Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1850495947

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-233603

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: His Majesty's Stationery Off.

Year of publication:: 1931

Scope:: xviii, 580 S.; graph. Darst., Kt.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter XVIII. - Industrial disputes

Collection:: Economics Books

340 CHAPTER XVIII, unfavourable to disputes than with machinery for their settlement. It is precisely here, in our view, that Indian industrial organisation is weakest. We believe that an important factor at work in creating industrial unrest in India is the lack of contact which too often exists between employers and employed. There are employers who, by special efforts, have established reasonably close touch with their workers, but they ave exceptional. In practically every centre and every industry* the lack of contact and understanding is evident. In the interests of all concerned, we urge that every effort should be made to bridge the gulf. An immense amount of thought and toil has been devoted to surmount- ing the technical, financial and commercial difficulties in the way of in- dustrial development in India. But it will fail to secure the results it deserves unless much more attention is given to the difficult sphere of human relationships. Weakness in this direction has already produced serious effects, and the outlook in some of the centres we visited was menacing. Unless a vigorous effort is made to effect an improvement, the development of large-scale industrial enterprise is likely to be difficult and precarious. Differences of Race. The lack of contact to which we have referred may be traced to several factors in the Indian industrial system. In the first place, it is almost universally true that the management and supervision of industry is in the hands of men not only of a different class but also of a different race from those of the workers. Many of the firms which control the larger industrial establishments are British, and a still larger proportion of concerns are under British, American or other foreign management. Even where the control and management are Indian, it is the exception for the management and the workers to belong to the same race. We are referring not merely to the differences created by caste or religion ; it is rarely the case that the workers and their masters belong to the same big division of the Indian nation. Indeed, we believe that Ahmedabad is the only one among the larger industrial centres where the bulk of both the employers and the employees are drawn from the same part of India, and it is significant that in Ahmedabad there is greater understanding, if not sympathy, between employers and employed than is usual elsewhere. In Bengal industry is mainly in the hands of Europeans and, to a less extent, Bengalis and Marwaris, while the workers are mainly drawn from up country. In Bombay the workers come largely from Maharashtra and the Konkan, while the employers are mainly Parsis, Gujeratis and Europeans. In Jamshedpur the control of policy rests mainly in Bombay, over a thousand miles away, and the managing staff at the works is mainly American and British. In the coalfields the control of policy rests with various Calcutta firms, and we do not know of any case where the manager belongs to the same race as the workers. Burma perhaps presents the strangest phenomenon of all, for here both employers and employed are mainly drawn from across * We are not dealing here with plantations in which strikes are rare. These are discussed separately.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: Report of the Royal Commission on Labour in India

Monograph

Chapter

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

Chapter

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation