What role did Trade Unions like INTUC play in the workers' movement in India?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Organised workers’ movements along ideological lines.
Option (1) Led to large scale lock-out in factories. — Incorrect. A lock-out is the closing of a factory to its workers by the employer. It is a weapon of the management, not a role a trade union plays.
Option (4) Organised workers’ movements along ideological lines. — Correct. The AITUC was a broad organisation of diverse ideologies: communists, moderates and nationalists. When the communists gained control of it, the Indian National Congress formed its own union, the INTUC, in May 1947. This split paved the way for further splits on the lines of political parties, and later regional parties too formed their own unions, so workers came to be organised by the ideology of the party their union followed.
NCERT (2025-26): “Workers’ Movements … The first trade union was established in April 1918 in Madras by B.P. Wadia, a social worker and member of the Theosophical Society. During the same year, Mahatma Gandhi founded the Textile Labour Association (TLA). In 1920, the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) was formed in Bombay.…” “…The main ideological groups were the communists led by S.A. Dange and M.N. Roy, the moderates led by M. Joshi and V.V. Giri and the nationalist movements which involved people like Lala Lajpat Rai and Jawaharlal Nehru. During the last few years of British rule the communists gained considerable control over the AITUC. The Indian National Congress chose to form another union called the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) in May 1947. The split in the AITUC in 1947 paved the way for further splits on the line of political parties. Apart from the working class movement being divided on the lines of political parties at the national level, regional parties too started to form their own unions from the late 1960s.…” |