Movements of the Working Class In British India
Several congress leaders were imprisoned during the final few years of British rule, and the communists were able to completely seize control of the AITUC. After being released from prison and unable to advance inside the group, they founded the Indian National Trade Union Congress in 1947, which gained significant support from the government. The new industrialization strategy of the government (1947â1966), which placed a strong emphasis on import substitution, grew state firms and increased employment in the public sector. Trade unionism grew quickly among state firms that were expanding and had high employment rates. Collective bargaining processes have to be highly politicized because of the very centralized nature of trade union bureaucracies. Inflation was brought on by the industrial standstill that developed between 1967 and 1979, which led to the railroad workersâ strike in May 1974. The strike lasted 21 days and was supported by 1.2 million railroad workers. At the same time, Congress employed Shiv Sena to undermine the foundation of communist unions.
In the years following independence, the state took over as the only arbiter of disputes between businesses and the working class. The governmentâs top priorities during this time were to promote industrial peace, economic growth, and effective management of labor-management conflict. The state created legislation like the Industrial Dispute Act in 1947 and presented the Labor Relations Bill and Trade Unions Bills in 1949 in order to accomplish these objectives. The employees in Bombay had financial troubles as a result of the economic slump in the late 1960s. It might be seen in the rising jobless rate and workersâ mounting debt. The inability of the conventional trade unions to address the issues facing the working class created a favorable environment for Shiv Senaâs emergence and expansion. The Bharatiya Kamgar Sena is a union that was created by the Shiv Sena. It came into existence as an alternative to conventional trade unions. However, the working class was split along ethnic lines by the Bharatiya Kamgar Sena. It claimed that the numerous laborers who had immigrated from other parts of the nation, particularly south India, were to blame for the working class troubles. The Shiv Sena movement broke up the working classâs cohesiveness in Bombay by dividing them along ethnic lines. This separation, which had already been established, persisted later. Some contend that Shiv Sena agitated on the industrialistsâ behalf to polarize the working class. The Bharatiya Kamgar Sena, however, also failed to win over the workforce. It not only caused the non-Maharashtrian workers to feel insecure, but it also caused them to become divided along racial and religious lines.
The Bombay textile workers went on strike in 1982â1983, which was deemed to have âfew analogsâ in the countryâs working-class struggle. In 1974, the railway workers who belonged to the major trade unionsâall but the INTUC, which was linked with Congressâorganized a nationwide strike. Throughout the strike, rail operations were suspended. The governmentâs response was a vehemently anti-worker one, and it attempted to end the strike. The employees were unable to maintain the strike in the face of the governmentâs resistance. A few years after this strike, the government led by Congress declared a state of emergency in the nation from 1975 to 1977 and put in place policies that made it harder for employees to strike. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) broke from AITUC to form CITU. The strike eventually had some success. The working classâs situation improved between 1947 and 1960, and there was a decrease in the number of strikes.
Movement of the Working Class in India
In the nineteenth century, India saw the emergence of the contemporary working class. This change resulted from the construction of contemporary factories, railroads, dockyards, and other types of buildings and roadways. In terms of relatively modern labor organization and a comparatively free labor market, it was a modern working class. This rule had a few significant exceptions. The plantation workers, who also created items for their capitalist bosses and sold them on foreign markets, were hired and forced to work in oppressive conditions. In truth, the bulk of workers in colonial India did not have as free of restrictions on hiring and working hours as they did in some other nations with more advanced capitalist systems. The working class movement saw effects from this scenario as it evolved over time. Along with the less developed economy, colonialism also had an impact on the labor movement. In India, the labor movement prioritized worker care over promoting workersâ rights. Despite being well-organized, they werenât present throughout all of India. Most of their concerns and demands were about how women and young employees could support themselves. The Indian labor movement was led by and for the workers, not by the workers themselves.
Silent protests, passive resistance, individual protests and strikes, more organized welfare activities, as well as larger protests and strikes that reach the level of general strikes, are all included in its scope. There are numerous variations of worker responses to the industrial system. These reactions might be intended to improve living and working circumstances inside the industrial system, but they might also be directly in opposition to the industrial system. Thus, labor activism can take numerous forms, from the small-scale battles of the workforce to broad-scale strikes that affect an entire industry or a number of industries. It covers both the labor movements and actions that take place within the capitalist system and those that resist it.
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