Condition of Bangladesh's weavers-turned-stitch workers

ACCORDING to The New York Times, the April 24 disaster at Rana Plaza in Savar which killed at least 1,129 people is 'the deadliest disaster in the history of the garment industry.' The day after the disaster, The Economist presumed it to be 'the worst industrial disaster in Bangladesh's history' and that 'this may turn out to be the second-deadliest industrial disaster in South Asia after the Bhopal disaster in 1984.' The Guardian called it 'the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal gas leak in India in 1984.' So we, a backbencher in the industrial world, have reached the top of the world once again in a bad thing, the deadliest disaster in a relatively safe industry.

It was neither the first nor the latest disaster in the Bangladesh's apparel industry. More than 700 workers have died in fires since 2005. (The Guardian, May 9, 2013). The recent collapse of the 8-story building has been termed as 'murder', 'crime against humanity and genocide' (Mujahidul Islam Selim, The Daily Ittefaq, April 29, 2013), 'corporate manslaughter', 'holocaust' (Holocaust in Savar, by Jeremy Seabrook, The Daily Star, May 1, 2013), etc. The largest bomb was dropped from abroad by Pope Francis who denounced the conditions of our garment workers as 'slave labour'. The giants profiteering from this slave labour are spread across the western world.

Ensuring profiteering of the giants and their deshi agents, Bangladesh's labour law has set only Taka 1 lakh for the worth of the life of a garment worker. However deplorable this condition may be, it is not new. It has a linkage with the colonial history of Bengal and deep similarity with the conditions in the past. Then it was Bengali weavers who have been demolished through the British colonial policy.

In his book Considerations on India Affairs (1772), William Bolts of East India Company described, 'Various and innumerable are the methods of oppressing the poor weavers, which are daily practiced by the Company's agents and gomastahs in the country; such as by fines, imprisonments, floggings, forcing bonds from them, & c. by which the number of weavers in the country has been greatly decreased. The natural consequences of which have been the scarcity, dearness and debasement of the manufacturers, as well as a great diminution of the revenues.' [The Zamindary Abolition Movement in Bengal, by Kazi A B M Iqbal, Arial, Dhaka, 2012].

Bolts further wrote, 'Weavers also upon their inability to perform such agreements as have been forced from them by the Company's agents, universally known in Bengal by the name of Mutchulcahs, have had their goods seized, and sold on the spot, to make good the deficiency; and the winders of raw silk, called Nagaads, have been treated also with such injustice, that instances have been known of their cutting off their thumbs, to prevent their being forced to wind silk.'

Today the Pope's voice about tailors in Bangladesh resonates the long-ago dire descriptions about weavers of Bengal once again. But there are many differences. Then weavers made cloths and also stitched these. The garment business then went into the hands of the British colonialist vagabonds after the battle of Plassey and they wanted to keep both stitching and marketing of garments into their own hands. Modern western colonialists want only stitching from workers of Bangladesh. We have lost weaving, designing and marketing of garments to the western companies. Our weavers who produced cloths like muslin in the past have been reduced to the job of only stitching clothes for western people. Today's garment owners are nothing but those gomastahs in colonial Bengal. The inhuman system prevailing in the garment sector ultimately serves the monetary interest of The Gap, H&M, Wal-Mart, Primark, Loblaw, Mango, Joe Fresh, Kik, Benetton etc. of the west.

Therefore, nothing will change in the garment sector unless and until the garment workers in Bangladesh are themselves able to pressurise their own government to institutionalise decent job standards in the sector. But how can one expect any positive change from this political setup in which, as The Economist reported on May 4, 2013, 'the industry is tied to the corrupt political system: at least 25 MPs have investments in the garment business.'

The nexus of local, national and international interests is too tough for poor garment workers in Bangladesh to break it down for bringing positive changes in their lives.

The writer writes on theatre, education and socio-political issues for The Daily Star and Dhaka Courier.