The history of India’s labor movement tells a powerful story of workers fighting for dignity, fair wages, and basic human rights. This comprehensive guide explores how Indian workers organized themselves during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, challenging both colonial rule and industrial exploitation.
The Birth of India’s Working Class (Late 19th Century)
During the latter half of the 19th century, India witnessed the gradual emergence of modern industry. As railways expanded, post offices opened, coal mining operations grew, tea plantations flourished, and telegraph services connected cities, a new social class was born: the modern working class.
This working class grew slowly at first. The expansion of plantations, modern factories, mining industries, and transportation systems directly corresponded to increases in the number of industrial workers. What started as a trickle soon became a steady stream of laborers seeking employment in India’s growing industrial sector.
India’s First Factories and Mills
India’s industrial revolution began with textile manufacturing. In 1853, Kavvasji Nanabhai established the country’s first cotton textile mill in Bombay (now Mumbai). Just two years later, in 1855, the first jute mill opened in Rishra, Bengal.
By 1879, India had 56 cotton textile mills employing approximately 43,000 workers. The jute industry also expanded rapidly, with 20 mills operating by 1882—primarily in Bengal—employing around 20,000 people.
The growth accelerated into the 20th century. By 1905, India boasted 206 cotton mills with nearly 196,000 workers. The jute industry saw similarly dramatic expansion: from 27,494 workers in 1879-80 to 154,962 by 1906. Coal mining employed approximately 100,000 people by 1906, while tea plantations employed tens of thousands more.
According to census data, organized industry employed 2.1 million workers out of India’s total population of 303 million in 1911. Between 1911 and 1921, this workforce grew by approximately 575,000 workers.
Who Were India’s Early Industrial Workers?
India’s working class primarily consisted of impoverished farmers and artisans who had been economically devastated by exploitative colonial policies. Unlike Europe, India lacked organized labor recruitment systems.
Whether recruiting coolies for Assam’s tea plantations or indentured laborers for Fiji, Mauritius, Natal, and the West Indies, employers used contract systems that resembled slavery more than free employment. While recruitment for mines, railways, and factories was theoretically free, it actually occurred through contractors who extracted fees from workers, adding to their financial burden.
Workers for eastern India’s plantations and mines came primarily from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and the Madras Presidency. Consequently, Calcutta’s industrial workforce was predominantly non-Bengali. In contrast, Ahmedabad and Bombay factories recruited locally—Ahmedabad from Gujarat and Bombay mainly from Maharashtra’s hinterland, particularly Ratnagiri district in Konkan.
Harsh Working Conditions and Exploitation
Indian workers faced the same brutal exploitation that characterized early industrialization worldwide. Factory Acts passed in 1881 and 1891—primarily designed to benefit British Lancashire textile manufacturers rather than protect workers—imposed only nominal restrictions on women and child labor, which were rarely enforced.
Work shifts of 15, 16, or even 18 hours per day were commonplace. Both government and independent observers documented the abysmal living and working conditions. Investigations revealed that most Indian workers earned less than one shilling per day.
At the 1938 International Labour Conference in Geneva, Indian worker representative S.P. Parulekar stated: “The wages received by most workers in India are insufficient to provide even minimum necessities of life… Indian workers have no protection against illness, unemployment, old age, or death.”
Workers’ meager wages couldn’t support their families, forcing most into debt. The Whitley Commission concluded that “in most industrial centers, two-thirds of families and individuals are in debt.”
Mine workers endured particularly terrible conditions. Plantation workers, mostly on European-owned estates, received perhaps the lowest wages of all. In Assam Valley tea plantations, male workers averaged just seven rupees and three annas monthly, while women earned five rupees fourteen annas, and children received four rupees four annas.
Early Attempts to Improve Workers’ Lives
The deplorable conditions prompted some early reform efforts. In 1870, Brahmo Samaj social reformer Sashipada Banerjee established a workers’ club for Bengali jute workers in Calcutta’s Baranagar suburb. In 1874, he launched ‘Bharat Shramjeevi,’ a monthly magazine aimed at educating workers.
His goals reflected Victorian-era moral values: developing thrift, temperance, and self-help among workers. In 1878, Sorabji Shapoorji Bengalee attempted to introduce legislation in Bombay’s Legislative Council to improve working conditions. During the 1880s, Bengali intellectuals like Dwarkanath Ganguly campaigned against slave-like conditions in tea plantations.
The ‘Muhammadan Association of Kankinara,’ established in 1895, was Calcutta’s first documented labor organization in the industrial area. This organization raised funds for mosque repairs and provided charity and sick relief to members.
In Bombay, Narayan Meghaji Lokhande—a Phule associate—started the English-Marathi weekly ‘Dinbandhu’ in 1880. He organized worker meetings in 1884 demanding reduced working hours and formed the ‘Bombay Mill Hands Association’ in 1890. However, this wasn’t a true trade union; Lokhande simply maintained an office where he offered free advice to workers who visited.
These early efforts were essentially social service initiatives rather than organized labor movements. Moreover, these social workers had no connection to the mainstream national movement of the time.
