LAWCHA: Labor and Working-Class History Association (@lawcha.bsky.social)

Dr. Sumeet Mhaskar of O.P. Jindal Global University explores the legacy of the 1982-83 Mumbai Textile Strike in a new blog for the International Trade Union History and Memory Network. www.sfu.ca/union-memory...

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The Strike That Never Ended: Memories of the 1982-83 Mumbai Textile Strike and the Resurgence of Labour Politics Over the last two decades, the erstwhile industrial landscape of modern Mumbai has been transformed into glass-fronted corporate offices, luxury residential complexes, and sprawling shopping malls. These dramatic economic and spatial changes, however, have not erased the memories of militant industrial actions, especially the one that took place between 1982 and 1983. Nearly a quarter of a million textile workers staged one of the longest and most significant strikes in the world that lasted for eighteen months. During the strike, mill workers fought in a united and militant manner against the power of capital and the state. The unified industrial action was brutally suppressed, leading to over 91,000 dismissals. Although the strike ended in defeat, the memories of the militant strike continue to motivate the mobilisation of ex-millworkers across post-industrial Mumbai. The identity of the mill workers as ladhavayya kamgar (fighter/warrior worker) and the recollection of memories of the 1982-83 strike is central to the present struggle of ex-millworkers for housing, compensation, and alternative livelihoods after the factories had closed. https://www.sfu.ca/union-memory/blog/blog5.html