In that single gesture of Kamble's a whole age seemed to pass and fade, time itself seemed to roll back. Momentarily it seemed that the 58.42 million mandays lost. In a historic strike had never been. But though history can be forgotten or ignored, it cannot be undone. And Kamble was among the thousands who had learnt to live with daily humiliating reminders of a battle lost. Even as the bitterless and despair lost their sharpness, bada kranti still seemed impossible -a perennial pipe dream. Had Kamble entirely abandoned his aspirations and fallen in with the reality of the status quo? 

This status quo had ensured mass retrenchment and dislocation of workers and reduced the daily work. force from 1.69 lakhs to 1.21 lakhs. Where there had been a total 2.24 lakhs on the rolls prior to the strike there were now just 1.4 lakhs. This was the reality of mass retrenchments and ram-pant repression by the RMMS, of permanent workers made badli and forced to bear innumerable humiliations. It was the reality of disillusionment with the inaction of Samant's MGKU, whose activists: 'Don't do anything -they're scared. Even those who were elected to the credit  societies* don't do much," Kamble said angrily. 

The mood had been different just a year earlier, in November 1984, as the Lok Sabha elections approached. At that point some of the old fervour of 1982 had been revived. The elections, Samant 
declared, were an opportunity for the workers to reassert themselves. At mammoth rallies, which rivaled the crowds of the strike period, workers enthusiastically responded to this call for anew battle. Many saw in the election an opportunity for revenge. When the Congress(I) chose not to nominate a candidate for the Bombay south central constituency, which covers the textile mill area and where Samant intended to contest the election, the textile workers saw this as an admission of defeat. 

The joyous and enthusiastic response of textile workers to Samant's campaign made his victory a foregone conclusion. In a constituency of 6.5 lakh the textile workers were the largest force.' The only possible competition was seen as coming from Wamanrao Mahadik, former Mayor of Bombay and the Shiv Sena-BJP candidate from that constituency.  But there were also two muslim candidates, one put up by the break away faction of former Chief Minister A.R.Antulay and one independent, who hoped to capitalise on the approximately 1.5 lakh muslim vote in the constituency. 
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* Each mill has a Credit Co-operative Society which gives loans to workers. The office bearers of these societies are elected by the members. Even after the strike Samant's supporters won elections in several of these societies. 

Samant comfortably swept to victory, with a margin of 72,614 votes over Rosa Deshpande, S.A.Dange's daughter who had stood as an independent supported by the Congress(I) and surprisingly beat Mahadik to the second position.  But the Kamgar Agadi itself did not fare as well. 

The three other candidates put up by the Kamgar Agadi  were defeated and two even lost their deposits. Samant himself won the south-central seat only on the strength of textile and dock workers. In two of the six assembly constituencies included in the south central. Lok Sabha constituency, the largest number of votes was won by an independent, Seraj Mirza. These were the Chinchpokli and Nagpada constituencies, which have a large muslim population. Samant stood third in Chinchpokli and fourth in Nagpada. Predictably the highest concentration of votes for Samant was in the Parel Constituency, which has the most dense cluster of textile mills. 

Samant was quick to claim the victory as a vindication of the textile workers' stand and heralded it as the beginning of a movement which would make the Kamgar Aghadi a force to reckon with in Mahashtra politics. More than ever before Samant now talked of fighting the workers' cause through political power. Even while the textile workers rejoiced in their victory, Samant began to make plans for the forthcoming Assembly elections. While the textile workers waited for the fruits of their labour, in getting Samant elected, the leader himself got absorbed with newer and bigger challenges. The following months marked a new decline in the already shaky romance between the workers and Samant. 

The textile workers expected Samant's election to be more than a symbolic victory. He was expected to use his position as one of the few opposition members .In a parliament, overwhelmingly dominated by the Congress(I), to directly benefit the textile workers. Samant was now perceived as being in a stronger bargaining position and was thus expected to do something about the continuing repression faced by workers in the mills. Instead many activists found Samant taking a more and more dismissive attitude towards their requests and demands. This process of disillusionment was quite similar to the experiences of those active in the Central Committee. 

