The Tale of Two Strikes

Abstract

This paper seeks to narrate the stories of 1928 and 1932 railway workers’ strikes, and analyse the trajectory of working-class movement and resistance in the course of the strikes and in the interim period. The period in which the strikes occurred witnessed shifts in trade union alignment, communist influence, the emergence of new colonial control mechanisms, and internal power struggles within unions, deployment of diverse forms of protest against retrenchment, and extensive debates concerning workers' rights, non-violence, and freedom. Drawing on diverse primary and secondary sources, we explore the conditions of workers' lives and political landscape in colonial Madras, within which the strikes occurred. We aim to understand the complexities of railway working-class resistance in Colonial Madras, as well as the dynamics of the strategies and tactics employed in the course of the strike, and the ideological terrains of articulation of workers’ demands and modes of protest, as they intersected with nationalist and communist movements.

Introduction

History of railways in the city of Chennai, going back to India’s oldest known operational railway line from Chintradripet to Redhill to transport granite for construction (Muthaiah, 2014). The history of railways in the city on hand is the history of marvels of engineering and industrialisation, but at once it is also a history of the railway workshops, stations and railway lines in which and on which workers worked tirelessly, day in and day out, in gruelling and painful work conditions, with a wage that made only the barest of living conditions possible. The everyday lives of these workers, their aspirations and their struggles easily slip away from our historical record and historical memory. Sometimes these struggles went beyond individual workers negotiating their circumstances, to evolve into collective resistance to shape the circumstances of their lives. The city became the ground on which two such acts of resistance emerged - in the years 1928 and 1932. 

The years 1928 and 1932 witnessed two of the important railway strikes in Colonial South India in the interwar period. In both the strikes, the city of Madras was more than just a spectator. In 1932 railway strikes, Madras was the epicentre of railway workers strikes, and in 1928, it was a peripheral actor. The 1928 strike by the workers of South Indian Railway was noted for the degree of repression, and use of state-violence by the colonial government, and instances of militant action by the workers. In contrast, the 1932 strikes by the workers of Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway, was an exercise in Satyagraha. 

In this essay and through a study of these strikes, we seek to explore the following questions: what was the nature of railway working class resistance in Colonial Madras during the period of large-scale retrenchment in the late 1920s and early 1930s, what kind of structural, institutional, and ideological frictions influenced and impeded the workers' resistance? What were the larger contexts in which the resistance occurred? How did the resistance itself shape these contexts?

The term nature - as used in this essay - refers to the concrete forms of resistance, the strategic and tactical repertoires which were deployed during its course, ideological frameworks in which they were articulated and the organisational mechanisms through which the resistance was enacted. The specific implications of term context here entail the conditions and factors which may or may not always be linked to the events through a chain of direct causation, but nevertheless provide a glimpse into the causes of resistance, the times of the resistance, and the conditions of life in which the resistance occurred. In particular, we explore the conditions of life of workers at the workplace and beyond, the way they organised and resisted, the politics of trade union movements and their leaders in colonial Madras city, and the larger imperial political economy in which their resistance emerged. 

To this end, we use a range of sources, including both primary and secondary sources. The strikes themselves have been an object of study in the past and figure in several works on the labour movement in colonial India, resulting in fairly substantive literature scattered across various sources. These include the The Making of Madras Working Class by D Veeraraghavan (Veeraraghavan 1980), Industrial Violence in Colonial India by David Arnold (Arnold 1980), Labour movement in Tamilnadu 1918-1933, by C S Krishna (Krishna 1986), and Labour Movement in the Railways 1920-1946 by V Krishna Ananth (Ananth 1988). While the work in this collates the literature across these sources, it intends to fill certain gaps, most notably the limited contextualisation of these strikes. 

While the strikes revolved around issues of retrenchment at the workplace, the conditions of worker’s lives themselves in which the strikes occur, the relationships and social fissures within which they manifest, and how grievances are shared are invaluable to understanding the broader milieu of collective action.   These dimensions of railway workers' lives, both in relations with the strikes and even beyond, received very little scholarly attention.

Despite the emphasis of situating the strikes in the context, we do not seek to establish any easy deterministic relationship between the context and the events. In this we borrow from the historian E P Thompson, wherein he states: 

“But because we know the causative context within which an historical event arose, it does not follow that the event can therefore be explained or evaluated in terms of the cause. Attention must be paid to the autonomy of political or cultural events which, nonetheless, are causally conditioned by “economic” events.” (Thompson, 1965)

Another glaring gap in the available secondary sources is how the 1928 strikes played out in the city of Madras. The historical literature around the 1928 strikes is largely focussed on the southern districts, which were the epicenter of the strikes, and only fleeting references to the city could be found. While such a focus is understandable, an attention to the limited activity in Madras, brings up the question- What exactly transpired during the strikes in Madras? What kind of solidarities within the working-class movement, and between the working-class movement and the city's political landscape took root or failed to do so during the course of the strikes? What kind of organisational and structural factors facilitated or constrained the limited presence of the strikes? What kind of discourses emerged in the course of the strike?  Investigating these questions sheds light on the landscape of the working-class movement in the city and the trade union politics in the city at the juncture, as much as it enables one to develop a view of the strikes from the periphery. 

This led to several other questions: Given the intensity of strikes and the accompanying repression in 1928, did it impact the trade union movement in Madras city at large? Did it have any bearing on the 1932 strikes? Neither of these answers were to be found in literature prompting us to look at primary sources. 

While the work does draw from secondary literature, a substantial part of the research is grounded in archival research from primary sources. Two of the most notable primary sources used in the work are Forthnightly Reports in Tamil Nadu State Archives, and the Royal Commission of Labour reports. 

Fortnightly Reports were compiled by the colonial intelligences to keep a tap on political, criminal and labour unrest. These reports, while invaluable to getting a sense of the events surrounding labour, politics, and labour politics, are often bogged down by the personal biases of the officials or framing of the events in line with the policies of the colonial state vis-a-vis capital and labour. They also suffer from sometimes inadequate understanding of the unrest, and often exaggerating the role of leadership. This often leads to characterisations of labour grievances as imaginary, and merely the handiwork of leadership. In such a context, much of the source had to be read carefully and cautiously, and sometimes against the grain, to extract meaningful information. 

Royal Commission of Labour reports, written in the period between the two strikes in 1930 and 1932, contains first-hand testimonies by the workers affiliated to various unions, as well as the managers, Despite the enormity of rich details in the reports, the statements by railway officials in their managerial capacity, and sometimes the union officials themselves have to be read more cautiously to distill opinions reflecting their position from facts. Similarly, a cautious reading was extended to biographies and autobiographies of trade union leaders, reports from government bodies such as the corporation reports, and contemporary descriptive accounts of working class lives of Madras. Accounts and figures from these sources were carefully scrutinized for plausibility, biases and accuracy and often compared with other existent sources.

We also extensively use the Telugu daily Andhra Patrika. Established in 1908 and published from Madras by the 1920s, the newspaper provides a remarkably detailed account of the 1928 and 1932 strikes. Andhra Patrika was founded by K Nageswara Rao, a businessman-journalist who also became a successful politician, and even served as the President of the Andhra State Congress Committee for close to ten years. As such, the Andhra Patrika should be read a nationalist newspaper sympathetic to the Congress Party. Along with everyday reportage, Andhra Patrika also carried press notes from the railway company, press releases by various unions, letters of sympathy and criticism, and sometimes even articles authored by the striking workers themselves. We use Andhra Patrika not just as a record of events, but also as an archive of contested narratives, helping us write a rich, detailed account. Scholarship on Madras has conventionally focused on Tamil and English language sources; Andhra Patrika also serves as a reminder of the rich history of the Telugu print culture of the city.

While aggregating all the information from the sources into writing a history of very specific events largely confined to a specific geographical region of the city, a ‘microhistory’ as often labelled, the essay had to contend with how these attempts at specific reconstruction relate to ‘larger’ historical processes, and which ‘larger’ processes does the essay intend to study through a microscopic lens?  

On one hand, it intends to study the cities labour unrest in the period of large-scale industrial unrest over retrenchment in India during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, and on the other, it aims to converse with the broad generalisations in labour history of colonial India, which overlook the specificities of cities including Madras. One such generalisation can be found in David Arnold’s ‘Industrial Violence in Colonial South India’. In attempts to trace the causes of violent resistance in colonial South India including the 1928 strikes, David Arnold partially locates in the rural antecedents of industrial workforce. Such an argument draws upon studies such as Dipesh Chakrabarti’s work on Jute Mill workers in colonial Calcutta, which placed an emphasis on the rural character of industrial workforce in colonial India. The specificities of Madras workforce and the events surrounding the strikes, also serve to illustrate the limitations of such an argument to explain the diverse strategies adopted by the working class in Madras during the strikes.

We also depart from the characterisation of the period of 1922 to 1933 in Dilip Veeraraghavan’s The Making of Madras Working Class as a period of ebb and quiescence (Veeraraghavan 2012, pg 175). While such a characterisation intends to discuss the relative stagnation in labour movement activity in the period post the emergence of trade union movement.  This focus on activity often ignores subterranean processes at play which shape trajectories of movements. The notion of quiescence is re-examined through a closer inspection of the ‘subterranean’ dynamics, which are often revealed by microhistories. 

In addition to the above, the essay seeks to understand how the categories of violence and nonviolence, ahimsa and satyagraha, communism and anti-communism - which acquired popular currency in 1920’s, a period marked by the rise of nationalist movement under Gandhi as well as the emergence of Communist movement in India - entered the discourse of labour politics and play out in the course of labour resistance in the context of Madras city and its labour politics.

Railways, Workers, and Imperial Policy 

In 1926, the State Railway Workshops Committee was constituted to inquire into matters connected to the Mechanical Departments of State Railways of India. The committee was headed by Sir Vincent Litchfield Raven, a former railway engineer of considerable repute and technical expertise from England, who on an earlier instance served as the chief mechanical engineer in North Eastern Railway in England. Sir Raven began his report with the following observation:

“Having visited the various workshops that deal with repairs to rolling stock on the State-managed Railways of India, I wish to record a few general observations that bear on the questions investigated. The most striking features of the shops, when compared with those in England, are their size and the strength of labor they employ, in consideration of the volume of work turned out. While aware of the disabilities that have to be contended against, with respect to climatic conditions, the low efficiency of the average Indian workman, the difficulty of obtaining suitable supervising staff and the need for the provision of longer leave, I was not altogether prepared for the marked differences that exist between the Indian and the English workshops. (Raven 1926, Preface)

The concern regarding improving efficiency of the Indian railway, and the observation of the relative inefficiency of Indian laborers, were not unique to Sir Vincent, and instead reflected the ideological zeitgeist of the era. Low productivity of labour in India, which was often reduced to and reframed in racial terms, was a question of practical concern that befuddled many British and Indian economists and administrators alike (Roy and Mukherjee 1922, 128). For instance, Dr. Gilbert Slater, the British Economist and the founding Professor of Economics at University of Madras recounts in his autobiography an anecdote about a conversation with Dr T M Nair of Justice Party, in which Dr. Nair broached the question of relative inefficiency of Indian laborers, and wondered if it was on account of diet (Slater 1936, 51).

