Ashulia: The theatre of violence play

Today, one Mr. Salman wants police protection, Golapi is dead and the managing director of a major apparel group has a couple of stitches on his forehead resulting from bricks hitting his temple. What has triggered it and why is Ashulia always the best theatre to stage violence plays? Where is the local administration? Is there something beyond the apparent at play here? Do we sense inaction or rather a wicked hand at work in Ashulia?

Ashulia has its own style of violence. Many entrepreneurs have shied away from setting up factories in Ashulia, including yours truly. Just when things were settling down, once again Ha-Meem Group had to bear the brunt of a spate of violence. Mr. A. K. Azad, the chairman himself became victim of an unfortunate incident. What is strange is that a factory as compliant and as big as Ha-Meem shouldn't have had to face this as to the best of my knowledge; there are no lapses with regard to the payment pattern of the factory. Then why would violence erupt in the most unbearable manner?

In June, 2010, demanding a minimum wage scale of Tk 5000.00, workers again took to streets, 250 were hurt, 50 vehicles were damaged, 30 factories were ransacked and five were arrested. Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) decided to close all apparel production units in Ashulia for an indefinite period at that point of time. Jirabo, Narasinghapur, Ghoshbagh and Baipail were the areas, which were most troubled. The factories which were most affected were Ananta, Skyline and Ha-Meem. About 20 policemen were injured while the police fired more than 90 rubber bullets and used at least 150 teargas canisters and sprayed hot water. Ha-Meem got seriously affected as the rumour of management mistreating the employees soon spread. Ashulia had turned into a human sea of violence while Dhaka-Tangail and Nabinagar-Kaliakoir highways came to a dead stop.

In January, 2011, Ashulia workers demanded more for conveyance, lunch bills and encashment of casual leave and revolted. 40 workers were injured and work in 30 garment factories came to a halt and road was blocked for over one hour.

In May, 2012, almost like a long running play in a theatre, "Ashulia" has been staged again with the same protagonists and the same villains. The unrest continued for more than two days, a couple of hundred were hurt, and the battle went on. The workers blocked the highway and looked for one Mr. Salman, who was apparently assumed dead and finally when the man appeared, they called him Mr. Salman's dummy. Police fired 1000 rubber bullets and lathi-charged the workers. About one thousand law enforcers consisting of Industrial police, Rapid Action Battalion, and Armed Police Battalion were soldiers in the battle.

Amidst all this, a 30-year-old Golapi, an operator of Opex Sweater Factory, lost her life being run over and killed by a bus at Jamgorah as police chased her. A case against around 4,500 unknown garment workers has been filed for assaulting police. Meantime, Ha-Meem's managing director A. K. Azad has stated that the entire Salman case had started as the rumour of his death spread fast. Can rumour really initiate such a fiasco? Really?

If this were an academic discourse, I would have blamed this cycle of violence on lack of freedom and power. Capitalism, no matter how much we try, will never be a benign system. A worker's own time begins when his "normal working day" ends. Therefore, what the worker eats in between, what he does spend on, what music he does listen to in his radio will hardly ever figure on the priority list of an entrepreneur. Currently we cannot even dream of giving the workers a floor wage that we ought to have advocated and implemented years ago as Bangladesh with its country image cannot attract buyers who will invest in a higher value added product and give us more margins. So, inequality continues and even if we try and find a correlation between inequality and violence, we shall probably end up with a couple of ad hoc theories.

Theories of Inequality fall under the discipline of behavioural and social sciences and not under business studies. Hence I cannot pinpoint why is it that Ashulia, time and again, falls prey to foul play. Let's face it. We have internalized our dominance in our factories, which in turn, weakens the bargaining power of the workers. As a result, we all need to have a clear understanding of the culture of violence. We also need to remember that these particular perpetrators of violence are hardly in a position of domination. Then who has the social control in their lives? While the trade union leaders hold press conferences and demand justice, maybe they also need to point their fingers towards the formal state agents who may just be responsible for the chaos?

Maybe the trade union leaders also need to preach a different lesson to the workers. Maybe they just need to tell them that violence, at the end, causes loss of freedom; and loss of freedom causes violence and as the level of freedom decreases in a society, the level of violence increases. This is a viscous cycle and at the end of every Ashulia episode, the workers end up looking like perennial villains while we, the entrepreneurs end up appearing like the aggrieved party.

The chain of violence must be broken.

Golapi should not die; Salman must not go missing and reproduced and by no means, should an entrepreneur be beaten up. As much as the workers earn their living, so does an entrepreneur. As much as it is easy to curse Capital, it should be equally if not more rational to point fingers towards the administration in Ashulia. There must be a different story other than what we read. Ashulia needs to be dug into, as there definitely must be skeletons in Ashulia that we haven't identified so far.

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Rubana Huq, managing director, Mohammadi Group.