From planned industrialisation to liberalisation
Industrialisation means making goods with machines in factories, instead of by hand. After 1947, India chose planned industrialisation. The government made Five-Year Plans. It set up steel plants, dams and heavy industry in the public sector (owned by the government). Private firms needed a licence to start or grow. The aim was self-reliance and jobs.
In 1991 India began liberalisation. Liberalisation means removing many government controls. Licences were cut. Private and foreign companies came in. Some government companies were sold to private owners. This is called disinvestment. Work also changed: more jobs became contract or temporary jobs, and fewer were permanent.
Organised and unorganised sectors
The organised (formal) sector has registered firms, fixed pay, leave, pension and safety rules. The unorganised (informal) sector has small units, daily or piece wages and little protection. More than nine out of ten Indian workers are in the informal sector.
How do people find jobs?
Few people get jobs through open ads, exams and interviews. Most workers find work through personal contacts: a relative, a friend from the same village, or a caste or regional network.
- In old textile mills, a jobber (often from the workers' own area) recruited new workers. Workers owed him favours.
- Today many workers are hired by a contractor. He brings workers to a factory, construction site or brick kiln. He often gives an advance, and the worker must work it off.
- Badli workers stand in for absent permanent workers. They have no fixed job.
So finding a job is a social process, not only a skill test.
Work processes and working conditions
A work process is the way work is divided and controlled. In a big factory, one product is broken into many tiny tasks. Each worker does one task again and again on an assembly line. Frederick Taylor's scientific management timed every movement so that managers, not workers, decide the speed. Karl Marx called the result alienation: the worker feels cut off from the product and from their own work.
Working conditions
- Mines: heat, dust, danger of collapse, long shifts; many miners are contract workers without safety gear.
- Factories: repeated tasks, noise, pressure to meet targets.
- IT and call centres: good pay for some, but long and flexible hours, night shifts and close monitoring ("electronic sweatshop").
Laws such as the Factories Act and the Mines Act set limits on hours and require safety, but they are often not followed in the informal sector.
Home-based work
Home-based work means paid work done inside the worker's own home. Examples: rolling bidis, making agarbatti (incense sticks), papad, lace, zari and embroidery, assembling small parts.
An agent or middleman brings the raw material and collects the finished goods. The worker is paid by the piece (piece rate), not by the hour. Most are women and children. They get no leave, no health cover and no union. The home becomes a workplace, and housework is added on top. The company earns a big profit on goods it never had to make in a factory.
Strikes and unions
A trade union is an organisation of workers that bargains with employers as one group. Together, workers have more power than alone. Unions ask for fair wages, fixed hours, safety and job security.
A strike is when workers stop work together to press their demands. A lockout is when the owner closes the workplace to pressure workers. Striking is hard: workers lose wages and may lose jobs.
Example: the Bombay textile strike
In January 1982 around two lakh textile mill workers in Bombay (now Mumbai) went on strike under the leader Datta Samant. They asked for better pay and the right to choose their own union. The strike went on for more than a year. Many mills never reopened; the land later became offices and malls, and many workers went into informal work.
Try it: map work in your street
List five working people you know. For each, write: How did they find the job? Do they get fixed pay, leave and a pension? Do they work at home? Then use the slider in the 3D free-play step to see how your list compares with India as a whole.
Key formulas and definitions
- Planned industrialisation: state-led growth through Five-Year Plans and the public sector (1950sโ1980s)
- Liberalisation (1991): fewer licences, more private and foreign firms, disinvestment of public firms
- Organised sector: registered, fixed pay, leave, pension, safety law
- Unorganised sector: small units, daily or piece pay, little protection (over 90% of workers)
- Jobber / contractor: middleman who recruits workers
- Badli worker: stand-in for an absent permanent worker
- Scientific management (Taylorism): work timed and controlled by managers
- Alienation (Marx): worker cut off from the product and the work
- Piece rate: payment per item made
- Strike: workers stop work; Lockout: owner shuts the workplace
Worked examples
1. Ravi drives for a delivery app. He is paid per delivery, has no leave and no pension. Is his job formal or informal? Why?
Informal. A formal job has a fixed salary, paid leave, pension and legal protection. Ravi is paid per task and has none of these.
2. A steel plant built by the government in the 1960s is partly sold to a private company in 2000. Which two phases of industrial change does this show?
The plant is from the planned industrialisation phase (public sector). The sale is disinvestment, which is part of liberalisation after 1991.
3. Why do contractors have so much power over construction workers?
The contractor decides who gets work each day, often gives an advance that binds the worker, and the worker has no written contract or union. So the worker depends on him.
4. Meena rolls 1,000 bidis a day at home for an agent. Explain two reasons why her work is hard to protect by law.
1) Her workplace is her home, so inspectors do not visit it. 2) She is paid by the piece through an agent, so the company can say she is not its employee. She also has no union.
Common mistakes
- Thinking liberalisation meant the government stopped all industry. It reduced controls and sold some firms; many public sector units still run.
- Calling every factory worker 'organised'. A contract worker inside a big factory is still informal if they have no fixed pay, leave or protection.
- Mixing up strike and lockout: workers strike; owners lock out.
- Thinking home-based work is 'just housework'. It is paid production work for the market, only done at home.