In the early 20th century, though all the major railway companies in India were owned by the government, around 70% of railway lines were managed by the private companies, domiciled in England with a board in England, raised money from the debtor market and used it to finance railway lines. These included Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway and South Indian Railway, two of the railway companies with terminal stations in Madras (Khosla 1988). The government provided a range of subsidies such as free land for construction of railway lines, and further offered financial incentives such as 3.5% guaranteed interest on investment along with equal share in surplus profits, however it also exercised strict control over finances including over net sum of capital (Khosla 1988, 129).

Things did not sail quite as smoothly under this system. The physical infrastructure of railways and railway lines developed half a century earlier, was in dire need of upgrading with worn out railway tracks and ageing locomotives. Overcrowding of trains was a regular feature, where the number of passengers exceeded the number of seats by around 1.5 times. The inadequate quantity of rolling stock (all the vehicles that move on tracks) severely affected trade and caused disruptions in supply of essential commodities (Ackworth 1920-21, 7-19). On the financial front the subsidies were already proving to be a strain on the exchequer (Ackworth 1920-21, 22-25). The railway companies were by and large turning in profits, but any changes needed to remedy the situation needed large capital expenditure, which looked increasingly difficult with the high borrowing rate of around 6% in the capital markets in post-war Britain (Wolf 2012).  The high capital rate in Post-war Britain was in itself a product of wartime economic disruptions. Confronted with growing inflation and an increase in national debt, and the falling value of sterling, a series of deflationary measures were put in place by the Bank of England which began with an increase in lending rates. One of the key goals of these measures was to stabilize the price of sterling in-order to ensure investor confidence. Another key motive was to return to the gold standard, which was abandoned by Britain during World War I, as was central to Britain’s imperial trade interest to ensure confidence in sterling. These moves succeeded in achieving their goals but at the cost of domestic investment and economic activity and employment, putting in process a chain of events that eventually led to the Great Depression in the United Kingdom (Crafts 2014).

The Great Depression was not the only outcome of these fiscal and monetary policies. Immediately following the rise of interest rates, a series of enquiries were commissioned to identify the means to remedy the situation of railways in India, first of which was the Committee appointed by Secretary of State to enquire into the working of Indian railways, known as Acworth committee after the English railway economist Sir William Acworth who chaired the committee. Among the many suggestions made by the report, one of the most consequential was the emphasis on treating railways as a commercial enterprise, and running it on business principles. This was further echoed in the retrenchment reports in 1922-23:

“We are of opinion that the country cannot afford to subsidise the railways and that steps should be taken to curtail working expenses as necessary in order to ensure that not only will the railways as a whole be on a self-supporting basis, but that an adequate return (of 5.5%) should be obtained for the large capital expenditure which has been incurred by the State” (Inchcape 1923, 61).

They go on to further recommend that “a further saving of Rs. 1 crore should be effected in salaries and wages in 1923-1934” (Inchcape 1923, 72). Several options existed before the Railway Board many of which were suggested by the workers union, including reduction in the expensive process of subcontracting and curbing expenditure on the exponentially growing number of highly paid supervisory staff. The imperial government, through the Railway Board, seeking to serve a complex of commercial interests, did not bother to consider such suggestions. Under the regime of imperial fiscal austerity, waves of labour retrenchment across railway companies was unleashed in the period beginning in early 1927, and which accentuated with great depression leading to loss of approximately 75,000 railway workers in year 1928 alone (Labour Monthly 1928, 636), sparking off a series of strikes across India beginning with the communist supported Bengal Nagpur Railway Line strike in 1927 (Trivedi 2009, 492-99). These waves of retrenchment and the strikes resulting thereof were soon to hit the shores of the colonial port city of Madras in the years to come. 

Railway Labour in Colonial Madras

Madras in the 1920s was not quite the manufacturing powerhouse that the city of Chennai is known for in the present day. It was largely a colonial port city, an administrative capital and university town with a modicum of industries across the spectrum, ranging from small scale industries like tanneries to large scale cotton mills (Lewandowski 1975, 341-60; Veeraraghavan 2013, 31-32). The beginnings of modern industrial units with large industrial workshops in Madras, can be traced to the latter half of the 19th century. By the early 1900’s, Perambur, which was the north Western frontier of the city, evolved into becoming the industrial hub of the city, with three large textile mills (Buckingham & Carnatic, and Choolai) and Perambur railway workshops (Lewandowski 1975, 353). According to the 1921 census, around 11-13% of the city's population were employed in large industries and railways, a sizable section of which was concentrated around Perambur. Women formed around 11% percent of the employed labour industrial and railway labour force in the city according to the city census in 1921 (Census61 1973, 110). With opportunities in large industries often restricted on account to gendered division of labour and informed patriarchal norms. Wherein they found employment, it was precarious and subject to change in workforce norms.  Women workers were often employed in the informal sector of employment - as casual coolies, grass cutters, water carriers, food vendors, sanitary workers, and tiffin careers (Ranson 1938, 29).

Perambur's industrial history, stretching from an early 1800s gunpowder mill, set a backdrop for late 19th-century and early 20th migration to Madras, driven by rural distress and food price fluctuations (Lewandowski 1975). Unlike Bombay and Calcutta, where migration was often male, seasonal, or with hopes of later family relocation, Madras saw a permanent family unit resettlement as indicated by the higher sex ratio of 946 women to 1000 men, in comparison to the figures for Bombay at 562 and Calcutta at 464.  C. W. Ranson writing about Madras in 1930’s observed that “[t]he Madras labourer who comes to the city tends to show a strong tendency to settle there permanently” (Ranson 1938, 126).  While many historians of labour in colonial India tended to highlight the continuity of industrial workers with their pre-industrial pasts, much of this premise was drawn from Bombay and Calcutta where such sociological trends were possibly the outcome of a cyclical flow of labour between the urban and rural parts. Permanent migration of the kind witnessed in Madras in this period led to a formation of working class, with considerably weaker ties to the rural pasts. As stated by a union worker in the interview to Royal Commission of Labour, “[r]egarding extent and frequency of return, there is no definite information, but the statement that the workers are more attached to the villages is exaggerated” (“RCLI (Written)” 1932, 549). Despite the urbanised character of the working class, many of the workers in the factories of Madras city often lived in villages in the proximity of Industrialised neighbourhoods of the city, whose own character underwent a change as a consequence. Furthermore, Madras drew labour primarily from adjacent Tamil and Telugu speaking districts, unlike Bombay's wider geographical intake. (Lewandowski 1975)

The above observations however do not extend to suggest that the working class of Madras were uninfluenced by their pasts. Religion and caste continued to play a role in their everyday lives, though the associated practices may have acquired newer forms. Attendance of religious discourses, bhajans or Harikatha events at various sabhas and temple grounds in and around Perambur were not uncommon. These spaces further served a dual role as sites of collective expression and class mobilisation. At one such sabha - Venkatesa Gunamruthavarshani Sabha in De Mellow’s Road, Perambur, run by the textile businessmen G. Chelvapathy Chettiar, lied the genesis of India’s first trade union Madras Labour Union, which was brought to fruition by the efforts of Chettiar and his friend G V Ramanajulu Naidu, a rice trader. The two businessmen, moved by the plight of the workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, extended an invitation to the theosophist B. P. Wadia to lead the union. (Chelvapathy 1992, 1-4) The origins as recollected by B. P. Wadia: 

How well I remember the forenoon when two men, unknown to me, whom I had never seen before, came and told me something about the "suffering labourers."  They referred to the Buckingham and Carnatic Mills, of which I had vaguely heard, but of which I knew less than little. They spoke of "a few minutes for food," "swallowing morsels," "running lest they be shut out. …. I immediately ordered my car, took the two strangers, and went to Perambur and watched outside the Mills, where I saw the poor labourers at their noon-day meal (Wadia 1921, xiv).

The workplace grievance of the workers at that juncture was not confined to the unusually short lunch interval hinted at in the above passage. It ranged from long working hours of 12 hours, harsh treatment by European officials, employment of children, arbitrary mode of dismissal of workers, increased prices of food and clothing, delayed and deduction of wages in event of damage to machinery (Wadia 1921, 25-28) .

The disaffection amongst labour in Perambur at this juncture was not restricted to mill workers. Workers attached to the railway workshop, locomotive and carriage departments and electrical departments in Perambur, who lived and worked in equally harsh conditions had much to share. Perambur workshop employed around 7500 workers at its peak in 1927 (Krishna 1986, 41). Railway workers, far from being a homogenous category, ranged from foremen in supervisory positions to workshop labour such as fitters and mechanics classified as skilled labour, to more ubiquitously found coolies, classified as unskilled. They were further divided into workshop staff and non-workshop staff.  In 1921, Women constituted 6% of the entire railway workforce across Madras Presidency, though only a miniscule fraction of the women workforce were employees, and the rest were labourers involved in construction, maintenance or as coolie work in workshops (Census 1932, 257).

While the railway workshop was located in Perambur in which a section of workers resided, at least a section of the railway workers did not necessarily live near the workplace and commuted to the place of work using the daily travel passes provided (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 525). Many of the workshop employees rented huts at Rs. 1 in the suburban villages along the Perambur-Arakkonam route, with Ambatturu village (now Ambathur) featuring prominently as a preferred choice of residence, and some of the others with higher pay scales lived closer to the city centre in rented two room houses. There was a limited facility for quarters at Salt-Cotaurs, which was relatively unoccupied owing to high rents. Problems such as inadequate sanitation, overcrowding due to inadequate space, lack of provisions for drinking water and separate toilets were endemic to the quarters. Workers earning under Rs. 40 per month had to contend with 100 square feet quarters which sometimes housed half a dozen children, and those in the higher income segments didn't fare much better with a 200 square feet house. The following quotation describes the sanitary conditions of the quarters: 

Especially in the Railway colonies the facilities for conservancy are very inadequate. In some cases we have made representations. … Those quarters are built in a graveyard in which bodies are still being buried; in front of those quarters there is a big rubbish store; on one side there is a pumping station and on the other side there is a big canal of stagnant water (RCLI Oral 1932, 529).

