of the much larger
eastward stream of labour migrating to coalmines, plantations and factories.
The fact that the wages in jute mills, particularly of the skilled workers,
were higher than in mines or plantations, made it unnecessary for the jute
mills any special effort to recruit labour. Apart from some instances in the
early years of the industry of a Sardar or babu being sent out by the mill
management to the villages to recruit labour. Apart from some instances in
the early years of the industry of a sardar or babu being sent out by the mill
management to the villages to recruit labour, people themselves came to
the millgates for employment. And until 1937, virtually all recruitment of
jute mill labour was done solely through the jobbers., locally known as
"Sardars". Even after the appointment of labour officers and the opening of
Labour Bureaus in some mills in 1937, the Sardars continued to maintain
the pivotal position in the matter of recruitment.

In a situation of limited job availability the Sardars and the Babus took
full advantage of their position. To be recruited, one had to pay 'dasturi'
(commission or plainly a bribe) to the Sardar, babus and other intermediaries,
the Head Sardar getting the lion's share. Any absence, even an account of
sickness or pregnancy, meant fresh bribes when resuming work. Bribes had
to be paid just to have one's name retained in the waiting list. Apart from
these occasional bribes, regular weekly payments had to be made to the
Sardars and Babus. The Sardars enjoyed great power over allotment of
work, granting of leave permissions. Enforcing of work regulations,
punishment, dismissal, etc. The Sardar's activities included recruitment of
workers, housing them and lending them money at high rates of interest.
The bribe that an ordinary coolie gave to the Sardar was not simply an
economic transaction, it was also a tribute to the Sardar's authority and a
sign of its acceptance by the workers. Even after a new mechanism of control
over labour was established, with the appointment of labour officer and
introduction of labour bureaus, the Sardari system was not altogether
eliminated. Much of the basis of the Sardar's control of the workforce lay in

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24 Nirban Basu

community, kin or some other primordial relationship and in the ideas and
norms associated with them. Sardari was thus possibly an instance of pre-
colonial pre-capitalist institution being adapted to the needs of
industrialization in a colony.14

II.
Cotton
Traditionally, Bengal was an important handloom cotton manufacturing
centre, but its share in cotton mill-textiles industry of India was much smaller
compared to Bombay or Ahmedabad. It also grew at a relatively later period.
In fact, it started growing rapidly only after the World war I. whereas in
1921, there were only cottonmills employing 13,000 worker, in 1938 there
were 31 mills employing about 32,000 workers and in 1944, 29 cotton
mills employed 43,561 persons.15 The three main centres of cotton mills in
Bengal were (i) Dacca (and Khulna), (ii) Kusthia and (iii) Greater
Calcutta(including 24 parganas, Howrah and Hooghly). The most important
feature of the cotton mill industry of Bengal was that, by and large, it was
owned and controlled by indigenous capitalists both Marwaris and Bengalis,
the latter being significant only in the case of this industry in the province.

As regards the regional composition of the cotton workers, in 1906,

Foley reported:16 "I have no figures of the composition of the staff of any
cotton mill, but a walk around shows that the proportion of the upcountrymen
is far smaller than in a jute mill". He found relatively a large number of
Bengali and Orissa workers in these mills, but the census Report of 192117
suggests that a major shift from local labour had occurred. In the case of the
skilled workers, the proportion of persons born in Bengal was somewhat
higher than that found in the jute industry and it was striking that only
about 7 p.c of the cotton mill operatives were born in Bihar and the immigrant
labour came chiefly from Orissa and united Provinces. We have no census
information regarding the post 1921 changes which incidentally was a period
of rapid growth of the cotton industry in Bengal. It seems, however that the
percentage of local labour employed in the mills of Kusthia, Dacca and
Khulna was higher than in the mills in Greater Calcutta, incidentally most
of which were co-existent with the important jute mill centres.

