The Vernacularization of Labour Politics 9382381821, 9789382381822

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Workers and urban associations during the Jânio Quadros administration in São Paulo (1953-1954)1 Trabalhadores e associativismo urbano no governo Jânio Quadros em São Paulo (1953-1954) Paulo Fontes*

Resumo

Abstract

O artigo analisa a ação das organizações populares com base territorial, em especial aquelas vinculadas às demandas da população dos bairros operários, durante o curto governo municipal de Jânio Quadros na cidade de São Paulo, político eleito com forte apoio desses movimentos. Partimos, para isso, de uma análise ainda inicial de um corpus documental composto por mais de 250 processos, reunindo cartas, pedidos, petições, solicitações e abaixo-assinados encaminhados por Sociedades Amigos de Bairro ao gabinete do prefeito de São Paulo durante a gestão de Quadros nos anos de 1953 e 1954. Nesse sentido, o artigo procura avançar na compreensão do sistema político populista, ressaltando o papel da dimensão urbana na construção das estratégias de trabalhadores e lideranças políticas. Palavras-chave: trabalhadores; associativismo urbano; Jânio Quadros.

This article analyses the activities of popular organizations, particularly those related to working-class neighborhoods, during the short period of Jânio Quadros’ administration in São Paulo. Jânio was elected with strong support from these organizations. Based on the analyses of around 250 processes, including petitions, letters and other documents sent by neighborhoods associations to the mayor`s office in 1953 and 1954, it aims to explore the populist political system, highlighting the role of the urban dimension in the strategies of workers and political leaders. Keywords: working-class; urban associations; Jânio Quadros.

*Escola de Ciências Sociais da Fundação Getulio Vargas (CPDOC/FGV). CNPq Researcher. pfontes@ fgv.br Revista Brasileira de História. São Paulo, v. 33, nº 66, p. 71-93 - 2013

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The other side of the Four Hundredth Anniversary The city was arranged like never before for the party. The preparations for the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of São Paulo in 1954 had captured the imagination of the media, the government, and various social sectors for months on end. After all, the festivities were seen as an unequalled opportunity to project a representation of the city which would reaffirm the pride of ‘being Paulista’ (the name by which those born in the city were known) and the strength and importance of the ‘metropole of labor,’ the ‘locomotive of Brazil.’ The celebrations were supposed to be sufficiently grand for what was said to be the fasting growing city in the world. The economic strength and importance of São Paulo in Brazilian history were repeatedly hammered home in numerous articles in the press, in advertisements, and in official and extraofficial discourse. It was not by chance that references to the supposed ‘heroes’ of the defeated 1932 Constitutionalist Revolution and the images of the Bandeirantes, both in the historic construction of the pioneers of the country and the contemporary version of the ‘Bandeirantes of industrial progress’ were abundant during the commemoration period.2 A good part of the jingoism of Paulistas derived from a new and intense wave of industrialization and urbanization experienced by São Paulo city after the Second World War. Between 1945 and 1960 the secondary sector in Brazil grew at an average rate of 9.5% a year, becoming one of the most accentuated processes of industrialization anywhere in the world at this time. In 1959 almost 50% of all factory employment in the country was concentrated in the state of São Paulo, principally in the capital and the surrounding municipalities.3 Equally, the speed of urban growth was impressive. With 1.3 million inhabitants in 1940, the city would witness an unprecedented population increase, reaching 8.5 million inhabitants in 1980, becoming the largest metropole in the country and one of the biggest in the world. In the twenty years which separated 1950 from 1970, for example, the Paulista capital tripled in size, with an elevated attraction of internal migrants, especially from the interior of the state, from Minas Gerais, and from the Northeast of Brazil. In the 1950s alone the city received almost one million new inhabitants representing approximately 60% of the municipality’s growth during the decade (cf. Berlinck; Hogan, 1972, p.12). It was this process combined with urban growth and economic vigor which, in the vision of the Paulista elites, deserved and needed to be widely 72

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celebrated on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the city. São Paulo was, according to the advertising of a bank at that time, “the colossal city which the more it worked, the more it grew,... and the more it grew the more it worked.”4 A tourist guide, especially prepared for the commemoration of the fourth centenary, reported that after a long period of colonial lethargy, the city, starting at the end of the nineteenth century, “began to wake up from its dream of Sleeping Beauty in the woods of Piratininga and is walking with giant steps with huge boots.” At the beginning of the 1950s, “the Bandeirante capital” was already the metropole “which grew fastest, whose population increased the quickest, surpassing the rates of the greatest urban centers on the continent.” “All foreigners who reached Pauliceia,” the guide commented, “were amazed to find such a vast metropole” (Guia..., 1954, p.32, 31, 23). The efforts made to hold festivities which could correspond to this great expectation appear to have been rewarded. Reports about the celebrations are almost unanimous in highlighting the large numbers of ordinary people on the streets of the city during the events which marked the fourth centenary towards the end of the extended week ending on 25 January 1954. The reports highlighted the “profound emotion” and the “uncontained jubilation” of the population: At midnight exactly all the bells of the city rang out festively, everywhere there could be heard the sound of factory sirens, fireworks exploding, car horns blaring loudly, radios playing commemorative songs, and people on the streets commemorating with great enthusiasm.5

The hail of small silver paper triangles market with the symbol of the festivities (the ‘ascendant volute,’ signifying the progress of São Paulo) and the light show in the city center appeared to have been the high point of the festivities. The ‘silver rain,’ as it was known, became engraved in popular memory and until the present day is frequently mentioned by those who remember the festivities. In a site on the internet dedicated to impressions of the city’s history, one contemporary witness described his memories of the night as follows: Not having completed eleven years of age, I was still a boy in short pants... I was a young boy dazed by what happened on that date. It was 25 January 1954, the sky was starry with thousands of pieces of paper flooding the celestial space, the silver and the lights gave a special magic to everything. Silver paper fell on the ground, spreading emotions through all the kids, including myself. There was euphoria everywhere ...6 December 2013

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The lights which were abundant during the festivities were, however, missing from the daily lives of thousands of Paulistanos (as the inhabitants of the city were known). On 27 January 1954, two days after the festivities, a certain Heitor Brugners, director of the Commission of Demands of Talhados and Bartolomeu do Canto streets, linked to Sociedade de Amigos de Vila Palmeira (Societies of Friends of Vila Palmeira), in the northern part of the city, wrote to the then mayor, Jânio Quadros, asking him to intervene with the public electricity company, São Paulo Light and Power, so that the powerful Canadian company would install lampposts on the streets of this distant neighborhood.7 Similarly, in June of the same year, the inhabitants of Vila Independência in Ipiranga, “which has approximately 30,000 inhabitants,” sent the mayor through the intermediation of the local Sociedade de Amigos (Society of Friends), a petition asking the city government to make Light install “more lights” on the lampposts already existing in the streets of the district, which would ensure “JUSTICE” would be done by “solving one of the most delicate problems, since a large number of workers, young girls, and men, suffer all kinds of dangers, from accidents to robberies.”8 In addition, the president of the Society of Friends of Vila Ipojuca, in Lapa, stating that he represented the will of the neighborhood’s residents, sent Mayor Jânio, on 1 September 1954, various requests for public lighting in local streets.9 These letters, requests, and petitions sent to the city government of São Paulo by the so-called Sociedades Amigos de Bairro (SABs – Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods), a form of residents’ association which proliferated at the beginning of the 1950s, reveal much about São Paulo at the time of its four hundredth anniversary, the city of workers, of old industrial neighborhoods, and new and needy peripheral ones, distant from the progress propagated by its elites. They also reveal much about the perception of those from below of the urban and industrial growth in the city at that time. They are, thus, privileged sources for understanding the logic and the repertoires of organization and popular action, as well as the dynamics of associativism of workers and their relationship with the various political forces which courted this audience, in particular, as we will see, the so-called ‘Janista populism.’ Accelerated economic development raised various challenges for São Paulo’s workers, both in the area of production and in relation to living conditions in a general manner. Urbanization in São Paulo at this time, called by many analysts a ‘peripheral growth pattern,’ implied first of all strong social segregation within the urban space. The upper and middle classes lived in more 74

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central and better equipped neighborhoods, while workers and poor in general were moved to the city’s vast periphery.10 In this way there emerged, and worsened, problems related to land speculation and urban infrastructure in a general manner (transport, sanitation, paving, public lighting, education and health equipment, etc.), as well as important modifications in the labor market related to the acceleration of industrialization and the greater diversification of the services sector. These phenomena interfered directly in workers’ lives, provoking, amongst various aspects, great geographic mobility, scarcity, competition, and diversion and divergences within the working class. An intense process of the migration of workers from rural areas profoundly altered the social composition of the working class, resulting in fundamental political and cultural changes. In the political sphere, the period 1945-1964 was marked by new types of relationships between workers and the state, characterized as a rule by the concept of ‘populism,’ with specific relationships of conflicts and reciprocities being established in a dynamic system of alliances and disputes between these social actors.11 In the Paulistano context, this phenomena was translated not only by Getulista workerism, but also in the emergence of a wide range of political forces, of which Ademarismo and Janismo were the most important. Moreover, the communist left, despite being illegal for most of the period, was active and relatively strong at some times. The workers expressed and confronted the challenges of this era through a series of strategies. Their social networks, based most often on informal relations between relatives, friends, those from the same districts, and members of communities, were fundamental not just for the process of migration from rural areas to the city, which a large part of them experienced, but also to deal with the difficulties of urban life and the dilemmas of the world of work. These networks and informal relations were at the base of an ‘associative wave’ and a large part of the political action experienced by the poorer classes in São Paulo at that time.12 One of the central elements of the strong associativism of workers was the trade unions, but the phenomenon was not restricted to them, nor exclusively to the conflict between workers and employers. To the contrary, residents, recreational, education, charity, ethnic, mutual, cooperative, religious, and artistic-cultural associations formed a complex heterogeneous range of organizations which clearly expressed the formative process of a multi-faceted class, with different community values. Nevertheless, despite the diversity of associations, spaces of articulation and interaction between many December 2013

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of these organizations can be found, particularly in critical moments, such as strikes and protests.13 Continuing the analysis carried out with Adriano Duarte of the role of residents’ associations in the politics of São Paulo city in the period between the end of the Second World War and 1953 (see Duarte; Fontes, 2004), this article seeks to investigate the action of popular organizations with a territorial basis, especially those linked to the demands of residents of working class neighborhoods during the short municipal government of Jânio Quadros, a politician elected with the strong support of these movements. I begin with an initial analysis of a documentary corpus consisting of more than 250 processes, including letters, requests, applications and petitions sent by Sociedades Amigos de Bairro (Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods) to the Mayor of São Paulo’s office during Quadros’ administration in 1953 -1954.

A new repertoire of popular organization: the Sociedades Amigos de Bairro Residents’ Associations from poor –called popular in Portuguese – neighborhoods have a long history in São Paulo, although they are little studied. References can be found to the so-called workers’ leagues of neighborhoods such as Mooca, Brás and Lapa at the beginning of the twentieth century. These organizations appear to have played an important role in the mobilizations of residents of tenements and in direct actions in that period, as in the famous 1917 strike. It was in the period immediately after the Second World War that saw the proliferation of residents’ associations whose principal reference was the specific territory of a neighborhood, generally defined in terms of symbolic boundaries rather than the administrative divisions imposed by the municipality. Particularly encouraged and influenced by the ascendant Partido Comunista do Brasil (PCB – Brazilian Communist Party), the so-called Comitês Democráticos e Populares (CDPs – Democratic and Popular Committees) of neighborhoods rapidly spread through working class areas of the city, linking a wide ranging set of urban demands and the expansion of local democracy and urban administration.14 Although short and suffering permanent tensioned due to the attempts of the PCB leadership to place its members in them, the experience of the CDPs was fundamental in placing in the public sphere the growing demands 76

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for the ‘right to the city,’ formulated by poorer sectors. It would also be of essential importance for the emergence of a new organizational form of territorialized popular associativism in São Paulo: Sociedades Amigos de Bairro (SABs – the Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods), which began to emerge at the end of the 1940s. In the political vacuum provoked by the decree of the illegality of the PCB (and its subsequent move into an clandestine existence in 1947), it was the emerging political leadership of Jânio Quadros which managed, like no one else in the city, to capitalize and connect with this associative movement based on the popular neighborhoods in the metropole. This strong impulse decisively marked Quadros’ meteoric and impressive career, who in less than 13 years rose from a modest councilor in São Paulo to president of Brazil (successively being elected councilor, state deputy, mayor, governor, federal deputy and president). One of the most controversial politicians in Brazilian history with his own particular style, the historical memory of Jânio Quadros was fundamentally marked by his surprising resignation of the Brazilian presidency in August 1961. Personalist and authoritarian, Jânio zigzagged through the national political spectrum. While his political career essentially began on the left, with the support of socialists (including Trotskyist groups) and the most progressive sectors of the Christian democrats, including various flirtations with the communists themselves, Quadros progressively, though never in a clear or resolute manner, moved to the right of the Brazilian national scenario. In the 1960 presidential elections he ran with the decisive support of conservative sectors, led by the UDN of Carlos Lacerda, who saw in Quadros their chance to finally defeat the heirs of Varguismo. While in political circles Afonso Arinos’ joke, when he called Jânio ‘a drunken UDN,’ gained fame in the academic world, especially between 1960 and 1980, when theories of populism inspired by the work of Francisco Weffort were particularly influent, Quadros was identified as a ‘populist of the right,’ a charismatic manipulator of the masses and a worthy representative of the lower middle classes. In the last decade, however, various studies have problematized this well-known political characterization of Jânio Quadros.15 A detailed analysis of Jânio’s political career or the phenomenon of Janismo is outside the scope of this article. Analyzes of the ‘populist political system’ in Brazil formulated by John French and the insights of Alexandre Fortes, based on the thought of E. P. Thompson, looking at the relationship December 2013

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between workers and demagogic leaders, certainly offer interesting clues for this type of investigation.16 As I have argued on another occasion, despite the insufficiencies and problems which the idea of populism implies, (particularly the emphasis on the supposed control and manipulation of the working masses), its mere rejection or substitution by concepts such as ‘workerism,’ ‘the labor project’ or the ‘labor tradition with a popular statist program,’ does not take into account the complexity of the political game and the participation of popular sectors in the public sphere in the period after the Second World War, not just in Brazil, but also in other Latin American countries. These explanatory keys overestimate trade union aspects and labor relations, neglecting the “urban dimensions, a vital aspect in the lives of workers, particularly in cities which had a large industrial expansion during those years.”17 Leaders such as Jânio Quadros, although they flirted and sought to construct ties with the trade union movement, built their political careers on the basis of recognition of the urban question and the enormous problems caused by the intense growth rate of cities. Quadros was probably the outstanding post-war political leader in this area, but he was not at all the only one with this agenda. Local political leaders in the principal Brazilian cities at that moment had similar themes and made alliances with popular sectors using common language and repertoires of action. The idea of “a populist political system which influenced the behavior of all participants” seems useful to analyze relations between workers, the state, the middle classes, and the bourgeoisie at a particular historic moment of democratic expansion and the construction of poly-classist alliances (cf. French, 1995, p.267). Furthermore, it emphasizes and privileges the fundamental action of popular sectors not only in the narrow sphere of labor and trade union relations, but also in the wider experience of workers and their relations with the world of politics. In the scope of this article we are interested in perceiving how residents’ associations played a decisive role in the construction of the Jânio Quadros’ political trajectory, and principally in his short period as mayor in 1953 and 1954 (an administration is very little studied), as Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods were created and built up a strong associative discourse with many demands in which the identity of workers was a fundamental discursive element. Far from ordinary simplification, both in the common sense and in the pretensions of some scientific analyzes, Jânio Quadros’ trajectory cannot be resumed in that of a charismatic leader manipulating an amorphous mass. A new repertoire of civil society organizations emerged after the Second World 78

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War, with neighborhood problems and territorial associations being the central axes. Its language, as we will see, was strongly based on a classist vocabulary, in which the condition of resident was linked to that of worker and bearer of rights. Jânio Quadros’ leadership and popularity, with all their contradictions, demagogic and careerist aspects, are to a great extent the fruit of this enormous process.

