Around 70 embroidery workers and their union representatives were detained by Surat authorities on 15 October, minutes before the group had planned to assemble outside the district Collector's office for a pre-arranged protest they had named the "Maha Satyagraha." Two grievances had been building among workers in Gujarat's textile hub for roughly four months — guaranteed rest on Sundays and the reliable, on-schedule payment of earnings — and the demonstration was aimed at advancing those demands.

Arrests were carried out among participants before the protest got under way. A running dispute between embroidery workers and the owners' association has drawn in police, passing through written notices and a series of inconclusive negotiations along the way, with the arrests representing the most recent development in a standoff that has yet to reach any resolution.

Central to the dispute is Surat's embroidery industry — part of one of India's largest textile manufacturing hubs — where workers who have migrated from rural areas have spent roughly four months pushing for improved conditions under a collective effort called "Gaon Chalo Abhiyan," a phrase that translates as a call to return to one's home village. Three specific workplace conditions sit at the heart of the dispute: an eight-hour working day to replace the standard twelve-hour shift, a guaranteed paid day off every Sunday, and salaries delivered on schedule.

Gujarat's 2025 factory legislation set a 12-hour shift ceiling as the permitted daily maximum, in the process extending formal statutory recognition to working-hours arrangements that a considerable portion of manufacturing units had already been operating under without official authorisation. Monthly pay for these workers falls between Rs 25,000 and Rs 30,000, earned across 12-hour daily shifts with no assured weekly day of rest.

Two wage structures were placed before attendees at gatherings held on 10 and 11 October by TEJAS — the Textile Embroidery Jobwork Association of Surat, a body drawing its membership from roughly 40,000 embroidery unit owners. The first option pegged monthly pay at Rs 14,300 for an eight-hour day and one rest day per week; the second held monthly pay at Rs 35,000 in exchange for retaining the existing 12-hour shift arrangement, supplemented by schooling provisions for workers' children.

Unions turned down both options. Under the eight-hour arrangement, workers stood to lose more than half their existing take-home pay, while the twelve-hour version attached restrictions on mobile phone use and tolerance thresholds for production-floor errors that the workforce found unworkable. Trade union delegates put forward the position that workers with specialist skills are entitled to a guaranteed rest day without any reduction in their earnings.

Accounts from workers describe some embroidery units as running shifts of roughly 12 hours, with staff who raise questions about their conditions reportedly facing either intimidation or dismissal. Anand Kushwaha, an embroidery worker, told a broadcast outlet that the same day he submitted a request for Sunday off, his employer paid out his remaining wages and brought his contract to an immediate close — an experience that labour representatives describe as having repeated itself across a workforce numbering somewhere between 300 and 400 people over the course of the broader protest period.

In a separate matter, Ajay Dubey, who holds a leadership role in the labour movement, was taken into custody on charges that police characterise as having no connection to the ongoing agitation, though those representing workers have drawn a connection between his detention and the broader atmosphere of pressure bearing down on the protests.

Two days before a protest that had originally been scheduled for a later date, the Deputy Labour Commissioner's office in Surat issued a directive to TEJAS and its affiliated units requiring them to bring their operations into line with four labour statutes consolidated under national law — the Code on Wages (2019), the Code on Social Security (2020), the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020), and the Industrial Relations Code (2020) — each of which carries a provision guaranteeing workers a paid day of rest each week.

The circular brought a brief reduction in tensions and led to the cancellation of the October 1 protest, yet two outstanding demands — a weekly rest day and an eight-hour working shift — remained unresolved, with TEJAS office-bearers reported to have stopped short of formally accepting the workers' position on either point.

When two days of negotiations on 10 and 11 October yielded no agreement that workers found workable, the Gujarat Pradesh branch of the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) announced a Maha Satyagraha gathering at the Surat Collector's office on 15 October, with those coordinating the event putting anticipated attendance at up to 10,000 participants.

Police took between 60 and 80 embroidery workers and labour organisers into custody near the Collector's office — a number that has circulated widely as approximately 70 — acting before the planned satyagraha could begin, with officials citing the absence of the necessary permit for the gathering. Workers were detained at locations away from the planned demonstration, with authorities acting before either the participants or the event itself had arrived at the intended venue.

Two worker-side demands grounded in existing statutory provisions — a guaranteed day of rest each Sunday and wage disbursement falling between the first and seventh of each month — formed the stated basis of the October 15 Maha Satyagraha, an action coordinated by the Gujarat Pradesh INTUC. Union representative Desai outlined both conditions as obligations already established under the law. Labour organisations have lodged repeated objections to TEJAS's plan to swap rest days for adjusted pay, arguing that a guaranteed weekly break should not come at the cost of lower take-home wages.

Dubey's detention on what police describe as a separate matter has deepened the friction between event organisers and the authorities overseeing them. The underlying disagreement had not been settled based on information available at the time of reporting.

As of the October 1 labour department circular ordering adherence to the four labour codes, neither a guaranteed weekly rest day on Sundays nor a payroll window falling between the 1st and 7th of each month — the two conditions at the heart of the workers' demands — had been taken up by TEJAS through any formal agreement or made enforceable through binding mechanisms. Kushwaha's termination, alongside other reported job losses, has drawn attention to concerns about retaliatory action that remained unresolved as the underlying dispute continued.