46 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
factory was built. So his family had no option but to work as contract labourers. He lived in a ramshackle hut in a 'labour colony' without any civic amenities. He was not entitled to any welfare services provided by the laW. One day while carrying a 100 kg salt bag/ he slipped off the ramp, broke his spine, and died. There was no compensation and his wife, struggling to-make a living, sorts out salt lumps from the brine sludge dumped by the factory and sells them in the local market Unknown to her or the consumers the salt contains trace elements of mercury.5
Ghanshyam Das Biria died in 1983, at the ripe age of 89, a wise old man widely honoured and praised as the foremost Indian industrialist, a dynamic entrepreneur, dedicated supporter of Mahatma Gandhi in the national independence movement, and worthy donor to charitable causes. Nathuram died in 1984 at the age of 25, unsung, unknown, almost unwanted. Therein hangs the structure of development of Indian society.
The health of working men, women and children who carry the burden of this development on their shoulders is closely dependent upon the dual environment in which they work and live. In this paper we propose to examine a third aspect al^o, that is, the socio-economic coordinates of these primary determinants of health. The major variables under scrutiny are (i) the nature of the industrialising process, (ii) the social stratification and its implications for the health of the labour force, (iii) impact of the intervention through welfare services, (iv) the role of legal processes, (v) the trade union movement, and (vi) the last section attempts to bring these together by tracing the common thread that binds them.
Our focus is on the Indian industrial worker, not because we consider the agricultural worker less important, but because the questions we are asking can be better examined in the industrial sector, given the present availability of data arid existence of not only laws but also mechanisms of state control and supervision. We have depended upon two types of data: (i) secondary data published by the Labour Bureau of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, and (ii) information on industries of a district in Madhya Pradesh—Shahdol—and its surrounding areas, of which we have first hand knowledge,6 This district has one paper mill, a caustic soda and chlorine unit, a thermal power Station, one yellow ochre factory and bone-crushing unit 'each, and fourteen coal mines of which three are open-cast mines and the others underground. The work done by our colleagues and us in the district provided insights into the social and economic determinants of health and encouraged us to check the trends at the national level.
DFATH AND DISEASE
Hazardous work manifests itself, in the first instance, in injuries to the human body. In the extreme case this also results in death or severe disability. Since these injuries or fatalities are required to be reported