Jânio Quadros: “Champion of the Periphery” Jânio Quadros was elected councilor in São Paulo for the Partido Democrata Cristão (PDC – Christian Democratic Party) at the end of the 1940s18 and soon made a name for himself as a ferocious opponent of the then governor Ademar de Barros and his Partido Social Progressista (PSP – Progressive Social Party).19 He became famous for his strong criticism and his accusations of corruption and excesses of the mayors indicated by Ademar and his party.20 However, it would be his approach to the issues and problems of the residents of peripheral São Paulo neighborhoods in the Municipal Chamber which would make Jânio Quadros one of the best known politicians in the city and definitely marked his political career from then on. In tune with the growing demand for urban improvements, goods and services for workers living in the suburbs and poor regions of the city, Quadros transformed in his own particular way these demands into his own agenda and thereby won enormous popularity and prestige.21 Scarcity, abuses committed by unscrupulous retailers, lack of housing and transport, and train delays were, amongst others, constant themes vehemently repeated by the councilor in his speeches in the Council Chamber and his numerous visits to poor neighborhoods. Light, then the public utility company responsible for the supply of electricity in the city, was particularly criticized and attacked by Jânio. Quadros politicized the difficult routine of those living in the city and thereby increasingly appeared as a type of paladin for the Paulistana periphery. Jânio also innovated by not restricting the public debate about these questions to the Council Chamber. He regularly visited the various neighborhoods in the city, observing what was happening from up close and listening to the complaints of residents. In a short period of time he became close to a number of local organizations. Supported by the newspaper A Hora,22 Jânio raised the hottest question of each region of the city, reported in this newspaper and December 2013

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reported with the habitual inflamed verve of the councilor in the Paulistano council. In addition to connecting a series of relations and supports in local associations and clubs, neighborhood visits allowed direct control with a large number of workers, unaccustomed to seeing politicians up close outside electoral periods. In these meetings Jânio Quadros constructed the image of a different politician, a simple an accessible man, really near and interested in the life and problems of the poor residents on the periphery.23 Since his campaign for councilor in 1947, Quadros had perceived the importance of direct contact with the public through meetings, visits, and rallies in peripheral neighborhoods. The political experience of the PCB in the previous years had shown various politicians who courted the same working class bases as Jânio, how much these meetings could reap in terms of popularity and electoral fruits.24 In addition to the political content in itself, Quadros, like few others, knew how to explore the ludic nature which the workers of the periphery attributed to rallies. By emphasizing honesty and struggle for administrative morality as political slogans, Jânio widened further the differences in the popular imagination between him and the governor Ademar de Barros, seen as corrupt (the latter’s supporters were, for example, the authors of the famous phrase: ‘he steals, but he does’), and the political machine of the PSP, famous for clientelism, doing favors, and also for at times violent actions in the political struggle. As one analyst commented, “he thereby created... his own image of the ‘conscience of authority’ and the vigilante, the shelter of the weak and wronged. With this image, he won the heart of the city” (cf. Walmsley, 1992, p.81). Although the problems in the peripheral neighborhoods and regions of the city were, in addition to the questions related to administrative morality, the central themes of Jânio’s parliamentary action, he also often supported the strikes and protests of workers against those he classified as ‘arrogant and greedy,’ as well as the repressive measures of the Dutra government against the trade union movement. In his speeches, Quadros frequently denounced the precarious working conditions in various Paulistana industries and demanded that labor legislation be complied with. After becoming a deputy at the beginning of the 1950s, he effusively defended the demands of striking railway and bank workers. The old trade union leader Luiz Tenório de Lima, known as Tenorinho, remembered that the stoppage of the latter in 1951 was of great political advantage for Jânio. “He took advantage of the strike,” Lima wrote. “He stood in front of the strikers and created a phrase that became famous at 80

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the time: ‘more bread for the bank workers, less cigars for the bankers” (cf. Lima, 1998, p.24). This political action rapidly expanded Jânio’s popularity. In 1950 he was the most voted candidate for the Legislative Assembly, with 17,840 votes. In the local political scenario, Quadros’ profile was placed alongside a wider leftwing grouping. He was linked to parliamentarians from the Partido Socialista Brasileiro (PSB – Brazilian Socialist Party) and, although he declared himself anti-communist, he attracted some sympathies from the PCB by defending strikes for better salaries and the peace movement waged by the party during the Korean War. Jânio also protested against the imprisonment of the communist weaver Elisa Branco, who had been detained for participating in a demonstration against the sending of Brazilian troops to Korea (cf. Chaia, 1991, p.62 and 59). When the São Paulo state capital recovered its administrative autonomy and elections for mayor were set for March 1953, Jânio Quadros emerged as a politician with a vast support network in popular neighborhoods, through organizations such as the Sociedades Amigos de Bairros (SABs – Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods), which had started to organize. However, more than this he was also able to accept the adherence of other political currents, such as the PSB and a wide part of the PTB, who broke with the official candidacy of Francisco Antônio Cardoso and even nominated the candidate for vice on Jânio’s slate: General Porfírio da Paz. Despite this the political world the political world initially received Jânio’s candidacy for mayor as bravado. Francisco Antônio Cardoso, the Health Secretary of the government of Lucas Garcez, appeared to be an unbeatable candidate. Supported by a coalition of seven parties (PSP, PSD, UDN, PTB, PRP, PR and PRT) which involved practically all the principal forces of the state, Cardoso was the great favorite of the backroom offices and the press. The PCB supported the candidacy of André Nunes Júnior, a former PTB councilor who had supported the Autonomous Alliance for Peace and Against Scarcity, which was inspired by the communists. Nunes Júnior’s vice, running for the PST, was Nelson Rustici, president of the Textile Workers Union of São Paulo. Using the slogan ‘a penny against the million,’ in a reference to the huge economic resources of Cardoso’s candidacy, and the famous symbol of the ‘broom,’ Jânio’s campaign summarized the principal themes of his career until then. He brought to the political debate the demands of those living in the periphery, preached the moralization of administration, and excited the population of São Paulo with noisy rallies and vehement speeches. His victory was December 2013

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overwhelming. The more peripheral the area of the city, the greater the percentage of votes received by Quadros, defeated only in the rich Jardim América. Analyzing this election, the sociologist Fernando Henrique Cardoso said that with Jânio the periphery of the city (which in a jovial tone he called the “bottom of the pot of society”) “made itself present in public life.” For José Álvaro Moisés, the election of Quadros inaugurated “the neighborhood as a political unit.” In total Jânio obtained 65.8% of the votes.25

“Humble workers” require a fairer city The election of Jânio Quadros as mayor of São Paulo was seen by a large part of people at the time as being a political earthquake. The expression ‘the Revolution of 22 March,’ adopted by enthusiasts of the recently elected mayor, referred not just to the day of the election, but also to the intensity of transformations intended. Jânio’s election highlighted popular discontent, which could not be ignored. The editorialists of O Estado de S. Paulo, a newspaper which had supported the candidacy of Francisco Cardoso, confessed that they were surprised, but acknowledged that, more than Jânio Quadros, the victorious Sunday generals [in the election], in São Paulo, were inflation which devalued the currency and made life more expensive, the scarcity of electricity, the lack of trams and buses, the increase in the price of rice and beans, the existence of basements, tenements, and favelas, the absence of water supply and sewage networks, the lack of medical care and other similar ills.26

The ‘victorious generals’ continued to act. In the week after the election a large strike brought the principal industries in the city to a halt, in a wideranging protest movement that would run for almost a month in São Paulo. Known as the “Strike of the 300,000,” it was organized to a great extent by the textile, metallurgical, and print workers, amongst others, in factories and working class neighborhoods.27 The strike had a strong impact on the working class movement in São Paulo and the rest of the country, initiating a new phase of increased organization and a public presence of trade unions. In a few days in the ballot boxes and on the streets, the economic and political elites of the city were surprised by the vitality of popular action. In a city which was increasingly socially segmented, the demands for a better life in the poor neighborhoods and districts amplified during the elections and the working class strikes soon echoed in the ears of a mayor who had 82

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been elected as the ‘paladin of the periphery.’ At the same time, pressurized by the expectations that he himself helped to create and politically interested in the structuring of a solid political base, Jânio sought to deepen still further his relationship with the SABs and tried to develop a program of public improvements and in some way to respond to the numerous demands for goods and urban services of the suburban population. As a result the letters, petitions, requests, etc., sent directly to the mayor’s office constitute a privileged source for the understanding of the relationship between this growing associative and demanding dynamic and the actions of one of the principal personalities in the populist political system in the country at a decisive moment of the affirmation of his leadership and political structure. Some of the processes analyzed contain budgets, statutes, minutes of meetings, and other documents which also allow a more detailed examination of the structure of these associations and their lives and internal political conflicts. Moreover, the descriptions and narratives about the neighborhoods represented can reveal much about the forms of sociability, but also about the tensions and different cleavages existing in these communities. What is immediately striking in the first contact with this documentation is the exponential growth of the demands of the societies after April 1953, the month Jânio Quadros took office. The sending of letters and requests from the SABs directly to mayors precedes the government of Jânio, but it is during his administration that it apparently became a generalized practice. In the short period of his administration (Quadros took leave of office from the mayoralty in July 1954 to run in the elections for state governor, in which he was victorious), the mayor’s office received an ‘avalanche’ of requests and submission by the residents of the most varied poor districts in the city. Most of these were sent by Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods. To a certain extent, it was to be expected that this would occur. As has already stated and repeated by authors of different perspectives, Jânio’s 1953 campaign was strongly associated with the growing movement of the formation of residents’ associations in São Paulo, in particular the SABs.28 Jânio’s victory accelerated this process further. Judging by the dates of the foundation dates present on the logos of letters sent to the mayor, various of the ‘Societies of Friends’ (the complement ‘of the neighborhood’ was added later by the large majority of them) were created in the months before Quadros’ election. Aware of the political potential of the societies and clearly interested in keeping himself close to them, the mayor himself encouraged their protagonist demands. In a petition signed by more than six thousand people sent to Jânio December 2013

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by the Society of Friends of Vila Izolina Mazzei, the residents of the neighborhood, “all poor workers,” demanded a series of improvements for the region and remembered the speech “solemnly given in the Society of Friends of Moinho Velho, and published in A Gazeta [newspaper]”, in which Jânio “asked residents to draft petitions about public improvement whenever possible through their SOCIETIES OF FRIENDS OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD.”29 Apparently Jânio took his words seriously. The large majority of requests analyzed contained annotations in the mayor’s own writing, demanding that measures be taken by the bureaucratic sector responsible for the area in question. Below his annotations a stamp with the word ‘urgent’ was frequently used. Other time the stamp could be even more incisive with the ‘order of the mayor’ which followed the phrase ‘implement’ and the signature of Jânio Quadros.30 All the requests created processes which forged their own paths through the agencies responsible within the municipality’s administrative machinery. Often, however, mere bureaucratic movements did not state what happened to the request. In certain situations, when the technical report was for some reason negative, but the political interest of the mayor was in another direction, the advice of the supposed experts was rapidly discarded.31 When the resolution was quick and positive, it was common for the mayor himself to send a letter to the Society of Friends. This was even more in situations in situations where the requests asked for the mayor’s intervention with telephone (Companhia Telefônica Brasileira) or electric companies (Light) in order to provide the neighborhood with a telephone (usually to be installed in a pharmacy or bakery in the region) or public lighting. These cases which did not need direct action from the municipal secretaries or departments, were well suited for Jânio to put on his paladin’s clothes and to pressurize companies such as Light, target of his virulent attacks since he had been a councilor. As a way of demonstrating his concern the mayor acted quickly in these cases. For example, in a letter dated 12 April 1954, the directors of the Society of Friends of Vila Olímpia asked for a public telephone in a neighborhood bakery, remembering that, “as we have verbally explained to Your Excellency, the lower part of the neighborhood does not have a single phone, which prevents urgent communications” (emphasis added). Two days later, Jânio sent a reply to the Society, stating that he had already ordered the telephone line and apparatus. In this case the mayor’s request from the telephone company was not necessarily a guarantee that it would be promptly made, but it was a clear sign of a channel of communication directly open with the highest 84

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authority in the municipality, which demonstrated a personal touch, as well as promptness in answering the demands of the population. SAB demands provide details of a wide-ranging scenario of an enormous lack of urban infrastructure and the daily difficulties of majority of the population of the pound ‘metropole of work.’ As a result effective participation in the vaunted progress and development of São Paulo, the ‘right to the city,’ was demanded. After all, as the directors of the Society of Friends of Vila Gumercindo noted, in presenting their demands in a letter sent to the mayor on 24 June 1953, “we have nothing of what a neighborhood of a modern city should have.”32 Requests for the paving of roads, the installation of telephones and public lighting, the collection of rubbish, street markets, and the creation and extension of bus lines represented the great majority of requests. There were also requests for the creation of a children’s playground and a crèche in the neighborhood, sometimes with detailed (including maps) of what was the best location, even petitions for the placement of curtains and blinds in the local school group.33 In addition to being bodies for mobilizing residents and making demands, the Societies of Friends were also spaces of sociability and leisure. Many of them, as some studies have demonstrated, were born out of local sports (especially amateur football) or dance clubs, or more general clubs, or were associated with them (cf. Duarte, 2002; Neto, 2011; Fontes, 2008). It should not thus be of any great wonder to find in the middle of so many demands for urban improvements, the request for permission by the Society of Friends of Tremembé and Zona da Cantareira “to hold four Carnival balls and two children’s parties in the revelries of Carnival”, in February 1953.34 The channels which opened between the SABs and local municipal power were also perceived by other local institutions and organizations, which sometimes sent specific requests through the former societies. This was what, for example, Fr. Antonio de Fillipo did, who requested Egisto Domenicali, president of the Society of Friends of Vila Palmeiras, to ask the mayor to “pave the area in front of the [neighborhood] parish church.”35 An important part of the processes refer to requests for urban improvement works, in particular the paving of streets and constructions in general. Having the street paved was generally a preliminary condition to asking for other improvements, such as public transport and lighting. Furthermore, as soon as he took office, Jânio launched an ‘Emergency Plan’(PE – Plano de Emergência) to implement public works, in particular paving streets. This December 2013

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encouraged various SABs, who began to demand the inclusion of the streets of their neighborhoods in the municipal PE. This was the case of the Society of Friends of Unidos das Vilas (which covered the neighborhoods of Casa Verde, Santana and Nossa Senhora do Ó), founded on 12 March 1953 (ten days before the election of Quadros). Signed by the president of the SAB, Álvaro Leite, the letter sent to the mayor on 14 June 1953 asked for “the necessary improvement on Rua Gonçalves Figueira to be carried out.” This street was located in Casa Verde, “on the right of the playground being built in the neighborhood... included in the Emergency Plan.”36 These direct interventions in the daily lives of residents, despite being apparently small, and often the fruit of the pressure of the SABs, reinforced even more the image of Jânio as a politician “friend of the people ... principally and in particular a friend of the small and those who fought from sun to sun to win their daily bread.”37 The improvements of the streets where they lived and moved appeared to have remained strongly in the memory of many of the old residents of the peripheral neighborhoods. João Freitas Lírio, for example, a resident of São Miguel Paulista since 1950, considered the election of Quadros as a landmark for the region. Jânio, Lírio commented, “came here and asphalted, he paved the road of the factory by the station ... With him things began to improve.” Eduardo Rosmaninho, a longstanding resident of Bosque da Saúde, also thought that Quadros was the “first public man to did something for the region,” since it had been him “who had asphalted the first streets, organized the collection of rubbish, the first street market” (cf. Duarte; Fontes, 2004, p.110). The language of the majority of requests, letters, and petitions was far from asking for a ‘favor’.38 In general they were respectful and formal. While the thanks and praise (his “great public spirit” and “elevated sense of justice”)39 for the mayor was wholesome, so too were the demands and references made when he was a candidate or in a visit to the neighborhood. Personal contacts made beforehand with politicians, or visits made by residents to the offices of authorities were, whenever possible, supported by correspondence. In this way, the directors of the Society of Friends of Vila Ipojuca, in their request for the creation of a street market addressed to “Doutor Professor Alípio Correia Netto”, Secretary of Public Hygiene in the Jânio administration, remembered that the letter sent was meant to reinforce “what he had the chance to personally report to him.”40 Intrigued with the phenomenon of Janismo, authors such as Aziz Simão and José Álvaro Moisés have emphasized that Jânio Quadros’ relationship with 86

