BATANAGAR COMPANY TOWN, INDIA

Synopsis

The film’s opening illustrates the widespread export of Bata shoes, as a succession of boxes labelled ‘From Bata Shoe Co. Ltd, Batanagar’ and ‘Made in India’ are loaded for South America, New York, Sydney and Melbourne. The commentator states that ‘it is indeed a matter of interest and pride to see that this product of Indian manufacture is finding a substantial export market and that the British colonies are well represented amongst India’s overseas customers’. The film’s focus then shifts to the company’s recently-built industrial town, Batanagar. It shows both Indian and European workers leaving the factory to their separate housing estates, as the commentator praises ‘a great working community, mingling together freely on common ground, with no class distinctions and a common aim’. Aerial shots of the housing areas and of the workers at home, which include scenes of open-air baths and cooking, are followed by shots of the Senior Officers’ quarters. Next, the film shows a football match between factory workers and office staff. The commentator states here that ‘the field of sport is unquestionably the surest method of ensuring good will and of fostering that spirit of sportsmanship and friendliness so necessary for the advancement of any cause ‘. Further recreational activities are shown – all catering for the Europeans – including volleyball and swimming. Finally, the film returns to the subject of shoes, showing ‘what happens to them after they are made’. Inside a modern shop, ‘trained assistants’ serve their female customers, while pedicurists attend their feet as they read magazines. Once more the commentator notes the company’s emphasis on ‘the human element’, concluding that ‘Once a customer, always a customer’.

Notes

The business that became the Bata Shoe Company began was established on August 24, 1894 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia by Tomas Bata. The first Bata factory in India was opened in Konnagar in 1931 and then relocated to Batanagar, West Bengal, which became operational in 1936. It is still operational (2004). Bata's concern for the welfare of his workforce was first evident at Zlin in Czechoslovakia, where he had Le Corbusier design accommodation for his shoe factory employees.

The first Bata factory in India was opened in Konnagar in 1931 and then relocated to Batanagar, West Bengal, which became operational in 1936. It is still operational (2004).

Bata's concern for the welfare of his workforce was first evident at Zlin in Czechoslovakia, where he had Le Corbusier design accommodation for his shoe factory employees.

Context

The Bata Shoe Company (as it would become) was established in Zlin, Czechoslovakia by Tomas Bata on 24 August 1894. Originally producing textile shoes and sandals for indoor use, the business grew during the First World War as it catered for the increased demand in military footwear. In 1922 Tomas Bata visited India, returning again shortly afterwards in order to secure raw materials – such as rubber, and raw and half-tanned hides – for his plant in Zlin (Bagchi, 2005, 51). The first Bata shop in India was started in Calcutta around 1928 but, at the turn of the decade, the Indian shoe market was dominated by Japanese imports (Bagchi, 2005, 52). At the end of 1931, Tomas Bata flew to India and, recognising the increased revenue tariffs on imported goods and the comparatively cheap labour there, decided to start manufacturing shoes directly in India. He initially rented a factory at Konnagar, ten miles north of Calcutta, on a five-year lease, and although Bata died in a plane crash in 1932, the company continued with its international plans. It bought a new site from the Port commissioners of Calcutta in 1934, and the foundation stone was laid at Batanagar later in the year on 28 October (Bagchi, 2005, 53).

Bata began to build satellite cities throughout the world in the 1930s, and each of these followed the principles of functionalist architecture and, more specifically, an image of the modern industrial city outlined in the company’s unpublished 1937 book Ideal Industrial City. In the book, the company suggested that an ideal industrial city would have about 10,000 inhabitants and be ‘an organic structure of interconnected spheres of production, recreation and housing’ (Szczepanik, 2009, 350). Czech film historian Petr Szczepanik stated that during the 1920s and 1930s, Zlin was ‘totally rebuilt into a highly modern urban complex, which was to serve as a functioning extension of the factory’. ‘The symbiotic relationship between the company and the town deeply affected the economic, social and cultural life of its inhabitants’, he noted, adding that ‘Bata built standardized family houses for the workers, a new transport system, key public buildings, and last but not least, the new complex network of media’. He noted, in particular, the prominent position afforded to the cinema as the ‘virtual centre of the city’, housing 1000 spectators and presenting a new programme every day (Szczepanik, 2009, 349, 350).