The distribution of Assembly tickets alienated many otherwise zealous Samant supporters. By passing many deserving activists Samant chose to give the ticket for one of the key textile mill area constituencies to his wife Vanita Samant. Similarly P.N.Samant, who continued to be unpopular with the rank and file of textile workers, was given a ticket. In all, 26 candidates were put up by the Kamgar Aghadi. Only three emerged victorious Vanita Samant, Sharad Khatu and Dadoo Atyalykar. Since all three victors were elected from textile worker dominated constituencies, it was evident that Samant did not have an electoral base outside this realm. (Notably, however, P.N.Samant was defeated once again.) The Kamgar Aghadi's success in even these three constituencies came as a surprise to many. A few days before the election Samant's principle assistant in the textile sphere, Vidhyadar Budbadkar had defected from the Aghadi to Sharad Pawar's Congress(S), amid much fanfare and publicity. Budbadkar had claimed at the time that about a 100 odd leading activists were also leaving with him, and it was expected that this would jeopardise the Kamgar Aghadi's prospects. 
 

Budbadkar's claim was partially true. A large segment of what remained of the Central Committee, had left the Aghadi, but they did not leave with Budbadkar. The fact of the Aghadi winning even three seats was largely due to the residual support which Samant still enjoyed and the incredibly high level at which he had maintained his personal credibility with the rank and file. But such credibility was eventually no substitute for sound organisational planning and cadre building. Though Samant never built a cadre as such, he had always had the advantage of a strong and zealous activists corps. Within two months of his Lok Sabha victory Samant had managed to alienate most of these activists by various acts of omission and commission. Just how much this cost Samant in real terms was clear from the results of the Bombay Municipal. Corporation elections in April 1985. Of the 85 candidates put up by Kamgar Aghadi for the BMC elections, only 4 emerged victorious. This election failure was largely due to Samant's own actions. As Kamble put it: "Doctor was seen as only forwarding his own people. And then the real activists were not there to take small meetings all over and ask for votes." 

Just what was wrong with Samant's manner of functioning was aptly illustrated in a remark by 
Justice B.Lentin of the Bombay high court while setting aside an order of the industrial Court granting permission for the closure of Mukesh Mills. The judge while admitting a writ petition filed by the RMMS noted that MGKU had filed a similar petition claiming to have the support of the majority of workers and protesting about the millownerrs failure to formally inform it about the closure notice. Justice Lentin noted: "What was MGKU doing all these years. When indisputably it was aware of the closure 
application... Strangely enough when it came to appearing before the authorities, MGKU displayed a remarkable coyness, which its ebullient leader is not said to possess." 

G.V. Chitnis identified Samant's methods of functioning as the main cause for the growing alienation with activists:  "Dr. Samant insists that he is sole boss, only he matters and all others serve as time for elections came and they wanted tickets, the confrontations became inevitable."  Yet Chitnis, like many others, did not see the departure of Budbadkar, and later other lieutenants, as a trend of any significance.  None of these men had strong enough independent bases to matter. 

But what did matter was the total disillusionment of the shop floor activists, with Samant.  Thus, when Samant called for a token one-day strike in the textile mills, in October 1985, to oppose a recent interim award granted by the Chief Minister, it was a total failure.  Of the 57 functioning mills only three felt any impact of the one-day strike. 

The call for the token strike was not a fresh initiative by Samant but, merely a reaction to the situation created b the RMMS. Since the last wage agreement with the MOA had expired for a fresh agreement without any success. When no agreement was reached b August 1985, the RMMS President, Haribhau 
Naik and General Secretary, Manohar Phalke came under pressure from their predecessors.  Bhai Bhosale and Vasant Hoshing, who had been ousted from office by the INTUC leadership two years earlier, engineered a no confidence motion against the new leaders at a meeting of 
the Joint Representative Board. This compelled Naik and Phalke to take a tougher stand. Thus a strike ballot was taken by the RMMS in early September. Of the 88,000 workers who voted 80,000 or 94% voted in favour of a strike. The RMMS used this poll as evidence of its hold over the textile workers and went on to make history by issuing strike notice. That was the first time in its 40 years history that the RMMS had actually given notice to go on strike. 

Forced into a corner by the faction fight, Naik and Phalke then asked for the help of Chief Minister Shivajirao Nilangekar-Patil. This saved the RMMS from the embarrassment of actually going on strike. An interim award of Rs.70 was made by the Chief Minister and the actual agreement was left to a committee to settle. The figure was a compromise between the Rs.50 being offered by the MOA and the Rs.125 first demanded by the RMMS. 