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workers was fundamentally based on their being residents of the municipality. Nevertheless, it was with the language of labor that the residents represented in the SABs often demanded their rights from the mayor. Repeatedly the condition of ‘working class neighborhood’ was highlighted in most part of the letters and requests. “The large number of workers, young women, and men who lived in Vila Independência in Ipiranga was not only remembered by the local SAB.” The SAB of Vila Gumercindo highlighted that the neighborhood consisted of a “working population with more than 10,000 inhabitants,” while the residents of Vila D. Pedro II called themselves “humble workers,” but wanted “justice.”41 It was also as workers that the residents of São Paulo demanded their right to the city. Jânio’s connections with the SABs played a fundamental role in the construction of the image of the politician, in the creation of the channels connecting Quadros and the population and in the formation of a loyal and welloiled political machine on which the future president would count for many years. Various of the presidents and directors of the Societies of Friends remained adoring Janistas, and some of them actually built up their own political careers. However, it seems to me to be a mistake, made by a significant part of the bibliography of this area, in both the oldest works (see Moisés, 1978; Weffort, 1980; Gohn, 1991; Singer; Brandt, 1980), and in some recent studies,42 to reduce the SABs to mere clientelist organizations, solely based on the logic of the “exchange of material benefits for votes” (cf. Avritzer, 2004, p.12), and thus being seen as one of the principal examples of populist schemes (in the case of São Paulo, represented by Janismo) of manipulation and cooption. This perspective has been intensely and convincingly criticized by scholars such as Adriano Duarte and Murilo Leal, amongst others. Furthermore, the study of the trajectory of the Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods in São Paulo during the 1950s and 1960s clearly showed that although the Janista influence remained strong, various political forces, including communist and other leftwing groups, began to dispute the hegemony of the associative movement in the city neighborhoods. The creation of the Federation of Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods (Federação de Sociedade Amigos de Bairro – Fesab) in 1957 and the progressive ties between the SABs and trade unions, as well as the important presence of these organization of mobilizations against scarcity, in generalized strike movements, and in the struggle for grassroots reforms in the explosive scenario between 1962 and 1964, indicate a much more complex and multifaceted picture of these associations.43 December 2013

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I believe that the still incipient analysis of petitions and demands of Societies of Friends of Neighborhoods contained in this article, illuminates a little more the understanding of the tense reciprocal relations established between workers and populist political leaders in the urban context of the 1950s and 1960s. Understanding how workers had an impact of the process of urbanization, becoming fundamental political actors in the life of the city, can help us appreciate in a more sophisticated manner the rich history of associativism in São Paulo and the construction of citizenship in Brazil. REFERENCES AVRITZER, Leonardo (Org.) A participação política em São Paulo. São Paulo: Ed. Unesp, 2004. BERLINCK, Manoel; HOGAN. Migração interna e adaptação na cidade de São Paulo: uma análise preliminar. In: SIMPÓSIO DE DESENVOLVIMENTO ECONÔMICO E SOCIAL: Migrações Internas e Desenvolvimento Regional, I. Anais... Belo Horizonte: Cedeplar; UFMG, 1972. CALDEIRA, Teresa. A política dos outros: o cotidiano dos moradores da periferia e o que pensam do poder e dos poderosos. São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1984. ______. Cidade de muros: crime, segregação e cidadania em São Paulo. São Paulo: Ed. 34; Edusp, 2000. CARDOSO, Fernando Henrique; LAMOUNIER, Bolivar (Org.) Os partidos e as eleições no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1975. CHAIA, Vera. A liderança política de Jânio Quadros (1947-1990). Ibitinga: Humanidades, 1991. COLISTETE, Renato. Labour relations and industrial performance in Brazil: Greater São Paulo, 1945-1960. Houndmill: Palgrave, 2001. COSTA, Hélio. Em busca da memória: comissão de fábrica, partido e sindicato no pós-guerra. São Paulo: Scritta, 1995. DUARTE, Adriano. Cultura popular e cultura política no Após-Guerra: redemocratização, populismo e desenvolvimentismo no bairro da Mooca, 1942-1973. Doctoral Dissertation in History – IFCH, Unicamp. Campinas (SP), 2002. ______. Em busca de um lugar no mundo: movimentos sociais na cidade de São Paulo nas décadas de 1940 e 1950. Estudos Históricos, v.21, n.42, 2008. ______.; FONTES, Paulo. O populismo visto da periferia: adhemarismo e janismo nos bairros da Mooca e São Miguel Paulista (1947-1953). Cadernos AEL, v.20/21, 2004.

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FERREIRA, Jorge. Trabalhadores do Brasil: o imaginário popular. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. FGV, 1997. ______. (Org.) O populismo e sua história: debate e crítica. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2001. FISCHER, Brodwyn. A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth Century Rio de Janeiro. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2008. FONTES, Paulo. “Centenas de estopins acesos ao mesmo tempo”. A greve dos 400 mil, piquetes e a organização dos trabalhadores em São Paulo (1957). In: FORTES, Alexandre et al. Na luta por direitos: estudos recentes em história social do trabalho. Campinas (SP): Ed. Unicamp, 1999. ______. Um Nordeste em São Paulo: trabalhadores migrantes em São Miguel Paulista (19451966). Rio de Janeiro: Ed. FGV, 2008. ______.; MACEDO, Francisco Barbosa. Strikes and Pickets in Brazil: Working-Class Mobilization in the “Old” and “New” Unionism, the Strikes of 1957 and 1980. International Labor and Working Class History, v.83, 2013. FORTES, Alexandre. Formação de classe e participação política. E. P. Thompson e o populismo. Anos 90, v.17, n.31, 2010. ______. Nós do quarto distrito: a classe trabalhadora porto-alegrense e a era Vargas. Caxias do Sul (RS): Educs; Rio de Janeiro: Garamond, 2004. FRENCH, John. O ABC dos operários: conflitos e alianças de classe em São Paulo, 19001950. São Paulo: Hucitec; São Caetano do Sul (SP): Prefeitura Municipal de São Caetano do Sul, 1995. GOHN, Amélia. Movimentos sociais e lutas pela moradia. São Paulo: Loyola, 1991. GUIA turístico da cidade de São Paulo. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1954. HOLSTON, James. Insurgent Citizenship: Disjuctions of Democracy and Modernity in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. KOWARICK, Lucio et al. As lutas sociais e a cidade – São Paulo: passado e presente. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1988. LIMA, Luiz Tenório. Movimento sindical e luta de classes. São Paulo: Oliveira Mendes, 1998. MOISÉS, José Álvaro. Classes populares e protesto urbano. Doctoral Dissertation in History – USP. São Paulo, 1978. ______. Greve de massa e crise política: estudo da Greve dos 300 mil em São Paulo, 1953-54. São Paulo: Polis, 1978. MOURA, Esmeralda Blanco. Bandeirantes do progresso: imagens do trabalho e do trabalhador na cidade em festa. São Paulo, 25 de janeiro de 1954. Revista Brasileira de História, São Paulo, v.14, n.28, 1994. December 2013

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NETO, Murilo Leal Pereira. A reinvenção da classe trabalhadora (1953-1964). Campinas (SP): Ed. Unicamp, 2011. OLIVEIRA, Samuel Silva Rodrigues. Cidadania e favela: identificação, projetos e ações coletivas no Rio de Janeiro e em Belo Horizonte. Rio de Janeiro: CPDOC/FGV, 2012. PINHEIRO, Marcos César de Oliveira. Os Comitês Populares Democráticos na cidade do Rio de Janeiro. Masters’ Thesis in History – IFCS/Programa de Pós-Graduação em História Comparada, UFRJ. Rio de Janeiro, 2007. QUELER, Jefferson. A roupa nova do presidente: a politização da imagem pública de Jânio Quadros (1947-1961). Anais do Museu Paulista, v.19, n.2, 2011. ______. Quando o eleitor faz a propaganda política: o engajamento popular na campanha eleitoral de Jânio Quadros (1959-1960). Tempo, v.14, n.28, 2010. REIS, José Roberto Franco Reis. Cartas a Vargas: entre o favor, o direito e a luta política pela sobrevivência. Locus, Revista de História, v.7, n.2, 2004. SILVA, M. K. Construção da “participação popular”: análise comparativa de participação social na discussão pública do orçamento em municípios da região metropolitana de Porto Alegre. Porto Alegre: UFRGS/Departamento de Sociologia, 2001. SINGER, Paul; BRANDT, Vinicius. São Paulo: o povo em movimento. São Paulo: Cebrap; Petrópolis (RJ): Vozes, 1980. WALMSLEY, Silvana Maria de Moura. Origens do janismo: São Paulo, 1948/1953. Masters’ Thesis in History – IFCH, Unicamp. Campinas (SP), 1992. WEFFORT, Francisco. O populismo na política brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1980. WEINSTEIN, Barbara. Racializando as diferenças regionais. São Paulo X Brasil, 1932. Esboços, v.13, n.15, 2006. WOLFE, Joel. Working women, working men: São Paulo and the rise of Brazil’s industrial working class, 1900-1955. Durham: Duke University Press, 1993.

NOTES The research which resulted in this article received financial support in the shape of a Sephis grant (South-South Exchange Program for Research on the History of Development) and assistance offered by CNPq through the Human Sciences Program. A preliminary version of this text was presented in a panel at the Congress of the Latin American Association (Lasa) in June 2012 in San Francisco, United States. I am grateful for the comments made at the time by Oma Acha, Nicolás Quiroga, Brodwyn Fischer and Alexandre Fortes. I am also grateful to Álvaro Nascimento, Antonio Luigi Negro, Fabiane Popinigis and Leonardo Pereira for their valuable suggestions and criticism. 1

In relation to the use of images of the Bandeirantes during the celebrations for the 400th anniversary see MOURA, 1994, p.241. See also WEINSTEIN, 2006. 2

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Cf. COLISTETE, 2001, esp. chp. 1. See also NETO, 2011, chp. 1.

4

Advertisement from Banco Moreira Sales, cited in MOURA, 1994, p.241.

5

O Estado de S. Paulo, 25 Jan. 1954.

Statement of Airton Irineu dos Santos, 24 Jan. 2012. Available at: www.saopaulomin hacidade.com.br/list.asp?ID=6116; Accessed on 27 April 2012.

6

Processo 071441/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

7

Processo 129598/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

8

See, Processos 133526/1954 a 133524/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

9

The “pattern of peripheral growth” was analyzed in KOWARICK et al., 1988. See also CALDEIRA, 2000. 10

There is a large and diversified bibliography about populism. For an analysis of some of the principal approaches to the subject, including perspectives which criticize the use of this concept, see WEFFORT, 1980; FRENCH, 1995; FERREIRA, 2001.

11

A similar phenomenon, but with local particularities, seems to have occurred in other cities in the country (such as Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Salvador and Porto Alegre) which also underwent a rapid process of urbanization and economic changes in that period. See, amongst others, FISCHER, 2008; FORTES, 2004; SILVA, 2001; OLIVEIRA, 2012. 12

A particularly interesting example can be found in the ‘strike of the 400,000’ in 1957, when various neighborhood and community societies gave the movement support. Cf. FONTES, 1999; FONTES; MACEDO, 2013; NETO, 2011.

13

14 For the CDPs in São Paulo see principally DUARTE, 2008. The phenomenon was also strong in Rio de Janeiro. See PINHEIRO, 2007. 15

Cf., in particular: DUARTE, 2008; FONTES, 2008; NETO, 2011; QUELER, 2011; 2010.

16

Cf. FRENCH, 1995; FORTES, 2010.

Cf. FONTES, 2008, p.31. The debate about populism was developed in the section “Origem rural, trabalhadores e política (Rural origin, workers, and politics)” in the introduction to the book. It was also dealt with in DUARTE; FONTES, 2004. 17

18 The report about the beginning of Jânio Quadros’ political career in this section is based on a similar analysis made by me in FONTES, 2008, p.247-253.

In the São Paulo elections, Jânio received 1074 votes, the second highest vote for the PDC. According to Vera Chaia this place was insufficient to guarantee Jânio a seat as councilor. However, due to the illegality of the Communist Party and the cassation of the mandates of the councilors elected by the PST (PCB), seats were redistributed among the other parties and the PDC came to have four representatives, including Jânio. This version came to be widely disseminated and known in the political history of the city. However, Adriano

19

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Duarte, citing TRE data from the period, stated that Jânio received 1707 votes, which guaranteed his seat, since the PDC had the right to three seats in the Council Chamber, irrespective of the cassation of the communist councilors. Cf. CHAIA, 1991, p.19; DUARTE, 2002, p.176-177. Having no administrative autonomy, which would only be granted in 1953, the state capital was run at that time by mayors appointed by the state government. 20

21

For a specific analysis of the beginnings of Jânio’s career, see WALMSLEY, 1992.

A Hora, a newspaper owned by Denner Médici, associated itself with Jânio at the beginning of his political career. The periodical gave ample coverage to his visits to various peripheral neighborhoods, and frequently published Quadros’ proposals and demands, both in the Municipal Council and in the Legislative Assembly. It was the only newspaper to support Jânio’s mayoral candidacy in 1953. Later, however, the board of the daily newspaper broke with the elected mayor. In the 1954 elections for governor it was aligned with the candidacy of Prestes Maia. At the beginning of the 1960s, A Hora stopped being published.

22

In her research with the inhabitants of a vila in São Miguel at the beginning of the 1980s, Teresa Caldeira highlighted the strong memories which some of the older residents had to Jânio Quadros, the most remembered of the politicians from the pre-1964 period in the neighborhood. He “was represented,” according to Caldeira, “not only as a governor who had done something for the people, but as someone who was from the people... he had a poor origin and wore any clothes, even a dirty coat, and walked through the neighborhoods ‘drinking pinga in glasses’ with his voters”. Cf. CALDEIRA, 1984, p.273. 23

Adriano Duarte commented that in Jânio’s 1953 campaign for mayor, “while his adversaries rented large halls and held their political meetings indoors, with the public comfortably seated, Jânio went to his voters” with his street rallies. Cf. DUARTE, 2002. 24

25 Cf. CARDOSO; LAMOUNIER (Org.), 1975, p.55; MOISÉS, 1978; CHAIA, 1991, p.72. For a detailed analysis of the relationship between Quadros’ victorious campaign and popular organizations based in local neighborhoods, such as resident associations, amateur football clubs, local committees, etc., see DUARTE; FONTES, 2004. 26

O Estado de S. Paulo, 24 Mar. 1954.

For different approaches to the strike of 300,000, see MOISÉS, 1978; COSTA, 1995; WOLFE, 1993; and NETO, 2011.

27

28

See, amongst others, MOISÉS, 1978; DUARTE, 2002; GOHN, 1991; SINGER; BRANDT, 1980.

Processo 175660/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

29

This was the case, for example, of the request from the Society of Friends of Vila Esperança who in a letter dated 18 May 1954, requested that a gutter be provided for one of the principal streets in the neighborhood. See Processo 1138376/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo. 30

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Although this lies outside the scope of this article, these cases (processos in Portuguese) are also an excellent source for understanding the mechanisms of the processing and the granting (or not) of popular demands in the municipal administrative machine, as well as providing interesting clues for understanding the chains of command in public power and the relations between the elected administrators and the relations between the elected administrators and the bureaucracy of the public service.

31

Processo 118840/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

32

As requested initially by the SAB of Vila Guilherme and by SAB of Vila Matilde after. See Processos 162258/1954 and 122407/ 1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo. 33

34 Processo 28232/1953. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

Processo 157177/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

35

Processo 158178/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

36

Processo 139256/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

37

There have been few studies of the language of petitions and requests in Brazil Most of the works about letters and requests to politicians and authorities or letters from ordinary people to newspapers, in general look at individual letters. For an example of analyzes of letters sent to Getúlio Vargas using a different perspective, see FERREIRA, 1997; REIS, 2004.

