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Coal and Colonialism: Production Relations in an Indian Coalfield, c. 1895–1947*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2009

Dilip Simeon
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The year 1995 marked the centenary of the exploitation of a 400 squarekilometre tract in the Indian province of Bihar known as the Jharia coalfield. From 1895, when rail lines entered the region, until the end of the World War I, coal output in India increased tenfold and the size of the mines' workforce fivefold. By 1907 Jharia was yielding half of India's output. One of its oldest mines was Khas Jharia, which worked a 260-feet deep source. Thirty-four years after it opened, its surface had merged with the outskirts of Jharia township and restrictions were imposed on the dimensions of its galleries. Despite these, Khas Jharia's pillars collapsed on 8 November 1930 causing an 18-feet deep subsidence and widespread destruction. This incident was the proximate cause of an underground fire which rages to this day.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 41 , supplement S4: “Peripheral” Labour? Studies in the History of Partial Proletarianization , December 1996 , pp. 83 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1996

References

1 ARCIM (1930), p. 34.

2 Searchlight, 13 January 1933: “Fire in Jharia Collieries – An Alarming Situation – Danger to Jharia Town”, Report, 9 January 1933.

3 TSA. See the article “Fire at Jharia”, TISCO Review (March 1934), p. 145.

4 Singh, Mukutdhari, Bhuli Bisri Kariyan (Patna, 1978), vol. 2, p. 17Google Scholar.

5 Searchlight, 24 January 1936.

6 Marx, Karl, Capital (London, 1976), vol. 1, p. 275Google Scholar.

7 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo, “Seven Fallacies About Latin America”, in Petras, J. and Zeitlin, M. (ed.), Latin America: Reform or Revolution? (New York, 1968), p. 17Google Scholar.

8 This term enables us to develop a fresh approach towards the issue of the “colonial mode of production”. In Lipietz's use of the twin concept of the “regime of accumulation and the mode of regulation”, the “regime” is defined as “the stabilization […] of the allocation of the net product between consumption and accumulation”, a process which “implies some correspondence between the transformation of both the conditions of production and the conditions of the reproduction of wage-earners […] (and) some form of linkage between capitalism and other modes of production”. He defines the “mode of regulation” as the “materialization” of such regimes, “taking the form of norms, habits, laws, regulating networks […] that ensure the unity of the process, i.e. the approximate consistency of individual behaviours with the schema of reproduction”. The “mode” is seen as a “body of interiorized rules and social processes”: see Lipietz, Alain, “New Tendencies in the International Division of Labour: Regimes of Accumulation and Modes of Regulation”, in Scott, A.J. and Storper, M. (eds). Production. Work, Territory: The Geographical Anatomy of Industrial Capitalism (Boston, 1986)Google Scholar.

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10 In “The Pattern of Railway Development in India”, Thorner, Daniel stressed that the great railway networks were built in order to intermesh the economies of Britain and India: The Far Eastern Quarterly, 14 (2) (1955), pp. 201CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 203. In Investment in Empire: British Railway and Steam Shipping Enterprise in India 1825–1849 (Philadelphia, 1950), p. 23, Thorner noted: “the East Indian Railway […] began as little more than an extension of the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company […] The struggle for governmental aid to steam shipping was, in many respects, simply a dress rehearsal of the later and greater campaign for the introduction of railways into India.”

11 Thorner, “Railway Development”, pp. 204–209; and J.M. Hurd, in CEHI, p. 742. “Defence needs and fear of Russia thus eventually triumphed over economy and financial considerations”, wrote Macpherson, W. J., in “Investment in Indian Railways”, Economic History Review, 8 (2) (1955), p. 186Google Scholar. “The Government wanted railways for social, economic and perhaps mainly military reasons.”

