The crowded sweatshops of Zaveri Bazaar in Mumbai account for a major portion of India's gem and jewellery export, but workers toil and live here in risky conditions. Added to this, now they face the threat of displacement.
ZAVERI BAZAAR at Bhuleshwar in south Mumbai is a maze of narrow lanes lined by hundreds of jewellery shops that retail ornaments made of every conceivable gem and precious metal. Behind these shops are dingy bylanes that are chock-a-block with sweatshops employing goldsmiths and other artisans. Little was known about these karigars (workers) until last June when an LPG cylinder exploded in one such workplace, killing 24 workers. The incident brought the municipal corporation alive to the realities of the area and served to highlight the appalling conditions under which the artisans work.
Satyajit Bose lives and works with six other men in one of the sweatshops located on the third floor of a run-down residential building in Tava Galli. In a 10 feet by 12 feet room, he spends approximately 12 hours a day, bent over a saddle-shaped wooden table lit dimly by a low-hung tubelight. Here he crafts gold jewellery that finds a market in Zaveri Bazaar and across the country and is exported to other parts of the world. Bose is among the 15,000 gold karigars in Zaveri Bazaar who make sure that Mumbai remains the largest exporter of gold jewellery in India. However, after the explosion, the karigars face the threat of being displaced from their homes.
Additional Municipal Commissioner A.K. Jain, who was asked to investigate the incident and offer recommendations, has in his report submitted to the Municipal Commissioner suggested that the karigars be relocated to the industrial zones in Mazagaon and Versova. If the karigars are shifted to industrial areas, the workshop owners will have to comply with regulations concerning labour.
Since the karigars' workplaces double as living quarters, cooking materials are kept alongside sulphuric acid, nitric acid and other hazardous chemicals needed in jewellery-making. Sometimes food is cooked in the corridors as the rooms are crowded with personal belongings, equipment and tools. The karigars mostly sleep on lofts, which block ventilation in the already congested rooms. The building owners have used every inch of space to construct more and more rooms. Even areas under the flights of stairs are rented out for workshops. Since the karigars work with valuable materials, the rooms have doors of grill and wood. Some workshop owners allegedly lock the workers inside the rooms at night. The victims of the June explosion had not been locked up, but the sheer narrowness of the passageways and the highly inflammable nature of the substances stored in the room made escape impossible for them. The workers whom Frontline spoke to were unwilling to speak about the accident.
Although they live and work in sub-human conditions, Bose says that in Mumbai at least they have a place to live. "If the workers do not have a home, how will the jewellery be made and how will we meet our export targets?" asks Sandeep Das, a workshop owner.
As per figures from the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, exports during 2000-01 from the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA) in Mumbai amounted to $266 million, or 41 per cent of the exports from the entire DTA in the country. While the council is unable to put in percentage terms the quantum of exports from Zaveri Bazaar, it says that "a major portion of the exports emanate from the area". "If the workers are affected, exports and also jewellers across the country will be affected," a council member said.
However, export figures mean nothing to Bose. He works to earn enough to make ends meet. His salary is determined by the number of pieces he crafts. His monthly earnings could be anywhere between Rs.3,000 and Rs.5,000. After settling food bills, which amount to approximately Rs.1,500, he sends the remaining money home. At 23, Bose is probably the oldest karigar; most craftsmen are in the 14 to 20 age group. The younger ones generally stoke fires and assist in polishing the ornaments, which means their hands are exposed to hazardous chemicals. Almost all the karigars are from West Bengal's Howrah, Hoogly and Medinipur districts, best known for their fine craftsmen. The younger they are, the more nimble their fingers. This makes it easier to train them, Das says. The means of livelihood of several thousands of people depend on these karigars. "If we are displaced from this area, most of our earnings will go towards paying rent," says Bose.
Despite its contribution to the city's economy, the unorganised workforce of Zaveri Bazaar has been driven by extreme poverty to work under harsh conditions. Labour is cheap in Mumbai. The karigars will not speak out about their working conditions because the "Seth" can easily find replacements for them. The Bengali Association and a few smaller organisations are the only welfare groups present in the vicinity. Only workshop owners are their members.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC) headquarters is less than a kilometre from Zaveri Bazaar but it had apparently ignored the existence of these sweatshops. C.D. Chore, the BMC's 'C' ward officer in charge of the area, told Frontline that since 1991, goldsmiths did not require permission to run workshops. In fact a goldsmith was allowed to convert a portion of his residence into a workplace, he said.
Unfortunately, according to him, in Bhuleshwar goldsmiths abuse the law by packing as many people as they can into a room. Official figures are not available, but the ward officer estimates that there are about 1,500 units operating in the area. In the past two years, the Bhuleshwar Residents Association have been complaining about toxic fumes being emitted during the polishing, refining and melting processes at the workshops. Moreover, the heavy machinery used for compressing gold is said to cause vibrations in the dilapidated buildings.
