Gandhi’s textile union reproduced caste segregation inside its own organization

Evidence

The union did work at improving the hygiene and living conditions of workers, but no worker was ever elected to the union leadership. No worker was permitted to be present at closed-door arbitrations between the management and the union. The union was divided up into a federation of smaller, occupation-based unions whose members worked in the different stages of the production process. In other words, the structure of the union institutionalised caste divisions. According to a worker interviewed by the scholar Jan Breman, Untouchables were not allowed into the common canteen, they had separate drinking water tanks and segregated housing. — Ambedkar, B R, Annihilation of Caste_ The Annotated…, 340

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the caste-annihilation thesis in concrete: even a ‘progressive’ workers’ body institutionalized untouchability in its structure — supports the book’s claim that caste pervades every institution.