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Industrial Violence in Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

David Arnold
David Arnold
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
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Extract

Discussion of the social aspects of industrialization in India has proceeded almost exclusively in terms of labor recruitment, factory conditions, and the development of trade unions. Although strikes have received detailed consideration, the industrial violence which formed a common and persistent feature of labor relations in colonial India has been largely ignored. Official reports of the period tended to play down the incidence of violence, not wishing to publicize the failings of government labor policies.' Or, where violence was acknowledged to have occurred, it was taken to indicate the immaturity and irresponsibility of Indian workers. Post-independence studies, drawing heavily on published official sources, have too readily equated labor history with a narrative of strikes, with union membership figures and labor legislation. A lingering Gandhian tradition has further influenced many Indian labor studies. Violence is regarded as too morally reprehensible and politically deviant to warrant serious analysis. Where admitted, it is attributed to communist politicians or other outside elements rather than to factors inherent within the labor situation.

Type
The State and the Threat of Violence
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1980 , pp. 234 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1980

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References

The author wishes to thank Flinders University of South Australia and the Social Science Research Council of Great Britain for the financial assistance which made possible the research on which this paper is based.

1 In this submission to the Royal Commission on Labor, the Railway Board listed 48 strikes for the 1919–29 period, but noted serious violence in only 3 of them, with minor violence in 5 others: Royal Commission on Labour in India (hereafter RCL) (London: His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1931), VIII, part l, pp. 250–58. Examination of strikes for which no violence was listed shows many incidents of violence of the kinds discussed in this paper.Google Scholar

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