The Wellbeing of the Labor Force in Bombay: Discourses and practices by Priyanka Srivastava

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Wellbeing of the Labor Force in Bombay: Discourses and practices by Priyanka Srivastava Mrunmayee Satam The Wellbeing of the Labor Force in Bombay: Discourses and practices By Priyanka Srivastava. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. The mid-nineteenth century saw the foundation of the cotton textile industry in Bombay and by the end of the century, the city had emerged as the hub of industrial and commercial trade activities in colonial India. It was the flourishing cotton textile industry which proved to be a major force in the rise of Bombay as the Urbs Prima in Indis.1 Despite the contribution of the industrial working class being crucial to Bombay's growth, the previous existing scholarship on colonial textile labour in Bombay does not really go beyond the political and economic domain—focussing on the trade unions and the relationship of the industry to the city's economic emergence. Therefore, Priyanka Srivastava's book brings in a number of welcome new perspectives, which engage with labour, gender, social, nationalist and urban histories. The book is an upgraded version of the author's doctoral thesis submitted at the University of Cincinnati. The book begins with a brief background to the growth of cotton textile industry and the emergence of an "unhealthy" industrial working class in Bombay. In the second chapter, Srivastava discusses the political economy of the textile industry and its employees. While highlighting the informed ignorance on the part of the colonial state and the industrialists towards the health issues faced by the mill workers, Srivastava argues that the political economy cannot be understood in totality without studying the structural neglect towards the health and wellbeing of the mill hands in the city. Chapter Three focusses on the impact of the bubonic plague of 1896 on the city, with a special focus on the change in the attitudes of the colonial state and the industrialists: the high mortality rates recorded during the epidemic forced the government agencies and the mill owners to reluctantly intervene in matters associated with housing, health, sanitation and working conditions of the industrial working class. The chapter traces the housing and development schemes, such as the City Improvement Trust (CIT) initiated for the mill workers in the first half of the twentieth century. In Chapter Four, the author discusses the emergence of alternate forms of urban governmentalities due to the failure on the part of the government agencies and the industrialists to address issues related to workers' health and sanitation. A number of voluntary organisations, such as Bombay Sanitary Association, Social Service League and the Young Men's Christian Association, were set up by the educated elites in Bombay to "uplift" the "unhygienic" industrial labour force in the city (109–10). After a careful examination of the nature of various social service programmes initiated in the city, Srivastava concludes that the voluntary organisations often reflected "contemporary biases" and "paternalistic tendencies" that existed in the society (110). In the same chapter, the author also includes the impact of mainstream nationalism into the discourses and practices of improvement and social welfare. The author argues that the ideas of social upliftment promoted by nationalist leaders such as M.K. Gandhi and G.K. Gokhale had a strong presence in the various programmes initiated by the non-state agencies. Chapters Five and Six describe the discourses and practices associated with maternal and infant welfare amongst the industrial working class in Bombay. Maternal and infant health became important concerns in the twentieth century because of the need to reproduce a healthy workforce in order to contribute to the growth of the economy. Srivastava argues that this resulted in women being recognised only for their reproductive capabilities and pushed aside other important concerns, such as the wage gap between the two sexes and the need to improve their working conditions. Chapter Six throws light on the process of the medicalization of childbirth in twentieth-century colonial Bombay; there was a considerable expansion of medical facilities such as infant welfare centres, creches, paediatric hospitals and charitable dispensaries. However, the author argues that the "financial conservatism" displayed by the "colonial state and Indian industrialists" resulted in the limited success of the policy (228). The...