COMMENTARY

A Struggle Over Class and

Space in an Indian City
Shankar Gopalakrishnan, Trepan Singh Chauhan

Daily wage workers, the most

marginalised urban residents,
standing at roadsides to secure
work is an age-old practice in
India. The recent police atrocities
towards them at the Jakhan
Chowk in Dehradun, in the name
of clearing, reflect several facets
of the evolving political economy
of Indias cities.

Shankar Gopalakrishnan (shankargopal@

myfastmail.com) and Trepan Singh Chauhan
are activists of the Uttarakhand Nav Nirman
Mazdoor Sangh.
Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

June 28, 2014

ncreasing political and policy attention has come to be focused on urban

areas in India, seen as the future centre
of both society and the economy. In the
process there has also been some discussion of the nature of class and social
struggles in these areas. We present here
one example of such struggles, which we
believe, highlights several of the key
aspects of the future of urban areas.
Background
Our example concerns the urban construction workers of Dehradun, the capital of
Uttarakhand and a medium-sized Tier
C city of north India. Dehradun is fairly
typical of many other cities, distinguished
perhaps only by its importance to colonial
and postcolonial elites and its function
as a state capital.
As in most Indian cities, Dehradun has
a large number of construction workers
who live in and near the city. The vast
majority of the workers are male migrants
from other states, and there is considerable
variation in their manner of employment.
Some workers are attached permanently
(the term is used by the workers, but
does not refer to any formal permanent
position) to one or the other company or
a large contractor. The majority, however,
are daily wage and casual workers who
are constantly changing worksites.
Out of these daily wage workers,
in turn, the majority stand at certain
chowks road crossings or roadsides
where contractors, employers and houseowners pick up workers in the morning
as they require (some of the better established workers secure work over the
phone and do not go to the chowks).
These mazdoor chowks are a familiar
site in all Indian cities, and Dehradun has
several major ones, including at Ghanta
Ghar, Lal Pul, Rispana Pul, Kanwali
Road and Jakhan Chowk. Between eight
and nine every morning, thousands of
workers assemble at these chowks.
vol xlix nos 26 & 27

The space of the chowk is important at

two levels. First, it is essential to the livelihood of this very vulnerable and insecure group. Second, the chowk is the
sole space where workers experience
their existence as a class (or, more accurately, as a segment of a class). Though
this experience is rarely articulated in
class terms, it is immediately visible to
an observer. Workers come to the chowk
to discuss work opportunities, to negotiate mutual payments, and simply to socialise; even workers who have secured
employment somewhere will often stop
at the chowk on their way out to meet
others. Meanwhile, tea sellers, paanwalas and vegetable hawkers also come
to the chowks to sell their wares to the
workers, and often occupy the same
space for the rest of the day.
However, insofar as the formal state is
concerned, these chowks do not exist.
They have no formal recognition and no
facilities. They do not appear on the citys
master plan or in its other planning
documents. They are ignored by the labour
department and the municipality. Despite
existing for decades, they are treated by
all officials, as we shall see, as at best a
kind of temporary nuisance and, at
worst, as a problem to be eradicated.
Struggle Over Jakhan Chowk
The authors of this article are activists of
a fledgling new union of daily wage
workers in Dehradun district the Uttarakhand Nav Nirman Mazdoor Sangh
(though we are also affiliated to other
mass organisations). During the discussions around the formation of the union,
the workers repeatedly raised police
harassment at chowks as an issue. In
particular, in the name of clearing roads
for traffic, the police would forcibly disperse workers. Beatings were routine.
Meanwhile, the same police never intervened to protect workers from speeding
vehicles or contractors denying their
wages. Hence the union took up formal
recognition of the chowks as one of its
four central demands. It also demanded
regulation and provision of basic facilities, with workers committees controlling the chowks.
On 9 August 2013, such police harassment reached a qualitatively different
29