12 CMC, pp. 9–10. Bihar was part of the province of Bengal until 1912.

13 See Rungta, Business Corporations, ch. 1; Basu, S. K., The Managing Agency System in Prospect and Retrospect (Calcutta, 1958)Google Scholar, ch. 1; and Ray, Rajat (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Industry in India (Delhi, 1994) pp. 19–24Google Scholar, 30.

14 B. Kling, “The Origins of the Managing Agency System”, in Ray, Entrepreneurship. See also Kling, Partner in Empire, chs 5 and 6. Tagore's first mine was abandoned to an underground fire caused by de-pillaring and spontaneous combustion: p. 96.

15 Papendieck, Henner, “British Managing Agencies in the Indian Coalfield”, in Rothermund, D. and Wadhwa, D. C., Zamindars, Mines, and Peasants (New Delhi, 1978), p. 184Google Scholar. From 1890 till 1918, Indian coal production increased tenfold, capital invested in coal twelvefold, and the size of the workforce fivefold (p. 175). Also see Bagchi, A. K., Private Investment in India (Delhi, 1972), pp. 163–164Google Scholar, 176–179; and Ray, Entrepreneurship, pp. 30–36, 47.

16 Bagchi, Private Investment, p. 176. They were Andrew Yule, Bird, Shaw Wallace, Williamson Magor, Octavius Steel, Begg Dunlop and Duncan Bros.

17 Ghosh, A. B., Coal Industry in India (Delhi, 1978), pp. 278–280Google Scholar.

18 Buchanan, D. H., The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India (New York, 1934), pp. 166–171Google Scholar; and CMC, p. 28. In certain areas in Jharia, more pits were sunk and more machinery installed than necessary. “Sometime this was due to the fact that although the coal was near the surface, the advisors had interest in the sale of mining equipment”: Buchanan, Development of Capitalistic Enterprise, p. 261.

19 Papendieck, “British Managing Agencies”, pp. 190–192. There were marked and arbitrary differences between coal prices quoted for independent and associated buyers, pp. 204–212.

20 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, p. 242; and Seth, B.R., Labour in the Indian Coal Industry (Bombay, 1940), p. 8Google Scholar. The 1946 report estimated railway consumption at 6.3 m. tons in 1920, 7.0 in 1928, and 7.4 in 1935: ICC, p. 298.

21 Hurd, CEHI, p. 752. See also CEHI, pp. 752–758; and Thorner, “Railway Development”, p. 208.

22 The agents claimed that coal contributed more to tonnage hauled than to profits earned. Given its freight structure, the EIR was making a concession to coal. See CMC, pp. 91–92.

23 Hurd, CEHI, pp. 752–758. The EIR's share of track in 1897 was 9 per cent, but it garnered 23 per cent of total railway earnings. The popularity of foreign coal was also due to unreliable grading of Indian coal. In 1925 a Grading Board began standardizing grades exported from Calcutta: CMC, pp. 73–77. The “raw” nature of Indian exports generated a surplus of cargo space on return voyages from Britain, which carried less bulky manufactured goods. This was made available for British coal, and helped lower transport costs. See Vakil, C.N. and Muranjan, S.K., Currency and Prices in India (Bombay, 1927). pp. 234–236Google Scholar.

24 Simmons, C.P., “Indigenous Enterprise in the Indian Coal Mining Industry, c. 1835–1939”, Indian Economic and Social History Review [hereafter IESHR], 13 (2) (1976), p. 204CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 In an address to the IMF in 1929, A.L. Ojha spoke of “a merger and combination of isolated small undertakings”, and suggested an Indian version of the German Federal Economic Council, “for a better adjustment of our […] rapidly changing economic life”: Searchlight, 3 March 1929; and Simmons, “Indigenous Enterprise”, pp. 200–215.

26 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, p. 242.

27 ICC, p. 116.

28 Washbrook, David, “South Asia, The World System, and World Capitalism”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 49 (3) (1990), p. 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also see J. Gallagher and R. Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade”, in idem, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1982).

