"It shows a complete lack of understanding of the forces that had brought about and kept on the strike, when it is said that the prolonged nature and stubbornness of the fight were exclusively or in a large measure due. to the Workers' and Peasants' Party and Communists who devoted their energies to it. The strike was an inevitable out- come of the objective conditions existing in the industry at the time and the series of historical developments that had taken place in previous years in the textile industry of Bombay. " 

This virtually total isolation of the classes from each other grew partly out of Bombay's unique geography.  When the Europeans first arrived at what is now Bombay, it was just a collection of small islands. Over the years, large land reclamation schemes converted the islands into a narrow 
peninsula jutting into the Arabian Sea, running parallel to the main land. This produced one of the best and largest natural harbours in the world and contributed directly to the growth of Mumbai as a major centre of trade, commerce and eventually: industry. The eastern shores of this peninsula thus came to be dominated by the docks and other harbour facilities such as godowns. The western shoreline, which offers a resplendent view of the Arabian Sea, became prime real estate on which the elite and later the middle class, built its homes. The textile mills came up in the latter half of the 19th century and soon occupied most of the central corridor of the peninsula. Many of the big mills had compounds that sprawled over several acres of land. Several of these industrial units evolved into tiny townships, with the workers' chawls located either Inside or Just outside the mill compound. A social and commercial infrastructure catering to the workers, grew up alongside in what became an isolated pocket of humanity labelled the' mill area' .In the latter half of the 20th century this was a world of squalor, with over-crowded, dilapidated chawls, filth-covered lanes and pathetically vulnerable pavement dwellers. If the misery of this wor Id was not in itself disturbing enough one had only to cross the tracks of the Western Railway, running north-south across the city, and experience the almost bizarre contrasts of the parallel world. There, along the western sea-shore, lay the pride of  Indian cities. From the magnificient sweep of Marine Drive, the glittering high-rise 'palaces' of Malabar Hill, past the chic shopping centres of Warden Road, down to the elegant bungalows of Worli Seaface, neat middle class abodes of Shivaji Park, film star bunga- lows of Pali Hill and on to the ever expanding suburbs, this was another self-sufficient world. Its social, commercial and cultural linkages were all within this narrow geographical range and protected against contact with the other world which constituted about two-thirds of the city's area and population. 

The creation of these parallel and isolated worlds, in such close physical proximity, seems to have been inevitable given the geography of the city/and socio-economic development. But over the last few decades the contrasts sharpened and the isolation deepened. Viewed from the window of a high-rise apartment building on the periphery of the two worlds, the mill area appears to be covered by a dull grey cloud through which the tall chimneys of the factories are faintly visible. Beneath this haze of smog are rows of chawls where the windows and other fittings are crumbling and fetid heaps of garbage rot in the alleys. Each room may sparkle with cleanliness and a  visible sense of pride in making the smallest of places a good home, but the passages outside are dark, damp and depressing. The stairs are usually unsafe and in disrepair. The common latrines almost never have an adequate water supply. Not much has changed here for decades, except the advent of fly-overs over the decade of the 1970s. But the fly-overs are only intrusions of the affluent world in the 
'mill area', merely linking the business centre of South Bombay with the northern suburbs. 

For those who use the fly-overs as speedy links through alien territory, there are in their own realm, bigger and fancier store lending new dimensions to ostentation and conspicuous consumption. Ensconced amid these illusions of ever growing prosperity, the ruling elite's isolation from the reality of the country at large was inevitable. But it even blinded them to the living conditions and compulsions of a major chunk of their own city's population. 

The textile worker, conscious of this and the disposition of the seth log has long accepted the need for frequent agitations. In the words of Dange: "The workers have experience that unless every once in a while they struggle in a very hard way - the backlog of demands is never settled." The frequent strikes in the textile industry are due not only to the textile workers' experience in organisation and high level of articulation but the fact that wages and benefits have simply failed to keep pace with time. The living conditions of textile workers in Bombay were deplorable to begin with. This is clear from the recorded evidence of a lady doctor appointed by the government to investigate conditions of women industrial workers in Bombayas far back as 1922. She wrote: "In the outside chaw I have several times verified the overcrowding of rooms. In one, on the second floor of a chawl, mea- suring some 15 x 12 feet I found six families living. Six separate ovens on the floor proved this statement. On enquiry I ascertained that the actual number of adults and children living in this room was 30... The atmosphere at night of that room filled with smoke from six ovens and other impurities might handicap any woman or infant both before and after delivery.."2 