Owing to these, the workers were not keen on occupying these quarters, and the management in turn exerted pressure on the workers to do so. The working-class housing in Perambur, was not a major improvement.  As the economist and sociologist Dr. Radhakamal Mukherjee who visited Madras noted “The squalor, the degradation and the poverty in the slums of Calcutta and Bombay are far outstripped in the slums of Arlapet in Bangalore and Perambur in Madras” (Mukherjee 1922, 297).

He observed that in a house in Dalit paracheri: a family of six lived in a filthy, cramped 5-foot-wide circular hut with a leaking thatched roof, a waterlogged floor, and a tiny doorway, earning just Rs.8 a month. The non-dalit houses which had better access to public sanitation also suffered the problem of terrible congestion. Eleven people were found living in a single hut which included children of a deceased brother. In another Madras slum, a family of seven lived in a 4'×7'×6' room, where the mother had recently given birth. In the same house, he also found “an elderly man, left homeless by a storm, took shelter on a tiny 2.5'×2' verandah” (Mukherjee 1922, 299-300).

_{(Source: Health Report 1917, 15)}

Tenement housing in which much of the Madras working-class population (including possibly sections of railway workers), lived in this period and was characterised as being in dilapidated and damp conditions, lack of water supply, inadequate latrine facilities and entire houses and backyards ill paved and littered with refuse and excrement (Health Report 1917, 2).

Despite the abject conditions, it was not uncommon for labourers to extend shelter to those in far more dire circumstances. Despite the moral economy, caste and race played a significant role in determining residential choices among workers, with a tendency to reside among similar racial or caste groups of similar income levels (Ranson 1938, 163). It is likely that relationships stemming from the workplace did not often translate solidarities about conditions of life, and at least not transcending the boundaries of caste. 

South Indian railway had a far less substantial workforce in Madras, given the location of headquarters in Trichinopoly and workshops in Southern and Western Districts. The workforce in Madras mostly consisted of the workers and staff employed in operation of stations and maintenance of railway tracks. A section of these employees was accommodated in Egmore Rebound (Madras Musings 2018).

_{(Source: The Story of Madras, Glynn Barlow, 44)}

The problem with housing among railway workers was further compounded by the inadequacy of wages. The wages in Madras and Southern Mahratta Railways for non-workshop staff varied from Rs. 9 to 10 per month for gatekeepers and gangmen, to Rs. 325 per month for the most experienced station masters. For the workshop staff, who mostly survived on daily wage rate, the rate varied from 4 annas and 6 paise for unskilled coolies (roughly Rs. 8 per month) to 9 Annas and 5 pies (approximately Rs. 27 per month) for senior mechanics (“RCLI (Written)” 1932, 204-05). According to the estimates provided by the Railway Agent to the Royal Commission of Labour, in 1930, around 42% of the workers lived at wages less than Rs. 20 per month, and 73% of the workers lived on wages less than Rs. 30, a month.  Workers in South Indian Railway fared no better, in which 65% earned less than Rs. 22 a month and 56% percent earned less than Rs. 15 per month (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 492). In 1917, Rev. D. G.  M. Leith, who looked into conditions of the working class of Madras city, concluded that the cost of bare minimum subsistence for a family of four at the (subsidised) rates of prices in prison was around Rs. 24, a month (Slater 1936, 217). Agents of the Railway companies (equivalent to Managing Directors), justified these wages on the principles of supply-demand and their own hunches, rather than adequacy of these wages. An Agent's salary for a month in this juncture was Rs. 3500 per month (Lall 1932, 96).

Given the low wages, it was of little surprise that workers earning between Rs 15 to 20 per month spent around 70% of their wages on food. Even workers earning between Rs. 40- Rs. 50, spent around 58% of their income on food. Food consisted largely of rice or ragi, pulses, and tempered by chillies, with an occasional indulgence in fish, and lacking in vegetables and meat. The high proportion of expenditure on food alone left very little to be able to spend on other necessities such as lightning fuel, rent and clothing. which consumed around 20 to 25% of the income. Remainder of the meagre wages were spent on barber or dhobi services, remittances, social ceremonies, and interest on debt. The expenditure overshot the wages by around 33% to 10%, which led to a cycle of debt, often at the hands of Marwari money lenders (Ranson 1938, 176-91).

Given the indebtedness and squeeze in budgets, around a quarter of workers in South Indian Railway reportedly skipped meals in order to spend on their children’s education, and a similar figure may hold in the case of MSM Railway (Lall 1932, 12). The education for children of Railway employees was a largely segregated affair. MSM Railway operated a school in Perambur exclusively for children of Anglo-Indian and European employees offering instruction up to class VII (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 574). Although limited provisions for scholarship and grants were available, they were limited in impact. The average annual expenditure on these grants amounted to a mere Rs. 0.5 per railway employee (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 108), with majority of the recipients being male. According to the 1932 Census (Census 1932, 251-256), South Indian Railway had basic provisions for admission of its Anglo Indian and European employees' children at St. Anthony’s Poor European School. A small number of children of workshop employees were admitted to preparatory courses at the Training School in Perambur, which could lead to apprenticeships within the railways. However, access to these opportunities remained extremely limited. (“RCLI (Written)” 1932, 574) 

Railway employees fared marginally better than average industrial workers in terms of access to healthcare, owing to the railway hospital in Perambur. However, the free in-patient treatment was restricted to employees earning below Rs. 30, and did not extend onto their families. Neither the complete absence of women doctors or maternity ward, enable any efforts in that direction. For a daily-wage worker, surviving without a sick leave, any sickness meant a loss of day’s pay.  Railway workers were further subjected to routine eyesight tests failing which they were discharged from the service.  (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 533)

The avenues for entertainment were far fewer. Unlike the mills, there were no regular provisions for cinema or sports for large sections of workshop employees. (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 533-54) There was a Madras and Southern Mahratta Employees Theatre group which performed plays based on popular mythologies. A R Venkatachalapathy points to the popularity of subaltern literary forms such as ballads and chapbooks in the working-class districts of Madras city, and in particular Choolai. One of the compositions from 1919 titled Namathindia Tholilalar Thalaivargalin Narpugal Prabalya Arputha Geetham (1919), was specifically dedicated to the prominent trade union leaders of the city (Venkatachalapathy 2012, Ch. 5).

The more official avenues for entertainment such as the Anglo Institute was restricted to the members of the European and Anglo-Indian community (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 533). Differential treatment was rampant. Anglo-Indian and Europeans had exclusive lunch provisions, short-distance cheque passes, direct recruitment into superior ranks, higher wages, and better housing (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932). Despite the relatively privileged position and sometimes justifications of the same, many of the Anglo-Indian workers who often found themselves discriminated against in comparison to covenant Europeans, were open to striking a common cause when it came to workplace issues (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 531).

In addition to the above, railway workers faced everyday harassment including harassment and misuse of power at the workplace by foremen or authorities, and the racism at the workplace often at the hands of superiors. In such an incident in 1913, over a protest over clocking times, the Deputy Superintendent fired upon the workers resulting in 3 deaths and the arrest of 75 workers (Arnold 1980).

In this context, workers Govindarajulu Naidu, C Panchaksara Achary and M C Gnanamuthu sought the assistance of Ramunujulu Naidu and Selvapathy Chettaiar for organising a union on lines similar to the mill workers. The first two meetings in Ayanavaram and Perambur, faced violent resistance from hirelings of management and the police respectively. In a general body meeting at Jamalia grounds in 1919, the union structure was formalised with B P Wadia as the president, G. Arundale and Thiru Vi Ka as Vice- Presidents, and B. Shiva Rao and Ramanjulu Naidu as Joint Secretaries, and D. K. Dilong as General Secretary. Soon enough, the union was successful in negotiating an increase in wages, overtime allowance, holidays, provision for latrine at the workplace, tiffin shed and drinking water, despite lack of official recognition. The union collaborated with the administration to run the co-operative store (“RCLI (Oral)” 1932, 536). In 1921, during the Buckingham and Carnatic Mill strike, Madras and Southern Mahratta Union successfully raised around Rs. 8000 for the striking workers (SRES 1983).

There is perhaps very little surprise that the section of the leadership of the trade union movement which emerged from within the ranks of employees, often belonged to the skilled labour consisting of dominant Tamil and Telugu caste groups such as Brahmins, Naidus, Naickers, Mudaliars, Muslims and Anglo-Indians. Despite the dominant positions in the union often held by workers, the landscape of trade union movement in colonial Madras was largely dominated by figures who were intricately familiar with the ways of colonial law and bureaucracy, possessed wide organisational experience, and the ability to articulate workers demands in press, government bodies and trade union forums. Such figures were largely drawn from the ranks of nationalist movement such as Thiru Vi Ka, V V Giri and V O Chidambaram Pillai, or the cosmopolitan elites associated with the Theosophical Society such as B P Wadia, George Arundale, Annie Besant, Ernst Kirk and B Shiva Rao. The concern of these elites, as reflected in the speeches, was seeking means of redressal of workers grievances and their cooperation in the nationalist cause. Their articulation of these demands was sometimes couched in the idiom of religious morality (Wadia 1921, 1-9). The wider cosmopolitan networks that emerged from this leadership also led to a thriving space of dissemination of ideas, in which trade union and political leadership from across the globe often found their way to deliver speeches in working class neighbourhoods of Madras. These included prominent Austrian socialists, American academics, Labour Party and Communist Party leaders of the United Kingdom, along with prominent nationalist leaders like Gandhi and CF Andrews (Fortnightly Reports, 1927-32).

The linkages between the political nature of this leadership and the workers, was resented by the Railway administration, who attempted to paint it as external political interference. However, the nature of external leadership, and potential for a self-organised union was subject of much discussion within the trade union movement. This was however fraught with several dangers, since it immediately allowed the companies to target workers who holding positions in the union holders, and if such workers were seen as accommodative of management's interests they lost the confidence of their fellow workers (Shiva Rao 1939, 162-164). In 1921, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway Employees Union had elected office bearers consisting of workers Panchakachary, M C Gnanamuthu and Govindarujulu Naidu. This phase did not last long enough, and by 1926, the congressman and lawyer S Shrinivasa Iyengar was appointed the president (“SIR strike” 1928). The relationship between unions and workers on one hand, was definitely not always an easy one. As pointed out by B Shiva Rao, the relationship was often severely hampered by the limited ability of unions to address individual instances of grievances. This was further exacerbated by possible resentment towards the professional clerical staff of the union whose wages drew from workers' contributions for the union, but often exceeded the wages of workers themselves. The union leadership sometimes tended to view workers as lacking in general education, political tact and patience, though sometimes surprised by the capacity to anticipate responses to various actions. The workers on the other hand, often tended to get disillusioned with the lack of any drastic improvements in standard of living despite the presence of trade unions (Shiva Rao 1939, 176).