The Growth of National and Class Consciousness
National and class consciousness developed more slowly among Indian workers than among the educated middle class and capitalists. This delay stemmed from workers’ cultural backwardness and near-universal illiteracy.
Due to cultural backwardness, caste and communal divisions, religious superstitions, and fatalistic attitudes, migrant workers remained divided along religious and caste lines even in urban industrial settlements.
At workplaces, different departments were often controlled entirely by specific religious communities or social groups. Higher castes typically secured better jobs, while lower castes and untouchables received low-paying, dangerous work. Consequently, immature workers’ resistance often took the form of communal consciousness rather than clear class identification.
Nevertheless, workers occasionally struggled in their own way against capitalist and colonial oppression, fighting for humane working conditions, adequate wages, and cost-of-living adjustments. Labor history records a 1877 strike at Nagpur’s Empress Mills over wage rates. Between 1882 and 1890, 25 significant strikes occurred in Bombay and Madras. Numerous major strikes took place in Bombay between 1892-93 and 1901.
The Evolution of India’s Labor Movement and Trade Unions
During the 1890s, numerous strikes occurred in Calcutta’s jute mills due to new workplace discipline, refusal to grant holidays for festivals like Bakr-Eid, and active state intervention to enforce restrictions. Strikes also erupted in cotton mills in Bombay, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Surat, Madras, and Wardha, as well as in tea plantations and railways.
Workers sometimes used informal networks and religious institutions like mosques or gurdwaras to promote class solidarity. They occasionally employed religious idioms and slogans to restore morale during confrontations.
While workers tended to rely on narrow regional, caste, kinship, or religious ties, religion or sect wasn’t always the primary factor. For instance, the 1900 unrest in Kanpur, like upheavals in Bombay and Calcutta in 1898, resulted from enforcement of plague-related laws affecting religious privacy practices. The 1913 Machli Bazaar riot’s main grievance targeted an interventionist state.
Early Nationalists and the Working Class
Indian workers faced dual exploitation: colonial rule and foreign and Indian capitalists. Early nationalists, especially liberal intellectuals, remained largely indifferent to workers’ demands and distinguished between workers in British versus Indian industries.
Several factors explained this attitude. The anti-imperialist movement was still in its infancy, and nationalist leaders wanted to avoid weakening the struggle against British rule or dividing Indians internally. At the second Congress session (1886), Dadabhai Naoroji clarified that “Congress should limit itself to questions involving the entire nation, leaving social reforms and inter-class adjustment to Congress subcommittees.”
Second, nationalist leaders viewed rapid industrialization as the only cure for the country’s poverty and decline, making them reluctant to take any action that might impede industrial progress. Lancashire capitalists faced stiff competition from Indian manufacturers, whose market share was growing. Nationalists understood that the government enacted the 1881 and 1891 Factory Acts to protect British manufacturers’ interests by setting working hours and other employment terms, thereby reducing Indian manufacturers’ competitive advantage.
However, even then, the newspaper ‘Maratha,’ influenced by G.S. Agarkar, supported workers’ demands and urged mill owners to grant concessions, though this tendency remained weak within the national movement.
Early nationalists showed no hesitation supporting workers in British industries. Nationalist newspapers vigorously campaigned for tea plantation workers against European plantation owners in Assam.
The working class’s first major strike occurred in 1899 at the British-owned and -managed Great Indian Peninsular (G.I.P.) Railway. Tilak’s newspapers ‘Maratha’ and ‘Kesari’ openly supported this strike. In Bombay and Bengal, numerous nationalist leaders including Pherozeshah Mehta, D.E. Wacha, and Surendranath Banerjee held public meetings and collected donations supporting workers.
Labor Movement in the Early 20th Century
A survey titled ‘Administration of Bengal Under Andrew Fraser’ covering 1903-08 identified ‘industrial unrest’ as a ‘significant feature’ of those five years and noted the role of ‘professional agitators’ as an entirely new development.
Strikes in white-owned enterprises—often caused by price increases and racial insults—began receiving substantial sympathy from nationalist newspapers. Nationalist intellectuals like Bipin Pal and G. Subrahmanyam Aiyar started demanding regulations to protect Indian workers’ interests from powerful capitalists.
Several leaders enthusiastically threw themselves into campaigns for permanent trade unions, strikes, legal aid, and fund collection. Four pioneer labor leaders deserve special mention: Ambikacharan Banerjee, Prabhatakusum Roy Chaudhury, Athenias Apurvakumar Ghosh, and Prematosh Bose.
In September 1905, when 247 Bengali clerks at the Burn Company in Howrah walked out protesting a new work regulation they considered insulting, the entire Swadeshi-supporting public welcomed them. The following month, Calcutta tram workers struck, resolved through Ghosh and Banerjee’s efforts.
On October 16, 1905—the day Bengal was partitioned—Bengal’s working class struck in support of the movement. Workers in some jute mills, presses, factories, and railway porters refused to work. During a militant strike at government printing presses, the ‘Printers Union’ was established on October 21, 1905.
