The compensation law and its antagonistic administration: The Indian coalfield of Raniganj, 1923-71

ABSTRACT This article elaborates on the stipulation and administration of the compensation law, in the Indian coalfield of Raniganj, between 1923 and 1971. It shows how enacting the Workmen’s Compensation Act of 1923–24 formed a major social insurance scheme in colonial and post-colonial India. Notwithstanding this, the litigious and antagonistic administration became its defining feature. This feature lowered the utility of the compensation law as a restitution measure for grieving families, and as an incentive for investment in workers’ safety, during its half- century-long operation. Grief-stricken families registered an increasing number of claims to avail of compensation benefits from the later 1920s. Concomitantly, the number of employers’ contestation against workers’ claims also remained significantly high till the 1950s. The cumbersome procedure of law enforcement for administering compensation benefits, alongside an array of discursive-cum-legal techniques devised by the colliery management, caused hurdles in the workers’ attempt to secure their claims. The favourable turnaround in workers’ effort to secure compensation benefits from the late 1950s resulted from an enabling simplification and streamlining brought to the compensation law. However, the complication and expenses of the legal procedure that workers endured in the Compensation Office and Civil Courts generally added to their miseries.