In late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Ahmedabad was referred to as the Manchester of India. It was a thriving textile city till the mills closed in 1980s. The book includes rare photographs of the early mills and the workers engaged in them. The narration informs us that, in the early phases, women formed a major part of the work force. There are photographs of women operating machines in the spinning section (which happens to be the most unhygienic and unhealthy section of mills). 

The workers were a heterogeneous lot. A fourth of them were Dalits and there were Muslims from Gujarat and the north Indian states. The most numerous were the Patels or Patidars. Work in the mills meant regular work for the workers. However, they were not entitled to leave or medical benefits. The work was back-breaking and done in an unhygienic environment. The shops were dirty and unswept and workers did not have toilets or drinking water.

As the mills expanded, there were labour shortages. The employers had to look in the countryside for new recruits. These included the so-called untouchable castes. Since they entered the industry late, they were given the worst jobs. Breman notes that wages were low, and male workers had to make their wives and children work in the mill to supplement the family income. Later, when technology improved and wages increased, these women were removed from work because of rationalisation. The instances noted in the book are similar to the textile mills in Bombay (now Mumbai) in the early years. Mill work took its toll of the workers` health, and few could continue after 45 years of age. The mortality rates of child workers too were high.

The textile workers had no organisation of their own till the end of the First World War. The workers then approached Mahatma Gandhi to help them out. Gandhi formed the Textile Labour Association (TLA) on 25 February 1920 (this date is disputed because other labour historians put the date as August 1918, a few months after BP Wadia formed the first trade union, Madras Labour Union, in May 1918). TLA was popularly known as Majoor Mahajan Sangh and it remained the sole representative of the textile workers in Ahmedabad till the demise of the textile mills. The union did not believe in conflict between labour and management but rather on cooperation between the two. It laid stress on welfare measures such as organising health camps, education of children of workers and organising women workers in income generation schemes or simply to be good housewives.

Ela Bhatt, a young lawyer, was employed by TLA to reorganise the women`s wing. She started the Self-Employed Women`s Association (SEWA) which is now a leading trade union of informal workers. Her rapid success was not appreciated by her aging bosses in TLA and, in 1981 she along with SEWA was expelled from TLA. This in fact, came as a new lease in life for the organisation and it was able to expand rapidly and gain its own identity.

Breman has done a fairly intensive critical study of TLA and its activities. It is indeed shocking to note that none of the Executive Committee members of TLA belonged to the working class, which the pictures of the meetings and of the Executive Committee members starkly show. Another aspect of the organisation of TLA was the maintenance of a division between women, viewed mainly as homemakers, and men, viewed as the `manly` bread winners. The union encouraged sports such as wrestling for the men and it encouraged women to take up sewing.

The book gives a graphic account of the closure of the mills. At the time, no one questioned why the mills stopped functioning—neither the union nor the government. Why did the mills close and what would be the fate of thousands of workers and their families? No one seemed to be bothered. The workers first fought to revive the mills and, when this failed, they fought to get their dues. The book states that most got nothing. Those who did get compensation found that the amount was much less than they had expected because a part was deducted as lawyers fees and another part went to TLA as charges for negotiation.

These workers were lucky because they could start small enterprises or become self-employed. But, the lives of the majority took a sharp turn for the worse. This is where the pictures take over the narration. The photographs of the families, steeped in poverty and insecurity, tell tales of their own. Breman`s narration of their conditions and Shah`s photographs combine to heighten the poignancy of the situation.

The culmination of these trends was in the division of the city between the haves and the have-nots. The have-nots were further divided by sharp lines of communalism. Breman rightly traces the brutal communal riots in the state to the economic upheavals faced by the ex-mill workers and their families. The frustration among the ex-mill workers made them vulnerable to communal forces, which impressed on them that people of other religions are responsible for their situation.

The book is outstanding in many ways. The narrative is simple and engrossing. The photographs `speak a thousand words`. The black-and-white reproductions provide a sobriety to the representation and bring out the starkness of the situation.

The book ends with pictures of `New Ahmedabad` with its shopping malls, Barista Cafes and McDonalds—the new structures that promise good times for the new middle class, which upholds globalisation and swears to protect Bharatmata from the infidels (read Muslims) in the same breath. The sad part is that this new and glamorous Ahmedabad is being built on the graveyard of the mills and the aspirations of the mill workers, who have no part in the renewal. In fact, they are viewed as stumbling blocks that need to be cleared out of the city.

The story of this book is not of Ahmedabad alone. It is of the other textile cities such as Mumbai, Indore and Kanpur. The first communal riots in Mumbai, in which textile mill workers participated, was in 1984, soon after closure of the mills after the marathon strike led by Dr. Datta Sawant in 1981-82. The Shiv Sena had then convinced the mill workers that their jobs were taken away by the power loom sector that had Muslim owners and workers.

This book does not contain mere life stories of mill workers in Ahmedabad. It is a documentation of what happens to the working class in any place when their industries fall apart and the state shows total indifference to their plight. It is truly a remarkable book that should be seen and read by all interested in labour and urban studies.