The 1982-83 Bombay Textile Strike and the Unmaking of a Labourers’ City

Hub Van Wersch

The anthropologist and writer Hub Van Wersch examines the textile strike in Bombay in the early 1980s, which lasted over a year and involved over a quarter of a million labourers. The book examines the lead-up to the agitation and its aftermath, and how it affected trade unions in the country. Through surveys and intensive fieldwork, it also documents the workers’ opinions on labour conditions and living circumstances at the time.

Speaking Tiger, 616 pages, Rs 995