In October 1905, the police commissioner himself had to suppress a strike at Phoenix Mill. The July 1906 East Indian Railway clerks’ strike resulted in formation of the ‘Railwaymen’s Union.’ A.C. Banerjee attempted to form the ‘Indian Mill Hands’ Union in Bazbaz in 1906.
Between 1905 and 1908, jute factories experienced frequent strikes affecting 18 of 37 factories at various times. In Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, Subrahmanyam Siva led a strike campaign at a foreign-owned cotton mill in February-March 1908. In Punjab, workers at Rawalpindi’s armory and the railway engineering department struck.
Perhaps the most important feature of this Swadeshi movement phase was that the working class progressed from unorganized, spontaneous economic strikes to organized strikes supported by nationalist leaders on economic issues, and began participating in broader political movements.
When Tilak was sentenced on July 22, 1908, workers in Mulaji Jetha Bazaar cloth shops called a six-day strike (one day for each year of Tilak’s imprisonment). Heavy strikes continued until July 28, affecting 76 of 85 textile mills at their peak, along with the Parel Railway Workshop.
Police and military repeatedly fired on crowds, killing 16 people and wounding 43 according to government reports. Lenin praised this as a symbol of workers’ growing political consciousness. After the summer of 1908, nationalist interest in labor movements suddenly decreased and completely ceased, not reviving until 1919-22.
The Rise of Organized Trade Unions After World War I
After World War I, trade unions and organized labor struggles developed in India. The Whitley Commission report on worker militancy noted that before the winter of 1918-19, Indian industry rarely experienced strikes. Due to lack of organization and leadership, and a passive attitude toward life, most industrial workers believed returning to villages was the only alternative to industrial hardships.
This situation changed rapidly after the war. Some significant strikes occurred in the winter of 1918-19, more strikes followed the next winter, and by the winter of 1920-21, industrial strikes became common in organized industry.
Several factors caused this labor unrest. During World War I, numerous industries developed, dramatically increasing the working-class population. Workers in organized industries and plantations numbered 2,105,824 in 1911 but grew to 2,681,125 by 1921.
Immediately after the war, prices rose sharply while wages remained low, even as owners made enormous profits. Additionally, poor harvests, scarcity conditions in most parts of the country during 1918-19, influenza epidemics, and artisan unemployment angered and agitated workers.
However, post-war labor unrest had not only economic causes. The most far-reaching impact came from democratic revolutions in Austria, Turkey, and other countries, and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which infused new consciousness into Indian workers.
The Indian Trade Union Movement Takes Shape
The Indian trade union movement actually began during and immediately after the war. Previous attempts to establish organizations for workers’ interests had occurred. The ‘Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants’ was established in 1893, but its members were mainly senior railway officials and often Anglo-Indians.
In the first decade of the 20th century, labor unions were established in Calcutta including the ‘Printers Union’ (1905), ‘Railway Men’s Union’ (1906), Bombay’s ‘Postal Union’ (1907), and S.K. Bole’s ‘Kamgar Hitavardhak Sabha’ (1909). However, these were few in number and lacked theoretical or programmatic foundations. Therefore, they didn’t represent organized labor movement campaigns.
The ‘Madras Labour Union’ was the first labor organization with a proper membership list and membership fees. It was established in April 1918. Its founders were G. Ramanujulu Naidu and Chelvepati Chetti, associated with Annie Besant’s ‘New India,’ with B.P. Wadia—a Besant associate—as president.
In Ahmedabad, Gandhi formed the ‘Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association’ (1918), possibly the largest trade union of that time. By 1920, trade unions flooded in, with registered unions reaching approximately 125 by November 1920.
The establishment of the ‘All India Trade Union Congress’ (AITUC) in Bombay marked a revolutionary event in Indian labor union history. It was established in October 1920 through efforts of N.M. Joshi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Joseph Baptista, and Dewan Chamanlal, giving the labor union movement its first all-India foundation.
Its purpose was: “To coordinate all labor organizations’ work across all provinces of the country and promote Indian workers’ interests on economic, social, and political issues.” In his presidential address at AITUC’s first session in November 1920, Lala Lajpat Rai emphasized organizing workers ‘under all circumstances’ and creating ‘class consciousness’ among them.
Lajpat Rai was the first to connect capitalism with imperialism, calling imperialism and militarism capitalism’s ‘twin children.’ Similarly, at AITUC’s second conference, Dewan Chamanlal, while presenting a resolution favoring Swaraj, indicated this would be Swaraj for workers, not capitalists.
The Indian National Congress’s Gaya session (1922) unanimously welcomed AITUC’s establishment and formed a committee to connect workers with Congress to link workers and peasants with the Swaraj ideal.
Besides Lala Lajpat Rai, some other major nationalist leaders were associated with AITUC, including Chittaranjan Das, C.F. Andrews, J.M. Sengupta, Subhash Chandra Bose, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Satyamurti. However, Gandhi and his ‘Ahmedabad Majdoor Mahajan Sabha’ never joined. Therefore, while the number of trade unions affiliated with AITUC grew in the 1920s, its national leadership remained ‘mostly imaginary,’ except in 1929 when communist takeover threatened.