In this period of disillusionment, the spectre of communism found its way into the Madras working class. Communist influence in the Madras labour movement of the 1920s can be traced to efforts of a few individual activists -most notably Singaravelu Chettiar, and his associate M P S Veluthayan. Singaravelu Chettiar, often regarded as the first communist of South India, was, like many of his influential peers in the trade union movement, a Congressman, a former corporator, a successful lawyer, and briefly dabbled in spirituality as the president of the Mahabodhi Society of Madras (Murugesan and Subramanyam 1975, 8). Unlike many of her peers, he was born into the pattanavar chettiar community of maritime fishermen. In 1923, he organised the first ever May Day rally in India at the Marina Beach. On the same day, he launched the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan, which subsequently however did not make substantial headway. In 1927, when, according to intelligence reports, nearly all the labour unions in the city were showing signs of increased activity and agitating for the redress of their grievances, the 67-year-old Singaravelu was seen as causa prima (Forthnightly Report 1927, May).

Singaravelu’s primary mode of political involvement was to be indefatigably present at every instance of workers' unrest in the city—from the Burmah Oil Mill workers to Tramway employees and sanitation labourers—offering legal counsel, participating in negotiations with management, advocating egalitarian ideals, and sometimes advocating strikes (Forthnightly Report 1927, May). Despite the ability to infuse energy into movements, and his capacity at cultivating nationwide networks of ideological fellow travellers, Singaravelu’s success as an organisation and institution builder was rather limited and he never held a formal role in a labour union till 1928. He was closely observed by the colonial intelligence who viewed his activities with a mixture of amusement and annoyance, and often derisively referred to him as “our local communist” in their reports (Fortnightly Report 1927, April). His growing prominence in the labour movement and radical ideology, however did attract the distrust of the traditional trade union leadership which preferred solicitude for workers welfare. In November 1927, the president of Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway warned the members “not to be led astray in the meantime by such unconnected and irresponsible persons such as Singaravelu Chetti” (Fortnightly Report 1927 (November). Despite the fact that he successfully organised a public gathering by the British Communist MP Saklatwala at MSM workshops in 1927, the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway Union largely remained out of the ambit of Singaravelu’s influence (Murugesan and Subramanyam 1975, 112). However, the period of entrenchment loomed large over the South Indian Railways in southern districts. The desperation of the working classes and their disillusionment with the ways of the moderates found resonance with Singaravelu’s radicalism. 

The 1928 South Indian Railways Strike 

Intelligence reports from January 1928 while discussing the growing discontent among the South Indian Railways in Trichinopoly, forewarned;

“A strike in February unless the Government of India Committee declares against retrenchment. The [SIR] agent thinks that the running staff will not take part but the workshop men will join the strike. Police arrangements have been made in anticipation of the situation” (Fortnightly Report 1928, January).

As the report noted, retrenchment was the biggest driver of resentment among railway workers. This period of turbulence was not unprecedented for the South Indian Railway (SIR). The Royal Commission on Labour in India report on Railways highlights that in late 1927, frustrated by their poor work conditions, workers were preparing for a strike in the Christmas Week of the year (Royal Commission on Labour 1930, 560). The railway administration issued notifications promising early action on many of the issues the workers faced, but these promises remained unfulfilled, and instead the railway company prepared for a wave of retrenchment. The workers had to bear with the poor working conditions in the railways, an unresponsive railway administration, plus the possibility of retrenchment without much room for negotiation.

These workers were part of various unions. In this case, specifically, we are concerned with the South Indian Railway workers Union. The SIR union was going through a churning at this time. Ernst Kirk, a theosophist from Coimbatore, and a ‘professional labour leader’, was the President of the SIR Union in the years leading up to 1928. However, in May 1928, the SIR Union voted to replace Ernst Kirk with Singaravelu Chettiar. Ernst Kirk was perceived to have more ‘moderate views’, while Chettiar, with his radical energy was able to win favour with the SIR union membership (Forthnightly Report 1928, May).

Lastly, we come to the SIR Railway Company. The company wanted to cut costs, and one of the ways that they went about this was to lay off workers. After having broken their ‘promises’ of better work conditions, the company now planned to lay off more than 3,000 workers, mostly from workshops in Trichinopoly and Nagapatnam, and mostly those who worked on a daily wage. This became the point of clash between the SIR workers, their union, and the railway company.

On June 16th, the SIR Workers' Union presented a proposal, the first of many, to the railway agent and requested a postponement of the retrenchment (The Labour Monthly 1928). The company did not respond, in what would also be the first of many in the instances of unresponsiveness.  Faced with a lack of response despite a renewed appeal on June 28th, protests began at the South Indian Railway workshops in Negapatnam, Golden Rock, Trichinopoly, and Podanur on June 29th (The Labour Monthly 1928). The union called these strikes non-violent, by which they meant that the workers were not damaging any property or attacking any officials, and instead were just striking work, and peacefully gathering together to register their dissent. A near-complete town-wide non-violent hartal was observed in Negapatnam on the 30th of June. On 3rd July, the railway agent refused to re-look retrenchment, deferring to an inquiry commission report on the matter (Andhra Patrika 1928, 4th July). 

The SIR union was prepared for a larger strike, but had to first confront a few critical strategic questions. For the strike to be effective, it had to spread to other centres and involve other unions. From here onwards, the developments of the strike can be observed on two interconnected axes: first the actions and consolidation of the workers on ground; and the efforts of the union leadership to forge alliances and coordinate with other labour unions.

At the grassroots level, the first week of July witnessed a notable expansion and consolidation within the workers. The strikes had not begun yet, but this was the necessary groundwork required to successfully start them. Even those workers who drew monthly salaries agreed to join the strikes, and the unrest spread beyond its initial centres (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 5th). Mukundlal Sarkar, a Congressman and Trade union leader from Bengal, gave a fiery speech in Trichinopoly on July 1st.

“So through starvation, through economic pressure, the government wants to curtail and curb the ideals of politics which the labourers are going to ask and today or tomorrow or after a few years they will establish their own Raj” (G.O. No. 660 1928, 4)

He also appealed to the general public and the congress party to “help this struggle which will bring Swaraj in India”. On the 3rd of July the striking workers committee issued public notices announcing a general strike to be held on 20th July, and urged the public to plan their travel accordingly (Andhra Patrika 1928, 4th July). On 11th July, the striking workers committee of the SIR held a meeting in Coimbatore and demanded that the elected members of the Madras Legislative Assembly resign from their posts in solidarity with the railway workers, mirroring the actions of their counterparts in the Bombay Legislative Assembly (Andhra Patrika 1928, 13th July). The mobilisation had begun!

The SIR union leadership believed that the SIR strikes should not be an isolated event. As such, in the first week of July 1928, Singaravelu and Mukundlal left for Bombay and managed to convince the leadership of various unions for consolidated action by all Indian railway workers. It was also decided that V. V. Giri, the general secretary of the All India Railway Workers Federation would summon a meeting of the federation around the 15th of July. (Adhikari 1982, 358). Singaravelu and Sarcar decided to return back to Madras, via Kharagpur and Calcutta, aiming to bolster workers' support in these industrial centres. They wired the SIR strike committee to postpone the strike action planned for the 20th of July, to facilitate the planning of a more coordinated unified strike. The SIR striking workers committee would postpone the strikes, railway unions across India would begin consolidated action (Adhikari 1982, 358). This was a great success! Or so it seemed.

Back in Madras presidency, the telegrams sent to the striking workers committee by Chettiar and Sarcar were intercepted and blocked by the state, rendering the workers clueless about the developments in Bombay (Adhikari 1982, 358). Meanwhile, after unfruitful attempts at negotiations with the Agent of South Indian Railway and an unsuccessful attempt at seeking intervention of the Viceroy, Krishnaswamy Pillai, secretary of SIR Union, announced on 19th that the strike would commence on the 20th as planned, unaware of the plans to postpone it (Andhra Patrika 1928, 20th July). By 19th July, Chettiar and Sarcar had reached Madras city, and possibly realised that it was too late by now to postpone the strikes. On 19th July, more than 500 workers gathered in Egmore, where Chettiar and Sarkar gave a speech beseeching the workers that the strikes should happen peacefully, stressing on non-violence (Andhra Patrika 1928, 20th July). Both of them left for Trichinopoly, the strike’s epicentre, soon after this speech.

The strikes began on the 20th of July and workers struck work. The workers also resorted to a wide variety of direct action. On the 20th of July, 5000 strikers in Mayavaram blocked the Ceylon Boat-train from moving, until the police intervened.  The police quickly sprang into action, and did not refrain from using violence to clampdown on the protesting workers. On the evening of 20th July, striking workers pelting stones at the Mayavaram station were met with police fire, and 5 were killed. Tuticorin witnessed a bayonet charge along with police firing. Six workers were killed by the police in Villupuram, and over a hundred workers arrested across (The Labour Monthly 1928). 

On the night of July the 19th, the strikes reached Madras City, with 30 striking workers blocking the train tracks in Tambaram. Striking workers cut down a train line near the Madras Beach Station. The police arrested two striking workers in this case. An officers' train was further reported to have been halted between the Chetpet and Egmore station, where striking workers allegedly set the engine on fire. Additionally, a train en route from Madras to Sivaru was pelted with stones near Mambalam, forcing it to return to Egmore (Andhra Patrika 1928, 21st July). The general tactic of the strikers, as summed up in the Fortnightly Reports was to “concentrate at some intermediate point on the line, heap obstructions, do what damage they could do, and dispose of at the sight of the police, gathering again at some intermediate point” (Fortnightly Reports 1928, July). 

The allegiance to ‘non-violence’ that was publicised by the railway union in its various press notes, seemed to be slipping out of hand, during the course of the strikes. Of course, we do not seek to make a claim about what ‘violence’ really means, but it is important to remember that the workers were reacting to both the structural violence of retrenchment, and to the repressive police action on the strikers. Nevertheless, their reaction to this violence, overstepped the bounds of the idiom of ‘non-violence’ that the union leadership had decided as the chosen course of the strikes.

On 21st July, over 250 workers marched into the Egmore Railway Station and demanded the release of the workers arrested the day before. The DCP of police arrived on the scene with a reserve force, and as reported in Forthnightly Report in a manner not-uncommon to the colonial law enforcement: “found the men’s attitude threatening and a mob collecting, attacked them and broke up the gathering”. The report goes on to state that “this dispersal of a threatening body of men, with nothing more than a rifle butt had an excellent moral effect” (Fortnightly Reports 1928, July).  

