Dr. Parivesh Mishra
The story of industrial development in Raigarh district began with the establishment of a jute mill on nearly forty acres of land provided by the 23-year-old Raja Chakradhar Singh. Ironically, this very mill later became an obstacle to the establishment of new industries in Raigarh—an obstacle that took until the 1980s to remove.
The story actually begins in 1897, when a five-year-old boy named Paluram, holding the finger of his father Biharilal, left the famine-stricken village of Dhanana in Haryana and set foot in Raigarh. Around the same time, his aunt’s son, Kirodimal, left the nearby village of Lohari and reached Calcutta. By the early decades of the twentieth century, Seth Kirodimal had gained experience, reputation, and wealth. Meanwhile, Seth Paluram Dhanania had established himself in Raigarh in the paddy business started by his father.
Almost thirty years after leaving Haryana, these two cousins joined hands to begin Raigarh’s first industry. In 1928, Seth Kirodimal established a jute mill in Raigarh, and Paluram Dhanania took charge of its management.
In the regions of Sarangarh, Raigarh, and Udaipur (Dharamjaigarh) princely states, jute cultivation was fairly common. However, the production was still not sufficient to meet the continuous requirement of the mill. Yet there was another important factor: at that time, there was no jute mill in the whole of Central and North-Central India, while the demand for gunny bags existed everywhere. Therefore, even if some additional jute had to be imported from Bengal—then including the area that is now Bangladesh—the venture still appeared profitable.
So far, there was no flaw in the idea. But the mill could not run successfully.
It is said that when history is not learnt from, it repeats itself. The precedent had been created in Assam, and it repeated itself in Raigarh.
In the 1820s, an officer of the East India Company, Robert Bruce, observed naturally growing tea plants in the upper Brahmaputra valley of Assam. This was at a time when, for several decades, tea had been brought from China in exchange for opium and sent to England and Europe. The British had developed a taste for tea, while China began demanding cash instead of opium. Tea suddenly became very expensive for the British.
Encouraged by Robert Bruce’s discovery, the East India Company decided to undertake commercial tea production. Tea plantations were started, but the experiment failed. While planning this labour-intensive project, the Company assumed that local labour would be easily available and that, being local, the workers would arrange their own food and accommodation.
Reality proved otherwise. Assamese villagers were not eager to change their centuries-old lifestyle overnight. They had never worked under the control of others. Some did begin work, but every other day they would feel the pull of home and fields. If they took four days’ leave, they returned after fourteen days; many did not return at all. Finally, frustrated, the East India Company gave up.
After this, two developments took place. In 1839, tea production was handed over to a new owner—the Assam Company. Learning from the experience of the previous owners, the first thing the Assam Company did was to bring in labourers from outside and settle them there. Contractors were appointed to supply labour. This marked the beginning of the story of workers taken from regions such as Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Chotanagpur, and Andhra Pradesh. Over time, these workers came to be known as the “Tea Tribes.”
After the arrival of the Tea Tribes, the ever-expanding plantations received a stable workforce. People uprooted from their native places became full-time labourers, and it became necessary for plantation owners to arrange their food, housing, and other needs. Thus, the tea plantation business began to flourish.
Now let us return to Raigarh’s jute mill.
The duo of Seth Kirodimal and Seth Paluram installed new and expensive machinery, set up the mill, searched for and expanded the market. However, the confidence—or expectation—they had regarding the availability of labour proved wrong. Since local workers had no prior experience of working in an industrial unit, they lacked industrial discipline. Efforts to motivate local farmers to increase jute cultivation also did not succeed. Naturally, costs increased and profits were affected. There may have been other reasons as well. In 1935, the Raigarh jute mill was sold. The buyers were Seth Surajmal Jalan and Seth Nagarmal Bajoria of Calcutta.
Later, the Raigarh jute mill was sold once again. This time too, the buyer was a Marwari—Shri Pawan Kumar Agrawal—and he too belonged to Calcutta.
Calcutta and the Marwaris have had an old association with jute and jute mills. Eastern India traditionally produced jute. However, there was no mill in India to manufacture jute from this raw material. All jute products were imported from Britain. The raw material for Britain’s jute mills came from Russia. Around 1850, a war broke out—the Crimean War—in which Russia was on one side and Britain along with other countries on the other. Naturally, under these circumstances, the supply of jute and linseed to Britain stopped, and Indian jute began to gain importance.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, there was considerable buying and selling among the owners of mills, companies, and firms. One reason for this was the Companies Act, which came into effect in 1913. Until then, most firms were engaged mainly in trading; relatively few were involved in manufacturing. During these decades, Marwaris purchased and expanded many businesses that had been under British control. These included trading firms as well as several jute mills, coal mines, oil mills, and other enterprises.
