🏭CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENT IN INDUSTRIAL SOCIETY 

Social Change in Cities

There are several classes in a city. Upper class, upper middle class, middle class, lower middle class, lower class and below poverty line. There are differences, as people are recognised on the basis of acclaimed status e.g., Bollywood actors, actresses, directors etc. Only the actors reap the benefits, but the stunt artists, dancers, etc are not noticed. 

Different classes of people who eat at all different places, some may eat at 5 star hotels and while some eat on the roadside. Major changes occurring in a city in urban areas can be attributed to science and technology and kind of work changed social relations in India. Because of science and technology a lot of disparities have been bridged.

The professions that the women would choose were quite limited (teachers, nurses) but now there are many options but some fields are male dominated as fighter pilots. Even today society depends upon the people inhibiting the place, the area.

Images of Industrial Society

Social Features Associated with Industrialisation

Thinkers like Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim associated a number of social features with industry such as:

• Urbanisation, the loss of face-to-face relationships that were found in rural areas where people worked on their own farms or for a landlord they knew, and their substitution by anonymous professional relationships in modern factories and workplaces.
• Industrialisation involves a detailed division of labour. People often do not see the end result of their work because they are producing only one small part of a product. The work is repetitive and exhausting. But even this is better than having no work at all, i.e., being unemployed. Marx called
• this situation as alienation, when people do not enjoy work, and see it as something they have to do only in order to survive, and even that survival depends on whether the technology has room for any human labour. 
• Industrialisation leads to greater equality, at least in some spheres. For example, caste distinctions do not matter any more on trains, buses or in cyber cafes.
• Often social inequality and income inequality overlap, for example, in the domination of upper caste men in well-paying professions like medicine, law or journalism. Women often get paid less than men for similar work.

Industrialisation and Modernisation

While the early sociologists saw industrialisation as both positive and negative, by the mid 20th century, under the influence of modernisation theory, industrialisation came to be seen as inevitable and positive.

Modernisation theory argues that societies are at different stages on the road to modernisation, but they are all heading in the same direction. Modern society, for these theorists, is represented by the west.

Industrialisation in India

In many ways similar to the western model and in many ways different. Comparative analysis of different countries suggests that there is no standard model of industrial capitalism. One point of difference relating to what kind of work people are doing:

• In developed countries, the majority of people are in the services sector, followed by industry and less than 10% are in agriculture (ILO figures). Whereas in India,( in 1999-2000),nearly 60% were employed in the primary sector (agriculture and mining), 17% in the secondary sector (manufacturing, construction and utilities), and 23% in the tertiary sector (trade, transport, financial services etc.)
• The contribution of these sectors to economic growth, the share of agriculture has declined sharply, and services contribute approximately more than half. This is a very serious situation because it means that the sector where the maximum people are employed is not able to generate much income for them.

Second point of difference is the number of people in regular salaried employment:

• - In developed countries, the majority are formally employed. In India, over 50% of the population is self-employed, only about 14% are in regular salaried employment, while approximately 30% are in casual labour. 

Distinction between the organised or formal and unorganised or informal sector:

• The organised sector consists of all units employing ten or more people throughout the year. These have to be registered with the government to ensure that their employees get proper salaries or wages, pension and other benefits. 
• In India, over 90% of the work, whether it is in agriculture, industry or services is in the unorganised or informal sector.

Social Implication of Organised Sector: Very few Indians have access to secure jobs with benefits. Of those who do, two-thirds work for the government.

• -- Fixed rules and regulations.
• -- Mode of payment has to be transparent on both sides—employee and employer. 
• -- There is a proper procedure to be followed by the employer or vice versa. 
• -- Employees cannot be removed from the job without prior notice. 
• -- An employee cannot be removed until their retirement age in the government. 
• --There are a lot of perks, gratuity, bonuses, provident fund, travel allowance.

Industrialisation in the Early Years of Indian Independence

• The first modern industries in India were cotton, jute, coal mines and railways prospered during the British rule and continued to prosper even after Independence. 
• The government was in control of the public sector. The government decided that some industries should be privatised like coal, jute. Now, India started having a mixed sector combination of public and private. But some sectors were not privatised-railways, defence, atomic energy, coal mines etc. 
• During colonial rule, the port cities were Calcutta, Bombay, Madras. Now many other cities have become very important Coimbatore, Faridabad, Pune, Bangalore slowly became industrial cities. 
• Government also tried to encourage the small scale sector through special incentives and assistance. 
• Many items like paper and wood products, stationery, glass and ceramics were reserved for the small-scale sector. In 1991, large-scale industry employed only 28 percent of the total workforce engaged in manufacture, while the small-scale and traditional industry employed 72 percent. 

Globalisation, Liberalisation, and Changes in Indian Industry

• Since the 1990s, the government has followed a policy of liberalisation. 
• Private companies, especially foreign firms, are encouraged to invest in sectors earlier reserved for the government, including telecom, civil aviation, power etc. 
• Licenses are no longer required to open industries. As a result of liberalisation, many Indian companies have been bought over by multinationals. At the same time some Indian companies are becoming multinational companies. The next major area of liberalisation took place in retail. 
• The government is trying to sell its share in several public sector companies , this process is called disinvestment”. 
• More and more companies are reducing the number of permanent employees and outsourcing their work to smaller companies or even to homes.
• For multinational companies, this outsourcing is done across the globe, with developing countries like India providing cheap labour.
• Because small companies have to compete for orders from the big companies, they keep wages low, and working conditions are often poor. It is more difficult for trade unions to organise in smaller firms.
• Almost all companies, even government ones, now practice some form of outsourcing and contracting. But the trend is especially visible in the private sector. 
• Very few people in India have access to secure jobs, with even the small number in regular salaried employment becoming more insecure due to the rise in contract labour. So far, employment by the government was a major avenue for increasing the well-being of the population, but now even that is coming down. 
• Liberalisation and privatisation worldwide appear to be associated with rising income inequality. 
• At the same time, secure employment in large industries is declining. 
• Many farmers, especially Adivasis, who constitute approximately 40% of those displaced, are protesting at the low rates of compensation and the fact that they will be forced to become casual labour living and working on the footpaths of India’s big cities. 

