Indian Working Class In The National Movement

With the slow beginnings of modem industry and the growth of utilities such as railways, the post, and the telegraph network, the modem worker first appears in India in the second half of the nineteenth century. Because the notion of the Indian working class could not exist before the notion of the Indian ‘people' had begun to take root, the process of disparate groups of workers in various parts of the country emerging as an organised, self-conscious, all India class is inextricably linked with the growth of the Indian national movement and the process of the Indian ‘nation-in-the-making.'

 

•    There were several agitations before the Indian nationalist intelligentsia began to associate itself with working class agitations towards the end of the nineteenth century, including strikes by workers in textile mills in Bombay, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Surat, Madras, Coimbatore, Wardha, and elsewhere, as well as strikes in railways and plantations. However, they were mostly sporadic, spontaneous, and unorganised uprisings motivated by immediate economic grievances, with little or no wider political implications.

 

•    There were also some early attempts at coordinating efforts to improve workers' conditions. Philanthropists began making these efforts in the 1870s. 

 

Sasipada Banerjea: A Brahmo social reformer in Bengal. He established a Workingmen's Club in 1870 and published Bharat Sramjeebi (Indian Labour), a monthly journal with the primary goal of educating workers. Sorabjee Shapoorji Bengalee tried unsuccessfully in the Bombay Legislative Council in 1878 to introduce a Bill to limit the working hours of labourers.

 

Narayan Meghajee Lokhanday: He founded the Bombay Mill and Millhands' Association in 1890 and published an Anglo-Marathi weekly called Dina Bandhu (Friend of the Poor) in 1880. Lokhanday held worker meetings and, in one case, sent a memorial to the Bombay Factory Commission signed by 5,500 mill workers, outlining some basic worker demands. 

 

•    All of these efforts were philanthropic in nature and did not represent the start of a well-organized working-class movement. Furthermore, these philanthropists were not part of the contemporary national movement's mainstream.

 

•    In fact, the mainstream nationalist movement was largely unconcerned about the issue of labour. Despite the truly appalling conditions in which workers lived at the time, early nationalists paid relatively little attention to the issue of workers. 

 

•    They also had a strikingly different attitude toward workers employed in European businesses versus those employed in Indian businesses, which is perhaps understandable.

 

•    One major reason for the early anti-imperialist movement's lukewarm attitude was that, at the time, when the anti-imperialist movement was in its infancy, nationalists did not want to weaken the common struggle against British rule — the primary task to be accomplished in a colonial situation — by causing divisions among the Indian people. 

 

•    In the Indian National Congress's second session (1886), Dadabhai Naoroji stated emphatically that the Congress "must confine itself to questions in which the entire nation has a direct participation, and it must leave the adjustment of social reforms and other class questions to class Congresses." 

 

•    Later, as the national movement grew stronger, and ideological trends with less inhibitions toward labour emerged within the nationalist ranks, efforts were made to organise labour and secure for it a better bargaining position vis-à-vis the more powerful classes in the common anti-imperialist front. 

 

•    While maintaining an anti-imperialist united front was still a goal, it was no longer to be achieved at the expense of the worker and the oppressed, but rather through sacrifices or concessions from all classes, including the powerful property class.

 

•    However, at this point, the nationalists were unwilling to address the issue of labour versus the indigent employer. In fact, most nationalist newspapers argued that no government legislation was needed to regulate working conditions, and they actively opposed the Factories Acts of 1881 and 1891. 

 

•    Strikes in Indian textile mills, likewise, were largely ignored. There were other reasons for the nationalist stance, aside from the desire to avoid causing divisions in the fledgling anti-imperialist movement. 

 

•    The nationalists correctly saw the government's labour legislation initiative as dictated by British manufacturing interests, who, faced with rising Indian competition and a shrinking market in India, lobbied for factor legislation in India that would, for example, reduce the competitive advantage enjoyed by Indian industry by reducing labour hours. 