In 1938, Seth Surajmal passed away; Seth Nagarmal had died earlier. Around the same time, the Second World War also began, and the proper functioning of the Raigarh mill was further delayed. Under the new arrangement, Surajmal’s eldest son Mohanlal Jalan took charge along with his brothers Banshidhar and Baijnath, as well as the sons of Seth Nagarmal. The Raigarh jute mill later came to be known as Mohan Jute Mill.
For local management, they appointed Seth Mangilal Bhandari as agent and Shri Sarawagi as manager. They already had a solution for labour availability. In their mills in Calcutta, Ramsubhag Singh of Gorakhpur was in charge of this work and was known as the “Bade-Sardar.” Along with him, labourers from Gorakhpur, Azamgarh, and Chhapra in Bihar—who were working in Calcutta—were brought to Raigarh. Over time, they settled here permanently.
In the early years after Independence, the Congress government understood the importance of this lone jute mill in Madhya Pradesh. Labour ministers Shri Gangaram Tiwari and Shri V. V. Dravid both had experience as labour leaders in the mills of Indore. They also had good coordination with Raja Nareshchandra Singh of Sarangarh, who was a local minister from Raigarh district. Under their supervision, houses were built for the workers, and all houses were provided with electricity, water, and toilet facilities. Items such as kerosene for cooking were supplied free of cost, and arrangements were made for other welfare benefits.
In the 1950s, experienced workers came with the desire to work in the mill. The country and the state had sensitive and progressive governments that wanted industrialization while also protecting workers’ interests. Ministers and legislators capable of balancing the interests of labourers and mill owners were part of the government. Thus, the wheels of Raigarh’s only industry began to move.
But the mill could not go very far.
This time, the mill was neither officially declared “closed” nor could it truly remain operational. Slowly, the jute mill became little more than a showpiece for Raigarh.
In the early 1980s, the Government of India announced a new industrial policy. Its main focus was to promote industrial development in backward and industry-less districts of the country. Emphasis was also placed, as far as possible, on encouraging clusters where similar types of industries had potential. For those setting up new industries in government-selected locations, several offers—or incentives—were provided by the government. Over time, these came to be collectively known as “freebies.”
Efforts began in Madhya Pradesh as well to benefit from this policy. For new industrialists, Indore—the economic capital of the state at that time—was the preferred destination. But developed Indore could not come within the scope of the new policy. Therefore, in 1983, Pithampur village, located twenty-two kilometres from Indore but across the district boundary in the industry-less Dhar district, was selected. Today, Pithampur is India’s largest industrial centre in the automobile sector.
In the same chain and period, industrial development took place at Mandideep near Bhopal but in Raisen district, Banmore near Gwalior but in Morena district, and many other locations. Areas such as Urla near Raipur and Sirgitti near Bilaspur were also products of the same era.
Raigarh district was also part of Madhya Pradesh at that time. Located at an overnight distance from Calcutta, and rich in coal and other minerals, Raigarh was an ideal location for coal-based industries. Yet there was no sign of any initiative from either the state or the central government in this direction. All efforts by the then public representatives had failed.
The government’s explanation was that since Raigarh’s name was not included in the list of “zero-industry” districts, it could not receive any incentive benefits.
In 1985, Pushpa Devi Singh, then Member of Parliament from Raigarh, raised an objection in the Lok Sabha. Union Industry Minister Narayan Dutt Tiwari replied that since a jute mill was already established in Raigarh, the district had been found ineligible for the status of a “zero-industry” district.
Pushpa Devi Singh had to make considerable efforts to convince the central government that although the jute mill was not officially closed, it was not really functioning either. The central government accepted the argument, and Raigarh district was finally included in the list of industry-less districts.
By the end of the 1980s, another Marwari from Haryana, Om Prakash Jindal, arrived in Raigarh. This time, jute was replaced by coal and iron ore. In 1989, an industrial unit was established under the name Jindal Strips. With this, the second chapter of industrial development in Raigarh began—a chapter that continues uninterrupted to this day.
