Paper short abstract:

The paper focuses on the emergence of India's automobile industry and its workforce. It highlights the interdependency of a new state policy, new demands on technological knowledge as well as new manpower requirements to serve industries in India after independence.

Paper long abstract:

The paper analyzes the interdependency of a new state policy for heavy industries, the resulting demands on technological knowledge and new manpower requirements to serve industrialization drives in India after independence. In order to study this larger trajectory, the paper focuses on the emergence of India's automobile industry and its workforce, consisting of managers, engineers and technical workers. Some works with a focus on the colonial period show that the connection between industrialization and manpower development was not very pronounced, because state-led industrialization did not take place to a great extent and whatever happened was serviced by a foreign technical class. Moreover, there was basically no new workforce, which was both suitable to create industrial growth and to serve the new industries at the same time. This paper therefore inquires about basic processes and substantially new trajectories of these aspects in India after 1947. The paper thereby emphasises two aspects: the interest of the state in promoting the industry and relevant technical education on the one hand, and on the process of structuration of the workforce into different segments on the other.