Though they could not match the police’s capacity for coercion, the strikers, or maybe their sympathisers, found other novel ways of obstructing police functioning. Anonymous communications were sent to policemen to enlist their solidarity and asked them to refuse their pay! (Fortnightly Reports 1928, July). However, the disruptions were not as totalising as the striking workers might have expected. Andhra Patrika reported that it was only in towns south of Trichinopoly, like Podanur and Nagapattinam (which had railway workshops) that there was a broad consensus amongst railway workers in favour of the strike. Such a consensus was lacking in Madras (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 19th).

Furthermore, the developments in SIR and the union leaders were being closely observed by colonial intelligence, and the strikes were anticipated well in advance. On the 20th of July the SIR railway agent assured the public that trains will run as expected, and in many cases, will be under police protection. The Ceylon Boat Mail that was supposed to leave on the night of 20th July from Madras was delayed by three hours, but managed to continue its journey undisturbed, assisted by the traffic superintendents who worked as pointsmen (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 20th).

In light of the police crackdown, and the killing of striking workers, letters of sympathy and concern started to pour out from all political corners. On the 23rd of July, VV Giri wrote a note on the strike. Like many others of similar temperament, he extended his support to the strikes, while asking the workers to refrain from ‘violence’. Giri also made two requests, the first to the government to intervene and conduct a fair hearing for all sides involved. He also requested other organisations to hold public meetings in support of the strikes.

Giri got one of his two requests fulfilled. The government did intervene, but it did so decisively against the strikes, and at the cost of Giri’s other request. On the 23rd of July, the Madras City Magistrate signed an order that imposed Section 144 on the whole city (Andhra Patrika 1928, 24th July). This tool of colonial governance prohibited public assembly and public speeches. The magistrate declared “any sabhas or any rallies in support of the railway workers will not be allowed. Participating in such sabhas, giving speeches in such sabhas, or getting involved in these sabhas in any capacity is prohibited” (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 24th). With this order, sympathy was suspect, and its public expression was outlawed. On the same day, the police arrested Chettiar in Trichinopoly, and searched his house located at 22, Beach Road (now Kamarajar Salai) in Madras (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 25th).  By 26rd of July, the entire leadership of the strike, along with a worker called Perumal and Mukundlal Sircar were arrested (The Labour Monthly 1928)

These arrests proved to be a body blow to the SIR strike, and, the unrest began to calm down, in Madras city and province at large. On July 28th, the Andhra Patrika published an editorial reflecting on the situation: "There is no point in being happy that the railway strike is coming to an end. We need to think about whether the dispute has reached a conclusion or not, otherwise we might have similar incidents in the future." (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 28th)

On the 27th of July, The SIR Union Secretary, M Pillai, who was one of the few people in the top leadership spared by the spate of arrests, called off the strike without any instruction from the central committee. He released the following statement;

“We have demonstrated to the public our capacity for organisation and concerted action... [but] we find that the public have suffered in this quarrel between Capital and labour and we are very sorry that we were forced to go on strike much against our wishes... Relying on the justice of our cause we are determined to continue our fight by peaceful methods,  and with the sole aim of sparing the public all inconvenience, we have decided to call off the strike from 6 A.M. on the 30th of July.”

Andhra Patrika provides limited insight into how the strikes were perceived in Madras. In an article titled "South Indian Railway Crisis," the tone veered towards the loss of patience by workers, adverse impact on everyday railway users and the violence perpetrated by the workers (Andhra Patrika 1928, July 23rd). These binaries of violence and non-violence were a recurring theme in Andhra Patrika’s reports, and even across the political spectrum, be it CP Ramaswamy or VV Giri, appealed for the strikes to be ‘non-violent’. The Tamil Press was at large sympathetic towards the strikes, appealing to the government to intervene, and condemning the repressive measures the government had adopted in order to prohibit people from showing their sympathy for the strikes. The Hindu criticised the government and the labour department for not attempting to effect a settlement, and insisted that there was no legal ground for the declaration of Section 144. (Fortnightly Report 1928, July). 

It must also be noted that the leadership of various unions failed to put up a united front in their efforts. The churnings in the Madras Trade Union movement and the friction between non-communists and Communists, came in the way of any possibility that could have led to a show of unity at least among the railway workers, despite the broad sympathies for the strike.  Ernest Kirk, who also was then the president of Madras Labour Union wrote: “I am not against a strike, but if initiated and rushed and wire-pulled by adherents of Moscow it is severely handicapped from the outset” (The Labour Monthly 1928, page 4). Kirk was not the only one ideologically opposed to Chettiar. S.V. Aiyar, the editor of the Indian Railway Magazine and the president of the M and S M Railway Employees Union, said the following “Capital has resources behind it… There is no strike fund and donations from Saklatvala and others from England will not feed 40,000 mouths.” (The Labour Monthly 1928, page 5)

Within the Madras and Southern Mahratta Union, opinion was largely divided on the question of the SIR railway strike. In contrast to the position expressed by S V Aiyer, D Kolandai, the General Secretary of the Union, wrote the following opinion, that was carried by the Andhra Patrika:

“You are following the path of Mahatma Gandhi. I believe that your strike is righteous. The Britisher imperialists and the sahukars are attempting to remove Indians from jobs. Your fight right now is not just with the SIR agent. The government and the railway company are trying to remove Indians from these jobs and replace them with the English. If section 144 is used against you, that would be unjust. The imperialists and the rich try to make us workers fight with each other” (Andhra Patrika 1928, 3rd July)

Despite the support expressed by the General Secretary, the union itself abstained from the strike and neither could we find definite evidence of large-scale participation by the workers of the union, hinting at a much-divided opinion within the union. In times to follow, this division, further delineated along the lines of workshop and non-workshop employees of M and SM railways, extended into distinct unions for both. 

The All India Railwaymen’s Federation did meet as they had initially planned. However, their meeting on the 6th of August in Madras was not about planning for the railway strikes, but rather a reflection of what had happened in the past few weeks. Some members suggested that an Indian Railway Hartal should be observed, but most of the members turned this idea down, with some even conducting informal talks on the question of excluding communists from the labour movement in India, although such an exclusion did not happen. (Fortnightly Reports 1928, August)

Learning from its experience in 1928, the British Colonial Government enacted the Trade Disputes Act in 1929, which aimed to create a formal mechanism for the settlement of industrial disputes, and increased the restriction placed on the right to strike. In the end, there was no strike pay, the retrenchment order was not reversed, and the pay scale was not reconsidered (The Labour Monthly 1928). The recognition given to the SIR Union was withdrawn and Chettiar and Sarkar were sentenced to one year of rigorous imprisonment, and a worker named Perumal was sentenced to Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Royal Commission of Labour 1932, 164).

Several questions arise with regards to the events on hand. What can be said about the tactics employed by the striking workers and the sympathisers in the city? What explains the choice of tactics? What limited the reach of the strikes in the city? How do we characterise the response of the civil society, political actors and the media of the city to the strikes? What was the aftermath of the strikes? 

The city witnessed a large gathering in the immediate eve of the strikes.  Though the exact number of attendees drawn from the railway working class of the city remains a question, any possible momentum generated by the large gathering soon dissipated into actions by smaller groups, both within the city and in the rapidly urbanising outskirts such as Mambalam.  The sole other instance of protest through a mass gathering at Egmore station, was swiftly suppressed. The tactic of disruption, which did not always fit neatly within the confines of categories of violence or non-violence, was central to the actions of the protestors in the juncture. The neat bracketing becomes difficult because some of the actions such as heaping obstructions and blocking trains, cannot be easily classified as violence. Actions like pelting of stones, whether planned or spontaneous, or an act of provocateurs is not known but what can be said with some degree of certainty is that such an act did not necessarily take into account the potential risk and did not subscribe to the overall strategy of non-violent resistance.

These tactics arose in the context of state-preparedness, especially in the administrative capital of the presidency, crackdown on right to assembly, and the limited expression of solidarity from the larger working-class movement and civic support. These limited solidarities could be partly explained in terms of state repression through 144, and partly through the fissures within the trade union movement. In this scenario, the small teams of striking workers in all likelihood chose the forms within the repertoire of familiar forms of protest that could potentially maximise impact with the limited resources. Moreover, SIR itself did not have a substantial presence in Madras, and the strikes itself given the context noted for lack of organisational coherence, and was not adequately equipped and organised to enforce any strategic plans.

While the responses both from the press and the leadership across hues, remain largely sympathetic to the cause of the workers, the frameworks of violence and non-violence, became central to the view of the movement at this juncture as well as the yardstick on which the moral legitimacy can be claimed by a movement at this juncture. The failure of the strike and the subsequent repression led to an atmosphere of fear and deterred the workers from joining from the union in the years subsequent to the strike. In the words of one of the union office holders “men feel that when the leaders themselves are convicted they as poor labourers are afraid to join the Union.” The matters also spread to Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway where it became a subject of discussion and debate among the workers, and culminated in a split along the lines of workshop employees and non-workshop employees.

“When the strike on the S.I.R. broke out, the outlook of the men towards pacifist leaders changed and the non-workshop employees could not agree with the work-shopmen on certain questions. It was therefore decided to form a separate union. The old union at Perambur is now presided over by for all the non-workshopmen" (“RCLI (Written)” 1930, 582)

The limited communist influence in the trade union sphere of colonial Madras waned drastically post the arrest of the strike leadership. The absence of strong institutional structures to sustain the movement, despite the charismatic activists, became a factor in this rapid wane. The campaign for the release of the implicated workers and leaders however, extended far beyond the communists and attracted attention from a wide section of activists. A call for funds to find the case could be found in Revolt, edited by Periyar E. V. Ramaswamy. Annie Besant made an appeal to the governor to get Singaravelu’s sentence remitted. Singaravelu’s sentence was finally remitted, and by this time, he was around 70, and did not immediately resume his trade union work, but drifted towards the self-respect movement of Periyar. Thus, the incipient phase of Communist influence in the labour movement of Madras soon morphed into a period of dormancy. 