38

See, respectively, processes 160804/1954 and 118840/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo. 39

Processo 104888/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

40

41 See, respectively, processes 129598/1954, 118840/1954 and 139256/1954. Divisão do Arquivo Municipal de Processos (DGDP-2). Secretaria Municipal de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão – São Paulo.

Some very interesting papers, such as those of HOLSTON, 2008, and AVRITZER, 2004, repeat the same theses of populist manipulation, clientelism and Janista control of the SABs.

42

43

Cf. FONTES, 2008, esp. chp. 5, and NETO, 2011, chps. 4 and 8.

Article received on 23 August 2013. Approved on 13 October 2013. December 2013

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See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287125705

Muslim Weavers’ Politics in Early 20th Century Northern India Article  in  Economic and Political Weekly · April 2012

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SPECIAL ARTICLE

Muslim Weavers’ Politics in Early 20th Century Northern India Locating an Identity Santosh Kumar Rai

Throughout the early 20th century, lower status weavers tried to critique the upper caste Ashraf-dominated Muslim politics in northern India. From sharing an occupational class identity, the weavers mobilised and asserted themselves as a caste group, seeking special recognition as Momins or Ansaris within a broader Muslim identity. The multiple axes around which their identities had to be asserted and negotiated lend a special character to their political articulation. Yet due to both the complexities of religious dichotomies and local exigencies, the All India Momin Conference could not lend effective voice to a counter-hegemonic stance in Indian Muslim politics. This paper documents the multiple ways in which the politics of weavers unfolded in early 20th century United Provinces.

Santosh Kumar Rai ([email protected]) is with the department of history, SGTB Khalsa College, University of Delhi. Economic & Political Weekly

EPW

april 14, 2012

vol xlviI no 15

T

he politics of weavers in early 20th century United Provinces (UP) unfolded in multiple ways. The Muslim Julaha weavers who formed almost 90% of the weavers’ workforce were at the centre of this politics. From sharing an occupational class identity, the Julahas mobilised and asserted themselves as a caste group, seeking special recognition as Momins or Ansaris within a broader Muslim religious identity. The multiple axes around which their identities had to be asserted and negotiated lend a special character to their political articulation. Weavers’ politics was not just about formation of organisations and interaction with political parties like the Indian National Congress or the Muslim League. Their politics had local meaning shaped by local circumstances. The continuing interaction of the hereditary pre-industrial occupation of weaving with evolving capitalist relations also provided a framework for the weavers’ political stance. Thus the emerging nationalist political environment, the late colonial state and the rising tide of communal politics in the period under study provide the backdrop for understanding the emergence of political organisations like the Jamait-ul-Ansar and the All India Momin Conference. Their politics displayed a quest for an alternative worldview, seeking to challenge existing social hierarchies on the one hand and create an autonomous political space on the other. In this attempt, Islamisation was one of the most important strategies in staking wider political claims. But the process of Islamisation itself spawned several contradictory tendencies which went on to shape weavers’ politics.1 Local pressures and competing community identities further accelerated this process. The politics of the Julahas presents an interesting paradox. Here was a community which was undergoing a process of Islamisation which tended to sharpen their differences with their communal “other”, i e, the Hindus. Yet at the same time, their main political formation, the All India Momin Conference scrupulously avoided identification with the Muslim League which emerged in the period under study as the proponent of Muslim separateness from the mainstream nationalist politics of the Congress. Instead, the Momin Conference identified itself with the Congress based on a shared antipathy to British rule, and common cause on swaraj and swadeshi ideas of indigenous cloth production. What proved crucial for this identification was the pronounced antipathy of the Julahas as caste group towards the upper class/caste Muslim elite who were the main political 61

SPECIAL ARTICLE

base of the Muslim League. These cross-currents of political articulation however were deeply contingent on local configurations of power. The weaving localities of the eastern UP were sites of nationalist political mobilisation. Yet, the weavers’ political issues and aspirations were varied and guided more by local concerns and configurations of power. Under the nationalist umbrella were grouped a variety of responses from weavers. After the intense activity during the Non-Cooperation-Khilafat movement of 1920-22 when a large number of Muslim weavers were actively involved, from the mid-1920s onwards, police reports began noticing the emergence of more organised political formations such as the Jamait-ul-Ansar and the All India Momin Conference. Politics of Muslim Weavers

By the mid-1920s, the formation of an all-India body to organise Julaha weaver communities became imperative. Local and regional Ansari associations had already begun to rise in the second decade of the 20th century. But a resurgence of caste and sectarian organisations at an all-India level, aimed at upward mobilisation of their respective communities, would have certainly influenced this community as well. Immediately before the formation of a national level body, several local Jamaits were active in UP and Bihar to work for the unity and betterment of the Ansari community. The nature of their demands as well as the work of these organisations focused on assertion of a distinct political and social identity for the Julaha weavers. Migrant Julaha weavers from UP in Bengal initiated attempts to organise the community. In 1912, Maulana Hafiz Obedullah Ghazipuri and some others established the social welfare organisation Anjuman-i-Islah-Bilfalha (Organisation for Reform for Success) in Calcutta. Migrant Julaha workers working in the mills of Calcutta were the initial members of this organisation. It was the forerunner to the local Momin Conference held at Kakinada in 1915, chaired by Hakim Abdul Gani Ghazipuri; other participants were Maulana Abu Shoeb Saif “Banarsi”, Maulana Abu Shoeb “Khurjawi” and Maulana Maathe Yaihyya “Sahsrami”.2 Attempts to organise the community as a socio-political movement began at Calcutta in 1914 with the formation of Falah-ul-Mominin, followed by another association called the Calcutta Jamait-ul-Mominin in December 1923. This organisation was the precursor to the All India Jamait-ul-Mominin or the All India Momin Conference established on 25-26 December 1926 under the leadership of Hajiram Mohammad Farkhund Ali of Sasaram. The initial objectives of this organisation were to revive the traditional crafts of the weavers, to promote selfrespect, devout religious conduct and economic independence. Reconsolidation and unity of the community had to be achieved for these objectives.3 This organisation worked as an effective body for the Julahas’ social upliftment and political expression and as a trade union, drawing support from provinces where the Julaha population was significant, namely, Punjab, UP, Bihar and Bengal. The first session of the All India Momin Conference took place at 62

Halliday Park, Calcutta on 7-9 April 1928 and was presided over by Abdul Majid from Benaras. About 200 delegates, 300 “local Musalmaans” and 100 volunteers attended the session. Deliberations began with a focus on the history of the rise and fall of the Momin community. Mohammad Sulaiman, the chairman of the reception committee, blamed the Englisheducated class for their downfall and advised the audiences to stick to their own profession, weaving. The president advocated a system of national education by opening Madrasas. The conference passed the following resolutions:4 (1) It appealed to the community to use cloth manufactured by their own men, especially on festive occasions, marriage ceremonies, etc. (2) It advised their sardars and ulemas to induce Momins to give up extravagant marriage and other social expenditures. (3) A special area be selected to organise their community and to enforce improvements. To start with Allahabad was selected as such a place. It is evident that at its inception, the All India Momin Conference scrupulously avoided an explicit political orientation and instead promoted introspection within the community. Traditional community bonds were emphasised and no demands were made of the government as such.5 In fact, immediately before the formation of this nationallevel body, several local Jamait resolutions indicate a recognition that a distinct identity, even one bearing a shell of “conservatism” had to be formed. The claim for an “assumed” higher social status had to be clearly established. Syed Mahmud and Abdul Bari of Azamgarh were both associated with the Muslim Nationalist Party formed in July 1929 to garner support for the Congress in general and the Nehru report in particular. Though this party served as a platform for nationalist groups like the Jamait-ul-Ulema, All India Momin Conference, Ahrars and Khudai Khidmadgars, it could not extend its base outside Congress circles.6 By 1931, the Momin Conference started making claims for getting Julahas enumerated as Momin during the ongoing census. The mobilisation of the community by the All India Momin Conference or the Jamait-ul-Ansar points to the local and broader politics of the weavers’ community. In the rural areas as well as semi-urban qasbas like Mubarakpur and Maunath Bhanjan, the Momin Conference wielded less influence because here the community was already organised around traditional panchayats having their own hierarchies.7 But in urban centres where Julahas pursued other occupations and the caste identity overlapped with a strong occupational identity, the new organisation could become a rallying point. The provincial organisations also fought against discrimination on the basis of class and caste. Significantly, they asked for equal status along with other communities on the basis of their numerical strength. In 1933, the provincial Jamait-ul-Ansar of UP resented the non-inclusion of its representatives in the provincial Haj Committee, arguing that out of the 7.7 crore Muslim population in India, Momin Ansars were three to four crores, or nearly half. The districts of Gorakhpur, Basti, Azamgarh, Mirzapur, Benaras, Bareilly, Muradabad, Meerut and Saharanpur april 14, 2012

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were predominantly inhabited by these craftsmen. Moreover, their representation specifically mentioned that, “in charitable endowments and devotion to the sacred religious ordain they are second to none of the other Muslim communities”.8 Thus the social demands of the community were accompanied with claims to superior religious observance. Representation in the provincial Haj Committee was demanded on this basis. The government however did not give heed to this demand for representation in spite of claims that the community numerically, “outnumber[ed] any other Muslim community in these provinces also”.9 It seems that the government suspected the loyalty of the Momin Conference. At the same time, organisations with pro-government leanings were given representation. One such organisation, the Jamait-ul-Quraish which claimed to represent 60 lakh Qurashis nationally helped the government “at the time of the opposition against the Congress and that of the Khilafat”, and “repeatedly defeated the Unity Conferences”.10 It was given due representation in the Haj Committee in recognition of its services. Meanwhile the provincial Jamait-ul-Ansar in spite of repeated representations over the years claiming that the “Ansars command a greater bulk of the population and a representative on their behalf in the above Committee is deemed most essential”, was paid no attention. Rather the government opined that “it would not be advisable to encourage organisations like the Jamait-ul-Ansar to seek representation on the Haj Committee by government nomination.”11 Weaver Identity

Drawing on weavers’ industrial identity, in the 1920s and early 1930s, Maulana Azad Subhani, an alim of Kanpur, adopted the symbol of garha or handwoven coarse cloth produced mainly by Muslim artisans, in an attempt to form political organisations of Muslim working class groups throughout UP and to mobilise them for pan-Islamic and nationalist movements. Maulana Subhani spearheaded a campaign to boost the market for garha and to revive its production. He saw the garha movement as a means of regenerating the depressed economic conditions of Muslim weavers and contending with what he argued were their extreme poverty and the destruction of their independent artisanal status. Subhani also made British rule squarely responsible for the decline of Muslim weavers, and urged all weavers to fight against imperialism.12 The Momin Conference also picked up the cause of indigenously produced garha. This emphasis on importance of indigenous handwoven cloth brought the Momin Conference close to the Congress.13 Nowhere was the perception of the handicrafts sector as clear and forthright as in the politics of Mohandas Gandhi. Gandhi demanded that Indians wear only handwoven cloth to affirm their commitment to Indian weavers. By wearing handspun cotton khadi, Indians could resist British imports of cheap machine-made cloth. Even then, the nationalists urging to use the swadeshi yarn itself did not have substantial influence over the work of weavers. Moreover, the Gandhian appeal was more in favour of spinning, affordable for everyone Economic & Political Weekly

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instead of specialised hand-weaving. Even by the mid-1920s, Gandhi argued that:14 Even as I write, I have letters from coworkers saying that in their centres they have to send away weavers for want of yarn. It is little known that a vast number of weavers of mill yarn are in the hands of sowcars, and they must be, so long as they rely upon the mill product.…..The second great difficulty is the absence of a ready market for khaddar. I confess that it cannot for the time being compete with mill-cloth… Over twelve lacs worth of khaddar was sold only last year.

Gandhi expected to use khadi to unite the various religious communities as well. He had no objection to khaddar being used in different style of dressing among different communities.15 During the Civil Disobedience Movement, Mahatma Gandhi visited Azamgarh on 3 October 1929 and spoke on the uplift of Harijans, prohibition and the use of swadeshi. Next day he inaugurated the Khadi Vidyalya in Azmatgarh.16 But some Hindus, far from using the khadi as a symbol of unity with Muslims actually refused to wear the cloth because the khadi available in the region was produced by Muslim weavers.17 Rather the Gandhian call of boycott of English yarn made the life of Julaha weavers more miserable as the khadi yarn was neither well-suited nor easily available for their looms. At this juncture, the Congress policy of promoting swadeshi was going against the weavers’ interest. Now instead of comparatively cheaper mill-spun yarn, they were under the nationalist pressure, been both moral and circumstantial, to opt for expensive hand-spun varieties. In Benaras, it was reported that some merchant dealers refused to buy cloth from weavers if it was spun from non-khadi yarn.18 The limited success of the programme of domestic manufacture of yarn by spinning wheels is evident from the fact that even in 1940, only 14% of yarn used by handloom weavers was hand-spun, compared to 7% imported, and 79% Indian mill yarn.19 Politics of Communal Space

In the post-war circumstances, nationalist politics claimed mass support, linking many a backward communities with nationalist issues. It has been argued on the other hand that communalism worked as an independent force, sharply conscious of its own interests, very keen on preserving itself and not allied to the Congress or the British. The promulgation of the Government of India Act of 1935 not only reinforced separate electorates on the basis of religion but also led to a dramatic change in the nature of communalism in the Indian subcontinent. This is the story of how the different political forces in UP – the Congress, the Muslim League, the landlords and the Hindu Mahasabha – responded to the new political context, and how they strove to establish control over the available political space.20 In this context, the political allegiance of groups and communities should not be analysed in terms of monolithic Hindu and Muslim identities. The politics of the times had to negotiate the complex socio-economic realities of the Gangetic plains. The case of Muslim Julaha weavers represented by Jamait-ul-Ansar and All India Momin Conference clearly indicates the diverse forces at work alongside the 63

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consequent polarisation of the so-called monolithic blocks. The Muslim political space in UP was not solely occupied by the Muslim League. Certainly communal politics, ideologies and strategies played a vital role in political processes. But again the confl ict between upper-caste landlord Muslims and the low-caste poor Muslims clearly shaped outcomes of the political process. Thus in spite of changes in the size of political space for different contestants, the victory was earned by already well-off socio-economic groups. At the end of 1936 in Allahabad, the All India Momin Conference declared its lack of confidence in the UP Muslim League.21 It is worth noting that Gandhi never emphasised the divisions within Indian Islam. Enrolling Muslims for the purpose of bringing them into Congress was never Gandhi’s goal though “the Congress has been serving thousands of Muslim sisters and brothers through All India Spinners Association organising carding, spinning and weaving among them”.22 After the introduction of the Government of India Act of 1935, provincial elections took place in 1937. Communal politics reached its zenith. As a representative of the downtrodden Muslim communities, the role of the All India Momin Conference became very important to political discourse. The community’s marginalisation in the social hierarchy of Islam in India was one of the major factors deciding the course of its actions. The All India Muslim League was seen as the representative body for high-class Muslims. The All India Momin Conference had to maintain a distance from it to protect its own identity. Under these circumstances, the Congress was seen as a political alternative with which the Momin Conference could align. Jawaharlal Nehru observed that, “in UP and Bihar the Momins (chiefly the weaving class) and the Muslim peasantry were far more for Congress because they considered the League an upper class organisation of feudal landlords”.23 Jawaharlal Nehru had assured Bihar Jamait-ul-Mominin on the eve of the 1937 elections that “we are fully aware of the importance of the Momin community and we shall gladly do everything in our power to help it.” Thus immediately after the elections, the working committee of the Bihar Jamait-ulMominin demanded Momin representation in the Bihar Congress cabinet, particularly the portfolio of textile and other cottage industries. Meanwhile, the Muslim League also criticised the Congress for attempting to split the Muslim community through mass literacy and the Muslim mass contact campaign. The grant of Rs 10,000 for the upliftment of the Momins was also resented. The Muslim League asked the Momin members of the Bihar Legislative Assembly to resign if they were not prepared to join the Muslim League. The Momin organisations retaliated by disassociating themselves from the Muslim League and showing an inclination to form a separate party with Congress affiliation. The Muslim mass contact campaign started by the Congress Party after the 1937 elections saw the Ansari community mobilise in favour of the Congress in parts of UP and Bihar. In UP, the Ansaris of Ghazipur, Mirzapur and other adjoining areas were weaned away from the Muslim League in very large 64

numbers under the vital and favourable influence of the Momin Conference.24 By this time, the Indian political scenario was polarised into Congress and anti-Congress political forces (including the Muslim League). The Muslim League had started claiming the status of “sole spokesman” of Indian Muslims. The Congress refuted this assertion by claiming the neutrality or support of various Muslim groups and organisations. Replying to Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s assertion about “the Muslim League as the authoritative and representative organisation of the Mussalmans of India”, Jawaharlal Nehru talked about Muslim organisations like, “the Jamait-ul-Ulema, the All India Shia Conference, the Majlis-i-Ahrar, the All India Momin Conference, etc”, which shared the same political platform as the Congress. Another Congress leader, Rajendra Prasad argued that “the Momins who constitute a very large proportion, if not a majority of the Muslims, who are organised in a separate Jamait of their own and... have openly and repeatedly repudiated the Muslim League claims.”25 As Paul Brass observed:26 the Muslim League dominated by elite Muslim leaders, had no appeal to the momins whereas the Congress, with its Gandhian symbol of the spinning wheels with its pledges of support to the indigenous handicrafts appealed to the economic interest of the Muslim handloom weavers.

