Boycott and Swaraj: these were weapons of mass unrest and grievance to challenge the British Indian Government announcement on 19 July 1905 to partition Bengal. Viceroy Lord Curzon had planned the new province would be called ‘East Bengal and Assam’, comprising Chittagong, Dacca and Rajsahi divisions, hilly Tripura, Maldah and Assam. What took the British government by surprise was the magnitude of protests, strikes and public grievances across towns and villages of Bengal, Maharashtra, Punjab, Madras and in England and Europe too.

Leaders of the stature of Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Aurobindo Ghosh; poets-educationists and painters Rabindranath Tagore, Sister Nivedita, Jagadish Chandra Basu and Abanindranath Tagore; barristers AC Banerji, AK Ghosh defending labour disputes; Satischandra Mukerji’s Dawn, Jogindranath Chattopadhyay’s monthly Swadeshi, the Sandhya of Brahmabandhab Upadhyaya were at the forefront when labour disputes, as in the case of the Burns Iron Works, gave the Swadeshi movement one of its defining moments.

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Reading the pledge of patriotism published by Krishna Kumar Mitra, the editor of Sanjivani, is soul-stirring till date: “We are taking this oath in the name of our holy motherland and for the welfare of our country that we shall never use foreign goods if we get goods manufactured in this country. For this if we have to bear financial or other sacrifice, we shall be ready to do it. We will not only do all these ourselves, but try to persuade friends and all other people to act accordingly.” On 7 August 1905, this boycott pledge, now a resolution, was adopted at a huge public meeting in Calcutta’s Town Hall. Lord Curzon had arrogantly declared, “Bengal partition is a settled fact.”

Moderate Congress leader Surendranath Bandyopadhyay at once sharply retorted “We shall unsettle the settled fact”. Facts and figures on Swadeshi movement are bewildering, awe-inspiring, and accessible from diverse sources. “This ‘divide and rule’ measure of Viceroy Curzon provoked angry outbursts which also had a distinct working-class dimension in addition to intensification of the Swadeshi campaign and beginning of revolutionary terrorism,” noted DP Buxi, who chronicled ‘A Hundred Years of Its First Political Strike’, celebrating the rise of the Indian working class.

His writings in the CPI (ML) archives state: “The first trade union in the true sense of the term was formed on 21 October 1905 amidst intensive strike struggle in printing presses of the government. In 1905 itself workers of Burn Company (Howrah) and Kolkata Tram Company and 2000 coolies and sweepers of Kolkata Corporation went on strike. In October 1905, 950 railway guards of the East India Railway, Bengal sector, participated in a strike struggle for wage revision (against racist discrimination in wages). In 1906, about 1,000 jute workers went on strike against inhuman behaviour of British officers and for improvement of working conditions.

Similarly in 1905 several strike struggles were organised by textile workers of Mumbai against increased workload. In 1907, textile workers also participated in a strike for a wage hike. Some strikes lasted for a full one week. In 1906, 500 Post and Telegraph employees participated in a week-long strike for their wage hike, bringing the entire work of the P&T department to a halt. 1907 witnessed a wave of militant struggles of railway workers on various economic demands and in protest against too much workload, successfully bringing different zones of the railways to a halt.

The struggles of railway workers assumed a very crucial role in anti-imperialist mass awakening.” The railways were introduced in 1853 when 20 miles of the first railroad was laid from Bombay; this was happening simultaneously with the development of the coal industry in the Asansol-Jharia belt of Bengal and Bihar ~ coal being the essential raw material to run railway engines. Around the same time, tea plantations were introduced in Assam; jute, textiles and spinning industries were established, giving rise to commercialisation of agriculture and industrial use of agricultural raw materials.

Putting the Swadeshi up surge of labour unrest in a larger time-frame, Buxi said, “The first-ever strike struggle of Indian industrial workers took place in March 1862, i.e., within nine years of its emergence when 1200 Railway Workers of How rah Station went on strike demanding an eight-hour work day. In 1877 workers launched a strike demanding a wage hike in Nagpur Empress Mill. Between 1882 and 1890, 25 important strike struggles took place in Mumbai and Madras Presidencies. In 1881, jute workers at Ghusuri (Bengal) went on strike on two occasions against wage erosion. In 1885, jute workers of Budge Budge (near Kol kata) went on strike for 6 days and in 1889 the same jute workers were striking for 8 days, facing police fire.”