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 25

As for the social and religious background of the cotton workers, we

find from the census of 192118 that at least one-tenth of the Bengal cotton
mill labour force came from a weaving craft background (i.e. 'tantis' and
'Jugis') but this figure should go up because though the census tabled do not
provide any specific information regarding the occupational background
of the Muslim cotton mill workers, who constituted approximately one-
fifth labour force in Bengal, it may be surmised that many of them came
from a tradition of handloom manufacturing. Apart from labour with some
sort of weaving craft background, distant or immediate, the so-called low
castes like the 'kaibartas' ('chasi' and 'jalia' together), the 'pods', the 'chamars'
and the 'muchis' were the other important caste/ sub-caste groups among
the cotton mill operatives, each of them contributing more than 5p.c of the
labour force.

As there was generally no shortage of workers, there was no separate

system of recruitment. Recruitment generally took place at the gates where
prospective workers presented themselves almost every morning. It was
usual for the management to ask the Sardars to bring in their friends and
relations to fill vacancies.

Taken as a whole, we find that the labour composition in the Bengal

cotton mills was more or less similar to that in the jute mills with the
exception that in the former, the local Bengali labour were much more in
number but the economically unstable condition of the large number of
small and medium sized cotton mills and the semi-agriculturist character of
the workforce impeded the growth of solidarity and consequently of a strong
trade union organization among the cotton mill workers of Bengal like the
Bengal Chatkal Mazdoor Union, the apex body of the jute trade unions. In
a colonial semi-feudal labour-abundant-economy and society, the working
class had very little prospect of success in a labour-capital dispute without
outside political support. And in an indigenous capital versus local labour
dispute, there was very little chance of wider political support. The inevitable
failure of the successive labour struggles in the Kushtia mills bear
unmistakable testimony to it.19

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26 Nirban Basu

III.
The Labour World of Greater Calcutta
Not only cotton mills, many other industries like iron-foundries, engineering
concerns, ceramic factories and chemical works were also located in or
near the industrial suburban towns where jute mills were located. Most of
these industrial units were located in riverine towns. A few of these were
old towns inhabited previously by middle class Bengali 'babus' while others
were new towns grown out of agricultural lands. The setting up of railway
lines in the Sealdah-Ranaghat route and Howrah-Bandel line changed the
entire of the hinterland of Calcutta. Most of these industrial hubs were located
in between the embankments of the river Ganga and the newly set up railway
line. The demographic pattern of the entire region came to be changed. But
still the industrial centres remained isolated and failed to change the economy
of the lower Gangetic delta as a whole.20

In fact, the industrial 'mohallas' remained as 'ghettos'. There was little

or no interconnection or social and cultural contact between local Bengali
population and the mill hands. Both lived in their own worlds. Both Amal
Das's study of Howrah mills and Arjan de Han's Study of Titagarh mills
show21 that even in the intitial stages, the labourers had their associations
and meetings in and around the industrial neighbourhood. Pushed out of
their habitual village surroundings the workers' nostalgia for village life
persisted and they had not given up their social actions and traditional
recreations of village life even in their new industrial career. In order to get
relief from arduous and mechanical kind of jobs, the workers required some
recreations and amusements. Social and religious festivals frequently pulled
them together around the neighbourhood of mills. There were occasions
such as Durga Puja, Rathajatra and Holi when the Hindu millhands
demanded holidays. They collected descriptions from their neighbours and
shop-owners. During festivals, they organized recreations like melas, puppet
shows, magic, street fighting and 'tamasha' etc in the neighbourhood of the
mill. During Dusserah and Holi festivals, the Hindusthani workers assembled
in their neighbourhood and celebrated the occasion in their traditional
fashion. Similarly, the Muslim workers organized the Muharram and Id

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 27

festivals in their traditional fashion and demanded holidays. These religious

practices of the two communities often fostered the spirit of community
consciousness and rivalry among the workers.

