As published in the Volume 2(1) of Ramjas Poltical Review
Abstract
This paper looks at the function of organised labour in India within historical and structural frameworks. It charts the trade union movement and its historical consequences on the economy, politics, and society. This paper primarily employs social movement theory, thereby charting the process as a social movement. It looks at the labour movement's mobilisation in India from 1991 to the early 2000s in opposition to privatisation. This paper studies the stronger labour movement against economic transformations and notable differences. Taking the example of labour organisations such as the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, this paper aims to examine the various kinds of labour movement organisations in India and place them in congruence with the economic policies of the 1990s. This is done by employing a thorough secondary literature review.
Keywords: Privatisation, Liberalisation, Labour Movement, Economic Reform, Alternate Movements
Introduction
Although initial attempts to liberalise India's economy occurred in the 1980s, as indicated by lax rules and lesser restrictions on business creation during the Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi years, many scholars date the beginning of liberalisation to 1991, when the Indian National Congress (INC)-led government launched its New Economic Policy. The goal of this programme was to reform the inefficient, debt-laden public sector, and raise revenues to combat the growing budget deficit. One year later, in 1992, the government sold minority stakes in thirty of its two hundred and forty-four public-sector firms.
Nonetheless, India's privatisation process has been slower than that of Latin American, East European, and other Asian countries, with less revenue involved and fewer firms sold. Interestingly, the term "privatisation" was not utilised in Indian political discourse till the late 1990s. Instead, "disinvestment" was favoured because it was thought to be less radical, and hence more appealing to the public. Some cabinet members, such as the Minister of Civil Aviation, Sharad Yadav of the Janata Dal Party, and the Minister of Heavy Industries, Manohar Joshi of the Shiv Sena Party, utilised an approach of "blame avoidance" while advocating privatisation. To clarify, they supported privatisation only if it did not involve their areas of responsibility. This "reforming by stealth" technique kept the public in the dark about significant economic policy changes. It is hardly unexpected that these problems did not influence election results (Uba, 2008).
Privatisation entailed not only the sale of government-owned factories, but also broader reforms such as increasing private investment in the finance sector, restructuring health and education systems, and allowing the private sector to run public utilities. The key point of contention in the Indian financial and insurance sectors was the amount of private and foreign funding that may be allowed into publicly owned banks and insurance companies. Even though the initiative for reform in these sectors began in the early 1990s, important legislation allowing privatisation and up to 26 per cent foreign investment in the insurance and banking sectors was passed later in 2000, despite strong opposition from bank and insurance sector trade unions (Kapur & Mehta, 2001).
Within social movement theory, tracing the varied changes across various landscapes provides an important context for understanding national issues through a global lens. As Edelman (2001) writes, the wave of transnational movements originating from the US spread similar ideas globally. These were influenced by environmentalism, feminism, and opposition to unfettered free trade. Even though these were the very same concerns that the Indian social landscape was battling with during the 1990s, ironically most of these were a result of the introduction of American capitalism into Indian markets. Not only did liberalisation provide permits to certain countries, but the American idea of capitalism remained at the forefront of the same. Agriculturists, labourers, and social movements relating to labour organisations were grappling with similar issues worldwide.
To offset the impact of labour retrenchment, which is commonly associated with company privatisation, the government established specific Voluntary Retirement Plans (VRS) for redundant workers and provided them with the opportunity to purchase stock in public corporations. Trade union activists, on the other hand, dubbed the VRS strategy a "not-so-voluntary scheme" because management often actively pressured employees in specific industries to retire before they desired to do so (Uba, 2008). Trade union organisers also noted that the majority of employees lacked the funds to purchase the shares offered. Similar to labour movements in other countries, Indian labour saw privatisation as a process that would eventually result in increased unemployment and lower union membership. As a result, labour mobilisation against privatisation was not unexpected; however, the main questions concerned its range and severity.