 

•    Furthermore, the early nationalists saw rapid industrialisation as the panacea for India's poverty and degradation, and they were unwilling to support any legislation that slowed this process. They claimed that any labour legislation that would harm India's infant industry was tantamount to murdering the goose that laid the golden eggs. But there was also the nationalist newspaper Mahratta, which was influenced by the radical thinker G.S. Agarkar at the time and supported the workers' cause by requesting concessions from the mill owners. However, this was still a very minor trend.

 

•    When it came to Indian workers in British-owned businesses, the situation was completely different. The nationalists were unafraid to lend their full support to the workers. This was partly because, in the words of P. Ananda Charlu, the Congress president in 1891, the employer and the employed were not "part and parcel of the same nation." 

 

•    The Indian National Congress and nationalist newspapers launched a campaign against the way tea plantation workers in Assam were reduced to virtual slavery, with European planters given the power to arrest, punish, and prevent labour emigration through legislation. 

 

•    To protest against this unbridled exploitation by foreign capitalists aided by the colonial state, an appeal to national honour and dignity was made.

 

•    The fact that the first organised strike by any section of the working class took place on a British-owned and managed railway was not by chance. The Great Indian Peninsular (GIP) Railway signallers went on strike in May 1899, with demands for wages, hours of work, and other working conditions.

 

•    Almost every nationalist newspaper endorsed the strike, with Tilak's newspapers Mahratta and Kesari leading the charge for months. 

 

•    In Bombay and Bengal, prominent nationalists such as Pherozeshah Mehta, D.E. Wacha, and Surendranath Tagore organised public meetings and fund collections in support of the strikers. Because the exploiter in these cases was a foreigner, agitation against it became a national issue and an important part of the national movement. 

 

•    With the rise of the working class at the turn of the century, a new tendency among the nationalist intelligentsia emerged. For example, B.C. Pal and G. Subramania Iyer began to discuss the need for legislation to protect workers, the weaker section, from powerful capitalists. 

 

•    G. Subramania Iyer argued in 1903 that workers should band together and form unions to fight for their rights, and that the public should assist the workers in this endeavour. 

 

•    The Swadeshi uprising of 1903-08 was a watershed moment in the labour movement's history. The rise of the "professional agitator" and the "power of organisation" of labour into industrial strikes were identified as two distinct features of this period by an official survey. 

 

•    The number of strikes increased dramatically, and many Swadeshi leaders threw themselves into the task of forming stable trade unions, strikes, legal aid, and fund-raising drives with zeal. National leaders such as B.C. Pal, C.R. Das, and Liaqat Hussain spoke at public rallies in support of striking workers. 

 

•    Aswini Coomar Banerjea, Prabhat Kumar, and Aswini Coomar Banerjea were four prominent Swadeshi leaders who dedicated themselves to labour struggles. Roy Chowdhuri, Premtosh Bose, and Apurba Kumar Ghose were involved in a slew of strikes, but their greatest success, both in terms of forming workers' organisations and popular support came from workers in the Government Press, Railways, and the jute industry — all of which were dominated by either foreign capital or the colonial state.

 

•    Processions in support of the strikers were held on a regular basis in Calcutta's streets. On the way, people fed the precisionists. Money, rice, potatoes, and green vegetables were donated by a large number of people, including women and even police officers. 

 

•    At this time, the first tentative attempts to form all-India unions were made, but they were unsuccessful. Throughout this time, however, the disparity in attitudes toward workers employed in European and Indian businesses persisted. 

 

Labour movement: The shift from purely economic agitations and struggles to the worker's involvement in the larger political issues of the day was perhaps the most significant feature of the Swadeshi labour movement. 

 

•    The labour movement had progressed from unorganised and sporadic strikes on economic issues to organised strikes on economic issues with nationalist support, and then to working class participation in broader political movements.

 

•    A flurry of working-class strikes and hartals erupted in Bengal on October 16, 1905, the day the partition of Bengal went into effect. Several jute mills and jute press factories, as well as railway coolies and carters, went on strike.

 

•    After being denied leave to attend the Federation Hall meeting called by the Calcutta Swadeshi leaders, 12,000 workers at the Bum Company shipyard in Howrah went on strike. When management objected to workers singing Bande Mataram or tying rakhis on each other's wrists as a symbol of unity, they went on strike.