But more than the Gandhian programmes, the Congress promise, at least at face value, of engaging all classes by eliminating elite dominance proved more attractive for the Momins as well. In fact, the internalisation of discrimination generation after generation and attribution of inferior status would have been more decisive than proximity to the Gandhian programme in deciding the community’s political affiliation. Provincial Politics

After the formation of the provincial government in 1937, an era of mutual distrust and competition commenced between two major political parties, i e, the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League. During the two years of Congress raj after the election of 1937, Congress Muslims as well as the Momin Conference were closely monitored and stigmatised by the Muslim League for supporting the Hindu raj of the Congress and failing to give priority to the mazhab. Meanwhile, the Congress arranged for a Syed Nasim Gorganvi to control Momin affairs. Abul Qayum Ansari, the leader of the All India Momin Conference was charged with watching in silence when Momins were being killed, injured and beaten during the riots at Tanda, Bhagalpur, Amongaon, Jamui, Majhaul and Tiokri, because he feared his Congress masters.27 In these circumstances, the All India Momin Conference decided to remain a representative of downtrodden Ajlaf and maintained equal distance from both the parties. Addressing a meeting of about 400 members of Jamait-ul-Momin in Kanpur, Mohammad Said Momin advised them to remain aloof from politics, but “if they must join a party, they throw in their lot with Congress”.28 Another meeting of Jamait-ul-Ansar at Allahabad advised members not to april 14, 2012

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depend upon the British, Muslims or Hindus. “They should join neither the Congress nor the Muslim League but become member of the Momin Conference”.29 In places like Kanpur, relations between the Muslim League and the Momin Conference were becoming worse. In a 4 September meeting of Jamait-ul-Mominin, the Muslim League was severely criticised. The very next day, a clash occurred between some Momins and “Muslims”, resulting in the death of one Momin, three days later. It was alleged that the Mohammedan gundas of the Muslim League were responsible for that.30 Subsequently, a meeting of about 3,000 Momins was held in Kanpur. They were advised not to be excited by the recent clash between Momins and others but to remain calm; the death of the Momin volunteer as the result of the clash was to be taken as a signal of success “which is always followed by sacrifices”.31 Again an annual meeting of the All India Jamait-ul-Mominin on 22-23 October was held in Kanpur and attended by about 1,500 people. Here the Muslim League was criticised for its attempt to absorb Momins into the party.32 In a way the caste and class bonds were antagonistically ranged against religious identity. By this time, the weavers and artisans hardly had the right to vote. Even so, the Muslim League did not neglect this community. At a meeting in village Kopaganj, Azamgarh, a reference was made to an article in the Aftab newspaper which alleged that cow-slaughter should be stopped at the point of the sword. A committee of 12 Hindus and 18 Muslims has been formed in village Mubarakpur of the same district to enquire into the truth of the rumour that the Hindus were preparing to resist cow slaughter.33 A Muslim League speaker in a meeting in Benaras in September 1938 informed the audience that due to the khadi and charkha movement, 45 million Muslim weavers had been thrown out of work.34 At Shahjahanpur, a meeting of 1,000 Muslims was organised by the Ansaris to protest against the handwritten posters which fondly abused them. In Gorakhpur, two meetings of the Julaha community were held. The sudden awakening of the Julahas caused some anxiety in the minds of Muslim leaders who realised that they could not afford to lose the help of this very strong community. In Gorakhpur, there were two meetings of the Julaha community.35 Abdul Razzaq, president of the UP Ansar Jamait and other influential supporters were organising the provincial Jamait conference in Gorakhpur. Several enthusiastic meetings were held with capacities of 200-400.36 Pilibhit, Aligarh, Meerut and Bareilly also saw Jamait-ul-Ansar meetings. Daily parades were organised by Jamait-ul-Ansar volunteers in Aligarh city.37 In Mau, Azamgarh, M Mirdad Shah and Abdul Latif lectured in a meeting of a thousand about a book named Hundred Lives. Their main objection was the inclusion of Prophet Muhammad along with other lives, including Mahatma Gandhi. Proscription of the book was demanded.38 About 500 Julahas attended a Momin meeting, the proceedings were entirely social.39 The month of September saw celebratory processions on the anniversary of Jamait-ul-Ansar in several districts. In Sitapur, 250 Economic & Political Weekly

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members of a procession were armed with spears. In Aligarh, Jamait-ul-Ansar strongly objected at the Aligarh district authorities’ insistence on applications for arms licence to carry out such processions.40 In Allahabad, about 100 Jamait-ul-Ansar volunteers performed squad drill and rifle exercises with lathis. Leaders of the Jamait-ul-Ansar, particularly Hakim Bashir Ahmad, Ali Hasam Azim and Abdul Qasim mobilised the Ansars at Muradabad.41 The political mobilisation expressed itself in local terms alone. The League versus the Momins

The political preferences of the Momin Conference were very much a result of its caste and class sensibilities. In 1939, the All India Momin Conference in its representation to the Viceroy pointed out the community’s own assessment of its status within Muslim society. The petition claimed that the Momins or Ansars were a distinct and separate group or class by themselves. The petition lamented that the community had fallen into contempt of certain high-placed sections of the Muslims in India though Islam, the religion of equality, does not believe in the caste system and nobility of birth. It was further alleged that being influenced by the “Brahamanic idea of supremacy and domination”, upper-class Muslims, for all practical purposes, divided Indian Muslims into several castes and sections. Followers of Islam in India were divided into two groups, viz, the Shareef (superior or high) and Razeel (inferior or low). All the Muslim occupational classes were placed in the second group. In spite of being in the majority, Momins remained in a minority in the Census record because:42 in order to escape the agonising humiliation and degradation of being counted and classified among the inferior and low castes, a vast number of the Momins and others got themselves recorded in the census paper as “Shaikh”, that is, the fourth or the last class of the Superior Group-Muslims, and, in a few cases, even as “Syed” or “Pathan”.

In fact, this petition encapsulates the mass sentiment of suffering from caste/class polarisation. With their high position, education and wealth, upper-class Muslims placed the downtrodden groups in a disadvantageous position, monopolising all privilege and forcing the Muslim occupational classes towards landlessness and begar. Inferiority was further enforced through literature, fatwas and ban over marital relations with the lower groups. The representation to the Viceroy identified the All India Muslim League as a party of rich sections or superior groups, antagonistic to the interests of the inferior groups of Muslims in India. The Ansars had neither faith nor confidence in the Muslim League. As a separate political entity, the Momin Conference started a campaign and presented demands popularly known as nukat-e-Momin or “the six points of the Momin”, seeking representation in central, provincial and local government and assemblies, reservations in government jobs and education and state protection to the handloom textile industry. But the Government of India did not consider these demands. The case was closed without any reply as the government “did not want to recognise sub-sections of a community for the purposes of communal representation”.43 65

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The identification of the Momins as Congress sympathisers and their low-caste status certainly put them apart from the general discourse of Muslim League politics. At the same time, the intelligence categorisation of the Momin-Congress relationship as purely economic explains the official desire to impose a religious identity on the Momins as being part of the larger Muslim community favouring the demand for Pakistan. The Congress could never engage with the Momin Conference beyond a point to use it as a bargaining pawn against the Muslim League. It could not exploit the class and caste barriers between the Ashraf and Ajlaf Muslims. It followed its practice of avoiding highlighting divisions in Indian society at large, since this was essential for it to claim of uniting under an all-India umbrella for the Indian masses. The All India Momin Conference felt that Jawaharlal Nehru was afraid that if the low caste claims and reservation demands of the Momin Conference were accepted, several castes among the Hindus would start demanding the same status, and that would be impossible to fulfil.44 The Congress fight against communal representation and Gandhian politics in the Poona Pact vis-à-vis Hindu dalits in 1932 certainly strengthen this claim. In a way, to avoid the divisions within its larger constituency, the Congress could not challenge or exploit the elite-controlled constituency of the Muslim League as well. The nature of the Congress’s own hegemonic politics forced it to compromise with the Muslim League’s hegemonic claims over the Muslim constituency, without seeking to take advantage of the dissenting voices of the backward Muslims represented by the Momin Conference, etc. The failure of the All India Muslim Mass Contact Programme points to the lame-duck attitude of the Congress towards the Muslim constituency. This may also perhaps explain the failure of the Congress and Mahatma Gandhi to effectively take up the issue of weavers in a direct way. Most of the Indian weavers, particularly in the Gangetic plains, were Muslims and that may be why the Congress khadi or khaddar politics gave preference to the spinners over the weavers. One does not find any parallel to the All India Spinners Association of the Congress among weavers’ organisations. Mobilisation in Contrast

The Momins recognised this dilemma and responded by mobilising themselves. During 26-29 December 1939, a joint session of the All India Momin Conference and the Provincial Ansar Conference was held in Gorakhpur. The All India session was presided over by Maulvi Sheikh Mohamed Zahiruddin of Ambala and the provincial session was chaired by Maulvi Mohammad Mustafa of Ghazipur. On 26 December, a procession of 20,000 people through Gorakhpur city concluded with an Ansar flaghoisting ceremony. The necessity for solidarity among the ranks of the Momins was stressed, independent both of the Congress and the Muslim League. Among other resolutions, the need for the organisation and promotion of hand-weaving and spinning industry was emphasised. An Ansar swadeshi exhibition was also held. The conference was attended by delegates from UP, Punjab, Bihar, Central Provinces and Bengal.45 66

The 25-26 February 1940 annual meeting of the All India Momin Conference was held in Kanpur in the presence of about 1,000 people. Throughout this period, the Momin Conference tried to contrast itself to the Muslim League. Immediately after the Lahore resolution of the Muslim League in March 1940, the All India Azad Muslim Conference (an organisation of nationalist Muslim parties under the leadership of Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind), in its session at Delhi in April 1940, unanimously carried the official resolution declaring “Independence – Goal of Indian Muslims”, in opposition to the Muslim League’s demand for a separate Muslim state. The All India Azad Muslim Conference repudiated the charge that Muslims were opposed to India’s freedom. Zahiruddin, president of the All India Momin Conference, attended this session and supported the resolution.46 In the larger politics of the Congress-Muslim League, the All India Momin Conference always tried to intervene as a representative of downtrodden Momins. For the Momin Conference, the Muslim League remained the party of high-caste elite Muslims. In a telegram dated 9 October 1939 to Rajendra Prasad, Abdul Qayoom Ansari, Vice-President of the All india Momin Conference, stated:47 Momin Conference warns against the news published in the newspapers about the League-Congress agreement. The Momins never recognised League and no pact would be acceptable (to the) Momins unless their advice is taken in this regard, ignoring four and half crore Momins in any type of communal or other agreements will be fruitless.

In November 1939, the Viceroy invited Mahatma Gandhi and other Congress leaders for Constitutional talks. Abdul Qayoom Ansari again sent a telegram to Mahatma Gandhi and Rajendra Prasad:48 Momin Conference formed from four and half crore of Momins do not recognise Muslim League as their representative. Any agreement between Congress and League ignoring benefits of Momins will not be acceptable to Momin Conference. Please keep this in mind when meeting Mr Jinnah.

By the beginning of the 1940s, the All India Momin Conference was showing tendencies towards mobilising on the lines of other groups like Khaksars or Ahrars. It was reported that Zahiruddin, president of the All India Momin Conference, on his way from Delhi to Kanpur was welcomed at Aligarh railway station by about 60 Jamait-ul-Ansar volunteers armed with lathis. In the February annual meeting of the All India Momin Conference in Kanpur, the main concerns were the reform of the Momin community and the acceptance by the Government of India of the demands presented to the Viceroy by the Momin community in August 1939.49 Mohammad Ansari of Bihar addressed three Jamait-ul-Ansar meetings in Bareilly. The average attendance was about 200 people. He urged unity among the Ansar community and complained that they were treated like untouchables by the wealthy Muslims. Interestingly, these meetings were packed with local Muslim League supporters who warned the speakers in advance that no criticism of the Muslim League would be tolerated.50 Two Jamait-ul-Ansar meetings attended by 500-600 persons respectively were held in Fatehpur. Speakers including april 14, 2012

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Asim of Bihar, president of the All India Jamait-ul-Ansar and Bashir Ahmad Jehangirabadi, editor of the Momin Gazette, urged their audiences to unite and work for the upliftment of their community.51 A Momin Conference meeting was held in Nazibabad from 27-30 September 1940, presided over by Nizamuddin of Allahabad. Attendance at the conference averaged between 500 and 700. Speeches stressed unity and organisation in the community and urged that they be granted greater representation in the council and assemblies throughout the country.52 At a propaganda meeting of Jamait-ul-Ansar held in Bareilly, exception was taken to the use of the term “Julaha” for members of the community; they were advised to have themselves entered under the term Ansari in the coming census. A resolution was passed requesting early acceptance by the Government of India of the Jamait’s demands for representation in the Viceroy’s Council and Advisory Committee, the formation of an Ansar regiment and full representation of the community in the newly-formed military industrial centres.53 In Allahabad, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad held meeting with Maulana Habib-ur-Rahman, president of the All India Majlis-i-Ahrar, and Maulana Husain Ahmad Madni, the All India Jamait-ul-Ulema leader. Under strict secrecy, it was decided that both the Majlis-i-Ahrar and the Jamait-ul-Ulema would cooperate fully with the Congress in its ongoing Satyagraha campaign. For this purpose, lists of individual satyagrahis were to be prepared by the respective organisations in the various provinces.54 In Agra, at the third annual All India Jamait-ul-Ansar conference held between 12 and 14 April, where the attendance averaged 400-500 persons, concerns about the upliftment of the community.55 Intelligence reports about the political situation in neighbouring Bihar explained the Momins’ passive attitude towards the ideal of Pakistan and their support of the Congress as purely economic: “a Momin’s livelihood depends very largely on the khaddar he produces for the Congress and even so there are signs that religious consideration are beginning to effect his outlook.” But the same report also acknowledged that persistent Pakistan propaganda had c reated among the Muslims an attitude of defiance against the state, in turn helping the Congress. This report had identified the Momins as carders, weavers and other low caste Muslims.56 Politics of Numbers

The numerical strength of the various communities remained a major concern of the colonial government in deciding its political approach. The numerical strength of Muslim Julaha Momins also remained a major issue in the last one decade of the colonial regime. In 1931, the Hindu Mahasabha had fervently campaigned for the harijans to be counted as Hindus and not as a separate caste in the census. Their argument was that the British were playing a divisive game and separate counting would divide and weaken the Hindu community and that. Ten years later, the Muslim League followed the Hindu Economic & Political Weekly

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Mahasabha in both letter and spirit. On the eve of the 1941 Census, the provincial secretary of the Bihar Muslim League, Syed Badruddin Ahmad – an Ashraf as the name makes clear – issued an appeal to Muslims to mention their religion but not their caste. He saw inclusion of the caste category in the census as divisive and hence against the “community”. Taj Muhammad, a district leader of the low-caste Muslim movement called Jamait-ul Mominin, forcefully countered the Muslim League’s appeal. In open opposition to the Muslim League’s position, he appealed to the colonial, “ethnographic state” that Momins must necessarily be counted and registered as a separate caste. In a letter published in The Searchlight on 10 September 1941, Taj Muhammad pleaded his case:57 Frightened with the numerical strength of the Momins, the veterans of the Muslim League, who have always looked down upon Momin as a class, have left no stone unturned to enlist them not as Momin but merely as Muslims…In this context, the exploited and the deprived Momins make a humble request to the government that to maintain their representative character, which others want to annihilate, it directs the census department to register the Momins as a separate caste.