Besides these social functions like marriage and traditional recreations

like visits to liquor shops, bars and prostitute quarters frequently attracted
them. Organisations such as 'Akharas' (or gymnasiums) also drew workers
to enlist themselves as members. The management often feared that these
organizations might be used by striking workers as their weapons in factory
politics. On the other hand, in Bombay these akharas were often used by
the management to break workers' strikers. However, in Bengal miles, any
such link between employers and the Akharas is difficult to locate. Noted
labour historians like R.S. Chandravarkar and Janaki Nair22 have shown in
their studies of Bombay mills and kolar goldfields respectively the close
relationship between the neighbourhood politics and labour movement. If
such studies be made in case of Bengal mill-towns, similar conclusions
may be drawn and new ideas about labour world may emerge.

Lord Ripon's resolution of May, 1882 embodying the basic principles

of the system of local self-government marked the significant step towards
the advancement of local self-government. Municipal politics centered
around basically two pressure groups23 - (i) The European mill-owners and
managers and (ii) The Bengali 'bhadraloks'. Besides, these two broad groups,
Prof. Rajat K.Ray brought to our notice24 another group which was outside
the purview of institutional politics and had no institutional means of making
its influence felt in town politics until a permanent trade union organization
developed among this group in the 1920's . This group comprised the
laboring sections of the population. So, in the institutional politics of town
life the urban labour class had very little role to play. As a result we find in
the development of public utility services, sewerage and provision of
drinking water, little attention has been paid to the areas crowded by the
industrial labour. The picture was same in almost all mill towns of Bengal:
the barrack / coolie line pattern of housing provided either by the company
or mostly the private bustees' - unhygenienic, filthy, disease-ridden, without
any arrangement for proper light or air, latrines either totally absent or a

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28 Nirban Basu

few in number and no privacy for women. A somewhat new interpretation

to this situation, however, has been given by Dr. Soumitra Sreemani.25
According to his view, the labourers who came from native villages were
accustomed to excoriate in the fields and to fetch drinking water and to
bathe from the same pond. So, they had little interest in the development
projects of the municipalities and never really strongly demanded their
implementation. They saved their meager earnings and sent remittances to
native villages. The urban mill areas remained backward and problem-ridden
areas throughout the colonial period. The situation changed even after
independence.

Apart from the manufacturing industries, the Railways having two

terminal station at Howrah and Sealdah, with railway shed and workshops
and innumerable local stations and the Calcutta Tramways Company
employed a large number of workers in the transport sector. A large number
of workforce was also employed in the Calcutta Port and Dock. There was
huge conglomeration of port and dock workers in the Hastings, Kidderpore,
Metiabruz and Garden Reach. The transport workers, though had
opportunities of communicating with different sections of masses, often
had their own worlds to live.

IV.
Coal
Besides, the manufacturing and transport sectors, two other important
segments of industrialization in Bengal were mining and plantations.

The history of the coalmines in India starts from the discovery of coal
in Bengal as early as in the year 1774. The Ranigunj field (situated in Asansol
subdivision of Burdwan district of Bengal) was first to be exploited.
However, until 1854, only three mines were opened but with the opening
of railway line as far as Ranigunj in 1858 the industry witnessed a rapid
growth which was further accelerated by the extension of east India railway
to Barakar in 1865. For long, the ranigunj fields remained by far the most
important, if not the only source of coal production in India. However, after
the discovery and rapid spread of mining in the Jharia belt in Bihar, Ranigunj
was relegated to second place in the total output of coal in India in the

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 29

beginning of the 20th century. The number of coalmines in the Ranigunj

belt were 226 in 1937 and 279 in 1944, with the corresponding figure of
coalmines being 57,882 in 1921 and 64,491 in 1944.26

