Balance-Sheet of Peasant Movements

These movements created an atmosphere for post- independence agrarian reforms, for instance, abolition of zamindari.

They eroded the power of the landed class, thus adding to the transformation of the agrarian structure.

These movements were based on the ideology of nationalism.

The nature of these movements was similar in diverse

areas.

Chapter 32

The Movement of the Working Class

The beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century heralded the entry of modern industry into India. The thousands of hands employed in construction of railways were harbingers of the modern Indian working class. Further industrialisation came with the development of ancillary industries along with the railways. The coal industry developed fast and employed a large working force. Then came the cotton and the jute industries.

The Indian working class suffered from the same kind of exploitation witnessed during the industrialisation of Europe and the rest of the West, such as low wages, long working hours, unhygienic and hazardous working conditions, employment of child labour and the absence of basic amenities. The presence of colonialism in India gave a distinctive touch to the Indian working class movement. The Indian working class had to face two basic antagonistic forces—an imperialist political rule and economic exploitation at the hands of both foreign and native capitalist classes. Under the circumstances, inevitably, the Indian working class movement became intertwined with the political struggle for national emancipation.