While chief ministers were changing, Samant was in the process of discarding the tricolour flag of 
his union, which was a hangover of his INTUC days. The new flag was coloured red and dominated by his symbol -a clenched fist jutting out of a 'factory chimney. Despite predictions from the government, millowners and even Bal Thackeray that the strike would not be total, the sun rose on January 18, 1982 to silent mills. The mill sirens, which announce the start of every shift got no response. The looms and spindles stood still. The tall chimniys were smokeless. After the experience of January 6, even RMMS functionaries did not dare to enter the mills. Section 144 of the Indian Penal Code, which prohibits the assembly of five or more people, was immediately enforced around the mill gates and remained in effect for almost two years. But thousands of striking workers defied the order to ensure that 'black legs'* did not enter the mills. RMMS functionaries were reported to have defied a top level directive to enter the mills, even though they were threatened with dismissal from their positions. 

Even the millowners and the government acknowledged that the strike was total and the mills were at a complete standstill. But the workers soon realised this total stoppage of work did not seem to perturb the millowners. This was partly due to the millowners' assumption that the strike would not last more than a month. And, at that juncture, a temporary closure of the mills suited the mill- owners. 

In January 1981 the cotton textile industry was in one of the worst of its frequent, recessionary slumps. The Bombay textile mills, which account for 30% of the Indian cotton mill cloth production capacity, were over loaded with piled-up stocks on the eve of the strike. The strike was viewed by millowners as an opportunity to liquidate these stocks. It is important not only to understand how the millowners used every phase of the strike to their advantage. This will also help to explain why there was no cloth shortage in so vast a market as Bombay, even while 60 mills produced virtually nothing for over a year . 

The general health of the economy and success or faIlure of harvests have always played a role in the off-take of cloth and taken a heavy toll on the profitability of the textile industry. But its sickness is largely a result of Internal management "failures compounded by ineffective government policies. The textile mills not only suffer from gross obsolescence but have also been over-taken by the powerloom and handloom sectors. While in 1947 the organised textile Industry was responsible for 85% of the total cloth production in the country, Its share of the production by 1982 was only 30%. In contrast, the production of the power-loom and handloom sectors went up to 4,973 million metres in 1981 from 1,013 million metres in 1951. Apart from large scale evasion of excise duty .laws, the power loom sector thrived by violating most minimum wage regulations and paying its workers approximately 30% less than the mill sector. Many millowners who frequently blamed the labour-Intensive character of the mill sector for its ills, secretly diverted production to the powerloom sector to ensure the accumulation of personal fortunes at the cost of corporate health. " 

The most critical factor contributing to the growth of 'sickness' was the failure of most mill- owners to plough back profits Into modernisation O/ In an analysis of the Industry's health and the Impe- ratives dof modernisation. Praful Bidwai wrote in  the Times of India: "The millowner's argue that it was impossible for them to plough back profits since they were too low. This is specious. For one, low profitability has been a feature of the textile Industry throughout the world. For another, to quote a World Bank Report (1975), a significant part of the Industry profit has been diverted to other Industries."* The author also quoted a statistical analysis which studied the 30 most profitable mills and found that their ploughback rates are among the lowest in Indian industry: Productivity also declined or remained stagnant not because of labour unrest but due to poor management of resources. The World Bank report noted the fact that modern machines were installed in the same squalid environment as the old machinery and thus performed only marginally better. 

The pattern of family controlled managements further compounded the problems of this industry. Compracency was accompanied by the desire to extract -all possible resources from the textile mills and invest in other more profitable industries. Under the soft loan modernisation scheme of the Industrial Development Bank of India set up in 1970, millowners demanded that import of machinery be permitted because local manufacturers could not keep up with orders. But this led to the import of second-hand machinery which had been scrapped in Europe. Moreover, the bulk of soft loans went not to the sick textile mills but to the thriving mills which used the funds to diversify into more profitable lines of business. Even as millowners protested vociferously against the proliferation of powerlooms, they encouraged sub-contracting by mills to power looms to become a way of life. That uncontrolled proliferation of power looms has posed a major threat to the mill sector is acknowledged even by government officials. The number of authorised powerlooms has been allowed to treble over the last 15 years, with a fixed quota for regularising power looms set aside in each plan period. 