The All India Momin Conference also countered political manoeuvring about its status by challenging the statements of Secretary of State for India Leopold Amery who had dismissed the claims of the Momin community as unworthy and exaggerated on the basis of census report of 1931. In fact the British House of Commons saw major debates over the issue. Two members of the House R W Sorensen (of the Labour Party) and Silverman raised the All India Momin Conference claim in Delhi of representing 45 million Muslims. The issue was dealt in the following manner:58 Outside the ranks of the enfranchised are large numbers of Momins and other poor Moslems who may stand aloof from the Moslem League. The Momins (weavers and the like) have proclaimed their dissent, as I well know by the many cables that have reached me. During the war one of these stated that on behalf of 45,000,000 Moslem Momins they repudiated Mr Jinnah. Mr Amery, then Secretary of State for India replied, when I drew his attention to this, that the cable must have meant “four to five million” and the House laughed at my apparent discomfiture. A week later I had a further cable stating it was “45,000,000”. Whereupon Mr Amery still insisted that was false but that they might number six or seven million…

In his reply, Amery questioned the population strength and political influence of the Momins. The controversy which followed his replies to the parliamentary gathered momentum. The working committee of the All India Momin Conference passed a resolution indicating the inconsistencies and limitations of the census report of 1931, which had failed to cover Momins other than those engaged in weaving. Many Ansari Momins, it argued, had concealed their Momin identity to avoid the social stigma attached to this identity. The census had neglected Momins residing in Assam, Madras, Central Provinces, Berar, Hyderabad, Mysore and Travancore. The All India Momin Conference asserted that:59 the population of the Momin community is under no circumstances less than forty-five millions and it comprises not only weavers and agricultural labourers, as stated by Mr Amery, but, like other communities of India, also of lawyers, legislators, Government servants, business men, cultivators, artisans and factory workers.

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Due to various causes, a large number of weavers had left their hereditary calling. The social stigma and economic degradation attached to the caste of Julaha and work of weaving had forced many to leave the occupation. When the handweaving industry in India came under severe competition from machine-made imports, the position and prospects of the industry were affected, and as a result, large numbers of weavers belonging to the weaving castes took up other professions generally connected with trade or agriculture. On the other hand, weavers who prospered by dealing in cloth gradually became businessmen and remained only nominal members of the weaving castes. They, along with a few others, got into the liberal professions by utilising educational facilities and had taken their place among the urban middle classes. Those who changed over to menial jobs still took pride in calling themselves by the old class names, but those who prospered in the business or the liberal professions soon gave up their caste contacts. These changes were noted in the periodical censuses. It was believed that considerable numbers of the chief weaving caste had given up weaving by 1921.60 This controversy about the category of the Momins in the census shows deliberate colonial confusion that whether the Momins should be identified as a caste or occupational category. The constant requirement to demarcate the identities of the community by identifying “self and other” forced the Momin Conference and other similar organisations to reclaim new or lost boundaries. On 9 February 1943, a private meeting of the working committee of the All India Momin Conference was held in Allahabad. Zahuruddin of Lahore was re-elected as president for the coming year. It was also decided that an annual general meeting would be held at Delhi during Easter, “at the same time as the annual session of the Muslim League”.61 The Idea of Swaraj

The eighth session of the All India Momin Conference held in New Delhi in April 1943 continued to assert its separate identity

by condemning the demand of Pakistan on “behalf” of four and a half crore Momins. Unlike the Congress, which could not forbid its members from holding simultaneous membership of other political organisations like the Hindu Mahasabha, the Momin Conference took a stand disallowing even its primary members from becoming members of any other political organisation. Anticipating the post-Independence struggle of the downtrodden, Momin Conference President Sheikh Mohamed Zahiruddin believed that the “amelioration of millions of Momins in India, who are in the same position in the Muslim community as the Depressed Classes are among Hindus, is only possible under swaraj.” The main resolution of this session called for the complete independence of India; swaraj was seen as the only alternative. By this time, the Momin Conference had some 500 committees in the districts and villages of India, mostly in UP and Bihar, where the bulk of the community was concentrated. The president of the conference Zahiruddin expressed keen disappointment about the absence of a Momin representative on the Fact-finding Committee of 1942 with regard to the handloom industry, although as weavers their interest in the committee’s work was obviously intimate. At the same time, the central committee of the Momin Conference supported the war effort and resolved to wait in a deputation to the commerce member and the Viceroy, to discuss how best the resources of the Momin Ansari community could be harnessed to the war effort. The committee deplored the indifference of the central government towards utilising the resources of the Momin Conference in manpower, skilled and unskilled labour.62 Even by 1943, the Conference did not believe that the Muslim League either had mass appeal or that it cared very much for the common people or that it had sympathy for any programme for upliftment of the underdog. Zahiruddin, president of the All India Momin Conference, left the League on the basis of this belief. When he was urged to bring about a rapprochement between the Muslim League and the Momin Conference, he

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wrote to Jinnah to ask whether the League had any intention of changing its attitude towards the masses. He did not receive any reply. At the same time, the organisation tried to avoid being seen as a political bulwark against the Muslim League. It decided to sever all connections with the Congress as well as the Muslim League to refute the charge that Momins were working with the Congress to divide the Muslim community,63 though it shared the Congress ideal of complete independence for India. In fact, by this time, Muslim League had started countering the separate agenda and status of the Momin Conference by going to the extent of spreading rumours about cancellation of Momin Conference sessions. A meeting of the working committee of the All India Jamait-ul-Ansar was held in Kanpur on 20-21 June 1943 under the presidentship of Zahiruddin. The meeting deplored the response of Muhammad Ali Jinnah to the letter written to him by Gandhi and regarded his attitude as a challenge to the spirit and tradition of Islamic chivalry. It stated that he had prejudiced the country’s effort for early settlement of her problems. The meeting passed the following resolutions: (1) With a view to accelerating the war effort and to ensuring complete and willing cooperation of the country, the government should release all the political prisoners and focus their attention on formation of a national government at the centre, representing all important elements in Indian national life. (2) To request the Government of India to nominate the representative of the Jamait-ul-Ansar-i-Hind to the Textile Advisory Board, which was to be established shortly. (3) To wait in deputation on the commerce member of the Government of India with a view to discussing the best way to harness the resources of the Momin community for the war effort. It was decided to move the office of the All India organisation from Kanpur to Delhi. Every member of the community had to subscribe a rupee per head to start a factory for the benefit of the community. The members of the community “should not join any political organisation other than the Jamait-ulAnsar”. A subcommittee consisting of Maulvi Zahiruddin, Sheikh Said Ahmed of Bombay, the president and the general secretary and Bashir Ahmad of Kanpur the editor of the Momin Gazette was appointed to tour Indian states and to study and report on the conditions and requirements of the Momins living there. The working committee meeting referred to the the district Jamait-ul-Ansar conference in Kanpur where the government was criticised for acting unjustly in arresting Congress leaders and harassing them in jail; the release of the Congress men was urged as necessary for the successful prosecution of the war. The trend of the All-India and district conferences was pro-Congress and anti-Muslim League.64 The working committee of the All India Jamait-ul-Mominin met in Kanpur under the presidentship of Zahiruddin on 17-18 October 1943. A resolution was passed to persuade Momins to resign from the Muslim League.65 On 7-8 October 1945, 50 nationalist Muslims representing the Majlis, the Ahrars, the Congress, the Jamait-ul-Ulema, the Khaksars, the Momins and the Sunni Board held a private meeting in Lucknow. They decided to field candidates against Economic & Political Weekly

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the Muslim League in all the constituencies and to collect Rs 2 lakh for election work.66 The UP Momin Conference held in Muradabad on 4 October 1945 was attended by 15,000 people and adopted resolutions promising help to nationalist Muslims, expressing abhorrence for the rowdyism of League members, and showing sympathy for the Indonesian patriots, the Palestine Arabs and the Indian National Army (INA) soldiers.67 The president of the All India Momin Conference asked the Ansars to vote for nationalist Muslims and the working committee of the All India Momin Conference on 27 December 1945 met in Aligarh to deliberate upon the nomination of the Momin candidates for the provincial assembly.68 In the beginning of 1946, election propaganda was in full flow. Support for the nationalist Muslims was canvassed at the district Momin Conference meeting held at Ghazipur on 19 January. The Provincial Momin Ansar Conference also issued a circular exhorting Momins to vote for nationalist Muslim candidates.69 Legacy At this juncture, the leadership of the Momin Conference suffered a major setback due to the League’s manoeuvres, when Zahiruddin also decided to join the Muslim League. Thus he had to be suspended and replaced by Abdul Qayum Ansari of Bihar as the president.70 A meeting of 50 people in Mau criticised Zahiruddin for joining Muslim League. A resolution was sent to the Momin Conference in Allahabad stating that the Momins of Mau were not prepared to join Muslim League under any circumstance.71 The failure of the Momin Conference to manoeuvre within the available political space led to the emergence of other alternatives. The year 1940 saw the emergence of two new organisations in the Azamgarh district. The first group was the Communist Party of India. The second, the Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, was formed in Azamgarh district at the instance of Maulana Habib-ul Rehman of Mau, Nath Bhanjan and Hakim Ishaq of Azamgarh. Only immediately after Partition does one find references to its resurgence in the district. A meeting of 200 people was held in Mau on 5 March 1948 with Maulvi Abdul Latif as the chair. It was said that the Jamait-ul-Ulema would fight against the new government just as they fought against the British government. The speakers were President Ahmadullah and Ghulam Rasul. They gave fiery speeches saying that their organisation was to a large extent instrumental in bringing about independence. But now that the Congress was in power, it was not doing justice and proving even worse than the British government, in ignoring the welfare of kisans and mazdoors, it had further imposed a ban on the newspaper Al-Jamiat. The following resolutions were passed at the meeting:72 (1) Handloom cloth should be exported to Pakistan. (2) No tax should be imposed on the sale of this cloth. (3) 25% of the cloth to be sent outside the country should be handloom cloth. (4) The ban imposed on newspaper Al-Jamiat should be withdrawn. 69

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The antagonistic hierarchical class/caste relations were situating the Momin Ansars in such a position where even the idea of a separate nationality for the Indian Muslim was not lucrative enough to bring them together with the Muslim League. After the formation of two nations on the subcontinent, fewer Momin Ansars migrated from UP compared to the elite and high-class Muslims as they had nothing to lose except their “handlooms”.73 So the political aspirations and religious activities of the weavers clearly establish an attempt to carve out an independent space for socio-economic mobility. Lower status Julahas tried to critique the Ashraf (upper caste) dominated Muslim politics in northern India. For the Momin Ansaris to develop as Notes 1 The argument here is that multiculturalism only operates at the level of the “great traditions”, to the detriment of “little traditions”, which are inherently plural. In anthropological usage, “great tradition” refers to the culture of priests and theologians. Since the community of priests and theologians is also in a sense a textual community, the concept may be used to highlight the textual reading of religion. A textual reading of religion reifies identities to the exclusion of other practices. The little tradition is a repository of inherited customary practices which may not necessarily be compatible with the textual religious tradition. 2 Ashfaque Husain Ansari, Momin Conference ki Dastavezi Tareekh (Documentary History of Momin Conference), Delhi, 2000, pp 17, 19. 3 Hasan Nishat Ansari, The Momin Congress Relation (A Socio-Historical Analysis), Patna, 1989, pp 2-3. 4 Police Intelligence Department, Secret Police Abstract of Intelligence, United Provinces (henceforth PAI), Lucknow, No 3, 28 April 1928. 5 Ibid. 6 Mushirul Hasan, “ ‘Congress Muslims’ and Indian Nationalism: The Dilemma and Decline, 1928-34”, South Asia, 8(1-2), 1985, pp 11-12. 7 Sheikh Abdul Majid undated diary entry (19021934?), unpublished Urdu manuscript, Maulvi Kamaruzzaman Mubarakpuri, Muhalla Sufipura, Mubarakpur, Azamgarh, UP. 8 Letter from the Provincial Jamait-ul-Ansar, UP to the Home Member, Government of UP, File No 122/ 1930, Boxes 279-281, Political Department, UP State Archive (henceforth UPSA), Lucknow. 9 Ibid. 10 Report of the Proceedings of the Executive Committee of the All India Jamiat-ul-Quraish, held on 18-20 February 1933, Agra. 11 Letter from the Provincial Jamait-ul-Ansar, UP to the Home Member, Government of United Provinces, File No 122/ 1930, Boxes 279-281, Political Department, UPSA, Lucknow. 12 PAI, No 40, 10 October 1931; No 25, 25 June 1932; No 33, 20 August 1932; No 45, 12 November 1932. 13 Nandini Gooptu, The Politics of the Urban Poor in Early Twentieth Century India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 2001, pp 264-66. 14 “Handloom vs Spinning-Wheel”, Young India, 11 November 1926, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 37 (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India), 1999. 15 Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 23, March 1922-May 1924, Ahmedabad, 1979, p 59. 16 Swatantrata Sangram Ke Sainik, Zila Azamgarh, UP, Information Department, Lucknow, undated.

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a counter-hegemonic force in Indian Muslim politics, they had to consistently critique the social and religious articulation of Ashraf dominance. This was a stance that could not be successfully voiced by the All India Momin Conference due to the complexities of religious dichotomies and local exigencies. The religious categorisation of people created a polarisation on communal lines. Different identities were adopted at various times by these groups, yet the main agenda of having a social status, occupational upliftment and sense of empowerment was central to every move. Their socio-economic deprivation ensured that instead of taking up their cause, larger forces used them for their own agenda. But their pro-nationalist overtones carried an earnest desire to overcome the odds of inherent inequalities.

