Chitra Joshi specializes in labor history in India and is known for her book Lost Worlds: Indian Labor and Forgotten Histories. The book focuses on Kanpur and its workers as they went through the processes of industrialization and deindustrialization and ultimately faced the consequences of the decline of industrial plants. In particular, it is important to clearly illuminate the dominant narratives in the context of gendered work, which focus on male industrial workers who developed class consciousness that culminated in revolution.
Joshi focuses on Kanpur becoming a commercially important urban center, which was a large cantonment area until the mid-19th century. The cantonment area used to cover 90% of the country, 690 acres were inhabited by the civilian population and eventually turned into an industrial area. Her “Work and its Historiography” remains significant as it highlights changes in the study of work in a historical context. In the 1970s, social history writings emerged that dealt with social issues and identities for the first time. Labor historians broke away from colonial and sociological narratives and the history of unions. They began to examine workers’ social identities such as caste, class, gender and religion. It follows the same method and understands the different social identities of the workers.
Joshi focuses on Kanpur becoming a commercially important urban center, which was a large cantonment area until the mid-19th century. The cantonment area used to cover 90% of the country, 690 acres were inhabited by the civilian population and eventually turned into an industrial area.
It is important to understand the position of women in the workforce in an industrial area that has transitioned from large-scale industrialization to a decline in employment in large industries, a casualization of the workforce, and a weakening of unions.
Significance of gendered work in Chitra Joshi’s work
The traditional and dominant narratives focus on work as masculine. As mentioned above, there are shifts in labor historiography that stem from the neglect of the importance of social identities such as gender, caste and class to the point of including them in research. Another reason for conventional histories that focus on the male workforce is that female workers are not recorded in official records or their work remains invisible. This may be due to work being viewed as masculine in the eyes of employers and colonial officials. Chitra Joshi mentions that it is a “male ideology” that devalues female work compared to male work, deeming the former less productive. Employers and colonial officials viewed men as more efficient than women. According to her, men could have more energy, while women were considered fragile and had delicate health. Their traditional social association with maternal duties gave employers a reason to restrict them in order to reduce their share in the textile workforce in Kanpur.
Young workers in a booming textile factory in Bombay, 1941-1943. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, USA.)
In the mid-19th century, there were growing concerns about laws that would restrict women’s work hours, leading to labor shortages. These concerns gave rise to a perception of low-caste women who were seen as naturally suited to selling their labor for rigorous work schedules.
Women’s unpaid work as caretakers and housewives was highly valued and not recognized as work. Note that men were included male workersnot women because they were seen as the ones who cared for male workers and raised children to become future workers in a capitalist society.
According to Chitra Joshi, these masculinist ideas were implemented in most states in the late 1930s under the guise of the Maternity Benefit Act. It became even more convenient for factory managers to reduce the number of female workers. However, the decline of women in the textile industry after the 1920s did not lead to their being primarily responsible for managing household activities; When it came to low caste women, they were engaged in domestic work both at home and outside. They worked as bidi makers or brush makers to earn a living.
The emphasis on women sharing multiple social identities such as gender, caste, and class went unnoticed in the milling and colonial records because they were by and large not considered workers. The male breadwinner model was adopted to claim that male workers were destined for full-time work at low wages and women were destined for domestic work to care for these workers without pay.
This does not mean that women were ignored as workers in the past. In the current phase Women fight to be represented in unionswhich are heavily male-dominated. These unions do not support their demands such as better wages and the right to breaks. The main problem lies in their reluctance to consider them as employees.
It is very important to identify gendered work in research to make a connection between the past and the present. In this way, Chitra Joshi challenges the traditional narratives that focus on workers without their identities.
Historical economic transitions and the experiences of industrial workers
In British India, large-scale industrialization occurred in Kanpur, resulting in numerous low-wage male workers in the factories. This led to a decline in the labor force of women living in bastis and hatas. The word “Hata” could be a synonym for a slum where 75% of the workers used to live. These male workers were migrants to the city who experienced difficulties and wanted to return to their village life. Most women wanted to live in the city, which offered them seclusion and, to some extent, freedom from patriarchal pressures. The working class in Hatas consisted of lower-caste workers and women excluded from working in factories, formerly engaged in domestic industry and social communications.
This does not mean that women had no self-image. These women wanted to be proud as factory workers. But as they made their economic transition from work to non-work, they lost the sense of dignity associated with their identity as workers.
When these women were employed in factories, they were hired for low-paying jobs such as reeling, collecting waste, and sometimes in the carding, blending, and sewing departments. This suggests that restricting women to low-paying jobs makes it convenient for the capitalist class to exploit women at a minimal level. It is also important to understand that women who worked in factories viewed their work as more prestigious than their work at home. In fact, they did not recognize the management of household activities as unpaid work that they were forced to do in order to take care of workers for free.
Despite the current de-industrialization in Kanpur, women workers view their owners as divine
In line with field research conducted in 2023 at a leather industry plant in Kanpur, a worker named Munni Devi viewed her owner as a god or savior, despite recognizing the ongoing deindustrialization in the leather industry in Kanpur.
Chitra Joshi’s work is important in tracing the experiences of women workers, particularly during economic transitions from work to unemployment. Workers in the workplace maintain a sense of identity and pride that they do not have at home. Female workers struggle to gain recognition for their work and lead meaningful lives.
In times of hardship, on the verge of losing their jobs, women workers who shared multiple identities such as gender, class and caste begin to associate divine qualities with the owners. This can be seen as a way to protect against financial crises and undermine their ongoing exploitation. Therefore, Chitra Joshi’s work is significant in addressing gendered work in factories to understand the plight of women workers in research discourses. It is clear that the non-recognition of women as workers is a form of exploitation inflicted on them, and this still exists.
Nashra Rehman finds great interest in addressing the plight of Muslim women and their unnoticed marginalization. Your focus remains on bringing a novel argument to life.