There were mainly two colliery owner's organizations. Of them, the

earliest, the Indian Mining Association was one of the predominant European
interest. The other organization, the Indian Mining Federation, Calcutta
represented mainly the Indian mining interest in the Ranigunj fields. The
mines which formed the Indian Mining Association were mostly owned by
large joint stock companies incorporated in England. The collieries owned
by these companies were controlled by the firms of managing agents. There
was lack of co-ordination and planning in the coal industry as a whole as all
these companies were interested only in extracting high profits. Only 7 out
of 95 joint stock companies in the coal industry listed in Investor's India
Year 1919 were managed by the Indians, all by the agency house of N.C.
Sirkar & co. which was so rapidly going downhill that by 1926 six of its
collieries were liquidated or put under receivership. The rest of the Indian
(mostly Bengali) owned mines were small and mostly proprietary leased-
in-mines . The mining technology remained rather primitive. World war I
brought with it huge profits to all collieries which encouraged Marwaries
entrepreneurs to enter the field.27 First, they set up new collieries, then they
brought many small collieries from their Bengali owners, yet later they
gradually increased their control over the European managed concerns by
buying up ordinary shares of these companies. Thus by the early 1930's,
there was a fairly significant indigenous (mostly, Marwari) presence in coal,
an industry which, like tea and jute has always been thought of as the bastion
and pressure of the British mercantile community.

As for the regional composition of the labour force, the great majority
of the mining labourers were recruited from villages either within or around
the coalbearing areas. The first reliable birth-place statistics were collected
bearing the 1911census28 and these show that by far the largest population
of miners were born in the coal districts themselves. In the Ranigunj
coalfields slightly more than two-thirds of the miners had their place of
birth in the same district (viz. Burdwan) and one-sixth came from the

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30 Nirban Basu

contiguous districts of Santhal Parganas and ChotaNagpur of Bihar. The

pattern of local predominance did not undergo any significant shift by the
time of the next decennial census. According to 1921 census29, in the Bengal
coalfields, 56.5% were drawn from the coal districts, 7.5% were drawn
from districts of Bengal other than coal districts, about 33.9% were imported
the contiguous districts of Bihar and only about 2.1% came from provinces
other than Bengal and Bihar. The census surveys of 1931 and 1941 did not
record the relevant birthplace statistics, but from other estimates it is clear
that few changes take place before the end of the World War II. Only after
the end of the World war II, the collieries seriously began to recruit labour
from further afield. For this purpose, the industry created the Ranigunj
Coalfield central Recruiting organization with assembly depots located at
Gorakhpur and Bilaspur. By 1947, over 30,000 upcountry workers had been
brought to collieries in this way.

The remote and sparsely populated areas in which coalmines were

located were mostly inhabited by aboriginal and semi-aboriginal tribes who
from the earliest days provided the bulk of the mining labour force.
Throughout the 19th century, the mining labour force was predominantly
composed of the Santhals and Bauris which were castes on the lowest rung
of the Hindu hierarchy. With the rapid expansion of the coal production
since the early 1890's the industry began to draw upon a wider population,
though still the semi-tribal and low-caste peoples maintained their
predominance. The 1911 census shows that the Santhals and Bauris taken
together accounted for more than 50 p.c of the total labour force. According
to 1921 Census records the Bauris and Santhals formed 59% of the unskilled
and 38% of the skilled workforce.

As for the recruitment of colliery labour, two systems were followed.30

In order to attract a sufficient and permanent supply of mining labour, many
of the larger collieries acquired zamindari rights over the extensive areas of
surface land in and around the coalfields. They could then attempt to take
advantage of their position as an influential landlord to exert pressure on
their tenants to provide labour. In this way, whole villages would be
purchased and incorporated into this variant of the zamindari estate.

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 31

Moreover, these possessions enabled firms to offer plots of cultivate land

to labour who had migrated to the mines from places further afield as well
as to the landless in the estate itself as an inducement for them to settle
down in the vicinity of the pits. The zamindari system was particularly
responsible for the recruitment of the Santhals who subsequently became
the settled miners in the Ranigunj mines. This zamindari system was the
traditional system of recruitment of coal labour, but by the 1920's it had
become rather obsolete because there was not much new land in the coalfields
to be spared. Some collieries now resorted to non-zamindari method either
directly recruiting labour through the company's own salaried recruiters or
indirectly, through making contracts for the supply of labour.