This situation had not changed even half a century later and in 1982 most workers were still living in dingy chawls where 15 to 30 men shared a room about 10 feet by 10 feet in size. That beds are used in rotation by workers on different shifts has for long been a 'quaint' feature of Bombay, often related to outsiders when attempting to illustrate the bizzare quality of life in the country's prime metropolis. Many workers leave their families behind in their villages and eat their meals at the homes of women who make a living by providing them with food for a monthly fee. In effect, many such workers have ho home in the city. This instability combined with. the unhealthy, tension- filled working conditions has led to a very high rate of absenteeism. Often bemoaned by the mill- owners as one of their worst problems, absenteeism is a phenomenon common to most workers, regardless of their living conditions. While managers of mills have always argued that absenteeism is due to the worker's laziness, it is actually a product of the often hazardous working conditions in the mills arid the toll they take on a man's health. 

The initial stages of the cloth-making process are the worst from the workers' perspective. The air in the blow room is perpetunlly laden with fine cotton dust. It is in the blow room that the tightly packed bales of faw cotton are put through various stages of threshing and prepared for the spindles. Even in the five minutes it takes to walk through this department and observe the various stages, a visitor can feel the cotton dust settling irritatingly at the bottom of the throat. 

Workers who spend the best years of their lives in that environment with the cotton fibre and dust clinging to their bodies and settling on their lungs, inevitably suffer from a vast variety of respiratory diseases. The rate of such disease is, according to one estimate, three tirnes higher among textile workers than in any other industry of Bombay. 

Further down the production line are the various other processes such as weaving, starching and bleaching. Each in turn creates deafening noise and scorching heat from the steam. Though these conditions are inevitable in the process of manufacturing textiles, workers suffer more due to the lack of adequate ventilation and safety devices, which mill executives stubbornly claim to have improved 'over the years. The high temperature and humidity leads not only to various bronchial problems but also to thermal stress and rheumatism. Frequent break downs of old rusty machines take an addi- tional toll on workers' health which has not yet been quantified. Given the nature and conditions of work and the pace of activity, spilling and in-halation of chemicals is unavoidable. Apart from the general health hazards, the increasing rate of accidents has for long been a major concern of the workers. The Central Institute of Labour estimates that the accident rate in the textile industry is double than that in other industries. In 1971, for example, 154.60 textile workers out of every 1,000 were involved in accidents, whereas the figure for other industries was 75.85 workers in every 1,000. Between 1974-75 and 1978-79 the number of accidents increased by over 77% and about 55% of these accidents were caused by un- safe working conditions. 

Despi.te these staggering statistics less than 1%of the textile industry's annual production is rein- vested in improvement of working conditions.3 A World Bank report on the state of the textile indus- try noted that: "The majority of mills with old equ.pment can only be described as industrial slums. By Western European standards of mill house keeping, the machinery is operated in conditions of almost abominable squalor." The 1975 report went on to note that in 20 of the 22 mills visited by the Bank team, the conditions were poor - with broken floors, poor lighting, dirty walls and all amenities in a dilapidated condition. 

The continuing deterioration of working conditions, together with the failure of wages to keep pace with inflation and the increasing work load, over the last one decade, contributed directly to creating the situation which produced Samant. statistics show arise in wages since 1974, but this was due to increases in dearness allowance (D.A.), which was linked to the consumer price index. There was no revision of the basic wage. A study of the 'revised standard rates' along with the system of D.A. calculation reveals a sophisticated methodology by which millowners gave with one hand only to take away with the other. Thus Rs. 282.52 emerged as the revised basic wage with a two slab system of calculating D.A. for workers earning below or above Rs.400 and a ceiling of Rs.700 on the D.A. This meant that only the lowest paid workers were protected against escalations in the cost of living. Consequently, the older and skilled workers suffered an erosion in their purchasing power and earned progressively less every year . 

