WORKERS MOVEMENTS IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION

       WORKING .CLASS MOVEMENTS IN INDIA 

          working class movement in the country.According to the labour historians, the span of working class activities in India is divided into four distinct phases. The first phase spans from 1850 to 1890; the seconcl phase from 1890 to 191 8; the third phaty from 191 8 to 1947 and finally the post independence period. A treatment of the Before we conclude this section, it will be useful for us to note some of the. 
                                                                              weaknesses of the movement. Firstly, within the working class in the country a large section of the 

workforce, the unorganised ones even today remain outside the fold of trade unions. On 

the whole, the unions in this country have neglected the problems of the unorganised 

sector and Rudolph and Rudolph are correct when they conclude that almost all the 

unions including the Left led unions has taken the 'relatively easy path of organising 

and pressing demands on behalf of those who are easily organised and whose employer￾govelment-responds readily. In absolute terms the unorganised workers are poor and 

vulnerable to exploitation than the workers in the organised sector. 

The second major problem, which confronts the working class movement, is the 

multiplicity of trade unions. We have noted earlier that after independence trade unions 

representing workers in the country have multiplied. By the end of the Second World 

War there were only two All India organisations, by 1949 there were four all India 

organisations and today there are more than ten national level organisations affiliated to 

the major parties in the country. Ideological problems are often cited as the reason for 

this state of affairs though in actual practice unions are less ideological and are striving 

for organising the workers principally on economic issues. Multiplicity of political 

parties may be accepted as a norm in a democracy but multiplicity of Unions in a 

capitalist system keeps the working class fragmented and vulnerable to all forms of 

  pressures Trade unions in the country, as a whole, have not been responsive to the problems of 

the working class in the country. Unions lie fragmented from the factory to the national level that has produced bitter rivalry among unions and hence very often they have failed to respond to the issues of the working class. Due to the reasons cited above and also because of the fact that political parties control Unions, the latter have failed to become militant for addressing the grievances of the workers. The growing number of closures, suspensions of work and other forms of offensives in the country in recent years after the introduction of the New Economic Policy indicates the weakness of the movement. Various studies have also found that the industrial working class in the 

country has not 'allied with the peasants and other sections of the society in collective direct action on political issues'. This reflects the low level of political consciousness of the working class. 

To sum up, the movement of the organised workers in the country dates back to the 

period when industrialisation started and the first working class in the country appeared. The lnovements however took an organised form after the First World War with the emergence of trade unions. Movement of the workers, since then, continues to surface even today but the organised movements in the country face a number of problems. The most important of all the problems include fragmentation of unions, affiliation of the unions with political parties, lack of militancy by the established unions and a general apathy towards organising workers employed in the unorganised sector of the economy. All these problems have affected the working class movement in the country adverselworking class movement will follow a briefdiscussion of some of the essential aspects of the class in colonial and post colonial India. We shall however restrict our discussion to the industrial working class in India since it is this class, which, to a large extent, is organised whereas workers engaged in the unorganised sector largely remain out of the fold of organised working class activity

  Emergence and Some Aspects of the Early and Contemporary Working Class in India 

               The modern Indian working class arose in consequence to the development and growth of factory industries in India from the second half of the nineteenth century. It is however about the turn of the twentieth century, it took the shape of working class .An exact estimate of the total population of the working class is difficult to arrive at but N. M. Joshi, on the basis of the 1931 census, calculated 'the labouring class at 50 million out of which roughly 10 percent were working in the organised industry'. So far as the major industries were concerned, the cotton textile industry in 1914 employed 2.6 lakh workers, the jute industry employed 2 lakh workers in 1912 the railways employed around 6 lakh workers. The number swell further and on the eve of World War 11, in which, about 2 million were employed in manufacturing industry, 1.5 million in railways and I .2 million in the British owned plantations.

       The Number increased significantly after independence and this was largely due to the expatision of the modem manufacturing industries in various sectors and also because of the growth of the public sector utilities, corporations and government offices. According to the 1981 census, the total number of workers in the modem manufacturing industries alone in India numbered around 2.5 million. In 1993 the average daily employment in factories was 8.95 million, in the mines it was 7.79 lakhs and in the plantations, it was 10.84 lakhs. Apart from this a large workforce was employed in the plantations, mining,

construction, utilities, transportation etc. (GOI, Labour Bureau, 1997). In recent years

owing to a number of reasons the rate .in increase in employment has gone down and

this had affected the employment potential and the condition of the working class

proper.

