All India Trade Union Congress

History glossary

Also called: AITUC · Topic: The National Movement: Gandhian Era · NCERT: Beyond NCERT

Meaning

The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was India's first all-India federation of trade unions (a trade union is a group of workers who join together to demand better wages and working conditions). It was founded in Bombay on 31 October 1920, and Lala Lajpat Rai was its first president. It matters because it was the first time workers from all over India had one national voice. Its history also shows the tension between the national movement and the workers' own class demands.

Explanation

Background: why it was formed in 1920

  • The war years changed the workplace.
  • Indian factories grew during the First World War (1914-18), because imports were cut off. Business profits rose.

  • Prices also rose very fast, but wages did not keep pace. Workers felt the squeeze.

  • A wave of strikes followed (c. 1918-20). Workers in mills, railways and ports went on strike in many cities. These were local fights, with no national body to link them.

  • An international reason. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was set up in 1919. India had to send a workers' delegate to it, so a national workers' body was needed to choose that delegate.
  • The national mood. It was the time of Non-Cooperation and Khilafat (1920-22). Many nationalist leaders wanted workers to join the wider fight against colonial rule.

Main features and leaders

  • A federation. AITUC did not replace local unions. It brought them together under one national umbrella.
  • First president: Lala Lajpat Rai. He linked the workers' problems to colonial rule. In his view, imperialism and capitalism worked together, so foreign rule and the exploitation of workers were part of the same problem.
  • Other early figures. These included Joseph Baptista, N.M. Joshi and Dewan Chaman Lal. In the 1920s, nationalist leaders such as C.R. Das also took part in its sessions.
  • Aims:
  • better wages and shorter working hours
  • the right to form unions and to strike
  • a share for workers in the freedom struggle

How it changed: splits along political lines

  • Late 1920s: the left grows. Communists and other radicals became strong inside the unions, and there were big strikes in the Bombay textile mills.
  • The colonial state hits back (1929).
  • The government brought the Trade Disputes Bill, which made it harder for workers to strike.
  • The Public Safety Bill was also aimed at radicals.

  • Bhagat Singh and Batukeswar Dutta threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly in April 1929 to protest against these two bills. [1]

  • First split (1929). At the Nagpur session (1929), which Jawaharlal Nehru presided over, the radicals had the upper hand. Moderates led by N.M. Joshi walked out and formed a separate federation, the Indian Trade Union Federation.

  • Second split (1931). Some communists then broke away to form the Red Trade Union Congress.
  • Later reunion and new rivals.
  • The groups came back together in the later 1930s.
  • After 1947, Congress set up its own federation, the INTUC (1947), and the socialists set up the Hind Mazdoor Sabha (1948).
  • AITUC stayed close to the Communist Party of India. It still exists today.

Results and limits

  • Workers stayed largely outside the Gandhian mass movements.
  • During the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), workers mostly stayed aloof, except in Nagpur.

  • Some groups did join and took up Gandhian ideas that fitted their own fight: the railway workers' strike of 1930, the dockworkers' strike of 1932, and the tin mine workers of Chotanagpur, who wore Gandhi caps.

  • Congress kept workers' demands out of its programme. If it had backed strikes and wage demands, it would have lost the industrialists who funded it. So it avoided class conflict to keep the united front.

  • Overall result: AITUC gave Indian workers a national platform. But it could not make the workers' demands part of the main Congress programme.

Time, place and evidence

  • Period: the Gandhian era. It was founded in 1920, at the time of Non-Cooperation–Khilafat. It split in 1929 and 1931.
  • Places: Bombay (where it was founded, and the centre of the textile mill strikes) and Nagpur (the 1929 session and split; also the one place where workers joined CDM in numbers).
  • Key people: Lala Lajpat Rai (first president), N.M. Joshi, Joseph Baptista, Dewan Chaman Lal, C.R. Das and Jawaharlal Nehru.
  • Linked official record: the Assembly Bomb Case No. 9 of 1929, Crown vs. Bhagat Singh and Bhatukeshwar Dutta, and the pamphlet "to make the deaf hear". They show that the Trade Disputes Bill, which was aimed at workers' strikes, had become a national issue. [1]
  • How we know: the federation's own session records, government labour reports, and the official records of the 1929 bills and trials.

Don't confuse with

  • INTUC (Indian National Trade Union Congress, 1947): INTUC was set up by Congress itself at independence. AITUC came 27 years earlier, in 1920, and later leaned towards the communists.
  • Red Trade Union Congress (1931): this was a communist breakaway group from AITUC. It was not the original body.
  • Indian Trade Union Federation (1929): this was formed by the moderates under N.M. Joshi after they walked out of AITUC's Nagpur session.
  • FICCI (1927): FICCI was the body of Indian businessmen (Purshottamdas Thakurdas, G.D. Birla), not of workers. Its interests often clashed with AITUC's, which is a common pairing trap.

Prelims Hooks

  • AITUC was founded on 31 October 1920 in Bombay. Its first president was Lala Lajpat Rai.
  • AITUC was the first national federation of trade unions in India. It came before INTUC (1947) and Hind Mazdoor Sabha (1948).
  • The 1929 Nagpur session (presided over by Jawaharlal Nehru) saw the moderates under N.M. Joshi walk out. The communist Red Trade Union Congress broke away in 1931.
  • The Trade Disputes Bill and the Public Safety Bill were the target of the Bhagat Singh–Batukeswar Dutta Assembly bombing of April 1929. [1]
  • Workers stayed largely aloof from CDM except at Nagpur. The Chotanagpur tin miners wore Gandhi caps.
  • Chronological order: AITUC (1920) → FICCI (1927) → HSRA (1928) → AITUC split (1929).

Mains Points

  • Class vs nation. AITUC put workers' demands into the national movement, and Lajpat Rai linked imperialism with capitalism. But Congress kept strikes and wage demands out of its programme so that it would not lose the industrialists who funded it. This is a clear example of Congress keeping its united front by dropping the demand, not the ally.
  • Ideology split the movement from within. The splits of 1929 and 1931, and the later rise of INTUC and the Hind Mazdoor Sabha, show that labour politics broke up along party lines (Congress, socialist, communist). This pattern continues in Indian trade unions today.
  • Labour and the colonial state. The Trade Disputes Bill and Public Safety Bill of 1929 show that the British saw organised labour and radical politics as a threat. The protest against these bills joined the workers' cause to the revolutionary nationalism of Bhagat Singh. [1]

Related concepts

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Sources

  1. 1To Make the Deaf Hear (Pamphlet Thrown by Bhagat Singh in the Central Assembly Hall); Assembly Bomb Case No. 9 of 1929, Crown vs. Bhagat Singh and Bhatukeshwar Duttaindianculture.gov.in · tier 1