Report of the Founding Meeting of the Indian Labour History Association

Abstract

A decision to found an association of scholars of Indian history was taken at the Amsterdam workshop on South Asian labour history in Octo ber 1995. The concept was founded on the substantial amount of work done or in progress, combined with the perception that coordinated effort would highlight the significance to the social sciences of history and enhance our scholarly activity. The founding meeting of this body was held in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University campus in New Delhi on December 15-16,1996. Fifteen persons participated in the discussions, which covered thematic and organizational issues. Professor Sabyasachi Bhattacharya of the Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, chaired the first day's proceedings and Dr Vijay Prashad of Trinity College, Con necticut, United States, chaired the discussions on the second day. After a brief review of the subject matter of the previous conference, the meeting considered the possibilities of cooperative work in the field and the bound aries of the proposed association's interests. The chairperson reminded the gathering that it represented the culmination of some two decades of schol arship in the field. The point was raised however, that focused work was lacking, and interest in the subject?indeed, in the discipline of history itself?was at an ebb. Professor Bhattacharya said that the loss of the socialist paradigm constituted a partial explanation for this dilemma, but insisted that historical research ought not to be subject to the constraints of prejudged schema. The perspectives attached to the invitation had outlined the concep tual focus of the association as labor in a broad sense and with reference to the activity of social groups subordinated to networks of capital and its colonial allies. It was suggested that a broader conceptual approach might stimulate us to take account of the complex modes of emergence of mod ern industrial work and the difficulties involved in applying cut and dried theoretical models to colonial history. The crystallization of class has been an ambiguous process, and we would be wise not to treat it as a static category. Apart from the study of the industrial workforce, history would be enriched by attention to the lives of artisans, women, and children in households, and peasant migrants to plantations within India and over seas.