This tribute by senior journalist and activist Javed Anand is befitting:
In the 1970’s and the 1980’s for leftist activists and researchers looking for risen-from- the-ranks left-oriented but independent trade union leaders, white-collar D Thankappan, president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU) was the go-to man in Mumbai (then Bombay). This period also saw the raise of Dr Datta Samant the militant trade union leader whose reputation was spreading all over the industrial pockets of Bombay and Thane. Samant’s bargaining tactics was unique. He simply refused to look at the balance sheets and account statements prepared by the management and demanded pay increases which to some sounded “ridiculously high”. Yet, faced with prolonged strikes, the man managements did pay up. The fact that the same industries continued to grow and prosper was proof in retrospect that the balance sheets drawn up by the management had something to hide.
Every success of Dr Samant attracted workers from factory after factory, who deserted their existing union leaders to join Dr Samant in the eastern suburbs of Bombay. However, the Kamani Employees’ Union stood unmoved by this growing tide. The reason was simple: D Thankappan. If Samant relied on raw militancy to get workers a better deal, Thankappan’s approach combined brain with brawn. If Samant refused to look at balance sheets, Thankappan was adept in beating the Kamani management in their own game.
Thus it was that while factory after factory around the Kamani establishment in Kurla, Kamani workers kept their faith in Thankappan and the union he led. While other union leaders were losing out to Samant, Thankappan not only rode a steady ship, but felt unthreatened and always appreciated the better deals that Samant was able to gain for his union workers.
Left activists who kept constant touch with Thankappan as they learnt a lot from him not only about his own negotiating skills but also about the state of the working class movement in the country. A particularly endearing aspect of Thankappan’s character was his inclusive, non-sectarian approach. He regularly engaged with activists who ideologically were often at daggers drawn against each other.
At the union level, while Thankappan’s union was limited to Kamani he was never insular, always among the first to joint action.
While Thankappan could look back at much of the achievements of the union led by him, of one thing he remained regretful. The man who devoted his entire life to working class solidarity, was deeply saddened by the fact that when the communal fire raged in Bombay in December 1992-January 1993 in the after math of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, even the workers of Kamani turned out to be Hindus first and workers later.
On behalf of the Presidium of the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP), Roma writes:
It is with deep sorrow that we share the news of Comrade Thankappan’s passing today.
He was the architect and a founding member of our union. It was he who spearheaded the campaign starting in 1992 to raise awareness about the concept of forming a union for forest workers (Van Shramjeevi). He also established the National Centre for Labour (NCL)—a coalition for the country’s unorganised sector—of which our forest workers’ organization was a part. It was through the NCL that we connected with other unorganized sector unions across the country.
Back in 1992, at his initiative, we prepared a document titled “Comprehensive Legislation on Forest Rights”—a draft law concerning forest resources. In a sense, it was through his initiative that we, for the first time, worked to secure the status of “forest workers” for forest-dependent communities across the nation and brought their numbers to public attention.
Later, in 2006, he played a founding role in the formation of the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI), in which our union played a pivotal part. His tireless contributions can never be forgotten; our union exists today because of his ideology.
His greatest dream was to see the union led by women. He used to spend hours discussing women’s leadership with Sokalo-ji and me. When we formed the union in Odisha and elected Jarjum Ete-ji as its president, his joy knew no bounds. As women gradually took on leadership roles, he told me that his dream had been realized.
To us, he was truly like a parent—a guardian of the organization, even more than our own parents.
We are proud to have been associated with Comrade Thankappan; it is a matter of great honor for us.
Red Salute to Comrade Thankappan.
Roma (On behalf of the Presidium) AIUFWP
Teesta Setalvad, senior journalist and secretary, Citizens for Justice & Peace adds:
D Thankappan, an icon for the trade union movement, especially for his novel approach and pioneering the concept of co-operative ownership by the workers who ran Kamani, was unique in so many ways. My first close association with him was over the wider mobilization and collective that emerged countryside after the Bhopal Gas disaster, where his articulation of corporate and state accountability for the ghastly irresponsible and murderous leak of the deadly methyl isocyanate (MIC), a highly dangerous chemical used to make pesticide took the articulations of sustained action against first Union Carbide Corporation (then Everready, MP government and finally Dow Chemicals). Patient and thoughtful, Thankappan, comrade Thankappan was willing to engage in creative and new methods of articulation, protest and organisation.
History will decide whether the Kamani workers struggle with comrade D Thankappan at its helm was ‘successful’ or not, path-breaking it certainly was. He gained nationwide prominence for pioneering a historic experiment in workers’ self-management and cooperative capitalism at Kamani Tubes Limited (KTL) in Mumbai. As the leader and working president of the Kamani Employees Union (KEU), Thankappan spearheaded one of India’s most significant labour-led industrial turnarounds during the late 1980s His close association with my father Atul Setalvad, senior counsel to pursue the legal battles for the union in India’s constitutional courts brought together two interesting persons from two sides of the intellectual and ideological spectrum.
Understanding the brief trajectory of that struggle is significant. In line with the pattern followed by several ‘family-owned’ companies, following internecine family disputes and financial mismanagement by the original promoters, Kamani Tubes Limited was abandoned and shut down in 1985. Instead of silently accepting their fate, and the liquidation, D Thankappan as working president of the KEU moved the Supreme Court of India under Article 32. A master strategist, he realised and valued the counsel of Setalvad, and together worked and thereafter presented a comprehensive scheme under the Sick Industrial Companies Act (SICA) to restart the factory using a workers’ cooperative. The landmark judgment delivered in September 1988, had the Supreme Court approving the scheme. The court ordered banks and the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) to back the cooperative, establishing that the “right to livelihood” extends to workers taking over management to revive a company. This was a first, and though finally the initiative stumbled, it remains a turning point in the history of the working class movement of the country.
His sustained involvement and articulation of Adivasi ownership on cultivation and forest produce resulted in sharp and in-depth articulations for the All India Union of Forest Working Peoples (AIUFWP) at whose annual and bi-annual meetings we met—and deliberated, despite his failing health. My dear friend and colleague Roma has articulated D Thankappan’s close mentorship of the Forest Worker’s Movement best.
Related:
AIUFWP’s second National Conference to discuss land, legal, constitutional rights and more
AIUFWP submits letter LoP Rahul Gandhi, calls for action as forest rights remain in limbo
Struggle for forest rights, not an isolated movement: AIUFWP