The high profitability of weaving cloth in the powerlooms inspired many millowners to let much of their loom capacity lie idle; This led to the growth of small towns like Bhiwandi, near Bombay, where powerlooms became the nerve centre of commercial activity. At the time of the strike a large number of these looms were either owned or patronised by the owners of composite mills in Bombay. Even Commerce, Secretary (Textile) Mani Narayanaswamy acknowledged in an interview that as a low-cost centre of production, powerlooms have been used by the mills as a base of production. This illegal connection was concealed in a variety of ways. The most' common method involved sale of yarn by the millowners to a relative or partner at a low rate. The relative or agent or partner had the yarn converted to cloth at a powerlbom. The cloth could then be either independently processed and sold or again handed back to the millowner who processed the grey cloth, stamped it with his brand name and marketed it. The low level of wages in the power looms meant higher profit for the millowner. Since this entire process was kept out of the official mill records there are no figures available on the volume of this activity. 

But it can be safely said that powerlooms were in a natural position to more than make up any short- fall in production created by the strike. The millowners themselves stood to loose little because they continued to patronise the powerlooms. Kanti Kumar Podar, a former president of the Millowners Association and president of the Indian Merchants' Chamber in 19&2, vigorously denied that there was any nexus between the millowners of Bombay and the powerlooms of Bhiwandi. The powerloom operators in that town however had a.different story to tell. Within a month of the strike, powerloom operators in Bhiwandi reported that business from millowners had increased. 

Whereas earlier the 'beams' (large cylindrical metal reels with tightly wrapped yarn ready for placement on a loom) came from Bombay, during the strike yarn was brought to Bhiwalidi and placed on the beams there or at other independent units in Bombay. It was therefore one of Samant's principle demands that millowners abandon the practice of patronising power looms and keeping badli workers in the mill idle. These incestuous links between mills and powerlooms were also accompanied by a growing monopolistic trend. Over the last two decades, several of the larger mills took over smaller or less powerful units. As a result of such amalgamation, by 1982, nine business houses controlled about 70% of the private mills in Bombay. While arguing his case Samant made the point that the amalgamated power of these companies was built on public funds provided at low interest rates by the financial institutions, and neither the exchequer nor the workers got their rightful share of the profits. Yet some millowners insisted, with all seriousness, that they were just majority share holders and the MOA was merely the collective decision of the millowners to represent to the government and not a powerful body fighting to further its own interests. 

Apart from dismissing all charges of mismanagement, misdeeds and concentration of power in the hands of a few, the MOA responded sharply to the charter of demands issued by both the Shiv Sena's Girni Kamgar Sena and Samant's MGKU. Probably conscious of the Sena's lack of a mass base the MOA concentrated its efforts in replying to Samant's charges. Weeks before it ran elaborate advertisements in the newspapers countering Samant's charges, the MOA wrote lengthy letters to the Chief Minister stating its position on the demands. The government as the single largest millowner in Bombay, with 13 nationalised mills, was expected to respond positively to such entreaties. "Bombay industry has been paying fair wages and fair bonuses" was the first claim of the memo sent to the chief minister in December 1981. Before dealing with the financial issues the MOA reminded the government that the agreement signed with the help of Sharad Pawar's government in 1979 was valid till December 1984 "with a prov ision for no fresh wage demand being permitted to be raised during the period of currency of the agreement." 

The millowners' thesis, from the outset, was that workers were being misled by Samant. Well into the sixth month of the strike K.K.Podar still clung to this belief. In an interview to The Telegraph on July 20, 1982, he said: "When a worker feels that by joining a particular group he may be able to get a massive wage rise of 40% to 60%, in some cases even 80%, t-hen on such expectations by and large people are carried away. They are led into this kind of a situation. Hopes and expectations were raised by Dr. Samant, especially after his victory at a textile processing unit (Empire Dyeing). Basically the strike is a result of fancy promises, and partly because of misrepresentation of the case of badli workers, of which there are some 50,000 in the industry. No responsible trade union leader, knowing the health of the industry, can make such demands. The textile industry has low profits and the wage component of the textile industry is 27% of its production costs. So even if we raise the wages by 15% this means a rise of 4% in the cost of production." Though willing to acknowledge 
that the RMMS had lost control over the workers, Podar insisted that the recognised union had only temporarily lost its grip and only because of "high expectations and propaganda rather than resentment against the RMMS." 

