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Working Lives and Worker Militancy: The Politics of Labour in Colonial India
Contributor(s): Ahuja, Ravi (Editor)
ISBN: 938238121X     ISBN-13: 9789382381211
Publisher: Tulika Books
OUR PRICE:   $42.57  
Product Type: Hardcover
Published: October 2013
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Asia - India & South Asia
- History | Modern - 20th Century
- History | Social History
Dewey: 305.562
LCCN: 2013413266
Physical Information: 1" H x 6.2" W x 9.4" (1.55 lbs) 348 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Indian
- Chronological Period - 20th Century
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
In contemporary India, work for wages has expanded substantially as a mode of subsistence while labor, at the same time, has suffered a dramatic depreciation as a political force and as a target of state policy. The six essays in this volume reconstruct this now marginalized political history of an 'age of labor' from various angles, using previously inaccessible police records, rare autobiographical documents, and other neglected material. They examine how political conflict, militancy, and trade union activism were rooted in the everyday lives of construction workers and artisans, of 'untouchable' tanners and sweepers, of seafarers, railway staff, and factory laborers, throughout the late colonial period. They analyze how transformed politics of caste intersected with the late colonial upsurge of labor politics. They reassess the complex relationships of nationalist mobilizations and labor movements, of elite politicians and an emergent group of 'organic' worker-intellectuals and proletarian militants. They provide meticulous reconstructions of how incidents of labor protest unfolded in India's varied industrial spaces. They argue, in sum, for a reappraisal of Indian labor history as an eventful political history. The volume is rounded off by the political memoirs of Bashir Ahmed Bakhtiar tracing his metamorphosis from militant worker to trade union leader. The memoirs are made available in English for the first time.