Even the compliant RMMS noted in its submission to the Tripartite Committee, set up by the Central Government, "Till a few years back a certain level of parity was maintained between various catego- ries of workmen as also between workmen and staff. During the recent past. such parity had been disturbed to a great extent because uniform dearness allowance has formed a substantial part of the pay/wage packet. This narrowing of  differentials was caused by the fact that the same amount of D.A. was made applicable to all categories not withstanding the higher skill and responsibility of cer- tain categories of workmen. Absence of adequate incentive does not encourage many people to strive for better skilled jobs since the total emoluments are not much. This anomaly was attempted to be corrected by the union in the Tripartite session, but the success achieved in this regard has been totally inadequate... The demand of the RMMS is, therefore, not for some adhoc increase in the basic wages, but for a new structure of wages for all categories of employees depending on the skills and responsibilities of each category." 

The worsening of the textile workers wage was recognized even by the state government represen- tative on the Tripartite. Committee appointed by the Central Government in 1982. Wrote Mr. D.G. Kale in his report to the Committee: "It may be pointed out that during the last four years workers had to contend with 3 to 4 very sharp peaks in the rise of the index which correspond to sharp adverse effects on the economic health of all workers. This special hardship arising out of the rate of change of the index is quite distant from the general hardship of cultivated index rise. It must be remembered that the rise is reflected in increased D.A. after a gap of two months which are required for price collection and computation of the index. The extra-ordinarily sharp rise is sufficient to destroy the workers' domestic budget within these two months and send them into the arms of money lenders. Under the exisitng system of D.A. there is no  ameliorative action possible for this special hardshjp, which seems to be correlated to the general unrest among workers." 

Workers in the higher wage categories were at an even greater disadvantage because of the double linked D.A. system which the RMMS prides itself for. Under this system, adopted in 1973, the D.A. was linked with both the index and the old basic wage, but not the actual wage of workers in higher categories. When the price index soared, the rise for the higher bracket of workers was not corres- pondingly adequate. It was thus recommended to the Tripartite Committee, by the Maharashtra Go- vernment representative, that the felt necessity of the times would call for recognition of such hardships and consideration of the question of the extent to which mitigating action could be taken. 
The fact that D.A. constituted the bulk of the wage while the basic wage remained low, proved particularly damaging to workers who were pajd on apiece rate basis. Apart from the fact that the existing system of calculating wages was in- comprehensible to most workers, it also placed the onus of production on them. When the yarn quality was extremely poor, weavers would often find it difficult to complete even the minimum quota of cloth and, as a consequence, suffered a reduction in wages. Since the wages of all the other workers In the auto-loom section were calculated on the basis of the weaver's output (as a percentage of the weaver's output), the earnings of all the workers plummetted due to reasons beyond their control.5 

Under a 1970 agreement, only workers who wor-ked regularly for 240 days were entitled to an annual increment -which is 1% of the revised basic wage. Moreover only those workers who had worked continuously for 240 days for five years in a row, were eligible for the increments. Given the restrictions on leave, bad health and work fatigue, few workers were able to fulfill these requirements. Moreover, wages have li ttle co-relation to changes in productivity. The introduction of the seven-day-week in 1973 led to a 16.67% increase in production. Workers, however, got only a 4% wage increase of which only about 1.75% actually came to them. "There is no objective system by which wages are determined and they lack any relationship to. the savings made by the millowners through modernisation, or due to work intensity or increase in workload," Amrita Chhachhi and Paul Kurian concluded in their survey of the wage structure.6 

The modernsation and mechanisation of the mills, Which occurred over the' last 35 years, resulted in a reduction of the average number of workers employed in the mills. Where there were 1,97,000 workers In 1961, the figure dropped to just over 1,65,000 workers In 1980 -' a drop of over 32,000 or about 16% In 20 years.* 

On the other hand the number of spindles in 

On reduction of labour force also refer to New Phase in Textile Unionism? by Amrita Chhachhi & Paul Kurian, EPW, teb. 20, 1982. 

these mills went up from 32.35 lakhs to 34.35 lakhs. The new machines also increased the speed and amount of work. When one weaver operated four looms there was a 50% increase in production but the weaver retained some control over his work pace and could rest between yarn breakages. With the increase in loom assignments to 16 or 22 looms per weaver his pace came to be determined entirely by the machines. In some mills, the managements thus tried to increase the work lpad of ancilliary workers. Consequently, a battery filler who was supposed to carry and load upto 3,500 pirns a day was also required to help the weaver, without any change in his designation or substantial rise in his salary. 