A peculiar feature in the coalmining was the prevalence of the "family

system". The workers mostly drawn from aboriginal tribes and other low
castes, worked with their womenfolk, generally man cutting the coal and
his woman carrying it. The extensive employment of the women
underground was practiced especially in Bengal for long. The power of the
Sardars, the zamindari rights exercised by the mine owners and the
prevalence of the family system - all taken together made the position of
the miners vulnerable.

In the coal region, besides the two most important coal cities - Asansol
and Ranigunj ( which were also important railway and commercial centres
and the first one being also a subdivisional town), a number of small colliery
towns like Jamuria, Ukhra, Sripur etc grew up. The entire socio-economic
landscape of the erstwhile sparsely populated and barren field had been
changed. The civic conditions of the mining towns however beggar
descriptions. The housing of the workers in the principal coalfields, subject
to regulations for a long time by the Miners Board of Health left much to be
desired. These were disease-ridden, medical facilities were only in name
only; malaria continued to take a heavy toll. Houses for the miners called
'Dhowrahs' were inadequate in number and poor in construction, ill-
maintained, ill-planned, overcrowded, lacking privacy, ventilation and
sunshine, even worse than the coolie-bustees in greater Calcutta region.

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32 Nirban Basu

V.
Plantations
Tea is the principal plantation industry in India. Assam by far the foremost
region in tea production was closely followed by Bengal whose tea producing
areas included the hill areas and the plains of Terai in Darjeeling district,
the Dooars in Jalpaiguri district and Chittagong. Tea production was
experimentally started in the hills of Darjeeling in 1840 and in the plains of
the district in 1862. The industry began to grow rapidly in the district from
the 1860's. Most of the gardens were under European control. By 1947, the
number of gardens rose to more than 60 in the hills and 17 in the plains.
The acreage under cultivation was 47,422 and 16,899 respectively.31

Dooars being annexed by the British from Bhutan after the Anglo-
Bhutan War of 1864-65, the tea planters of Darjeeling explored the
possibility of growing tea there. Although Dooars was the most unhealthy
district in which malaria and black water fever were rife, climatically it was
most suitable to tea growing.32 Soon, the Dooars became the largest tea-
producing area in the province. The first tea garden was started in the Dooars
in 1873. Within two years, thirteen tea gardens sprang up around the area.
Five years after the first tea garden was started by the British Planters, a
few Bengali lawyers and clerks of Jalpaiguri formed the first Indian tea
company, called the Jalpaiguri Tea company with one garden (1878). After
this, many more Indian gardens, most of them comparatively small, were
set up in the district. However, until 1960's, the British companies were in
the majority.33 The growth of the tea industry in the Dooars was so rapid
that the acreage under tea in 1892 was over six times that in 1881. During
the period between 1901 and 1951, the area under tea nearly doubled and
the labour force nearly trebled. By 1951, the number of gardens and the
acreage under tea was 158 and 1,34,473 respectively with 1,76,196
labourers.34

Ownership and management of tea plantation ( excepting the small

gardens of Dooars and Chittagong) rested overwhelmingly in the hands of
the Europeans, strongly united under the all powerful and monopolistic
Indian Tea Association formed in 1861. It had its headquarters in Calcutta

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 33

and branches in the tea districts, such as the Dooars' Planters' Association,
the Darjeeling Planters' Association and the Terai Planters' Association. Only
at a much later stage, another organization called the Indian Tea Planters'
Association (ITPA) was formed to look after the interests of the Indian
planters.