This industrial model was used in establishing satellite towns throughout the world, including Batanagar. The company placed particular emphasis on the social welfare of workers, promoting education and mobility and a policy of co-operation between employees and employer. Szczepanik explained that ‘instead of exploiting a cheap labour force, Bata decided to educate the local people not only in new production methods, but also in a new lifestyle, and pay them above-average wages, which would help establish closer ties between them and the company’ (Szczepanik, 2009, 357). He further argued that ‘Comfortable family houses arranged within wide strips of greenery functioned as a means of control because they separated and localised the workers in their leisure time; gave them a sense of comfort which made them more loyal, and above all prevented them from forming disruptive political bodies in pubs or on the streets’ (Szczepanik, 2009, 355). However, despite these efforts, historian Sreeparna Bagchi argued that during the late 1930s Batanagar became ‘the hotbed of working class movement’ (Bagchi, 2005, 58). This was most evident in a two-week strike at Batanagar at the start of 1939, which escalated into violence. The Times reported that after attacks by strikers on workers and police on 9 January, the police opened fire, injuring eight people, including two policemen (The Times, 10 January 1939, 11).

Bata used film widely in advertising its products and, in particular, in promoting its industrial and social welfare work. Szczepanik noted that the company established a film unit in 1928 and built a film studio in Zlin in 1936, which had produced approximately 170 films by 1945. Szczepanik suggested that at the end of the 1930s each film would have had between 100 and 150 prints, and would have reached most domestic theatres, while often also being exhibited overseas in foreign versions (Szczepanik, 2009, 358). Batanagar Company Town, while produced in India, closely mirrors these European films – in its message and apparent function – and shows both the workers’ town and a Bata shop. By 1939, there were 3,596 employees in Batanagar, while the company had 86 shops in India, selling on average forty pairs of shoes a week (Bagchi, 2005, 58, 53).

Analysis

Batanagar Company Town prioritises the company’s social welfare policy and presents worker welfare at the forefront of the industrial process. The film does not show any scenes inside the factory or of shoe production itself, but instead begins as the workers leave the factory at the end of the working day. It thus relates the manufacture of the product to the welfare of the worker, and presents the production of industrial workers as an integral part of this industrial process. The final scene, which shows the sale of the shoes in a shop, directly relates the company’s social modernisation and welfare policies to the sale of the shoes.

The commentator outlines the company’s ideology and represents Batanagar as a ‘colony’, manufactured to create ‘not only good workers, but good citizens’. Although the film initially speaks of the individual freedom for the worker – ‘an evening to dispense according to one’s own taste’ – the film represents the worker as part of a collective community. ‘What better example of a fraternal association and co-operation than this can be found anywhere?’ the commentator asks, ‘A great working community, mingling together freely on common ground, with no class distinctions and with a common aim’. In emphasising the company’s attention to the workers, it reveals the scientific and impersonal nature of this policy – ‘the human element is well studied’ – and although the film inevitably makes no mention of the worker unrest or discontent that led to the strike of 1939, it does reveal the division between workers and employers. For example, the film shows the different quarters for the Europeans and Indians, and focuses almost exclusively on the leisure activities of the Europeans in Batanagar.

This emphasis on the European experience may suggest that the film was intended for an overseas market and certainly the film demonstrates Bata’s position as an international company. The opening scene shows the export of Bata products, and relates this directly to Britain: ‘it is indeed a matter of interest and pride to see that this product of Indian manufacture is finding a substantial export market and that the British colonies are well represented amongst India’s overseas customers’.

The Bata film unit in Zlin was noted for its experimental, avant-garde advertising films. This film shares elements of those productions – in its use of aerial shots, editing, and even in the final shot revealing the spinning company logo – as the film form attempts to endorse this presentation of industrial modernity. The film’s conclusion extends this presentation of a modern industrial company (with an emphasis on individual welfare) as it shows customers within a Bata shop, receiving pedicures within cubicles while reading magazines.

Tom Rice (October 2009)

Works Cited

Bagchi, Sreeparna, ‘The Zlin Enterprise: A Profile of the Role of the First Multinational Organisation in the Leather Industry in Bengal (1931-1945)’, The Calcutta Historical Journal, Vol. 25:2 (2005), 49-63.

Szczepanik, Petr, ‘Modernism, Industry, Film: A Network of Media in the Bata Corporation and the Town of Zlin in the 1930s’, Films that Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media, edited by Vinzenza Hediger and Patrick Voderau (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009).

‘News in Brief’, The Times, 10 January 1939, 11.