Post-World War I Labor Movement Explosion
The working class responded magnificently to post-war changed circumstances. Although the strike wave began in late 1919, Gandhi’s leadership of the Ahmedabad strike in March 1918 and Bombay textile mills’ major strike in January 1919 can be considered forerunners.
Under C.N. Wadia, workers at Century Mill struck on December 31, 1918, demanding a 25 percent wage increase and one month’s salary as bonus. Soon the entire textile mill workforce—over 100,000 people—took to the streets, and all 83 mills closed.
This strike spread to commercial office clerks, Royal Indian Marine dock workers, and Parel Railway Engineering workers. Subsequently, numerous strikes occurred in various industrial centers including Bombay, Kanpur, Calcutta, Sholapur, Jamshedpur, Madras, and Ahmedabad.
After suppression in Punjab and Gandhi’s arrest in 1919, 51 government buildings in Ahmedabad were set on fire, trains derailed, and telephone wires cut. Rioters mainly consisted of textile mill workers. Government estimates reported 28 killed and 123 injured in martial law actions.
Worker movements shook Calcutta and Bombay. Strikes on the North-Western Railway in 1919 and 1920 were also inspired by Congress movements. This demonstrated that the working class had entered the national movement.
By linking strikes with the national movement, workers attempted to legitimize their struggles, in which Congress as a party had lost interest. Congress leaders were rarely responsible for organizing these strikes. Of strikes in Bengal between 1918 and 1921, only 19.6 percent involved any ‘outside’ elements; the rest were worker-initiated.
In late 1920, Bengal alone experienced 110 strikes. Trade unions often formed after strikes rather than before, taking the form of short-term strike committees. Nevertheless, their numbers heralded a new era in labor organization history. A Bengal government secret report stated that in 1920 there were 40 relatively permanent ‘labour unions and associations,’ 55 in 1921, and 75 in 1922. In Bombay in 1926, of 53 active unions, only seven were formed before 1920, but at least 29 were established between 1920 and 1923.
The Great Strike Wave of 1921
During 1921, workers seemed genuinely ready for confrontation. This period witnessed 376 strikes involving 600,351 workers, resulting in 6,994,426 lost working days. Bengal’s jute factories alone experienced 137 strikes involving 186,479 workers in 1921.
Assam tea plantation strikes, Assam-Bengal Railway strikes, and May 1921 Chandpur steamer workers’ strikes were directly connected to this movement. In May 1921, Chargola coolies demanded massive pay increases while shouting ‘Gandhi Maharaj ki Jai.’ Subsequently, about 8,000 workers (52 percent of total workers) left Bengal, stating it was Gandhi’s order.
In December 1921, large numbers of workers participated in AITUC’s Jharia session. In Ahmedabad, during the Non-Cooperation Movement’s aftermath, textile mills experienced at least one strike monthly, some based on quite radical demands.
Like western India’s textile mills, Calcutta’s jute mills witnessed unprecedented labor unrest during this period—119 strikes in 1920 and 137 in 1921. When Congress called for boycott during the Prince of Wales’s November 1921 India visit, workers responded with strikes nationwide.
Bombay’s cotton factories closed, and approximately 140,000 workers filled streets and alleys, rioting and attacking Parsis and British people who had gone to welcome the Prince of Wales. In Madras, striking workers at Binny-operated cotton mills invited non-cooperators to lead them.
These worker actions are often called spontaneous because they lacked central leadership or coordination among strikers, any program or organization—essentially working-class rebellion. However, when workers’ ‘spontaneous’ actions created favorable conditions, Congress intervened only to connect them with its own movement.
By this time, Congress had developed relationships with major capitalists, so on the labor front, Congress could only be vocal where European capitalists were involved, such as in railways, jute mills, or tea plantations. Where Indian capitalists were affected, it adopted a restraining policy.
For instance, the ‘Jamshedpur Labour Association,’ established by Congress leaders Byomkesh Chakravarty and S.N. Haldhar, acted as a controller rather than inspiring Tata workers during the February 1920 strike. The September 1922 Tata industry strike also occurred almost entirely due to spontaneous working-class pressure, but the union used it to gain recognition rather than addressing workers’ concerns.
Workers were often told to sacrifice today’s needs for the nation’s future, and their strikes affecting Indian industries were explained as potentially strengthening foreign economic dominance. Workers’ hardships would supposedly be removed after Swaraj.
Gandhi stated that there was no place for strikes in the non-violent non-cooperation movement plan. “We don’t want any political strikes in India… All unruly and troublemaking elements must be controlled… Our goal isn’t to destroy capital and capitalists but to regulate relations between capital and labor. We want to use capital for our benefit. Encouraging sympathetic strikes would be a mistake.”
The February 4, 1922 suspension of the Non-Cooperation Movement due to the Chauri Chaura incident again weakened the labor movement, which returned to struggling purely for economic demands.