COMMENTARY

level. At 8:15 am, lathi-wielding constables

appeared at the Jakhan mazdoor chowk.
The workers retreated from the road as
they usually do, but this time that was not
enough. Without any warning, the police attacked the workers, declaring that
they would not allow a single worker to
stand at the chowk. The workers fled as
the police beat anyone they found; we
later counted over 40 workers who had
been beaten up. At 9:30 am, the unions
local leaders gathered at the chowk to
take signatures from those beaten up
and this group was then itself attacked
and beaten up by the police.
During the ninth and subsequent days
the union sought to regroup the workers,
to publicise the atrocity, and to take up
the matter with various levels of officials and the state labour ministry. It
emerged that the senior superintendent
of police (SSP) of Dehradun (Kewal
Khurana) had directed the removal of
the workers, but no one knew why, and
the SSPs office denied knowledge of the
attack. Faced with press inquiries, the
police hastily began to improvise post
facto explanations, claiming that the
workers had been interfering with traffic and sexually harassing women. Neither of these claims, of course, justified
clearing the chowk.
The unions pressure halted the violence but not the police threats, which
continued for another day. When a union
delegation then met the officer-in-charge
of the Jakhan police chowki, he apologised profusely for the beatings and
agreed to a 10-day pause even while
stating that he had no choice but to
follow the SSPs orders. Slowly bits
and pieces of information began to
filter out. The workers were not a major
interference with traffic, the police agreed;
they then confessed that they had never
actually received a sexual harassment
complaint against any worker. The cause
of the attack remained unclear, except for
hints that wealthy residents and senior
Indian Administrative Service officers
Jakhan being Dehraduns most posh
locality had approached the SSP.
On 23 August, the union took out a
rally against the attack, which was
joined by workers from across the city
and addressed by leaders from various
30

parties and social movements. Following the rally, the police retreated fully
and declared that there would be no
further problem if the workers did not
stand on the road. The union then once
again took up the demand for formalisation of the chowks with the municipality, the labour ministry, the chief
ministers office and other authorities,
and secured various promises. No concrete progress was made, for reasons
discussed below, and attempts were
continuing. But then, on 6 December
2013, the police attacked again.
This time the attack was more organised. The circle officer of Mussoorie,
the station house officer of Rajpur and
the Jakhan police were all present, and
while there was no physical violence,
the workers were threatened and driven
out of the chowk again. The union leaders
attempted to resist along with the more
active workers, but the majority fled
in the face of such an overwhelming
police presence. The same pattern repeated itself for the next 10 days.
Union members who protested had
their tools seized for several hours,
thereby depriving them of wages for the
day. Every inquiry was met with the
same false justifications about traffic

problems and sexual harassment, and

claims that the police just wanted the
workers to move by a few hundred metres. In fact, the police were telling the
workers to go to a site more than 2 kms
away, where they would not be able to
obtain any work. The states attitude was
summed up by the Planning Minister
Dinesh Agarwal, one of the Congresss
seniormost leaders, who bellowed at a
union delegation that workers have no
right to stand anywhere, that no alternative location would be provided, and
the union should stop spreading Communist propaganda.
The union then called a dharna, joined
by several hundred workers, at the police
chowki. Faced with TV cameras, the
police finally admitted that they had no
idea where the workers should go and
that they had received no formal complaints against them. It also emerged
that on 5 December 2013, an accident
had taken place at Jakhan chowk where
three occupants of a car had died. This
accident which occurred in the middle
of the night obviously had nothing to
do with the workers. However, the rich
and powerful of the area (including two
former ministers and the then home
secretary) gathered at the site of the

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COMMENTARY

accident and protested against police

inaction which apparently consisted
of not removing the unruly mob of
workers at the chowk. The SSP, who had
rushed to meet them, directed the police
to clear the chowk the next day.
The union protest forced the police to
formally announce a site for the workers
to stand and to give an assurance on TV
that the workers would be provided
security at the site. The agreement was
witnessed in a written document signed
by political leaders, as well as by the
leaders of the union. Following this the
harassment ceased, though the police as
yet have done nothing to fulfil their side
of the agreement, to publicise the new
site or to provide security. Meanwhile,
as yet there has been no progress on the
larger demand for formalisation of the
chowks in the city, despite subsequent
protests and ongoing public actions.
Conclusions
The struggle over the chowks in Dehradun
reflects several facets of the evolving
political economy of Indias cities. The
first of these is the cultural-moral conception of urban space among the state
machinery and the wealthier segments
of the populace. Most obviously, any
complaint by the elite about space is regarded as worthy of immediate action,
however illegal it might be. But more
deeply, it was striking to see the false
allegation of sexual harassment being
parroted by every single representative
of the establishment, whether it be the
police, the mayor, the ministers or the
bureaucrats. Even if it was false, we
were told, it could happen. Did we not
know that ladies frequented that road?
The fact that no one could cite a single
actual incident confirmed what common
sense would indicate it is highly unlikely that migrant workers, extremely
vulnerable and terrified of the police,
would harass women in broad daylight
in front of a crowd at the chowk (without doubting the presence of patriarchy
and misogyny among the workers, as
among every other segment of the populace). Even if such harassment had ever
occurred, that is no reason to attack
every worker. But this common sense
entirely escaped the denizens of the
Economic & Political Weekly