How do People Find Jobs

• In olden days it was from word of mouth personal relationships "near and dear relations".
• Later it moved to newspapers, magazines, ads.
• Nowadays, there are websites and HR requirements for major companies like MNC's.
• Employment exchanges register your name and qualification and they call you whenever there is a job available.
• Contractors: Very influential people also known as ‘mistris’ in small factories, towns and even cities. They are workers in the factories. Many companies have also started outsourcing (outsource security, gardening. catering or outsource various parts of the product and may not be manufactured by the company).
• In the past, agricultural labourers were tied to their landlord by debt. Now, however, by moving to casual industrial work, while they are still in debt, they are not bound by other social obligations to the contractor. In that sense, they are more free in an industrial society. They can break the contract and find another employer. Sometimes, whole families migrate and the children help their parents.

How Work is Carried Out

• Machinery helps to increase production, but it also creates the danger that eventually machines will replace workers. Both Marx and Mahatma Gandhi saw mechanisation as a danger to employment. 
• ‘Scientific Management’: It is also known as Taylorism or industrial engineering. Under his system, all work was broken down into its smallest repetitive elements, and divided between workers.
• The concept of Taylorism has been applied to the IT sector in which each person does his/her work at a given time span.
• Night out- The professionals work the whole night but this is not the same as overtime but this is voluntary.
• Fixed time- There is no fixed time, but have to work for 8 hours. Can select their time slot, working hours. 
• As a result of these working hours, in places like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Gurgaon, where many IT firms or call centres are located, shops and restaurants have also changed their opening hours, and are open late. If both husband and wife work, then children have to be put in crèches. 
• The joint family, which was supposed to have disappeared with industrialisation, seems to have re-emerged, as grandparents are roped in to help with children. 

1. Working Conditions

• We all want power, a solid house, clothes and other goods, but we should remember that these come to us because someone is working to produce them, often in very bad conditions eg: coal mines.
• -- Coal mines alone employ 5.5 lakh workers.
• -- The Mines Act 1952 specifies the maximum number of hours a person can be made to work in a week, the need to pay overtime for any extra hours worked and safety rules. These rules may be followed in the big companies, but not in smaller mines and quarries.
• Moreover, subcontracting is widespread. Many contractors do not maintain proper registers of workers, thus avoiding any responsibility for accidents and benefits.
• Workers in underground mines face very dangerous conditions, due to flooding, fire, the collapse of roofs and sides, the emission of gases and ventilation failures.
• Many workers develop breathing problems and diseases like tuberculosis and silicosis. Those working in over ground mines have to work in both hot sun and rain, and face injuries due to mine blasting, falling objects etc. The rate of mining accidents in India is very high compared to other countries.
• In many industries the workers are migrants. Many men also migrate singly, either unmarried or leaving their families in the village. From a nation of interfering joint families, the nature of work in a globalised economy is taking people in the direction of loneliness and vulnerability.
• Yet for many young women, it also represents some independence and economic autonomy.

2. Home Based Work

• Home-based work is an important part of the economy. This includes the manufacture of lace, zari or brocade, carpets, bidis, agarbattis and many such products. This work is mainly done by women and children. 
• An agent provides raw materials and also picks up the finished product. Home workers are paid on a piece-rate basis, depending on the number of pieces they make.

Bidi industry:

• i). Tendu leaves (leaves in which the bidi is made): Tendu leaves are collected and are soaked and the women and children make the bidi's and sell it back to the contractors. The leaves are collected by the workers of private owners and government officials and are handed to the forest officials who auction the leaves to private owners.  
• ii). These private owners employ contractors who go to the village and hand over the tendu leaves to women and children.
• iii). Contractors collect the bidis and the women and children are paid meagerly. These bundles go back to factories. In factories a signature label and scent is added. It is given to distributors who give it in the wholesale market to shopkeepers who sell it to us.

Strikes and Unions

Many workers are part of trade unions. Trade unions in India have to overcome a number of problems such as regionalism and casteism. In response to harsh working conditions, sometimes workers went on strike. In a strike, workers do not go to work, in a lock-out the management shuts the gate and prevents workers from coming.

Famous strike- Bombay Textile Strike of 1982

• It was led by the trade union leader Dr. Datta Samant. They wanted higher wages. 
• Therefore a strike was called which affected quarter million workers and their families. It was supported by Rashtriya Mill Mazdoor Sangh-Trade union led by Congress in 1982. 
• After 2- years the strike was a failure. Many workers did not get their jobs back. So the workers went back to their villages to look for other jobs. Some of them Went to other villages to work in factories and some took up casual labourer jobs and some led to migration which affected their family life.

Consequences:

• -- Mill owners stopped buying new machineries and didn't upgrade them.
• -- They sold it to property dealers.
• -- This was the time when mills disappeared and buildings came up.
• -- The whole scenario in Bombay changed.  

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