During 1922-27, the labor movement appeared to decline at first glance. According to Royal Labour Commission calculations, there were 376 strikes in 1921, but during 1924-27 this averaged only 130 strikes annually.
AITUC membership grew, with 83 unions affiliated by January 1925, but its conferences lacked the enthusiasm and mass participation of the 1921 Jharia conference. Although strikes decreased during these years, they became longer and more bitter due to mill owners’ behavior.
In Ahmedabad in April 1923, a major strike over 20 percent wage cuts closed 56 of 64 mills. Gandhi was in jail; otherwise, in 1925 he advised Ahmedabad workers not to trouble their employers during business downturns, stating “loyal servants serve their masters even without pay.”
In 1926, trade unions received some legal protection through an act that was otherwise highly adverse to labor interests. It made fundraising by unregistered unions illegal, restricted outside members on union executives to no more than 50, and prohibited spending union money on civil or political objectives.
This was likely a response to workers receiving legislative representation under the 1919 law, more about ‘keeping workers limited’ than genuine reform. After the 1928 general strike in Bombay textile mills and throughout the 1930s, the government displayed only pure hostility toward trade unions and working-class actions.
Labor Movement Resurgence in 1927
In 1927, the labor movement definitely began resurging, with 202,000 working days lost and new centers emerging with increasingly militant leadership. In November 1927, many workers participated in AITUC-organized demonstrations boycotting the Simon Commission, carrying their own flags, slogans, and leadership.
While the Bombay Textile Labour Union—registered in 1926 as the first union registered under the new law—operated under liberal humanitarian N.M. Joshi’s leadership, Bombay mills had since 1923 seen a grassroots movement in the form of Girni Kamgar Mahamandal taking root under leadership of two militant former workers, A.A. Alve and G.R. Kasle.
At this time, the labor movement was trying to operate against imposed constraints. As before, four more strikes occurred at Buckingham Karnataka Mills in 1922-23, and in 1923 the first May Day was celebrated at a Buckingham meeting organized by Singaravelu.
In 1925, a massive strike from April to June on the North West Railway became unforgettable due to a procession from Lahore where workers marched carrying flags reddened with their own blood. But the biggest strikes occurred in Bombay textile mills.
In January-March 1924, when 1,500 workers struck against bonus cancellations, Baptista and N.M. Joshi advised workers to withdraw the strike, but workers stood firm for two months despite police suppression and gunfire, receiving no help from the national movement.
Nevertheless, Bombay textile mill workers, through their combativeness and organization, succeeded in raising wages far more than workers in white-owned jute mills in Calcutta.
Communists and the Labor Movement
In the late third decade of the 20th century (1925-1927), due to the spread of socialist and communist ideas in India, political consciousness spread very rapidly among the working class, and various communist parties in different parts of the country organized themselves as ‘Workers and Peasants Party.’
In 1925-26, the ‘Labour Swaraj Party’ was formed in Bengal, soon renamed ‘Kisan-Mazdoor Party.’ Some Anushilan Samiti groups soon joined. In Punjab, the ‘Kirti Kisan Party’ was formed in January 1927 under Sohan Singh Josh’s leadership around Santokh Singh’s ‘Kirti’ magazine, associated with the old Ghadar Party.
In Bombay too, a Workers and Peasants Party was established in January 1927, with founders S.V. Mirajkar, K.N. Joglekar, and S.V. Ghate. The 1929 jute mill strike gave birth to the ‘Bengal Jute Workers Union,’ and the 1937 strike created the ‘Bengal Chatkhal Mazdoor Union.’
The Workers and Peasants Party worked as a leftist faction within Congress and quickly gained considerable popularity and strength within Congress at provincial and all-India levels.
In Bengal and Bombay, communist influence began spreading rapidly among railway workers, jute mill workers, municipal workers, and paper mill workers. Communists were quite active in strikes at Kharagpur Railway Workshop workers in February and September 1927.
Communist-led Workers and Peasants Party activists played prominent roles in strikes by Calcutta Corporation sanitation workers in 1928 and in Bengal and Bavaria jute mill strikes. After 1926, communist influence among Bombay textile mill workers also grew rapidly.
Communist-led Girni Kamgar Union membership grew from 324 to 54,000 by the end of 1928. Madras Burma Oil Company workers also came under communist influence. By late 1928, the concerned government began reporting that “hardly any public service or industry remains that hasn’t been fully or partially affected by communism—communism that has influenced the entire country.”
This working-class support for communists arose not only from their shared opposition to the capitalist class and state power. These communist trade unions often used communal ties and informal social fabric to organize strikes. For instance, in Kanpur in the 1930s, the ‘Kanpur Mazdoor Sabha’s’ emerging communist leadership specifically focused on Muslim workers alienated by Congress and Arya Samaj.
In Ahmedabad too, the communist-influenced Mill Mazdoor Sangh received support from Muslim workers dissatisfied with the Gandhian union. Thus these communist unions often used religious ties to organize strikes.
