Ambedkar on Labour Laws and State Repression

(Here is an excerpt from Ambedkar’s speech in the Bombay Assembly against the Industrial Disputes Bill which sought to curtail workers’ right to strike and form independent unions. Ambedkar and the communist unions had joined hands to organize textile mill workers in struggles against the Bill. His powerful defence of the basic democratic rights of workers reads as a damning indictment of the arguments advanced by today’s Governments about labour laws.)

...My answer is this, that the Indian Legislature does not make a breach of contract of service a crime because it thinks that to make it a crime is to compel a man to serve against his will; [and making him a slave (Hear, hear.)] To penalise a strike, therefore, I contend, is nothing short of making the worker a slave.

…If members are prepared to accept my meaning of the word “strike” as being nothing more than a breach of contract, then I submit that a strike is simply another name for the right to freedom.”

Ambedkar, quoting from a minute written by Mr. Jamnadas Mehta, Mr. M. S. Sesha Aiyangar, Mr. S C Mitra and Mr. V. V. Jogiah , said:

“We cannot understand why a strike in a postal, telegraph or telephone service or for the matter of that in any Railway service should be made a crime. No doubt such a strike is inconvenient and interferes with our ordinary comforts, but it is monstrous to claim that if any body of men refuses to minister to our comforts if any to claim that body as criminals especially when the strikers feel that these comforts and conveniences can only be satisfied by their own degradation and misery. Can it be seriously contended that the Frontier Mail and similar luxurious services are so vital to society that strikes thereon should be made illegal?

… … a democracy which enslaves the working class, a class which is devoid of education, which is devoid of the means of life, which is devoid of any power of organisation, which is devoid of intelligence, I submit, is no democracy but a mockery of democracy.

… Now, Sir, under this Bill there are two categories of unions which will have the right to represent labour. The first is a union which … not less than 20 per cent of the workers as its members, and recognised by the employer. Secondly, a union whose membership is more than 50 per cent. can represent labour in the conciliation proceedings. …Calling a spade a spade, what I submit is this: there are, no doubt, two kinds of representative unions under this Bill, but the important point to note is that one is a slave union and the other a free union. Sir, there is no exaggeration and there is no violence done to language if I say that a union which can have locus stand, a legal existence, a right to represent and a right to speak, only if it secures the prior approval of the employer is a slave union and not a union of freemen. …

…Of course, if my honourable friend thinks that there is nothing wrong in having unionism based upon the principle of approval of the master, I have no quarrel. It is his philosophy of life; it is not mine. If he thinks that a man who is enslaved is a free man, it is his view; if he thinks that in order that we may have peace in industry the worker ought to be chained to his master, as he will be, it is for him; I have no quarrel. But, for myself, I am not prepared to accept that position. We do not want mere peace, and I repudiate the peace, the kind of peace that we are asked to have.

…Of course, it may be pointed out that this Bill introduces equality of treatment between the labourers and the employers, because, just as this Bill penalises the strike of workmen, it also penalises the lockout by employers….Equality is not necessarily equity. In order that it may produce equity in society, in order that it may produce justice in society, different people have to be treated unequally. This equity cannot be produced, if we propose to treat the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, the ignorant and the intelligent on the same footing.

…The Bill as it is, I am sure about it, should not be passed. It only handicaps labour. Labour may not now know what this Bill does. But when the Bill comes into operation and the labourer stands face to face with the Bill he will say that this Bill is bad, bloody and a brutal Bill. Sir I cannot be a party to it. ”

(Bombay Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol. 4, pp. 1330-59, dated 15th September 1938)

 Ambedkar on Police Firing (Ambedkar made the following remarks in response to an enquiry report that justified police firing by blaming the Council of Action - of which Ambedkar was a member - of provoking workers. Ambedkar’s words here are a powerful indictment of the manner in which Governments today justify the custodial killing of Ishrat Jehan by claiming she was a terrorist; or brand it anti-national to oppose AFSPA and demand that Army men accused of rape or murder face trial; or justify Jallianwala Bagh-style massacres by police or paramilitary by blaming agitating workers/adivasis/villagers. If Bhagat Singh warned of white rule being replaced by an equally tyrannical brown rule, Ambedkar has warned of the way in which Indian rulers will simply enjoy the freedom to shoot Indians as the colonial powers did. Today, the Indian rulers are enjoying the freedom to use colonial-era draconian laws including sedition and AFSPA.)

“…I am also asking therefore another question to the Honourable the Home Minister. Is he prepared to prosecute the police officers who indulged in this firing in an ordinary court of law and get the finding given by this Committee sustained by a Judge and a Jury? Sir, I like to point out to this House that so far as the law is concerned, there is no difference between an ordinary citizen and a police officer or a military officer, and I would like to read for the benefit of the House a short paragraph from a very classical document which I am sure my honourable friend the Home Minister knows, namely, the Report of the Featherstone Riots Committee. In one passage it says:—

“Officers and soldiers are under no special privileges and subject to no special responsibility as regards the principle of the law. A soldier for the purpose of establishing civil order is only a citizen armed in a particular manner. He cannot, because he is a soldier, excuse himself if, without necessity, he takes human life....”

... Let us have a verdict of a judge and jury, and I put it this way that if he does not do this, if he does not prosecute the members of the Council of Action, if he does not prosecute the police officers, then this report has no greater value than a fiction or a novel written by the Three Tailors of Tooley Street.

... I refer to the evidence of the late Sir, Edward Thompson, who was for some time Governor of the Punjab and for some time a member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council. On his retirement he started an organisation in England in order to support the cause of Indian home rule. As everybody in this House knows, at the time when the Round Table Conference met, the civilians who had gone back—from here were divided into two groups—one group opposed to Indian home rule, and the other supporting Indian home rule. Sir Edward Thompson was one of those who led the group in support of the Indian claim. As a member of that group, he came before the Joint Parliamentary Committee to give evidence and to support his point of view, namely, as to why India should be given home rule. We were all very pleased that at any rate a section of the Indian civilians should come forward honestly and wholeheartedly to support the Indian cause. But I frankly say that I was horrified by the argument that he advanced. What was the argument that he advanced …The one thing that convinced him, he said, in favour of Irish home rule was this: So long as the rebellion was going on, no Englishman could shoot an Irishman, however violent his action was, because if an Englishman shot an Irishman, the whole Irish country went up in arms. He said that as soon as home rule was granted, it was possible for Cosgrave to shoot Irishmen, and nobody rose in rebellion against it. He said that one advantage that the Englishman would have from home rule to India would be that the Indian Ministers would be able to shoot Indians without any qualms. This is exactly what is happening. This is not the only occasion when disturbances have taken place.

... The only question is this: Whether, in maintaining peace and order, we shall not have regard for freedom and for liberty. And if home rule means nothing else as I am thinking, it can mean nothing else than that our own Minister can shoot our own people, and the rest of us merely laugh at the whole show or rise to support him because he happens to belong to a particular party, then I say home rule has been a curse and not a benefit to all India.” (Bombay Legislative Assembly Debates, Vol. 5, pp. 1724-27, dated 17th March 1939)