On October 5, Lalla Budhram Gaund, aged 31, was killed while working on the curing machine at Jalan Dyeing and Bleaching Mills. Three other workers-Ibrahim Sher Khan (aged 31), Sawnmal Sobatsingh (aged 40) and Bansilal Bhagwatiprasad (aged 55) were severely injured in the blast. Although most capitalist newspapers reported the event, not a single one cared to say exactly how it took place, since the truth is always inconvenient to them.
The Jalan Dyeing and Bleaching Mills, situated at Ganpatrao Karam Marg near Lower Parel, is owned by Tolaram Jalan, whom the workers call ‘Tolaram seth’. Started nearly 26 years ago, the mill employs nearly 500 permanent workers. The rest of the workers, numbering nearly 2,500, are ‘badli (casual workers).
Most of the machinery of the mill is several years old. As one worker said: “I have been working here for ten years, but I have never seen a new machine being installed in the mill”. Even the curing machine that exploded was more than 11 years old, but was still kept in use. The reason? New machinery costs money-and more costs means less profits for the ‘seth’ !
So, Tolaram keeps using the old machinery, which is extremely unsafe for the workers. As a capi-talist newspaper admitted: “Senior fire brigade officials said that this was the fourth or fiffh time in recent years that a mishap of this nature had occured in this very mill premises, the casualites in earlier disasters had been much higher the officals said”. (The Free Press Bulletin, October 5, 1979). And when these ‘casualties’ occur, the capitalist has an easy way out-removing the injured worker from the factory before he dies, and then refusing to take respon-sibility for the worker’s death!
For example, in 1974-75, a ‘badli’ worker called Jung Bahadur died in such an “accident”, but Tola-ram declared that he had died at rhe hospital and refused to do anything regarding the matter. Thus, over the dead bodies of many of our comrades, Tolaram Jalan has built his wealth and has set up three more factories including Prakash Cotton and Bharat Boilers,
In order to understand the cause of the explo-sion that took place on October 5, it is necessary to know how ‘curing’ is done. When cloth is dyed, kerosene is mixed with the dye to fasten the colour. The dyed cloth is then passed through a Curing Chamber, where a curing machine is used to burn up the kerosene, while the dye remains. In this pro-cess, carbon is produced, which collects in a carbon-box attached to the machine. Sometimes, the oxy-gen in the atmosphere combines with the carbon to form carbon monoxide, which is quite harmful to human beings. If the quantity of the gas rises beyond a particular level, the heat acts upon it, resulting in an explosion.
Such an explosion had taken place in the curing chamber just 15 days before October 5. A fairly large explosion, it broke the top of the curing machine, although no one was injured. Realising that the machine was becoming a danger to their lives, a group of workers met ‘Tolaram seth’ to request him to do something. Far from showing the slightest interest, he shouted at them and threatened to take action against them.
In fact, this has been the experience of most workers when they have tried to place their problems before him. One worker from the bleaching depart-ment was dismissed, just because he went to report that a piece of iron had fallen from the roof and damaged a machine! Thus, the workers had no alternative but to continue working on the same, unrepaired machine, although they knew that it had already become a death-trap.
At 1.24 a.m. on October 5, an enormous explosion tore the entire curing chamber apart, killing Lalla Budhram and injuring the three others, who were on night shift.
The most significant fact is, the explosion could very easily have been prevented. If, before sending the cloth to the curing machine, it (the cloth) had been permitted to dry, a lesser quantity of kerosene would have had to be burnt and thus less gas would have been produced. Or, alternately, if the cloth had been fed slowly into the curing machine and the carbon-box cleaned out regularly, this too would have prevented gas from being formed too fast. In either case, it would certainly have prevented such a major explosion.
But would the capitalist take these precautions?
Obviously not, because both involve loss of time and for a seth’, there is little difference between time and money. Tolaram has laid down that production should take place at the rate of 30 to 35 thousand metres of cloth per shift. The slightest slackening in this pace is met with threats and warnings. Not only did he not permit drying of the cloth before, even after the death of one worker, he still refuses to permit it! The workers say: “We want the cloth to be dried, but the seth forces us to continue as before. As for the second alternative, far from feeding the cloth slowly into the machine, Tolaram insists that this be done as rapidly as possible.
In fact, on the day the machine exploded, it had double the amount of cloth than it can actually handle. The workers say that this is the main reason why the explosion took place.
What, then, is the real cause of the explosion? Is it, as the capitalist newspapers say, because the mill had proved itself to be a confirmed ‘disaster area” (The Times of India, October 6, 1979) that our comrade had to die? Or is it because of Tolaram’s ‘carelessness’, as some workers feel? The basic point is, it is in the seth’s interests to make the workers produce as much as possible during their eight hours of work. Since the worker is paid only Rs. 18 per day (a fixed quantity), the more metres of cloth he produces during his shift, the cheaper does the cost of his work become to the capitalist, and the higher will be his profits. That is why Tolaram Jalan refuses to slow down production, even if a few ‘accidents’ take place in the process. This profit-lust, and not ‘disaster proneness’ or ‘care-lessness is the main cause of the explosion.
But, some may ask, are there not factory inspectors who can keep an eye on such practices? There are hardly any workers so innocent that they do not know the class nature of these factory inspectors. As one worker said, “the inspector comes, the seth gives him chai-paani and he goes away happily. After that, who cares?”
The only ones who can really care for the workers are the workers themselves. In this context, it is unfortunate that although there is a union at the mill, it has not done much, even to the extent of demand-ing compensation. Instead, the workers themselves were made to take a collection and present Rs. 4,000 to the family of the dead worker. The injured workers, too, have not received any compensation. While it is perfectly true that class solidarity requires one proletarian to help another in times of need, refusing to make the capitalist pay and instead collecting money from the workers themselves, in practice amounts to helping the capitalist to escape his responsi-bility for Lalla Budhram’s death! Such ‘accidents, will continue to occur, unless the workers form a militant, political organisation which can fight the entire system of profits which gives birth to them.
–October 10