29 COl, 1921, vol. 7, part 1, ch. 12; BLEC, vol. 1, p. 17, and vol. 4, part C, p. 199. Managements may have deflated the figures out of a desire to renege on housing responsibilities.

30 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 3, 4. Contiguity implied Bengal as well, although in this case it refers mainly to Hazaribagh and Santhal Parganas.

31 COl, 1921, vol. 7, part 1, p. 106.

32 BLEC, vol. 3 C, p. 204.

33 These adjectival terms and phrases are used in Subsidiary Table 12, in COl, 1921, vol. 7(1), ch. 12, which is the source for the following data. The proportions are based on the number (73,241) of “actual workers”. Bauris were considered a semi-aboriginal caste in Manbhum and an untouchable caste in Bengal and Orissa. Kurmis were an “aboriginal” tribe in Chotanagpur, but an intermediate peasant caste in Gangetic Bihar.

34 BLEC. vol. 2 A-B, pp. 307–311.

35 Searchlight, 27 March 1936. Prof. S.R. Bose's lecture on Jharia in Patna College.

36 Deshpande, p. 21.

37 RCL, Report, p. 127; Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 153 and 140–141; and Mukerjee, Radhakamal, The Indian Working Class (Bombay, 1951), p. 82Google Scholar.

38 Deshpande, pp. 18–19.

39 Mohapatra, P.P., “Coolies and Colliers: A Study of the Agrarian Context of Labour Migration from Chota Nagpur, 1880–1920”, Studies in History, 1 (2) (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 See Washbrook, D.A., “Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and Social History c. 1720–1860”, Modern Asian Studies, 22 (1) (1988), p. 87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Deshpande, pp. 33–35; and BLEC, vol. 1, pp. 188–190.

42 From the evidence of W.C. Bannerjee, representing the Indian Mining Association, in Rees, p. 62. Also see Rees, pp. 78, 88; Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 45; and RCL, vol. 4(1), p. 221.

43 See D.C. Wadhwa, “Zamindaris at Work (1793–1956)” and idem, “Zamindars and their Land”, in Rothermund and Wadhwa, Zamindars, Mines, and Peasants, pp. 86–92 and 93–130.

44 Foley, p. 3; Rees, p. 101; CMC, pp. 31, 69–71; and ICC, pp. 134, 273–274.

45 Simmons, C.P., “Recruiting and Organising”, IESHR, 13 (4) (1976), pp. 465, 471–481Google Scholar; RCL, vols 4(1), p. 221, and 4(2), p. 143.

46 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 16–17.

47 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 182, 207, 212. Also see Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 56. The 1946 enquiry put the percentage of “permanently settled labour” in Jharia at “25 to 45”. The broad range of these figures highlights the difficulty of determining the size of the stable segment.

48 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, p. 212.

49 TMGL, vol. 27(2) (1933), pp. 96, 107.

50 Deshpande, pp. 32, 88.

51 BLEC, vol. 1, p. 195.

52 Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 164, 168, 176–178.

53 Ibid., p. 172.

54 See Ghosh, Ranjan Kumar, “A Study of the Labour Movement in Jharia Coalfield 1900–1977” (unpublished thesis, Calcutta University, 1992)Google Scholar, chs 1.15 and 1.14.

55 BLEC, vol. 2 A-B, p. 331. Nearly 60 per cent of the tribal and 72 per cent of Oriya (also mostly tribal) women present worked in the collieries. The statistics should be taken as indicators – the Family Budget Enquiry questioned 1,030 families.

56 BLEC, vol. 2 A-B, pp. 353–357; Mukerjee, Indian Working Class, pp. 223–229. The Bengal jute worker consumed 2,752 calories, while the Bengal jail diet yielded 3,508 calories.

57 BLEC, vol. 2 A-B. pp. 319–320, 68.6 per cent of the Lohars and Barhis, 59 per cent of the upper castes such as Brahmins, Rajputs, Kayasthas and Chhatris, and 43 per cent of the Muslims were literate. Literacy rates were the lowest among the tribals and lower castes.