Industrial relations specialists occasionally regard the Indian labour movement as an outlier. Theoretically, it should be strong due to a supportive institutional structure, but its minuscule membership indicates a lack of mobilising capacity (Kuruvilla & Das, 2002). Protective labour legislation and political party affiliations among Indian trade unions are examples of supportive institutions. Before dismissing a workforce of more than 100 employees, a business owner is required by law to get approval from the government. However, these restrictions are not consistently enforced. Legislation also differs across states, and it is believed that stringent labour rules impede a state's economic development and investments (Besley & Burgess, 2004).
The Indian Labour Movement: Structure and Characteristics
Unionised workers from all industries are divided into five major trade union federations and several small trade unions. Most of the five major union federations are closely associated with various national political parties and have branches at both the federal and state levels. These branches, in turn, bring together commercial and public unions across a wide range of economic sectors, from banking to mining. Thus, whereas labour movements in other countries are typically supported by left-wing parties, all major political parties in India, regardless of ideological leaning, have their "own" trade unions (Saxena, 1993).
Here, the resource mobilisation theory can be employed (McCarthy & Zald, 1977). Unions connected with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress (INC) have recorded the most members. These parties were also key drivers of India's privatisation movement. This poses an intriguing problem for social movement scholars; from a resource allocation perspective, proponents of resource mobilisation theory argue that organisations with greater resources are more likely to mobilise. Scholars who support the political opportunity structure approach alternatively, however, not in opposition, believe that protest mobilisation is less likely in a government with political allies or when a union's "own" party is in control. Although the latter thesis has not received consistent empirical support in studies of American and European movements, these tendencies could very well be present in developing countries. There are various questions here that require answers in order to study the Indian labour movement as a social movement. There are certain characteristics that inform the structure of a social movement. First and foremost, the labour movement needs to be categorised based on whether it arose from political parties as supporting organisations or whether they took root independently. As Jasper (2007) writes, the important question about social movements that arise is primarily based upon how the movements could overcome repression by the state in order to maintain or further their interests. Within the ambit of the same, he writes that members of social movement groups or organisations were either seen as “insurgents” or “challengers”. Essentially, these people were outsiders attempting to gain entry into the realm of existing politics.
Herein, there needs to be a focus on why the labour movements in India took root in the first place. Unlike popular opinion, it does not merely exist because that is the way of developing societies. Rather, in all such cases, there exist specific structural issues that bring about the need for a movement. In this paper, there has been an attempt to highlight how the liberalisation of the 1990s primarily gave a push to the already existing labour movement in India. The reason why the situation is rather complex is, ironically, simple. In India, the intermixing of caste identities with class identities meant the emergence of various schools of thought that interpreted the labour “class” in different ways. The understanding of the social classes is not a simple task, and the erasure of cultural, linguistic, and caste identities is extremely easy if one uses the blanket of varying classes to identify different groups in the country. Frames and identities are important tools in the conceptual repertoire for understanding social movements (Jasper, 2007).
The first major peaks in protest activity occurred in 1993 and 1994 when the central government under the INC Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, decided to open India’s oil exploration and refineries to private investment and sell some shares of public banks. Interestingly, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), the trade union affiliated with the Congress Party, even participated in some of these protest campaigns, although in a minor way. Prior to 1993, the federal-level leadership of INTUC had clearly distanced itself from any nationwide action against privatisation, thus supporting the hypotheses set forth by classic social movement theory that unions associated with ruling political parties will tend not to mobilise. Yet, the INTUC continued to refrain from participating in anti-privatisation protests targeting the central government, even after the BJP-led coalition came into power in 1998 and Congress became an opposition party. The INTUC’s actions contrasted with those of the BJP-affiliated trade union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (referred to as the BMS, hereon). Surprisingly, the BMS significantly participated in nationwide strikes and demonstrations mobilised against the liberalisation policies of the BJP-led government, although only until 2002. However, the majority of anti-privatisation protests directed against the policies of the central government were mobilised by the left-wing trade union federations, the Centre of the Indian Trade Unions (referred to as CITU hereon) and AITUC. For example, the BMS and INTUC were major organisers for three nationwide actions, whereas left-wing federations mobilised at least 37 campaigns.