It was this interim award which Samant opposed and called a one-day token strike to protest against it. Once again history repeated itself and Samant rode alone. The left trade unions had been urging Samant to give a joint call for a token strike in September. According to Chitnis, a strike call at that juncture would have boosted the workers' morale and shown the MOA that the workers were back on their feet and willing and able to fight it out. The token strike action was required before the award had been made by the Government, as a pressure tactic. Instead Samant waited till after the award had been made. And then he did not seek the cooperation of other trade unions to help give support, encouragement and reassurance to the workers. "What can you say for a man who refuses to learn something even out of such a big strike", said Chitnis. Samant's decision to hold the textile workers' token strike on October 8 also interfered with the TUJAC's plans for a bandh on October 15, the decision to call that bandh had been taken in August, with Samant's consent. But when he decided to call a separate strike on October 8, TUJAC called off the bandh. "It was not possible to have two such actions within a week," Chitnis explained. "In the present situation it is not possible to take textile workers on two strikes in such a short span. This is 1985 not 1982." 

The passage of time had taken its toll on the workers' romance with Samant and eroded what had once seemed like an invincible base of active support for him. In October 1985 there were not enough enthusiastic activists to stand at the mill gates and urge workers to stay out on the designated day. The RMMS only needed to take in about 100 to 150 workers to discourage the majority from even contemplating any defiance. Moreover, almost all the workers had signed undertakings of good behaviour when they returned to the mills following the strike. At the same time the MGKU lacked strong activists inside the mills who would try to win the workers' confidence on a day to day basis. While the RMMS continued its old practice of collecting union dues virtually at the same counter where wages were paid to workers, the MGKU did not launch a sufficiently strong drive to collect dues from the many textile workers who still gave it tacit support. By mid 1985 there were also no traces left of the mill or zone committees. Thus both inside and outside the mills the workers found no active outlet for their frustrations with the RMMS. 

Yet, quite inexplicably, Samant still retained some respect. His public meetings were still well attended even though the crowds could not rival those of three years earlier. The most obvious reason for this was that inspite of all his mistakes Samant alone represented some semblence of an alternative to the RMMS, which had given the workers fresh cause to hate it following the strike. But Samant and his friends predictably refused to acknowledge any slackening of support. Yashwant Chavan insisted that there was no erosion of the textile base of the Kamgar Aghadi. 

Even more significantly RMMS President Haribhau Naik readily admitted that he was not satisfied with his union's efforts to win back lost ground with the textile workers. Naik added: "I don't want to say that Dr. Samant is finished, but he has lost his popularity and I don't think now workers will want to support him." Naik's acceptance of Samant's continuing presence, at whatever level of intensity, on the textile scene ws in itself an admission of failure. Perhaps P.J.Ovid, Labour Commissioner, put it most perceptively when he had said: "It's not that they (workers) have faith in Samant, but rather that they have no faith in the RMMS." 

The Labour Commissioner estimated that in mid-1985 Samant's trade union strength was about 25% of what it has been in 1980. This was regarded as a direct consequence of the failure of the textile strike. The relatively tranquil labour situation in Maharashtra was also attributed to the textile strike. Prior to the textile strike, there had been an average of about 25,000 workers involved in strikes and lock-outs at any given time. In November 1985 there were 12,300 workers in some 57 units affected by strikes and lock-outs. 

Ovid himself had become a minor celebrity in the field of labour relations. At conferences and seminars on labour related subjects he was often introduced to audiences as the man who tamed Datta Samant. This, according to Ovid, was part of the wider impact of the textile strike. It became an object lesson for managements and governments faced with 'illegal' strikes. The handling of the Bombay textile strike came to be viewed in these circles as a fool-proof strategy for tackling such situations. Simultaneously, workers recognised that the government would not intervene in their favour. For this and other reasons, the reckless and almost wild enthusiasm, with which workers entered into hard-pitched battles with managements three or four years earlier was now absent. 

There was general disillusionment with long and hard-pitched strikes. Other unions that may have once been tempted to ape Samant's style, now avoided doing that. Ovid claimed that managements had also learnt to respect the workers' legitimate demands and arrive at settlements. But newspaper reports simultaneously told of how joblessness had increased while strikes and lock-outs had decreased. Ovid denied this and said that his department did not permit retrenchments. The statistics as made 
available to Ovid may in fact have shown no decline in employment, but the temporary and contract workers were usually ignored by the statistics collection machinery of the Labour Commissioner's office. 