58 ARCIM (1929), quoted in Read, Margaret, Indian Peasant Uprooted (London, 1931), p. 127Google Scholar.

59 Searchlight, 27 March 1936, Prof. Bose's lecture. The BLEC reported peons and shopkeepers arranging with mines clerks to collect usurious dues at source, BLEC, vol. 1, p. 160; Also see vol. 2 A-B, pp. 344–352, 370, 442–443; and vol. 3 C, p. 229.

60 RCL, vol. 4, part 2, pp. 111, 134, 138 and 150.

61 Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 190 and 198.

62 See Ghosh, “A Study of the Labour Movement”, pp. 76–77.

63 Deshpande, p. 86.

64 See Charles van Onselen, “Randlords and Rotgut” in idem.Studies in the Social and Economic History of the Witwatersrand 1886–1914, vol. 1 (Johannesburg, 1982).

65 There had been a 56 per cent decline in excise revenue between 1923 and 1932. With the new system, revenues increased and liquor consumption rose from 30,924 gallons in 1931 to 376,000 gallons in 1933: Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 243–245.

66 Read, in Indian Peasant Uprooted, pp. 119–120. The RCL also provided figures to illustrate “the extent of the present evil”.

67 BLEC, vol. 1, pp. 196–197.

68 Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 244, 248, 251.

69 BLEC, vol. 1, p. 196; and vol. 2 A-B, p. 366. Muslim families consumed little liquor, but showed the highest expenditure on tobacco. Manjhis, Dusadhs and Bauris were reported to be “the most regular drunkards”. Mukutdhari Singh asserted that one-fourth of miners' incomes was spent on liquor: BLEC, vol. 4 C, p. 271. The RCL estimated expenses of a million rupees on drink and drugs in the Dhanbad colliery area in 1928: RCL, Report, p. 121. Lower prices led to 1.2 million rupees being spent on liquor in 1934: J.E. Copeland, Enquiry into the Outstill System in Bihar and Orissa, quoted in Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 244. Till 1940 there was little evidence that prohibition, introduced in 1939, and which lasted a year, had curbed drunkenness or illicit distillation: ibid., p. 251.

70 Communication from Saise, Walter, Manager, E.I.R. Colliery, Giridih, , in Report of the Inspector of Mines in India for the Year Ending the 30th June 1894 (Calcutta, 1894), pp. 51–53Google Scholar.

71 Agabeg, E.C., “Labour in Bengal Coal Industry”, TMGI, 8 (1915), pp. 25, 27, 29, 33, 35–38Google Scholar.

72 Evidence of D.N. Das, General Manager of Bannerjee & Co., in Rees, p. 78.

73 Evans, J.H., “Housing of Labour and Sanitation at Mines in India” TMGI, 12 (1918), pp. 79–89Google Scholar, with attached plates.

74 Communication from Saise, Walter in Report of the Inspector of Mines in India (1894), pp. 51–53Google Scholar.

75 CMC, pp. 12–20, 35–49.

76 Buchanan, The Development of Capitalistic Enterprise in India, p. 260.

77 Ghosh, Coal Industry, pp. 148, 152–154; Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 30; Deshpande, pp. 41–45; Gupta, R. Das, Labour and Working Class in Eastern India (Calcutta, 1994), p. 194Google Scholar; and Read, Indian Peasant Uprooted, p. 123. The lack of stretchers could aggravate bone injuries. The problem was made worse by the absence of pit telephones.

78 Deshpande, pp. 43–44; Appendix IX.

79 COI, 1921, vol. 7, part 1, p. 272.

80 RCL, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 58–59, 206 and 216. The standard tub size was 30 cubic feet, but collieries used sizes from 27 to 40 cubic feet. Thirteen hundredweight of coal was the standard load, but this varied, giving clerks scope for under-assessment: Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 116–117; BLEC, vol. 4 C, pp. 253–255. The RCL recommended weighment and tub-uniformity (Report, p. 123), but in 1939 none of the managements was using weighing machines. For their part, the miners resisted innovations such as double-headed picks and tin lamps, and thought of weighing machines “as an invention of the evil one”: Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 9.