        A few interesting observations on the nature of the early and post independence working class may be made. Firstly, so far as the 'early working class is concerned it was divided into organised and unorganised sections and this distinction lies even today. Secondly, there was an insufficient class demarcation between a working class and a peasant. Labour historians have found that for a given period of time in a year the worker migrated to his village and worked as a peasant. Thirdly, the working class in the early years and to some extent even today is divided between class, caste, language, community, etc. Fourthly, today there is a distinction between the workers employed in the private sector and the public sector and within these sectors there are several categories like the workers in the MNCs and the domestic companies etc. Generally the workers employed in the public sector enjoy a better working condition than those who are employed in the private sector.

Working Class Movements in the Pre-Independence Period 

As already noted, the labour historians classify the movement of the workers in the

country into four distinct phases. In this part of the section, we deal with the labour

movement in the country till independence.

The first phase : 1850s till 1918 

The actions of the working class in the earliest stage were sporadic and unorganised in nature and hence were mostly ineffective. It is only from the late 19th century in Madras, and from the second decade of the twentieth century in Bombay that serious attempts were made for the formation of associations that could lead organised form of protests. Prior to that some philanthropists in the 1880s sought to improve working conditions by urging the British authorities in India to introduce legislations for improving its condition. S. S. Bengalee in Bombay, Sasipada Banerjee in Bengal and Narayzm

Lokhandya in Maharashtra were prominent among them. '

          Nationalist historians often argue that the organised working class movement in the country was associated with the Indian national movement but this is only partially

correct. Several movements took place even before the Congress took a serious note sf

the interests of the working class questions. Though the Congress was formed in 1885,

it seriously thought of organising the working class only in the early 1920s. The Working class in the country was organising struggles against capital much before the 1920s. In the last decades of the 19th century, Lieten informs us, there occurred strikes at Bombay, Kurla, Surat, Wardha, Ahmedabad and in other places. According to official sources there were two strikes per year in every factory. The strikes however were only sporadic, spontaneous, localised and short-lived and were caused by factors such as reduction in wages, imposition of fines, dismissal or reprimand of the worker. These actions and militancy, which they showed, helped in the development of class solidarity a11d consciousness, which was missiag earlier. The resistance was mediated by outsiders or outside leaders. Agitations grew and they were not on individual issues but on broadereconomic questions, thus leading to a gradual improvement later on.

The Second Phase: 1918 till Independence  

           It was after World War I that the working class struggle in the country entered into a different phase. The unorganised movement of the workers took an organised form; trade unions were formed on modern lines. In several ways the decade of the 1920s is crucial in this regard. Firstly in the 1920s serious attempts were made by the Congrc:ss and the Communists to moblilise the working class and hence from then onwards he national movement established a connection with the working class. Secondly, it was in 1920 that the first attempt to form an all India organisation was made. Lokrnarlya Tilak, a Congressman from Bombay was instrumental in the formation of the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) with Chaman La1 and others as office bearers of the organisation. Thirdly, in this decade, India witnessed a large nurnber of strikes; the strikes were prolonged and well participated by the workers. The nurnber of strikes ;md the number of workers involved in these strikes went on increasing in the subsequent decades. We shall return to this later after a brief discussion of the Congress and the Comlnunist party's approach to labour.

            The Indian National Congress started thinking of mobilising the working class from the 1920s. There were at least two reasons behind that: firstly, it felt that if it failed to bring the working class into their fold and control, India might face a people's revolution and secondly, because it realised that to launch an effective struggle against imperialism all formed the AITUC in 1920 and resolutions were passed in 1920, 1922, 1924 and in 1930 in the all India conferences, the clearest policy of the Congress came only in 1936 when it appointed a committee to look after labour matters. Thus it was from the late 1930s that the Congress established deep links with the working class in the country. The Congress, however, believed in the Gandhian strategy of class harmony and as a result it did not lead any radical working class agitations. In fact two different strategies- were to be found in operation, one was a radical one to be seen in industries owned by foreign capital and the other, a mild one that was in operation in the Indian owned industries. All this was because the Congress, from the very beginning, attempted to become a political party of all the sections of the Indian society including the capitalists. Therefore, the Congress controlled and disciplined labour and was not seriously interested

in radical working class movements.

