Historic strike of Narmada Dam workers THE LABOUR movement in India has been on the retreat for a long time, in particular since the defeat of the Bombay textile workers' strike in 1983. Since then opposition movements have tended to center around environmental questions.
The following article describes the eruption of a major strike in which the demand for trade-union rights has come together with environmental and social protests. The main union leader in the strike, a member of the Indian section of the Fourth International, has been wounded in an assassination attempt. AMAR JESANI
VER 2,000 workers went on indefinite strike January 30 against J.P. Associates, the main contractors for the Sardar Sarovar Dam. The dam is being built over the River Narmada at Kevadia Colony in the Bharuch district of Gujarat state. This strike has now entered a critical phase, with an attack on the strikers' chief organizer, the general secretary of the Vadodara Kamdar Union (VKU), Thakorebhai Shah. An indefinite hunger strike was begun on April 4, 1989, the day the strike completed 65 days, in front of the main office of the Narmada Nigam company in Baroda, Gujarat.
The Narmada Valley Development Project is the largest single river project in India to date. This scheme involves the construction of 30 major, 135 medium and 3,000 minor irrigation works along the River Narmada and 41 of its tributaries. One of the largest dams, the Sardar Sarovar, will submerge 19 villages in Gujarat, 33 in Maharashtra and 182 in Madhya Pradesh.
Tens of thousands of people living in those villages will be permanently displaced to make way for the dam. Singled out for resettlement are the weaker and more disadvantaged section of the population, most of whom are from Scheduled Tribes (tribals) and Scheduled Castes (dalits).
It is well-documented now that the government has neither the resources nor the will to ensure speedy and equitable rehabilitation for those ousted. Besides, resettlement of tribals will lead to a major social and cultural disruption of their lives. In the last few years those slated for removal have gradually organized themselves and are agitating for a comprehensive resettlement policy.
The government has responded to their agitation by imposing the colonial Official Secrets Act at the dam site and in the surrounding area. The Act prohibits all "outsiders" from entering the proscribed area, thereby preventing the dam workers and thousands of the displaced from mobilizing their activists.
Arrests for spying and conspiracy
On January 30, the day the dam workers began their strike, hundreds of people in the area demonstrated against the Official Secrets Act. Eighteen activists were arrested under the charge of spying and conspiring with the dam workers to dynamite the completed section of the dam. The Vadodara Kamdar Union, the dam workers' organization, participated in the January 30 demonstration against the Act, initiating close links between the dam workers and the displaced.
The basic issue involved in the dam workers' strike is the violation of their fundamental human rights. They are not striking for higher wages. They are also not striking to stop construction of the dam definitively, although environmentalists have presented a strong case against the dam based on the ecological disaster it is likely to cause.
Construction workers everywhere in India are treated in the most inhuman way. For them, completing a construction project means dispersal, transfer or outright dismissal, because they get neither any job
security nor any social security. They are part of the unorganized sector of the labour force. Their employers, the contractors and builders, have strong underground (mafia) and political connections. Black market money transactions are most rampant in the construction business. These employers are a law unto themselves; they hardly deign to recognize the country's labour law.
It is also immaterial whether the real employer is the government or a private company. While constructing the stadiums and villages for staging the Asiad (the Asian games), the government flouted all the basic labour laws, including the Minimum Wages Act.
A human rights group had to take this issue to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favour of the workers.
Still, the government failed to comply with the Supreme Court order. And the workers lacked the organization to pursue the fight.
Similarly, in the case of the Narmada Dam workers, the ultimate employer is the government, and the government established the Narmada Nigam corporation. Here, too, the workers' basic human rights are being shamelessly violated by governmentappointed contractors. However, the situation is radically different because the workers are organized, and they have gone on strike to get the labour laws implemented.
Several independent organizations, individuals and journalists have responded to the struggle of these workers, and their reports have given much needed credibility to the workers' demands. An investigation team appointed by the Bombay Union of Journalists, the Committee for the Protection of Democratic Rights and the People's Union for Civil Liberties has described in detail the inhuman condition of workers and their intense oppression.
A journalist from The Indian Post, Nicheta Desai, managed to get through the police and the contractors' thugs to visit the Kavadia Colony labour camp. His report on the front page of his paper brought the workers' plight to the general public. From this account and others, the following picture emerges:
The workers are forced to work 12 to 16 hours a day, and are only being paid for eight hours. They are not issued with identity cards. When wages are paid, no pay slips are provided, and no attendance mus-
INDIA ters are kept. Thus, whenever individual workers raise their voices they are summarily dismissed, and afterwards they have almost nothing to prove that they ever worked at the dam site.