17 Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Volume 24, Ahmedabad, 1967, p 426. 18 PAI, No 24, 21 June 1930. 19 Indian Cotton Textile Industry Annual, 1949, Bombay, p 152. 20 Salil Misra, A Narrative of Communal Politics: Uttar Pradesh, 1937-39 (New Delhi: Sage Publications), 2001. 21 The Pioneer, 20 December 1936. 22 Gandhi on Hindu Muslim Unity, G-34/ 1939-42, All India Congress Committee Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (henceforth NMML), New Delhi. 23 Jawaharlal Nehru to Krishna Menon, not dated, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Vol XIV, Delhi, 1984, p 97. 24 Basudev Chatterjee, ed. Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1938, Volume 2 (Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2002, pp 1409-1413; Hasan Nishat Ansari, The Momin-Congress Relation, p 8; Papiya Ghosh, “Partition’s Biharis” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East , Volume 17, No 2, 1997. 25 Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, ed. Quaid-e-Azam: Jinnah’s Correspondence (New Delhi: Metropolitan Book Company), 1981, pp 271-74; Rajendra Prasad, India Divided (Delhi: Anmol Publications), 1986, p 153. 26 Paul R Brass, Language, Religion and Politics in North India (London: Cambridge University Press), 1974, p 246. 27 Star of India, 22 December 1938; 17 July 1939; 26 September 1938. 28 PAI, No 2, 15 January 1938. 29 Ibid, No 29, 29 July 1938. 30 Ibid, No 37, 17 September 1938. 31 Ibid, No 38, 24 September 1938. 32 Ibid, No 44, 5 November 1938. 33 Ibid, No 4, 29 January 1938. 34 Ibid, No 40, 8 October 1938. 35 Ibid, No 23, 10 June 1939. 36 Ibid, No 24, 17 June 1939. 37 Ibid, No 25, 24 June 1939. 38 Ibid, No 27, 8 July 1939. 39 Ibid, No 31, 5 August 1939. 40 Ibid, No 37, 16 September 1939. 41 Ibid, No 38, 23 September; No 41, 14 October 1939. 42 Representation from All India Momin Conference to the Viceroy, 28 August 1939, Home Department (Public Branch), File No 185/39, National Archive of India (henceforth NAI), New Delhi. 43 Ibid. 44 Jawaharlal Nehru to Abdul Qayoom Ansari, Letter dated 14 November 1939, Cited from Ali Anwar, Masawat Ki Jung (Battle for Equality) trans Mohammad Imran Ali and Zakia Jowher, Delhi, 2005, pp 201-03. april 14, 2012

45 PAI, No 1, 6 January 1940. 46 The Leader, 1 May 1940, Accession No 1484, Private Papers, UPSA. 47 Mushirul Hasan, “ ‘Congress Muslims’ and Indian Nationalism: The Dilemma and Decline, 1928-34”; Hasan Nishat Ansari, The Momin Congress Relation, p 19. 48 Ibid. 49 PAI, No 10, 9 March 1940. 50 Ibid, No 16, 20 April 1940. 51 Ibid, No 29, 20 July 1940. 52 Criminal Investigation Department (CID), UP, “Weekly Appreciation of the Political Situation for the Week Ending 4 October”, PAI, 1940. 53 Ibid, 15 November 1940. 54 Ibid, 13 December 1940. 55 Ibid, 18 April 1941. 56 Director of Intelligence Bureau’s Report of the Political Situation in Bihar, Home Department Political (I) Branch, File No 31/1/1941-Police (I), NAI. 57 Ali, Anwar, Masawat ki Jang (Battle for Equality), pp 24-30; Irfan Ahmad, “A Different Jihad: Dalit Muslims’ Challenge to Ashraf Hegemony”, Economic & Political Weekly, 15 November 2003, p 4889. 58 R W Sorensen, My Impression of India (London: Meridian Books), London, 1946, p 117. 59 Nripendra Nath Mitra, ed. The Indian Annual Register, January-June 1942, Volume I, Calcutta, 1943, pp 329-30; Hindustan Times, Delhi, 7 April 1942; Statesman, Delhi, 7 April 1942. 60 P J Thomas, chairman, Report of the Fact Finding Committee (handloom and mills), 1942, Delhi, 1942, pp 64-65. 61 CID, UP, Weekly Appreciation, ending 12 February 1943. 62 The Indian Annual Register, January-June 1943, Volume I, Calcutta, 1944, p 292. 63 Ibid, pp 290-92. 64 CID, UP, Weekly Appreciation, ending 25 June 1943. 65 Ibid, 22 October 1943. 66 Ibid, 12 October 1945. 67 Ibid, 9 November 1945. 68 Ibid, 23 November, 21 and 28 December 1945. 69 Ibid, 25 January and 1 February 1946. 70 Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850 (London: Routledge), 2001, p 520. 71 Intelligence Papers, Local Intelligence Unit, Police Office, Azamgarh, 2 April 1947. 72 Intelligence Papers, Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind, Local Intelligence Unit, Police Office, Azamgarh, 12 March 1948. 73 Interview with Qazi Zafar Masood, Mubarakpur, Azamgarh, 01-02-1998; Report on the General Administration of the United Provinces, 1948, Allahabad, 1951. vol xlviI no 15

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Contents

Acknowledgements Published by Tulika Books 35 All (ground floor), Shahpur Jat, New Delhi 110 049, India

vii

The Vernacularization of Labour Politics: Introduction SABYASACHIBHATTACHARYA

Vernacular Alternatives to Trade Unions

Voluntary Associations in a Public Sector Industrial Undertaking: Civic or Political Action AARDRASURENDRAN

© Association of Indian Labour Historians & V.V. Giri Natonal Labour Institute 2016 First published in India in 2016 ISBN: 978-93-82381-82-2

25

Unions, New Forms of Collectives in Kuttanad, Alappuzha, and Diverse Narratives of Development in Kerala: Representation, Negotiation and Agency MEERA VELAYUDHAN

46

Trade Unions, Neighbourhood Associations and Working Class Politics in Sao Paulo, Brazil (1950s-1960s) PAULO FONTES

63

Forms of Organization and Practices of Mobilization: Ju/aha Weavers in Early Twentieth-Century North India SANTOSH KUMAR RAI

83

The Cultural Politics of Labour in Post-Socialist China: The Case of Subject Formation and Identity Politics of Peasant Workers ERIC FLORENCE

102

State and Social Regulation in the Vernacular Mode

The Poonamallee Insurrection of 1796 Printed at Chaman Enterprises, Delhi 110 002

PRASANNAN PARTHASARATHI

133

The Dual Meaning of Debt

The Dual Meaning of Debt Political Considerations for the Mobilization of Mining Labour in Southwest Ghana, 1877-1911 Cassandra Mark Thiesen

The history of labour mobilization for industry of large scale in a global imperial context has often described debt as one of the most essential means of workers' subjugation. In many industries, in various regions of the globe, the mechanisms of debt bondage were such that once a worker accepted any form of credit from an employer or recruiter, he or she could hardly wilfully withdraw his or her labour power, lest severe fines or a jail sentence (often including hard labour to the state's benefit) be the outcome. Yet, debt or credit did not involve identical mechanisms through time and space. And, perhaps, certain mechanisms have not yet been captured in the literature. In what follows, credit for contract workers is examined in the context of the first mechanized gold mines in the Gold Coast and its protectorates, in the region of modern-day Ghana, to make several fine points about credit, trust and risk. Above all, the following question is posed: whereas historians often equate recruits for colonial commerce with wage slaves, could it be that amongst the potential West African wage workers in the mines, the most vulnerable actually lacked the possibility of being recruited and brought to urban work sites because not being in a condition of indebtedness in their rural homes made them too risky as candidates for labour recruitment to select? In short, were the very poor excluded from the labour force in the mines in the nineteenth century because of 'a social need to be indebted'? Liberian Contract Men and the Wassa Gold Mines

Contract workers did not comprise the bulk of the mining labour force in the state of Wassa in southwest Ghana. Yet, continual and extended work made them the most desirable type of employees. Since the local Akan social group preferred to work on a casual basis, contract labourers were brought from other sites along the West African coast. Mostly there were Liberian labourers of mixed Kru, Grebo, of Bassa heritage. 1 A reputation for a readiness to travel long distances for jobs had grown out of the long history of their experience in wage-earning. Liberian men also often agreed

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to undergo twelve months of service to a given employer. Another factor that attracted employers in the mines to this group was their inclination to work underground without much fuss. Other social groups, the Akan people in particular, regarded underground mining as being too dangerous. They were reluctant to spend numerous hours on end in the dark, damp and oppressive atmosphere. Moreover, a social stigma that marked underground mining was also a factor. A fourth reason why mine managers selected Liberia as the source for large-scale labour recruitment was because a large number of workers from that state could generally be engaged within a short span of time, with the help of Liberian labour recruiters. There was a dominance of Liberian contract labourers throughout the first gold boom of 1879 to 1885, which began to decline toward the end of the century. An initial indicator that Kru labour was becoming increasingly scarce appears in the company records of the Ashanti gold mines in Obuasi in 1896, when mine manager Edwin Cade reported to his board in London that Kru men were of the most valuable underground workers 'to handle machines, to stoke, and generally to show the other natives both to work and to exercise care'.2 However, he continued, it 'is regrettable that the supply is running short'. 3 Cade then explained, 'the French have put an export duty on them'. 4 Starting in the late 1890s, imports of Liberian labourers began to decrease following French territorial conquest of Liberia. Coinciding with the end of the first gold boom in Wassa in 1885, French officials claimed that their possessions extended continuously from the Ivory Coast to the southern tip of Liberia, beyond the Cavalla River and Cape Palmas through to the town of Gara we. The French government even made further territorial claims lying in the heart of the Liberian Republic, including Cape Mount, Grand Bassa and Grand Butu. 5 It was the area between the San Pedro River to the east and the Cavalla River to the west in particular that instigated trouble for foreign employers in West Africa, because it also happened to be practically the natural boundary of an expansive Kru population during this period. According to Raymond Buell, 'the very fact that this coast was inhabited by a valuable source of labour supply, made France desire its possession'. 6 French claims on these points were based on agreements that had been purportedly made between the traditional authorities in these locations and the commanders of war vessels. Tensions between the two governments peaked in 1891, when French officials informed Britain of a desire to set up formal administration as far as Garawe, though, alas, they were contented only to control the area bordering the Cavalla River. 7 After the failure to win the support of the United States and European nations, on 8 December 1892, the newly appointed Liberian president, Joseph James Cheeseman, accepted a treaty drawn up by French officials, which granted France the territorial rights

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THE VERNACULARIZATION OF LABOUR POLITics

to confirm the current border of Liberia and the Ivory Coast. In e~change th Liberians received 25,000 francs. Still, disputes connected to the applica~io~ of the treaty dragged on well into the 1920s. With this acquisition in 1892 a vital source for the supply of Kru labourers fell under French control. I ' addition to levying higher taxes on Kru labour exports, and thereby raisinn recruitment costs for foreign employers in colonial Ghana, French officials als! began to recruit large numbers of Kru labourers for their own schemes ' 1·.e• t 0 work on the Panama Canal or in the French colonial army. The recruitment of Kru men would only become more difficult a decade later, as the Liberian government had a growing incentive to limit Kru exports from areas within its own boundaries. A significant settlement of Krus had also developed in the Kru town later known as the township of West Point, in northern Liberia during th~ first gold boom in Wassa. At the turn of the twentieth century, the Liberian government increasingly limited recruitment from the peninsula in the city of Monrovia. Firstly, parallel to the explosion of foreign commercial activity in other parts of West Africa in the 1890s, there were also growing efforts by Liberian rubber farmers to increase local agricultural outputs. 8 These farmers, however, were struggling with a labour shortage at the same time that their government was supporting the exportation of local labourers to other parts of West Africa, in order to support foreign industries. 9 These tensions arose at a time when the republic of Liberia was already feeling a weakened hold over its indigenous population. In consequence, the legislation to restrict labour exports may have been a way for the government to exert political strength whilst appeasing local producers. In any case, in 1902 President Garretson Warner Gibson indicated the government's disapproval of the trade of exporting Liberian labourers. 10 His pronouncement prompted a formalization of this objection, and by 1903, officials enacted the legislation to permit recruitment to only those foreign enterprises that were in possession of a recruitment license, which cost 250 dollars. Additionally, instead of accepting 10 shillings as head money, the law required an end to the recruitment of all labourers under the age of twenty-one; it imposed a fee of $5 per recruit; and demanded a deposit of $150 from recruiters as guarantee that each labourer returned, or was returned, once his term of service had concluded. 11 Both the French conquest and Liberian politics were to have a direct impact on the demography of the labour force in Wassa. In a break from nineteenth-century trends, the percentage of Liberians available for contract work went on a drastic decline from the late 1890s, forcing the mining entrepreneurs in Wassa to take swift action. In 1902, Mr Bullen, the secretary of the Mine Managers' Association, a central organization for local companies, requested that 'in view of the increasing difficulty

The Dual Meaning of Debt

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of obtaining native labourers, more especially Kru boys and Bassas, owing to the reported increase in head money from 10/- to £2', the colonial office and the colonial government's Transport Department come to their assistance by endorsing a recruitment monopoly for foreign employers. 12 In the meantime, however, mine managers had to cast a wider net for labourers from other parts of West Africa, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone and French colonies. 13 During the second gold boom of 1900-05, the gold mines underwent significant demographic change. Additional changes were made in line with other major gold fields around this period, such as the general professionalization of mechanized mining and the introduction of deep-level mining. What remained the same over these two stages, the two gold booms, was the continuous and large-scale recruitment of contract labourers through headmen. 14 Whereas different types of headmen would in increasing numbers enter the market at this point, during the nineteenth century, the contract headman - who relied on the capital and the pre-approval of mine managers for conducting their recruitment activities - was the most frequent manifestation of the phenomenon. West African Contract Headmen in the Gold Mines

In British West Africa, the period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century began with the scramble for Africa and European claims to local territory, and ended with territorial expansion into its interior. As part of this conquest, British officials were also challenged with the moral imperative of 'civilization', e.g., of ending indigenous slavery. At the same time, they continued to need African elites to contribute to the social, economic and political life of local colonies and protectorates. African intermediaries, therefore, became piece and parcel of the colonial administrative bodies. Middlemen also played an important role in colonial commerce. And before colonial conquest permitted an experiment with political labour (the recruitment of large numbers of labourers through African chiefs), foreign mining entrepreneurs in Ghana depended on individual labour recruiters from across the West African coast to travel back to their home regions, in order to 'collect' a gang of roughly twenty-five unskilled labourers and transport them back to the mining centre, in the district of Tarkwa, by ship, land or lorry - West Africa still comprised a very fluid labour market during this early stage of imperialism. The headman presented an important bridge between an older, mostly rural work context and a newer urban one, through extending certain social services to the rural recruits. Headmen made their role indispensable to the enterprise in several others aspects as well, essentially taking some of the operative burden off the shoulders of the big mining firms. The relationship between the headman and the recruit extended beyond a purely economic

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context of employment. For example, the headman was expected t of men who had fallen ill. 15 Sickness was not a reasonable ca use t 0 takke care . o sac or t 0 ·k rep 1ace a wor k er, an d d omg so was an offence that carried serio . . mmsn followmg letter, wntten by a headman in response to an employer' · . e . . . s accusat10 t h at h e had fired one of his recrmts while the former was ill, exem l'fi n ' k. f . k' ld . . p I es that not ta mg care o your SIC cou qmckly give a headman a bad · wit · h h is ' European emp1oyer, and perhaps · threaten his chance reputation fb . so eing . engaged m the future: In reply I beg to state, that I was very much surprised to hear that · kb . ~~ ~ went to you and complamed to you that I had driven him from my . premises ·· and that I am not taking care of my sick, except when they are i'n position ~nd that I had driven two sick boys from my premises before, and after tha; if I had done so, you will soon dispense with my services. 16

In order to justify his actions and, most importantly, not lose his job, the headman went on to denigrate the labourer named Supply who had made th complaint as being lazy and deceitful. In spite of occasional fallibility of so e ~ most headmen see~ to have regarded welfare as a necessary part of the job. The authority of the headman, both in front of his employers and his recruits, also depended on his being able to efficiently pass on professional skills and general knowledge about the new work environment to the labourers. Technical skills and a rough grasp of the English language, both likely gained from previous work experience in the mines, were fundamental to his position. Being now precluded from manual work, he interpreted orders from above. Moreover, he stood as the ethnic broker of members of his gang in the new work and living space. In addition to voicing the opinions and grievances of the labourers, in moments of occupational discontent, the headman also had to iron out tensions with other social groups in and around the mining centres. Men hired to the mines without such a representative found themselves in a precarious situation; as reiterated in the following statement by an administrative official, such networks were crucial to survival in the mining village: If a man did not get food he could not work, and if he were a foreigner and without friends to help him on the particular mine where he was, he must go and steal to keep himself alive. I have had to put this very plainly to several mine managers, who, not knowing the country, did not recognise that their labourers were drawn from numerous tribes who would not sympathise with each other if in trouble.17

Lentz and Erlmann have pointed out that labourers also depended on their headmen to secure accommodation. 18 On the question of whether headmen were minions of the mine

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managers, it is worth noting that whereas some of the later manifestations of headmen, in the early twentieth century, demonstrate a greater degree of autonomy, Liberian headmen in the nineteenth century appear to have been greatly dependent on their employers for cash and the permission to recruit by ship. And they were accordingly under the control of mine managers. Nevertheless, though the headman, like other African authorities, involved in recruiting labourers for foreign companies in colonial West Africa had to adhere to the rules of the employers, he was also compelled to 'fulfil the goals and concerns of his people' .19 Still, the opposite extreme does not fit the picture either. Political power alone did not strengthen the relationship between recruiter and recruit. It was neither a sense of brotherhood nor ethnic loyalty alone that held such a unit together. As will be shown below, monetary relations reinforced this relationship in a fundamental way. Labourers, at least under ideal circumstances, enjoyed economic opportunity and protection through their relationship to a headman, in particular through the cash advances offered to them by him. Labour recruiters and foreign employers benefited in turn from offering credit in more ways than one. Credit Relationships in Pre·colonial and Colonial West Africa

According to Polly Hill, credit relationships were an integral part of rural-based economic production and development in parts of West Africa, going back to 'time immemorial'. 20 In places such as pre-colonial Ghana, for example, a surety relationship existed between the slave and slaveholder, whereby the latter had to cover the personal debts of the former. According to one colonia! observer, as soon as a slave became part of the household, his master was responsible for backing his debts: The master is responsible for his debts, even those incurred for buying a wife. He must keep him in sickness and idleness. If the slave commit [sic] a crime, or get [sic] engaged in a 'palaver' the master must clear him. So entire is the slave's absorption into the master's family that, on failure of natural heirs, the principal slave succee.ds to the property.21

Perbi adds that slaveholders 'were also liable to pay compensation and restitution for every injury caused by them [their slaves] to other persons wilfully or accidentally'. 22 Furthermore, all over the rest of the region it could be observed that family members were pawned against loans. Debit/credit relationships very likely intensified in the colonies following the legal end of slavery, and remained a steady part of economic life in Liberia where legal abolition was a protracted process. In the late nineteenth century, it was piece and parcel of rural economic life in colonial West Africa.

