‘Produce or Perish’. The crisis of the late 1940s and the place of labour in post-colonial India

2019 ◽  
Vol 54 (4) ◽  
pp. 1041-1112
Author(s):  
RAVI AHUJA
Keyword(s):  
Informal Economy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Post War ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThis article argues that the late 1940s in India should no longer be reduced to the twin events of partition and independence. A generalized political crisis unsettled, for a brief period, the structures of social and economic power, and not just intercommunity relations and the constitution of the state. These years were thus, among other things, a catalytic moment for the definition of ‘labour’ as both a political category and a parameter of post-colonial politics: processes dating back to the First World War, at least, were consolidated, under pressure from this crisis, into a new labour regime that has withstood political pressure for almost seven decades. The article offers an analysis of the almost-forgotten post-war strike movement, which was nevertheless unprecedented in its social and geographical spread. The movement elicited both repressive and reformist responses: the extraordinary level of emergency powers applied to suppress it are, therefore, as much examined as the series of momentous legislative and institutional changes of the late 1940s. In conclusion, the long-term consequences of this cycle of strike–reform–repression for India's post-colonial labour regime are adumbrated. A strongly etatist, potentially authoritarian, regime of industrial relations, it is argued, was checked by an enduring political trade union pluralism. At the same time, divisions within India's working classes were deepened and consolidated as labour law and social legislation sealed off the comparatively small ‘core workforces’ of public sector and large-scale industrial enterprises from the majority of workers in what would soon be called the ‘informal economy’.

Jainism in Danger? Temple entry and the rhetoric of religion and reform in post-colonial India

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
MANISHA SETHI
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Open The Doors ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract A bitter debate broke out in the Digambar Jain community in the middle of the twentieth century following the passage of the Bombay Harijan Temple Entry Act in 1947, which continued until well after the promulgation of the Untouchability (Offences) Act 1955. These laws included Jains in the definition of ‘Hindu’, and thus threw open the doors of Jain temples to formerly Untouchable castes. In the eyes of its Jain opponents, this was a frontal and terrible assault on the integrity and sanctity of the Jain dharma. Those who called themselves reformists, on the other hand, insisted on the closeness between Jainism and Hinduism. Temple entry laws and the public debates over caste became occasions for the Jains not only to examine their distance—or closeness—to Hinduism, but also the relationship between their community and the state, which came to be imagined as predominantly Hindu. This article, by focusing on the Jains and this forgotten episode, hopes to illuminate the civilizational categories underlying state practices and the fraught relationship between nationalism and minorities.

External Definition or Self-assertion of Separateness: Understanding Muslim Identity in Post-colonial India

Social Change ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 515-531
Author(s):  
Zubair Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Public Philosophy ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indian State ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Religious Aspects

Muslim identity like any other identity is discretely constituted, defined by language, religion, caste, class, sect and numerous other diverse roles. Such an understanding largely seems to have eluded the public philosophy of the post-colonial Indian state and what seems to have remained central to it is their exclusive definition in religious terms and an exclusive emphasis on their religious engagements. This paper looks at this external religious definition of the community and identifies this definition in the ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ identity construction processes and interprets other important developments which have all compounded to shape a separate Muslim identity in India. It analyses the construction of Muslim identity and attempts to understand the separateness that they have exhibited in post-colonial India. The argument follows that Muslim identity in India has been externally defined with an emphasis on religious aspects and that their separateness remains a quintessential result of this external definition.

scholarly journals The right to comfort in the century of the self

2021 ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Zara Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

After the war, the world was divided between two main powers, a Western capitalist bloc led by the USA, and an Eastern communist bloc, driven by the USSR. From Japan to Mexico, the post-war years were ones of prosperous economic growth and profound social transformation. It was the time of re-housing families split apart and of rebuilding destroyed cities, but it was also the time of democratic rebirth, the definition of individual and collective freedoms and rights, and of belief in the open society envisaged by Karl Popper. Simultaneously, it was the time of the biggest migrations from the countryside, revealing a large faith in the city, and of baby booms, revealing a new hope in humanity. (...) Whether through welfare state systems, as mainly evidenced in Western Europe, under the prospects launched by the Plan Marshall (1947), or through the establishment of local housing authorities funded or semi-funded by the government, or through the support of private companies, civil organizations or associations, the time had come for the large-scale application of the principles of modern architecture and engineering developed before the war. From the Spanish polígonos residenciales to the German großsiedlungen, ambitious housing programs were established in order to improve the citizens’ living conditions and health standards, as an answer to the housing shortage, and as a symbol of a new egalitarian society: comfort would no longer only be found in bourgeois houses.

scholarly journals Institute of Punishment in the Indian Penal Code of 1860: the Penological Theories