 

•    Subramania Siva campaigned for a strike in a foreign-owned cotton mill in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, in February-March 1908, claiming that strikes for higher wages would lead to the demise of foreign mills. There were widespread strikes and riots in Tuticorin and Tirunelveli after Siva and the famous Swadeshi leader Chidambaram Pillai were arrested. 

 

•    The arsenal and railway engineering workers in Rawalpindi, Punjab, went on strike as part of the 1907 upsurge in the Punjab, which resulted in the deportation of Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh. As previously mentioned, the largest political demonstration by the working class during this period occurred during Tilak's trial and subsequent conviction.

 

•    The formation of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) in 1920 was the most significant development. Lokamanya Tilak, who had developed a close relationship with Bombay labour, was one of the driving forces behind the formation of the AITUC, which had Lala Lajpat Rai, the famous Punjabi extremist, as its first president and Dewan Chaman Lal, who would go on to become a major figure in the Indian labour movement, as its General Secretary. 

 

•    Workers were urged not only to organise themselves, but also to intervene in nationalist politics, according to the AITUC manifest. 

 

•    Lajpat Rai was one of the first in India to connect capitalism and imperialism, emphasising the importance of the working class in combating the two. 

 

•    According to Lajpat Rai, this reflects a growing shift in nationalist attitudes toward labour employed in Indian businesses. 

 

•    During the AITUC's second session, Dewan Chaman Lal, while moving a resolution in favour of Swaraj, pointed out that it was to be a Swaraj for the workers, not the capitalists. Apart from Lajpat Rai, the AITUC was closely associated with a number of other prominent nationalists at the time. 

 

•    C.R. Das presided over the third and fourth sessions, and C.F. Andrews, J.M. Sengupta, Subhas Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Satyamurti were among the notable names present. 

 

•    At its Gaya session in 1922, the Indian National Congress welcomed the formation of the AITUC and formed a committee of prominent Congressmen to assist it in its work.

 

Participation of worker in national political event: The workings responded magnificently to the shift in the political climate. In 1920, there were 125 unions with a total membership of 250,000, with the majority of them formed between 1919 and 1920. Participation of workers in major national political events was also significant. 

 

•    Following the repression in Punjab and Gandhiji's arrest in April 1919, the working class in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat went on strike, staged agitations, and staged demonstrations. Government buildings were set on fire in Ahmedabad, trains were derailed, and telegraph wires were snapped. At least 28 people were killed and 123 were injured as a result of the suppression. 

 

•    Bombay and Calcutta were rocked by waves of working-class protests.

 

•    The general anti-colonial mass struggle coincided with railway workers' agitations for economic demands and against racial discrimination. Several times between 1919 and 1921, railway workers went on strike in support of the Rowlatt agitation and the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement. 

 

•    The North Western Railway workers' call for an all-India general strike in April l919 was met with enthusiastic response in the northern region. Gandhiji came to symbolise resistance to colonial rule and exploitation for railwaymen in large parts of the country, just as the Indian Railways symbolised the British Empire, ‘the political and commercial will of the Raj,' as Lajpat Jagga has shown.

 

•    Workers responded to the Congress's call for a boycott by staging a nationwide general strike in November 1921, during the Prince of Wales' visit. The textile factories in Bombay were shut down, and about 1 40,000 workers were on the streets, rioting and attacking Europeans and Parsis who had come to greet the Prince of Wales. 

 

•    The spirit and desires that moved the workers during these turbulent years, the relationship between the nationalist upsurge and the workers' own aspirations, is best expressed in the words of Arjun Atmaram Alwe, an illiterate worker in a Bombay textile mill who went on to become a major figure in the working class movement. 

 

•    Gandhiji's founding of the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (TLA) in 1918, which at the time had 14,000 members and was perhaps the largest single trade union in the country. 

 

•    Gandhiji's experiment based on the principle of trusteeship (the capitalist as trustee of the workers' interests) and arbitration had been dismissed as class collaborationist and against the workers' interests far too often and casually. 

