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BPSC Mains GS-1 Masterclass · Modern Indian History

Indenture & the Working ClassFrom Plantation Ships to Picket Lines

Colonial rule uprooted millions of Indians. Some, many from Bihar, were shipped under contract to plantations across the Empire. Others went into India's new mills, mines and railways and became a working class whose strikes joined the freedom struggle.

Start1834Indenture begins

after slavery was abolished.

Scale30 millionEmigrated 1834–1937

24 million returned home.

End1917Indenture ends

in the 2nd period of migration.

Unions1920AITUC founded

workers' national organisation.

Growth271 → 362Trade unions

between 1937 and 1939.

Climax1946Naval mutiny

Bombay workers struck in support.

Part 1 · What indenture was

Bound by Contract: The Indenture System

After slavery ended, plantations across the Empire turned to Indian contract labour, much of it from Chota Nagpur and Bihar.

Illustration of a 19th-century emigration depot at a river port, Indian labourers with bundles waiting beside a sailing ship

A system of bonded labour

Indentured labour was a system of bonded labour that was instituted following the abolition of slavery throughout British Empire in 1833 as newly free men and women refused to work for low wages on sugar, tea plantations and rail construction projects in British colonies of West Indies, Fiji, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, Surinam, Ceylon etc.

Most of the indentured labourers came from North India, especially from the un-prosperous regions of Chota Nagpur plateau and Bihar before the 1860s, and the eastern districts of the U.P and western Bihar from the 1870s onwards. Most of them originated from the lower to middling social and economic strata of rural North Indian society, which was always the first to bear the brunt of economic vicissitudes and calamities of nature.

The indenture contract

Indenture was a contract by which the emigrant was bound to work for a given employer for three- to five-year term, performing the task assigned to him for a specified wage.

Years 1–5
Bound term
Work for a given employer, on the task assigned, for a specified wage.
Passes on: contract ends
contract ends
End of contract
Free choice
At the end of the contract the labourer was free to re-indenture or to work elsewhere in the colony.
Passes on: after ten years
after ten years
Year 10
Return
After ten years he was entitled to a subsidized return passage.

Part 2 · Background: scale, patterns and periods of emigration

A Century of Emigration in Numbers and Phases

How many left, in what forms, and how the flow rose and fell from 1834 to the oil boom of the 1970s.

Exam tip

This part is background. Skip it when answering the 2018 question on the reasons for emigration.

The scale of emigration

It is estimated that between 1834 and 1937 some 30 million Indians migrated to different parts of the world, while during the same period about 24 million of them returned home, resulting in the net emigration of 6 million.
Overseas Indian emigration was largely ‘ephemeral’ or transitory in character. During the period 1834-1900, the average annual emigration was 202,000, whereas for the period 1901-1937, it was 451,000.

Five distinctive patterns of Indian emigration in the modern age

Indentured labour emigration,
kangani/ maistry labour emigration,
“Free” or “Passage” emigration of traders,
- This form of emigration is known as ‘free’ or ‘passage’ emigration as emigrants paid their own passage and were free in all respects.
“Brain-drain”, or voluntary emigration to the metropolitan countries of Europe, North America and Oceania, and
Labour emigration to West Asia.

Colonial and post-colonial

Whereas the first three forms of emigration were colonial phenomena, the last two are the results of the inherent contradictions of the post-colonial socio-economic development of India.

Four major periods of migration, and after

1834–1915
1st period
The period of steady increase in indentured labour emigration. In this period, the increased net migration since the early 1890s represents the added migration of kangani or maistry labour to Burma, Ceylon and Malaysia.
1915–20
2nd period
Highlights not only the difficult years of the First World War but also the end of indentured emigration in 1917.
1921–30
3rd period
Emigration again picked up, mainly responding to the demands for labour on tea, rice and rubber plantations in Ceylon, Burma and Malaysia respectively.
Post-WWII
After the Second World War
Indian migration to the advanced industrialised countries of Europe and North America had also begun to gain momentum.

