It is not an uncommon sight. Five men squatting on the road, paint boxes and a bag of carpenter’s tools between them. There are places, in most cities, where one would find congregations of such men. There is an air of seeming indolence about them, an aimlessness in the manner in which they scratch their heads, smoke beedis, quaff tobacco. But look closer and you see one man, his white eyebrows bristling, his forehead deeply furrowed and it makes you wonder: what’s the story? The story, as told by Jan Breman and Parthiv Shah, is the story of the decline of Ahmedabad’s textile industry and the effects of the same on its 120,000 workers who were thrown suddenly from stable jobs to an uncertain future in the informal sector. The story begins in 1861 with the establishment of the first steam-driven cotton mill, proceeds into the pre-Independence era and the formation of the Majoor Mahajan Sangh up to the circumstances that brought about the closure of the mills from the 1980s onwards. The author, Jan Breman, is Emeritus Professor of Comparative Sociology at the Amsterdam School for Social Research and a long-time observer of labour trends in Gujarat. Given his familiarity with the subject, his account is disappointingly sketchy. The reasons for the industry’s decline are not adequately explained and the history is skimmed over. On the significant issue of Gandhi’s influence over labour in Ahmedabad, one senses Breman’s disapproval with his notion of compromise vis-a-vis a more confrontational approach. Yet, it is not satisfactorily argued and there is a puzzling reference to a leading city magnate actually seeking Gandhi’s help before the historic 1918 strike while most accounts claim Gandhi’s intervention was not welcomed by the city’s industrialists.
