per cent workers in the Bombay cotton industries in came from the neighbouring district of Ratnagiri, while the mills of Kanpur got most of their textile hands from the villages within the district of Kanpur. Most often millworkers moved between the village and the city, returning to their village homes during harvests and festivals. Over time, as news of employment spread, workers travelled great distances in the hope of work in the mills. From the United Provinces, for instance, they went to work in the textile mills of Bombay and in the jute mills of Calcutta.
Fig. – Partners in enterprise – J.N. Tata, R.D. Tata, Sir R.J.
Tata, and Sir D.J. Tata. In , J.N. Tata set up the first iron and steel works in India at Jamshedpur.
Iron and steel industries in India started much later than textiles. In colonial India industrial machinery, railways and locomotives were mostly imported. So capital goods industries could not really develop in any significant way till Independence. Fig.
– Young workers of a Bombay mill, early twentieth century. When workers went back to their village homes, they liked dressing up. Getting jobs was always difficult, even when mills multiplied and the demand for workers increased. The numbers seeking work were always more than the jobs available.
Entry into the mills was also restricted. Industrialists usually employed a jobber to get new recruits. Very often the jobber was an old and trusted worker. He got people from his village, ensured them jobs, helped them settle in the city and provided them money in times of crisis.
The jobber therefore became a person with some authority and power. He began demanding money and gifts for his favour and controlling the lives of workers. The number of factory workers increased over time. However, as you will see, they were a small proportion of the total industrial workforce.
Vasant Parkar, who was once a millworker in Bombay, said: ‘The workers would pay the jobbers money to get their sons work in the mill … The mill worker was closely associated with