81 Ibid., chs 5 and 7; pp. 79, 112; RCL, Report, p. 121; and BLEC, vol. 4 C, p. 246.

82 Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 61–67. The RCL singled out the railways' collieries in Giridih for unhealthy working conditions: RCL, Report, pp. 115, 134.

83 Even when the raising contractor system began to decline, in the mid-1930s, recruiting and gang sirdars remained, along with the piece-rates.

84 RCL, Report, p. 122; and “Memorandum submitted by the Indian Mining Association in connection with the recommendations of the RCL in India”: File M–1265 (14), 1933, Dept of Industries & Labour, NAI, The Memorandum continued: “The Indian coal miner is, generally speaking, an aborigene, whose ethical concepts – or want thereof – would not give him understanding to the need of an honest effort in return for a provided wage”.

85 Comment dated 20 May 1932 by the Chief Inspector of Mines in File M–1265(14), 1933, Dept of I&L, NAI; and Order by A.G. Clow, dated 1 November 1933, in File M–1265 (14), 1933, Dept of I&L, NAI. On 17 August 1933, the new Inspector admitted that wages could be “deplorably low”, but opined that statutory raises would lead to closures, and an increase in unemployment – a strange argument, given the notoriously unstable patterns of employment.

86 ICC, p. 268.

87 TMGI, 11 (1917), pp. 130–131; Foley, p. 13; Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, p. 15.

88 “Discussion on Glen George's Paper on Development of Deep Coal Mining in Bengal”, in TMGI, 11 (1917), pp. 115, 120, 130–132.

89 Deshpande, pp. 109, 60.

90 See Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 150, 146–165; and J. Thomas's remarks in the discussion of Simpson's, R.R. paper, “The Social Conditions of Miners in India”, in TMGl, 27 (2) (1933), p. 124Google Scholar.

91 Searchlight, 27 March 1936. Prof. Bose's lecture.

92 RCL, Report, p. 119.

93 Simpson, , “The Social Conditions of Miners” and discussion, TMGI, 27 (2) (1933), pp. 89–139Google Scholar.

94 In their evidences before the RCL, owners often argued that miners were content with the earnings of a short week and that better wages would exacerbate drinking and indebtedness: “the wages of miners are controlled by the miners themselves […] when wages were increased […] (they) […] put in less work”. See RCL, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 217, 247, 233, 254–255. The Indian Mine Managers Association, however, stated: “wageś paid have no relation to the profits earned”, and that improved conditions would increase output. Also see BLEC, vol. 4 C, p. 273; and vol. 3 B, book 3, p. 59.

95 Simpson, , “The Social Conditions of Miners”, TMGl, 27 (2) (1933), p. 138Google Scholar.

96 RCL, vols 4(2), p. 179; and 4(1), p. 234; Mukerjee, Indian Working Class, p. 26; Seth, Labour in the Indian Coal Industry, pp. 53–56.

97 BLEC, vol. 3 B, book 3, pp. 246, 250 and 282.

98 Miner Sakaram, speaking for himself, Kamrai and Jarimiyan, to the RCL, on 25 January 1930: RCL, vol. 4, part 2, p. 170.

99 The summer of 1932 saw some 4,000 miners of Tata's colliery in Jamadoba strike against cuts in wage-rates. For more information about these movements see Simeon, D., The Politics of Labour Under Late Colonialism: Workers, Trade Unions and the State in Chota Nagpur, 1928–1939 (New Delhi, 1995)Google Scholar, ch. 4.5, and ch. 6, section 2.