Such an increase in workload led to a tremendous increase in tension and work fatigue. But instead of taking this up as an issue, the RMMS signed agreements to further increase the intensity of work.7 This, in turn resulted in higher rates of absenteeism. A study by the National Productivity Council noted the loss of production in the Bombay textile mills, due -to strikes was one per cent while that due to absenteeism was about five per cent. 

The only two wage increases wrested by ,the workers from tight-fisted managements in the last decade were won by non-recognized unions but the agreement was always signed by the RMMS. While workers in the relatively smaller textile. processing industry won incremental wage scales under the Mill Mazdoor Sabha more than ten years ago, the RMMS fought for no such demands.  Even basic benefits such as house-rent and leave travel concessions were now raised by the RMMS till Dr. Samant entered the picture. 

The Rs.30 per month' basic wage was, fixed by the Industrial Court in 1947 and linked to the 1934 price index. Thus the present minimum was effectively equivalent to Rs.34.34, which constituted a 15% rise in real terms over 35 years. The RMMS, though it was partly responsible for this failure of wages to rise, noted in its submission to the Tripartite Committee: "The minimum wage that the lowest paid textile worker should get is Rs.800 in the month of December 1976, at the time when the consumer price index number: (1960=100)was 300 and thereafter he should get 100% neutralisation for the rise that has taken place in the consumer price index..." 

According to a study sponsored by the RMMS and conducted by the Ambedkar Institute of Labour Studies in 1976, 72.6% of textile workers were found to be able to spend between Rs.200 to 'Rs.500 a month. Only 5.7% could spend more than Rs.700. The study, which examined the causes and dimensions of indebtedness among textile workers, concluded that the average textile worker has a taken home pay 'of Rs.550, after deductions of provident fund, health insurance, society loan) payments, canteen bill, subsidised grain purchases, fines and even professional tax of Rs.2 to Rs.8 per month. Ambedkar study also showed that the net wage of 39.4% of the workers was between Rs.201 to Rs.300 while about 25% got less than Rs.200 and another 25% make between Rs.300 to Rs.400. Contrary to popular belief  the majority of mill workers (69%) are the sole earning members of their family. From these meagre incomes, 64.5% of the workers send a portion to their depen- dents in the villages. 

The wages had only marginaliy improved between 1976, "when this study was conducted, and 1981 - when strike clouds began gathering over the mills. Much of the problem also arose from the imposition of a standard wage agreement over the entire industry, which had little basis over three decades after it was established in 1947. The technological level of the mills was more or less equal then but over the years the process of modernisation was not evenly spread over all the mills and with it ended the relative uniformity which once existed among the mills.8 

Piecemeal departures from the standard wage rates were made in many cases. But since the basic wage structure applicable to the majority of workers remained unchanged, not only did the  employers as a whole derive greater benefit than workers, but different mills derived grossly unequal benefits. 

Though the textile workers' plight is an extreme " case the outdated nature of the wage calculation mechanism was not unique to the textile industry. At a national level also, an analysis of the Minimum Wages Act (1948) shows that its provisions have not been fully implemented specially with regard to the frequency of wage revisions. There has been no systematic policy in the Five Year Plans with regard to wages and prices. One analysis of the Five Year Plans has found that there has been an emphasis on the need to link wage increases to productivity, but worker' productivity has been rising while real earhings have stagnated or declined. 9 Subsequently there "has been a broad-based loss of faith in governmental adjudication. Labour disputes have thus erupted frequently with varying degrees of intensity in different industries. The highest number of disputes, workers involved and man-days lost over the last two decades has been in the cotton textile industry. 

The Bombay cotton textile worker in particular , witnessed sharp increases in the wages of workers in other industries while his own real wage stagnated. Even the modernisation and capital intensive turn of some textile mills did not benefit workers. Most agreements increasing the wages of workers on the basis of the saving made by the management by reduction of hands, had little real impact 
because this wage increase was calculated on the basis of the retrenched workers basic wage of about Rs.35. Thus most of the savings, by retrenchment of workers, accrued to managements. 
However, when Samant made an issue of the difference in wages paid by the textile mills and the high wages paid by the chemical and engineering sector, the millowners rejected such a comparison as being unrealistic. But Samant insisted dn emphasising the profit margins of both the mill-owners and middle-men who stood between the workers and the consumers. Wages constitute about 20% of the total cost of cloth production. A hike of 30% in wages, Samant argued, would mean an increase of 6% in the cost which could be absorbed in the 40% to 50% margin between the mill price and the retail price. 