Data also shows a reticence to protest in the years 1995 and 1996. The approaching elections at the time and the worsening macroeconomic situation were likely factors in this relative silence. The INC’s central administration did not want to talk about privatisation programmes that were probably controversial because they were getting ready for the next Lok Sabha elections (Mitra & Singh, 1999). The privatisation programmes would affect various firms dealing with energy as an industry. This industry was key because not only was it imperative for national development, but it was also an employer of a big chunk of India’s labour force. Due to the brewing tensions, trade union splits amongst the various branches of the industry occurred. As a result of this split, three distinct energy firms were formed: distribution, transmission, and generation. Trade unions representing the energy industry viewed it as a first step towards the complete privatisation of the state's energy industry. Trade unions throughout India were inspired to show solidarity by organising demonstrations against the Uttar Pradesh government. The climax of state-targeting protests indicates this wave of dissent. As Jasper (2007) writes, the primary objective or an essential question about social movements is about how they overcome repression by the state so as to further their existing or new interests. Under the Marxist assumption, the interactions between the movement and the state can be understood through the idea that oftentimes the state is the judge as well as the opponent of the movement. However, Jasper also postulates that this approach often employs the idea of “relationships” between different actors as opposed to “interactions”, which is imperative in understanding the contribution of the cultural context for the social movements.
Second, the Indian Parliament enacted the Insurance Regulatory and Development Bill in July 2000. This was a devastating defeat to the banking unions, who had been able to prevent the enactment of this legislation since the early 1990s. Unions viewed this defeat as a sign of weakness in the anti-privatisation movement, and they considered the expanded authorisation of private investments into the finance industry as a first step towards privatisation. Third, the labour unions' 67-day strike against the March-May 2001 sale of Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO) to Sterlite Industries was met with resistance by the national government. After the company was already sold, all of the major trade unions united in this action, which became a symbol of labour resistance to the central government's privatisation plans that had failed (Uba, 2008).
These losses did not put an end to all mobilisation; on the contrary, they sparked increased collaboration between union branches at the federal and state levels, but not between the numerous trade union federations connected to different political parties. Enhanced coordination among unions and their growing partnership with consumer and environmental groups resulted in a widespread demonstration movement against the proposed privatisation of Indian oil corporations in 2003, as well as against the privatisation of power systems in late 2001. In spite of these measures, the ruling BJP government raised the issue of economic reforms during the upcoming legislative elections. In 2004, the Congress Party defeated it. Even though it was a hot topic during the campaign, economic reforms were not the only reason for the defeat. Herein, Jasper’s (2007) postulation of the characteristics of a social movement can be used. He writes that social movements are sustained and differ from spontaneous rallies and riots. The labour movement in India has a long history of sustained efforts that traces back to the colonial regime. For the purposes of this paper, our focus is on the labour movement as it came back up during the 1990s due to the economic liberalisation policies. However, the same is important to note so as to establish the character of labour movements in India. With varying organisations, the movement has consisted of sustained efforts as well as rallies from time to time.
This illustrates how the anti-privatisation protest movement in Indian labour has grown over time and incorporated a range of protest strategies. Contrary to what resource mobilisation theories would predict, left-wing trade union federations with comparatively small official memberships have been more active than right-of-centre unions. Although the evidence does not entirely support it, it is possible that the larger unions' relative inactivity was caused by their partners' positions of power. The BMS's participation in nationwide anti-privatisation protests until 2002, even during the BJP's tenure in power, and the INTUC's comparative silence on the subject of mobilisation during Congress-led governments suggest that resource mobilisation patterns are more nuanced than traditional resource mobilisation theory suggests (Jasper, 2007).
By the 1980s, India had entered the early stages of globalisation, which accelerated in the 1990s with the implementation of the structural adjustment programme. Ironically, the Indian economy's globalisation caused worker agitation to become more localised, which eventually killed off any chance of industrial labour being mobilised across the country. Major Indian cities' labour-management relations were the subject of comparative research that revealed notable regional variations. Trade unionism was steadily declining in Mumbai due to ideology, while in Kolkata it became extremely politicised as a result of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Due to differences in the skill and educational levels of various enterprises, Bangalore has seen a surge in plant and firm-based unions (Oomen, 2010).
