Industrial Labour in Post-Colonial India. I: Industrializing the Economy and Formalizing Labour

Abstract

In post-colonial India labour was given the connotation of work in industry. The labourer as a social figure became linked to the modern economy, a direction in which Indian society was to develop at a rapid rate. The agrarian–rural mode of life and work would soon fade away to be replaced by an industrial-urban order. The close association of labour economics with industrial employment was a logical consequence of this restructuring. The expectation of the transformation that was going to take place makes it understandable why authors of authoritative textbooks on the shape of the working class and the trade union movement were able more or less to ignore the non-industrial way of life of the large majority of the working population.