Only the mill committee of her unit could help her was essentially what dada was saying. But it was not the content of his message which stunned the poor woman. It was the harsh and arrogant manner. The woman was frail, probably in her late fifties, and dressed in a worn-out cotton saree. When dada's tirade ended she remained rooted to the spot where she stood -silent, expressionless and obviously shocked. Dada who then walked off to have lunch, was his affable self within seconds. Hadn't he been unnecessarily harsh? I asked. It had to be done sometimes, he replied casually, otherwise such people were continuously crowding the union office begging for help. 

This incident was isolated only in the intensity of P.N.Samant's tirade. But it illustrated how and why the workers had grown disillusioned with the union. At the end of it all Doctor was still loved. But dada and the union's methods of functioning had, for obvious reasons, inspired no loyalty. At the same time this incident occurred, in August 1983, the strike was past even its last death throes and dismembered dreams of the valiant lay scattered around the battlefield. Belying all hopes of the optimists, the weeks following the triumphant rally at Shivaji Park had marked a further hardening of the stalemate -to the workers' disadvantage. Many activists had believed that the historic, unprecedented feat of a strike of 
2.3 lakh workers completing a year would bend the government. They believed this even while their instinct quietly reminded them that past experience had left no grounds for such optimism. With the inevitable inaction of the government many of them began edging towards fatalism. The events of the next few weeks conclusively destroyed all grounds for optimism and deepened the fatalism. The determination and intensified organisational efforts of a few activists were of no use when changes in the political equation within Maharashtra led to a further hardening of the government's position on the strike. The strike leaders had often laughed at the 'washed out clown' (Babasaheb Bhosale) who sat in the Chief Minister's chair, but his replacement by a veteran tactician ensured that they did not have the last laugh. 
 

By mid-January, Babasaheb Bhosale's crisis-plagued ministry was finally shunted out and a successor was selected, in what A.R.Antulay called a fraud if an election within the party. The party high command had decided to put Vasantdada PatiI back in the Chief Ministers chair primarily to control growing dissidence within the Maharashtra Congress(I). But he was also expected to defuse controversial issues like the textile strike. Since Vasantdada had, from the outset, been a committed hardliner his handling of the strike was predictable. He was bound to use his power as Chief Minister to strike the last nails into the coffin already prepared for the textile workers' struggle. Stray efforts by some of Vasantdada's party colleagues to salvage their position vis-a-vis the Bombay textile workers, continued even after he assumed office. But the possibilIty of a breakthrough proved to be a cruel mirage. The most crushing disappointment was the outcome of the only publicly announced meeting between Samant and the Union Minister of Commerce. Though the government had, from the outset, refused to negotiate with Samant since his Union was not recognised and he led an illegal strike, several ministers had privately met Samant for informal discussions throughout the strike P.N.Samant claimed that over the entire strike period Pranab Mukherjee himself met Samant about five times. Samant did not remember, or chose not to disclose, the details of these meetings but he spoke of Mukherjee as quite considerate, he accepted that the millowners were doing illegal acts'. At these meetings Mukherjee gave Samant. the impression that the government may scrap the BIR Act and accept a differential wage structure for the various categories of mills. But for any concrete results these secret meetings had to move to a public sphere. Samant had long awaited an opening which would allow Mukherjee to disclose his views in public and thus break the stalemate. The only publicly acknowledged meeting till February 1983 had been the dinner with Bhosale, which had proved to be a failure. 

When Vishwanath Pratap Singh took over as Commerce Minister, in early March 1983, and announced that he, was willing to talk with anyone to settle the textile strike, Samant and his supporters viewed this as possible breakthrough. Singh had recently won the admiration of people allover the country by resigning as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh after falling to control the dacoit problem within a self-imposed deadline of one month. One such admirer was  P.N.Samant, dada, who had followed the personality and work of Singh as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh and identified him as a Congress(I) man with a difference. Thus, when P.N.Samant read about Singh's offer in the press, he sent a telegram to the new Commerce Minister taking him up on his offer. Singh replied promptly. Samant was invited to meet the minister in Delhi on the following Sunday. This message reached Samant on a Tuesday and was soon released to the press, which interpreted the invitation as a major breakthrough. The workers were overjoyed and saw in this an opportunity to make an honourable compromise. The long, painful wait seemed to have paid off. Samant was advised by the leading activists to accept a compromise and not remain adamant on the demand for abolition of the BIR Act. Most of the leading activists now accepted that the government would not concede this demand, since even dissenters within the bureaucracy and political hierarchy favoured, at best, an amendment. The most critical need of the hour was to reach an agreement that would get the workers back inside the mills. 