             The Communists who arrived in the 1920s seriously became interested in working class

questions and therefore they sought to mobilise the working class through the Workers and Peasant Parties (WPPs) in which they were active throughout the country. It was because of the seriousness of the Communists, the WPPs were able to organise the working class considerably. 'The WPPs were most successful in Bombay where it organised a strike in 1928 than in other cities of India. In the period from 1930-35, the Comununists however played no meaningful role in mobilising the workers but from the second half of the 1930s by following a policy of 'United National Front', it was able to secure a foothold among the working class. Now let us turn once again to the organised working class movement in the country that is usually dated from the end of World War I. The twenties, in fact, was a decade when a large number of strikes took place. According to official sources there were 396

strikes in 1921 involving 600,000 workers. In the period between 1921-1925, on an

average 400,000 workers in a year were involved in strikes. Similarly the year 1928 saw protracted strikes throughout the country. Apart from the strikes in Bombay there were strikes in the jute mills in Calcutta and in thef~astern Railways; in the latter, the strike continued for four months. On the whole, there was a radicalisation of working class activity by the end of the 1920s but what is also crucial is that there also grew differences between the Moderates and the Communists; as a result, the AITUC split and the National Trade Union Federation (NTUF) was formed by the moderate leaders such as N.M. Joshi, V.V. Giri, B. Shivarao etc. Differences also cropped up among the Leftists due to which the extreme Leftists under the leadership of S.K. Deshpande and B.T. Ranadive broke away from the AITUC in 1930 and formed the All India Red Trade Union Congress (RTUC). After a period of high activism, working class in the 1920s, there was a marked decline in the early 1930s between 1930-34, which were in fact the years of Great Depression. To Charnanlal Revri it was a period of setback to the entire trade union movement and that was due to the Meerut Conspiracy case in which many prominent Communist leaders were arrested and secondly, due to the successive splits that took place in the Trade Union Congress earlier. Though unions became weak, as a result of the depression

and the effect, which it had on the living condition of the working class, workers

continued their economic struggles in the years between 193 1-1934. The number of

industrial disputes increased from 141 in 1929 to 148 in 1930 and 166 in 193 1,

involving more than one lakh workers every year. Between 193J and 1934, there were 589 disputes out of which around 52 percent of the disputes were in the cotton textile industry. Concerns regarding wage were the main questions that precipitated the disputes. The Left led the unions that had become weaker in the early 1930s, but were able to reassert their influence by the year 1934. India was to witness a new strike wave and the issues that precipitated the strikes were the demand for the restoration of wage cuts,wage increases and the stopping of new forms of offensives against labour. In the year 1935 there were, 135 disputes in which there was a heavy loss. In the following year 12 more disputes took place than that of 1935 but the number of workers involved during disputes was much higher than that of the previous year. The important strikes that took place were the strikes in cotton textile industry, jute industry and the strike in the railways. The number of registered trade unions also increased in these two years. In 1935 there were 21 3 registered unions in the country with a membership figure of 284,918. The number of unions increased to 241 by 1936.

The RTUC merged with the AITUC in 1935 and the NTUF affiliated itself with the

AITUC in 1938. As a result of this, there was a growth of trade unions and trade union

activity throughout the 1930s and the 1940s. The number of strikes went up by the end

of the 1930s. During the period 1937-1939 the frequency of strikes and the number of

strikes increased. In 1937 there were 379 strikes and in 1938 there were 399 strikes. In 1939, 406 disputes took place. The involvement of workers in these strikes was also higher. Two developments of critical importance in this period were: firstly, the strikes spread to several smaller industrial towns in the country and secondly, the working class during these struggles were not only defensive but were also offensive in the sense that they demanded among other things restoration of wage cuts, recognition of their union rights and resisted new forms of oppression of labour. It has also been found that im increasing number of women workers came to the forefront of the workers struggle:. The movement entered into a decisive phase in the 1940s and this phase coincided with

the final phase of the National Movement, when the latter entered into its last phase

beginning with the Quit India Movement of 1942. On the industrial front, from 1939

onwards the working condition of the workers was affected seriously. There was ;in increase in the working hours, multiple shift systems were introduced, wages were