An Alternative Example: The BMS
Labour movements are mostly understood as stemming from leftist ideologies and are often studied from the same perspective. As Edelman (2001) wrote, the focus of new social movement theorists did not always study right-wing collective action. Even though as explained further, the BMS identifies as apolitical and not affiliated with any political party, its criticism of the Congress government and its policies and hailing of right-wing projects is evident in their journals. They write that right-wing social movements often employ cultural politics. The formation of BMS as a social movement stands as an example of the same, wherein the organisation is formed as an institution to protect Bharatiya values and refuse to incorporate Western ideals.
The BMS as a labour union that blatantly rejected the ideologies of Marxism and any leftist ideals, stands as a case in point in order to understand alternate labour movements in India. Based on data certified by the Ministry of Labour in 1980, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) has grown to be a significant trade union organisation in India, leaping to the second rank in terms of worker support. The BMS is significant because, in contrast to other union groups, it was not a part of the national movement and had no connections to any trade unions that existed before 1947. Its assertion that it is a "non-political trade union movement" in contrast to other trade union movements that engage in party politics and are not solely connected to political parties is another noteworthy aspect.
The fact that there are several union centres in India does not indicate that the trade union movement in India is not politically involved with divergent viewpoints on labour-related matters, but rather as a result of the parties' disparate political philosophies. As a result, the main hubs have a political party affiliation, either explicit or implicit. The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) is associated with the Communist Party of India, the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) with the Janata Party and the Janata Dal, the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) with the INC, and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) with the Communist Party of India (M). All these union movements had their roots in the AITUC, which had fought alongside the Indian National Congress in the struggle against British rule and for independence. In that regard, the BMS is a new organisation, having no historical connections to the liberation movement spearheaded by the Indian National Congress and no ancestry in the AITUC. Although it claims to be an apolitical organisation, it has ties to both the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Therefore, BMS asserts that it originated in the national culture. "BMS is one of the instruments of culture fighting against the mutually hostile but equally anti-human capitalism and Marxism," their statement reads, with the ultimate goal of establishing a Bharatiya social order based upon the tenets of Integral Humanism (Saxena, 1993). It rejects communism, Marxism, and capitalism. BMS rejects socialism because it emphasises the distribution component, and capitalism because it over-emphasises the importance of production. BMS places equal emphasis on both: workers have a fundamental right to an equitable share of the fruits of industry while achieving maximum productivity is labour's national duty.
The BMS states the following as its stance on the 1990s liberalisation policies:
“The Hyderabad conference of 1984 declared war against the unholy alliance of multinational companies, Indian monopolies and the government. In 1989 USSR disintegrated and communism collapsed in the East European countries, resulting in the world becoming unipolar. By 1990 New Economic Policies like LPG (Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation) and Open Market Policy came into being. On the 3rd of July 1991, the Narasimha Rao Government announced the New Economic Policy (NEP) and New Industrial Policy (NIP) in India, which opened all her doors for foreign investment, first by institutions and later by foreign direct investments (FDI). After the 1990s when developed countries spread their economic empire, Swadeshi Jagaran Manch was formed and BMS participated in many of its agitational programmes. The Tenth National Conference of BMS held at Dhanbad between 18th and 20th March 1994 declared a ‘War of Economic Independence against Western Imperialism’” (Narayanan, 2022).
The Swadeshi Jagran Manch has been critical of foreign direct investment since its inception in 1991. Therefore, as we can understand, regardless of political leanings, most labour unions in India were critical of the liberalisation policies of the 1990s. Although it could be argued that BMS took its stance due to its political affiliations, the former statement remains true. The BMS proclaims that following the 1990s, despite the rise to power of several governments led or backed by various political parties, including leftists, both the labour and economic policies remained unchanged. BMS opposed the anti-labour policies of Congress's Narasimha Rao government, while leftists backed the Gujral and Deva Gowda governments. BMS also opposed the anti-labour policies of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, which included some of its "friends" (Swadeshi Jagran Manch, 1995).