But panicky millowners and an indignant Vasantdada Patil had other plans. They flew to Delhi to convince the concerned ministers and the Prime Minister that since the strike was already fizzling out it would be a fatal error to make any concession at that stage. Singh was accordingly briefed by 
Mrs. Gandhi to concede nothing. Thus, when Samant emerged from his Sunday afternoon meeting with Singh he had little to say except that some common ground had been found and details would be discussed when Singh came to Bombay a week later. But Samant probably knew even then that the dialogue would not be continued. The Chief Minister and MOA representatives, who had air dashed to Delhi, had not wasted their time. When Ram Dulari Sinha, Deputy Commerce Minister, came to Bombay instead of V.P.Singh a week later many strike activists expected Samant to meet her and pursue 'negotiations'. instead Samant left town when Sinha was due to be in Bombay. The workers were dismayed and disillusioned with this act of Samant. Most of them did not know, and could not imagine, the strength of the hard-liners in the government who had held the day when Samant met Singh. Ram Dulari Sinha came to Bombay not to pursue Singh's efforts in resolving the textile strike but to counter-act the effects of Samant's meeting with the Commerce Minister. Her job was to ensure that the strike was fizzling out as Patil it was.* 
 

With this, the hopes and high-flying morale of mid-January slumped to a new low of despair. Like mirage-weary desert travellers the workers began to learn to live with the reality that neither the Union nor the State Government had any intention of arranging a settlement. At first gradually and then with increasing speed, they returned to the excruciatingly hot boiler rooms and suffocating spinning rooms of the textile mills. The simple men who once spoke of a bada kranti and nurtured a grand dream of freedom from an unrepresentative, oppressive union, began to relive the night mare in resentful, enforced humility. 

After the V.P.Singh fiasco even the Union government once again reverted to spouting the MOA line that a settlement was unnecessary since the strike had, in effect, fizzled out. Even the toughest strike activists now accepted that they were up against a wall they, could not vault and prepared to surrender. In the uncertainty and insecurity that followed, the zone committees' relations with Samant changed for the worse. After the meeting with V.P.Singh many mill and area committee activists felt that an opportunity to make a graceful exit from the battle, which they knew by then could not be won, had been missed. FaIling to get an active response from Samant the area committee activists formed a Central Committee in order to seek a compromise resolution of the strike. But Samant's reaction to this was sharply negative. Many an activist was chastened by, Samant and thus alienated from him. "When there is no response from doctor for the Central Committee, why should they stick their necks out?" asked one Central Committee activist who till then had been a zealous Samant supporter;' "Without consulting us (Central Committee) he announced that he would give jobs to 25,000 workers. And when the activists couldn't do that (provide the jobs) the workers blamed us." 
_______________________________ 
* In terms of pure statistics the general labour situation in Maharashtra was substantially 'better' in February 1983, as compared to the same time a year earlier. In 1982, 149 units had been shut down due to strikes and lock-outs involving 2,41,581 workers of which 2,19,348 workers were in Bombay -2,.12,547 of them belonging to the textile mills. In February 1983 there were more units (168) shut down due 10 strikes or lock-outs but the number of workers had fallen to 1,73,681; of which 1,53,703 were in Bombay and 1,41,150 of whom were from textile mills. (Statistics provided by Labour Commissioner's office.) 
 

In the prevailing mood of deep pessimism the loss of the committees' credibility weakened their hold over the rank and file. This further accelerated the disintegration of the strike. At this juncture, when there was a need for an action programme which involved the workers, Samant chose the Sangli Assembly by-election as a major rallying Joint. Vasantdada Patil, a member of Parliament at the time he became Chief Minister, was contesting the Sangli Assembly seat vacated for him by his wife. All other opposition parties backed out of the election because they considered it a waste of time to fight Vasantdada in his own stronghold. But the MGKU and Lal Nishan party decided to field a joint candidate. "After one year's clownish performance... Barrister Babasaheb Bhosale was replaced by pragmatic Vasantdada Patil as Chief Minister..." read a press statement issued jointly by Samant and Yashwant Chavan. "As regards the 16-month-old strike, Vasantdada Patil has personally and treacherously sabotaged the efforts made by the Central Government through Union Commerce Minister V.P.Singh in initiating negotiations with Dr. Datta Samant, for an honourable settlement and thus betrayed the sons of the toiling peasants of Maharashtra working in Bombay mills... instead of solving the problem he is imagining that the problem has solved itself. But the working and toiling masses of Maharashtra must show this arrogant satrap of capitalist policies, that issues of textile workers have not become extinct and that none of the problems concerning common people can be extinguished by suppression." With this brief they set out for the Maratha's stronghold to campaign against him in the name of the textile workers and the working class struggle. 
 

