Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic field work in the company towns of Jamshedpur and Rourkela, this paper explores how class interacts with other identities in historically contingent ways. The paper interrogates the conceptual utility of class consciousness and class solidarity for the study of labour in India.

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic field work in the industrial company towns of Jamshedpur and Rourkela, this paper explores how class interacts with other identities in historically contingent ways. The paper interrogates the conceptual utility of class consciousness and class solidarity for the study of labour in India.

In the private sector Tata company town of Jamshedpur, class was 'made' during the late colonial period from a diverse collection of labour migrants, and membership of the Tata working class today remains confined to their descendants. In the public sector Rourkela Steel Plant, a working class was 'made' in the early postcolonial period from both 'locals' and immigrants. However, access to the Rourkela working class is today only possible for those that claim a 'local' ethnic heritage.

In Rourkela it is effectively only 'sons of the soil' who can enter the working class, while in Jamshedpur, it is 'sons of steel'. Both of these cases represent closed workforces that are constructed with reference to a loosely defined autochthony. This paper argues that class has not emerged in ways that out-reach and outdistance kinship and ethnicity in the industrial towns of Eastern India.