The Strike Wave of 1928-29
In 1928-29, there were 203 strikes and lockouts affecting 506,851 workers and causing loss of 31,647,404 working days. In July 1928, a small but fierce strike occurred on the South Indian Railway, which the government ended through vigorous suppression.
In December 1928, Calcutta’s working class gave a brilliant demonstration of political participation and maturity. At the 1928 Congress Calcutta session, about 30,000 workers occupied the pandal for nearly two hours, where they passed resolutions for complete independence for India and a labor welfare scheme.
But the most famous strike was by Bombay textile mill workers, which lasted six months from April to September 1928 under Lal Bavta Girni Kamgar Union leadership. Girni Kamgar Union’s greatest strength was its elected girni (mill) committees. In April 1929, 42 such committees were operating.
At its most successful period, Girni Kamgar Union had 60,000 members, while N.M. Joshi-led rival union had only 9,800 members—even the established Gandhian Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association had only 27,000 members.
Growing militancy among the working class and their political activism, especially increasing closeness between nationalists and leftists, made counterattack by both capitalists and government inevitable.
In Bombay, Pathans were deliberately employed as strikebreakers, resulting in a major communal riot in February 1929. Non-Brahmin Minister Bhaskarrao Jadhav attempted to inflame anti-Brahmin sentiments among textile workers.
In April 1929, the government passed repressive laws like the Industrial Disputes Act (Trades Disputes Act) attempting to ban all strikes ‘for purposes other than advancing communal disputes or with intent to coerce government and cause public trouble.’
The Meerut Conspiracy Case
Simultaneously, on March 20, 1929, 32 active labor movement leaders were arrested at once and tried in the ‘Meerut Conspiracy Case.’ However, the Meerut case couldn’t immediately suppress workers’ combativeness.
When Wadia attempted large-scale worker dismissals, Girni Kamgar conducted another general strike from April to August 1929, but this strike was overly prolonged, and its defeat greatly weakened Girni Kamgar Union.
The first jute factory strike occurred in July-August 1929. It was conducted by the Bengal Jute Workers Union, mostly controlled by communists. This strike defeated owners’ attempts to increase working hours from 56 to 60 hours per week.
By 1930, AITUC—which had become a large organization with various ideologies—fragmented. At the December 1929 Nagpur session, over boycotting the Royal Commission on Labour and the representation question at the Geneva International Conference, N.M. Joshi’s liberal group separated from AITUC and established the ‘All India Trade Union Federation,’ while Jawaharlal Nehru presided over the remaining session.
Later, at the 1931 Calcutta session, communists like Ranadive and Deshpande separated from AITUC and formed the ‘Red Trade Union Congress.’ However, workers’ militancy didn’t decrease, and during 1929-30, another wave of general strikes occurred in cotton mills, jute mills, and G.I.P. Railway.
Just before Civil Disobedience in Calcutta in April 1930, young communist Abdul Momin led a highly successful cartmen’s strike. However, in 1930, the labor movement began declining rapidly. This wasn’t only due to government aggressive policy but also a major change in communist strategy.
After the 1928 Comintern order to sever ties with Congress, communists became isolated from the national movement and their grip on the working class loosened. Girni Kamgar Union membership, which was 54,000 in December 1928, decreased to 800 by the end of 1929.
Civil Disobedience Movement and Workers’ Actions
The All India Congress Committee established a labor research department in 1929 under Bakar Ali Mirza’s supervision, but Congress leaders poorly managed the Golmuri Tin Plate strike. Congress interest in workers remained always ambivalent and limited.
Now that Gandhian leadership had reestablished itself during the Civil Disobedience Movement, it had no intention of using weapons like general strikes, which it considered highly divisive and dangerous. Economic circumstances were also becoming unfavorable for the labor movement. Depression increased unemployment and prices fell, weakening workers’ bargaining power with employers.
Despite Congress indifference, workers frequently participated nationwide in the first phase of the Civil Disobedience Movement. On April 6, the day Gandhi broke the salt law, G.I.P. Railway Union employees started a new type of satyagraha. At outer suburban stations in north Bombay, groups would arrive, place a red flag before them, and lie on railway tracks. Police had to fire to clear the railway line.
During the movement, dock workers in Karachi, transport and mill workers in Calcutta, and Choolai mill workers in Madras fought bravely. In Maharashtra’s industrial city Sholapur, upon hearing of Gandhi’s arrest, textile mill workers struck on May 7.
Crowds attacked liquor shops, police stations, courts, municipal buildings, and railway stations. The national flag was hoisted in the town, and for a few days rebels took over administration. Only after martial law was imposed on May 16 could the situation be controlled. Some workers were hanged and others received long sentences.
When the Congress Executive declared July 6 ‘Gandhi Day,’ approximately 50,000 people participated in the strike that day, including large numbers of workers from nine factories who laid down their tools.
All this occurred despite the eleven-point demand completely ignoring the working class’s specific grievances and Congress’s general policy, and communists mostly remaining aloof from the Civil Disobedience Movement due to their new ultra-left policy.
