Trouble at the Mill
Factory Law and the Emergence of the Labour Question in Late Nineteenth-Century Bombay
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ISBN:
9780199474424
Publication date:
22/01/2018
Hardback
372 pages
Price: 1195.00 INR
We sell our titles through other companies
Disclaimer :You will be redirected to a third party website.The sole responsibility of supplies, condition of the product, availability of stock, date of delivery, mode of payment will be as promised by the said third party only. Prices and specifications may vary from the OUP India site.
ISBN:
9780199474424
Publication date:
22/01/2018
Hardback
372 pages
Aditya Sarkar
The book uses the Factory Acts of the late nineteenth century as an entry point into the early history of labour relations in India, specifically the mill industry of Bombay. It unites legal and social history in a manner which differs from most social histories of labour, and offers a new perspective on the constitution of industrial relations in colonial India.
Rights: World Rights
Aditya Sarkar
Description
The colonial administration passed a Factory Act in 1881, producing the first official definition of ‘factory’ in modern Indian history—as a workplace using steam power and regularly employing over 100 workers. In 1891, the Act was amended: factories were redefined as workplaces employing over 50 workers; the upper age limit of legal ‘protection’ was raised; weekly holidays were established; and women
mill-workers were brought within its ambit.
Sarkar analyses the two versions of the Act and reveals the tensions inherent within the project of protective labour regulation. Combining legal and social history, he identifies an emergent ‘factory question’. The cotton mill industry of Bombay, long considered as one of the birthplaces of modern Indian capitalism, is the principal focal point of his investigation.
Factory law, though experienced as a minor official initiative, connected with some of the most potent ideological debates of the age. Trouble at the Mill explores a shifting set of themes and raises questions rarely thematized by labour historians—the ideologies of factory reform, the politics of factory commissions, the routines of factory inspection, and the earliest waves of strike action in the cotton textile industry in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
About the author
Aditya Sarkar
teaches history at the University of Warwick, UK. His current research interests include the long history of labour movements in colonial and post-colonial India, and the history of the Indian left.
Aditya Sarkar
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I THE BIRTH OF FACTORY REGULATION
1. Imperial Entanglements
2. The Emergence of Factory Law: Bombay, 1874–81
PART II THE LIFE OF A LAW
3. The Work of Law: Factory Inspection in Bombay, 1881–7
4. Law, Age, and the Factory Child
PART III FACTORY LAW AND INDUSTRIAL POLITICS
5. The Antinomies of Industrial Relations, 1884–95
6. Snapping the Tie: Chronicles of the Plague Years, 1896–8
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Aditya Sarkar
Aditya Sarkar
Description
The colonial administration passed a Factory Act in 1881, producing the first official definition of ‘factory’ in modern Indian history—as a workplace using steam power and regularly employing over 100 workers. In 1891, the Act was amended: factories were redefined as workplaces employing over 50 workers; the upper age limit of legal ‘protection’ was raised; weekly holidays were established; and women
mill-workers were brought within its ambit.
Sarkar analyses the two versions of the Act and reveals the tensions inherent within the project of protective labour regulation. Combining legal and social history, he identifies an emergent ‘factory question’. The cotton mill industry of Bombay, long considered as one of the birthplaces of modern Indian capitalism, is the principal focal point of his investigation.
Factory law, though experienced as a minor official initiative, connected with some of the most potent ideological debates of the age. Trouble at the Mill explores a shifting set of themes and raises questions rarely thematized by labour historians—the ideologies of factory reform, the politics of factory commissions, the routines of factory inspection, and the earliest waves of strike action in the cotton textile industry in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
About the author
Aditya Sarkar
teaches history at the University of Warwick, UK. His current research interests include the long history of labour movements in colonial and post-colonial India, and the history of the Indian left.
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
PART I THE BIRTH OF FACTORY REGULATION
1. Imperial Entanglements
2. The Emergence of Factory Law: Bombay, 1874–81
PART II THE LIFE OF A LAW
3. The Work of Law: Factory Inspection in Bombay, 1881–7
4. Law, Age, and the Factory Child
PART III FACTORY LAW AND INDUSTRIAL POLITICS
5. The Antinomies of Industrial Relations, 1884–95
6. Snapping the Tie: Chronicles of the Plague Years, 1896–8
Conclusion
Select Bibliography
Index
About the Author
