Spectrum Test: The Movement Of The Working Class - UPSC MCQ

• The beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century heralded the entry of modern industry into India.

• The thousands of hands employed in the construction of railways were harbingers of the modern Indian working class. Further industrialization came with the development of ancillary industries along with the railways.

• The coal industry developed fast and employed a large working force. Then came the cotton and the jute industries.

• The Indian working class suffered from the same kind of exploitation witnessed during the industrialization of Europe and the rest of the West, such as low wages, long working hours, unhygienic and hazardous working conditions, employment of child labour and the absence of basic amenities. 

• The presence of colonialism in India gave a distinctive touch to the Indian working-class movement. The Indian working class had to face two basic antagonistic forces-an imperialist political rule and economic exploitation at the hands of both foreign and native capitalist classes. 

• Under the circumstances, the Indian working-class movement inevitably became intertwined with the political struggle for national emancipation.

• were indifferent to the labour's cause: 

• differentiated between the Indian labour in the owned factories and those in the British factories; 

• believed that labour legislation would affect the competitive edge enjoyed by the Indian-owned industries; 

• did not want a division in the movement based on classes; 

• did not support the Factory Acts of 1881 and 1891 for these reasons.

• There were attempts to form trade unions, but these were not very successful. Subramaniya Siva and Chidambaram Pillai led strikes in Tuticorin and Tirunelvelli and were arrested. 

• The biggest strike of the period was organized after Tilak's arrest and trial. Workers participated in wider political issues. 

• Strikes were organized by Ashwini Coomar Banerjea, Prabhat Kumar Roy, Chaudhuri, Premtosh Bose and Apurba Kumar Ghosh. These strikes were organized in government press, railways and the jute industry.

• The All India Trade Union Congress was founded on October 31, 1920. 

• For the year, the Indian National Congress president, Lala Lajpat Rai, was elected as the first president of AITUC and Dewan Chaman Lal as the first general secretary. 

• Lajpat Rai was the first to link capitalism with imperialism- "imperialism and militarism are the twin children of capitalism".

• Other leaders who kept close contacts the AITUC included Nehru, Subhas Bose, C.F. Andrews Sengupta, Satyamurthy, V.V. Giri and Sarojini Naidu. 

• In the beginning, the AITUC was influenced by social democratic ideals of the British Labour Party. 

• The Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, trusteeship and class collaboration had a great influence on the movement. Gandhi helped organize the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (1918) and through a protest secured a 27.5 per cent wage hike. (Later, the arbitrator's award ensured a 35 per cent rise.)

• recognized trade unions as a legal association 

• laid down conditions for registration and regulation of trade union activities; 

• secured immunity, both civil and criminal, for trade unions from prosecution for legitimate activities, but put some restrictions on their political activities.

TDA Act, 1929: 

• Made compulsory the appointment of Courts of Inquiry and Consultation Boards for settling industrial disputes; 

• Made illegal the strikes in public utility services like posts, railways, water and electricity, unless each worker planning to go on strike gave advance notice of one month to the administration; 

• Forbade trade union activity of coercive or purely political nature and even sympathetic strikes.

• In March 1929, the Government arrested 31 labour leaders. The three-and-a-half-year trial resulted in Muzaffar Ahmed, S.A. Dange, Joglekar, Philip Spratt, Ben Bradley, Shaukat Usmani and others. 

• The trial got worldwide publicity but weakened the working-class movement. The workers participated in 1930 in the Civil Disobedience Movement. 

• Still, after 1931 there was a dip in the working-class movement because of a split in 1931 in which the corporatist trend led by N.M. Joshi broke away from the AITUC to set up the All India Trade Union Federation. In 1935, the communists rejoined the AITUC.

The left front consisted of the communists, Congress socialists and the leftist nationalists like Nehru and Subhas. The communists dissociated themselves from the Quit India Movement. The communists advocated a policy of industrial peace.