significantly reduced, and workers. on the whole, were subjected to great hardships. As a result, strikes erupted throughout the country and probably the most important demand of the workers was the demand for a Dearness Allowance against rising prices and cast of living. In 1942 there were 694 disputes, this increased to 820 in 1945. The number of workers involved in these disputes also increased to 7.47 lakhs in 1945. Between 1945- 1947, after the end of the war, the working class confronted two distinct problem s. First, was the problem of large- scale retrenchments and second, the problem of decline in eai-nings. As a result, the number of strikes reached a peak in 1947; there were 18 I1 1strikes involving 1840 thousand workers. Movements since Independence The transfer of power and Independence in 1947 meant a different atmosphere for the entire working class in the country. The movement entered into a different phase. In the initial years after independence between 1947-1960 due to the coming of several neu industries whether in the private sector or in the public sector under the Five- year plans.

the working class in the country as a whole was in a better condition; therefore organised action was not resorted to very frequently. As a result the number of conflicts including strikes declined between 1947 and 1960. The situation however changed in the 1960s and 1970s. The inflation years of the mid-1 960s saw the real wages of the working class

declining; as a result, disputes in the industrial front increased. In 1964 there were 2,151  disputes involving 1,002 thousand workers in which 7,725 man-days were lost. The number of man-days lost probably points out to the severity of the movements. One of the important features in the trade union front was the establishment of trade uilions that were to be dominated by the parties. As a result of this, most of the unions that came up fuilctioned as an organ (mass organisations) of their parent parties. It is

because of this control of the parties over the unions, the latter lost all autonomy and

the programnles and policies of the parties, in every important way, became the

programmes and policies of the unions. The number of national unions in the country

multil~lied. By the end of World War 11 there were two all India organisations. the

Indian Federation of Labour (IFL) and the largest union, the All India Trade Union

Congl-ess (AITUC). By 1949 there were four unions and all these unions were linked

or afjiliated to and controlled by political parties. The communist dominated the AITUC, IFL, was affiliated to the Radical Democratic Party of M N ROY, THE INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS CONTROLLED THE INFUC AND THE SOCIALIST PART DOMINATED THE HINDU MAZDOOR SABHA. THE HMS SPLITTED FURTHER AND THE UTUC WAS FORMED THE AITUC ALSO SPLIT  IN 1970 AND THE CENTRE OF INDIAN TRAD UNIONS (CITU)  WAS BORN AND AFFILIATED TO THE CPI (M)

For the country as a whole, the period between the late 1960s to the imposition of theemergency was a period of political turmoil and this significantly affected and shapedthe u,orking class movement in the country. Indira Gandhi started centralising and coilcentrating power in her hands after the elections of 1971. Taking advantage the

capitalist class resorted to new forms of offensives, lockouts being the main, due to

which large number of man-days was lost. For example, in the period 1971-,75 the

average annual workdays lost through lockouts was as high as 60.23 thousand. The

figure rose to 105.46 thousand in the period 1976-80. So far as the working class in the

public sector undertakings were concerned, they were hit directly by the centralised

bureaucratic state apparatus. As a result of this the working class in both the sectors

responded with strikes due to which the number of disputes in the country increased significantly. Rudolph and Rudolph (1998) found that in the period between 1965 and 1975 the number of w6rkdays lost (from strikes or lockouts) increased by almost 500 percent. The most important strike that took place was the Railway strike of 1974, which till date remains the most sel-ious of all the direct working class actions in the country. The strike was important because it was the only strike that was able to challenge the might of the Indian state.In the country as a whole, since the emergency, the working class had to face a number of offensives from the employers. Lockouts in the private sector increased as a result, of which a large percentage of workdays were lost. During the years 1980-1 987, lockouts

made up from 29 to 65 percent of workdays lost in industrial disputes. The loss of

workdays in the 1980s went on increasing. To one estimate during 1985, 1987 and

1988, workdays lost in lockouts actually exceeded those lost in strikes by as much as

55, 52, and 71 percent respectively. This growth in lockouts has adversely affected the industrial working class in the country since it throws the working class to a condition of unemployment. Along with other kind of problems, industrial sickness also affected the working class in the 1980s. In 1976, 241 large industrial units were sick. In 1986, the figure had risen to 714. Among the medium scale industrial units, in 1986, 1,250 units were closed due to sickness. The number of sick small units also increased in the 1980s. For example, in 1988, 217,436 small units were lying sick. Thus the working class was hit hard in the 1980s by lockouts, closures and sickness. The problem of Lockout continues even today and has assumed a serious proportion. In 1999, according to the Labour Bureau, there were 387 lockouts; in 2000, there were 345 and in the yeiu 2001. there were 302 lockouts (GOI, Labour Bureau, 2002).