As for the composition of the labour force, in the Darjeeling hills, the
immigrants or descendants of immigrants from the neighbouring Nepal
furnished almost the whole of a steady and tractable labour force. They
might be regarded as a permanently settled population engaged in a
hereditary occupation. In the Dooars, Nepali labourers from Darjeeling were
initially employed but as the industry was developing rapidly, they soon
proved insufficient and the planters had to turn to Chotanagpur and Santhal
Parganas for their labour supply. Migration of the aboriginals likes Santhals,
Oraos and Mundas from these areas to Jalpaiguri increased rapidly . By
1920-21, a settled "alien" labour class had already emerged. Since the late
1920's, there was less new recruitment and migration diminished, partly
because of the gradual development of the recruiting districts and partly
because of the availability of local labour from amongst the descendants of
the settlers in the tea district.35 Recruitments to the Dooars was done mainly
through garden Sardars. It was easier for the garden Sardars, the 'arkatis'
(paid recruiters) to induce new recruits by showing all the advantages of
work and the prospect of ultimate settlement on independent holdings.

As tea plantation is a semi-agricultural and semi-industrial process,

generally everywhere the "family system" of production prevailed. The
labourer usually brought the family and finally settled in the garden areas.
Man, his wife and even children worked in the garden. The workers lived
in the garden bustees which amounted almost to concentration camps having
little freedom of movement. Contact with the world outside a tea garden or
even with the neighbouring tea gardens or villages was strictly controlled.
The workers were thus virtually reduced to the status of serf tied to the
garden and in many cases, also by allotment of land as cottas on the platforms.
The estate manager was virtually all in all inside a garden. He built the
coolie houses, supplied rice to them when necessary, established the market

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34 Nirban Basu

('hat') and regulated prices. On the other hand, if he wished, he could throw
out a worker and his family from the garden within twenty-four hours.
Bullying, flogging, cutting of wages and rations were some of the forms of
brutality used by planters to tame the erring workers.

The plantation-system did not directly lead to urbanization as it was

done in semi agricultural environment. But it helped urbanization in remote
corners of North Bengal . In the Dooars area of Jalpaiguri district, the railway
lines of the Bengal-Assam Railways went by the side or even through the
tea gardens. The big railway stations or junctions had around them several
gardens and the lowest railway workers - the unionized gangsmen and
pointsmen came into frequent contact with the sprawling labour population.
Railway station, cluster of gardens, hats / markets - all taken together, gave
rise to a number of garden towns in the Dooars and the Terai regions like
Malbazar, Birpara, Kalchini, Banarhat, Madarihat etc. Some garden-towns
grew up also in the hilly region of Darjeeling.

Whatever might be the exact form of recruitment, ( with the exception

of Darjeeling hill areas to some extent) everywhere the garden workers
were reduced to a semi-servile status. The Labour Investigation Committee36
found that such a situation of unfreedom prevailed even on the eve of
independence. Although the labour was legally free to leave his garden and
seek employment in any garden of his liking, in practice it was seldom
possible for him to move freely. Here was a mass of illiterate people, living
with practically all relations cut off, scattered in tea gardens, segregated
from outside influence, unorganized and unable to protect themselves when
the employees had formed themselves into one of the most powerful and
well organized associations in the country.
VI.
Concluding Observations
Thus taken as a whole, we find that with the growth of industries in Bengal
at a contemporary more rapid pace towards the closing years of the 19th
century, an acute shortage of unskilled local labour was increasingly felt.
Relatively higher agricultural wages and the poor communications between
Calcutta and most of the Bengal districts considerably restricted the