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June 28, 2014

state; the very gaze of workers was

regarded as a problem, in a sanitised
replay of essentially caste rhetoric. Meanwhile, the consistent use of the English
word ladies indicated the class of the
women being discussed; as in so many
other cases, gender safety tropes were
being deployed in the service of discrimination. In this view, the workers
are dangerous threats to the safety and
harmony of public space.
Behind this cultural structure is a
political and institutional one. The essence
of this structure became glaringly clear
from the fact that no authority was willing to demarcate the chowks. Is it a
question of urban planning for the
municipality to consider? Yes, ultimately,
but in the short term, the municipality
washes its hands of the matter, and in
any case the police do not come under it.
Is it for the police to formally recognise
the chowk, then? Even as they insisted
(before the protest) that they were only
asking the workers to move a few
hundred metres, they simultaneously
insisted they had no power to formally
allocate a site. How about the district
magistrate (DM)? Here too there is legal
ambiguity, as the DM can ban a public
gathering, but cannot authorise one.
Hence the negotiations to secure formalisation of the chowks would go round in
circles, never getting past the informal
and unimplemented agreement reached
in Jakhan. After repeated pressure and
public protest, the labour department
had agreed to call an interdepartmental
meeting to discuss the issue, only to have
the entire process put on hold after the
labour secretary was transferred and
elections then declared. The process will
hopefully resume after elections.
This Kafkaesque saga is no mere bureaucratic confusion. Daily wage workers
standing at roadsides to secure work is an
age-old practice in India. But despite this
the state machinery simply has no idea
how to even recognise this practice leave
alone address the needs of this very large
segment of the population. In a sense, both
this point and the cultural aspects of this
situation are familiar the workers of
Dehradun are following in the footsteps
of similar journeys undertaken by slum
dwellers organisations and hawkers

vol xlix nos 26 & 27

federations in India over the past few

decades. These struggles too have been
fighting for recognition of previously
invisible aspects of urban space, and
in this sense, all of them highlight
how central the invisibilisation of the
majority of the urban populatioruling
class in cities.
But there are also class aspects that are
specific to this situation. After beggars
and the homeless, daily wage workers
are the most marginalised urban residents, and indeed are treated with condescension even by other segments of
the urban poor (such as hawkers). This
condescension reflects the knowledge that
these workers are extremely vulnerable,
and the insecurity and non-recognition of
the chowks is a key element in ensuring
this vulnerability and thereby enabling
the super-exploitation of these workers.
Attacks on chowks have this effect both
in practical terms (by threatening livelihoods) and in political ones (by breaking
even the smallest collective consciousness
among the workers).
This super-exploitation is critical to
the massive profits generated by the construction industry, Indias second largest
employer, one of the fastest growing
industrial sectors and the linchpin of the
real estate boom that has been a central
part of the post-1991 Indian economy.
Ironically, it is this very industry that has
driven the extreme expropriation of urban space by the elite in India.
In sum, the struggle reported here is
just one example of numerous struggles
at the intersection of class, state institutions and space in Indias cities. Until
now, Indias capitalists have taken for
granted their ability to utilise absolute
control over urban space as a part of
their strategies of accumulation either
through indirect methods (as in the case
of hawkers and other small producers);
through speculation and expropriation,
as in the case of slum evictions; and
through direct exploitation, as in the
case of daily wage workers. The struggle
over the states function in urban areas,
and over urban space, thus acquires
significance well beyond the local areas in
which it is happening. It is such struggles
that we can anticipate in more and more
locations across India.
31