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Paternalism in Indian Labor: The Tata Iron and Steel Company of Jamshedpur

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Blair B. Kling
Blair B. Kling
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

The most celebrated case of paternalism in India is that of the Tata Iron and Steel Company (Tisco) and its company town, Jamshedpur. In the context of India, Jamshedpur is a marvel: a relatively clean, spacious, and prosperous city where more people live in middle-class neighborhoods than in slums. With a population of 650,000, Jamshedpur is certainly the largest company town in the world, and, because it is still controlled and administered by the private company that founded it in 1909, it is probably the oldest extant company town. Aside from the town, the steel company itself holds a special place in Indian industrial history. It was founded and capitalized in the colonial period by the Indian business community of Bombay in 1907, began production in 1911, and thereafter took its place as the largest private company in India and the largest integrated steel mill in the British Empire. It has survived revolutionary political changes, near-bankruptcy, and nationalization attempts, largely because its directors convinced the British that it was an essential defense industry and the Indian nationalists that it was a national treasure run by men of integrity for the benefit of the nation.

Type
Patronage, Paternalism, and Company Welfare
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 53 , Spring 1998 , pp. 69 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 1998

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References

NOTES

1. UNESCO Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia, Social Aspects of Small Industries in India (New Delhi, 1962).Google ScholarHolmstrom, Mark, in Industry and Inequality: The Social Anthropology of Indian Labour (London, 1984), 20–21, cites the Report of the National Commission on Labour of 1969, which indicates that there is a great deal of exploitation in the small family firm where relations are on personal lines and workers are expected to do odd jobs at any time.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Heuze, Gerard, “Paternalisme ou filialisme? Sur quelques aspects des relations sociales dans le monde du travail indien depuis le début du siècle”, Le Mouvement Social 144 (1988): 93–109. Heuze comes to similar conclusions about the general lack of paternalism in Indian industry. He cites industrialists Lala Sri Ram, Wallchand Hirachand, Ardeshir Burjorji Godrej, and the Tatas as exeptions. These are the historical examples, but because of the recent expansion of industry in India it is possible that new names could be added.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See Chakrabarty, Dipesh, Rethinking Working-Class History, (Princeton, 1989), 109–15 on the sardar in the jute industry from 1890 to 1940.Google Scholar

4. Roland, Alan, In Search of Self in India and Japan (Princeton, 1988), 26, 228.Google Scholar

5. The lack of competitive individualism should not be confused with a lack of individuation or individuality in India, both of which are very highly developed. Ibid.

6. Ackers, Peter and Black, John, “Paternalist Capitalism: An Organization Culture in Transition”, in Work and the Enterprise Culture, ed. Cross, Malcolm and Payne, Geoff (London, 1991), 37.Google Scholar

7. Tata Sons, Ltd., was the managing agent of the entire group of Tata companies until the abolition of the managing agency system in 1970. Thereafter, the now eighty or more companies have remained associated through interlocking directorates and the moral leadership of the chairman.Google Scholar

8. Chandra, Bipin, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India: Economic Policies of Indian National Leadership, 1880–1905 (New Delhi, 1966).Google Scholar

9. Harris, Frank R., Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, A Chronicle of His Life (Bombay, 1958), 1–46, 196–218.Google Scholar

10. Lala, Russi M., The Creation of Wealth (Bombay, 1981), x.Google Scholar

11. For a collection of such speeches see Sabavala, S. A. and Lala, Russi M., eds., Keynote: J. R. D. Tata (Bombay, 1986).Google Scholar

12. For a description of welfare capitalism in America see Zahavi, Gerald, Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism: The Shoeworkers and Tanners of Endicott Johnson, 1890–1950 (Urbana, 1988).Google ScholarDore, Ronald, in British Factory, Japanese Factory (Berkeley, 1973), specifies the difference between paternalism and welfare capitalism at the Hitachi company in Japan. In searching for a phrase to describe this structured, contractual paternalism he suggests “welfare corporatism” (269–75).Google Scholar

13. Lala, The Creation of Wealth, 207.Google Scholar

14. Historical views can be found in the selections from the voluminous Tisco Files on Labour Relations, op. cit., and in the monographs by Simeon, Dilip, The Politics of Labour under Late Colonialism (Delhi, 1995);Google ScholarBahl, Vinay, The Making of the Indian Working Class: The Case of the Tata Iron and Steel Co., 1880–1946 (New Delhi, 1995);Google ScholarSen, Sunil Kumar, The House of Tata (Calcutta, 1975);Google Scholarand Datta, Satya Brata, Capital Accumulation and Workers' Struggle in Indian Industrialisation: The Case of Tata Iron and Steel Company 1910–1970 (Stockholm, 1986).Google Scholar