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 35

migration of the Bengali peasants to the industries situated mostly in and

around Calcutta or mines or tea garden. On the other hand, road and rail
connections between Calcutta and the provinces of Gangetic valley were
much better. In addition, rural unemployment and underemployment seem
to have been more marked in these provinces. The result was that there was
a larger availability of unskilled and mobile labour from these regions for
the mills and factories in Bengal than in the Bengal proper itself. Another
factor was the aversion to manual labour of the people of Bengal, where the
social milieu was one in which menial and industrial occupations ranked
low in the scale of social aspirations. The shift from Bengali labour to non-
Bengali labour, mostly from Bihar, U.P and Orissa had probably become
conspicuous by 1905 when it was found that about two-thirds of the labourers
in Bengal were immigrants37. In 1929, the Royal Commission on Labour
noted the predominantly non-local character of the factory labour in Calcutta.
It seems that in all the industries of Bengal in general (and not only in
Calcutta) a powerful influx of non-local labour took place from the beginning
of the 20th century and this trend was never reversed. By the 1920's the
labour force had become, more or less, settled in ethnic composition.
This predominantly non-Bengali composition of the factory labour of
Bengal meant that from the turn of the 20th century, the industrial labour
class of Bengal was formed of isolated social groups without any form of
identification or contact with the rest of the population. The social alienation
of the industrial labour was a greater problem in Bengal than even in Bombay
where despite tensions between the Konkani and Deccani groups, the
majority of the workers were recruited from the same province. In Bengal,
the bulk of the workers belonging to the Hindi and Urdu linguistic
communities and immigrants from Bihar and U.P. constituted an exotic
group, whose basic loyalty was confined to their native villages, religion
and caste and inside the factory or mill, to the Sardar who had recruited
them. So, despite the economic difficulties, there was little evidence of
organized agitation amongst the workers to improve their conditions. The
prerequisites for united actions by the industrial workers were lacking. Only
effective political mobilization from outside could have enabled them to
overcome such difficulties and this was forthcoming only from the 1920's
after the advent of Gandhi in the Indian political arena.

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36 Nirban Basu

Another important aspect was the "dual nature" of the industrial working
class. To what extent industrial workers in Bengal became crystallized into
a "working class" in proper sense of the term is a difficult question. The
Indian Factory Labour commission ( 1907 - 08) noted in its Report38, "The
habits of the Indian factory operatives are determined by the fact that he is
primarily an agriculturist or a labour on the land. In almost all cases, his
hereditary occupation is agriculture, his home is in the 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 hazards of factory life. There is
as yet practically no factory population such as exists in European countries,
consisting of a large number of operatives, trained from their youth to one
particular class of work and dependant upon employment in order to obtain
a livelihood."
The Royal Commission on Labour also affirmed in its report in 1931-
39 that the Indian worker remained only partially committed to industrial
life with half of his mind in the village from where he had come. A high
degree of labour turnover and absenteeism was cited as evidence of this.
The management appears to have only accepted the discipline of an industrial
society. This rural-urban dichotomy was present even at the end of the
colonial period and was particularly evident in times of protracted strikes
when a large number of workers went back to their native places.
Thus, we find by the 1920's quite a large wage-earning industrial labour
force in Bengal - large in absolute numbers though not in proportion to
total population, which further increased its numerical strength during the
inter-war and the Second World War years, they had been coming to Bengal
since the late 19th and the early 20th centuries but as they were of
heterogeneous social occupational, ethnic and religious backgrounds with
strong ties to their original roots, even at the end of the World War II, they
could not be counted as "industrial proletariat" in the proper sense of the
term.
Notes and References:
1. Saha (Panchanan), History of the Working Class Movement in Bengal,
1978, p.6.
2. The Location of Industry in India by the office of the Economic Adviser
to the Govt. of India, 1946.

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Industrialisation and Emergence of Labour Force 37

