Ahmedabad by Achyut Yagnik & Suchitra Sheth

Author:Achyut Yagnik & Suchitra Sheth [Yagnik, Achyut]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788184754735
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2011-12-19T00:00:00+00:00

Working Conditions and Factory Acts

In the early years there were no regulatory mechanisms in the mills and, though working conditions varied, the hours were usually long. Men, women and children worked for thirteen hours and twenty minutes a day; a half-hour break was allowed at midday. They had a weekly holiday on Sunday though this day of rest was often spent in cleaning machinery. Wages in the Ahmedabad mills were lower than in Bombay though mill work paid better than other labour jobs. In 1888 the average wage of mill workers in Ahmedabad was Rs 7–10 a month, as against Rs 5 for common labourers. Workers were paid by the piece, that is, by the volume of production, and not by the time they spent in the mill.

Improvements in working conditions were initiated in Bombay through the efforts of the Parsi reformer Sorabjee Bengalee, who also had a business as the agent of several leading manufacturers of textile machinery. The Lancashire lobby too campaigned for new factory regulations; it was not humanitarianism that motivated them but the fact that Indian mills had an ‘unfairly’ lower cost of production because they paid low rates for long hours of work. The first Factory Commission, constituted in 1875, gathered information about the situation in Bharuch, Surat, Ahmedabad and Bombay. Ahmedabad had barely three mills then and one of them was Bechardas Lashkari’s Bechardas Spinning and Weaving Mill. Bechardas deposed before this commission and his evidence gives us a glimpse of the working conditions in the Ahmedabad mills and the attitudes of millowners about various aspects of the industry and the structure of society.

About women and children working in mills:

The lowest age of children in his Mill is 8 years and upwards … Does not think 8 years too young an age … When asked, what should be the working hours of children, he said they can work the whole day without inconvenience. When asked if he would have them work from sunrise to sunset 13 hours, and what should be the maximum number of their daily working hours, he said 10 to 11 hours. He said he would prefer 10 hours’ work in the cold season and 11 hours in the other season. The children are not busy with their work the whole day; they are often allowed to go out and smoke and for other purposes. They play in the Mills at times, so that it can be seen that there are many intervals of relaxation for them during the working time … He could not say how many hours they actually worked the whole day, but he believed about 9 hours … He thought they could work 9 hours without injury to their health.

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