Steel Town Adivasis

Christian Strümpell is Research Associate at the Max Weber Forum for South Asian Studies, Delhi, and affiliated to the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universität Hamburg. In addition to his research in Rourkela presented in this book, he has undertaken further extensive ethnographic research on workers of a hydro-electric powerplant in southern Odisha, India, and on metal workers as well as export garment workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Glossary

1. Industry and Inequality in an Eastern Indian Steel Town: An Introduction

1.1 The Steel Town Rourkela

1.2 Historical Foundations and Analytical Concepts

1.2.1 Industry

1.2.2 Inequalities I: Class

1.2.3 Inequalities II: Ethnicity, Caste and ‘Tribe’

1.3 Methodology and Outline

1.3.1 Entry into the ‘Field’ and Methodology

1.3.2 Outline of the Book

1.3.3 A Brief Note on the Text

2. The Birth of RSP and the Making of Odisha

2.1 Introduction

2.2 The Foreign Collaborators and Site Selection

2.3 Land Acquisition and the Making of Odisha

2.3.1 Economy and Society in Rourkela before the coming of RSP

2.3.2 Local Protest against Land Acquisition

2.3.3 Land Acquisition and the Merger of Odisha

2.4 The Construction of RSP and the Making of Odisha

2.4.1 Work and Life on the Construction Sites

2.4.2 Ethnic Violence in Rourkela

2.4.3 The Construction of RSP and of the Odia Nation

2.5 Conclusion: States and Identifications in Eastern India

3. Workers, Unions and the State in Rourkela, 1959–1995

3.1 Introduction: The Industrial Working Class(es) in Rourkela and India

3.2 RSP Workers, the Unions and Odia Nationalism

3.2.1 The Ethnicisation of Union Rivalries

3.2.2 The Odia-isation of the RMS and the RSP workforce

3.2.3 The Displaced People and the ‘Jharkhand’ Union

3.3 RSP Workers and Economic Liberalisation

3.3.1 The New Communist Union and a New Category of Workers

3.3.2 The Contract Worker Movement

3.3.3 The Re-emergence of the Displaced People’s Movement

3.3.4 The New Recognised Union

3.4 Conclusion: Struggles about Class and Class Struggles in Rourkela

4. The Adivasi Worker

4.1 RSP Workers in the 2000s

4.2 Adivasi RSP Workers

4.2.1 Working, Drinking, and Shirking

4.2.2 The Uneducated, the Educated, and the Savvy

4.2.3 Adivasi Workers and the ‘New RSP Family’

4.3 Adivasi Workers Beyond Regular Employment

4.3.1 The Casualisation of Labour: Local and Global

4.3.2 The Uneven Social Effects of Casualisation

4.3.3 Entrepreneurial Spirit

4.3.4 Wealth Spirits

4.4 Conclusion: ‘Tribe’ and Class at Work

5. Adivasi Town Dwellers

5.1 Introduction

5.2 The Making of the Steel Town

5.2.1 Vision and Master Plan

5.2.2 From Indian ‘Salad Bowl’ to Odia ‘Melting Pot’

5.3 The Steel Town and Rourkela

5.3.1 Urban Development beyond the Steel Town

5.3.2 Bastis and Resettlement Colonies

5.3.3 From Adivasi to ‘Labour Class' Spaces

5.3.4 Centring and Marginalising

5.4 Conclusion: ‘Tribe’, Class and Urban Space

6. Steel Town Adivasis: Class and ‘Tribe’ in Rourkela

Bibliography

Index