‘A Powerful Weapon for the Employers’?

In the aftermath of the First World War, Bombay witnessed workers’ upsurges on an unprecedented scale. In order to cope with this new situation, the colonial authorities and the millowners alternated between repression and acclimation of methods, which had proven to be successful in England to abate social unrest. Building quarters to house the workers was one of them. This chapter begins by setting colonial intervention in its wider context, questioning the very limited role private employers played in the field of workers’ housing. It then studies how intervention of the authorities had unexpected effects that totally contradicted the initial aim of their building programed, which was to regulate workers’ unrest. It rather encouraged the development of solidarities that opened up new spaces of politicization and arenas of struggle.