It’s a crisis that has been several years in the making. India’s diamond industry, which employs several lakh workers and rakes in Rs 60,000 crore of forex every year, is facing the worst recession in its history. In Gujarat, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the country’s diamond processing and exports market, wages have plummeted, with significant differentials emerging among diamond-polishing cities. Thousands of workers took to the streets on July 6, demanding a 20-per-cent hike in wages. One of them was shot dead and many injured after the desperate stir began taking a violent turn.
HIRAL DAVE and KAMAAL SAIYED survey the bleak scene in Saurashtra and the attempts at reconciliation in Surat.

SAURASHTRA: ROCK UNSTEADY
For the landless and uneducated youth of Saurashtra, whose three districts Bhavnagar, Amreli and Junagadh house 3,000 polishing units providing 1.5-2 lakh jobs, the diamond industry has been a lifeline. Last week, diamond workers burned a Rs 50-crore hole in the already tottering industry by going on strike. If workers—on average, a diamond polisher in Saurashtra earns Rs 3,000 per month—lost their wages, unit owners suffered a loss in the monthly turnover.
“The strike caused a loss of wages amounting to Rs 24 crore,” says Jivram Dhanji, a unit owner and office-bearer of the Bhavnagar Diamond Polishing Unit Association. The local economy, which also depends on agriculture, cannot remain unaffected. There are nearly 1,000 units in Bhavnagar, over 1,500 in Amreli and about 500 scattered in Junagadh. Rajkot, Gondal and Jasdan, too, have a few units.
The workforce in Surat and Ahmedabad, which have nearly 10,000 units, is largely comprised of youth hailing from Saurashtra. “Over 90 per cent of the residents of Varachaha Road in Surat, a diamond workers’ colony, come from districts like Amreli and Bhavnagar,” says Bharat Patel, another diamond unit owner from Bhavnagar. The bandh, which lasted for four days in Surat, impacted the labour force of Saurashtra the most.

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