The largest number of Indians returned home between 1926 and 1930, perhaps foreshadowing the coming global economic depression.
During the depression and post-depression era until 1937, more Indians returned home than left. The kangani or maistry form of emigration was stopped by 1938.
By then not only was sufficient labour available in the colonies, Indian public opinion was also opposed to Indians' emigration and their mistreatment abroad.
Thereafter only voluntary labour, over whom the government of India had no control, continued to emigrate. But such migration was proportionately very small and was confined to Malaysia, and possibly Ceylon.

Part 3 · Reasons behind overseas immigration in the 19th century

Why Indians Went Overseas

The Empire needed labour; colonial land revenue, famines, ruined handicrafts and the drain of wealth pushed the rural poor to supply it.

Illustration of Indian indentured labourers cutting sugarcane on a 19th-century plantation in a tropical colony, a mill chimney in the distance

The demands of the British Empire

Overseas migration was linked with the demands of British Empire. It began in 1834 when slavery was abolished in the British empire.
- The emancipation of 800,000 slaves in colonies was followed by the emergence of the indentured labour. India replaced Africa as the source of plantation labour.
- Labour was needed to work on the sugar plantations in the various British colonies. Without dependable supplies of labour, survival of plantations would have been extremely difficult.
- Britain legalised the system in 1842. Mauritius was the first of the plantation colonies to import contract workers from India.
Large scale Indian emigration, however, did not take place until the establishment of British imperialism in India as well as many other parts of the world.
Thus Indian overseas emigration is obviously the result of the workings of British colonialism both in India and abroad which is highlighted by the fact that the vast majority of Indians emigrated only to the British colonies.
India's large population provided the British Empire with a steady source of work force. Thus, British exploited both the vulnerability and readily available large population.

“Pressure to emigrate has always been great enough to provide a stream of emigrants much larger than the actual given opportunities.”

Kingsley Davis, on India

Penetration of British mercantile capitalism in Asia

The historical background against which the Indian overseas emigration was intensified was the penetration of British mercantile capitalism in Asia.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, as a result of the communication revolution and the opening of the Suez Canal the Asian peripheral economies were fully integrated into the world capitalist system with the result that Britain earned a considerable surplus on her trade with Asia in general, and India in particular.
The profits from imperial trade were invested by the British in the mines and plantations in Asia and Africa, which created a further demand for labour throughout the British Empire.
Thus the expanding capitalist economy in the British empire created a great demand for labour.

The impact of British colonialism in India arose from the new land policies attuned to capitalist development by the middle of the nineteenth century.
All the land revenue systems like Zamindari system, Ryotwari system and Mahalwari system were exploitative in nature and land revenue was excessively burdensome to the peasantry.
Under these land tenure schemes, not only land transfer became easier, disputes over land also encouraged litigation, crime and corruption. Indebtedness forced many cultivators to sell or mortgage their land to the rich peasants or the money-lenders.
Consequently, the pauperisation of the marginal peasantry increased the number of landless labourers who eventually joined the ranks of overseas migrants.

Conclusion

Thus, there were various factors involved in creating a class of proletarians, a fraction of which was compelled to seek sustenance abroad. Under these circumstances, the Indian government was readily persuaded by the imperial and other colonial governments to export Indian labourers.

Part 4 · The working class to 1908

A Working Class Takes Shape

From sporadic strikes and philanthropists to the early nationalists' caution and the Swadeshi upsurge of 1903-08.

Illustration of workers leaving a late 19th-century Indian textile mill at shift change, tall brick chimneys behind

Birth of a class

In 2nd half of 19th century, the gradual industrialisation of India created an industrial working class. The growth of tea plantations, the beginning of an infant iron and steel industry, railway construction, Mining, and growth of the jute industry and the cotton industry led to formation of working class in organised sectors in India.

Linked with the nation

The process of the disparate groups of workers in various parts of country emerging as an organized, self-conscious, all India class is inextricably linked with the growth of the Indian national movement because the notion of the Indian working class could not exist before the notion of the Indian ‘people’ had begun to take root.