 

•    Apart from securing one of the highest wage increases during a strike in 1918, Gandhiji's concept of trusteeship also had a radical potential that is often overlooked. 

 

•    Gandhiji's labour philosophy, with its emphasis on arbitration and trusteeship, reflected the needs of the anti-imperialist movement, which couldn't afford a full-fledged class war between the emerging nation's constituent classes. 

 

Left bloc ideological trends: After 1922, there was a reversion to purely economic struggles, i.e., corporatism, and a lull in the working class movement. The emergence of a powerful and clearly defined Left Bloc in the national movement sparked the next wave of working-class activity toward the end of the 1920s.

 

•    In the second half of the 1930s, various Left ideological trends coalesced and began to exert a significant influence on the national movement. By early 1927, various Communist groups in India had organised themselves into the Workers' and Peasants' Parties (WPP), led by people like S.A. Dange, Muzaffar Ahmed, P.C. Joshi, and Sohan Singh Josh. 

 

•    The WPPs, which functioned as a left-wing faction within the Congress, grew in strength within the organisation at both the provincial and national levels.

 

•    In addition, by working within a broad Left from under the WPPs, Communist influence in the trade union movement had grown from a sliver in early 1927 to a mighty force by the end of 1928. 

 

•    Workers in the railways, jute mills, municipalities, paper mills, and other industries in Bengal and Bombay, as well as the Burma Oil Company in Madras, came under Communist influence. By the time of the 1928 Jharia session, the broad Left, including the Communists, had taken control of the AITUC as well. 

 

•    At the subsequent session presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru, the corporatist trend led by people like N.M. Joshi split away from the AITUC. By the end of 1928, the government was concerned that “nearly every public utility service or industry had been affected, in whole or in part, by the wave of communism that swept the country.”

 

Workers under influenced of communist and radical ideology: Between 1922 and 1929, workers influenced by Communist and radical nationalist ideologies participated in a large number of strikes and demonstrations across the country. 

 

•    The AITUC decided to boycott the Simon Commission in November 1927, and many workers took part in the massive Simon boycott demonstrations. Numerous workers' meetings were also held on May Day, Lenin Day, the Russian Revolution's anniversary, and other occasions. 

 

Government response: The government launched a two-pronged attack on the labour movement, fearful of growing militancy and political involvement among the working class, and especially of the coming together of nationalist and leftist trends. 

 

•    On the one hand, it passed repressive legislation such as the Public Safety Act and the Trade Disputes Acts, arresting virtually the entire radical leadership of the labour movement in one fell swoop and launching the infamous Meerut Conspiracy Case against them. 

 

•    On the other hand, it attempted, with varying degrees of success, to wean a significant portion of the labour movement away from the constitutionalist and corporatist mould through concessions (for example, the appointment of the Royal Commission on Labour in 1929).

 

•    The labour movement suffered a major setback as a result of the government's offensive, as well as a shift in the Communist-led wing of the movement's stance. As a result, the Communists were isolated from the national movement, and their influence over the working class was greatly diminished.

 

•    By the end of 1929, the GKU's membership had dropped from 54,000 in December 1928 to around 800. Similarly, the Communists were marginalised within the AITUC and expelled in the 1931 split. The impact of the CPI's separation from the Civil Disobedience Movement on Bombay workers is well documented in a 1930 CPI document.

 

•    During the movement, Sholapur textile workers, Karachi dock workers, Calcutta transport and mill owners, and Madras mill workers heroically clashed with the government. 

 

•    Textile workers in Sholapur went on the rampage between the 7th and the 16th of May after police opened fire to disperse an anti-British procession. Government buildings, courts, police stations, and railway stations were attacked, and rebels took control of the city administration for a few days. 

 

•    The town was draped in the national flag. To put down the insurgents, the government had to declare martial law. Several employees were hanged or sentenced to long prison terms.

 

•    On 4 February 1930, about 20,000 workers, mostly from the GIP Railway, struck work in Bombay, where the Congress slogan during civil disobedience was that "workers and peasants are the hands and feet of the Congress." 