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Eventually, similar credit relationships also started to s b d . . . erve urbanase economies, and to dictate the nature of recrmtment itself . . . , as seen 1 h t e way h ea d sh 1p mamfested its~lf in Ghana. An administrativ n · d1cates, ' ·m qmte · clear terms that most labourers woekaccount from 1903 m ' . . , r Ing In a stea dY an d extended manner m Wassa entered into the wage lab · h t h e o ffer to have their · pre-ex1stmg · · debts paid off The offi · our wit 1 market . . c1a remarked that foreign employers were willing to give cash advances 'primaril f h . h'is [t he 1abourer's] debts (not for supporting his fay ·1 or)t e purpose of paymg m1 Y , as . h' d' otherw1se is .ere 1tors, and natives have creditors, would not allow leave' 23 Thus, before It became an incentive, it was a necessity. · Discussion

It is logical that i~curred debts would have to be paid off before a labourer from a rural village could be allowed to migrate to the urban areas. But w~s there more to this habit than its practicality? Were there · other . . mechamsms . to debt, keeping in mind that this was a context wh ere10 mmmg compan~es co~ld not systematically instrumentalize money owed to keep .labourers m their employment? Did labour recruiters target indebted recrmts, as opposed to merely tolerating them? To answer these questions the co~ts and benefits of being indebted or indebting need to be considered i~ ~specific ~est African context. In a chapter titled 'The Need to be Indebted' m he~ book Devel~pmental Economics on Trial, Hill debates the duality of ~ebt m rural colomal West Africa from a long, as well as short-term perspective. On the one hand, she shows that so called 'big men' were expected to ~end money to others; in return, this enabled them to gain further dependents m a .context ':here social and economic relations overlapped. Becoming a creditor was simply an efficient way of keeping village lands productive. The l~ss well-off, on the other hand, could expect to get credit; and under ideal circumstances, also enjoy the protection of patronage. In speaking of the farmers from Ha.usaland, she concluded: 'to be a rich man and not to help anybody by lendmg - and people to do use "help" in such a context - is to be miserly and to indulge in conspicuous waste'. 24 Therefore, with regard to a short-term perspective, credit ties could have an important positive function for the well-being of the community in social as well as economic terms.2s In terms of. long-term changes, Hill emphasizes that social inequalities did not nece~s~~tly worsen because of this exchange - though this was certainly a real poss1b1hty to reckon with. 26 She also mentions that it was not unheard of for the creditors to become debtors themselves; in fact the biggest creditors were often the biggest debtors. 27 So, did credit relationships have similar functions once they crossed over into the urban sphere? Cash advances from labour recruiters for the mines certainly opened up new possibilities to rural men.

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the chance to migrate was key. Also, debt seems to have bonded the men, bringing with it long-standing implications of care-taking on the part of the creditor/labour recruiters. Miners were already relatively well paid, compared to other ' unskilled' labourers. 28 However, they could expect to gain access to further credit during their term of service through their headman. Ordinary mine workers were initially lent additional money for their travel expenses, as well as the costs of food, water and whatever else the labourers needed during the journey to the mine. Also, during their term of service, and this was the product of the extended payment system in which the workers found themselves, whereby the workers did not see a wage until the end of their six to twelve-month contract, the headman was also obligated to provide small loans to the men when they proclaimed to need one. It was even possible for the labourers to secure third party loans, in which case the headman was obligated to back the debt of the labourer concerned. 29 In the following letter from 1910, a headman by the name of Bowee complains about the burden of his men being allowed to take credit from so-called 'Fanti' people, in this case meaning individuals from southern Ghana. He says 'I have been taken all debts, whenever they take any credit from the Fanti people and go up when they signed without notice [without the headman's approval]. I am not receiving anything from them. I am doing this all on your account [of] the respect I am always getting from you.' 30 Often these small loans were used for relatively frivolous things like entertainment, drinking, gambling, etc. Arguably, Hill calls this an opportunity. Headmen had to provide financial backing to their recruits. Therefore, there was an incentive to make them feel financially secure, not exploited. On the flipside, however, it is safe to say that the types of indebted men becoming wage workers on the southern coast of Ghana were not of the well-off class. Their debt likely begot more debt because they had so few other options, thus reproducing double-fold their status as wage workers. In the end, access to their debt came with social security. Nevertheless, it did not necessarily allow for them to escape poverty so much as gain some capital in the present time - capital, which in the worst case scenario forced them to remain in the mines longer than expected. It is also interesting to note that initially the labour recruiter was in fact the more (financially) vulnerable of the two. Although headmen could basically immediately employ the labour power of their new dependants, security only came after passing of some time. Financial vulnerability gradually shifted to the recruits - thus, it could be argued, empowering the recruit until, after a few months, he had credit in his name. At the same time, it cannot be overlooked that the factor of migration added precariousness to the worker's status. So that if he still owed money to a company or recruiter, returning home

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spontaneously would become less realizable, the further away from home h found himself. Did the choice to leave a job really exist in these insta e nces' What role did shame play when defeated labourers considered abscondin ; A final point: are these likely discriminatory practices embedded~· the mine labour's mobilization procedure in the nineteenth century? Let ~n consider that although many rural citizens were indebted, not all were. Caul~ it be that labour recruiters preferred indebted men, not for their economic deficit but as social capital? As credit relationships spread from rural villages to urban mining centres, it became even more important that African labour recruiters made secure investments, whether they used their own savings or the capital of foreign mining firms, to pay off the rural debts of potential recruits. In addition to being strong and healthy, a recruiter had to make predictions about who would be a trustworthy, reliable or loyal dependant in the future. For, even though the recruiters and recruits at the very least spoke dialects of the same language, one ought not to exaggerate the extent of intimacy of their bond. Their relationship was in essence a temporary one. Additional insecurity came from the fact that, unlike in some other parts of Africa, mining entrepreneurs in Wassa were unable to instrumentalize labour-disciplining legislation. The Master and Servant Act was already lax in content in relation to other African regions; for instance, both labourers and employers could face criminal charges for breach of contract. Also, although desertion was named a legal offence, punishable by fines or hard labour, and although labourers could be sentenced to between two and three months of hard labour for breaches of contracts, penal sanctions in relation to the Master and Servant Act were rare around the period under concern. Added to this atmosphere of 'disorder' was the inability of mine managers to cooperate in a meaningful way during the first gold boom. However, at the moment of introducing deep-level mining, and in light of the crisis over the shortage of Kru contract labourers, they attempted to establish sector-wide cooperation independent of the state, in order to limit competition. For the first time, managers in Wassa came together under a central body, the Mine Managers' Association, which was founded in 1902 to imitate the Transvaal Chamber of Mines. 31 In the absence of colonial intervention, the Association developed its own wage-fixing and no-poaching agenda, and applied financial penalties to keep all mine managers in line with their policies. Ultimately, however, the entire system was built upon a framework of self-regulation. For example, in the minutes from a meeting held on 11May1902, secretary Bullen, who worked on the Abbontiakoon concession, recorded the suggestion that: mine managers make full enquiries before taking on any gang or boys over ten, applying for work, more especially Kru boys, and communicate with

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the manager of the last mine on which they are reported to have been, if there is any reason to believe that they have run away. Full particulars being given at request on either side and absconders being allowed to be taken away if sent for.32 . The responsibility of inquiring about the employment history of each contract gang rested on the already distressed hiring party. Moreover, such a stipulation was costly and time-consuming, not to mention unworkable in a situation where employers were glad to take on every additional gang they could. There was simply not enough incentive for them to initiate lengthy investigations into potential employees, regardless of fears over a gang's reliability and trustworthiness. 33 Other court cases, located at the National Archives in Accra, reveal that some labourers never arrived at their place of employment after receiving an advance. There were instances in which labourers accepted advances, had their passage to the mining centre taken care of, but not long after beginning their contract decided to leave the mines and find work elsewhere on the coast. Other men abruptly left the mines upon arrival if dissatisfied with work conditions. For example, in a case from 1909, after securing a £1 advance and 15/- subsistence from the Abbontiakoon Mine, a contract worker by the name of Englishman purportedly suddenly fell sick with jaundice, thereafter disappearing for a two-month period. In this case his headman was sent to find him and he actually managed to find Englishman 'working in the railway yard clearing grass with a cutlass' .34 He later claimed to be discontented with the work conditions in the mines. They were too hard and he refused to return. A similar case was the legal trial of Kwesi K. The labourer Kwesi was accused of defrauding £8 12d and a railway ticket from a mining company via an African labour recruiter employed by the firm. 35 Overall, labour recruiters were at the winning end of a power relationship. Nevertheless, there were also limitations to their dominance and risks involved in their exploitation. Recruitment was anything but straightforward or easy. If things went wrong, the headmen could face serious financial losses. It is not difficult to conceive of personal debts at home being used as an indicator of trustworthy, reliable labourers, since a man who had been able to secure credit in the past had someone in his community who had thought enough of him to make him a dependent. In contrast, the poorest members of the community in rural West Africa were the ones who could not gain access to debt. So, out of the groups of potential labourers, those without credit virtually came with no professional backing; no 'letter of reference', to refer to a modern-day institutional practice. For recruiters, utilizing this information (or lack thereof) could be an effective way of eliminating, or at least limiting, certain risks. While labour historians

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ics

deb~te

the accuracy of the term 'wage slaves', more attention could perha s be given to those who were denied the opportunity to make the cho'ice fp0 or against such work. r Notes

These rec;uits were often simply referred to as 'Kru men' by foreigners. 2 For the full report, see 'Report to the Directors of the Cote d'Or Company' C Papers, 14 February 1896. ' ade 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Starr (1913): 112-13. 6 Buell (1926): ii, 789. Starting in 1890, the French began to recruit Kru lab . ourers to work on the Panama Canal and for work m the French colonial army. Ibid . 777. Frost (1999: 10~ states that la.hour was Liberia's main export in the nineteenth century. due to restncted . .economIC development' and that for this reason a tax was 1ev1ed on migrants gomg to work for wages elsewhere which had the effe t f . . t h e num ber of available contract labourers along' the West African coast. co restnctmg 7 Sr.arr (1913): 113. The southeastern reg10n of Libena, as far east as the San Pedro River -: now lymg some 50 miles in modern Ivory Coast from the current border_ had ongmally come into the possession of the Liberian government in 1857 d officials still held the deeds of purchase and treaties to prove it. ' an 8 Buell (1926): ii, 777. 9 Ibid. 10 !he Liberian president announced: 'I trust you will see the importance of discouragmg any proposal looking to the removal of labour out of the country.' Message of the president, ibid. II Ibid. 12 Bullen therefore requested that Government Transport reduce the £1 deposit that the department requested for the provision per individual gang of contract labourers. Cambridge University Library (hereafter CUL) RCMS 139/12/25 Extract from 'Letter from Jas Bullen the Hon. Secretary of the Mine Managers' As;ociation'. 13 Dumett has noted that at the turn of the twentieth century, 'imported Kru labour would continue to play a role, but increasingly, for a variety of unskilled tasks they would be augmented by ever larger numbers of migrant workers from Nigeria, French-speakmg West African territories, and especially the northern savanna region of Ghana' (Dumett 1998: 269). However, migrants from French colonies Mali and Burkina Faso, only appear to have come to the Gold Coast in large nuri'ibers after the First World War. Rhodes House Library (hereafter RHO) MS 7ss 13 s.4 Report on the Mining Industry for the Year 1918. Crowder (1968): 336-40. ' 14 Mine managers on the Rand learned to tolerate indirect recruitment so long as it was conducted by agents who were under their control to a reasonable extent. 15 Diane Frost (1999: 42) points out that around this period Kru seamen working under contract each deposited 1 shilling per working day with their headman, who m turn would deposit the money with a bank. This communal fund, the 'Kru fund', was only to be spent in order to support colleagues in times of illness, hardship or death, or to educate the offspring of poor labourers. 16 CUL RCMS 139/16, Letter No. 3. 17 RHO MS 7ss.14 s.10, Report on the Transport Department for the Year 1903, s. 5. 18 Lentz and Erlmann (1989): 102. 19 Brown (2003): 58. 20 Hill (1986), chapter 8. 1

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Boyle (1874): 192-93. Perbi (2004 ): 124. 23 CUL RCMS 139/12111, 'Memorandum on the Concession Labour Bill'. 24 Hill (1986): 89. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid.: 88-89. 27 Ibid.: 87. 28 The daily wages of surface labourers started around ls 3d with 3d subsistence; underground miners could earn around double the amount, at 2s 3d with 3d for subsistence per day. 29 RCMS 139/12/52, Letter No. 3, 3 February 1910. Unfortunately, there is little detailed information in the sources to explain how this risk was contained. 30 Ibid. 31 Silver (1981 ): 27. 32 CUL RCMS 139/12/25·, Extract from 'Letter from Jas Bullen the Hon. Secretary of the Mine Managers' Association'. 33 Ibid . 34 Ghana National Archives (hereafter PRAAD) ADM 2 7/4/49, 'J .D. Jally v. Englishman, Jacob, Serge', Criminal and Civil Record Book, District Commissioner's Court, 28 October and 1 November 1909: 708-09, 719. 35 PRAAD ADM 27/4/45, 'Superintendent J.A. Strong v. Kwesi K.': 231.

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References

Boyle, F. (1874), Through Fanteeland to Coomassie: A Diary of the Ashantee Expedition, London: Chapman and Hall. Brown, C.A. (2003 ), 'We Were All Slaves': African Miners, Culture, and Resistance at the Enugu Government Colliery, Cape Town: Heinemann. Buell, R.L. (1926), The Native Problem in Africa, 2 volumes, New York: s.n. Crowder, M. (1968), West Africa under Colonial Rule, London: Hutchinson. Dumett, R.E. (1998), El Dorado in West Africa: The Gold Mining Frontier, African Labour, and Colonial Capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875-1900, Athens/Oxford: Ohio University Press, James Currey. Frost, Diane (1999), Work and Community among West African Migrant Workers since the Nineteenth Century, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Hill, P. (1986), Development Economics on Trial: The Anthropological Case for a Prosecution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lentz, C. and V. Erlmann (1989), 'A Working Class in Formation? Economic Crisis and Strategies of Survival among Dagara Mine Workers in Ghana', Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, Vol. 29, No. 113: 69-111. Perbi, A.A. (2004), A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana: From the 15th to the 19th Centuries, Accra, Ghana: Sub-Saharan Publishers. Silver, J. (1981), 'The Failure of European Mining Companies in the Nineteenth-Century Gold Coast', The Journal of African History, Vol. 22, No. 4: 511-29. Starr, Frederick (1913), Liberia: Description, History, Problems: 1858-1933, Chicago.