The exercise had only notional value for the rank and file of textile workers. Defeating Patil was virtually impossible and even Samant and Chavan knew this. But unlike leaders of other opposition parties, they felt that the election should be made an issue and PatiI should be given a run for his money. And even that was not easily done. Though many textile workers came from the outlying and backward areas of SangIi district, Patil's constituency is in central Sangli city and excludes the working class suburbs. It was therefore to the MGKU and Lal Nishan's credit that their candidate, backed by the Dalits and left parties, posed enough of a challenge to PatiI for him to get nervous. The Chief Minister' was reported to have camped in the constituency for nearly a month, brought dozens of Ministers and M.L.As to help his campaign and even exercised strong-arm tactics on the voters, reported Gail Omvedt in the E.P.W.1 She also recorded how the ward and village chiefs were warned that the areas not voting for Patil would get no development funds. Muslim minorities were made to feel insecure and thousands of saris were distributed to women voters. Instead of losing his deposit, as Patil's camp predicted, Shantaram Patil (the Samaht-Lal Nishan candidate) polled 15,000 votes to Patil's 53,000 votes. If we can do so much in a rich constituency like Sangli which has been in Dada's family pocket for decades, the whole Congress power is going to be rocketed in 1985," said a jubilant activist. 

But this euphoria was of no use to the majority of the textile workers in Bombay, most of who were inside the mills and once again oppressed by both the RMMS and the millowners. The disintegration was aided, and made increasingly painful, when the left trade unions had begun telling the workers to resume work in November-December 1982. The activists dismissed this as a defeatist attitude and most workers agreed. But by March 1983, the situation was different. The Naujawan Bharat Sabha (NBS), a group of young activists with Naxalite affiliations, which had actively assisted workers in fighting police cases and countering other forms of repression, now challenged Samant's leadership and began actively encouraging workers to return to the mills. Their rationale was that Samant had allowed the strike to fizzle out, the battle was lost and there was nothing to be gamed by letting the workers suffer indefinitely. NBS activists also noted that the millowners were planning to use the strike to retrench about 70,000 workers and intensify the process of modernisation. The NBS claimed that Samant was not giving serious thought to these issues. The NBS favoured a damage-limiting, compromise agreement which may not secure the original demands but would save jobs by preventing mass retrenchments. 
 

As time passed, this argument appealed to more and more workers. Many, like Prabhakar More and G.V.Chitnis, felt that a compromise settlement ought to have been made when Bhosale offered to increase the advance money. As Fernandes would say in late 1983: "When the minister announced 
(in Parliament) Rs.30 interim relief -(Samant) could have accepted that and done something... but then Samant would not be Samant and then it would be just one more strike and he would be in a different situation." Similarly, Chitnis was of the view that Samant had missed a major opportunity to settle the strike when he faIled to follow up on S.M.Joshi's meeting with the Prime Minister. Once the strike had extended to a full year, Chitnis insisted that Samant had an obligation to intensify the struggle and find a way out, which he failed to do. To those who shared this view-point the failure and tragedy of the textile strike was entirely Samant's doing because he refused to co-operate with other non-INTUC unions. Somnath Dube, who was candid in his self-appraisal, held essentially the same view: "It is not that we (TUJAC) were very united but our problem was that Samant would not take us into confidence." 

In the most extreme form such complaints stemmed from a blatant egotism. Dange insisted that the story could have been different if he had been active and able to participate. He had left the field open for Samant, Dange said in late 1983, because he was not capable of physically putting in the time and energy required to participate fully and he did not want to play a bit role. Dange wanted the failure to be all Samant's. When asked why such an old and carefully built tradition of communist unions among the textile mills had declined, Dange said: "The answer would smack of vanity, but the main reason is that I gave it up."  But should an institution, and at that a Marxist institution, be dependent on a single individual?  "That depends," movement, it won't tolerate (the person).  As long as I am alive my need will be felt.  Thirty or forty main leaders come here on holidays and for hours they sit arguing, shouting at me, asking questions.  At every crisis you will find such meetings here.  I have not cut myself off from them nor have they cut off themselves from me.  But I don't take responsibility that would be wrong because I'd be inefficient and irregular..." 

Dange's estimate of his own importance was not entirely unjustified because while in retreat many an activist felt that things might have been different had Dange been with them.  Some even directly blamed the Sarva Shramik Sangh for 'keeping doctor and Dange apart.' *  While the role of the Sharmik could be questioned at many levels and assessed from different view-points, this particular allegation had little basis.  Given the highly individualised style of Samant and the ideological firmness and personal ego of Dange any 'coming together' would have been temporary.  Such allegations largely surfaced in a period of deep despair, when the workers found themselves engulfed by darkness.  Many of them were overwhelmed by a sense of insecurity and hopelessness.  This was not to change in the near future.  To many who fought in the battle and lay grievously wounded in body and spirit, it seemed as though the sun should never rise again. Only those familiar with the cyclical patterns of history knew that some day the sun would rise again bringing with it fresh light and energy for the exhausted workers whose fiery militancy had not been extinguished. Thus, even those compelled to return to the mills remained loyal to Samant. When a morcha called by Samant on March 7, 1983, brought out mammoth crowds the State Government dismissed it as the few live embers of a dying fire. But Samant continued to draw large crowds throughout that year and into the next. The phenomenal turn-out at the second anniversary morcha on January 18,1984, was evidence of this. 
_______________________ 
* Dange also claimed that workers, mostly his old loyalists, had wanted him to make a settlement but he refused to play the role because, as he said he didn't want Samant to have the excuse that the strike failed because of Dange's interference. 