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 431-443
Author(s):  
Nina Krasheninnikova ◽  
Elena Trikoz
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Criminal Policy ◽  
Penal Code ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Physical Isolation ◽  
White Terror ◽  
Distinct Features ◽  
Indian Penal Code

The historical experience of India in search of its own concept of punishment is unique. It was greatly influenced by the countrys colonial past and the Anglo-Saxon legal culture as well as the philosophical, religious, ethno-linguistic, caste, tribal and other factors. The Indian Penal Code of 1860 uses an original penological construct and a system of punishments. It was influenced by the historical and theoretical factors described in this article, by criminal policy in British India and by its post-colonial development. The countrys penological discourse, influenced by the criminal law doctrine of the metropolitan state, has two distinct features. Firstly, it is the diversity of types of punishment and judges discretion in choosing them to individualize liability. Secondly, the humanitarian orientation of the institute of punishment and the reduction in the number of crimes punishable by death penalty. English lawyer Th.B. Macaulay, the creator of the Indian Penal Code of 1860, considered general prevention, or deterrence, to be the main goal of punishment, while specific prevention through the physical isolation of the criminal and his correction was viewed as a complimentary goal. It was important for the colonial criminal policy to obtain tangible results from the penological theory and the practices of punishment in order to suppress the local ritual crimes (cult «thuggism») and traditional ritual sacrifices (sati ritual). After a large-scale sepoy rebellion and the spread of dacoity crimes, the repressive functions of punishment began to prevail over other penological theories. The so-called «white terror» was commonly used against political opponents fighting for religious freedoms and independence of colonial India. Modern India is a good example of the controversial experience of the search for the effective criminal-penological theories that is a considerable addition to the classic (westernized) criminology. The special historical concepts and practices of punishment in the countries of the «global south», including India, are now studied by the new field of «Southern Criminology». The Indian government is promoting a complex criminal-penological approach to counteracting domestic crimes and transnational threats.

VIII. From Middleman Minorities to Industrial Entrepreneurs: The Chinese in Java and the Parsis in Western India 1619–1939

Itinerario ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-132 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Dobbin
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Western India ◽  
Indian Government ◽  
Minority Communities ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Corporate Capital ◽  
Chinese Business ◽  
Domestic Capital

A marked feature of the business and industrial élites of post-colonial India and Indonesia is the dominance within them of minority communities. An Indian government commission in 1965 reported that, of the top 75 business houses which controlled almost half of the non-governmental, non-banking assets in the country, Marwari houses occupied the apex with control of Rs 7.5 billion in assets, followed by the Parsis with Rs 4.7 billion and Gujaratis with Rs 3.8 billion. By 1980 the Parsi Tata group represented the largest industrial house in India, followed by the Marwari Birlas. In Indonesia it is the Chinese who overwhelmingly comprise the business and industrial ĺite. Despite problems with quantifiable data, it has been assessed that the Chinese own, at the very least, 70–75% of Indonesia's private domestic capital and that Chinese business conglomerates such as the Liem and Astra groups dominate medium and large-scale corporate capital.

The right to comfort in the century of the self

2021 ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Zara Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Social Transformation ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Private Companies ◽  
The Usa ◽  
The Government ◽  
Post War ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
The City

After the war, the world was divided between two main powers, a Western capitalist bloc led by the USA, and an Eastern communist bloc, driven by the USSR. From Japan to Mexico, the post-war years were ones of prosperous economic growth and profound social transformation. It was the time of re-housing families split apart and of rebuilding destroyed cities, but it was also the time of democratic rebirth, the definition of individual and collective freedoms and rights, and of belief in the open society envisaged by Karl Popper. Simultaneously, it was the time of the biggest migrations from the countryside, revealing a large faith in the city, and of baby booms, revealing a new hope in humanity. (...) Whether through welfare state systems, as mainly evidenced in Western Europe, under the prospects launched by the Plan Marshall (1947), or through the establishment of local housing authorities funded or semi-funded by the government, or through the support of private companies, civil organizations or associations, the time had come for the large-scale application of the principles of modern architecture and engineering developed before the war. From the Spanish polígonos residenciales to the German großsiedlungen, ambitious housing programs were established in order to improve the citizens’ living conditions and health standards, as an answer to the housing shortage, and as a symbol of a new egalitarian society: comfort would no longer only be found in bourgeois houses.

scholarly journals THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE FORMATION OF AN ENTERPRISE WITH A STRICT TECHNOLOGICAL REGIME

2020 ◽  
pp. 76-83
Author(s):  
Natalia Zhitkova
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Production Environment ◽  
Technological Regime ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Technological Structure ◽  
Artistic Interpretation ◽  
Artistic Images ◽  
Post War