Unlike Non-Cooperation, no major labor movement began with Civil Disobedience. An otherwise panicked June 1930 government report stated: “Regarding Bombay city’s situation, the most satisfying aspect is that mill workers remain unaffected so far… Workers haven’t forgotten last year’s strike results.”
Actually, Gandhi disliked workers’ independent militancy. He was very irritated with AITUC. He never allowed the always-loyal Ahmedabad union to join this organization. His argument was that ‘using workers’ strikes for political purposes would be a grave mistake.’
Gandhi had been developing a philosophy of harmonious capital-labor relations since 1918. Therefore, the 1920 Non-Cooperation resolution mentioned exploitation of workers by foreign agents but didn’t mention that Indian owners had been committing similar atrocities.
He stated: ‘We don’t try to destroy capital or capitalists but want to regulate capital-labor relations.’ In 1929, Nehru held the same view. As AITUC president, he reminded people that Congress ‘isn’t a labor organization but a large organization of all types of people.’
Although Congress socialist leaders sympathized with workers, the compulsion of remaining an umbrella organization representing all classes prevented Congress from deeply connecting with the working class. Consequently, workers didn’t participate in the 1932-34 second phase of Civil Disobedience.
Revival of the Labor Union Movement (1933-34)
During 1933 and 1934, the labor movement revived and, like the late third decade, remained closely connected with communist activities. Meerut arrests and repeated splits in 1929 and 1931 had greatly weakened the trade union movement.
After 1920, the number of strikes was lowest in 1932, but it began rising again the following year. In 1934, there were 159 strikes involving 220,808 workers, causing loss of 4,775,559 working days.
British and Indian mill owners equally attempted to burden workers with the depression through retrenchment, rationalization, and wage cuts. For example, in Bombay textile mills, daily wages decreased 16.94 percent in December 1933 compared to July 1926.
After 1934, signs of revitalized labor combativeness and reconciliation between communist and trade union components began appearing. Major strikes occurred in Sholapur (February-May) and Nagpur (May-July) in 1934 under communist and nationalist leadership.
Circumstances also became somewhat favorable for trade union struggles at this time. The depression partially eased in 1934, and employment figures were increasing. In 1935, 14,247 new workers were recruited in jute factories, and the next year, working hours abolished in 1931 were restored to 52 hours weekly.
However, discontent intensified more than before because both white and Indian capitalists wanted to maintain wage cuts from previous years. Consequently, significant strikes occurred in 1935-36 in Calcutta’s Keshoram Cotton Mills and jute factories, textile mills in Ahmedabad and Kanpur, and Bengal-Nagpur Railway.
Meanwhile, the All India Trade Union Congress successfully bridged the splits of 1929 and 1931. Through Kanpur leaders’ efforts in April 1935, the communist Red Trade Union Congress rejoined AITUC, now controlled by M.N. Roy’s followers and some socialists. A few months later, a united labor front was established.
Later in 1938, the National Federation of Trade Unions also merged into AITUC, though Gandhi-influenced Ahmedabad Labour Association remained separate.
1937 Congress Governments and the Labor Movement
In the 1937 provincial elections, AITUC supported Congress candidates except in a few centers. In its election manifesto, Congress declared it would take steps to settle workers’ disputes and implement effective measures to secure their rights to form unions and strike.
After elections, Congress government formation in various provinces and several ministers’ pro-labor outlook encouraged labor organizations. Trade union membership increased 50 percent in 1938 compared to 1937, and labor unity grew with AITUC and moderate National Federation of Trade Unions (NFTU) coming together.
Some Congress efforts were made to unite the working class, such as establishment of Hindustan Mazdoor Sangh in 1938 by leaders like Vallabhbhai Patel, Rajendra Prasad, and Kripalani. Consequently, between 1937 and 1939, the number of trade unions rose from 271 to 562, and membership grew from 261,047 to 399,159.
Congress government formation also substantially increased workers’ combativeness and militancy, causing a wave of strikes throughout the country during 1937-38. This period’s most important strike was by Kanpur workers, lasting 55 days and involving 40,000 workers.
However, Congress governments in provinces like Bombay, Madras, and United Provinces continued using force to control industrial unrest. Despite his socialist leanings, Nehru condemned worker dismissals during the 1937 Kanpur textile mill strike but also supported mill owners’ rights to dismiss workers not performing properly.
The November 1937 Ahmedabad textile mill strike showed that even in this old stronghold of Gandhism, communists had gained some foothold. When workers conducted successive strikes against wage cuts and retrenchment, capitalists became alarmed and Congress leadership deeply worried.
Congress governments’ pro-labor stance quickly succumbed to heavy capitalist pressure. Passage of Bombay’s ‘Trades Disputes Act’ in November 1938 fully exposed Congress’s ugly anti-labor face. This law provided for compulsory arbitration, six months’ imprisonment for illegal strikes, and new registration rules for trade unions.
All parties except Congress condemned this law, and workers welcomed the bill’s passage with a general strike in Bombay. On November 6, 80,000 people attended a protest meeting in Bombay, addressed by Dange, Indulal Yajnik, and Ambedkar.