By June 1983 it was futile to deny that the strike had fizzled out. After its unprecedented duration of 18 months the strike was effectively over and most strike activists acknowledged this. The face of defeat was ugly and tragic. This was evident from the state of K.P.Kamble, Lata's fiery neighbour who had confidently predicted the coming of a bada kranti ,a year and a half earlier. After weeks of pressure from RMMS activists and mill representatives, Kamble had finally gone to the mill where he worked as a jobber for over a decade. Apart from addressing him in a humiliating manner, the labour officer of the mill demanded that Kamble sign an undertaking and pledge unquestioning obedience to the management and give an assurance that he would never go on strike again.  When Kamble hesitated he was reminded by the mill officer that technically his services had already been terminated. The mill had sent two notices threatening to retrench him if he failed to quit the strike and resume duties. He was being taken back as a favour, the labour officer stressed. Kamble knew better. The mill had particularly been seeking' him out because, as a jobber, he commanded the allegiance of at least 100 workers who were expected to follow him back into the mill. The new recruits employed by the management were not producing the required quality of cloth -and thus the need for old skilled hands.*  But at this stage Kamble, broken in sprit and overcome by a sense of hopelessness, was compelled to ask his strike comrades: "How does it make a difference if I am at home (and not at work)? If they (mill owners) take my job away, will Samant get it back?" 

So Kamble resumed work and began dealing with the bizarre ways of the RMMS which had learnt no lessons from the strike. But no sooner had he returned to the mill the MGKU activists began pressurising him to leave -in the hope that these who had followed him inside would also once again come out. A month after he entered the mill, Kamble was out again. But now he was merely a statistic on the daily attendance registers. The humlilation was unbearable for the once-proud Kamble: "I look at our condition' and am sad. I never asked for money from anyone and now I have to ask..."  HiS voice trembled and there were tears in his eyes. Then he went on to praise his brother, who worked in a fish market and gave him Rs.5 per day to enable him to eat roti and chutney. As he wiped his eyes Kamble said: "Starvation outside is better than slavery inside." Jobbers like him were being made to do menial work, which was an unforgivable humiliation for men of that standing in the labour hierarchy. Many permanent workers were being taken back as badlis and some were given half the earlier wages. But Kamble, and thousands like him, shortly returned to the mills once again and this tIme they went to stay -for as long as the management would keep them. 
__________________________ 
*There were several reports, at this stage, about cloth from ,the Bombay mills being rejected by cloth merchants due to its poor quality. 
  

Anger against Samant simultaneously reached new heights. The bada kranti would have happened, Kamble said: "But (Samant's) union didn't give it a chance and now the wind had gone out of it. The union was alway's peaceful so that created an anticlimax. Samant never took fast and immediate action and so the government got a chance to gear up. He should have given a call to go to managers' homes and demonstrate. But, instead, there was a lack of union support for those workers who were arrested by the police for standing up and fighting. We could have blocked the major thorough fares but when we were arrested by the police Samant would have said these are riot my people... He has done a lot, but he failed to bring political pressure." And yet, even while he was so acutely aware of Samant's failure as a political tactician, Kamble remained loyal to his chosen leader. Kamble, like thousands of other equally disillusioned workers, did not doubt Samant's integrity. 

Leaders of Salaskar's stature attempted to contain disillusionment with Samant by reminding workers that they had insisted on launching the strike. Samant had wanted to just continue the strike in the eight mills that had been closed since October 1981. Samant had wanted to fight the battle of the remaining mills in court by challenging the RMMS and having it derecognised.*  "I am fire you'll be burnt," Samant had warned the first band of textile workers who sought to make him their leader. The activists, however, never regretted the decision to strike even when they were deeply disillusioned with Samant's methods and inaction. 
__________________________ 

* In retrospect even the Labour Commissioner of Maharashtra, " P.J.Ovid, identified Samant's decision to take all 60 mills on strike as his most crucial tactical error. 
  

Yet, the government and millowners steadfastly clung to the belief that the workers had been misled and misguided. In May 1983, Chief Minister Vasantdada Patil called upon the MOA to adopt a 'forget and forgive' approach to settle the strike because the workers had been 'misled' by Samant. Patil  took pains to point out that the millowners were not to be blamed for they followed 'a legal path'. Samant, on the other hand, was a 'new type of Hitler', according to Patil. 