Intellectuals like Sashipada Banerjee in Bengal and N M Lekhande in Mumbai began voluntary work for industrial workers. In 1874 Sashipada Banerjee published ‘Indian Workers’ and in 1898 Lekhande published ‘Dinabandhu’ in Mumbai. Banerjee set up the Baranagar Institute in Kolkata to impart primary education to workers. On the initiative of Brahmo Samaj and under the direction of Sas hipada Banerjee, night schools and a savings bank for jute workers were set up in Baranagar in 1884. Another Bra hmo member P C Majum der established eight night-schools in Mumbai. An official survey titled ‘Administration of Bengal under Andrew Fraser 1903-08’ noted the role of professional agitators during industrial unrest as quite a novel phenomenon. Strikes in Britishcon trolled enterprises, sparked off by rising prices and by racial insults, were now getting sympathy from newspapers, besides financial help to set up unions.

Wrote Prof Sumit Sarkar in ‘Mod ern India 1885-1947’, “four men in particular deserve to be remembered as pioneer labour-leaders: the barristers Aswinicoomar Banerji, Prabhatkusum Roychaudhuri, Athanasius Apurbakumar Ghosh; and Premtosh Bose, the proprietor of a small press in north Calcutta. In September 1905, the en – tire Swadeshi public hailed a walkout of 247 Bengali clerks of Burn Company in Howrah against a new work-regulation felt to be derogatory.” The next month saw a tram strike in Calcutta, settled through efforts of AC Banerji and Ghosh, and reports of 16 October convey a bandh-like flavour, with offices closed, carters off the roads, and strikes in some jute mills and railway worksho – ps. The first real labour union followed soon after: the Printers Union, set up on 21 October in the midst of a bitter strike in government presses.

In July 1906, a strike of clerks on the East India Railway led to formation of a Railwaymen’s Union and efforts were made to draw in the coolies through meetings at Asansol, Ranigunj and Jamalpur addressed by Swadeshi leaders like Bepin Pal, Shyamsundar Chakrabarti and Liakat Husain apart from AC Banerji, AK Ghosh and Premtosh Bose, noted Prof Sarkar. Relatively small in number, press employees of Calcutta were lauded for their militancy and political awareness. Their profession demanded literacy and their work brought them in close touch with nationalist opinions and leaders. At the two big government presses in Calcutta ~ the Government of India and Bengal Secretariat ~ the burning issues were inadequate pay, fines, excessive hours, arbitrary demotions and tactless behaviour of white Superintendents.

AC Banerji, AK Ghosh and BM Chatterji were invited by press unions and they worked on petitions, suggesting a defense fund to prepare for future action. To counter short-lived strikes, the British government shifted printing work from Calcutta to Shimla, Allahabad, Lahore and even Madras; meanwhile a Printers’ and Compositor’s League was formed in October, with AK Ghosh and Brahmabandhab Upadhyay as secretaries. Sandhya of Upadhyay became a great meeting place for the strikers.

AC Banerji led a fund-raising procession of the streets of Calcutta, describing it: “the procession of the Printers’ Union covered a large area from Cornwallis Street to the Paikpara Rajbati. Even constables and women of the town came forward with contributions. It is noteworthy that Kumar Manmathanath Mitra entertained the 500-strong processionists, fed them and paid Rs 150 in cash as his contribution… In Sandhya, Upadhyay exhorted students with example of coolies and working men, with clerks on petty emoluments and press workers sticking to their resolve, regardless of the sufferings of their wives and children.” A branch of the Printers’ Union seems to have been set up at The Statesman Press by November 1905 with union activities reaching a high point by May-June 1906. A Special Branch report dated 7 September 1906 noted “quite an epidemic of strikes among the printing presses in Calcutta…no less than six private presses and the Bengal Secretariat Press.” The Printers’ Union set an example of working-class solidarity by sending a message of sympathy from their 23 June meeting to the Indian staff of the East Indian Railway loop line who had gone on strike. Maharashtra’s stalwarts ~ Tilak, Khaparde and Munje ~ were warmly received at the union headquarters.

The Statesman Press unit seems to have been one of the more active constituents of the Printers’ Union. Private papers of AC Banerji include letters inviting him to address meetings of the Printers’ Union. At an anniversary function, not only did all the Hindu, Muslim and Christian workers sit down to a sumptuous tiffin, their speeches extolled The Statesman proprietors for increasing workers’ wages. Lessons from the Swadeshi movement continue to remain relevant and inspirational.

(The writer is a researcher author on history and heritage issues and a former deputy curator of Pradhanmantri Sangrahalay)