The Worlds of Indian Industrial Labour

Bringing together original papers by anthropologists, sociologists and historians, this volume represents a response to the relative neglect in recent sociological research of the social processes and consequences of industrialization in India. It point to the continued disjunction between the study of industrial labour and the ‘traditional’ concerns of Indian sociology, which tend to emphasise the cultural particularity of India, and advocates a rapproachement between the two. Covering workforces in both public and private sector organizations and in both the formal and informal sectors of industry in various locations in the country, the contributors show how the Indian experience of industrialization is in some respects particular to it while in others it is the shared product of a logic intrinsic to industrial capitalism. The richly documented and analytically sophisticated essays shed light on a number of important issues. These include the social implications of the different ways in which work is organized; the significance of bonded labour in the modern ‘informal’ sector; changes over time in the gendering of the workforce; the political construction of class consciousness; the relative valuation of agricultural and industrial labour; strikes and everyday forms of resistance; the impact of the recent economic liberalization on the Indian workforce; and a comparison of Indian trends with the supposed evolutionary pattern of European industrialization. Based on recent empirical research, the essays provide a critical examination of old paradigms while situating the present in relation to the past and the past in relation to the present. With its coverage of topical issues and its collaborative interdisciplinary focus, this volume will interest those in the fields of labour studies, industrialization, sociology, anthropology, history, economics and management.