By June 1983 even the MGKU had effectively relented and decided that workers who went back into the mills could no longer be described as 'black legs'. Economic necessity was driving them back and samant had no more promises to hold out. If the strike had been a test of samant's adamance versus that of the government's, the latter had clearly won. Even samant recognised this: Therefore the zone committees no longer exhorted  workers to stay out and quietly made a shift in strategy. Acting on the premise that workers continued to remain loyal to samant and the cause of their struggle, in spirit if not in deed, the union adopted the strategy of unobtrusively organising workers inside the mills. Slowly, the zone committees began holding secret meetings of 20 to 30 workers who had gone back to the mills. By June 14, the MGKU brought its gradually evolving strategy into the open at a meeting held at a small hall in Dadar. 

In July, the union began a membership collection drive outside the mill gates. At a meeting held in Prabhadevi, on July 9, the workers stood in line to pay the membership fees of Re.1each. Out of the one lakh workers, estimated by the MGKU to be inside the mills, about 70,000 paid this membership fee, according to P.N.Samant. This naturally boosted Samant's position at a time when the mainstream media was proclaiming the beginning of the end of Samant's career as a trade union leader. But the workers were not waiting in long ques to pay subscription to the MGKU because of any charisma that Samant exuded. They were drawn to the MGKU because of the misery and injustices they experienced inside the mills. RMMS functionaries, had resumed their repressive role with a vengeance. Having already signed over 60 modernisation and rationalisation agreements during the strike period, the RMMS also aided the millowners to implement its scheme of large-scale retrenchments. 

The affairs of the RMMS by this point passed into the hands of N.K.Bhatt, President of the INTUC and a die-hard Indira Gandhi loyalist. Bhatt had worked with the INTUC since 1947 and was then in his third term in the Rajya Sabha. He began the operation of getting the RMMS back on its feet by first ousting the existing leadership. He then issued press statements protesting against the millowners taking advantage of the strike to retrench workers without adequate benefits and compensation. While Hoshing and Bhosale had remained reluctant to concede any fallings on their sides, Bhatt acknowledged that the RMMS's inability to keep pace with the changing mood of the workers had led to the strike situation. Bhatt said  in an interview on February 4, 1984: "If Samant gave a wrong lead there should have been someone to give a right lead. But Samant's style had not led to anything.  Has it benefitted anyone? Is it a method?" thus Bhatt visualised his job at the RMMS as an opportunity to repair the damage done by Samant. Despite their obvious failings Hoshing and Bhosale were unrepentent to the end and relinquished office only after a combination of persuasion and pressure exerted by Bhatt. With a new team of officials, led by Haribahau Naik a new team of officials chalked out a programme to enforce discipline in the union, build and train cadre, and prepare for fresh elections to the union posts. 

Yet, Bhatt, like Hoshing and Bhosale, remained aloof from the rank and file. His contact with those the union was meant to represent was limited to looking out of his office window and seeing groups of workers gathered below. Thus, when questioned about the oppression and terror inflicted upon the workers by his union functionaries, Bhatt had no answers. Questioned about the modernisation and rationalisation agreements signed by the RMMS during the strike, Bhatt said he was aware this had happened but had not looked into the details. Bhatt's primary concern was to ensure that the 13 taken over mills were reopened and the workers of these mills got their jobs back. His satisfaction with the process of resurrecting the RMMS was derived from the swelling crowds at Mazdoor Manzil. "In mid-l983 not 10 people came here" said Bhatt, "Now they are getting services so they come here in large numbers. It will take time to re-establish ourselves. I am confident of my ideology and approach but it will take a year or so more." 

H.S.Supal, who had spent 28 years working in the textile mills, was among those who flocked to Mazdoor Manzil. He belonged to that category of workers who had remained loyal to the RMMS and returned to work early in the strike to become more assertive as the strike finally began to fizzle out. A , former joint committee member of the RMMS, Supal was of the view that strikes in the textile mills inevitably prove futile. "The BIR Act does not allow strikes," he said simply. Supal criticised Samant's lack of knowledge about textile mills and, unlike those on strike, firmly believed that the industry could not afford to pay a higher wage. "The work (of representing workers) can only be done by the RMMS even though there are internal problems and faIlings. Now, Samant is in politics and he's stuck. But the RMMS is not in politics and its attention is not divided. Look, the RMMS has been here since 1946 many have come and gone but we have remained the recognised union," said Supal confidently. The striking workers were aware of this and disheartened by it. But this was not sufficient for them to accept the RMMS rhetoric. Those who were being victimised told another story. 

Hira Daji was one victim whose tale was particularly ironical. Hirabai and I met one morning on the steps of the Sarva Shramik Sangh office, on the eve of Diwali in 1983. In one of the rooms inside, activists had been talking about the mounting anger among the rank and file, and the RMMS's forcible collection of pauti (union dues). Outside, the aged Hirabai, clutching a sheaf of papers in one hand, was looking for help. A jobber, and veteran textile worker, Hirabai had been thrown out of her job with 13 days wages in lieu of notice, on false charges of dishonesty. Ironically, Hirabai was a traditional RMMS supporter and had remained loyal throughout the over a year-long strike. She even participated in strike-breaking efforts. But there was no visible bitterness in the activists attitude towards Hirabai; for her plight was a vindication of their stand, another illustration of their just cause. It was also an indication of the important role they continued to playas workers flocked to them. As one activist said in explaining their rationale for helping Hirabai: "Now she's come to us and we still want to show that we'll fight her case." 

While the situation was ripe for a resurgence of militancy there was also confusion and disillusionment in the ranks of the activists who had, till then, stood united behind Samant. In their deepest moments of despair some echoed the suspicion of left trade unions, that Doctor remained loyal to Mrs. Gandhi-and had thus shied away from a frontal attack against her government. By the middle of September a segment of the Central Committee seriously contemplated forming a delegation to approach opposition trade union leaders and seek their help in resolving the dispute with millowners. The delegation, consisting of some zone committee leaders, planned to meet Samant with the same request: If he did not respond favourably, the delegation planned to hold a press conference to state their position and call upon other trade union leaders to make a united effort to resolve the strike. Despite all the disillusionment, organisers of the proposed delegation insisted that they were not abandoning Samant. They were only responding to the need to include other leaders, apart from Samant. 

This move was greatly influenced by the fact that those activists who had once scorned TUJAC, now believed that if they had worked to make TUJAC a more effective weapon, the strike may have presented a more formidable challenge to the government. In this context Samant's highly personalised style of functioning and P.N.Samant's arrogant, abrasive manner came in for severe attack from the Central Committee members. "In a union that's a family affair this is bound to happen," workers remarked sarcastically. The process of disenchantment, as mentioned earlier, had begun with the formation of the Central Committee and Samant's antagonism towards it. G.S.Gajarmal, an active Central Committee member, found himself accused by Samant of confusing the strike effort and suspected of working for the red flag unions. Gajarmal concluded after receiving a tongue lashing from Samant: "Doctor is happy so long as we activists stay disunited. So long as we are stray individuals and activists around him and not an organised force it means he doesn't have to do anything (by way of drastic action to resolve the strike)." 

That the strike had been, first and foremost, the workers' own struggle was still a matter of great, pride for the activists. When stressing this the activists said that they had only accepted the temporary leadership of Samant. Some were even confident of keeping the MGKU alive without Samant. When the strike had begun Samant could do little wrong in their eyes. At the end, there was little that the much-flawed leader seemed to do right. The fact that Samant had continued to negotiate and make arrangements with the millowners in their other (non-textile) units was viewed as having worked against the strike effort. Matters came to a head in late September 1983 at a meeting organised by the Central Committee activists to discuss and resolve these issues. Samant's presence was essential and he had agreed to attend. 

But after waiting for five hours the workers dispersed -Samant had failed to come. The MGKU officials who finally came to the meeting in place of Samant explained the Doctor was detained by the BEST workers. But this only further disenchanted the activists. Months after Ramanuj Upadhyaya, a Vice-President of the MGKU, recalled the "separate meeting held by some activists of the Central Committee -they could not properly explain what they wanted. They were not satisfied with Samant's methods, they wanted violent methods and different action..." 

Meanwhile, the Congress(1) had begun the process of rebuilding its power in the city with its M.L.As and Municipal Corporators trying to make their presence felt through 'mutton shibirs', among other things. 'Mutton shibirs' was a sarcastic reference by Samant supporters to the Congress(I) M.L.A. Bhau rao Patil's one-day 'camps' for youth. where the main attraction for participants was the mutton served with lunch. These shibirs were part of Patil's attempt to cultivate support and regain lost ground from the ruins of the textile strike. But the Congress(I) hierarchy had formulated a strategy to counter the negative effects of the strike, at a larger level. 

On the eve of the All India Congress Committee [AICC-I) session in Bombay, in October 1983, the results of this strategy were just beginning to take shape in the early hours of October 19, 1983, officials of the National  Textile Corporation (NTC), together with local police officials, knocked on the doors of 13 private textile mills to implement the union government's decision to take over the managements of these mills. President Glani Zail Singh had signed the take-over ordinance late on 18th night. One of the most interesting side lights of and telling commentaries on this action came from the response of a Deputy Commissioner of Police in Bombay. As the NTC officials were swooping down on the mills, this Deputy Commissioner called Samant to inform him of the take-over and suggest that perhaps the union leader would now call off the black flag demonstration intended to greet the Prime Minister as she arrived in the city the following morning. Whether the official was acting of his own accord or had been instructed from above is immaterial. The timing of the takeover and its purpose was obvious all, and this official had only acted on cue. But as Samant told the official, his demands were not limited to the take-over of l3 mills -the black flags would fly high. 
 

