ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ‘demotic cosmopolitanism’ of public sector industrial workers in the central Indian steel town of Bhilai. The Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP), a government undertaking, was constructed in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the fraternal aid of the ‘anti-imperialist’ Soviet Union on a greenfield site in the ‘backward’ rural region of Chhattisgarh. The BSP township is divided into sectors, each of which has housing for both managers and workers, and in none of which is there any significant ethnic or religious enclaving. Especially in the BSP township, and amongst the generation born and raised in Bhilai, a more urban cosmopolitan style has emerged. Most sociability revolves around neighbours, workmates and school fellows who come from different regions. After every two years, BSP employees are entitled to Leave Travel Concession, which entitles them to reimbursement for first-class train travel for all the family to any destination within India they choose.