The MSM Strikes of 1932

The 1932 MSM Railway strike came about not in a vacuum, but rather in a churning of competing ideologies and escalating state repression that defined the preceding four years. Four developments were particularly important. First, there was a national level split between the reformist and radical factions within the Congress Party. These differences revolved around participation in the Royal Commission of Labour, ILO meeting in Geneva, Socialism, admission of the Girni Kamgar Union, and exclusion of radical movements. A section of Trade Union leaders including N M Joshi, V V Giri and B Shiva Rao set up the All Indian Trade Union Federation, which resolved to keep out communist influence and strive for relative autonomy of trade unions from political formations (ILO Report, 1929). Parallelly, the Communist Party of India had begun distancing itself from the Congress after nearly half a decade of exploring possibilities of working within Congress (Sarkar 2014, 273), while Singaravelu Chettiar’s arrest led to a waning of Communist influence in the trade union leadership of city of Madras. 

The second important development was the colonial state equipping itself with new weapons of repression, through the Public Safety Bill and the Trade Disputes Bill of 1929, that granted powers to arrest suspected communists and criminalize strikes and lock-outs.

The third was within the labour movement of Madras city. The growing influence of communists and radicals in the labour movement of the city, prior to 1928, largely centred around Singaravelu Chettiar’s efforts, declined drastically in the aftermath of the arrest of Singaravelu Chettiar and the trade union leadership of 1928 strikes. This led to a consolidation of the ‘moderate’ factions of the trade union leadership in the labour movement. In this context, V V Giri assumed the role of the president of the Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway Union in 1929. While G. Krishnamurthy, a boiler-maker in the railway workshop, was appointed General Secretary (SRES 1983). Even in this period, and despite the public stances of its leadership, Madras and Southern Mahratta movement often engaged with nationalist politics and passed resolutions on matters of pressing importance including the witch hunt of communists during the Meerut trails, declination of invitation to Gandhi for Round Table Conference and purna swaraj (SRES 1983).

The fourth development that helps us situate the strikes of 1932, is the deepening economic precarity of the MSM railway workers, particularly with respect to systemic retrenchment. 

Discontent among the ranks of Madras and Southern Mahratta Railway workers was long brewing, and was animated by lack of recognition of the union, low wages, and retrenchment. In December 1929, a memorandum of grievances of the workers was prepared and submitted to the Agent, which included the lack of recognition for the union (Fortnightly Reports 1929, December). Dissatisfied by the Agent’s reply, a strike was briefly considered, but was called off when the Agent conditionally agreed to recognize the union (Fortnightly Reports 1930, April).  In August of the same year, tensions resurfaced, with workers refusing to accept their wages to protest the unreasonably low wage increase. V V Giri intervened and managed to get the workers to accept their wages, but before the discontent could wane, the railway management unveiled a proposal for retrenchment (Fortnightly Reports 1930, December & Fortnightly Reports 1931, January). The railway agent contended that there was a surplus of workers in the Perambur railway factory, necessitating retrenchment. The union started contemplating direct action, and some workshop employees intermittently struck work as well. There was much back and forth between the railway board and the union, but eventually 93 workers were laid off in the Perambur workshop, enraging the workers. The state was set for a much larger confrontation. 

In May 1932, the Perambur union had voted in favour of a strike to protest the earlier layoffs of 93 workers in 1931 (Fortnightly Reports 1932, May). However, this action was ultimately deferred, as union office holders engaged in negotiations with railway officials (Fortnightly Reports, 1932). These negotiations turned out to be fruitless, as on 30th July 1931, the Agent issued a notice that between July 1931 and July 1932, there were 110 more workers than required, necessitating their dismissal (Krishna 1980, 30). The MSM Railway Union contended that successive notices issued by the Agent from July 1932 onwards progressively increased the estimated number of "not required" workers, gradually approaching a figure of nearly one thousand (Andhra Patrika 1932, Nov). Tensions continued to escalate in Perambur workshops, and the fear of retrenchment extended across the entire MSM Railway network.

On September 13th, V V Giri met with the Railway Agent to discuss the planned job cuts, but the meeting yielded little result (Krishna 1980, 14). On September 20th, when the leaders of the MSM union met to discuss possible strike strategies, satyagraha and ahimsa emerged as the favoured form, but what did it mean for the MSM Union to adopt this strategy? In practice, this meant that the Union leadership would discourage direct militant action, and large congregations that might spontaneously lead to such action. This action was largely viewed as a pragmatic choice to avoid colonial repression (through acts such as the Public Safety Act), but can also be seen in light of the reformist composition of the MSM Union leadership. The Railway Agent could not find any common ground even with this reformist leadership, forcing the Perambur workers to revive their plan for a general strike. On 21st October, a general body was held in Perambur and a ballot vote was conducted by the MSM union’s Perambur branch. Workers overwhelmingly voted in favour of the strike, and it was decided that the strike would commence from the 24th of October, 1932 (Krishna 1980, 16).

On the other hand, the railway officials continued to maintain that their approach to retrenchment involved a detailed study of the workshops and their labour requirements, resulting in an accurate assessment of the quantity of surplus staff. The union, however, contested these surveys and studies, highlighting that since February 1931, the MSM Railway Company had announced a total of 1302 vacancies, suggesting that there was actually a labour shortage, not a surplus. More importantly, the union raised a fundamental question, even if a surplus existed, what should be the appropriate course of action? The union proposed a compromise. Rather than firing workers, the work hours of each worker could be reduced, to accommodate for surplus workers. Each worker would earn a little less, but this was considered better than some workers going hungry. The Union argued that the railway company had previously agreed to a short-time policy, but the railway agent denied this, and refused to even create an arbitration tribunal with the Union, under the Trades Disputes Act, to consider possible compromises (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 23). In effect, the Railway Company refused to implement a short-time policy, reinstate fired workers, or set up an arbitration tribunal, and also dismissed the MSM Union’s claim of a labour shortage. 

On 24th October, Perambur workshops quickly swept up in the strikes, and many other nodes of the MSM Railway network were to follow. Out of the 5,900 workers employed in the Perambur workshops, 5,400 struck work. This included a wide range of workers, including superintendents, chargemen, foremen, and even some Anglo-Indian workers (Andhra Patrika, 1932, 25th Oct). On the 25th October carriage workers from Perambur joined the strikes, followed by 100 clerks from Perambur. When questioned by an Andhra Patrika reporter on October 24th about the likelihood of workers from other workshops joining in solidarity with Perambur workers, to which Giri replied that “there is a good chance that this will happen”. (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 26th). Giri’s confidence was well deserved. Soon enough, the Bejawada and Arakkonam branch of the MSM union expressed their solidarity with the Perambur workers.

On the 25th, the striking workers at Perambur released a statement asserting that their strike will be aligned with the principles of ahimsa and satyagraha (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 26th). To prevent any possibility of violence, workers were asked to stay home and not gather by the railway stations or workshop gates. A network of volunteers was created by the union to ensure communication channels with the workers. A bulletin was issued every day, to communicate the developments in the strike with the workers. (Fortnightly Reports 1932, October). 

The strategy of ahimsa and satyagraha were coupled with constant outreach. In fact, one of the reasons these strategic choices were made was to be able to garner greater civil society sympathy. The strategy seemed to be paying off, with PRK Sharma claiming in a Sabha near Chakalipet that “all the major newspapers are supporting the strikes!” (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 26th). Even as early as April, the issue received attention in the press highlighting the concerns of the workers, the recalcitrant behaviour of the agent, and the weakness of the arguments offered by the railways. The Hindu devoted several columns exclusively to cover the strike. Along with left leaning publications like Thozilali, large sections of the nationalist press in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and English devoted extensive reports and sympathetic opinion pieces on the strike. (NNR 1932). Despite constant press releases by the Railway Company to this effect, the MSM Union was able to resist the framing of the issue as an ‘industrial dispute’ only, instead shifting the attention to the suffering of workers, and their peaceful methods of resistance. 

Expansion of the strikes beyond Perambur, and across MSM branches was a key part of the strategy as well. The union leadership travelled across the nodes of the MSM railway to gather support, and MSM President Krishnamurthy wrote letters to various MSM branches, forewarning them of possible repression by the Railway Authorities, and requesting workers to join the striking workers of Perambur (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 26). These attempts were fruitful. The engineers at Arakkonam joined the strikes on 4th November, followed by clerks (Andhra Patrika 1932, Nov 4th). Workers in workshops in Hubli joined the strikes as well. By the 25th of November 1932, the number of striking workers was reported as follows:

_{(Source: Krishna 1980, 17)}

On the other hand, the Railway Authorities were equally prepared to deal with the strikes, and employed a wide range of suppression tactics. First, the railway authorities threatened to fire the striking workers. The railway agent stated that striking workers who had left work as per their employment agreement, would face an investigation by the railway company, and might be fired. fired (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 27th). This statement was issued merely three days after the commencement of the strikes, and was not very effective, as the strikes had continued to spread across workshops. In light of this, the railway agent doubled down on the threat to fire workers, and issued an advertisement calling for applications for clerks in place of those who have gone on strike in various workshops. In another, quite unprecedented example, on 13th November, villages near Arakkonam and Perumbur witnessed aeroplanes flying in their skies, dropping sheets of papers signed by the MSM railway agent. These signed notices conveyed that the government of India has ordered no pay to be given to the workers for the days that they are on strike, and the concessions that the Union is fighting for will not be conceded! Alternatively, if the workers returned to work on Monday the 14th of November, the air-dropped notice promised that their pay would be waiting for them. Similar notices were prominently displayed at stations along the railway line as well (Krishna 1980, 18). Earlier, the railway agent had also threatened that the gratuity fund and the provident fund of the employees would be taken away (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 27th). The railway cooperative society at Perambur stopped credit to the strikers, increasing the financial strain on the workers. Govindarajulu, a fitter from Royapuram was dismissed on account of his trade union activities.

Though the strikes remained peaceful, police patrols were kept all along the line, and on the 20th of November, the authorities ran a special train from Royapuram under police protection, reminiscent of the scenes of the 1928 strikes (Krishna 1980, 18). On 2nd November, the policemen reached Ambatturu village (now Ambathur in Chennai), a place where many striking workers resided, and announced that the workers must return to work immediately (Andhra Patrika 1932, Nov 2nd). So even though workers were asked by the union to stay in their houses, plausibly to avoid any confrontation with the police, the police still found their way to the workers! 

Rumours, whether deliberately disseminated by the management or otherwise, had the potential to weaken the strikes. For example, on October 26th, a rumor circulated that V. V. Giri had been involved in an accident en route to Perambur. The union leadership quickly clarified to the workers that this was untrue, and a notice was published in newspapers confirming that Giri had not been in an accident (Andhra Patrika 1932, Oct 26th).

Along with the threats and rumours, constant press communiques outlining the Railway company’s rationale were issued to dampen public sympathy. One such press communique issued by Agent on the 23rd of November stated that: “in the majority of cases they [workers] have been persuaded to do so [to strike] by misrepresentations or have been intimidated into staying away from work” (Krishna 1980, 18).

