The impact situations of conflict have on labour and employment remains, surprisingly, an extremely under-researched area in India. This is in spite of widespread existence of situations of endemic conflict in the country. There are sporadic reports in the press on how informal sector workers fall victims of hate campaign or are killed in cross-fire between competing forces. We may also see periodic reports on how migrant workers flee for safety from situations of violence.

In this issue of Labour File we have approached the issue of how long lasting conflict affects workers and their survival through field reports from Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Bihar and Gujarat. These reports are not comprehensive treatises, rather first attempts to raise concern and invite the attention of social activists, researchers and policy planners on the questions. It is also not presumed that the areas covered are exhaustive and the areas covered are typical of all situations ridden by conflict. However, we have covered those situations where conflict prevails on account of ethnic, religious or geographic disputes and where the State becomes a party, at times contrary to its avowed objectives, in the perpetuation of the conflict.

In the cover story on Jammu and Kashmir, one of the highest militarised areas in the world, Sanjiv Pandita narrates how developmental activities have come to a standstill since early 1990s and how a large portion of the state’s resources was used to combat terrorism, which dried up funding for almost all major developmental projects in the state and along with that employment opportunities. Agriculture and allied activities continue to employ 70 per cent of the workforce and it contributes 60 per cent of the state economy. However, agriculture suffers from low productivity. The fisheries and sericulture (silk production) sectors have seen a declining trend being hit hard by the violence. Many farmers have to remain in refugee camps and are often killed in the fight between the security forces and militants. The Wular lake, which provides 60 per cent of the fish catch of the Kashmir valley, is fast becoming a marshy grave yard. Unique univoltine and bivoltine silk worms production in the state has also suffered due to the situation of violence and the apathy of the government towards preserving this unique occupation. Reflecting the sad state of industrialisation in the state, official statistics gives a figure of about 187,399 workers employed in 42,802 industrial units. Most of the 20 odd PSUs in the state are running losses and in many instances, workers are not paid wages. Workers flee the state, but in the neighbouring states they are looked upon suspiciously. At the same time, making the labour market situation and employment relations complicated, thousands of workers come from Bihar, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh to work at construction sites, brick kilns or farms in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions. Many of them get killed in attempts to terrorise the whole people.

Ashok Shrimali and Balubhai Socha in their report bring out the situation of the fishworker communities in the context of a complex interplay of India-Pakistan relations, social hierarchies among Hindu Kharwa, Kharwa-Koli and Muslim Machiyara and the exploitative structure of the fishing industry in Gujarat. Fisherfolk, forced to sail farther and farther toward the Kutch coast and India-Pakistan border because of diminishing yields off the Saurashtra coast, are frequently apprehended at mid-sea and kept in custody for years in the absence of a clear and visible demarcating line of the maritime boundaries between the two countries. Fishworkers arrested by the Pakistani authorities are usually the Dalits and Kolis, many of them child workers. In the absence of established repatriation procedures these people are kept in police custody, in sub-human conditions for long periods and released occasionally as goodwill gestures by both the governments. Fishworkers’s families face loss of earning members and women experience uncertainties of identity.

Dilip Azad Saikia in his report on ethnic conflicts in Assam points out how attacks and counter attacks terrorise and develop a fear psychosis among workers and how they are left with no option but to move to safer corners of the state. Industrial relations get distorted when constant quarrel between two or more segments of communities lead to hatred and suspicion between the employer and the workers and when workers are seen as potential killers or attackers. Conflicts among communities give rise to constant quarrel for access to livelihood systems affecting survival of all. Food securities of communities are often threatened leading to further escalations of conflict and strife. Women become the worst sufferers in the ethnic clashes, not only subjects of sexual assaults but also in their new roles as bread winners and family rearers. Displaced women and children are often found to receive less than their full quota of ration of food. They eat less and eat last. Sometimes the women use the family income to bail out their men from police custody.

Kiran Desai in his report brings out how communalism has affected the employment scenario in Surat in Gujarat, one of the fastest growing cities in the country having flourishing trade in diamonds and textiles. The city witnessed a three-fold increase in population between 1971 and 1991 mainly due to mushrooming of small scale industries in the textile and diamond industries as that caused a huge influx of migrant workers. Their working and living conditions were pathetically bad. Kiran Desai points out that the social set-up of Surat provided conducive and fertile ground for parochial and reactionary forces to breed and implement their hideous designs. Eventually, the violence of 1992 resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people and enormous loss of properties and for several months industrial activities came to a standstill.

A different perspective of conflict is given by Prabhat P Ghosh in his report on the situation in the South Bihar, where dalits and poor agricultural workers are engaged in a prolonged struggle for ‘self-respect’. He reminds us that the south Bihar, which has been in the throes of militant agrarian struggle for the last three decades, is not a backward region. The extremely inegalitarian land distribution leaves more than half of the rural households landless wage earners, most of whom are dalits. Zamindari system of the colonial period, legally abolished, is in reality still operational in the region. He points out again that the pressure of conflict and tension is extremely heavy on women since quite often, the male members of the family will be away from home either for work in a distant village or undertaking organisational responsibilities of the party and sometimes even to avoid attack at the night by the landlords. The situation is made worse, he says, because of the open partisan attitude of the police force with the rich landlords to perpetuate a reign of terror by the different senas they have formed (Ranveer Sena or Lorik Sena).

We hope that this issue of Labour File will generate further dialogue and research on this area besides strategic intervention by trade unions and concerned organisations.