The Demands 

Sarmant articulated the textile workers' demands in terms of three basic criterion for determining wages. These were bound to affront millowners as much as they would strike a sensitive cord among workers and compel an overwhelming .ftesponse from them. 

Firstly, the charter of demands said, wages must be commehsurate with the hard work put in by the 
" workmen under the strenuous and hazardous conditions. Secondly, wages must compare reasonably with those earned by workers in other industries in the area and thirdly, the wages must ensure a satisfactory standard of living for the workers. On this basis the charter demanded an over-haul of the basic wage and D.A. computation system.. This called for the adhoc wage rise of Rs.45 per month, granted in 1979, to be included in the basic wage and the following increase. 

2. Workers with service between 5 to10 years                                              100/- 

3. Workers with service between 10 to 15 years                                           125/- 

4. Workers with services of 15 years and more                                             150/- 

Over and above this the charter demanded: 

1. House rent allowance of  Rs.40/- for 26 days including the period of paid leave. 

2. A leave travel allowance of Rs.400/- per year for workers with five years or more of service. 

3. A system of privilege leave which would enable workers with 240 days of work for one day leave for every 15 days of work. Workers who have recorded over 240 days of work would be entitled to one day's leave for every five" days of work. 

4. Casual leave to be increased from 5 to 10 days. 

5. Over and above the ESIS leave, 8 days of sick leave at half pay every year. 

6. Paid holidays to be increased from 5 to 8 days. 

7. Annual increments of between Rs.10 to Rs.15 for different categories of workers. 

Later, after the strike had been launched, Samant also demanded that the mills be turned into coope- ratives to be run by the workers. At a rally on March 11,1982 after the Long March to the Council Hall, Samant said that the government should invest Rs.37 crores in this venture with an equal amount contributed from workers' provident fund. This would equal the total share capital of the mills which was Rs.75 crores. 

These demands were enumerated on behalf of the 2.3 lakh workers on the muster rolls of the mills but the backbone of the imminent battle was constituted by the one lakh among these who were badli workers. This younger lot of workers, who had little to lose and much to gain, were the core of the tornad which was about to tear through the mill area. Many badlis normally got work for only 5 to 10 days a month and earned about Rs.150 to Rs.300 as wages. It has been common practice for years that a badli may -come to the mill' every day in -the hope of work with no guarantee of actually getting it. The proportion of badli workers was not regulated and fresh recruitments continued indiscriminately. As a result not enough badlis were made permanent. Instead badlis have always been systematically given breaks ih their service to ensure that they do not accumulate 240 days of continuous service and become eligible for a number of benefits. The RMMS not only failed to protect the interest of badli workers at an institutional level but actively became party to the corruption which further undermined the position of these workers without privileges. Mill level RMMS functionaries have, for decades, taken thousands of rupees in bribes from badli workers desperate to become permanent. 

When the strike began in January 1982 R.D.Mohite, 28, had been working as a badli in Bombay Dyeing for eight years. Like most badlis Mohite had rio service benefits. Usually in a month he was able to get work for 15. to 20 days. By 1982 Mohite had given up hopes of ever becoming permanent because the local RMMS representatives who charged between Rs.500 to Rs.l,000 to elevate workers to permanent status -a bribe that Mohite either could not or would not pay. Disgusted with the official recognised union Mohite stopped paying Rs.2 monthly due, or pauvti which the RMMS collected after a worker gets his wage. The RMMS traditionally set up a table near the wage distribution counter of every mill and installed strongmen there to ensure that all workers pay -voluntarily or by threat of force. Mohite's defiance was punished by  keeping him out of the mill for ten days at a stretch. This was not a difficult task to accomplish because the badli worker has no legal right to insist that he be given work regularly. It is by, law the local labour officer's duty to help the workers. But in the words of Mohite: "The labour oflicer of the company listens to the union, not to the workers." And the union was deaf to the workers pleas and they thus became its antagonists. 

