The land on which the magnates of India established their textile mills on their way to becoming big industrial houses, does not belong to them. It belongs to the people of India. When the mill owners shut down the mills, seeking greener pastures for their capital, one of the primary motives was to make super profits by sale of mill lands in the heart of Mumbai for real estate development. To dampen the outrage of the working class and people at this daylight robbery, and to justify the same, the bourgeoisie worked out a “deal” by which a portion of the mill lands would be allegedly used for the benefit of the working class, particularly the mill workers who had worked in these mills. This was done in 1992, more than 15 years ago. Fifteen years down the line, mill workers of Mumbai are still fighting against the government and mill owners for their share from the sale of mill lands.

On 2nd March, 2008, at 4 pm in the afternoon, hundreds of ex-mill workers, including women, gathered in front of Big Bazaar, a shopping mall built on the old Phoenix Mills Land. They were protesting against the owners of five closed textile mills in Mumbai — Phoenix, Raghuvanshi, Kamla, Prakash Cotton and Ruby — who were refusing to give up the agreed upon share of the mill land for workers’ housing. This in spite of the fact that the state government has considerably reduced the share of the mill land that would be available for workers housing and for public usage.

There are totally about 600 acres of land in Central Mumbai which were under the control of mills. As per the original DC Rules 1992, 200 acres of this land would have to be released for workers housing. An equal amount of land would have been available for public housing, open spaces and public utilities like hospitals etc. Hence a total of 400 acres of land would have been available to the working people. The DC Rules were amended surreptitiously by the Government under pressure from the mill owners and the big capitalists. As per the amended DC (Development Control) Rules 2003, issued by the Maharashtra State Government in regard to Mumbai’s development, the available area for housing of mill workers is only 35 acres! After the amendment the total area of land available for the public including the mill workers is only 70 acres, leaving 530 acres for the mill owners. It is estimated that the 35 acres of land available for mill workers’ housing could accommodate only 22,000 workers. There were a total of 250,000 workers enrolled in the mills before they were shut down one by one. On what basis the homes will be allotted to workers and who will finance the cost of the entire project has been left completely in the shade.

The meeting was addressed by Datta Ishwalkar of Girni Kamgar Sangarsh Samiti, Dada Samant of Kamgar Aghadi, Shivaji Deshmukh of Girni Kamgar Union and Dr. Mathew of Kamgar Ekta Chalwal (KEC).

The representative of KEC reminded the assembled workers that a hundred years ago the textile workers of Mumbai had created history when they went on a 8-day general strike, to demand the release of Lokmanya Tilak who had been sentenced to eight years in jail, one day for every year of jail sentence. He reminded the workers of the many battles fought by the mill workers, in the 20th century, against the mill owners, the British Government as well as the Indian Government after Independence. He elaborated that when the mill workers went on their historic indefinite strike in 1982 under the leadership of Dr. Datta Samant (who was murdered by the henchmen of the capitalists in 1998), the mill owners as well as the whole big capitalist class conspired to defeat the mill workers’ struggle at any cost. He explained how all the major political parties had opposed the workers and sided with the capitalists. Putting the full state machinery behind the capitalists, the textile strike was crushed. The capitalists gleefully thought that they had settled accounts with the workers. The KEC leader said that the struggles now being waged by the textile workers showed that the spirit of the workers has not been crushed and should not be allowed to be crushed.

People's Voice hails the struggle of the Mill workers. It calls on the workers to build one single united front of the workers in order to achieve victory.