Podar zealously pursued this line of argument throughout the strike. But other hard-liners were open to revising their opinions at a later date. As a senior director of Bombay Dyeing pointed out in January 1983 when the strike completed a year: "No one realised that the strike. would last for more than three to ten weeks and thus everyone was, unfortunately, complacent." 

Samant's demand of Rs.480 per month per worker, the MOA calculated, would mean an additional wage burden of Rs.115 crores per annum for the Bombay mills. This was declared unrealistic not only because of the financial position of the industry but because D.A. had been hiked by 239% between 1974 and 1981. Samant's wage demands would mean a hike of 12% in the cost of the cloth -an increase could not be passed on to the consumer because "textiles sell only at the on-going price." Unlike the modern capital-intensive industries, the labour-intensive textile industry could not easily pass on its cost increases to consumers: While the labour component of the Bombay textile industry was about 23%, the chemical industry's labour component was just between 4.5% to 11.4% and in the engineering sector the component was between 8.7% to 11.7% of the total cost. Moreover, the MOA claimed, the textile industry had already absorbed the rising cost of production from 1979 to 1981. While the cost had increased by 35%, cloth prices had increased only by 16.5%. These and other statistics provided . by the MOA, were given the following postscript: 

"The textile industry is spread throughout the country and any change in a centre like Bombay will have repurcussions throughout all the textile centres. Consumers will be affected. Exports will receive  set-back. Other industries will also be affected... no room should be given to thwart the sanctity of such legal agreements by threats of violence. If it were done, everywhere labour is likely to take the view that by force, existing agreements can be thrown out, creating indiscipline and consequently, a law and order problem." 

What the MOA's written statements did not dis- cuss was the millowners' position on Samant. It was common knowledge as early as November 1981 that several owners of the healthier mills were willing to concede about Rs.100 as an adhoc increase if it would put a dampner on the agitational mood and help to sweep other issues under the carpet. Once this segment had made up its mind, the weaker mills could be pushed into agreeing.* According to some industry insiders there could have been a settlement at this stage but for Samant's insistence that a differential wage system be imposed. Samant was only willing to negotiate three categories under this system -Rs.150, Rs.100 and Rs..75. This tipped the balance against a settlement because the prosperous mills which earlier favoured a wage increase of upto Rs.l00 withdrew the proposition. A wage increase imposed on a: differential system would eliminate their advantage over the poorer mills. They were also apprehensive that once placated Samant's appetite would become insatiable. 

If they had been divided earlier the millowners were definitely united after the differential wage suggestion. 

But the true hardliners, at that stage, were not in the ranks of the MOA. As millowners later told journalists they had been willing to settle with Samant, like the rest of Bombay industry, but were forced by the Central Government to maintain a firm stund. In those days, long before the takeover of 13 mills on October 18, 1983, the millowners and Bombay industrial community in general lauded the Government's firm stand on the 'Samant menance'. It was partly attributed to the industrialists' constant lobbying in Delhi. 

The repeated arrests of Samant in 1981 were part of a crystallization of the Congress(I) policy towards the trade unionist. Though several individual Congress(I) functionaries in Maharashtra conti- nued to hold the view that Samant was better inside the fold than outside opposing the party, the Congress(I) 'High Command' did not budge from its position. 

The bureaucracy, of course, handled the issue and described it in a more sanitized manner. Conse- quently Labour Secretary B.G.Deshmukh said in December 1983, that the question of Samant as an individual never arose and the allegation that the Central Government was out to 'get Samant' was a figment of the leader's and the Bombay press' imagination. "There was an act, the Bombay Indus- trial Relations (BIR) Act, how could the government flaunt it? We were putting down the Samant tendency*. This militant tendency could not be tolerated so (it had to be) prevented from getting any ascendancy anywhere." Deshmukh said: "Bombay city can't afford old style labour intensive industry and this crisis was bound to come, the sickness was inevitable. The structural adjustment was also bound to come and the strike played into the hands of the natural changes." A former municipal commissioner of Bombay, Deshmukh had sufficiently strong ties with the city to take a personal interest in the strike. On one of his visits to the city, Oeshmukh roamed the mill area incognito and found workers were abusing Samant. Deshmukh came away convinced that while the 'poor workers' suffered Samant was busy fulfilling the 'historical function of showing how you can go wrong'. The decisions Deshmukh took, or influenced ministers to take, were based on this perception. 