100 TMGI, 27(2) (1933), pp. 122–126.

101 Referring to migrations to Bombay in the mid-nineteenth century, Jan Breman remarks that the phenomenon “was probably more a result of the seasonality of the urban economy than of the rural”. In Jharia, however, the characteristics of the workforce and the industry complemented each other. Despite their complaints about the irregularity of labour, the “instability” of the workforce suited the capitalists, even though their interests varied with the scale and location of the operation, the degree of mechanization, and the radius of recruitment: Breman, , Labour Migration and Rural Transformation in Colonial Asia (Amsterdam, 1990), p. 9Google Scholar.

102 Thompson, E.P., “Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism”, in idem. Customs in Common (London, 1991), p. 370Google Scholar.

103 Ghosh, Coal Industry, pp. 63–67; CMC, p. 26; ICC, pp. 20–21, 118.

104 CMC, pp. 27, 35–41.

105 Simpson, R.R., “The Future of the Jharia Coalfield”; and “Discussion on Mr Simpson's Paper”, in TMGI, 24 (1930). pp. 110–114, 114–146 and 226–257Google Scholar.

106 J.E. Phelps's comments on Simpson's paper, in ibid., p. 140.

107 File M 76 (19), 1931, Dept of I&L, NAI. Letter from J. Dholakia, Association President, dated 19 September 1930.

108 File M 76 (19), 1931, Dept of I&L, NAI. Notes dated 23 January 1931 and 7 March 1931.

109 File M 76 (19), 1931, Dept of I&L, NAI. Comments by the Chief Inspector of Mines, dated 1 April 1931, and by (signature illegible), dated 10 October 1931.

110 See Ghosh, Coal Industry, p. 162. These figures are for mines all over India.

111 ARCIM (1936), p. 23.

112 Rothermund, D., “Problems of India's Arrested Economic Development Under British Rule”, in Dewey, Clive (ed.), Arrested Development in India: The Historical Dimension (New Delhi, 1988), p. 8Google Scholar. From 1930 onwards, in an effort to widen the market for inferior grade coals, the Indian Soft Coke Cess Committee began refuting the prejudice against food cooked on soft coke. Citing the Bengal Smoke Nuisance Commission and the Ahmedabad Committee on Smoke Nuisance it propagandized against dung cakes and wood by highlighting their polluting effects in urban areas (ICC, pp. 47–48).

113 Foley, pp. 5–6.

114 CMC, pp. 96, 102.

115 For miners' movements in the 1920s and 1930s, see Ghosh, “A Study of the Labour Movement”, and chs 4.5, 6 section 2, 8.8, 8.11 and 9.11 of my Politics of Labour.

116 Searchlight, 5, 9, 13 and 20 December 1939; Mukerjee, Indian Working Class, p. 26; and ICC, pp. 251–253.

117 See Prasad, B.M., Second World War and Indian Industry 1939–45 (Delhi, 1992), pp. 71–74, 257–259Google Scholar; Kumaramangalam, M., Coal Industry in India: Nationalisation and Tasks Ahead (New Delhi, 1973), pp. 47, 72–73Google Scholar; Simmons, “Recruiting and Organising”, p. 457; Deshpande, pp. 55–56; Raj, Hans, Executive Legislation in Colonial India 1939–1947 (Delhi, 1989), pp. 40, 94–96, 121Google Scholar; and ICC, pp. 20–21. For the text of the GOI's Labour Recruitment Control Order of 1944, see Deshpande, Appendix VII.

118 Coal distillation yielded coke, tar, naphthalene, combustible fuels, benzene and toulene, an ingredient of TNT. Yet in 1945, only 18.25 per cent of the coal consumed was being processed into coke, gas, tar, ammonia and light oils – the remainder being burnt as fuel. The production of road tar in India was a bare 50,000 tons per annum (ICC, pp. 227–231).

119 ICC, p. 20.

120 BLEC, vol. 1, pp. 205–206.

121 Indiān Express, 28 and 29 September 1995; and The Hindustan Times, 1 October 1995.

122 The Times of India, 28 January 1994.