The study allows us to present the historical conditions for the emergence and development of enterprises of a rigid technological structure in the context of the socio-political processes of the post-war era in Ukraine, as well as to identify the potential opportunities for their modernization in modern conditions. A special place in the historical and architectural study of the formation of enterprises with a strict technological regime and a pronounced large-scale engineering infrastructure is occupied by metallurgical, petrochemical, coke-chemical, as well as heat and hydropower enterprises, and the like. It should be determined that today they for the most part do not meet the environmental requirements, run counter to the idea of consistency in the urban planning environment and generally need comprehensive modernization. The architecture of industrial enterprises was formed on the basis of typology, unification and modular coordination, as well as the open placement of a powerful engineering infrastructure, which ultimately formed a new aesthetics of industrial culture. Cooling towers, gas holders, chimneys, overhead pipelines, distribution blocks and power lines became the embodiment of the iconic system of aesthetics of the industrial period, an integral part of the image of an industrial enterprise and the industrial landscape of the then cities. In the aesthetics of the modern, we see that the romanticization of production in the 20th century (before the war and post-war times), which was reflected in the artistic images of painting, cinema and, thanks to the poeticization and heroization of the images of the working profession, a talented artistic interpretation of the production environment, and contributed to the formation of a positive attitude towards the new industrial aesthetics.

scholarly journals ‘The Viceroys are Disappearing from the Roundabouts in Delhi’: British symbols of power in post-colonial India

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 787-831 ◽  
Author(s):  
PAUL M. MCGARR
Keyword(s):  
State Governments ◽  
British Colonialism ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Bilateral Relations ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Indian Nationalism ◽  
The Media ◽  
Post War ◽  
Second World

AbstractIn the aftermath of the Second World War, as post-colonial regimes in Africa and Asia hauled down imperial iconography, to the surprise and approval of many Western observers, India evidenced little interest in sweeping away remnants of its colonial heritage. From the late 1950s onwards, however, calls for the removal of British imperial statuary from India's public spaces came to represent an increasingly important component in a broader dialogue between central and state governments, political parties, the media, and the wider public on the legacy of British colonialism in the subcontinent. This article examines the responses of the ruling Congress Party and the British government, between 1947 and 1970, to escalating pressure from within India to replace British statuary with monuments celebrating Indian nationalism. In doing so, it highlights the significant scope that existed for non-state actors in India and the United Kingdom with a stake in the cultural politics of decolonization to disrupt the smooth running of bilateral relations, and, in Britain's case, to undermine increasingly tenuous claims of continued global relevance. Post-war British governments believed that the United Kingdom's relationship with India could be leveraged, at least in part, to offset the nation's waning international prestige. In fact, as the fate of British statuary in India makes clear, this proved to be at least as problematic and flawed a strategy in the two decades after 1947 as it had been in those before.

scholarly journals Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India. II: Employment in the Informal-Sector Economy

1999 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 451-483 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Breman
Keyword(s):  
Informal Sector ◽  
Industrial Relations ◽  
Small Time ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Formal Sector ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Colonial India ◽  
Professional Journals ◽  
Indian Journal

Rural–urban migration, which started long before Independence, has accelerated during the last half century. Only a small minority of that army of migrants has found work in the formal sector of the economy, however. The greater part of the urban population, both long-established and newcomers, are excluded from such employment. How, then, has this gradually increasing mass of people managed to earn a living? The answer is with work of very diverse character which provides very little stability taken over the year, even if continuous and full-time. The categorization of informal-sector employment is largely determined by the image evoked by Hart on launching the concept. Hart's description stressed the colourful cavalcade of petty trades and crafts that can be encountered while walking the streets of Third-World cities, including those of India: hawkers, rag-and-bone men, shoe cleaners, tinkers, tailors, market vendors, bearers and porters, drink sellers, barbers, refuse collectors, beggars, whores and pimps, pickpockets and other small-time crooks. In the 1970s and 1980s in particular, registration of this repertoire of work expanded enormously. A noticeable factor is that publications on the subject did not originate among conventional researchers into labour, who were interested mainly in formal-sector employment. The contents of leading professional journals, such as The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations and The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, show that, for the time being, that one-sided interest did not change.

Small Industry in Underdeveloped Countries

1959 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 600-618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bert F. Hoselitz
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Far East ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
Economic Commission ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Small Industry ◽  
Post War ◽  
Cottage Industries

In historical studies of industrialization prominent attention is usually given to the development of large-scale industry and whenever small industry is considered at all, it is usually introduced only as the starting point of, or a contrast to, large industrial enterprises. This concern with large industry also predominated in the earliest post-war discussions on the economic development of underdeveloped countries and from this period stem the famous and often ridiculed schemes of giant steel plants and other large industrial establishments in littleadvanced countries. During the last few years, however, the general climate of opinion has changed and increasing attention has been paid to small scale and even cottage industries. This has been especially pronounced in the countries of southern and southeastern Asia and is strongly supported by various studies and conferences of the Economic Commission on Asia and the Far East and other organizations associated with the United Nations operating in this part of the world.

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