Deshmukh's office was located on the first floor of a building ironically called 'Shram Shakti Bha- van.'** In the lobby of this rambling building hung a huge picture showing four emaciated labourers wearing only loin cloths, heaving a gigantic stone. The ribs and bones sticking out of their malnutri- tioned bodies indicated nothing about the 'Triumph of  Labour' - the title of the picture. The scene 

depicted in the picture was only an ironical reaffirmation of the workers' determination, the inevita- bility of their frustrations and futility of their efforts in the prevelant framework as defined in the corridors of Shram Shakti Bhavan. In the hundreds of bureaucrats offices around this picture, even this human element was absent from considerations and deliberations. There only statistics mattered and  these indicated the slow formation of an industrial working class in relation to increases in the total population. In the fourth decade after Independence, only. about 23' million out of a population of .684 million were in the organised sector and they constituted only 10% of the total , work force of 260 million. Factory workers constituted less than 2.5% of the total work force.' Out of the remainder of the work force, 70% was in agriculture and 22% of this in the labourer category. Thus at Shram Shakti Bhavan the fighting mass of Bombay's 2.5 lakh mill workers was reduced to a mere fraction, namely 1.25% of the industrial work force which in turn is only 10% of the' total Indian work force. It was a part of the tradition at Shram Shakti Bhavan that this miniscule fraction of 1.25% would be treated only as a miniscule fraction and no more. That this fraction, together with the family members dependent upon it, constituted about 12% of the population of the country's primary metropolis was also of minor relevance to the decision makers. 

The electoral importance of this segment was a matter of concern only to the ruling party not to the bureaucrats, and the former had larger policy considerations which took precedence over the future voting behaviour of some 10 lakh Bombay residents. In the. context of the conditions attached by the Interntional Monetary Fund with its loan of Rs.5000 croresthe government was under an obligation to show a certain toughness with labour. In this context 2.5 lakh 'troublesome  workers 
were of no consequence and the tendency represented by their leader was a critical danger - a cancerous growth -to be controlled and eliminated with urgency. 

The government's attitude was clear and predictable from the outset, G. V .Chitnis, general secre- tary of the AITUC in Maharashtra, recalled in retrospect. "The government is the biggest employer in this industry (textiles) and if this strike had succeeded the government would have had to give the same benefits allover the country," Chitnis said in January '84. "The strike had national impiications at a time when the government was trying to force a poliey of wage freeze in the country." Under this policy the strategy was, firstly, not to concede any demands at all; secondly if circumstances so compelled, to concede as late as - possible; and thirdly, as little as possible. This policy had been at work in the government's handling of the Bangalore public sector employees strike, in the promulgation of two ordinances denying bonus to Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) workers and in the issue of D.A. for bank staff all over the country. "If the government had conceded in textiles the bottom would have fallen out of this policy", said Chitnis. 

The Congress(I) also had a commitment to protect the RMMS -a major affiliate of its trade union wing the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC).* Here again the MOA supported it whole-heartedly for, as George Fernandes put it so glibly,- "The relationship of  INTUC/RMMS with MOA is the stablest marriage in the country." In this context the demand for scrapping the BIR Act and subsequent derecognition of the RMMS took on an entirely political character. This policy was maintained despite the fact that even a section of the millowners favoured scrapping or amendment of the BIR Act. In the three decades following the enactment of the BIR Act, the structure of the industry had changed dramatically with some mills installing highly sophisticated machinery and others retaining the archaic looms. The process of modernization was accomparued by rationalisation and such changes would be easier to impose without the BIR Act which compells 

millowners to seek the sanction of the RMMS for any change in the production process which affects the workers. Even the Sanat Mehta Panel's recommendations rejected provisions of the type in the BIR Act, though for different reasons. 