3. Basu (Nirban), The Working Class Movement: A Study of Jute Mills

of Bengal 1937-47, Cal,1994, p.11-12.
4. Goswami (Omkar), 'Collaboration and Conflict: European and Indian
capitalists and the Jute Economy of Bengal' in Indian Economic and
Social History Review, Vol. XIX, No.2, June 1982.
5. Report of the Labour Investigation Committee, 1946, p.6.
6. Report on Labour in Bengal by B. Foley, 1906, para - 29.
7. Indian Industrial Commission Report, 1916-18, Vol VI, Confidential
Evidence, p.116-117.
8. Ghosh (Parimal), Colonialism, Class and a History of the Calcutta
Jute Mill hands 1880 - 1930, Hyderabad, 2000.
9. Foley, op.cit.
10. Fremantle (S.H.), Report on the Supply of Labour in U.P. and in
Bengal, 1906, para 43.
11. Census of India, 1911, Vol. V, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, Pt II, Appendix
to Table XXI, Pt. IV.
12. Census of India, 1921, Vol. V, Pt II, Table XXII, pts IV and V.
13. Dasgupta (Ranajit), ‘Factory Labour in Eastern India in Sources of
Supply, 1885 - 1946: Some Preliminary Findings' in Indian Economic
and Social History Review, Vol. XIII, No.3.
14. Chakraborty (Dipesh), Rethinking Working Class History : Bengal
1890 - 1940, Princeton, 1989.
15. Labour Investigation Committee Report on Cotton Textiles Workers,
1946.
16. Foley (B), op.cit., para 38.
17. Census of India, 1921, Vol V, part Ii, Table XXII.
18. Ibid.
19. Basu (Nirban), 'Bengali Capitalist vs - Bengali Labour'. Dilemma
before the Bengali Nationalists - A case study of the Labour Movement
in the Mohini Mills, Kusthia, (1937-40) in Journal of History, Vol.XVI,
1997-98, Department of History, Jadavpur University.
20. Basu (Nirban), Role of Urban Labour in Modern Bengal in C,Palit
(ed), Urbanisation in India: Past and Present in Prof. N.R.Ray
Centenary Volume, Institute of Historical Studies, Kolkata, 2009.
21. Das (Amal), Urban Politics in an Industrial Area : Aspects of Municipal
and labour Politics in Howrah- West Bengal, 1850 - 1928, Calcutta,
1994; de Haan (Arjan), Unsettled Settlers : Migrant Workers, and

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38 Nirban Basu

Industrial Capitalism in Calcutta, Calcutta, 1996.

22. Chandravarkar (R.S.), The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India:
Business Strategies and the Working classes in Bombay, 1900 -1940,
Cambridge, 1994 ; Nair (Janaki), Work Culture and Politics in Princely
Mysore, New Delhi, 1998.
23. Bhattacharya (Sabyasachi), Financial Foundations of the British Raj,
Simla, 1971.
24. Ray (Rajat K.), Urban Roots of Indian Nationalism - Pressure Groups
and Conflict of Interest in Calcutta City Politics, 1875 - 1939, New
Delhi, 1971.
25. Srimani (Saumitra), 'Municipality O Mill : Baranagar, Unabingsha
Satabdir Shesh Bhag' in Itihas Anusandhan, Vol. 2.
26. Goswami (Omkar), 'Changes in Industrial Control in eastern India,
1930 - 50: An Explanatory Essay' in Amit.K. Gupta(ed) Myth and
Reality: The Struggle for Freedom in India 1945 - 47, New Delhi,
1986.
27. Census of India, 1911, Vol. V, Pt I, p.540, 587 and Table XII.
28. Census of India, 1921, Vol V Bengal Pt I, p. 398.
29. Simmons (C.P.), 'Recruiting and organizing an Industrial Labour Force
in Colonial India : The case of the Coal Mining Industry, 1880-1939'
in Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol XIII, No.4, Dec,
1976.
30. Indian Tea Association, Annual Report, 1947.
31. Griffiths (P.), The History of the Indian Tea Industry, London, 1967,
p.115.
32. Bhowmik (Sarit), Class Formation in the Plantation System, 1981.
33. Mitra (A.), Census of India, 1951, Vol VI, Pt IA (West Bengal) Report,
p. 253.
34. Report of the Royal Commission of Labour in India, 1931, Vol VI
pt1, p. 66.
35. Report of the Labour Investigation Committee on the Tea Garden
Workers, 1946.
36. Foley (B.), op.cit.
37. Quoted in the Census of India, 1911, Vol. V, Bengal Part -I, Report.
38. Royal Commission on Labour in India, 1931, Main Report.

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