Plurality of Labor Process and Capitalism: A Study of Multiple Labor Relations in Delhi’s Karkhanas

This study challenges the Eurocentric perspective that views wage labor as the epitome of modernity, relegating other forms of labor, such as that of petty producers(karkhanas) and informal workers, as residues of the past. Instead, it proposes a pluralistic understanding of histories and temporalities within the framework of Indian Capitalism. In contrast to the linear and unidirectional view of time, the study explores the structural non-contemporaneity of the present in the Indian economy, specifically focusing on the persistence of petty producers in Delhi. The research argues against the notion that petty producers represent a pre-modern or residual category that will disappear with the rise of modernity and the dominance of wage labor-capital relations in abstract. Instead, it highlights the persistence of petty producers, despite being relegated by the state as informal and yet-to-be formalized, while Eurocentric Marxian sociology categorizes it as formally subsumed but yet-to-be 'really’ (truly) subsumption. Both become victims of teleology. The study critiques the tendency towards teleological interpretations of history, which see labor regimes as a succession or linear progression through stages with wage - labor as its goal, categorizing various other labor relations as residues of the past or pre-history. Ultimately, this study offers an analysis of the plurality of labor and temporalities within Indian labor sociology, challenging traditional synchronic and diachronic analyses by addressing the various labor experiences originating in multiple and combined temporalities. It highlights the importance of recognizing and understanding the persistence of petty producers, not as a residual that will wither away with the advent of modernization. This study employs a mixed-methods approach grounded in fieldwork, incorporating semi-structured interviews with focus groups from the karkhanas of Delhi. It combines open qualitative and closed quantitative questions, enriched with sociologies of labor process. By showing how karkhanas are a contested site of informality.