First strikes and philanthropists

In 1860s and 1870s the workers launched strikes which were motivated by immediate economic grievances, mainly in textile mills, plantations and railways.
- But these strikes were sporadic, spontaneous and unorganised and were not related to the national movement which was still to take roots.
From 1870s onwards, some philanthropists began to highlight the workers' conditions and their issues, e.g.
- Shashipada Banerjee set up working men's club in 1870 in Bengal and published journal ‘Bharat Shramjeevi’.
- In 1878, Sorabjee Shapoorji Bengalee tried unsuccessfully to introduce a Bill in the Bombay Legislative Council to limit the working hours for labour.
- N M Lokhanday set up Bombay Mill Hands Association in 1890. He also brought out an Anglo-Marathi weekly called Dinabandhu.

The early nationalists paid relatively little attention to the question of workers

They actively opposed the Factories Act of 1881 and 1891. Reasons for the relatively lukewarm attitude of the early nationalists:

At this time, when the anti-imperialist movement was in its very infancy, the nationalists did not wish to, in any way, weaken the common struggle against British rule — the primary task to be achieved in a colonial situation — by creating any divisions within the ranks of the Indian people.
The nationalists saw the Government initiative on labour legislation as measures to adversely affect the competitiveness of Indian industry.
Further, the early nationalists saw rapid industrialisation as the panacea for the problems of Indian poverty and degradation. They thought that Labour legislation would adversely affect the infant industry in India.

“The Congress must confine itself to questions in which the entire nation has a direct participation, and it must leave the adjustment of social reforms and other class questions to class Congresses.”

Dadabhai Naoroji, at the second session of the Indian National Congress (1886)

European versus Indian employers

Early nationalists had a strikingly, though perhaps understandably, differential attitude towards the workers employed in European enterprises and those employed in Indian enterprises.

The nationalists had no hesitation in giving full support to the workers employed in European enterprises. E.g. the Indian National Congress and the nationalist newspapers began a campaign against the manner in which the tea plantation workers in Assam were reduced to virtual slavery. An appeal was made to national honour and dignity to protest against unbridled exploitation by foreign capitalists aided by the colonial state.

The Swadeshi upsurge of 1903-8: a distinct landmark in the history of the labour movement

During this period, many Swadeshi leaders began to mobilise labour and raised their issues, and many were active in strikes also.

An official survey pinpointed the rise of the ‘professional agitator’ and the ‘power of organization’ of labour into industrial strikes as the two distinct features of this period.
The number of strikes rose sharply and many Swadeshi leaders enthusiastically threw themselves into the tasks of organizing stable trade unions, strikes, legal aid, and fund collection drives.
Workers in the Burn Company shipyard in Howrah struck work on being refused leave to attend the Federation Hall meeting called by the Calcutta Swadeshi leaders.
Workers also went on strike when the management objected to their singing Bande Mataram or tying rakhis on each other's wrists as a symbol of unity.
Biggest strike of this period was organised after Tilak's arrest and trial.
There was a shift from unorganised and spontaneous strikes on economic issues to organised strikes and involvement of labour in the wider political movements.
The Swadeshi period was also to see the faint beginnings of a socialist tinge among some of the radical nationalist leaders who were exposed to the contemporary Marxist and social democratic forces in Europe.
The example of the working class movement in Russia as a mechanism of effective political protest began to be urged for emulation in India.
With the decline in the nationalist mass upsurge after 1908, the labour movement also suffered an eclipse. It was only with the coming of the next nationalist upsurge in the immediate post World-War I years that the working class movement was to regain its élan, though now on a qualitatively higher plane.

Part 5 · The working class from 1919 to 1947

Workers in the Mass National Movement

The AITUC, the Left turn of the late 1920s, popular ministries, Quit India and the strikes of 1945-47.

Illustration of a 1940s general strike in Bombay: dock workers and mill hands gathered on a wide street, cranes and ships in the harbour behind