The Mehta panel recommended that wherever more than one union operates, the union with over 40% membership at the plant level ought to be recognised as the sole bargaining agent. It also recommended that where no union had such support then a composite, collective bargaining council of all unions in the factory ought to have the power to negotiate. Labour lawyer and columnist Radha Iyer noted -that this was "a radical departure from the past where time and again both legislation and special commissions have insisted on having a single bargaining agent. This dogma has persisted since the British days but in practice seldom has such recognition of sole bargaining agents prevented industrial unrest. The BIR Act and the textile strike in Bombay are irrefutable evidence. The formation of bargaining councils is certainly conducive to democratic functioning and facilitates a process of consensus." 

There were voices of dissent within the Congress(I) which favoured a jettisoning of the RMMS to save the party's future in a city never favourably inclined towards it. In October 1982, as the situation reached a more critical stage than it was ever expected to, B.A.Desai, the Congress(I) MLA from Bombay issued a public statement calling upon the Congress party to respond to the socio-political processes represented by the strike' in a positive manner.' Desai identified the sinister forces as "the Bal Thackeray -George Fernandes -Sharad Pawar combine" conspicuously excluding Samant who some local Congress(I) members felt should be in the party. But in Delhi a different view prevailed. INTUC president, N.K.Bhat was willing to concede that the BIR Act may require some amendment but its abolition was out of question as was the demand for recognition of the RMMS. Thus, while the viewpoint' of Desai and others like him was considered by the High Command in Delhi, the hard-line opponents of Samant and supporters of RMMS had their way since they supported a position that was compatible with prevalent government policy on labour . 

Thus a stalemate was created. In the year that followed there were several unofficial emissaries from the Congress(I). Among the few to meet Samant openly and place the meeting on record was former Labour Minister Gulzarilal Nanda. The one-time general secretary of the Textile Labour Association of Ahmedabad met Samant at Powai on the morning of 30th August 1982. Nanda had not come with an offer. 'He had only a request to make to Samant that tfte.strike be called off and negotiations be initiated. Nanda was honest enough to admit to Samant that such a process of negotia tion may not produce settlements which won all the demands but also warhed that the longer workers remained on strike the more the millowners' capacity to pay would be diminished. Nanda who had been persuaded by some friends to meet Samant .in the hope that some good may come of it, also suggested that the  firebrand seek other working class leaders' assistance and cooperation in conducting this struggle. Samant, predictably, refused to be associated with others or to end the strike without winning benefits. Samant also repeated, for Nanda's benefit, what he had been telling the world at large for over six months by then: "The workers have remained ignorant and not prepared for a struggle but now the"y are awakened and engaged in a struggle to end exploitation and injustice." There was no going back. 

Nanda left the city, after his abortive attempt to change Samant's mind, convinced that Samant's tactics would not bring an end to exploitation and remembering that similarly high levels of consciousness had led to a long struggle earlier but ended in damage to the industry and large scale unemployment of the workers. But then Nanda did not have the proximity to the workers to see the nature of,  and reasons for, this battle unto death. 

Similarly even after the strike completed six months Kanti Kumar Podar's perception of it and the workers' motivations was still out of line with reality: The propaganda convinced workers that if they stay out till July 19, (when the strike reached its six-month mark) the, RMMS will be dere- cognised. But that is a debatable point; there is some ambiguity because there is no special.provi- sion under the BIR Act,"about whether the RMMS should have support only of those workers attending or even those staying away from work." 

The MGKU had filed its application for derecognition of the RMMS on March 24, 1982, with the Registrar of Unions in the Labour Commissioner's office. The MGKU claimed before the Registrar of Trade Unions that 90% of the textile workers had paid their subscription for two months to the new union instead of the RMMS. The MGKU thus argued that since 90% of the workers had not sought permission of the RMMS to remain in arrears of membership subscription (under clause 7 of the RMMS constitution) they had ceased to be members of that union. The RMMS replied by accusing the MGKU of being "guilty of instigating, aiding and asisting the commencement and continuation of the stike of the emoployees of the cotton textile industry in the local areas of Bombay.... the applicants are vague and no prima faciecase in made out for initiating action (for derecognition) under section 15 of the Act.". The RMMS submission to the Register also brought up technical points about the MGKU's internal workings and questioned whether it had held elections as per its constitution after " it became a legal entity." 