 

•    The workers of the GIP Railwaymen's Union launched a novel form of Satyagraha on April 6, the day Gandhiji broke the salt law. Hundreds of workers marched to North Bombay's suburban stations and prostrated themselves on the tracks, red flags flying in front of them. To clear the tracks, the cops had to open fire. 

 

•    The Congress Working Committee declared Gandhi Day on July 6 to protest large-scale arrests, and about 50,0O0 people took part in the hartal on that day, with workers from forty-nine factories downing their tools.

 

•    Between 1931 and 1936, there was a null in the labour movement. Workers also did not participate actively in the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1932-34. 

 

•    During 1937-1939, a new wave of working-class activity arose with the establishment of provincial autonomy and popular ministries. 

 

•    In the meantime, the Communists had abandoned their suicidal sectarian policies and had re-enacted the mainstream of nationalist politics since 1934. In 1935, they also re-joined the AITUC.

 

•    The left's influence in nationalist politics and the labour movement grew rapidly once more. Within the Congress and other mass organisations, the Communists, Congress Socialists, and Left nationalists led by Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Bose had formed a powerful Left conglomeration. 

 

•    With the exception of a few centres, the AITUC endorsed the Congress candidates when the campaign for the 1937 elections began.

 

•    The Congress election manifesto stated that the party would work to resolve labour disputes and take effective measures to protect workers' rights to form unions and strike. 

 

•    The trade union movement grew dramatically during the tenure of the Congress Provincial Governments. Between 1937 and 1939, the number of trade unions increased from 271 to 362 with a total membership of 261,047 to 399,159 people. The number of strikes has also risen significantly.

 

•    Increased civil liberties under the Congress governments, as well as the pro-labour attitude of many of the Congress ministries, were two major factors that fuelled the trade union movement during this time. 

 

•    It's worth noting that a striking feature of the strikes during this time was that the vast majority of them ended in victory for the workers, whether complete or partial.

 

•    Despite Communist indifference or opposition to the Quit India Movement, workers in Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Bombay, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, and Jamshedpur staged strikes and hartals for about a week after Gandhiji and other leaders were arrested on August 9, 1942, following the Quit India Resolution. 

 

•    The Tata Steel Plant was shut down for thirteen days, with strikers vowing not to resume work until a national government was formed. The textile strike in Ahmedabad lasted about three and a half months, with mill owners cooperating in their nationalist euphoria! Workers' participation was low in pockets of Communist influence, though in many areas, despite the party line, the Communist rank and file actively supported the call for Quit India.

 

•    Between 1945 and 1947, there was a huge upsurge in working-class activity. Workers took part in the postwar political upsurge in large numbers. They took part in the numerous meetings and demonstrations held in towns and cities across India (particularly in Calcutta) to protest the INA trials. 

 

•    Dock workers in Bombay and Calcutta refused to load ships bound for Indonesia with supplies for troops tasked with suppressing South-East Asia's national liberation struggles toward the end of 1945. The Bombay workers' strike and hartal in solidarity with the naval ratings' mutiny in 1946 was perhaps the most spectacular action by workers during this period. 

 

•    On the 22nd of February, two to three hundred thousand workers went on strike in response to a call from the Communist Party, which was backed by the Socialists. 

 

•    As the police intervened, peaceful meetings and demonstrations devolved into violent clashes. Barricades were erected on the streets, which saw pitched battles between the police and the army. To restore order in the city, two army battalions were required; nearly 250 agitators gave their lives.

 

The last years of colonial rule also saw an unusually high number of strikes across the country over economic issues, the most well-known of which was the all-India strike of Post and Telegraph Department employees. The working class was pushed to its limits by the accumulation of economic grievances during the war, as well as problems caused by post-war demobilisation and the continuation of high prices, scarcity of food and other necessities, and a drop in real wages. In addition, the atmosphere in anticipation of freedom was teeming with anticipation. All sections of the Indian population saw independence as bringing an end to their misery. Workers were no different. They, too, were fighting for what they hoped would come as a matter of right with freedom.