द इण्डियन स्ट्रगल / भारतीय स्वाधीनता संग्राम (नेताजी सुभाष चन्द्र बोस - ऐतिहासिक विश्लेषण)

THE BAROMETER RISES 177
The first All-Bengal Conference of students was held in
August in Calcutta and was presided over by Pandit Jawa-
harlal Nehru. After the Conference, students' organisations
were started all over Bengal and somewhat later, similar
organisations were started in other provinces as well. The
unrest in the student world was accompanied by unrest in the
labour world as well. The year before, there had been a
strike at Kharagpore not far from Calcutta, among the
railway workers. In 1928 a strike broke out in the Tata
Iron and Steel Works¹ at Jamshedpur, about 170 miles
south-west of Calcutta, in which 18,000 workers were involved.
The strike dragged on for some months. Ultimately a
settlement was arrived at between the workers and the
management, which was extremely favourable to the former.
Even more important than the Tata Strike was the Textile
Strike in Bombay in which at least 60,000 workers were
involved. This strike was in the first stages a phenomenal
success and caused serious embarrassment not only to the
mill-owners but to the Government as well. Following this,
there was a strike in the workshop of the East India Railway
at Lillooah near Calcutta in which 10,000 workers were
involved, in the Tinplate Company at Jamshedpur in which
4,000 workers were involved, in the Oil and Petrol Works at
Budge-Budge about twenty miles from Calcutta, in which
6,000 workers were involved, and last but not least, in the
Jute Mills in and near Calcutta, in which about 200,000
workers were involved. The Bombay textile strike deserves
special mention because it was under the leadership of a
compact disciplined party who were alleged to hold com-
munistic ideas and some of whom at least declared themselves
later at the Meerut Conspiracy Case Trial to be avowed
Communists. Most of the above strikes were conducted by
the more militant section in the Trade Union Congress and
they were therefore gaining in importance from day to day.
¹ Owing to pressure from the workers the writer took up the leadership
of the strike when it was about to collapse. The strike was then revived
and strengthened and it led to an honourable settlement. Unfortunately
differences broke out among the workers after the settlement and this
had disastrous consequences. The Tata strike served for the writer as
an initiation into the workers' movement, with which he has been intim-
ately connected ever since.
M