This practice is compounded by the main contractor leasing out parts of the work to sub-contractors. And while doing that, the contractor transfers workers from one subcontractor to another, thus making it difficult to prove who is the principal employer. Such transfers lead to breaks in services affecting workers' claim to various benefits, such as gratuity [severance pay]. (After five years service, workers are entitled to 15 days' pay for every year worked at the end of their service).
Further, in violation of the fundamental rights granted in the constitution, women workers are not paid equal wages for equal work. Workers are. given no medical benefits or medical care. The nature of the work is such that many workers sustain injuries while on duty. Instead of giving them medical care and statutory compensation, the injured workers are thrown off the job.
Parallels with Bombay textile strike
The most contentious issue, however, is the workers' right to organize. Just as in the historic Bombay textile strike (1982-83), the workers are calling for recognition of the Vadodara Kamdar Union as their central demand. The right of workers to organize is one of the basic rights inscribed in the constitution, but there is no provision requiring the employers automatically to recognize the workers' organization.
The 1982 textile workers' strike was called by the Maharashtra Girni Kamdar Union led by Datta Samant, which had the overwhelming support of the workers with some 90 percent of them following the strike call. But the government and the employers stubbornly refused to recognize the union, and took brutal measures to crush the strike.
The situation of the Narmada workers is similar. After the strike started, the contractor's stooges floated their own union. Instead of negotiating with the striking workers, the company is holding secret parlays with its own company union.
Through this union, the company has announced acceptance of two demands — scrapping house rents for workers staying in the labour camp and reducing meal prices, which were increased by over 100 per cent a few days before the strike. However, it is not prepared to recognize the VKU, the authentic union of the workers. The workers know very well that recognition of their union is essential to the survival of their organization. In fact, the labour camp, including the land it is built on, is owned by the contractor. Even before the imposition of the Official Secrets Act, the contractor's security guards refused to allow union activists to meet workers inside the labour camp. In order to sustain the union's day-to-day activities, access to the labour camp is crucial. Thus, the right to organize has no meaning if the necessary conditions for sustaining union activity are not provided.
Many workers have made heroic sacrifices in their attempt to build the union over the last year and a half. The first attempt was made in September 1987. Six workers who approached the Vadodara Kamdar Union in its office in Baroda were summarily dismissed the following day and forced to leave the Kevadia Colony without collecting their belongings.
On March 15, 1988, workers came together and decided to participate in the Bharat Bandh [India strike] organized by trade unions and opposition parties. Three of the workers' leaders were immediately rounded up and held incommunicado in their rooms. In the evening, they were called together. In the presence of the subdivisional magistrate and the company's officers, the police sub-inspector forced them at gun point to sign back-dated transfer orders. They were then promptly thrown out of the labour camp.
Ado ther resemblance between the Nar- 19 mada Dam workers' strike and the textile
INDIA strike is the collaboration of workers and peasants in support of the strikers. It is well known that during the strike of 250,000 Bombay textile workers, strikers went home to their villages and mobilized immense material and political support among the peasants. Given the location of the dam site and the striking workers' solidarity with the displaced landless labourers and peasants, a worker-peasant alliance developed almost spontaneously.
As the strike got underway, the major concern of the underpaid dam workers was how to avoid starvation. The leadership of the Vadodara Kamdar Union worked tirelessly to mobilize material support from other trade unions, human rights groups, women's organizations and other concerned individuals and groups. Government's propaganda barrage
A major problem was the government's and the contractor's propaganda barrage aimed at dividing the Gujarati workers and peasants from the non-Gujarati workers. Most of the non-Gujarati dam workers stay in the labour camp, whereas the Gujarati workers come from nearby villages. However, class instinct ultimately overcame regionalism, and in no time peasants from the surrounding villages declared their support for the striking workers.
A handbill issued by various village leaders blunted the government's attempt to portray the strike as the handiwork of nonGujaratis who were trying to deprive Gujarat of its well-deserved and needed dam.