The administration prohibited Giri and Mehta from giving public speeches in Hubli. However, the leaders were not the only ones who were reaching out to the public. On November 24, a month after the strikes, Andhra Patrika ran a long piece by a striking worker, a ‘commoner’ who did not hold any post within the union. Regardless, or maybe because of this, this piece is one of the most impassioned and colourful renditions of the reasons for the strikes, and the socio-political framework within which the workers couched their demands (a translated version is attached in the appendix). The piece flows from the failed intimidation tactics of the railway authorities, to justifying the reasons for the strike, to calling out the complicity of the colonial government in the matters. 

The worker pointed out that as per Jamnadas Mehta’s calculation, 72 crore rupees of profit that the railway company made were not even used for passenger welfare. This principal amount, on an interest of 5%, would return 4 crore each year. The workers asserted that with these 4 crore rupees, 43,000 workers need not have been laid off, and their families need not go hungry. He remarked:

But the railway company doesn’t care if 43000 people and their families go hungry. For years, railway workers have been working day and night to earn untold profits for the companies. The countless sacrifices made by thousands of railway workers like us, while making a few wealthy people rich, and this is the reward we get! The 72 crore rupees that we toiled to create, the company has used on other expenses. We have earned 72 crore rupees; but now we can’t eat! The wealth of the wealthy is considered the most sacred, and the lives of the poor and the toilers are considered the most cheap!

One of the interesting outcomes is how the worker in question, identifies and articulates a position that connects their immediate material grievance to a fundamental moral claim on the wealth produced by their labour, a wealth that the railway company now refuses to share with them. This reframes the conflict not as a dispute over managerial calculations, but as a struggle over worker’s right to the value that they ‘toiled to create’. Following this, the worker articulates the necessary strategy for changing the status quo;

“All the workers in this country must unite and establish their own rights, no matter what sacrifices they make. Who is there nowadays who can think about the hardships of railway workers? All railway unions across India express their sympathies with MSM workers.” (Andhra Patrika 1932, Nov 24th)

The success of the labour movement in the city in connecting individual grievances to a collective grievance, and to remedy the situation through collective action and in the language of rights is visible in the piece. While emphasising the role of worker;s unity, it also sought to enlist public support:

On this occasion, I have a small request to make to the people. The strikers have no intention to cause any trouble to the people. Therefore, people are asking for financial help in large quantities to alleviate their hardships. I pray that it will be resolved soon and peace will be established in December” (Andhra Patrika 1932, Nov 24th).

As the piece had hoped for, support for the strikes kept pouring in. This was much needed, as the union was running thin of funds to sustain the strikes. A relief committee was constituted, which included many prominent figures in cities labour and civic movements including Hanna Angelo who was the city's first Anglo-Indian woman councillor, and the union started to collect donations from the first week of December. Textile mill workers from across raised a net sum of 1922 rupees for the strike fund, while the Sembiam Union Board contributed Rs. 1500, along with contributions from other railway workers unions and port unions. Civic bodies, nationalist organisations, philanthropists, merchants, citizen collectives, and individuals in and around the city contributed money and food supplies, while the International Transport Workers Federation (Amsterdam) and the British Trade Union Congress remitted 100 and 50 pounds respectively (Krishna 1986, 291-296).

Through these collections, weekly ration was distributed among the workers, and Anglo-Indian strikers were paid a sum of Rs. 10 every week. Madras City Corporation sanctioned Rs. 40,000 for the striking workers, but the provincial government however refused to sanction the amount on the pretext that it was “abuse of funds in support of one party in an industrial dispute” (Fortnightly Reports 1932).

Despite this widespread support, the strike was still limited to the various nodes of the MSM railway. As the impasse between the union and the railway company persisted, Giri issued a notice on behalf of the union, that a General Strike on the MSM railway would begin on 25th December 1932. The agent denounced the notice as illegal, even contending that the MSM Union lacked sufficient representation among MSM Railway employees to call for a general strike, but the threat of a general strike loomed large (Krishna 1980, 20). On December 12th, even the British Parliament discussed these strikes, with Member of Parliament Major Milner from the Labour Party asking whether the Government in India had received any representation that the dispute should be submitted to the appropriate tribunal under the Indian Trades Disputes Act. The response came, from Member of Parliament R A Butler, that the Government of India would shortly file a full statement on their position regarding the matter (House of Commons Records 1932). Meanwhile, the strike had entered its third month. The railway company's efforts of browbeating striking workers to give up had failed, and the workers too were unsure on how long their strike fund could sustain them, despite public support. 

Soon after the aforementioned exchange in the British Parliament, a ‘citizens committee’ was formed to mediate between the agent and the union, reach an early settlement, and avert a general strike. This committee included a diverse range of Europeans and Indians, including A J Leach, the sheriff of Madras, and W W Dadden the President of the Madras Trades Association. The constitution of this committee itself speaks to the MSM’s Union’s success in making the strike a visible public problem in Madras. The committee identified retrenchment and victimisation as the main points of dispute, and engaged in intensive negotiations with the railway agent and union representatives. This committee was surprisingly successful, and on December 23rd, they claimed to have persuaded both the union leadership and the railway company to agree to a settlement! The railway agent conceded several points; working hours would not be reduced, the Gratuity and Provident fund would remain unaffected, and October salaries would be cleared immediately. Furthermore, he guaranteed that clerks who had joined the strike would not be dismissed, reversing his previous threat. However, the agent remained firm and did not agree on the reinstatement of the 93 workers retrenched in 1931. He also insisted that the decision regarding the number of surplus workers rested solely with the railway company, refusing to allow any discussion of this issue between the union and the company in this matter. Although, in a reconciliatory step, the agent promised that retrenched employees would receive priority consideration for future vacancies. The agent also promised to open the workshops during the Christmas holidays to clear the work arrears, providing a few extra days of employment to the workers to partially offset the lack of strike pay. All of this was contingent on the workers joining work from the 10th of January, 1933 (Andhra Patrika 1932, Dec 26th).

These terms were not ideal for the railway union, but the funds were dwindling, and the union recognised that prolonging the strikes might become unsustainable. As noted earlier, the hand-to-mouth economic existence, high indebtedness, and poor living conditions further hardships of this prolonged strike, that was already almost ten times longer than the 1928 strikes. With the co-operative store out of access and dwindling funds, survival on credit from shopkeepers in Madras was often difficult to extend beyond a few weeks (Mukherjee, p. 33). Considering the permanent nature of the working-class migration to the city, the workers most likely did not have adequate rural resources in terms of land or livelihood to turn towards to sustain their families during the strikes. In late December, the Union leadership announced, “it is not possible to say that the workers have won this fight. But we have to agree to these terms, especially since it has the moral sympathy of the citizens of Madras”. The Union declared an end to the strike and said that the workers would join before 10th January (Andhra Patrika 1932, Dec 26th).

Unfortunately, the union's acceptance of these limited terms still did not guarantee their implementation. Without the binding force of a tribunal, the ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ negotiated by the Citizens Committee, relied on the goodwill of the Railway Company. The union had assumed that employees dismissed solely for their participation in the strikes would be reinstated, given the agent's commitment to refrain from victimizing striking workers. However, the agent refused to do so, and 68 Arakkonam workers, fired for participating in the strikes, were not reinstated (Andhra Patrika 1932, Dec 27th). The MSM Union leadership attempted to pressure the Railway Agent by resuming organizing for a larger strike, but the deteriorating economic condition of the striking workers could not hold out for too long. On January 7th, the MSM Union’s Executive Committee had a heated discussion at Jarikai Mills at Tawker’s Choultry, and decided to abandon its plans to expand or continue the strike on account of the deteriorating economic situation of the workers. (Andhra Patrika 1933, Jan 9th). The workers ultimately returned to work on January 9th.

The union resolved to contest the dismissal of the Arakkonam workers in court and pledged to provide them with all possible support, but neither the Union, nor the citizens committee succeeded in convincing the agent to reinstate the 63 workers fired at Arakkonam. The Union statement calling an end to the strikes, had also declared that “the workers had lost faith in the citizens committee”. The union statement ended on a note of gratitude and resilience. Declaring that “the liberation of workers should work together and strengthen their organisational structure”. The statement also conveyed gratitude to all who had supported the strike, including other unions, newspapers, and various domestic and foreign organizations, and also the citizens of Madras, who had stepped up to support the strikes and help them sustain for 75 days (Andhra Patrika 1932, Jan 9th).

Later, in his autobiography, Giri frames the defeat in terms of a ‘betrayal’ by the Citizens Committee. He wrote, “we had no choice but to surrender, we could do nothing about the double dealing of the members of the Citizens committee who had all along assured us that the Agent would fulfil his part of the agreement” (Krishna 1980, 21). Such a characterisation doesn’t seem to be fully accurate. Our broader analysis suggests that the strike’s collapse was determined less by the actions of meditators or particular individuals, and more by a set of overwhelming structural conditions. The worker’s capacity to endure was fundamentally constrained by their economic precarity, high levels of indebtedness, lack of an economic safety net through agrarian incomes, and the union’s dwindling strike fund. With the colonial state firmly on the side of the Railway Company, the Union possessed little strategic leverage once it was decided that workers shall return to work, making the Citizen’s Committee’s recommendations wholly optional for the Railway Company. The mode of protest, despite many democratic practices in place, itself led to centralisation of decision-making by the union officials. Once the decision-makers shifted away from the key goal of resisting retrenchment through collective action, to relying on mediators whose own class affiliations were far from neutral, it does highlight several structural problems about the organisation of the union.  

The union membership drastically dwindled after the strike, from 32,000 to 800. V V Giri, whose tenure as a president of the union came to an end in 1932, went onto become the President of independent India in 1969. G Krishnamurthy, the secretary was fired a few months later, and was reinstated half a decade later. The union membership gathered steam again in the next few years. Communist influence, which was much resisted, finally found a foothold in Perambur railway workshops in 1941 albeit in more organised form. The anonymous 93 retrenched workers remained a statistic in archives, and their fates shrouded in mystery.

Conclusion

Historian Dilip Veeraraghavan in the The Making of Madras Working Class, points out that the fate of large numbers of strikes centred around retrenchment across the country in the period of late 1920s to early 1930s, were not successful in achieving their intended goals. The fate was largely independent of the chosen mode of struggle and the strategies and tactics deployed. He accurately attributed the lack of success to the imbalance in power between capital and labour at this juncture in the history of the global working class, and lack of a united political action by all sections affected by the crisis (Veeraraghavan 2012, 213).