By late October Samant also had a larger purpose than the textile strIke to preoccupy him and determine the direction of his thoughts and action. The 'Kamgar Aghadi' which he had announced at the January 18 anniversary rally was in the process of cutting its teeth and showing promise. The process of revitalising the demoralised workers had begun. At that stage Samant defined the Kamgar Aghadi as a pressure group to alter the government's anti-labour attitude and acts. After an over six month lull, since its announcement, the Aghadi became functional in July when MGKU officials addressed meetings in various municipal wards to urge slum dwellers and workers to join the party. After September the main strike activists were given specific tasks and posts within the Aghadi. These actions were based on the assumption that the Municipal Corporation elections would take place on schedule, in February. This enthused the activists and escalated the pace of work. 
 

By January 1984, the zone committees of the textile strike had been converted into 'ward committees' of the Kamgar Aghadi. As one of those who had undergone trial by fire in the post-strike months, Gajarmal was among the best placed to describe the Spirit of the Aghadi. From being a deeply disappointed man in April and a bitter antagonist of Samant in September, Gajarmal had returned to being a supporter of Samant in January 1984. On January 18 that year, he said: "All workers with faith in Kamgar Aghadi are active in the ward committees. Now the attention (no longer being limited to the strike) IS on other issues like pavement dwellers, dilapidated houses, water, sewage and other such concerns. Workers are doing work in their areas, they have left their old affiliations behind. We (activists) explain to workers that in all other parties there is 'bossism'. Here it is your own initiative come forward and work." Recalling the days when some had contemplated calling the opposition leadership to settle the strike Gajarmal said: "We changed our minds because we decided that so long as workers still support Samant there is no point in publicly opposing him. It would have further divided us. Now it is better that we didn't because we have reorganised under Samant, and textile workers are leaders in the Kamgar Aghadi." 

The Aghadi thus succeeded in meeting the MGKU's aim -that of giving the workers a direction and preventing them from repeatedly making futile trips to Ghatkopar office asking for jobs and money. Samant, in spite of the hundreds of industrial units under his control, had provided alternative employment to only a handful. The union, however, claimed at the end to have provided jobs to 5,000 victimised textile workers. 

But the development of the Kamgar Aghadi and changes within the cadre of textile worker activists were taking place in the context of a crisis-plagued industry. Apart from losses incurred during the strike due to payment of standing dues, the costs of most production components had increased over the 18 month period of the strike. At the same time the cloth markets remained stagnant as the recession deepened. The production process" was also hampered by the fact that many workers had not returned to their original mills long after the strike had fizzled out and production chains remained incomplete due to the displacement of skilled staff. 

This did not stop the mill managements from taking a stiff stand with the returning 'errant' workers. In most mills the workers were made to sign productivity agreements, which increased their work load by 15% or more. These 'agreements', which were actually undertakings, also extracted promises of 'good behaviour' and obedience to all the management's dictates, falling which the workers were liable to lose their jobs without due process. Thousands of workers who retired or resigned were even denied gratuity and other benefits. Apart from such voluntary withdrawals there were largescale retrenchments, undertaken even by the NTC mills. 

Just how much of an empty gesture the take over of 13 mills had been was evident from subsequent developments. Four months after the take-over, only five of the 13 mills were working. And more importantly, only about 16,000 of the 36,000 workers in those 13 mills had regained their jobs. After announcing the take-over, and widely projecting it as a magnanimous favour to the embattled workers, the NTC effectively did nothing to assist the workers not taken back into the mills. The policy makers' attention was, by then, almost entirely focussed on the ill-health of the industry. The bureaucracy was holding forth promises of financial aid for modernisation and other measures to revive the sagging fortunes of the textile mills.2 . 

Large-scale rationalisation was a gift of the strike to millowners. They took advantage of this to initiate schemes for inodernisation. Before these schemes could be implemented all resorces had to be devoted to restore the mills to full working order. Concern for the fate of the 'illegal strikers' had no place in this climate. And the climate was hostile to textile workers allover the country. The RMMS estimated that in 19&2-83, about 10% to 15% of the country's textile workers had been rendered jobless. The millowners merely said that the industry could do no better in the face of an ever deepening recession.* 

Apart from frequent promises about reviving production in the taken over mills, the government had nothing to offer the workers who suffered due to the sagging fortunes of the industry. Since the millowners, especially in Bombay, were able to retrench workers with impunity, they were not concerned about the residual support Samant still enjoyed in the mills. This support meant little 
because it came mainly from the 20% o badli workers who had not been taken back by the 'mills and had remained with Samant largely because they had no other options. The workers of the taken over mills, who were not allowed to resume duty even after the NTC took charge, were also depending  on Samant.  But, understandably, an edual number of workers were also depending on the RMMS. 
________________________ 
* In Bombay, at the end of December 1983, the off-take of cloth remained poor even on reduced prices. As stocks continued to pile up, it further worsened the liquidity problem of the mills. A Central Advisory Council on textiles was set up at the end of November 1983 to look into this and other problems. 

