The Family-History of Lower Parel, Worli areas (Central Mumbai)

One Hundred Years
One Hundred Voices
The Millworkers of Girangaon : An Oral History
MEENA MENON AND NEERA ADARKARWITH
AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY
DR RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR
ISBN 81 7046 212 6
Culture Studies/History
Price : Rs 695
$ 24.95 £ 19.95HB 450pp
Published By : Segull India

The history of central Bombay's textile area (known in the local language as "Giran-gaon" which literaly translates " a mill-town" ) is one of the most important, least known, stories of modern India. Covering a densenetwork of textile mills, public housing estates, markets and culturalcentres, this area covers about a thousand acres in the heart ofIndia's commercial and financial capital. With the advent of globalization, the survival of these 1.3 million people, their culture and history, has been up for grabs.

The new economic policies of theIndian Government have sought to style this moribund industrialmetropolis into a centre for global business and finance. The middleclasses and business elite are anxious to turn it into offices andentertainment centres. The working-class residents face displacementafter over a century of constant habitation, and the social rhythms andcultural economy of this area face an impending destruction.


There is a NEW book that comprises about a 100 testimonies by the inhabitants of these districts, which are a window into the history, culture and political economy of a former colonial port city now recasting itself as a global metropolis. While following the major threads of national and international events, it tries to render the history of central Bombay through the narratives and perceptions of the people, in the process casting new light on the processes of history as they were experienced by the working classes—the contesting ideas of what a free India would be; the growth of industry and labour movements; the World Wars and their impact; the complex politics of regional and linguistic identities in Bombay and Maharashtra; the eclipse of the organized Left and the rise of extremist sectarian politics.

The Authors :
MEENA MENON, a political and trade union activist for the past 30 years. ALSO Vice President of the Girni Kamgar Sangharsh Samiti (Mill Workers Action Committee), and a Senior Associate with Focus on the Global South, a global policy research organisation.
NEERA ADARKAR an activist in the women's movement for twenty years. ALSO a practising architect and urban researcher, and visiting faculty at the Academy of Architecture, Mumbai, and is one of the convenors of the Girangaon Bachao Andolan (Save Girangaon Movement). Dr RAJNARAYAN CHANDAVARKAR is Reader in the History and Politics of South Asia and the Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, at Cambridge University, and is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge,