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United to Struggle or Struggling to Unite: Growth and Diversification of the Indian Labour Movement

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The Internationalisation of the Labour Question

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements ((PSHSM))

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Abstract

Modern industrial development from the mid-nineteenth century laid the foundation for the trade union movement in India. The formation of the All India Trade Union Congress in 1920 led to national-level organisation of workers. The International Labour Organization’s principles and conventions were a guiding star for the initial labour movement in India. With the support of the Communist Party of India, founded in 1920, the Indian labour movement became stronger in demanding the legitimate rights of workers. The trade union movement, which strengthened after Indian Independence in 1947, changed accordingly after the adoption of neoliberalism in 1991. This chapter will trace the origin, growth, struggles, diversification and achievements of labour movements in India to the contemporary period.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Sukomal Sen, Working Class of India: History of Emergence and Movement 1830–1990 (Calcutta: K P Bagchi & Company, 1997): 107–108.

  2. 2.

    Arno S. Pearse, The Cotton Industry of India (Manchester: International Cotton Federation, 1930): 22.

  3. 3.

    Indian Fiscal Commission, Report of Indian Fiscal Commission 1921–1922 (Simla: Supt. Government Central Press, 1922).

  4. 4.

    Sabyasachi Bhattacharya and Rana P. Behal, The Vernacularization of Labour Politics (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2016).

  5. 5.

    P.R.N. Sinha, Indu Bala Sinha, and Seema Priyadarshini Shekhar, Industrial Relations, Trade Unions and Labour Legislation (Chennai: Pearson India Education Services, 2017): 82.

  6. 6.

    V.B. Karnik, Indian Trade Unions: A Survey (Bombay: P.C. Manaktala and Sons, 1966): 8.

  7. 7.

    S. Jha, The Indian Trade Union Movement (Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1970): 87.

  8. 8.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 69.

  9. 9.

    Employees of factories, who bring people from their caste group or village, to be recruited in factories and then wield greater control over the workers who were recruited through them.

  10. 10.

    Report of Indian Factory Labour Commission (Calcutta: Central Press, 1890): 10.

  11. 11.

    R.K. Das, The Labour Movement in India (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter Gruyter, 1923): 65.

  12. 12.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 83.

  13. 13.

    Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri, Leftism in India, 1917–1947 (New Delhi: Sage, 2017): 141.

  14. 14.

    A.A. Purcell and J. Hallsworth, Report on Labour Conditions in India (London: Trade Union Congress General Council, 1928).

  15. 15.

    B. Shiva Rao, The Industrial Worker in India (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1939): 19.

  16. 16.

    Chowdhuri, Leftism in India: 141.

  17. 17.

    M.N. Roy, Indian Labour and Post-War Reconstruction (Lucknow: A.P. Singh, 1943).

  18. 18.

    Chowdhuri, Leftism in India: 142.

  19. 19.

    AITUC, Draft Constitution and Rules: Report of the First Session of the AITUC (Bombay: AITUC, 1920).

  20. 20.

    Sinha, Sinha, and Shekhar, Industrial Relations: 84–85.

  21. 21.

    Rao, The Industrial Worker in India: 149.

  22. 22.

    Gerry Rodgers, “India, the ILO and the Quest for Social Justice Since 1919,” Economic and Political Weekly XLVI, no. 10 (2011): 45–52.

  23. 23.

    AITUC, Draft Constitution and Rules.

  24. 24.

    M.N. Roy, The Future of Indian Politics (London: R. Bishop, 1926): 104.

  25. 25.

    S.D. Punekar, Trade Unionism in India (Bombay: New Book Company, 1948): 91.

  26. 26.

    Rodgers, “India, the ILO and the Quest for Social Justice.”

  27. 27.

    Sinha, Sinha, and Shekhar, Industrial Relations: 86.

  28. 28.

    Chowdhuri, Leftism in India: 145.

  29. 29.

    L.P. Sinha, Left Wing in India (Muzaffarpur: New Publishers, 1965): 123.

  30. 30.

    E.D. Murphy, Unions in Conflict: A Comparative Study of Four South Indian Textile Centres 1918–1939 (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1981).

  31. 31.

    Sinha, Sinha, and Shekhar, Industrial Relations: 89.

  32. 32.

    V.V. Giri, Labour Problems in Indian Industry (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1959).

  33. 33.

    M.R. Masani, The Communist Party of India—A Short History (London: Derek Verschoyle, 1954): 54.

  34. 34.

    AITUC, Report of the Fourteenth Session of AITUC (Calcutta: AITUC, 1935).

  35. 35.

    Chowdhuri, Leftism in India: 151.

  36. 36.

    Rao, The Industrial Worker in India.

  37. 37.

    V.B. Singh, Economic History of India, 1857–1956 (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1965): 592.

  38. 38.

    Sinha, Sinha, and Shekhar, Industrial Relations: 106.

  39. 39.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 363–364.

  40. 40.

    Rodgers, “India, the ILO and the Quest for Social Justice.”

  41. 41.

    GOI, Census of India 1951 (New Delhi: Government of India); GOI, Census of India 1991 (New Delhi: Government of India).

  42. 42.

    Sinha, Sinha, and Shekhar, Industrial Relations: 112–113.

  43. 43.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 383.

  44. 44.

    D.R. Gadgil, Planning and Economic Policy in India (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1979).

  45. 45.

    Gyan Chand, “Social Purpose in Planning,” in Problems in the Third Plan: A Critical Miscellany (Delhi: Government of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, The Publications Division, 1961): 82.

  46. 46.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 387.

  47. 47.

    Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) was formed at the same time to control and suppress trade union activities.

  48. 48.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 390–391.

  49. 49.

    M. Robert and L. Parmeggiani, Fifty Years of International Cooperation in Occupational Safety and Health (Geneva: ILO, 1969).

  50. 50.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 394.

  51. 51.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 397.

  52. 52.

    AITUC, Forward to Unity and Struggle: Proceedings and Documents of the All India Trade Union Conference (Calcutta: AITUC, 1970): 9.

  53. 53.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 403.

  54. 54.

    N.J. Iyer, Panorama of P&T Trade Union Movement (New Delhi: All India RMS and MMS Employees Union, 1984): 254.

  55. 55.

    Nrisingha Chakravorty, History of Railway Trade Union Movement (New Delhi: CITU, 1985): 85.

  56. 56.

    S. Chakravarty, Interim Report on Wage Policy (Government of India, 1974).

  57. 57.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 439.

  58. 58.

    Iyer, Panorama of P&T Trade Union Movement: 294.

  59. 59.

    GOI, Study Group on Wages, Income and Prices (Delhi: Government of India, 1977): 812.

  60. 60.

    GOI, Industrial Relations Bill (New Delhi: Government of India, 1978).

  61. 61.

    Iyer, Panorama of P&T Trade Union Movement: 315.

  62. 62.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 455.

  63. 63.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 469.

  64. 64.

    B.T. Ranadive, On Trade Union Movement Volume II (New Delhi: CITU, 1990).

  65. 65.

    TUC, Report of Trade Union Convention (New Delhi: Trade Union Convention, 1983).

  66. 66.

    Structural adjustments are the policy changes implemented by the IMF and the World Bank in developing countries. These policy changes are conditions (conditionalities) for getting new loans from the IMF or World Bank, or for obtaining lower interest rates on existing loans. Conditionalities are implemented to ensure that the money lent will be spent in accordance with the overall goals of the loan. The SAPs are created with the goal of reducing the borrowing country’s fiscal imbalances.

  67. 67.

    S. Venkatanarayanan, “Economic Liberalization in 1991 and Its Impact on Elementary Education in India,” SAGE Open 5, no. 2 (April–June 2015): 1–13.

  68. 68.

    Sen, Working Class of India: 537.

  69. 69.

    Christopher Candland, Labor, Democratization and Development in India and Pakistan (New York: Routledge, 2007): 112.

  70. 70.

    Candland, Labor, Democratization and Development: 158.

  71. 71.

    Sunanda Sen and Byasdeb Dasgupta, Unfreedom and Waged Work: Labour in India’s Manufacturing Industry (New Delhi: Sage, 2009): 188.

  72. 72.

    Sen and Dasgupta, Unfreedom and Waged Work: 201.

  73. 73.

    GOI, Economic Survey 2005–2006 (New Delhi: Ministry of Finance, 2006): 209.

  74. 74.

    Bhattacharya and Behal, The Vernacularization of Labour Politics.

  75. 75.

    Pong-Sul Ahn, The Growth and Decline of Political Unionism in India (Bangkok: ILO, 2010).

  76. 76.

    Sobin George and Shalini Sinha, Redefined Labour Spaces: Organising Workers in Post-Liberalised India (New York: Routledge, 2018).

  77. 77.

    R. Zagha, “Labour and India’s Economic Reforms,” in Indian in the Era of Economic Reforms, eds. J.D. Sachs, A. Varshney, and N. Bajpai (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999): 160–185.

  78. 78.

    K. Kumar, From Post Industrialism to Post Modernism: New Theories of the Contemporary World (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1995).

  79. 79.

    Bhattacharya and Behal, The Vernacularization of Labour Politics.

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  1. Andaman Law College, Port Blair, India

    S. Venkatanarayanan

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  1. Institute for History, Leiden University, Leiden, Zuid-Holland, The Netherlands

    Stefano Bellucci

  2. Department of History, Ă…bo Akademi University, Turku, Finland

    Holger Weiss

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Venkatanarayanan, S. (2020). United to Struggle or Struggling to Unite: Growth and Diversification of the Indian Labour Movement. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_14

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