Workshop owners, however, say that the use of acid to polish and refine gold is minimal. "Hardly two or three drops are used in a small tub of water," says Das. The machinery is only as heavy as a refrigerator, he points out. Explaining the process of gold jewellery-making, Das says that jewellers first give new nuggets or old ornaments to the karigars, who melt them in a small earthen pot using burning coal. In most rooms the pot is kept near a window or a ventilator. Once in a malleable state, the gold is poured into a mould. The mould produces a piece of jewellery, which is further crafted by the artisan using a blow pipe. The completed piece is then dipped into sulphuric acid in order to polish it. It could take anywhere between 20 days and a month to make one ornament. Clearly, if anyone is at risk, it is the worker himself, for the acid can burn his skin.
Chore says that after the cylinder blast and another spate of complaints, the BMC decided to take stringent action against the workshops. Armed with the provisions of Section 347 B of the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act which allows notices to be served on people who have converted residences into commercial establishments, Corporation officials raided several workshops. The Bengali Association, established in 1947 when Mumbai began trading in bullion, retaliated by taking the BMC to court. Arun Sinharoy, secretary of the association, told Frontline that the BMC should have served notices before the raid. "They came in as though we were some underworld people and took away our equipment and materials. We have lost lakhs of rupees." M.C. Dutta, a member of the association, says he was accused of illegal refining. His workshop does not do any refining work. "They are harassing us," he said. "We are not going to let them intimidate us. All our members have licences under the Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961. Besides, we have been around for very long. Why should we go?" Sinharoy asks, adding that Bengalis are being persecuted in Mumbai. "The other communities cannot stand to see us doing so well and that our craftsmen are the best in this field. That is the reason they are targeting us." The association has got West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to write to his Maharashtra counterpart Vilasrao Deshmukh requesting him to look into the issue.
"For 20 years they have been saying they will move the textile market out of Bhuleshwar to an industrial area. Nothing of the sort has happened. We have not seen any success in Mumbai's relocation programmes, so why should we believe them now?" Sinharoy asks.
Sinharoy and other members of the association insist that the cylinder accident occurred because of a fault in the cylinder and not because of the poor condition of the workshop. The association denies that the workers live and work in wretched conditions. Sinharoy, in fact, points out that the association was established for the welfare of the karigars. "We do whatever we can for them." He says that many of them are offered positions in jewellery-making units in the Santa Cruz Electronic Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) or in a corporate sector jewellery-making factory in Bangalore. "If they get better jobs, we encourage them to take them up."
As for alternative housing for the karigars, the association says that since the government wants to shift them, it is its responsibility to find alternative accommodation.
Chore says the issue is far more complicated than it is made out to be. Gold jewellery-making is technically a traditional craft and does not fall under the small-scale industry sector, and therefore labour laws do not apply to this form of work. While the workshops pay taxes, they cannot avail themselves of any exemptions as that work cannot be defined clearly. The BMC has created a single-window system for licensing workshops. In time, Chore says, they will find a way to legalise them.
Bhuleshwar is essentially a residential locality although parts of it are entirely commercial. Chawls, four- or five-storeyed buildings with one-room tenements each measuring about 100 sq ft and with common bathrooms, constitute a major part of the built-up area.
As real estate prices increased steadily in south Mumbai, many residents of Bhuleshwar sold their property to workshop owners and moved to the suburbs. Historically, Bhuleshwar was the first settlement in the island city. Well-known chronologist Gillian Tindall says in her book City of Gold that the area was part of the native town which comprised settlements that were completely non-European. Her description lends itself to the theory that the area is among Mumbai's oldest, as large parts of south Mumbai were created by colonists.
The Mumba Devi (the deity from whom Mumbai derives its name) temple is located in this area. Chore says, "Bhuleshwar also has the distinction of being the most densely populated region in the city. The population density here is 10 times higher than in any other part of the city." According to BMC figures, the locality, which measures approximately 1.75 sq km, has about two lakh residents. Apart from Zaveri Bazaar, Bhuleshwar has thriving textile, hardware and electrical wholesale markets.
Recently the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority's heritage committee asked a design academy to conduct a detailed survey of Bhuleshwar. The academy will trace its architectural and socio-economic growth since the 17th century and prepare guidelines to preserve the area. The heritage committee has been active in restoring many of Mumbai's historical buildings. Significantly, the Bhuleshwar project is a shift from the committee's usual focus on European architecture. Hopefully, during the course of the study on ancient Mumbai, some effort will be made to humanise the lives of the karigars.
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