Since the late 1980s and 1990s, the working class is confronted with two different forms

of offensives that it has not faced earlier. The first problem that it faces is the gr0w.h

of Hindutva based political parties, namely the BJP. and the Shiv Sena and the consequent growth of their labour organisations i.e., Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and Rharatiya Kamgar Sena (BKS) respectively that has in turn fragmented the working class among communal lines. Secondly, with the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) since 1991 and the consequent globalisation of the Indian economy, labour in the country has been facing the might of capital in a different form. The first problem is divisive in nature since it had divided the working class in the country among communal lines whereas the second development has affected the working class significantly and has thrown challenges to the organised working class movement in the country. The second problem is much more severe at this juncture and it is to this vve

now turn.The introduction of the New Economic Policy since 1991 had severely affected the working class in the country. There are different components of this New Economic Policy but the core emphasis is on Liberalisation, Privatisation and Globalisation.Liberalisation has meant reduction of government control over the private sector; as a result, the bargaining position of the workers vis-a- vis capital has declined. The policies of privatisation under which several important public sector units in the country is being sold to private companies had opened up new challenges for the workers and the trade unions in the country. As a result of the overall policies, the likely problem will be, there will be no statutory minimum wages for labour, no obstructions to retrenchment giving the employers the completc rlght to hire and fire. The developments in the Indian

economy in the last one decade or more have created fundamental problems for the

working class and the unions are finding it difficult to resist the encroachment of capi ial on the rights of the workers.

Before we conclude this section, it will be useful for us to note some of the weaknesses of the movement. Firstly, within the working class in the country a large section of the workforce, the unorganised ones even today remain outside the fold of trade unions. On the whole, the unions in this country have neglected the problems of the unorganised

sector and Rudolph and Rudolph are correct when they conclude that almost all the unions including the Left led unions has taken the 'relatively easy path of organising

and pressing demands on behalf of those who are easily organised and whose employer￾govelment-responds readily. In absolute terms the unorganised workers are poor and vulnerable to exploitation than the workers in the organised sector.

The second major problem, which confronts the working class movement, is 

The multiplicity of trade unions. We have noted earlier that after independence trade 

unions representing workers in the country have multiplied. By the end of the Second 

World War there were only two All India organisations, by 1949 there were four all 

India organisations and today there are more than ten national level organisations affiliated to the major parties in the country. Ideological problems are often cited as the reason for this state of affairs though in actual practice unions are less ideological and are strivin for organising the workers principally on economic issues. Multiplicity of political parties may be accepted as a norm in a democracy but multiplicity of Unions in a capitalist system keeps the working class fragmented and vulnerable to all forms of

pressures.Trade unions in the country, as a whole, have not been responsive to the problems of the working class in the country. Unions lie fragmented from the factory to the national level that has produced bitter rivalry among unions and hence very often they have failed to respond to the issues of the working class. Due to the reasons cited above and

also because of the fact that political parties control Unions, the latter have failed to

become militant for addressing the grievances of the workers. The growing number of closures, suspensions of work and other forms of offensives in the country in recent years after the introduction of the New Economic Policy indicates the weakness of the movement. Various studies have also found that the industrial working class in the country has not 'allied with the peasants and other sections of the society in collective

direct action on political issues'. This reflects the low level of political consciousness of the working class. To sum up, the movement of the organised workers in the country dates back to the period when industrialisation started and the first working class in the country appeared.

The lnovements however took an organised form after the First World War with the

emergence of trade unions. Movement of the workers, since then, continues to surface even today but the organised movements in the country face a number of problems. The most important of all the problems include fragmentation of unions, affiliation of the unions with political parties, lack of militancy by the established unions and a general apathy towards organising workers employed in the unorganised sector of the economy. All these problems have affected the working class movement in the countryadversely.. More information