Shubhangi Khapre: Don’t make Mumbai mill workers scapegoats

The sprawling mills in the heart of Mumbai have morphed into multi-storeyed malls, and mill workers, clad in cotton outfits holding a three-tier tiffin box in one hand and a local Marathi daily in the other walking briskly to the mills, have given way to upper-middle class youths pacing down air-conditioned lobbies to check out new designer wear in apparel shops.

The well-oiled economic wheels of the financial capital have altered the city’s landscape. Yet, hidden in the narrow by-lanes in tiny rented settlements, dwarfed by the rising towers, thousands of mill workers wait anxiously to fulfill their dream of owning a home in the heart of Mumbai.

They are yet to come to grips over how the then-downmarket Parel-Lalbaug area, the centre of their universe, has suddenly become the most sought-after destination for the rich and famous.

Last Thursday, as 50,000 mill workers walked down the Byculla-Azad Maidan stretch to demand their right for a house in city, it displayed their never-dying spirit.

The scars of the 28-year-old textile strike that had ruined the prospects of an entire generation and drove youths to crime seemed to have faded.

Elderly mill workers, who had migrated to Kolhapur and Konkan for survival, returned to the city determined to fight the government, as Shiv Sena’s clarion call to fight for their housing rights re-kindled their hopes.

Support for the mill workers’ demand started echoing from various quarters, thus consolidating the opposition.

Sensing the momentum gain, Congress and NCP ministers were alarmed.

The ruling combine has now started drawing strategies to wean away workers’ support from the opposition.
The issue took centre stage in the monsoon session as members across party lines debated the long-pending housing rights of mill workers. Though the Congress and NCP reemphasised their commitment to the cause of mill workers, the moot question is how will the government resolve the housing problem? Will it pacify mill workers by doling out cash?
The question that needs to be revisited is why have the political parties suddenly taken up the mill workers’ cause ahead of the 2012 civic body elections. Are the mill workers going to become pawns in the hands of politicians? Will politics once again override the human suffering ingrained in the struggle of every mill worker?
These apprehensions come to the fore as one can see that the government cannot accommodate 1.5 lakh mill workers in Parel-Lalbaug. Even if the government cracks the whip against mill owners and acquires one-third of their land for housing, it cannot provide homes to more than 20,000 workers. If the state tries to relocate them, it will have to face new challenges. Some ruling MLAs are ready with petition on why workers who have been thrown out of factories in Thane and Mumbai’s suburbs are being ignored by the government. The political acrimony with each trying to get ahead of the other threatens to relegate the cause to the back burner again.
Instead of finding a way forward, the stage is set for the ruling combine to question the timing of Sena’s agitation. In retaliation, leaders of Sena, BJP, RPI, and MNS are mincing no words to provoke the workers against the government. As politics of sons of soils becomes a electoral plank, one only hopes mill workers are not made sacrificial lambs once again.