In a situation fraught with often meaningless technicalities and legalities, the process of fighting for the derecognition of the RMMS was the biggest Catch 22 of them all. Mrs. Savita Sudhamaya Bhattacharjee, the middle-aged, quiet, retreating women who held the post of Additional Registrar of  Unions, at first refused to take congnizance of the MGKU application for derecognition of the RMMS. But Samant moved the Bombay High Court with a writ petition and on April 25, 1982 won an order from the court directing Mrs. Bhattacharjee to verify the RMMS membership within two months. But the catch which plagued the workers and eventually frustrated the MGKU's efforts was built into the BIR Act. 

Under the BIR Act, the union applying for recognition needs to prove a minimum membership of only 25% of workers. The RMMS had, over the years, only about one lakh workers out of the total of 2.3 lakh workers as its members. Secondly the Act gives no voice to aminority union,as the Industrial Disputes Act gives to industries under its purview. Consequently, Samant could not legally claim any voice even though the vast majorityof workers supported him. Thirdly, the derecognition procedure is long and plagued by ambiguities. Section 15 of the Act gives the grounds under which a union can be derecognised but does not spellout the methods for verification of membership. The Act, for example, states that a registered union which "is not being conducted in the interests of employees but in the employers..." can be derecognised but is silent on exactly how the Registrar is to arrive at this conclusion. Fourthly, the same section stipulates that any month in which there was a strike for 15 days or more cannot be considered for purposes of verifying membership. It also auto- matically causes a recognised union to be derecognised if that union goes on an illegal strike. 

P.N. Dada Samant claimed that the RMMS's records of membership subscriptions proved nothing since many listed as workers were not textile workers but outsiders who might have worked in the mills for two or three weeks. While Dada argued this point the MOA's R.L.N.Vijaynagar still maintained that the Registrar had erred in choosing the months of December 1981, and January and February 1982 for verification of tne RMMS membership. Under the law, Vijaynagar argued, the Registrar could not include the strike period in the months chosen for the verification proceedings. Amidst these claims and counter-claims the RMMS President Vasant Hoshing stood firm and projected himself as a committed protector of the law. "I know the mood of the workers" he said, "but I know what is good for the working class in the long run. But, even so, we failed to carry the entire working class {with us). That is our failing and I admit it. But in the larger interests of the workers, I have taken this stand (against the strike)." Hoshing's belief in the sanctity of tradition and law extended to the point of refusing workers permission to work on Independence Day. Some of the approximately 24,000 workers and clerical staff who were back in the mills by then wanted to work on August 15 and remain in the mills overnight because Samant's jail bharo andolan was to begin the next day (August 16). The 'loyal' workers were afraid of entering the mills on the day of the andolan and preferred to be inside a day -earlier. But Hoshing refused them permission on the grounds that it would be in contravention of 'tradition and unpatriotic' to work on the national holiday. 

Contrast this attitude with Samant's vehement disregard for most norms and his demands for the abolition of the BIR Act and you have the essence of a stalemate. Samant and the workers were on an entirely different wavelength from the millowners, the RMMS and the government. There was, at this stage, a possibility that if the RMMS had been derecognised by the Registrar Samant might have proclaimed it as a victory and the workers would have returned to work, since this demand was paramount and monetary benefits were a secondary issue..* But the government and the millowners were jointly committed to ensure that this did not happen. At the end of July 1982 Podar firmly main tained that there could be no compromise with the 

law - the sancity of which was essential for the maintenance of  'long term industrial peace.'. 

There was price to be paid for this firmness and the millowners, with the Central Government's encouragement, were willing to pay it. The Union Government had specifically and emphaticallly directed the millowners not to negotiate with Samant - this directive served as unifying force within the MOA. Moreover, as one millowner pointed out, 'how can you tell the government that its union (RMMS) is useless?" Consequently the absured situation was created where the combined interest rate on the accumulated losses was eventually greater than the wage bill demanded by Samant.