Except for registration provisions, Nehru found the Bombay Act overall ‘good.’ In a province like Bengal, Congress leaders supported the 1937 general jute factory strike because it was a good opportunity to discredit Fazlul Haq’s ministry and strike against Indian Jute Mills Association’s ‘white owners.’
Nehru even said it was ‘part of our freedom movement.’ During the 1939 strike at British-owned Assam Oil Company in Digboi, Congress showed some sympathy to workers but fruitlessly, and in October the Congress government openly allowed use of the Defence of India Act to crush the strike.
World War II and the Labor Movement
World War II began on September 3, 1939, and Bombay’s working class organized the world’s first strike against the war on October 2, 1939, involving approximately 90,000 workers.
Despite terrible suppression by the government—eager to prevent any disruption to war efforts—numerous strikes occurred throughout the country on economic issues. In 1940, strikes occurred by Bombay cotton mill workers, Digboi oil workers, Dhanbad and Jharia coal workers, Jamshedpur iron workers, and workers in many other industries.
However, in 1941, when Germany attacked the ‘fatherland of socialism,’ the Soviet Union, communists declared World War II a ‘People’s War.’ They called on the working class to support Allied war efforts to eliminate fascism.
But communists failed to mobilize public support for the ‘People’s War.’ Previously, closeness between workers and communists was largely due to opposition to colonial state power. Now their role had changed, and their sun was setting. In 1941, M.N. Roy formed the government-supporting ‘Indian Federation of Labour,’ which later merged into ‘Hind Mazdoor Sabha’ in 1948.
Though communists distanced themselves from the ‘Quit India’ movement launched by Gandhi in August 1942, immediately after Gandhi and other leaders’ arrest on August 9, workers struck throughout the country supporting the ‘Quit India’ resolution—in Bombay, Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Jamshedpur, Madras, Indore, and Bangalore.
Strikers kept Tata Steel Plant closed for 13 days with the slogan that they wouldn’t resume work until a national government was formed in the country. Ahmedabad textile mill strikes continued for three and a half months, later called ‘India’s Stalingrad.’
In the 1940s, some trade unions again came under communist control. AITUC also doubled its strength—its membership grew from 250,000 to 500,000 between 1942 and 1944. Nevertheless, this didn’t indicate growing popularity because very few workers joined these unions.
Later in 1952, communist leader Indrajit Gupta admitted that approximately 95 percent of jute mill workers still remained outside unions.
Post-World War II Labor Movement Surge (1945-47)
After World War II, labor movement activities increased astonishingly in 1945-47. Large numbers of workers actively participated in post-war national upheavals. Workers participated extensively in meetings and demonstrations organized against trials of Azad Hind Fauj prisoners.
By the end of 1945, dock workers in Bombay and Calcutta refused to load supplies being sent to Indonesia because this would suppress Southeast Asia’s national liberation struggle.
Even in colonial rule’s final years, workers played active roles in strikes organized in army, postal, railway, and other establishments. The solidarity Bombay workers displayed with the 1946 Royal Indian Navy mutineers was truly unprecedented.
Despite opposition from Congress and the League, on February 22, 300,000 people in Bombay didn’t touch their tools, almost all mills closed, and violent clashes occurred on streets, killing approximately 228 civilians and injuring 1,046.
Actually, the 1946 strike wave surpassed all previous standards. This year witnessed 1,629 work stoppages affecting 1,941,948 workers, causing loss of 12,717,762 labor-days. Besides industries, workers also struck in postal-telegraph departments, South Indian Railway, and North-Western Railway.
Among these, the postal-telegraph department employees’ all-India strike is most famous. Congress leadership condemned growing indiscipline among workers and their carelessness in duty performance, while Congress leaders themselves were engaged in negotiations and cabinet formation.
This working-class militancy was caused by imminent independence because, like other classes, workers believed all their hardships would be removed after independence.
However, it’s incorrect to say workers were unable to understand their relationship with colonial power, the capitalist class, and nationalism. Actually, they were neither insensitive to nor distant from nationalist or leftist politics conducted by educated middle-class politicians, but their support was conditional.
Just as Indian democracy still stands on crutches due to illiteracy and corruption, so does the labor movement. Even today, many blind alleys await light.
Conclusion: The Legacy of India’s Labor Movement
The history of India’s labor movement represents a complex journey from exploitation to empowerment, from scattered resistance to organized struggle. From the first textile mills of the 1850s to the mass strikes of the 1940s, Indian workers gradually built a movement that challenged both colonial oppression and capitalist exploitation.
This movement developed through several distinct phases: early spontaneous resistance, the emergence of trade unions after World War I, increasing political consciousness in the 1920s and 1930s, and mass participation in the independence struggle. Throughout these phases, workers navigated complex relationships with nationalist leaders, communist organizers, and capitalist employers.
The Indian labor movement’s story offers valuable lessons about working-class organization, the relationship between economic and political struggles, and the challenges of building solidarity across divisions of caste, religion, and region. It remains relevant today as workears worldwide continue fighting for dignity, fair wages, and human rights.