The RMMS had the institutional machinery and the legal standing to press for, at least, full operation of the 13 taken over mills to ensure that most of the original workers got their jobs back. Few people, at this stage, seemed concerned about the fact that every issue for which the battle had been waged, remained unresolved and new problems had arisen. As one mill executive said simply: "There is no violence at the mill gates and in the by-lanes, so where is the problem?" Some, like the ever-zealous R.L.N.Vijaynagar, believed that the growing frustration of the 'have-nots' (as he insisted on referring to the workers) would peak and erupt in dangerous ways. But he still firmly believed that the workers had been misled and taken for a ride by Samant. Vijaynagar's perception of the situation was necessarily dominated by the ill-conceived nature of the labour laws and the government's vacillation on labour issues. There was no understanding, even after two years of upheaval, of structural defects in the industrial relations machinery which created the situation. By February 1983, the strike was relegated to the rear recesses of Vijaynagar's memory. He was busy pouring over law books and helping the MOA lawyers fight the case challenging the take-over of 13 mills. 

Geographically, psychologically and socially isolated from the 'have-nots' who so concerned him, Vijaynagar and those of his ilk had no conception of what happened to the thousands who just dropped out, or had been forced out of the system. Those mill executives who had a sense of noblesse oblige, talked sadly of the many workers who had turned to daily hamali*, or were selling vegetables on the foot- paths. Others would notice that the cobbler or fruit vendor on the pavement outside the mill looked familiar and vaguely recall that he was once a skilled textile worker. While the more sensitive among them perceived the misery of earning a daily wage in this uncertain manner, there were also those who saw these alternative occupations as proof that all had weathered the storm with reasonable success. Said the technical director of one mill: "If we were working to full capacity and needed the total number of workers -they wouldn't be there. They have found other jobs even if the wages are less than 50% of what they got in the mill." There were few exceptions among this elite set who recognized that the majority of millowners were aloof from the workers and their misery and acknowledged this to be a dangerous tendency. "How many years can they do this (deal with workers) on an ad hoc basis. Some wondered aloud. 

At the same time, the only promise the leader they once hero-worshipped now held out to the textile workers was that the Kamgar Aghadi would some day be a great party of the working class. By January 18, 1984 the Aghadi had 15 offices all over Bombay. A few weeks earlier samant's supporters had swept to victory in the elections of the credit co-operatives in the textile mills. This gave further credence to samant's claim that he still commanded the workers' loyalty. But confirmed hard-liners of the establishment, like Bhatt, were unimpressed. Said Bhatt: "The Kamgar Aghadi is a political platform Samant has taken for himself, nothing more. I am not in a position to say whether workers are still with him (Samant)." But such criticism did not concern Samant. Neither did he appear disturbed by the departure of workers in other units once controlled by him. In many of these cases, workers abandoned Samant to make independent settlements with managements. Samant boosted his image as a trade union leader on the strength of agreements like the one at Premier Automobiles, where workers got a Rs.700(per month) increase in January 1983. (That this was gained at the cost of agreeing to more than double the earlier work load, was not highlighted by Samant.) However, amid the deep despair which dominated the post-strike period, Samant 'relied on the forthcoming Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections to serve as a rallying point for his followers. Success in the municipal elections Samant believed, would place the Kamgar Aghadi on the political map of Maharashtra. 
________________________ 
* Hamali is manual labour and in Bombay it most often refers the pulling of handcarts, unloading of trucks in the wholesale markets, etc. 

When the State Government opted to supersede the BMC instead of holding local elections, Samant quickly claimed that this was a result of the government's fear that the Aghadi would have swept to victory in the elections. There was more than just a tinge of false bravado in such statements. In the absence of an election in the near future the Aghadi lost its central focus and also much of its momentum. The rank and file of textile workers, as peripheral participants in the Aghadi, were only marginally affected by such developments. But the drop in the Aghadi's momentum further deepened their pessimism. They felt even more oppressed by the all-pervasive power of the forces which controlled their destiny. Was victory in the greatest struggle they had ever known, to be defined as winning a few seats in the Murucipal Corporation election? It was then that the revolutionary fervour of yesterday seemed an illusion - a dream that could never be a reality.