The peasants contributed materially as well. Grain was collected for the striking workers, supplementing the VKU's efforts to keep the workers supplied with minimum rations. Some of the organizations of 20 the displaced also rose to the occasion. They collected grain, not only from the vilInternational Viewpoint #163 • May 15, 1989 lages of Gujarat but also from Maharashtra. Undoubtedly, without such solidarity from village people, the striking workers could not have held out. The dam workers' labour camp was converted into a concentration camp reminiscent of fascist brutality. The private army of heavies paid and pampered by the contractor is being shamelessly aided by the police to break the spirit of the striking workers. Section 144, which prohibits meetings of four or more people, has been imposed on the entire area and never lifted. Even peaceful demonstrations are attacked by the police and hired thugs. In February 58 workers were arrested for undertaking a peaceful march. They were kept in jail for more than 10 days. The district magistrate refused to grant bail. Ultimately, an appeal was made to the High Court to get them released. A systematic campaign to terrorize the workers is being carried out by the contractor's thugs. Workers are being kidnapped, in the presence of police, beaten up and tortured. So far, 17 workers, including women, have been mercilessly tortured. Many have suffered broken arms and legs, and one person was made deaf. Over 400 workers arrested after protests On March 8 this year, the workers who had come out of the labour camp were assaulted by the director of the contractor company in the presence of the police subinspector. When some 520 rushed to the rescue of these workers, the police resorted to firing in the air to disperse them. To protest against such behaviour on the part of the police, on March 11, workers staged a peaceful demonstration by squatting in front of the company gates. In the presence of the police, officers of the company, along with their goons,
Armed police combing the labour camp at Kevadia Colony to arrest strike leaders (Photos by dam workers) resorted to stone-throwing, and attempted to run over the workers with a staff bus. Many workers, including two women, were seriously injured. Over and above this, the police, acting like dutiful servants of the contractor, arrested 436 workers and charged them with various offences, including one charge of attempted murder. The driver of the bus that was brought in to run over the workers filed a complaint with the police that the workers had tried to kill him. It is ridiculous to believe that more than 500 workers tried to kill one person and failed even to injure him. Arrested workers were denied bail, and dispatched to jails in Ahmedabad, Baroda, Bharadi, Rajpipla, Godhra and Chhota Udaipur. They were released only after the appeal to the High Court.
Murderous attack on strike leader The March 8 and March 11 incidents, however, were a slap in the face of the govemment, which had till then consistently maintained that there was no strike at the Narmada Dam. After the arrest of 58 workers in February, it changed its story, saying that only 150 workers were on strike, but that this was not affecting the dam work. After the March 11 incident, the government was forced to issue a statement that about 500 workers were on strike. The way the government kept changing its story made ordinary people who had been unaware of what was happening at the dam site ask the government some uncomfortable questions. At this time, the Vadodara Kamdar Union announced on March 27 its intention to take the campaign to the state capital, Gandhinagar. The next day, workers from Baroda held a rally in front of the office of the deputy labour commissioner for his failure to intervene and bring the contractor to the negotiating table. All these events unnerved the company, and it sent a hired thug to eliminate the strike's central leader, Thakhorebhai Shah. On March 25, after the rally in front of the deputy labour commissioner's office, Thakhorebhai Shah had to come back to the union office, and had a discussion with the leaders of the workers. He also met his comrades from the Inquilabi Communist Sangathana [Revolutionary Communist League, Indian section of the Fourth International], of which he is also a central leader.
After these meetings, as he came out on the road and went toward his scooter, he was stabbed from behind. It was very dark, and fortunately he had bent over to kickstart his scooter, so the assailant missed his target. Instead of hitting him in the kidneys, the knife slashed one of Thakhorebhai Shah's buttocks. A comrade accompanying him chased the assailant, but under the cover of darkness, he escaped. Bleeding, Thakorebhai was rushed to hospital. It was found that the assailant had inflicted a 12cm-long wound, needing 14 stitches.
Immediately labour leaders, human rights organizations and other concerned people condemned this attempt to assassinate Thakorebhai. On April 1, hundreds of workers from Baroda marched in unison to protest against the assault. They demonstrated in front of the police commissioner's office. The pressure of public opinion and press reports criticizing the government rocked the Gujarat State Assembly, forcing the chief minister to revoke the Official Secrets Act.
As already announced, in order to take the agitation to the state capital a hunger strike of workers was to begin on April 3 in front of the State Assembly, which was then in session. However, in a sudden development, the Assembly was adjourned on March 31. So the workers decided to shift the venue to the office of the Narmada Nigam in Baroda. Accordingly, on April 4, after 65 days of strike, 65 workers began their indefinite fast in front of the Narmada Nigam office in Baroda.
Dam workers set militant example
All the signs are that the state has thrown its full weight behind the company, and that as in the textile strike it is taking the that, as in the textile strike, it is taking the dam workers' action very seriously and is determined to smash it. In these efforts, the Narmada Nigam and its chair, Sanat Mehta, a former socialist and labour leader, is actively conniving with the company to deprive workers of their rights.
Clearly, the government knows that if building workers are able to organize and win at one place, the unorganized workers at many other big construction sites would be encouraged to launch struggles against their inhuman exploitation. Therefore, it wants to nip the democratic aspirations of the unorganized workers in the bud.