Here, the characteristic of a social movement fostering or retarding social change (Jasper, 2007) can be understood. The BMS as an organisation supporting the rights of labourers fostered the social movement in multiple ways but also held many conservative ideals that excluded a wide section of their targeted population from their activities. Mobilisation of mass support is extremely important for the success of any social movement. Jasper’s postulation, however, that only progressive movements could be studied as social movements can be invoked here. Even though labour organisations as a part of the labour movement fostered by the left-wing parties existed, the BMS stands as an interesting case. The BMS as an organisation whose conception then turned into a social movement to uphold certain ideals as mentioned above is an example of diversity of opinions within the same arena while demanding similar things from the state.
The political field (Ray, 2001) that the BMS operated in, contributed immensely to the resources that the organisation had and the support it received. The 1990s were a time of immense political turbulence with a lot of resentment towards state policies. The political field inherited by the BMS gave them a space that was in congruence with the ideals that a lot of their target population wanted to see in society.
Women’s Involvement in The Labour Movement
The question of whether the workforce has become more "feminised" in the past ten years, especially since the liberalisation process started is very important. Deshpande and Deshpande (1992, p. 1998) evaluated how liberalisation affected female employment and engagement in the short term. They discovered that: (a) following liberalisation, both male and female participation rates rose in urban areas; (b) gender-based wage disparities between regular wage or salaried rural and urban workers widened; and (c) women workers were increasingly turning to self-employment, and the informal sectors as their share of the workforce increased slightly, but their proportion in manufacturing declined.
Banerjee (1997) contends that, whereas globalisation has contributed to a feminisation of the manufacturing workforce in a number of nations, in India, the opposite has occurred. Women's chances in the secondary industries have decreased dramatically across all states. Nonetheless, there has been a tiny uptick in the number of agricultural jobs available to rural women, and advancements have been achieved in the tertiary sector. Low-income working women in the unorganised sector organise under the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) model to seek better wages and working conditions. Banks and cooperatives also provide them with financial help. This is already happening at the Working Women's Forum in Chennai and Annapurna in Mumbai. The CITU is making great progress in organising women who work in the unorganised sector.
Imagination of the Process as a Social Movement
The labour movement in India, unlike other social movements, is not clearly demarcated by specific ideals of resistance against one particular issue or mobilisation against a clearly defined entity. In this paper, an attempt has been made to trace the labour movement specifically in the period of 1990s-early 2000s. The implications of the liberalisation, however, can be studied in the Farmers’ Protests of 2020 as well. All such issues are interrelated: however, to study them in one bracket is very broad.
The BMS is one example of a social movement that arose during the 1990s. Most of India’s labour organisations were not formed during the liberalisation, but their activities increased immensely during that time due to the varying reasons mentioned throughout the paper. Borrowing from Jasper’s postulations on the characteristics of social movements, the labour movement in India has consisted of sustained efforts that have worked towards the plight of labour rights in India. The social movement has very much been linked to culture and psychology, the BMS, for example, which makes it very intentional and not essentially spontaneous. The affiliations of various labour organisations with different ideologies have worked towards the labour movement in many ways, fostering social change in Indian society. Even though their ideals might be conservative, the call for social change and the betterment of labourers’ conditions has always been at the forefront of the labour movement in India. The non-institutional characteristic of the labour movement can be highlighted by the fact that most of the movements arose as a response to neglect or repression by the state. Within social movement theory, the categorisation of movements based on the nature of their origin is imperative in order to then expand upon the characteristics that follow. As can be understood, the mobilisation of labour organisations was mostly reactionary, aimed towards bringing forth the dearth of state machinery actively involved with the welfare of labour groups. The presence of a sense of community accorded protection to those who were part of these organisations. It was also in response to state policies that were extremely detrimental to workers’ rights or conditions, as can be observed in the aftermath of the liberalisation of the 1990s.
It is imperative to understand that as much as these are organisational activities, the individual lives and lived experiences of the people involved are extremely important. The historical and cultural context can be utilised to understand the same. In India, the labour movements were very much informed by the history of colonialism. As far as the 1990s were concerned, the labour movements had undertones of the Swadeshi movement as it was during the independence struggle. As Edelman (2001) writes, theorists of new social movements could benefit immensely from taking into consideration the ethnographies, oral narratives, and documentary histories of the participants involved.
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The author, Pallavi Nair, is a student at Hindu College, University of Delhi.
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