The millowner's hierarchy, however, remained oblivious to this. K.K.Podar of Podar Mills claimed in mid-1982, with all seriousness that the industry had made 100% people permanent. There is an agreement with the RMMS by which in our direct production departments (spinning and weaving) 100% of the people are made permanent." Podar was willing to acknowledge that this was not the case in all departments or mills but still stubbornly maintained that. "there is no exploitation of the badlis. " When questioned.. on how this could be so when the mass of badlis were on the warpath because of the inequal treatment meted out to them by the millowners and the RMMS, Podar answered: "Stray cases here and there can always happen in a society but that doesn't mean that we brand everyone as either a strong man or a culprit. A badli has to be employed by a mill on the basis of seniority. In other industries the temporary workers don't get equal pay with permanent workers or any of the other social benefits, like bonus, which badlis in the textile industry get by statutory requirements. I'm not talking about individual factories but if you take the Industry as a whole, there is so much of care and protection being given to these so-called temporary and casual workers which no other Industry has given." 
 

Then why the discontent? Podar's answer: "In the summer vacation when absenteeism is very high, the mills take on many more people on the muster roll as badlis. This is why the percentage of badlis in most mills has gone up because their names remain on the muster. These are the junior badlis who work for five, seven or eight days (a month). So this is where the problem' has arisen."IO Podar offered, as a solution to this problem, the following: "Historically the badlis are hired only for specific departments. If we could train the badlis as all-rounders and divide them into four basic categories, they would have gainful employment on more days, by rotation in various departments. We could then work with a ! much lesser number of badlis". 

The actual problem, of course, was of afar greater magnitude than Podar could perceive or was willing to admit. As the worst sufferers among the workers, and most susceptible to pressure from the RMMS, the badlis became the core of the militant upsurge. With a remarkably intense passion and fervour, the badlis put all their fighting power behind Samant and helped create a force which would propel both into turbulent waters. 

Samant was not the only leader active on the textile front in late '81. Between the gate meeting at Standard Mills and the formation of Samant's charter of demands, the Shiv Sena had made a de- mand for a Rs.200 per month wage increase. The Shiv Sena rose to power in the late 1960s on the "sons of soil" slogan of "Maharashtra for Maharashtrians". With the blessings of the government 
and finance from industrialists, the Sena had atta fcked communist unions in Bombay. But many of the young workers who had flocked to the Sena in th late 1960s were by tbelate 1970s disillusioned and rallied behind Samant. The wage rise demands of Shiv Sena chief Bar Thackeray, and his call for a one-day strike in the mills on November 1, 1981 was a response to the threat being posed by Samant and an attempt to demonstrate the strength he supposedly commanded. But at this stage, the Sena had a pofitical alliance with the Congress(I). This placed added constraints on its union which in any case had used their cadre for strike-breaking activity. Thackeray was thus acting characteristically when he did not follow the very successful November 1, one-day strike with further action despite earlier announcing an indefinite strike from November 16. George Fernandes, two years later, recalled with regret that "if Thackeray had not chickened out after calling that one-day strike he would have been the leader of the strike. (But) Samant happened to be the man on the spot." 
 
Fernandes was wrong. The mood of militancy and consequently the strike were not just there to be claimed by anyone who chose to do so. The moment called for a milltant uncompromising leader and the workers found that only Samant could fit the bill. But the situation which placed Samant in the lead was not of his own making."Yash-Nant Chavan recalled that "those working on the textile front were long attuned to the strike idea even before the bonus agitation of 1981 ". Even Dange acknowledged that "the strike was due and our (left parties and trade unions) leadership failed to call it. Samant called it and it (the strike) was so due that they also stuck to him for one year. If we had called it they would have also stuck to it for one year ." But the communists did not call the strike. And Fernandes later bemoaned the absence of a leader with Samant's popularity in the organised left and claimed that if there had been a leader the strike would have been called and conducted by him. But such a leader did not exist and could not exist within the fold of either the established left trade unions, the right-wing Shiv Sena or, least of all, the government supported INTUC. All these unions failed to effectively perceive the intensity of the workers' mood in October 1981. The Shiv Sena instead pressurized workers to resume work after the token one-day strike. Hence the workers' march to Ghatkopar and Samant, was made inevitable. 