The particularities and the diverse contours through which the resistance to retrenchment and the imbalance of power unfolded in the city of Madras, was explored in the preceding sections. The strikes, as discussed earlier, happened during a critical phase of trade union movement in colonial Madras and during a period of intense retrenchment across the country. The decade-old trade union movement in the city was caught in several tensions, between the leadership and workers, and between distinct camps of leadership. The railway workers facing precarious conditions of life and work and sometimes racial prejudice and possibly social divide, had to additionally contend with growing threat of unemployment. 

In this context, different sections of the organised Madras railway working class in the course of resistance sometimes aimed to disrupt the employers through sabotage, while others aimed to appeal to the broader moral conscience of the city through satyagraha. The tactic adopted by a particular section in the course of resistance was reflective of exigencies of the movement and the experience of the previous strikes, as well as the organisational strength, the mobilisational abilities and the predilections of the leadership of the unions in question. The fragmented and limited resistance during the 1928 strikes resorted to sabotage as a means of dissent, under constraints of organisational vacuum, lack of solidarity and repression. In contrast, the union involved in 1932, which showed greater preparedness and organisational cohesion and the sustained strategic use of satyagraha, were constrained both by the reluctance of the employer and strategic intervention by state and civil society in the interest of the railway company. The choice of tactics was additionally moulded by, and framed in terms of the ideological discourses around non-violence and violence, that occupied the centre-stage of debate about ethics of protest within the nationalist movements. Accounting for the particularities of the unions in question, it could be inferred that the organised industrial working-class resistance at this juncture thus could be seen as circumstantially adapting to the severe organisational and political constraints, rather than being wedded to a singular tactical outlook or form of protest, that can be attributed to sociological characteristics of the class in question. 

To place this analysis in the light of the existent generalisations about the working class resistance in India, one might be tempted to consider David Arnold’s excellent argument on origins of industrial violence in colonial India, wherein locates its origins to the transmissions of rural traditions of violent resistance to modern industry through an industrial labour force with rural antecedents, the degree of state repression, and the class conflict exacerbated by racial, linguistic and social differences (Arnold 1980, 235). He further outlines the precise mechanism as follows:

“Government and management insistence on a form of unionism that provided little scope for effective industrial action, coupled with police intervention and repression, prevented workers from finding satisfactory expression for their grievances and demands through institutional channels. By default, they clung to their violent traditions” (Arnold 1980, 254).

Given the extensive attention to the 1928 strikes in his essay, several questions arise about working class tactics of sabotage which were deployed in the city and province, could indeed be classified as violence or ‘inheritance of a violent tradition’. Regardless of the particularities of classification, locating such practices in sociological tendencies may not be wholly accurate on two accounts. First being the argument about continuities with rural past which relies indirectly on Dipesh Chakrabarty’s thesis on migrant jute mill workers in colonial Calcutta asserting older ways of life in their new environments. As substantiated earlier in the essay, the context of industrial labour and migration in Madras with permanent migration was vastly different from Calcutta with its cyclical flow to allow any easy extrapolations. As pointed out by Manjrekar: “the use of violence and legality must be treated as circumstantial rather than an easy reflection of workers’ consciousness.” 

What can be perhaps asserted with some confidence is that the urban forms of protest in colonial presidency cities like Madras, involved evolution, adaptation and reimagination of practices stemming from multiple sites of origin. Whether the cultures and methods of protest have rural, urban or transnational origins is a meaningless one, since they evolved in an urban context, which involved a confluence of multiple sites of influence. 

Another relevant generalisation that could potentially be nuanced could be found in Dilip Veeraraghavan’s characterisation of the period between 1922 and 1933 in the history of Madras working class as the period of lull and quiescence. While Veeraraghavan’s characterization was possibly an effort to highlight the contrast to the period of enthusiasm and intense activity in the first few years of organised labour movement in the city, to the relative decline in labour activity and successful strikes. does not do adequate justice to resistance in the strikes around retrenchment, and the process of churning within the trade union movement in the city that the trade union movement underwent in the period. 

The churning in this period, which saw a shift towards and then away from the limited communist influence, while reflective of the prevalent political attitudes of working classes, was also a product of the structures and power balances within the trade union movement in colonial Madras. The colonial administration with its legal-judicial and bureaucratic requirements, led to development of hierarchical structures based on access and understanding of colonial law and bureaucracy, within the trade unions. The directions that the movement traversed and the strategies that were adopted were influenced by the vicissitudes and internecine conflicts within the strata that assumed leadership positions in this duration

The limitations of strikes in achieving the stated ends however, do not do justice to the spirit, and tenacity of the workers. To measure the strikes purely from the prism of success or failure is to ignore the consciousness that they vest the working classes with, such as the anonymous worker from the city who said, “All the workers in this country must unite and establish their own rights, no matter what sacrifices they make. Who is there nowadays who can think about the hardships of railway workers.”

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgements: Authors wish to express their sincere gratitude to Karthik Rao Cavale and the anonymous referee for their feedback and suggestions.

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Appendix

(This is an English translation of a Telugu article by Andhra Patrika that carries in full an interview of a common worker. Published on 26th November 1932. Translated by W. S. Adwaith.)

It has been a month since the MSM railway strike began. It began in Perambur railway workshop and has expanded to Arkonam and Hubli workshops as well. The strike will soon spread to other railway workshops as well. The strike might spread over the whole rail line. 

Conditions are deteriorating. In the Hubli workshop, three workers were campaigning for the strike. They gave a public speech, and using this excuse the government has imposed section 144. Even the AIRF President Jamnadas has been prohibited from giving public speeches in Hubli town. The authorities in Hubli have said that VV Giri cannot give a public speech in the town for two months. We have also got to know that the railway administration threatened two workers who were campaigning for the strike in Bejawada. The company has ordered that others [non-workers] can’t enter the Perambur Railway. The railway picketers who were campaigning there, were said to be doing so illegally and asked to leave. In Hubli, the company increased wages by 30% to encourage strikers to return to work. The company and the government are trying to sabotage the strike through these means. We extend our deepest sympathy to our fellow MSM railway workers. N.W Railway, E.I Railway, B.N. Railway, B Railway, S.I Railway All the workers of the railway departments are showing sympathy through their respective unions.

I will inform the readers of the main reasons for starting this strike. The railway company agent declared that between July 1932 and July 1932 there were 110 more workers than needed in the Perambur Workshop. However, some people had passed away, and some had retired, as such the company agent declared that they would lay off 110 people. Starting in August 1932, the situation deteriorated. On September 19th, the agent issued a circular stating that the number of workers who were not needed had increased from 110 to 160. Since then, the number has gradually increased from 160 to 473, 576, and 793. The agent has issued circulars stating as much. Earlier, in a meeting held between the Railway Board and the Railway Federation, both parties reached a settlement. Instead of laying people off, they would reduce the working hours for everyone. Both sides agreed to this. As Mehtagaaru said, it is better that all of us have half a meal, than some being forced to fast as some have a complete meal. The railways also agreed to this principle. If the number of workers is reduced according to the above method, there will be a possibility of having a large number of workers. Moreover, it was also argued that the company should reinstate the 93 workers who were laid off last year. The Railway Board had agreed to implement this system. For this reason, there is nothing illegal in the union's demand that all workers be employed. Moreover, in the month of September, 1932, the M.S.M. The Railway Agent also expressed his consent to the said procedure.

But the agent continued to threaten the union with laying off even more workers. And the union was not even given the opportunity to discuss how many workers were to be laid off.

To resolve the dispute, it was requested that an arbitral tribunal should be set up under the Trade Disputes Act and the Railway Union should be given a fair hearing. The agent turned a deaf ear to this, saying that there were more workers than needed. The railway official argues that the numbers he decided on are correct. The union argues that this number is not correct and that they have the right to discuss it. In such difficult circumstances, wouldn't it be reasonable for the Union Court to enact the "Trade Disputes Act-U" and establish a tribunal? Agent was unwilling to do so. What can the workers do now? To get their fundamental rights, the workers are bearing hardships and conducting a strike. 

In the past two years, the railway companies in India have laid off a total of 43,000 railway workers. 43,000 people, or about two lakh people with their families, are unemployed. The railway board says their finances are not good, and thus puts up a notice saying 43,000 workers will be laid off. But what is the reality? Have there ever been years when railway companies made a loss? Moreover, according to Jammu Das' calculations, out of the profits the railway board has made, 72 crores were not even used for passenger welfare. Every year, seven to eight crore rupees are added to the income of the Government of India from the railway revenue. This 72 crore rupees, which is being used for other purposes, is not being used as intended. If you had it with the All India Railway Board, the interest earned on it (at 5%) would have been around 4 crore rupees! With that 4 crores, 43000 workers would have not been laid off from their jobs, and they could have been satisfied that they fed poor workers! The board intended to make a profit of 4 crore rupees by removing these workers. 

But the railway company doesn’t care if 43000 people and their families go hungry. For years, railway workers have been working day and night to earn untold profits for the companies. The countless sacrifices made by thousands of railway workers like us, while making a few wealthy people rich, and this is the reward we get! The 72 crore rupees that we toiled to create, the company has used on other expenses. We have earned 72 crore rupees; but now we can’t eat! The wealth of the wealthy is considered the most sacred, and the lives of the poor and the toilers are considered the most cheap!

These railway companies are owned by the Government of India. They could have requested the board and the federation to save some money, about eight crore rupees, to feed these 43,000 people, but they have not done so. Moreover, it was replied that all the revenue is government revenue and there is no way to get even a single rupee back. Government revenue is spent on wasteful displays like round table meetings every year. The military department was spending crores of rupees on outrageous expenses. The authorities are finding it difficult to provide even the smallest amount of compensation to the unemployed workers who are not legally employed. The number of unemployed people in independent countries like England and the UK is increasing day by day. However, the UK government is supporting the unemployed with donations! But all the poor people in our country, who are in all kinds of slavery, are deprived of the right to work and earn their living. In our country, people are committing suicide due to lack of work.

All the workers in this country must unite and establish their own rights, no matter what sacrifices they make. Who is there nowadays who can think about the hardships of railway workers? All railway unions across India express their sympathies with MSM workers. On this occasion, I have a small request to make to the people. The strikers have no intention to cause any trouble to the people. Therefore, people are asking for financial help in large quantities to alleviate their hardships. I pray that it will be resolved soon and peace will be established in December.

Mr. V.V. Giri, Jammu Das Mehta and other leaders are taking the side of the railway workers and are working hard to support them! The workers are very grateful to them. Leaders need to be mindful of the lives of our 43,000 families, including those unemployed, every minute.