Modern path from pride to peanuts

Tara Chand Sharma, once a mill operator with Modern Suitings, cannot forget October 25, 2001, the day they found their former lives finally at a dead-end after a sudden lockout. The sprawling 80-acre Modern Syntex plant8212;one of five the group shut8212;in Alwar8217;s Old Industrial Area8212;was swarming with policemen and notices barred their entry. 8220;We got no compensation, no settlement,8221; he says. 8220;Grave injustice has been done to us.8221;

Modern8217;s workers may today be indistinguishable from the destitutes around them, but their memories of their 8220;betrayal8221; and their knowledge of what happened to the company are sharp.

The peanut-seller tells you what the finance ministry tells Parliament. 8220;These problems arose because the company did not repay their bank loans,8221; he says. 8220;But they paid their top managers very high salaries even in a small place like Alwar. They later shifted their attention to Baroda and neglected these mills. And we are left with this misery.8221;

At the 100-acre Modern Syntex Plant, once the showpiece of Matsya Industrial Area on Alwar8217;s outskirts, only cows and buffaloes walk in through the wide, open gates to graze. 8216;8216;This factory was once bustling with hundreds of workers,8217;8217;sighs Subhash Sharma, the plant8217;s 8216;8216;security manager8217;8217; and caretaker. 8216;8216;It is now so lonely.8217;8217;

The plant shut down seven years ago, the electricity was cut six years ago, and a single generator supplies power. It8217;s not really needed though. The fencing is damaged, the rundown mill and office building deserted. The only competition for the cows comes from the security guards, the only employees here who get their salaries. That money comes from selling the wheat that grows on what were once the lawns in the Modern Syntex complex.