In the early days of Samant's entry into the textile arena, few could have predicted how prolonged a struggle was around the corner. As the workers waited expectantly for the declaration of an inde- finite strike, Chief Minister A.R.Antulay announced the establishment of a high powered committee to examine the issues involved and possibly avert a strike. When Samant agreed to give the committee a chance, the workers were disappointed and the cynics were not surprised. Earlier theories about a possible 'nexus' between Samant and Antulay gathered further ground. The local press by and large had already created the impression that Antulay was using Samant to disturb working of the Indian Express newspapers in Bombay. In August 1981, the Indian Express had published an expose of Antulay's collection of funds lor trusts privately headed by him in exchange for granting cement permits and discharging other official functions. The story, carried in all editions of the Indian Express including its vernacular counterparts, had severely under- mined Antulay's ministry. He was eventually (in January 1982) compelled to resign from the post of Chief MInister as a result of this. But workers of Loksatta, a Marathi daily of the Indian Express group, had first approached Samant to take up their cause before the Antulay expose was published. In October 1981 after only a few meetings with Samant the Indian Express management suddenly declared a lock-out, which it justified on the grounds that Samant was an agent of Antulay who in turn was seeking to extract revenge and muzzle a leading free voice of the press. Samant denied allegations of complicity with Antulay and assured the textile workers that he was whole-heartedly committed to strike action. Two days after Antulay set up the high powered committee Samant told Javed Anand of the Daily: "It is not a joke to take over two lakh workers out on the street without adequate preparation. Why dissipate the energies of the workers without even waiting for the recommendations of the committee? Once we know how much they are prepared to concede we can fight for the remaining. Why should we have our people on the committee and thus bind ourselves to its  decision?". 

Those who saw Samant's acceptance of the committee as a metamorphosis to a tamer leader were soon proved wrong. Samant's firm refusal to have his representative on the committee or to call off the strike in the eight mills effectively killed the committee. For then both the millowners and the RMMS also refused to cooperate with the committee. The millowners were confident that any gene- ral strike, which followed, would fizzle out in a few weeks. Some of them reasoned that if Samant agreed to call off the strike in the eight mills they could offer the workers an increase of approxima- tely Rs.100.  This increase was expected to appease the workers and having the agreement signed by the RMMS was intended to undermine Samant's position by denying him any legitimacy in the strike field. 

But the continuation of the strike in the eight mills was no more in Samant's control than was its origin. The workers of these mills had struck work despite their local leaders' collective decision' to the contrary. The workers, primarily on their own initiative had refused to return to work after the token strike of October 21. Aware of this mood Samant wasted no time in reasserting his militancy. Most of the older trade union leaders felt this was the wrong time for a strike. Huge piles of unsold stocks, at that juncture, strengthened the management's position. Moreover the labour intensive textile mills were very different from the capital intensive modern industrial units where Samant had led most of his successful struggles. Ignoring all such warnings Samant, at a rally on December 8, 1981 told the workers to make immediate preparations for an indefinite general strike. He also told the workers about the government's threat to put him under indefinte detention and said that the strike must go on regardless of his own fate at the hands of the authorities. Meanwhile, violent skirmishes between Samant supporters and RMMS representatives were becoming a daily occurrence in the mill areas. 

By New Year's eve the tension had mounted still higher.  With the arrival of the Kohinoor Mill workers in the MGKU fold, all the 60 textile mills in the city came under Samant's wing. The Maha- rashtra Girni Kamgar Union (MGKU) was formed by Samant at the end of October, 1981, as the 
banner under which the imminent battle would be fought. The virtually total backing of the workers 
made the one-day strike on January 6 an unprecedented success. Even a large number of RMMS members joined in. The isolated few who entered the mills were hounded out by the striking workers. But some of the RMMS functionaries who entered the mills were so frightened that they reportedly locked themselves in lavatories.* 

Ten days later at yet another mammoth rally, on January 17, 1982 the indefinite strike was declared with effect from the next morning.  To the tens of thousands who sat intently listening to him Samant said: "Continue your struggle peacefully but with grim determination until all demands are met and if I am arrested, do not heed any call to return to work that may be falsely issued in my name." He also warned the police not to resort to repressive tactics for then Doctor would not be responsible for any retaliatory violence by the workers. 

What Samant did not say, but which was understood among the rank and file, was that the time had come to sacrifice all. Ready to hawk or sell whatever they owned and do anything to keep the battle 

going, the workers thus began what few outsiders realised then would be for many of them, a battle unto death.