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Indian Freedom Struggle (1707–1947 A.D.)

Notes Early History: Ironically the first ever demand for regulation of the condition of workers in
factories in India came from the Lancashire textile capitalist lobby; apprehending the emergence
of a competitive rival in the Indian textile industry under conditions of cheap and unregulated
labour, they demanded the appointment of a commission for investigation into factory conditions.
The first commission was appointed in 1875 although the First Factory Act was not passed before
1881. The Act prohibited the employment of children under the age of 7, limited the number of
working hours for children below the age of 12 years and provided that dangerous machinery
should be fenced. Under similar extraneous pressure from British textile interests the Factory Act
of 1891 was passed which limited the working day to 11 hours with an interval of 1½ hours for
women labour, increased the minimum and maximum ages of children from 7 and 12 years and
14 years Similar circumstances resulted in the enactment of factory acts for jute industry in 1909
and 1911. The opening decade of the 20th century also gave the first ever demonstration of the
emerging political consciousness among the Indian working class; the Bombay workers went on
a political six-day strike over the conviction and inprisonment of Lokamanya Tilak in 1908—a
development which elicited Lenin’s comments that “the Indian proletariat has already matured
sufficiently to wage a class-conscious and political mass struggle”.
First World War, Left Awakening and Organised Trade Unionism: The First World War and its
aftermath brought a period of soaring prices, unprecedented profiteering for the industrialists but
miserably low wages for the workers. The average dividend paid by the jute mills during 1915-24
was 140% (420% in 1919), while the average wage of workers in the industry was only £ 12 p.a.
Similarly the cotton mill industry paid an average dividend of 120% (the highest being 365%).
The emergence of Mahatma Gandhi on the national scene also marked a determined bid to broad-
base the nationalist movement and mobilisation of the workers and the peasants for the national
cause. It was felt that the workers should be organised into a national Trade Union and drawn into
the vortex of the struggle for independence. At almost the same time the October Revolution in
Russia and the formation of the Comintern was a open call to the workers of the world to combine
to dispossess the capitalists and institute a Proletarian Revolution. The setting up of the League of
Nations’ Agency I.L.O. (International Labour Organisation) gave an international complexion to
the labour problem.
The initiative in organising a Trade Union on the national basis was taken by the nationalist
leaders and the All-India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded on 31 October 1920. The
Indian National Congress President of the year, Lala Lajpat Rai, was elected its President. The
national leaders kept close association with this Trade Union and nationalist leaders like C.R. Das,
V.V. Giri and later on Sarojini Naidu, J.L. Nehru and Subhash Bose presided over its annual
sessions. By 1927 the number of trade unions affiliated to the AITUC increased to 57 with a total
membership of 1,50,555. To begin with the AITUC was influenced by social democratic ideas of
the British Labour Party. Despite some Socialist leanings the AITUC remained, by and large,
under the influence of moderates like N.M. Joshi who believed that the political activities of labour
organisations should not go beyond agitation for the amelioration of their economic grievances.
Gandhian philosophy of non-violence, Trusteeship and class-collaboration had great influence on
the movement and strike was a weapon rarely employed. The Trade Union Act of 1926 recognised
trade unions as legal associations, laid down conditions for registration and regulation of trade
union activities, secured their immunity, both civil and criminal, from prosecution for legitimate
activities but put some restrictions on their political activities.
The rise of the Communist movement in India in the 1920s lent a militant and revolutionary
content to the Trade Union movement. The 4th Congress of the Communist International sent a
message to the AITUC not to be content with ‘fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work’ but to fight
for the ultimate goal of overthrow of capitalism and imperialism. Further, the Indian Communists
were urged to organise the Trade Union movement ‘on a class basis and purge it of all alien basis’.
During 1926-27 the AITUC was divided into two groups called ‘the reforming’ and ‘the,
revolutionary’ groups also labelled as the Geneva-Amsterdam group’ and the ‘Moscovite group’,

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