"If the textile strike had been settled honourably it would have made an immense contribution to the class struggle. (As it was) only a record was created, but it did not strengthen the general movement. It gave a big set back to the textile workers' movement and also to the general movement. It's become a reference point for discouraging workers from going on strike," said Chitnis; 

Managements in Maharashtra began to follow what Ovid called the 'textile policy', (intending no reference here to the Government's new policy for the textile industry announced in mid-l985). "Most managements are fighting Samant out," Ovid said, 'they either change Unions or make direct settlements. The workers know that with doctor they are not likely to make an agreement." 

Samant with characteristic bravado refused to acknowledge any such failings: "It has become a fashion to say that the strike failed. Just see what the working class, at least in Maharashtra, learnt from it. Problems of the working class cannot be solved unless workers have political power. Just because mills have been taken over doesn't mean that the strike failed... There is no Datta Samant in Gujarat or U.P. But the mills have closed in Ahmedabad and Kanpur." 

Yashwant Chavan was a trifle more candid in his assessment: "The textile strike revealed to workers both their power and limitations. (There is a need for) ideology, strategy and guidance. Leadership has come to the textile workers, they created an authority for themselves in the working class. If the Bombay textile workers had tried for all-India co-ordination or to build up among the power loom and handloom workers then that leadership would have been concretised. But their own leaders didn't articulate this. That's where ideology, sharpness of assessment and ability to impart it too workers, matter. Dr.Samant's election gave (textile workers) a vantage point for acting as the leading detachment of the working class." 

This role made it incumbent upon the textile workers to try and co-ordinate all those who were striving for change everywhere. But, as Chavan himself acknowledged, Samant's victory was not being used for this or any similar purpose. "If the textile workers movement is to be successful, it must integrate itself with the power loom workers," Chavan said. "These two sections of workers must co-ordinate their activities. We said this during the strike, just as we took the strike to rural areas. But Shramik couldn't follow it up, (there are) no human resources." 

Yet the future, though not rosy, was also not full of despair -even for those who suffered no illusions. Chitnis was hopeful not only for the textile workers but also for the communist unions which he swore would rise again some day. "We can fight the battle only politically now. The textile policy, growing unemployment, the favouring of industrialists, depressing wages, rising prices and rising work loads together with rising consciousness -will create conditions favourable for putting the textile worker back on his feet again. Since it is going to be political, we'll have a role to play in it. I don't say we alone; all those who share this perspective should join." 

The fighters themselves were not so confident. Kamble saw no possibility of resurrecting the spirit of 1982 for another 25 to 30 years. "The enthusiasm is not there in the textile workers. We were the pride of Maharashtra (working class). What dreams, what hopes there were ...and what happened? Because there was no result at all there's if, complete disappointment. There is both respect and anger for Samant. Indian people have always struggled. But now that's changed, the instinct to struggle has declined. Man prays when he has someone to inspire and encourage him... in that sense it is allover for the textile workers." 

And what of a bada kranti? For Kamble it was a thing of the past. "Then my blood was boiling, there was josh (zeal), now it's all gone. Man changes with time, the perception of the self changes and the fire in the belly becomes the determining factor. Once we held God and leader in the same weighing scale... now the leaders are openly abused and considered thiefs. People are happy about Rajiv Gandhi today, but what about tomorrow? It could be like us with Samant..." 
 

To juxtapose this profound sense of disillusionment with the almost ritualistic expressions of respect, like organising Indira Gandhi's death anniversary function, was to appreciate the ironic nature of a strange reality. Even as they went about the business of living, often behaving as though the strike had never been, a lingering sadness lurked within Kamble and thousands of others like him. They knew that given the cycles of history the textile workers would rise again at some distant point in the future. But as Kamble lamented: "Not in my time, and what use is a struggle after I am gone?" 

The joy of collective struggle had faded into the bitter anguish of dealing individually with the burdens of defeat. But was the legacy of the strike all sad and defeatist? The dominant order was determined to ensure that it should seem so. But the true legacy of the strike was one of continuity and survival in the face of staggeringly unfavourable odds. True that a Lata Shelke now worried more about marrying off her younger daughters than fighting the seth log, a Gajarmal concentrated on his work at a rural development project near Pune, while Kamble struggled on in his old mill. True also, that not all of them could consistently belive in the continuity of struggle.  Yet this realisation hovered in the background, just beyond the disillusionment and despair. Even while another major struggle seemed impossible in the near future, the need for struggle, eternal and unrelenting remained constant.