Resurgence of working class activity, 1919 to 1922

It was under the impact of World War I and the associated soaring of prices and very low wages, Home Rule Movement, Rowlatt Act Satyagraha, NCM and Khilafat movement. International events like the establishment of a socialist republic in the Soviet Union, formation of the Comintern etc also influenced the workers' activities.
The emergence of Gandhi led to a broad-based national movement and the emphasis was placed on the mobilisation of the workers and peasants for the national cause.
- In 1918 Gandhiji founded the Ahmedabad Textile Labour Association (TLA). It was perhaps the largest single trade union of the time. It secured a wage hike of 27.5% through a protest.
The working class now created its own national level organisation to defend its class rights.
- The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was founded in 1920.
- INC formed a committee in 1922 to assist AITUC.
In 1920, there were 125 unions with a total membership of 250,000, and large proportion of these had been formed during 1919-20.
It was in this period that the working class also got involved in the mainstream of nationalist politics to a significant extent.
- In April 1919, following the repression in Punjab and Gandhiji's arrest, the working class in Ahmedabad and other parts of Gujarat resorted to strikes, agitations and demonstrations.
- Between 1919 and 1921, on several occasions railway workers struck in support of the Rowlatt agitation and the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat Movement.
- In November 1921, at the time of the visit of the Prince of Wales, the workers responded to the Congress call of a boycott by a countrywide general strike.

The lull after 1922

After 1922, there was again a lull in the working class movement, and a reversion to purely economic struggles. The next wave of working class activity came towards the end of the 1920s, this time spurred by the emergence of a powerful and clearly defined Left Bloc in the national movement.

The second half of the 1920s and the Civil Disobedience Movement

It was in the second half of the 1920s that a consolidation of various Left ideological trends occurred and began to have a significant impact on the national movement.
During this period, the labour movement came under socialist and communist influence which radicalised the movement.
- E.g. various Communist groups in different parts of India had by early 1927 organized themselves into the Workers' and Peasants' Parties (WPP). They worked within Congress to radicalise the movement.
The government adopted a repressive policy in 2nd half of 1920s. The government launched two-pronged attack on the labour movement.
- On the one hand it enacted repressive laws like the Public Safety Act and Trade Disputes Acts and arrested in one swoop virtually the entire radical leadership of the labour movement and launched the famous Meerut Conspiracy Case against them.
- On the other hand, it attempted, not without some success, to wean away through concessions (for example the appointment of the Royal Commission on Labour in 1929) a substantial section of the labour movement and commit it to the constitutionalist and corporatist mould.
The labour movement suffered a major setback partially due to this Government offensive and partially due to a shift in stance of the Communist-led wing of the movement.
- From about the end of 1928, the Communists reversed their policy of aligning themselves with and working within the mainstream of the national movement. This led to the isolation of the Communists from the national movement and greatly reduced their hold over even the working class.
- Similarly, the Communists got isolated within the AITUC and were thrown out in the split of 1931.
Even after such a setback, the labour got involved in anti-Simon movement beginning 1927 and then in CDM.
Although CPI dissociated itself from CDM, workers participated in the CDM all over the country.
- The textile workers of Sholapur, dock labourers of Karachi, transport and mill owners of Calcutta, and the mill workers of Madras heroically clashed with the Government during the movement.
- In Bombay, the Congress slogan during civil disobedience was that the ‘workers and peasants are the hands and the feet of the Congress’.

There was a dip in the working class movement between 1931 and 1936. Neither did the workers take an active part in the Civil Disobedience Movement of 1932-34. The next wave of working class activity came with provincial autonomy and the formation of popular ministries during 1937-1939.
When the campaign for the 1937 elections began, the AITUC gave its support to the Congress candidates. The Congress election manifesto declared that the Congress would take steps for the settlement of labour disputes and take effective measures for securing the rights to form unions and go on strike.
Between 1937 and 1939 the number of trade unions increased from 271 to 362 and the total membership of these unions increased from 261,047 to 399,159.
The number of strikes also increased considerably.
One of the principal factors which gave a fillip to the trade union movement in this period was the increased civil liberties under the Congress Governments and the pro-labour attitude of many of the Congress ministries.

Conclusion

The last years of colonial rule also saw a remarkably sharp increase in strikes on economic issues all over the country — the all-India strike of the Post and Telegraph Department employees being the most well known among them. The Independence was seen by all sections of the Indian people as signalling an end to their miseries and workers were no exception.

“The notion of the Indian working class could not exist before the notion of the Indian ‘people’ had begun to take root.”

— BPSC Mains answer · Working class and the national movement

Curated for BPSC, UPSC & State PCS Civil Services Aspirants | Modern Indian History Master Module

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