15. Datta, Capital Accumulation and Workers' Struggle, 251–55.Google Scholar

16. Reports of local British district officers are located in the files relating to “Industries and Labour” in the Special Political Section, Bihar State Archives, Patna. These were used by Simeon, Dilip, Politics of Labour, and Vinay Bahl, Making of the Indian Working Class. I used excerpts from these files in the microfilmed Tisco Files on Labour Relations located in the Tisco Archives in Jamshedpur: Reel 1, frames 972–88, February 1920, Memo from Scott; frame 897, Memo of conference on strike, May 2, 1920.Google Scholar

17. Tisco Files on Labour Relations, Reel 1, frames 1030–1090. See also Simeon, Politics of Labour, 37.Google Scholar

18. Sabavala and Lala, eds., Keynote: J. R. D. Tata, 94.Google Scholar

19. For a realistic view of contemporary labor-management relations see Mamkoottam, Kuriakose, Trade Unionism: Myth and Reality. Unionism in the Tata Iron and Steel Company (Bombay, 1982).Google Scholar

20. Singh, A. D., ed., Man Management in Tata Steel, (Jamshedpur, 1974), 47;Google ScholarPathak, Shankar Dayal, “Labour Welfare in Tisco”, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Project Report No. 30 (1958).Google Scholar

21. Pathak, “Labour Welfare in Tisco”.Google Scholar

22. Bhattacharjee, Diolapi, “A Study of 65 Cases of Marital Discord (handled by the Employees Service Section of Tisco Jamshedpur)”, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Project Report No. 2 (1958).Google Scholar

23. Interview with Athaide, Vincent R., manager, Community Development and Social Welfare Department, Jamshedpur, August 21, 1984.Google Scholar

24. Interview with Dey, Dhruv, Jamshedpur, August 21, 1984.Google Scholar

25. The Minutes of the Tisco Board of Directors from 1907 to the present are located at the Tisco headquarters in Bombay House, The Fort, Bombay.Google Scholar

26. Tata Files on Labour Relations, Reel 1, frames 185ff.Google Scholar

27. Mann, Harold H., Report on Investigations with Regard to Social Welfare Work at Jamshedpur (Bombay, 1919).Google Scholar

28. Dutta, Maya, Jamshedpur: The Growth of the City and its Regions (Calcutta, 1977).Google Scholar

29. Interviews with Jha, Indra Mohan, journalist, Jamshedpur, November 27, 1992,Google Scholarand Chatterjee, Devi, editor and publisher of Motif, Jamshedpur, 10 22 and November 16, 1992.Google Scholar

30. Singh, Awadhesh Kumar, “A Study of the Public Relations of the TISCO Ltd in the Jamshedpur Community”, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur, Project Report No. 12 (1956); Tisco Review, May 1942, 367. During the Gandhi-led “Quit India” movement of 1942 the company found itself in a dilemma. On the one hand it was committed to supporting the British war effort and genuinely afraid of a Japanese invasion of eastern India. On the other, it had always sought favors as a “national” enterprise, and as such received the support of the Indian National Congress. Mahatma Gandhi had come to Jamshedpur in 1924 to ask the workers to call off their strike on the basis that Tisco was a patriotic national enterprise. In 1942, M. D. Madan, a maverick among the officials as Tisco, took issue with the Tisco management and led the workers in sabotaging the steel works in support of the “Quit India” movement, in this case violating the Gandhian principle of not leading industrial workers on strike for a political purpose.Google Scholar

31. Chaudhury, Pranab Chandra Roy, Bihar District Gazetters, Singhbhum (Patna, 1958), 306; Singh, , ed., Man Management, 167–70.Google Scholar

32. Misra, Babu Ram, Report on Socio-Economic Survey of Jamshedpur City (Patna, 1959), 41–42.Google Scholar

33. Interview with Pandey, B. N., Jamshedpur, October 22, 1992.Google Scholar

34. Interview with Athaide, Vincent R., manager, Community Development and Social Welfare Department, Jamshedpur, August 21, 1984.Google Scholar

35. Interview with Singh, A. N., manager, Town Services, Jamshedpur, November 18, 1992.Google Scholar

36. The author and his assistants interviewed fifty-four citizens of Jamshedpur between September 21 and December 4, 1992.Google Scholar

37. The Jamshedpur Committee, under chairmanship of W. Maude, was set up by the government of Bihar and Orissa to make recommendations for the future administration of Jamshedpur. Report of the Jamshedpur Committee, April 1919. A copy of this report exists in the National Archives of India.Google Scholar

38. Papers of Frederick Charles Temple, Eur. Mss. D92612, India Office Library, London.Google Scholar

39. Madan, Medioma D., “The Tata Steel Works at Jamshedpur,” in The Duke of Edinburgh's Study Conference on the Human Problems of Industrial Communities within the Commonwealth and Empire, 9–27 July 1956, vol. 2, Background Papers, Appendix and Index (London, 1956), 36–37.Google Scholar