Working-Class Movement in Uttar Pradesh with Specific Reference to Kanpur(1915–1947)

Abstract

This paper examines how the working-class movement developed in Uttar Pradesh and how workers participated in the Indian National Movement between 1915 and 1947. During the colonial period, the region was not officially known as Uttar Pradesh. It included the former province of Oudh or Awadh and the Ceded and Conquered Provinces, which were reorganised as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in 1902. During the period covered by this study, the region was generally referred to as the United Provinces. It was renamed Uttar Pradesh only in 1950.

Although the region was largely agrarian, industrial growth in Kanpur and the expansion of railway, government and municipal employment created important centres of working-class activity. Kanpur’s textile, leather, woollen and engineering industries provided the main base of organised labour, while railway and government workers in Allahabad, Lucknow, Mughalsarai and other towns contributed to the wider development of labour politics.

The discussion follows the movement from the strike wave after the First World War through the growth of trade unionism in the 1920s, the influence of nationalist, socialist and communist ideas, the labour radicalisation of the 1930s, the Kanpur strike of 1937–38, worker participation in the Quit India Movement and the post-war labour upsurge. It argues that workers in the United Provinces were not merely passive supporters of the Indian National Congress. They pursued demands relating to wages, employment, working conditions, union recognition and dignity at work, while also participating in anti-colonial protests.

The working-class movement became part of the national struggle in several ways: strikes interrupted colonial production, workers challenged administrative authority, and industrial towns developed new forms of political organisation. At the same time, its relationship with Congress remained complicated because nationalist leaders often attempted to balance workers’ demands with the interests of Indian industrialists and the need to maintain production. The paper concludes that workers in the United Provinces expanded the meaning of swaraj by linking political independence with economic rights and social justice.