Industrial Revolution

The Industrial Revolution brought many changes in the economic relationships of the society. It forced the polity to take steps for improving conditions of the industrial workers.  The demand for skilled, semiskilled workers also raised the demand to resolve the issues of theirs. It proved disadvantageous to engage unskilled labour who worked in abysmally low conditions, with a little or with no remunerations. That brought workers together to raise their collective voices against the exploitation. Consequently, it reinvented the employers/employees relations and emerged various sets of liabilities by enacting different laws and legislations.

Reforms were done in such a manner that it laid stress upon the political system that powers exercised were aimed at economic and social development.  It was also aimed at ensuring a reasonable remuneration to the workers in exchange of their labour with some other social protection and welfare measures.  The state started focusing and reinventing its duties and obligations and good practices in this discourse.  It became more focused on the industrial workers/ labour.

International Community

Areas focusing on the welfare of workers on a broad level were reinvented and liabilities were set to be abided by by the employers and government. Standards were set to provide protective measures for various contingencies.  Many agencies irrespective of territorial boundaries emerged in new circumstances to build pressure for law formation at the international level.  The international community joined hands together in the leadership of the International Labour Organization to protect the workers against exploitation.  That bear fruit when it was discussed in Philadelphia in 1944, that:

•         Labour is not a commodity;

•         Freedom of expression and of association are essential to sustain progress;

•         Poverty anywhere constitutes a danger to prosperity everywhere;

•         All human beings, irrespective of race, creed, or sex, have the right to pursue both their material well-beings and their spiritual development in conditions of freedom and dignity of economic security and equal opportunity.

ILO and its Intervention

The efforts of the international community built an atmosphere to protect the exploited sections, especially the workers.  The process of standardization of the measures was started.  Core areas to be protected were started to be identified.  ILO further stipulated the areas of intervention in this regard in its Convention No. 102 (1952):

·        Medical care;

·        Sickness benefit;

·        Employment benefit;

·        Old age benefit;

·        Employment injury benefit;

·        Family benefit;

·        Maternity benefit;

·        Invalidity benefit; and

·        Survivors benefit (ILO 1952).

United Nations Human Rights Commission and Its Declaration

In 1948 the United Nations Human Rights Commission brought out an important foundational document which is known as ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)’.  It was adopted on December 10, 1944.  It talks about various aspects of human rights, dignity and worth of human beings. Articles 22 to 27 talk of the document about the social, economic and cultural rights of the citizens in all countries.  Article 22 of the ‘UDHR’, note about social security that everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Committees and Commissions

Thus, it guided the member countries to set up welfare measures for the populations in their respective countries.  The process was initiated in India also and the colonial Government started to study the living and working conditions of the working population to design suitable measures for them.  Various Commissions and Committees like, Whitley Commission, also known as Royal Commission, Bhor Committee, Rege Committee were significant in this discourse.  These committees and Commissions elaborately evolved the conditions in factories and establishments and recommended wide scaled protective measures for them.

Different Enactments

As a result, various legislations were enacted and liabilities were abided by the employers.  This process continued after Independence.  In fact, it received a significant pace in the initial period of the independence.  Some of the very important legislations were enacted in this period:

period:

·        The Employees State Insurance Act, 1948;

·        The Employees’ Provident Fund & Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952;

·        The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961;

·        Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970

·        The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972;

·        Equal Remuneration Act, 1976;

·        The Workmen’s Compensation Act;

·        Plantation Labour Act, 1951;

·        Coal Mines Labour Welfare Act1947.

Extension of Social Security Coverage

These legislations seek to provide

a comprehensive social security coverage to the workers and their families in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury, medical care, compensation, equal remuneration, job security, gratuity and pension.

The Government of India formulated a constitution and started its implementation from August 15, 1947. Different ministries and departments were established/ constituted and powers/responsibilities were divided. 

Bibliography

Scott C. Levi (2002), Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 12, 3, pages 277-288

 

Burjor Avari (2013), Islamic Civilization in South Asia, Routledge, ISBN 978-0415580618, pages 41-68;

Abraham Eraly (2014), The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate, Part VIII, Chapter 2, Penguin, ISBN 978-0670087181;

Vincent A. Smith, The early history of India, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, Reprinted in 1999 by Atlantic Publishers, Books IV and V - Muhammadan Period;

K. S. Lal, Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (New Delhi, 1994);

Salim Kidwai, "Sultans, Eunuchs and Domestics: New Forms of Bondage in Medieval India", in Utsa Patnaik and Manjari Dingwaney (eds), Chains of Servitude: bondage and slavery in India (Madras, 1985).

Utsa Patnaik and Manjari Dingwaney (eds), Chains of Servitude: bondage and slavery in India (Madras, 1985)

Jump up to:a b A Sharma (September 2005), Journal American Acad Religion, vol 73, issue 3, pages 843-870

Jump up to:a b c Barbara West (2008), Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, ISBN 978-0816071098, page 182

James Walvin (2007), A Short History of Slavery, Penguin Books, ISBN 978-0141027982, Chapter 3

Elliot and Dowson, Historians of Sindh - Al Biladuri The History of India, as Told by Its Own Historians - The Muhammadan Period, Vol 1, Trubner London, page 123