Paternalism in Indian labor: The Tata iron and steel company of Jamshedpur

International Labor and Working-Class History

Volumn , Issue 53, 1998, Pages 69-87

  Kling, Blair B ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0032389197     PISSN: 01475479     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/s0147547900013673     Document Type: Article

References (13)

1. UNESCO Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia, Social Aspects of Small Industries in India (New Delhi, 1962). Mark Holmstrom, 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.
2. UNESCO Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia, Social Aspects of Small Industries in India (New Delhi, 1962). Mark Holmstrom, 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.
3. UNESCO Research Centre on Social and Economic Development in Southern Asia, Social Aspects of Small Industries in India (New Delhi, 1962). Mark Holmstrom, 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.
4. Gerard Heuze, "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.
5. See Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History, (Princeton, 1989), 109-15 on the sardar in the jute industry from 1890 to 1940.
6. Alan Roland, In Search of Self in India and Japan (Princeton, 1988), 26, 228.
7. 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., 239-41.
8. Peter Ackers and John Black, "Paternalist Capitalism: An Organization Culture in Transition," in Work and the Enterprise Culture, ed. Malcolm Cross and Geoff Payne (London, 1991), 37.
9. 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.
10. Bipin Chandra, The Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India: Economic Policies of Indian National Leadership, 1880-1905 (New Delhi, 1966).
11. Frank R. Harris, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, A Chronicle of His Life (Bombay, 1958), 1-46, 196-218.
12. Russi M. Lala, The Creation of Wealth (Bombay, 1981), x.
13. For a collection of such speeches see S. A. Sabavala and Russi M. Lala, eds., Keynote: J. R. D. Tata (Bombay, 1986).